by Tracey Tobin
She paused for half a second to take a breath. In that moment the Chief opened his mouth to speak, but she let out a guttural shriek that cut him off before he could make a sound. “Don’t you fucking dare start talking about ‘prizing strength over all’ or some bullshit like that!” she screamed. “I don’t give a fuck what you think of me, or my methods, or whether you think I could defeat Iryen or will be struck down by the first stiff wind that hits me the wrong way. I don’t give a single fuck about your trials or your traditions, or any of your other goddamn nonsense! All I see here is a bunch of idiots cheering for death and trying to turn their goddamn future queen into a ruthless murderer for your own entertainment, and if that’s all you care about then you can GO. FUCK. YOURSELVES!”
She stepped away from Heln, shooting him a sharp look to let him know that he wasn’t safe from her ire either. Then she pulled every ounce of hatred she could muster to the surface and poured it into a glare that could have killed outright. This she settled directly into the Chief’s eyes. “If strengthening my magic with your blood means that I have to be a senseless killer, then I’ll find another way.”
She should have expected the laughter, but it still hit her like fingernails on a chalk board when it happened.
The Coiyana in the stands stared and muttered to themselves as their Chief roared with cruel, high-pitched mirth. His face was infused with it. He looked, and sounded, genuinely insane.
“Have you forgotten that I have your little friends, princess?” he chuckled merrily. To drill home his point he snatched Jacob by the hair, pulled him to his feet, and then threw him to the ground where he collided with Kaima and sent them both sprawling over the stand in front of them.
Tori pointed one deadly-still finger at the mad Coiyana’s face. “I’ll kill you for that,” she told him. “Mark my words.”
The Chief’s eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched. For the first time since she’d laid eyes on him, he looked genuinely angry, and truly frightening. It made Tori wonder if anyone had ever directly defied his authority before this. She could see the growl on his throat and could tell that a number of possible responses were passing across his mind. In the end, however, he simply stated, “By refusing to dispatch your opponent you have failed your final trial, and now you will accept the consequences.”
“Don’t you dare fucking touch her,” Jacob roared as a pack of guards leaped down into the arena to retrieve Tori.
Those four Coiyana, who had been awaiting the command, moved without hesitation, but Tori noticed that from the moment the Chief had issued the order a buzz of activity had begun to sweep through the Colosseum. Coiyana throughout the crowd were grumbling to each other, pointing at Tori, pointing at the Chief, making strange faces, and speaking louder with each passing second. The pups who had begged for their father’s life were staring at Tori openly, and Lira looked conflicted as she spoke hurriedly to a large male sitting beside her.
Tori stood her ground as the four guards made their way toward her, knowing that there was nowhere to escape to even if she’d been willing to leave her friends. She had made her decision. Instead of wasting time and energy worrying about an escape that wouldn’t happen, she raised her eyes back up to the Chief and gave him the most disturbing grin she could muster. “Mark my words,” she repeated over the crowd’s mutterings. “Mark my fucking words.”
Chapter Eleven
Tori raised her arms above her head, waiting to be taken, wondering if she’d be executed here and now, or if the Chief would have her tortured first.
Before the guards could get within a dozen feet of her there was a blur of fur and blood and suddenly Heln was standing in front of her. Tori took a step back in surprise and the guards stopped in confusion.
“Do not touch her,” Heln commanded. He’d retrieved both swords and held them out to his sides, making the threat clear. His voice was filled with authority, broaching no argument. The guards glanced sideways at each other.
From his throne the Chief let out a disgusting snarl. “What are you idiots doing?!” he cried. “Cut him down if you have to!”
The guards were fidgeting now, their gazes snapping back and forth between their hunting leader and their peoples’ leader. Clearly this wasn’t something they’d been prepared to deal with.
“We must not bring any more harm to her,” Heln appealed to them. “What if she’s telling the truth? What if she’s the only one who can return our world to the way it was before, when we were a proud tribe of thousands and were the strength of the kingdom?” He lowered his swords just slightly, showing them that he didn’t truly want to fight. “And if this is all true, someday she shall be our queen. Do you really want her to remember us this way? As the people who tortured and tormented her, threatened her life, and used her agony for sport?”
The voices in the crowd were getting louder. All across the Colosseum Coiyana were standing, some of them shouting at the guards, some of them making nasty gestures toward the Chief, and some of them fighting with each other. There was so much dissonance that Tori couldn’t make out much of what was being said, but she did notice that the Chief’s face was becoming uglier with each hollered word.
“Kill them both!” he screamed, his voice pitched high with rage. The sound incited numerous looks of disdain and disillusionment.
One of the guards was shaking his head at his fellows. “Heln’s right, this doesn’t sit well,” he muttered. “What if she really does have the power to banish the Shadows?”
One of the other guards wasn’t entirely convinced. “But if we let her go now, she could tell others about the Howling Stone,” he argued. “We can’t risk outsiders being lead here.”
“So what are we going to do then?” a third guard inquired. “Do you really want to go through Heln to get to her? And then what? Kill her? Lock her away here forever?”
Tori watched with a strange, detached kind of amusement as another furry body stepped in front of her, standing side-by-side with Heln.
