FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Those that enjoyed the first one, here's the second installment. Standard warnings apply. And here's a custom warning. This one's twice as long as the first.

Chapter 2

Toleth looked out at the forest in concern, shaking his head at the rustling treetops that could be seen from his cave. Things that could make the tops of the trees shake were large indeed, and nothing that large was herbivorous. So long as he was able to see them coming, he was always able to make sure that he was away before they could reach his cave. With his wings, it was easy enough to reach a higher part of the peak, where the larger creatures couldn't climb. But now...

"What are you doing out there, Toleth?" said the source of his new worries.

The red dragon turned, the wind swishing his loincloth around his legs slightly. He looked at the female human that had fallen from space just a month ago. She had followed him after he had accidentally saved her from a centipede in the forest. According to her, for other humans, that wouldn't have been that eventful, but considering that the one that nearly ate her was forty feet long and the size of a small freighter, it had turned into a situation that she had needed rescuing from.

The human, who he later found out was named Sarah, had followed him from the jungle. She had climbed up the mountain, and begged him for the chance to stay a night in his cave, just to rest, so she said. Somehow, she had found a way to make him think about the past, about the Purge, and had reminded him of how alone he was.

That first night, they made love. It was hot, it was passionate, and it had completely driven away the feelings of loneliness that had stayed with him since the Purge. It had also been one of the few completely thoughtless actions in his life, and the consequences of not taking into account what happened when humans bred with his kind were plain. Just looking at Sarah reminded him of what had happened.

The changes they'd both noticed the morning after were far more pronounced now. Her belly had grown to a size larger than what she described as pregnant humans, though not quite to the sizes most of his own species became when they were gravid with eggs. Two little bumps protruded from under her hair, almost like horns, and her nails were long, sharp, and strong enough to be called claws. Even the few golden scales around her eyes were spreading, thought at a slower rate than the other changes. He considered that a good thing. Even though he was still unaccustomed to her flesh, compared to the scales covering his body, it was something that he still enjoyed seeing.

Toleth stepped back from his watch, and approached Sarah. "Sorry for leaving you alone in the cave this morning, Sarah. I...felt...something out here, and I wanted to make sure that nothing dangerous was coming our way," he said.

"And?" the human asked, cocking her head to the side. "Is there?"

He shook his head. "There is nothing approaching the mountains, at least, not at the moment," he said, correcting himself. He gestured to the moving tree tops. "All the large predators seem to be moving south, for some reason. It is odd. Usually they stay in this section of the forest until winter drives them away," Toleth muttered.

The dragon fell into silence again, staring out over the trees. The jungle was a living thing. Not the creatures in it, he didn't mean that. The creatures were the least of the life that the jungle contained. His parents, his kind, the Haran Hunters, had understood that. They could work with that life in a way that he never was able to understand, and always wanted to.

Maybe then he would understand what was going on with the predators in the jungle today.

He felt Sarah's arms wrap around him, and he looked down at her. She looked up at him, and then out at the jungle. "It's really bothering you, isn't it?"

"More than it should," he said, shaking his head. "Something just...just feels wrong."

"Maybe something is." Sarah looked out at the jungle, and he followed her gaze. To his surprise, she wasn't watching the moving tops of the trees. Instead, her eyes were glued to a spider, a bright green one that was as large as the two of her hands spread as wide as they could go. It was munching on another of the insects Sarah referred to as oversized, but that didn't seem to bother her. Instead, she just stared at the spider.

"Another Gerol," she muttered, shaking her head. "The second one I've seen in my life."

Toleth blinked. "Gerol? Is that what you call those things?" he asked her, looking back at the spider. It was dragging its prey back to the jungle. "I'm surprised you didn't see more when you were running through the jungle. They have a rather large colony not far from here."

He was nearly as surprised at Sarah's sudden grin as he was by the fact that she hadn't run into other Gerols down in the jungle. She turned to him with a wide grin on her face. "Really?! There are only a few of them, back on my planet, and most people think they're the last ones in the galaxy. Where is the colony in the jungle? How many of them are there? Do they have any kind of a leader? Is there-"

Toleth was forced to press his hand over Sarah's mouth to get a break in the questions. He chuckled a bit at her, shaking his head a few times before removing his hand. "Maybe you should give me a chance to talk before you ask so many questions. But I have one of mine, first. Why are you so excited about it?"

She blushed a bit, adjusting the loincloth she'd made for herself. Toleth smiled further at the thoughts of what they'd done to cause her to lose her jumpsuit. The loincloth was a spare one that he'd had, and she'd modified it to make some new coverings for herself. Her shoes, though, were a lost cause, considering that they had been ripped up beyond belief.

After adjusting her chest strip, Sarah said, "Well...back on my world, there was a great deal of legends about the Gerol. Most of them were about them being some form of good luck, but there was one legend that talked about them being the guardians, of a sort, of some ancient city. Not that they were really needed," she said with a chuckle. "But...but that's just a legend, and I don't think you want to hear it."

On the contrary. Toleth most certainly wanted to hear about this. It was the first thing that connected those spiders to anything other than the jungle, and considering this seemed to be the spiders homeworld, as well as his ancestors homeworld, it was something that could mean a great deal. "Please, go on, Sarah. If nothing else, it will kill time."

"Well..." Sarah paused, putting a hand to her chin. "The legend basically tells of an ancient race, one that was powerful. Not in the technological way that most of the species measure power by today, but by some strange ability that they all had. They could...sense, I guess would be the best word, where anything was around them. They were impossible to take by surprise, and could never be beaten in a fight."

Toleth could barely believe his ears. This was almost exactly like the most basic ability that his parents had shown him all that time ago. A sixth sense that let them always know what moved around them, what living things were near. It was the perfect sense to have in the jungle, when sight could be blocked, ears could be fooled, and the nose could be useless. "What...what else does the legend say?" he asked, hoping that there was a location, a place, something.

Sarah shrugged, and pointed out to the jungle. "So far as the legend goes, the race disappeared, leaving only a ruin in the jungle that was once a great stronghold for them," she said.

The dragon grinned. He knew just what that was. "Wait right here!" he said, running back into the cave.

He rushed through the caverns and tunnels until he reached the storage cavern that he kept at the very back of the cave. Toleth opened up a few holes that he kept covered, and pulled out what he would need for this trip to the jungle. A couple of spears, several days' worth of food, and a few other things that might make things a bit easier for him.

No sooner had he gathered his supplies, though, than Sarah had appeared in the storage room with him. "What's gotten into you?" she asked incredulously.

"That legend sounds too much like my people to ignore," Toleth said, tying two of the spears to the side of his loincloth and holding the third over his shoulder. His rations were in a pack that he held slung over his shoulder. "If there is a chance that there's a ruin hidden around the Gerol colony out there, I can't ignore that," he said. He turned to look at her, his eyes turning stony. "You stay here. I'll be back in a few-"

With surprising speed, Sarah reached out and grabbed one of the spears from his side. She held it clumsily, but at the ready as she said, "If you think you're going after that ruin without me, think again, Toleth." She grinned, but her eyes matched his for stoniness. "I've wanted to see this all my life. I'm not passing up the opportunity now."

Toleth shook his head at her, but he realized that there wasn't much chance of leaving her behind. Her tracking skills were strong enough to allow her to follow him, and if he didn't tie her up and leave her in the cave, she was certain to follow him. The best that he could do would be to make sure that she followed him while following his rules. He reached out for his spear, and took it back. Rather than hook it back to his loincloth, however, he cut off the bottom eight inches of the spear to make it a little shorter.

He handed it back to Sarah, and said, "Make sure that you do what I say, when I say it. The Gerol colony is in one of the darkest parts of the jungle. If you don't pay attention, you'll die." He paused, taking a deep breath. "We both know how much I would hate that."

She nodded. "When do we go?"

