by Aaron Hodges
“I don’t know,” Rydian admitted. “It’s just…”
“I’m sorry about Ruby,” Hazel said when he didn’t finish. Gently, she reached out and place a hand on his arm. “She…fought well.”
Rydian swallowed the lump that rose in his throat. “That’s just it though, isn’t it?” he rasped, his voice coming out harsh. “It doesn’t matter how well any of us fight. In the end, we’re just kids. What are we doing here, Hazel, fighting people who are not our enemy?”
But Hazel said nothing, only crossed her arms, eyes to the sky and lips turned down.
“It’s not right,” he added finally.
Hazel snorted at that. “Not right?” she asked, turning to him and raising an eyebrow. “Rydian, of course it’s not right! What do the Alfur care about ‘right’? This is their planet. ‘Right’ is what they say it is!” She paused, turning her eyes back to the stars and wrapping her arms tighter about herself. “That’s…that’s why I fought, why we fought.”
Rydian frowned at that. “Fought?”
“The Alfur,” Hazel replied. The sand whispered as she shifted to face him. “You asked me once what I did, why they used their Manus readers on my brother. Well, that’s why. We were part of the rebellion.”
An icy cold settled over Rydian at her words, but eyes to the ground, Hazel went on.
“It was just little things at first,” she said, kicking a clump of sand with her boot. “My brother and I stole a few things from merchants, like you. Then the rebellion found us—or found my brother Solomon, I guess. He was always the more ‘rebellious’ one. We soon found ourselves going on bigger missions, searching for more important targets, ones that might finally upset the balance, tip the scales back towards humanity.”
Rydian’s stomach churned as he watched her, knowing what was coming next but not wanting to believe it, to hear the truth. Silently he closed his eyes, wishing he could block out her words, could run away from the past that still haunted him. This day had already claimed the budding hope he’d shared with Ruby. He could not lose his friend as well.
“We attacked the Alfurian temple,” Hazel continued. “It seemed like it was going well, but…we were betrayed. One of the leaders, Jasmine, she turned us in.” Her voice broke, as though she could hardly get the words out. “I saw her…saw her stab my brother, the moment before the Alfur burst in and…and unleashed their Manus readers.”
A roaring was sounding in Rydian’s ears, a terrible pounding against his temples, and there was a void in the depths of his chest. He wanted to scream at Hazel, to tell her she was wrong, that his mother would never do such a thing. It couldn’t be true, had to be wrong somehow…
…yet looking into his friend’s eyes, he could see the truth there, the pain that haunted her, of loss, of betrayal.
“How…” he rasped, struggling to swallow the lump in his throat. “How did you survive?”
“I was a coward,” Hazel croaked, her eyes shining with unspilt tears. “I…watched my brother, others, disintegrate before my eyes and…and I threw myself on the ground, cowered while the last of my friends tried to fight.” She swallowed and straightened somewhat, as though she had forced the grief back down into its prison. “I was only seventeen. The Alfur didn’t know what to do with me, so they put me in a room, one of their Light cells for months. Until finally…finally my eighteenth birthday came, and…” She trailed off, eyes falling to the ground once more.
“…then they put you on a ship and sent you to become a gladiator,” Rydian whispered.
That was why she didn’t know. After the Alfur had announced his mother a hero, images of Jasmine and her family had been shown on Lightscreens everywhere. By the end of the week, there had hardly been a soul in Goma that did not recognise the son of the traitor. But Hazel had been confined in a Lightcell, isolated from the world, not knowing the truth about the one who had betrayed her. He swallowed, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder.
“Hazel, I—”
“What are you two doing out here?”
The pair of them leapt as a voice called to them from the shadows. Spinning as one, they watched as Falcon emerged into the moonlight. The woman froze as she stepped onto the sands, lifting her head and turning to stare into the distance. A frown creased her features.
“Is that…Princess?”