“If you go through him, you’ll have to go through me as well,” Lira growled, arms folded across her chest. “She fought well, both with and without her companions’ help, and despite all we’ve put her through she spares my mate’s life. For this I owe her a blood debt, and I will repay it here and now if needs must.”
The guard who had spoken against letting Tori go looked aghast. “Lira, be reasonable,” he begged. “We only have so many healers among us.”
Lira let out a short bark like a laugh. “Then surely you realize it is in the pack’s best interests not to vex me.”
The Chief shrieked, a desperate, horrible sound that echoed off every surface and forced the entire Colosseum to turn its attention back to him.
“I am your leader!” the Chief screeched to his people, to the guards, and to the mates who stood their ground together. “I decide what we do with the little bitch, and my decision is final! She knew the terms of the battle when she entered into it!”
“Oh don’t give us that, you snarling prick,” Lira snapped back at him. “We’ve all been here for each of her trials! We all know perfectly well that she was given no choice in the matter! You’ve backed her into a hole that you dug yourself, and you used the fear and frustrations of your people to push your own agenda!” She thrust a finger toward Heln, and her next words were particularly vile and venomous. “And on top of that you used this insanity as a safe way to try to rid yourself of the one Coiyana who might have been able to knock you down to the lowly omega you damn well know you should be!”
Up in front of his stone throne the Chief’s fur bristled with rage, while Kaima burst into a raucous laughter that made his teeth twitch. “Man, she has totally got your number!” the Maelekanai guffawed joyfully. With an enormous grin the likes of which Tori hadn’t seen in days, she nodded her head down toward the arena. “Lira, was it? Congratulations, you are officially my favorite Coiyana of all time.”
Lira allowed herself a small chuckle. “Charmed, I’
m sure,” she responded.
“That’s it!” the Chief screamed. Like a petulant child throwing a tantrum, he kicked Kaima in the ribs, knocking her to the ground in a coughing pile. Jacob leaped at him with a shout of rage and managed to get his empty hands around the Coiyana’s throat for a moment, but the Chief pulled just out of reach of Jacob’s chains and headed for the arena himself. He snatched up a nasty-looking hunting knife from a Coiyana in the front row and roared down at the guards as he neared the wall. “If you won’t dispatch the bitch, I’ll do it myself!”
A lot of things seemed to happen all at once, in such quick succession that Tori couldn’t keep track of it all. Two of the guards moved to stand with Heln and Lira. The other two moved aside, unable to make their decision. Several spectators approached the Chief, some requesting further contemplation, some shouting threats at him, and others moving to join him. A Coiyana who had been sitting near the stone throne flew to Jacob and Kaima’s chains to remove them, sparking a fight between two groups who argued over whether or not the prisoners should be freed.
And amid it all, just as the Colosseum was reaching a boiling point, a sound rang out through the mountain. It was a strange sound, Tori thought, like a bugle being blown through a long tunnel. While she looked for the source of the noise, however, every other body in the Colosseum stopped dead, looks of sheer shock on their faces.
Lira turned to her mate with a hardness in her eyes. “Is that-? It can’t be, right?”
Heln simply responded, “Well, she did warn us.”
With those five words Tori realized what the sound was. A warning.
The two massive stone doors leading to the Colosseum began to slide open. From outside a panicked voice floated in toward the crowd. “Attack! The city is under attack!”
If Lira’s face could blanch beneath all that fur, Tori was certain it would have done so then. To a crowd that was within seconds of losing its collective mind she screamed, “Everyone to the tunnels! Protect the young!” When most faces stared back at her in shock Heln added an authoritative, “NOW!”
The air filled with dust and shouting as a veritable stampede took off in the opposite direction of the stone doors.
Tori’s heart was loud enough to be heard even over the noise. She clutched a hand to her chest as Heln turned to her. “Your Shadow hoard has arrived, princess,” he confirmed. “That sound is the signal that the city has been breached. This is the first time it has ever been sounded. You were right.”
Tori’s chest was thick with dread. Yes. Of course I was right. If ever there was a time for me to be right about something…
Heln’s two pups had run out into the arena and launched themselves into Lira’s arms. She juggled them while barking commands at her mate. “We must protect our little ones, but we must protect her as well,” she told him, flicking her head toward Tori. “If she is truly who she says she is, you must ensure her safe passage out of the mountain. Do you understand me?”
Heln placed a hand on each of his young pups’ heads and pressed his forehead to that of his mate. “Go,” he told them. “Swiftly. I will meet you on the other side, and so shall she. I swear it.”
Lira took off, snatching a rope that one of the other Coiyana had dropped down over the arena wall for them. She scaled the height like an Olympic champion, hardly seeming to notice the weight of the two pups who clung to her shoulders as she did so. The two guards who had stepped aside for the Chief had taken off already, but the two who had stood with him were standing firm, awaiting their orders.
Heln gestured for everyone to follow him, and bowed his head low toward Tori as they moved. “I wish to make amends for my actions, princess, but we unfortunately do not have the time. Right now all I can do is lead you out of this place and to safety.” He stopped at the wall, waving for the guards to go up first, and set Tori with a firm gaze. “I will not, however, force you to follow my lead, so I ask now for your permission. Please allow me to take up the role of Royal Guard, as our kind have done in the past.”