"Now."

~~~

Toleth sighed softly as he paused, kneeling down and pressing his hand against the ground. They were near the border where the regular jungle ceased to be, and where the Gerol kept their colony. It was a definite, visible border, considering that they were entering the lair of spiders.

He lifted his eyes from the ground to look at the border. Webs passed between one tree trunk to another, making a silky wall that would be difficult to cut through, with spears. Several birds could be seen, stuck to the web. The Gerol hadn't gotten to them yet, since they were still struggling against their bonds. If they had, the birds would have already been wrapped up and been pulled away.

Sarah leaned against his side, and whispered, "Is that the start of their colony?" He nodded at her. "It's immense," she muttered, shaking her head.

He had to agree with her. Despite the smaller size of the Gerol, much smaller than the faster and larger centipedes, they were the most dangerous creatures in the jungle. Nothing, absolutely nothing entered their colony if there was a choice of another route. Quicksand, venomous plants, even acid vines were preferable than trying to pass through this colony. It wasn't just the size of the protective web barrier that made it dangerous, either.

Toleth remembered the first time that he had seen a Gerol. It had just been a single specimen, but it was sitting on top of a twenty five foot centipede. There were no wounds, no sign of death. Except for one thing that he didn't notice until after the Gerol had gone. There were two tiny bite marks near the centipede's head, just under the antennae. Poison dripped from the wounds still, despite the centipede being dead for hours. That was the sheer power of the venom that each Galor had.

"Let's go," Sarah said. Toleth's arm jerked out and stopped her. He turned and shook his head at her, pointing up at the web again.

Several smaller specimens of the Gerol, these ones about the size of one and a half hands. They walked down the web and started biting the birds that were still squirming. Almost instantly, the birds went still.

"That will be us, if we are noticed in there," Toleth said, watching the Gerols wrap up the birds in webbing and drag them away. When the Gerols were out of the way, he nodded at the webbing. "Come on. We don't have much time before they come around here again."

He pulled her along behind him, his other hand grasping the hilt of his knife. His spear stabbed into the ground near the webbing, Toleth pulled out his knife. "Keep an eye out for anything from behind," he said. The last thing they needed was to be attacked by a predator before they were able to get into the colony. Not likely, this close to the border, but anything was possible, here in the jungle.

His knife was very sharp, sharp enough to cut through the chitin hide of the various centipedes in the jungle without much effort. It took a great deal more pressure than he was used to exerting with his knife to cut through one strand of the web, and it was took a great deal of nervous grabbing at the dry strands of the web to ensure that the vibrations from the cutting didn't bring down the colony on them.

"This could be a little more difficult than I thought," Toleth muttered to himself, slowly letting go of the strands. He stroked a finger along the edge of his knife, carefully avoiding it to keep from cutting himself. The cut strand opened up a hole that a bird or a mouse might get through, but not him or Sarah.

He turned his head to look at his companion. She most certainly wouldn't be able to fit through the current hole. Even if he made one for himself to crawl through, she wasn't going to be able to fit through it, not with her larger belly. The best thing, he knew, would be to send her back to the cave. He already had dismissed that as impossible, so he didn't entertain that thought for long.

A small idea occurred to him. Reaching back for one of the spare spears that were hanging from his loincloth, he yanked one up to eye level. A quick examination of the fastening that kept the sharp blade of the spear attached confirmed that he could take it off and replace it easily enough. And two knives would work a great deal faster than one. They would just have to make sure that they were able to get through the hole quick enough to avoid being noticed by the Gerol when they came to investigate the vibrations.

"Get ready to move," the Hunter muttered as he pulled the sharp edge off of the shaft. Tossing the wooden pole into the clearing on the other side of the web, Toleth took a deep breath. He focused all of the strength that he had to his arms, using a trick of visualization that he had learned a while back. If he imagined some of the strength from his legs, or other parts of his body, and focused it into another part, he could make the latter area much stronger at the cost of some weakness. Temporarily, at least.

One part of his mind wondered if that was another ability of the Haran Hunters, but that was a musing for another time. Concentrating all of the strength he could pull away and still move, Toleth crouched by the web. He laid the twin knives against two strands, moving carefully to keep any vibrations from travelling up the strands at the touch. He paused, waiting for any that he might have made to still.

The web remained empty. The Gerol were either ignorant of their presence here, or they were busy elsewhere in their colony. Either way, he was happy they were anywhere but here.

With a soft grunt, he shoved his arms upwards, slicing a hole in the web that was nearly a full pace wide, large enough for two small humans to walk through together, or for Sarah's larger belly to fit through. He would have to crouch to make his way through, but that was something he could live with. "Move!" he hissed as he ducked through the hole. There was no way that the Gerol would have missed something like that, if they weren't completely numb.

He tugged her through the hole, crouching underneath the cut webbing and running. As soon as they reached the other side of the webbing, it was clear they had entered an entirely new domain.

The grassy undergrowth that covered most of the other parts of the jungle simply didn't exist here. It was cold, hard earth, what few pieces of grass and plant life that existed on ground level dead and black, killed by the dripping venom of the Gerol. The trees grew so close together, and had their branches meshed so closely to one another, that it has been impossible to tell just how different it was on this side of the webbing. As he pulled Sarah along behind him, Toleth risked a glance behind him.

Light shined on the other side of the webbing, and a little bit on the side they were now on. Where they were standing now, though, as they worked further into the colony, was nearly pure darkness. Pitch black, it was nearly impossible to use sight to tell the direction they were heading. Instead, Toleth relied on touch, feeling his way along the ground until his hands ran into a bush. He pulled himself behind it, and pulled Sarah down into a crouched position, curled up beside him as he watched the web. He wanted to see how the Gerol would respond to the cut portions of their web. How they reacted would dictate how they would explore the colony of the most poisonous arachnids on the planet.

The Gerol were quick to respond. Though he couldn't see much, other than silhouettes, the dragon could see that the arachnids coming down the web. There were so many of them, more than he had considered might be around. Twenty, thirty, forty spread down over the web, and there were still more coming. Toleth wondered if he had perhaps roused the colony to make a mass appearance.

Eventually, sixty green spiders were gathered around the hole that he'd cut in the wall of webbing. They gathered, completely still. It was like they were waiting for something. In a way, it made him think of a pack waiting for orders from their alpha.

"What's happening? I can't see," Sarah said, adjusting herself next to him in an attempt to look out at the web.

"Quiet!" he hissed, holding her still. The Gerol had moved, turning a bit towards their direction at the sound of her voice. They weren't oblivious to the existence of strangers in their colony. "Be very still...very quiet," he whispered to her. He started pulling her back, his tail feeling for any obstacles that might be in the way. He didn't dare take his eyes off the horde of Gerol on the web. Toleth was sure that if he stopped watching them, they would come up and bite him when he was least prepared.

Slowly, Toleth managed to move back from the webbing. He felt his way along the uneven ground, doing his best to keep a line of sight between him and the Gerol on the web as free as possible. For the most part, he was able to keep it, save for a few vines that tumbled down over his face at one point.

He stopped when he felt something that was completely different behind him. His tail touched something rougher, and stronger, than a tree, and he froze. Pressing his hand onto the surface behind him, he felt it. It was rough, with some edges that were nearly jagged enough to cut through his palm. "Sarah?" he muttered.

"Yes?" she answered, quieter this time.

"Feel this," he said, taking her hand and pressing it against the material behind him. "I don't recognize it. Do you?"

She was silent as she felt it, though her hand made a few scritch scratch noises as she rubbed over it. Toleth winced at each little sound it made, afraid that it would grab the Gerol's attention. They were about fifty feet away, at the web, but there was no telling how much of the colony was still further in. Nobody had ever counted up all of the Gerol, so there could be anything from a few to a hundred still hidden in the darkness.

"It's stone!" Sarah whispered. "I don't believe it, but it's made of stone!" she said, pulling his hand against it again. She pulled his hand along it, moving it against smoother, then rougher surfaces before reaching a corner. "See? This is a wall here...I'd bet if we follow the wall, we can find the entrance of this thing! I bet it's a temple of some kind," she added, her whispers growing more and more excited.

Toleth had a fairly good guess of what else it could be, considering the legend that she had related earlier. He tapped her hand lightly before taking it, walking sideways. He kept his back to the wall. It scratched his scales lightly as he walked, but it allowed him to keep his eyes on the light of the outside world, and the webbed border that would be their exit later. The Gerol had already webbed it over again, but he could see the difference in the covered area and the rest of the web border. It would be weaker there, he was sure. He would just have to cut another hole when they left.

The wall they followed felt smoother the further they followed it, eventually becoming as smooth as a lake's surface on a windless day. Just at the point it reached that smoothness, the wall turned away from them at a full ninety degrees, upwards, behind them. A few taps with his tail confirmed that there were steps rising out of the ground, attached to the wall.

He hesitated for a moment. The stairs could lead them further into the colony, and it seemed to be part of the ruin that the legend had mentioned. But going up the stairs would take them deeper into the colony, and would make it harder to get out again. He was fine with risking himself to this task, but Sarah...he didn't want to lose her. Even if he lost his life, he didn't want her to lose hers.

Again, she took the situation into her own hands. He heard her movements up the stairs, and muttered a small curse. "Well, that takes that decision away from me," he muttered softly, following her up the stairs. In this dimness, he had to rely on touch, and hope that his hands and feet didn't land on one of the Gerol that were not on the web.

Either he was lucky, or the Gerol were not aware of them. Considering the folly of believing the latter, Toleth was forced to believe the former. The thought of depending on luck made him grimace in the dark. He hated having to rely on luck.

It took five minutes, five utterly suspenseful minutes, for him to make his way from the bottom of the stairs to the top. He felt his way along the ground until he found another wall. He followed it, and then found another part where the wall veered off, this time into a kind of a tunnel. He whispered down the tunnel. "Sarah? Sarah, are you in there?"

"Yes," she whispered back. "You have to see this, Toleth, you have to see this!"

Despite his urge to be cautious, her enthusiasm was starting to infect him. He moved faster, and perhaps a little louder than he should have, keeping a hand on the wall of the tunnel.

As he walked further into the tunnel, he realized that he could see. Not well, not as well as he could see out in the rest of the jungle, but he could see the wall against his hand, and he could see the floor under his feet. More than that, he could see Sarah up ahead. He recognized her form, the larger belly and the bumps on her head against the wall that she stared at.

He jogged over to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder. She jumped under his touch, and he whispered, "Don't worry, don't worry. It's me."

She seemed to look at him, and then away. She squinted, staring out in the dark. He realized that she couldn't see him, not the way that he could see her. He shook his head, and looked at the wall. "What did you find?" he asked.

Sarah shook her head, and took his hand. She pressed it against the images on the wall. She had apparently found them by touch, considering they were engraved on the wall. "Can you...can you feel what these say?" she asked. "It feels like lettering to me."

Toleth looked at the images, and at the lettering around them. It was some kind of writing, yes, he could tell that. But he wasn't sure what it said. It was gibberish to him. If this was a place of the Haran Hunters, though, that wasn't a surprise. There were things that others of his kind had written that he hadn't been able to read as well, and this looked like that kind of script. "I can't read it...I could copy it down later, though," he said.

As his finger touched the end of the line of script, he felt something give beneath his claw. He blinked, and grabbed Sarah in one arm and jumped back. "Get back!" he whispered as he backed up as fast as he could.

The wall shifted, a crack that echoed through the hall roaring in his ears. That was not good. Not good at all. He shook his head, looking back down the tunnel, in hope that the Gerol weren't coming. That was as futile a hope as there ever was, he knew, but he still hoped.

The light from the tunnel entrance was nearly completely blocked by the massive flood of arachnids coming down the tunnel. The skittering sound of their legs pressing against the stone ground and ceiling, even the walls, echoed as they moved. Their green skins glinted in the strange sight that Toleth had gained, making them seem even more deadly than ever.

He turned to the tunnel that had been opened by the touch of his claw, thinking that they might be able to escape down there. The idea came too late to him. The other tunnel flooded with even more of the deadly arachnids, some of them even bigger than the little ones that he had seen before. Some of them, measured from one leg, over the back, to the other, were as large as his tail was long. They were huge, and they completely surrounded the two of them.

Sarah clung to him, and looked up at him. "What's happening? Why aren't we running?" she whispered. For a change, she was completely still. He was glad that she had at least a little bit of sense when it came to severe danger.

"Let's say that there's nowhere to run," he said. He looked up at the ceiling, one hand slowly dropping down to one of the spears at his side. If he was going to be bitten and killed, he wanted to take at least one of these spiders along with him.

One of the Gerol leaped from the floor, faster than he would have believed. It was one of the smaller ones, half the size of his hand. It landed on the hand that had been moving, its fangs dripping threateningly. He looked at it. It wasn't biting him, but it certainly would if his hand moved one centimeter closer to the spear at his waist. Experimentally, he started moving his hand away from his waist. The arachnid seemed to relax the further it was from the spear, but when he tried to move back towards his weapon, it tensed up again.

So, his spears couldn't be used. Toleth was pretty sure that any attempt to pull his knife out would be met with similar threats. One bite. That was all that it would take to drop him, and these things could bite faster than he could draw a weapon.

He relaxed his hands, hoping that the spiders might leap away. They stayed where they were, to his dismay. "Well, this is going to be a great deal more difficult than I thought," he muttered. He turned to see if Sarah had a chance to move.

