BLUE VENOM

Ten - Korah

"Yes, why?"

"It's just... They couldn't be dead." Joon ruffled up his whitish blond hair. "No alien race fast or smart or observant enough to kill them would make it over the boarders of the Glimmers without being caught by the Syren."

"We'll they thought my friends and I killed them."

"Obviously. If you crashed on their land you made it past their boarders. Of course they would suspect you. Every other race that might have come through would have to be to small to be detected and hence to small to be harmful."

"So what does it mean? If these Lifelings are dead?"

He huffed. "It means their royal family will have to die."

•

"What?" I blinked.

Joon made a grimace. "Yes. They are sworn to protect anything stemming from their Goddess. They fail, they get punished. I can see why they would be dead. Are you sure none of your friends killed these Lifelings?"

"You said killing them was pretty impossible."

"It should be. But you said you and your friends where dropped here by your government. This is strange on so many levels. It means they must still be aware that we, the black knives are here, since they are aware of the planet. But none of them reached out to us. And they dropped you on Syren's grounds. Strange, to say the least. What could they want?"

"There were creatures where we landed.... Some of us didn't make it."

"Creatures? Define that." His dark eyes glinted down to me.

I mimicked tentacles with my fingers and showed my teeth.

His face paled. "Poor thing. Faced Oh'rons hell biests on your first day here. How are you alive?"

"We ran a good bit. What are these things?"

He pursed his lips. "They crawled out of an earth slit on the Roughe side of the Glimmers. Showed up a good six months ago."

"Why?"

"Nobody knows. We just know what trigged it." He looked a little uncomfortable with this. "I may have had something to do with causing the slit. Rune magic. Uncontrolled one. Don't ask please. How many... How many of your friends...?"

"I don't know." I eyed Joon. He seemed deep in thought, ruffling his blonde hair again. Then he sighed. "Well, this whole hell slit thing kind of bruised our peace treaty with the Syren people. It's very fragile right now, to be honest. And once we get your friends back, it might get even more fragile. But there's nothing else to do.'

"You didn't answer my question, Joon."

His eyes turned to me. "What do the Syren hunt?", I repeated my question from earlier.

"Oh" He scratched his head. "They send out troops of their hunters, the tall, hunky ones, to hunt for the White Erich. It's an animal you won't know form earth. It bleeds silver and although the Syren's do not like to kill, they draw enormous power form the Erich blood. So once every seven month, an escort comes out to fetch one of these animals. They are usually watched by some very high ranking Syren officers or even royal family. Now that Lifelings are dead, they should be keen for extra energy to brew their freaky elven magic."

I remembered how most of the Syren had looked like warriors, tall and gruff and wide wide set shoulders. And the difference there had been to the smaller healer woman and the beautiful, elegant guy with the blond hair.

"So what I met weren't normal Syren's but their hunters and some high ranking officers or royalty?"

Joon nodded.