by Rosie Scott
This tower was not often visited by those who weren't heirs, and this was obvious given how exclusive and non-visitor friendly the entire thing felt. Most of the women who knew the castle well enough could navigate it without any signs or directions. All others, like Nyx and the other women who attended their Reapings here, had to have been led to their destinations by heirs. The entire tower felt like the home of one insanely rich and powerful person. It was unlike the Seran University, where Sirius ruled, but his people were allowed to experience the sights within. It was even unlike the castle in T'ahal, where the people could at least visit it to request an audience with the king or his son. Here, Queen Achlys and her heirs ruled with such a discriminating iron fist, that all who were not royalty felt unwelcome.
The entire base floor of the castle was round and larger than it had initially appeared from the outside. Along both the left and right edges of the floor, stone stairs led up to the next, reminding me quite a bit of the stairs in the guard towers. These steps had no railings either, but the staircases were wider and stronger here, and only led up one floor at a time. Climbing them to get to the queen would pose us no threat other than the inconvenience.
An eardrum shattering roar bellowed through the air to my left. Vallen had just finished transforming, and his bear form was hulking and intimidating as spittle sprayed from his sharp teeth between two extended jaws. The remaining heirs on the base floor were quickly killed, not able to put up much of a fight after I'd cleared many of them out earlier with chain lightning. Cerin raised the first floor's worth of dead, and then our army split, using both of the staircases up to the next floor, intent on swarming it from two sides.
More women came to battle with us on the second floor. One of our freed slaves stilled in mid-fight, blood splashing outward from the middle of his chest where an invisible blade swept through him. Azazel's arrow stuck out from thin air just behind him a moment later, and the illusionist fell dead, but so did her victim.
Schew! One of Jakan's crossbow bolts pierced an heir in the midst of rushing down the next stairway, and her body toppled over the side, crashing onto a candelabra lighting up a stone table. The body was lit aflame, and I rushed over to put the fire out with water magic. The last thing we needed was to end up higher in this castle and all die from a lack of oxygen from fires raging below.
Our group moved up one floor at a time, killing the heirs that rushed to greet us, and raising their bodies before continuing. The first ten to fifteen floors of the castle were mostly open, and judging by the array of couches and tables, they appeared to be gathering rooms of some sort, or perhaps even waiting rooms. Maybe when events were held here, the non-royalty were asked to sit and wait in these rooms.
Farther up in the castle than that, we started to come across entertainment rooms. The first such floor was entirely dedicated to being a bar. Stone tables and chairs were splattered with blood as we cleared it. Along the eastern side of the floor, bar stools were set up along the edge of an opening, where the heirs could sit and drink as they watched men get thrown into the pits which lie beyond. Though I peered out over the bar into the crawler pit, I could see no creatures. But the pit was mostly enshrouded in shadow. Few patches of fungi were bright below. My eyes traveled along the stone floor of the entire enclosed area, knowing that thousands upon thousands had met their cruel ends there. It was hard to tell from here, for the ground was clear of blood and body parts. I remembered how quickly the acid of the vats of Thanati had eaten through bodies, bones and all, and figured I knew how the arena stayed so clean.
There was a large hill of soft dirt in the crawler pit that I hadn't been able to see when we'd been grounded. It built up to a peak nearest the tower wall, and was lit in a soft orange glow from sconces which were set up on the castle to illuminate it. Tiny holes had been poked into the dirt from the base of the hill to its peak, where the dirt was flattened.
Ah, I thought, understanding. They throw the victims there, so the soft dirt breaks their fall. They like the men to be alive while they're eaten.
My stomach turned with sudden nausea. I could not imagine how horrifying it would be to lay among the hill of dirt, broken and unable to die, waiting to be eaten. I thought of the Alderi men I knew and loved. Imagining them being killed in such a way enraged me.
I turned away from the horrid sight, and immediately hurried behind the bar, where nude male slaves were kept in cages. I didn't understand why they were here. Perhaps they were bartenders, or perhaps the women simply liked to ogle them while drinking. It didn't matter. As Nyx picked the locks of the cells down the wall, I focused my attention on the cage nearest me.
