by Tracey Tobin
Kaima shot a meaningful look at Jacob that made him purse his lips shut and refuse to meet her eyes.
Tori thought she may have passed out momentarily a few times, as it seemed that the sun dipped far too quickly and every time she blinked the world seemed significantly darker. Kaima quietly slipped small bits of dried meat and sips of water to the girl as they went, so that by the time the sun had completely set she’d regained enough of herself to walk on her own again. She was glad, because it was right about then that the Coiyana hunting party stopped in front of what appeared to be a flat rock wall.
“This is the point of no return,” Heln reminded them in a gruff voice. “You will not be allowed to leave alive if our Chief so chooses.”
He made it clear that he was recommending they turn and leave now, but Heln gave them barely a single breath in which to make their decision. In the next moment he reached for the wall with both enormous, clawed hands, hooked on to some unseen ledge, and pulled with the full strength of his body. With the horrible grinding of rock on rock, a large slab of the wall pulled away, revealing a long, dark tunnel. Unable to push away her curiosity, Tori peered over Jacob’s shoulder and saw that the tunnel delved deep into the heart of the mountain.
Heln picked up a torch wrapped in soaking cloth that had been left on the inside of the ‘doorway’, struck a piece of flint against the rock wall, and watched as a flame burst to life.
“Try not to fall on your faces,” he shot back at the trio, with a particularly annoying smirk at Tori. She couldn’t resist flashing a nasty gesture at him when he turned away. If any of the other Coiyana noticed, they either didn’t recognize the gesture or didn’t care.
Everyone was very quiet as they descended the sharply-sloped tunnel, but Tori was quite aware of the very loud, very heavy breathing of the Coiyana all around her. She willed herself to walk carefully, with her head up and her chest out, one foot in front of the other. The last thing she wanted to do at this point was trip and go sailing head over heels to the end of the path. After the hunting party had already found her in a rather pitiable state, she didn’t think she could handle the humiliation of tumbling down the tunnel like a drunken sorority pledge. Not to mention, she got the impression that this lot was going to be much harder to impress than the Maelekanai had been.
The tunnel path got steeper as they went and twisted in random directions. In several places it forked, and Tori found herself trying to memorize the way out, until finally another source of light appeared and the group broke out of the confining tunnel…
…and into an enormous cavern that made Tori’s jaw drop.
The area was at least as wide as three football fields, and longer by a factor of ten, and from the center up, toward either side, were long tiers of rock houses, stacked backward like bleachers at a ball game. Squinting at once of the closest ones, Tori saw that the little buildings seemed to have been carved directly out of the mountain stone. The ‘bleachers’ stretched off into either direction, nearly a mile each way, before stopping outside a rounded rock wall that curved up toward the cavern’s ceiling, dripping with ancient stalactites. At the far end of the underground city, against an expanse of flat stone wall, there stood a set of enormous wooden doors.
“This must have taken centuries to build,” Jacob breathed with awe before Tori could find the words.
Heln made a sound that Tori actually thought was appreciative as he hung his torch in a sconce on the entrance wall. “This is the Howling Stone,” he told them. “It is an ancestral dwelling of the Coiyana that was built upon and expanded over many generations. Many of our kind returned here once the Shadow-creatures took over the towns and cities.”
One of the other Coiyana - one with dirty silver fur - growled low in his throat and glared at Heln. “Why do you freely offer our secrets, Heln?” he said in what was almost a petulant voice.
Heln stood tall against the question and didn’t seem at all perturbed by the accusatory tone in his packmate’s voice. “It matters not, since they will likely never leave this place.”
Tori didn’t like the way he kept bringing that up as often as possible.
The Coiyana began to herd them through the town, down the single long road that ran through the stone city. As they walked Tori noticed that each ascending row of houses were divided from the next by a short wall, but that there were no roads, and in fact, barely enough room for pathways between them.
Heln must have noticed her scrutinizing the layout because he spoke up again. “We have no need for space and separation. Coiyana live in packs, no one family unit separate from the next. We sleep and eat and commune in groups, belonging not to one home, but to them all. We do not require superfluous space.”
Tori thought that actually sounded pretty nice, in theory. She knew, however, that most humans would probably go mad if they were surrounded by everyone they knew all the time like that.
She also took note of something and couldn’t stop herself from saying, “You’re very articulate, Heln.”
The party leader’s eyebrows rose, making him look almost comically wide-eyed. “Is there a reason why I shouldn’t be, little princess who has only just now spoken?”
Tori felt her face go hot as Kaima snickered into her paw. She’d unintentionally fallen prey to her Maelekanai friend’s predetermined prejudice. In other words, she’d been expecting the big dogs to be stupid. Luckily, if Heln understood where her thought process was coming from he chose to ignore it, but Tori knew that her face was a deep pink as a result of the exchange.
They were nearly halfway down the cavern when Jacob spoke up. “Where are all the other Coiyana?” he asked.
Now that he’d brought it up, Tori couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed it herself. Beyond an occasional torch to light their way, she hadn’t seen a single sign of other Coiyana aside from their welcoming party.