Before either of them could respond, the woman set off for a nearby door. Rydian and Hazel stood staring after her for a moment, before the sounds of barking carried again through the night. A weight settled in Rydian’s stomach as he realised the woman was right—the barking had to be Princess, Aureli’s own hound.
Shaking off their hesitation, they followed Falcon, re-entering the building and racing along a corridor Rydian had not visited before. His heart raced and he reached for his belt, but he wore no sword now. The sound of barking was clear now and he fought the urge to turn and flee. The beast sounded out of control, as though it had finally given in to its true nature, to the madness that claimed all animals on Talamh. If that were true…
Before he could contemplate that fate, Rydian found himself coming to a stop outside an open door. There was no doubt now—the barking came from within. Though…it changed suddenly to a whimper as Falcon disappeared into the darkness. Rydian exchanged a glance with Hazel, but if the hound had truly gone feral, Aureli could be injured…
Together, they followed Falcon into the unknown.
Then staggered to a halt as an awful stench struck them like a blow. Gagging, Rydian quickly covered his nose with his shirt, struggling to breathe in the putrid air. Beside him, Hazel retched, doubling over as the colour drained from her face.
Heart pounding, Rydian lifted his Manus reader. Its light remained dim, but it was enough to illuminate the foul chamber in which they’d found themselves. Discarded clothing and dirty dishes lay strewn across the room, many growing a foul-looking purple mould. Shadows shifted amongst the piles of trash as mice fled the Light, and in the corner something larger shifted.
He exhaled as the glow of his Manus reader revealed a cage. The hound, Princess, sat within, still whimpering as it watched them with its overly large eyes. It only took a moment to confirm the creature was confined. Looking back over the room, Rydian saw no sign of Aureli, though…several open bottles on the table revealed what the man had been doing.
Falcon plucked up one of the bottles and took a sniff, then wrinkled her nose.
“Damn,” she murmured.
“What is it?” Hazel asked, recovering from her sickness. She crossed the room to join them, nose pinched between two fingers.
“Looks like he fell off the wagon,” Falcon replied. “Wonder where he even found the good stuff. The old bastard better not have gotten into my stash!”
Rydian swallowed, looking from the woman to the filth, trying to process her words. There was weeks’, if not months’ worth of garbage built up in the corners of the room, though he noticed there were no bottles other than those on the table. How…how had Aureli lived like this, returning to this…warren every night after their training, to sit here alone amongst the refuse? How had they not known?
“Where…where is he?” Rydian murmured, still struggling to process their discovery.
The champion gladiator offered a shrug. “He’s probably gone to walk it off.”
Rydian began to nod his agreement, but his gaze was drawn back to the hound. The creature paced back and forth in its cage, giant eyes on them. Every so often it would pause and scratch at the ground, whimpering all the while.
“I was afraid this would happen.” Across the room, Falcon was still focused on the bottles. “He’s been off the drink for years. I told him it couldn’t last.”
Beside Rydian, Hazel frowned. “Didn’t you try and get him to drink with us after the last games?”
Falcon chuckled. “Of course! I consider it an insult I haven’t managed to crack him. Who knew all it would take was a few idiotic trainees getting themselves killed?”
“I hope he hasn’t done anything…stupid,” Hazel murmured.
Rydian hesitated, looking from the hound to his friend. Still holding one of the bottles, Falcon frowned, leaning her head to the side.
“Well, it has been a while.” She held the bottle up in front of her, as though to inspect its contents, though Aureli had left only drops. “But…back in the day, there were a few times we had to tie him down.” She hesitated. “He kept…kept wanting to go to the forest.”
“What?” Rydian and Hazel shrieked in unison.
“Relax, Gods below!!” Falcon cried, raising her hands as though to fend them off. “I doubt he could even make it to the boundary if he finished both of these himself!”
