MySoultoKeep

by Dianna Hunter

  “No,” rasped the figure. He turned to face them, his features were exposed by a beam of moonlight slipping between the clouds above, and the reason for his odd name was revealed, as well for the man’s dirt-smeared face, was shaped like a hatchet. Long and thin with a large, sharp-edge jutting out of it. His face was etched by rows of small, bony protrusions that ran under the skin from the center of his temple on down the ridge of his nose and chin to his throat.

  “Security is pretty tight tonight. All the streets leading to the side gate are being watched. To get out of the city, you’ll have to pass through the crowd and head for the service gateway behind the arena. The guards there will be far too busy with the entertainment to pay attention to two more people wandering around.”

  Troll grunted in annoyance. “It will be more dangerous taking her out that way, but if it’s the only way…” Tugging his cloak up around his face, he took Kayla’s arm and led her into the open street where they merged with the thickening crowd of people.

  They wove their way through the milling clusters of people, trying to blend in and still make progress, but the closer they drew to the arena, the rowdier the crowd grew and the brighter the light from the numerous lanterns that had been strung on wires over the streets.

  Fearing that she might be recognized, Troll put an arm about Kayla’s shoulders, keeping her close to him as they wound their way between the groups of people, trying to keep her from coming into direct contact with them.

  Kayla tugged at the hat concealing her hair and most of her face in its shadow. She was aware of the urgency and danger of their passage. She was trying to keep her head down and her mind on their mission, but it was impossible not to feel the excitement of the carnival atmosphere surrounding them. Everywhere she looked were peasants talking and laughing excitedly as they drank what seemed to be beer and rum from large earthenware bottles and sloshing tankards.

  “What are they celebrating?” she asked over the noise.

  “It’s nothing, just some local festival. Come, we go this way now,” Troll answered briefly, drawing her against him as they ducked between two vendor’s carts.

  And out of the darkness of confusion, understanding suddenly struck Kayla like a wooden club against the back of her head! She froze in mid-stride as her mind struggled with the truth. Garth had lied to her again!

  “No, wait.” Kayla stared up into Troll’s troubled eyes. “Helene was telling the truth wasn’t she? Garth didn’t stop the Bear Baiting, did he?” Kayla stated in a dead voice.

  A blast of trumpets and the loud cheering of the crowd sent the people still milling about in the plaza into a frenzy to gain their seats within.

  Troll straightened under his cloak before looking into her stricken face. “No, Lady, he would never deprive either the Emperor or himself of this little event,” he told her sadly. Deceived by her silence and the shadows concealing her face, he did not see the look of determination that had suddenly hardened her soft features.

  Without warning, Kayla twisted free of Troll’s grip on her arm and raced for the untended exit she had spotted behind a cluster of wagons and stacked crates.

  “Kayla! No, come back!” Troll gasped in a lowered voice as he ran after her, his awkward, lumbering gait slowing him in his pursuit of the fleet-footed young witch.

  Taking cover behind a pile of broken crates and molding trash, Kayla paused to let her sight adjust to the deep shadows and to get her bearings. Unconsciously, she rubbed her aching temples, trying to relieve the pressure building behind her eyes. She hated crowds, had always hated them. The combined emotional emanations of so many people together always gave her a severe headache. But that wasn’t it. This time there was something else.

  “Uhnnn!” Kayla dropped to her knees, her head clasped with both hands to keep the pain within from splitting it open! Desperate to ease the pain throbbing against her skull, she employed the method Garth had taught her to shield her mind from this physic attack. It took all of her willpower, but finely, she was able to gain control of the pain and allow only a small portion of it to filter through, just enough to allow her to recognize the broadcast of terror as being the same as that of the captive children she had encountered earlier. Now she locked onto it, turning slowly in place, tracking the direction it was coming from.

