Sapient Salvation 1: The Selection (Sapient Salvation Series) (15 page)

A light in the ceiling shone on the wall, illuminating what appeared to be large tiles stacked on top of each other in two columns. The tiles were blank. Then they all blinked, and images appeared on them. I sucked in a quick breath. Each tile had the likeness of an Obligate’s face, with his or her name underneath.

It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing. I found my own tile in the column on the right, the fourth down from the top. Kalindi’s face was at the head of the column. Next was Meribel, and then a girl named Cheytan. Britta was immediately after me, in fifth place. Sixth was Larisa, the unfortunate one who had been caught talking to Orion earlier. Four more female faces followed Larisa’s tile.

I was fourth out of ten female Obligates. That seemed good, but was it? I wanted to twist around and search for Iris in the crowd, to seek her reassurance, but I resisted. Murmurs of conversation swept through the audience.

Yes, it had to be good. I was ranked ahead of two of the women who had been trained for this competition—Britta and Larisa. Surely that was at least a small achievement?

I glanced over at the men’s rankings. Orion was really the only one I knew at all, and he was ranked second. I found I felt just as pleased for him as I did for myself.

When I finally dropped my eyes to the throne, my heartbeat seemed to pause for a moment. The alien Lord was leveling his penetrating gaze right at me. One corner of his mouth stretched in the barest hint of a half-smile, and then his attention flicked elsewhere.

I forced myself to take a breath, dizzy with the sudden conviction that Lord Toric had been trying to communicate something to me. There was no time to ponder it further. Akantha was speaking again.

“Fifteen minutes from now, the first challenge of this Tournament of the Offered will commence.” She smiled and raised her arms to the crowd as if announcing that everyone in the audience was getting a free week’s worth of food. Her gaze skipped across us. “The Offered will follow me to be transported to the challenge site.”

My stomach knotted and my heart punched against my chest. Would it be something like Iris’s challenge? Or worse?

Akantha brusquely walked forward and cut through the middle of our line, and we all turned to trail after her. My eyes sought Iris in the crowd, and I located her sitting toward the back of the harem section. She gave me a firm nod and an encouraging smile.

I took a deep breath and remembered I needed to look for Orion. We hadn’t been given permission to speak to each other yet, but I slowed and let a few Obligates pass me until he caught up to me. I glanced up at him; he winked and quirked a tight smile at me. His gaze lingered, and I wondered if his guide had advised him to team up with another Obligate, too.

I’d expected to have to walk for a bit and eventually board some sort of vehicle that would take us to the site of the contest. When the Obligates ahead of me turned into a small room not far from the throne room, I nearly stumbled as my shoes scuffed to a halt.

In front of us was the dizzying, blinding swirl of an open portal.

Akantha stood to one side and swept her icy gaze over us. “This is the way to your first challenge. To conquer it, you simply must survive the night. As soon as you pass through the portal, you are free to speak to each other. Let the challenge begin.”

11

Maya

A STIFF, COOL breeze hit my skin before my eyes fully recovered from the bright light of the portal. I took in strange smells and the touch of crisp air on my face. Blinking spots from my vision, I immediately noticed the low angle of the sun—it seemed to be evening wherever we were. I had no idea if we were still on Calisto or had passed through the portal to some other world.

There were a few spindly trees nearby. Old wood creaked under my feet, and I looked down to see that we stood on a platform that was fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. Strange calls of birds and other animals sounded all around us.

I whirled, looking for Orion. Finding him behind me, I clutched at his arm. “Will you team with me? Our odds might be better if we work tog—”

My hasty plea ended in a shriek as the platform under us snapped loudly and then tilted. My arms flailed as I reflexively struggled for balance and screamed again. Just before I pitched over the edge, a strong hand clamped around my upper arm and pulled me to safety.

I looked up into Orion’s blanched face. He had a hold on one of the support posts of the platform with one hand, and gripped me with the other.

“We need to get off this thing; it’s going to collapse any second,” he said.

I nodded breathlessly, vaguely registering his use of “we” and hoping it meant he’d accepted my proposition.

