by Heath Pfaff
“You’re probably reading too much into all of this. It’s just a dead guy. He’s been dead a long time, and he probably killed whatever killed him.” Avan said, losing interest in all of this. “Let’s just go.”
“These challenges always give you the hints and clues you need to beat them, and they’re very carefully planned out. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Keep your eyes out for something big and dangerous.” I said, not wanting to argue the point, but needing the other two to be on guard. I couldn’t watch everywhere at once. With that we returned to the pass.
I kept my eyes open as we moved, looking for signs of anything besides us having been through this area. I didn’t see any tracks or sign of something moving through the relatively narrow trail, but it was treacherous. There were several more times when we had to dodge falling rocks, and there was one place where we had to scale several fallen boulders.
Luckily climbing the hill in the RIft had prepared us for getting up difficult to scale surfaces, so none of us had too much trouble and we were soon on our way again. Even if Avan and Clover weren’t top of the class, they’d survived this long, and that meant they were at least a little capable. By the time we were nearing the end of the pass, I was happy for that.
“You aren’t weak.” I told them. “You should stop acting like you are. You could actually make it through this training if you fought for it.” I told them, perturbed that they didn’t seem to care.
“It’s a lot of work.” Clover said quietly, and I thought I could hear a bit of shame in her voice.
“We don’t need this, any of it. I can go home any time and not have to put up with all of this garbage. My father runs a mill. I can make money just dealing with customers.” Avan added, but he’d lost some of the fight to his voice. It sounded like he was just trying to justify laziness.
“Or you could dedicate yourself to this and come out of the other side of these three years as an honor guard, highly trained and skilled, a man that anyone could respect and look up to.” I noted with a shrug. “And you’d know you earned it. Imagine the confidence you could carry coming out of three years of this. “
Avan didn’t reply, and Clover was quiet too.
“I’m sorry I’m not what you expected.” I told them. “But this is my life. This is a chance to be better than I was. I didn’t want it at first, but now it’s what I have, and I savor the opportunity to prove that I can be better than people think I am. You should too. You don’t have the same stakes, but you can work just as hard. When you’re with me, I’m going to make you try.”
I gave them a smile and a shrug before looking across the white expanse in front of us. “Last leg of this journey. We just have to find the cabin. Are we still headed west?”
Avan nodded. “Yeah, pretty much, but I don’t see anything out there.”
“Yeah.” I replied a bit quietly. “I think this is going to be the most dangerous part of this journey. Whatever is hunting us, now is when it becomes a real threat.” In the pass we might have been together and a better single target, but the pass was dangerous. A creature hunting us would prefer to take us in the open where we had no place to hide and there was no chance of the environment posing a threat. Soon we would be in the open. “Are you two ready to run? I think we should move as fast as we can.”
They both nodded.
“Alright, no one is left behind though. If anyone starts to fall back, we all slow down. Most animals prefer to pick off the slowest member of a pack. We’re stronger as a group.” I told them, and again they both nodded. “Let’s go.” I ran and the others ran with me. The snow was deep and our pace was considerably slowed by that fact, but we took off as quickly as we could.
For a few minutes the way was clear, or at least as clear as it could be in the blowing wind. I kept scanning for danger, but all there was around us was the terrible void of white. I had to put my head down at times, or risk losing sense of direction. There were no markers to lock my eyes onto, nothing to find a focal point with. I scanned around me again.
I saw something in the snow and stopped us. “Hold!” I called out as I trudged forward to see what my eyes had caught on. Everything was so white it was hard to make out variances in the terrain, but I’d been right. I knelt down. “Tracks.” I said quietly, and then louder . “Tracks. These are animal tracks, something big. Look, the toes are like a wolf, but much, much larger, and it’s clearly bipedal. There is a circle here. Why would it walk in a circle in front of us?”
That didn’t make sense with what I knew of predators. I looked to the other two and they shrugged. “Let’s keep . . . “ I started to say we should keep going, and then a howl tore through the air, louder than the screaming wind, and somehow penetrating the wall of snow falling all around us. It seemed to shake the core of reality with its hunger. It sounded like a wolf in a way, but something more as well. Whatever monster had made the sound, I wanted nothing to do with it.
“Come on!” I called firmly, and started running forward again. The cold was mostly forgotten. We ran for what felt like a long time, the howl chasing us, getting closer and closer each time we heard it. We finally had to slow down for Avan who was starting to trail behind.
I stopped us. “How is our course?” I asked Avan who threw a frustrated look at the compass.
“It’s alright. We’re mostly headed west.” He answered, frustrated.
“Mostly?” I asked, suddenly nervous.
“We’ve been going a little off course. The howls are coming from the north side, and I’ve been pushing us away from them a little.” He said with a shrug.
“No, Avan! Don’t do that!” I was angry. “We could miss the cabin entirely in this snow. The creature is driving us. We don’t want to go wherever it is trying to take us. It will be trying to box us in or split us apart. We can’t let it dictate our direction of travel.”
