Planet Urth: The Savage Lands (Book 2) (17 page)

They do not move, and an expanding pool of crimson surrounds them. 

Riley begins to hyperventilate.  “I-I-I can’t breathe,” she gasps. 

Will draws her close.  He rubs her back.  “Don’t look,” he tells her and guides her face toward his midsection.  “Breathe in through your nose until your belly fills then blow out through your lips.” 

The moment is surreal, listening and watching Will comfort Riley about her panting when we are on display in what can only be described as a coliseum similar to the ones I’d learned about in ancient textbooks.  I feel as if I am in a dream, the worst dream my brain could possibly conjure. 

The nightmarish sensation multiples tenfold when I see two Urthmen saunter from a doorway, grip the humans by their feet and drag them away, leaving a trail of blood behind as the only reminder of their existence. 

My gaze is pinned on the scarlet streaks until one of the largest Urthmen I have ever seen steps from the shadows across from us.  Even though he is not near, it is plain to see that he towers and likely doubles my height.  Clad in armor from head to toe, he clutches a long thick sword unlike any I have ever seen before in one hand and a shiny shield in the other.  He begins walking toward us. 

I want to scream, to run, to do something, anything, but I am paralyzed by fear. 

The promise of bloodshed quivers through the air like the strike of a finely honed blade, and awareness makes me shudder.  The gargantuan Urthman is headed for us.  We are armed and expected to fight him as entertainment for those in the arena. 

An Urthman dressed in an ornate, brightly colored costume steps to the center of the round surface we stand upon.  A hush befalls the crowd. 

“For our next event,” he begins.  “We have this ragtag group of lowly humans.  They killed four of our brothers and sisters in the residential area of Elmwood just hours ago.”  More booing ensues and is accompanied by a slew of words I have never heard before.  I assume they are terrible judging from the hateful expressions on the faces of those screaming them.  Taunts and hissing continues until the Urthman at center stage motions with his hands for the crowd to be still.  “Let’s see how they handle the Undefeated Champion of the World, a brother who needs no introduction, with more than three hundred kills, please put your hands together for Throm!” 

The beast that loomed has made it to where we are. 
He raises his arms and the crowd erupts, cheering.  Up close, I can see Throm clearly.  His oblong head bulges on one side.  His eyes are black, but rimmed in ruby-red, and one hangs markedly lower than the other, lending his appearance an aspect of fright that nearly matches his imposing height.  He does not have a nose, just holes that are larger and deeper looking that any other Urthman I have had the misfortune of seeing, and his mouth is little more than a cruel slash across the lower half of his face.  He rears his hear back and the slash widens to reveal jagged teeth that resemble rows of sharpened arrow tips, and I feel my heart stop mid-beat. 

Throm
throws his meaty arms in the air again.  One holds a blade and the other a shiny shield.  The crowd explodes in a frenzy. They are jumping to their feet and cheering.  The noise level rises to the point I fear my ears will bleed.  But bleeding ears would be a welcome occurrence next to what Throm has in store for us. 

“Kill them!” a female Urthman screams, her voice beating out the other
s. 

Throm looks to her and nods.  He rolls his head from side to side, his thick neck cracking as he does.
  Veins protrude from it and run the length of his stubby neck which seems to immediately give way to broad, rounded shoulders.  He is a mountain of a being, composed of heaps of thick muscle.  And his gaze zeros in on us. 

“Get behind us!” I scream to the children.  Will and I stand shoulder to shoulder, though I am certain there is nothing we can do to defend ourselves against Throm. 

Throm advances with speed that betrays his size.  My insides plummet to my feet when he is just about on us.  I grip my blade with both hands, the ache of bruised fingers suddenly irrelevant, and swing my blade.  Throm instantly moves his shield and blocks my swipe with ease.  Will makes a similar attempt only to have his blade connect with Throm’s shield as well.  Only this time, Throm raises his shielded arm high and brings it down against Will’s body.  Will careens through the air and lands hard on the ground.  I try to attack, slicing the air with my sword in a pitiful attempt at stopping Throm.  My blade meets the armor at his back and causes no damage.  I grit my teeth in frustration.  The mammoth Urthman is a coward, wrapped in protective metal to prevent any harm from coming his way.  Fighting him is like fighting a steel wall. 