A terrified scream and plea for help came from the other end of the platform. The dry, splintering platform had broken away from one of the four uprights, but a scrap of a plank still hung on the post. An Obligate balanced on it, her arms wrapped around the post.

“Pull me over, please!” the girl was begging the nearest Obligates—Cheytan and Britta.

Britta started to reach across the gap to extend a hand to the girl, but Cheytan swatted her hand away. “Leave her! We can’t take any more weight on this side.”

Cheytan was probably right—many Obligates were on their hands and knees clinging to the floor planks to keep from sliding off as the platform creaked and sagged. Still, her heartless tone chilled me.

The other Obligates were talking over each other, wondering where we were, why there wasn’t a ladder down. A couple were whimpering or staring silently with wide, shocked eyes.

“Can you make it over to that branch?” Orion asked in my ear.

I followed his gaze to a tall, thin tree, and nodded. We shifted around so I was nearest the tree. I stood on the edge of the plank, balancing with Orion’s hand to steady me. The branch I was aiming for required a three-foot jump, which I knew I could make. My bigger concern was whether it would hold my weight.

The platform shifted again, the broken side dropping another couple of feet, and everyone shrieked. I grabbed the support post to keep from toppling backward, found my balance, and jumped.

My stomach hit the branch, my arms wrapping over it. The branch bent and bobbed under my weight, but it held. I quickly swung my feet up and shimmied toward the trunk.

Before I could move to the other side to leave the branch free for Orion, the platform cracked loudly. I turned to see Orion jump just as the plank below him gave way and the entire platform went crashing to the ground. He caught the branch with one hand but then slipped. I gasped as he fell, but he managed to grab the next branch down.

The tree pulled to one side under our weight, its trunk much more flexible than I’d expected. I scrambled around to try to balance out our weight.

Below, there was a cacophony of moans and screams. The Obligates who hadn’t already slipped off the platform had plunged to the ground when it fell, and the distance was far enough to break bones.

I squinted in the fading light. Through the trees a sliver of sun balanced on the horizon. Soon it would be dark. I looked around, trying to get a sense of the land. I caught a glimpse of a copse of trees about a third of a mile away that looked taller and much more sturdy than the ones that surrounded us.

I turned to Orion, who’d moved against the trunk. Our tree was still bobbing back and forth from the impact of his weight.

Before I could point out the trees in the distance, several fast-moving dark, bulky forms on the ground drew my attention.

Orion saw them, too. “What are those things?”

A giant hand seemed to squeeze my chest as I watched the creatures streak our way, straight toward the Obligates below.

I sucked in a lungful of air. “Run!” I screamed at them with everything I could muster. “Something’s coming!
Run
! Get off the ground!”

At least a few of them seemed to hear me. Some sprinted to nearby trees. Others moved much more slowly due to an array of serious injuries. One of the young men began climbing up one of the still-standing platform supports. A women lay on the ground with her arm twisted behind her at an angle that made my stomach lurch. It was Larisa. It looked like she hadn’t moved since she’d fallen.

The dark creatures came barreling in, and I watched in frozen horror. Two of the creatures went after Larisa. A couple of others chased Obligates who were still trying to get to safety. When I saw a flash of jagged teeth and a spray of dark liquid, I turned away and squeezed my eyes closed, praying that Larisa was already dead. My entire body began to tremble as the warm metallic smell of blood hit my nose.

“Maya.” Orion’s fingers dug into my shoulder. “We need to get away from here.”

I kept my eyes closed and shook my head violently. “We can’t go down there.”

“We can’t stay,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “Look.”

I opened my eyes and looked to where he was pointing. One of the creatures—it appeared to be something between a dog and a bear—had its front paws high up on the post where a boy was perched. The creature sniffed the air and then emitted a rumbling growl. It dropped back to the ground, but instead of slinking away, it gathered itself and then sprang into the air with surprising power.

It jumped high enough to nip at the boy’s foot, and he cried out and pulled himself another couple of feet up the post.

