by Maia Tanith
Eventually I drift off to sleep.
I wake, disoriented. The room is bathed in a fierce, bright light that hurts my eyes. The blanket that covered us is ripped off and I look, blinking, into the face of one of the claw-men. He reaches down and clips the leash on to my collar, jerking on it savagely. “Get up.”
Faye looks on helplessly as he jerks me to my feet.
Delia sits up and brushes her hair out of her eyes Her face is puffy from sleep and weeping. “Where are you taking Hannah?” she asks, her voice trembling. “You can’t take her away.” She is close to hysteria.
The guard cuffs her lazily around the ears, and she scoots backwards with a sob, holding her hand to her face. A reddened handprint stands out against her white skin as if it has been painted on.
I throw them an agonized glance as I trail after the claw-man, but I do not dare to speak for fear of a beating. Tears run down my face. Faye and Delia were my last remnants of home. I may never see them again.
I may never see another human again.
The light outside is blinding to my tear-filled eyes.
I look up to my left. A sun. A giant red sun that takes up half the sky.
Okay, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but seriously, it’s huge! At least three times as big as Earth’s sun.
Everything is bathed in an eerie red glow. I imagine that this is what hell would look like.
Hell, but without the warmth.
Naked as I am, I’m cold. I wrap my arms around my body in a vain attempt to keep warm.
I risk a quick glance behind me, hoping for one last glimpse of Faye and Delia.
There is no sign of them, but I do see what we have been transported here in.
It’s a space shuttle, squat and snub-nosed. An honest-to-God spacecraft. And it’s not the only one here.
We have landed in what looks to be a commercial space port. It looks a bit like a giant airport, but instead of airplanes, there are spaceships parked up.
A huge metallic structure of girders and cross beams towers above me. Small buildings are dotted around the area.
Everywhere there are space craft of all shapes and sizes, with claw-men scurrying around them. Not just claw-men, either. A humanoid with grey, wrinkled skin and a single horn like a rhinoceros walks past. In the distance, I would swear I can see things that look like dinosaurs.
“Help,” I yell at the humanoid. “I’ve been kidnapped.”
He gives me an incurious glance and saunters on past as if I haven’t spoken.
Claw-man chuckles at my naivete. “Here on this planet, you’re property. Property of the empire, what’s more. No one is going to spare you a second glance, let alone put their own skins in danger to steal you away. That would be theft, and the Emperor doesn’t like thieves. Believe me, you don’t want the Emperor to not like you.”
He’s right about the lack of help. None of the other workers on the spaceport pay us any attention at all. Some of them assiduously look away when we draw near.
I stumble over a rock and Claw-man yanks the leash impatiently. I whimper as the spines bite into me again, but obediently trot a little faster. I hate myself for it.
We’re headed towards a large circular dome shimmering in the distance on the far side of the space port.
The distance feels interminable, but Claw-man lopes along with enthusiasm, rolling his shoulders as if he is glad to be out in the open air and away from the shuttle. I try to keep up as best I can. The burns on my neck itch.
The edge of the space port is marked by a glowing fence. Claw-man holds out the disc that he is wearing around his neck and the glow dims for long enough for us both to pass through. I stare at the markings on the disc as he lets it fall back onto his chest. It may just be my ticket to escape this planet. If I can escape from the claw-men. Find a spare spaceship. Learn how to fly it. Navigate it safely back to Earth. Land it in my hometown.
It all sounds pretty far-fetched when I think about it too carefully.
I refuse to give up, though. I’m a survivor. I won’t go down without a fight.
We are close to the dome now. From here I can see just how enormous it is. At least one hundred times the size of the stadium in Chicago.
A walkway runs along the outside edge. Claw-man trots along it, then down some steps, pulling me so that I overbalance and fall down the last few. My knees hurt where I fell on them, and I have scraped both my hands raw. He really gets a kick out of showing me that he’s the boss.
His disc opens a door that leads to a long, dark corridor. An animal smell wafts out of the opening and I wrinkle my nose. It smells like a snake cage that hasn’t been cleaned in, well, ever. I’m not a fan of snakes. I always told the owners of snakes and lizards to take them to the vet center in the city. I pretended it was because I didn’t know how to treat them, but really it was because I didn’t want to touch their dry, scaly bodies.
I really don’t want to go in there. Who knows what is waiting in the darkness for me. Claw-man has to pull me inside by brute force. I resist all I can, but I am powerless against the strength of his arm and the burning of the collar.
A shriek of terror claws its way up my throat as the door to outside closes behind us.
With the harsh sunlight banished, the gloom is not so intense. As my eyes adjust, I can make out cells lining the outer edge of the corridor, with cage doors made from a metal grid like you would find on a super-strength dog cage.
The claw-man traces a path on the far wall away from the cages, deftly avoiding the occasional talon that spikes through the cage doors. Green eyes stare at me balefully as I follow in his path, hugging the plain wall.
We have passed maybe a dozen cells when claw-man stops in front of one of the cage doors. “On your knees, Taark, and hands in the air.”
A man stalks out from the darkness at the back of the cell. Thank Heavens he’s a man and not a reptile, despite the overpowering smell of snake that assaults me. Mostly a man, anyways.
