Herbert Brian - Hunters of Dune

But the black-clad witches threw him aside, as if they didn't consider him worth killing.

With superior fighting skills, the Valkyries easily overwhelmed the Honored Matres. One of the women shouted, "Cease your fighting. Matre Superior is dead!"

Running behind them from the Palace, an appalled Honored Matre cried, "Hellica was a Face Dancer! We have been deceived!"

Uxtal stumbled to his feet, astonished by the assertion. Khrone had forced him to work in Bandalong, but the Lost Tleilaxu researcher had never understood why the Honored Matres would cooperate with esoteric Face Dancer interests. If the Matre Superior herself had been a shape-shifter in disguise, however—He nearly tripped over a moaning woman on the ground. She had been stabbed, but even so she clawed at him. "Help me!" Her voice was like a plucked string, controlling him. It was Ingva. Her orange eyes flared with anguish. Her scratchy voice carried an insistent anger over her bubbly pain. "Help me!

Now!" Blood oozed from her side, and with each wheezing breath the gash spread open and closed like a gasping mouth.

He pictured her dominating him, raping him with unnatural skills that could draw even a eunuch into her sexual trap. Her grasping hand clung to his leg, but not in a caress. Explosions continued around them in the streets. Ingva tried to curse him, but could articulate no words.

"You are in great pain."

"Yes!" Her agonized glare showed that she thought he was profoundly stupid.

"Hurry!"

It was all he needed to hear. He could not heal her, but he could stop her pain. He could help her that way. Uxtal was not a warrior, had not been trained in fighting techniques; his body was small and easily cast aside by these violent women. But when he drove his heel down hard, stomping with all his might on the throat of the hated Ingva, he discovered he was perfectly capable of crushing her neck.

With the terrible bond broken, he felt a peculiar giddy sensation in his stomach, and realized he now had a certain degree of freedom. More than he'd had in sixteen years.

The Honored Matres of Tleilax were obviously losing this battle—and badly.

Then in the sky he saw two other ships descending toward the laboratory complex, different from the attack vessels brought by the witches. He recognized the Guild cartouche on the sides of the hull. Guildships, surreptitiously landing in the midst of the fray!

They must be coming to rescue him, along with the awakened Waff ghola who remained inside his private chambers. He had to get to where Edrik could find him.

More explosions pummeled the side of the main laboratory building. Then a tower of flames curled upward as an aerial bomb exploded and demolished the warehouse section that held the numerous younger gholas. All of the alternative young candidates went up in a flash of fire and smoke, turned back into smears of cellular material. Uxtal observed the loss with a disappointed frown, then sprinted for shelter. Those extras weren't necessary anyway.

The two Guildships had already landed near the half-destroyed laboratory and sent out furtive searchers. But he could not get to them. Another New Sisterhood ship soared low, looking for targets. He saw a group of witches racing through the streets in their search; he could never get past them.

For the time being, he would simply have to hide and let the battle flow past him. The Lost Tleilaxu man did not care which faction won, or if they all destroyed each other. He was on Tleilax. He belonged here.

With the attention of the combatants diverted, Uxtal slipped away, crawled under a fence, and raced across a churned muddy field to the nearby slig farm.

No one would have the slightest interest in a filthy low-caste farmer like Gaxhar. He could be safe there and demand sanctuary from the old man!

Scrambling for shelter, Uxtal reached a section of pens on the other side of the farm, where the farmer kept his fattest sligs. Looking back toward his now-burning laboratory, he saw a group of black-uniformed Valkyries marching swiftly across the field. It was just his bad luck—they would come here soon, he was sure of it. Why would they bother with a man who raised sligs? Other female fighters searched outlying buildings, intent on rooting out Honored Matres who had gone into hiding to lay an ambush. Had they seen him?

Ducking frantically out of sight, Uxtal slid into an empty, muddy pen on the other side of a gate where the fat sligs were kept. A small feed-storage shed was elevated on stone blocks, leaving a small space beneath. Uxtal squirmed into the cramped space where the dominating women—of either faction—would not see him.

Agitated by his presence, the sligs began to slither around in the mud and squeal in peculiar high-pitched tones on the other side of the gate. Uxtal crawled toward the building. The stench and filth made him want to retch.

"It's almost feeding time," a voice said.

Twisting to look through the gap under the shed, Uxtal saw the elderly slig farmer standing at the fence, peering through the slats at him. The slig farmer began tossing bloody scraps of raw meat—more human body parts—into the empty pen. Some of them landed very close to Uxtal. He pushed them away.

"Stop, you fool! I'm trying to hide. Don't call attention to me!"

"You have blood on you now," Gaxhar said in a frighteningly casual voice.

"That could draw them toward you."

Nonchalantly, the farmer raised the gate and let the hungry sligs through.

Five of them: a most inauspicious number. The creatures were great slabs of flesh, their flopping bodies coated with dense mucous, their flat underbellies lined with grinding mouths that could churn any biological matter into digestible mush.

Uxtal scrambled away. "Get me out of here! I command it!"

The largest slig in the pen shoved into the crawl space where the Lost Tleilaxu was trapped, and fell on him. More sligs charged forward, pushing and colliding to reach the fresh meat. The loud grunting sounds easily drowned out the Lost Tleilaxu man's screams.

"I liked it better when all the Masters were dead," Gaxhar muttered. The slig farmer heard gunfire and explosions in the distance. The city of Bandalong was already a raging inferno, but the battle did not come close to his farm. The lower-caste menial laborers in the nearby hovels were not worthy of notice.

Later, when his sligs had finished feeding, Gaxhar killed the largest and best one, which he had raised with painstaking care. That evening, with the last few sparks of battle rumbling through the city, he invited a few friends from the village to his home for a feast.

"No need to keep such fine meat for unworthy people anymore," he told them. He had fashioned a table and chair from crates and boards. His other guests sat on the floor. In these simple surroundings, the low-caste Tleilaxus ate until their bellies ached, and then they ate even more.

Murbella.

He was supposed to be watching the no-ship. He knew that. But her name, her presence, her scent, her addictive control had grown even stronger since he'd started contemplating the possibility of bringing Murbella back as a ghola. It could be done; he knew it.

For him, the heart call had never entirely stopped in the nineteen years since he had broken from her. It was as if she had caught him in her own net, as deadly as the gossamer mesh cast by the old man and woman. Everything was too quiet during his lonely and tedious shift on the navigation bridge, giving him too many opportunities to think and obsess on her.

Now he intended to do something about it, to solve the problem. He pushed aside his rational assessment that it was a poor solution, a dangerous one, and he forged ahead.