K’THAR

One cannot live on an island without seeing strange things wash up on shore. Sometimes it is the carcass of a strange water creature with fins instead of legs and strange glowing blobs instead of eyes. Sometimes it’s an enormous bone from a long-dead animal, or the naked branches of a fallen tree. Shells. Fish. Smooth stones. Small stones. Large stones.

But…never before have I seen a stone as large as the black one that bobs against the surf in the distance. It looks to be larger than a full-grown male. Larger, even, than the fat, scaly body of a kaari.

And it floats. That in itself makes it unusual. I have to know what it is.

I scan the cliff I stand atop, looking for vines leading downward to let me climb my way to the shore. I must be quick. Even though the four clans—now three—live apart, we have an agreement. If something washes up on the shore, it belongs to those that find it.

And whatever this exotic, floating stone is, it is going to be mine.

Excited, I find a strong vine and begin to climb my way down the cliffs. There is no spot on this island I do not know like the backs of my hands, and it does not take me long to descend. A skyclaw soars overhead as I do, looking for easy prey, and I shift skin-tones with a thought, automatically blending to match the rock I press up against. The skyclaw flies right past without stopping, and if I did not have another mission, I might try leaping onto its back as it flies past. Skyclaw are good eating, after all, and there is plenty of meat for the entire tribe.

But there will always be more skyclaw, and I have never seen anything like this floating rock before. So I continue climbing down. I drop onto the beach quickly, pleased with the speed with which I’ve managed to cross the craggy cliffs. Were I not in a hurry, I might skip the vines and follow the winding trails down the cliffs. Check my traps. Forage greens. Enjoy the day. But the uniqueness of this find calls to me, makes me hurry.

I move toward it on the beach, letting my color fade back to normal. As I do, my steps slow and a growl forms in my throat, because I see another approaching from the opposite direction. Not just any sakh, but my most hated of rivals, R’jaal of the clan of the Tall Horn.

Of course it would be he.

I growl low in my throat and march toward him, pulling out my four blades and brandishing them in his direction, letting the threat speak for itself.

He gives me a sneer of welcome as he approaches, spear casually held in one of his hands. “I should have known you’d be here. Trash always washes ashore.”

“Big words for a male with only two puny hands,” I tell him. I gesture at the large rock, bobbing on the shore. “That is mine. I saw it first.”

“No, brother,” he says, using the term derisively. “That belongs to me. Even now I stand closer to it than you do.” And he leans over and taps the surface of the rock with his spear. “My sea gift, not yours.”

I eye him with loathing. He is tall and lean where I am strong and muscular. His natural color is slightly lighter than my own, camouflage rippling up and down his arms and changing colors with emotion. He might only have two arms to my four, but he is as strong as any, I know. I have fought him in the past.

But I have twice as many opportunities to grab him, if I can get close. The only thing that might cause me trouble are the massive sweep of horns arching from his brow that give his clan their name. Still, I am not the chief of the clan of the Strong Arm because I am a coward.

I flex aggressively, letting my colors show my anger. “I will not back down. This is mine to take.” I do not tell him that the food is scarce in our territory lately, or that I’chai has passed on, leaving us to care for her small son. That we struggle with bringing in food, since the same hunt that killed I’chai took N’dek’s leg. J’shel must remain behind and care for both kit and kin, which leaves all the hunting to me.

But R’jaal will not care about any of this, just as I do not care about his tribe’s troubles. His clan is dying, just like mine. All of us are dying out. We only prolong it with every day of survival. There is no hope for our people, not since the Great Smoking Mountain exploded seven turns ago and destroyed most of the island…and most of the people living on it.

No, R’jaal will not care if the clan of the Strong Arm is starving. Nor do I care if the Tall Horn are thriving on their side of the island. All I care about is this thing on the shore and that it is mine.

“So quick to battle me, K’thar?” R’jaal’s glance is mocking. “When you don’t even know what it is?”

