Zanuga’s Mercy
The presence of death reached them with a single errant click.
To the unwary, it meant an end of thoughts. To the wary, it presented opportunity to flee.
The youngling of the pod, … call her Valiria for now, … heard it clearly.
Before she could make announcement, her mother Shulisee vocalized quietly. * Death is coming for us. *
Fear rippled through the youngling. * Mama? *
* Move beside my snout little one and do as I command, please. *
Almost immediately her mother and aunt began to pick up speed as she kept pace beside them for the long swim.
They had managed to keep that strenuous pace too for quite some time until finally, her small, immature body had begun to grow fatigued. All four of them were now exhausted from the chase that even yet might lead to Valiria’s death.
Although the ancient enemy were still fairly distant, she could just discern them separately. Four of them there were. They had stealthily swum towards the pod, … the kinsgrup, … unnoticed until the errant click had given them away. An unwanted click perhaps made by an inexperienced youngling of their own.
Valiria did not understand their language, … none of her race did. She didn’t have to understand their clicks, whistles, and pulsed calls though to infer the meaning. The context was clear, …. death. The cessation of thought.
She kicked weakly and tried to maintain speed. A moment later, her aunt Zanuga pulled alongside her.
* Stay strong little one, …. if we work together, this shall pass. *
* I will try Auntie. *
* That is all anyone can ask. *
Their kinsgrup had been traveling in the direction of the warm for several cycles now without incident until now. Unlike their enemy’s stealth and high-pitched clicks and whistles, their own conversation traveled effortlessly across far distances easily marking them. The kinsgrup had likely been overhead due to their noise generation, … possibly for the better part of a cycle. Caution and a lowering of their voices would have normally been the prudent course but it was too late to affect those changes now.
They were closing, … the ancient enemy with death as their only legacy. Of all those that ate of the flesh with teeth, they were considered to be among the most intelligent, the most resourceful, and the most likely to not give up the chase.
* They are four and closing. As usual, they will try to split Valiria off until she is isolated. It is she we must protect, * Zanuga vocalized.
* Of course, * Shulisee answered.
They picked up their natation pace slightly but no matter how fast they moved, the ancient enemy effortlessly outpaced them. For every tailing they swam, death swam almost twice as far.
As the chase drew out, their adversaries gained until Valiria began to hearsee them clearly. …. The ancient enemy it was, … as if there had been any doubt. The only race that truly threatened her own.
In the final moments of their charge, she could even begin to see them clearly with her true eyes, … with her eksight. Black over most of their bodies with white patches behind their eyes and along their ventral underbelly. All four of them coordinated as a unit. There lay the true danger, …. the speed and teamwork of their pod. While you were watching one, another would pursue towards your flukes.
The first pursuer came quickly dodging under her aunt and over the head of her mother, ready to ram its head into her and cave in her abdomen. Valiria kicked weakly with all the strength she had left and whipped her small body in a sinusoidal pattern up through the water.
The first pursuer just missed its ram as it sailed by below her, but another pursuer was now approaching from above. That second pursuer came down biting where her flank would have been but a moment sooner and instead caught the outer portion of her right fluke.
\ Ouch! \
The pain rocketed through her, but she tried to turn it from her mind because the first pursuer was turning again. The ancient enemy, although smaller than all but the younglings of her race, were faster and more nimble. They often dodged counterattacks and charges due to their high dexterity. She could feel herself trying desperately to turn in the water while her pursuer effortlessly pivoted and reversed. She was exhausted and even if she had not been, her speed was not up to that of the pursuer.
In a slowing of the mind unlike that which she had ever experienced in her short life, she thought she smelled her own life’s water in the seas. She stood outside herself and wondered at the injury she had sustained, and how she might recover. In that infinitesimal moment, she peered inward to her mind, … a place now quiet. A place where thoughts had abandoned her, and wondered if this would be her time. Her place where all thought would cease.
The first pursuer was now charging forward only a few tailings away with its head ready for a punishing ram. The one that would cave in her flank and cause immense pain, for the pursuer and its race never delivered a quick death. Always a multi-pronged and staged attack consisting of repeated rams to damage the internal structures or the separate tactic of body lunges to hold the victim under the water and induce a noyade. Slightly less common was the infliction of deep gashes that drained the victim of their life’s water until they lost consciousness and became food, … or in rare cases of equal horror, descended into the Crushing Depths.
The pursuers knew that she as the youngling was the most vulnerable. The least able to protect herself and the one who would tire most easily. And now she was tired, … so terribly tired, … surely the first pursuer could sense it.
She tried feebly once more to move up through the water in hopes of pushing her body out of the path that led to death. At the very least, she hoped to present her head to the pursuer so that it would not have an easy path to her torso. Ever so slowly did Valiria manage to turn her head, …. agonizing moments that seemed an eternity filled with fear.
The pursuer began to suddenly arc under her as if to attack her underbelly when unexpectedly the full might of Zanuga and her incredible mass slammed into the pursuer from above. The type of crushing blow that rendered flippers useless and backs forever broken. A sickening, crushing, sound combined with a sudden, shrieked whistle.
That whistle was unmistakable, … a moment of final pain. Valiria saw both with her hearsight and eksight, … her ears and her eyes, … that the pursuer had either been rendered beyond thought or killed. It listed immobile and began to drift slightly as her auntie came around to resume another charge if need be.
The body of the pursuer, … its black and white form inert, … began to slightly descend out of sight. Zanuga had sent it to the Crushing Depths and communion with all that goes beyond. In a way, she had been merciful, for it received the death that it never gave to others.
The sudden last call of pain it had sounded had been heard, … and heard clearly. The other three pursuers at a short distance from her mother and aunt reversed course. They slowly dropped away and Valiria could just hear the barest sounds of their agonized pulsed calls and pain. Nasqurili, the Great Mother beyond the seas had favored her, … by teamwork and by grace. The kinsgrup had held and if her fluke was not too badly injured, she would live to see another cycle.
