by Tracey Tobin
Jacob took a step forward, his jaw clenched and twitching, but Tori touched his arm, caught his eye, and shook her head. She couldn’t imagine him making this situation any worse than it already was, but there was no point in risking it.
“They also claim,” the Chief continued jovially, “that the king and queen have been dead all this time, and that an evil wraith - King of the Shadows, they say - has been ruling while wearing their faces!”
The response from the crowd was no less enthusiastically furious. Tori wondered if they’d all heard this information prior to this moment, or if they were just excited to jeer at the strangers with the insane story.
“And the best part of all,” the Chief concluded, “is that this tiny human princess claims that she is the only one who is powerful enough to defeat this Shadow King!”
The reaction was uproarious. It was clear, Tori realized, that these people did not think highly of humans, at least not since the Shadow invasion. At the very least, they definitely viewed her as weak and pathetic, just as the Chief had implied earlier. She wanted to defend herself - and could see that Jacob was vibrating to do so as well - but at the same time she felt that their feelings were justified. After all, they had once stood by humans as a massive part of the Royal Guard, and then human royalty (as far as they had known) had set the Shadows upon the world. Shadows – monsters - that the Coiyana had been dying in battle with for eighteen years now.
“So, what do you think, my people?” the Chief shouted out into the crowd, his hands held high. “Do you think our princess can defeat her mysterious King of the Shadows?”
Every voice in the crowd transformed into a vicious growl. The air vibrated with the sound and made Tori’s skin crawl.
“And how shall we test her?” the Chief cried.
The crowd turned their collective snouts toward the cage at the opposite end of the Colosseum and howled so loud that Tori would have sworn the stone walls trembled.
“Test her?” Jacob cried, his voice swallowed by the din. “What the hell does that mean?!”
The second the crowd had begun howling, the Chief had pointed at the other cage and the outer cylinder had begun to move up. The instant the bottom of it lifted from the ground, Tori heard a horrible shriek that made her breath catch in her chest.
The wall, as it rose, revealed a cage like their own, and in that cage was a creature that screamed louder even than the crowd as it furiously smashed its girth against the bars again and again.
It was a Shadow. And it was enormous. It was easily twice the size of a standard elephant, and looked a bit like one as well. Its huge, bulbous body stood on four stumpy legs, and its massive, block-shaped head hosted a group of tentacles hanging down over either side of two enormous tusks that pointed straight forward, perfectly positioned for attack thrusts. Even its screech sounded like a mad trumpeting, filling the Colosseum and echoing off every wall.
With horror overtaking her Tori finally understood the need for the outer wall beyond the cage. While this Shadow’s body was far too massive for it to squeeze through the bars of the cage, it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Like its smaller brethren, this monster Shadow’s body was twisting and writhing, desperately attempting to squash its mass through multiple gaps at once. If it had been just a bit smaller it may have well been able to work its way through the empty spaces, which necessitated a proper, flat barrier to keep it within its prison.
These cages, in other words, had been designed specifically to hold Shadows.
At some point Kaima had walked up next to Tori and slipped her furry hand into Tori’s fleshy one. “We’ll protect you,” she promised in a determined voice, but Tori could feel the tremors pulsing through the Maelekanai’s body.
“This is madness!” Jacob screamed at the Chief. “Is your plan to watch your only hope for peace be trampled to death?!” His cries were drowned out by the roars of the beast and the roars of the crowd.
At another signal from the Chief, both inner cages began to rise. Jacob ducked under the rising bars the second he could, rushing out in front of Tori with his sword held in both hands. At the opposite end of the arena the Shadow beast did the same, pressing itself against the ground and forcing its body through the opening as soon as it was capable.
It bellowed to the crowd, infuriated by its continued containment within the high walls of the arena.
Tori had just enough time to wonder, in awe, how the Coiyana had managed to capture this monster in the first place, and then it stampeded toward them.
It didn’t take the massive thing long to cross the length of the arena, horns down and tentacles waving. Kaima grabbed tight to Tori’s wrist and together they threw themselves to the right while Jacob went to the left. For a moment they lost sight of each other and Tori panicked, but then the Shadow shrieked in rage and she knew that Jacob had managed to strike some kind of a blow.