She was in, quite possibly, a worse situation than he was. Three of the Gerol were hanging from the ceiling, each one at a different elevation around her. One was at head height, another at chest, the third at waist height. Any movement from her, any sign of trying to escape, could provoke any of the three into biting her, and killing her. She had no more chance of escape than he did.

But why hadn't the arachnids killed them already?

His eyes roamed over the groups of arachnids on the floor, trying to plot a route through them. There had to be a way, there just had-

His thoughts were broken by a stroking motion over the top of his head. He froze for a moment, hoping that he would not see what he was expecting. He lifted his head, more than a little bit afraid of what might be hanging over him.

Toleth's eyes nearly popped out of his head. It was no mere Gerol that was above him, not even one of the larger ones that had surprised him by coming out of the new tunnel. This was something in a category all its own, far larger and far more deadly. This was the greatest fear, and the greatest danger of the Gerol colony, the reason why nobody ever entered it and came out alive again.

This was the queen. Her carapace glimmered with a deeper, more powerful green than the others of her nest. She was larger than the largest of her children, nearly twice his own height in measure from one side of her body to the other. Her fangs, just barely avoiding the top of his head, dripped poison that actually melted part of the stone floor beneath his feet. The venom hissed, and a smell similar to sulfur rose from the stones as they melted. This was not something that he was prepared to fight.

He was sure that he was going to die as the queen of the colony lowered herself from the ceiling, and he braced himself for it. He swallowed as he felt his life flash before his eyes, and he readied himself to meet his ancestors.

When death didn't take him, he opened his eyes again. The queen was looking up at him. She had one of her legs lifted, and she prodded him with it. She poked and prodded him with it, pressing it against his belly and head, and even up and down his legs. The pokes were rather strong, and if he wasn't against the wall, he was rather sure that he would have been knocked down by the poking.

The queen moved closer to him, and lifted herself up to his face level. Her eight eyes were blinking one after the other. She leaned in a little bit closer to him, until her face was less than two fingerwidths from his own. It was the closest that he had ever been to something this deadly without trying to kill it. If he had dared move his hands, he would have been fighting her now.

He was so distracted by the sheer closeness of the queen that he didn't notice a drop of her poison falling from her fang, and landing on his hand.

Collapsing back against the stone wall with a shout of pain, Toleth grabbed his wrist with his uninjured hand. The poison seeped through his scales, melting through them and reaching his blood vessels. The burning of the skin and scales, bad as it was, paled in comparison to the fiery pain that spread through him as it hit the circulatory system.

Sarah clutched at him, he felt that, but all of his other senses were obliterated by the pain that waxed and waned with each pulse of his heart. His ears roared with the rush of the fire in his veins. Every shock of pain through his body was worse than the one before it, and he wondered if this was how he was going to die.

He clutched at his head, where the pain was the absolute worst. The fire from his veins slowly pulled away from his limbs and his torso and gathered in his head. It felt like fire should be spurting from his ears and his mouth and his nose. It obliterated thought, and threatened to send him into unconsciousness. No matter how much he begged for it, though, it just wasn't enough to put him out of his misery.

It pulsed and burned for minute after minute, burning his mind and scouring his thoughts before it miraculously started to fade. It didn't disappear, but it did fade enough for him to be able to think, to be able to talk and think and move.

Toleth opened his eyes, sucking in deep, shaky breaths in an effort to get control of himself again. Shakily, he reached up and gripped Sarah's arm. She was holding him tightly around the neck, and while he appreciated the comfort she was trying to offer, it was making it just a little difficult to breath. She let go, after another minute.

He looked down at his hand. A small burn mark was all that remained of what had felt like a gaping, burning hole that the venom burned in him. He stroked a claw over it, thinking that it couldn't have healed up, but it had. It didn't make any sense to the dragon. His eyes shifted from the mark on his hand to the spider queen. How he wished these creatures were sentient. It would make it so much easier to get answers about what had just happened to him.

By all rights, he should be dead. The queen's venom was obviously more potent than the various other Gerol that were around them. A drop the size of the end of his finger had burned through his hand and entered his blood. He should have died seconds after it entered his blood.

"This makes no sense," he muttered under his breath. He pushed himself upright, and then back to his feet. He had to lean against the wall for a moment, to make sure that he didn't fall down again, but he managed to keep on his feet.

The spider queen remained suspended in midair by her webbing, still at a level with his face. "What do you want?!" he hissed at the spider. He didn't care if he looked like an idiot to Sarah. He didn't care what might happen. He needed answers.

Sarah gripped his arm tightly. "Toleth...you need to rest...I know how poisonous those things are. I've seen some people bitten back on my planet. You shouldn't even be on your feet. I don't know how you're still alive, but-"

"Sarah." Toleth silenced her with that one word. "If I didn't die from the venom just now, I'm not going to die at all from what's left." His eyes locked with the spider queen, he continued. "But...thank you for your concern."

The spider queen seemed to nod. That was surprising enough to him. As the queen's mouthparts clicked together in some form of arachnid speech, he received a greater surprise.

He could understand what those clicks meant.

"We haven't seen one of the Hunters...in a long time," the queen said. Her voice was tired, halting, old, and accented, but it was understandable. "We...were beginning to think...all of the Masters had died." Her glittering eyes watched him. He realized she wanted him to respond.

"That...is not far from wrong," Toleth said. He couldn't believe he was talking to these creatures. He couldn't believe they were talking back, for that matter. "Many...most of my kind have been killed by other hunters. Hunters that were jealous of us."

The Gerol hissed and clicked at one another. They muttered threats to one another, of the things that they would do to the ones that had dared go against the Masters in such a way.

Sarah clung to his arm, shivering. He couldn't understand why she would be so afraid. She wasn't one of those that had participated in the Purge. She didn't even know about it until he'd told her. The Gerol had no reason to be angry at her.

"Why are you talking to them?" she whispered, her voice laden with desperation and fear. "They can't talk back...can they?"

He blinked in surprise. They were talking to them right now! Couldn't she hear-

Toleth looked down at his hand. The burn mark was still healing, nearly gone from his hand. Was the venom the reason that he could understand these dangerous creatures? Was this something his ancestors did when they came here? It made some sense, now that he thought about it. The Gerol referred to the Hunters as the Masters, and that implied some sort of communication between the two of them.

He turned to Sarah. "The poison...it must be something that my ancestors experienced too. I can understand them. They call my people the Hunters. It sounds like the Hunters were the Masters of the Gelor. They worked together, it sounds like."

Sarah looked at him incredulously. He didn't blame her. He was the one talking to them, and he couldn't believe it. It was incredible, fantastic, far-fetched, and any other word one might choose to indicate that it was hard to believe. But it was true, and it was happening to him. He was following in the path of the old Haran Hunters.

"I...I trust you," Sarah whispered. She leaned closer to him, still clinging, but not quite as tightly. "Just try not to get them angry. I want to live, still." She reached down, rubbing her stomach. "And I want these to live too."

Toleth nodded. As he rubbed her stomach lightly, feeling its swollen contours, the Gerol abruptly stopped talking. The colony's queen shifted her gaze from him to Sarah, looking down at the female's belly. The queen lowered herself, and prodded Sarah. She jumped a bit from the poke, but she remained still. Toleth couldn't deny that he felt a jolt of pride at her courage. She still couldn't see, he knew, but she was staying still and trusting him to deal with the situation. He wasn't sure that he would have been able to do the same in her circumstances.

"This female..." the queen hissed. "She is not...a Hunter...yet she carries...Hunter young." The giant arachnid turned back to him. "You have lain with her...do you know what...this has done?"

He nodded. "I have made her pregnant with my child. She wishes to carry it until it is born."

"It will be...difficult for her," the queen said. One leg continued to rub Sarah's rounded belly as the queen's mouth clicked out her words. "She is not...of your species...not yet. She will...die in birth...if she does not become...as you are before...then."

"What?!" Toleth was startled enough by the revelation to shout. It made several of the Gerol scurry away from him, muttering in their clicking language. He didn't care. "Why would she-" He stopped himself. Shaking his head, he started over, a little more calmly. "Why would that happen? There have never been complications before, when my kind have born children."

The clicking of the queen's mouthparts was faster, quieter, and she was shaking a little bit. He realized that she was laughing at his question. "Can you...not see?" she asked, gesturing at Sarah. "She is much...smaller than you are, much...thinner. She is...not passing a child...She is passing...eggs...each one larger...than a human child. In a few months...she will lay. If...she is still human...she will die."

"Toleth?"

He shook his head, turning to Sarah. She looked up at him. "What...what are they saying? I can tell that they're talking about me...about what we've made." She paused, her hand on her stomach. "Is something going to happen to me...when I give birth?"

Toleth shook his head a few times. How was he supposed to break this news to her? She was going to have to choose between dying and leaving her humanity behind forever. He might as well tell her that he had sentenced her to eternal exile from her species when he made love to her a month ago. Even if she lived, as one of the Haran Hunters, she would likely never be welcome among the human race ever again.

He wanted to keep quiet, but her eyes pleading for an answer pulled the words out of him. "The queen...she says that..." He sighed. "She said that, if you don't become one of my kind...if you don't become a Hunter...you will die in childbirth. You will lay eggs that are too big to safely come out of you...and you'll...you'll die," he whispered, cutting off himself off before emotion choked him.

Sarah was silent, so silent that he had to look at her to make sure that she was alright. She stood stock still, but she wasn't afraid. At least, her face showed no sign of it. She took a deep breath, the way he had to stead himself, and reached out with her hands. She fumbled in the darkness for a few seconds before her hands reached the queen. She grabbed the spider queen in both hands, and yanked her close. Despite not being able to see through the darkness, Sarah had managed to pull the queen close enough for the two females to be eye to eye.

"Queen of the colony. Whatever you might think of Toleth right now, whether you think he was stupid or anything else for impregnating me, I want you to think of something. I want you to think of a way for him to turn me into a Hunter. If my choices are death or joining him as one of his species, I choose the latter. I will not be parted from him, and I will not, will not, lose these children," Sarah said. Her voice was perfectly calm, and firm. She was as determined and implacable in this decision as the seasons were with their cycle.

The spider queen remained still as she was grabbed, which Toleth was grateful for. If he had known that Sarah was going to reach out and grab possibly the most deadly creature in the jungle, he would have stopped her. Grabbing something like that was a good way to get oneself killed.

When Sarah finally let the Gelor queen go, she lifted herself up to the dragon's eye level again. "I think...this one will...make a fine Hunter," she said. "There is more...than enough spirit...in her."

"Thank you for the compliment," Toleth said. "But what about her request? What does it take to change her into a Hunter? I will do whatever it takes."

"I will...tell you, but first...you must pass...your test."

"Test?" Toleth asked, an eyescale going up in disbelief. There was a test in this temple, and he had to pass it before he was told how to keep Sarah alive? This was starting to strain his belief that this was still reality, and not some sort of fever dream from the poison.

"Yes...a test of your ancestors...the test all Hunters...must pass to be...Hunters," the matriarch of the colony whispered. She pointed with a foreleg down the tunnel that had been revealed by the shifting of the wall, earlier. "It is...down there...You must pass several tests. The test...of combat, the test...of tracking, and the...test of the senses."

Toleth looked down the tunnel. His strange night vision was either getting stronger, or the tunnel was growing brighter, because he could see that it led down to a door, nearly a hundred paces past the shifted wall. The door had several designs on it, but he couldn't quite make them out. He reasoned that they must be part of the test as well.

Shifting his gaze from the door to the queen, he asked, "Is Sarah allowed to come with me?"

The queen shook her head. "No. She is...not a Hunter. When she...has become one, she may follow, but...not until then. Fear...not, for we shall...guard her," the matriarch of the Gerol said. Several of the smaller ones perched on the walls and ceiling above her, while others moved to the entrance of the building, where some few bits of light streamed in. They had the appearance and bearing of guards, watching a perimeter. The queen nodded at them, and slowly lifted herself back to the ceiling, curling her legs around her in a manner. The large spider seemed to be a trap waiting to be sprung on any unsuspecting intruder. "She will be...safe..." the queen whispered.

Toleth nodded at the queen and at the Gerol that were positioned at several points in the tunnel. If anything could protect Sarah while he was taking these...tests...the Gerol would. There wasn't anything in the jungle that could take on the entire colony of Gerol.

He turned to Sarah. "Sarah, I need to take a few tests, according to the Gerol. They say that you can't come with me while I take these tests, but they'll make sure that you stay safe. Okay?"

Sarah blinked. "Tests? Like coming of age kind of tests?"

He hadn't thought about it in that way, but it seemed true enough. He nodded. She nodded in return. "I suppose that makes sense. If this was the place that your ancestors had as a city, then they would have something left behind, some sort of way of showing that you had grown into your heritage." She looked around, still blind in the dark, but she remained calm. "If you trust these creatures, I will trust you. Good luck."

She hugged him, embracing him. He smiled softly, and held her in return, just enjoying this moment of closeness. Considering how hard and strong his ancestors had been, the coming tests would be difficult, and he wasn't sure that he was going to survive. He wanted to take the feeling of Sarah's love and caring with him, just in case it was the last time that he would feel it.

It was with great reluctance that he let go of her, and slowly walked down the tunnel. The darkness seemed to fold around him, taking away his sight again. Everything ahead of him was black, unseen, except for the door. For some reason, it glowed brighter than ever, making sure that he could find it.

He paused with his claws around the handle, his eyes drifting over the designs on the door. Written in pictures rather than words, it showed crudely carved creatures of the jungle, and one Hunter, a golden one, fighting against them.

"The test of combat," Toleth muttered to himself. "Well, I'll be passing this one, at least," he said, opening the door and shutting it behind him in one smooth movement.

