Night Song (The Guild Wars Book 9) by Mark Wandrey (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📕

“Not nothing,” both Shadow and Drake offered at once, though Drake knew he and his brother absolutely didn’t mean the same thing.

Drake pictured his shiny new CASPer with the sort of longing that could strengthen a man’s tail, and Shadow kept them floating through suspiciously abandoned corridors on the far side of the ship from where Silent Night bedded down.

“Here.” Shadow grabbed a handhold where the wall remained solid.

Drake could see a door further down the way, so he assumed that’s where Shadow wanted to bring them. Though it would be much more interesting if the handhold covered a secret passageway into something more interesting than yet another door in yet another empty corridor.

Shadow hesitated so long, Drake pushed off the wall toward the door, and before his youngest brother could respond, the door slid open. Drake managed to snag it and kick his body around to slide into the room, not pausing to consider if someone might just be leaving quarters. He flexed to check his momentum, and dropped his feet back below his body, angling to hold steady and take in the large, predominantly empty room.

The three walls in front and to the side of him seemed to be large view screens, given each had a remarkably clear image. Each seemed to be a landscape of some sort, but none were nearly as interesting as the fact that a large Zuul—one nearly as tall as Rex—crouched in the direct center of the room, holding perfectly still despite the zero G. If he made micro corrections to hold his place, even Drake couldn’t see them.

“The pack arrives.” The Zuul straightened and barely shifted his direction. Drake studied his boots, but even magnetic locks couldn’t explain the easy grace and unusual stillness of the male’s body.

His siblings crowded in behind him, and Drake floated free of the doorway, catching himself on one of the few long, low benches in the room. It angled perfectly for his knees, and he thought it would be comfortable even in gravity.

“Listen to my words, and not just your translator. The time has come for you to learn your language, Earth pups.” The Zuul studied each of them as they moved through zero G, finding their way to one or another of the benches. “Kobo Ask’sha.”

The translator gave nothing in response to that, making it easier to listen only to the sounds from his muzzle, though Sonya cocked her head as though hearing something familiar.

“That is our greeting, Zuul to Zuul. I am Sei Isgono Hosh, Isgono of Cho’Hosh, Sei in my clan.”

The translator tried for most of the words, though the clan name and ‘Sei’ gave it some trouble. Drake tuned out the translator with the skill of one who’d long mastered selective hearing when it served him, missing the meaning of the older Zuul’s next words, but following the pitch of it.

“Sei Isgono Hosh,” Shadow said, “I would like to introduce—”

The sound Isgono made was so clearly a negative, Drake’s jaw dropped into a smile. He’d assumed Shadow had brought them to yet another old crazy person—this one having the unique distinction of being Zuul instead of odd-smelling Human—and old crazy Humans tended to love Shadow. They said he was cute. All eyes and sweet-faced.

This Isgono, though he might be old and could still certainly be crazy, had no such overwhelming fondness for his brother. Though he’d still rather be in his CASPer, making the Humans look slow and weak even in their own armor, this diversion became more tolerable.

“Rex. Ripley. Sonya. Drake. Shadow.” The Zuul gestured to the correct sibling with each sound, his expression flat, his accent changing each of the names slightly, making them sound…off. Not Zuul, exactly, but not as mundanely Human as they were.

“Ja,” Isgono continued, pointing to each wall. Drake tore his eyes from the Zuul, taking in the images properly.

The wall opposite was a cityscape, he realized belatedly, then realized they all were. If the translator had offered anything, he’d missed it, and from Isgono’s tone and the images, Drake figured these were of a city called Ja, or multiple cities on a place called Ja. The latter, he thought, for each was slightly different. One seemed to be a city made of hills, or hills made of city. In another, buildings spun around the bases of enormous tree-like growths—not as high as humans might have gone, but in a sprawl that didn’t seem to have damaged the almost-plants. The third showed towering waves frozen mid-fall toward a coast, with buildings sweeping away from the beach into what looked like a field of over-tall, thin plants.

Drake missed the next few points Isgono might have made, considering how tall that grass-analogue must be, and how fun it would be to hunt through it. What creatures had Zuul chased, evolutions ago? What did they hunt now, at home? Or did they, with the broad stretch of the galaxy giving them alien, intelligent prey?

“You know our clan,” Shadow said, and Drake pulled his attention back to his siblings and their new acquaintance.

“Knew.” Isgono lifted his face in what they were currently treating as up, closing his eyes for a breath. “Your clan has been considered dead for many years.”

“How do you know who our clan is?” Sonya asked, sitting forward so fast she floated off the bench before Ripley snagged her.

“We have a scent,” Shadow said, when Isgono didn’t look inclined to answer. “Family shares a smell.”

“Idiot,” Rex snorted, then interrupted himself by breathing in again, more deeply.

“Clan has a scent,” Isgono confirmed, looking steadily at each of them, somehow.

“How many years?” Drake asked, filing that fact away. Interesting, sure, but until a handful of weeks ago, he’d never smelled a Zuul not of his family, so it felt of limited use for the moment. “How