The Arena (Ultimate Soldier Book 1) (17 page)

They had barely made it in sight of the Cliffs when dark began to fall. The sky was overcast and there were rumbled of thunder in the distance as the four climbed into a Bowl tree. Lila shared the rest of the rabbit and berries she carried with the three men. As they traveled, Elan had taught Josef and Lila enough sign language that between he and Aran, the four could understand each other fairly well. Lila was still reluctant to reveal to the twins that she and Josef could speak to each other silently, and he did not seem eager to share the information either.

"How far to the tunnel?" Asked Elan as they finished their meal.

They had followed the stream to the base of the Cliffs where it spilled down from the top of the looming wall of rock as a thin waterfall. "Only a few hours from here, we should reach it by noon tomorrow," Lila replied.

Even the energetic Aran, whose vitality was mostly restored now that he had been rescued and had eaten, seemed rather subdued. So many questions would be answered tomorrow, more even than any of the men knew. Lila's chest was tight at the thought of seeing Katie's body, but she couldn't shake the image of stringy black hair partially obscuring yellow eyes--the scene from her dream. Tomorrow she would learn if yet another impossible thing were made possible, not only if dreams could come to life, but if a dream could really predict the future.

Aran and Elan conversed silently through sign language and Josef appeared to have fallen asleep by the time the first drops of rain began to patter on the bowl and the leaves of the surrounding trees. Lila sat perched on the edge of the platform, staring out through the canopy of leaves of the taller trees. A wolf howl started, wavering in the heavy air. He was soon answered by another, deeper voice. Lila closed her eyes and lifted her face to the rain, listening to the feral symphony created by the rise and fall of the lupine voices. Maybe in a way the wolves were like humans. So much beauty on the surface, yet the closer you got, the more dangerous they became. And yet somehow every living thing, human or otherwise, followed the steps of some mysterious dance to a music only the creator of the universe could truly understand. It was complex, the relationship between predator and prey, between one person and another, between a group of people and the world they lived in. One misstep and so many could be affected.

After a while Lila laid down near her friends, unwrapping a blanket and using her backpack as a pillow. She was glad for the waterproof warmth the blanket provided, and quickly fell asleep.

"Lila, wake up!" Lila sat bolt upright, feeling the fragments of a dream slither away into her subconscious mind. The sun was rising in a clear sky, a cool damp breeze the only reminder of last nights' rain. Elan and Josef were already packing up their blankets, while Aran apparently had the task of waking her.

Lila couldn't believe she had slept through the men moving around. She was normally a much lighter sleeper than that. Rubbing the drowsiness from her eyes and brushing back the wisps of hair that were escaping from her braid, she quickly rolled up her blanket and tied it to the top of her pack.

You okay?
Josef asked as they waited their turn to climb down.

Lila nodded.
Just strange dreams.
She followed Elan over the side, quickly lowering herself to the ground beside the twins. As soon as Josef joined them the four set off on a course parallel to the shadow of the Cliffs that loomed above them.

At first the four talked among themselves, the men asking Lila about plants they saw along the deer path, how she knew where to find food, and how she tracked animals. It seemed as if Aran and Elan were trying to keep from thinking about what they would find when the group reached the tunnel. As they grew closer to their destination though, the importance of reaching their destination settled into a heaviness that seemed to weigh them all down. Lila was equal parts ready to get it over with, and dreading to have all her questions answered. They saw the dark shadow of the tunnel mouth a while before they came to the clearing around it. The ladder lay on the ground at the base of the cliff, covered in moss where it lay across the stream that spilled from the tunnel mouth above. Lila wrestled it into place and stood there for a moment with her hands on the rungs, forehead pressed against the rough wood, trying to breathe around the lump in her throat. This was it--there was no going back from what she would find here. After a moment she shook her head, took a deep breath and began to climb.

The ladder was shuddering and she looked down to see Josef climbing below her, with Aran and Elan waiting their turn on the ground. The twilight of the yawning concrete mouth held a sense of foreboding. She climbed over the top of the ladder and stepped to the side, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. Josef followed her, then the other four men climbed up behind. She was prepared for the stink of death, but the air was warm and clean. Her eyes swept the dim light, expecting to see Katie's body lying on the bed, but it was empty. The fire in the pit was long dead and cold. As she moved farther back into the tunnel, she could see that the deer meat she had left pinned under rocks in the stream was gone. She turned to Josef.

