Xislik

Xislik is a lizard, a slimy, violent, ugly lizard at that. He spends his days and nights "hunting" prey; which means me mostly. He sends squadrons and squadrons of lizard underlings to find me and bring me too him. So I spend my time avoiding heavily armed and mightily stupid groups of several cold-blooded monsters. For they really are monsters, and they really are stupid. So one day I was stalking one of these slimy bastards that had somehow got loose from his squad and I finnally caught up with him. He was a massive specimen, twice as tall as I when it stood on its hind legs, which it often does, and at least four times as wide as me. As he caught sight of me he dropped with an earth shuddering crash to the ground and charged. His backpack, an idea stolen by Xislik from mercenaries some months ago, had a rocket launcher poked through it. It got caught on two trees and the beast swivelled all the way round it before smashing its head on the ground. I was still laughing when the rest of the squad caught up with me. They were just about to kill me when the rocket launcher went off. It exlpoded with a nice bang and dropped two lizzies that were trying ot revive their comrade. A branch caught another and the three remaining bolted. I didn't get injured but I knew Xislik wasn't going to be too happy about one of his squads being dismantled by his prey. So I ran, I ran till I smashed my head against a branch while looking over my shoulder. I was forced to take a rest then. Luckily no cold-blooded animal passed by there that day. But as I woke up my head wasn't feeling too good. Killing lizards is fun but a bit dangerous for mere humans, so I went into hiding for a bit. A few weeks later of eating jilnuts and wild Skids I returned to the rocket incident spot. I only got within two hundred paces of it. Xislik had moved his base again. I was in for a bit of fun after the boring hunt of scared Skids so I decided to test the security of the barbaric encampment. The first sentry I met was sleeping, typically. I crept up to him and took his rifle, a battered but functioning Mk-il 309. I didn't even attempt to knock him out, lizard skull is so thick there's no space for the brains. A second line of sentries awaited me about fifty paces further. The Mk had no silencer, and why should it, nothing was stupid enough to run towards gunfire in this jungle. So sharp shooting was out, that left me the ultimate weapon against ikle lizzies, wit. Im sure a human, from Earth, wouldn't think me very sharp but compared to these brain-dead monsters I could be considered somewhat of a genius. So I walked right up to the ugly great thing and bowed to him. His dull eyes went wide and he charged. I hadn't really expected that but it wasn't so bad, I stepped aside and he knocked himself out against a massive specimen of Frent tree, painful, and I should know. I looked down at him and kicked him, for good mesure, in the head. He was armed with some Solar war Th-62 antiquity, and it wasn't charged. There was no third line of sentries so I nearly walked right into a meeting of high placed, bloodthirsty giant lizards. But I decided to knock before entering, a special little trick of mine, I brought a young Hilka tree down on their tent with the Mk, and young Hilka trees are about seven lizards thick. That was fun, but the next bit was even more interesting, from my point of view. The remaining high-ranked sucker was shot by about two-hundred lizzy friendlies at once. I bolted before he touched the ground, he flew about ten paces before touchdown anyway. Lizards having rather big claws for a rifle trigger a fair lot of shot smashed into the tree I was hiding behind. Xislik himself poked his head out and bellowed at them to cease fire but im not sure if they heard him, if they did they ignored him. There wasn't much left of the high-ranked beast when they finally decided he might be dead. You could of mistaken him for anything really, a herd of Skids squashed by a blundering Kijong, or even the rest of a Jures's meal. But the stink was obviously that of a lizard, nothing else could smell so bad, and one of the brave inquisitors even said he had found a bit of a HT type gun, though I seriously doubt that. When they discovered they had killed one of the commanders they all seemed to shrink and try to not be at the front, like nervous school children. Xislik came out and roared for a bit then seemed to decide they were to stupid to even understand that killing a commander was not a good idea, and I had to agree with him. I must of walked out of my cover for suddenly my gaze was met directly by Xislik's, for an instant something like fear crossed his revolting face then pure rage took it's place. He nearly screamed at his two hundred strong lizard army to catch me. I grinned at the luck and ran off, the telltale crashing following me. I nearly bounded up the side of a tree. They thundered past, on all their legs, thats a mighty lot of legs, eight hundred, minus the one I caught in the Snap trap, thats seven hundred and ninety-nine scaly legs getting under each other. After a short while I dropped from the tree and ran back towards the base. He was there, pacing about looking rather crazy, which is not so unusual for him. I walked right up to his enormous back and shot the tip off his tail. That was more or less the end of our fight, he swiveled and let loose such a bellow that I admit I tripped backwards, but the smell from his teeth filled jaws was enough to knock a normal person out cold. I took another shot at the brutes head, missed and turned heel. I scrabbled through the undergrowth, Xislik so close behind me I could here his breath. He didn't roar during hunt, like the underlings, but kept his putride breath for running. I came across another lizard in my escape, and darted round him. Xislik collided with him but didn't seem any worse off for it. I took a sharp turn and found a wide river, I plunged in without hesitating and swam downstream. A distant crashing met my ears and I started to fear the worse. How annoying, a waterfall.
The great falls of the jungle, for I hadn't had time to find a better name for them, were huge.