Chapter 6

  Tooth and Claw

  Ari stiffened. Boreal growled and rose to his feet, but there was little he could do. The stranger’s wet footsteps grew closer. Ari felt the barrel of his gun press into the back of her head.

  “Turn around. Slowly.”

  Ari took a deep, shuddering breath, hesitating only for a moment before turning to face the owner of the voice. He wasn’t one of the three men she’d seen inside the cabins. He was young, maybe only a few years older than her. He had blond hair like the man with the scar. Perhaps they were related. Ari cursed silently. Staring at him, she thought the boy may have been handsome in a different scenario, but malice twisted his features into something grim.

  “What are you?” he asked, peering at her with suspicion.

  “A girl,” she said.

  The boy sneered.

  “Cut the crap. I know you aren’t human.”

  “No you don’t. You don’t know these creatures either. What makes you think they they’re evil and deserve to die?” she asked defiantly. The corpion’s cage shuddered. She grimaced and said under her breath, “Except that one.”

  “Are you kidding me? We caught a Crimson-Cap, those things are vicious,” the boy said huffily.

  “Whatever, Dude. Listen, I just came here for the bear. Let us go and we’ll leave without causing any trouble,” Ari said.

  This only made him look more suspicious.

  “You a mage then? This guardian belong to you?”

  “Uh, yeah, he does,” she bluffed. Her eyes were trained on the gun. Hamza had taught her a disarming maneuver, drilling it into her head with day long practices, but she’d never actually used it before. What if she tried it and got shot anyway? The boy was too intent on her. Maybe if he was distracted she’d be able to pull it off.

  The boy narrowed his eyes. “You don’t sound to sure. But it doesn’t matter.”

  He grabbed the medallion, ripped it off of Ari’s neck, and tossed it into the brush so quickly all she could do was gasp. Holding the gun in his right hand, he reached into a pocket with his left and pulled out one of the compass-like devices she’d seen before.

  “This’ll tell me what you are. I just need to get a read on you aura and--”

  The boy stopped mid-sentence, his brows jumping for his hair-line as he gaped at the compass. Ari didn’t wait to find out what he saw, this was her chance. She bolted forward and grabbed his right arm, swinging round and jamming her left elbow into his diaphragm. He sputtered as the air was forced from his lungs, but he was bigger than her, and strong. Gasping for air, he fought her attempts to wrest the gun from his hand. At one point he slipped, dragging her into the mud where they continued to struggle.

  The boy tried to call for help as he regained his breath. Ari panicked, imagining the three hunters running out and surrounding them. Adrenalin rushed through her system. Faster than she could think, she pulled the knife from the waistband of her jeans, twisted around with a growl, and jammed it into the boy’s side. He cried out and there was a loud bang as he reflexively pulled the gun’s trigger. The bullet screamed past Ari’s ear and hit something solid. There was a wet clang as a heavy padlock fell to the ground. Both teens froze, watching in horror as the door to the corpion’s cage swung open. The monster tore into the rain, limping and furious. It spun round to face them, its tail rearing over its head, and its jaw’s snapping.

  “Uh-oh,” they said in unison.

  There was another bang as the cabin’s front door slammed open. The men inside rushed onto the porch, rifles aimed at the corpion.

  “Jamie, what the hell did you do?” barked the blond man with the scar.

  “It wasn’t me, it was--” Jamie was cut off as the corpion hissed and launched itself at him and Ari.

  A hail of gunfire pounded into the beasts side, some of the bullets pinging off the corpion’s thick chitin and others punching through in sprays of black ichor. One lucky shot took out a leg, causing the creature to give up on the teens and veer off to the left. It slammed into the cages, hissing and shrieking as it scrambled over them in attempt to escape into the forest. The monster’s weight and frantic movements rocked Boreal’s cart, tipping it over. The whole train of carts fell, one after the other, throwing the beings inside against the cold iron bars. Ari cried out as their pained cries slammed into her brain. She tumbled off of Jamie, hands clamped over her ears.

  The corpion made it past the carts, but one of its legs had gotten tangled in the tarp covering Boreal’s cage, and in its furious desire to escape, it rushed down the hill, dragging the carts behind it.

  “Damn it, stop that thing before it gets away,” cried one of the men.

  “Dad, help,” Jamie called out, reaching for the blond man. His father turned from the commotion, noticing his bleeding son, and Ari next to him. He yelled for the other men to focus on the corpion and started toward the teens, rifle lowered.

