by Eden Beck
Owen doesn’t seem so bad, really, and neither does Bennett. Bennett seems quiet, the sort of quiet, watchful type that offers Erin a smile when she catches her staring at his towering size. She smiles back timidly.
Lord knows why she’s even here to begin with. She doesn’t exactly look like the type to pursue this sort of career. Erin looks more suited to a desk job than one that’s going to involve a whole lot of blood and guts—and not necessarily someone else’s.
What a team we make.
The test administrator has finally made his way around to our group. He says nothing as we approach, just holds out his hand to see the number on our paper.
“Monster number six,” he says, looking at the slip Owen hands him. “You’re going last, then. Follow me.”
With a longing look over my shoulder toward Sawyer and his slightly-less-dysfunctional group, I follow.
We don’t get to watch the others.
As the final group, we are meant to wait in silence in another underground room surrounded by thick concrete walls. The antechamber is empty aside from two long wooden benches and a screen on the wall that updates each time one of the other groups finishes their final task.
From what I’ve come to understand, we’re actually below the menagerie. There’s a sort of amphitheater in the middle where each group demonstrates their abilities while the rest of us wait in the many rooms branching off from it in a circle, not unlike the spokes of a wheel. No one’s told me this, but there’s always a bit of a pause between the groups; a kind of reset period that makes me think it must be the case. One thing I can’t gather, however, is whether it’s a good thing or not when there seems to be a long stretch of time between them. I guess it depends on what’s getting cleared out—monsters or hunters.
The air this far underground is stale and slightly astringent.
Piers paces impatiently around the perimeter of the room. Owen has pulled out his phone and some earbuds and is listening to music so loudly I can hear it from all the way over here. He’s started drumming along on the tops of his thighs to the sound of shredding guitars. Bennett, like me, is focused on the score screen. He stands stock still in front of it, eyes scanning it constantly.
Erin sits next to me on the bench, shakily putting bolts into the crossbow she’s chosen as her weapon. I had honestly thought she would be useless, but at least she knows her weaknesses and picked something that won’t force her to get close to … whatever it ends up being.
“The first group is done,” says a deep voice. Startled, I look over at Bennett. This is the first time I’ve heard him speak. He turns from the screen to scan the room. Since no one else appears to be paying much attention, he locks eyes with me. “They did well, but we can do better.”
I nod in agreement. He turns away and begins stretching, distracting me from the numbers on the screen before us. He’s got to be at least 6’5”, 6’6” if I had to guess—with huge, bulky muscles that would look more at home on a bear.
He reaches his hands up and his plain gray T-shirt lifts, exposing a swath of bare skin. He turns, arms still over his head, and I’m treated to an amazing view of his abs. If Erin shot a crossbow bolt at those abs right now, it would probably shatter when it hit them. I feel my stomach lurch and I tear my eyes away, searching for anything else to look at, but the lurching in my belly doesn’t stop. Piers is stretching too, and he’s removed his shirt completely.
Piers is leaner than Bennett, but since Bennett is basically some sort of bear-human hybrid, that’s not saying much. He’s got an excellent tan, the sort gotten on the deck of a yacht in the Mediterranean. He sits on the ground, leaning over his legs to stretch his hamstrings, before reclining back and giving me the full view of his chest and abs. I have to look away. These boys are going to wear out my heart before I can even get into the arena with a monster.
Why is it always the bad ones who look like gods?
I turn back to the score screen and find my name. I did very well on the obstacle course and the instincts trials, but it doesn’t quite pull me away from the giant zero I got from missing the written test altogether. I need to get good marks in this trial—as do Piers, Owen, and Bennett, I realize as I find their names. While they all eventually completed the obstacle course, Piers and Owen took longer than they should have, and from the looks of it … Bennett might as well have just skipped the written test, he bombed it so badly.
I was there beside them during the last trial, and though Piers and Bennett both did above average on the instincts trial, Owen really struggled. He seems like the type that always seems to be wrapped up in some sort of inner struggle, thoughts that cloud out his judgement and gut reaction.