“Stand back,” I warned, pointing to the back right edges of the cell. The slaves backed into the corner, heeding my advice, their frightened eyes on the battle raging behind me.
Creatius la agua a friz. I directed the ice to the lock, along the edge of the heavy cell door. I then repeated the spell with the second cell down, before returning to the first. Because the cells were so close to the back of the bar, I figured the doors opened inward. I kicked at the door with a boot, over and over again, until the lock finally broke from frozen weakness. The door snapped back into the cell, where it was caught by a waiting hand.
“We're free?” One of the men asked, absolutely perplexed.
“You are,” I replied, moving to the next cell down to repeat the gesture. I couldn't ask the men to stay and fight, because they were completely nude, and all of our army's male casualties were still using their weapons and armor as they fought as corpses. “We are overthrowing the queen and her heirs. Our army defends the royal district. You are safe with them.”
The man's eyes were on the corpses behind me. “We are safe...with the dead?”
“Among others. Freed slaves fight among them. Mages and beastmen, too.” The next door burst inward from the force of my next kick. I turned back to the slave. “Trust me, you are safe. We couldn't have gotten this far if we didn't know what we were doing.”
The slave nodded, still watching the fight behind me with hesitant eyes. “Who?” He asked. “Who is freeing us?”
“Calder Cerberius and Kai Sera,” I replied.
The man didn't appear to recognize my full name, though he was intrigued by the Sera surname. After all, we were beneath Chairel. Even the slaves here should have known about Sera. Sirius was probably the source of most of their assassination contracts, and word tended to travel.
The slaves finally ran off to flee the tower, and Nyx and I continued to free the others. Jakan finally came over to help us, lacking a shield. I gave him another one, and let him take over the unlocking of doors, because my method took much longer. When all of the men behind the bar were freed, I found that much of the army had already moved upward another level. Pools of blood on stone surfaces were the only signs of battle in the bar, because all of the corpses had risen to fight for Cerin. My lover had sent the dead upward, though he waited for me. He was taking extra precautions today.
The entertainment floors lasted for awhile. There were dozens upon dozens of them. Bars, brothels, even rooms full of board games and shelves of books, though I couldn't imagine many of the Alderi taking the time to read. We even fought through an otherwise beautiful bioluminescent garden that housed much more than fungi. Glowing plants rose high within pots between small aquariums filled with luminous animals. The fish here were unlike any I'd ever seen. One of the aquariums held what I thought were underwater mushrooms, though what would have been the caps of them blew outward, propelling the fish higher within the glowing water, leaving transparent tendrils floating below it. There were fish and water creatures that appeared like smaller krakens, moving peacefully through the water with bodies so transparent I could see the internal organs expanding and beating through slick skin. There were even some underwater creatures which appeared similar in shape and form to Mantus, at many times smaller the size. Their long, segmented bodies lurched through the water in bursts at a
time, aided by thousands of tiny appendages.
Some of the aquariums did not hold water, but simply caged insects caught from the tunnels. Some of them emitted light from their entire bodies, though others flashed yellow-green glows from the bottoms of their thick abdomens. A chirping noise echoed through the floor, so constant and encompassing I couldn't tell from which direction or aquarium.
A few floors up from the gardens was a large room that felt almost familiar. That was impossible, of course; each inch of the underground had been completely new to me. But for Nyx, this was all too memorable, and I'd been told many times of her traumatic experiences here.
The entire floor was open, and I could see straight through it and to a ledge which hung over the crawler pit far below us. Before the ledge was a large stone chair, holding an extravagant cushion made of the finest purple fabrics. The throne-like chair faced the center of the room, which was made up of an open, smooth floor, clear save for shackles which were bolted into stone. There were forty shackles, set up in such a way that ten juvenile males could be rendered still along the floor, one shackle on each limb, in two rows of five. Somehow, the scent of sex and fear still hung in the air. Circling the arena were dozens upon dozens of chairs, where an audience could watch the Reaping between taking turns participating in it themselves.
