by Heath Pfaff
Zarkov was putting another creature down, as was Kiiava. I couldn’t see Jillian. I spun, looking for her, and then I saw her. She’d been dragged away from us. Two of the creatures were ripping at her body as her legs kicked and twitched, but her head was mostly missing. She was dead. I’d promised her I wouldn’t let her go. I’d failed her. The stone stood in front of us, in the middle of what remained of our party, the white surface now covered in blood, though as it sat there, strangely not rolling at all, the blood seemed to slowly slide from it as though unable to hold onto its surface. So many dead.
“Let’s go.” I said, picking up the stone with one hand, holding my staff and the torch in the other. The torch was much brighter now, and the creatures were staying back as they had when we’d first lit the other one. I should have stopped us and lit another torch earlier. It was my fault Jillian was dead.
“Let me carry it. My weapon is one handed.” Kiiava said, holding out a hand to me as we moved on.
I tossed it to Zark instead. “So is his, and he’s not going to run away with it and leave us to die.”
“You have the torch, where am I going to go?” She asked, exasperated.
“She has a point, Lil. You’re much better with that staff with two hands. I can carry the torch and she can take the stone. It’s the best way to divide our load, and make sure she doesn’t run off.” Zark said.
“Why don’t we give her the torch?” I asked him, not happy at all with the idea of giving her the stone.
“You want to trust her with the only thing keeping us alive?” He asked with a chuckle.
He had a good point. I frowned. “Fine, but I think trusting her with anything is a bad idea.” I said, handing Zarkov the torch and passing the stone to Kiiava.
“I’m not going to get myself killed.” She said, exasperated. “The torch means staying alive. I’ve seen what happens out here without it.”
“So you admit you’d take the stone and run if you weren’t being kept here by the torch?” I asked, not particularly impressed with her quality of humanity.
“Of course I would. I always win. This is no different, but luckily for you, you have the torch. Even if I could get that, I can’t take the torch, the stone, and still defend myself if something comes for me. So I’m stuck with you, and you’re stuck with me.” She said, shrugging.
I just shook my head. “Fine. Let’s just get out of here. I’m tired of this place. I’m tired of all the death.” We moved forward again. We were attacked several more times before the trees started to thin, and with them the creatures as well. I was feeling cautiously optimistic as we drew near the exit. We might well survive. That’s when the surge happened. We were close. I could see the final line of brush at the exit to the forest, and then the line of glowing eyes circled us, and a moment later we were under full attack. They screamed as they came into the light, but they didn’t relent. It seemed they knew that we were close to escaping from their clutches and they were intent upon taking us down before we could leave.
We fought fiercely There was no time to argue or fight amongst our own. We barely had time to breathe between the waves of monsters come to kill us. We tried to move our huddled group towards the line of shrubs as we fought, but it was slow progress and we were taking injuries, a cut here, a small bite there, but they were adding up. I split my weapon in half and started using it as two pieces. I couldn’t defend as much that way, but I could attack more, and I had to try something. We were failing.
I crushed one creature and turned to another, but it was closer than I expected and its legs tore through my clothing and into my flesh, ripping huge gashes down my body before I struck it repeatedly in the head and knocked it back. I was getting exhausted. I’d been fighting all night.
I roared in anger and launched forward into a new set of attacks, twisting and turning through the fighting styles I knew, destroying everything I could hit. This was the last of my energy. Somehow it worked. The creatures began to dwindle. Instead of dozens we were fighting maybe five or six.
I was finishing another of the creatures, crushing its skull into the ground, when I heard a loud crack and Zarkov’s voice went up in a scream. I had to kill another monster, but I turned in time to see Kiiava running across the line of brush and out into the night beyond and Zark crumpling to the ground, though I could only just see him as Kiiava had taken the torch and the box when she’d left. I rushed to his side and grabbed him, trying to lift him but he screamed. I could hear things moving in the dark. We’d killed a lot, but there were others, others who hadn’t come while there was light.
“Zark, we have to move or we die here.” I told him, voice urgent.
“Yes, yes . . . alright.” He said, breathing hard. “She broke my knee. She kicked it out from the side.”
A surge of rage passed through me. Of course she had. The bitch. We should have left her to die. We’d ended up failing Jillian anyway. I had to bite down the anger. I couldn’t carry Zark and both halves of my weapon, and I couldn't fight one handed with the full staff, so I just dropped half of it. I used the other half to swing at silver eyes as they came close while I backed us the rest of the way out of the forest.
Somehow we’d made it, but I’d taken several more nasty hits, and I thought Zark probably did as well. We were bloody and torn before we made it back beneath the stars. It had been so dark beneath the canopy that even on a moonless night it felt bright with the stars overhead. The creatures stopped at the forest line. It seemed to me it was plenty dark enough for them to keep going, and I'd feared they would, but for some reason they wouldn’t pass beyond the line of trees. I thought perhaps that was their home, their territory, and they defended it. They didn’t care about those things beyond the trees.