  Darting from cover, she slipped into the shadows of an archway on the back wall of the arena and paused, waiting for her eyes to adjust. When she was able to see again, Kayla realized that she had entered a dank stone-lined tunnel. Rows of torches stuck into holders set at irregular intervals along the walls provided small but adequate light, allowing her to make her way cautiously in the direction of the call that was still echoing in her head.

  She was moving as fast as the litter-strewn floor allowed when she rounded a bend in the passageway and heard the sound of voices approaching from ahead. Kayla immediately threw herself back against the damp outer wall and into the deep shadows.

  “Those locks are pretty rusty, but they’ll be strong enough to hold the rest of those little woods rats ‘til it’s their turn to come out and play ‘fer the crowd,” the owner of the first voice commented before hacking and spitting into the dust at Kayla’s feet. She heard him slurp and gulp as he took a long pull from the flask he was gripping in one big fist.

  “Yeah, right! Nobody’ll be lookin’ ‘fer us ‘fer awhile so it be safe ta’ find us a good spot to watch the sport from. I hear the bears are real hungry tonight! Har! Har!”

  Kayla nearly gagged on the fumes of the cheap rum the two guards were sharing before they shuffled on past her, but she determinedly held her breath and kept her roiling stomach under control until she was certain they had gone far enough not to see or hear her before she dared ease on around the bend.

  Still gagging on the lingering rum fumes, she slid from the shadows and hurried along the guards’ path toward the muted crying of frightened children. Using the sound as a guide, Kayla soon reached the end of the tunnel and an unlocked gate of metal bars that allowed her passage into an inner courtyard.

  Beyond, she saw the shadowy images of the prison wagons she’d seen being hauled into the city earlier. The wagon holding the children stood in the center of the courtyard, shrouded in the flickering shadows cast by a lone lantern. Kayla’s ultra-sharp night vision allowed her eyes to focus on the three huddled forms in the corner of the cage.

  Fearing she might be seen by someone even in such poor light, Kayla held one open hand before her mouth and aimed a gentle breath of air across her palm. The lantern’s flame flared high for one endless moment before dying. The puff of air left the lantern rocking and the wagon cloaked in darkness.

  Left without even the small comfort of the light, the keening of the frightened children raised an octave. Quickly, Kayla slid from the shadows to the door of the cage.

  “Sh-sh-sh! It’s all right, I’ve come to help you,” she hushed them. She could still hear their small gasps of fear, but the children went silent while she fumbled with the sturdy lock.

  When the lock stubbornly resisted her efforts to coax it open, Kayla grew impatient. Moving back a bit, she pointed one finger at the dark shape of the lock aiming a small blue beam of light at the mechanism. In seconds, the dull metal had begun to glow. The softened iron sagged and stretched, finally dropping from the bars and into the sand with a hiss.

  With a deep sigh of relief, Kayla was reaching for the dangling remnant of the lock, intending to release the children, when a large, calloused hand shot out of the dark and grabbed her hand, stopping her.

  Before the fingers of her free hand could close around the dagger at her waist, a hoarse, raspy voice, hissed, “The metal will be hot. It would not be wise to burn your hand when you may soon need it to wield that crystal sword of your’n.”

  “Hacknose!” Kayla gasped in relief but took another step back when a second shadow materialized behind him.

  “Lady, you move faster than a rabbit with a fox on his tail,” r
umbled Troll’s deep voice. “Fortunately for both of us, we do seem to have friends with the same mission in mind. Hacknose and I crossed paths again while I was searching for you. He thought you might be headed back here, and it looks like he was right.”

  Looking uncertainly at both men, Kayla drew her shoulders up and jerked the remnants of the lock from the latch. “Please don’t try to stop me. I intend to do whatever I can to help these poor children no matter what you think.”

  The moonlight flashed from the beads of sweat dripping from Troll’s face when he shook his head in resignation. “M’lady, I have come to expect that it would be a waste of breath, and more precious time, to try to dissuade you from your errand,” he hissed, “So I’ve decided to do whatever I can to help you.” He reached his arms out and took the child Kayla was pulling from the wagon and handed it off to Hacknose.

