by Sam Ryder
“So should you,” she retorted, not meeting my eyes.
She was right. The fight had taken a lot out of all of us. But she needed to rest for other reasons. As soon as possible, she’d leave this place to find more recruits. Which reminded me of what she’d said earlier, about being open to a discussion about change. “Did you mean it?” I asked.
“I don’t say things unless I mean them,” she said, which reminded me of her angry words about me. Yeah, they were probably true too. I needed to be better. Every day. We all did.
“I’ve been thinking about tactics. What if we abolish the Circle?”
“And replace it with what? Our recruits need to have real experience with monsters outside of the Black. The Black is too much for any newb to handle, even with us around to help them.”
“Not necessarily. I’m guessing the issue in the past has been the fear. The new recruits fold when their worst nightmares become real. Which endangers the rest of us. That happened with me, too, despite having survived the Circle. I got one of our own killed. You can’t deny it.”
“I can’t.”
That didn’t make me feel very good about myself, but it was the truth. I couldn’t hide from the truth. I shouldn’t. The truth was all we had to hold onto when the monsters came for us.
“Why do we all go into the Black every night?” I asked. I meant all the Warriors, excluding her and the Three, although lately Eve had been coming with us more often than not.
“To protect the wards. Without them, all would’ve been lost years ago.”
“Yes, I understand that. But why all the Warriors? Especially those with less experience.”
“Are you suggesting we split our resources? That would mean—what? Two Warriors go out tonight, and the other two tomorrow. Do you really think that will work? We need numbers.”
“I agree. And I didn’t mean the group we have now. Clearly, that’s not feasible. I mean we should start somewhere—with your next batch of recruits. Rather than sending them into the Circle to be massacred, hoping that at least one survives, we train them together. Then, instead of taking six greenies with us into the next Black, we take one. Whoever we believe is the most capable. The other five stay back and live until they are ready. Meanwhile, the one we take gains experience and we protect him or her.”
“We could slowly give them all experience,” Eve said, her almond-shaped eyes finally meeting mine. They were excited and breathtakingly beautiful.
“Exactly. It’s not a perfect solution—and we know not all of them will survive—but eventually it might increase our numbers to the point where we can create separate squads for different Blacks. That will give those who aren’t on duty a chance to recover and train more. Our overall survival rates should increase. As our numbers grow, maybe we can go on the offensive, pushing our enemies back and giving us some breathing room.”
“It could work,” Eve said, her tone more even now. “But it will take time, and the Blacks will continue to grow longer.”
“I’m close to a plan for that too,” I said, feeling slightly ill. My plan was less a plan and more a suicide mission.
“Let me know when you come up with something. I’ll do what I can to help. And…” She placed a hand on my bare leg—it felt warm and wonderful. “…I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you. The last few weeks—hell, the last few years—have been hard. I haven’t always handled things…as well as I should.”
“That’s the past,” I said. “Let’s focus on the future.”
She nodded absently, as if lost in thought. “I’m glad I chose you,” she said. “Glad you’re here.”
Gods, those words sounded good to my ears. “Me too,” was all I managed to say in response.
Too quickly, she drew her hand back and stood, starting back up the hill. “Get some rest,” she said. “We have a few more Blacks to survive before we can test your new training strategy.”
I sighed, pretending to head in the direction of my hut, keeping half an eye on Eve the entire way, until she vanished over the edge of the cliff.
The moment she was gone, I grabbed my hammer and ran for the damaged area of the ward shield.
~~~
The cracks in the ward shield were even more obvious now, as if they’d been growing. They hung in the air, nasty-looking and foreboding. I didn’t fully understand the mechanics of the wards and what level of force they were capable of withstanding, but it didn’t look like they could take another direct attack.
I moved further away from our cliff fortress, feeling the suck-pop! as I left the boundary of our safe area. I paused to study the ground, which was furrowed with several shallow runnels and two deep ones. Formed when the monster corpses had been dragged away by something unfathomably strong. The same thing or things I was planning to find and fight.
