by Tracey Tobin
“Little Princess Kynnon,” the Chief called out across the arena. “Welcome to your third and final trial!” He raised his arms to the crowd, causing the vocal spectators to double their efforts. “You will participate in one final battle, free of the aid of your companions, and it shall be a one-on-one battle to the death for your freedom. Do you understand and accept these terms?”
Hell no.
Tori raised a defiant eyebrow while struggling to calm her dancing heart. “Do I have a choice?” she called back.
At this the Chief let out a hearty guffaw that, Tori realized, was an attempt to hide his annoyance.
He was hoping I’d be a quivering mass, she thought to herself.
“I simply want to ensure that you understand,” the Chief continued, “that the only way through this trial is with death - whether yours or your opponent’s. Is that absolutely clear?”
Tori ground her teeth and put all her emotions into a glare of pure hatred. He knew damn well that she understood. He was repeating purely for the benefit of the crowd. He wanted them - wanted everyone - to understand his ‘terms’, just in case she tried to weasel out of them somehow. He must have been expecting her to throw down her weapon and beg for her life. I’ll never give him the satisfaction.
“I understand,” Tori insisted. She raised her hands to the crowd as though daring anyone to ask the question again. “Can we get this over with already?”
The Chief smirked, an ugly thing filled with the worst type of humor. “As you wish, princess. You and your companions have proved yourselves capable against Shadows, both stupid beasts and a more intelligent variety. However, in order for us to accept that you may truly have a chance to defeat your supposed King of Shadows, we require further proof of your abilities. You will show us that you are powerful enough to defeat that which defeats Shadows.”
Tori blinked stupidly. She tried to work the words around in her head, but they felt like a complicated mathematical equation swimming around in front of her face. “Wait, what?” she asked, dropping her arms to her sides. “What are you talking about?”
His grin was cruel. He addressed his people, but spoke with his gaze on Tori, never taking his eyes off her. “We Coiyana have been fighting the Shadow threat for as long as you have been alive, little girl. Therefore, if you think yourself capable of defeating the creature which commands them, then you should be at least powerful enough to defeat one of us.”
Tori’s heart fell into her stomach. The wall and cage at the other end of the arena began to rise. She didn’t have to see the ruddy brownish fur to know who was going to be standing there.
“Heln?” she coughed out as their eyes met. She felt as though all the air was being sucked out of her body, but in the next moment her skin turned hot as her emotions boiled over. “Why?!” she screamed across the fighting ground. He offered no explanation, but the crowd responded for him. Even those who had seemed unsure moments ago began to cheer for their champion.
Heln strode across the floor, gripping a sword in each hand. They looked diminutive in his enormous paws, but they were broad swords, longer and thicker than Jacob’s. Tori’s breath hitched in her throat. She took a step back, panicking, but when he reached the center stage, Heln tossed one of the weapons toward her. It clattered to the ground in front of her feet, looking very much like a death sentence. It was so thick she didn’t even know if she would be able to lift it.
“Take it, little princess,” Heln finally spoke. He kept his voice curiously low. Tori was certain she was the only one in the Colosseum who could hear him. “I will not take it easy on you, but neither will I let you fight unarmed.”
Tori’s fingers twitched. Her gaze flicked to her companions by the Chief’s throne. They were both staring at her, their bodies saturated with worry, but also with hope. She bit her lip and looked back at Heln. With a deep breath she clenched her fists, and felt the rush of blood pulsing through her body as the flesh twisted and changed. “I am not unarmed,” she told her opponent through Maelekanai teeth, “but I’ll humor you anyway.” She reached down to pick up the blade.
She barely had it up in front of her when he rushed without warning, faster than she would have guessed he could move with his size. He hurtled toward her with a mighty growl from the depths of his throat, his fellows in the crowd howling their approval, goading him on. With no time to consider her counter, Tori dropped and rolled. She felt Heln’s sword vibrate against the ground just millimeters from her head as he barreled past her. She thought she heard her companion’s voices crying out over the crowd, but she didn’t have the luxury of time to waste looking their way. Instead she sprang back to her feet, her own blade dragging on the ground behind her, and sprinted off to put some distance between herself and her opponent.
