Meritorium (Meritropolis Book 2)

by Joel Ohman

  The decibel level of the crowd grew deafening.

  Pain spread through Charley’s knee and he looked down. The inky sputum from the warrior bloomed outward, forming a new slide, the administration of the Rorschach test incomplete. A new shape emerged. It was still death, all he could see was death, but if he squinted, maybe he could see wings.

  An enormous webbed foot with yellow splayed claws stepped directly onto the spitblot, transforming its shape entirely, and plastering a new footprint in its stead.

  The llamabill squawked defiantly, claiming Charley as its own. Its foot was just inches from Charley, but strangely he didn’t feel afraid.

  Charley looked up slowly.

  A beak as wide as a garbage-can lid, proven capable of decapitating a fully grown man, yawned open inches from Charley’s wide-eyed face. The llamabill’s mouth belched out noxious fumes, reminiscent of swamps, wharves, and rotting fish all in one, accosting Charley’s nose.

  Charley recoiled. Forgetting his current predicament in the surprise, he winced as his knee wrenched against the dead weight of the heavy chariot. The llamabill cocked its head to one side, looked at Charley quizzically, and then let out a staccato of bill-clattering. The llamabill nimbly stepped up to the dirt-encrusted chariot, lifted a great webbed foot, and then kicked out, toppling the chariot, and freeing him.

  Charley stood up slowly, not taking his eyes off his rescuer. “Thank you.” His eyes widened. “It can’t be … You—you’re the same—you followed me?” The llamabill squawked, eyes glinting. “Did you get captured too, boy? Is that how you ended up here? You got captured—trying to follow me?”

  The llamabill capered up and down, and, followed by two sprightly sideways hops, seemed to twist its massive mouth into a smile.

  Charley squinted, getting a closer look. “Is it really you? Shooey?”

  The llamabill nuzzled his shoulder in return.

  “It is you …” Charley tentatively reached a hand out and stroked the downy fur along its neck.

  Hank ran up, breathing hard through his mouth. “You, um, know this animal?”

  Shooey turned to Hank, planted a heavy webbed foot in front of Charley, and screeched an aggressive warning. Hank stepped back hurriedly, falling over his own feet in the process. “Call him off! Call him off!”

  “Shooey, it’s okay. It’s okay. This is Hank.”

  The intelligent eyes, severe as a falcon in flight, twitched from Charley to Hank and back again. Leaning down, as if to sniff Hank, Shooey ducked its beak.

  Hank scrabbled backward in the dirt, covering his head with one arm. “Please, Charley, don’t let it eat me!”

  “It’s fine, it’s fine. Just get up,” Charley said, trying to sound more certain than he really was.

  “Okay, I’m getting up slowly.” Hank lifted himself gently to one knee. “Don’t let it pee on me, either.”

  “Come on, it’s a llamabill, not a dog marking its territory.” Charley held out his hand to Hank. “Let’s go, we need to help Grigor.” Charley looked over his shoulder at Orson furiously staving off wolverators left and right to protect Grigor, who was still astride the rampaging horoceros.

  Shooey, now eye level with Hank, tilted its head to one side, and then belched a gaseous blast of fishy smog directly into Hank’s open mouth.

  Charley tried to hide a smile. “I think that means he likes you.”

  Coughing, Hank turned away quickly. “You go ahead and ride Shooey. I think I’ll fight over there with Orson on my feet.” Looking over his shoulder at Shooey, Hank coughed again and half-tripped, half-ran to Orson.

  Charley looked at Shooey. Well, yeah, I guess I do need a ride—if that’s okay with you?” Charley reached out and gently patted the springy curls on its back.

  Before he could lose his nerve, Charley quickly hopped onto Shooey’s back. “There, there, that’s right. Good boy.” He stroked an enormous feathery wing. “It’s up to you, but maybe we could even try a little flyi—”

  Shooey launched into the air like a rocket, a prehistoric shriek piercing the battle sounds of the arena. Charley leaned down and hung onto Shooey’s long, fuzzy neck for dear life. He squinted, the whipping wind bringing tears to his eyes. Shooey’s enormous wings unfurled and propelled them upward, seemingly faster than Charley’s stomach could follow. He hoped he could hold on without throwing up. An obviously intelligent animal, Shooey seemed to intuitively understand that the other beasts and armored warriors roaming the arena, posed a threat to Charley.

