Chapter 5

 

The Cherum led her up many long hallways. Given the orange of his eyes which deepened with each winding flight, she hadn’t asked any other questions. The Cherum hadn’t spoken since agreeing to show her the Vos. Tingles ran along her limbs. Instinct warned her to leave Basttist instead of investigate, yet the long halls of warriors being implanted with chips stayed in her mind.

She had to know why parents would sell their children to such a place, and why the Cherum would pay so heavily for warriors. If young humanoids of both male and female genders were indeed stock with which to barter, perhaps it was from a worse life than the one in which they were given purpose. Yet it didn’t sit well with her. Raised Damaclan, she understood harsh realities; however, she had always had her own spirit and conscience, and with it, the ability to refuse if instincts warned her when an action might lead to her death. Why take away that ability from others?

The Cherum stopped at the end of the last winding hallway. Light showed through windows further on. Liora realized it was the first sunlight she had seen since awakening on Basttist. If the rest of the architecture proved similar to what she had walked through, the city of Basttist lay deep underground.

A glance behind her showed the Cherum watching her with eyes so orange they nearly glowed. The skin of his face appeared even paler than before, if that was possible. His long-fingered hands held onto the rounded edge of the wall as if he was afraid of being pulled into the hallway against his will.

“Care for a stroll in the sunlight?” Liora asked. It was foolish, she knew, but somehow, she couldn’t help herself. It was something Tariq would have said.

The reminder of him sent a pang through her so sharp she sucked in a breath.

“It’s not the sunlight, but what the sunlight brings that we fear,” the Cherum admitted. “Your answers await you at the end of the hall.”

With that, he left her. She could hear the swift shush of his robes as he hurried back down the winding hallways far faster than they had come.

Liora was used to people running from her. The fact that the Cherum had walked beside her and then ran at the nearness of the Vos bothered her. She listened until his footsteps were gone, then continued along the only path she had available.

She paused in the sunlight. The wash of it across her skin felt colder than other suns, yet she welcomed the way the warmth sunk into her bare arms. The landscape out the window appeared lifeless. Yellow sand as far as she could see rose in hills and sunk in valleys before the window. Nothing stirred beneath the sun’s harsh rays. It was as though she looked out at a dead land.

A chill ran up Liora’s arms and for a moment it felt like fingers tracing along her skin.

“Tariq.”

The word whispered from her lips before she realized she had formed it.

She looked behind her even though she knew nobody was there before her eyes confirmed the fact.

Liora gritted her teeth and continued to the end of the hallway.

The hall ended in a flat wall. It didn’t glow with the gentle light of the others around her. Liora studied it in confusion. Like the room in which she had first awoken, there wasn’t a door, yet the Cherum had passed through.

Liora lifted a hand. Before she touched the wall, an oval appeared silently in the center and grew wider until she could step through. When she did, instead of remaining open, the oval closed behind her. She put a hand on the wall, but the door didn’t respond.

With only one direction available to her, Liora followed the long, oval hallway. It sloped downward; she had the impression that she had covered the same distance as she had at the Cherum’s side by the time she finished. Why there wasn’t a shortcut through the building was a warning.

She knew by the fear in the Cherum’s eyes that her visit to the Vos would be more than that. The Cherum valued strength and destroyed weakness, much in the way of the Damaclan. If their whole goal was to create an army of microchipped warriors with the same mindset as a Damaclan, their interest in finding one of her race made sense. It would be a test, then. She had survived many of Obruo’s tests; yet those trials came from tradition. Here on Basttist she faced the unknown.

The hall ended at another wall. Liora knew it would open if she raised a hand to it. Tingles ran along her skin, trepidation at what lay beyond. She was alone on a strange planet in a distant galaxy. As far as she knew, nobody who cared about her knew she was there.

The feeling of emptiness in her chest used to be one that she held onto for strength; instead, she felt a rise of despair. If she died in the room beyond the door, there would be nobody to tell her brother that she had tried to find him, there would be no one to tell her father that she was touched by how much he cared, and there was nobody to mourn both her and Tariq, the brief glimmers of love between them, and a simple promise that meant more to her than the entire Macrocosm.

With a tight throat, Liora lifted her hand to the wall. The oval opened and she stepped into a long, wide room. The door closed behind her.

The ceiling rose far above her head, and roughly a story up, the room was ringed by huge panes of glass. Liora’s heart slowed at the sight of hundreds of the Cherum race watching through the windows. Their eyes showed every color of emotion, green, purple, orange, blue, and yellow. If she had looked for the Cherum who led her from her room, she wouldn’t have found him because every being looked the same from their height to their simple white robes to the four long-fingered hands linked together in front of their chests. They didn’t move; they barely appeared to breathe. Their attention was complete.

