Champion
Three hours later, the walls came down.
It happened without warning. Suddenly, the roof over our heads began to pull back, starting at its peak and working downward from both sides, as more and more of the tiny Malum detached from one another and skittered away.
Once our interview with Little Bob had ended, and not on an optimistic note, Tom had insisted that we all try to rest. So the four of us had stretched out on the hard black Ether that served as our floor and struggled to get as comfortable as possible. I’d even tried to sleep. I really did, remembering the soldier’s rule about stealing rest when you could.
But, in this case, I was just too terrified.
“Looks like time’s up,” Sharyn finally remarked.
Tom stood first. We all followed him. Then, as if sharing the same thought, we turned toward the spot on the back wall where Little Bob had done his talking. But if he was still there, he’d tucked himself in amidst his brothers, and we couldn’t tell him apart from the rest. Besides, what would be the point? He’d helped us all he could.
“Listen up,” the chief said as the walls began to disassemble from the top down, like sandcastles in the rain. “First off, I want to apologize to y’all. I brought us here, and now it seems pretty clear that we ain’t goin’ home.”
“We all knew that was possible,” I told him, and the girls both nodded.
Tom replied, “Straight up. But it still needs sayin’. I’m sorry.” He took a long breath. “And second, when the time comes, I’m gonna stand as champion.”
For several moments, none of us spoke.
I tried to think of some argument to make, some solid reason to suggest myself instead of him. But the hard truth was that the chief had twice my skills in combat. Heck, to be honest, everyone here was a better fighter than me. I could do the “street karate” thing well enough, but Tom and Sharyn had perfected it, if not invented it. And Helene was Sharyn’s best pupil.
It was Helene who replied first. “Okay, Chief.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
Then we looked at Sharyn.
“We need Fore,” she said.
“Yeah, we do, sis,” her brother replied. “But we ain’t got it. So I’ll go in with Vader and do what I can. I won’t make no promises. But, for all our sakes, I’ll give it everything I got.”
“We know it,” I said to him.
But Sharyn still wore that funny look. I’d expected her to scream bloody murder at the thought of Tom’s sacrifice. But there was nothing. No disagreement. No anger. Not even desperation, which I was feeling by the truckload. Instead, the girl’s brow furrowed, her jaw set, and her eyes focused on nothing. Her expression remained—thoughtful—like before.
Then the walls were down and our conversation was over.
From outside, warrior caste Malum encircled us. Instinctively, we huddled closer together.
“Guys,” Helene suddenly exclaimed. “Check that out!”
We all looked where she was pointing. Some distance away, rising almost like a mountain, stood an enormous round structure, wide as a football field and high as a skyscraper. I knew for a fact that it hadn’t been there before we’d been tossed into our bizarre, living prison.
“What’s that?” Sharyn asked.
A voice answered, “The arena.”
Future Queen appeared before us, stepping through the ranks of her not-yet-minions.
“I hope you like it,” she said, her yellow eye flashing. “We made it just for you.”
And I knew what that meant.
A stadium … built entirely out of tiny Malum. How freaky was that?
“Bring them,” Future Queen commanded.
So they brought us, scooping us up and carrying us as they had before. Though it was hard to tell, it seemed to me as if the number of Malum in the vicinity had grown, maybe even as much as doubled. Word of our appearance and capture had spread, just as Little Bob had predicted, and more and more of the ten-legged monsters were arriving to watch the show.
As we neared the arena, I could see the lines of the Malum, thousands of them, stretching away from the stadium in all directions. Everyone was pouring in to witness the spectacle, the defeat and destruction of the Undertakers, and the cementing of “Most Despised Daughter’s” claim to the throne.
We were hauled through a special, guarded entrance and into a long corridor, the walls and ceiling of which were made entirely of Builders. I fleetingly wondered if Little Bob was here, or maybe other members of the Fifth Column. Would they help us? Could they? It didn’t seem likely.
Our friend, if that was what he was, had made that clear.
We would live or die on our own.
Probably die.
Inside the arena, the walls sloped upward. There were no seats, no aisles, no ten-legged hotdog and popcorn sellers. Instead, the Malum all skittered up the slopes and jostled one another for the best possible view—kind of a perfect “first come, first serve” situation. Occasionally, little fights broke out among them, and I saw more than one of the monsters get torn apart by others in an argument over a choice spot.
They reminded me of termites on a hill, except termites worked together better than these things seemed to.
We were deposited in a small, penned area just beside the arena. The arena was nothing more than a huge open expanse of black Ether, surrounded on all sides by a twenty-foot-high wall of Builders and—above that—the spectators.
This isn’t a stadium. It’s a coliseum. Except we’re not gladiators. We’re the Christians about to get thrown to the lions.
