The Unclaimed (University of the Gods Trilogy Book 1) (10 page)

“You can’t tell anyone”, she said quietly, almost imploringly. “This is dangerous. I am not sure what to do with this but people won’t be happy to find out that I am… not an Unclaimed.”

She felt him looking at her as if the answer lay in her face somewhere. And maybe it did. Maybe he had an idea who her parent was, maybe it was something else he was looking for. She didn’t dare meet his eye because she was afraid to see pity there. Or worse: rejection. After all, he had been raised to believe he was something special. One of nine. And suddenly there was one more. Two, actually, but she didn’t want to tell him about Hector just yet.

“I won’t say anything”, he said and she believed him.

She withdrew her hand and turned away, still shaking from the revelation that she was supposed to be a demigod.

“I think that the piece of metal once belonged to something big, alive”, she said to change the subject and Ben, who had let his hand hover in the air for a moment, let it drop and murmured his agreement.

“The scratches in the rock are way too even to be natural”, Cassandra continued. “Whatever made this was big and strong and was using something like metallic claws to make those scratches in the walls.”

“I don’t think it is the same creature as the one that attacked the girls though”, Cassandra said.

Ben nodded, scratching his head.

“You are right”, he said. “The one that killed the girls on the beach didn’t have claws or we would have seen an entirely different kind of mess. And it went directly for the kill. The one with the claws seems to be more careful.”

“Or just less hungry”, Cassandra said and bared her teeth when they heard the strange sound again.

This time, it sounded like it was much closer.

“Let’s go”, Ben said and started running.

Cassandra jumped after him and followed him running across the rocks at almost the same speed. They arrived at the top of the cliffs together, out of breath and repeatedly checking that the creature that had made the terrible sound hadn’t followed them.

“Do you think we should talk to the dean about this?” Cassandra asked, panting, but Ben shook his head.

“We’ve talked about it and I will let him know what we found here”, he said and bit his lips.

Cassandra nodded.

“Alexander is quite adamant about it”, Ben said. “he said that it doesn’t feel safe for and that it should be their top priority to find out what is going on.”

“And what did Heracles have to say about that?”

“He said not to worry”, Ben said grimly. “That no one has ever been harmed before and that this wouldn’t happen again.”

“Tell that to the dead girls’ families”, Cassandra replied acidly. “I am sure it will be a consolation to them.”

She started to walk away from him. She knew it wasn’t his fault but she was angry nevertheless at what she felt was an easy dismissal of the dangers from Heracles’ side after all. The hydra, the monster in the water, the creature with the claws. It wasn’t a simple coincidence that they were all here on this island. Someone had called them. And someone other than the creature in the water was responsible for the girls’ death, Cassandra was sure about that. And she would find out who.

Cassandra suddenly felt tired to the bone. She turned around to see what Ben was doing but he had disappeared. She slowly jogged back home but it was too late to go back to bed. The sun was already rising. Instead of lying down, Cassandra went directly to the shower and then on to training. There would be time for sleep later.

They had settled well into their new life. Cassandra especially liked the regularity of it – getting up at six, going for a run with Hector and afterwards through a series of complicated movements that Hippolyta had started to teach them which were called katas. Kata simply meant “form” in Japanese but the katas were anything but simple. Each form asked them to imagine what it would be like to be attacked and how they would react to that attack. Hippolyta said that it was imperative that they maintained perfect form throughout, that each step and turn was an attempt at flawlessness but even though the forms consisted of predefined motions and stances, Cassandra felt they were different each time she did them, depending on how she felt that day, how well she was able to visualize the attack or – when pairing up with Hector for some of the forms – how fast she was able to detect his intentions and react to them.

Afterwards they always had breakfast with the rest of the house and then went on to their daily training sessions, only interrupted twice a week by theoretical lessons in tactics with Ariadne. When they came back in the evening, dirty, tired and sweaty from a long day in the sandy arena, they sat down for dinner together again and exchanged the news of the day. It had only been a few weeks now, but it seemed like she had known Jim, Summer and Charlie all her life. She wouldn’t go so far as to say that she trusted them as much as she trusted her brother and sister but she liked them, and no place had ever felt as much like home as the little house in which they now lived. Pandora and Hector seemed to feel the same way and although they didn’t see Pandora for most of the day, Cassandra was confident that she had settled in well, too. And she had managed to stay out of trouble, at least as far as Cassandra knew.

The daily training sessions with Ajax and Hippolyta were a much bigger challenge than Cassandra had expected. She had thought that they had come with a good set of fighting skills, trained reflexes and a vast knowledge of fighting techniques. It turned out that they had merely scratched the surface. Their father back at the Orphanage had taught them to fight, attack and most of all to survive, but – with hindsight she realized – that their training had lacked a certain level of sophistication.

