The Arena (Ultimate Soldier Book 1) (3 page)

The human screamed incoherently as a wolf snapped and caught a pant leg in his teeth. There was the sound of ripping fabric, and the figure slipped, grasping desperately at the rock face.

“Hey! Up here!” Lila shouted, hoping to draw the attention of both wolves and human. She whistled loudly, pulling rocks and tufts of grass from the crumbly cliff beside the tunnel, throwing everything into the seething black mass at the cliff base. None of them even looked up. She ran to the fire and grabbed several burning branches, returning to hurl them at the wolves. The first stick connected and animal screams joined those of human. The wolf yelped pitifully and fled toward the forest, sparks flaring in his fur.

One by one Lila threw the other sticks end over end, striking a wolf more often than not. By now most of them were realizing that this prey was too much trouble and ran yelping back toward the trees. Lila's heart clenched when she found her arms empty, only coals left in the fire, and one wolf still fixated on the human figure clinging to the cliff.

At that moment, Lila made a decision that she would later realize was one of the stupidest she had ever made. Jerking her knife from her belt, she scrambled down the cliff to the ground and pelted toward the wolf, yelling at the top of her lungs. The confused wolf suddenly had two targets―the one who smelled of blood, and the loud one with the weapon. As Lila lunged tward the great black creature, he turned to her with a snarl and she barely had time to register the significance of the muscles bunching in his hindquarters before he snarled and leapt into the air. His jaws opened wide, ready to crush her head in their grip.

Her yell turning to a shriek, Lila held her knife out in front of her, bracing herself against the ground. As the wolf's jump came to its inevitable conclusion, Lila's knife plunged through the roof of his mouth and into his brain, so deep that his teeth reached almost to her elbow. He died instantly, his body knocking her to the ground with such force that for a moment her head spun and she couldn't breathe. As soon as the world stopped moving, she squirmed out from under the hot, furry body and ran to where the trembling human figure still clung to the rocky ledge just a few feet above her head.

"Hurry, they could come back!" She called up. The human half slid, half climbed to the ground and for the first time Lila saw the face of a young woman not much older than herself. "Come on, hurry," she urged, pulling the other girl's arm over her shoulders and helping her to the base of the ladder. She wasn't quite sure how, but despite the other girl's damaged ankle they both managed to climb the rungs until they reached the lip of the tunnel. Once they were both safely inside, Lila turned to ask one of the many questions boiling in her mind...only to catch the girl and lower her to the ground when she passed out.

For a moment, Lila was too stunned to do anything besides sit on her heels and stare at the young woman lying on the concrete in front of her. She had never seen anyone without the white or slightly tanned skin her family and Protector had possessed. The young woman's skin was dark with a hint of yellow, her eyes elongated and slanted. Her shoulder-length hair was pitch black and straight where it wasn't matted with leaves and sticks. Her clothes had seen better days, the cloth was too thin to be practical and was ripped and frayed. The purple blouse was of a finer weave and style than anything Lila had seen in years and the pants were a heavier cotton that had once been white but was now stained with leaves and dirt. Lila gently checked to see if the young woman was injured anywhere else, but besides many small scratches and abrasions the only blood she found was on the ankle. There was a deep gash on one side with smaller puncture marks on the other.

As she searched, Lila did make one startling discovery. The young woman's abdomen was swollen in a way that seemed incongruous with the rest of her thin body. When Lila placed a hand lightly on the bump, she jumped and jerked her hand back when it moved under her fingers. With a jolt of realization, she gasped as the baby kicked her again. She looked down at the unconscious face with a new sense of wonder
―the young woman was pregnant. She hadn't seen a pregnant woman since she was a young child still living with her family.

Lila bit her lip as she sat back on her heels, trying to remember what she knew about pregnancy. An irrational wave of panic swept over her as she wondered if the stress of the attack would hurt the baby or the mother. Protector had once made her read a medical text, but the preteen Lila had been reluctant to read the heavy dry literature and had pretended to read more than she had actually absorbed.

No matter how hard she tried, all she could recall was a black and white illustration of a woman with a belly swollen to the point that it was almost grotesque, an outline showing a fully formed baby inside of her, and a caption underneath that read “a woman in the ninth month of pregnancy.” Well, this woman obviously wasn't to that point, but she didn't know what effect this amount of stress could cause, not to mention that the fine clothing and smoothness of the young woman's skin made it obvious that she was not used to living under such harsh conditions.