Unfortunately, just like the smaller, more human-shaped Shadows, wounds didn’t stop it for long. As it turned and swung in its rampage, Tori saw that the gash Jacob had cut in its hind leg was folding over on itself, closing effortlessly.
“We need to find the heart!” Tori yelled over the cheers of the crowd.
Kaima’s face was equal parts fear and exasperation. “Look at the size of that thing!” she cried. She waved a hand at the swirling tentacles as the creature whirled around in search of the one who had hurt it. “The heart could be anywhere!”
Tori caught sight of Jacob, walking backward in the opposite direction of his companions. He was taunting the creature and trying to lead it further away from Tori. As it rushed toward him a second time, he leaped and rolled beneath the massive stumps that were its feet. One of them missed his head by inches before he sprung up, stabbed the creature’s underbelly twice, and then took off running again.
Tori gasped in deep gulps of air as she realized she’d momentarily stopped breathing.
“We have to do something!” she growled at Kaima. “Jacob can’t keep stabbing and running forever!”
She didn’t wait to hear Kaima’s response. She didn’t know how long her magic would last so soon after she’d experienced a burnout, but she grabbed the dagger from her belt, called to her blood to transform, and took off running.
Her more sensitive nose was assaulted by the stench of dried ichor, and now she understood what Kaima had mentioned the night before. This place was drenched in Shadow blood. She recalled the faint stink left behind by a defeated Shadow during the attack on the Maelekanai village, but here… Every square inch of this place reeked of it, like molten copper mixed with rotten eggs and the smell of dead leaves in Autumn. Many, many Shadows had been slain here.
Tori was momentarily distracted by the sensory overload that made her want to gag, but her attention snapped back to reality when a violent vibration shook up through the ground and straight through her entire body. The Shadow had slammed its mass into the arena wall, kicking up huge clouds of dust and sending chunks of rock hurtling through the air. One jagged stone the size of her fist whipped past Tori’s face so close that she felt it slice a few strands of hair on its way by.
“Jacob!” was Kaima’s scream from behind her, followed by a hacking cough. The dust had filled the air around them. Tori involuntarily breathed in a huge gasp of it and nearly choked in her desperation to expel it.
Though she could hardly think past her body’s cry for fresh oxygen, her mind raced. Kaima had screamed Jacob’s name. Was it simple concern, or had she actually seen something happen to him before their vision had been obscured? If he’d gotten hurt or... Her mind rebelled against the idea. She couldn’t accept it, wouldn’t accept it. Blind and gasping for air, she pushed through the haze and toward the Shadow’s continual screeching. Kill first, worry later, she told herself. Eliminate the danger, then figure out what comes next.
A dark blob began to appear through the haze. She was squinting at it when the air seemed to shift and, purely out of instinct, she found herself
dropping to the ground on all fours. A tentacle flew by above her, where a second before her head had been. In the next moment one came barreling across the ground, and she was barely able to leap up and over it before it took out her limbs. Somewhere behind her she heard Kaima let out a cry and felt her heart in her throat. She turned, looking back, forward, and then back again. She turned herself in a circle and lost her bearing. In which direction was Kaima? And in which had she last spotted Jacob? She tried to sniff the air for them, but all she could scent was dust and Shadow blood.
And all around the crowd continued to cheer. She wondered if they had any idea what was even going on down here, or if they just assumed she was losing and were big fans of unnecessary death. Her ears grew hot and her eyes began to burn, and she let out a roar that could have been a lion calling for its pride.
Half a heartbeat went by, and then another roar - quieter, but strong and determined - came back to her from somewhere behind and to the left. She whirled and took off toward it.
Find friend, get help, kill, then worry.
She almost ran headlong into Kaima, who flew past, whirled, snatched Tori’s arm, and pulled her off to the side just as an enormous stump of a foot came crashing down next to them. In perfect sync the two leaped back to their feet, grabbed one another’s wrists, and ran off in the opposite direction.