A new terror ripped through me. We weren’t high enough. I scrambled up a few branches with shaking, sweaty hands, but the tree’s trunk was too thin. It began to list to one side and then bend.

My mind raced as I clung to the trunk and swiveled my head around, looking for any escape, any greater safety.

“Orion, one of us has to get off this tree,” I said in a panicked whisper, not wanting to draw the attention of the snarling, snapping creatures. I pointed. “If we bend the trunk that way, I can jump to the next one. Then we can both climb a little higher.”

He nodded and came around to my side, and I crawled out onto a branch. We both threw our weight to my side, trying to bend the tree toward its neighbor. I leapt. Leaves and small branches whipped at my face and forearms, but I managed to hold on.

I turned to make sure Orion was still secure where he was. His gaze was cast down. Two of the creatures prowled around Orion’s tree, muscles rippling under their fur. Then one of them reared back and sprang. It didn’t hit anywhere near Orion, but the impact caused the trunk to jerk and swing violently.

Orion threw me a wild-eyed look as he hugged the trunk with his arms and legs. The two creatures prowled again, now circling my tree, too.

A strangled terrified scream ripped through the forest. Both of the creatures turned, half-rising on their hind legs, and then sped away toward the noise.

“Orion, there’s a better spot not far from here,” I hissed urgently.

I was already dropping down through the branches, my heart in my throat. I let go and flew down the last several feet, landing with a thud. I took off as fast as I could, heading in the direction of the copse of thick, sturdy trees I’d seen earlier.

When I heard pounding feet behind me, I turned only long enough to make sure it wasn’t the creature’s. Orion was a couple of yards back, and the boy who’d been on the post trailed behind him. I thought I caught a glimpse of one of the female Obligates following, too.

Sucking air into my lungs and pumping my elbows hard, I flew across the soft mat of dirt and decaying leaves. In a corner of my mind, I wondered if we were back on Earthenfell, if we’d passed through the portal only to be deposited in some strange corner of the Ten Protected Zones or maybe completely outside the shield.

But our location wasn’t important. All that mattered was staying alive.

Someone came up beside me, and I let out a strangled shriek of surprise and nearly stumbled to the ground. It was Britta, striding with an almost easy-looking gait.

“Where?” she panted, glancing at me.

I hesitated, remembering Iris’s warning. Would Britta betray me somehow? I decided to chance it. I pointed. “Those trees. We’ll be safer up there.”

When we reached the copse, I went right to the thickest tree, hoping Britta wasn’t going to try to challenge me for it. To my relief, she chose a different tree. Just as I pulled myself up to the first branch and swung my feet off the ground, Orion and the other boy raced up and began climbing trees, too.

Fragrant sap stuck to my hands, and I noticed these trees had bark similar to the conifers back home, but instead of needles they had long fronds that grew in bunches, like little hand brooms. I sent out a silent prayer that the sap wasn’t some sort of toxin like that of the poison vines back home. The last thing I needed was an inflamed, oozing rash.

When I got high enough to begin to feel some measure of safety, I paused to catch my breath and wipe my sweaty brow with my arm. The sun was down, but there was a bit of faint light left in the sky.

I began pulling at branches, bending them toward each other, twisting a few of them around and through each other to form a sort of loosely-woven seat. Not as sturdy as the nest Court and I had made in the orchard, but enough to cradle me so I could curl up and let my exhausted, shaking muscles rest.

I was tempted to call out to Orion but was too afraid of drawing the attention of the dog-bear creatures or any other predators that might be nearby.

I reached out, feeling for a small branch with enough heft that it might be used as a weapon but small enough that I could break it off. When I found one that seemed suitable, I held my breath and pulled at it. The crack as it snapped seemed to report out through the quiet forest like a gun shot. I froze, listening. The birds had silenced at some point, and I wasn’t sure what was more eerie—the quiet or the unfamiliar chirps and calls of before.

I stripped the leaves and smaller twigs from the stick, deciding that we definitely weren’t on Earthenfell. The creatures that hunted us, that had fallen upon Larisa and killed at least one other Obligate as I’d sped away, were not Earthen.