More often than not, Cassandra found herself outwitted by a Claimed who, with a simple motion of his sword and a quick step to the side, lifted up her sword, threw her to the ground or broke through her defenses. Cassandra was frustrated because she knew that if she were allowed to fight her way, she would have won most of the fights but Hippolyta had made it very clear that she would not accept anything like throwing a training knife at someone’s nose or to display unsportsmanlike behavior in any other way. Sometimes when Cassandra watched the demigods move with swift and smooth perfection and saw that even Bear was able to make his heavy bulk shift with some semblance of grace, she felt frustrated that her movements were so simple and seemed coarse compared to the others.

Hippolyta was an excellent teacher. She mostly trained them in hand-to-hand combat, self-defense and sword training while Ajax trained them in the other weapons and was responsible for their muscle built-up and stamina. Even though he wasn’t exactly friendly, he wasn’t a bad teacher either Cassandra had to admit. But she definitely preferred Hippolyta and was always glad when she ended up in her team.

Hippolyta, who never wore anything but a short brown leather dress and thin leather bands that wound themselves around her arms and legs, relied on speed and cunning while Ajax mostly propagated the use of muscle and force. Now and again, Cassandra wondered which one of them would win in a fight between the two, but couldn’t decide. But most of the time she didn’t have time to think anyway.

“The way you move your feet is equally important as what you do with your hands and arms”, Hippolyta cried while making a boy called Hunter who was twice as big as her and one of the remaining Claimed contestants retreat with blows that rained down as hard as hail. “Move your feet, Hunter. Faster. Use your head not just your muscles. That goes for all of you.”

Hippolyta always laid the greatest importance on their legwork. She said that they already had enough strength to overcome almost anyone but that the real art lay in putting your feet in the right place at the right time. Hippolyta’s legwork was so fast that it was sometimes hard to see what she had done exactly but still Cassandra tried to memorize every stance, every shift of her weight, every movement of her feet, even the way she held her sword so that one day she could maybe do them too.

At the same time, Hippolyta made them do the smallest of movements a hundred times over. And then again. And whenever they started complaining, she made them do them again, for a whole day then. But sometimes she also let them just fight. They went at each other, swinging and slicing to the left, to the right, turning, stabbing, sidestepping. Cassandra tried to follow the rhythm of the other fighters which mostly ended in her getting bruises. After the hundredth time that Wolf had beaten her to the ground and Cassandra felt like she had broken a rib or two, Hippolyta crouched down next to her and told her to stop thinking so much.

“But you said to use our heads”, Cassandra retorted and held her right side which felt like it was going to split.

“Yes, but now you are using just your head. You are overthinking every movement instead of trusting your body and mind. I heard you were doing the katas in the morning before you come here. Use them. Try to combine their easy flow with what I am teaching you here. Then, maybe, you might not be entirely wasting my time here.”

“Encouraging”, Cassandra muttered through gritted teeth and Hippolyta extended her hand to help her up.

“It is, isn’t it”, Hippolyta said and smiled. “And now stop complaining and start doing your job.”

With that, she left Cassandra to Wolf who made the rest of her day pure hell.

It was during one of the few training sessions with Ajax that he introduced them to stick fighting. It looked harmless enough at the beginning, but Cassandra soon came to realize that the short wooden sticks that were about the length of a sword could do just as much damage as a real one. If handled correctly, they carried a force that easily broke bones.

They had to put on heavy protective armor to shield their arms, shins and torsos and everyone had to wear a helmet with a kind of see-through gauze at the front. Still, Bear managed to break someone’s leg and Wolf sent a girl to the infirmary with severely sprained ribs during their first session. Ajax just laughed, telling them to be faster next time.

Cassandra, who had never fought with a stick, felt constrained by the unfamiliar weight of the protective gear and the uncomfortable feeling of not being able to see clearly because her vision was impaired by the helmet. She was still trying to figure out how to move without tipping over and at least evade some of the worst blows when she was called on to fight Bear while Hector was paired up with Wolf. When she asked Ajax to at least explain the basics, he only laughed.

“Go figure it out yourself”, he said reaching for his nose and Cassandra knew that today would be time for payback.

Cassandra gripped her stick harder and made sure that the gloves on her hands sat tightly and got ready for Bear, using the stabilizing techniques she had learned from Hippolyta.

“That won’t help you”, Bear hissed and immediately started attacking her sideways with strong, deliberate blows, each of them aiming at breaking something.

Thanks to her greatly improved legwork, Cassandra was able to evade some of the blows but soon enough she felt her strength run out while Bear hadn’t even broken a sweat. On the contrary, he seemed to become faster and more brutal with every blow. Bear finally managed to break through the lower part of the protective helmet and almost crushed her larynx in the process. Cassandra threw her head to the side at the last possible moment and stumbled back, as far away from him as possible.

