by Cheree Alsop
With a tight throat, Liora lifted her hand to the wall. The oval opened and she stepped into a long, wide room. The door closed behind her.
The ceiling rose far above her head, and roughly a story up, the room was ringed by huge panes of glass. Liora’s heart slowed at the sight of hundreds of the Cherum race watching through the windows. Their eyes showed every color of emotion, green, purple, orange, blue, and yellow. If she had looked for the Cherum who led her from her room, she wouldn’t have found him because every being looked the same from their height to their simple white robes to the four long-fingered hands linked together in front of their chests. They didn’t move; they barely appeared to breathe. Their attention was complete.
It was an eerie feeling to stand there and let the silence wash over her. Liora knew she wasn’t safe. There was no way her presence alone would call for such an audience. She crossed to the center of the room and waited, her hands behind her back and a brief wish once again for the familiar presence of the knives in her hands. She had become dependent on them, the surety of their cold, steady weight, blades sharp enough to slice through bone with barely a pause. One had come from the S.S. Kratos, one as a gift from Tariq, and the wrist set from her father. She would get them back.
A dozen ovals opened around the large room at once. The Vos didn’t appear at all like Liora had expected. She had thought that they would be humanoid, fighting for the right to Basttist as the Cherum did. Instead, the Vos were anything but human. They were creatures who rushed into the light of the room on six legs that ended in padded, clawed toes.
Long tails lashed back and forth, and orange scales covered their bodies. They were low to the ground and faster than anything Liora had fought before. Longer than a human, the Vos darted around the room hissing and spitting at her. Each hiss revealed rows of teeth that hooked inward to keep whatever prey the creature caught from escaping. When they spat, black saliva landed on the floor. It bubbled and steamed, leaving divots in the hard surface.
Liora was hard-pressed to avoid the spitting. The Vos darted around her, spitting and hissing, reaching for her with claws that tried to pull her into their hook-toothed mouths. The claws caught her arms, shredding her beige shirt. She missed her Ventican clothing; it would have protected her from their merciless talons. As it was, rents marked her legs until blood colored the fabric. A mouth caught her arm; fortunately, the metal cast took the brunt of the teeth, but yanking the damaged limb free tore a cry of pain from Liora.
She spun back and forth in an effort to keep them all in sight. As soon as she twisted one way, a Vos would dash on nearly-silent feet toward her back. Only spinning back around to face it would chase the Vos away, but within seconds of entering the chamber, the Vos were losing their skittishness. It was only a matter of time before they lost all sense of fear.
The Cherum above anticipated a losing battle, that much was sure. There was no way they expected one Damaclan to take on a dozen of the creatures that had them cowering behind their walls of safety. Liora’s gaze tightened. She would give them a reason to cower.
The next time a Vos charged toward her back, Liora let it come. At the last possible second, when the sound of claws was so close she could feel the vibrations through the soles of her bare feet, Liora spun. The Vos, caught by surprise, slid on the smooth floor. Its claws scrabbled in its attempt to draw back, but Liora was too quick. She grabbed it by the throat and tried to throw it onto its back.
The Vos was too fast for such a move. It wriggled out of her grasp, throwing its body to the side with enough force to send her to her knees.
It was Liora’s turn to scramble for footing as several other Vos bore down on her.
They weren’t stupid creatures. That much was sure. After Liora attempted to throttle the first, the others kept out of reach behind her. When she lunged for another, they ran faster, circling her with a speed that made her head spin.
Liora couldn’t catch them. She knew better than to expend her energy chasing after the creatures. If she had any chance of ending them, she had to kill one. In order to do that, there was only one course of action she could think of.
Liora crouched in the middle of the room and covered her head with her hands.
She could only imagine the yellow of surprise that colored the eyes of the Cherum above. They would no doubt wonder if she had given up. Why else would anyone willingly allow the Vos to attack?
The creatures appeared just as startled by her actions. She heard the patter of their claws slow as they contemplated this new turn of events.