  Hearth racing, mind spinning, Ari looked around for something, anything, that would save her. The whine of bending metal was barely audible under rain and gunfire. The sound drew her eye to the truck the carts were hooked to. The corpion was strong, but it wasn’t strong enough to pull the vehicle as well as the carts. Ari stared at the groaning hitch and knew what to do. She gathered heat and magic into the palm of her right hand, conjuring a sphere of flame big as a basketball. The rain hissed and sizzled as it hit the roaring orb of fire, but it was too hot to extinguish. With a cry she lobbed it at the hitch, hitting her mark square on. The impact and heat made the twisted metal snap and sent the carts crashing down the hill after the corpion.

  “No!” shouted Jamie’s father. He raised his rifle, aiming for Ari, but the girl spun round and lobbed a smaller ball of flame his way. He dove to the side to avoid it. The fireball blacked the wet earth and sizzled out. There was no doubt a direct hit would have killed him.

  “Dad!”

  Jamie grabbed for Ari, ignoring the knife in his side, but he wasn’t fast enough. Ari was gone, chasing the carts down the hill with his gun in hand. The clang of metal against stone, the crash of the corpion rushing through the foliage, and the cries of Boreal and the other creatures still trapped in the cages lead her on. Then the straps holding one of the cages to its cart broke, and the cage tumbled down the hill until it smashed against a boulder. The door was knocked off by the impact. The beings inside crawled out and scattered into the night, leaving the fallen behind in their desperation. Only the mushroom boy lingered behind, waving at Ari as she rushed down the slope toward him.

  “What are you doing? Get out of here!” she barked. A trumpeting horn and the roar of an engine signaled that the hunters were in pursuit. The vehicle’s headlights scythed through the dark, landing on Ari and mushroom boy. Gunfire pelted the earth at their feet.

  “Shit!” Ari said, stumbling back and falling. Calm as ever, the mushroom creature raised both its stubby arms. The air prickled with magic and the ground rumbled ominously. A second later thick roots broke through the soft ground and surged up the hill toward the truck. The vehicle plowed through the first wave, but was caught by the second. The third wave wrapped around the vehicle and hefted it into the air. The men inside broke the windows and jumped out just before the roots clamped down, crushing the vehicle and tearing it apart.

  Ari gaped at mushroom boy.

  “Jamie was right, you are vicious,” she said.

  Mushroom boy turned to her, swaying happily from side to side as if it found all of this to be great fun. He did a little spin, finished with a bow, and then hopped down from the boulder, skipping off into the brush. Ari sat and stared at the place he’d been for a moment. She didn’t know what the hell he was, but now she knew not to piss him off. A bullet bit into the dirt at her feet. She yelped and tumbled backwards. Sky, earth, and spinning foliage traded places in rapid succession as she rolled down the hill, clutching the stolen gun. The world continued to spin even when she’d stopped.

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  Once everything stilled, she got up and found Boreal’s cage lying close by. It lay on its side, still in its cart. She climbed on top of it. Boreal lay quaking on the bars, his suffering silent but unmistakable.

  “Hold on, I’ll get you out of there!”

  Ari looked down at the gun she’d stolen. As far as she could tell, it was a shotgun. She knew nothing more than that. She didn’t know how to use it either. Hamza had considered training her with firearms but Ashlain had put his foot down at that point.

  “We are not raising a child soldier,” he’d said.

  So all Ari had was a vague idea of how shotguns worked from playing video games with her friends. She took aim at the padlock and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She pumped it, heard it click, and tried again. Nothing happened. Distant voices and the wandering flashlight beams added a layer of panic to her frustration.

  “R-run,” Boreal struggled to say.

  “I’m. Not. Leaving you,” Ari grunted through clenched teeth. Beyond tired and frustrated, she bashed the lock with the butt of the shotgun. The bang and spray of hot metal that followed knocked her off balance. She fell from the cart onto the bars, the cold iron biting into her skin, and stunning her as she rolled and fell once more into the mud. Unable to move, all she could do was listen as the voices of the hunters grew louder, and their footsteps came nearer. A beam of light fell on her, rendering her blind for a moment.

  “Over here,” said one of the men.

  Ari clenched her eyes shut. She should have listened to Boreal and ran. She shouldn’t have tried to play the hero. She’d never see her dads again. She’d never get her answers. This was it. Game over.

  Then there came a familiar, bone chilling hiss.

  “Watch out, it's back!” cried one of the hunters. Ari watched as the wounded corpion flew over the cart and landed in the midst of the hunters, chomping and flailing. It got one of the men by the head and shook him like a dog shakes a stuffed animal, tearing the head off in a ragged spray of blood.

  The beast rounded on the remaining hunter. The man looked suddenly small and frail standing in the shadow of the corpion. Knowing he was outmatched, he blinded the monster with his flashlight and ran off into the forest. The corpion let him go and turned to Ari. It couldn’t see, but somehow it knew exactly where she was, and she got the feeling it’d been waiting for this moment since they were reunited at the camp.

