Jack trudged through the undergrowth, his senses on alert in case he drew unwanted attention from the forest’s denizens. The Chian’dir had repeatedly emphasized how important it was to always expect an attack given how damn stealthy some of the predators were. It wasn’t like Earth, where animals were generally wary of humans and you could stick a bell on your pack to keep them away. Maybe if you were a 150-kilo Chian’dir warrior, but here it would be little more than a dinner bell for someone his size.

The other point of emphasis for the Chian’dir had been how things smelled. Great in principle, but the big galoots didn’t seem to understand how crappy a human’s sense of smell was compared to a Chian’dir’s. No matter how much detail they went into, all he could pick up was the heavy scent of cedar and hemlock, and the only thing that told him was that he wasn’t anywhere near the pine and spruce of the region where he’d initially been dropped onto the planet—a fact that still pissed him off. He hadn’t been happy when the Chian’dir explained that their village was so far east of Palmyre that he would need a full day of hiking just to get to where he’d arrived in the first place.

Bah, quit yer whining, Jack admonished himself. At least he no longer had to make his way around the enormous trees that made up the Chian’dir village, even if the towering cedars that replaced them were giants in their own right. They provided a high, shady canopy that was both good and bad, as it kept the underbrush at a minimum while also resulting in a lot of logs and fallen branches to navigate. That turned out to be a bit of a pain in the ass, but at least he had his Well-Aged Trait to lean on, allowing him to still make decent time.

A crackle sounded in the bushes to Jack’s left, and he immediately ducked behind a tree, his hand unconsciously gripping Sextus’ wyvern-bone club in case things got physical. He held himself still, barely even breathing for nearly a minute before hearing the animal again as it wandered away into the forest. Whatever it was that had noticed him, it had apparently lost interest, which was about as good an outcome as he could hope for.

Jack looked down at the weapon in his hand. Once again, he found himself wondering over Sextus’ unusual gift. It wasn’t that the Chian’dir tribe didn’t use clubs—hell, Jack had been smacked in the head with one the first day he met them—but the ones they did use were heavy, crushing weapons. This one was different. It was sleeker, relying on physics instead of brute force, and the well-oiled leather showed that it had been maintained like a fighting weapon by a man whose fighting days were long gone.

Curious.

Brushing bark off his shoulder from where he’d leaned against the tree, Jack continued trekking through the woods.

Sweat stung Jack’s eyes. He reached up to remove his glasses, only belatedly remembering that he no longer wore any. With a shake of the head, he dragged a sleeve across his brow to clear his vision before turning his attention to the thick root clutched in his hand.

He grimaced. Then he cut off a piece and shoved it in his mouth.

“Sweet merciful crap,” he muttered, spitting out some of the tuber’s acrid juice before taking a swig from his waterskin and choking it down.

On its face, the advice he’d gotten from Sextus about the root vegetables was accurate. The ones with leaves possessing a white underside were pretty good. Almost yam-like in flavour. The other ones? They tasted like he’d personally offended their mothers. Unfortunately, those god-awful tubers were the only thing he’d found with any noticeable fibre content, meaning that they’d have to be a staple of Jack’s diet if he ever wanted to have something resembling a regular bowel movement.

Tck tck…

Jack’s head snapped up at the sound.

Tck tck…

Whatever that was, it didn’t care about being heard. That wasn’t a good sign. Things that lived in dangerous environments stayed quiet unless they knew they were the toughest show in town.

Tck tck…

When the Chian’dir had gotten the better of Jack in their ambush, it wasn’t from lack of preparation on his part. It was because he’d ignored instincts that hadn’t seen the light of day for 70 years. He didn’t make that mistake this time.

Throwing his rucksack to the side, Jack dove down the ravine, rolling and coming to his feet with his club in hand just in time to see a black, spindly figure with yellow markings leap through the space where he’d been having his lunch only a moment ago. Whatever the thing was, it seemed surprised that Jack had moved, allowing him to get a better look at the creature before it realized where he’d gone.

It sure was an ugly fellow. The thing stood upright, roughly 5-feet-tall, with a deep black, leathery body covered with yellow striping. Its head, though… its head was unlike anything Jack had ever seen. Narrow and rounded, it had a single oblong compound eye that would have made the creature look like it was wearing a motorcycle helmet if it weren’t for the sharp-toothed mouth that split its face so widely that it bordered on the cartoonish. There was nothing cartoonish about the thing’s feral gnashing of teeth when it caught sight of Jack, though; nor did he feel like laughing when the beast charged towards him down the slope of the ravine.

