by S McPherson
Bodies lie in the cages, some of creatures even more hideous than those prancing around them. They are hunched, trembling figures, tufts of fur speckling their raw-pink flesh. Their limbs are twists of bone that jut out at unnatural angles and they lie in a pool of their own waste, snarling with every weighted breath, the night about them soaked in a stench that could chase away rats.
Amongst these cages of misshapen creatures are two figures I recognise; both human. I can’t see either of their faces but I’m certain one is Milo. As though in confirmation, the tooth ceases to glow. I have found him.
Stealthily, I slither along the hilltop, not caring when I reach a patch of glutinous earth that stings like nettles and singes the fabric of my clothes. I slink further and further away from the beasts’ campsite, keeping my head low and hopefully out of sight. I use the pounding of the drums to cover my gasping breaths and how I hiss at the bite of the sodden earth. When the drums stop for a moment, I’m sure I’ve become deaf.
But then a howl rises, a ferocious screeching sound that sends my heart into a gallop, and I shield my ears, burrowing into the ground as if I can hope to hide within it. I listen as the sound of cheers follows, guttural and fierce. Turning ever so slightly, I watch one of the beasts drag a pink-fleshed and weaker creature from its cage, a rope coiled around its throat like a leash. It struggles against the beast who barely flinches, hauling it ineluctably through the muck.
I wince as the poor unfortunate thing is tossed on the ground beside the campfire, eliciting even more thunderous applause and cheering. Then one of the beasts emerges from the shadows and stands over the withered and trembling creature as it scrambles weakly to its feet. The beast simply waits, its fellows gathering around in eager anticipation. Then another pealing howl sounds out and it takes all my nerve not to scream. It seems the battle is about to commence.
Once the creature’s upright, the beast charges, but it darts out of the way and the beast staggers past. It swivels, though, with the grace of a gazelle, and lunges again, once more just missing the fast-evading creature, its pleading eyes stretched wide as it mewls and tries to flee. It soon runs into a wall of the beasts.
A part of me wants to help, to teleport the creature away, as I once somehow did with Nathaniel, but I’ve no idea how I did it, and alerting them to my presence would gain neither of us anything. Instead, taking advantage of the distraction of battle, I slide down the hillside, keeping a wary eye on what’s going on.
Eventually, I get close to the cages, using them to obscure me as shrieks erupt from the now clearly losing creature. Where were the ones holding the humans? It’s hard to tell in the dark, so I slither between them, searching, until my hand lands in something that reeks of rotting guts and body waste. I stifle a gasp when one of the caged creatures notices me, but it barely lifts its head, only huffing as it resignedly closes its eyes.
My guts swirl in a throttling rivulet of fear and relief, and I scramble past, the commotion of battle still raging on now out of sight. It sounds like the poor creature is putting up one hell of a fight. I press my lips together almost choking on the air as I pass an undoubtedly dead creature. Fat black flies with red eyes and green wings hover above its corpse, dipping down to feast on its stiff and swollen remains. Holding back the urge to vomit, I scramble past as quickly as I can.
Though the night air is cooler, I’m still coated in sweat and now smeared with grime as I crawl on between the cages. Some of the gaps so narrow, I turn to try another direction. But the tooth again vibrates: wrong way. I clutch the box like a lifeline and push harder, elated if I didn’t feel so exhausted when the box remains still and I manage to squeeze through.
Where are you, Milo?
A piercing cry rips through the racket of the battle and I know the creature has at last fallen, the beasts roaring in celebration of their victory as shadows move across the dancing flames. I freeze. Are they coming this way? I remain as still as my quaking body will allow, pressing myself between the cages and pulling my hair over my face. I wait, unblinking and unbreathing, until I choke for air. The chaotic revelry continues but no beast crosses my path. I wait a beat longer then push on carefully through the waste and slime, peering hastily into cage after cage, looking for a human form.
Then I see them: fingers, human fingers, ones clutching the bars of a cage a little way ahead, and I crawl to it. Whoever’s inside has his or her face turned away from me, but somehow I know it’s Milo. I can tell by the way his hair falls, by the arc of his muscular shoulders and the steady way in which he holds himself as he stares out at the carnage.
