THE LAST KEEPER

They moved in a rolling wheel with sagiri at the centre, covering the remaining distance.

”Has something moved?” Salka asked. His bow was drawn out, and the same as Kolu and Matasi. They had slowed down after sagiri’s speculation, and they were now just a few feet from the nest. sagiri could feel Yavaga’s heartbeat now since it was beating the loudest among the creatures surrounding him. sagiri drew his two blades and held a defensive stance, too. It would be detrimental to just wait for everyone to defend him while he was just sitting ducks.

”We can’t go in slow. We need to go in, quickly pick him, and move out,” Matasi suggested, and sagiri was quick to refute the idea.

”The tree snakes are not the problem, I could kill a full nest myself. Something is taming them, and as we know, they are pretty feisty themselves.” Salka said.

”What then?” Kolu asked.

”We need to get Yavaga no matter the odds, so we keep moving silently,” Salka said, breaking the formation with Sagiri behind him and the other two at the back. Soon, there was water under their feet as if they had stepped into a swamp. It was muddy, but the water had not risen, so their boots were just submerged to the ankles.

As they got deeper into the swampy place, the archive grew even more restless, the marks under his skin stirred, and sagiri stopped. causing everyone to stop. He pushed his senses out, but apart from the rippling water under his feet, he could come up with an answer.

”What is it?” Salka whispered.

”I can’t seem to perceive another presence besides Yavaga and the tree snakes, but I know something else is out there, and it’s close,” sagiri said, shifting uncomfortably.

”You said you can only perceive the dead. Perhaps Yavaga killed it.” Kolu said.

”No. It is alive. It is hiding its presence like Salka does sometimes,”Sagiri said, feeling skeptical about moving forward.

”A beast that smart?” Salka said, not asking Sagiri about the statement he had just said. He was fully concentrated on the mission. ”Light up flares and throw them all over,” Salka said, starting to move again, Sagiri behind him. There was movement behind him as the others retrieved flares. Sudden light of different colours came on as Kolu, and Matasi launched them on different sides of the swampy place. Now that there was light, Sagiri finally saw Yavaga. He was standing still as a rock on a raised rocky place that stood tall in the middle of the swampy place fifty feet away. The stone was pretty thin, and sagiri could not imagine the amount of stamina he had to have stood on the sharp jagged tip for the long duration they had been searching for him.

Behind him was a cave where Sagiri could feel the thousands of heartbeats of the tree snakes. Yavaga was signalling as much as possible with his hand while still maintaining his steady posture, basically on one foot with the other on top of it. sagiri always loved going for a swim when he started hearing too much and feeling too much because it was silent underwater, and right in that moment, he understood when he saw Yavaga pointing into the water.

”Stop. It is in the water,” he said, and everyone came to a stop, even though they were now a few feet into the swamp. So something must have attacked the tree snake’s nest, causing half the park to leave and causing havoc for lack of a nest, and the ones left in the nest were basically prisoners. And now Yavaga was basically a prisoner too. The creature under the water must have been smart enough to hide under water to hide its presence, and sagiri just realized he had a blind side.

He did not know where the creature was in the swamp that was deeper towards the centre and covered a hundred-foot radius. Only one solution remained. He needed to immerse himself in the water; since the water was still, he could pick up the vibration of its heart, and tell its specific position. They could not get Yavaga out unless they killed it, and if it was so deadly as to hold Yavaga prisoner, then it must have been something dangerous. Yavaga had only carried small blades to kill the tree snakes. Perhaps the thing in the water had skin as hard as the gravescale, and it rendered his weapons useless.

”I’ll get in the water,” Sagiri said, and immediately, everyone said no.

”I brought you here because we needed to move faster. not to kill you,” Salka said, and sagiri sighed.

”I can’t locate its position above water, but I can pinpoint its location if I go under, and perhaps there are many. We can’t get Yavaga unless we know what it is that we are dealing with,”Sagiri insisted. He could tell that Yavaga was strong, but the beast in the water was not going anywhere, and they could not just go in blindly. He had promised Lotaga to return the favour for almost dying for him by making sure none of his team died. A debt always needed to be paid.

”Absolutely not,” Matasi said. ”I’m not sending a child into a deadly swamp. It doesn’t matter how many or how big whatever is in the swamp is. ” I’ll just make ripples, and when it comes to me I will kill it or them till morning,” Matasi said, and Kolu nodded.

”You should go stand at the bank of the swamp and wait. That is an order,” Salka said, and sagiri did not know how to refute a direct order from a captain. It was in the rules of the Galka War Academy to obey orders.

”What is a warrior who doesn’t follow orders?” Salka asked, already taking a careful step into the water.

”A rogue,” Sagiri answered.

