The Hunt for True Stakes
"Arise, hunters, we ride forth!"
"We are risen already, you were abed late." Came the traditional response.
"Whence the Ulrik-Hai?"
"The Noise is that away." Came the programmed response.
"Hunters, ride!"
Narrow, filiform hunting animals accompanied each hunter, a pack of four to a horse. Their senses acute, they were there to prevent an ambush, nominally, as no true-blooded Fillifer would admit to being surprised by an Ulrik-Hai, a "great smell" in their language.
A Ruk, in the Ruk's language, is a blacksoul, meant to inherit all that they see, a bit of a cat, but with four legs, keen on dropping everything they don't like off the face of the planet. They've been causing issues lately, and not just to the Fillifer. The Meritocracy, especially, had seen influx of Ruk that were only marginally less threatening than the Tlalor's invasion of the Tlalor Salient.
The Fillifera didn't care, this was a timeless ritual. Since time immemorial, the Fillifer had hunted the Ulrik-Hai, even the great ancestors had agreed it was a righteous cause.
Except, some of the myth had been garbled.
Over centuries, nay millenia of war, a key fact had been changed, instead of Fillifer and Ruk, hunting the Tlalor together, it was now Fillifer hunting Ruk. And the Great Ancestors were not around to voice their opinion.
It was a royal mess.
No, a royal mess would have been an improvement. Races genetically engineered to be complementary, at each other's throats? Ritually hunting each other for the thrill of the kill? But the Fillifer didn't care.
Neither did the Ruk, who thought it was a fine sport to hunt Fillifers, canines to their Feline.
The Solians, and the Terrans cared, but no one asked their opinion, life was always complicated, in the Epstein-Barr Galaxy
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