Jack braced himself for the creature’s arrival, only to be caught completely off-guard when another tck tck sounded from his right, followed by a different creature slamming into him and knocking him to the ground. He would have cursed himself for forgetting the Chian'dir's warning about the creatures that attacked in pairs, but there was no time for that. Before he could get back to his feet, the original creature was almost upon him, so Jack lashed out with a two-footed kick, catching the smaller monster in the chest and launching it in the direction the second creature had attacked from. The thing immediately scrambled back to its feet and charged towards him, only to suddenly disappear with another tck tck sound that was mirrored from above and behind where Jack lay in the dirt.

Jack leapt to his feet and spun around.

Nothing.

No enemies in sight. He crouched down and looked skyward in case his enemy was above him, but that too was empty. It was as if the creatures had simply disappeared. Not that Jack was fool enough to think that was the case. He’d been in too many fights to assume this one was over, so he quickly made his way down to the creek and the open space it offered.

Once Jack had some area to work with, he looked back up the slope to see if the creatures had returned. As a result, he was just in time to catch another tck tck sound and witness one of the creatures appear out of nothing, its single eye staring at the spot in the dirt where Jack had been lying when it disappeared a moment ago.

Jack shifted unconsciously, the smooth stones of the creekbed amplifying the sound of his movement and causing the thing’s helmet-like head to whip in his direction.

Tck tck…

The second creature crashed down on Jack from above, the impact bearing him to the ground despite his assailant’s smaller size. Even in his perilous straits, Jack still found time to be amazed at how stealthy the creatures were. Hell, for all Jack knew, the thing had literally teleported on top of him, putting him in the undesirable position of having to fight off two of the things while lying on his stomach.

Jack tried to roll out from under the creature that had taken him to the ground, but it latched onto his shoulder, biting deeply through the tough leather and pinning him face-down in the gravel, trying to immobilize him until the other creature could come finish him off. It was somewhat surprising that the thing hadn’t opted to go for the kill immediately, but the reason became clear when Jack noticed a steady dripping of blood onto the rocks. Whether it was the product of an earlier injury or some mishap during the ambush, the wound likely explained the creature’s tentative approach. That was fine by him. Even if it was the right decision on the creature’s part, it still gave Jack a chance to counter, and he wasn’t going to waste it.

He had to move fast. Sextus’ club was useless in a close-quarters scrap, so he dropped it and pulled out the Chian’dir knife instead. He lacked the leverage to do any real damage, but he still made a show of trying to stab the creature clinging to his back as he waited for the one coming down the ridge to get close. Then, just before the creature’s arrival, Jack bucked his legs and threw himself into a sideways roll, pinning the bleeding creature between his back and the ground, despite it still being latched onto his shoulder. It was a desperate move, completely exposing his stomach and neck, but Jack was a desperate man.

The original creature was upon him in a heartbeat, wholly committed to the killing blow. Jack had banked on that action, though, and managed to get his knife braced on his chest with the blade out, forcing the creature to choose between skewering itself or getting out of the way. That should have been a no-brainer, but either the creature’s Intelligence or Jack’s high Luck intervened, trapping the creature in a moment of indecision. Realizing its mistake but too late to entirely avoid Jack’s knife, the creature twisted sideways, the sharp blade dragging across its chest and leaving a nasty ten-centimetre gash in its wake. It wasn’t much, just a flesh wound and a little bit of bought time, but Jack would take the moral victory, if not the true one. After all, one creature was still holding him to the ground while another was clawing back to its feet.

He’d needed the kill, and he hadn’t gotten it.

Then something strange happened. Rather than simply walking over and finishing Jack off, the creature instead ran a few paces away and leapt into the air. There was a loud burst of the now-familiar tck tck sound, and then… gone.

Jack thudded to the ground as the creature under his back disappeared as well. He sat up quickly, looking around in confusion, but found no explanation for his reprieve. That was two times that the creatures had simply disappeared despite having the upper hand in the fight.

He was starting to understand why the Chian’dir hated fighting these things.

Jack scrambled to his feet and grabbed his club, running across the rocky creekbed to the more stable dirt of the bank. He didn’t have much of a plan, but he’d noticed that when the first one appeared at the top of the ravine it had seemed a bit disoriented. Near as Jack could tell, that would be his best chance of giving one of them a good wallop, so he kept a tight watch on the spot where they had disappeared, just in case they came back to the same place.

All was silent. Then, with a burst of tck tck, one of the creatures popped back into existence. To Jack’s surprise, the thing didn’t appear on its feet. Instead, it was inexplicably lying on its back, right where Jack had been only moments before. Of the other creature, there was no sign.

Jack took in the creature's state, looking carefully at the gash on its side.

Nah, it can’t be, he thought. Can it?

Jack batted away the paper that appeared as his mind raced on the edge of understanding. He had a theory, but there was only one way to test it.