The Arena (Ultimate Soldier Book 1) (2 page)

"Mommy! Mommy! Mama, please!" The little girl screamed, watching in numb horror as her mother's body lay, broken and lifeless, on the ground below her. Like an angel of death, her mother lay on the ground with golden hair spread around her head like a halo, clad in a pure white night-dress marred by the blood stains of her fatal injuries. The little girl clutched the tree branches so tightly that her fingers lost their feeling, screaming for her mother to wake up, to open her eyes, to show any sign of life. But there was nothing. It was over. Huge black wolves, their paws and muzzles stained crimson with blood, left the pale body and leapt at the little girl, snarling. She screamed even louder, pulling herself up farther in the tree. A few dozen feet away, the thatched roof of their home caught fire and the flames hungrily ate at the dry straw. Columns of smoke rose into the cool evening air as half the village burned. Other screams pierced the dark, smoky air--screams that were quickly silenced. "Mama, mama please," sobbed the little girl, but her mother would never answer. She cried out in wordless terror as the wolves leapt at her. Their jaws snapped on empty air, and they yelped when their heads hit the lower branches. Her hands and legs throbbed and sticky blood mixed with the sap of the pine tree in which she hid. It was nothing compared with the searing ache in her chest as she stared through the smoke at her mother's still body. That familiar face, so white and pale, marred by streaks of blood. So serene, as if she had died in her sleep. In one hand was clutched the long knife with which she had tried to defend herself and her daughter. Through a rip in the fabric of her nightgown the little girl could just barely see the gleam of the thick golden chain that was part of an identical set, the other worn by the girl's father. The father she had never known.

The little girl, clung to the tree and screamed, but no one answered. There was no one left to answer. She trembled from fear, from cold and from exhaustion, but still she held on with all her strength, until finally the sky began to lighten and the wolves began to slink back into the trees. The last of them disappeared just as the first ray of sun pierced the leaves and blinded the little girl in the tree. All around her in the walled village, houses burned and the smoke hung heavy in the still air. The little girl cried until the tears stopped coming, her eyes stinging so badly from the smoke that she could barely see. Her arms shook so hard that she was afraid she would fall from the tree, but it was like her fingers were locked in place. After what seemed like an eternity, she heard a soft voice calling from below, and she looked down to see a woman standing at the base of the tree.

"Come down, little one. You are safe now." The woman's voice was soft, comforting, so much like that of her mother.

"I want my mama!" The little girl cried between hiccuping sobs.

The woman held up her arms. "Little one, your mama is not here. You are safe, I will not hurt you. Come down."

Slowly, whimpering as her arms spasmed and cramped, the girl lowered herself through the thick branches. About ten feet from the ground, the branch on which she stood broke with a crack, and with a cry she fell, but the woman was there to catch her. Strong arms cradled her and shielded her from the sight of her mother's body. Without another word, the woman carried the young Lila over to where a big grey-dappled horse stood, stomping and rolling his eyes at the burning buildings and the smell of death. In one smooth movement she raised them both into the saddle, and the horse turned and trotted through the village gates, the little girl clinging to her savior. The gate guards lay slumped lifeless on either side of the gate, but the five year old mind did not comprehend the significance behind the single wounds across their necks. These bodies were not wolf mutilated like that of her mother. The little girl buried her face in the woman's shirt, which smelled of pine trees and sunshine. So different from the honeysuckle scent that had clung to her mother's clothing. The thought of her mother brought on a fresh wave of tears.

"What's your name?" The little girl whispered after a while, when her sobbing had calmed and the rocking gait of the horse had soothed her exhausted body into a more quiet state.

The woman did not look down, but kept her eyes straight ahead. "I am called Protector. What is yours?"

“
I'm Lila.”

Lila startled awake when Seeker kicked and growled in her sleep. She lay on her back in the dark, staring up at where the low flames threw flickers of light on the ceiling. It had been a long time since she had dreamt of that day, the day her world fell apart.

Despite the howls of the wolves outside, Lila soon drifted off again. She hoped to avoid another dream, but soon enough the memories began to flash through her sleeping mind.

As the horse trotted along the dirt path away from the village, Lila peeked around the side of the woman who held her, watching her home dwindle behind them in the trees. The heavy iron-bound metal gates stood wide open, a strange sight for the little girl. She had never seen both gates open like that. Usually, even during the daytime the guards would open the gates just wide enough to let carts and people through, and they were closed right away afterwards.

