by Tracey Tobin
Kaima quickly pressed her fingers against the princess’s throat. “She’s alive,” she promised, “but her pulse is getting weaker.” She raised her eyes to Jacob’s. There was genuine fear in them. “I don’t know what to do for her, Jacob. She’s could die any moment if we don’t do something!”
“Too late!” Heln shouted.
All at once they were crawling out of the darkness, Shadows within shadows, squealing, squirming. They made joyful little chittering noises like enormous bugs speaking excitedly to one another. They were everywhere, closing in on the small group from every direction, and if Jacob didn’t know better he’d have said they were savoring the moment. A few of them made horrible screaming sounds like a primeval victory cry as they sized up their prey.
“They know it’s her,” Jacob realized. He pulled Tori closer to his chest as if he could shield her from any attack with his body alone. “He sent them to find her, and they know they’ve got her.”
Heln and his companions raised their weapons, growls on their lips. “They shall not have her,” one of them promised. “By our honor.”
“By our honor,” the others answered.
Jacob admired their resolve, but he knew there was no way such a small group could protect them for long, and there was no way he could fight his way through the hoard with the princess unconscious in his arms.
“We haven’t got a chance,” Kaima whispered, echoing Jacob’s thoughts.
Jacob leaned his head in close to Tori’s and prayed harder than he could remember ever praying before. “Listen,” he whispered to his princess. “I know we’ve all been expecting an extraordinary amount from you, and I know that it’s remarkably unfair to put all this responsibility on your shoulders. But if you’re in there, if you can hear me, we really could use one of those miracles you’re becoming known for right about now.”
The words had barely left his mouth when a battle-cry split the night air of the mountain. As one, the swarm of Shadows turned to the sound in curiosity.
Lira leaped from a high ledge with a piercing howl, landing gracefully next to her mate with a spear the size of a small tree clutched in both hands. All around them more females dropped from the heavens with cries of rage and courage in their throats. From the sides came a stampede of males, also looking to challenge the Shadows and protect their loved ones.
Lira had a grin on her face that was partway between excitement and insanity. She nudged Heln’s shoulder and her tongue sneaked out to give him a quick lick on the face before she turned her attention back to the enemy. “What a surprise that you need some help, love,” she teased.
“I thank the moon every night that I have you,” Heln praised. He lifted his weapon to the sky and let out a deep howl to match Lira’s high one. It echoed through the night, bouncing off every stone, spreading out across the mountain like a living thing. It was echoed by the rest of the Coiyana and the battle began again.
Jacob was at the very center of it. He wanted to fight, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t leave Tori. Not while he had no idea how much time she had. His eyes met Kaima’s and he could tell that his face mirrored hers. “I don’t know what to do,” he told his friend. “All this fighting will be for nothing if she-” He refused to finish the sentence, but Kaima nodded her understanding.
“There must be something,” the Maelekanai insisted. She searched the mess of moving bodies for a way out, some kind of beacon to lead them out of the mess they’d found themselves in. “We can’t just stand here and wait for her to die!”
Jacob clenched his jaw and struggled to think while the sounds of battle raged around him. He heard screams from Coiyana and Shadows alike, but he ignored them all. He focused on the princess, begging her to tell him how to save her before it was too late.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when a finger brushed his chin like the kiss of a ghost. Her eyes were open, just a little, and she was gazing at him with glassy orbs that looked wet and out of focus. He couldn’t even tell if she was really seeing him.
“Tori!” he cried. “Are you okay?” He clutched her tight and tried to resist the urge to shake her. “Please, please tell me you’re alright! I don’t know what to do!”
Her lips moved, coming together, then apart, but there was no sound. Her eyes fluttered closed. This time Jacob did shake her. “No!” he demanded. “No sleep! Do not fall asleep on me! Please, please…” He heard the pleading, the weakness in his voice and hated himself for it, but he couldn’t stop it. “Please, tell me,” he begged. “Try again. Whatever you’re trying to say, please, try again.”