  Swooping and caroming on the downdrafts, Shooey darted along the breeze in a feat of aerial acrobatics that belied his enormous size. Man and beast alike scattered in all directions on the arena floor below, diving and rolling out of their way, to avoid the grasping yellow-and-black talons and wide gaping mouth. Charley was transported back to earlier, more savage times, a time when dinosaurs ruled the land and the air; he was cresting the wind currents mounted on a winged hunting machine.

  Charley nudged Shooey’s neck. “Over there, let’s help my friends.” Orson and Hank were valiantly attempting to fight off the streaming wolverators, but there were so many that some were getting close to the unprotected hindquarters of Grigor’s horoceros.

  Still clinging on tightly, Charley poked Shooey behind the ear. “Do you understand?”

  Incongruently, Shooey let out a whooping maw and then dive-bombed a pack of wolverators that had almost overcome Orson. Breath catching in his throat, Charley felt like his cheeks were rippling back in the wind, his lips flapping so that his teeth were exposed to the wind. With a screaming squawk, Shooey scooped up a wolverator in each gigantic webbed foot, and then ascended straight up.

  Bile rose in Charley’s throat. They were at least fifty feet in the air and still climbing. Abruptly, Shooey leveled off, and then cruised sideways on a slipstream, giving Charley just enough time to gulp a breath of air.

  The wolverators, stunned and disoriented, began to squirm in the grip of Shooey’s talons.

  Charley looked down—and immediately wished he hadn’t. They were at least ten stories up. He was lying prone on Shooey’s fuzzy back, clinging with everything he had not to fall off. He tightened the grip of his arms and legs. Shooey seemed to sense Charley’s discomfort, and retracted the bony pivot joints of his wings to secure Charley in place like a father giving a piggyback ride to his child.

  Charley chanced a second look down.

  Every eye in the arena was staring up at them. Even contestants on the battlefield were maneuvering away and pointing.

  Shooey glided lazily over the top of a dozen armed warriors, before opening his talons. The two wolverators plunged, their flat reptilian bodies twisting in the air, jaws snapping angrily.

  The effect of Shooey’s carpet-bombing was instantaneous. Wolverators hit gladiators like detonators, exploding into a roiling mass of clawing and gouging, the vicious snouts of the wolverators sinking their pointy teeth directly into the exposed necks and limbs of the scrambling warriors.

  With a triumphal screech, Shooey turned back toward Orson. He now flapped close to the ground, leaving a dark shadow of terror along the arena floor—the fighters below cowering in fear. An arrow sizzled past Charley’s leg, narrowly missing Shooey’s wing, but Shooey seemed unperturbed. Charley had read that an eagle could see an object the size of a small coin from almost a mile away. Judging by the microscopic mid-air adjustments that Shooey had been making, slightly tipping and dipping up, down, left, and right, Charley got the sense that Shooey was aware of all threats, both land-based and airborne.

  Charley panned the arena floor, searching for Harold, the pot-bellied slave trader he had glimpsed earlier. He squeezed his knees into Shooey’s downy neck and pointed down at a cluster of heavily armed warriors who appeared to be congregating around a leader half-hidden from view, someone with a portly midsection spilling out beneath an armored br
eastplate much too small for him.

  Charley’s eyes narrowed. “There, go get him!”

  Shooey screeched, dive-bombing the group of warriors, who were already dispersing in a rapidly widening concentric circle. Leaving Harold all alone in the center, falling and stumbling backward, eyes wide and panicked underneath the visor tilted comically askew on his head. For a moment, Charley was tempted to sympathy—the old fool probably thought that he still had what it took to “fight” in the arena—but then he thought of the look on Harold’s face when he had purchased the two young girls at the auction block, and he leaned in closer to Shooey’s neck.

  Harold deserved what he was going to get, and Charley and Shooey were going to give it to him.

