Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1)

by Azalea Ellis

  The male responded in kind, but then lowered his head and exposed his neck to her.

  With that, she turned to me and licked my face. Her huge tongue rasped away the blood from my nose, along with the top layer of skin. Ouch.

  She stared into my eyes for a moment, and I found the hair on the back of my neck raising as I realized the large orbs didn't have slanted pupils like a cat. They looked...human. Deep and clear and intelligent. Expressive.

  The creature swallowed, and her eyes widened. She leaned back and roared joyfully into the sky.

  The others looked at her, all at once, as if shocked. After a few moments of still silence, they leaned back and roared, too, screaming with all the power in their lungs.

  I put my hands over my throbbing ears and cringed. "Ever heard of an inside voice?" I muttered.

  The huge female returned to all fours and licked my face again, which was more painful the second time, then pressed her nose to my forehead as she stared into my eyes.

  My brain felt like it was being punched through my skull, but I couldn't pull back, and then I started to see things. Pictures and clips of movement and sound and emotion.

  I saw the group of winged cats as they lived, as if I was one of them, isolated from all others here in the desert, hunting the other creatures of this wasteland to survive, and trying to keep their race alive. They were a close-knit group, all related to each other in some distant way or another. They knew joy in each other and the hunt and the occasional child, and sorrow in their dwindling numbers, and hunger, and the sick-deaths of their hatchlings.

  I saw images of the other creatures flying towards us now. Huge, scaled, with lumpy bodies and sagging skin. Carrion eaters and nest robbers. I knew of feuding with them over the passing of countless seasons, at first beating them easily, and then as the numbers of my family dwindled, with more difficulty. Less than a season ago, there had been a night attack, such as the one about to begin, and they had lost almost all their eggs along with the warriors set to protect the nests.

  The group was weakened, and would lose this time. All the eggs would be destroyed, their children killed and eaten before ever knowing a world bigger than the inside of their shell. They would fail in their only purpose. I felt a sense of despair that made tears well in my eyes unbidden and roll down my face.

  But then hope bloomed from her to me.

  I saw my own face from high above, glaring at the snarling male. Flashing images of the one-eyed wildcat from my Characteristic Trial, humans dressed in strange clothes speaking a strange language, landscapes of beauty stretching out before me as I flew, an image of mold and putrid spores devouring over a patch of purity, and the vicious exhilaration of flying into battle with my brethren, ripping and killing and obliterating my enemies.

  Then she pulled back, my eyes rolled back in my head, and I dropped to my knees. My vision tumbled and my stomach heaved, but I stopped myself from throwing up or falling over by taking deep breaths of the thin air and digging my claws into the wood.

  Behind me, wood cracked, and cracked again. "We're coming, Eve!" Adam called.

  "Stay alive!" Jacky ordered.

  I took a few more deep breaths, then croaked out, "I'm okay," then again, louder, "I'm okay. They're friendly." I didn't know if that was exactly true, but they hadn't attacked me, which was the best I could say of any monster I'd ever met in the Trials.

  The door broke, and throwing knives thwacked into the floor on either side of me, warding off potential attackers.

  Adam rushed forward and wrapped his arms around me, dragging me backward to the mouth of the tunnel.

  "Where are you hurt?" Sam asked, moving along with Adam.

  China and Jacky moved to stand in front of me, a wall between me and my perceived attackers. China had multiple throwing knives ready in each hand, and Jacky's fists were clenched.

  The cats stood still, watching us small, “threatening” humans in curious amusement.

  "I'm never letting you go first again," Adam said. "Stupid. You're just gonna get yourself killed."

  I rolled my eyes. "I'm fine. I'm fine, guys!" I called, louder. My pounding headache had seceded, and I struggled out of Adam's grip. "They didn't hurt me. Well, not intentionally, anyway. The big one," I pointed, "was just talking to me."

  They looked at me in worried disbelief, and Jacky said, "They did something to her head. Fix her, Sam. I’ll hold them off."