“And you do?” I tell him, scoffing. I am still wary, but I do not sense an urge to fight from him, only his usual dismissive attitude. Cautious, I holster two of my knives, willing to stand down…but only a little.

“I think it is an egg,” he tells me, sliding his spear into its holster at his back to free his hands. He rubs them together, then gestures at the large black stone in the surf. “Look at how it bobs in the current. It is a monstrous egg of some kind.” He glances over at me through narrowed eyes, his skin color fading slightly to a more neutral shade. “We can crack it and split the contents. There should be enough food for both of our clans.”

I eye him. Why is he so eager to share? Clans do not share. We are rivals, he and I, and to give him half without a fight seems strange to me, unless R’jaal realizes that this sea gift is mine and he is trying to game a share for himself….

Or his people are hungry, as well.

I study him, thinking. I know I am hotheaded. I know it is my nature to fight. Everything in me is telling me to snarl and challenge him and claim this for my people. My people, not his. If he’s right and it is an egg, this yolk will feed little Z’hren for many days. I should not split it. It is mine to claim.

But if I fight R’jaal and he wins…then I return empty-handed. If it were anyone else, I would be completely assured of my success. I am the strongest of hunters on the island…but R’jaal is the quickest. He and I have sparred at clan gatherings and come out even more times than not. If it were anyone else…

I can chance it, or I can think of my clan’s well-being. I growl low in my throat because I know what I want, and yet I must think of my clan first. “I do not like sharing.”

“Nor I. But I also do not feel like fighting this day.” He puts his hands on his hips, tail flicking, looking very much as if he’d wish to fight after all.

I scowl at him. Lies. He loves a good spar as much as I do and I am his favorite fight partner. Something else must be troubling him, or he is sick.

Or starving.

Or he knows something I do not.

I study him for a moment longer, full of mistrust. Every moment we waste is another moment someone else could come along, though. I know it would not be one of my tribe. N’dek is cave-bound and J’shel will have the kit. It is only me out and about on this day. If another of the Tall Horn clan arrives, I will be outnumbered. Or if one of the Shadowed Cat clan arrives, we will have to split the sea’s bounty three ways. With a frustrated snarl, I flip one of my blades and offer it to him, handle first. “Let us carve out our shares, then.”

He grunts and sounds surprised that I have agreed. R’jaal takes the knife with a nod to me and then strides forward, tail flicking. I follow behind, my other knife still in hand as we approach the strange thing.

It looks dark, the shell of it smooth and unblemished unlike any creature I have ever seen before. There is a small circular bubble of some kind at the far end—an eye, perhaps—but the rest of the thing is unrelenting black. I touch the surface as R’jaal peers at it, and it feels like no eggshell or hide I have ever felt before.

He taps the end of his blade—my blade—against the surface and listens. “Sounds hollow.”

A hollow egg with a hard shell might mean the creature inside is ready to hatch. “Too dark to be a skyclaw egg,” I point out. Too large, too. Shame—skyclaw are good eating and can feed a clan for days on one egg. “Be ready for any creature that will emerge.”

He nods, his mouth firming into a hard, irritated line. I know how he feels. I do not like working with him either. But I think of the hungry mouths back at the tribe and the squalling kit who needs his mother’s milk—and will never get it. I must think of them first. I tap my own hilt on the surface and place my hand on it, checking for movement. There is a hairline crack along one side. Good enough place to stick a blade, I suppose. I push the edge of my knife in the crack and pry.

To my surprise, the shell hisses and lifts up. I jump backward, camouflaging even as I pull my knives from my belt once more, ready to attack. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that R’jaal camouflages as well, his skin changing to match the greenish-brown of the sand even as he pulls out his spear, readying to attack. I crouch low, twirling my knives, prepared to strike.

The piece of shell continues to rise and then moves gently to the side. The hissing stops. There’s a noise like a yawn, and then something rises from within.

It’s a female.

I think.

Her camouflage is a strange golden color that matches none of her surroundings, and she smacks her lips and rubs her head, shaking out her mane. Her sleepy gaze lands on the beach, and then on R’jaal. Then me.