She could hear the crowd jeering down at her. Some of them laughed and called insults. How pathetic she was to run, they were saying. She should turn and face her enemy, they shouted. She ignored them all. She gritted her teeth and told herself that she didn’t need their approval. She only needed to survive. She held her breaths steady as she ran and imagined that her ears were filled with cotton. She fancied that all she could hear was her own pulse and the movements of her opponent as his feet struck the ground. She focused on her blood, imagining the diamond-like sparks of magic flowing through her veins. She implored that ancient power to help her, make her strong, fast, graceful, and victorious.
She ran headlong at the wall in front of her. She felt Heln a step behind, and could picture him raising his blade. At the last moment she jabbed her sword forward digging the tip of the blade into the meeting point between ground and wall. Using the hilt as a brace, she used the momentum to run up the wall, flipping herself over and behind her opponent. As his sword rang against the wall where she’d just been, she slammed her feet into his shoulder blades. He stumbled against the wall, but recovered quickly, so she rolled backward, dragging her blade with her as she went, and at the last second she threw the blade up. Heln had turned, and their swords sang against one another, the clang of metal on metal ringing out across the arena. The crowd was in an absolute uproar.
Tori’s arms nearly crumbled against the force of Heln’s strike, but she bit back the pain and glared at him. “I don’t believe that you’ll actually hurt me,” she found herself saying. “Not after everything you’ve said to me.”
“I’ll do what I have to for my people,” the Coiyana growled back at her. “And if you disbelieve that, it will be your life, make no mistake.”
Their swords clashed again. Tori was pushed backward. She managed to stay on her feet, but there was no doubt about it: Heln was simply too big and too strong, and he had too much behind each swing. She didn’t know if she could defeat him, but she knew she definitely wouldn’t defeat him as long as he had a weapon.
“I don’t want to fight you,” Tori tried instead. “This duel to the death thing is insane! It’s pointless, and it’s a fucking waste of time!” She tried to make it a plea, but her voice was saturated with frustration and anger.
Heln’s face changed, twisted into a strange expression that Tori couldn’t read. “If you do not kill me, you yourself will die. Is that what you want?” He pulled away and swung wide. Tori had only a breath to dive out of the way. She felt the edge of his blade slice a hole in her new shirt.
“Of course I don’t want to die!” she growled as they danced around each other. “But I don’t want to be a killer either!”
Heln let out a guttural growl that Tori could practically feel shaking the ground beneath her and beat a fist against his chest. “There is only the one way or the other, little princess! Make your decision quickly or I will make it for you!”
He charged. Tori stood her ground and at the last second dropped to the ground as though her legs had been cut out from under her. Her move confused Heln, causing him to stumble and fall forward. As he struggled to regain his footing Tori turned her blade sideways, jammed the tip of it at his fingers
, and swiped with all her strength. The tip of her sword struck the hilt of his and the connection caused both blades to fling away, spinning across the ground.
Tori leapt, rolled onto all fours, and put herself between Heln and where the swords had fallen.
“Figure out a third way!” she screamed at her opponent. “There has to be a third way! I won’t let you kill me, and I won’t kill you either!”
He moved so fast that she didn’t even get a chance to take a breath. All at once he went from the well-spoken Coiyana she’d come to think of as the only reasonable one among his people, to a vicious, slobbering beast running on the basest of instincts. He was teeth and claws, snapping and snarling and slashing. Tori lost her words, lost her footing. She felt blood ooze from several wounds that appeared on her arms and abdomen before she’d even felt the sting of the cuts. In the next moment she’d been slammed up against the wall. Heln’s enormous paw was wrapped around her throat, lifting her nearly two feet off the ground, choking the life out of her. She kicked and struggled, pulling at his giant fingers with her tiny ones, but he was like stone. Immovable. Unyielding.
