Hangman jolted wide awake when someone shook him by the shoulder. He grabbed for his kukri blade before he realized it was Viking standing over him.

  “Time to get up, little brother,” Viking husked. “It’s your turn to stand watch.”

  Hangman wilted in relief. “Make more noise when you come up on me. I could have taken your arm off.”

  Viking grinned at him. “I would have fought back.”

  Hangman looked away to stop himself from glaring at his big cousin. Viking didn’t notice. He was too good-natured to notice anyone acting annoyed with him.

  He walked off to his shelter and left Hangman sitting there rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

  He shifted his kukri to his left hand and pulled his second one out of his waistband. He always fought with two, one in each hand.

  He was the one who hand-chipped their inward-curving blades out of black volcanic glass. They didn’t need sharpening unless they got damaged in battle. Then he had to chip out the broken place to repair them.

  He was the only man in his band who fought with this kind of weapon. He had never even seen them in all the band’s dealings with other Godless. Plenty of men fought with kukris of various sizes, but they made their weapons out of bone or other kinds of stone.

  He glanced over at Cross sleeping next to him. Hangman would have left his younger brother asleep if this had been any other night.

  The whole initiation came back into Hangman’s mind in a flash. Cross wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man of their band.

  That came with responsibilities as well as privileges. Cross knew this as well as anyone.

  Hangman laid his hand on Cross’s shoulder. “Time to wake up, little brother. It’s time to stand the watch.”

  Cross floundered out of a sound sleep and looked around. “Huh? Where are we?”

  “We’re in the camp. It’s our turn to stand watch. Get up and bring your axe. We’re already late.”

  Hangman left Cross there and joined up with Fang and Alien. The four of them were supposed to stand watch over the camp until morning.

  Fang sloped around as listlessly as ever. He barely looked at the surroundings.

  Alien gave Fang a sharp look on the side and then scowled when he made eye contact with Hangman. Fang might be useful to have around tonight. Then again, he might not be.

  Cross limped over to join them. Alien gave him a sharp look, too, and then made another moment of eye contact with Hangman.

  Hangman shared that fleeting instant of silent communication with his much bigger, much stronger, much older cousin.

  Alien was hands down the biggest man in their band. He was even bigger than Viking, which is how Alien got his name. He really didn’t look human—or rather, he looked like another species of human because he was so big.

  He also didn’t wear his hair down the way every other man in their Clan wore it. He twisted his hair into dozens of knobs that stuck out of his skull in points. He never took his hair down except when it grew so long that he needed to retie the knobs.

  Alien had already been an adult by the time Hangman got old enough to remember him. Alien kept his hair tied up like that all day every day in all that time. He went off alone where no one could see him when he needed to take his hair down and retie it.

  His hairstyle made him look even more bizarre, but he had a straightforward, take-no-prisoners, get-out-of-my-way style of doing everything.

  If someone wanted something done, they only had to turn Alien loose on the project. He wouldn’t stop until he accomplished whatever it was, no matter how outlandish it might be.

  He had always taken a big-brotherly attitude toward Hangman—or, to be more accurate, Alien had taken a big-brotherly attitude toward Hangman since Hangman initiated as a man of their band. Alien didn’t pay Hangman the slightest attention before that. None of the men did.

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  Alien pointed behind Hangman’s back. “You go over there, little brother. I’ll stand watch over here. Cross, you go over there. Uncle, you take that side. We’ll start at the four points of the camp and revolve around it. If anyone sees anything or engages with anything, the others will join him to combine our efforts.”

  Hangman nodded. “Sounds good.”

  The four men separated. Hangman retreated to the place Alien indicated. Fang and Cross did the same thing.

  Fang obeyed Alien to the letter. Fang didn’t seem to realize or care that his nephew was ordering him around.

  Hangman had never been too sure about this, either. Midnight had been much older than Butcher and Shadow. Midnight’s sons were all much older than their younger cousins. Alien might even have been older than Fang, but Hangman couldn’t be sure.

  He turned outward to train his ears into the jungle. He couldn’t see much in the dark. The canopy blocked out moonlight and starlight. The firelight from the center of the camp didn’t penetrate the jungle.