Her eyes opened a fraction, not even enough for him to make out the whites. He lowered his ear to her lips and held his breath, willing the background noise away while his princess put the last of her energy into one word: “…blood…”
The solution hit him like a mad horse’s hoof square in the chest. “Blood…blood!” he cried. He reached forward and shook Kaima’s shoulder. “She needs blood! Coiyana blood! It’ll revive her the way Jiki’s did back in the village!”
Kaima’s eyes grew wide as saucers. “Are you sure?” she asked. “That time it was a physically wound, but this time it’s also the fatigue, so will it work the same way?”
“Do you have a better idea?!” Jacob exclaimed.
Kaima responded by searching the crowd for a source of blood.
They were surrounded by noise and madness in all directions. A slain Coiyana lay not five feet from them. What passed through Jacob’s mind as he gazed at the blood oozing from the wolf’s mouth made him sick to his stomach. He was certain Tori would be disgusted by the thought. And besides, he remembered Eden’s warning about the blood needing to be offered and knew the princess wouldn’t want him to take such a risk when they had no idea what would happen.
He continued to search the battlefield with manic desperation.
Kaima decided on a much more direct approach. “Help!” she screamed out into the battle. “Someone! We need blood! Your princess needs blood right now.”
When there was no immediate response Jacob considered slitting open his own wrist, on the off-chance that more human blood would somehow activate the princess’s power, but before he could reach for his blade Heln slid to a rocky stop on his knees beside them. He grabbed Kaima by the shoulder. In that moment there was absolutely no animosity between the two species. There was only equal concern for their common companion. “I heard your cry,” he told the Maelekanai. “What can I do?”
Jacob clutched Tori tight. “She needs blood,” he explained. “Coiyana blood, like we came here for in the first place. It should make her stronger and let her fight off the fatigue.”
Heln nodded once, sharply. “You’re certain?”
“Yes, please, do it.”
Kaima snatched up one of Tori’s limp hands and drew a long claw across the skin of her palm, opening a gap wide enough for the girl’s blood to pool up in the hand. Heln pressed his hunting blade into the skin at the base of his throat where the fur was thin and drew it back quickly with a hiss. Together he and Jacob pressed Tori’s hand to the stain of blood welling up in the Coiyana’s fur.
“Please let this work,” Jacob murmured against Tori’s hair. “Please, oh please let this help…”
Tori’s eyes opened.
She leaped from Jacob’s arms and wrapped her hands around Heln’s throat.
She had been floating up among the stars.
Such a strange sensation, not entirely unpleasant, but wrong somehow. She felt that she shouldn’t be there, couldn’t be there, but she also had no inclination to leave.
The moon was so beautiful. She had never seen it so bright or so near. She felt that she would be quite content to stay here and stare into its warm glow forever. Surely that would be fine. It would be peaceful. She would be able to rest.
No, it wouldn’t be fine. A voice, tiny but persistent, told her that she had to come back down to the ground.
The voice of contentment told her
to ignore the insistent one. It was so nice here. A perfect place to rest and be happy, at ease, untroubled. She could stay in the loving glow of the moon and watch the multi-colored stars twinkling for all eternity and never have another care in the world.
But that would be giving up.
Giving up on what?
She couldn’t seem to remember, though she was certain it was something important.
“Blood…” she felt and heard her lips whisper.
She couldn’t recall telling herself to say it, but something deep inside had pushed the word out. She furrowed her brow and stared at the friendly moon with a frown on her face. She was… She was supposed to be doing something. She could feel it, but couldn’t remember what it was.
The moon offered no answers, so she looked to the stars, but they weren’t talking either. So quiet, were the heavens. So peaceful, yet unhelpful.
“Blood!” a voice seemed to yell in her ear.
She tried to turn to the voice, but found herself quite unable to move. Her frown deepened, her brow furrowed further. Her eyes were locked upon the white-gold moon and the pink and green stars surrounding it. She could no sooner see the world outside her immediate vision than she could make the moon vanish into thin air, and that revelation frightened her.