~~~

Sarah listened to Toleth's footsteps as he walked away, doing her utter best to keep her hands at her sides. Her dragon lover was going to take tests that were designed to separate the weak from the strong in his race, something that likely none of them had done for years. If he wasn't strong enough...

Involuntarily, her hands clenched around her rounded stomach. She didn't want these children growing up without a mother, but she most certainly didn't want them growing up with no parents. If Toleth didn't succeed, the children wouldn't have a single parent, because he was the only one that could change her to his species. If she couldn't live through the childbirth, she couldn't take care of them. For that matter, without Toleth, it was pretty likely that she wouldn't live long enough to give birth. He was the hunter and the one that caught the food from the jungle, since she didn't have the skill, weapons, or even the body to move around the jungle to hunt down something to eat.

His footsteps went silent. Assuming that meant he had entered his first challenge, Sarah whispered a silent prayer for her dragon, praying for him to have good luck in his challenge.

Taking a few cautious steps, hoping that she wasn't disturbing the Gerol around her, she felt her way along the tunnel towards the light that poked in. She had been in the dark long enough. She needed to see some light, see the outside of the colony again.

~~~

Toleth blinked at the sudden bright light that surrounded him. It burned his eyes after the deep darkness of the tunnel, and nearly blinded him.

Rapidly blinking his eyes, he nearly missed the scratching sounds of a predator's movement in the room. The scratching sounds built to a screech, a cry of attack. Ducking and rolling, Toleth felt the wind of the creature's movement over his head as he hit the stone ground.

He grunted as he pushed himself to his feet, ripping the last spear he had from his loincloth. The last of the bright light blinked from his eyes, the dragon looked for his opponent.

His eyes widened at the sight of it. It was huge, and covered in scales, rather than the chitin hide that all the insects of the jungle seemed to share. Dark brown, similar to the stones that made up the walls, ceiling, and floor of the room, the creature could move around in near invisibility. It was slightly shorter than him, but wider, stockier. He hoped for a moment that the extra width was from fat, but he couldn't deny that it looked more like muscle.

It pulled itself back up from the ground, hunkered down on its haunches. Its front legs, or perhaps arms, he couldn't tell, were supporting it. It fanned a ridge that ran down its spine as it slavered and drooled disgustingly, covering the floor with its slobber. It didn't seem to be venomous or acidic, because there was no damage to the moss or stone below, so Toleth felt a little relief at that. So much slobber would be difficult to deal with, if it was dangerous. Instead, it was just disgusting, and that he could deal with.

Before the creature could attack again, Toleth leaped forward. His spear was held so that the point was aimed right at the forehead of his prey. It would be over quickly.

His spear was nearly pressed against the animal's forehead before it moved. It blurred as it moved, it had such a fast speed. The spear point passed through the after-image of the creature, and he barely managed to keep himself from falling over, desperately trying to catch his balance. He failed, falling on his face.

It saved his life, falling, as the creature's claws swiped through the air above him, where his torso had been a moment ago. Rolling out of the way of a second attack, Toleth drew himself back to his feet, standing in a more defensive position as he panted. "This thing's fast..." he muttered. "Very fast."

His opponent wasn't staying still. It leaped at him with the same screech as before, rushing right at his head. He didn't dodge, this time. He held up his spear, waiting for it to impale itself on his weapon. He wasn't going to get anywhere, trying to attack it head on. It was too fast. Defending himself and letting it kill itself seemed a much safer route.

At the last moment, the creature extended the ridge that ran down its back. It was enough to make it turn in mid-air, and instead of being impaled by the spear, it was scratched along the arm. The mouth, full of sharp teeth and hot drool, snapped at his face.

Toleth felt several teeth snap shut on the side of his muzzle, and he roared, dropping the spear. He clenched a fist and slammed it against the side of the monster's face. He expected it to dodge again, or for his punch to be completely ineffective against it. It would have fit the monster, considering it had avoided his spear like it was nothing twice already.

Instead, the scaly creature yelped and let go, flopping to the side with a piece of Toleth's muzzle in its mouth.

Rubbing the blood away from his mouth, Toleth seized the moment. Ignoring his spear as useless, he jumped on top of the creature. Wrapping his hands around the scaly neck would be futile. Instead, he straddled the creature's spine, hoping that his body weight would keep the creature pinned and keep the ridge from inflating, and brought his fists down on the back of the scaly head.

It yelped again, and again, with each blow that he rained down. It stood up, and leaped around, trying to buck him off. Toleth didn't dare stop beating its head. Wrapping his legs around the creature's sides, he rode it like a human at the pole might ride a horse or something of that sort. He never stopped beating his fists against the back of the creature's head. "Just...die!" he shouted, bringing his clenched fists down directly on a weakened portion of the spine.

It collapsed under him, the sudden fall enough to dislodge Toleth from his seat and send him sprawling across the room. He grunted as he landed, bouncing twice before sliding to a halt. He panted softly, lifting his head. The creature was still alive, he could hear its breathing. He had to make sure that it died before it could kill him.

The creature might have been alive, but it wasn't moving anymore. As Toleth pushed himself to his feet, he saw the beast turn its head, groaning, but it barely twitched from the neck down. Its eyes met his, still angry, but mostly in a great deal of pain. If the monster could have cried, it would have, he was sure. It just didn't have the ability right now.

He crossed the room, picking up his spear from where he'd dropped it. He held it with the point at the creature's head as he carefully approached. For all that he knew, this thing was playing possum. He wouldn't put it past the strange thing.

Toleth poked the creature's side, half sure that it would jerk away and attack him again. Instead, his spear scratched it, leaving a line of blood in its flank. "You were so fast earlier...what slowed you down?" Toleth muttered to himself, circling the creature. He kept his distance from the creature's mouth, considering it was still capable of snapping at him.

Eventually, he managed to get to the other side of the creature, and he winced at what he saw. "No wonder you can't move," he whispered. The creature's neck, where he'd been punching it, had caved in enough to push right through the spine. The fact that this thing was still alive was amazing.

Toleth shook his head. He had managed to beat this creature in a fight with his bare hands, but it was suffering badly. There was no way that this thing could ever be healed again, and it would starve to death if he left it here. A Hunter wasn't supposed to let his prey suffer, if he could avoid it. A Hunter killed quick and clean, sometimes making sure that the prey never knew that it had died.

He leaned down, laying the tip of his spear against the thing's head. "You were a worthy hunt," he whispered to the injured creature. "I am honored by it. Die in peace," he whispered. As he readied himself for the killing thrust of the spear, the creature's eyes met his.

They were less pained, less angry. If he had to describe them, he would call them accepting, grateful, even. They met his for but a moment before they closed, but they seemed to be peaceful.

Then the spear pushed through the creature's head, and it was no more.

Toleth remained still, watching the blood flow out of the hole the spear had carved. It was a bloody sight, more so than his other hunts in the jungle. The creature jerked once, twice, before stilling. The dragon closed his eyes, letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

Slowly, he rose to his feet, and looked to the far side of the room. A door had formed where there hadn't been one before. Even from here, he could see a line of track marks marching from the base of the door to the top of it. "The test of tracking," he said. "It can't be harder than this. It can't be."

He walked over to the door, leaving the spear buried in the head of the carcass behind him. A quick turn of the doorknob opened the door, and he passed through it in the same motion.

The room he'd left glimmered, shimmered for a moment before returning to plain stone. The spear clattered to the floor, because it had nothing to hold it. The beast that had been slain disappeared, as if it had never been.

~~~

Sarah sat down on the stone steps that Toleth had found earlier, the ones they'd followed into the tunnel. Her hands stroked them lightly, trying to take in more information about them. If she had thought about what this place would be like, she might have brought along the glowstick from the survival kit she'd brought from her ship a month ago, but there was no way she could have known this colony would have been this dark.

Still, she was able to learn some things about this ruin in the middle of the colony. The stone was old, not to the age of crumbling, not just yet, but definitely old. Perhaps even a thousand years, but that would be pushing it. She was thankful for the bit of training she'd received back on Karanto on identifying the age of things. Of course, most of it had been towards different things that could be bought and sold, but a few of the things she'd learned could be put to use learning about the temple.

As her hands wandered, she accidentally bumped a couple of the Gerol. Each time that happened, she flinched, expecting to be bitten no matter what Toleth had said. Rather than bite her, however, the arachnid merely shifted itself around her hand so that it wouldn't be bumped again.

"You are a strange species," Sarah said to the spiders. She was half sure that they would understand her, even if she couldn't understand them. How she wanted to, though. She had seen the pain that Toleth had felt when he was filled with the poison of the queen, and she wasn't sure that she could have handled that. Still, these creatures had been in the jungle for as long as the jungle had been on this planet, she was sure. They would have so much to tell, and so much that could help the both of them. The pain would be worth it, to learn that much.

Sounds of scratching, and footsteps, beyond the colony caught her ears. She lifted her head, looking beyond the web of the Gerol. The forest moved. Something was coming.

~~~

Toleth grunted as a vine swung down and hit him on the nose. He rubbed the tip of his muzzle, avoiding the bitten part from earlier, and looked around the new room.

It was an exact copy of the forest outside. The room was filled with trees, and other lush greenery. Small animals skittered around the floor, some remaining in view as he approached, others hiding under the bushes and leaves of the larger trees. In fact, it was so like the jungle that Toleth was forced to turn around and look at the door behind him to make sure that he was still inside of the ruin.

He was.

The door blurred for a moment before new script, writing, covered it. It was in the script that he recognized from his younger days, when he was taught to write in it. "So, this is the next test. Test of Tracking, the queen said. How hard could this be?"

The writing finished appearing, and Toleth read it aloud.

"The Hunter is swift, and the Hunter is sure. Each prey caught is the one hunted, not merely a prey that is of the same species and coloring. Be swift, and catch the correct prey. Fail, and catch a look-a-like, and you will fail your test."

The dragon's eyes blinked as he finished reading the instructions. "I stand corrected," he muttered, turning away from the door. Well, there had to be a sign of the correct prey. That much stood to reason. If there weren't too many of them, scent alone would lead him to the correct prey. Failing that...well, he didn't want to think about that for the moment.

Little lizards, ones that he would have had trouble tracking if there was just one, had gathered while he was reading the door. They were crawling all over each other, each one looking exactly like the ones around it. There had to be at least twenty of the reptiles.

The one at the tip of the pile glowed red for a moment, and Toleth took that as the signal for which one was the correct prey. He glued his eyes to it.

They finally seemed to notice him, because the pile split apart into four groups of five lizards each, skittering across the dirt and grass. Not a single one remained in its original place. Toleth wasted no time in following after the group that contained his prey, hoping that the target had a scent he could track that was different but not daring to take the time to check yet.

His eyes glued to the ground and the little tracks that the lizards were leaving behind them, Toleth nearly strangled himself on a lowhanging vine. Barely stopping himself from falling to the ground, the dragon growled at himself.

"That was a beginner's mistake," he whispered, leaning down. He pressed his claws against the ground, feeling the tracks. They were jumbled together, with one lizard rushing across the tracks of the others in a way that turned five trails into one, unreadable, impossible to tell where one lizard's tracks began and another's ended. "I can't afford to make another."

It wasn't the typical scramble though. The lizards weren't jumping into the path of each other. It wasn't like the wild scramble that he would have seen out in the jungle. This was much more organized. It was four different lizards running in a line, with the fifth scrambling back and forth behind them. That fifth one was the one obscuring the trail, making it near impossible to read. Nearly, he thought with a smile. Not for a real Hunter, and not for one that was ready for this test.

He had taken the instructions on the door a little too literally. The description of a Hunter as swift was what had bothered him. It was not the hurrying fresh hunter that would win the hunt. It was the Hunter that knew his prey as well as he knew himself. He had forgotten that, in his hurry to be swift.

Toleth wouldn't forget it again.

The dragon leaned down, his nostrils just a few fingerwidths from the trail. He sniffed, snorted the smell of the lizards. They were very similar, and so were their scents. He wouldn't be able to track them by scent alone, but...He sifted through the smells, sorting through them and assigning one scent to each of the lizards. He would be able to track them as a group, for now, and he would know when one split off from the group.

"I got you," Toleth muttered to himself as he moved forward at a jog. He wasn't going to fail this test. He was going to catch this lizard, and he was going to become a real Hunter.

He remained in a half crouch as he moved, rushing through the undergrowth while making sure he never lost the trail of scent and tracks. He kept with the main trail as the various lizards broke off, knowing he could backtrack them if he had to. The lizard that had confused the trail to start with stuck to the main trail, the original direction. Toleth wanted to track this one down first. It might not be the target one, but it was acting differently enough for him to wonder.

Slowing as the scent and tracks became stronger and fresher, Toleth stopped behind a large bush. By all the signs, the lizard was right around it, on the other side of the bush. He hesitated, knowing that he would have one chance to check this lizard before it darted. He couldn't grab it without his actions saying that it was his prey, so he had to be sure with his eyes before he grabbed for it.

His head slid over the top of the bush, and looked down at the lizard he expected to see on the rock.

Rather than a single lizard, there were two. Each one looked up at him with surprise, and each one looked exactly alike. They were as alike as it was possible for living beings to be. And they were both just about ready to bolt.

Toleth had enough time for one move, and he acted. A smell of the two brought their scents to his nose. Their signature scents were exactly the same, too!

As they leaped off of the rock, he leaped after his chosen target. He grabbed it around the tail and hind legs, lifting it up off of the ground, away from any purchase that might allow it to keep moving. It wasn't getting away again.

Slowly, he lifted himself up, and smiled. "I win."

The lizard hissed softly at him before fading away as quickly as it had appeared. The sounds of the other living beings in the room faded as well. Toleth sighed to himself, and took a moment to rest, and to congratulate himself on what he had managed to do.

He hadn't just sifted through the smells of the lizards before. He has also stored the scents of the four extra lizards in his mind, knowing that the fifth would have taken hints of their scent onto itself. The two lizards had the same basic scent, but only the real prey had the scent of the four lizards it had run with.

After a minute of resting, he stood up and walked to the last door. "The test of Senses," he muttered, pausing as he held his hand against the door. "The first was hard. This was easier. Will the pattern continue with this one?" he asked himself.

"Only one way to find out," he said. He passed through the door and closed it behind him in one motion.

~~~

Sarah hesitated at the border of the Gerol colony, her hands inches from grabbing the webs and trying to tear a way out. Well, one hand, as the other was holding the spear that Toleth had cut for her.

The sounds of creatures moving around beyond the webs were starting to scare her. The forests crashed with a volume far louder than the centipede had managed a month ago. These things were bigger. Were there larger predators that Toleth had never told her about?

Whatever they were, she didn't want to be restricted here. If Toleth didn't get out quickly, than the two of them would not just be surrounded, they would be trapped within a lair of darkness, where they couldn't see two feet in front of their face. If whatever was approaching had any kind of night vision, it would be able to find them and kill them before they could even know where it was.

It wasn't that she didn't trust the Gerol. Toleth believed that they would protect them, and she believed him. But against something this big, spiders, no matter how poisonous, just wouldn't be enough. She was afraid, and she didn't mind admitting it.

Sarah shivered, pulling the spear up. Both hands clenched tightly around the shaft, and she settled herself in the best defense position that she knew.

