Change of Darkness

by Jacinta Jade

  Now Siray could see a second guard, dragging a thin female forwards by a fistful of her short blonde hair, her legs and feet kicking at the sand as she struggled to fight against the guard’s grip.

  Surprisingly, the male holding her didn’t stop dragging her when he reached the soldier in charge, but continued on towards a small fenced-off section on the other side of the sandy area.

  Siray’s gaze tracked his progression, a grim curiosity growing inside her.

  ‘Allow me, now, to introduce the pit.’

  Siray glanced at the head guard briefly before the struggling female’s hysterical screams drew her attention back to the other end of the yard. Wide-eyed, Siray watched as the guard other shoved the female over a low wooden fence and into a small, rectangular enclosure. Then he gave the female a final push that catapulted her forwards and … she disappeared.

  Siray blinked. One moment the female had been there, the next gone.

  But then sobs drifted up to the watching group of anxious captives, and Siray felt her breath whoosh out of her. The female was obviously alive. But where had she gone? What had the guard called it? The pit?

  Siray turned her gaze back to the head guard and almost flinched. He was grinning widely at them all. Enjoying their shock.

  ‘The pit,’ the male continued with a diabolic smile, ‘is where you will be placed if you disobey our commands. Not to be confused, of course, with attempts to rebel or escape.’ The guard shrugged. ‘For those infractions, we kill you and anyone else we think might be involved.’ His steely gaze swept them all once again before he twirled a hand in an almost theatrical manner. ‘But where was I? Ah! Yes!’ He grinned once more. ‘The pit,’ he said, pivoting slightly to make another sweeping gesture at the fenced-off area, ‘will hold anyone who displeases us. You will not be fed. You will not be provided with water. Your only hope to get out is for someone else to be thrown in with you.’

  Siray almost frowned. Someone had to take the female’s place?

  ‘If someone else ends up in the pit, then you have a chance to prove to us just how strong you can be.’

  Siray felt her limbs go cold as she realised what the guard meant. The female would stay in that pit until she died. Or until someone else disobeyed and joined her. And killed her. Or the other way around.

  The guard was smirking at the understanding dawning on the captives’ faces. ‘Now that you all understand the rules, it’s time to begin your real training.’

  The guard spun on his heel and marched to the row first in line on Siray’s right—unit one.

  ‘Single file in your rows, through that passage.’ The guard indicated the intended door with a chopping motion. ‘Move!’

  The captive at the front of the first row jerked into sudden movement at the shouted order, walking quickly but uncertainly towards the door which had just been opened by another guard.

  Siray watched as the rest of the male captive’s row, then the following rows, began to peel off to fall into step. As the file grew longer, more guards emerged from their stations to monitor the progression.

  As her own unit stepped away from the main formation to join the file, Baindan in the lead, Siray tried to close her ears to the weeping she could still hear coming from the pit and focus on what might be ahead. She had to be ready.

  From her place in line, she watched as she and the others in her group drew closer to the passage entrance, her body growing more tense with every step.

  Yet after she had passed through, she simply found herself in a stone tunnel, and all she could see was the line of captives continuing to move on before her. Siray’s sense of foreboding didn’t leave her, but it also didn’t grow. The tunnel was long. Long enough, in fact, to hold the whole file of captives at once. Where were they being taken?

  Siray was more than halfway down the tunnel when the door to the entrance she had passed through slammed shut behind them. Like many of the others, she jumped and her head whipped around to view the source of the noise, but the guards in the laughed and continued to prod the trailing captives to keep moving down the passage.

  Her anxiety increasing again, Siray glanced back down the tunnel ahead. And saw new light burst into the passage as another door in front of the proceeding file was opened.

  ‘Move it! Move it!’

  Two guards positioned to either side of this new doorway gestured for the captives to move faster, shouting to emphasise their commands.

  Siray obediently quickened her pace, almost jogging to keep up with Baindan’s long steps in her effort not to be left behind and create a gap that might draw attention.

  As she approached the door, the light grew even brighter, and Siray raised a hand to her shield her eyes, squinting as she passed from the dim tunnel and out into the brilliantly lit space beyond.

  ***

  ‘This is the arena.’ The voice of their new instructor, Master Herrin, was gruff and deep, and both his voice and his shaven head gave him the appearance of unforgiving might.

  After the large group of captives had passed through the door and out of the tunnel, the guards had hurried them across a wide expanse of sand before making them line up again in their rows.

  Then the guards had fallen back to the perimeter of the expansive area, leaving the captives standing in the middle.

  Where they had waited.

  And waited.

  Until one male captive had sat down.

  But now the squarely built Herrin was speaking again. ‘You will either fall here, or go on to be part of a new power that will reshape this world.’

  Siray listened, stiff and still, as she stood in line, watching from the corner of her eye as the scarred male strolled past the captives in the long line in front of hers.

  Herrin’s casual movements were at odds with a face devoid of emotion, and his cutting eyes told her every one of his casual glances had a purpose. That cruelty was a part of him was plain, but through his eyes, Siray thought she could glimpse a mind just as sharp as the edges of the daggers that rode his hip.