Am I damaged? she wondered. Am I broken?
That word kept repeating, both in her mind and in the voices outside of her mind. “Blood,” it said, over and over. Now in her mental voice… Now in a young man’s voice… Now in a gruff voice… Why was everyone so concerned with blood?
She tried to ask the question aloud, but she couldn’t seem to bring the words up through her throat, so she frowned up at the moon and thought the question instead. She willed the orb to answer, begged it to remind her of what it was that she was supposed to be doing.
All at once her hand began to burn. She wanted to cry out, but the sound wouldn’t come.
The moon had begun to bleed.
As she watched, unable to look away, with eyes as wide as the moon itself, the huge white-gold sphere in the sky began to drip and ooze with scarlet red. At first a horror crept up her throat, threatening a scream that would shatter the sky. But then, as she was forced to gaze upon that moon which had become the color of life, a different feeling began to come over her...
She felt a longing, a desire. A need.
I need it.
Give it to me!
As though invisible chains had been lifted from her body, she was able to move, and with all her strength she lifted her hand to the sky and reached, fingers grasping desperately in the air, to touch the bloody moon.
Tori was staring into a pair of large, dark eyes that were looking back at her with surprise and curiosity. She relaxed her death-grip on Heln’s bloodied throat and felt warmth - like the cozy warmth of a roaring campfire - crawling through her body from fingertips to toes.
She thought she heard voices behind her, calling her name, asking her questions, but at the moment all she could focus on was the thrumming pulse in her ears. It took her a long moment to realize that the sound was her own heartbeat, speaking to her, pushing the Coiyana blood throughout her veins.
She smiled at Heln and let her eyes flutter closed for a moment. She couldn’t make out her own voice over the thrumming, but she was certain that she said “Thank you,” before her skin and bones began to shift.
It was much like the first time, back in the Maelekanai village, and yet also very different. Her body seemed to be glowing with some mysterious, internal heat, and she could feel her tissues stretching, working to accommodate a new form. The world got rather loud, and the barrage of smells assaulted her, fighting for her attention. She clenched her fists and felt strong - stronger than anything she could have imagined before this moment. She felt like a small tank, all powered up and ready to barrel right over anything that came in her path.
Her traveling companions were grinning at her openly, the desperate relief clear as day on their faces. Heln’s jaw had dropped. With a mouth full of fangs that felt like they could crush a truck, Tori grinned back at them before throwing her head back to howl up at the full moon.
The reactions that surrounded her were ones of shock, confusion, and amazement, punctuated by a tittering frustration from the Shadows. For just one moment in time it seemed as though every living body around her froze and stared, trying to work out what had just happened, what this strange new creature was, and what she was going to do. In that one moment, while all eyes were on her, she leapt into the fray, threw out a paw tipped with shiny silver claws, and pressed her entire arm clean through a Shadow’s chest. As it melted with a shriek down to her feet, the remaining Shadows screamed out their battle cry and the Coiyana howled to the sky, cheering for their new pack-mate.
Tori dove into the battle with reckless abandon, grinning the entire time. She was riding an enormous high. She felt alive again, and stronger than she could have ever dreamed. She reveled in it and laughed as she took down Shadow after Shadow. The Coiyana fought alongside her, fighting for their land and their loved ones, and Tori was right in the center of the battle, using claws, fangs, and brute strength to destroy anything and everything that oozed within her reach. Jacob, Kaima, and Heln fought by her side while stealing grins and glances her way, watching her dance with awe and appreciation.
It would not be without loss, but they were winning this battle. Tori knew this to be true. As she took out another two Shadows she howled to the sky, but in that moment her eye caught something unsettling and her head whipped around to focus on the movement. There was a struggle occurring up on the side of the cliff, on a ledge that curved around out of sight. Two Coiyana were struggling with one another, and Tori recognized them both. Her eyes narrowed. A deep growl welled up in the depths of her chest.