  “Can you help get these away from here and to a safe place?”

  “No problem, friend.” Hacknose waved a hand toward the flickering shadows surrounding them. “Our people were already here and about to move in when the Lady arrived and beat us to them.”

  Seeing Kayla’s look of surprise, he told her, “We’re not all monsters M’lady. We have a pretty strong underground resistance organized here in the city. The De’was are good allies. We’ve been trying to get to the children since they arrived, but they’ve been too heavily guarded ‘til now.” He shook his head sadly and hugged the child in his arms. “Even now, we are only able to save these because the guards are so preoccupied by what is being done to the others,” he told her bitterly with a shake of his head to indicate the dull roaring rising from the direction of the crowded arena.

  “Oh no,” Kayla passed the last child into Troll’s arms without looking. “I’ve got to get to them!” She turned toward the arena and would have returned to the tunnel but for his restraining hand on her arm.

  “Lady, there are too many people. It would not be possible to reach the children before the Emperor’s guards stopped you.”

  “No, you’re wrong. There is a way,” insisted a high, squeaky voice from under the wagon. “That is, if the Lady be bold enough to try.”

  “Wh-what?” Troll and Kayla stepped back to allow a miniature man to crawl from his hiding place.

  “Geko! What are you doing here?” rasped Hacknose.

  “I came to help the young ones like the rest of you!” he stated indignantly.

  “But how can you help,” Kayla asked the dwarf impatiently.

  “I know how to get into the maze without being seen. That’s how!” he insisted gruffly. “Now, are you all going to stand here and talk about it all night, or are we going to find them before the bears do?” The little man began waddling toward the tunnel entrance as fast as his stubby legs would take him, confident that Kayla was on his heals.

  But before Kayla could follow him, Troll placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him.

  “I won’t be able to go with you. I’m much too large and clumsy to sneak around in those tunnels.” He stared into her determined eyes and nodded. “Take care of yourself, M’lady. I’ll be waiting for you when you bring them out.”

  Unable to get any words past the lump in her throat, Kayla could only nod her head before turning away. With one hand holding her floppy hat on her head, she ran on silent feet, following Geko back into the maintenance tunnel.

  They’d gone only a few yards past the tunnel entrance when Geko grabbed Kayla’s hand and tugged. “This way, Lady,” he whispered, leading her into another low narrow passageway that was barely large enough for them to squeeze through.

  As they made their way deeper into the darkness, Kayla became aware of the sound of feet and voices above them.

  “Where are we?” she hissed.

  “Under the spectator stands,” he puffed. The dwarf was short of breath from their hurried pace.

  “Here! I think this is it! Ummphht!” The dwarf wedged his small body into an alcove angling off from the main passage and jammed his thick shoulder against a section of wall, pushing with all his might.

  When his efforts seemed futile, Kayla forced her slender form into the alcove beside him and added her weight to his.

  After much grunting and sweating, and what Kayla was quite sure were curses Geko was mumbling, they were rewarded with the screech of rusty hinges. Grating and groaning in protest, the door gave way and dumped the two of them on the ground.

  Kayla was pushing herself up from the ground and was trying to get her feet under her when a smell, strongly reminiscent of ripe carrion and boar dung, assaulted her senses.

  “Oh gross!” she hissed as she tried to brush the dirt from her hands and clothes. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Afraid so,” chuckled Geko, “But at least now, the bears won’t be able to detect our scent over their own. This is one of the old bear cages,” he said.

  “Right, I guessed that,” Kayla grumbled as she wiped her hands on her pants again.

  The chamber above them clanged and vibrated with the roaring of the crowd as they cheered with renewed vigor.

  “They’ve released the bears! We must hurry if we are to save them! Come with me!” There was a new urgency in Geko’s voice as he groped along the wall of the cubical.

  “Finally,” he hissed, “Got it!” Dim light filled the stall as he slid open a door leading into another cage. “From here we should be able to see most of the maze below.”

