The Cost of Victory
Once again, the multitudes erupted in sound, and this time I got the strong impression that it was more for Sharyn than against her. After all, she’d just treated them to something they hadn’t expected, not in their wildest dreams—assuming these things dreamed at all. And if the Malum were anything like sports fans everywhere, they loved a good upset.
Especially when they’d never seen one before.
She did it! They’re going to let us go!
And, better still, we had the javelin.
We could do what we came here to do.
But then, as often happens the minute I see the sun start coming up, a storm hit.
I noticed that the place where Future Queen had been sitting, or standing, or squatting, or whatever these things did when they relaxed, was empty.
“Where’s the boss?” I asked.
“Wondering that myself,” Tom said worriedly.
Then Helene pointed. Something was crossing the arena floor, moving amidst the hulking forms of the dead kotha. It darted with lightning quickness from one to the next, using their bodies as cover. Nearing Sharyn.
Stalking Sharyn.
“Sis!” Tom called, alarm in his voice. But the crowd was too noisy. No way was she going to hear him.
So he started forward, only to be forced back by two of our Malum guards.
The chief glared at them. But before he could say or do anything, Helene jumped in front of him and got right into the nearest monster’s face—two fierce hazel eyes against a single yellow one.
“She won,” the girl said in a low voice. “Get outta our way.”
Neither guard moved.
“It’s fate,” Helene pressed. Then, reaching over her shoulder, she slid Vader from its sheath. “Do you know what happens to anybody who stands against fate?”
These two were warrior caste. Did they even understand English? I wasn’t sure.
But then I watched the creatures hesitate, their bodies shifting uncomfortably.
Helene didn’t so much as blink.
“They die,” she said. “That’s what happens to ‘em. Now, for the last time … the absolute last time … get outta our way.”
The Malum stepped aside.
I love her. Yep. I do. There, I said it.
The three of us rushed out of our pen and through the ranks of guards. As we did, a few of the nearest Malum looked warily at us, their heads rolling along their bodies, following our path. But none of them made any attempt to stop us.
Bavarak had spoken.
“Give me Vader!” Tom said to Helene. “Now!”
Wordlessly, she handed him the sword.
Tom exploded ahead of us, running faster than I’d have thought anyone could, quickly outdistancing Helene and me. Vader flashed in his hands as he crossed the open ground between him and his sister, who’d noticed him by now, but was smiling, as if thinking he was on his way to congratulate her.
Meanwhile, Future Queen had slithered up to the lifeless body of the kotha that Sharyn had speared at the end of the fight. This brought her close to where her quarry stood.
Her red eye fixed on Sharyn’s unguarded back.
Then, to my horror, she exploded into motion, leaping at the unwary girl with dizzying speed.
What happened next happened fast.
Insanely fast.
As Most Despised Daughter cleared the distance between them, four of her pincers open and ready, Tom must have realized what I already had—that he wasn’t going to make it in time.
So instead he stopped short, pulled his arm back, and threw Vader straight at the monster. Seeing this, Sharyn’s smile vanished and she spun to her right, following the path of the shining sword.
At that same instant, Future Queen pounced for the kill.
Vader pierced the creature right at the base of her bulbous head.
With a howl of pain, the thing I’d once known—would know, would never know—as Corpse Helene convulsed in mid-air. Before Sharyn had time to fully grasp what was happening, Future Queen’s huge bulk blindsided her, and Fore went tumbling from her hands.
Both girl and monster toppled off the flank of the dead kotha, with the Malum landing atop Sharyn as they hit the Ethereal floor.
The arena went silent again.
Once again running, Tom hastily scooped up the fallen javelin and rushed over to where Sharyn and Future Queen lay in a heap on the Ether. Neither seemed to be moving. Helene and I caught up seconds later, breathing hard but barely noticing it.
Future Queen twitched, her strange head lolling, her yellow eye facing upward. Beneath her, Sharyn lay still, pinned under the Malum’s weight.
“Get the sword,” Tom told me.
