Unleashed

by Tiffany Roberts

  She followed a path worn by years of hunting and foraging trips, pressing deeper into the woods. Shafts of golden morning sunlight broke through the canopy to cast a surreal glow on the forest floor and illuminate patches of undergrowth. Everything seemed so peaceful. Had she not known better, she might’ve allowed herself to be lulled into complacency by the beauty and serenity surrounding her.

  She kept her senses alert as she traveled, including the one Miss Dana had called her sixth sense; she’d be able to detect the mental projections of nearby animals before she saw or heard them, in most cases.

  She made camp a little before the sunset, using long branches and leaves to create a small shelter. When that work was done, she sliced off a chunk of dried meat and slipped the end of the piece into her mouth. She rewrapped the remaining meat in the purple leaves that would mask its scent, returned it to her bag, and lay down under the shelter, sucking on the meat until it was soft enough to chew. No matter how many times she ate it, she always appreciated the meat’s smoky, spicy flavors.

  As much as Nina longed for the warmth and comfort of a fire as night fell, she knew it would be a mistake. The flames would scare away small critters and some of the larger beasts but would serve as a beacon for some of the most dangerous of Sonhadra’s predators, treeclaws and shriekers worst of all.

  The thought of such dangers — which she’d brushed aside so foolishly — struck her hard.

  Why am I doing this? What am I proving by going alone?

  Now that she’d stopped and had time to think, she knew her decision to journey to Utopia alone was reckless. Her confidence in her survival skills was no guarantee of safety. Even her father’s people, who had lived in these lands for untold generations before Kelsharn’s arrival, had known better than to go it alone — and they’d been bigger and tougher than any human.

  Why had she considered this a wise decision?

  I didn’t. I just wanted to prove I’m not a coward. I just…wanted to find someone.

  Whatever her motivations, there was no excuse for her stupid choice. She was only proving a willful disregard of everything her mother and father had taught her, and she loved and respected them too much to allow this to go any further.

  When morning came, she’d go back home. If she wanted to test herself, she’d do it sensibly; after her parents returned from Corfoha, she’d ask them to travel to Utopia with her. The trip would be safe, and she’d have two people alongside her she could rely upon when she faced the torrent of emotions and memories that awaited her at the end of the journey. If she succeeded in overcoming that, she knew Quinn and Orishok would allow her the space necessary to meet some people…

  Once she finished eating, Nina pulled out her blanket and positioned her bag behind her. She spread the blanket over her body and laid her head atop the bag, curing on her side.

  She closed her eyes and let the sounds of the woods lull her to sleep.

  A piercing shriek startled Nina from sleep. Her eyes widened, and she was blinded by the darkness before her vision adjusted to the faint moonlight seeping through the leaves overhead. A chorus of answering shrieks echoed between the trees. Her body hair stood on end as a chill spread through her limbs.

  Shriekers.

  Too close. They are too close.

  Her breath fled her lungs in a rush. She curled her fingers into the grass beneath her.

  The snapping of branches and the heavy rustling of leaves nearby was thunderous in the otherwise quiet forest. A beast-mind crashed into Nina’s senses, momentarily overwhelming her. Ravenousness gripped her, flooding her body with rage, dominating every thought. She needed to feed. Needed blood, meat, bones.

  Nina thrust up a mental shield, deflecting the primal, intrusive instincts. There were at least four of the creatures in the woods around her, one of which was incredibly close — and a single shrieker was danger enough.

  She released a silent breath through parted lips and carefully crawled out of her makeshift shelter, doing her best not rustle the vegetation beneath her. As quietly as possible, she returned her blanket to her bag, slipped the bag’s strap over her shoulder, and took hold of her spear. She rose slowly.

  A deafening, shrieking roar cut through the night air. Nina carefully turned.

  A shrieker stood not thirty feet away, its pale skin aglow beneath a shaft of moonlight. It was an adult, likely as long as Nina was tall.

