Madness of the Horde by Zoey Draven

Chapter Fifteen

The majority of the Killup melted back into the darkness of the forest as the kalles fell.

“What did you do to her?” I growled, my eyes flashing to the single Killup that remained in the clearing. A male, the one she’d been speaking to.

She was limp in my arms and I dropped my daggers on the earth in order to carry her towards the fire. When I gazed down at her, red blood trailed from her nose. I didn’t know that humans bled red. The sight of it made discomfort coil deep in my belly.

She was so pale. She’d always been but it seemed like the last of her color had been leeched from under her skin.

“This was not our doing,” the male said, his voice so soft I almost didn’t hear him over the roaring of my heartbeat. “I give you my word.”

I chuffed out a sharp exhale. Like his word meant anything to me.

My sword was lying next to Nillima and I unsheathed it immediately after I laid the kalles down.

Turning to the Killup, I trained it between us.

His eyelids twitched as his black, glassy eyes flicked down to the tip. He remained standing, his long arms still at his sides. He didn’t move for the stone blade tucked into the band around his thigh.

I was familiar with Killup. There was even one living among my horde, perhaps the only Killup among the hordes, though I knew of a couple who had been accepted into outposts at their Vorakkars’ discretion.

“You are their leader?” I asked. She’d done it again. My rage had been dulled. That frantic thing within me, that beast that demanded blood, had been calmed. Was that the reason for her blood? Had that been the reason for her collapse?

“Vorakkar,” the Killup said, his gaze flickering again to the sword held between us. “Like she said to you, we did not want to harm you.”

Blood from the gash across my chest said otherwise.

“We were surprised to find our sarl slaughtered.”

Sarl?I thought. Then I remembered. That was what the Killup called the jrikkia.

“They attacked my pyroki,” I growled. “They ambushed us. I do not regret killing them all and I would do it again.”

The slits of flesh on his neck flared and I tensed. I knew that some Killup had the ability to emit toxins into the air with their gills, though I did not know if it was by choice or not.

“They strayed further than I thought,” was what he replied and I watched as the gills closed once more. Even still, I kept my distance. “We have been searching for them.”

“Where did you send the others?” I demanded.

“Away,” he replied. “Away from you.”

Intelligent male.

“Then why did you stay?” I rasped.

His gaze flicked to the vekkiri kalles behind me.

“Curiosity,” he said, surprising me. His head tilted. “You journey with a human? Away from your horde?”

My gaze narrowed, beginning to think clearly for the first time since I spied the Killup through the trees, since I saw them press a blade to the leikavi’s throat. The need to protect her, the ferocity of that emotion, had surprised even me.

Begrudgingly, I lowered my sword and sheathed it at my hip. The Killup seemed to relax as I did.

The Killup had never been our enemy. They kept to themselves, abided by our laws, and respected Kakkari and our earth.

It didn’t explain why a pack of them were so far west, however. When I’d found Bissa a handful of years ago, the lone Killup child of my horde, he’d been but an infant, abandoned and hungry. A darukkar and his wife had taken Bissa in, raised him as their own, loved him as their own.

“How do you know where my horde is?” I questioned, turning back to the vekkiri behind me.

“We have journeyed far. The last horde we saw was one to the south a half moon cycle ago. We have not come across any since.”

“And why have you left the eastlands?” I asked, crouching next to Vienne. I brushed a lock of her white hair away from her cheek and grabbed a piece of torn, clean cloth—the last of it from when we’d bandaged Nillima—from my travel sack.

His head tilted down. “The east has been growing…inhospitable. For many years now. So close to the Ghertun, we have faced many losses. We seek a new home for our people. I was tasked with finding one.”

Surprise made my brows lower. “The Dothikkar has heard no reports of this.”

“We have tried, Vorakkar, many times to seek an audience with him. He turned us away.”

That I could believe and it only made my frustration with the Dothikkar deepen. He was a selfish male who was not made to be a leader. His father had been one. The last true Dothikkar. But his son only cared about the gold lining his pockets, the fine brew filling his goblet, and his precious walled city.

“If the hordes ride against us at our new home, that is the chance we will take. But our people have suffered and we seek a new life. A better life.”

“Yet you tell me your plans. Knowing I am duty-bound to report this to the Dothikkar.”

His head inclined.

I barked out a sharp laugh. “Luckily for you, I care not for my duty to the Dothikkar. Find your home, Killup, but make certain it is well hidden. The Dothikkar has never set foot on the plains and I doubt he ever will…but some Vorakkar are still loyal to him.”

The Killup rarely showed emotion but I knew this leader was surprised by my flippant, treasonous words.

“Go north,” I told him, blotting away the blood from underneath Vienne’s nose. Her features were slack, her eyes twitching beneath her lids. “Killup prefer the cold, do you not? Not many hordes venture there, especially after the cold season.”

“You…” the Killup trailed off. “You are not what I envisioned a Vorakkar to be.”

So, he had never met one.

“You were eager enough to have me killed,” I growled softly, casting my gaze back at him once the kalles’ face was clean.

“A mistake,” he said. He pulled something from a pocket in his vest. “Our blades are soaked in enuwip. It is why your cuts have not clotted.”

I stilled, my brows lowering, before I looked down at my chest. The deepest gash had, in fact, not begun to clot and still bled freely, leaking a waterfall of blood down my flesh. The smaller cuts along my arms were in a similar state.

“Enuwip?” I repeated, my mind working. The Dakkari had nothing like this.

“A plant we grow in the eastlands. One from our home planet that we managed to root here.”

He approached. In his hand was a round disk of hammered, silver metal. He opened the top of the disk, like a chest lid, and inside was a blue balm, smooth and glossy.

“This will negate its effects,” the Killup said, handing it to me. I stroked the pad of my fingers across the balm. It came away like a thick cream, like uudun, and I swiped it across my wound. Immediately, the bleeding began to slow. Dakkari healed quickly. It should have clotted mere moments after I’d been cut. I hadn’t even realized the wounds hadn’t because of the kalles.

I realized the implications right then. That the Killup could’ve left, that my wound might never have stopped bleeding…and then what?

“I kill your jrikkia…and you decide to help me?” I growled, my gaze flashing up to his. I was still crouched at Vienne’s side. She hadn’t stirred at all, though her chest rose in a steady rhythm.

“You are not what I expected,” he repeated, as if it was his answer. “To be truthful, I did not know if the enuwip would work on a Dakkari. We have only ever used it on Ghertun that have breached our land.”

My nostrils flared, my mood brightening until I almost grinned at the Killup.

“It works on the Ghertun?” I rasped.

He inclined his head. “It works in a different way, however. It stuns them from first contact. Paralyzes them as they bleed.”

Thatmade me grin. “How intriguing.”

The Killup blinked slowly, tilting his head, studying me as I waded through the mess that was my mind.

I stood. The Killup was almost as tall as me, but his build was more suited for stealth than sheer strength.

“I think I have a solution to your problem, Killup, and mine. One that would ensure the Dothikkar’s blessing for your new home, so that you will not have to hide or fear that you will be discovered.”

His eyes flickered back and forth between mine. “I am listening.”

My grin widened.