  Kayla could barely see in the dusty darkness, but she distinctly heard the snick of an iron knife being pulled from a leather sheath.

  “You’d best arm yourself, Lady. I’m not sure which cages are in use and it may not be long before we encounter one of the bears,” Geko told her grimly.

  Taking his advice, Kayla drew her sword before crowding into the open doorway beside him to appraise the situation for herself. She was surprised to find that there remained only a half-rotted ramp between them and the giant maze that filled the entire arena. She had seen an image of the maze in the minds of the peasants, but seeing it with her own eyes was a totally different and a much more frightening experience!

  The maze itself was comprised of bamboo cages of varying sizes and shapes stacked in clusters of three and four together and joined by multiple passageways that lead to and from the individual cages at different levels. Many of the layered cages were furnished with ladders, swings and poles connecting one side to the other.

  Kayla’s inspection was interrupted by another frenzy of shouting and cheering from the rows of spectator seats that surrounded the arena and rose out of sight toward the top of the domed roof high above.

  Curious, she leaned a little further out so that she could scan the maze and locate the source of the crowd’s excitement and caught the movement of one of the bears.

  She quickly ducked back into the shadow of the kennel and watched from the shadows as the beast lumbered from between the cages and into an open, ground-level area that was surrounded by towers of cages connected by swinging-bridge passageways above. As if fully aware of his audience, the great black bear announced his arrival with a deep, hungry growl and roar of challenge as he moved into full view.

  Kayla gasped in shock and stumbled back a step when she beheld the beast, named so simply a “bear” by the people of this world. This black monster was as far from being a bear, of any sort she knew of, as a giant grizzly was from being a child’s teddy bear. It took all of her willpower to force her horror-struck eyes to stay focused on that beast and study it.

  “Bear? Right,” she mumbled aloud more for her sake than Geko’s. “That thing might look sorta like a bear. That is if they happened to come covered with scales instead of fur! And look at those teeth and fangs! They must be at least six inches or more!”

  “Yes, they are very fearful to look upon,” agreed Geko in a very small voice.

  Below them, the crowd went silent as they waited for the bear to lock on to a scent.

  Snuffling loud
ly, he circled the area, slowly checking every nook and cranny before returning to the center where he reared up on his back legs. His beady red eyes stared about him and at the bleachers stretching up, into the shadows, as if gauging his chances of reaching them. When he still did not encounter the scent of the prey he was seeking, the bear leaned back on his thick tail to balance the bulk of his body and threw back his massive head.

  The roar erupting from that massive jaw reverberated from the far walls and domed roof. Kayla covered her ears against the ear-shattering challenge and stared into the mouth full of jagged teeth, terrifying even from this distance.

  The echoes of the bear’s roar had barely died when they heard the door to an unseen cage slam. Another bear, this one of a mottled brown color, lumbered into view.

  The crowd roared in excitement as the brown ignored the black and immediately began circling the perimeter of the clearing, his nose lifted in the air, snuffling loudly as he sought the scent of his prey.

  The crowd hushed, waiting for the bears to pick out the trail.

  It was only moments before the brown’s ravenous snarl announced that he had found a scent at the bottom of a ladder that led to a tunnel halfway up the wall. Snuffling excitedly, he followed the scent until he was standing upright, his head level with the opening. The deep, guttural growls could be heard throughout the arena as the brown dug his claws into the bamboo bars and began scrambling at the rungs of the ladder with his back feet.

  After several failed tries, he finally managed to clamp his powerful jaw onto a bar at the tunnel opening and gain enough leverage to hull his tremendous bulk up the side where he wedged his upper body into the hole. After considerable scrambling at the walls, the bear managed to drag the rest of his thick body into the narrow tunnel. With the aid of fangs and claws, he was making slow but steady progress through the open grillwork of the passageway as he followed the scent deeper into the maze.

  Kayla was half turned to return to the kennel when she heard the black’s excited roar!