by PJ Schnyder
“Ready.” Tracer might have said the word as much to assure himself as the rest of the team.
She’d have to trust the dog to cover his master’s weak side. But she’d keep an eye on him if possible. Skuld liked him.
The bells rang. Different from the ones she’d heard below ground in the pits and cages. These were bigger, and the deep sound drowned out the screaming of the onlookers, vibrated in her sternum.
A half dozen scrawny humanoid slaves ran screaming toward them in a desperate charge. Too frightened to stand and wait for death to come to them. A moment of pity squeezed in her belly.
Kaitlyn pivoted in a slow turn, keeping the rest of the stadium in her peripheral as she watched them come. Half stumbling, they ran toward her team but each of them focused on a different member.
Shame. If they’d all targeted her, they might have had a longer life span. Hey, a minute or two counted.
Two engaged her as the rest went for Rygard or one of the others. Laughable. She crouched low, knocking their feet out from under them with a leg sweep. Taking care to keep clear of her own chain, she got to her feet while they floundered in theirs. Their panic kept her attention as they thrashed. Her teammates yanked the chains to either side as they met their own aggressors. Bharguest caught his attacker by the throat, lifting the assailant with a single hand. When the mutant’s scream cut off, she figured Bharguest crushed his windpipe.
A quick kill. Relief washed through her. She didn’t want to know how she’d feel watching Bharguest take his time.
Rygard took on his with a flurry of strikes to the face and body. Quick and devastating, the force of his attack sent his opponent reeling back into the mess of slaves. They all became fouled in their chains. One cried out as a chain wrapped around his leg and flipped him on his back.
“Make it clean, if you need to.” Bharguest’s words snapped across the roar of the crowds. “But don’t leave them alive to come at us again.”
No blade to make it easy. They’d all been sent in bare handed.
When one of her attackers found his footing and charged her again, she drove him back with a kick to the chest. The crowds in the stadiums screamed in delight. Then she darted in, closing the space before he could regain his balance.
Clean, merciful.
Some of the onlookers were throwing pieces of fabric and flowers down on them. A tribute to the violence.
She landed a left jab, a right hook and let the momentum carry her into a turn, dancing for the audience. Her spinning kick caught him in the side of the head with crushing force. He fell to the ground as she turned back, unwinding the chain at her waist.
She couldn’t spin more, not enough give in the chain. And the binding around her waist remained too tight to slide. She growled in frustration.
The other fool to engage her stared at his fallen companion. If he ran, she couldn’t go after him until her team finished dispatching their opponents. But she wanted him to run. The panther in her loved a chase. Craved it.
Instead, she feinted back and gave the men on her team slack in the chains.
Desperation flared in the humanoid’s face. His mouth twisted in a horrible grimace. He lifted his lip and bared what few teeth he had left.
Anger crashed through her. How dare he? As if she was a herd beast, easily tempted into charging? A growl rumbled from deep within her chest. She crouched, but didn’t move. If he wanted death, he could come to her.
He gave in first. Fear drove him forward as his teammates were dying around him. He ran toward Kaitlyn screaming, arms up, hands in a sad parody of claws.
Real claws flashed from her hands. She grinned as her fingertips burned with the pain of the shift. A fierce glee bloomed inside her. She darted in low as he charged her and then faded to the left at the last moment. Her upper cut caught him in the gut. The power of it drove her hand into soft tissue and up into his thoracic cavity.
With practice, she’d be able to close her hand around an opponent’s heart someday.
Not this time.
She yanked back her hand and the man fell to his knees clutching his abdomen. By the time he toppled to the sand, he was dead.
Not clean, that. But it’d been quick.
The chains were proving to be a pain in the ass. Not a surprise.
Even if she’d been careful not to become fouled in her own, the dead man’s chain caught on Bharguest’s. Her teammate reached down with a hiss and picked up the dead body, yanking it to clear his bindings and then throwing it at what remained of the attackers.
At least the first group.
Another group rushed them from Kaitlyn’s right. Several attacked Tracer, but Max did a good job of guarding his injured side. Relief cooled her temper a fraction. She paused a precious moment to eye the hub and chains before taking a quick step forward and grabbing up the slack of hers. As one attacker struggled to fend off Max with upraised arms, he gave her his back. Mistake. She wrapped her chain around his neck and gave it a decisive jerk. His neck snapped and his stinking body fell to the ground.
Ugh. Had he smelled of piss and rot before he’d died?
“Back up.” She barked out the command to the others. “Too many bodies underfoot.”
The others inched toward the edge of the arena. Each of them involved in fending off idiots. None of them having trouble holding their own, yet. Once she had them all on clear footing again she risked a look beyond their immediate range of influence.
The likeliest group was close. A few more steps and they’d be within earshot, for humans too.
“Bharguest.”
The big man turned to her, teeth bared. “You going to tell me something soft? Like disable and not kill?”
He had two by their chains and the scrawny slaves pummeled useless fists against his arm and shoulder. One sank teeth into his wrist. Spittle flew from their mouths, no sense left in their eyes.