This question seemed to make Heln take pause, and Tori couldn’t help but notice that the others in his group were staring at him, waiting to see if he would answer.
Eventually, reluctantly, he did. His response did not offer many details, however. “Our numbers have dwindled,” he said simply. And then, as an afterthought, “Those of us who remain gather as close to the Colosseum as possible.”
Tori’s gaze was drawn to the huge doors at the end of the cavern. The Colosseum, she supposed. Interesting.
They heard the others before they saw them. Drawing ever closer to the far end of the stone city, Tori began to hear voices and - she wasn’t happy to realize - a great deal of growling.
The talkers appeared first. Dotted here and there, up and down the rows of houses, were groups of adult Coiyana. Most of them had thinner muzzles and seemed to be a bit less muscular than their welcoming party, leading Tori to believe they these were the females. Many of them seemed to be hard at work at various tasks. Tori saw one group curing meat and another beating on some leather, with a small group at the top row apparently carving up raw hunks of some large beast. None of them paused for a moment in their assigned tasks, but Tori noticed that every last head looked up in interest at the two humans and the Maelekanai that were being paraded through their ancestral home.
Then they came upon the children, and Tori felt her prior prejudices erupting inside her head again. There were three groups of them, with about ten in each group, and they were absolutely brawling with one another. While a few adults looked on approvingly, the pups - Tori couldn’t see any obvious difference between the boys and the girls - were biting and clawing at each other, tossing each other in the air and punching and biting each other mercilessly. They growled like vicious little beasts as they fought, and they looked, for all the world, like they were truly trying their hardest to kill one another.
One of their welcoming party saw the look on Tori’s face and laughed, not at all kindly. “We Coiyana train our young,” he growled in a mocking tone. “We teach them how to fight and how to survive, not like your mewling human babies and
Maelekanai kittens.”
Heln glared back at his comrade but said nothing. Kaima was vibrating with rage, but manage to contain herself at Jacob’s knowing glance. Tori, however, found a snarky retort exploding unbidden from her mouth.
“I’ll have you know that a kitten helped save my life from Shadows very recently, and her bravery had nothing to do with being beaten nearly to death by her peers.”
Jacob cringed and Kaima unabashedly grinned while clapping Tori on the shoulder. Several of the Coiyana hunting party snapped their teeth threateningly. Heln, however, only looked over his shoulder and gave Tori a look that clearly said, ‘You might want to keep that shit under wraps.’
Tori clamped her jaw shut and tried her very best to ignore the brawling pups as they passed.
She’d begun to think that they were being lead to the Colosseum, but just before they reached the giant doors, Heln made a hard left, taking them down a narrow path and through a passage carved directly into the stone wall. At the end of this path was a single, unimpressive wooden door, which Heln opened and ushered them through. Tori noticed that, while Heln did follow them inside, the rest of his party remained out in the dark tunnel.
The room was large, but furnished with only one long, rectangular wooden table a dozen chairs. In those chairs sat twelve Coiyana, whose conversation had ceased the moment they walked in the room. Still weak, and feeling more and more tired by the moment, Tori examined these twelve and took note that they all appeared to be elders, many of them sporting grey streaks in their fur, glazed eyes that looked half-blind, and deep lines in their faces around the eyes and noses.
Heln bowed his head to the gathering. “Council,” he addressed them. Many of them nodded in return, but were staring in open interest at the creatures their hunter had brought with him.
To Tori’s surprise Heln then looked past the Council to the back of the room and addressed a large slab of stone that stood vertically at the end of the table. “We have humans and a kitten,” he said - much to Kaima’s chagrin. “They begged an audience with you, Chief. The woman claims to be of Kynnon blood.”
When the slab began to pivot and turn Tori finally realized that it was another chair - a throne, really, made of stone and fixed upon some kind of swivel mechanism - and that a thirteenth Coiyana sat in it.
This one was different from the others. For a start, he was much younger. If the Council were all seniors and Heln - Tori guessed - was the human equivalent of being in his thirties, that would probably make the Chief in his early-to-mid twenties. An even more obvious distinction was that while the twelve seemed serious and somber, the Chief was grinning as he swiveled his stone throne to face them.
“Royalty, you say?” he repeated with clear interest.
Jacob took the answering silence as opportunity to step forward and offer the table of Coiyana a brief but respectful bow. “Greetings, Coiyana Chief,” he addressed number thirteen. “I am Jacob Ravenson, and this-” he gestured to Kaima, “-is Kaimatrina Maelstra. We are Guardian and handmaiden to Princess Victoria Kynnon, rightful, true-born heir to the Kynnon throne.” At this he stepped aside to allow the Coiyana a better look at Tori. She wished he hadn’t. They were staring at her unabashedly. At least one licked his lips.
The Chief was grinning at her like it was Christmas, showing off a set of gleaming white fangs that made his smile nightmarish. “Are you really?” he questioned, more out of pure interest than disbelief. “Come closer, speak to us!” he commanded.
Tori suddenly felt very sweaty and her tongue sat like a lump of sand in her throat. Kaima nudged her and flicked her gaze toward the table. Jacob was looking at her a little desperately. The Chief tapped the sharp claws of his right hand on the table while staring at her with an untranslatable longing in his eyes.