Rydian did not reply. Heart pounding in his chest, he turned back to the cage as the hound gave another whimper. Swallowing, he stepped up to the bars and looked down at the creature. It stared back at him, dark eyes wide. They…they seemed to understand, to reach for him. He heard a distant whisper, as though the beast were trying to speak, to communicate with him.
Abruptly, the hound threw back its head and gave a terrible howl.
The others in the room leapt, spinning in expectation of an attack, but Rydian stood fixed to the spot, heart racing, fists clenched, Manus reader pulsing as he faced the beast behind the bars. Drawing in a breath, he reached down and unlocked the cage.
Behind him, Hazel cried a warning, but the noise was drowned out as the hound howled again and leapt through the open door. The three of them scrambled, hurling themselves from its path as the creature darted across the room and burst out into the corridor.
There, though, it paused, another whimper coming from the depths of its throat as it turned back. Rydian swallowed as those dark eyes fixed on him, and the whispering came again.
“I…” Blinking, he looked at the others. “I, ah…think she wants us to follow!”
20
Rydian stood at the edge of the jungle and stared into the unknown, Hazel and Falcon aligned behind him. Falcon had found knives for each of them, and Rydian held the blade at his side. He would have felt better with a gladius in hand, but this was better than nothing.
Aureli’s hound crouched at his side, ears flat to its skull as it growled at the undergrowth. A lump lodged in Rydian’s throat as he saw the beast’s fear. If one of the jungle’s own creatures dreaded to enter that wilderness, what did that say about their hope for survival?
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the fear reflected in the eyes of his companions, but neither showed any sign of backing down. Even Falcon seemed strangely determined, and not for the first time he wondered at the woman’s relationship with Aureli.
Rydian turned back to the forest. The darkness beneath the trees remained impenetrable, their Manus readers barely lighting the ground beneath their feet. How easy would it be, to become lost in those trees? Even without the beasts, what were their chances of returning once they stepped into that place?
A tremor shook him and Rydian wavered, before a whimper drew his attention back to the hound. Its overly intelligent eyes looked up at him, as though watching for something, waiting. Swallowing his fear, Rydian drew in a breath, and nodded.
As though it understood, the hound turned and stepped into the jungle. Hesitating only a moment, Rydian spread his hand to coax more light into his Manus reader, then followed the creature into the unknown wild.
The darkness swallowed them up. In an instant, the complex had vanished, the stars and rising moon with it, and they were left alone in the blackness, lit now only by their own softly glowing devices. Walking through that awful dark, a part of Rydian was surprised they were not struck down on the spot, that some secret power of the Alfur did not fall from the sky to smite them.
But nothing happened. Instead the four humans followed the hound ever deeper into the wild. Dark trees pressed up against them as they struggled through the dense vegetation. At times they were forced to use the long blades of their knives to hack their way through, at others the foliage opened up, allowing them momentary respite. Always, though, the darkness remained, as they followed Aureli’s hound ever further into the unknown.
Despite the beast’s apparent confidence, Rydian’s heart raced as the shadows shifted around them. The branches of the trees moved in strange, unpredictable ways in the Light of their Manus readers, so that it seemed the jungle were alive, as though at any moment jaws would close upon them, swallowing them up…
Who knew what creatures might be watching them even now, stalking them as they slipped deeper into the wilderness, waiting for the moment to strike? With only knives to defend themselves, Rydian didn’t like their chances of fighting off even a single primate—let alone the packs he’d spied from the windows of the Alfurian ships.
But as they pressed deeper into the forest, the jungle remained silent, its inhabitants absent for the moment. Eventually, though, a soft pounding began in the distance. Rydian paused, glancing at the others. Behind, his friends wore confused masks upon their faces. Only Falcon seemed unconcerned as she brushed past him, to follow after the disappearing hound.
His heart thumping in time with the distant beat, Rydian followed the Goman champion, until finally the trees opened out before them and the source of the sound was revealed.
Ahead, the twin moons of Talamh shone high in the heavens—and reflected from the horizon before them, dancing on the shimmering surface of the vast ocean.