The dream turned to flashes after that. An elegant, sprawling mansion built on a hill in the middle of a clearing. Furniture covered with sheets in dark, echoing rooms. Thick layers of dust disturbed only by trails of footprints. The beam of a battery powered light, shining down a long flight of stairs. The same light illuminating row upon row of metal shelves filled with food, water, batteries, and other supplies. The day, ten years later when the last can of food was eaten, the last bottle of water drank. The misty morning when the adolescent Lila and the gray-haired Protector set out on the back of the stallion Frostbite, leaving the house for the last time for parts of the forest that still contained game to hunt.

There were long, grueling days of travel as Lila and Protector sought a new home. They lost Frostbite the first night to a pack of wolves, while they looked on helplessly from a tree. Lila would never forget the dying screams of the faithful horse, a keening of agony that found its way into her bones until she feared she would never be rid of it. When the horse was mercifully silent and only the echoes of his pain remained, Protector began to speak. It seemed even the quiet strength of the older woman was shaken by the loss of their companion. That was the night that Protector, who so rarely spoke, told Lila of the history of the wolves, and of her mission to find other survivors.

She and her husband had been living in an abandoned mansion where the previous owner had stocked years' worth of supplies. When her husband never returned after leaving to investigate smoke seen in the distance, she was left heavily pregnant and alone. Lonely and afraid, she soon went into labor, and she labored alone for days without any medication or help. Her daughter, born weeks too early, did not survive her first fortnight. The double grief nearly killed Protector, but somehow she kept going. She spent her days avenging herself whenever possible on the wolves that she believed to have killed her husband, keeping watch for any sign that anyone else besides herself still lived.

Five years later, she saw the smoke rising from Lila's village. The little girl was the only survivor, the same age as her daughter would have been. She brought Lila back to the mansion and taught her everything she knew about survival. Lila became the daughter she had lost, and she became the mother the girl so badly needed. Together they kept each other alive through the years that passed. When their food in the mansion ran out, they went on the run with Frostbite and a dog puppy Lila had named Seeker, spending the nights in trees and hunting for food during the day. A year passed, but it was not kind on Protector. She grew so thin, so weak, but nothing Lila could say would make her slow down. Then one day, she did not return. Lila waited in the same tree for three days, which she knew was dangerous but she held onto hope that her mentor would return. Finally, she knew she had to move on. For the last two years she had lived alone, happening across the tunnel and making it her permanent home. Now, she hunted each day and slept in the tunnel each night, a monotonous and tedious life, but as safe as was possible under the circumstances. She knew she could not live this way forever, but for now she bided her time and waited, hoping against hope that she would someday find another survivor like herself.

When she woke the second time, the airwas still dark and cool but with a hint of gray light that was the promise of dawn to come. Quietly, trying not to wake Seeker, she got up from the bed and walked to the edge of the tunnel. She sat down a few inches from the edge and hugged her knees to her chest, staring out at the dew evaporating to mist and rising from the tops of the trees. Leaves fluttered in the slight breeze that was fanning the mist off to the north, over the top of the cliffs. The air held just a taste of the sticky heat that would fill the day ahead. The wolves had abandoned their nightly vigil at the base of the cliff, and the forest was silent but for the stirring of the breeze.
Almost too silent
, Lila thought.

A lone wolf howled in the distance, the eerie and hauntingly beautiful sound rising and falling in the early summer air. Seeker padded up beside Lila, and the girl stroked the dog's furry ears gently. "How can something so beautiful be so dangerous?" she asked aloud, causing the dog to tilt her head in confusion. Seeker knew nothing of worry or memory, she lived only in the present. At moments like this, Lila desperately wished she could do the same. She felt as if she had relived her entire life in her dreams last night. Perhaps it had something to do with their brush with death yesterday, but it made Lila think. For the past two years, two winters, now well into the second hot summer, through endless nights and days, she had waited. Waited with the hope of the hopeless, watching for some sign that she was not alone. Perhaps she truly was alone now. Perhaps she was the only human left in this land, even in the whole world. Protector had believed strongly in a God who created humanity and who cared about their fate, but Lila struggled with the thought that an all powerful being could let the beings He had created live in such a miserable state for so many years. If He truly cared, how could He let this happen? Why hadn't He done something to make it better?

Lila shook off the depression and jumped to her feet. Seeker barked and wagged her tail, anticipating their daily trip into the forest. Though Lila couldn't shake her unease at the thought of going back into the trees, she knew they had to―unless they wanted to go to bed hungry tonight. Rabbits and squirrels didn't provide much meat. Sighing, she walked over to the crumbling ledge that ran off the side of the tunnel mouth. Telling Seeker to stay put, she sat down on the tunnel edge, using the ledge as a handhold to climb down. Usually she pulled the ladder up into the tunnel rather than kicking it down, but she had been in too much of a hurry yesterday. Using handfuls of grass and protruding rocks she managed to make it to the ground with only a few scratches. beneath the tunnel mouth, the concrete lip turned into an almost vertical ramp that plunged to the ground, turned at an angle and ran maybe three or four feet along the ground before ending abruptly. The stream fell as a thin waterfall from above to create a little depression at the bottom of the ramp before running south into the forest.

