Unleashed

by Tiffany Roberts

  Movement at the corner of his vision had Vortok turning his head. He thrust out an arm, catching one of the lunging beasts by the throat and halting its forward momentum before it pounced on Balir. The beast twisted and thrashed in his hold, clawing at his arm. He resisted his instinctual urge to kill; this was one of his people, someone he knew, and they did not deserve to pay for what had been done to them against their will.

  Balir lifted the final heartstone from the hollow. The beast in Vortok’s hold snapped its attention to the stone. Its skin heated beneath Vortok’s palm, and its bones shifted as it changed. Balir tossed the stone onto the ground, and Vortok released his hold.

  The beast scrambled on the ground and lifted its heartstone in paws that were stretching into hands and fingers.

  Bestial growls and howls became the pained cries of people.

  Vortok looked out over them. There were people now where the beasts had stood a few moments before, males and females, some of their chests still glowing with the light of freshly absorbed heartstones. Their faces were gaunt, their expressions bewildered and pained, but the madness was slowly fading from their eyes. He recognized them now, though each of them possessed features from the beasts they’d been melded with.

  His heart squeezed. This was his tribe. Their people. They lived, they were being made whole, and it was because of…

  Nina!

  He ran around to the backside of the platform, where Aduun held Nina. Pale, bloody, courageous Nina. As Balir leapt off the platform to stand beside Vortok, she smiled softly.

  “You did it,” she said.

  Vortok reached toward her but stopped his hand before touching her. She looked so fragile, so depleted, so hurt, that he was afraid to do any more damage.

  “You won’t hurt me, Vortok,” she whispered, lifting her arms toward him. They trembled lightly. “It’s your turn. I showed Aduun the way, so he can lead us out…but I need your help. Be my strength. Both of you,” she said, turning her gaze toward Balir, who brushed the backs of his knuckles over her cheek.

  Vortok crouched and gathered Nina carefully as Aduun passed her over. He straightened, cradling his mate in his arms. She pressed her hands over her abdomen, holding a blood-stained cloth over her wounds.

  “She needs help,” Vortok said through gritted teeth. “What do we do?”

  Aduun rose. “She showed me where to go. It is the only place she might find help.”

  “Then let’s go!”

  Aduun clenched his jaw. He looked over his shoulder, and Vortok followed his gaze.

  Dozens of their people stared in their direction, looking lost, confused, and frightened.

  “Bring them,” Nina rasped. “They don’t deserve to be left down here any longer.”

  “But we don’t have time, Nina,” Aduun said, turning back to her, “we need—”

  “You are their chieftain, Aduun. Lead them.”

  Aduun’s brows fell, and his eyes seemed to dim. Vortok knew well of the weight Aduun had carried all these years; the burden of responsibility had grown crushing for him. But Aduun didn’t understand what their people saw when they looked at him.

  Spinning away from Vortok, Aduun stepped onto the platform and crossed it. The emaciated valos watched in silence as Aduun hopped down and walked into their midst, parting to allow him passage. He emerged from the crowd a few moments later with Kelsharn’s horned mask in one hand. Leaping onto the platform, he took a horn in each hand and looked down at the trophy, which glistened with black ichor.

  “I have failed you too many times to be forgiven,” he said, his voice carrying strong through the open area, “and I no longer have the right to lead. I know what you are feeling, because I have felt that confusion, that fear, in myself. There will be time to confront it, but that time is not now.”

  He twisted slightly, pointing behind him with one arm. “The female who saved us, who saved all of you, is wounded. She needs help that we are unable to provide, and I am going to take her out of this place. I ask you to follow me once more. Kelsharn is dead, and for the first time in so long, we can have whatever lives we choose. Follow me to the surface, where you may make that choice, and then you need never see me again.”

  The silence was broken by the sound of feet on the stone. One of the valos stepped out of the crowd and approached Aduun. He was thin, his flesh stretched tight over his bones, his mottled fur ragged. He was Gorvahl, one of the clan’s elders. Raising a hand, he placed it on Aduun’s shoulder and squeezed. “You have ever put us before yourself, chieftain.”