"This isn't right. She should be here."

Josef moved in front of her, farther back into the cave. Suddenly he beckoned to Lila. She hurried forward to Josef's side until she saw where he pointed. There was a figure sitting on the gentle slope on the left side of the space, shoulders hunched, hair over her face. It was 'her', because Lila instantly recognized Katie, more by the swell of her belly than anything else. Her hair had grown several inches and obscured her face. When they came nearer, Katie drew back with a whimper. Coming a few feet away while the rest of the men gathered around Josef, Lila crouched down in front of the cringing girl. Aran cried out, making Katie flinch, and tried to move forward, but Josef's arm held him back.

At the sound, Katie's head shot up and she stared straight at her brother. There was a collective gasp as her eyes opened. Even in the semi-dark of the tunnel, with her hair falling over her face, they could all see the brilliant, glowing yellow of her irises, the horizontal oval of the pupils. The faint light of the sun reflected off of eyes they all saw in their worst nightmares.

Wolf's eyes.

"Katie!" Aran cried, pushng Josef's arm away. "Let me go to my sister!"

"
Aran, stop!" Lila said, coming forward to help Josef restrain the impulsive brother. Elan stood motionless behind them, not taking his eyes from Katie. "Look at her. That may look like your sister but it's not her. Look at her eyes."

"No!" Aran shouted, making Katie flinch and draw back even deeper into the tunnel. He sank to his knees, pulling Josef and Lila down with him. "Not my sister..." he whispered, tears spilling down his cheeks to splash on Lila's arm that was held around his chest. "Katie!" the name was a plea, as if he were begging his sister to recognize him. Katie just growled like a cornered cat.

Elan came forward and knelt beside his brother, tears streaming down his silent face. Lila and Josef released Aran, who buried his face on Elan's knees. Elan placed a hand on his brothers' head but did not take his eyes from Katie's huddled form.

Slowly, Lila walked forward, open hand outstretched. "Katie," she called softly. "Katie, can you hear me?"

Katie stayed still as a statue, yellow eyes staring without wavering as Lila advanced. Lila knelt on one knee when Katie started to crawl away. "I'm not going to hurt you, Katie. You're safe." There was no sign of recognition in the feral creature's eyes, and eventually Lila backed away and returned to her friends.

"You said she was dead!" Aran said accusingly.

"I thought she was." Lila didn't know what to say. Her dream had come true--Katie was still alive, but it wasn't the girl she had known. The wolf fever had changed her into something that seemed barely human.

"What's wrong with her?"

Lila shook her head. "I don't know, Aran. I don't know what happened."

She's still alive, but at what price?
Came Josef's voice in her head. Lila didn't reply, walking over to her dead firepit and gathering an armful of wood from the pile a little farther back in the tunnel. Using the lighter, she coaxed a flame into life. The day was hot, but she needed to see the familiarity of fire burning within the ring of stones. The flickering of the flames cast jumping shadows against the ceiling of the tunnel.

Katie wasn't dead. Or maybe she was, and this body was inhabited by something completely alien. Lila realized Aran was still asking questions, and shook her head sharply. "I don't know!" she said, more loudly than she intended. "I don't know any more than you do. I don't have the answers you want."

Elan seemed to be in shock. He came and sat down next to Lila by the fire, not taking his eyes off of Katie on the other side of the stream. Aran on the other hand could not seem to sit still, pacing back and forth.

"So what do we do?" He demanded. "We can't go back to Antoch. She could have the baby any day now--we don't even know if she will care for it. We don't know if my sister is still in there somewhere. What are we supposed to do?"

"You tell me!" Lila said. "She's your sister."

Aran stopped in his pacing, pointing a shaking finger at Katie. "That...is not my sister. Maybe she is, but she isn't. She doesn't even know us. She won't let us near her. How are we supposed to help her?"