Rydian swallowed as he found himself standing on the sandy shore he had glimpsed from above. The endless waters stretched out before them, calm in the night air, their surface forming a perfect mirror to the heavens above. The pounding had been the gentle crashing of waves upon its beach.
Staring out across that expanse, Rydian found himself enthralled, unable to look away.
Until a cry from nearby snapped his attention back to reality.
Pulse suddenly racing, he spun towards the sound, expecting primates or something worse to come for him, teeth bared, claws extended.
Instead, he watched as Falcon fell to her knees beside a slumped figure, another cry tearing from her lips. Alongside her, the hound whimpered, pawing at the sand where Aureli lay. His hands clutched around his abdomen, eyes closed, Marcus Aureli might have been sleeping—if not for the sheen of liquid on his hands.
Blood.
A lump swelling in his chest, Rydian stumbled to where their mentor lay. As he neared, he saw the blood staining the man’s shirt and thought Aureli already dead—until the soft rasping of his breath carried over the thumping of the waves.
“You bloody bastard,” Falcon was saying. “What were you doing, coming out here alone? I always told you…”
“Wanted…to finally see it…after all these years,” Aureli rasped, his eyelids fluttering, though his eyes did not open. “Damned…pinniped…didn’t see it until it…came out of the waters.”
Heart pounding, Rydian glanced over his shoulder at the waters, but in the faint light of their Manus readers, he could see nothing moving in the waves. He turned back to Aureli, falling to his knees beside the injured man.
“Aureli,” he rasped. “What…” He couldn’t finish, couldn’t ask this man why he had come to this place, what madness had taken him. He knew that despair well, had been close to giving into it his first night here.
The weapons master’s eyes flicked open at his voice. “Ahh, little Mouse, I’m…sorry,” he murmured. “Thought…I was strong enough…haze…finally caught…me.”
A tear streaked Aureli’s cheek as his words became jumbled, no longer making sense. Rydian squeezed his eyes closed, hardly able to bare the sight of his mentor lying in such a state. So close now, he co
uld see the edges of the terrible wound he covered with his hands.
“It’s not your fault,” he whispered. “Ruby and the others…” he swallowed, a lump lodging in his throat.
“No…” Aureli managed, “poor kids…couldn’t do it all…again.” His eyes drifted towards the sky, to the endless tapestry of stars above. “So many…possibilities. Who…would have thought...”
A tremor passed across his face and his eyes slid closed. For a moment, Rydian thought the man had passed. A moan built in his throat, a grief at losing the one person in this world that had believed in him, who’d cared enough to lift him from his despair, to drag him kicking and screaming back towards the light.
“Your…reader…” Aureli’s voice was barely a whisper, but Rydian’s heart leapt to hear he still lived. He leaned closer, holding his breath as he struggled to hear the man’s words. “…glitch…can’t trust…beware…”
The man’s words trailed off, turning to a moan as his face grew taut, twisting with pain. He clenched his fists against the sand. His Manus reader was dark, its Light consumed by his injuries. A desperate idea came to Rydian and reaching out his own device, he held it over Aureli’s abdomen, willing its Light to infuse his mentor. But as always, the Light refused to come, and rather than grow brighter, it instead flickered, and died away.
“The haze…” Aureli murmured, eyes still closed, voice fading. “Shouldn’t…shouldn’t be out here…the primates…other things…not ready.”
“I’m not leaving you, Aureli,” Rydian hissed. “And we’re not losing you.”
Gripped by a sudden determination, he rose and turned to the others. If his Manus reader wouldn’t work, they would have to carry the man back to the complex .Though Rydian had never seen the creature, Aureli himself had claimed on of the Alfur resided on sight.
“Quickly,” he said, gesturing for Hazel and Falcon to help him. “It can’t be more than a mile back to the complex. We can carry him that far, if we share…