The Morgoss. The same creatures who’d ripped out the goddesses’ hearts.
Smart? No. Necessary? Probably.
I started to follow the path left by the dragged bodies but stopped almost immediately when I heard a voice somewhere behind me. “Sam!”
I closed my eyes, crestfallen. The whole point of what I was doing was to prevent anyone else from having to do it. “Go back to camp, Beat,” I said without turning around.
“You go back to camp,” she said, her voice closer now.
“This isn’t about me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I could hear her breathing now, heavy from the long run to catch me. She’d actually run after me. Like I meant something. I’d never had anyone do that for me until now.
“I can’t let any more of you die,” I said, staring at the mountains in the distance. The bronze sunlight made them spark gold at their peaks. In a way, they were beautiful too, even surrounded by the gray, desolate terrain.
“Let us die?” Beat laughed, but the sound was rough and mirthless. “Sam Ryder, you are a lot of things, but I know one thing you’re not: a god.”
I couldn’t help my own laugh. Truer words had never been spoken. Finally, I turned. Beat stood before me, her chest still heaving from the strain of galloping across the plains. She clutched a shield in one hand and her usual spear in the other. “I can’t stop you from coming with me, can I?”
She shook her head, grinning. “Why would you want to? I’m twice the Warrior you are.”
“And yet not a goddess,” I said, turning her own words against her.
“True. I’m not a lazy, sleep-all-day woman who summons Warriors for sex. Damn. Sucks to be me.”
Fuck. There was nothing for it, and it wouldn’t hurt to have some help. Still, I wished she would go back. The others would need her if I didn’t make it. Hell, they’d need her even if I did. But she was as stubborn as the Black was long. Double fuck. “Come on,” I said.
~~~
“We’ll never make it,” Beat said, eyeing the distance remaining between us and the mountains. They were definitely closer—hulking forms like the shoulders of a row of giants. And yet we had miles to go.
The others would be waking soon, getting ready to face another Black—without us. They would wonder where we were. What would they think? That we abandoned them. I couldn’t fault them for it; Beat and I had considered doing just that. Still…it hurt that they would think I was a traitor to the cause.
Doesn’t matter, I thought, refocusing on those damn mountains. The runnels carved by monster corpses headed straight for it, like furrows dug by a farmer’s plough.
“Hellooo?” Beat said, waving her hands to get my attention. “Look, I know you’re not the best conversationalist, but…”
“Sorry,” I said. I needed to be more responsive to the one person who always seemed to have my back.
“Where’d you go anyway?”
“Nowhere. Just can’t control my brain sometimes.”
“Ha!” she laughed. “You assume you have a brain.”
“Like you can talk. You’re the one who signed up to come with me on this suicide mission.”
“Good point. I’m an idiot.”
We continued following the tracks, the sun tumbling toward the mountains ahead of us. Another hour or so and the Black would be upon us. We’d be caught out here in the open, like a couple of struggling swimmers in an ocean of sharks. Good plan, I thought.
“We need to find a place to hide,” Beat said, which was the same conclusion I’d reached.
“This part of Tor is empty.” We could run for the boulder fields, but our chances were slim of reaching them before nightfall. There was only one feature visible on this featureless landscape: the monster corpse tracks.
“Oh hell no,” Beat said, reading my mind. “I might not be the prissiest chick around, but I gotta draw the line somewhere.”
“We might not have a choice. Think about it.”
We walked on, and I noticed Beat’s eyes flicking toward the runnels from time to time. They were smeared with blood and ichor, now dried and crusty. I’d watched enough zombie flicks to know human smell could be a problem. Yes, we washed ourselves at camp, but it wasn’t the same as taking a hot shower. The monsters could probably smell us from a hundred miles away, especially the hellhounds. Masking our scent might save our lives.
