CHAPTER TWO

The comm that had alerted Warkha to the latest Bakuub sighting, was from a rather reputable source. Perched on a tree limb, he regarded the file once more to make sure he wasn't being sent out on a wild rhynth chase. There was an honored warrior hunting in the area that had discovered signs of a dishonorable hunt in one of the smaller human towns.

The footage linked with the message showed several humans, ranging in age, that had been killed and skinned. His eyes narrowed as he watched the footage play out through to the end. It looked like Bakuub's work. If it wasn't, then he would at least not be wasting the effort of coming to earth and would be at least bringing one Bad Blood to justice.

Straitening from a crouch, Warkha peered around at the trees that surrounded him. His visor was indicating further northwest, closer to where the continent met the ocean.

Grumbling under his breath at the prospect of even colder weather, being that close to the large body of water, had his hackles rising. Shaking himself, he pushed forward, knowing that while for once he was close to his prey, he knew Bakuub would not linger on the planet after committing the crime. He needed to find the Bad Blood before he left the planet.

According to the comm, the deaths had been recent, the blood still dripping wet from the strung-up corpses. He was only a rotation, maybe even less behind his prey for once. Which also meant that neighboring towns had not been informed of the genocide yet. He might still have time to cover up the evidence of one of his kind, being on the planet, before it was discovered.

Excitement surged through his blood, and he took off at a run, leaping from one branch to the next. When the limbs ahead of him were too weak to carry his bulk, he would leap for the solid mass of the trunk of another tree and gouged his talons into the bark. They would tear into the tree as he slid down a foot or two, before lunging for the next tree. If there wasn't even a tree for him to reach, he would drop to the ground and race across the forest floor instead.

When he had first started this trek after leaving his ship, there had been signs of small life within the forest with him. He could hear birds chirping and mammals grazing, the few that were left, this late in the season, that had yet to migrate south to warmer climate. However, the further he traveled, the less life he came across.

Skidding to a stop across the foliage, his talons dug into the earth as he swiveled his head left and right. His infrared failed to pick up on a single heat signature. His mask was unable to detect any signs of life, and not even a sound permeated the forest around him. Narrowing his eyes, he extended his wrisblades from his right gauntlet. Nothing reacted to the sharp sound of metal gliding across metal.

Rumbling to himself, he retracted the blade, but prepared his plasmacaster resting at his shoulder as a precaution. The gun hummed to life, lifting from his left shoulder, and reacting to the direction he turned his head. He was getting close to his destination.

Warkha pushed forward, moving at a swift but silent pace through the trees. Despite his size, he was as stealthy as a predator stalking its prey, even though Bakuub would be able to see him, no matter how silent he was, but Warkha had surprise on his side. If he timed it right, the Yautja would be too busy collecting trophies to notice he was already being hunted.

A bitter chill bit against his hide as the sun started to set in the west. Tucking his mandibles in, he gauged his thermal-netting status. According to the readings, it was in working order, which told him that despite its ability to regulate his body temperature, it was not enough to protect against the winter chill.

Welcoming its bite, he pushed on, allowing the coldness to help keep him alert as he moved silently through the trees. It was almost nightfall by the time he reached the human settlement, that the comm had indicated the massacre had occurred at.

He stood at the edge of the tree line, listening, but there were no signs of life even beyond the cover of the forest. Not a single laugh or shout from a single human, not even the roar of their machines that they used to travel long distances with.

Warkha checked his cloak, which was still in place, before he stepped out pass the line of trees and into a grassy mound that led to a road. It soon became apparent that the cloak was pointless, however.

His head turned to scan each building within range of his visor. The town had one main road that went straight through, with a few narrower roads branching off east and west of it. It was a very small town, but not so small that it would go unnoticed forever if all of its inhabitants had suddenly vanished.

With the scan complete, his hands tightened into fists at his sides, the talons biting into the palms. There were small heat signatures coming from each building, indicating that someone had lived there, and had been there recently, but there were no signs of life within the buildings. Not even pets. There was no movement of any kind within range that he could pick up on.

