‘Ancestors protect us …’ Tusks said.
Suddenly the creature flew down at us, the claws of its back legs raking the back of Tusks’ mask as it swooped past him. Even before Tusks could try to swipe at it with his knife, the monstrous thing had glided away, slamming into the small dog that was now only inches from Shalla, rolling with it on the ground. When the creature came back up, it had the sad little dog’s neck in its jaws.
‘Hells,’ Horns said. ‘What is that thing?’
Even now, with the creature barely fifteen feet away, it was hard to make out its shape against the forest floor. The fur that I had first thought to be the brown of the trees above was actually darker, almost as black as the shadows themselves. It shook its head once, twice, a third time. On the final shake I heard the crunching sound of the dog’s neck breaking, ending its suffering. The killer let the body drop to the ground and turned to face us. At first I thought it might have been another dog, but this wasn’t like any dog I’d ever seen. Its face was almost like that of a cat, only wider and thicker, with a flat snout. Its fur bristled, and now I could make out dark stripes along its sides and its thick tail. Its eyes reflected the blood red of the flickering firelight.
‘Weapons at the ready,’ Horns told the others.
The creature looked down at the dead puppy at its feet, then rose up on its haunches and opened its mouth wide to let out a growl of such rage and ferocity I would have turned and run had my arms not been bound. It’s angry. It’s angry because it had to kill the dog. I don’t know how I knew that, but something in the creature’s face, in the growls and chitters that came from its mouth, convinced me that I was right.
The creature began moving closer to us. That was when I saw the dark furred webbing that stretched from its front paws to its rear – that must have been how it had seemed to fly at us even though it had no wings. The front paws that tore at the ground as it approached didn’t resemble those of a dog or a cat; they were more like black fingers with sharp claws.
‘Nekhek,’ one of the men whispered. ‘A demon’s familiar has come for us!’
Nekhek. The word meant ‘herald of the darkness’. A creature so foul it was said to be the Mahdek’s favourite weapon against my people, its bite stealing our magic and poisoning our spirits. I struggled uselessly against my bonds, desperate to get away. Tusks and Third-Eye ran immediately.
Even through my fear, a question rose in my mind. If these men were Mahdek, then why were they terrified by their own weapon?
Horns hesitated. ‘Pray the creature takes her, Kellen,’ he said to me. ‘The world would be better for it.’ Then he too turned and raced out of the clearing and into the night.
For a long while the monster just stared at me, making odd sniffing sounds punctuated by chitters and growls. Then it started coming towards me, its movements unnatural to my eyes, especially the way it would stop sometimes and wipe at its face with those eerie paws that looked almost like hands.
‘What are you?’ I asked stupidly. ‘Did I …? Did I summon you somehow?’
Oh ancestors … send me a spirit to chase this monster away.
The nekhek came closer and sniffed at my feet, then moved up my leg. Its snout snuffled over to my hand. I kept expecting to hear a voice in my head demanding a blood price for killing the dog. ‘You saved my sister,’ I said. ‘If … If that means there’s a debt to be paid, then I’ll pay it.’
I could feel its nose sniffing around my fingers. Its tongue reached out and licked at my skin for a moment, then the creature opened its mouth and I felt its teeth on the edge of my hand. Was this what destiny had in store for me? Was a nekhek going to devour me as I remained tied to a tree?
Just as I felt the teeth beginning to bite down, the nekhek suddenly flew through the air as if hurled by a great hand. The creature slammed against the trunk of a tree and fell to the ground unconscious. ‘Got it!’ my father said, emerging from the path behind me with my mother and several others.
‘The men who attacked us,’ I said, trying to keep my wits about me. ‘They went west, deeper into the forest.’
‘Go,’ my father said, and four men ran past me.
My mother came into the clearing, glancing at me only briefly before she went to Shalla and began the sequence of spells needed to ease my sister out of the summoning.
‘There were three of them, Father. They wore masks. Like the Mahdek ones from the pictures.’
I felt him working at the rope binding my hands behind the tree. ‘I know. Your mother saw them in the scrying. We should never have allowed this foolishness. I knew what Shalla was up to. I’d hoped you would have more sense than to help her in such an unwise endeavour.’
The rope gave way and my hands came free. I began rubbing at my wrists, trying to get feeling back into them. ‘Shalla told me she had permission. She said –’
My father came from around the tree and I saw the grave expression on his face. ‘Did you believe her?’
I found my eyes wandering down to the leaves on the forest floor. ‘I wanted to,’ I said.
‘A Jan’Tep can’t allow his desires to overcome his sense nor the needs of his family. A Jan’Tep must be …’ He stopped then, and after a moment let out a long breath. ‘Mahdek on the Path of Spirits, and with a nekhek servant. Ancestors above and below, these are dark signs.’
I looked over at the nekhek. I could see its sides rising and falling with shallow breaths as two men warily began to bind it with the rope that my father had removed from my arms. ‘I don’t understand. Those men were as scared of the creature as I was.’ I reached down and retrieved Ferius’s steel card from where Tusks had dropped it. ‘Weren’t the Mahdek supposed to be—’
My father cut me off. ‘Leave those men to your elders.’ He turned to the men binding the nekhek. ‘Make sure it can’t open its jaws. It will try to bite once it wakes, to infect us with its poison.’
My father started to walk away from me but I grabbed at his arm. He turned and looked at me with surprise. I don’t think I’d ever done that before. ‘The nek … the animal. I don’t think it was working for those men. I think it saved Shalla’s life.’
My father’s eyes narrowed. ‘Kellen, whatever you think you saw, whatever that demon creature was doing, it wasn’t trying to save Shalla. The nekhek is a creature of shadow and deceit. They were trained during the wars to chew poison weeds and bite Jan’Tep mages to paralyse their magic. They are our enemies as much as the Mahdek themselves.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘But we have one now, in part thanks to you, so this night has not all gone ill.’