  “You fought for us,” someone else called from the crowd.

  “Kelsharn betrayed us, not you,” said Maroga from her place at the front of the gathering.

  Aduun turned his head slowly, as though surveying the crowd. His quills rose and fell uncertainly. “I… We will have much to discuss soon. But I must help my mate.”

  “Go, Aduun. Save your mate,” Gorvahl said, dropping his arm. “We will follow you.”

  A murmur of assent sounded through the crowd; in their current states, it was likely the best most of the valos could produce.

  Crushing pressure built in Vortok’s chest. Kelsharn had taken so much from their people, had pushed and pushed to break them, but here they stood. The scars of the past would never fully heal, but their pain could surely fade. Now that they no longer wore Kelsharn’s ropes around their necks, they could find a new way forward.

  Vortok’s future was already clear; he held it in his arms.

  He looked down at Nina. She rested against him with her eyes closed, her skin terribly pale in contrast to the crimson smeared on her face, and her hair a disheveled mess. Her breathing was shallow, and he knew from his own heartbeat that hers was too slow and weak.

  “Stay with me, Nina,” he murmured. “Stay with us.”

  Not going anywhere, her voice sounded in his mind, and Sonhadra knows better than to try to take me from you.

  He smiled as he turned to follow Aduun deeper into the city; it was the first time he could recall in all his life that smiling hurt, the expression strained by his bone-deep worry.

  Vortok moved beside Balir as they followed the streets between large, dark stone buildings, often reaching out to brush his finger over Nina’s skin. Under different circumstances, Vortok might’ve paused to study the adornments on the walls and around the windows and doors, if only to guess at how such intricate carvings had been crafted. But nothing mattered now except Nina.

  Vortok held her just a little tighter. She nuzzled her cheek against his chest.

  The buildings gave way to a wide, open space. A rocky hill to the right served as the base for more structures, and a massive, lone building stood far to the left. The stone road forked ahead of them, leading around a wide, dark chasm. Aduun led them along the righthand path. The roads converged on the far side of the pit, where a large statue of Kelsharn looked out over the city behind them.

  Another mesa lay ahead, and they hurried across the wide bridge leading to it. Light stones came on as they passed the tall columns lining either side of the bridge, bathing the whole thing in an eerie yellow glow. It was only then Vortok realized the columns tapered to points. He pictured them running between the ribs of some long-dead behemoth and barely suppressed a shudder.

  Too much of Kelsharn’s legacy was built on death.

  The bridge brought them to a pair of huge doors built into the rock.

  “There must be a switch,” Vortok said, but all he could see were the doors and the smooth, carved stone around them.

  Aduun and Balir strode forward, the latter pressing his palms to the shaped stone and moving them over its surface. Aduun paused several strides from the doors and tilted his head back. “You will not stop us now.”

  “I will break them down if I must,” Vortok growled, taking a step closer. He could feel the uneasiness of his tribesmen behind him, but nothing compared to his own. It was not right for Nina to be so still, so quiet. For his heart — th
e heart of his heart — to beat so slowly.

  Aduun’s quills rose as he stalked toward the doors. “We have won,” he roared, hefting Kelsharn’s helmet overhead. “We have claimed our freedom!”

  The ground beneath them rumbled. Startled gasps and growls sounded behind Vortok. Ahead, the rumbling swept into the doors and wall, shaking dust and pebbles from the cliffside. Cracks in the stone — the natural and carved stone alike — deepened and spread, allowing larger chunks of debris to fall away.

  Was this one last trick from Kelsharn? One last trap? Would he be so spiteful as to bring the entire mesa down atop them rather than allow their escape?

  Balir backpedaled while Vortok tensed and turned to the side, prepared to shield Nina from the collapse with his body. The low, earth-shaking rumble continued, but it was now accompanied by the heavy scrape of stone against stone. Nina stirred against his chest, releasing a pained whimper that Vortok felt but couldn’t hear.