  In an explosion of talons on ripping flesh, Shooey hit Harold like a hawk with a rabbit. Before Charley even had time to take a second breath, they were already dozens of feet back into the air and climbing fast. Suddenly, Shooey flattened his climb to a cruising altitude, and seeming to tire of carrying the enormous man’s weight. He simply opened his claws.

  Harold plummeted to his death, his wails abruptly cut off upon his impact with the ground below. Charley swallowed. Harold had suddenly, and without warning, received a very public retribution for what he had probably imagined were his private crimes.

  Charley patted Shooey’s neck and gestured down at Orson. “Don’t hurt him, but let’s set down over there.”

  The look on Orson’s face when Shooey swooped in close with a bone-chilling screech was enough to make Charley’s day. To his credit, Orson remained steadfast. He held his blade outstretched, feet planted firmly on the ground—far better than could be said for the wolverators and warriors who scattered, low to the ground and out of the reach.

  Orson nodded appreciatively, his body language still wary. “Now that is a flying beast.”

  Shooey squawked a gaseous rumble of fishy air directly into Orson’s face, blasting his unbelievably still perfectly coiffed hair back against his head and forcing his eyes closed.

  Orson opened his eyes slowly. Something wet glistened above his left eyebrow. It slid down and hung like a mountain climber on a ledge: a strand of stringy sputum from Shooey’s maw. Without taking his eyes off the llamabill, Orson lifted a hand and wiped the residue from his face.

  Charley fought to contain a smile. “Maybe he wants a thank-you? His name’s Shooey.”

  “Thank you, um, Shooey,” Orson mumbled. “The wolverators are gone, but we need to help Grigor with—”

  “I’m right here.” Grigor walked up, breathing hard. “Everyone is clearing out from this side; I don’t think they want to be anywhere near your new friend. I jumped off the horoceros. It wanted to run back into a tunnel, and so I let it.” He shook his head in wonder. “A magnificent beast—maybe I’ll see it again.” Grigor drew himself up to his full height, and the rising and falling of his shoulders began to slow as he caught his breath. He looked Shooey full in the face. “And speaking of magnificent—pleased to meet you, Shooey. Thank you for keeping those wolverators away from me.” Grigor bowed his head slowly.

  At this, Shooey capered in a little circle, bobbing his head up and down. He let out a chirp-like sound, his mouth leering open.

  “I think he likes you,” Charley said. Turning to Orson, Charley frowned. “You, I’m not too sure.”

  “What about me?” Hank walked up, a hesitant look on his face.

  Shooey pivoted to Hank, and in a repeat of his earlier introduction, belched.

  “Sure,” Charley said, hopping off his steed.

  Rubbing Shooey’s fuzzy neck like a horse’s mane, Charley whispered to him, “You had better fly on out of here, and make yourself scarce for a while, before someone gets the idea to use you as archery practice.” Charley paused, his face turning serious. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow in here. Okay, boy?”

  Shooey nuzzled his head against Charley’s shoulder, hopped two quick steps, and then launched himself into the air with a thrash of his heavy wings. In just moments, he was nothing but a fast-receding speck in the azure sky.

  Hank gazed skyward, before looking back at the group, his face incredulous. “So, Charley not only rides lanthers, but he trains flying animal combos now?” He looked at Charley with something like respect. “Maybe you are a venator.”

  Charley shrugged. “Well, now what? Most of the warriors are either dead or have gone back into the tunnels.”

  “Low Scores, too,” Hank added. “I saw Sven and his friends beating a hasty retreat during all of the confusion with you and your new flying friend. I thought I saw Sandy, too, but it looked like—” Sven’s face darkened almost imperceptibly—“It looked like Marta was trying to force her to come out of a tunnel, but Sandy didn’t want to. Maybe since Shooey was on the warpath. I think Sandy didn’t even come out at all.”

  Charley wondered if Sandy had been refusing to launch an arrow at them; she was one of the best archers he had ever seen. All over again, he felt guilty for the way he had treated Sandy before entering Meritorium. He looked up at Hank. “Good, good—that’s perfect.” To add to the guilt, Charley realized that this was the first time he had even thought of Sven or Sandy since Shooey’s arrival.