Another howl erupted at our backs, sounding close. Avan gave a jump forward.
“It’s hunting the same way pack wolves hunt, driving its prey to a convenient killing ground. We either stop thinking like prey or we die out here. I want to move west and north, compensate for how far off course we’ve gone, and hopefully we haven’t run too far in the wrong direction.” I said, agitated. I might have taken the compass from him, but I didn’t know how far we’d been running in the wrong direction. “Remember, we die if we get too far off course. There is no middle ground.” I was happy I’d taken so well to the wilderness training classes we’d been given. Some fields of study were hard for me, but those had always seemed simple, logical.
We started to move again. The howling grew closer, and I thought I saw something moving in the snow near us once or twice. It was still trying to push us, but this time we were staying in a determined direction. I was almost losing hope when I saw the shape of the cabin dully outlined ahead of us.
“That’s it!” I called out, and then we were all running. We’d made it, finally.
A terrible growl sounded and suddenly Avan vanished in front of me in an explosion of kicked up snow. I didn’t even see him go. He was there, and then the snow exploded and he was gone. I swung around, trying to find him, and was only able to locate him because of the screams. As the snow settled I saw something huge and black huddled over and ripping away at something in the snow, something that was probably Avan. I knew the black creature was whatever had been following us.
Clover screamed and the creature turned its head towards her. It looked like someone had taken a wolf and human and shoved them together, and then decided the result wasn’t nightmarish enough so they’d stretched the jaws further, made them wider and crammed more teeth, needle sharp, into the mouth just to make it more horrifying. It’s jaws hinged wide and it roared at her.
Clover stumbled backwards in terror, the knife I’d given her coming up in front of her.
I didn’t hesitate. I dove forward, charging the beast while it was threatening Clover and had it’s claws occupied with Avan. It he
ard me just before I reached it, but it was out of position. As it tried to turn, my blade punched through its chest and tore out through the front of it. The sword cut shockingly well. It barely slowed as it ripped its way through the creature's ribcage.
I expected it to die, but instead it spun on me with enough strength to throw me backwards. I kept my hold on the sword as it slid from the beast and I landed in the snow. It was one me instantly. There was no delay at all. I was hitting the ground and the creature was somehow already above me, razor sharp claws coming down on me in a powerful barrage that I had no way to prepare for. It was impossibly fast. I couldn’t even see its movement, but I could feel my flesh ripping. The claws were so sharp, razors that just shredded flesh and clothing like it wasn’t there.
I yelled in anger and managed to shift the sword just as it was coming down to bite my neck. It would have killed me, but instead it bit into steel. It’s jaws clanked against the metal, but I was getting weak. I was bleeding a great deal and my wounds were deep. I could see bone over my ribs. The beast had bright, terrible eyes, and I thought I could actually see a real desire to cause pain in its facial expression. I’d never seen an animal with cruelty in its eyes before. This one was intelligent, and full of ill intent.
It brought a clawed hand down and put it over my face, that terrible joy for misery alight in its eyes. It was going to rip my face off, and it was giving me time to appreciate that. I pushed my sword up, trying to force it into the creature’s jaws, but I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t strong enough. I screamed in rage as its claws sunk into my face and began to rip through my flesh. One claw tore into my left eye and vision exploded away from that side as something hot and gelatinous poured down my cheek. The claw on the other side missed my eye but blood was pouring down my face into that one.
The beast howled in pain suddenly, and then it’s weight was coming off of me as it swung around. There was a dagger stuck in the other side of its chest from the back. The creature sucked in a breath and wheezed a growl, flecks of pink foam shooting from its gaping jaws. I forced myself up and struck it as hard as I could in the neck from behind. The blade cut deep. The beast started to turn and then faltered, collapsing to its knees. I swung again, and then again, and the creature’s head fell away. It was dead.
I was shaky, but I remained standing. Clover was shaking where she stood, looking down at the monster. Avan was up, but he was torn open, holding his stomach in with his hands.
“To the cabin.” I said, the words coming out wet as blood flowed into my mouth. We made the rest of the trip to the cabin and pushed our way inside, slamming the door and bolting it behind us.
“Gods, Lil, your face . . . “ Clover gasped, looking at me.
I shook my head. “Find the bell.” Was all I managed. I was never pretty. I didn’t care about being even less pretty. Clover ran across the room and picked up a small silver bell from the table. She started ringing it. A moment later a door opened up in the center of the room where there hadn’t been one before. We filed through, though Avan wasn’t moving well at all. He was pale and drawn, getting close to collapse.
As I crossed the threshold back into the academy the sword in my hand broke apart as though it were made of smoke that could no longer hold its shape. I looked at my empty, blood soaked hand in confusion.