  Sam stepped forward and laid clammy hands on my forehead.

  I swatted his hands away. "Stop it! Okay, so she didn't speak English. But they've got some sort of psychic power. She showed me things. They're not going to hurt us, as long as you don't attack. They're just trying to survive, but they're about to be wiped out by those other twisted monsters." I flung my arm wide to encompass the mass of forms in the sky, growing ever closer.

  The floor shuddered beneath our feet, probably from something the sand-sharks were doing.

  "Guys, they're intelligent. And I want to communicate more with them. I can't do that if they're dead. We're going to fight on their side, against the attackers."

  Jacky lowered her fists immediately and turned to face the group moving through the sky. "Damn. That’s definitely the harder option."

  The others looked between the two groups of monsters, and the winged cats preened and stretched their wings under the attention, showing off.

  "Are you serious, Eve?" Sam said. "You're going to decide for all of us, just like that? What if I don't want to die? Because we're definitely going to lose if we do what you just said. They've got three times the numbers!" He pointed to the misshapen flying monsters. "And there's a whole other group down below, trying to topple this nest of gigantic, supposedly psychic cats! Why the hell would I follow you? You're focused on nothing but what you can gain, no matter how dangerous it is. Think about something besides yourself, for once. I know you don't care about what it means for someone to die," he said pointedly, "but my life is more important than your curiosity." He finished, out of breath and flushed from the force of his tirade.

  I’d waited silently for him to finish, wondering how to handle the situation. Sam had an invaluable Skill, which had already saved my life, and I needed him around in case we needed it. But I could do without the open resentment, which had been hovering at various distances from his emotional surface since our last Trial.

  I wanted to walk over to Sam and beat him into submission, the urge strengthened by the irritating ringing in my ears, but I ignored the instinct. It was sure to backfire.

  While I was thinking, China surprised me by stepping forward. "You're a coward, Sam," she said calmly. "And you're mean."

  He gaped down at her, just like the rest of us.

  "Eve saved your life, because you were too afraid to give yourself permission to save your own. You made the choice to listen to her, and you were the one that killed that guy. No one blames you for it. You had to do it, and if you hadn't you wouldn't be here to help us today. But don't you blame Eve, because it's not her fault. You feel guilty, because you listened to her, and you think it was wrong. But she's never been anything but good to you, to all of us. She's helping me save my sister."

  "She helped me when I needed her," Jacky added.

  "Eve’s always there to help us," Adam said, after a reluctant pause.

  "She's given you a place to belong, and people who have your back," China said. "We all have your back, and you should have ours, too." With that, she spun away from him and climbed up the side of a tree-branch hill, then began to methodically dip the points of the knives crisscrossing her chest into a small jar of poisonous goo.

  Sam was red-faced, silent.

  I cleared my throat. "I'm not a perfect person, Sam. Sometimes I can be quite the opposite. But I know you're good, in your heart. You want to do the right thing. And if you listened to what their leader has to say, if you could see what she showed me, I think you'd want to protect them all on your own." I stepped forward and put my
hand tentatively on the female's nose. "Could you show him what you showed me? Why you need help?" I didn't know if she could understand my words, but she watched intelligently as I brought my hand to my forehead where she'd touched me, and then pointed to Sam.

  She gave a nod, and then turned to him.

  He gulped, but stood still as she approached and touched her wet nose to his skin.

  I turned away. "Okay, guys," I called loudly, knowing there were other Players on the level below, too cautious to come up after the series of threatening roars they'd no doubt been half-deafened by. "The attackers are almost here. I and my team are siding with the ones who live in these trees. The cats. They're friendly to humans as long as you don't attack them, but the ones that are coming aren't. Even if you're fighting on their side, they won't recognize that, and they'll attack indiscriminately. Your best bet is to side with the rest of us." I had no idea if what I'd just said was true, but we needed all the help we could get. And like I'd said, I wasn't perfect. Lying didn't cause a second of guilt.