I carried us all the way back out to the grassy clearing, through we hadn’t come out anywhere near our camp. The area looked similar enough. I could approximate the direction of the door from where we were.
Zarkov had lost his weapon. I had half of mine, but we were free of the trees and Kiiava was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t doubt she was already back at the door, probably being led victoriously back into the academy. I laid Zark down carefully.
“What are you doing, we have to go after her!” He said urgently, body shaking from the pain.
“No, we don’t. She’s long gone We both know that. We need to treat the worst of our wounds and make a splint for your leg. We’ve lost. We might as well make ourselves as comfortable as possible.” I told him as I extracted the medical kit. The supplies were mostly gone. We had a small amount of alcohol and no bandages left. There were a few pain remedies which I gave him most of. I ripped off a good portion of my shirt and used it to patch the worst of our cuts. There were some bad ones. I doused a few in alcohol, but it didn’t matter how well we treated them. If we survived to get back to the academy they would see us healed.
There ended up not being any good way to splint Zark’s leg so I found a good stick he could use as a crutch and then we got up and started back for the door again. We had far more trouble finding it than I thought we would, and in the end we had to track Kiiava. She apparently knew where the door was relative to where we’d come out, because she made a good line towards it.
To my surprise, when we got close, we could hear her. She hadn’t gone back through.
“Open the fucking door!” She was yelling at the top of her lungs. “Open it! I have the stone. I win, let me back through.” She was screaming, her voice sounding almost rabid. As we approached her she rounded on us and held her sword up.
“Stay the fuck away! I have it. The stone is mine. I won. I got back here first.” She growled, looking crazed and feral. I’d have thought she’d be let back through. I was confused as to why she was still here at all.
“I don’t even want the stone.” I growled a reply. “We just want to get through the door and go back to the school. We’re injured. We need the healers.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. You don’t wa
nt the stone. I’m not going to believe something that is clearly a lie. This stone is what sets us apart, deadie. I was willing to do what it took to win, and you and your boyfriend there were pathetic, easy to deceive. It took no effort at all to get back here with the stone. You did all the work, and I used you. You made it easy for me. You don’t have what it takes to be a Warden. You should just kill yourself now. Walk back into the forest, both of you.” Her words were like poison spilling from her mouth. I knew she hated me, but it was still a surprise to hear so much anger come from her.
“If I could walk, I’d come over there and shove my foot up your whiny ass.” Zarkov snapped, his voice full of anger too, but behind his anger was a certain resignation I’d not heard there before. He was always so eager and energetic, but now he just sounded defeated. It was actually startling.
“Try it you worthless pile of shit. I’ll gut you and then your whore friend.” Kiiava growled, raising her weapon, and it was at that moment that the door opened. Kiiava almost jumped through the portal “I got it! I won.” She said as she pushed into the hall.
I just shook my head and helped Zark out into the passageway. There were other students there as well, all in various states of distress. As I came through the Warden at the door stopped me.
She was a different one than had been there earlier in the day. It was strange to be seeing so many new faces. Hers was oddly kind, though she had those strange dead eyes and that otherworldly pale skin. “Did you see the others?” She asked.
I nodded, a slightly pained expression crossing my face. “Everyone else died. The third group was dead in the woods when we found them. They’d reached the stone first, but their light must have failed them. The rest of Kiiava’s group died in the woods as well. Jillian . . . “ My voice faltered a bit. I hadn’t realized how upset I was until this moment. “I promised I’d bring her back, but the light faltered for a moment and they got her. I failed her.”
The Warden woman nodded. “We know. We watched everything that happened after you took the stone. We couldn’t see what happened to the first group as the light went out. You performed well out there.”
“They did shit!” Kiiava yelled, coming forward, the stone in her hand. “I won. I brought back the stone.”
The woman rounded on her and Kiiava collapsed to the ground on her knees as though someone had put their hands on her shoulders and forced her down. “Where is the rest of your group?!” The Warden snarled, and I could hear the Will in her voice, feel the heavy pulse of it in the air. I’d never felt a surge so strong before. It almost made me shake, and it wasn’t directed at me.
“Dead, but I got the stone!” Kiiava said, voice suddenly desperate and small.
“We told you not to bother returning to the door without the others in your group. We meant it. You failed this event, and you broke a direct command. You will spend the next two weeks in the Rift.” The Warden snapped, grabbing the stone from Kiiava and then throwing her backwards with the force of her Will. Kiiava slammed into the wall hard. “Go see the healers.” She added coldly before turning back to us.
“You did well, but you didn’t bring back the stone. You will spend the next week in the Rift. Still, your accomplishment is impressive. The new moon cycle is the hardest version of that challenge by far. To come back without losing anyone from your group is an incredible accomplishment. Though you didn’t win the challenge, you should be proud of what you’ve done. Go see the healers.” She gave us one final smile before she turned her attention back to the door where another group was emerging.
As we headed for the Fel Clerics I felt a coldness bubbling through me. We’d been given the hardest scenario. They’d been trying to kill us again, pushing us up against the most difficult challenge. I looked over at Zark. He was smiling despite his pain.