Her head began to swim, and she didn’t think it was because of blood magic fatigue this time.
Somehow she managed to put one foot forward, and then the other, until she was standing directly in front of the Council’s table. She tried to bow like Jacob had, but the motion made her feel a little nauseated. It never occurred to me that I’d have to plead my cause before an entire council of werewolves, she realized with a spark of panic.
“M-my name is Victoria,” she muttered, scarcely loud enough for everyone to hear without straining. “The king and queen were my parents, but I was hidden away in another world as a child.”
The council began to mutter among themselves, some of them snickering, but the Chief never took his eyes off Tori and continued to grin like she was performing some kind of wonderful show for him. Tori couldn’t help but think that he was the polar opposite of Kaima’s father - the leader of their Maelekanai settlement - who had been kind, reserved, and respectful.
“Is that so?” the Chief said. “The story that I always heard was that the baby princess had died while being born. A sign of human weakness, I was told. Little human babies are such fragile, pathetic things, aren’t they?”
The words were like an unexpected slap in the face that caused Tori to bristle with anger. She found herself thinking of the stillborn child whose life she’d been given, and the tiny being that had been growing inside her own body but had never even been given a chance to grow and be born. “There’s nothing weak about a human baby struggling for a chance to exist,” she spat with a glare at the smiling Coiyana. “In fact, there’s nothing weak about humans at all, thank you very much. There wasn’t an ounce of weakness in the queen when she handed me over to Eden so that I could survive while Iryen killed her and her husband and stole their throne.”
At this the council exploded with conversation, each of them talking over the other so that Tori could barely make out any of what was being said. She caught a few snippets –
“Who the hell is Iryen?” –
“The king and queen are dead? Preposterous!” –
“Is this little human girl insane?”
- but Tori’s gaze remained locked on the young Chief. He was staring back at her, unblinking. His discomforting smile was still there, but it had faltered just a bit.
Once the council had taken their moment to loudly express their disbelief, the Chief slammed his fist down on the table once, and they all muzzled their jaws immediately.
“So you claim that King Kynnon and his Queen have been dead for nearly two decades,” he stated.
Tori nodded.
For the first time one of the council members spoke to her directly. “And yet,” he said with something like a sneer, “they have both been seen on numerous occasions in the Royal City over that span of time.”
Tori didn’t like his tone, so she responded while keeping her eyes focused firmly on the Chief. “That is because Iryen stole their images and uses their faces to rule without being recognized for what he really is.”
The council began to murmur again, but this time the Chief slammed his hand down almost immediately. “And tell me, little human princess,” the younger Coiyana asked, “who, or what, exactly is Iryen?”
Tori answered honestly, and as simply as she could. “He is a Kynnon prince from several generations ago who delved deep into dark blood magic. He was killed by his lover before he could complete a terrible spell, but his soul went somewhere else, and he returned to reclaim this world on the night I was born.”
The Chief had his paw raised, hovering over the table, so that the council didn’t dare make a sound.
He gave Tori a long, hard look. There was still a grin on his face, but something in his eyes had changed. Tori didn’t have the faintest clue as to what was going on in his head.
“What reason can you give us to believe these claims?” he finally asked.
To everyone’s surprise, Heln - who had been silent up to that point - stepped forward and cleared his throat. “I cannot speak to the truth of her claims, but I can confirm that she is far from an ordinary human.” He looked at Tori sideways, as though trying to determine exactly what he wanted to reveal. “When my hunt
ing party came across these three they were fighting off a swarm of Shadows, and this one-” He gestured at Tori. “-was wearing a different skin.”
The Chief’s eyebrows nearly rose off his head. The Council stayed silent, but gave Heln disapproving glares, as you might give a child who was making up ridiculous stories.
“Explain,” the Chief demanded.
Tori didn’t know whether he was speaking to her or Heln, but she decided to cut right to the chase. “It’s blood magic,” she told the room. “Which I’m sure you all know is something that only the royal line can use.” She took her dagger from her belt and raised her hand to the Coiyana. “I don’t think I can transform again just yet,” she explained, “but I can show you this instead.”
While the Coiyana watched with rapt attention, Tori pressed the blade to the tip of her thumb, let a large drop of blood bead up on her skin, and closed her eyes to concentrate. She knew she’d truly caught their attention when the gasps erupted, and she opened her eyes to look at the little ball of blood sparkling on her thumb, as though full of minuscule diamonds.
The council muttered among themselves for a long time after this. The Chief never took his eyes off Tori. He seemed to be considering something very carefully.
Tori took the spare moment to glance back at her companions. Jacob was looking back at her appreciatively. Kaima was glaring around the room and trying not to let anyone see how puffy her tail still was.
A bang on the table was followed by silence. Tori turned back to the Chief. He’d linked his massive hands together and was looking at her from over the top of his fingers so that she could no longer see whether or not he was smiling.
“So,” he began, “if we are to believe this tale of yours, and accept that an evil wraith has been ruling the kingdom for the past two decades, I imagine that you must have come to the Coiyana for help. You must wish for us to fight for you, and take back your throne. Am I correct?”