"The Deadly Yark" by Jess Kachine Hickman

 “Yark!”  A young man fell back, bleeding from a dagger wound on his arm.  His opponent stopped attacking, looking confused.

 “Yark?” the older, blond haired man asked.  His bluish eyes roved around, looking his opposition over for the first time.  The bloody dagger was still clamped tightly in his hand.

 “Yeah.  That’s what I said.  Yark,” the other, a black haired youth of 17 answered.  His green eyes flickered from the older man to his wound and back again.  He was not holding any weapons.

 “What is ‘Yark’?”  The black haired man’s eyes widened.

 “You mean to tell me you don’t know what Yark is?”

 “No.  I don’t know what Yark is.  Is that bad?”

 “Oh.  Very bad.”  The dark haired youth nodded, backing up a pace as he clamped his free hand over his wound.  He grimaced as salty sweat mingled with warm blood. “Yark is powerful.  The most power full of all the Yeeks.  Yipe is second only to Yark yet is yelped more.”

 “Yeeks?  Yipe?”  The blond man was now scratching his head in confusion.

 “Yes. Yeeks, mainly Yipe, show up when someone yelps.  Always, always in a bad situation.  Their cousins, the Yowls, show up in minor situations only.  The ones the Yeeks don’t bother to attend to.”  As he spoke, the young man reached for his own short dagger.

 “How do you tell whether it’s a Yeek or a Yowl?” the older man, who was around 35 and had never heard of any of this, asked, utterly lost.

 “Yeeks are bad.  Very bad.  Yark’s the worst.  You want an example of when Yark will come?”  The older man nodded, still not noticing the dagger.  Light flashed off the blade as the young man raised his arm and flicked his wrist.

 “YARK!”  The other human clutched his throat as blood bubbled out.  He gargled a bit before staggering to one side and dropping to the ground.

 “That’s when Yark comes you see?  Now you get to meet him in person. Lucky you.  Not many have ever really met him.”  The youth sheathed his dagger before turning and walking away, leaving a bright trail of red blood drops behind him.