“We did well.” He said, some of his former exuberance coming back.
“They tried to kill us, Zark. That’s a stupid thing to be happy about.” I told him, voice cracking a bit more than I meant it to.
“Yeah, but they failed.” He said, grinning like a fool.
“Not by much. We were close to death several times.” I replied, still angry, though I’d managed to hide a bit of it.
He laughed. “You’re angry because they tried to kill us, but you should be excited, Lil.”
I shot him an incredulous look. “What, I’m supposed to be thankful that I’m just still alive?”
“No, of course not. You should be excited because the Wardens of Will just tried to kill us, and they failed. We beat them.” He said, laughing again. “We beat the Wardens today.”
I raised an eyebrow. That was a strange way to look at it. A laugh slipped between my lips, an almost manic thing that bubbled up from inside me. “I guess you’re right. Today we beat the Wardens. I can’t say that every day.”
Chapter 4
Blood in the Snow
4.1
I lost track of the months. It was difficult to maintain a count of them because the training made things blur together. It never got easier. When you got good at one thing, they pushed you towards the next, and if you got good at that, there was even more to learn and master. The Rift never got easier. You got further into it, certainly, but eventually the difficulty ramped up higher and higher until you were struggling again.
Dragging two packs through narrow tunnels with three extra weights in each one I began to realize that the the tunnels didn't even scare me anymore. I wasn’t afraid of the closed spaces or the extra weight. I wasn’t even afraid that I’d meet someone in the tunnels and one of us would need to give ground. That did happen at times, but I no longer worried about it. I just went on, pushing until I couldn’t push anymore.
There were four more challenges, so that must have put us into our fifth or sixth month at the academy. The challenges all varied in difficulty. None were as bad as that first one, though people were still dying and being dropped. Two deadies had gone, publicly executed in the main square. The whole school was summoned to the executions, and there were cheers and joking from most of the students, though the remaining deadies didn’t seem to enjoy it as much. I knew I didn’t.
The oaf who’d killed Trilla was ejected from the school, but not before he went berserk and tried to kill several of his fellow students. I was surprised he’d lasted as long as he had. He wasn’t smart. I thought he’d be put out far sooner based on the educational standards. Ori had explained that the first ones to get dropped for low intelligence were usually the ones who were trying to be dropped. They intentionally failed their tests as badly as they could. That allowed for some particularly stupid people to stick around for a long time just by luck.
Kavinow, Trilla’s killer, eventually did get cut for his intelligence. Apparently he ran out of people trying to get booted from the academy and ended up low man on the ladder. When they told him, he exploded in rage and attempted to kill as many people as he could before he left. Luckily there was a Warden nearby and he was quickly suppressed and ejected. I found it strange that he could attempt to kill people when told to leave, and he was simply kicked from the school, but the deadies who’d fought hard to stay were executed in public for nothing more than their effort. I understood the basics of it. We were all condemned for our actions, but Kavinow had murdered Trilla, and now he was just free to go. I wondered how long it would be before he killed someone else. It didn’t seem fair at all. It was cruel, much as was everything else about the Wardens and their training.
Kiiava was still with us as well. She’d been assigned to a new group, and surprisingly they were all still alive. I hadn’t had any problems with her recently. She’d either given up on me entirely or was saving up for something particularly nasty. I was upset that she was still in the school. Like Kavinow, I felt that she was dangerous, that she didn't deserve to be there with the rest of us. She seemed far worse than Zark or I. It seemed to me she should have at least been expelled for what she’d done in that first group event.
Apparently there had been no clear evidence that she’d been the one to kick Zark’s knee out that night. The stone hadn’t allowed a view of that at the time, either that or someone was bending the rules on her behalf. It seemed to me the latter might be true. It was frustrating, especially with the threat of death for any failure looming over my head constantly. I could never relax. I always had to be at my absolute best.
Physically I was doing very well. I was one of the Rift front runners for our class, but my scores in the education section weren’t as good as they could be. I had trouble concentrating on it all. I wasn’t near the bottom, but I was closer to the bottom than the top, and that worried me. Strangely Zarkov was excelling at both with equal fervor. He was the top physically and he was in the top five percent on the education front.
On top of all of that, his anger seemed all but gone. The work he was put through here had focused him and given him something to work towards, and that seemed to have cured the darkness that was floating in him. Even when something happened that would have made him furious in his earlier days, he managed to laugh it off. His body had filled in more as well, and he was very attractive. Laying in bed with him every night had become a practice in frustration, especially since that first group event when I’d learned that, under other circumstances, we might have been more.
I was changing as well, of course. I was all muscle and strength now. I was faster than Zarkov was by a good bit, and had better stamina, but I wasn’t as cut out for raw strength. Eventually he’d pull ahead in the Rift because he could carry more weight than I could without straining. Still, it was exciting to have come so far. Despite my feelings for the way things were handled at the school, I couldn’t complain about the results.