Talons tore across her back. They tested her, slicing and darting back, only to return, and still she waited. Her life depended on their recklessness. Perhaps Vos weren’t reckless. If they continued to shred her skin, she would bleed to death before she was able to do anything else.
But Liora could always count on greed. It was something Obruo had pounded into her and the rest of the Damaclan children. If you wanted something, there was only a matter of time before you gave that weakness away. No matter how you tried to hide it, the want would eventually work its way to the surface.
The Vos wanted her; that much was certain. The greed of easy prey made one reckless enough to latch onto her shoulder with its hooked teeth. It was exactly what Liora was waiting for.
Liora drove her left fist up into the base of the creature’s throat. It tried to let her go, but its teeth were hooked into her flesh. Liora breathed through the pain as she punched the Vos again and again in the same spot. It scrambled backwards, pulling her along with it.
Liora used its momentum against the Vos. She threw her body forward, jerking the creature off its feet and freeing her shoulder from its mouth. She drove her shoulder into it, barreling the Vos onto its back. Before it could flip back over, Liora was on top of it. Using her speed brought through years of Damaclan training, Liora slammed her metal cast into its jaw over and over again, then, before it could rise, she drove her casted arm into its mouth, shoving it wide open.
The Vos thrashed from side to side. Its body, longer than she was tall, threatened to dislodge her, but Liora pressed down harder. She used her good arm to shove the cast behind the creature’s teeth to the back of its jaw where it hinged. The creature tried to spit, but the metal blocked it from hitting her face. Liora shoved down harder.
The crack when the Vos’ jaw broke echoed around the room. The creatures running around her spread out, giving her distance. Liora slammed her cast against the slain Vos’ head again and again. It was bloody and messy by the time she finished, but she got what she wanted. Liora tore the bottom jaw free and held it up in triumph. The blood-covered teeth glinted in the soft light of the room that was an ironic counterbalance to the bloodbath in which she stood.
The sight appeared to enrage the other Vos. They swarmed her, a horde of swift, scaled, relentless fury. But they didn’t know that a Damaclan filled with the loss of the one she loved was more than a match for their claws and fangs.
Liora used the detached jaw like a serrated blade. She sliced throat after throat, sending the Vos to the floor at her feet as she spun and lashed out without stopping. The cast acted like a shield to protect her against deadly claw swipes which she followed with a slice to the jugular. It was the first time she had used a piece of an attacking enemy to defend her against the others, and it felt good amid her rage.
In the end, Liora stood alone once more, the bloody, toothed jaw in her hand and a dozen Vos at her feet. She stared around at them, her chest heaving and her arm aching to the point that she could barely think. It had felt good to kill again. The whisper in the back of her mind was satiated for the time being. The sticky sensation of blood coating her skin felt like home, and within the red-tinged haze of her mind, the sight of bodies at her feet felt right.
Liora blinked and the haze faded. The realization of what she had accomplished surfaced. She had done it again; she had used her Damaclan training to wipe out members of another species that had don
e nothing more to her than act on their instincts to survive. She felt almost bad for them. She wondered if she should have found some way to let them out of the room so that they could attack the Cherum who made an army to defend themselves. Yet that, too, would have been wrong.
Why did it always come down to a battle? Why did one race always have to fight another? Why was it that they couldn’t live in peace, to accept the other for what they were and willingly survive side-by-side?
Obruo would have beaten her for her thinking, but Liora no longer cared. The questions had no answers; they drifted around her mind creating more torment than Colonel Lefkin’s electric torture. She was a Damaclan. She had been raised to kill; so why did killing feel like a losing battle when she had won? If she had died, the Vos would still be a threat to the Cherum above. Given the number of warriors they were brainwashing with their microchips, there were thousands of Vos out there to be slain. Who decided which side was right? Maybe it wasn’t her battle to fight.