She couldn't do anything to help Toleth. But if anything came here, and thought that it would have a free meal, she planned to prove it wrong. She wasn't a Hunter. But nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to eat her or their unborn children.

~~~

Toleth blinked as he entered the third room. Whatever he had been expecting, this certainly wasn't it.

Compared to the other rooms, which had been older looking, or a copy of the forest, this looked like an arena. The walls were smooth, save for a few protrusions that could be grabbed and swung on to gain elevation. The floor had two pits, each one at the opposite end of the room from the other. Spikes poked out of the top, and he could only imagine how many were further down. Spread out far enough to cover nearly a quarter of the room each, they would be difficult to avoid, if a protracted fight were to occur.

Toleth looked up at the ceiling, and shook his head. As much as he had hoped that the room would be open to the sky, he hadn't expected that it would be. The stone ceiling had carved indentations in it, though, and it was attached to four thick rods, each attached to a wall.

"Now what is that for?" he muttered to himself. He shook his head, and cleared it of thoughts like that. This was the final test, and potentially the most deadly one, because the name offered no hints of what might happen. Combat and Tracking had been straightforward, both in name and tasks. Senses, however, told him nothing. He could only guess that it related to the ability of his people to sense where things were, but he couldn't see how this room could test that.

The room groaned. It shook as it did, layers of dust falling from the ceiling and from the walls as several openings popped out on the walls, exposing holes and openings. The falling dust nearly landed in Toleth's eyes, and would have blinded him if he hadn't covered them.

When he opened his eyes, his instruction for the test had appeared in the falling dust. Slowly, he kneeled down to read them. His eyes focused on the words, but his other senses were alert for the start of the test.

"For the Hunter, strength is important. For the Hunter, to adapt, to think quickly, is to survive. But to the Haran Hunters, one other skill is required. To sense the breath, the pulse, of the living around you is what separates us from others that might call themselves Hunters. This last test is deadly, if you cannot sense what is around you. This will teach you this skill, or it will kill you. Those are the only outcomes. If it comes to it, die well."

Toleth shook his head after he made his way through the instructions. He stood up and kicked the dust away with a foot. It would come to this, it seemed. He had hoped this final test might be a little bit easier, but that hadn't happened. Instead, he was given the most difficult task of his life.

His eyes shifted around the room, looking for clues as to what the dangers would be. There had to be an indication of some sort. Nothing could just appear, he was sure. He stopped, considering that fact. The second test, the lizard tracking, had been nothing. The lizard had disappeared when it was caught, and a door had appeared. There was more to the tests than mere physical appearances. Knowing that, it was clear that he wouldn't be able to rely on his normal senses. He had to find a way to learn the sensing that his ancestors were able to pull off.

And he had to learn it quickly. There was no telling how long it would be until the dangers made their appearance.

More to the point, he had taken long enough with these challenges already. He was worried about Sarah.

Toleth stared at the holes in the walls, and in the floor. They were dangerous, the former for what could come out, and the latter for how he might fall in. A more fearful part of his mind suggested taking to the air, using his wings to keep aloft to buy himself time, but he discarded that thought. His wings were strong, but there was only so long that he could fly. If he exhausted himself now, there was no chance that he would be able to survive a possible fight.

There were also those extra holes near the ceiling to consider. The indentations in the ceiling provided shadows that covered up other things that might be in them. There might be dangers that could fall from the ceiling that would make flying not just dangerous, but impossible.

The choice of what to do was taken out of his hands, as the lower holes in the walls released snakes. Toleth blanched at the sight of them, knowing their species for something that was nearly as deadly as the Gelor, and faster than them, besides. Despite the lack of weapons, he would have preferred fighting a trio of centipedes to being stuck in this room right now.

A quick scan of the room confirmed that the snakes were coming out from each of the walls. Some of them were brightly colored, while others were dull and blended in with the stone room. However, they all shared the same species marking, that of a red diamond on their back. The Brettar snake, the most poisonous snake in the jungle. It was no surprise that they might be part of this test, but he wished there had been something else used. A striking snake was a danger that only a second sight would be able to detect, or the senses of a real Hunter.

He had neither. Yet.

Toleth stood stock still in the center of the room. Charging in any one direction would give the snakes a chance to sneak up behind him, surround him easier. In stillness, there was a chance that they would have a harder time finding just where he was, and he would be able to keep an eye on all of them.

They slithered across the ground at a swift rate, nearly as fast as he might have been able to run around them. The first wave of them, coming from behind him, had nearly reached his ankles. The others were still coming from his right, left, and front, but were still a few paces away. They weren't quite as quick, or they were released later than the ones behind him, or there was another variable that he had yet to consider.

The point was, they were moving outside of unison, and that meant there was a chance to avoid them for now.

He leaped upwards, and backwards. Landing on the snakes, he kept moving back, backstepping as fast as he could. So long as he moved quickly, stamping on top of the snakes, in a swarm like this, would make it so that they couldn't strike him. They were moving forward too intently to stop and bite, and his luck was with him. He made it to the back of the room, against the wall, before the snake swarm was able to stop. By that point, they were met with the other waves of serpents, colliding with them in the center of the room.

"Bigger swarm, and I'm not surrounded. Decent trade-off," he muttered to himself, panting softly as he ran his hands along the wall. Carefully avoiding the various holes in the wall, he grabbed one of the bars that stuck out of the wall, and pulled himself up. He pulled on a few others that were higher, lifting himself upwards a few times before he stopped.

Looking down, he could tell that he was about ten, maybe twelve feet off of the ground, which was more than enough to make sure that the snakes couldn't get him. He'd bought time to think, to try and figure this out, without having to exhaust himself with flying.

Toleth tried to think quickly. There wasn't going to be long before the room surprised him with something else, and he wanted to figure this out before it gave him too many surprises to handle.

Cracking sounds broke his train of thought before he could think of anything. His eyes drawn upwards, the dragon groaned. "No...anything but that..."

The ceiling was slowly coming down. Held up by the four bars that attacked to each wall, it was slowly lowering itself from the top of the room. There were several slots in the sides of it for the rods in the wall, like the one that Toleth was sitting on, but there wasn't enough room for a Hunter to slip past it. The indentations that covered the ceiling took on a whole new meaning. They were safe places for when the ceiling came down. But were they all safe? That was a very important question, and one that he didn't have a very long time to find the answer to.

Leaping upwards and unfurling his wings, Toleth flew upwards to the lowering ceiling. It was falling slowly, perhaps at the rate of a foot a minute, but with twenty feet to the ground, that gave him both too much and too little time. Enough to check the seven indentations in the ceiling, but too little time to clear the snakes out from under the one he'd pick.

Hovering under the nearest one, Toleth poked his head under it. Just as quickly, he pulled back again, as miniature centipedes fell out, each one trying to chew up his face before it slipped past. They landed on the ground, and he watched the Brettar snakes devour each of them.

"Well, not this one," he muttered with a shake of his head and a grunt, moving around that hole and to another one.

Three others contained centipede traps before he found one that not only didn't let anything out at him, but had no holes in it at all. It seemed safe enough, and it would have to be. Already, the ceiling was within eight feet of the floor. That gave him six minutes to clear out the snakes from underneath this hole, and then make sure that they stayed away from it for an additional two.

He just had to figure out a way to do that without any weapons but his fists.

Flattening his body to a horizontal angle, the dragon flew over the horde of snakes. He forced them to lay flat, or have their heads taken off as he passed. His claws managed to decapitate a few of them, but it wasn't nearly enough, not when the seven killed were taken out of a swarm that had to contain at least two hundred snakes. Particularly when those seven were killed in one minute, and robbed him of one of the six precious minutes he had to get to safety.

Toleth had an idea, but it required him to have a place to land. Without someplace to plant his feet, the backblast of the idea would knock him out of place, and he would have to deal with the snakes on the ground. Not something that he was ready to do in the least.

He grabbed one of the last rods that were still in reach. "I really hope that this will break," he muttered. Grasping it around the base, Toleth yanked at it as hard as he could. One second, two seconds, three passed, and it seemed like it wouldn't break. Four, five, six more seconds, and there wasn't even a crack. But he couldn't stop. If he didn't break this rod now, he was going to die the snakes, or by the ceiling, whichever got to him first.

Twenty seconds. A crack was showing, and the ceiling was nearly pressing on his head.

Thirty seconds. The ceiling was pressing his head down, but the rod was nearly broken free.

Forty seconds, and it broke. He fell down the wall, landing on his feet on perhaps the only snake free ground in the area. Falling into a crouch to keep his head away from the still lowering ceiling, Toleth hefted his club. "Move, kill, stay," he muttered, repeating it a few times like it was a chant. In this situation, it was, in a way. It was a way to live.

He charged forward against the snakes, wielding the club in the best way that he knew how. Each swing flung the snakes to one side or another, many of them flying, bouncing off the ceiling, and landing in the spiked pits. Those ones were the ones that were likely the lucky ones, the ones that would live through this crushing experience. It was working. The snakes were being removed.

But it was still too slow! The snakes were being knocked away, yes, but there were still over a hundred of them slithering around, and some of them were climbing back out of the pits, though he couldn't say how. Somehow, the deadly serpents were managing to get out of the deadly pits, and slither towards him across the floor. The ceiling was still coming down, and the tips of his wings bumping it with each step he took told him how little time he had left.

Beating the snakes away wasn't going to be enough. They weren't dead, so they kept coming back. And at this point, there was no chance to use his original idea. He was going to have to try something new.

The largest spike sticking out of the nearby hole caught his eye. It was the only one that stuck out of the hole, but there were sure to be others below. How far below? He didn't know, but it would prove the difference between living and dying here.

Take a risk, and maybe die, or stand there, and surely die; those were the only options by this point. Throwing the rod into the swarm of snakes, Toleth leaped away from the swarm. He had room for one flap of his wings, and he used it for all that it was worth. It carried him past the edge of the hole, and to the spike that stuck up out of the pit.

He shimmied down it as quickly as he could, putting him below the level of the floor, where the ceiling would collide with it. The snakes still followed him, but the pit was deep, and it would keep them from reaching him, if they were to come near.

Toleth turned his head upwards, watching the ceiling as it continued its inexorable descent. It was slow, and it was frightening even to him to watch. He scooted a little further down the pole, staying a foot below the level of the floor as it reached floor level, and pressed down hard. The snakes that were still on the floor shrieked and hissed in pain as they died, and he could barely keep himself from covering his ears to shut out the sounds.

He panted softly. He could almost feel as though that he could feel the snakes dying as the ceiling pressed down on them, winking out one by one in rapid succession. It was shiver worthy sensation, and it wasn't one that he enjoyed feeling.

Eventually, the ceiling pulled upwards again, leaving the floor uncovered and safe for him to get up out of the hole. At least, that was the way it seemed.

Toleth didn't trust this room. At every turn, it had surprised him, tried to kill him. There was no telling what waited for him out in the open ground of the room now, and there was every likelihood it would be something that would kill him before he could react, if he poked his head up out of the hole. The feeling of helplessness was something that most unfamiliar, and he hated it.

Poking his head out of the hole would be inviting whatever was outside of the hole to do what it would to him, but staying inside would be far worse. He would never be able to react. There was no room to do anything other than hold onto the central spire here. If something were to strike...

To know what was outside the hole required him to pull himself upwards. To survive required him to know what was outside of the hole before he pulled himself upwards. It was something that was a paradox, or as close to one that he had ever seen.

It made him growl.

Closing his eyes in frustration, Toleth felt a sudden warning burst in his skull. Without thinking, he released his hold on the spike that held him upright, falling nearly ten feet before he grabbed onto it again. A sharp point pressed against his thigh, not into it, thankfully, but against it. Further falling would have resulted in him falling against it and impaling his leg.

"What the-" he muttered, berating himself for nearly killing himself. Shaking his head, the dragon reached up to pull himself upwards. As he reached upwards, however, he realized his hands were pressing against a much slicker spike than it had been before.

Lifting his head, Toleth felt his eyes go wide. His hand, rather than wrapped around the side of the spike, was wrapped around the bleeding leg of one of the same species he had fought earlier. The scale pattern was near identical, and the coloring was only slightly different. These things were above him now? How many-

A slip, slight but noticeable, kept him from pursuing that line of thought. The fact that there were creatures like this above him was not a good revelation, but it was one that he would have to work with. If he was to fight, if he was to survive, he would have to adapt. It wasn't as though he could change it by wishing. That was something that not even the greatest of the Hunters was able to accomplish.

But still, he had to figure out how to fight at least one more of those creatures. He couldn't smell it, he couldn't hear it, or even see it, but there was another creature up there. He didn't have a weapon this time, but he was going to have to deal with it.

He just hoped that his fists were going to be enough.

With a deep breath, Toleth yanked himself upwards, pulling himself past the corpse of the creature. It slid further down the spike as he moved upwards, leaving a bloody trail along the pillar of a spike. He didn't bother paying attention to the trail, as the creature that waited for him more than warranted his attention.

Creatures. There were two. That meant that the third had been over eager, perhaps a younger one than the ones that he was fighting. It was certainly a smaller one, shorter by a good handspan. Even the one that he had been fighting earlier hadn't been the size of these ones, and that one had been the hardest thing that he had fought in a long time.

Spreading his wings and taking to the air to avoid the immediate attack from the two of them, Toleth flapped to one of the rods that were sticking out of the wall a little higher up in the room. He shook it a bit, but immediately shook his head. This one wasn't going to come off of the wall, he could already tell. The one that he had picked earlier must have been at least slightly rotten, because this one didn't even shake at his touch. No chance of a club this time.

Again, a warning blinked in his head, and he shoved himself away from the wall. Not back, though. His warning was specific this time, telling him to jump to the side, and he did.

The larger of the two creatures had leaped into the air after him, and nearly speared itself on the pole that was sticking out of the wall. Sadly, it missed it, using that blasted spinal fin to shift its direction enough to merely slam against the wall. Bruised, but still in the fight, it slid down to the pole below it, balancing on all fours on it and growling.

Toleth panted as he flew up higher, near the ceiling. These warnings must have something to do with this test, certainly. He would have died without them. But how could he use it to win? It was good to know when something was about to attack him, but-

Another burst. Above him. Toleth rolled in the air, pulling his wings in after the initial flap. Centipedes fell past him. They would have landed on him if he had stayed still, and then his wings would have been destroyed by their little bites. Not before he would have been crippled by their poison, however.

Instead of landing on him, the creatures fell past and landed on the creature that was still on the floor. The little insects writhed around, chewing the creature's face, and a few of them even biting their way through the scaly being's eyes. The screams and screeches of pain were enough to deafen him, for a moment, cutting and high as the pain that the creature must have been experiencing.

Panting, Toleth stared at the creature. He could feel its pain, in a strange way. Not as if he was being bitten, thankfully, but he...he could feel it. He sensed the pain the creature felt, could feel the heartbeat increasing in frantic pain, could almost hear it. A deep thud thud that increasingly sped up, so fast that he could barely believe the creature was still alive.

The scaly form collapsed, falling to the ground with a final cry. As it did, he felt the heartbeat die, disappear, cease forever.

The centipedes disappeared, as did the creature, scales and blood and all. A quick glance at the pit confirmed that the dead one there had disappeared as well. It was all fine for him. It meant for less enemies to deal with, less bodies that could become obstacles.

But then he noticed the increased heartbeat, and the heat of rage from the last creature. His eyes whipped around to stare at it, and he saw it panting. It was glaring from the floor to him, as if it could see its dead brethren still. Toleth shook, shivered. He could tell this was going to be far more difficult, now. He would have almost preferred to fight the two creatures at the same time, rather than fight this one as it was now.

He had fought enough pack creatures in the jungle to recognize these signs. The scaly creature had a bond with its pack, and it had lost not just one of its number, but two. It would fight with all the strength that it now had, and would never be frightened off like the other two possibly could have been.

It was now a desperate fight to the death.

The creature moved in the familiar blur of its brother in the first challenge, leaping from its place on the wall directly at his chest. Toleth desperately dodged to the side, moving side to side in the air as the creature used the walls to its advantage. It bounced off of them, using them as launching pads to keep itself moving. The warnings that he got from his new sense were just enough to give him time to move out of the way. Striking back was out of the question, if he wanted to keep all of his limbs.

He needed something to slow this creature down. There was no way that he would be able to fight this thing when it was moving at this speed, not with his bare hands. Maybe if he had his spear, he might be able to do something, but his last one was left in the first chamber, in the corpse of the creature that he had first fought. Or maybe not. This place played tricks.

That didn't change the fact that he needed to slow this thing down. He was panting already from exertion, and his wings wouldn't be able to keep him aloft much longer. The creature either sensed this, or was growing impatient, because it was pressing him harder and harder. If it forced him to the ground, this would be over, and they both knew that.

Toleth risked a moment, flicking his eyes up at the ceiling. The centipedes had continuously fallen from it throughout the battle, first at the snakes, and then on the second monster. If there were still a few up there, and if he could time this right...

The creature came at him when he was considering that. It was a glancing blow, hitting his legs, but it was enough to slice a good chunk out of his thigh. He screamed at the pain, feeling part of his muscle get taken along with the creature's claws, but fought to keep himself in the air. It was the only chance that he had, the only advantage, and he was not going to give that up.

Yes, there! He felt the centipedes moving to a hole near him. They would pass through soon, if he was under it too. Now if he could just lure that-

It was coming at him again already. He jerked himself under the hole the centipedes were over, and prayed that they would fall at the right time, and end this fight. He was on his last legs, and he couldn't keep going for long, not with the blood coming out of his thigh like this.

Time slowed in his eyes. The creature was already coming at him, moving slowly through the air. It felt like it was moving through molasses, like he was. The centipedes were moving above him. This was it. This was the moment.

He looked at the creature's eyes. They were green, he noticed. Green, emerald green. Odd thing to notice, but he didn't care about that. He stared at the feral thing, watching the eyes tighten on them, watching the anger in them. They were a beasts eyes, yes, but they were the eyes of anyone pressed to great loss.

For a moment, he almost felt bad about the way that it had to die.

But this was the jungle. It was kill, or be killed yourself. This beast knew that the same as him. There could only be one outcome, and they knew this too. So Toleth did the last thing he needed to finish this battle.

He folded his wings, and let himself fall out of the way.

Things sped up once more. The creature passed over his head. The centipedes fell, hitting the creature just as it slipped over him, providing a shield for him and a target for the centipedes. The beast hit the wall, and fell, already feeling the sting of the centipede's poison, already dying, already paralyzed. It slumped against the floor, panting, turning to him.

Toleth met its eyes with a level stare. He held its gaze for a moment or two, perhaps even three, before nodding. He bowed his head to it once. "A noble hunt," he whispered to it.

For a moment, it seemed as though it might get up and continue trying to kill him, despite the poison flowing through its system. But it slowly nodded at him in return, and closed its eyes. It was not yet dead, not yet, but it was on its way.

Toleth made himself feel the pain it was feeling, made himself listen to the weakening heartbeat before it was finally gone. Only then did he open his eyes to see if there were any further dangers, anything further to this third test.

There wasn't. The room was clean, and clear. The pits had vanished, and the ceiling was stable. Nothing living was in the room, and he wondered if there ever had been. The danger had been real, there was never any doubt of that, but was there anything living in this room, now or ever? He just didn't know, and he doubted that he ever would.

A door appeared in the side of the room. It glowed softly, not with the attention grabbing brilliance of the others, but with an understated persistence. It was the door that would lead him back to the outside of the ruins, he was sure, and to Sarah. That was all that mattered.

He walked along the dusty floor, and laid his hand on the door. He paused, turning, looking over the room once more.

The tests and challenges of his ancestors had been laid before him, and he'd met every one of them. He was injured, and he was going to have to take care of that, but he had succeeded in this. He was one of the Haran Hunters, in mind, body, and finally, soul. He would meet all the challenges that were set ahead of him, just as he had met these ones, and he would succeed at those ones just as he had succeeded at these ones. Toleth smiled to himself, and turned fully.

"I am a Hunter, just as my father was. I am a Hunter, just as my family was. I am a Hunter, and I will always be one. Never will I shame the Haran Hunters, never will I leave them. Then, now, and forever, this is what I am!" he cried out to the room, swearing on his line that this was what he would always be. Strong. Successful. Unashamed.

He listened, hearing the words echo before fading with a smile. He turned to the door, and walked through it, wanting to get back to his human. They would get the advice of the queen, and then go home to the mountain, where there was safety again.

Quickly, he pulled open the door, and walked through, shutting the door behind him quickly. Silence reclaimed the room and ruin behind him.

