Hooded

by A A Woods

  Carlette sent an exhausted arrow of thought into her friend.

  Cut the ropes!

  It had to be enough. She didn’t have the strength for more. But Aheya, to her relief, lunged forwards. The steel glinted in her hand. With the wolf’s multifaceted vision, Carlette could see colorful threads around Aheya, curling like tendrils of smoke.

  “Stop her!” Yokan barked.

  But Aheya’s hands were already in motion, one pulling, the other slashing.

  The tired ropes snapped open.

  Carlette felt the agonizing tingle of release, the Amonoux’s raw throat opening. Its collar fell away, mangled, matted, revoltingly cruel.

  And she could hold on no longer.

  The juvenile wolf shook her off with an ecstatic rumble, rolled its shoulders, threw its head back, and howled.

  There was an instant of silent shock, louder than any scream.

  Here we go, Carlette thought, half-delirious with exhaustion.

  Yokan began to shout orders. Men and women ran for their steeds. Prisoners were thrown aside as a distant, eerie howl answered.

  “We need to get out of here,” Tuk whispered. Carlette’s head lolled against his shoulder. “Carlette, stay with me!”

  She couldn’t form thoughts. Her mind was like pulverized meat.

  How had she done that? It shouldn’t have been possible, couldn’t have been possible. She’d never trained with an Amonoux.

  But she had seen them before.

  Her mind flashed back to that night, Quaina’s last, out in the forest. She could remember the smell of the spring leaves, the crisp scent of melting snow. They’d both heard the rumors about beasts stalking down from the mountains, hunting food after a long and desperate winter. But Carlette had been too eager, too youthful and naïve.

  And Quaina never turned down an adventure.

  Images flashed through Carlette’s mind even as the Bloody Paw campsite erupted into chaos. She remembered Quaina’s bobbing, straw-colored hair. The first intoxicating taste of the woods. Carlette had thrown her hands out, her laughter echoing against impossibly large trees, cutting off when she saw the massive shapes moving in the shadows.

  She’d heard a cry of surprise.

  Seen the she-wolf, gaunt and fierce, looming over Quaina.

  Carlette had screamed. Sprinted towards the monster. Her fingertips had brushed against thick fur, rustled the wolf’s pelt.

  Don’t, Carlette could remember thinking.

  Had the she-wolf paused?

  The memory ended there.

  That’s where the guards had found her, alone in the clearing with only a spatter of blood to mark Quaina’s death. They had marveled at how lucky she was, wondered how a little girl could have survived an Amonoux attack.

  But what if it hadn’t been luck?

  Carlette’s head jerked upright with a clatter of manacles.

  “Stay with me!” Tuk snapped, shaking her again. “We need to get out of here!”

  Carlette’s thoughts were like murky water. She could sense the wolf pack crashing through the Giant’s Wood, an avalanche of force. They would be here in moments, led by the unforgiving she-wolf with Quaina’s soul tangled up in her great mind.

  The sound of a crossbow cut off the wolf’s howling.

  In a distant world, Aheya’s scream was silenced.

  “Please, Carlette, I need you,” Tuk said, his face close. Carlette could smell his breath and it reminded her of fresh-baked oat cakes.

  She blinked.

  Bloody Paws swirled around them, preparing for battle.

  Carlette took a deep breath…

  And caught sight of Byrna. The tiny beetle-speaker was staring at her upside-down, head cocked. A coy, knowing smile played over her features.

  Carlette felt a chill.

  As three huge rebels sprinted by, wielding spears as they leapt on their mountain stags, Byrna opened her mouth, about to reveal Carlette’s great secret.

  Like a striking snake, Carlette smashed into the girl’s head. Blinding pain shot up Carlette’s spine as her exhausted body protested, but she fought through it. With every scrap of her training, she clenched a mental fist around Byrna’s mind and dominated the girl’s powers.

  The cairog skittered over the celling, ignored by shouting rebels. Feelers shot out, wrapped around Tuk’s torso, Carlette’s waist. He thrashed against them but Carlette sat statue-still. Byrna was fighting against her hold, trying to drive Carlette out with the undisciplined defenses of a thunderstorm. But where this girl’s mind was a force of nature, Carlette’s was a weapon. Honed and trained.