Liora looked up. Hundreds of Cherum watched her in silence, surprise and awe coloring their eyes yellow. As she watched, their gazes changed color. It wasn’t from yellow to green, from surprise to happiness or perhaps the purple of amusement. She even expected the greenish-blue of thoughtfulness. She had, in fact, slain a dozen of their mortal enemies.
Instead, the eyes of the Cherum above shifted from yellow to an angry, heated red so fierce they glowed from every pane of glass above her.
A tremor ran through Liora’s body. Perhaps she was supposed to have died, to prove that the Vos could defeat even one as terrifying as a Damaclan. Maybe she had gotten it all wrong. Perhaps the creatures she had slain weren’t the Vos at all. If that was the case, then what were the Vos?
Looking up, Liora realized the answer with a rush of cold that stole her breath. She was staring at the Vos.
The false Cherum with their red eyes and abnormally long fingers shifted form in her sight. Instead of looking up at hundreds of pale-skinned, tall, four-armed Cherum, she stared at the same number of Vos, their scaled skin, padded toes, and hooked mouths bared in snarls.
No wonder the Cherum had let her walk through the hallway alone. He hadn’t led her into a tiny arena, he had given her over to their side where they waited to tear the Cherum apart. No wonder the Cherum built an army. If the Vos could look like them, they needed warriors filled with rage and without instincts, an army that would never back down even if the foe looked like a friend.
Liora tore another jaw from a nearby Vos. She could hear the crackling of the glass above, minute fractures as the creatures pounding against the panes with their clawed feet, creating spider-webbed veins in the windows.
Liora braced herself for the attack she knew would come. Glass shattered and rained down. Liora’s grip on the jaw bones tightened. She bent her knees and met the rush head-on.
Chapter 6
When Liora walked back to the wall, the oval doorway opened without a sound. She stepped through it in a daze.
Cherum were there to meet her, real Cherum this time. When she couldn’t open her hands from her grip on the jawbones, their delicate fingers worked them free. The jaws from the Vos hit the floor with matching thuds she felt through the soles of her bloody feet. Another Cherum scooped them up.
Gentle hands guided her back up the hallway. When her legs refused to carry her, the long-fingered hands picked her up so that she felt as though she was floating. She reached the circle room where she had awoken on Basttist and was set gently back on the bed.
“Tariq,” she whispered.
“We’ll get him,” a Cherum answered.
Liora tried to make sense of the words. Exhaustion made her limbs so heavy she couldn’t move. She felt as though she sunk into the bed instead of lying on top of it. Soft hands tended her wounds from the Vos’ claws and teeth, yet she felt no pain.
“Liora?”
The voice was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She tipped her head to the side and forced her eyelids open. Through the liquid of tears, she saw Tariq run toward her.
“Liora!” he said.
His hand touched her cheek. When he took his fingers away, she saw the red that colored them.
“They told me you were sleeping,” Tariq told her. “They wouldn’t let me see you. I fought them, but they wouldn’t let me out of my room. I was a prisoner.” The anguish in his light blue eyes was bright.
“They told me you were dead,” Liora said. Her voice was just above a whisper.
She realized with a start that the Cherum were gone. Somehow, they had tended to her wounds and left her there without her realizing it. She couldn’t decide if she was asleep or awake. Had the battle against the Vos been a dream? If so, why did her body ache?
“They told you I was dead?” Tariq repeated. “Why would they do that?”
She shook her head against the way her thoughts swam. “I don’t know. It made me mad. I-I think I killed.”
Tariq’s eyebrows pulled together, creasing his brow with worry. Liora wished she could smooth it away. She tried to lift her hand, but it wouldn’t respond.
“You did something,” Tariq told her. “You have cuts all over you. They’ve patched you up. It’s not the bandaging job I would have done, but it’s something.”
Liora couldn’t keep her eyes open. They must have given her a sedative. Her limbs felt so heavy. Breathing became harder. She heard him say her name.
“Tariq, stay with me,” she pleaded.
“I’m right here,” he answered. “I won’t leave you, I promise.”
