The Loranth (Star Sojourner Book 1) by Jean Kilczer

for him. Go!”
    Yeth F'Aron's dark form tore holes in rain. I watched his massive brown neck ripple. He dipped his great thorny head, exhaled steaming mist up there among the tree crowns.
    Christine turned and fled through a stand of trees.
    I wondered, as I got up and stepped into Yeth's path, as I tried to numb fear, to numb all emotions except a desire to end the pain in my soul, if he'd like the salty taste of a Terran.
    There is a coldness deeper than rain.
    Soon now. “Rest easy, my little sister.” I closed my eyes and shivered as Yeth turned toward me. His roar rolled over my head. And receded.
    He was after the wrong human!
    I shouted to get his attention, picked up the harpoon, ran and threw it with all my strength. “Here!” I yelled. “Here, you dumb box of rocks.”
    Fang bellowed as the barbed spear pierced his tail and hung there, then turned quicker than I thought he could and snapped the harpoon's shank, dislodging it like a toothpick. He fixed me with a coal-black eye. His tongue flicked. Then he turned and lumbered after Christine. “Here, you solid-brained crote!” I threw a rock at him.
    I'd heard of sharks on Earth that repeatedly attacked one person, though there were many in the water. Sheer stubborn stupidity? Or a preference we just can't understand? I scooped up the broken harpoon and ran after him, sliding in mud.
    Christine screamed as he closed the gap, this mountain of wet mottled flesh with muscles like bridge cables moving beneath a thick rough carpet of skin.
    This time I reached him before plunging the sharp end of the broken harpoon into his barbed tail. Blood spurted. I ripped out the smoking shaft. He turned and grunted, then snapped a tree with his lashing tail. I aimed for his genital sheath. If I castrate the bastard, my reasoning went, I might just get his attention.
    Christine was past the trees and out of sight.
    Yeth's roar vibrated through me as though I were a tuning fork. But he swung his hindquarters away before I could thrust. I think I know how earth's first small mammals felt, scrambling to avoid the great piston legs of prehistoric giants. He bowed his forequarters, lashed out at me with his small forepaw. The blow sent me reeling through mud until I hit a tree. I got shakily to my knees, holding bruised ribs, expecting a jawful of teeth to come crushing down.
    ChristBuddha, let it be quick!
    The pain would be a terrible passage to oblivion. Ginny could ask no more of me than that. But the ground shook as he turned and pounded after Christine.
    “You motherless miscreant!' I beat the tree trunk with a muddy fist.
    There came a shrill call as two members of the family topped a hill at a lope. A pair of silver-skinned mountain slaotees bounded by on slender limbs, their nimble paws spread, claws gripping the ground, pearl-scaled tails flung high as they cleared puddles, logs, in hot pursuit of fang. The female, Silk, tossed her lacy shoulder crest.
    Far behind them came a single animal, tawny Trump. Built low to the ground, Trump was harder to roll over than a rooted tree. He plodded through streams of rainwater and over boulders, too stubborn to skirt them. His horned head barely cleared mats of leaves floating on puddles, and his modest brain, set beneath pineal eyes, was nothing a mudlumper would be proud of. But under that plated hide, Trump was all muscle and steel-minded tenacity. He wasn't the fastest or the proudest member of our family. He was just the deadliest.
    I started after them. It seemed I was destined to suffer fortune's outrages a while longer. I looked for the rest of the family. They were probably close by, maybe ahead of fang. It was a bizarre cavalry that arrived in the nick, but I was grateful, for Christine's sake.
    So was she.
    I didn't get there in time to see the rout, but she gave me a graphic account when she decided to talk to me again. It had been close for her, breathing-down-the-neck close.
    She was standing under a tree when I caught