Simon Hawke - The Seeker

“Were you afraid?”

“Yes. Very much so.”

“But you did not let your fear paralyze you,” he replied. “That is good. You have learned well. Few things can be more frightening than a thrax.”

“Well, whatever those few things are, I can do without meeting them,” she said.

They shouldered their packs and headed east, toward the rising sun, moving at a steady, yet comfortable pace. Ryana was in excellent physical condition, yet still her legs felt sore from walking all the previous day. The fight with the thrax had taken a lot out of her, as well. She felt the effects not only of the previous night’s exertions, but of the stress, too.

She noticed Sorak slowing his pace slightly, so as not to make her work to keep up. I’m slowing him down, she thought. He could easily make twice the time or more by running. Yet he knew that if he did so, she would never be able to keep pace with him.

“I am sorry that I cannot move faster,” she said, feeling woefully inadequate.

“There is no hurry,” Sorak replied. “No one is chasing us. We have all the time in the world to reach Nibenay. For that matter, we do not even know what we are supposed to do when we get there.”

“Try to make contact with the Veiled Alliance,” she said. “That seems the obvious course.”

“Perhaps, but it will not be easy,” he said. “Strangers are always looked upon with suspicion in the cities. I remember how it was in Tyr. Neither of us have ever been to Nibenay, and unlike Tyr, Nibenay is still ruled by a defiler. The templars of the Shadow King will control all the power in the city, and they will have many informants. We shall have to be very circumspect in our inquiries.”

“We know the necessary signals for making contact with the Veiled Alliance,” said Ryana.

“Yes, but the templars doubtless know them, too. I fear that will not be enough. Long before we are aware of the Alliance in Nibenay, they shall be aware of us, which means that the templars will probably be aware of us, as well. In a city ruled by a defiler, the Veiled Alliance will want to take our measure carefully before attempting to make contact with us. We shall have to prove ourselves to them somehow.”

“Then we shall simply have to judge our opportunities as they arise,” Ryana replied. “Making any further plans at this point would serve little purpose. Remember, we still have to get there in one piece.”

Sorak grinned. “After seeing how you dealt with that thrax, I have few worries on that score.”

“I would have fewer worries still if we did not have so far to walk,” Ryana said dryly.

“Would you prefer to ride?” asked Sorak.

She glanced at him with surprise. He was always so serious, it seemed out of character for him to tease her.

“You have not been paying very close attention,” Sorak explained. He indicated the ground in front of them. “I had thought you would be more observant.”

She looked down where he pointed. “Kank spoor,” she said.

“We have been following it for the past hour,” Sorak said. “There is a small herd of kank somewhere just ahead of us. This spoor is fresh. They should be within sight before too long.”

“How many do think there are?” she said.

“Judging from the spoor, I should say at least a dozen or more,” Sorak said.

“We have seen no signs of any herdsman’s camp,” she said.

“No, which means these kanks are wild,” he replied. “They have all kept fairly close together while they have been on the move, so it is not a foraging party. They have broken off from a larger herd to form a hive and are searching for a place to build it.”

“That means they have a brood queen,” said Ryana.

“Yes, a young one, I should think, as the herd is still quite small.”

“So the soldiers will be quite aggressive,” she said. She glanced at him dubiously. “Do you think that you can handle them?”

“I could not, but Screech may be able to.”

“May?” she said uneasily.

Sorak shrugged. “Screech has never faced wild kanks before,” he said, “only tame ones raised by herdsmen.”

“And he has never faced wild soldier kanks defending a young brood queen,” Ryana added. “Do you think he will be up to the task?”

“There is only one way to find out,” said Sorak. “Kanks do not move very quickly.”

“Neither do I, compared to you,” she said.

“Would you rather walk?”

She took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. “Villichi priestesses always walk when they take pilgrimages. But then, I am no longer a priestess. It would be nice to ride to Nibenay.”

“Well, then we shall have to see what Screech can do,” said Sorak.

Within a short while, they topped a small rise and came within sight of the kanks. They heard them first. The clicking of their large mandibles made sounds like sticks being struck together. There were perhaps thirteen or fourteen of the creatures, spread out over a small area, their shiny, black, chitinous exoskeletons gleaming darkly in the sun. Ordinarily, kanks were docile insects, which was fortunate because of their very large size. Adults grew up to eight feet in length and stood as much as four feet high, weighing between three and four hundred pounds. Their segmented bodies consisted of a large, triangular-shaped head, an oval thorax and a round, bulbous abdomen, all of which were covered with a hard, chitinous exoskeleton.

Their six multiple-jointed legs sprouted from the thorax, and each leg ended in a strong claw, which allowed the kank to grip uneven surfaces or prey.

Kanks were omnivorous creatures, but they generally did not attack people. They foraged for their food, or else subsisted on small desert mammals and reptiles. The exception was when they were on the move to establish a new hive and had a brood queen with them. In an established colony, the brood queen stayed in the hive, tended to by the food-producing kanks, who always remained in or near the hive, and by the soldiers, whose task it was to bring forage to the hive and provide protection to the food producers and the queen. A young brood queen was generally about the same size as the soldiers, who were smaller than the food producers and had larger pincers. Once the hive had been established, however the brood queen took her permanent place in her nest in the large, central chamber of the hive, where she was fed constantly until she reached maturity and grew to almost three times her original size. She then started laying eggs, in batches of twenty to fifty, and she continued laying eggs in cycles until the day she died, functioning as nothing more than a reproductive machine.

The food producers nourished the hatchlings with a green honey they manufactured in melon-sized globules covered with a thick membrane that grew out of their abdomens. Kank honey was very sweet and nourishing, and was regarded as a major food source in the cities and villages of Athas, one of the reasons kanks were raised by herdsmen on the tablelands. Kanks raised in this fashion could also be trained as beasts of burden, and commanded a good price in the city marketplaces. Herdsmen also sold their exoskeletons for use in the manufacture of inexpensive armor. Kank armor was functional, but too brittle to stand up to a lot of damage, and had to be frequently replaced. For these reasons, kanks had become a vital part of the economy of Athas.

Wild kanks, on the other hand, though docile for the most part, could be dangerous when migrating to establish a new hive. With their young brood queen exposed and vulnerable, the soldier kanks became very aggressive and would attack anything that ventured near the herd. Kanks had many natural enemies, such as drakes, erdlus, pterrax, thrikreen, and antloids, which would descend upon their hives in voracious swarms. As a result, the soldier kanks always attacked together, while the food producers would gather round their queen to shield her with their bodies. If humans happened to chance upon a migrating kank herd, they too would be attacked, and the powerful pincers of the soldiers could not only rend flesh and snap off limbs, they also injected a paralyzing poison.