A single Malum skittered out to the very center of the arena. It was Future Queen, of course. There she stood, turning in a slow circle, gesticulating. More words we couldn’t hear. I suddenly wondered if whatever ability allowed us to understand their speech only worked if the speaker wanted it to.
As good a theory as any, I supposed.
Sharyn asked, “You figure she’s givin’ us an intro?”
Tom nodded.
The crowd of monsters made a shrill, collective sound that reminded me painfully of fingernails on a chalkboard. I winced. It went on and on, this alien cheer, until it felt as if my brain was going to explode.
Then Future Queen made a final gesture, and everything went suddenly, impossibly quiet.
A spot on the far wall opened and three creatures emerged.
Ten legs, just like the rest. One movable head, just like the rest. Four eyes, just like the rest. Definitely Malum.
But these were huge! They had to be twice the size of Future Queen, twice the size of any of her kind that I’d seen before. Their legs were each as thick as tree trunks and their bodies looked nearly as big as SUVs—every inch of them hard, leathery muscle.
Their red eyes glowed like stars.
“Kotha,” guessed Tom.
“Oh my God,” Helene whispered.
Standing beside her, I said nothing. I mean, what was there to say?
Future Queen made a show of inspecting the three giants. Then, apparently pleased with what she saw, she came over to us, her ten legs clattering noisily across the black Ether.
“Undertakers,” she hissed. “You must choose a champion.”
Tom stepped forward.
But then a hand landed on his shoulder and Sharyn said, “Me.”
The chief looked at her, shock and horror registering on his face. “What? No!”
“It’s okay, bro,” she told him, a gentle, almost serene smile on her face. “It’s me. It needs to be me.”
Tom whirled on her, putting his big hands on her shoulders. “No, Sharyn. Please. I’m doing this.”
“Not this time, Chief,” she replied gently. “This time, it’s my turn to step up. You and the others sit it out. I got this. I’m the one who trained for it, after all.”
Tom stared at her, his face ashen. For one of the few times since I’d met him, he seemed visibly shaken. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.
His sister reached up and cupped his face in her strong hands. “Look at me.”
There were tears in Tom’s eyes.
“Look at me, bro,” Sharyn said again.
He looked at her, his expression a mask of desperation and loss.
She smiled. It was a smile of more than confidence. It was a smile of profound certainty. “Trust me.”
He nodded miserably.
Sharyn wrapped her arms around her brother, holding him tight for a few seconds. Then she stepped back and turned to Future Queen. “It’s me,” she said.
“Such tearful drama,” the creature tutted. “Take comfort in the knowledge that it doesn’t matter who stands for your group. The end will be the same.”
“You talk too much,” Sharyn said dismissively. She turned and hugged Helene. Then she did the same to me. It was a typical Sharyn hug. She yanked me into her arms, squeezed almost hard enough to make my eyes bulge, and then released almost before I’d realized what had happened.
“Choose your weapon,” Future Queen said.
“Vader,” Helene suggested.
But Sharyn said, “Nope.” Then she unbuckled the sword and its scabbard and handed both to the younger girl. “Keep this safe for me.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “You’re going out there unarmed?”
Sharyn grinned at me and tapped her temple with her finger. “I ain’t never unarmed, little bro.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? With Vader she barely had a hope. Without it she was as good as dead!
“Tom! You can’t let her—”
“It’s cool,” he replied, cutting me off. Now it was his turn to wear a strange, thoughtful expression. I suddenly got the distinct feeling that something was going down and I’d somehow been kept out of the loop.
Sharyn looked at her brother and grinned wider.
Then she winked and followed Future Queen out into the arena.
As the two of them headed off, I grabbed Tom’s arm and demanded, “What’re you two doing?”
“I ain’t doin’ anything, bro,” Tom replied. “This one’s all her.”
“But you know, don’t you? You know what she’s got in mind!”
“I think so.”
Helene and I glared—yeah, glared—at him. Then we asked in crazy unison, “Well?”
“She lifted my pocketknife,” he said, an odd little smile playing on his lips.
“What?”
“When she hugged me just now, she swiped it.”
I took my hand off his arm and felt my pockets.
“Mine’s gone, too!” I exclaimed.
Helene looked from one to the other of us, then out at Sharyn, who was still walking toward the middle of the arena. “You mean she traded her sword for a couple of little pocketknives?”
“Seems so,” Tom said.
“That’s crazy!”
He didn’t reply. Instead, he turned away from us and looked after his sister.
Feeling confused and helpless and horror-stricken, Helene and I did the same.
In front of us, around us, our Malum guards stood watchful. No way were we getting past them. No way were we going to be able to help the lone girl who stood against those three ten-legged dump trucks.
No way.