Her gut twisted. Bile rose up to the back of her throat, burning. She saw a reflection of what she was becoming in the monster standing in front of her.
Survive first. Find peace with what we’ve done after.
“Make neat piles.” She turned away, a quarter turn. In this kind of chaos, giving him her back wasn’t wise.
These were easy kills. Her panther aspect growled and snapped. Some of these died smiling. Death could be a sweet release, maybe? She wondered.
More important issues nagged her. Where were the real warriors?
“DeSarto!”
That was a name she recognized. The chain at her waist jerked as Rygard lunged for his friend. He didn’t get too distracted though, taking out an attacker on his right as he went.
“Who the fuck?” DeSarto had blood on his hands. Well, paws. Maybe they were still hands, hard to tell under the white fur. Some sense still lurked in his dark eyes. “What the hell are you doing here, Rygard?”
“Forget that. Get with us. We’re here for all of you.” Rygard’s gesture swept behind him to include Kaitlyn and the rest of the team.
As DeSarto opened his mouth to respond, a batch of aliens rushed Kaitlyn. She drove the first back with a front kick as Bharguest snagged another right off his feet. Rygard took a third down with a crushing kick to the knees. Max ham-stringed a fourth.
* * *
Kaitlyn wasn’t sure how. Someone’s chain caught her behind the legs. The world tilted backward. She tried to bring her knees to her chest, turn her backward fall into a complete flip to land on her feet. The chain had caught her left foot, fouled her balance and she landed flat on her back.
Air left her chest in a whoosh. Her vision went black and then returned in a burst of sparks.
Too vulnerable.
She reached above her shoulders, planted her hands in the sand behind her head and shoved. As she did the kippup to
regain her feet, the heavy chain wrapped around her ankle yanked her foot out from under her. Shit. Dropping into a crouch to keep from losing her footing again, she saw the aliens. Two insectoids held the chain, mandibles gnashing with the effort. Rage seared through her.
She snarled.
They’d caught her by surprise. Still, the two of them on the other end lacked the strength to hold her. Pathetic beings, trembling, smelling of acid and fear. The muscles in her left thigh and calf burned in protest as she yanked her leg back. Sharp pain exploded in her ankle and lanced all the way up to her hip. The two insectoids lost their own footing and fell forward.
Mine.
In an instant, she was on them. Never bothering to stand back up on two feet, claws extended from her human hand as she swiped one across the face and then the other across the neck. She pounced on the first. Grabbed one side of its mandibles and twisted its head forward. The burn of the shape change in her jaw was there and then gone and when she bit deep into the insectoid’s neck, it was with a leopard’s force. Its exoskeleton gave way with a loud crack.
His companion beat at her shoulder and shouted at her in a high pitched series of squeals. When she lifted her head and bared her teeth, its multi-faceted eyes whirled in shades of red and yellow. She kicked back at him hard with both feet. Her clawed toes caught him in the unarmored midsection. Rags shredded and her hand sank deep into the soft tissue of his abdomen. The whirling in its eyes slowed and faded as its eyes glazed over in shock. The insectoid tipped onto its back, staring as its own entrails spilled out into the sand.
The burn in her jaw and at her toe tips only made her angrier. It took another precious second to disentangle herself from their chain.
Rygard and Bharguest had covered her and were each holding their own. Max had a limp and Tracer had taken a hit to his weak side. Blood soaked his clothes and as she slid in beside him, she could hear his wet cough. Not good.
Another moment passed and the field around them was clear of attackers.
“Up.” Rygard shouted orders to his newly found men. “We head up into the stands, there.”
His unit had a soldier down. Another was tied up in dragging their fallen comrade. They wouldn’t leave a man behind but the blasted chains were making things crazy complicated.
Thunder rumbled through the stadium. Tremors ran through the sand beneath her feet. Gates rose at several points around the edge. From each emerged a new threat, all of them armed. One rode in on a chariot, another was mounted on some horned beast; a half a dozen new players entered the field. The real warriors had entered the ring.
“Son of a bitch.” The curse came through on the comm in a mutter.
Yup. Dev was probably pissed his team had been dropped out in the arena from the start like the other slave meat. Mostly because they’d all be more tired now.
“Plan doesn’t change. Clean up what you can and get clear.”
She nodded. He’d see her acknowledgement.
It was Bharguest who engaged first.
A heavily furred opponent charged them on what looked to be a six legged horse, if horses had saber teeth. He swung a huge, long handled sledge hammer, almost catching Tracer in the back of the head. The trainer had ducked in time, but barely. The rest of them had tightened up, back to back. Rygard’s men did the same, leaving enough space between their groups to give them room to fight.
Chained as they were together and unarmed, they’d all have to get a little more creative.
The rider continued his charge to the end of the arena and wheeled his steed around to come at them again. Several slaves fell under the hooves of the mount, others met with the sledge hammer, landing in the sand bleeding and broken.
On the horse’s second pass, Bharguest reached out and caught hold of the sledgehammer. She heard something pop in her teammate’s arm with the strain. But the sudden move unseated their attacker, landing him flat on his back in the sand.
She pounced. Dismounted, the opponent wore little armor. It took one slash to the neck to finish him.