The others rushed forward, intent on clearing this room much like any of the others. Nyx held back at the door, and so did I. Her black eyes stuck to the ground, and memories flashed through her mind behind them.
“Right row,” she murmured, pointing. “Second place from us. That is where Jemia'h was. That's where I hurt him.”
I frowned, heartbroken for her. “You tried to avoid it, Nyx. You tried the other options available to you. He knew you tried—”
“That's where she threw him from,” Nyx said, ignoring my attempts of soothing her pain. One purple finger pointed to the ledge over the crawler pit, just behind the throne-like chair. “Took him right out of those shackles and dragged him straight over there, kicking and screaming.” She paused, before she looked further withdrawn. “Pleading.”
I stared at the ledge, myself, trying to imagine such a situation. “I'm sorry,” I offered.
“I should be thankful she didn't ask me to help drag him,” she murmured. “It took a few of my sisters to throw him over. He fought them every inch of the way. He knew what was coming.” I watched her face as she remembered it, forlorn. Then, suddenly, her black eyes cleared, and she grasped the daggers from her belt. “Shit!”
I turned to follow her gaze, and my heart fell. In my need to comfort Nyx, I'd been mentally out of the battle, missing many of its events. Calder had been paralyzed by an alteration spell, and his reptilian body was stiff on the stone floor just feet away from the ledge of the crawler pit. An assassin sat above him on his chest, a dagger raised above his throat.
“Calder!” I screamed it, my voice so hoarse and terrified that it cracked and ran razors along the flesh of my throat, leaving me feeling as if my entire esophagus was bleeding. Nyx and I both rushed forward, pushing through assassins and soldiers alike. I knew I had no time. I was too far, and as the dagger was brought down over his throat, I had flashbacks to Theron.
No. Not like this. I pleaded it. I pleaded it to no one in particular, because I was powerless to stop it, and I had nothing else. The dagger collided into the thick scales of Calder's throat much like the guillotine blade had crashed into Bjorn's almost three years ago. Calder did not move or defend himself, because he could not. The assassin had used her abilities to her advantage. Calder would die in the midst of helplessness, his thoughts screaming at his body to move, trapped within the clutches of a spell he'd used himself so many times.
I still rushed to him, colliding with soldiers and assassins alike, pushing past them in a need to protect him. Blood oozed from his throat and over the chains of Koby's necklace, thick and bright red over the light blue scales.
...but there was so little of it.
The dagger was raised again, and the assassin screamed in frustration. A surge of hope rose in my chest. The dagger had punctured his throat, but barely. His thick reptilian scales were preventing it from being fully gouged. Flecks of silver-blue shone against the assassin's dagger, broken from trauma.
A beastly roar was angry and desperate in the air, rattling the stone chairs over the hard floors. Vallen bounded on all fours to save his friend, leaping over Calder's paralyzed body to clash with the woman who would see him killed. Air was knocked from her lungs as the bear collided with her in a rush of rage and brown fur. Bear and woman skidded along the smooth stone floor, dagger sinking into Vallen's thick hide again and again as the assassin attempted to free herself, the blade slicing through inches of muscle and mammal blubber. Vallen's fangs tore through the woman's body with a vengeance, even as he struggled to pull his thick body off of the slick stone.
I finally reached Calder's body, giving him a shield that he desperately needed. Nyx was rushing by me to Vallen as the bear-kin and his victim skidded to the ledge of the floor. She was screaming, the desperation in her voice cementing itself into my memories forever.
There was nothing I could do. There was nothing she could do. Bear and woman slid off the ledge, and Vallen's roars of fear and desperation rose in urgency as he hurtled toward the crawler pit. Nyx and I hurried to the edge, as if we could stop it.
I am helpless.
My heart was raging in my head. I heard Vallen's heavy body hit the dirt below before I saw him, the echo of it surrounded by the cracking of multiple bones. The bear's roars of fear gained a distressed edge. His mammal voice cried out in a mixture of painful emotions, the horrifically sad sound of it forcing tears to my eyes.