  The huge doors slowly opened, scraping wide arcs through the dust and dirt that had accumulated on the ground in their path. When the doors stilled, the scraping sound echoed through the air for a few more heartbeats before giving way to all-encompassing silence.

  More lights flared to life beyond the opening, illuminating a long, high-ceilinged passage lined with statues.

  “The mask,” Balir whispered.

  Vortok glanced at the horned helm in Aduun’s hand. There was no time to ponder whether it had opened the doors or how it might have done so; they needed to move.

  Aduun lowered the mask without so much as glancing at it. He looked over his shoulder, sweeping his gaze over Vortok, Nina, Balir, and the ragged valos behind them, and waved toward the open doorway. “Come!” He plunged across the threshold without hesitation.

  Vortok hurried to follow, and Balir fell into place beside him. Aduun gradually increased his pace. The statues and the light stones illuminating them were blurs at the edges of Vortok’s vision, flashes of brightness and shadow that could have no meaning to him at that moment. Only the whisper of feet and claws over the floor told him his people were following; he dared not risk the slightest break in his momentum by twisting to look back at them.

  Another pair of doors loomed up ahead. Aduun lifted the mask again without slowing. The doors opened quickly and smoothly, their only sound a soft bang that echoed along the hall when they stopped.

  Aduun led them into a large area that was open on top, revealing the false starry sky. Without pause, Aduun turned to the right and passed through an archway. The sounds of their footfalls and ragged breathing were amplified by the walls of another passage, this one just as tall but not as wide as the first. The light stones here seemed to cast their glow only on the floor, leaving the walls shadowed and unsettling.

  Vortok held Nina a little closer.

  A third pair of doors opened at the end of the passageway. Vortok went through immediately behind Aduun and quickly scanned the huge, circular chamber in which he found himself.

  There were strange, intricate patterns on the floor, as beautiful as they were abstract, repeating themselves in concentric rings. The walls were smoothly curved, adorned with bands of equally intricate patterns that were separated by wide blank spaces. Vortok tilted his head back. The walls continued up to an impossible height, their top lost in distant darkness.

  “Hurry inside,” Aduun called as the withered valos entered the chamber. “Everyone needs to be within.”

  Balir moved to a place near the doorway, offering gentle words and touches of encouragement as he directed the other valos deeper into the room.

  Vortok stood beside Aduun near the center, clenching and unclenching his jaw in impatience. “There is no other exit,” he grumbled. “How will squeezing into this chamber help Nina?”

  The press of bodies strengthened as the space was filled. Vortok bristled; the invasion of his space was enough to provoke him on its own, but they were so close to Nina, whose bloodied scent was that of a vulnerable animal. Though they’d changed to their man-shapes, these were the same valos who’d meant to eat Vortok and his companions a short while before.

  He knew what that bestial hunger felt like, and he doubted theirs had been sated by Kelsharn’s death. Was the restoration of their heartstones enough to enable them to resist their urges?

  On top of all that, Aduun was ignoring him.

  Rage sparked in Vortok’s gut. He exhaled heavily as heat and excess strength flowed into his limbs, his body preparing for violence. “Answer me, Aduun.”

  “Easy,” Nina murmured against his chest. She brushed a hand, sticky with blood, over his fur.

  A cool, soothing sense of calm flowed through Vortok, dampening the fires of his fury.

  “This will take us up,” Aduun finally replied. He met Vortok’s gaze, and the remainder of Vortok’s rage faded. Worry dominated Aduun’s face; his brows were low with a deep crease between them, and his lips were pressed tightly together. The strength in his eyes was undermined by a glimmer of vulnerability.

  “Everyone is through,” Balir called.

  Aduun turned away and stepped onto the central circle of the floor’s pattern.

  The chamber doors closed suddenly, their slam echoing up along the rounded walls before drifting back down again, greatly diminished in volume. A low hum filled the air, vibrating through the floor.

  Vortok’s hackles rose again as the sound and sensation coalesced into a ball of dread in his gut.