She pales and her eyes roll back in their sockets. Her body slumps and she disappears back inside the stone-egg.

“What…” R’jaal looks at me, shocked.

I straighten, putting away my knives. I let my camouflage fade to my natural blue and stride forward. “Was that a female?”

He puts a hand to his chest, over his heart. His jaw clenches and he glances over at me. “Mine. She is mine.”

“Do you resonate to her, then?” I wonder why I do not feel possessive for the female. If it truly is one, she is the only female left on this island after the Great Smoking Mountain destroyed our clans and with the death of I’chai. I should claim her for my clan. But I do not feel anything for her.

Surely if she were meant to be mine, I would feel something, would I not?

“No,” he says swiftly. “All the same, she is mine.” R’jaal moves forward, leaning over the edge of the egg to gaze inside at the fallen female. Then, he looks at me and laughs. “There are two!”

Two? My heart thuds heavily in my chest. Two females? Why? Why do they come to us in an egg? Is it…a sign from the ancestors who came to this world in an egg?

I move forward and lean in, scarcely daring to believe R’jaal.

There, nestled inside the egg, lie two females. Both of them are colored all wrong for camouflage. I hold my breath, because they are unmistakably female. They are smaller than sakh females, and far more delicate, and their teats are bloated, but I cannot deny that they are female. Neither one has horns.

They cannot be of the Tall Horn clan, then. I clench two of my fists, counting arms. Only four for both females. Two for each. Not clan Strong Arm then, either. R’jaal reaches out and touches one female’s arm—the dark-maned one that collapsed. Her forearm is smooth and unfurred. Not clan Shadowed Cat, then, either.

I do not care about that female, though.

It is the other one that holds my attention. She is paler than the other, her skin more a strange whitish-pink than the warm gold of the other. Even their camouflage does not match properly. Her mane hangs about her delicate face, and the color of it is pale as well, a rosy reddish-brown instead of the dark black it should be. Her lashes are long and shadow her cheeks and she has the most charming little nub of a nose and a soft pink mouth.

This one is mine.

I feel it surge through me, the intense knowing and covetous feeling of finding something that truly belongs to me. It does not matter how this female got here.

She is leaving with me.

I reach in and gather her in my arms, careful not to harm her. Her head lolls and I put a hand under it to support her, then carefully lift her out, cradling her body against my chest. For a scant moment, I worry she is not breathing, and I hold my own breath until I see her teats rise and fall.

Alive.

Thank the ancestors.

“Wait,” R’jaal says as he lifts the other female out. “They should both go with me. You know the clan rules. Four arms goes to clan Strong Arm. Both of these females have two.”

I bare my teeth at him. He dares to quote the ancestors’ rules at me? “You have that female. This one is mine.” I stroke her hair off her brow, already fascinated by her. It does not matter to me that she is weak and only has two arms. I will protect her and care for her as if she is as whole as any other female.

“There are others in my clan that need mates.”

Rage seethes inside me. He thinks to take what is mine? “I see no horns on your female, friend,” I sneer back at him. “Neither should go with you, either.”

He narrows his eyes at me and cradles his female to his chest. “You cannot have her.”

I do not want her…but I will kill him if he tries to take this one from me. “You have yours. I have mine. I do not care about clan rules.” Clan rules would say that no distinguishing features would go to the Outcast clan, but they are long gone. Just the thought of having to give up my female makes me mad with rage, and I hold her tighter. Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

The word throbs through my mind, as fierce as any heartbeat. I can feel it, pumping through me like blood. Mine. Mine. Mine. This female is mine. That is why I did not care about the other—my heart knew this one was coming to me.

I am not entirely surprised when my khui begins to sing, its tempo matching the beat in my head.

R’jaal’s eyes widen in surprise, and then he nods slowly. “Yours, then.”

“Mine,” I say with fierce pleasure. I resonate to her. No one will ever take her from me.

She is mine and mine alone.