I shuffle to my side, careful to keep my body between Throm and the kids, just as he attacks.  He hefts his oversized sword and hacks the air laterally.  I try to deflect it, but the angle he attacks from is elevated.  That and his overwhelming strength cause my stance to falter.  His
razor-sharp edge slices the flesh at my forearm. 

I howl out in pain and the crowd cheers wildly as my blo
od dots the white sand below.  “Throm!  Throm!  Throm!” they chant in unison. 

I ignore the sting of my cut and lunge at
him.  I cleave the air and meet his shield.  As my body is outstretched, Throm wastes no time and lances the span between us.  The tip of his blade drags across my stomach. 

I immediately feel a warm gush flow from the wound.  Blood seeps from it and wets my shirt.  Seeing this, the audience becomes frantic
with feverish delight.  Their chaotic excitement fills the space. 

My vision doubles and becomes bleary. 
The noise surges and returns in intervals and I fear I will fall.  From the corner of my eye, I see Will leap from the ground and charges Throm.  Oliver joins his brother, and Riley and June follow.  I want to scream for him to stop, for all of them to stop, but all I can focus on is the sudden weight of my sword.  I look at it; follow the silvery line of it until my gaze lands on an image of Throm with his blade held high over his head and June just below it.  He is about to cleave her in half. 

The sight jolts me into action.  With a war cry, I pitch my arms forward, driving my
sword high, into his raised arm.  My blade only reaches his wrist, but severs his hand from that point.  The hand, along with his sword, crashes to the sand below.  June races behind me, and Throm howls out, a bloodcurdling sound that shrivels my intestines.

Every Urthmen watching is on
his or her feet.  They boo and hiss.  When Throm spins toward me though, they clap and seem to regain some of their enthusiasm, but not for long.  Will leaps onto Throm’s back and struggles for a moment before his blade is at the beast’s throat.  He slices it open and both he and Throm fall to the ground. 

Utter silence blankets the audience when Will stands and Throm does not.  I scan hideous face after hideous face and see that each is frozen in shock.  A flurry of activity nearly kicks up a sandstorm at the
edge of the arena floor across from us.  Within no time, doors open and a half-dozen Urthmen charge from them.  They are not as big as Throm, but are covered in armor and intimidating, nevertheless. 

A stream of tears spill
s from each eye and down my cheeks when I look at them then to my wounds.  I know we will die, that we will not overcome the odds.  Still, I raise my sword.  My strength is draining fast and blood seeps from my cuts. 

“I’m sorry,” I say to Will then turn to June.  “I love you, June.  I’m so sorry I failed you.” 

June drops her sword and runs to me.  She is sobbing when she says, “Good-bye, Avery.  I love you, too.”

“Kill these humans!” the announcer who introduced Throm says.  At his urging, all six of the Urthmen take off toward us. 

In my periphery, I see two Urthmen leap from the stands to the arena floor.  Dread courses through my veins and pumps in time with my chaotic heartbeat.  I assume the Urthmen intend to aid those headed our way, and that we will not even make it until the six advancing descend on us.  They wear hooded cloaks and as they draw nearer, I see them pull their robes from their bodies then grip their chins and peel the skin from their faces.  June shrieks and buries her head in my torso.  My eyes dart from the pair that jumped from their seats to the others approaching.  I don’t know who I should be more afraid of. 

W
hen my gaze returns to the two who shed their cloaks, I see that what they pulled was skin, just not their own.  Human faces are revealed.  Both appear to be around my age.  One is tall with dark skin and equally dark eyes, and the other is pale like me with sandy colored hair. 

