The peluda was back, interested in pursuing me for more than my flesh. It had cornered me between the crawl space to the gambling house and the tunnel entrance, eager to correct its past blunder of letting me go. I crashed to my knees, beginning the long crawl as water sloshed up to the walkway, agitated by the bumbling animals trying to make the last turn.
I would kill it someday once I decided if I was physically and emotionally capable.
I’d rethought my plan for the animals I sensed above many times. I was at a loss for what to do without anyone to help call out the stupidity or plausibility. So, I would ask the subject of my plans what they wanted instead. Animals may not be the best at thinking past their next meal and considering consequences, but it would help alleviate some of the stress I’d placed upon myself.
I smooshed together the separate tunnels masquerading as smaller pipes into a shaft wide enough to climb up small indents carved into the sides. The last impediment was the wall, which I shifted to the side as it was carved directly from the stone. I shuffled in sideways, unable to move more stone than that allowed out of fear of collapse.
A step to the side saved me from the tusk now occupying the space my neck had been in a moment before. The bulgasari’s large frame smashed into their wooden cage, thrashing and grunting, straining to stretch further and impale me. I reached out a finger to check how sharp the tusk was.
“Ow.” I quickly placed the finger, now with a droplet of blood oozing out into my mouth.
They backed away, realising their attack had missed and I wasn’t one of the guards here to torment them. I remembered the face he had in mind for the guard in case I had the chance to meet them later. His smell wasn’t as helpful, but I tried to remember it regardless.
The dreary subterranean room was lit by a single flickering lantern running low on oil by the door. The air was heavy and saturated with the smell of animals, their feed, excitement, and blood from the fights the night before. Sacks of feed were stacked in the middle, in clear sight of all the cages, taunting even those who only ate meat.
The walls were painted an off-putting green, possibly to mimic the colour of grass. Besides being an eyesore, this created another problem.
The paint on the wall I had come through lay in a powdery mess on the ground, having not moved with the stone. There were sections in the paint that were chipped or peeling, but nowhere as bad as this portion. It was clear something strange had happened where I’d made my passage.
I folded my arms, chewing on my bottom lip. How was I going to fix this?
The curiosity of the animals not slumbering distracted me from the problem. They were all contained in enclosures fit for purposes, tailor-made for their frame and abilities. The bulgasari’s cage was made of wood for their ability to manipulate metal, while the jackalopes were also encased in wood, but for their lack of strength.
Steel bars were used for those without mana and bulky bodies, and iron for those with mana. One stood out, made entirely of thick iron plating with a tiny hole to allow air inside. It was occupied by the large glowing yellow eye of a cat-sìth, the iron blocking any interaction between us.
I wanted to free all of them despite how impractical that was. The tunnel out was a vertical drop followed by a small crawl space. Even after making it out of that, the best escape was down another longer ladder to the cavern with the mineshaft to the forest.
Leaving my unrealistic goal and the paint issue for later, I went to the door that shared a hallway with the vault’s entrance. There was nothing beyond but darkness. I pulled out my lock-picking tools and looked back to the cages, contemplating which to open. The obvious answer was the cage with the creature I could best communicate with, but the eye, tracking my every move, gave me pause.
I conjured up some courage, stepping over chains and feedbags in the low light. The cages were crammed together, creating a tunnel of iron bars I needed to pass through to reach the door to the cat-sìth.
A leathery head stuck out from between the bars; a forked tongue flickered out to brush against my shoulder. I brought my arms inwards, moving closer to the sleeping creature in the other cage to avoid the teeth the tongue passed through.
The blocky lock that hung off the cage wasn’t designed for people like those in the palace. It was meant to stick a large slab of metal between animals without thumbs and their freedom. After a few minutes of fiddling with the tools, the lock clicked and crashed to the ground, my hands closing around the air above it.
I cringed at the thud it made when it crashed into the stone, freezing in place and staring at the door. Besides the curious animals awoken by the disturbance, no other investigation was made by any potential guards outside.