  “So, that llamabill, Shooey—is that what you call him, Charley?” Hank asked, eyebrows raised.

  Charley thought back to his decision to free Shooey from the vines that had entangled him. That all seemed so long ago.

  “Charley?”

  “Sorry, yeah, um, his name’s Shooey.”

  “So you know him, or something?”

  “I know him or something.”

  “Um, okay …” Hank paused, but Charley remained silent. “Anyway—so, does this mean we, kind of, I don’t know—won?” Hank gestured around the arena floor, empty except for the fallen bodies and overall carnage.

  “Ask them.” Orson pointed to the stands, where the crowd milled restlessly.

  “Why aren’t they throwing coins or anything?” Charley asked. “And why isn’t the emperor making an announcement?”

  Orson flipped over his forearm to reveal his doctored low Score. “I think it’s because we’re Low Scores now; they don’t know what to do. And the emperor certainly doesn’t want to draw attention to us.”

  “I think we need to make ourselves scarce,” Grigor said, edging toward the nearest tunnel.

  “Back to the pen,” Hank said, shuffling after Grigor. “And the ants.”

  “And the ants,” Grigor said cheerfully. “But we’re alive—alive to fight tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, when we meet the czar,” Hank added in a voice that sounded to Charley much too chipper for the occasion.

  Charley followed Orson, and he couldn’t help but notice Orson’s shoulders stiffen at the mention of his father.

  Charley headed toward the tunnel, picking his way around a fallen wolverator. He steered well clear even though the animal appeared as dead as could be. He remembered a story of Grigor’s about a man skinning an alligator in pre-Event times. He had discovered the hard way that so much power was coiled up in the beast’s tail that, even dead as a doornail, the tail had flailed around like an angry bullwhip, knocking the man into a lake.

  Grigor’s characteristic cheerfulness buoyed Charley a little in his post-battle melancholy. Charley looked up into the stands, the people hardly paying him any attention. Charley thought this must be how it felt to be a Low Score, a nobody. When they weren’t providing some form of cheap entertainment, they were practically invisible. Maybe this was how all Low Scores felt: used, their worth determined only by their utility to others.

  Charley sighed, stepping into the dark tunnel behind Orson. He didn’t know how Grigor could remain so optimistic. He thought back to their conversation under the starry skies last night.

  Grace.

  An interesting word.

  He had
shown something like grace to Shooey, what seemed like an eternity ago back in the forest, even while he was starving. Surprisingly, Shooey had reciprocated by saving him in the arena today. Shooey had even gone to great lengths to follow him, and likely gotten himself captured and brought to Meritorium in the process. Charley knew that was far beyond what he deserved. But that was grace, wasn’t it, getting something you didn’t deserve?

  Charley felt his way along the tunnel; he could hardly see more than a few feet ahead. The only sounds he could hear were the insistent plink-plink of water echoing somewhere off in the deep underground bowels of the arena and the soft tread of Orson’s boots ahead. It was quiet, like a womb, and it forced Charley to think thoughts that he didn’t dare in the daylight.

  Why was it so hard to think about receiving grace, sometimes even much harder than extending it? He had saved Shooey, sure, but when Shooey had saved him—not to mention the many times Grigor had saved his life, in fact, even Orson had saved his life—why was that so hard to think about? Maybe the hatred he clung to in his heart, hatred for the System, and for the czar, and for all who had taken part in killing Alec, maybe that same hatred was what was blocking up his ability to not just extend grace, but even to receive it.

  But if he let the hatred go, then what?

  He doubted that there was enough grace in the world to just rush in and fill the void. The hatred was all he had. And, frankly, he didn’t know how he could get rid of it even if he wanted to.

  Charley stepped into a puddle; the brackish underground water instantly soaking his foot and leg all the way up to mid-shin. Charley cursed and hurried forward, intent on catching up to Orson’s voice, his obnoxious chortles at Charley’s misstep bouncing lightly off of the tunnel walls and echoing back.

  Charley gritted his teeth, not saying a word.