  ‘Today, you will receive new training.’

  The casual strides continued, and Siray kept staring straight ahead, avoiding any connection with Herrin’s grey-blue eyes as his scarred chin swung in her direction. In a way, it was hard not to look at him, like going against some natural instinct. The equivalent of turning your back on a hungry cripwof.

  ‘And tomorrow, you will battle each other. So do not waste this opportunity to learn a new skill, or tactic.’ A cold, calculating smile. ‘It might just be the last chance you have.’

  Quiet footsteps sounded again on the sand of the arena, and Herrin’s form left the outer corner of Siray’s vision as he circled around the far end of the captives’ formation. The same survival instincts within her protested, but this time it was far worse, and the skin on the back of her neck prickled as she tried to sense where those footsteps had gone. Even standing in the middle of the group, captives both in front and behind, didn’t mean Herrin might not even now be approaching her unprotected back …

  After all, they had already seen the results of Herrin’s displeasure. Off to Siray’s right was the crumpled body of the male captive who had decided to sit down without permission.

  Definitely unconscious. Possibly dead. Which left just sixty-one of them confirmed alive, with that male down and a female in the pit.

  Siray was quickly learning the underlying rules here, which, not surprisingly, were not so different from what the guards kept telling them all, over and over.

  Obey, learn fast, and show strength to survive. Or perish. Quickly. Brutally.

  For as soon as that male captive had sat down, a massive form had exploded up from the sand before them and, with shocking speed, had attacked and slammed the offending captive down to the ground, a sickening crunch accompanying the movement.

  It was over before all the grains of sand had even stopped falling through the air.

  The gracefulness with which the scarred b
ody had risen and leapt towards Siray and all the others had been terrifying. Absolute power, no mercy, and lethal skill.

  ‘In the arena, I am your master, and the reason you will continue to exist. Or not.’

  The casual tone Herrin used was more chilling to Siray than even his eyes.

  ‘And as your master, you will address me as such if I ask you a question or command you to do something.’

  More soft steps. Was he still circling? The hairs on Siray’s neck rose.

  ‘Run.’

  The cold voice came from behind them this time.

  A moment of frozen fear, tense enough that Siray could hear the pause and smell the sudden sweat breaking out around her.

  Then the panicked breaking of the group, all sixty-one of them, splitting, darting, as they began running away from that cold voice.

  Siray sprinted off, staying within the main group, but not getting out in front or letting herself drift to the back. Not that there was safety in numbers in this place, but to stand out, to be noticed, came with its own risks. Staying with the group was a form of camouflage.

  So they ran across the sand, and soon the group was forced to turn and follow along the outside edges of the arena which was similar in shape to a hexagon, the outline of the sandy space mirrored above in the domed roof.

  Although, Siray reflected, the term ‘arena’ might be far too nice for this place.

  Roughly circular, with high walls that had been smoothed down bordering its edges, the arena had no obvious escape save the tunnel that Siray and the other captives had been forced to enter through. And those smoothed stone walls made Siray wonder just how long this place had existed … and how many captives like her had faced this training—and survived.

  After completing two laps of the arena, she was forced to focus back on the task at hand when the mumbles started.

  ‘How long do we have to run for?’

  Half complaint, half question, the voice came from someone behind Siray. She didn’t know the speaker, so she didn’t even turn her head but kept running. Her thought that it was not a good idea to stand out included being the only person speaking in a group that had been instructed to run.

  And that was another thing she was quickly learning here. Instructions were usually literal. The order to wait, meant wait as you are, and do not move.

  And it especially meant do not sit.

  Because the body of the male captive who had done so that morning still remained in the centre of the warm arena, forgotten by the guards but a stark reminder to Siray and the others of what happened when you didn’t follow orders exactly.

  And that was another scary thought. It was still very early in the day. They had been woken at the first spark of dawn, and not even a span had passed yet.

  In the centre of the arena, Siray could see the blocky form of Master Herrin turning to follow their progress as they ran around the circumference of the space.

  By their fourth lap, a couple more people had joined in the mumbled conversation, but Siray, like the rest of her own unit, determinedly stayed silent. Ahead of her, the athletic form of Wexner ran on quietly, also ignoring the mutters beginning to rise up around him. Siray could only hope that Wexner’s unit would follow his example. Not that she didn’t understand why some of the others were grumbling—even though they also had to know by now the dangers of doing so. She knew that they, too, were still recuperating from the torturous march they had been forced to make from the Gonron Facility to this Faction city. Knew that their bodies, like hers, were already protesting loudly at such poor treatment so soon.

  But unlike them, she was taking the warnings of Master Herrin and the other Faction guards far more seriously.

  At least running laps around the arena gave her and her friends a chance to do as Baindan had suggested that morning—to observe and learn about their new prison. Around them, the walls of the arena rose up, its expanse easily twice the size of the field at the training camp where she had learned to Change. As such, each lap took some time to complete, even at a run.