“Kaitlyn!”
She turned at the sound of Rygard’s voice but he’d been too slow. She’d been too slow.
Bharguest had the sledgehammer in his hands, raised above his head. In an arc too fast for human eyes to see, it came down.
She stared for a split second, one link of the chain attaching her to the hub was shattered. One was enough.
“Go.” Bharguest laughed then. The sound of it had nothing to do with sanity. “Clear a path and let’s see what you can do.”
Chapter Seventeen
Something snapped loose inside Kaitlyn.
She stared down at the broken chain with wide eyes, dropped her mouth open slightly as she panted for breath. Hot. The taste of blood and death hit her tongue. She snapped her mouth shut.
Free.
Erratic movement caught her eye. Prey ran everywhere.
“Well, Badger, I’d wager we’re going to see some interesting things in the next couple of minutes.” Dev’s voice whispered in her ear, bringing her back. Again.
Steadied, she looked up, past the chaos on the sands around her. The crowds watching rose up in the stadium seating, brought to their feet by the carnage. There were a dozen tiers of bloodthirsty onlookers, shouting and cheering. And above them, the private boxes. She scanned left and right until she saw the blue light wink at her. A tiny laser light streaming from a ring on Dev’s hand, harmless and easy to miss. Dev was her very own beacon, lighting a path through a sea of not so innocent bystanders who had better get out of the way or die. She had a mission to complete.
The deafening noise of the crowd faded to the background. The immediate sounds of fighting around her heightened. Her vision sharpened, crystal clear as she made a controlled shift of her eyes to cat.
She darted ahead of her team. The first slave to bar her path died before he hit the ground, his throat slashed by her clawed hand. Another came at her, his desperation a miasma clogging her nose. She whipped around and caught him along the side of his head in a spin kick strong enough to crack his jaw. A third rushed her with an ear splitting shriek. Kaitlyn sidestepped the woman’s outstretched arms and silenced her with a backhanded strike.
The cries of the wounded, shouts of fear, came to her and she passed them by. She catalogued them but ignored anything on the periphery. What mattered was her immediate sphere of influence and in this battle, the range was limited to her pouncing distance.
One of the real warriors moved to intercept her swinging a spiked ball on the end of a long chain. She grinned, watching its orbit. It took too long to make a full revolution. He relied on it to keep his victims at a distance until the thing smashed into them.
Fool.
She didn’t slow her pace as she neared. Instead, her leap into the air covered several yards. She landed on his shoulders with her knees. Before he could raise his arms to pry her off, she drove her elbows into the top of his skull. She hopped clear as he fell to his knees. Blood trickled down the sides of his forehead and into wide open, unseeing eyes. He toppled over, maybe dead, definitely not a threat any longer.
The weaker slaves stumbled to get out of her way, their eyes wide with fear. Their mouths twisted in panic as they scrambled. A tiny part of her shriveled. Some of those slaves took on the faces of old school mates. Half-forgotten expressions flitted across her vision, of terror and rejection.
She’d spent a long time pretending this part of her didn’t exist.
Shaking her head, she set her jaw and flexed her claws. She had a mission to complete and she’d use every skill she had to do it. Cry later.
A few more steps carried her to the wall and she took the height of it at a run. She caught the top edge and pulled herself up in a smooth motion, then crouched on the top for a brief moment.
A guard rushed at her. She leaped into the air and landed on the wall behind him. Without coming out of her crouch, she pivoted and landed a spinning kick to the back of his head. He didn’t make a sound as he pitched over the side and down to the melee below. Onlookers scrambled to get away from her. Frightened non-combatants, not worth her attention. There were too many opponents to take down first.
“Careful, Kat. Almost dropped a body onto Rygard’s head. He might not thank you for it.”
Dev must not have too many listeners nearby anymore.
A different kind of rumble shook the stadium. The stone of the wall beneath her hands and feet trembled. Her claws gave her better purchase but other beings in the stands lost their footing. Dust and rubble fell from the ceiling high above them.
Dev’s curse could’ve stained the air around him blue. Though when he spoke into the comm, he’d regained his composure. “Well, seems the Lieutenant is running on a slightly accelerated timeline from the original briefing.”
Son of a...well, she’d not want to insult any female unfortunate enough to have birthed him anyway. Air support wasn’t supposed to have arrived until they were all clear in the risers, not vulnerable out in the stadium sands.
“Rygard.” Maintaining the partial shifts as she was, his name came out rough, almost a cough. Her man turned anyway. “Get them up. Now. We’ve got no time. No time.”
He didn’t respond to her, only turned and barked out orders of his own.
Bharguest still had the damned sledgehammer and was setting the others loose one at a time, in between gleeful killing blows to whatever slave had the misfortune to stumble into his path.
Speaking of which, she needed to finish clearing one.
Many of the guards had turned away, distracted by the mass hysteria. This wouldn’t be about fighting them at the moment.
A thought triggered pain, searing its way down her spine and outward to every extremity. Her muscles stretched and snapped into a different configuration. Her bone structure dissolved and reformed. Standing in panther form, she let out a roar.