  He could hear much more than he could see. He heard and identified countless night insects, most of them dangerous ones.

  He had stood on watch practically every night since his initiation. He grew up in this jungle. He knew the sounds of every creature moving around out there.

  Long years of practice trained his ears to pick up if they were moving toward him, away from him, or from one side to the other. None of them were coming toward the camp right now.

  He kept one of his kukris in his hand. He carried the other stuck in his waistband where he could get it easily if he needed it.

  He also carried a hunting knife in a horizontal carry sheath across his back. It always paid to come armed whenever someone went anywhere in the jungle.

  Movement caught his eye. Alien, Fang, and Cross drifted to their right to circle the camp.

  Hangman turned aside to do the same thing. He didn’t hear anything threatening out there—or at least nothing threatening to the camp.

  Everything in the jungle threatened in one way or the other. Humans were by far the least threatening creatures out here.

  The four men drifted five feet to the right. Hangman stopped again and listened.

  He heard a lot of dangerous creatures moving around out there. He even heard some of them pouncing, attacking, and killing each other. He followed their movements with his ears.

  The hunters caught their prey and faded into the jungle. Other creatures emerged to take their places.

  Alien, Fang, and Cross moved again. Hangman turned away to do the same thing, but he stopped in his tracks when he heard a rapid series of clicks one after the other.

  They blended together into a stream of noise. It rose and fell getting louder, softer, and then louder again.

  He grabbed his second kukri without turning around. Every nerve stretched to the breaking point.

  He snapped his tongue in his mouth extra loudly. The sound echoed across the camp and got the other three men’s attention instantly without him saying a word.

  Alien stormed over to Hangman’s side. Alien didn’t even have to ask. He heard the noise, too.

  Cross skip-hopped across the camp and pulled up on Hangman’s other side. Cross didn’t let his injuries slow him down at all.

  Fang ambled slowly. He didn’t hurry. He also didn’t hurry about pulling his twin axes from his belt. At least he was getting ready to fight.

  The four men held their breath to listen to that stream of clicks coming straight for them.

  Hangman snapped his tongue a second time. He already heard his cousins stirring behind him.

  The second snap woke up everyone else. Chaos and Vulture showed up next followed by Boxer, Magnet, and Banjo.

  Hangman didn’t pay attention to anything anyone else did. He tightened his grip on his weapons just as a giant whipping snake body uncoiled from the darkness right in front of him.

  The Krakelow didn’t fly at the men head on. That would have been way too easy.

  The creature unwound its enormous body from the surrounding tree branches. The Krakelow moved at lightning speed and controlled its movements with pinpoint accuracy.

  It coiled sideways to cover that whole side of the camp and hurled itself side on to collide with all the men at the same time.

  The Krakelow flexed the scales on its outer hide as it came. The scales fired out from the skin. Tiny whizzing darts slashed and pierced the defender’s skin—and then the creature’s body hit the men full force.

  Hangman stood his ground as multiple darts sliced his face and arms. Some embedded in his chest and stomach, but he couldn’t let himself flinch or even feel the pain right now.

  He raised his kukris and concentrated everything on the creature coming at him.

  It whipped and contorted its body in a thousand directions at once. The thing could coil and tangle itself in any direction at mind-numbing speed.

  Its contortions made it impossible to judge where the first blow would land. Hangman just had to wait for the thing to hit him before he struck back.

  The creature lengthened its long sinuous coils to an unbelievable size, slammed into the men, and whipped and looped itself in every possible configuration to wrap the men in knots.

  Hangman struck out with his blades, stabbed through the hide, and hacked the coils lashing around him.

  The Krakelow’s powerful muscles clamped around his ribs and one of the coils caught his arm. The creature’s weight and power dragged his arm down. He couldn’t raise it to strike out at the thing.

  He spun around and hacked the coil again and again at the same spot. He chopped a bloody fissure in the muscular flesh until he hit the spinal column.

  His kukri stuck in the bone, but he yanked it loose. Pain, fury, and terror for his life gave him superhuman strength. He had to free his other arm before the Krakelow bound him completely.

  End of Chapter 4.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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