‘Milo?’ I barely whisper. He doesn’t turn. Carefully, I lean from between the cages, reaching out to stroke his hand. He jumps, as does my heart when he turns to face me. Milo. I grin, tears welling in my eyes.
‘Dezaray?’ he hisses, rushing at the bars of his cage. He reaches out his hand to cup my chin, as if checking I’m real. ‘What? How?’
I half shrug then study his prison, seeing no lock or door, as though the cage had been built around him. Futilely, I attempt to lift it, already knowing it will not budge, then yank and jab at it in the hope of finding a weakness. I have to get him out. Somehow. I haven’t come this far only to fail.
Milo grips my hands.
‘Come on.’ I will it, refusing to let the tears welling in my eyes get their release. ‘Come on.’
‘Dezaray,’ he murmurs, and I can tell by his tone and the way his blue eyes plead that he’s asking me to go, to leave him behind. I won’t. ‘Dezaray,’ he repeats.
‘No,’ I say firmly, peering over my shoulder in case I’ve been overheard, but the beasts are too busy feasting on the spoils of their victory.
‘Dezaray,’ he again says, squeezing my hands, and at last I still and look him in the eyes, already shaking my head, refusing to do what I know he will ask. When he rests his head against the bars, I do the same, our foreheads almost touching. Even then, I can feel how hot he is, feverish and clammy. How long has he been here? I cannot bring myself to ask.
‘You have to go,’ he whispers, gently caressing my fingers with his own. His hands are rougher than when I last felt them. ‘Now.’
I continue to shake my head.
‘Dezaray, you shouldn’t have come here.’
‘No,’ I hiss, my trembling hand smearing snot away from my dribbling nose and at tears that teeter on the edge of falling, ‘it’s you who shouldn’t have come here—you.’
He uses his thumb to wipe away the tears I unwillingly set free.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he murmurs, the familiar rumble of his voice making me miss him even more.
‘I won’t leave you here.’
‘I can take care of myself.’ I don’t look at him but can feel the twitch of his muscles as he struggles to smile. ‘I may well be an even worse monster than they are.’ This forces me to meet his eye. There’s a sharpness there, one I don’t fully understand.
‘What do you mean?’
He shakes his head then, that dishonest smile of his still painted on his lips. ‘Just go.’
‘You have to get out of here,’ I insist.
‘The prey never wins.’ He sighs. I open my mouth to argue. ‘I’m next,’ he goes on to say. And I realise with startling horror that the cage beside his is empty.
‘Milo, no,’ I gasp, ‘teleport out of here.’
He grins and I want to slap it from his face. ‘If I could, don’t you think I would have by now?’
‘Milo,’ and I look at him pleadingly. He sounds like he’s given up. He sounds wrong. My heart rattles against my ribs, my hands and arms trembling.
‘Be wary around the Orange Moon; Diez plans to use Elutheran magic against you.’ We hear footsteps, lumbering and heavy. The beasts are coming for him. I feel numb, hollow, blood pounding in my ears and drowning out his words—his words of goodbye.
‘I built the gethadrox…’ he says, not meeting my eyes, and I know he’s forcing himself to be stron
g, ‘Maybe I’ve done all I’m meant to do in this life.’ He looks behind him as the grunts and snarls of the beast grow closer. Those in the cages around us start to stir, hissing and growling at the approaching threat.
‘Milo, you have to fight,’ I urge. ‘I’m here. I came for you.’
‘Go,’ he insists. The shadow of the beast now looms ahead. It will be here in a matter of moments.
‘Fight,’ I hiss, crouching down out of sight but not moving away.
He hesitates.
‘Fight,’ I bark.
He nods, and before I can be certain he will, the beast comes into view and I swiftly duck behind the next cage, one in which a human boy seems to be unconscious. My heart pounds in my throat, as though stuck there, trying to claw its way out. The hulking beast rips away the bars of Milo’s prison as though they were nothing more than paper before it wraps a thick coil of rope around Milo’s neck and tugs him to his feet. Milo doesn’t resist, nor does he appear at all afraid. He keeps his head held high, his face a perfect picture of pride.