Lila fought back the frustration rising in her chest, not trusting herself to speak. She just shrugged her shoulders and poked at the fire with a stick.

Elan seemed to break free of his trance. He began to gesture.
Maybe she is like a wild animal. We should find food to give her--maybe she will trust us.
Josef translated silently for Lila who was having trouble following the quick hand movements.

"It's too late to hunt today," Lila said. "Tomorrow I will set traps and find berries. That's the best I can do."

It seemed like one of the longest afternoons and evenings of Lila's life. The four sat in almost complete silence, mostly starting at Katie's form on the other side of the tunnel. It felt as if the tension in the air could be cut with a knife. The sun had barely started to set when Lila pulled out her blanket and lay down on the ground, feeling emotionally drained. She rolled the blanket around her, closing her eyes more out of an attempt to block out the emotional charge in the air than any sense of tiredness.

For a long time Lila lay on her side, watching the rough surface of the concrete slowly disappear from view as the sun sank below the treeline. She rolled onto her back to watch the shadow of the flames dance on the ceiling far overhead. Elan sat crosslegged in the twilight outside the circle of light cast by the fire. Aran and Josef sat next to each other on the opposit side of the fire. Josef was braiding bits of rope together and then taking them apart while Aran stared at his hands.

You know what I miss most?
Josef asked Lila after a while.

What?

Not being able to talk is frustrating, not being able to taste makes food seem boring. But what I miss most is music. I'll never get to sing the little kids to sleep again. I can't even hum--the sounds don't come out right. You have a beautiful singing voice, would you sing something for us? This silence is oppresive.

Lila tried to remember back to when she and Protector used to sing together. She had never realized how much they used to sing, and how little she sang since Protector's disappearance.

After a while, the words of one of her favorites began to come back to her memory.

Green tree grows upon the hill

Roots spread deep within the ground

Branches shade a grassy lawn

Underneath the foxes bound

Birds they flitter through the leaves

Singing songs of purest glee

Stag deer rests his weary limbs

On a flower a honeybee

Grey curtain sweeps across the land

In the wind the saplings lean

creatures flee back to their homes

Through the mist the wild wolf's keen...

Lila trailed off and felt her cheeks burn when she realized all three men were staring at her raptly. Even Katie had crept closer to the fire.

"I've never heard that song before," Aran said. "What's it called?"

"The Tree of Ages," Lila replied. "It's about a tree whose roots grow into the core of the world." When no one asked her any more questions, she gathered her courage and sang the rest of the song, closing her eyes to better hear the echoes of her voice that bounced back at her from the concrete walls. The song told of mankind's effort to cut down the Tree of Ages, but the tree could not be destroyed. The animals banded together and drove man away from the Tree, protecting the being that gave them nourishment and shade. Protector said it was a lesson for when man tried to mess with nature--nature was always stronger and would fight back. The wolves were proof of that, if anything was.

It seemed like an eternity of night before the sun began to rise in the east. Over a dozen wolves kept vigil in the clearing outside the tunnel, their howls of longing only adding to the tension in the air. As soon as they skulked off into the undergrowth, Lila took an emptied backpack and her traps, and escaped into the forest to search for food.

She set her traps first, before finding a blackberry bush she remembered from before. She stripped handfuls of ripe berries from the thorny branches, careful to listen for any sign of the snakes that liked to hide around this particular type of bush. To the berries she added several handfuls of wild onions that she pulled from the ground, then searched out the broad leaves of the plant that grew the starchy tubers that could be baked in the coals of the fire. The sun's heat was barely muted by the green branches shading her. Lila's shirt stuck to her skin in the muggy air, stinging her shoulders where they were sunburned. Her skirt dragged at every small plant she passed until Lila got annoyed enough to hack off a few inches until the garment came just below her knees. The thick and often thorny undergrowth of the forest made her progress slower than she would like as she tried to find enough food for the entire group.

Lila hummed along to the lilting melody of birdsong that followed her through the woods. The birds were thrilled by the upturned dirt she left in her wake each time she dug up tubers, snatching greedily at the earthworms wriggling away from the light. The sun was nearing noon when she decided she had enough food for a while and turned back in the direction of her traps, intending to check them before returning to the tunnel.