Now that I look closer, I can see he’s a claw-man, just like my guard.
Even for a claw-man, though, he’s beautiful. His skin glows a dusky caramel and his body, well, I’ve never seen a body half as ripped as that. I stand there with my mouth open, simply looking at him.
“Or what?” Taark snarls. “You’ll shoot me?” He spreads his arms out wide. “Go ahead. Do your worst. I’m not afraid of dying.”
My captor gives an ugly laugh and puts one hand on the weapon by his side. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? But I won’t shoot to kill. That’d be way too easy. I’ll blow out your kneecaps and they can drag you to the arena, crippled. Think about how much sport you’d provide for our lizard friends if you couldn’t fight back. You could last for days out there.”
“You would deprive me of the fun of gutting a lizard?” His words seem light enough, but I can see the banked fury in his eyes. Moving stiffly, every movement a protest, he gets onto his knees and puts his hands on his head. “If you insist.”
I can sense the fear that lies beneath his fury. Whatever these lizard things are, he doesn’t like them. Not at all.
If it’s those lizard things I can smell, then I don’t like them any more than he does.
Any worries I have about the lizard things evaporate when claw-man grabs tightly on to my hair with one hand and unclips my collar with the other. Then, with a smooth movement, he opens the door to the cage, propels me forward violently, and then shuts the door behind me.
I sprawl hard on the ground, skinning my hands again.
The pain in my hands is the least of my worries.
I am naked, and I am locked up in a cage with a claw-man. With an angry, frightened claw-man.
And I have no way out.
Taark
I stare after Graab the guard as he struts his way down the corridor. To the outside, to the warmth of the sun and the openness of the sky. To the feel of dirt and grass beneath his feet instead of blank, soulless metal.
To f
reedom.
I have never hated anyone as much as I hate him right now. He’s always been a nasty little suck-up, but now that I am caged and helpless, he is positively delighting in my pain.
He’d love to hurt me further, to cripple me so that I die a coward’s death. I won’t give him the satisfaction of fighting back so that he has an excuse to injure me. Though it kills my soul to cooperate with such a vicious little rat as he is, I am determined to die with honor.
The sad creature he has thrown in the cage with me gives a whimper of pain. She is shivering with fright.
At the sight of her, my temper flares anew. This pathetic creature is what they have given me to be my mate? Do they think her a suitable replacement for Marfin, the soldier and friend who would have been my chosen mate?
My anger builds in me at the disrespect. I do not even rate one of my own species, a proud she-warrior who would fight and die at my side. No, I have a soft and mewling half-grown kit, a weakling with the courage of a worm.
I would not disgrace my race to mate with such a one as she.
Still, I am not heartless. “He’s gone,” I say, to stop her shivers. “You’re safe.” It’s not a lie, though it’s not the whole truth either. She is safe for now. She is safe until the Games begin.
She looks up at me. Her eyes are an unusual blue color, and they are swimming with tears. She rises to her feet, limps to the door and spits through the bars. “That’s what I think about him,” she hisses.
So, she has a little fight in her, this mewling kitten? I am pleasantly surprised. “He’s filth,” I agree.
“All claw-men are filth,” she mutters to herself. I have the sharp ears of my kind and hear her words as clear as day. “Disgusting, filthy, rank…animals.”
Good. I am glad that she wants to mate with me as little as I want to mate with her. I am in no mood for pandering to love-sick kittens.
It still bites that she calls me disgusting and rank. By nature, I prefer cleanliness, but I have been locked in a cage with little enough water to drink for these past three turns, and none at all spare to wash. Would she smell of attar of roses herself in such conditions?
I bare my teeth at her and growl my displeasure.
She scoots backwards as fast as she can, and huddles onto the pallet in the far corner, her arms hugging her knees and those blue eyes of hers wide with terror.
I hate the way she looks at me, as if I am as vile as Graab.
With one last growl, I turn my back on her and set about ignoring her presence. Her disgust makes me hate her, and I hate myself for hating her.
I have only been caged for three turns, and already I am turning into a beast. I am becoming as bad as they are.
Hannah
The claw-man I am caged with turns his back on me.
His growl is the most terrifying noise I have ever heard. I honestly thought he was about to launch himself at me and rip my head off with his bare teeth. Given what I’ve seen from the other claw-men, I’m sure he is quite capable of it.
Luckily for me, his bark is worse than his bite. He’s just ignoring me now. I take this as a good sign that he’s not going to attack me.
Without his glare pinning me to the wall, I recover enough to look around me. There is little enough to see. Two blank walls, one wall with a small barred opening high up and one wall a grid of metal bars that looks into the corridor.
I already know what the corridor holds, so I stand on my tiptoes to look out of the opening in the wall. Not much out there, either. A patch of bare ground and a structure that blocks out most of the sun. Fresh air comes streaming through, though. Air that doesn’t smell so badly of snake. I take a few deep breaths to give me the courage to deal with my cellmate.
I’ve heard that if you are taken hostage, the trick is to make your captor see you as a human being. To empathize with you. That way they find it more difficult to see you as an ‘other’, and to hurt you. “I’m Hannah,” I say softly. “Who are you?”