I glanced up at the sun. The area around it seemed to ripple. Less than half an hour now.
“You ready?” I asked.
“No. But yes. Damn you, Sam Ryder.”
“You’re the one who crashed my party, remember?”
“Yeah, so I could save your pathetic life.”
I chuckled, skidding down the crumbling side of the deepest track. One of the troll’s massive bodies must’ve created this one. When I reached the bottom, I couldn’t see over the sides. I dropped my hammer.
Beat galloped down behind me, cringing as she stepped in something wet—a pool of blood that hadn’t dried yet. “That’s just…ugh,” she said, tossing her shield and spear aside with a clank.
“Yup,” I send, reaching down to splash some of the troll blood across her chest.
“It’s on, motherfucker,” she said, kicking up a wave of the stuff. It splattered across my face because I was still bending down. I could taste it. It tasted like the bitterest radish. Yum.
We were past the point of changing our minds, so I sat down in the pool, using my hands to spoon the thick liquid over my shoulders like it was bath time. “Can you pass the soap?” I asked.
“Sure.” Beat dumped a double handful of blood over my head and I was forced to close my eyes. For being so resistant at first, Beat had really warmed up to the plan.
“Thanks,” I sputtered.
“Do me now,” she said. I used a small unbloodied part of my arm to wipe the blood from my eyes and then got to work, smearing the dark liquid all over her. Cheeks, arms, legs, back. Her body was as hard as rock. When I covered her abdomen, I could feel each individual muscle bulging. She was a specimen. My hands moved upward, but she slapped them away. “Nice try, but unless you want a few broken fingers…”
She finished the job herself, slathering blood on her cleavage.
“So hot,” I said, only half-joking. My man-brain managed to imagine the troll blood was chocolate sauce.
“I know,” Beat said. “I don’t need you to tell me.”
“Now you sound like Lace.”
She pretended to get hit by an arrow, clutching the invisible shaft where it had penetrated her heart. “That one hurts, Sam.”
“She’s not that bad.”
“She is. She reminds me of every mean girl I hated in high school.”
She was likely referring to the same mean girls I fantasized about as an overweight acne-faced pre-pubescent male. “Don’t forget that once she was an Outcast too.”
“Exactly. Which is why she shouldn’t act so damn cocky all the time. I heard her complaining to Eve about how she should’ve been named Protector by now.”
“She’s right,” I said. “She has the most experience. The greatest fighting ability.”
“It’s not just about that,” Beat said. “People listen to you. Shit, even Eve listens to you, and she doesn’t listen to anyone.”
Her words weren’t far off from the ones Minertha had spoken to me, but I shrugged them off. “Look, I just want to stop the Morgoss from doing whatever it is they’re doing with all the monster carcasses. That’s what’s in my control right now. Everything else is noise.”
“My hero,” Beat said, adding a fake airiness to her tone to sound like a damsel in distress. “When you’re done slaying the monsters, take me to bed. It would be my pleasure.”
I laughed. She had a good sense of humor. It felt a little like a defense mechanism from her days back on Earth, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate it. “First let me cover you in blood and dirt,” I said, getting back to work on a couple of spots I’d missed.
“Ooh, kinky.” The silly banter was what we both needed, it seemed.
Eventually, however, we’d managed to bury our blood-soaked selves so that only our faces were sticking out, so we could see and breathe.
The shadows lengthened, and soon even our sight would be taken from us.
“Sam?” Beat said. Her voice was muffled because my ears were surrounded by dirt.
“Yeah?”
“Hold me.”
I snorted. “I would, but my arms are stuck.”
“Is this going to work?” she asked, growing suddenly serious.
“Fifty-fifty.”
“Not comforting.”
“Yet realistic.” Truthfully, I was probably being overly optimistic.