  At the eighth lap, someone finally gave up. And started walking.

  Siray didn’t realise anyone had stopped until the group of runners she was in rounded one end of the arena and saw a person at the far end before them.

  And a person some way beyond them.

  Two people, she realised, had stopped running. And nothing had happened.

  This realisation swept rapidly across the dispersed group of runners, and soon more of the captives began to slow to a jog, then to a walk, dropping back.

  Despite wishing desperately that she, too, could walk, Siray kept going, sure that to stop running would bring on a punishment at some point. Looking around, she noted that most of the others still running with her were her own friends.

  But it was on their fifteenth lap that Loce started to whine.

  ‘This is stupid … the others have stopped, and nothing has happened, so why can’t we?’

  Siray stayed silent, unable to spare the air to reply, but from beside her, Baindan growled out a low response without turning his head. ‘Don’t do it, Loce. I wouldn’t take anything here at face value.’

  Baindan might actually have been trying to speak without moving his lips.

  Loce groaned, his head of pale hair drooping, but he obediently kept running.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THERE WAS JUST twenty or so captives completing the twenty-fifth lap when Herrin startled them all with a gruff shout.

  ‘Halt!’

  Siray stumbled to a stop with her friends, bending over to brace her body on her knees and keep herself standing as her chest heaved. She and her friends, except Zale and Kinna, were fitter than the other captives, having gone through intense training and testing at Gonron just before being captured by the Faction. It made this kind of test easier for them in both a physical and mental capacity.

  Sensing motion from where Herrin was positioned, Siray straightened quickly at the edge of the group, her own movement alerting the others. Together, they all watched carefully as the scarred training master approached them in his slow and measured way. While Herrin’s face didn’t give anything away, there was something sly about his gait that made Siray think he was enjoying this and was purposefully drawing out his approach in anticipation of what was to come.

  Indeed, she could feel the strong muscles of her thighs coiling almost imperceptibly in response to her assessment before they quivered slightly. The march from Gonron to this city had deeply fatigued her body, yet she still didn’t even know where on the massive continent she was. Someplace on the coast, obviously, potentially on the southern side of the mainland, given the cooler temperature, although it could also have been because they were in the last turns of the golden time, with second winter soon to be upon them. Not that it was noticeably cooler right then, with the sun streaming in brightly high above through the arena’s clear dome roof and reflecting its heat off the sand and into the captives’ faces.

  Having strolled across the sands to reach Siray and her pack of runners, Herrin stood and waited, scrutinising the faces and condition of Siray and the other twenty captives closely. Almost as if he were memorising their faces. Then he turned his head, and only his head, to watch the walkers dribble in.

  Siray turned her head just slightly also, watching the other two-thirds of their group hurry across the sands while keeping one eye on Herrin.

  Some walkers kept their pace, defiant as they joined the growing clump of captives. Other stragglers, seeing they were amongst the last to rejoin, began jogging to reach them faster, as if that would help them to blend in again.

  Siray fought the impulse to shake her head. Instinctively now, the walkers were just realising the danger they had put themselves in. Some may have consciously chosen to ignore it, potentially not believing that Herrin could punish them all in the same way as the male who now lay, dead, out on the sands. If they had been smarter, she thought, they wouldn’t have dared to wal
k.

  With keen blue-grey eyes, Herrin watched each captive rejoin the group until all sixty-one of them stood before him, some breathing more heavily than others, most avoiding his eye.

  ‘Organise yourselves in a line. Those who were still running at the end, over here. Those who walked at this end. And I want walkers in the order that you stopped running.’ He said all this in a deceptively neutral and calm voice.

  Yet the reaction from Siray and the other captives was one of stillness. Not a normal stillness, but that of frozen bodies and caught breath.

  Until Tamot shuffled a step towards the spot that had been pointed out by Herrin for the runners.

  This seemed to break the hold over Siray and the others who had kept running, and they all staggered as quickly as their tired bodies would allow them to line up together.

  Siray was glad that Tamot had been the one to take the first step. It showed that he was still with them, still aware of what was going on. Because they didn’t really know, couldn’t fully know, the extent of the mental anguish he was in. Or if it would be enough to push him over the edge.

  But this tiny glimpse of the old Tamot, the one who wanted to be first to do and know everything, gave Siray a tiny spark of hope. Of course, if he were his old self, he would have placed himself at the far end of the line, as far away as he could get from the walkers. Instead, he let Kinna and Loce overtake him, allowing them to be the first two in line.

  The walkers moved a lot more slowly, less keen to identify themselves to Herrin.

  Which proved just how much they were underestimating their new training master.

  Watching calmly, and with apparent patience, Herrin appeared unconcerned as the walkers took a lengthy time to organise themselves. A couple of small and mumbled arguments broke out as a few walkers disagreed over the order of their placement in the line, but the smallest step by Herrin in the direction of these little disputes, and soon all were facing outwards and awaiting his next order.

  Strolling casually up to where the walkers’ end of the line began, Herrin pivoted slowly on the sand and started moving down the long file of captives.