All at once the birdsong around her ceased and the sparrows and finches scattered into the trees. Lila froze, ears straining, then she spun around when a branch cracked behind her.

There, in the dappled shadow cast by an oak tree, stood a figure that sent a thrill of terror through Lila's veins. Head nearly as high as her shoulders, shining black coat of fur, muscle rippling under his skin, a pair of bright yellow eyes staring at her from the lupine face.

Lila reacted without thought, dropping the backpack and pulling the long knife from her belt, holding it out in front of her. She glanced to each side, searching for an escape. To her sinking horror there was nothing nearby that she had a chance of climbing before the wolf would reach her.

Slowly the wolf padded forward, his eyes never leaving Lila's. In contrast to the cracking branch, this time his passage was as silent as a cloud across the sky. Each massive paw placed on the leaf litter carefully, almost delicately. His movement seemed catlike, and he moved with a grace that belied his mass.

Lila held the knife out in front of her, heart in her throat, tensed to drive the blade into his heart should the wolf leap at her. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Then the wolf stopped. Just beyond the reach of Lila's trembling hand, he halted, still staring into her eyes. In a movement so foreign that Lila did not comprehend it, he lowered his head, his eyes dropping, then raised it to look Lila in the face again before letting out a strange sort of yip and turning to vanish into the forest with a flash of black tail.

For a moment, Lila was too shocked to move. Then her wits came back and she grabbed up the backpack--and ran. She found the deer trail and ran down it as fast as her feet would carry her, ignoring how protruding roots tore at her toes and heels. She fell, scraping her knee, but jumped up and kept running. She ran until her heart pounded in her ears and her chest ached from the exertion, not stopping until she stumbled into the clearing, scrambled up the ladder, and collapsed to the concrete floor. Josef rushed to her side, taking the backpack and passing it to Aran who had come up behind him.

"What happened?" Aran and Josef asked simultaneously, one out loud and one silently.

You look like you've seen a ghost,
Josef added. He saw her bloody feet and knees and knelt, cradling one of her feet in his hands. Lila bit her lip when the movement made her aware of the pain.

Lila's head spun, and she laid back until she was propped on her elbows, willing her pounding heart to slow down, for the tight ache in her chest to release. She felt a cool dampness on her foot and looked down to see Josef blotting the blood away with a scrap of wet cloth.

"Are you okay? What happened?" Aran repeated.

"I saw a wolf." Lila opened her eyes to see the three men staring at her, Aran's face draining of color. From farther down the tunnel, Katie's head popped up from where she was huddled on the floor, her eyes two yellow pinpricks in the darkness.

"You saw a wolf?" Aran repeated, while Josef silently asked
did it bite you?

"In the daytime? But wolves are afraid of the sun!" Aran protested. Elan brought a bowl of water from the stream and handed it to Josef, who resumed washing the blood from Lila's feet.

Lila closed her eyes again, fighting the fear that rose at the memory. "He came out of the woods. I drew my knife but he just stood there. He walked up to me, he bowed his head then he was gone." She hadn't realized she was talking until she heard her own voice tremble and break. "I ran all the way back."

"That's not possible."

Lila hissed when Josef began to dab at the dirt-encrusted blood on her knee. "Ouch. I know it's not. The sun burns them."

Lila, Aran and Josef looked up when Elan gasped and pointed. Lila looked out across the clearing to see a black figure emerging from the undergrowth. She rose and limped to where the concrete ended and plunged down to meet the ground. Slowly, without any trace of fear or pain, the majestic black wolf padded forward into the clearing. He lifted his muzzle and let out a low howl. The sound hung heavy in the still summer air. Then, just like before, in a flash of black fur he was gone.

Lila's head was spinning. She knew from the faces of the three men that she wasn't seeing things. A wolf standing in full sun was unthinkable--the kind of thing that only existed in nightmares. For as long as they, their parents and their grandparents had lived, the wolf's realm was the night. He was a shadow of terror that filled the hours of darkness. But always the morning had been safe--morning was man's time, the time when human beings could walk in the trees without fear. The wolves' fear of daytime was the only reason humanity had survived inside the Arena for this long.