  Nina froze, eyes rounding and heart skipping a beat. More shriekers called in response to the first; they were a bit farther away, but one of Orishok’s lessons came immediately to mind — if you can hear a shrieker, it is too close.

  Flashes of red pulsed on the sides of the beast’s neck as it sniffed the air. It opened its jaw slightly, and its throat vibrated, producing a soft, undulating clicking. A cold sweat broke out on Nina’s skin. How long before the others came? She stood some chance against a single shrieker, but a pack?

  Climbing a tree could buy her some time, but hungry shriekers were amongst the most determined creatures on Sonhadra; they’d find a way up. That wasn’t even considering the treeclaws, many-limbed predators that prowled the branches and would be drawn by her body heat.

  She just needed to get to the river. It would mask her scent, and the roar of rushing water would confuse the shriekers.

  Why was I so stupid? Why did I think I could survive this?

  More clicking sounded beyond the nearby trees, and the undergrowth shook. She was running out of time.

  She took one step back, then another, and another, keeping her movements slow, and tightened her grip on her spear. A gust of wind whistled through the branches, rustling the leaves as it swept past her — directly toward the shrieker.

  Nina’s heart stopped.

  The creature’s head snapped up, turning toward Nina as its nostrils flared with heavy inhalations. The clicking noise from its throat began anew, rising into a chirruping growl, and it released another call. It was immediately answered by three other calls from the woods to either side.

  She was being surrounded.

  Instinct took over; she ran, dead leaves crunching under her boots. A series of shrieks sounded behind her. Panting, Nina pushed herself faster, rounding tree trunks and hurtling over fallen logs and exposed roots, her world a blur of black and gray in the darkness. Her heart leapt into her throat each time she stumbled. Perspiration dripped down her forehead, between her breasts, and over her back, and her legs burned with exertion.

  The clicking drew nearer, and the primitive thoughts from the beast-minds strengthened — meat, blood, prey. They had her scent, had her sound. Fallen branches snapped immediately behind her.

  Nina glanced over her shoulder as one of the shriekers leapt. With a cry, she dove aside, tumbling over grass and fallen leaves. She scrambled to her feet as another shrieker pounced. Nina ducked away, thrusting her spear upward to impale the creature from below. It wailed in pain and crashed to the ground with the spear shaft jutting from its belly. With limbs thrashing, it opened its toothy jaws and released another agonized call.

  She didn’t wait to see whether it got back up, didn’t waste time trying to tug her spear free. Gritting her teeth against its projections — pain, fury, hunger — she shoved herself up, drew the dagger from her belt, and ran.

  The snarls, shrieks, and wet crunching behind her signaled that a couple of the beasts had turned on their wounded packmate. They were indiscriminate in their need to satiate their hunger; blood was blood.

  But the sound of crunching leaves and twigs on her heels told her that the shrieker that had originally picked up her scent had not abandoned its hunt.

  Nina released a choked sob. She thought of her parents, of the pain and sorrow they’d feel when they returned home to discover her missing, of how they’d never know what had happened to her, how they’d never have closure.

  All for one stupid decision made while she was caught up in the moment.

  The beast’s breath was ragged, almost close
enough to feel. She sensed its intent the instant before it leapt. She dropped into a slide, skidding over the decaying vegetation on the forest floor. The shrieker sailed over her, twisting its body around as it passed but unable to change its direction.

  Climbing to her feet, Nina veered to the left, stumbling forward before catching her balance and breaking into a sprint. The beast’s talon-tipped feet clawed at the ground for purchase as it righted itself. Within a moment, its chase had resumed. Between her sawing breaths, she heard a sound that afforded her a glimmer of hope — rushing water.

  The river! Just a little farther…

  She pumped her arms faster. Suddenly, the ground beneath her disappeared. For a fraction of a second, she was weightless, and then her stomach lurched as she plummeted into darkness.

  Chapter Two

  Nina’s scream was cut short when she hit a hard, slanted surface and the air was knocked out of her lungs. She slid downward along the steeply sloped stone, clawing for purchase, but her struggles were in vain; her momentum only increased. The stone scraped the skin on her legs, stomach, arms, and hands. Something sliced her palm, but the pain was insignificant in the face of her terror.