She let out a breath and the darkness pulled her under.
***
Liora awoke with the feeling of having slept deeper than she ever had in her life. She took a breath and let it out in a contented sigh. Her body felt strong, her mind alert and ready for whatever the day would bring.
Liora opened her eyes. At the sight of the round room with light emanating gently from the walls, the memories of all that had happened came rushing back. She sat up with a jerk, her muscles tensing with the adrenaline that flowed through her system.
“Whoa. Easy.”
The strong hands that touched her arms were capable of far more force than the gentle pressure that eased her back down. She looked into Tariq’s face, drinking in the strong lines, the tangled black hair that fell in front of his piercing gaze, and the tight line of his lips that said he was worried.
“You’re alive,” she breathed.
He nodded and pressed his lips to her forehead. When he drew his head back, the deep lines of his brow had eased.
“I could say the same thing about you,” he told her.
Liora pushed up to a sitting position. He helped her, but he needn’t have. The pain of the fight was gone. Even the cast on her arm had been removed, and when she turned her wrist, no ache followed.
“What happened?” she asked.
Tariq took a seat on the small bed next to her. He studied his hands for a moment. His thumb traced a scar that ran from the back of his wrist to his first knuckle. He smoothed it a few times as though searching for what he wanted to say.
“I wish I knew,” he finally replied. He looked at her. “I wish I had answers for you. What they’ve told me is confusing at best. They said they gave you something that would heal you, and you slept so long I was afraid you wouldn’t wake up.” He gestured toward the wall where she knew the oval door appeared. “These beings call you their friend. They said you gave them their home back.” He gave her a wry smile. “My Berverek is very rusty, so I think I try their patience when I keep asking for an explanation.”
Liora studied her bare feet. She kept seeing them covered in sticky, red liquid.
“I fought the Vos.”
She saw Tariq turn toward her out of the corner of her eye. “What are the Vos?”
“The Cherum’s enemy,” she told him. The memories solidified as she said the words. It helped to say them out loud. “They’re creating an army to fight agains
t these creatures that threaten their existence. Apparently they found a way into this building, the Cherums’ home. The walls kept them apart.” She turned to see what affect her next words would have on him. “I asked them to show me what the Vos were.”
A smile touched the edges of Tariq’s lips even as he shook his head. “Of course you did.”
“I went into a room and the Vos attacked. They were fast and had sharp claws. After I won, I thought the Cherum who were watching would be happy, but then I realized my mistake. It wasn’t the Cherum who watched me fight; it was more Vos disguised as Cherum. They could change form, and when I figured it out, they changed back and attacked.”
Liora fell silent. The blood of the battle still coated her skin even though it had been wiped clean. She couldn’t see a single drop, but she felt as though she was still covered from head to toe in the sticky, copper-scented liquid.
“They said you gave them their home back,” Tariq repeated.
“I didn’t fight for them,” Liora replied. The truth of her words gripped her heart in ice.
“What did you fight for?”
“For you,” Liora replied. She looked at him, and the way he watched her made her feel as if he saw her tattered soul. “They told me you had died in the escape pod. They said the Ketulans shredded your body. They said….”
Her words faded as her voice left her.
“Why would they say that?” Tariq asked.
“Maybe they know the truth about Damaclans,” Liora answered.
It was a few minutes before Tariq broke the silence to ask, “What truth is that?”
Liora studied her hands. She could see the impressions of the bloody jawbones on her palms. She blinked and the image vanished.
“Damaclans live for the fight. When they told me you died, they left me with only one thing, the need to fight, to kill, to destroy everything around me the way I had been raised to do.”
“You were raised for more than that,” Tariq told her.
Liora turned to face him with the intent of protesting his words, but his lips met hers. She kissed him deeply, holding him to remind herself of what she had thought was lost. She memorized the pressure of his lips against hers, the way his hands held her possessively, yet with a gentleness that said he would never force her to be with him.