Cassandra threw away the stick and held up her arms to protect herself, all the while crying out for Bear to stop. But Bear had a crazy glow in his eyes and wouldn’t listen. He kept on beating her and she fleetingly wondered whether he was trying to kill her, when Ben and Wolf pulled him off of her. They hauled a screaming and thrashing Bear away from her towards the outer walls of the training arena. Bear screamed at them to let him go and it took Hector’s and Sol’s extra-strength to keep him from going at Cassandra again. When bloody foam started to form around his mouth, Ajax came up to him, took him by the throat and slammed his head against the wall. Surprised, the others let go and Bear crumpled in on himself. Ajax bent down to check Bear’s pulse and then told three of the Claimed to get Bear to the infirmary.

“Stop staring”, Ajax shouted at them, “we are finished for today. Go home.”

Cassandra, who was still recovering from her encounter with Bear, wondered whether the others had seen what she had seen: She had fought Bear before but today had been different. Even in terms of demigod-strength he had been a little too strong. It could have been with the help of magic but Cassandra thought it was more probable that it was some kind of drug. Judging by the crazy glow in his eyes, that didn’t seem entirely impossible.

She reached for her throat. It hurt pretty bad. Hector, who seemed to have taken a good beating too, limped over and helped her up.

“Bastards”, Cassandra groaned and carefully tried to take a step forward.

Hector made a sound that Cassandra identified as a chuckle. Then he held up his thumb and pointed toward Wolf.

“Are you serious?” Cassandra replied hoarsely. “You mean to say that Wolf was ok today?”

Hector shrugged. Cassandra hesitated. Coming to think of it, training with Wolf had never been a piece of cake but as far as she remembered, he had never intentionally tried to hurt her. Quite unlike Bear.

Suddenly, Ben was standing beside her.

“I think it is time for our first training session”, he said and watched Hector help her out of the protective gear.

Cassandra drew in her breath when Hector loosened the one around her ribcage.

“Looks like you could use some instructions”, Ben said darkly.

Hector had lifted her shirt, revealing a small bruise on her ribcage that was already turning a darker shade of purple. Cassandra tried not to feel too exposed when she saw Ben checking out the damage to her ribs and indicated to him that it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

“Do I have a choice?” she said through gritted teeth and moved away from her brother to cover herself again.

“Tonight at eight”, Ben said darkly. “Our training quarters. I’ll let the guards know that you’ll be expected. Any complaints go straight to Alexander.”

With that he turned around and walked away.

“Stop smirking”, Cassandra said and Hector now openly grinned at her. “How am I supposed to do this with three broken ribs.”

Hector shook his head, indicating that his sister was many things but not seriously hurt. Then he raised an eyebrow.

“No, it’s not going to be fun training with him”, Cassandra said, straightening her shirt once again and walking away from Hector to hide her discomfort at imagining herself at going into close combat with Ben. They had never been paired up so far and she wondered what it would be like to have to fight against him. She guessed she would find out soon enough.

When they arrived back home, Pandora wasn’t there. Somehow, Cassandra had a feeling that this might mean trouble. Summer stuck her head out of the kitchen and told them that Pandora had gone to the library to look up some stuff for her class the next day. Cassandra relaxed but still had to fight the urge to go to the library to check that her sister was really there. She followed Hector into the kitchen where they were greeted by the smell of onions and roasted potatoes.

Summer smiled broadly at Hector and with a start, Cassandra noticed that Hector smiled back shyly. Cassandra used her upcoming training session as an excuse and went for a short shower, asking Summer to give her something for the pain later. It wasn’t too bad but she wanted to be free from it when she faced Ben. When she came back, Charlie and Jim had joined the other two and Hector was sitting a little too close to Summer who didn’t seem to mind though.

“Nervous about your first training session with Shadow boy?” Charlie said when he saw Cassandra trying to pick up a potato and failing miserably because her hand was shaking so hard.

Charlie, at his worst again, smiled at her with rotten teeth and suddenly Cassandra was glad she hadn’t eaten anything yet. Still, she attempted to reach for another one and this time managed to put it into her mouth.

“That thing in the bathroom with water coming out of it is called a shower”, Cassandra said and felt the potato turn into an unappetizing mass in her mouth.

She swallowed hard and pushed away her plate. She wasn’t hungry. Not anymore. Fortunately, Summer didn’t notice because she was too busy chattering away at Hector who seemed to be content listening to her and from time to time accepted another heap of potatoes.

“Cute, aren’t they”, Charlie said loudly and Cassandra kicked him under the table, immediately regretting it because it felt like she had hit a tree trunk.

“Who is?” Jim said, wiping away the butter that was running down the side of his mouth.

“Leave them alone”, Cassandra hissed, ignoring Jim who seemed to be clueless about what was going on between Hector and Summer, and Charlie raised one of his currently very bushy eyebrows.