  She conquered the girl easily.

  Tuk cried out as the cairog’s feelers lifted them into the air. Carlette, touched his arm, her entire body screaming in agony.

  “Be still,” she groaned.

  She would hold. For him, she would hold.

  As the rest of the Bloody Paws scrambled to defend against the approaching Amonoux pack, Carlette bent Byrna to her will. The cairog skittered along the cave’s roof, bearing them away.

  As they passed over the pit, Carlette caught sight of her friend’s body, draped over the corpse of the Amonoux like a discarded doll. A crossbow bolt stuck out from the wolf’s seventh eye, feathers still quivering. Tears pricked Carlette’s glowing eyes, and with a deep chill she realized she wasn’t sure which life had been worse.

  There must be a better way.

  Passing four fingers over her forehead to salute a fallen sister, Carlette let the cairog carry them deep into the mountain, wrapped in the cover of darkness.

  Chapter Sixteen: Signals and Stories

  Carlette held as long as she could, but Byrna’s mind was decaying under her stranglehold, fighting her exhausted power like a spitting cat. It wouldn’t be long before the girl’s brain gave out, and, with Carlette’s attention on escape, she hadn’t tracked the twists and turns of the tunnel. Worse, she had the impression that, should the beetle-speaker die, the chittering black mass carrying them wouldn’t hesitate to turn on them for food.

  “We’ll stop here,” Carlette rasped. Her exhaustion was a squirming, writhing thing inside her, demanding to be felt. “I think we’re safe.”

  “Say that to the subject of my next nightmare,” Tuk said, leaning away from the insect’s many skittering legs. He’d managed to grab a torch from beside the Amonoux pit and its flickering light made the mining cave seem ghostly and ethereal. Carlette could almost imagine the men and women that had toiled away in here, fighting against all odds to carve their mark on this strange new land.

  Grinding her teeth, Carlette sent a jab of command through Byrna. The cairog slowed. Twisted down the wall of the cave.

  Released them.

  Carlette immediately collapsed, gasping. Tuk was at her side in an instant, but she waved him away.

  “The girl,” she panted, body vibrating. “Secure her.”

  Tuk stared at her for a moment, mouth open in question. With shaking fingers, Carlette pointed at the dagger hilt protruding from the girl’s boot. Tuk’s eyes widened, but he scrambled to obey.

  Carlette watched blearily as Tuk eased the small, dense body from the cairog’s shoulders, careful to stay away from the insect’s clipping pincers and beady eyes. He slid the knife out with a quiet snick. Finally, when he had the blade pressed firmly against Byrna’s neck, Carlette let go.

  Twin retching sounds filled the tunnel.

  For a moment, Carlette’s world was nothing more than the curdling of her stomach, the pounding in her head. Even the dim light of Tuk’s torch pulsing against the rock was enough make her cringe.

  A harsh, guttural laugh filled the darkness, followed by the splash of more sick.

  “So much for you being just some Tuleaux-bred bitch,” Byrna said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Carlette’s only answer was to retch again, an unproductive, painful clench of the torso. Tuk was glancing nervously at the cairog clicking back and forth in a strange
dance, anxious for its master.

  Byrna chuckled again.

  “And I thought today would be boring.”

  “What’s wrong?” Tuk asked as he watched Carlette continue to dry-heave, holding the knife against Byrna’s spine. “What happened to you?”

  “Any Moian child knows better than to reach too far,” she drawled. “It seems you have less sense than a larva.”

  “Well aren’t you pleasant,” Carlette gasped, leaning against a boulder. The tremors wracking her body were violent, exhaustion a venom coursing through her bloodstream.

  She met Tuk’s eyes.

  How were they going to get out of this?

  They were trapped deep in the mountain with a violent rebel and her carnivorous insect, surrounded by the terrors of the Peaks, all but powerless to defend themselves. They had no guns, one knife, and a hood who could barely stand.

  Carlette leaned her head back.

  “Let’s rest for a while,” she said, staring at the amber-tinted celling.

  “I don’t think you have much of a choice, larva-girl,” Byrna sneered as Tuk pushed the rebel down into a seated position. “I’ve seen whores at dawn with more energy than you.”