  Panicked, wailing calls from above her called her attention up; she caught a single glimpse of the shrieker’s shadowy form in the sliver of moonlight at the top of the shaft. Its desperate struggles were meeting with no more success than her own. Within a second, the creature had fallen past the weak light and plunged into the darkness along with Nina.

  Fear robbed her of the breath she might’ve used to scream as she slid deeper into the earth, knowing death lurked both above and below her. She looked down to see a faint, glowing opening at the bottom of the slope, fast approaching.

  The shaft spit her out when she reached the light. For an instant, she was again weightless, and then she crashed into a stone floor. She lost her grip on her dagger as she tumbled. Dozens of small rocks poking and bruising her until she struck something hard. Her shoulder took the brunt of the impact. Her entire body was awash with pain; squeezing her eyes shut, she cried out and arched her back, pressing her heel into the floor as though it could alleviate the agony.

  She inhaled sharply and gagged as the stink of rot bombarded her nose.

  Opening her eyes, she found herself in a dimly lit cave with cracked bones scattered across the floor and metal bars on three sides creating a cage against the cave wall — and face-to-face with a rockfur.

  Nina flinched back with a startled gasp. The massive beast huffed, nostrils flaring. It was taller than Orishok at its shoulders, with a thick, dark mane sweeping back from its head. Huge tusks protruded from its mouth, and horns jutted from the top and sides of its head, the smallest of which was as long as her hand. Quinn had told Nina that rockfurs were like a cross between two Earth creatures — boars and rhinos — and the mental images she’d shared had supported that assessment. But boars and rhinos didn’t instill fear in anyone like an angry rockfur could.

  These things knocked over small trees when they were calm.

  Its thoughts blasted her. Rage, burning like fire; a hollow hunger that put the shriekers’ needs to shame; a deep possessiveness of this space, this territory. There was more there, deep beneath the surface, but this was no time to delve into its mind.

  This beast could grind her into a paste effortlessly.

  The wails of the shrieker grew suddenly more immediate. The creature plummeted from the opening in the ceiling and slammed onto the floor between Nina and the rockfur, scattering the old bones littering the cell. The shrieker struggled onto its feet, but it was not quick enough; the rockfur roared and thrust itself forward, impaling the shrieker on its tusks. Squealing in pain, the shrieker lashed out with claws and tail, gnashing its teeth. Its attacks could not match the ferocity and power of the hungry rockfur.

  Nina’s lungs burned as she shifted, pressing herself against the bars. They weren’t very wide, but she had no other choice. She had to squeeze through. As vicious as shriekers could be, this one wouldn’t last long against a full-grown male rockfur.

  Tugging her bag up and over her head, she thrust it out of the cell before twisting her torso to slip her arms and head through. Her chest was the first sticking point. She exhaled and resisted the need to draw in another breath, pushing against the bars with both arms to force her torso through. The enthusiasm of her tiny victory vanished quickly when her hips met the metal and her backside wedged in place.

  She wiggled and kicked, gritting her teeth as the rough metal scraped her skin. The cell rattled as the rockfur slammed into its sides, the beast’s roars reverberating off the walls to drown out the death cries of the shrieker.

  Wrapping her hands around the blood-slicked bars, she locked her elbows and pulled on her hips. Fear and exertion combined to build dangerous pressure in her chest.

  Come on!

  Something heavy brushed against her leg.

  It seemed to be the motivation her body had needed; her lower half finally slid free, and Nina fell forward, hitting the floor hard. She lay there for a moment, panting, before she slowly shifted to her knees and turned toward the cell to sweep her gaze over the gruesome scene within.

  The shrieker was dead. Its blood was smeared across the floor and glistened in splatters on the rockfur’s hide. That could’ve been her. If the shrieker hadn’t fallen with her to distract the rockfur, it would’ve been Nina’s lifeless body in that cell, intestines spilled amidst the bones and filth as the rockfur gorged itself.