The Shadow let out another shriek and Tori heard something wet splatter against the dirt floor. She yanked Kaima to a stop and turned back the way they’d come. “Jacob’s still over there!” she cried. “He just got a cut in!”
She tried to move back toward the Shadow, but Kaima still had a grip on her wrist and held her back. “Wait!” she insisted.
Tori felt her entire face boiling. She could hear the Shadow stomping and raging and knew that at any moment it could crush Jacob or catch him up in one of those tentacles and then who knew what it would do? How could Kaima suggest that they just stand here? She turned to face her ‘handmaiden’ with a growl on her lips, but the Maelekanai shocked her by reaching up and grabbing her by both sides of the face.
“Wait,” she insisted, enunciating the word as she glared into Tori’s eyes. “I have a better idea.”
She reasserted her grip on Tori’s arm and took off in yet another direction, not toward the battle and not away, but somewhere off to one side. Tori had no idea where they were going until, so suddenly that she nearly ran face first into it, the wall appeared. Kaima released her and began to run her paws along the wall, moving sideways as she went, scanning up and down as fast as her limbs could move.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tori squealed with frustration.
The Maelekanai seemed to find what she was looking for and let out a victory cry. “Here, here!” she said, and waved Tori over. Tori nearly growled at her and turned back to the fight, but at the last moment she realized what Kaima was gesturing toward.
Holes. Chunks missing from the wall where the Shadow had stormed into it.
Handholds, she realized. Her heart leaped.
A second later they were both climbing, carefully but as quickly as they could, reaching out and searching frantically for the next broken spot, and the next. The cheers of the crowd got slightly louder as they moved up.
Tori’s head broke through the cloud of dust at the same time her fingers scrabbled along a flat ledge. With twin gasps of cleaner air, she and Kaima pulled themselves up onto the wall’s edge. Before they’d even fully stood, however, the crowd was growling down at them, howling and shouting obscenities, and four large male Coiyana with hunting knives as big as small swords were moving toward them, looking to shove them back down into the ring.
Tori spared half a moment to locate the Chief, whom she was not surprised to find was grinning down at them from his stone throne. She threw up both middle fingers toward him and snapped her teeth. As the crowd already seemed infuriated, she couldn’t tell if they had any idea what she’d just implied, but it made her feel slightly better none-the-less.
Kaima had her hand on Tori’s shoulder and pointed into the arena. “It’s coming,” she shouted over the din. “We’ll jump. Ready?”
Tori followed Kaima’s finger. The dust was beginning to settle, and she could see the Shadow’s back as it bucked and stomped in every direction, looking for - but hopefully not finding - its tormentor. She nodded, and glanced back at the four males who had gotten within striking distance. “Don’t worry, we’re going,” she growled at them. “We wouldn’t want to ruin your fun.”
As the words left her mouth one of the Coiyana leaned forward to sweep his knife at them, but the two turned, dropped to all fours, and pushed off the wall with all their might. Tori landed with a roll, slid across the cool, slimy skin of the massive Shadow creature, and dug her claws into it to keep from falling. Kaima came to a stop beside her, caught her eye, and nodded before digging her claws into the black ooze as well. Little pools of ichor wetness squirted out of the Shadow’s backside as it squealed and whipped it’s head back and forth, trying to see them.
“Okay,” Kaima shouted over the shrieks. “That’s the extent of my plan! Now how are we going to find the heart?!”
Tori scanned her surroundings. It was a little dizzying because the Shadow was bucking and swinging its body violently, but on the ground she was able to catch a few glimpses of Jacob, still dancing and weaving in between the creature’s legs and tentacles. Knowing that he was still holding his own, she was able to focus. With her left hand she curled her claws and held on for dear life, and with her right hand she lifted her dagger to Kaima’s eye. “Cover me,” she commanded.