~~~

The darkness of the tunnel slapped him in the face, compared to the comparatively well lit rooms of the challenges. Rubbing his eyes a few times, the dragon walked through them quickly, rushing towards the light at the end of the tunnel. He was expecting to find Sarah waiting for him on the steps, or failing that, near the webbing at the edge of the colony.

What he found was quite different.

The web that marked the border to the Gerol colony was ripped to shreds. The strands of the webbing lay strewn across the ground, and the spiders that had made it were nowhere to be seen, hidden. The culprits were quite clear, not just from the signs that were left near the border, but because they were currently fighting Sarah. And winning.

His female was fighting against several different creatures, all but one a creature of the jungle. Two centipedes, as large as the one he'd rescued her from a month ago; hairy, furry versions of the scaly creatures that he had just defeated, three of them; and one creature that he didn't recognize at all. It was metallic, and it was fighting with metal blades that were seemingly built into its arms. The spear that Sarah was using was made of a harder wood than most would expect, so for the moment, she was able to fend this creature off, but it was a desperate fight. She was weakening.

Toleth took it all in within a second as he charged down from the ruin's stairs. His claws clicked against the stone as he ran. He grabbed a fallen branch as he reached the bottom of the stairs, but never stopped running. His eyes were locked on the metallic creature that was attacking Sarah, locked with anger.

His senses were taking in everything at once, everything. The centipedes and furry creatures moved around Sarah, not attacking, but keeping her from being able to retreat. He felt their heartbeats and life presence, the same as he did in the challenges. There was a strange feeling to them, something that was off, but he couldn't deal with that now. He had to deal with the thing that was attacking Sarah. He would not lose her.

Still thirty feet away, he saw the thing slash through Sarah's guard. Its blade reached her arm, and cut it. Not deeply, not badly, but enough to make her bleed. The red droplets that slipped from her arm fueled Toleth's anger, and he roared as he charged.

Sarah's attacker turned towards him as he roared, but Toleth was moving fast enough to make sure that the turn was all that the metallic thing could do. He swung his club at the metal head hard enough to knock the intruder back, if not decapitate him.

The blow was enough to throw the stranger back, give the two of them some breathing room. He grabbed Sarah by the arm, and pushed her back towards the colony. It was the only safety that the two of them could rely on, with this many things waiting for them outside. "Inside! Go!" he yelled, pulling her along into the darkness again.

She followed behind him, panting as much as he was. The metallic man stood up again, and wiped his blades over each other. Toleth watched him, staring over his shoulder as the strange being licked Sarah's blood off of its blades. He shivered at that. That was something the most sadistic and dangerous hunters did. Tasting their prey before the blood was dry, before the heart had stopped. It had chilled him in his childhood, and it chilled him right now, to see it done.

Toleth shouted, "Gerol! You promised protection! Give it now!" They were both under the shadow of the trees. Facing away from the border, they looked into the darkness, and trusted that the ground would be clear under their feet.

The dragon panted as they ran further and further in the darkness. He not only heard the creatures following being him, but he felt them as well. They were chasing him through the darkness, and chasing Sarah as well. They were following nearly close enough to strike, but he couldn't feel any warnings. More jarringly, he couldn't feel the metal being.

Just how dangerous it was to not feel the stranger hit him in the form of a blade, stabbing over his shoulder. It barely missed him, but it warned him that this thing was somehow invisible to his new senses. He couldn't rely on the warnings to keep him alive against this creature.

He kept running. There was no other choice. Turning and fighting now would be idiotic, and fruitless. There were two centipedes, and, perhaps, weaker versions of the things he had fought in the ruins. With just one spear, and no help so far from the Gerol, it would be suicide to fight them. Alone, he might have taken the risk. With Sarah at his side?

He wasn't going to stop running, not until the odds improved.

They would improve soon, he was sure. The Gerol were moving in the branches above them. He could feel the sings of them above him, at least twenty of the deadly spiders, but they were still getting into a position. Either the creatures would have to pass under them, or he would have to stop and fight to stop the creatures long enough for the Gelor to strike. Neither option appealed to him.

So he picked a different one. Trusting to his senses to guide him past the centipedes and other things behind him, Toleth switched directions immediately, turning around and heading in the other direction, and pulling Sarah along with him. It was unexpected enough that it should have bought him some time.

Instead, the metal creature reacted faster than he could have believed. One of the blades came down against his back, slashing near the base of his wings. He groaned, but kept moving. Stopping would mean death, and he wasn't going to die here!

Still, the situation wasn't good. The base of his wings was slashed, and that negated his ability to fly. He was still bleeding from his thigh, and running was harder with each passing second. The Gerol had to make their move, and soon.