It was an eerie feeling to stand there and let the silence wash over her. Liora knew she wasn’t safe. There was no way her presence alone would call for such an audience. She crossed to the center of the room and waited, her hands behind her back and a brief wish once again for the familiar presence of the knives in her hands. She had become dependent on them, the surety of their cold, steady weight, blades sharp enough to slice through bone with barely a pause. One had come from the S.S. Kratos, one as a gift from Tariq, and the wrist set from her father. She would get them back.

A dozen ovals opened around the large room at once. The Vos didn’t appear at all like Liora had expected. She had thought that they would be humanoid, fighting for the right to Basttist as the Cherum did. Instead, the Vos were anything but human. They were creatures who rushed into the light of the room on six legs that ended in padded, clawed toes.

Long tails lashed back and forth, and orange scales covered their bodies. They were low to the ground and faster than anything Liora had fought before. Longer than a human, the Vos darted around the room hissing and spitting at her. Each hiss revealed rows of teeth that hooked inward to keep whatever prey the creature caught from escaping. When they spat, black saliva landed on the floor. It bubbled and steamed, leaving divots in the hard surface.

Liora was hard-pressed to avoid the spitting. The Vos darted around her, spitting and hissing, reaching for her with claws that tried to pull her into their hook-toothed mouths. The claws caught her arms, shredding her beige shirt. She missed her Ventican clothing; it would have protected her from their merciless talons. As it was, rents marked her legs until blood colored the fabric. A mouth caught her arm; fortunately, the metal cast took the brunt of the teeth, but yanking the damaged limb free tore a cry of pain from Liora.

She spun back and forth in an effort to keep them all in sight. As soon as she twisted one way, a Vos would dash on nearly-silent feet toward her back. Only spinning back around to face it would chase the Vos away, but within seconds of entering the chamber, the Vos were losing their skittishness. It was only a matter of time before they lost all sense of fear.

The Cherum above anticipated a losing battle, that much was sure. There was no way they expected one Damaclan to take on a dozen of the creatures that had them cowering behind their walls of safety. Liora’s gaze tightened. She would give them a reason to cower.

The next time a Vos charged toward her back, Liora let it come. At the last possible second, when the sound of claws was so close she could feel the vibrations through the soles of her bare feet, Liora spun. The Vos, caught by surprise, slid on the smooth floor. Its claws scrabbled in its attempt to draw back, but Liora was too quick. She grabbed it by the throat and tried to throw it onto its back.

The Vos was too fast for such a move. It wriggled out of her grasp, throwing its body to the side with enough force to send her to her knees.

It was Liora’s turn to scramble for footing as several other Vos bore down on her.

They weren’t stupid creatures. That much was sure. After Liora attempted to throttle the first, the others kept out of reach behind her. When she lunged for another, they ran faster, circling her with a speed that made her head spin.

Liora couldn’t catch them. She knew better than to expend her energy chasing after the creatures. If she had any chance of ending them, she had to kill one. In order to do that, there was only one course of action she could think of.

Liora crouched in the middle of the room and covered her head with her hands.

She could only imagine the yellow of surprise that colored the eyes of the Cherum above. They would no doubt wonder if she had given up. Why else would anyone willingly allow the Vos to attack?

The creatures appeared just as startled by her actions. She heard the patter of their claws slow as they contemplated this new turn of events.

Talons tore across her back. They tested her, slicing and darting back, only to return, and still she waited. Her life depended on their recklessness. Perhaps Vos weren’t reckless. If they continued to shred her skin, she would bleed to death before she was able to do anything else.

But Liora could always count on greed. It was something Obruo had pounded into her and the rest of the Damaclan children. If you wanted something, there was only a matter of time before you gave that weakness away. No matter how you tried to hide it, the want would eventually work its way to the surface.

The Vos wanted her; that much was certain. The greed of easy prey made one reckless enough to latch onto her shoulder with its hooked teeth. It was exactly what Liora was waiting for.

Liora drove her left fist up into the base of the creature’s throat. It tried to let her go, but its teeth were hooked into her flesh. Liora breathed through the pain as she punched the Vos again and again in the same spot. It scrambled backwards, pulling her along with it.