  “That thing’s looking at me like I’m lunch,” Tuk muttered, eyes fixed on the gigantic beetle looming at the edge of their tiny circle of light.

  “How do we get out of the tunnels?” Carlette croaked, too drained to face the Moian warrior.

  Byrna’s laugh echoed around them. The hair on Carlette’s neck stood up.

  “With my help, that’s how,” she said. “And why should I help you?”

  “So we don’t kill you.”

  “Kill me and your Nuri friend will be right about Tabis. I’ve trained her to eat my enemies.” She smirked. “Alive.”

  Carlette didn’t think she was exaggerating.

  With colossal effort, Carlette managed to lift her head and meet Byrna’s fiery eyes. Black pupils, white rings, deep brown irises the color of Goddeau wood. “Perhaps you’re eager to starve to death?”

  “We’ll die of thirst first,” Byrna said with a blade-sharp grin.

  “I have no intention of entombing myself under the Peaks.”

  “You should have thought of that before you ran like a frightened cockroach. You might have had more luck in the forest. But I doubt it.”

  Carlette glanced to Tuk for support, but his gaze was still fixed on the insect.

  “What do you want, then?” Carlette asked, turning back. “Do you want me to go back? Turn myself in? Let Yokan kill me?”

  Byrna’s grin widened. Her teeth glowed in the darkness like a legion of pale ghosts.

  “You don’t know who you are, do you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carlette snapped, even as her stomach clenched.

  “Clearly.” Byrna cocked her head. “Let me guess; you’re the best in your class. Strongest hood in your tower, probably in all of Jemelle. Even the instructors were surprised by your ability to enhabit animals you weren’t trained in. Complex beasts. Predators. Humans.”

  Carlette didn’t answer. Tuk was watching them, eyes wide and flicking every so often toward the beetle.

  Byrna went on.

  “Haven’t you ever wondered why the settlers use half-breeds for their defenses? Why they don’t just steal our children and train them as their own?”

  “Your power is unstable,” Carlette answered. “It needs to be tempered by Delarese control.”

  “Words from the Convent itself, eh?” Byrna said, her tone chilling. “But not the whole story, larva-girl. It’s because they’re afraid of us. They know we can’t be contained.”

  “There is no we,” Carlette snarled.

  “We’re stronger than they can ever imagine.”

  “Stop referring to me like I’m—”

  “You’re a Furix.”

  There it was.

  The words seemed so small and innocent. So simple.

  But devastating.

  Tuk’s mouth fell open. His gaze flashed to hers. But she ignored him.

  “I… I’m just a hood. Loyal to Grand Mera and—”

  “I thought you’d already spouted enough shit for the night,” Byrna sneered, jerking her head at the puddle of vomit beside Carlette. “Don’t make it worse.”

  “What does it matter to you? Yokan was going to kill me.”

  “Yokan didn’t know.”

  “And if she had?”

  Byrna only grinned.

  Carlette pressed her fists to her forehead as her world tilted dangerously, an unstable mass of shifting planes. It was unacceptable. She couldn’t be a Furix. She had followed every law, kept to the path like a perfect cog in Delasir’s war machine. She was hooded, a member of the Order, a weapon trained and honed to fight Nurkaij in any way possible. It was what she had always wanted…

  But no, that wasn’t right. Before the white rings had appeared in her eyes, she’d dreamed of exploration. Of setting out on the seas with Quaina.

  Of learning about the Giant’s Wood.

  Carlette thought of her mother, of all the conflicting images accreting into a single person. A pregnant Ebonal girl who had run away from her duty. A desperate child who had appeared on Mya’s doorstep, her eyes too pale to tell. A virginal offering to a descendant of Voka, a man of great power.

  Why did her mother run away?

  And why, of all places, had she fled to Tuleaux?

  Carlette shook her head. Exhaustion pounded against her, making it difficult to think straight.

  “We can’t do anything more without rest,” Carlette said at last, dropping her fists into her lap and leaning against the stone wall. “Tuk, can you keep watch?”

  “You think I’m sleeping with that thing around?”

  Byrna snickered.

