No Trespassing [1]

The forest grew still. The noisy cicadas, birds, and various other woodland creatures seemed to sense a hostility in the air that can only be described as bloodthirst.

Woosh.

Kito landed neatly on a tree branch easily 15 feet in the air. His powerful legs rippled with muscle visible under the spotty brown scales. His narrow eyes scanned the wooded area before him. Nothing stood out at first, and he flickered his thin forked tongue out to taste the air.

Kito's face was mostly covered in scales, with only a few smooth patches of bronze skin visible around his eyes and lips. He was a lowborn with over 80% of his ancestral bloodline inhibited by the Fera.

But he still unlocked one of his genetic skills and he was using it now. His pit organs in his sinus cavity flared and a completely different image overlapped with the serene woodlands in front of him.

Slightly red glowing footprints. Five toes, small foot, shorter strides, yet even distribution of weight indicating a solid sense of balance. The paces were larger than the golden ratio for walking with the foot…the Huli was running.

There was only one problem with this image; there were four trails of footprints in front of him.

"Damned Huli's and their Glamour!" Hissed Kito angrily. It was always so difficult to track a Huli because of their treachery and illusions.

"Hmph, if you keep complaining Kito, it'll get away. Captain wants that Huli core, he thinks he can absorb enough Ancestry from it to unleash his next level of Rattle Archery." Spoke a voice that came from behind Kito.

"Yeah yeah Galt, just hurry up and track it," said Kito to the smaller companion to his left. Galt was a shorter Ipili due to his age, but his poisons were very sinister.

Rather than kill, they paralyzed the target while still allowing them to feel every sensation. Especially pain.

Galt snorted and moved toward the first path Kito pointed him to. He tasted the air with his forked tongue quickly and sniffed "my poison didn't come this way."

During the weeks they had been chasing the Huli, Galt had managed to wound her once with his dirk. It was a grazing wound on the side but the poison on his blade had gotten into her blood.

If Galt had been a little older they might have gotten her then, but before her body was fully paralyzed she had managed to dive into a river and waited out her paralysis floating downstream.

A few minutes later Galt pointed to the third track and the duo moved forward. Kito made a high-pitched whistle and the forest behind them began to rustle. A half a dozen tall bronze scaled bald Ipili came through the tree line carrying their blades.

They were beefier than Kito and Galt, and a solid six inches taller than even Kito who stood at six feet tall himself. Their height emphasized their age, and in the reptilian Ipili, the older the warrior, the stronger.

Their blades were the traditional Ipili war blade. A thick trunk of wood with the Ipili's own scales sharpened and wedged into it, it looked more like a savage club than a sword.

But with their great strength, an Ipili warrior could still fell a tree with one brutal swing.

The party moved forward into the mountainous forest. The Huli had been steady moving northward for nearly a month. This tactic of moving to colder lands was common for the smarter prey of the Ipili, as they knew the Ipili hated the cold.

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Huff Huff!

She was breathing heavy and low. She was so exhausted, but she had to keep moving. Those bastards wouldn't stop trailing her until they got ahold of her tail and exacted her ancestral genes.

Her garment of tanned leather was shredded in myriad places, particularly near her left side where she took a nasty swipe from a poison blade.

Her lithe figure was covered in dirt and scabs, but it couldn't hide the faint white iridescent glow of her tail.

That's right, her tail was glowing faintly. It had been for quite some time. She was constantly burning her Glamour. A normal Huli would have been long since drained of their genetic energy as they dropped reflective dust off their tail to create illusions.

But she was no ordinary Huli.

As she crossed through a clearing, the moonlight shown on her face. There was not a trace of fur on her pristine face, her large watery blue eyes seemed to take in the entirety of the moon.

She had six faint birthmarks around her cheeks all pointing to her small, upturned nose and pert, full lips.

They were the vestiges of the distinctive Huli whiskers, but hers were almost non-existent. The light-colored birth marks on her face were almost invisible during normal times.

Right now, they were faintly glowing a pale blue-white with the light of the full moon as she felt herself absorb Glamour from the moon itself.

This was one of the special genetic attributes she had awoken. She could absorb Glamour from the moon and use it to replenish her fading strength.

If it wasn't for that she would have long since died. It is also where she got her name, Luna. The tribe's oldest elder, her grandmother named her that under the full moon as a babe when her nana saw her absorb the moon's light.

"I must have made some space for myself now to rest. I've been running for so long, surely those overgrown snakes haven't been able to find the right trail so easily." Luna came to a stop in a small depression beneath a tree and leapt up through the branches until she could look out around her.

In the night, the smokey fog of the mountains pervaded everywhere. It seemed so peaceful. As if the world itself was ignorant of her plight, the smoke inhibited her ability to see down the mountain to look for her pursuers.

Luna glanced at the sky. The stars were so bright from this high up. Suddenly, she noticed the sign in the sky she feared most right now. As she looked, she saw a line of bright stars that ran across the sky ever so slowly. In front of that line of stars was another bright star, but it wasn't far away.

"Damn it, the sign of the Hunt still!?" She cursed to herself as she watched the stars move. She knew the Ipili were still after her. Her Nana had taught her Sky Clairvoyance from an early age, but she wasn't the best at it.

As she looked where the stars were moving, she saw a very dim star in the path of the Hunt. It was flickering weakly, and if she wasn't so high up, she wouldn't have even noticed it. As she watched, the leading Hare star ran into the glimmering dim star.

Huh? As she watched, the Hare suddenly dimmed and disappeared as it entered the area of the flickering star. She stared intently wondering if she had just missed it but was stunned to see the Hunt also disappeared after encountering the dim star.

What did it mean?