  The female drew back from Sam, and after a few moments of pale dizziness, he said, "I'll fight with you."

  And that was it. We waited less than a minute for the others to arrive, as the trees underneath us shuddered and swayed subtly back and forth.

  The flying enemy monsters looked like a cross between a Shar Pei dog with extra saggy skin, and a flying lizard. Their necks hung down in pink waddles, like a vulture's, and the wind blew a stench of rot from toward us.

  All around us, the cats roared their defiance, and many leapt up to meet the attackers in the air, while others moved to protect the “cave” China stood atop. "Their eggs must be in there," I murmured.

  The first of the wrinkled lizards made it past the line of defense, crashing hard enough onto the platform to cause everything to sway.

  China threw a knife at it, and almost immediately it seemed to have trouble finding its feet. It collapsed in a twitching heap, and Adam sprang forward to cut open its throat.

  Thick, dark blood oozed out, which the trees ignored, and Adam stepped back with a grimace of distaste, then wiped his knives clean on its hide.

  There was a beat of silent waiting after that, and then everything exploded into chaos. More wrinkle-lizards broke through, and the Players and cats on the ground began to fight.

  I found my claws useful, but the sluggish, thick lizard blood inevitably got all over my hands and arms.

  All around me were screams, and the roaring growls of monsters, and the pink bloom of the trees sucking up the non-gunky blood of both cats and humans, but I didn't look. I had to focus on what I needed to do. I found myself forced to the edge of the platform together with Sam, and was just finishing off a monster that he'd brought down with his crowbar when a small dark blur whizzed past my cheek.

  I looked behind me, and saw a wrinkle-lizard drop to the ground with a knife in its eye. It had been about to bite down on my head.

  China nodded acknowledgment to me, and then turned to continue throwing at other targets.

  "Whoa, that was close," I said to Sam. But almost immediately, I heard a roaring shriek right behind our backs. I started to duck and twist, but something large and sharp caught me on the shoulder, lifting me and ripping my flesh. I flipped into the air violently, spinning around like a tossed toy soldier. I turned in midair so I could see the huge creature that attacked me and land on my feet to fight back. I could feel the heat of the putrid breath coming out of its open maw.

  A cat barreled into the monster from the side, huge teeth ripping into its neck and taking it instantly out of play.

  I relaxed for half a heartbeat. Then I realized I had been tossed out too far, there was nothing beneath me to land on, and that I would end up a dark smudge on the canvas of beige a thousand feet below. I stretched a hand out, but I was too far away to reach any of the branches.

  I turned to look at Sam, insanely wanting to apologize.

  But he was not horrified, for once, not hesitant. His teeth were bared in effort, and he was lunging toward my outstretched hand. Moments before it would have been too late, his hand closed around my clawed fingers, crushing them with the force of his grip.

  Then I was stopping, wrenching my hand and wrist and elbow and shoulder. It was the same side I'd been attacked on, and I felt a strange tearing on the already injured skin of my shoulder. Warm blood ran down, pooling in the curve of my neck and running down between my breasts and over my back.

  Sam grunted with the force of gravity on my large body, and I saw that he only had a grip the platform with his other hand.

  "Eve!" Adam's hoarse shout filtered through my ears past the rushing of the blood in my veins and the wind pushing on us.

  I ignored him. This wasn't the time to be reassuring Adam that I was okay. It was the time to be focusing on making sure I stayed okay, stayed alive.

  Sam's fingers were slipping.

  I tried to breathe deeply and stay still. "Sam, you need to swing me back and forth. I'm too heavy for you to pull me up. If you can get my trajectory far enough inward, and let me go, I'll be able to catch myself on the level below."

  He shook his head minutely, desperately, straining too hard to talk.