  But Carlette was already slipping away. She was exhausted, overwhelmed, and wanted more than anything to shut her brain down. She could deal with these questions another time, after rest and food. Maybe they’d make more sense in the daylight.

  Maybe not.

  Either way, she was in no shape to do anything about it now. So, releasing her hold on the physical world, Carlette allowed fatigue to drag her at last into that thoughtless, blissful oblivion of sleep.

  · · ─────── ·❅· ─────── · ·

  When they finally left the caves, it felt like stepping out of hell.

  After hours and hours of total darkness, gambling on a mining cart track in the hopes that there was a coin-toss chance of survival, struggling to keep panic at bay after Tuk’s torch burnt out with a fatalistic sizzle, Carlette had wondered if death might actually be a relief. Between Byrna’s snide comments and the cairog’s nervous clicking, fear had become their constant companion, crawling up their skin, settling at the base of their necks like a tick.

  But now, throwing an arm up against the blinding sunlight, Carlette’s heart was swamped with giddy relief.

  Even the Giant’s Wood didn’t scare her after that.

  She leaned against the tunnel wall, gulping fresh air and waiting for her eyes to adjust.

  “I never thought land could look so beautiful,” Tuk said.

  Suddenly, Byrna clicked her tongue. Carlette jerked around. They had tied a blindfold around the Moian girl’s eyes, swaddled her hands with what was left of Carlette’s jerkin. But the cairog had followed them like a trained dog, too close for comfort. Its many legs sounded like a constant tumble of stones as it skittered over the roof. Every so often, a scaly feeler would brush Carlette’s shoulder in a probing, malignant question.

  But at Byrna’s signal, the cairog flowed over the cave’s celling, twisted around the entrance, and skittered into gully.

  “Stop!” Carlette called, reaching out a hand. She stumbled forward, her instincts humming. She couldn’t let the insect escape. Somehow, Byrna had sent a message, even without her magic. She had to keep the monster from leaving.

  Carlette
stretched out her mind, felt for the strange, alien body. But she couldn’t grasp it. It felt like trying to grab a seashell and finding only sand. The cairog was less a consciousness than a system of moving parts. Machine-like. Efficient. Cold and cruel with only a hint of the familiar. Carlette squeezed with all her might, but the cairog’s mind crumbled through her mental grip and disappeared over the foothills, leaving them alone at the edge of the Giant’s Wood.

  “That can’t be good,” Tuk said at last.

  Carlette rounded on Byrna. “What did you do?”

  “You hoods are all the same,” Byrna said with a lazy grin. “You think of the beasts you enhabit as servants to take orders. You treat them the way Tuleaux treats you.”

  “What,” Carlette repeated, grabbing the front of Byrna’s tunic, “did you do?”

  Byrna just smiled at her. “I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we larva-girl?”

  Carlette thrust Byrna away from her in disgust, glaring out at the Giant’s Wood.

  The only way to reach Jemelle was through those trees. Trees now teeming with potential danger.

  “We’ve seen worse,” Tuk offered.

  Carlette’s lips twitched. “Not much.”

  “Well,” Tuk said. “I trust you.”

  Byrna let out an explosive sigh. “Could you two just fuck and get it over with? You’re like virgins on promise-day.”

  Carlette ignored her.

  “Let’s go,” she said, grabbing Byrna’s arm and hauling her forward.

  Entering the Giant’s Wood, Carlette felt like her nerves were on fire. Every time a branch snapped or a bird cawed, her pulse quickened. Even Tuk was silent as they waited for Byrna’s trap to spring.

  Byrna, on the other hand, was no help at all.

  “Would you stop that?” Carlette hissed as Byrna began to whistle.

  “Why? Unlike you, I’m welcome here.”

  “I swear to all my ancestors…”

  “You know what I can’t figure out,” Byrna said in a loud, carrying voice. Carlette swung around, growling as Tuk pulled them up short. His manacles clinked. Byrna’s mouth was curved like a strung bow beneath her blindfold, tangled black hair floating in a paradoxical halo. “Which side you’re on. You have a Nuri airman in cuffs, yet you let him keep watch. You claim the Bloody Paws are monstrous enemies, yet you keep me alive.”