Vallen had landed on the assassin's body, crushing her. His large mammal head was lurching up, trying to right himself on the dirt pile, but he was at the mercy of too many broken bones. We were too high. We couldn't run down floors and floors of tower to reach him, and even if we could, there were no gates.
From all around the pit, the hum of insect chattering rose like a chorus of evil. Within the shadows of the stone, hundreds upon hundreds of glowing red eyes appeared, eager to be fed.
“Vallen!” Nyx screamed it, her body shaking with sobs. Two purple hands held onto the edge of the floor, gripping so tightly the knuckles began to turn white.
The helpless, fearful cry of a dying animal was all that came back to us, nearly muted by the chattering of the crawlers as they began to clatter across stone to their next meal.
I spun back to the battle. Calder was still paralyzed, but through the life energy of the shield, I could see that tears were falling from his eyes. He was all too aware of what was happening. He, too, was powerless. My eyes then found Azazel, loosing arrows into the heirs which spread over the stone like a plague from the floor above.
“Azazel!” I screamed it, desperately. The archer found my eyes, alarmed by my emotion. He must not have seen Vallen topple over, but he ran to me anyway.
“Kai?” Azazel slowed his pace as he neared us, his eyes finding the hundreds of crawlers in the pit below.
The crawlers were terrifying. They were insects half the size of a horse, made of armored segments that looked to be many times the thickness of even Mantus's armor. Long abdomens led to a vertically risen neck, where wide heads were perched. Their eyes were red and tiny above wide mouths which dripped with the yellow-green toxicity of digestive acids. On both sides of their mouths were sharp mandibles, prepared to crush and break down living victims before the acid would begin to turn the rest of the body to mush.
There were hundreds of crawlers, swarming toward Vallen and the dirt pile like a plague, moving as a collective black mass over the stone. The bear cried in desperation and fear.
Azazel's face fell in horror. “How did...?”
“Azazel,” I pleaded, tears rolling over my cheeks. “Please. Vallen's dying, but—” I coughed as my throat became too thick with emotion. �
�Please, don't let him be alive when they start to eat him.”
Azazel stared at the bear-kin, removed from his own eyes, horrified. I knew it was a lot to ask of him. I remembered how awful it had felt to take Kyrin's life even though he'd requested it. I could not imagine how large of a weight I sat upon his shoulders now.
But he was our only hope.
Azazel pulled an arrow from the quiver at his hip. He loaded the bow with it, and as he aimed into the crawler pit below, he was shaking. The archer took a deep breath, calming his nerves before he took the shot.
The arrow flew, propelled by Azazel's strength and the pull of gravity. The crawlers reached the bottom of the dirt hill below, swarming up the incline. Vallen screamed in terror as the dirt beneath his broken body rumbled with their arrival.
Azazel's arrow splatted through the bear's left eye a second later, the arrowhead piercing Vallen's brain, his cries still echoing off of the stone around us as he died. The beastman's body went still, just moments before we heard the crawlers begin to eat him. Their mandibles crushed through the bear's thick hide, before the sizzling of acid dissolved flesh and bone.
I turned away from the ledge, my face heated from nausea and mourning. Just feet away from me, Nyx vomited through tears, traumatized by watching a friend and lover die.
Azazel said nothing, walking back from the ledge in silence, his shoulders heavy with the weight of responsibility. Feet away from him, Calder was finally released from his spell, and scrambled to a stand, his movements jerky and forced with rage.
Then, without any warning, Calder rampaged for the archer. I screamed Azazel's name as I rushed to stand. The archer started to dodge the jumping lizard, but he wasn't fast enough.
Calder had meant to cling to Azazel much like he'd killed the heir long ago in the royal district, but because the archer had started to dodge, he ended up grasping only to one side of him, and the two fell together in a mass of blue scales and flesh. Calder opened his wide reptilian mouth above Azazel's face, hissing so violently at the archer that spittle sprayed across his skin. Reptilian claws were sunk deep into Azazel's flesh, and blood trickled down his armor and to the floor.