Liora used its momentum against the Vos. She threw her body forward, jerking the creature off its feet and freeing her shoulder from its mouth. She drove her shoulder into it, barreling the Vos onto its back. Before it could flip back over, Liora was on top of it. Using her speed brought through years of Damaclan training, Liora slammed her metal cast into its jaw over and over again, then, before it could rise, she drove her casted arm into its mouth, shoving it wide open.

The Vos thrashed from side to side. Its body, longer than she was tall, threatened to dislodge her, but Liora pressed down harder. She used her good arm to shove the cast behind the creature’s teeth to the back of its jaw where it hinged. The creature tried to spit, but the metal blocked it from hitting her face. Liora shoved down harder.

The crack when the Vos’ jaw broke echoed around the room. The creatures running around her spread out, giving her distance. Liora slammed her cast against the slain Vos’ head again and again. It was bloody and messy by the time she finished, but she got what she wanted. Liora tore the bottom jaw free and held it up in triumph. The blood-covered teeth glinted in the soft light of the room that was an ironic counterbalance to the bloodbath in which she stood.

The sight appeared to enrage the other Vos. They swarmed her, a horde of swift, scaled, relentless fury. But they didn’t know that a Damaclan filled with the loss of the one she loved was more than a match for their claws and fangs.

Liora used the detached jaw like a serrated blade. She sliced throat after throat, sending the Vos to the floor at her feet as she spun and lashed out without stopping. The cast acted like a shield to protect her against deadly claw swipes which she followed with a slice to the jugular. It was the first time she had used a piece of an attacking enemy to defend her against the others, and it felt good amid her rage.

In the end, Liora stood alone once more, the bloody, toothed jaw in her hand and a dozen Vos at her feet. She stared around at them, her chest heaving and her arm aching to the point that she could barely think. It had felt good to kill again. The whisper in the back of her mind was satiated for the time being. The sticky sensation of blood coating her skin felt like home, and within the red-tinged haze of her mind, the sight of bodies at her feet felt right.

Liora blinked and the haze faded. The realization of what she had accomplished surfaced. She had done it again; she had used her Damaclan training to wipe out members of another species that had done nothing more to her than act on their instincts to survive. She felt almost bad for them. She wondered if she should have found some way to let them out of the room so that they could attack the Cherum who made an army to defend themselves. Yet that, too, would have been wrong.

Why did it always come down to a battle? Why did one race always have to fight another? Why was it that they couldn’t live in peace, to accept the other for what they were and willingly survive side-by-side?

Obruo would have beaten her for her thinking, but Liora no longer cared. The questions had no answers; they drifted around her mind creating more torment than Colonel Lefkin’s electric torture. She was a Damaclan. She had been raised to kill; so why did killing feel like a losing battle when she had won? If she had died, the Vos would still be a threat to the Cherum above. Given the number of warriors they were brainwashing with their microchips, there were thousands of Vos out there to be slain. Who decided which side was right? Maybe it wasn’t her battle to fight.

Liora looked up. Hundreds of Cherum watched her in silence, surprise and awe coloring their eyes yellow. As she watched, their gazes changed color. It wasn’t from yellow to green, from surprise to happiness or perhaps the purple of amusement. She even expected the greenish-blue of thoughtfulness. She had, in fact, slain a dozen of their mortal enemies.

Instead, the eyes of the Cherum above shifted from yellow to an angry, heated red so fierce they glowed from every pane of glass above her.

A tremor ran through Liora’s body. Perhaps she was supposed to have died, to prove that the Vos could defeat even one as terrifying as a Damaclan. Maybe she had gotten it all wrong. Perhaps the creatures she had slain weren’t the Vos at all. If that was the case, then what were the Vos?

Looking up, Liora realized the answer with a rush of cold that stole her breath. She was staring at the Vos.

The false Cherum with their red eyes and abnormally long fingers shifted form in her sight. Instead of looking up at hundreds of pale-skinned, tall, four-armed Cherum, she stared at the same number of Vos, their scaled skin, padded toes, and hooked mouths bared in snarls.

No wonder the Cherum had let her walk through the hallway alone. He hadn’t led her into a tiny arena, he had given her over to their side where they waited to tear the Cherum apart. No wonder the Cherum built an army. If the Vos could look like them, they needed warriors filled with rage and without instincts, an army that would never back down even if the foe looked like a friend.

Liora tore another jaw from a nearby Vos. She could hear the crackling of the glass above, minute fractures as the creatures pounding against the panes with their clawed feet, creating spider-webbed veins in the windows.

Liora braced herself for the attack she knew would come. Glass shattered and rained down. Liora’s grip on the jaw bones tightened. She bent her knees and met the rush head-on.