The beast yanks him out of the cage and away to his fate, and I quietly slip after them. Once again that ear-splitting howl cleaves my soul and I know it marks the start of battle. Peering from my newly found hiding place, between cages nearer the fire pit, I watch the same beast as before step up. It waits as Milo uncoils the rope from around his throat and stands tall, his defiant form flickering in the light of the fire’s flames. Flames in which, to my horror, the remains of the poor creature before him are already sizzling and smoking.
The beast studies Milo, a gleam of curiosity in its eyes. I imagine they don’t get many humans here, but then briefly wonder about the boy lying unconscious in the cage beside Milo’s. But then the beast lunges and Milo ducks, his face a mask, sheathing all emotion. I, though, wear my own feelings like a second layer of skin: trembling, face pinched, eyes pleading. He has to get out of this…alive.
I creep closer, confident the beasts are too enthralled by the battle to notice me, coming to the edge of the cages where the circle of torches stand, a clear view of the combat ground now before me. I can see its churned black sand with its spattering of dark pools of red and discarded bones. If Milo is weak, it doesn’t show. The beast swipes out at him, sending him hurtling back, but he merely flips over and is soon standing again, straight and tall, for some reason neither attacking the beast nor attempting to flee. He just stands and waits for the beast to charge, the raucous cries of its watching fellows rising until almost deafening.
Then, as though getting bored of this standoff, one snarls and howls as it jabs a stubby hand into Milo’s back, shoving him towards his beastly opponent. Milo stumbles but quickly gains his balance, his fists clenched and waiting.
‘What are you doing?’ I long to scream. How does he hope to survive like this? Or maybe he doesn’t, and I jump. Although the voice had come from inside my head, the words were so clear and loud, it seemed they’d been spoken by someone beside me. He doesn’t plan on surviving. He’s merely stalling, no doubt giving me time to escape. Once again he skips aside as the beast rushes him and skids across the bare earth. It snarls, growing angrier by the second, and leaps up, its voracious fangs protruding from its cavernous mouth. It dives on Milo like a wave swallowing the shore.
I grip the bars beside me, shaking as Milo struggles beneath the brute’s colossal weight. The beast snaps its jaw, furiously trying to rip a chunk out of Milo, the fire pit perilously close behind his head.
I don’t think. My body reacts instinctively, everything seeming to be in slow motion as I push myself to my feet and charge into the open. I feel my power surge through me like a blazing current of electricity, one that bursts from the centre of my mind and into my fingertips. It charges through the soles of my feet, tunnelling into the ground like a cacophonous drill. And all I do is scream. No words, just a scream at the top of my voice.
An insatiable wind whirls from my mouth like a cyclone, flinging the beast on top of Milo aside and sending some of the others flying. Lexovia’s newest gift, I now realise: super-powered vocals. Milo blinks at me, but before I can step towards him, I’m flattened under the weight of what feels like hundreds of these vicious beasts. They claw at me, my flesh tearing like wet paper, and I cry out. My power still rages out but it slams back into me, as if it’s hit a brick wall, leaving me with nothing but my failing limbs to strike out against them and their encroaching fangs.
Only now do I remember what Milo said, that he couldn’t teleport, and so only now do I realise that these beasts must have a way of supressing our abilities, and that they’re clearly using it on me. I feel my bones crack as a beast leaps on my back, my muscles trembling and my lungs screaming out at the weight. I throw my head back, striking it in the jaw, and finally wriggle free. It hisses, large blobs of spit globbing down the side of my face as it rushes up behind me. Remembering how the poor creature had earlier used its agility and speed against the beast, I do the same, rolling when it leaps at me, pretending to flee one way only to dart another.
But then we all stop, time momentarily stilled when a vicious growl sends tremors through the ground. It’s a raw and guttural sound, strangely human, and a whiff of vanilla and salted sweat wafts past—Milo. I blink through the grime and spit crusting my eyes and see him, his muscles bulging as if infected as he hangs from one of the beast’s neck. He grips the mammoth head in his calloused hands and twists, his teeth clenched and his jaw tense. The neck snaps with an echoing crack, and I jolt, as if stabbed in the gut, and stumble back, away from the beasts and Milo’s feral rage. As I try to clear my head, I notice there are beasts everywhere, some running straight at me. I rip the xyen from my satchel.
