Ta'roga: The Fixed-Blade Prodigy Of Skeld's Keep
Ta'roga was a recently Blooded Yautja hunter in S. D. Perry's short story "Skeld's Keep," published in the 2017 anthology Predator: If It Bleeds. He was a fixed-blade prodigy, too sure of himself, and one of three students under the retired elite Tli'uukop, whom the students called One Eye. In 820, while cloaked a hundred paces from a Viking camp, he was wounded by bowman Helta and fled with Shriek rather than face the fight. One Eye later sent both hunters back without armor or weapons, and Ta'roga was chopped apart in the yard of Skeld's Keep.
Biography
Student Of One Eye
Ta'roga came from a prestigious line, as did his fellow students, tall and quick-to-charge Shriek and slight, quiet Kata'nu, son of Esch'ande. All three were Blooded and free to pursue their own Hunts, though more training by an elite was an honor. One Eye had come from a long line of great Hunters, elites, and clan leaders, and after retirement he taught selected students tracking and wrist blades. He found Unblooded first outings tiresome, and this voyage was meant to teach Blooded hunters how to hunt thinking men. Ta'roga's physical skill ranked above Kata'nu's in One Eye's judgment, though the teacher still called the quieter youth the most promising.
After days of watching farmers and fishermen, the students grew impatient, and One Eye nearly took them to hunt great white animals of teeth and talon instead. Then the ship detected forged metals on a coastal vessel: Jarl the Sword's Son and his fighters, seventeen sailing for Skeld's Keep. Ta'roga dismissed the humans as primitive, saying they wore skin, not armor. When One Eye warned that they think, reason, and adapt, and that Hunters had been bested by them, Ta'roga still trilled that he would take a dozen trophies. One Eye repeated that trophies are the result, not the reason, and that the Hunt is practice and experience.
Ambush At The Viking Camp
When the Vikings left the knorr to cross the land, the students were to track them, choose a target, and engage at their discretion. Tech was forbidden against primitives except a small pulse-beam failsafe each student carried. Cloaked Ta'roga waited with his back to a tree a hundred paces from the camp, planning to take Jarl at dawn with the fixed blade on his dominant arm. He could not imagine needing the failsafe, and he expected Shriek and Kata'nu to burn with envy when he took the leader. His legs went numb from the wait, and after a bowman had passed, he stretched them, leaving boot prints in the dirt.
Ta'roga's boot prints stopped Helta the Bowman, who took off his head covering and focused on those marks. Ta'roga's mask blocked the sound of his breathing, but his heart beat quickly, and he knew a forced fight would shame him and ruin the Hunt. Helta turned away, then spun back and drove the first arrow deep into Ta'roga's right thigh, piercing the armor. Ta'roga rolled to his feet, furious, as a second arrow hit the tree and a third deflected off his chest plate. He snapped his wrist blades into place and stepped in to cut Helta's throat, but the bowman leapt backward and the camp came up armed.
Flight And Shame
Ta'roga was still in the clash when Shriek, recognized by his height, split Helta's head and cut Thrain's throat. Ta'roga drove his wrist blades into Sten's belly, then jerked them free and pulled the wounded Shriek back when a bludgeon broke Shriek's forearm in six places. The only honorable choice, Ta'roga knew, was to turn off his camouflage and fight, to face death. He was not thinking about the Hunt or his honor. He felt only a profound dismay that he had so badly underestimated these humans, and he ran after Shriek, clutching the arrow in his thigh.
Aboard the ship, the arrow had to be cut out of Ta'roga's leg, leaving a hole in his suit that a tab of disinfectant and a skin-seal then closed. Ta'roga did not meet his teacher's eye, as was appropriate. One Eye treated the pair in the medical bay and shared their shame. Early mistakes were tolerated as part of learning, but running was not, and killing them for dishonor was within his rights. He offered redemption instead: shed armor, cloak, and weapons, face the prey with bare claws, stay out of Kata'nu's Hunt, and they might erase their shame by excellence or by dying well, with no trophies.
Redemption At Skeld's Keep
Ta'roga and Shriek were on their feet before One Eye had finished speaking. Ta'roga fastened his suit and started shucking its armored plates, and One Eye watched those sincere preparations without comment, knowing both were still technically proficient. He warned them that if they disrupted Kata'nu's Hunt he would carry their heads to their fathers and tell of their dishonor. Watching from the ship as Kata'nu fought in the Keep yard, One Eye later released the pair rather than lose his only promising student. Ta'roga and Shriek then strode in through the open gate, weaponless, their camouflage turned off, still wearing dark metal masks and thin gray body coverings.
Ta'roga, the shorter of the two newcomers, dropped into a crouch and opened his arms wide as plague-mad defenders of Skeld and Asger crashed into him. Ta'roga tore arms from sockets and tossed men aside, then faltered as more piled on and hacked at him. Bjarke rushed in and opened a thick line of green blood across Ta'roga's back with an axe. Ta'roga turned and slapped Bjarke hard enough to break his neck, and Therin then lodged an arrow in Ta'roga's chest. The last armed madmen kept thrusting at the two dying hunters until Ta'roga lay a few paces from Shriek as chopped meat, bested by men.
Appearance And Code
Ta'roga was a fixed-blade prodigy, physically more advanced than Kata'nu and far too sure of himself. The fixed blade on his dominant arm was described as sharp as teeth and as strong as honor, and he also carried wrist blades, a cloak, and a mask. When Ta'roga entered the Keep, he still wore a dark metal mask, black beaded braids, and a thin gray covering, with no armor and no weapons. Ta'roga was the shorter of that pair, the one who crouched and opened his arms wide while the taller Shriek walked into the attackers. One Eye still called both of them technically proficient, even after the thigh wound.
That proficiency did not make up for Ta'roga's reading of the prey. Ta'roga called the Vikings primitive, boasted of a dozen trophies, and left boot prints in the dirt because he could not wait in comfort. When the honorable choice was to uncloak and fight, he ran. He later accepted a bare-claw return with sincere, solemn haste, killed Bjarke with a slap, and still died in the yard. The story referred to Ta'roga as male, and nothing later is shown of a funeral or a recovered body.
Behind The Scenes
Skeld's Keep was written by S. D. Perry for the 2017 Titan Books anthology Predator: If It Bleeds, edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. Ta'roga appears only in that story, as one of three recently Blooded students under Tli'uukop, called One Eye. The story gives him no clan name, no hunt name, and no parent name, unlike Kata'nu, son of Esch'ande. Shriek, the tall student named for his victory cry, also has no page of his own, and he died in the same yard with Jarl's sword in his throat. Perry had already written in the Alien and Predator universes before this Viking hunt, set in the year 820.
Conclusion
Ta'roga was the cocky fixed-blade prodigy of the Skeld's Keep voyage, sure he would take a dozen trophies from men he called primitive. An arrow in the thigh and a badly underestimated Viking camp sent him running with Shriek. One Eye gave him a chance to die cleanly or redeem himself without armor, cloak, or weapons. Ta'roga took that chance, killed Bjarke, and was chopped apart in the Keep yard, leaving Kata'nu as One Eye's only surviving student.
Appearances
- Predator: If It Bleeds, "Skeld's Keep" by S. D. Perry (2017)
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Novels | Historical Predator Hunts | Predator Lore