I stepped up to the twitching Malum and grabbed Vader’s hilt, pulling hard. It came free of the creature’s weird head, but slowly, and with a sucking sound that made my stomach turnover. Black blood oozed from the wound. Future Queen hissed but didn’t seem able to defend herself.
Meanwhile, Tom leveled one of Fore’s points at what passed for the monster’s face.
“Get off my sister,” he said, his voice a low growl. He looked about a half-second from jamming the javelin’s sizzling tip right through that yellow eye.
“Pain,” the Malum moaned. “I’m in pain. You hurt me.”
“That ain’t nothin’ next to what I’ll do if you don’t get off her!” the chief roared. “Now!”
With obvious effort, Future Queen rolled away from Sharyn.
Helene dropped beside the girl, feeling her neck for a pulse. As she did, I saw Sharyn stir and groan. “She’s alive!” Helene exclaimed.
The chief nodded, never taking his eyes off the creature that still lay at his mercy. “My sister won,” he said to the whimpering monster. “You lost. That means we’re leavin’.”
“You can’t!” the creature wailed, sounding for all the world like a disappointed child. “It’ll ruin everything!”
“She won,” Tom repeated, once again brandishing the javelin. “Say it. Say it loud.”
“No!”
He drew back his arm, ready for the killing thrust.
“The human won bavarak!” Ex-Future Queen exclaimed, her terror-stricken voice filling the arena. “She and her people are free to leave!”
Tom nodded, apparently satisfied. Then he lowered the javelin and took a step back.
So I came forward and drove Vader straight into the monster’s eye.
A wail of agony rose from Most Despised Daughter. All ten of her legs stiffened and twitched.
Then, she shuddered.
And died.
“Will!” Helene cried. “What did you just do?”
I pulled out the sword and looked at her. Except it wasn’t this “her” that I was seeing. Instead, I was seeing the other “her,” the older “her.” Helene Ritter had grabbed this very same Malum from behind and had begged me to make sure that its horror would never destroy the world. Then, in an act of courage that would haunt me for the rest of my days, she’d taken both of their lives to save mine.
I heard myself answer in a voice that sounded as dead as the deadest Corpse, “I changed the future.”
Tom came up beside me and rested his free hand on my shoulder. “I get that, bro. I totally get that. I just hope they do.”
He motioned at the multitude of monsters filling the arena, all of them so still and quiet that I’d nearly forgotten they were there.
“One way to find out,” I said.
He nodded. Then he handed the javelin to Helene and went to his sister, kneeling beside her.
“I’m cool,” Sharyn told him with a groan.
“No, you ain’t cool,” Tom replied. “You’re friggin’ amazing!”
She grinned, despite the pain she was in. “Queen nailed me there at end. Should’ve figured she’d cheat.”
“Yep.”
She tried to sit up, cried out, and fell back down again. “Think my right arm’s broke, bro,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Straight up.” He touched her face very tenderly. “Now, you gonna let me put you on your feet, or are you too high on victory to need help from a lowly spectator like me?”
At that, Sharyn laughed her musical laugh. “Think I’ll take the help … just this once.”
Tom nodded and, very carefully, he took his sister’s good arm and got her standing. For a moment, just a moment, the girl teetered a little. But then she straightened, stepped away from her brother, and reached her hand out to Helene.
Helene gave her Fore.
She raised it into the air in triumph.
The arena erupted in noise, that same teeth-on-edge sound that I’d heard earlier. Only now, for some reason, it didn’t seem as bad.
Guess it’s different when they’re cheering for you.
As the Malum looked on, we started walking toward the nearest wall of the arena—maybe fifty feet ahead. Around us, nothing moved. As we got close, I started worrying. The tiny creatures making up the twenty-foot wall would need to open for us. If they didn’t, I had no idea if the javelin, as powerful as it clearly was, would be enough to get us through.
But they did open, several dozen Builders skittering away, clearing a path through the wall and into the empty expanse of their Void.
The four of us slipped through the gap, leaving the arena and all that death behind us.