The blonde boy pulls two objects from a leather strap at his waist as he runs toward the impending conflict.
He aims both at the Urthmen.  A loud popping sounds from both devices.  I flinch and instinctively cover June’s head.  Peeking, though, I see two of the six Urthmen fall.  Elation twirls in my gut.  I am glad to see them die.  My eyes are pinned to the two humans that sprang from the stands.  My gaze moves to the large man with the dark skin.  He holds a sizable mallet.  He swings it with ease and slams it into the head of another Urthman, whipping his head back with a loud
snap
.  The blonde boy yells, “Now!” and the dark-skinned man drops the mallet and pulls out another contraption.  Additional popping sounds ring out, and two more Urthmen crumple. 

Everything happens so fast.  I am dizzy from blood loss and s
hock, from fear and adrenaline.  Grotesque faces grimace all around me, a macabre sight that chills me to my bones. 

Will and I should be taking cover, but with a hostile crowd and no other way out, I doubt cover exists at this point.  Instead, we h
uddle together, Will and I use our bodies to shield the children. 

“Are those guns?” Will shouts to me and asks. 

“I don’t know,” I answer, though it looks as if that is exactly what the one guy is using.  It doesn’t seem possible that they would have guns.  From what I was told, there hasn’t been a working gun in the hands of any creature for more than a hundred years. 

“Whatever it is they’re using is stopping the Urthmen,” Will replies. 

As soon as the words leave him though, the blonde boy holsters the weapons.  They appear to be malfunctioning and he is forced to use two daggers he pulls from sheaths on either leg when the final Urthmen standing is upon him. 

The crowd waits with bated breath for the blonde to fall.  But as soon as the Urthman is close and swing
s his sword, the blonde ducks.  When he springs up, he rams his daggers beneath his armor and turns the blades.  The dark-skinned boy with him fumbles with a device in his hands, and before long, a thunderous explosion booms and rocks the ground beneath my feet.

“Oh gosh!  What’s happening?” June screams. 

Riley is crying and Oliver’s entire body quakes.  In the distance, I see that the far wall, near the place where the six Urthmen charged from, has crumbled.  The outside world is visible. 

The Urthmen in the stands clamber
as panic and confusion sweeps through the stadium. 

“What do we do?” Will asks.

“We need to get out of here!  Come on kids!” I grab June’s hand and look around.  All I see are Urthmen clustered together and bumping into one another.  Chaos has overtaken the entire arena.  I look away from them and search for a way out.

As I do, I notice the blonde boy is racing toward us.  He reaches us quickly and grips my arm.  “Let’s go, now!  There’s no time to waste!” he shouts.  He tugs me toward the gaping hole in the stadium wall.  I do not know who he is or where he came from.  All I know is that right now, he has a plan to get us out of the stadium in which we almost met our demise.  He
clutches my hand, and I let him lead me, all of us, out into the brilliant daylight.

Chapter 11

I struggle to run.  The gash at my stomach complains at my every movement, but staying in the arena and being slaughtered by Urthmen is not an option.  Instead, I cling to the hand that holds mine like a lifeline and allow myself to be led through the hole blown in the wall.

Once outside, I am drenched in sunlight. 
Warm rays kiss every inch of my exposed skin and heat the clothing I wear.  A cool breeze gusts and feels as if it is blowing straight through me.  The effect of the conflicting sensations would be pleasant were it not for the fact that blood continues to flow from my midsection. 

I try to continue, but it is an effort.  “I
-I don’t know if I can keep going,” I say.  My voice sounds thin; even I can hear it.  It echoes how I feel. 

“Come on!” Will urges me.  “Don’t give up now!  We have to keep going!”

Slightly muffled and distorted, Will’s words sound as if they are echoing from the end of a long tube.  I place my hand atop the wet spot on my shirt then pull it away and look at it.  My palm, along with every other finger, are coated in bright red.  “Oh no,” I say and feel my legs begin to give out from beneath me. 

A dizzying rush of color, the pastel blue of the sky, the soft gold of the sunlight and the rich green of the trees in the distance, rushes at me in a kaleidoscopic jumble.  I start to falter.  Darkness teases in my peripheral vision and I feel myself fall.  But before I hit the ground, strong arms circle my waist
and grapple me, settling me to a seated position gently.