Maybe all together they’ll do fine, but individually … I don’t get how they’re so confident in their abilities. I don’t even need to look at Erin to know I’ll find no aid there.
That settles it. This test … its results … are going to be up to me.
A proctor appears by the door and clears his throat. “It’s time.”
The pounding in my heart returns as I shoot to my feet and gather the daggers and throwing knives I chose in the weapons room. Erin stands up grimly beside me, her knuckles white on the crossbow’s grip.
The proctor leads us down a short narrow passageway. It’s lit only by a series of small, recessed lights in the ceiling overhead. I hear Piers and Owen behind me making jokes, but I can’t join in. I don’t know how they take this whole thing so callously. I need to focus.
He stops at a tiny, reinforced wooden door set into the end of the hallway. It’s small enough that the boys will have to duck to make it through once it opens.
“As soon as you go through this door, the next trial officially begins. Everything you do will be watched, recorded, and tallied.” He takes a second to sum us all up, then he unlocks the door and opens it a crack. “Good luck.”
I step through first and the rest follow me into another, narrow, antechamber separated from a large, dark amphitheater beyond by a set of massive iron bars. From where we stand, I can see the edge of a glass viewing platform set up ahead, but I can’t see the creature the people inside all seem to be staring down at.
But the smell.
The moment the door slams shut behind us the iron gate groans to life, retracting inch-by-aching-inch, into the ceiling. The sound is deafened by another, far more terrible. A creature roars from inside the chamber beyond. It’s a deep, guttural, tortured noise that can only come from a creature massive in size.
I grab the hilt of one of my daggers and pull it out of its sheath. I don’t think this is going to be the kind of monster we’re expected to befriend.
Erin takes a step up to the bars, her body rigid and her face trained forward as if in a trance. I don’t know if she catches a glimpse of it, or if the moment is just too much … because suddenly her eyes grow wide, her face pales, and she turns and pushes past us to the door from whence we came, throwing it open and fleeing down the hallway. It slams shut behind her.
For the first time, the boys exchange a worried glance.
I can’t take the suspense any longer. I have to know. I have to see it with my own eyes.
“Shit!” The word falls from my mouth before I can control it.
There, in the middle of the chamber is an ogre; eight feet tall with legs and arms thicker than tree trunks. Its beady eyes are trained directly at me as it roars once more through ugly, jagged teeth.
It’s the stuff of nightmares.
My first monster.
“Should we run, too?” Owen says. “Without her, we’re down one.”
“No,” Piers and I say simultaneously. I look at him in surprise.
“We don’t need her,” Piers continues. “We can fight this thing. Look, it’s got a harness.”
He points to the creature’s torso and I realize he’s telling the truth. A rope connects his harness to a metal ring in the ceiling, keeping him from rushing forward and crushing each of us wit
h a single swing of one of his massive arms.
Even Bennett still looks a little wary, but I’m not about to give up now. I might have been anxious before, but standing here in the presence of this beast has affected me in a strange way. I no longer feel fear. I feel only … excitement.
“I don’t know much about ogres,” I say. I don’t know much about any monsters, actually. Not that I’d tell them. “But they wouldn’t throw something at us we couldn’t face, right? It’s not like it’s a goddamn manticore.”
From the looks on their faces, I’m guessing that’s a real one too. A thrill races through me. I have to make it through today. There’s still so much left to see. An entirely new world. A world of mystery, of adventure … of danger. Delicious, heart-thumping, danger.
I pull a throwing knife off the belt I snagged from the armory. I’m ready.
Not to be outdone by a girl, let alone the same girl he was trying to bully just hours earlier, Owen grins and steps forward into the chamber, his mace in hand. “Fine then. If you say we can take it … I say we take it.”
I weigh the knife in my hand, aim, and throw.
I mean to hit it in the head, a surprisingly small target on such a large creature, but the ogre lumbers to the side at the last moment. Instead of hitting the ogre, the knife shoots straight through the rope binding it to the ceiling. It snaps in half, the rope unwinding in a splay of torn fibers.