  I clenched my teeth. "You can do it. There's no other way for us. You can't hold on much longer, and when you slip we're both gonna die." I grabbed onto his wrist with my other hand, and began to wriggle myself back and forth, like I was on a swing. If I'd been a better person, I might have told him to drop me. I knew his grip wouldn't last much longer, and my movements were making it harder for him to hang on. If he fell when I swung inward, I likely wouldn't be able to save him like he'd done for me. But I wasn't a better person, so I didn't even consider saving him. Like he'd said, I was selfish. He was the only one who came close to realizing just how selfish.

  I looked down to try and time my release, but could only gasp in helpless fear when he grunted out, "Sorry," and we began to fall.

  Chapter 24

  Time held me green and dying

  Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

  ― Dylan Thomas

  I looked down, down, and down. There was nothing below us for so far. I vaguely heard my name shouted again, but both Sam and I were screaming too hard for me to listen. My stomach had started to try and rise through my chest when my fall stopped abruptly and unexpectedly, for the second time in the last half hour, this time on something warm and scratchy.

  Sam landed half on top of me again, twisting my ankle strangely underneath his weight.

  Underneath me, the passing wrinkle-lizard we'd landed on bucked sharply at the unexpected weight of us on its back. It was barely big enough for its two unwelcome passengers, and I dug my fingers into the skin of its back, holding on for dear life.

  Sam grabbed onto my leg with one arm and clenched a handful of lizard hide with the other.

  I met his terrified eyes and couldn't help but laugh. "This wasn't quite what I had in mind when I said drop me onto the level below, but I guess it'll do. Good job."

  He shook his head, lips pressed together in a white line, as if to keep from throwing up.

  The creature beneath us shrieked angrily, flapping hard as it struggled between staying afloat under the extra weight and throwing us off.

  I started to inch forward, drawing myself toward its shoulders, handful by handful of skin. My right shoulder screamed out in pain, begging me to stop, and I left a shiny trail of blood on the brown and green skin of its back, but I kept going until I reached the base of its leathery wings.

  I sat up cautiously, wrapping my legs over its huge back and squeezing. I looked around breathlessly and took our bearings. We were swinging back around to the trees again, luckily not too far from where we needed to be.

  I felt its wings strain to lift us higher and saw where the creature's eyes were focused. "Hold on tight!" I blurted out, ducking down between the flapping wings.

  Seconds later the creature smashed into the
bottom of the top tree level, crushing and scraping its back along the myriad branches. It dropped away, shaking its head, half-stunned by its own maneuver.

  I sat up and looked back.

  Sam was still holding on, hanging off the side and looking both surprised and terrified.

  "Just hold on!" I screamed above the rush of the wind. I turned back and grabbed onto the strange lumpy growths on the sides of its neck, squeezing hard and pulling. I hoped they were sensitive, and not just there for decoration. I was right.

  The creature stiffened and jerked, causing Sam to cry out in alarm.

  But it angled its flight toward the side where I applied the most pressure, as if to try and relieve the pain.

  I didn't know how long it would work, so I pulled harder and faster, and the creature followed the direction of the circular protrusion on its neck. I guided it upward, swung back around to the trees, and crashed us hard into the middle of the platform, almost hard enough to flip me forward and off the creature's back. But I wrapped my arms all the way around, and somehow stayed on.

  It struggled to its feet, tossing its head back and forth and flapping its wings experimentally. I could feel that it was about to take off again. "We can't have that, now," I said, pressing my face into the side of its head, where an ear might be. "But I also can't just get off and let you attack me. So..." I hugged its neck and gripped, similar to something I'd seen Jacky demonstrate, and twisted with all my strength.

  The neck snapped around, and something broke with a loud crunch. One of the bulges on the side of its neck popped, and a small red organ spilled out, pulsing like a heart and hanging by a few fleshy cords. The creature slumped gently to the ground and collapsed, never to move again.

  "I have to kill you," I concluded, though it couldn’t hear me anymore. I climbed off, and saw three wrinkle-lizards attacking a single cat guard in front of the eggs' hatchery.

  Sam was fighting with another lizard already, but seemed to be holding his own.