The crowd shrieked with elation, but Tori could hear two echoing cries of horror above all else.
Heln leaned toward her, so close that Tori was certain he intended to sink his fangs into her face, which was rapidly draining of blood.
“Do you see them?” he hissed, his breath stinking and hot against her face. He flicked his snout in the direction of the crowd opposite them. “Do you see your kitten and your boy?” He twisted his fingers, forcing her face to turn so that she was looking at the stone throne directly opposite them.
Her vision was starting to swim, but she could see them. They were screaming, hauling at their chains, desperate to get to her while their captors laughed at them. She thought she saw tears glistening in Kaima’s eyes. Jacob’s face had gone the color of newly fallen snow.
“You’ve failed them,” Heln hissed into her ear. “You had this one chance to save them, and yourself. This one chance. And you’ve failed.” He lifted her higher and leaned closer, so that Tori could feel the moisture from his breath molesting her skin. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if he could hear how her heart was struggling against her chest. “Do you know what I’m going to do to them because of your failure?” Heln growled low in his throat.
Tori felt tears streaming down her face. Tears of panic. Tears of pain. Tears of fear. She could hardly think, hardly hear, hardly conceive of what was happening or what was about to happen. The roar of the crowd made her feel as though her head would explode, saving her any need to make any final decisions.
But then she heard the next words come out of Heln’s mouth as though his voice was the only sound in the universe.
“I’m gong to take your little kitten as a pet, to do with as I please. And your boy? I’m going to strip the skin from his bones, bit...by bit...by bit.”
In the past, Tori had often heard the concept of being so angry that one would ‘see red’. She’d never thought much on it. It was a silly phrase, she assumed, based on nothing more than the reaction a bull had upon seeing the red flag waved by the matador. It was just one of those things that people said that didn’t really mean anything.
Tori saw red. She saw it as though the entire world had been soaked in blood.
She didn’t remember moving, but somehow her legs had become wrapped around Heln’s chest and her thumb had found its way into one of his eyes. She plunged it in deep, felt the warm liquid pour out around it, and reveled in the cry he let out. His grip loosened, she flung herself around his body, got her bearings against the ground, and shoved off his back so that his face collided against the wall with a sickening crunch.
She couldn’t breathe, but it was no longer the result of her enemy’s will. Her blood was boiling, rising to the surface. There was no thought, no emotion, only action. Heln whipped toward her, blood seeping from his eye and snout, but before he had even half a moment to consider his next movie she’d drilled her claws into his forearm, dug her heel into his kneecap, and hurled him across the dirt floor.
And then she was on top of him, unaware of how or when she’d gotten there, and her fist connected with his jaw.
It crunched.
It felt good.
She found her lips curling up into a mockery of a smile. She swung again.
Crunch.
Again.
Crunch.
Again!
A voice she didn’t recognize was pouring from her throat. A scream: a hideous, bloodthirsty battle cry. Her fist connected with his face again and again and again, and she screamed and roared and laughed. She may have broken her hand at some point, but she didn’t care, so long as she broke his face as well. His head lolled further with each strike. He wasn’t dead, wasn’t even unconscious, but he was done. Down and done.
It wasn’t enough.
She spotted a glint of steel: the discarded swords. She pushed herself from her enemy’s body, enjoying his groan of pain as she did so. She was back within seconds, a blade in her hand and a horrid grin on her face.
He was looking up at her with his one good eye, staring, breathing heavily, waiting for the end. He spoke, but the sound was so quiet and weak that she barely heard it. “Go ahead. Finish it.”
The sword was in the air. It felt light as a feather. She pointed it down, grasping the hilt, positioned it for the plunge. And she relished the moment, knowing that she was going to paint the ground with the blood of her enemy.
The blade fell.
“Tori, no!”
The tip of the steel halted less than a breath away from the Coiyana’s good eye.
Blood pulsed in her ears as she searched for the source of the voice.
A boy.
No, a young man.
A companion?
A Guardian.
His eyes were begging her, pleading with her.