A long silence. I start to think he has fallen asleep standing up. “Taark.” His voice is a low growl that sends shivers up and down my spine.
Despite my uneasiness I persevere. “I was taken off my planet and brought here. I don’t even know what planet I am on. Where is here?”
“Xill.”
I look at him blankly as I rub the itchy rash on my neck. I have never heard the word before, let alone understand what it means. I don’t even think I could pronounce it.
“We’re on Xill,” he repeats, as if I am particularly stupid. “Third plant from Darstin in the Arkon Galaxy.”
I am so far out of my depth, I’m about to drown. I cast about for something else to connect with him over. “Were you abducted, too?”
He has mastered the ability to look both contemptuous and bored at the same time. He shrugs. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Because you look just like those other claw-men. The ones that brought me here.”
He sticks out one hand and extends the claws from his knuckles. “That is because I am a ‘claw-man’, as you so eloquently call us.”
His claws are almost as long as my entire forearm and look wicked sharp. I jump back in a hurry, stubbing my toe on the floor. I don’t want to accidentally end up on the wrong end of one of those. They are nasty. “Why would they go to the bother of snatching you off your planet and bringing you here.” I kick the wall, but only end up bruising my bare toes again.
Somehow, this petty indignity comes close to breaking me. “And why would they bother snatching me?” I am almost crying with frustration. Taark won’t answer my questions, and even when he does, I don’t understand the answers.
“The Games.” He looks at me as if he is expecting me to freak out or something.
“The games? What games?”
He retracts his claws again with a hiss of irritation. “Do not tell me you haven’t heard of the Xillian Games? What kind of backwards planet did they find you on?”
I see red. “Look, buster,” I say, striding up to him and poking him in his glorious chest with my forefinger, too angry to even worry about his claws coming out again. “Two days ago I was quietly chilling out on Earth, minding my own business. I thought space travel between galaxies was an impossibility. Or more precisely, I never thought about it at all. I thought aliens were little green men that lived on Mars that you saw in cheesy old movies.
“I’ve never heard of your stupid planet and its stupid games. That doesn’t make me stupid. It just makes me…uninformed. So please, go ahead. Inform me. Then you can stop looking down your nose at me like I’m a bug you found floating in your soup.”
He swipes my finger away with a lazy hand and I shiver at the suppressed strength in his movements. Maybe it isn’t so smart of me to bait him. One swipe with his claws out and I would be lying dead on the floor, with my throat cut.
“Xill is famous for its games. They provide entertainment for half the galaxy.” He makes a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. “The more reprehensible half.”
I’ve never been the athletic type. “They won’t get much fun from watching me,” I say. “I can’t run particularly fast or throw heavy things I’ll lose right away.”
The bitterness in his laugh sends shivers of fear snaking down my back. There is something about these games that sounds off to me. “I can guarantee you will provide plenty of amusement. Being good at running or throwing things would be helpful, but they won’t get you very far in the Xillian Games.”
That sounds more promising. “So what do I have to do then? Solve problems? Are they sort of like a spelling bee? Or a Mathlympics? Or an Escape Room, where you have to solve all the puzzles in an hour to get out? I’m pretty good at those.”
His scorn is so thick I can almost touch it. “None of those. You simply have to fight. Fight and win.”
I look at him with horror as comprehension floods my mind. Blood sports. That’s what these games are. Like bear baiting. Or dog fighting. Fun for e
veryone but those in the ring, the ones doing the fighting.
His next words confirm my worst fears. “Or lose and die.”
I gasp and collapse back down into the corner of the cage, stunned into silence. This isn’t some sort of intergalactic Survivor like I used to watch on Thursday with my Uber Eats and my cat. Where the prize is fifty thousand dollars and Instagram fame. This time, the prize is my life.
This isn’t happening to me. This can’t be happening. I’m only twenty-five. That is way too young to die.
Taark shoots me a look that could almost be pity. “I see no point in giving you false hope,” he says in a measured tone of voice. “I have accepted that my life is soon to be over, and I am at peace. I suggest you do the same.”
“No, I won’t. I can’t.” What is wrong with him that he has given up so easily? I’ve never been much of a fighter, but even so, I’m not about to throw away my life without even trying. “I intend to fight.”
“So do I. But that doesn’t change a thing. I will still die out there in the arena. As will you.”
“How can you be so sure?” I ask, desperately searching for some glimmer of hope that my life wasn’t going to be cut short so brutally. “Maybe you will win. Maybe we will win.”
“We will not win.”
“Why not? You look big and strong enough to fight twenty men at once.”
“Men of your kind, yes.” His voice was full of contempt. “But I will not be pitted against men of your kind.”
“So, who, then?”
He growls at my question. I take no notice of it, even though I am quaking inside. “I don’t know exactly,” he finally admits, when I show no sign of backing down or withdrawing my question. “Galgog, probably, given what the guard let slip.”
“Then why are you so sure you will die?” I persist. I really do want to know. It’s hard to make a plan if you don’t know what you are up against. And I desperately need a plan.
“Do you know how the Xillian Games work?”