With her companion watching her back for flailing tentacles and bubbling bursts of oozing black skin, Tori made her way to a spot between what she thought were the Shadow’s shoulder blades, lifted her dagger high into the air, and brought it down with force. On the first strike the creature barely seemed to notice her little blade, but she lifted and dropped it again, and again, and soon the shrieks filled the arena as ichor splashed up in every direction. Bit by bit, as Jacob distracted the beast from below, Tori dug into its hide from above. The black blood oozed up around her legs. The wavering, twisting skin of the monster’s body tried to fight back, lashing out like it had a mind of its own, but it was clear that this huge Shadow, however intimidating, did not understand how to manipulate its body the way the smaller, human-shaped ones did. It began to thrash backward, whipping its head to and fro, desperately reaching back with its tentacles to sweep away the bug that was causing it so much grief. Kaima slashed back at the waving tendrils with a roar on her lips, leaving Tori able to ignore them and dig deeper and deeper.
She was literally waist deep in the creature’s body when a horrid scream echoed in her ears and made her chest freeze. It felt like she couldn’t turn her head fast enough, but she must have, because she did so just in time to see Kaima’s body being flung across the arena. Tori watched her limp form as though it were moving in slow motion and felt a cry of rage rise up onto her lips. In the same moment that her friend’s body struck the ground, Tori plunged her dagger down with all her might and the Colosseum shook with the ear-splitting death throes of the creature. Its body melted around Tori, leaving her to fall to the ground and land in a massive pool of black blood that covered her entire body. She came face to face with Jacob as he was doused in the blackness himself, and together they wordlessly took off in the direction of their fallen comrade.
Tori reached her first, sliding to a stop on her knees beside Kaima’s still body, which was laying face-down in the dirt. She reached out to turn her friend over, but stopped short when she saw that one fur-covered arm was twisted at horrible angle. Tori’s blood-soaked hand went to her mouth. She bit them back, but tears threatened to spill down her face.
Jacob had leaned over Kaima’s body and pressed his fingers to a spot on her throat above her collarbone. His body was tense, but a little of it relaxed in a rush of oxygen when he felt the heartbeat. “She’s alive,”
he sighed. His head hung low as if he’d been staving off chronic fatigue and it had all just caught up to him at once. Tori felt exactly the same way as she let the blood magic roll off her body, returning her to her sore and exhausted human form. She placed a hand on her friend’s face and felt the tiny breath of air that was coming at steady intervals from her mouth.
“Thank goodness…”
Tori hadn’t even noticed that the Colosseum had gone dead silent until a single slow, steady clapping echoed out across the arena. She lifted her head with a glare of pure hatred on her face and looked directly at the grinning Chief, the only one in the stands who seemed exceptionally amused. All around him were furry faces looking confused, angry, or shocked, and all of them had their jaws snapped shut, unsure of what to say or do. Clearly they had not expected for a second that the three strangers would actually defeat their foe.
The Chief clapped his paws together one last time and stood, that maddening grin showing all of his teeth. “Congratulations little princess,” he shouted, though he hardly required the volume at this point. “Despite our misgivings about you, you have certainly given us quite the show. We commend your tenacity and are quite excited to see how you fair in your second trial!”
Tori’s eyes narrowed. Beside her Jacob let out a growl that was more fierce than anything any of the Coiyana had yet done. Neither of them spoke. When she thought on it later, Tori thought that was because they were so furious that they were unable to find words strong enough to suit the situation. She, certainly, couldn’t remember ever being so viciously angry in all her life.
The Chief, ceaselessly cocky, seemed to chuckle to himself at the looks he received from his new playthings. “Oh, don’t worry,” he told them with a wave of his hand. “Your…handmaiden will be taken care of. Since she can no longer participate in the trials, she will be removed to one of our healers.”
While the Chief spoke Heln and his hunting crew had leaped down into the arena with weapons drawn and were moving in on them. Tori dropped to all fours over Kaima’s body and felt a hiss escape her throat. Jacob stood next to her with sword drawn, but he looked conflicted. “I understand how you feel,” he said quietly to Tori, “but if he’s telling the truth… She really does need a healer. That arm is definitely broken and she hit her head awfully hard. Is it really better that she gets thrown back into a cage with us?”