But I have to kill him. The words rang through her head, even if they didn’t pass her lips. I have to kill him or he’ll kill you.
The Colosseum had gone silent. Every Coiyana was sitting on the edge of their seat, staring, rapt, confused, entertained, frustrated, angry, awed. A veritable buffet of emotions, none of them steady or sure.
Except for three.
Near the front of the crowd, two Coiyana pups screamed and cried as an adult female struggled to hold them back while refusing to watch the spectacle in the arena. Lira, her eyes filled with pain, whispered to the pups, gripped them close to her chest. But they screamed on. They fought her hold, desperate to get down to the ground. One of them shouted something in Tori’s direction, and she thought she heard the word “father”.
Tori’s arms were shaking. The sword’s tip hovered just above Heln’s eye, waiting to drop, ready to end his life and win Tori her freedom. But she stood frozen. One of the pups had captured her gaze and was staring, she felt, straight through her soul.
“Don’t you touch my father!” he screamed. “Leave him alone!”
His voice echoed out across the Colosseum, the only sound in a vast arena of silence.
But then there was another voice.
“Go on then, princess,” it called. “Finish him!”
Her eyes turned slowly across the crowed until they met the Coiyana standing in front of his stone throne, staring hard at her. His eyes were full of fire. “Do it!” he commanded her. “Prove your worth!”
On the ground beside him the Maelekanai female was shaking her head slowly. Beside her the human male was whispering something that only he could hear, and his eyes were pleading.
“Do it.”
It was a third voice, and it wasn’t a command. This voice begged.
Tori looked down at the battered and bloodied Coiyana beneath her blade. There was nothing but acceptance in his eyes. “Do it,” he told her. “Earn your freedom, take what you came here for, and take back your throne.” His jaw twitched as the pups in the crowd cried out to him,
but he held Tori’s gaze. “I am truly sorry. I didn’t want to harm you, but if he thought for a second that I was going easy on you he would have pulled me from the fight and used another, and I couldn’t risk that. I had to goad you, force you to use the strength your boy knew you had. Because I want…” He blinked slowly and breathed deep, his chest shaking as he said it. “I need to hope that you will be able to make this world right again. So you must do this. You must finish the battle. Kill me, Princess of Kynnon, and take the power and freedom you require.”
She stared at him for the length of three long, slow heartbeats.
“Fuck you.”
The Coiyana blinked up at her, surprise and confusion clear as day on his face. “W-what?”
Tori’s eyes narrowed and her voice boomed. “FUCK. YOU.”
Her blood was hot with rage, but it was now a very different kind of rage. She lifted the sword in her hand, glared into the silver steel, and then pointed it back at Heln’s face. “FUCK YOU!” she repeated. With wide eyes, wild and crazed, she lifted the sword to the crowd. “FUCK ALL OF YOU!” She waved the blade back and forth at their shocked faces.
Hundreds of Coiyana stared at her with their furry jaws hanging. A few of the younger ones elbowed each other and muttered under their breath.
“Fuck every last one of you!” Tori shrieked. Then she leveled the sword at the Chief. “And you,” she growled deep in her throat. “Especially fuck you. Fuck you RIGHT TO FUCKING HELL!” On the final word she threw the sword as hard as she could. She was much too far away for it to come anywhere near the Chief, but it rang in a satisfying way against the arena wall beneath him.
“You goddamn warrior lunatics!” Tori screamed at the top of her lungs. She felt hundreds of eyes on her and it only served to enrage her further. “How the hell does this prove anything?! So you’re skeptical of my story? Anyone would be! I don’t believe it half the time! But what exactly do you think you’re accomplishing with this goddamn charade? A battle to the death with one of your strongest warriors? Congratu-fucking-lations on that brilliant idea! Either you lose one of the best fighters you’ve got, someone who’s dedicated his life to your people, or you effectively murder the one person who might have a chance at actually getting rid of the monsters you’ve been fighting all your lives! You are SO GODDAMN SMART, aren’t you?!”