”If a warrior can’t follow an order, then we have no order. A warrior endures without complaint. It’s in the creed.” Kolu added, and it seemed they were serious about not letting him join the fun. He could not possibly disobey three of his superiors when they had let him join in their mission. He had seen all four men in battle and they were the best of the best. Perhaps he was just overthinking, and there was nothing to worry about. He saluted them with a fist on top of his heart before retreating to the starting point of the swamp. He found a dry place and sat down. The flares were still on, lighting the whole place though dimly, and he could see Salk and his team approach slowly.

He closed his eyes and tried to pinpoint the beasts in the water’s heartbeat but he could not. The water rippled gently, and he snapped his eyes open. He could have imagined it, but the water was starting to ripple. Salka and his team had not moved three feet. It seemed that they were being as silent as possible and not to stir the water, but in the silence Sagiri sagiri placed his hand in the water, and he could hear the rippling of the water.

He was sure that no matter how much Salka and his team tried to move silently, the creature could see them coming. He could not shake the feeling that the creature was waiting for them to approach so it could devour them. Sagiri put his blades away, and his hand brushed with his secret weapon. He could have imagined it, but he felt it warming up. He did not have time to dwell on it, however. Salka and his team had brought him over to be their eyes, and he could be that without disobeying orders.

When his hands penetrated the muddy water, it was silent for a moment, but he pushed himself to concentrate as he had never done before. The archive finally stirred, answering to his uneasiness, and suddenly he could feel the ripples of the water. They were small, but he could feel them. three small heartbeats at the very heart of the swamp. They were surrounding the stone yavaga was standing on. Even as Salka and his team approached slowly, they did not care. They had their prey in their grasp, and they were just waiting to tire and fall into their bellies.

Muddy river scorpion? Sagiri wondered. These mostly stayed in the muddy river at the border. Had floods pushed them south, and when the rain ended, they could not go back. They were not so far from the muddy river, but it was still a few thousand vaara from the river. Had they been swept away as just babies and grown here?

Salka and his team were walking directly to them. It did not matter how silent they were. They were heading straight to them. The scorpions were highly poisonous, and once one could be paralyzed and just watch as they ate him alive. They were a savage species, and sagiri panicked. He had read about them in the central Pentagon library, and it seemed that it had come in handy. They ate fish and small life in the muddy river, but it seems the three had been taken out of their habitat, so they turned into carnivores. The only explanation was that they had tasted human flesh once, and that is why, when Yavaga came, they stopped caring about the tree snakes and just cared about eating him.

This was bad. No matter how strong Salka and his team were, if they were surrounded in the water or one of them got hit since the scorpion tail extended a few feet, they. Salka and his team had now covered ten feet, putting them too close to the muddy river scorpions. another ten or fifteen, and they would be in the range of the scorpion tails. They were huge creatures meant to stay only in the depths of the muddy river. They were not an enemy to be trifled with.

Sagiri’s team moved another ten feet in silence, and he could feel the heartbeat of the scorpions increase slightly. Were they excited? They were excited. That was scary to think about. If he could read the damned smart scorpion’s mind, he could tell that they were. He could not let them die. He had promised Lotaga. Lotaga had not hesitated to save him, so why was he hesitating? Rules be damned.

Just two more steps from Salka’s team and he was sure one could at least be in the line of the scorpions. Yavaga must have caught them off guard or, but they were seriously waiting for Salka and his team.

Here goes nothing.

without thinking, Sagiri charged into the swamp, but in a different direction. He made sure to cause as many ripples as possible. After all a creature was just a creature, and they had rules. The game that made the biggest ripples was the biggest, and perhaps they did not want to let go of Yavaga because he had made the biggest ripples.

The archive screamed warnings at him, and the markings on his body glowed, the glow barely being covered by the flares, which were already going off. His veins burned with the arches’ veins running through his body. Just when he got into the deeper end, he jumped in, getting submerged in the water.

Salka and his team had not missed the movement, and they did not miss the movement of three large mountain ripples towards him, their excited tails full of poison suspended in the air.

They barely had time to react as they watched the three beasts go for the boy. They had also not missed where the three beasts had emerged from, and Salka cursed, understanding what creature they had been dealing with all along.

”Stupid boy!” he cursed. ”Make sure its poison doesn’t touch you. It will make any pain you have ever endured feel like a massage,” Salka said, throwing himself into the water, followed by his team. Even Yavaga was now free, and he joined.

”This is bad.” Yavaga cursed.

”I knew this was a bad idea,” Kolu said.

”He better not die or I’ll kill him for disobeying a direct order,” Matasi said.

Things had now changed. Now that the three men knew what they were dealing with they the chances of winning had gone up.