Change of Darkness

by Jacinta Jade

  A mistake.

  Rolling back onto her legs and lunging forwards, her legs just barely underneath her, Siray more fell than leapt towards the exposed underside of the oreto’s chest and belly, but the weight of her heavier body was enough.

  Enough to carry her close enough to her foe so that, as she fell forwards, she was able to slash her head to the right, her sharp horns slicing through the air and tearing into the soft skin of the oreto’s underside.

  The predator let loose a terrible cry, one that started out in anger but ended on a high note of pain, and its hooves crashed down on Siray’s shoulders, just missing her head as its legs became weak with pain. As the oreto pushed against her with its legs, forcing her back, her horns came free of its stomach, and warm blood flowed over Siray’s head, coating her horns and face. Siray ignored the burning in her torn shoulder and the blows from where the oreto’s hooves had landed, and she backed up herself—the oreto was mortally injured, evident by the amount of blood she could see and smell, and there was another enemy to deal with.

  Quickly twisting her head, she spied Baindan and the sandiota battling it out at the other end of the pit. Baindan was snarling and baring his teeth at the sandiota, his jaws snapping as he ducked in and out of its reach, trying to find a weakness in its defence. But while he was quick, Siray saw that he was having trouble contending with the lightning-fast reflexes of the sandiota’s pincers—he could only do a minimal amount of damage with each strike before he had to back off to save his own head or stop a limb from being severed from his body.

  Siray unconsciously held her breath as she saw one grasping claw reach for Baindan’s head, and she exhaled in relief as Baindan flattened himself to the ground beneath the large swinging appendage, razor-sharp edges whipping over his ears with just a handspan to spare. The claws of the sandiota provided the creature with an excellent defence, and just one mistake from its opponent usually proved their last.

  All this Siray saw and understood in an instant. Right before every hair on her body rose to the alert. Glancing backwards, she saw the oreto had somehow dragged itself to its feet, its underside bloody and torn. She didn’t know if it was the super-sensitive hearing of the yeibon, or if she had actually felt the air in the pit shift from that direction, but she had enough warning as the oreto made a final, half-delirious charge at her to make a decision.

  Moving swiftly towards Baindan and the sandiota, Siray gave a whinnying scream, as if she were maddened by battle. Her cry had an instant effect on Baindan and the sandiota, who both paused to glance her way.

  There was no way she could have known how stunned both animals were at the sight they witnessed bearing down on them. A red blur with a tossing head and mane, hooves pummelling the dirt as her strong body drove itself towards them, eyes and nostrils wide. Indeed, by the flickering light of torches casting their glow on her, it seemed as if a flaming yeibon spirit were advancing upon them.

  But Siray did see both beasts’ eyes widen as she failed to slow as she drew near. Even as she gathered herself, she saw Baindan leap out of the way, saw the sandiota’s limbs with its crushing pincers coming swinging in for her body.

  But she leapt before its claws could reach her, springing up and over the sandiota, her rear hooves clipping its head as she soared through the air above it.

  She came crashing down on the other side, her torn shoulder deciding it wouldn’t take the weight of her body on that leg, and she stumbled at speed into one of the pit’s walls, barely managing to turn her head before she crashed into it, her body bouncing slightly off the dirt wall before she dropped, stunned, onto her side.

  Baindan was next to her in an instant, his muzzle soft against Siray’s much larger and wet face. She raised her head, giving a quick snort, before carefully turning and looking over her shoulder for their enemies.

  But there was no more danger. Siray struggled up to her feet, Baindan’s large cripwof eyes intent on her as they both shifted to observe the bodies of the oreto and the sandiota in the flickering light of the torches. Siray inhaled sharply.

  She had known the oreto had been close behind her when it had made its final, vengeful charge at her, and she even thought she might have felt its breath on her rump just before her leap. She had hoped that her idea to goad the oreto into charging would make the opposing pair collide, giving her and Baindan time to regroup, but the strategy had worked even better than she’d imagined.