  Rockfur don’t eat meat.

  That realization was like a slap to the face. Nina fell onto her rear and hurriedly backpedaled on her hands and feet, desperate to put as much space between herself and the monstrous beast as possible. Her back struck something solid. Stone scraped against stone as the heavy object behind her teetered.

  A shrieker released a piercing call to her right. Nina instinctively jerked away, slamming into the off-balance object again, this time near its base, as she swung her gaze toward the sound. Another cage, this one holding a large, pale-scaled shrieker that was clawing at the bars.

  The object she’d bumped into toppled over her, striking her between the shoulder blades. She winced as several small, heavy items fell into her lap from atop the cylinder before it rolled off her shoulder and crashed on the floor to her right. With ice in her blood and fire in her gut, she looked down.

  Three misshapen stones lay in her lap, their edges smooth and rounded though none were exactly circular. She scooped them up and rubbed her thumb over one, inadvertently smearing blood from the cuts on her palms over the surface. The dark brown stones were run through with tiny fissures, like the rings inside trees, through which warm red light glowed.

  They looked like…

  No, that couldn’t be right.

  Are these heartstones?

  New sounds broke over the clamor of the rockfur and shrieker — metal scraping against stone and the hum of unseen, ancient machinery. Nina looked up.

  It was her first glimpse of the entire chamber. The smooth floor outside the cells was embedded with stones in spiraling mosaic patterns, and the walls were a mixture of expert stonework and natural surfaces, not unlike the bathhouse in Bahmet. Three large cages were arranged around the central pedestal she’d knocked over — the rockfur straight ahead, the shrieker to the right, and another beast, a powerfully built predator with sharp quills protruding from its head, neck, and shoulders, to the left. The area was illuminated by light stones set into alcoves on the walls.

  Her heart stopped; the scraping sound was that of the bars of all three cages sinking into the floor.

  Nina’s hands tightened around the stones as she whipped her gaze around, searching for an exit and finding nothing. She was as trapped as these beasts had been.

  My dagger!

  The thoughts of all three beasts assailed her. Hunger, rage, pain… Stones?

  She shifted her gaze past the rockfur to see her dagger amidst the bo
nes on the floor of its cell. Her bag was just outside those bars; the knife inside it was smaller, but it was potentially within reach, and a small blade was better than none.

  As though it can protect me from three ferocious beasts.

  But she had to try. She wouldn’t give up without a fight.

  Nina leaned forward. Something big struck her from the side, sending the heartstones skittering across the floor and knocking her onto her back. She cried out and squeezed her eyes shut against the impact.

  A heavy weight settled atop her as two huge paws forced her shoulders to the floor. Nina opened her eyes to find the quilled beast hunched over her. It released a low growl and dipped its head, bared teeth inches from her face. Its nostrils flared with its heavy breaths.

  “Stop,” she said, voice wobbling. Tears filled her eyes and fell down the sides of her face, blinding her. Her entire being shook with fear.

  The creature opened its mouth and let loose a deafening roar. Its claws dug into her shoulders, piercing her skin; the pain afforded her a flash of clarity.

  “I said stop!” she yelled, blasting the command outward in a psychic wave.

  Her mind slammed into the beast’s, pushing past the powerful instincts to brush against an intelligent mind beneath. Its thoughts pulsed rapidly through her awareness for an instant.

  —kill the Creator take the stone take my freedom find my people—

  The quilled beast flinched backward and snapped its mouth shut, its amber eyes meeting hers. Something softened infinitesimally in the beast’s gaze.

  The shrieker slammed into the quilled beast, knocking it off her. The creatures tumbled across the floor in a torrent of snarling, gnashing teeth, and raking claws. Swallowing, Nina scrambled back from the fight, flicking her gaze to the hulking rockfur. Its nostrils expanded and contracted as it took great, snuffling breaths, its dark eyes intent upon her. There was blood smeared on its tusks and horns and beaded on its fur.