Moving forward, he stepped down onto the main road and started heading south, to scout the rest of the town. Warkha remained ready, his body prepared for any kind of attack as he walked down the road. All of his weapons were within reach, easily accessible if he needed them. The plasmacaster continued to follow the turn of his head, prepared to fire at the first sign of a threat.

It was a ghost town, though.

To his left, the buildings gave way to a clearing that was clearly man-made. He walked up the embankment, his footsteps silent against the grass as he passed a large machine, he knew humans called a train. It wasn't on any tracks, and clearly it hadn't been used in many years if the signs of rust from sitting out in the rain for so long, were anything to go by. He moved under a set of tall standing poles; with a sign he was unable to read welcoming him to the park he was entering.

A thin line of trees surrounded the clearing leading to a playground for human pups, and beyond the trees, he could make out more human housing. Warkha came to a started stop, staring at the sight, as his eyes traced over the structures, he had seen pups playing on similar ones from past visits to the planet. His mandibles clicked through his visors visual spectrum until he was able to see with night vision. His infrared had picked up several dying heat signatures, but he couldn't distinguish the shapes from each other.

Now, however, with the sun behind the tree line and buildings behind him, he could clearing make out each form clearly in the darkness. Bodies, hundreds of them and of all sizes, were strung up like ornaments, on the tree limbs of the few dozen trees that decorated the open field surrounding the playground.

Some of the bodies had already been skinned, with blood pooling beneath their hanging forms, while others had been merely decapitated with their spines removed. While some looked fresher than others, there were some that appeared to have been dead for several rotations.

Warkha climbed the short hill that led towards the sectioned off playground from the rest of the park. The sight he came across had him stopping once more. Hanging from the bars, the body of a Yautja had been strung up by its ankles, much like the humans had been done in the trees. And just like the humans, it had been skinned and beheaded.

Warkha growled low under his breath, his chest rumbling with barely contained fury. His arms shook at his sides as he fought back the building rage. He forced himself to walk the rest of the way, putting one foot in front of the other and approached the body.

This body was the freshest, indicating his killer was still hunting within the area. Warkha felt his hackles rise as he scanned the park once more looking for the culprit. But his visor indicated once more that there was not enough body heat to indicate a living Yautja lurking nearby. He also noted that the head, and mask were missing from the body.

Warkha studied the hanging body for a click more, his head bowed in prayer towards Paya, their god. Warkha rarely gave much care towards a fallen hunter, considering it was only a matter of time before the Black Warrior came for any of them and won the final battle. This, however, seeing one of his own strung up and dishonorably displayed like prey, had him rumbling a few words for safe passage to the other side. Once he was finished, he reached for his medicomp that rested against the back-left side of his hip.

Crouching down so that he was closer to the bleeding neck, he rested the medicomp on one thick thigh and began to rifle through its contents. While most of its items consisted of keeping him alive, the vial he was looking for lay near the back and nearly forgotten. He removed it, as well as the stopper that kept it sealed from contamination.

Warkha gathered a sample of the Yautja's blood and poured a small amount onto the screen of his computer, before stoppering the rest to take with him. With the vial secured, he reattached the medicomp to his utility belt as the computer scanned the blood.

Focusing his attention back to the screen, he tapped in a few keys and waited for the initial scan to finish. After a few clicks, his visor beeped at him to indicate it had finished reading the blood. The blood belonged to the warrior who had sent in the sighting of the dishonorable hunt. Warkha tipped his head to look at the hanging human bodies nearby. Either the Yautja had been caught by the Bad Blood unaware, or he had faced the Bad Blood himself, thinking he could take care of the situation. Not that how it happened mattered at all to him, only the who, did.

And with such a fresh body, the Bad Blood wouldn't be too far away.

AN: Staying so long in a male Yautja's POV is kind of tough XD. Kind of hard to relate with them. Let me know what you thought of the chapter, did you like/love/hate it?

Inky Out!