“What the hell, Black?” Piers shouts as the ogre roars and stumbles forward, free from constraint. He snatches up his javelin and throws it, but it bounces harmlessly off the ogre’s skin. “What the hell, Black?” he shouts again, turning to me.
He’s got several more javelins strapped to his back, but I doubt they’ll be any help. We’ve already seen how useless they’re going to be in this fight.
The ogre picks up the javelin and hurls it back at us with thick, meaty fingers. His aim is primitive at best, but we still have to dive out of the way when it ricochets off the wall behind us.
I hit the ground and roll easily back to my feet, throwing another knife toward its face. This time it strikes the monster’s cheek, but it simply falls away. The ogre reaches up and scratches irritably at its face. There’s not even a mark.
We’re scattered now, crouched along one wall of the amphitheater as faces grow closer to the glass overhead looking on. I can’t take my eyes away from the ogre, even for a second, to try to gauge their reactions.
The ogre lumbers toward the closest one to him, Bennett, and I run toward the back of the chamber to put some distance between us. Owen looks like he’s seriously think of making like Erin and running away too until Bennett dodges out of the creature’s way and the ogre slams straight into the doorway leading back. The impact of it shakes the iron gate loose. It crashes down to block our escape with a skull-rattling crash.
Bennett takes the opportunity to swing his great sword up over his head and down at the ogre’s arm with one broad, powerful stroke. The blade sinks partway into the monster’s skin, but he’s kept from striking again as the ogre roars and stumbles back—the sword still embedded in the fatty flesh of its arm.
Owen takes the opportunity to swing his spiked mace down on the ogre’s other arm, but without Bennett’s near otherworldly power behind it, it just bounces off.
“This is useless!” Piers yells. “None of our weapons work!”
Owen, panting, nods in agreement. Bennett simply stares in shock at his empty hands as the other two start trying to lift the iron gate while the ogre is temporarily preoccupied with its pain. They might be ready to give in, but I’m not.
“Then we’ll have to try something else!” I shout, throwing another knife. It doesn’t harm the ogre, but it does draw its attention away from the now-unarmed Bennett. It spots me and charges, it’s great lumbering feet closing the gap in mere seconds. I wait as it runs up and dive away at the last second. The ogre slams into the wall, shaking loose dust and chips of concrete free from the ceiling above.
I stumble back over towards the boys, who are still trying unsuccessfully to life the grate. Bennett shoves the others aside and hoists it up like it’s nothing—leaving the pathway to freedom, and failure, open to us once again.
I shoot out an arm to stop Piers leading the retreat. “Stop.”
“We’ve already tried everything,” Piers says through gritted teeth. He glances back at the ogre, just now getting back to its feet. “You wanna die down here?”
I cast my gaze frantically around the chamber, and then—
“The rope,” I gasp.
The rope that was once attached to the ogre’s harness is now curled up on the ground at the back of the enclosure. “We can’t hurt it with weapons, but we might be able to strangle it.”
“None us are strong enough to strangle an ogre,” Owen snaps. “Not even Bennett.”
Bennett nods and shifts the weight of the iron gate; still open under his straining shoulders.
I look around the chamber again. My eyes lift to the ceiling overhead, and the large iron loop the rope was tied to before I so eagerly severed it.
“Then we hang it.”
“What?” Piers’ mouth drops open. “Are you insane?”
“Maybe,” I say. I point to the metal ring on the ceiling. “If we get the rope back through there we can use it like a pulley system.”
“That might work,” Bennett says quietly. His voice is soft, measured, even as an ogre bellows in rage on the other side of the chamber. “If we can get the rope around its neck.”
“And how do we do that?” Owen asks. “That thing is eight feet tall.”
“Small for an ogre,” Bennett mutters, and I see him sizing himself up against it. “Eight feet’s not so high …”
Maybe not for you, bear-man.
“Maybe it’s a trick.” Piers adjusts one of his javelins. “Maybe we’re supposed to run away, like that other girl did.”