The Black fell like a performance-ending curtain of darkness. Neither of us spoke. We understood the dangers of this time all too well. We’d seen how swiftly death came to those who made mistakes during the Black. And if we died, it could mean the end for the Three. For all Vrill’s anger toward the goddesses, even she had to admit them dying wasn’t a good thing for this planet. They were connected to it somehow. To everything.
I could hear Beat’s breathing mingling with my own. In the silence, it sounded too loud, a blowhorn announcing our location to any monsters within earshot.
Other sounds obliterated our own. The sounds of the Black. Shrieking. Howling. Roars. Beasts and monsters. Monsters and beasts.
The hunt had begun.
I wondered whether, in our absence, Eve had called off tonight’s defense of the wards. I hoped so. With only two Warriors and a Finder, they might do more harm than good out there. And I hoped the monsters would forget about attacking the ward shields for this one night.
A growl erupted nearby, then the sound of snuffling. Jaws snapped, a clack-clack of teeth on teeth. A bark followed, then the sound of an animalistic scuffle. Hellhounds fighting. They were close, perhaps as near as the area just outside of our trench.
Great. If the hellhounds were anything like bloodhounds, they’d be able to track us down here regardless of the amount of troll’s blood we’d bathed in.
I realized I was holding my breath. I listened for Beat’s breathing, but she’d gone silent too.
The sound of the hellhounds’ fighting died down.
One of them growled low in its throat. Rocks and dirt skittered, making a sound similar to the one we’d made when we’d clambered into the runnel. Shit shit fuck shit, I thought, gritting my teeth together. I needed to take a breath, my lungs burning now, but I didn’t dare. I closed my eyes so the whites wouldn’t give me away. I kept my lips closed too. I hadn’t been able to use any whitening toothpaste lately, but my teeth were still bright enough to act as a shining beacon to monsters that were used to seeing in the dark.
The creatures snuffled closer.
Ohmygodsohmygodsohmy—
Hot breath splashed across my face and I almost screamed. Somehow I managed to remain completely still, my chest aching, yearning for a single breath I knew I couldn’t take. Something wet and hot splashed across my skin, pooling onto my lips. It burned, but I refused to move, absorbing the pain into my
body. My chest heaved and I almost gagged at the noxious smell, a mix of foot odor and burning. Hellhound drool. Blech.
Padded footsteps pressed down on the dirt on my chest and I clenched my pecs and abdomen so the hellhound’s paws wouldn’t sink into the dirt and feel my skin.
They passed, the sound of snuffling moving away as the monstrous canines continued their search down the furrow.
We’d been lucky. The hounds hadn’t been on high-alert; therefore, no flames emerged from their maws, which would’ve illuminated our hiding space.
I breathed as quietly as possible, my throat raw. I heard Beat do the same. Neither of us spoke—there was no telling how far away the hellhounds were.
The rest of the too-long Black passed by second by second. We heard fights break out from time to time. The blood-curdling scream of a gargat. The stomping feet of a troll passing by. The bellow of a bludgeon, the orc-like creatures with stone teeth made for crushing bones.
Nothing else came near us, however. The inky darkness turned less…inky. Gray crept in. The monster sounds drifted away until they vanished completely.
It had worked. We’d survived.
I hoped our comrades back at base camp had managed to do the same.
Still, I said nothing until the first direct ray of silver sunlight reached my eyes. “Holy fuck,” I said.
“That was…intense,” Beat agreed. “I had to pee the entire time.”
“Me too,” I admitted, still tasting the hellhound drool on my lips. “I still do.”
“Pee with me?” Beat said. I could see her grin on the edge of my vision.
“It would be my honor.” We pushed the layer of dirt away, emerging from the earth like a couple of Vostra, but with only one mouth each. I wanted to hug her, and I sensed she had the same urge, but instead we turned away from each other and relieved ourselves.
“Oh gods, that feels good,” she said.
“The best,” I agreed.
When we were done peeing, we eyed the embankment on either side. The dirt was chewed up by several sets of pawprints, which littered the area around where we’d been buried.