32
Maximus loped through the trees following the rather obvious scent trail left by his quarry. As he moved, he wondered what motivated the odd little creature he found himself chasing. There was obviously something strange going on with him. He was more than a killer, but seemed content to lean into his reputation. That made sense, because every other competitor in the game was completely terrified of him. Given the chance they'd avoid contact, which in turn would give Taz a clean race.
The problem — for Taz — was that Maximus wasn't afraid. He knew the so-called 'Silent Knight' wasn't a real threat. Without his traps or any equipment, not to mention the time constraints, there was almost no way he could escape.
So why had he seemed so confident?
Regardless, Maximus was done giving the self-proclaimed 'human' chances. With his final refusal to relinquish the top spot, the only way to get it from him was to remove him from the leaderboard entirely. Maximus didn't have an ally who could fly, so the second leg of the race would cripple his overall time.
His only real recourse was to kill Taz and anyone else he encountered on his way up the mountain, hopefully clearing away several of the leaders so that his own score wouldn't suffer too much.
He knew that Taz did have a flier in his pack, and scowled at the knowledge. If Maximus somehow failed to catch and kill him, Taz would only expand his lead.
He slowed as he smelled water up ahead, and his eyes narrowed as he saw a fast-running stream that had cut a wide trench through the area. The scent trail he'd been following ended at the water, and Maximus paused on the bank, listening and looking.
Another gong sounded, signaling the start of another competitor, but it didn't worry him and he ignored it as he carefully examined the bank on both sides toward the mountain. As close behind Taz as he had to be, he should still have been able to scent him in the air over the water. The only explanation was that Taz had submerged himself, which meant he couldn't be far away. The stream was too shallow to swim properly and too fast running to pull along at anything but a cripple's pace.
After almost a full minute, he caught the glint of gold on his side of the stream about twenty yards up, buried in a mudbank.
Scowling, Maximus began to creep forward, dagger ready in one hand, claws of the other flexed to strike. Taz was hiding, hoping Maximus would overlook him and give up the hunt to strike on toward the peak. He must know that without a flier he didn't need to finish first to win the overall race.
Still, it was a shame. Maximus truly felt a strange kinship with this male. He wanted to learn more about him, and knew there was more to learn.
As he got closer he saw that Taz had been clever. He'd deliberately collapsed part of the bank over himself. It would have hidden both his sight and scent, and had Maximus not seen the gold, would have been stumped.
He crept forward with infinite care and made no sound audible over the fast-rushing stream by his side. At last, he stood over his quarry, then crouched, turning his dagger. He could use his claws, but the dagger was longer and more likely to be immediately fatal. There was no reason to make him suffer.
Maximus drove the dagger into the mud, and at almost the same instant felt an intense pain in his ankle that bloomed into such a radiant agony that he twisted instinctively away and howled as he fell into the water, clutching his leg.
Twisting, he got his head above water with a gasp and looked to see a completely mud-covered but otherwise naked Taz standing where he had just been, a bloody dagger in one hand. He looked down at Maximus, then crouched and picked up the dagger Maximus had left buried to the hilt in the mud.
The dagger Maximus needed to complete his leg of the race.
Maximus roared and leapt to his feet but immediately fell again when one of them refused to support the move. The pain was unbelievable, far beyond anything he'd experienced before, and he twisted his leg to see the tendon connecting his muscle to his foot had been entirely severed. The muscle was bunched up above his knee and the source of his agony.
As he rolled over to get onto his hands and one remaining foot, Taz flipped Maximus' knife and hurled it with considerable strength.
Maximus ducked, but the knife missed him by so wide a margin that it was obvious Taz hadn't been aiming at him. He quickly twisted to look and saw it disappear into the brush almost fifty yards distant on the far side of the stream.
The sound of rustling drew his eyes back to find that Taz had fled, and for a critical moment, indecision wracked him. He might still catch his enemy, but if he did he would lose precious time retrieving the baton he needed to finish the race. If he went to it now he could find it quickly, but if he went after Taz it might take a dedicated search to locate later.
Between his indecision and his pain, Maximus lost his choice.
Taz was gone.
Maximus roared, putting every ounce of his pain and rage in the sound, then twisted and made for his baton. Once he had it he shredded his uniform to make an impromptu bandage. His natural healing would stop the bleeding, but he would need surgery once he finished his leg of the race. Until then, he was crippled.
Maximus began his slow, arduous trek up the mountain, dogged by pain almost beyond endurance. Humiliated anger filled his mind and he lamented that if he had a pack, it wouldn't have happened this way. There'd have been someone to watch his back.
Taz had taken that, and now he had proven that he didn't need a pack. He might not be as strong or as large or as good a fighter, but there was something about the little human that seemed to put him beyond reach.
Maximus vowed that whatever that nebulous quality was, he would make it his own. He would finish this race despite being crippled.
He would prove borealans were more than just mindless killers. That they could form alliances and connections and be worthy of the same affection given to so many other races.
His was not a race to be feared, but cherished. They would all see.
He would win SDM, no matter what he had to do to make it happen.
Yet as he inched his way up the mountain, teeth gritted against the pain, he also knew that he had no solution to the problem of the human. He had been outwitted, but even that wasn't the worst of it.
Maximus knew with dread certainty that in the initial attack, Taz had spared him.
Instead of a clean kill he'd crippled Maximus, subjecting him to what would doubtless be the longest ten miles of his life.
Why?
Why had Taz shown him mercy?