Another short story, hope you like it like Frozen Death.
NOTE: This is the beginning of Yautja history, not the ones we know. Everything is different and most of their words have extra parts. It's the original language, though it's not incomprehensible.
Predator: The Clan War
A Short Story by Zach W.
There was a time when my people fought for power. As with all sentient species, this war, the clan war, was catalogued by the elders. they wrote it with unprecedented detail and flawless truth so that future yautja would not make the same mistake. But there is no such thing as an inevitable war and war befell the yautja. My story does not lie within the newest of the clan wars, it lies within the oldest. When war was solely about honor and the rights to claim a clan as superior. now the fight over power and the rites of blooding. Now, they are shadows of their former selves. The true Yautja...
Part 1
Interesting how when a Yautja has the chance to seize honor by felling one of his or her own, he or she does not take it. How honorable it was to forgive rather than flay. Hopefully in the years our civilization flourishes and expands, it stays this way. But I have premonitions that it won't. I feel like future Yautja will forget about their origins and become slavering sadists, hunting for more than just honor...
Hu'wek's thoughts were interrupted by the banging of the chimes. The two sparring Yautja stood, placed a hand on each other's shoulder, and walked away. It was a signal that each had been challenged and that they had learned something from the experience.
He rose from his seat, perched on a pillar that was raised over the training floor, the m-shl'ak bu'nek. The two Young Bloods bowed to him and sat in the middle of the open-air courtyard. The walls were small, only half as tall as an average Yautja. They were tipped with spikes and on the spikes were skulls of various kills. Honored kills.
"Elder Hu'wek, might we Hunt soon?" His youngest pupil, Jk'lu, asked. The two of them sat anxiously as Hu'wek jumped down from the pillar and landed in front of them, his cape rippling in the perpetual wind of the planet.
"You two are not ready for the Kaendia Amedhae. The insects will spread and kill. You two will be lost and I will be training two new Young Bloods. How you two have achieved that name, I am ashamed of."
Jk'lu scowled. "We killed the Kaendia Amedhae! We are ready!"
Hu'wek condoned his insubordination and gladly answered his retort. "How did you kill them?"
"Well..." Jk'lu looked at the other pupil uneasily and finished what he'd started. "With the shoulder burners. Yes, Hu'wek, we killed them from afar. Not honorably, our Elder bestowed our names so we weren't the only Unblooded Yautja in the clan."
Hu'wek fiddled with his ki'cti-pa-ku absently. "I know, I am attempting to give you the true name of Young Blood. If you wish the rest of your lives with the knowledge that your honor is false, so be it and leave."
Jk'lu shook his head immediately and placed his hands up in a motion that he was defeated. "No, no. You are correct. Sorry for the disrespect, Hu'wek. But now my brother and I must leave." With that, Hu'wek's pupil got up and walked out of the training area with his brother, Wi'tek-ja.
Hu'wek turned, began to practice his skills. As an Elder, he was required to be top of his game and continue to learn until death.
His dah-kv'kte were sharpened and lengthened. He prized the dah-kv'kte that he had earned. They had scored him many honorable, the most honorable, kills. Especially being that they were forged from the metal that was resistant to acid thwei.
Thrust, lunge, spin, duck, those were the commands that were burnt into Hu'wek's mind and those were the skills that he executed. Next, Hu'wek detached his ki'cti-pa-ku from his back and extended it full length.
"Elder..." Hu'wek turned and pulled the fluid robe he wore to his sides. It was a Blooded member of his clan, Dhu'rit. One of the few that Hu'wek trusted indefinitely. The Yautja was holding a teardrop-shaped emulator. "A message from the Mhu-rik'ta Clan."
Hu'wek nodded and took the emulator, placing it in his right hand. A small outline glowed purple around the outside of the device, signifying a video message. He carefully picked the emulator up between his talons and pulled out the bottom, revealing a network of rods and boards. Next, he plugged the mechanism into his wrist gauntlet.
The Elder's mask was battle-scarred heavily. It had many marks burnt into the forehead but Hu'wek had only one. It slipped on easily and caressed every curvature in his face.
The video appeared in front of every other display on the mask's screen.
It was the only Elder of the Mhu'rik'ta Clan. He spoke immediately, wasting no feed. "My dear rival, Hu'wek. I shall not waste any time, one of your putrescent pupils decided to hunt in our territory." The video shimmered and then switched to the image of Ty'clin, who was chained against a pole. A rusty-colored ki'cti-pa-ku was driven through his head. Countless other holes were bleeding on his chest and abdomen. His mask was thrown to the ground with the mark of death burned into it with acidic thwei of the Kaendia Amedhae.
Now the screen shimmered back to the Elder of the clan, who was sitting now in his trophy room as an ostentatious statement of pomposity.
"So, you see, Hu'wek, we were forced to take the matters of law and order into our own weapons- er- hands. Hopefully you can come and reclaim his body for the rites of passing, I'm sure you wouldn't want him to get eaten by scavengers...Come to the Sh'uik Region of the swamplands. Hopefully the native flora and fauna wont get him before you..." The video phased into a shimmery cloud of silvery colors.
Hu'wek shuddered, ripped the emulator from his gauntlet, threw it into the distance.
"Dhu'rit, assemble the clan. We're going into the swamplands."
"Yes Elder," Dhu'rit bowed. "Shall I get the other Elders?" Hu'wek considered this carefully and came to a decision. "Ask Yet'uk if he wishes to join, but the other Elders must be left behind in case I fall."
The Blooded warrior jogged out the oval-shaped door to the training ground and disappeared into the distance of the arid land.
Hu'wek got all of his weaponry and equipment, he knew he'd need it in the swamplands. The local nature and the rival clan were a gigantic obstacle for his small clan to overcome. As he did that, Hu'wek thought about his lost brother. He'd been lost in the swamplands and then found. But he never returned to Hu'wek, though they were best friends. He merely faded into the swampy overgrowth, Hu'wek missed him. He used the longing for his brother as anger and rage, which would be taken out on the Mhu'rik-ta Clan.
He removed his fluttering robe and his ancient mask. He replaced the mask with a newer one, more adept for fighting in the densely overgrown territory of the swamplands.
Then he set off to begin his trek to Ty'clin's body, his clan would meet him in small groups.
PART 2...Coming Soon.
So? Critical reviews anyone?