  No longer numb, Ari pushed herself onto her knees, moving slowly to avoid triggering the attack she knew was coming.

  “You don’t give up, huh?” she asked.

  The corpion hissed and hefted its stinger. Ari shuffled closer to the cart on all fours. She didn’t know if the new idea she had was any better than the last couple, but anything was worth a try at this point.

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Come at me!” she barked.

  The corpion took the bait. It lashed out just as Ari rolled behind the cart. The monster chased her round and round, unable to get a clear shot, and unwilling to touch the bars of the cage. Enraged, it grabbed a mouthful of tarp and tugged, attempting to throw the obstacle aside. The cart was pulled upright. The broken padlock fell to the ground and the cage door swung open. Boreal slumped out of the cage just as the corpion shoved its head under the cart, hefted it, and tossed it aside. It clattered and clanged against the rocks gathered at the base of the hill, the busted cart finally breaking under the continued abuse.

  Her cover was gone, but it didn’t mater. Ari waited with a fireball in each hand. She threw the first at the corpions feet, making it scuttle backwards, and launched the last one into its soft underbelly. While the corpion rolled and writhed to smother the flames, Ari rushed over to Boreal’s side.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, pushing the bear’s side trying to get him to his feet. “We have to go, come on!”

  “Foolish. You are foolish,” panted the bear.

  “Be mad at me later,” Ari said.

  They ran, limping, both of them drawing ragged breaths. The corpion followed once it’d put itself out. It sounded just as exhausted as they were, but some primal rage kept it going.

  “Why won’t it give up? How can it chase us like this?” Ari asked between breaths.

  “Your aura, it can sense it. It remembers you. Hates you,” Boreal replied.

  Ari thought the feeling was mutual. They reached the river and splashed in. The corpion skidded to a stop at the bank. It hissed and screeched at them as they crossed, pounding the riverbank with its remaining feet.

  “Why did it stop?” Ari asked once they’d reached the opposite side.

  “Don’t know. Too many legs lost, maybe. Hard to keep its footing in the water,” Boreal guessed.

  In the end it didn’t matter. They made it back to their camp from the night before. Ari fell to her knees in front of her tent, gasping for air, every fiber of her body exhausted, yet pulsing with leftover adrenaline.

  “We cannot stop. Grab your pack, leave the rest,” Boreal said.

  “I can’t just leave this,” Ari said, gesturing to the tent. “Where will I sleep?”

  “The ground.”

  “It wont take long for me to pack it, just give me a few minutes.”

  Boreal shook his large head. “Must keep moving. We are not safe.”

  “But I’m tired. And you’re hurt, can’t we stop for a little?” Ari whined.

  “No. Hunters live. Corpion will find way around. They will follow. Grab the pack or I will,” Boreal said, swiping at the tent with one of his massive paws.

  “Okay, okay, just give me a minute.”

  Ari crawled inside the tent, gathered what she could, and shoved her sleeping bag into her pack. After a brief struggle zipping it shut, she paused stare at the tent’s thin walls, knowing she’d miss the comfort they provided when night came. Boreal paced outside, panting heavily. Ari watched him through the open flap. They were both exhausted. How much further would they have to go before it was safe to rest?

  Boreal stopped his pacing to glare at her. He gave a loud snort and stomped at the ground. With a regretful sigh, Ari left the tent, and pulled the pack onto her shoulders. At least it was a little lighter.

  They entered the clearing where the Waffle Hut stood. Ari glanced around. The restaurant was nowhere to be seen. She couldn’t find a single sign that it had been there to begin with. Her mind spun as she wondered if she’d imagined it, tears of frustration and disappointment pricking her eyes. She wanted Cynthia to know she survived, to get something to eat, and to wash the mud off of herself in the bathroom. Though she doubted the woman would want her tracking dirt all over her perfect floors. The restaurant had been almost too-clean, if that was possible.

  She let the tears roll down her dirty cheeks. There was no choice but to keep going, whether she liked it or not. Boreal’s ears twitched, catching the quiet sniffling she was trying to hide.

  “There is a realm gate near. Once we are through, we rest,” he assured her.

  “We’re going to another world?” she asked.

  “Yes. Is safe,” he said.

  Ari nodded and willed her heavy limbs to keep moving. Excitement at the thought of seeing a new world and the promise of rest gave her the push she needed to ignore her pain. The gate was still a ways off, but they were getting closer with every step. They walked and walked until the faint rays of dawn turned the mist into a bronze haze that swallowed them.