  The oreto, coming in at full speed from behind her, had obviously lowered its head for the final attack. After Siray’s leap to safety, the oreto’s horns had punctured straight into the thick body of the sandiota, its long horns penetrating all the way through the sandiota’s dense muscle to pierce the critical organs.

  And so there they lay, both dead, one impaled on the other.

  Siray felt her head droop, her body suddenly limp as the adrenaline rush that had sustained her during the fight ended and exhaustion began to take over.

  That was when more light flared up around the edges of the pit, a sudden clear brightness after the shadows that had surrounded Siray and Baindan during the fight.

  Siray jerked her head up, alert for another attack, her heart pounding. She didn’t relax when she heard the voice begin speaking either.

  ‘Well, well. Seems there was excitement in here tonight too.’ Captain Raque’s dry tone was unmistakable, and Siray looked up at him, glaring as much as her yeibon form would allow her. For an instant, she was tempted to Change into her sevonix form so she could growl up at him and bare her teeth, maybe even leap up to rip him into shreds, but she wasn’t so foolish as to try it. Besides, Baindan was communicating his hatred of the captain well enough for them both, with his lips drawn back and muzzle rippling, his teeth bared and dripping, while his ears were laid flat.

  Raque merely laughed down at them and gestured to the soldiers who were standing around the pit, each with a torch in hand. ‘I’d pull you both out, of course, but unfortunately, my men have to deal with some bodies first and ensure no one else is thinking about attempting an escape.’ The captain waved a hand at his men, and they began to disperse, taking the brightness of the torches with them. ‘You both just settle in until morning, then we’ll see about getting you out.’

  Baindan’s answering growl was impressive, but the captain just chuckled again and backed away from the edge of the pit, departing from view along with the remaining light, and leaving Siray and Baindan alone with the stiffening bodies of the creatures.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  VOICES. Siray tried to wave them away, as if they were nuisance bugs that she could shoo off with her hand. That was what really woke her—the fact that her hand felt odd. She opened her eyes and looked down. A long front leg and hoof met her eyes, slightly raised. She blinked for a moment, confused and tired. Bit and pieces of the previous night were coming back to her: Raque peering down and laughing at her … flickering torchlight … a leap over an enemy …

  She connected the memories and lifted her head, but she was reassured before she even had the chance to be worried. She could both smell and feel where Baindan’s warm, furry body was pressed against her own. She might have laughed a bit deliriously if she had been in her normal form as she pictured what it must look like—a cripwof and a yeibon sleeping side by side. In the wild, one of them would have torn the other apart already.

  Assured as to where Baindan was, Siray turned her head. And flinched when her eyes fell upon the carcasses. A part of her had remembered that they were there, but seeing them in the burgeoning light of day gave it some new kind of horror. She swivelled her head away from the sight quickly, squeezing her eyes shut in the hope that the cool blackness of her lids might erase the image and the heat building in her body. But instead, it seemed to make the memory sharper, letting her mind pick out the insects she had just seen that were starting to find their way onto the bodies and into the rips of bloody flesh, and see in greater detail the swelling of the limbs that had begun to t
ake place already.

  Something in Siray’s stomach writhed, and she staggered to her feet, Baindan’s body sliding away from hers as the missing support of her shoulder made him fall. She stumbled quickly towards a corner of the pit, trying to use the rising dirt walls to block out the light that seemed to make her roiling stomach worse. Once in the corner, her head was so close to the exposed soil of the walls that her horns began digging furrows, and she pressed her eyelids tightly closed. Silently, she repeated over and over to herself, not our fault, not our fault.

  ‘Siray?’

  The words startled her, and she whipped around quickly, dirt tumbling from the gouges her horns made in the walls as she did so, her ears back and down, her lithe body trembling. Her elevated alertness made her ears flick back and forth as she listened to the sound of soil hitting the ground around her feet, some of it landing on her back and shoulders, making her large limbs twitch.