Letting out the breath I’d been holding, I refocused on the iron door. I swung it aside slightly since I only wanted to let enough mana in to communicate.
The cat-sìth pounced before I could get a thought out, bashing open the entrance into my face. I landed on my back, my head bouncing off the ground. A sleek black body crept over me, saliva dripping on me. I pressed my cheek to the ground to escape the jagged teeth and hot breath.
You know me, I pleaded. Remember from the arena? I’m here to help again.
I imagined my plans, letting them know what I wanted to do. The growling stopped, and I no longer felt like their next meal. She stepped over me, a paw the size of my head silently placed in my view, a swishing tail flicking me in the nose.
Help? She thought. Your kind’s cruelty truly has no limits.
“What?” I said, stunned at the reaction. I sat up, too dizzy to attempt standing after bashing my head.
Is this helping? Asking them if they want to leave. All they now dream of is wide open spaces, deep tunnels full of their kin, or clear rivers overflowing with food. You heartlessly taunt them with an unobtainable future. They are too simple to understand your limitations, little human.
“I helped you in the arena,” I countered.
A human who helps to encourage bloodshed simply for the sake of it? How…unique.
She settled on the floor, soaking up the mana in the air she’d been denied inside the iron box. The shadows played tricks on my eyes as her body seemed to morph into them, leaving her eyes visible, glinting in the faint light.
“You know I didn’t mean for you to kill her. I only meant to help you survive.”
Many pity us just like you do. Tell me, will you throw us scraps of food, wash us, or let us stretch our legs in your small enclosure of death to satisfy your guilt?… Will you free the others?
“No,” I said, getting to my feet and shuffling past the flickering tongue again. “I can’t free anyone…tonight.”
Then, I appreciate the chance to immerse myself in fresh mana, if nothing else.
“I could take one,” I said without thinking. “Show I can do it.”
She ignored me, grooming her fur instead as I found a rickety chair that creaked at my weight. They all stared at me, but the bulgasari was pushed against the wooden bars with their eyes locked on my pocket.
He wants the metal you keep in your clothing.
“I’m aware,” I said, thinking about whether to hand them over.
Ah, you can tell what the simple ones feel as well? Particular little human, aren’t you?
I shrugged. “Is that surprising, considering I talk with you?
The forest kin have a few that can manage that. There are enough in the cities that it wasn’t strange, but none I knew could speak with the tusked one.
I threw the steel tools in my pocket, more eager to observe how to manipulate metal again than get through the doorway tonight. He caught them in his mouth, the metal melting into a pool on his tongue.
It disappeared, reforming on the tip of his tusks. Now reinforced, he bashed against the enchanted wooden bars repeatedly, to no avail.
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“Stop,” I whispered harshly. “Stop! Get him to stop that.”
The cat-sìth let out a low growl behind me, the bulgasari halting moments away from another crash. We turned to the doorway as the enchantment field fell. The lock clicked seconds later.
The large cat in the middle of the room leapt into the shadows. Unconfident in replicating her feat, I ran and lay behind the bags of feed as the door banged open.
“Shut up! How many beatings does it take to learn?”
The door slammed shut. An orb of light sprung to life to chase away the shadows but flickered at all the iron in the room. I couldn’t see if it had exposed the feline or if the mage had noticed the open cage.
He stomped over to the bulgasari. The boots pounding against the floor came into view around my cover. They were scuffed black leather with torn beige pants settled around them. I slowly crawled backwards, begging him not to turn, and hid around the far side of the sacks.
He smacked a steel rod into the bars to force the bulgasari to back away. He walked around the cage while he prodded the trapped creature with a metal rod from his belt. A spell I quickly recognised tied together at the base of the steel; it sparked down its length, hitting the bulgasari with the full force of the lightning attack.