He stumbled over his own feet as he passed by the centipedes, and fell to the ground. Grunting as he fell, Toleth barely managed to make himself land so that he wouldn't cause Sarah harm by the same movement. She landed on top of him, and while that kept him from falling painlessly, it kept her from possibly injuring the eggs she carried. He would keep those safe.

The centipedes surrounded them, and the various furry creatures set up a perimeter around the centipedes. Running would mean fighting, and he couldn't fight anymore. He was too weakened from blood loss and sheer exhaustion. Just standing to his feet again took more energy than he thought he had left. Toleth honestly thought that he would have fallen back to the ground as he pushed himself upright, but he managed to make it to his feet. He would not face an enemy lying down. He would not dishonor the name of the Haran Hunters.

Metal clanked in the darkness, telling him that the strange metal clad intruder was walking closer and closer to him. The centipedes parted enough to allow a man-sized creature between them. The clanking of the metal grew closer and closer, step by step. Toleth could see nothing, perhaps a glint here, and a shift of the light there, but nothing that could have shown him the exact position of the metal man.

The feeling of a blade against his chin, however, left little doubt of what this one intended, however. The blade pushed his chin upwards, just a few inches, but enough to make it so that he had to look down his snout at his killer to be. It pressed against his scales enough to cut a small line against his chin. Blood dripped out, down the blade and down his neck, the warmth a near pleasant change to the chill of the blade.

"What are you?" Toleth whispered, his voice thankfully unshaking. "Why are you doing this?"

The blade shifted against his chin, as though the metal man was surprised. Toleth didn't know why he should have been surprised, but he wished that blade had shifted more than it had. He might have been able to make an escape if it had.

It pressed against his cheek, this time. The tip lay just a few fingers away from his eye, and he believed he could see it, with his blood staining the tip. "A Haran Hunter...dares to speak?" the metal man said. It was mechanical, it was wheezy, but it was a voice, which startled Toleth. "I would have thought...the Purge had taught you respect. It seems...not. But your death...that will do the trick, I think..." the voice said. The blade lifted upwards, and Toleth could see in his minds eye that the point was directed right at his eye. It would plunge through, and drive through his skull to the back of his head, killing him before he was even aware of the pain. It was not a bad death, if one had to die.

But he did not want to die, and he wasn't going to die. Forcing himself to smile in the darkness, Toleth pointed upwards. He trusted that this other, metallic hunter could see in the dark. "You forgot one of the biggest rules of hunting prey, whoever you are. One must always remain aware of one's surroundings. And not being aware of these surroundings will prove to be your undoing."

The Gerol above descended as one body. Twenty of the smaller ones landed on the centipedes and the furred beings, and the queen of the colony herself landed on the metal man. Her sheer sized was enough to keep that one pinned, even though she couldn't bite through his covering.

Lacking this protection, the centipedes and other creatures were dead within seconds, paralyzed and then destroyed by the vast quantities of venom pumped into their systems. Their corpses fell to the ground a moment later, crashing from the weight on them hitting the deadwood of the forest floor. The threat from them was over, completely over.

Toleth panted softly. Sarah held him by the arm, both to steady him and to receive reassurance, he supposed. He wasn't really able to give her that, not right now. He didn't know what to say about this creature in front of them. If he was quite honest with himself, he wasn't sure whether he was going to be able to stay standing for more than a few more minutes.

But he would be damned if he was going to let himself fall while this guy was watching.

Distracting himself, he looked to the queen. "Thank you for tackling him," Toleth said when he was sure that his voice wasn't going to break from exhaustion. "I don't think that I could have dealt with him, not after my wounds from the test-"

"You were wounded?!"

Toleth winced at Sarah's voice. He had not meant to bring that up with her, not until he had taken the time to deal with the cut in his thigh and the one that had slashed across his back. "It's nothing you need to worry about, Sarah. Just a few scratches that were-"

"Just a few scratches? Toleth, I know you!" Sarah said, stepping back from him and shaking a finger at him. It was so utterly reminiscent of the way that a mother would remonstrate a youngling that he couldn't help smiling at her. "Don't you smile at him like that, Toleth! You'd take a wound like this and then keep on going for hours, until it finally bled enough to need more attention than ever. Now show me where you're hurt!"

He debated ignoring that, but considering that Sarah was the one that still had the weapon, and he was near to falling down as it was, it seemed safer to just go along with it. Slowly lowering himself down to the ground, he paused when he realized that there wasn't enough light for her to see in here anyway. Looking at the matriarch of the colony, the dragon asked, "Do you...do you think I could have a little bit of help getting to the border of the colony? I don't think that I have the strength to be able to walk there..."

Sarah's angry mutterings told him that he was going to be in trouble for that later, but he didn't really care. It was better to be carried and have her angry later than to worry her further now by falling on his face. If he did that, then he would really get it.

The queen gestured with a few of her legs at some of the larger spiders. Using some trick of their legs and webbing, they managed to pick him up and carry him on their back, the three of them acting as a sleigh of a sort. It was a little bumpy, but overall, it was more comfortable than he would have thought it would be.

As they passed the border into the sunlight, Toleth took a second to observe Sarah's condition while she looked over him. Her hands were rubbing along his thigh, tracing the line of his wound, while his eyes traced the lines of her wounds. They weren't bad, compared to what they could have been. Two thin lacerations down her upper arms, barely avoiding the muscles of the upper arm. It bled a bit, but not nearly as much as it could be. She had gotten lucky.

She reminded him with a slap to his leg that he hadn't gotten so lucky. He nearly bit his tongue as he gritted his teeth from the pain of her hand slapping down on his leg, the gash down his thigh burning from her touch.

"This is what happens when you're not careful!" she shouted at him, tearing a few pieces off of his loincloth. She wrapped it tight around his thigh, nearly pushing him over the edge to a scream from the painful pressure for a moment before he got hold of himself again. "I don't care what you were fighting in those challenges, but you could have taken a minute to get this wrapped up. I can't tell how much blood you've lost, but if you lose anymore, these eggs are gonna grow up without a father!"

"Forgive me...for being concerned with your-ARGH!" Toleth grunted as she yanked the knot around his thigh again, tightening the material even further. "For being concerned with your safety. I was rather concerned that you and the eggs survived for them to care about that."

"Well..." Sarah broke off, looking away. She seemed conflicted, before sighing lightly and laying her hand against his thigh. "Just...be careful, Toleth. I don't want to lose you. I really....really don't want to lose you," she whispered, a few tears leaking from her eyes as she kissed his chest.

He hugged her to his chest, closing his eyes. It wasn't hard to remember the feelings of loneliness that had filled him before this female had landed in the jungle. He knew that she still had nightmares now and then about what had happened with her crew. He didn't want to think about how bad those would get if they lost each other.

His reminiscing was brought to an end by the appearance of the queen again. She dragged the metal man behind her, wrapped up in webbing. She leaned her many-eyed face over him, staring for a moment. "You know...she is right...don't you?" she asked, her wheezing voice sounding more tired than usual. "You are one...of the last Hunters...If we lose you...the Gerol lose hope. We...would prefer not...to lose that..."

"I understand," Toleth said with a shake of his head. Hesitantly, he pushed himself upright. He didn't dare trust his legs, but he was able to stand up. "Now, there is something that we still need to know. You said if I managed to get through the tests, you would tell me how to change Sarah to my species. I don't want to lose her, so please, tell me how."

The queen clicked her mouthparts together faster, harder than usual, and he realized that she was laughing. In fact, so were most of the other Gerol around them, up in the trees and in the darkness. They were all laughing at his question, and for the life of him, he couldn't tell why.

Eventually calming down, the queen walked a little closer to him. She placed one of her front legs against his thigh. "You have done it...somewhat already, or she...wouldn't be changing. You...must continue to....lie with her. She...will change more...with each mating."

That was clear enough. Toleth blushed at not being able to recognize that before, and felt like he should have known that. After all, if she hadn't started doing it before they had lain together, what else might have caused it? He really was an idiot, at times.

Sarah looked at him with an expectant look. She nodded her head at the spider leg so near his crotch. "Is there a reason a spider queen is coming so close to rubbing your crotch? Whatever else she might tell you, I really don't think that she's quite your type."

Shaking his head, Toleth said, "It wasn't that." He blushed. He just had to say this. Just say it, and it would be over, and much less awkward for the both of them. Still, that didn't make it any easier as he opened his mouth and said, "She said that the only way to keep changing you is to keep having sex."

She froze. He couldn't blame her. After that one night in each other's arms, they hadn't joined together in some time, fearing that it would cause her greater problems with her pregnancy. There was also the fact that her nether regions were far more sensitive afterwards, always giving the appearance of being aroused, even if Sarah wasn't the feeling that way. In respect to her, Toleth had made sure that he never mentioned it, and never made any overtures to her, thinking that she would be the one that would talk to him if she wanted further attention.

However, she surprised him by saying, "Well, I'm glad you'll have a reason to lay with me again, Toleth." He simply stared at her, his eyes wide as she laughed. "Did you expect me to complain, after how wonderful that night was? I thought you weren't interested, now that I have this belly," she said, lowering her hands to her stomach. His eyes followed them, taking in the slightly larger, curved belly. It wasn't that bad, really, and it certainly hadn't turned him off. He was simply trying to be respectful.

"Respectful?" she said, and he realized that he had said that aloud. He winced again at her laughter. "Respectful would have been asking if I wanted to have sex with you, Toleth. What you were doing was driving me crazy. Do you have any idea how often I had to rely on the end of some of your spears for relief of my needs, lately?"

All too often, he was sure. He remembered a few of the scents and moisture stains that were left on the wooden ends of his spears, and shook his head. There had been little confusion as to what it had been, but it had been her business, not his. He wouldn't pry.

The Gerol continued to laugh around them, and he was starting to feel as though he were the butt of a very large joke here. Shaking his head, Toleth turned back to the queen. "I know this is your home, this colony. But can we stay for the night, and set out for the mountain in the morning? I don't think that I can make it back there myself today, and I know that Sarah can't carry me up the mountain."

He reached up and stopped Sarah's protests with a hand to her mouth. It was true. Even if her arms weren't wounded the still mostly human female wouldn't be able to support him and get herself up the mountain. It was best for the two of them to rest, even if it was difficult to spend time in a spider colony.

The queen nodded, and pointed to the metal man in her net. "I will make sure...that he doesn't escape...Just take him...with you when...you leave tomorrow," she said, walking away into the darkness. Toleth was sure that the metal man was going to be in for a difficult night, if he was going to be watched by so many of the Gerol as an intruder. After what he had done to Sarah, though, he didn't feel much pity for the stranger. He nodded at her in thanks, and watched her walk away with the strange metal man.

Sarah poked him in the chest as the spider queen disappeared. "If you don't start paying attention to me, I'm going to start thinking you have a thing for spiders."

"Oh, sorry, Sarah," he said. He pushed himself to his feet with some effort, and gestured to the ruin that was hidden in the darkness. "Shall we make ourselves at home? At least for the night?" he asked her.

"We don't have that much choice, so why not?" she said. She took him by the arm, and led him inside the place. "And while we're in there, tonight, the two of us are going to have fun together again. I don't care if the Gerol decide to get an eyeful, but the two of us are going to make love again."