Jacob slashed a Shadow’s head from its shoulders before plunging his blade through its chest and turned to Tori as the monster died before him. “What’s wrong?” he asked his princess.
By way of response Tori barked, “Come with me!” and added, “Kaima! Heln! Follow us!” as she began to run.
She leaped through the crowd, slashing enemies away as she went. She didn’t check to confirm if the others had followed, but she could hear feet padding the stone behind her and hoped they would keep up. She couldn’t see the two Coiyana anymore, but she could smell them as though they were mere inches away from her, and she followed that scent with a taste of revenge on her tongue.
The noise of the battle quieted slightly as she climbed higher and higher up the side of the range, the cool night air whipping through her hair and stinging her eyes. The moon danced playfully from behind fast-moving clouds, sometimes lighting her path, sometimes teasing her with long shadows that jumped along the cliffs as though to devour her. She moved ever forward, steady, determined, head held high and eyes unblinking. It was time to make good on a promise.
A voice echoed out across the stones and wind. “Stop right there. Not one more step.”
Tori froze stone-still, but her ears and nose were twitching. She felt the growl begging to escape her as she glared at the silhouette standing at the edge of a sheer cliff. From behind her group of companions ground to a halt. A cry of pure rage left Heln’s throat.
The Chief had Lira in his arms, his inner elbow jammed up under her throat so that she couldn’t quite get her footing and was struggling for air. She had a note of panic in her eyes. He had a look of pure madness in his. “I will throw her from this cliff right now if anyone so much as dares breathe the wrong way,” he snarled.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Goera,” Heln snarled. “If you harm one hair on her I swear I will tear every inch of flesh from your rotten body.”
“He’s not going to hurt her,” Tori promised without taking her eyes from her foe. “Don’t worry.”
An intense grin spread across the Chief’s - Goera’s - face.
“I’m not entirely sure you’re right about that,” Jacob muttered fr
om Tori’s right side.
But Tori was grinning too. “If he wanted to escape he had all the time he needed while we were fighting with the others down below,” she explained. “He doesn’t want to escape. He weaseled into the battle and took Lira to attract my attention. He wanted me to come to him, away from the others. Isn’t that right, Goera?” She said his name like it was a joke that she’d finally been let in on and could tell that it bit into him in just the right way when his eye twitched.
“Don’t you dare speak my name,” he spat, “You…you…you abomination!”
Tori heard Jacob’s sword whip through the cool air with a threatening ring. “Don’t you fucking speak to her that way,” he growled.
Goera spat at the ground. “I’ll leap from this cliff myself before I take orders from any human,” was his response.
“Better get to it then,” Kaima muttered, just loud enough for everyone to hear. “Because you’re not coming back this way.”
Despite her predicament, Lira actually chuckled a little at the Maelekanai’s words. The sound seemed to make Goera’s eyes go even wilder. He flexed his arm, crushing her windpipe further and choking off the little sound of mirth.
Heln roared his rage, but Tori held out a hand just as he twitched forward, stopping him. Her eyes never left Goera’s. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we?” she inquired. “You know it’s me you want, so just let Lira go and we’ll work this out between us. No interference from the others, on my honor.” She raised a hand up, the way she’d seen other Coiyana do when speaking respectfully.
To her relief, Goera’s grip seemed to loosen. Lira was able to find a bit of purchase on the ground beneath her and eyed her captor hopefully, waiting for her moment.
Then the mad Coiyana Cheif’s eyes narrowed and his teeth flashed in a wicked grin. “Honor is for the weak,” he hissed.
Tori was two steps forward by the time Goera had shoved Lira to the ground. She watched as the hostage’s head struck a jagged stone, and already had a battle cry on her lips when she caught sight of what Goera had been hiding behind his captive’s back. A fist full of blades - throwing knives to a Coiyana, but large enough to qualify as daggers to a human - flew through the air as his gleeful laughter echoed off the mountainside.
