Chapter 320: 320: Predator in the View
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He tore a thread of it away, not enough to move the meter, enough to make it angry. It went mad for a moment, claws hammering, tail whipping, head snapping. Pain Resistance turned the sharp edge of the blows into a manageable dull pressure. He gave ground because he chose to. He wanted it in the open.
The mountain mouth appeared as a wide V of night ahead. The predator felt it too. It dropped low and lunged. Kai let it pass him by a finger width, hooked two claws into the ridged plate behind its skull, and rode it like a thrown boulder into the stars.
They burst into moonlight together. Sand received them with a sucking whisper. Cold air hit the inside of Kai’s mouth like water.
The Stalker vanished.
It went under in a single liquid motion, foreclaws plowing, head sawing, tail beating, and the dune rose behind it in a long, smooth wave. Antenna Sensory Boost told him where the wave would break before the eye did. He leaped and the sand burst under him a fraction of a second later, a fan of teeth and acid and hatred.
He landed on its back. His claws punched through the plates that ran along the spine and found purchase in gristle. He rode the thrash without letting the motion shake his focus loose. It rolled, trying to crush him under the armored ridge of its back. Tiny Tank stiffened the plate across his chest. He took the roll. He did not lose the hold. The creature heaved upward in a spray of sand and erupted from the ground with him locked to it like a second shadow.
"Mine," it hissed, head thrashing, the sideways mouth flexing. "Eggs. Mine."
"You have chosen," Kai said.
He jammed one knee into the seam where the forelimb plate met the chest and drove his mandibles toward the lower neck membrane. It sensed the angle and snapped its head back under his chin. Acid steamed the air and peeled dark curls from the dune. He let go with one hand, took the top of the skull, and wrenched. The mouth opened wide with the motion and he drove the bite in, all the way to hard cartilage. He felt the give. He bit again. The taste was copper and brine and something bright that felt like old fire with no heat.
Resonance bellow hit him full in the chest. The sound was a wall. It put grit into his ears and buzz into his teeth. His hold loosened in one hand without his permission. The beast twisted. Its tail came in a line. It struck his ribs. Pain Resistance kept him on it. He threw both arms around the head, locked his mandibles under the hinge, and would have torn the jaw clean if the ground had not dropped away under him.
Burrow. But not down. Forward. It chewed air into the dune with its mouth and the rest of its body followed into the hole. They slid together, an ant and a monster wrapped around the same death.
Dark closed over them. Sand pressed into every seam, cold and crushing. The sound of the creature’s digging claws was a mad drum beat an arm from his ear. He could not see. He could only feel.
He did not let go.
He pushed the bite deeper and ripped. The membrane at the hinge tore. Acid washed over the bite in a sudden flood. Adaptive Armor slid and thickened. The burn still punched into him like a nail. He rode it. He held. He broke the hinge plate in two short, savage jerks.
The Stalker jerked back and took him with it. They burst out of the dune side by side, sand spraying up in a glittering sheet that caught the moon like shattered glass. He hit on one knee, skidding. It hit on its face and came up fast, more animal now that the jaw was half free. Hunger makes even clever beasts simple.
It charged.
He was already moving. Reflex Mode gave him the step he needed. The chest seam came past his left hand and he put his weight through it. The creature stumbled. He took the back of the head again. He set his right foot under him. He pulled to lift and twisted at the waist. The plates along its throat opened like shutters trying to stay closed in a gale. The hinge screamed. The sound stalled for an instant as if the desert had inhaled.
The sky split.
Alka came down in a clean line, the crescent of her wings a cut all by itself. She struck the Stalker’s back and locked her talons into bone. The hit drove the beast’s chest into the sand. Its rear section kicked up, tail thrashing, but she had weight and angle and a long memory for killing. Her beak stabbed and tore. She went for the line of plates along the spine. She pulled two free in a burst and went again for the same place without making a sound. The bird’s work was efficient and iron.
"Hold it," Kai said, unnecessarily. She already had.
He met her eyes for a beat. There was no need for more words. He set his stance for the last wrench and gave the hinge everything. The jaw tore free in an arc of dark spray and fell to the sand with a dull meat sound. The Stalker’s body spasmed once, twice. The tail beat the ground four quick times and then went still. Alka rode the last shudder without moving her head. Then she stepped off and shook gore from her feathers, careful to keep the acid from her face. She looked at Kai again and cocked her head as if to say that had been interesting.
"It was," he said out loud.
He stood in the cold night with his breath showing and his armor steaming and let the body stop moving before he moved closer. The smell was foul and sweet. The dune around them had turned into a map of the fight.