  Baindan raised his hands, palms upwards, towards her. ‘Easy, Siray. It’s okay. We’re okay.’

  Siray looked at him, but the world still seemed too bright, and she blinked a few times.

  ‘Siray, why don’t you Change back? Your shoulder should be a lot better, and you must be mentally drained from maintaining that form for so long.’

  Siray couldn’t really focus on Baindan’s words as he spoke, but it was his soft and soothing tone that made her trembling subside.

  ‘Change back, and then you and I can sit together and talk. It’s probably a good idea, before they come for us.’

  Baindan’s cool logic finally found purchase in Siray’s mind long enough for her to grip on to the thought of Changing. And, although she could feel a slight pressure in her mind, almost as if the yeibon in her was fighting back, when she blinked again, she was looking at Baindan through her own eyes. She squeezed her hands into fists, though, just to make sure.

  ‘Baindan,’ she croaked. She grimaced at the weak sound of her own voice, swallowed, then started to try again.

  But he saved her the effort. ‘No movement above yet, but they’ll be down at any time, given it’s dawn.’

  Siray nodded and tried to ease her sore muscles by rolling her shoulders, and she hissed when her right shoulder protested sharply.

  Already tracking her every movement, Baindan didn’t miss her reaction. ‘Let me see,’ he said firmly but with an underlying softness to his voice.

  Siray obediently turned the affected shoulder towards him and pulled down the neckline of her shirt. It was still odd to her that her flesh could be injured in her animal form but her shirt could remain whole—yet she knew within herself that the shirt wasn’t the object that had received the injury. So it wasn’t that surprising that she hadn’t projected a torn shirt when she’d Changed back.

  Siray looked fixedly straight ahead as Baindan’s calloused fingers brushed her skin, and she felt a shiver go down her spine.

  ‘Well, it’s healing quickly but not quite sealed yet, so you’ll be sore and bruised for a day or two still. Thank the Mother that the bone wasn’t broken.’

  Siray frowned down at the laceration, noting the serious scrape that had replaced what was previously a deep wound. And as Baindan’s fingers left her shoulder, she tested the range of movement again. Although it hurt if she moved it too fast or too far in any direction, she could move. Yet although the pain was bearable, the injury was limiting. Which was dangerous here.

  Siray lifted a hand to brush dirty strands of her long red hair back from her face and then froze when bits of red flaked off against her hand—blood. Oh, Mother. She was covered in blood.

  She turned to Baindan and knew from the look in his eyes, knew from the itching skin of the scars on her face, that it was smeared across her. She took a deep breath, getting a grip on the panic rising within her. ‘Like you said, could have been worse,’ she said with forced casualness, referring once more to her shoulder.

  Baindan held her eyes. They both knew what an injury here could mean. Knew she would have to hide any traces of it as much as possible. ‘I’ll worry about it later,’ she continued, turning carefully away from the remains of the other captives to look up at the edge of the pit.

  A big, rolling boom sounded then, the sound of the drum so much louder without the insulating walls of the cell.

  ‘There was something else I wanted to talk about,’ Baindan said softly from behind her, his voice still managing to carry over the deep, rolling beats to Siray.

  Siray tensed. She knew this soft caution in his voice. Knew it was the tone he used when there was bad news that he had to share. News that might cause her pain.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked without turning around, not wanting him to see that she almost couldn’t bear anything else. She heard Baindan take a quiet breath—if he thought he had to prepare himself first, that was another bad sign.

  ‘Last night, Raque mentioned that he couldn’t let us out because he had bodies to deal with.’

  Baindan paused for a moment, and some part of Siray desperately hoped he wouldn’t finish whatever it was he’d been about to say. She kept her mind blank, in an attempt to avoid considering the meaning of his words so far. But Baindan’s next words shattered any attempt at a calm mind.

  ‘He might have been talking about the others.’