One of the ladder rungs was cracked where it had hit a rock. Lila pulled the leather strip she used as a hair-tie from her pocket and tied it as tightly as she could around the stick in the hope of keeping the crack from getting any larger. She needed to hunt today, not fix things. Maybe if she could catch enough to last a couple days, she would have time to mend all of the things that were breaking. Like the hole in one knee of her pants that had already been patched three times, or she could gather grass to replace the places where her bed was wearing thin. Someday she might even have time to turn a couple of hides into a passable pair of shoes
―the cracks in her heels bore testament to how long she had been running in the forest barefoot.

Lila wrestled the ladder back into place and pushed it upright to lean against the tunnel lip just to the right of the stream. She climbed up quickly, grabbed her knife and the little pouch she would put berries in, and whistled to Seeker. With the dog over Lila's shoulders they made their way to the ground. As soon as Lila's feet hit the grass, Seeker barked happily and danced off after a butterfly. Lila smiled wryly
―the dog obviously didn't scent any wolves nearby, so why was she worrying? Shaking her head, she raised her face for just a moment to the first pink rays of dawn that were burning away the fog. Then together she and Seeker trotted across the clearing and into the dense forest.

“Seeker, quit!” Lila pushed the exuberant dog down for the fourth time. “You wanna have something to eat today, you better quit playing!” She felt immediately sorry as the dog dropped to the ground, tail and ears hanging dejectedly. “I'm sorry, dear one,” she said, crouching next to her friend and scratching behind Seeker's ears. “Maybe later, okay?”

Seeker responded with a single lick that left Lila's entire face soaked, then yipped and pranced off down the deer path. Lila spluttered, pulling the neckline of her shirt up to wipe her face clean.
“Guess I deserved that, huh?”

Seeker panted happily, then ran off to jump at a couple of squirrels that were arguing in a tree up ahead. Lila smiled, feeling more secure watching the dog's obvious light spirits.

So far, four out of six traps had proved to be empty. One, a simple rope snare, had been chewed through and must now be added to her list of things to fix. The rest she had left alone. Up ahead, in a little glen sheltered by one of the most ancient and magnificent trees in this part of the forest, lay the fifth. Even though they were still a several minute walk from the tree, she could see the massive trunk as a solid dark mass up ahead.
Like a column to hold up the sky,
she thought, as she often did. It reminded her of a song Protector used to sing―a song about a tree from the beginning of the world, the Tree of Ages, that protected everything that lived in its shadow.

As Lila grew closer to the little clearing, she wanted to laugh as she heard the thrashing that was a telltale sign that this was
not
the Tree of Ages―she had set a trap beneath the tree, and something was caught in it. She signaled Seeker to be quiet, and climbed up on the tangled mass of roots that slithered away from the tree's trunk. She edged to the side, brushing away the branches of a sapling to look down. She could smell the scent of bruised grass, and her heart leapt when she saw the little doe deer caught in her trap. The doe was fat on summer grass and leaves. Lila didn't normally kill females (not that “normally” described anything about her deer hunting habits, seeing as it had been months since she had seen signs of any), but the struggling creature had broken one of her legs, staining the rope with blood. She would die―it was only a question of by whose hand, and Lila much preferred filling her belly to that of a few wolves. The doe caught their scent and redoubled her efforts to escape. Wanting to end the creature's pain as quickly as possible, she pulled her knife from her belt and leapt down, one arm pinning the doe's head. A quick knife slash later and Seeker was lapping up the blood pooling on the ground while Lila looped the bloody rope through her belt. She would never be able to use this length for trapping again―the scent of blood would never fully come out.

Grunting with effort, she pulled the little deer over her shoulders.
“Small” was a relative term when it came to deer. This doe weighed nearly as much as Lila did, and it was going to be a long walk back. Regardless, she sent a quick thought of thanks up in case anyone was listening, as well as a fervent prayer that the wolves didn't show up today. It would be a bitter disappointment to lose such a rare and useful catch.

Seeker was more subdued on the trip back, too fixated on the deer's swinging head to play.
“You aren't helping,” Lila exclaimed, shoving the dog with her foot. “She's heavy enough without you tugging at her, and you'll ruin the hide.”

With Seeker walking behind Lila's plodding feet, her fears were running rampant. Sweat was dripping into her eyes, making her vision blur. The furry body of the deer around her shoulders and pressing against her ears made the normal forest sounds seem strange and unfamiliar. She found herself jumping and looking around each time there was a breath of wind, or a twig cracked under Seeker's paw. Her shoulders were burning with a searing pain that grew greater with every step. Every few hundred feet, she had to put the deer's body down and rest until her breathing slowed and her pounding heart calmed.