“Third finished. Good time.” The warden at the door said. “Get yourselves to the clerics.” That was it. We had to carry Avan most of the way. He passed out not long after we started down the hall. Once we arrived, they split us up and we went to see one of the Fel Clerics.
“You’re a mess.” The man who was seeing to me said.
“Monster tried to rip off my face.” I explained.
He nodded. “Looks like it.” He touched me, and his magic took hold. It was awful. The pain that tore through me made me black out for a few moments. When I came to I was shaking and exhausted.
“You’re going to have scars on your face. I could have healed them all, but the Warden’s prefer you to keep your scars. Your eye is restored, but the color is gone. Consider it another type of scar.” He said, and then he turned back to his things. “You’re finished. Leave.”
I got up and walked out, legs shaky as I returned to my room. I missed Zarkov so keenly in that moment. I wanted to see him for a little while, to talk to him about what had happened. We’d done well at our challenge, but it had been terrible. Luckily, I was tired and in enough pain, that when I returned to my room, my body handled the excess of suffering by blacking out in my bed.
Chapter 5
Ghouls
A month after my fight in the snow against the impossibly fast monster, I was fighting my next group challenge. Avan was gone. He’d stopped trying altogether and was washed out for physical ineptitude, but Clover was a different story. A month after our harrowing run through the mountain pass she was a changed woman. She was stronger, firmer of resolve, and almost unrecognizable from the person I’d last fought beside.
We didn't come in first in that trial, but we were far from last. We placed in the top half and didn’t have to take the punishment for failing. We also seemed to get along better, though I wouldn’t have exactly called us friends either. We did, though, fall into a pattern of comradery that carried us forward through our challenges to the end of the year. All these months later I still missed Zarkov, and still rarely saw him, but anytime we did meet it was a bit like coming home.
He’d grown stronger, broader, and maybe a bit colder in his time away. He didn’t smile as much, and he’d gotten a few new scars, though nothing as jarring as the ones I wore on my face. The scars from the claw marks down the top of my face were enough to draw attention, even with the skull tattoo to distract from them. I’d never been a pretty woman, but now I was a topic of fear and rumor. People whispered my name in the halls, avoided me in public places. The exceptions to that were Zarkov, Ori and Clover. Ori was the only person I saw regularly, and soon enough she would be gone. This was the end of her third year of training. From here she would go on to the advanced program along with all of the other third year students who wanted to move on. Many would simply quit. Three years in was enough to make the elite guard.
Ori’s leaving was upsetting for me. Other than Zark, she was my only friend. After the night I’d come back without Zarkov we’d gotten much closer. We weren’t exactly giggling school girls talking about our hopes, dreams, and the boys we wanted to kiss, but we did spend most evenings talking before we passed out. I found out that Ori had wanted to be a seamstress, that she’d had a bad first year and had almost washed out twice before she finally dedicated herself fully to this place.
She was in love with an instructor, but her only hope to be closer to her was to make it through all of the training, and that pushed her even harder. She was second in her year, and she wanted first desperately. It was nice to have someone to talk to, but speaking of love made me think of Zark, and what might have been between us, and then I was reminded that no deadie had ever made it all the way through training. None of us. Ori, Zark and I, we were destined for death. If one of us made it, it would be a miracle. There was no chance we’d all get to the end. The skulls tattooed on our faces were just a reflection of what we were. Dead.
As my first year ended there was no celebration to commemorate making it to my second year. Ori packed her things and left, and on the day we’d normally have team events we were drawn out into the square to welcome the new recruits. A young man named Tarn was assigned to my room, and he was terrified of me. I showed him where he’d be sleeping. I gave him my old bed and took Ori’s for no other reason than I could. It felt right, like a changing of the guard. We headed back out to the yard and were split into our teams. Clover and I were joined by two new recruits, a male and a female. This was the largest group I’d ever had.
Kavack was a big, brutish young man with cruel eyes and violence in his motions. He had brown hair, and light eyes. Everything was sharp and fast with him. He l
acked restraint and balance. He’d probably get far enough on aggression alone, but I almost immediately didn't like him. He attempted to intimidate me. He was taller than I was, broader across the shoulders, but he was soft. I could see it in the set of his jaw, the weakness of his stance. It was strange how quickly I could assess him and his failings. I could break him, and a part of me liked the idea of doing so, but he was my teammate.
Unnya was thin and wiry, almost as tall as Kavack, but weighing probably half as much. She had a determined set to her face. Her hair was dark and so were her eyes. Her skin was a lovely shade of olive. She didn’t like to look at me, but most people didn’t. Kavack didn’t either, but he tried to stare me down every time our eyes met. I’d seen myself in mirrors. With the skull tattoo, my one white eye, and the scars down my face, I was terrifying. I’d also taken to shearing my hair off short, which only added to the angularity of my face. It didn’t make me look any more beautiful, but it certainly made me more intimidating, and here that was a good thing.