  Siray went still. Her mind froze, and her body went cold all over as the news hit her like a physical blow. ‘No,’ she whispered. Somehow, she managed to wheel about, swaying a little, almost as if she had drunk too much batra juice, and stared Baindan full in the face. ‘No, they wouldn’t have tried it—not when they knew we were in here. They would never abandon us like that.’

  Baindan’s eyes were as soft as his voice. ‘I agree. They wouldn’t leave us here. But they might have attempted it, if they thought they could rescue us and then get all nine of us out.’

  His logic was sound, and the plan sounded exactly like something Wexner and Kovi might attempt.

  One last deep boom sounded from above and then the drum was silent.

  And Siray knew that Zale would never have left without her. ‘No,’ she whispered again, so quietly it barely sounded in the still morning air. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. If it had been them … they couldn’t possibly be still alive. Siray didn’t even entertain the hope that any of them might have survived, as the rules had been clear from the start. If one member of a unit was caught escaping, the entire unit would suffer.

  She watched through unfocused eyes as Baindan covered the small space between them, but it was as if her mind and body were now disconnected, and all she could think was that one word—‘dead’. Her friends were dead.

  Then Baindan was pulling her to him, and the feeling of drowning within the sense of loss eased a little as he held her tightly to him, his brown hair tickling her forehead.

  ‘Dead,’ Siray whispered, as if to speak it any louder would make it hurt more than it already did. She felt Baindan’s hands on her spine and neck, and she gripped him back, her head on his shoulder. She was so numb from shock that even tears wouldn’t come. Or was she just getting used to losing people she cared about? The images of the faces of those she’d lost began flashing before her eyes … Rowp, Deson, Jorgi, Loce—no. She squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that colour exploded across the black. She refused to even go through that list. Refused to acknowledge … But something inside her twisted painfully.

  ‘It’s okay. We’ll be okay.’

  Just as she knew what Baindan’s soft tone meant, Siray could also tell when he didn’t believe something he was saying. She pulled back from him a little, to better look him in the eyes. ‘If they’re dead’—she shook her head, fighting the surge of emotion—‘then we’re dead too.’ As part of one of the units, they would also be made to suffer the same fate as their friends. As the ultimate example to the other captives.

  Baindan’s lips pressed tighter together, and his face became hard. ‘We’re not going to just let them kill us,’ he vowed quietly. �
�If we’re going to die, then we’ll take as many of them with us as we can.’

  Siray nodded, then said with a bitter smile, ‘Maybe some of the others will be able to escape if we distract the guards long enough.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Baindan murmured before he pulled her back in close for another crushing hug.

  ‘Well, this is touching.’

  She and Baindan broke apart immediately at the dry, rolling tone, and Siray’s heart pounded out an odd rhythm in her chest as she looked up into the face of the male who had murdered her friends. She shuddered at the knowing look he cast back at them. Weakness, Siray could practically hear him thinking. Baindan was her weakness, just as she was his. And weakness couldn’t be allowed in a place where only the strong survived. Not that it really matters now, she thought darkly, because as soon as they pull us up from the pit, they will try to execute us.

  ‘Try’ being the key word.

  A clattering sound to Siray’s left made her turn her head. The soldiers were rolling the rope-and-plank ladder out and down into the pit. She looked back to Captain Raque.

  ‘Move it along, then, unless you’d both like to stay in there for another round?’ the captain asked cheerfully.

  Drawing in a tight breath, Siray turned with Baindan towards the rope, but she actually wondered if they might indeed last longer going another night in the pit than they might if they left it.

  Baindan, however, indicated with a quick nod that she should climb out first, so she gripped a plank above her head and, placing one foot on a lower board, pushed herself up. It was a trickier climb than she had anticipated, even if it wasn’t far. Lying as close as it was to the wall of the pit, ascending the rope ladder meant that you dug out bits of dirt with your hands and feet each time you moved upwards, dislodging dirt as you climbed. Below her, Baindan was ducking his head as dirt showered down upon him.