Toleth thought of all the spiders and other things that might be in the ruin, watching them, and covered his eyes with a groan. He had to have picked a female that had an exhibitionistic streak.

~~~

Sarah felt her way through the darkness that seemed to be the one constant of the Gerol colony. She stayed upright, as difficult as that was. Bending over was too difficult, with her larger belly, and besides, crawling on all fours wasn't a fun way to get around. Besides, with the Gerol being a little more friendly around her, or at least, not biting her, she was able to shuffle her feet and not worry about them being bitten. Shuffled feet avoided serious damage from most obstacles, even if it meant stubbing her toes now and then.

Her determination to bed Toleth hadn't faded in the least, but doing it in the dark took a little bit of the charm out of it for her. Doing it in the dark, and surrounded by all these arachnids...well, that was something that she could deal with. Even if the entire population of her home planet suddenly appeared, however, she was still going to do this. She might blush a great deal more for it, but she would still do it.

She breathed a small sigh of relief as she reached the steps into the ruins. "I was wondering if I'd ever be able to find this without your help," she said with a small chuckle, letting go of Toleth's arm. Whatever he was using to find his way around now, he would be able to follow her without her having to tug on him.

The tunnels were as dark as before, but Sarah wasn't worried about that. The tunnels wouldn't have changed in any way, since none of the attacking creatures had made their way to the ruins. If the centipedes had gotten into the tunnels and halls of the ruins, then there might have been some cause for worry, but they hadn't, so there wasn't.

What she was concerned about was whether there was anything soft that they might be able to use as a bed. Yes, the stone was something that would suffice without something better, but she would much prefer something under her rather than the cold stone when she made love. It was like the difference between eating a fine dish in the dining room and eating the same dish in a dump. It was the same act, but the latter took some of the pleasure out of the act.

Her hands eventually stumbled onto one patch of moss, and she shook her head. "Better some moss than the stone, I guess," Sarah said with a sigh. She sat down, adjusting her loincloth a bit. She considered uncovering herself further to tease Toleth, but she wasn't sure if he could see her as well as sense her in the dark. It might very well be a fruitless gesture.

She felt back for her dragon lover, wondering what he was doing, and what he was thinking. Her hands floundered around for a few seconds before they managed to latch onto the waistband of the dragon's loincloth, and she smiled. Blushed as well, but smiled. "You can't do much with this on, Toleth, I'm sure. Some people might find it sexy to make love while still wearing clothes. I'm not one of them. Why don't you get this off, hmm?"

He was still, and silent, and she wondered if she had found another way to offend her dragon. But the sounds of the cloth hitting the ground told her that he was at least following her suggestion. She felt his thighs under her palms. They were pulsing, shaking, quivering from exhaustion. "My strong, powerful dragon," she whispered, feeling him, her hands slowly moving up closer and closer to his groin. "You fought so well, so long..." Her hands reached his scrotum, and she drummed her fingers over it for a few seconds. "Now, let your love reward you, Toleth," she whispered.

Her hands slid over those ponderous orbs, filling her hands with their sheer size. They pulsed, just as she imagined his member was doing in excitement. Sarah imagined she could feel the life giving seed within churning, ready to spurt out for her. It was a good feeling, knowing that she could make this marvelous dragon so excited, and made her feel a little more daring than she might otherwise feel.

A little squeeze caused a moan, a bouncing motion a panting breath. So many reactions she could provoke from the dragon, just with this small, sensitive package. She realized she was panting, and the realization called attention to the moisture sliding down her legs. Oh, she needed this badly...

"Toleth, sit down," she whispered to him. Her hands shifted to his outer thighs, guiding her dragon down to the soft moss that would be their bed this night. She slowly pushed him down, harder than needed to keep him from being stubborn. Even he would sit down, particularly when she made sure to push lightly, warningly on the sensitive flesh of his wound. He wouldn't disobey here now, not when he was weak. Tonight, she was the one in charge, and she would make sure that Toleth understood that.

She adjusted his tail, making sure that he didn't sit on it, before moving a little closer. Her hands on his legs confirmed to her that she was nearly sitting in his lap, her knees together as she kneeled in front of her lovely dragon. He was so lovely to her, so wonderful, so strong.

And he was hers, just as much as she was his.

She stroked his thighs, looking at his chest. At least, she assumed that she was looking at his chest. The dark made this a lot more difficult than she had thought. "Do you know...do you know what I did, over the last month? When I was...needy, I guess, to put it mildly?"

He didn't answer her, but she could imagine him shaking his head. "Well...I felt more adventurous, sexually, than I had in a long time. I already told you...that I used your spears...in my pussy. Well...I also used some of the smaller ones...but those ones...went up my other hole."

Toleth hissed. She wasn't sure if it was in surprise or arousal at the thought of it, but she had definitely hit a nerve with that announcement. She wasn't going to push further with that, not now. She didn't want to make him feel bad about not tending to her when they were together. She had wanted it, and another time, if he wasn't being the most...intimate...she might bring it up, but this wasn't the time.

"The point is," she said, pushing on, "I am not quite...virgin...in my other hole. And with all the sensitivity with my pussy...well, I thought..."

"You thought...that it might be a good idea for me to lay with you...make love with you...in your other hole?" he asked her, completing her thoughts. He was good at that, disturbingly good at that, but she appreciated it. She hadn't been sure that she could get it all out.

"I..." Toleth started to say, paused, started again. "I would love to."

She blushed at his words. "Then let me...let me guide you, Toleth," she whispered, moving her hands to his groin again. She pressed her fingers lightly against his crotch, feeling his member rise to its full hardness. It pulsed in her hands, and she smiled as she felt the warm wetness of his pre. "Let me have control tonight."

His silence was as good as acquiescence to the aroused female. She panted softly as she gently pressed him against the wall and ground of the tunnel, her hands wandering around his thighs until they met at his crotch. Her fingers laced around his heavy, pulsing member. It was so hard, and so hot to her touch, and the pre that ran past her fingers was like lava pouring down a mountain to her hands.

It was so hot to her, filling her with need. Yet, she could no more let go of Toleth's member than stop breathing. She kept one hand on it at all times, while the other awkwardly pulled her loincloth off of her chest, and then off of her hips. She threw it aside, not caring if she couldn't find it later. She needed Toleth in her, needed it right now.

Using her hands to guide herself around her lover's body was an entirely new experience, one that she wasn't sure that she would want to repeat later. It was a little awkward, and more than once, she bumped her head against the dragon's chin. Each time, she blushed, despite his assurances that she shouldn't worry about it, but she kept moving, positioning herself over him, her hand holding his member directly beneath her backside. Her anus twitched, flexing in need.

She reached out. Her legs twitched, quivered at the effort of holding herself up, but she had to do one more thing before she impaled herself on her dragon's member. She had to feel his love once more before he stabbed into her.

Winding up the dragon's chest, Sarah's hands slowly made their way past his shoulders, and up his neck. Slowly, they folded behind the dragon's head, bringing it forward. She did not hesitate in moving forward herself, pressing her lips against her lover's lips.

The dragon's lips were as eager as hers. Even as she pressed herself close to her dragon's chest, he pushed back, his lips flush against hers. Each breath he took passed from her lungs to his. Each breath they took was air stolen from the other's lungs before given back. Breathless excitement, total abandon with one another, the only way to make love in the jungle.

They kissed for nearly a minute, breathing, panting desperately for breath. Their tongues pressed against one another at the point of meeting of their lips, never invading the other's mouth, but always enjoying contact. Hands rubbed faces, and hands rubbed bodies.

Slowly, she pulled herself back from the kiss. She panted softly, her body shaking from the excitement, and her nether regions dripping from need. She knew that the dragon could pick up the scent of her need. His keen nose missed nothing, he was sure. Shyly, she stroked underneath her dragon's chin. "You...are wonderful..." she whispered. Slowly, she lowered her hands back to his member, holding it tightly by the base. It had not softened in the least during the kissing. If anything, it had hardened further than ever. She grinned to herself as she slowly lowered, her legs shaking in effort to make sure that this happened slowly, gently. Even having been opened somewhat, she needed to be careful, taking that large staff of meat into her backside.

With one hand on Toleth's chest, and the other gripping his penis tightly, she slowly descended. She felt it rubbing against her thigh, and she moaned as she adjusted herself slightly. It rubbed up against her leg as she moved herself downwards. Pre trailed down her skin as it passed, moving closer and closer to her puckering hole. She felt her need growing, and forced herself to remain slow.

She soon felt the touch of his member's tip against her hole. Panting softly at the thought of taking the throbbing shaft inside of her, Sarah grinned. She had never done this with another. Yes, sex was not new to her, but this...this was something she had never done for another. She was surrendering the last of her virginities to the larger dragon, and it made her glow inside.

Pressing down on the shaft, she felt her anus flex, her sphincters tense in an effort to keep it out. She fought her instincts, forcing herself to relax as the tip popped its way in. She hissed at the pressure, much wider than the hafts of the small spears that she had managed to slide in there, but it was a good pressure. It opened her, filled her, and forced her to give more, all at once. She had never felt this filled before. Ever.

More amazing, to her, was that this was only the tip of the dragon's member. If she felt this filled already, she could hardly wait to pull more inside of her.

With shaky breaths, she pushed herself further down on the dragon's member. It was so warm inside of her, and each little bit that entered her made her want to cry out in contentment. With the ruins around them so old, she contented herself with gasps of pleasure, yelps of pressure. It was...it was heaven, as she reached the halfway point and let herself rest.

Resting at that point, Sarah stroked her hand along Toleth's face. "Oh, lover...this feels...so good..." she managed to get out. "Please...tell me...is it...as good for...you?"

"Sarah..." her lover whispered in return, his voice tense, but filled with happiness. "Sarah, if you moved much more...I would have already lost myself..."

That was all that she needed to know.

Sarah grinned as she lowered herself further down on the dragon's penis. It was filling her more than she could have ever imagined, pressing on places that she didn't know she had. Her stomach fluttered with butterflies, and her nether regions burned with pleasure, pleasure that was fast spreading. She needed more of it, and she needed it right now.

She pressed herself flush against the dragon's groin, feeling all of the penis inside of her. It was pulsing, shivering, shaking in arousal, and she could feel Toleth's body doing the same under her hands. His scales pebbled, the way that her skin did when she had goosebumps.

Panting heavily, she raised herself upwards, feeling her hole suck on the shaft inside of her, both trying to push it out and try to keep it in. She shivered, quivered at the feeling of pushing it back out, feeling it slither out of her backside. She gasped at the emptiness it left behind, and dropped herself down again on it, needing its filling feeling again.

They were both panting now, staring into the darkness that held them both. Joined together, they moved together. Each time she moved up, he moved down; each time she moved down, he moved up. They moved together perfectly, a physical symphony of lust and love.

Due to the day, neither could hold back for long, Neither had the stamina, the energy, to keep this up for long, and neither wanted to. Rushing to love, they fulfilled their lusts with pants, groans, and sighs of pleasure on each side.

Sarah panted at the feeling of being filled with her lover's semen, feeling it rush inside of her back hole. It was so different feeling than when she was filled in her vagina, but it was just as good, if in a different way. Slumping against Toleth's chest, she slowly allowed herself to fall sleep. The last she felt was her lover's arm around her back, gently rubbing, stroking her into sweet, sleepy oblivion.

~~~

Toleth sighed softly to himself as he watched Sarah in the dark. She was a beautiful female, and was becoming more and more beautiful by the second.

Here in the tunnels, he could see again. It was a strange occurrence, a repeat of what had happened before the venom of the Gerol gave him the ability to understand them, but he was thankful for it. It let him see the changes sneak over his lover as they happened.

The scales that covered the corners of her eyes spread, gently pushing away her skin. It wasn't a ripping process, which would have been ugly, but a gentle, sparkling shifting. The golden colors of the scales glinted in the darkness, spreading up to her forehead, and down to her chin. It slowed, slowed to a crawl, but he noticed that it didn't truly stop, this time. It would take a week for it to really spread as far as it just did, at the pace it now moved at, but it still moved.

His hand around her told him that her tail was beginning to grow as well. A large bump at the base of her spine was enough to tell him that. It would be a nice one, he was sure, lithe and thin, without being a rodent-like tail, he was sure.

The little bumps on her forehead had extended as well. They still couldn't quite be called horns, not like the things that graced his forehead, but at three inches long, they weren't just bumps, either. He patted them lightly. She was well on her way to becoming something like him.

His senses tingled, and he turned to see the Gerol queen skittering towards him quickly. He didn't bother moving Sarah, considering that the queen had likely seen much of this before, in her life. Besides, there was a great deal of worry in her life signs, and he couldn't afford to take the time to move her and have the queen wait to tell him whatever news had her so worried.

"What is wrong?" he asked in a whisper, his hands gently wrapping around Sarah's ears to keep it quiet for her.

The queen shook. Her entire body shivered, and he wondered whether it was in anger, or fear, or if it was in some other emotion that the Gerol felt. "The metal man...he's gone," she said. Her voice was definitely angry. "I don't know how, but he got away!"

Toleth groaned, leaning his head back against the stone wall. "When?" he asked.

"From all we can tell..." The queen hesitated, looking at the two of them. "From what we can tell, he escaped shortly after he was pulled away. Probably shortly after the two of you began what you were doing."

"So, he's long gone." Toleth shook his head, and sighed. "Well, he's not coming for us tonight. He would have gotten us already, if he was doing that. For now, just keep a watch for him. I don't want him to sneak up on us without us having some sort of warning," he commanded. He realized just how much his life had changed. Two days ago, he would have found giving orders to spiders, and expecting them to be followed, ridiculous. Today, it was a fact of life.

The queen nodded as she left. He shook his head at her, and sighed as he leaned back against the stone wall. Tomorrow, worry would return, but tonight...tonight, he would enjoy what closeness he could get with his mate. He didn't know how long he would be able to keep it.