Spears of Uu'kata

Chapter 6 - Instead of Pain

Ahnekk's heart pounded as the human's eyes fluttered shut and her body went boneless in the water. He'd only ever seen such ferocity from an ennaleth.

"Why did she react so to the Skath?" Echnar asked, rubbing a hand over his mouth. She'd split his lip right down the middle and left some of her own blood on his tusks with the surprising force of her swing.

"Perhaps there are no Skath on their planet," Gondroll reasoned, rubbing the side of his head and frowning at the crack in his speks.

"That would explain a lot about them," Echnar grumbled.

Ahnekk circled his thumb on the soft, smooth skin of her cheek and said, "What I find interesting is that she feared the river and she feared the Skath, but not us."

"Believe me," Shodara said, finally speaking up from where she stood against the far wall with a hand gripping the shawl around her shoulders. "She fears you, Ahnekk. Her life is in your hands and she knows it. She fears you most of all."

"She bit me," Ahnekk said, holding up his hand. "Twice."

"She punched me in the face," Echnar said, pointing at his split lip.

"She kicked me in the head," Gondroll chimed in, rubbing the side of his head and frowning at the crack in his specs.

"I'm not disputing her ferocity. I am guessing she may never have been so vulnerable as she is now. She is terrified, believe me," Shodara said, finally approaching and reaching down to run her knuckles along the human's bare arm.

"How do you know?" Ahnekk asked.

Shodara raised her eyes. "A female knows what fear looks like on another female. Even if she is not of the same species."

Ahnekk grunted and looked down at the human. Asleep, she looked peaceful and even lovelier than before. However, he was worried about that Skath taking such a liking to her.

Reaching down, he gently eased the Skath from where it had nestled behind the human's ear. "This creature is not for you, little one," he said gently as he released it into the water.

Gondroll put his hand into the water and hummed low and deep in his chest and the Skath swimming along the human's body all migrated to him where they all touched his fingers, their stripes and spots glittering with color. His eyes clouded and became distant but his humming remained the same.

It only took a moment before the Skath stopped glittering and swam away from him and he blinked a few times, nodding as though he'd been conversing, and looked up.

"Get her on the table," he said gravely, shaking water from his hand. "If I don't sew up that wound in her side she will bleed to death. And there are foreign objects beneath her skin that are emitting some kind of energy."

"How many?" Ahnekk asked, leaning down and picking the human up out of the water.

"A lot of them. And they need to be removed. For all we know they could be used to track her to our world."

Shodara rushed ahead of him and threw a black cloth over the table she'd cleared in the back just before Ahnekk laid the human down on it.

Gondroll handed the female a curved needle and thread and said, "Will you sew her up as I remove the objects?"

Shodara nodded, accepting the needle. Gondroll reached into his bag to pull out a leather roll containing his instruments. Unrolling it, he chose a long, thin blade made of volcanic glass and, turning her hand over, sliced into the side of one of her fingers. Red blood spilled out and he put down the blade to pluck a pair of metal tweezers that he inserted into the slice, then pulled out an object. Small and flat, it was made of some kind of flexible material and seemed like nothing more than a harmless little disk.