They didn’t have anywhere to retreat to and convulsed, emitting a high-pitched squeal. I was frozen in horror, reminded of my dealings with that same spell. I had merely begun considering what to do when another concentration of mana built up, but it wasn’t another spell.
The mage turned, also sensing it and took the strike of solid air in the chest. Its force bounced him off the cage and away from the recovering bulgasari looking to spear him. And right into the open maw that appeared from the shadows to latch around his throat.
The mage strengthened his body and neck. The jaws closed, her teeth steadily sliding deeper until a crunch. He fought back despite his neck snapping, punching against his attacker’s face and reaching for the metal rod that had rolled out of his grip.
The cat-sìth ignored the flailing fists striking her snout and shook him about until he stilled, blood already pooling under his body.
I stood from my hiding place, unsure what to do with my shaking hands. “No, no, no…”
You show dismay at the death of your brethren but not our pain?
“No, you foolish cat,” I hissed, lowering my voice after glancing back to the door. “What’s going to happen when they find the body?”
There are plenty here who could use a fresh kill. They simply need to be freed.
The predator licked the blood off their chops as the denizens of the basement looked at the cooling corpse, hunger radiating off the predators.
“Use?” The cat-sìth was wrong about the reason for my dismay. My actions led to him entering the room when he otherwise wouldn’t, but it was his fault he died. I would have even tried to save him if he’d entered to provide water and food.
However, as he demonstrated, he was the same guard the bulgasari had been scared of. Instead of remembering his features, I was scrubbing his vacant, bloody expression from my memories.
His death was quick while the pain he inflicted still lingered. I was dismayed at the consequences to follow, not his demise.
She finished cleaning off the blood and prowled towards me. I stood still, reading through the predatory display to see they had no intention of attacking.
Free them.
I didn’t acquiesce out of intimidation but because I had no better idea. Leaving him on the floor was possibly the worst option, but I could also drop the mage into the sewers. I knew of at least one creature down there that could help me discard him.
However, it wouldn't be to them if I let him get eaten. The issue was I no longer had my tools.
“Can I have the metal pieces back?”
It took some cajoling from me and the cat-sìth once she understood the importance of the tools. I got back lumps of metal that bore no resemblance to the original lock picks. My first attempts to manipulate it back into a useful form liquified the metal.
It dripped through my fingers like thick soup onto the floor, collecting into a pool that drained towards the blood.
I jammed a finger into the groove it flowed through to get another chance at solidifying the steel. I eventually got it to resemble clay that I could clumsily smoosh into a mockery of its original shape.
It could still get the job done, so I went about unlocking cages. This included the goanna whose tail had dented Petrick’s shield in the area. They viciously tore at the body. A quinkana, whose stubby legs had them low to the ground, locked their long jaw around a leg and rolled to rip it off. Their long, reptilian tail almost caught my leg in the manoeuvre, and I stepped away from the carnage. There was a fight for the thigh that the cat-sìth won, stealing it away to gnaw on in the corner.
I avoided watching but endured the crunching and heightened emotions flooding the room. I locked the door to ensure no one else saw this since they may end up in a similar position.
An over-eager creature tried to instigate the others to have me as their next meal. Before I had to persuade them not to, the cat-sìth growled from the corner, ending the discussion.
The last creatures to stop ripping sinew from bone were a pair of painted dogs scavenging the last pieces of meat. Instead of returning to their cages with the scraps, they lay down groggy after their meal. Shreds of the mage’s clothing were left blood-soaked on the stone floor.
“Can you help me get them to return…Evie?” I asked, trying out a name instead of referring to her as the big cat.
Evie?
“Short for ‘eviscerator,’ that’s what they called you at the area unless you have a name already or took a liking to the foolish cat.”
I care little for your kind’s names.
She appeared dismissive, but I could tell she liked the name, at least more than being called foolish.