“No,” I insist. “No, we have to be able to fight it.” The ogre is turning back toward us. It takes a lumbering step, still a little disoriented from its last encounter with the concrete walls. This creature isn’t all that different from the obstacles in the earlier course. Its skin isn’t smooth by any means. It’s scarred, pockmarked, almost scaly—and with a massive greatsword still sticking out of its side at just about the right height for a convenient handhold.
“Black,” Piers says severely, and I look at him. I know he knows what I’m thinking, and I have to act before he tries to stop me.
I take off at a run. “Keep it distracted.”
One of his hands swipe out to stop me, but I’m already out of his grasp.
I sprint past the ogre as it lumbers toward the boys, ducking under one of its swinging arms. To their credit, the boys spring immediately into action. A javelin whizzes through the air, turning the ogre’s attention away from the girl passing within grabbing range. I see Bennett run past it on the other side, waving his huge arms around. The ogre goes for the substantially larger target, and I take my chance.
I grab the rope and fashion it quickly into a noose as I run a couple steps back towards the distracted monster. Hope the knot is tight enough, I think grimly as I bounce on the balls of my feet, swinging the rope like a lasso. The boys are doing a great job of keeping it preoccupied; it doesn’t even notice the noose looping around his neck when my toss lands true.
Owen starts hitting the wall with his mace, sending up a cloud of dust and making a sound like thunder—drawing the ogre away from me as I make a run for his turned back.
With a good running start, I’m able to leap onto the sword sticking out of the ogre’s arm, knocking it free as I grab onto its rough skin. It bellows and reaches for me, but Owen whirls and bashes its elbow with his spiked mace instead of the wall. It doesn’t pierce the skin, but it makes the creature shudder with pain.
Bennett snatches up his sword and stabs it in the leg. The ogre stumbles, and for one perilous second my feet fly unchecked through the ai
r before I find a hold on its forearm. The sinewy flesh and muscles twitch in my grasp.
“Go, Avery!” Owen whoops.
I grit my teeth, wind the rope around my arm, and pull myself up to the ogre’s shoulder, hanging on for dear life as it flails wildly. Its other hand manages to grab my leg, but Piers throws a well-aimed javelin before he can rip it from the rest of my body and the ogre lets go to swat it away instead. I scramble quickly up the thick arm and find purchase on its back where it can’t easily reach me.
“Get it close to the ring!” I shout. My arms are locked over its shoulder, my feet scrambling for a hold on its rough back. I grit my teeth as it stumbles around, trying my damndest to keep from falling off and being crushed. Its shoulders are broad and it’s naked as can be, so I don’t have any cloth to grab hold to, just its leathery skin.
The boys corral it closer and closer to the ring jutting from the ceiling until I can see it. Then, a moment and several swinging footsteps later, it’s within reach.
I heave myself up to balance precariously on the ogre’s shoulders, tugging on the rope to tighten it around the monster’s neck. I reach up to grab the ring only for the ogre to shake its head violently, dislodging my foot. I lurch sideways, scrambling to catch myself on a giant ear just in time.
“Avery!” Bennett’s voice sounds strained as he shouts. The ogre lets out a bellow as his sword finds a target on its back. It whips around and I manage to stand again, reaching for the metal ring.
Sweat is pouring down my forehead, stinging my eyes. It’s like threading a needle on a roller coaster. The monster is constantly moving, swaying back and forth as I desperately try to grab hold of the metal ring. Finally, my hand closes on the inside of it and my feet leave the ogre completely, my body dangling entirely from the ceiling above.
Underneath me, Owen’s mouth drops open. “Holy shit.”
My arms burn as I uncoil the rope and shove it through the ring. The end flutters to the ground and Owen grabs it while I look for a way down. I must be fifteen feet up in the air. Dropping straight down would wind me for sure, and if I don’t twist my ankle first the ogre will twist the rest of me to a pulp. There’s only one safe way down, and it’s the same way I got here.