As he spoke, Heln bowed low to the ground so that his head was below Tori’s and the back of his neck was exposed. At the top of the wall she saw the two guards making a similar gesture, lowering their heads over the edge so that she could see their throats. Something niggled at the back of her mind, something she’d once learned in school about how wolves show subservience. This moment, after all the Coiyana had put her through, felt like an unbelievable victory, but there was no time to revel in it.
Attempting to sound as regal as she could while also rushing through the words with the sound of the alarm still screaming in her ears, she told Heln and his companions, “I give you temporary rights to act as my Royal Guard, under the condition that you protect my friends as well.”
As if on cue, Jacob yelled down to Tori from the top of the wall, where he, Kaima, and the Coiyana who had freed them from their chains had joined the two guards. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here now!” he cried.
Heln rose to his feet and gave Tori a quick nod. Without further hesitation he practically lifted her halfway up the rope, after which Jacob reached down and snatched up her hand. The second she was up on solid ground Kaima stole her into a tight squeeze. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” the Maelekanai whispered in her friend’s ear. “That may have been the single greatest thing I’ve ever seen, or ever will see.” Tori couldn’t help but respond with a short laugh and a return squeeze.
“Where do we go?” Jacob asked Heln as he crawled over the edge of the wall.
“There are three tunnels that lead out of the city,” Heln explained as he ushered the group toward the big stone doors. “The main tunnel is the easiest to find and therefore the most likely one that the Shadows will pour through. The bulk of our hunting parties will have gone that way as a distraction to lead the enemy away from the young and their mothers, who will flee through a more hidden tunnel that exists beneath the Colosseum.” He gestured behind them as he spoke and Tori saw that, indeed, the Coiyana who had run in that direction had mysteriously vanished.
“Then why are we headed back into the city?” Kaima asked, incredulous. “Why aren’t we going with the mothers and pups?”
“That tunnel is small and long,” Heln replied. “It’s safer, but it will be a slow, crowded trek. We must get the princess out and away as quickly as possible, so we’re going to take the third tunnel, hidden in the council room.”
As they breached the stone doors Jacob let out a shout of horror. Tori felt her lungs fill with cement at the sight before them. The swarm was still half the length of the tunnel away, but they were pouring through the small entrance like maggots seeping from a rotting wound. They squealed with delight as they slithered their way up and down the tiers of the corridor, smashing through the small huts and homes with abandon, seeking out any living creature to rip apart. A few dozen Coiyana were launching flaming arrows toward the squirming black mass, but they were rapidly moving backward. Tori saw that they were making their way toward a dark tunnel, nearly hidden among the shadows of a group of houses about a third of the city’s length away. They were trying to lead the Shadows away, she realized, giving the rest of the Coiyana the chance to escape through the other tunnels. Despite everything that had been inflicted on her in this city, Tori found herself praying for them.
“This way, with haste!” Heln hissed.
The Coiyana did their best to block Tori from view as the group made a sharp turn and headed for the door Heln had first taken them when they’d arrived. Down the short hallway, into the council room they went. The moment they were all inside the two guards began tossing chairs in front of the door.
“That won’t hold them for even a moment,” said the Coiyana who had freed Jacob and Kaima. “Come, let us slide the table.”
Everyone helped, although Tori wasn’t sure how much strength she and her companions were really adding in comparison to the four Coiyana. Sliding and scraping and creating far too much noise for her l
iking, they eventually managed to jam the huge stone table in front of the door, and tossed the chairs on top of it for good measure.
“That’s the best we can do,” Heln said. “Let’s move.” He waved them toward the back of the room, but hesitated as his eyes finally registered the disturbance there.
The stone chair that the Chief had sat in, Tori saw, had been tipped over, a giant chunk of its back broken off in the fall. A square slab of floor that had been beneath where the chair stood had been lifted aside and not quite replaced properly.
“He’s already gone down there,” one of the guards growled.
The sound that burrowed up from Heln’s throat was like a rumbling train on heavy tracks. “Probably the first one out of the Colosseum,” he grumbled. Then he shook his head. “No matter. Let us go, quickly.” As the guards lifted the stone panel Heln turned and offered a short bow to Jacob. “I remember meeting your father when I was but a pup, young Ravenson. It appears you’ve taken up his mantel of Captain of the Guard, so please allow me to lead you down with the princess.”
Tori could see the suspicion in Jacob’s eyes, and she certainly couldn’t blame him for being hesitant. His hand fluttered to the bandages wrapped around his torso and he gritted his teeth. But in the end he offered Heln a short nod. Together the human and Coiyana each offered Tori a hand. She gulped, took a peek through the opening in the floor, and squeezed her eyes shut as she allowed herself to be gently lowered down into the darkness. The tunnel took off in two directions, but from the westerly option she could spy a faint flickering of light, perhaps a torch.
Jacob landed on his feet beside her with a grimace and a hand over his wound. He recovered quickly and offered Tori a small, tired smile. “Just when you’d gone and won our freedom,” he jested.