  Balir wove through the crowd to join Aduun and Vortok just before the room shifted. Vortok’s stomach sank as the floor rose, moving past the banded patterns on the wall with increasing speed. He spread his legs a little wider and lifted his gaze. The darkness overhead solidified into a circle; the shaft was sealed at its top.

  “We’ll be crushed,” Vortok said, bending forward to shield Nina with his torso.

  “We will not,” Aduun replied. “She showed me images from Kelsharn’s mind. We will be fine.”

  “We cannot trust anything from Kelsharn!”

  “But we can trust Nina,” Balir said. He stood with his head tilted down, features drawn with discomfort.

  The darkness above dissipated as the platform neared its apex, revealing a dark, smooth stone surface. Vortok had no doubt of its thickness. Even if he survived the impact, his body alone would not be enough to protect Nina from harm.

  He braced himself.

  The ceiling split apart suddenly, receding into the surrounding wall in at least six wedge-shaped pieces. The moving platform leapt into the opening with a final lurch, its momentum coming to a jarringly abrupt halt. A groaning tremor rocked the floor, and then the sound and motion ceased.

  The walls had similar banded patterns here, but they terminated overhead in a domed ceiling rather than an impossibly high shaft.

  Vortok released a slow breath.

  The doors ahead were identical to the ones they’d come through below, save that these opened without any apparent prompting. Aduun moved forward. The crowd of bewildered valos shifted to allow him passage, and Vortok hurried to follow in his wake. He knew Balir was close behind without having to look.

  They walked through the doorway and down a short hall. The chamber on the other side was much smaller than the circular room they’d left behind, but its contents gave Vortok pause. Several large tables, all as tall as his chest, were arranged around the room. Each one displayed a landscape in miniature — a forest with increasingly larger trees, a snowy mountain valley, a desert with reddish rocks and sand. Even a dark, foreboding city.

  Every place Vortok and his companions had traveled through since being released from their cages was represented here.

  Aduun swung his arm at one of the displays as he walked by. His hand passed through the tiny trees without resistance, without disturbing anything. These were only ghosts, only images.

  Vortok strode forward to catch up with Aduun. “He meant to watch us.”

  “He meant to do more than that,�
� Aduun replied. “I do not doubt our journey would have been far more difficult had he not been imprisoned.” Though his voice seemed confident and controlled, Vortok heard the merest hint of unsteadiness in Aduun’s words.

  “How do we exit this chamber?” Vortok asked; they’d gain nothing by lingering here in speculation. “I see no other door.”

  Balir walked past Vortok, producing soft clicking sounds in his throat. “There is an opening on the wall, but I can detect only the tiniest of gaps in the stone…”

  Aduun stepped forward and raised the helmet again. The wall rumbled, and then a large section of it slid aside, receding into a hidden alcove. Vortok, Aduun, and Balir walked through together.

  They found themselves in another hallway, this one with ornate decorations and carvings throughout. Aduun wasted no time in turning and hurrying along the passage, and Vortok did not hesitate to follow. Despite the terrifying slowness of his mate’s heartbeat, Vortok’s veins were hot, his chest tight, his breath ragged. They turned again and passed through an archway.

  Vortok squinted against the sudden brightness. He slowed to a stop as his eyes adjusted.

  They were in an area identical to one they’d passed through below, save the sky overhead here was bright, sunny blue rather than black and scattered with stars. For a moment, Vortok’s mind reeled in confusion. Had they somehow circled back to where they’d already been? The daylight was meaningless; Kelsharn could control every aspect of the world he’d created beneath the surface, and day and night could change almost instantly. But something else was different, too.

  He drew in a deep breath through his nose. He knew this air of old, this crisp, clean mountain air, though he’d not breathed it for a long while. It bore no taint, no subtle, indefinable hint of wrongness.

  “Almost there,” Aduun said. He hurried into the long, high-ceilinged passage to the left. It was quite similar to the entry tunnel they’d walked underground.

  “Almost there, Nina,” Vortok echoed as he followed Aduun.

  “I would rather she was whole and well, to enjoy our first taste of open air together,” Balir said quietly, voice barely audible over the footsteps of the dozens of valos behind them.