‘Ku-ta.’
Roaring and ferocious, a beast barrels nearer, kicking up the earth behind it, its engorged crimson eyes ablaze with the promise of death as its feet leave the ground. At that exact moment, the xyen elongates and its sharp, gilded leaves seem to glisten as they fork out and stab through the thick flesh of the beast. The force of the impact is staggering as it becomes impaled on the weapon, and I topple backwards, the beast flying over my head. Black sand heaves into the air and then falls like waves as we hit the ground.
Panting and shaking, drenched in sweat and filth, I withdraw my weapon from within the beast, ignoring the sour tang of its gruesome innards as fragments cling to the ends of the leaves. I turn towards Milo and my heart stammers. All I see are beasts where Milo once stood, at least a dozen of the monsters. They grunt and howl, and hiss and roar, as they tear into something in the midst of their huddle. No, I wail as my knees buckle, then I hit the ground and pain lances through me as my adrenaline rush subsides. I crawl blindly towards the beasts, one hand pressed to the gash in my side, not knowing why I have to check—why I have to know that Milo is truly gone.
On the edge of the misshapen heap of limbs, I halt, my blood like ice in my veins, as a sound like no other cleaves a slash in the ground and the earth shakes beneath me. As though the black blanket of night had fallen about me, the dark sand writhes across the surface of the ground and the creatures in the cages climb as high as they can, clamouring for release and screeching at an absent moon. I ram the xyen deep into the ground and grab onto it to keep from rolling as the world quakes even more violently.
The larger beasts around Milo stumble and fall away, some into the pit of flames beside them, as the hollow, savage roar continues to assail our ears. Squinting against the onslaught of black sand thrown up, I see something dark and fierce swipe away the remaining beasts, like daisies in a storm-scythed field. Then there’s what looks like a wing, a large thrashing wing that billows from Milo’s shoulder. He clutches his heaving stomach and hunches over, then looks up at the sky as he cries out, his face creased in agony as another fierce wing rips through his flesh and unfurls to join the other. I blink and blink again, struggling to keep hold of the xyen, to keep hold of reality, because surely this can’t be happening.
Then M
ilo shrinks, curled in on himself and trembling. I scramble towards him as his cries die down and the ground again stills.
‘Milo?’ but my voice is barely a squeak.
‘No,’ he growls. His wings…his wings…swipe out to stop me. I freeze, mesmerised by the way they fill me with dread and awe. The scene before me has somehow become one of such beautiful torment. My stomach is a tangled mess, my body soaked in blood, sweat and substances I daren’t identify. I have no way of knowing how much of it is mine.
‘Milo?’ I ask again, not moving from my place, and I yelp as he crumples once more, this time clutching his head. He groans, gasps then wails, and I match his cry as two gleaming black horns burst from his skull, curving back and up to a deadly point. ‘Milo,’ I hear myself scream from what sounds like far away. I scream his name over and over again as he transforms…but into what, I don’t know. ‘Milo!’
He lies on the ground, panting, his eyes closed. I scramble over, dodging his swaying wings.
‘Milo?’ I rest a hand on his, wincing at the heat coming from him, his fingers like lumps of hot coal. He groans.
The monstrous beasts around us hang back, clearly uncertain, but I know it’s only a matter of time before they’re upon us again. My mind, though, feels like a thrown dice, tumbling and bouncing, seeking an answer I can’t even imagine. Instinct lays my hand on the xyen as I place my arm around Milo.
‘We have to go,’ I grunt, attempting to haul him off the ground, his body heat almost scalding. He’s burnt through his clothes, sizzling scraps barely hanging on to his clammy skin. His wings make it hard to keep a hold of him and he winces each time I accidentally touch where they tore through his flesh. But he now walks with me, eyes half-closed, his body limp, his feet dragging through the mud, but he walks.
Over my shoulder, I can see the beasts are still undecided, although some are already stirring, issuing low growls. By the time we make it the foot of the hill, I’m dripping with sweat and black spots dance before my vision. Milo slurs undecipherable words beside me, his head flopping forward though he fights to lift it.