I sat on the feed I’d hid behind, lost about what to do next. The wall behind the bulgasari where I’d come through had a new problem besides the lack of paint. Four groves were carved into the wall from the edge of the slashes that had hit the mage. No one was going to bother questioning the paint with those there.
It was a shame I couldn’t leave it as a distraction since I’d have to repair it.
“What now?” I asked the room of lounging predators. I’d come to the sewers as an escape from staring at the ceiling and worrying about the new complications in my life. The duke had been over-attentive, inviting me to dinner after yesterday's lunch and every meal today. I’d accepted but grown increasingly tired of the forced conversations.
This wasn’t the stress-free trip I had anticipated.
You were going to prove to us we could be freed?
“Still? After this?” They were going to be extra attentive after mysteriously losing a guard. Taking one of the animals seemed ludicrous under normal circumstances already.
Evie stretched, her back in the air and front paws reaching out with extended claws that scratched the stone. Her yawn revealed red-stained teeth as she started to circle my seat. I resisted the urge to turn my head to follow her path around me despite her disappearing from my senses almost entirely. Her mana was evenly distributed over her body to blend with the surroundings, but it was still moving within a contained space that I could discern since I knew where to search.
She stopped. You’re not of the forest kin.
It wasn’t a question, yet I still answered. “No”
How do you speak with me then? What’s wrong with your essence?
I shrugged, not having an adequate answer. There’d been no mana in my necklace the whole time, and I wasn’t sure what finally caught her attention. “I could try taking one of the jackalopes?”
And bring it back to us.
“Now, who’s being cruel.”
How will I know you haven’t killed them?
I rolled my eyes at the distrust, wondering what I’d done to deserve it. They didn’t see me as an individual. Individualism didn’t exist in the wild. They didn’t distinguish between the members of a species, only if they were dangerous or not.
People were the most dangerous, possibly behind a certain cat-sìth for some. I wasn’t being evaluated for my personal dead, but rather those of my kind. And from what I’d witnessed in a single night, it was a long list of discretions.
“Alright, I’ll bring them back.”
We herded reluctant animals back into the cages, and I found closing the locks much easier than opening them. Evie stayed out until I selected one of the smaller jackalopes to take with me, cradling it awkwardly in my arms.
When I set them down to lock Evie’s cage, they ran off, and I had to corner them to pick them back up. Smoothing the marks on the wall was more straightforward than pooling enough water to wash out the blood, but the missing paint and clothing were still an issue.
I nudged the shreds of cloth into the drain with my foot and found a set of keys that I pocketed. Then, I shifted the wall, causing the paint to push together and flake off. It looked worse than before but didn’t have recognisable entrance and claw markings.
I was extra thorough in masking my tunnel on the way down, making the crawl back with one hand while the other cradled a disgruntled critter. No peluda was waiting for me on the way out, and I tightened my grip on the jackalope after they got a peek at my thoughts of the monster.
My usual rat sewer guide was still asleep in my room. I regretted not waking them when I snuck out in the middle of the night. I backtracked to a tunnel recognised so I could return to the ladder down to the cavern, finding wooden boards blocking the entrance.
I moved them aside and started the long, tedious journey down. The jackalope was frustrated, not understanding that they could be dropped and fall to their death if they kept struggling. Their fear of not being close to solid ground overpowered their reason and made my job more difficult.
The tunnel had been unblocked, yet the tracks were still in tatters, unable to take a minecart across that could have made my journey quicker. It slowly slopped upwards and, after an indeterminable amount of time, ended in a blockage. There was a similar ladder to the entrance going to the surface.
Luckily, it was shorter, and I pushed up a wooden hatch that let leaves and twigs fall past me. Seeing the undergrowth with the moonlight filtering past the canopies of the giant red forest trees instead of mana pulses distracted me enough to loosen my grip.
The jackalope used its powerful hind legs to thump my chest repeatedly and leapt out of my arms, dashing off into the bushes.
“Wait! I need to take you back.”
That made them run faster.