This deer would feed them for a week, if she could keep the meat from spoiling, and the skin would be enough to make herself a new pair of shoes, plus a couple of food pouches and waterskins, with maybe enough left over to cut enough strips for a short rope. She had to get it back first, before she let herself get excited. She hadn't seen a deer in so long―since last winter probably. She had thought they were all dead, or moved on.

Soon all trace of a breeze disappeared, leaving the air so hot and thick she felt she could swim through it. She set the deer down and rolled her shoulders, pulling up the hem of her shirt in an attempt to dry her face. She couldn't wait to get back and wash in the cool water of the stream at home.

Well, no use thinking about it―thinking wouldn't get her home. She hoisted the deer back onto her shoulders, staggering under the weight. Still a long way to go.

By the time they reached the clearing, even Lila's knees were sore, and her legs were starting to feel rubbery. She sighed as she looked at the ladder, but there was no way around it. She carried Seeker up the ladder before half-sliding back down to retrieve the deer. With each shove, each step she passed, she held the image in her mind of deer stew flavored with onions. She counted steps, knowing that once she reached twenty five she was home. Ten...eleven...twelve...

Lila's hands were slick with perspiration and about halfway up she lost her grip on the rung, biting her lip for one heart stopping moment as she made sure the doe's body was still balanced, and that the ladder wasn't about to slip to one side or the other. The last thing she needed was a broken arm or leg.

Finally, at the moment she felt her limbs were about to give out, she reached the top rung. She heaved the body onto the concrete and crawled up beside it, collapsing on the concrete and rolling onto her back, panting. Something dripped in her face and she opened her eyes to see Seeker's head above her, the dog's tongue hanging out.

Realizing it was dog saliva that was on her eye, Lila wiped the dampness away and sat up. “Eew Seeker! What was that for?”

The dog planted her haunches on the ground and panted happily.

“I'm not going to let you just tear into this deer if that's what you're thinking.” Groaning, she pushed herself to hands and knees and slowly got to her feet. She dragged the carcass over to the stream and began the laborious task of skinning and cutting the meat into manageable pieces. Seeker watched the entire process intently, as she always did. Lila threw the entrails to Seeker, pinned the larger chunks of meat in the stream beneath some rocks, hoping the cool temperature of the water would keep the meat edible until they could eat it all. By the time she stretched the skin out near the tunnel mouth, climbing down for more rocks to pin it with, the sun was high overhead and beat down mercilessly on her shoulders. The air had the humid, heavy feel of a storm coming, even though the sky was still clear.

Maybe it was the oppressive atmosphere that contributed, but Lila often caught herself looking toward the edge of the forest, half expecting to see the black of wolf fur. The trees swayed in the wind, their branches casting dappled shadows along the edge of the clearing. No matter how hard she stared, the forest looked just as it always did. Despite this, she couldn't shake the prickling feeling of unease at the back of her neck.

The sun was westering as Lila crouched near the stream, scrubbing the dirt out of her pants so that she could mend the hole in the knee. If this kept happening, her small store of thread wasn't going to last more than a few more months. Seeker lay on the grass bed, her tail wagging happily as the dog cracked the knuckle of a bone to get to the rich marrow inside.

Lila grabbed her wooden sewing box and sat crosslegged near the edge of the tunnel so that she could make better use of the afternoon light. The shadows beneath the trees were deepening as afternoon faded to twilight, and the first distant howl rose wavering into the air just as the bottom edge of the sun's disc touched the horizon. As the sun disappeared, one back body slunk from the woods, soon joined by another. Lila rubbed at the headache throbbing over her eyes before tugging on the patched area to make sure it was secure. When the box had been put away, she got dressed and laid a few strips of meat on a rock near the fire to cook before returning to her spot near the tunnel mouth to work on mending a rope. The wolves were in fine form tonight
―snarling and leaping into the air as if they thought they could reach her up in the tunnel.

That was when she heard it-- the sound that sent icy shards of terror through her veins. A human scream, echoing from the walls. She bolted to her feet just as Seeker charged toward the tunnel mouth, barking. The bone rolled into the coals of the fire and the smell of burned flesh began to fill the air. Lila barely noticed, with all her senses focused on finding the sound.

“
Help me!” The scream pierced the air again, coming from the left side of the tunnel. Lila rushed over and gasped when she saw the figure clinging to the rocks just a few dozen feet from the edge of the concrete, cringing as the wolves leapt and snapped. More shadowy forms raced from the edge of the forest.