Lila sat staring until her legs began to ache with her hand over the baby, feeling the vigorous kicks against her palm. Her mind could not settle on one train of thought long enough for her to make sense of her own musings. The feeling of an infant beneath its mother's skin was amazing. But she had begun to accept that she was alone, that she would never find anyone else. Certainly no one who looked like this. And the young woman was pregnant―Lila was intelligent enough to realize that this meant there was at least one other person out there, the man who was the father of this baby.

Who was this girl? Lila felt a longing akin to pain to hear the voice of another human being, to speak and hear a response. To have an extra set of hands to help with the work. To spend a night in the company of another person, to have someone to talk to when nightmares or the wolf-song kept her from sleep.

Lila's eyes focused when she heard a soft gasp and she looked down to see the young woman's dark eyes were wide open, her hand going protectively to her belly. “Who are you? Where am I?” She pushed herself up on her elbows. “What happened? I thought I was dead.”

Lila smiled. “No, not dead. I chased the wolves away. How are you feeling?”

The young woman put a hand to her head as she sat up. “My head hurts, my ankle hurts something awful. I think I twisted it. Who are you?”

“Lila. You didn't twist it.”

“I'm Katie.” Katie examined her ankle, hissing when she discovered the marks.

“A wolf bit you,” Lila supplied helpfully.

Katie's face when instantly white. “No, no this can't be true.” She swallowed hard and looked like she was about to start crying.

Lila jumped up and went to pull some rags from the pile of her belongings she kept just past her bed and fire pit. There was a steel bowl with a dent in the bottom that she picked up as well and filled with water. “It's not that bad. I'll clean it and it should heal fine.” Her mind was burning with questions that threatened to tumble past her lips at any moment. The bowl clattered as she set it down, making her realize that her hands were shaking with adrenaline. She squeezed the water out of a rag and gently began sponging the blood away.

“No, you don't understand.” Katie's eyes closed when Lila touched her ankle and she winced. “A wolf bit me. I'm dead anyway.”

“Don't worry. You'll be fine. It's not that bad.” The puncture wounds were deep, but they would heal. Lila didn't understand why the young woman looked so scared.

Katie shook her head, but dropped the subject. “I saw the Cliffs, and I hoped I would find a cave or something to spend the night. Trees get old after a while. I wasn't paying attention and dark fell. I was halfway across the clearing when I heard the howls and they came after me.”

“You were lucky.” As Lila wiped the rest of the blood away, she thought that lucky didn't even begin to cover it. A wolf howl pierced the night and Katie jumped, wrapping both arms protectively around her belly. “You're safe here,” Lila assured her. “They can't get up here.”

Katie looked around at the tunnel, the walls and soaring ceiling dancing with light and shadow from the flames of the fire. “What is this place?”

The wound cleaned, Lila sat back and put her arm around the dog sitting at her side. “It's my home,” she said simply.

“Are you alone here?”

Lila nodded. “For two years. Well, except for Seeker here,” she added, hugging the dog to her side. Seeker wriggled and licked her ear with a wet tongue.

“They told me it couldn't...” Katie trailed off, shaking her head. “They said no one lived out here.”

They? There's more!
“Who is they?”

Katie shifted and grimaced. “Do you have anywhere softer for me to sit? Pregnancy doesn't agree with me very much.”

“Of course!” Lila jumped up and helped Katie to her feet, her arm around the young woman's waist to help her limp over to the bed of grass. “Is that better?”

Katie's face had gone pale when she stood up, but she smiled wanly as she settled onto the dry grass. “Yes, thanks.”

Lila found herself bouncing on the balls of her feet with impatience. “Where are you from?”

“Just give me a minute.” Katie took a deep breath. Her hands were shaking visibly. “It's not every day I get attacked by wolves.”

“Sorry.” Lila busied herself going back to pick up the bowl and rags, rinsing everything off in the stream.

“I guess it's pretty obvious I'm not used to...this,” Katie said after a while, her slightly disdainful expression and the wide sweep of a slender hand encompassing the entirety of the tunnel in the motion.

Well, yeah.
“Where are you from?”

“Doesn't matter. They mean nothing to me now.”

It does matter!
Lila wanted to shout.
I'm not alone, how can that not matter?
“How many more people are there?”

Katie waved a hand. “Hundreds, probably. Why do you care? You've never even met any of them.”

Hundreds
. Katie kept talking but Lila was barely listening.
Hundreds! I'm not alone...
She remembered Protector speaking of an old city out in the plains that was rumored to hold hundreds of survivors, but they were just that―rumors-- and something Protector had always taught her to have little faith in. But here, sitting in front of her, was proof that at least one of the rumors was true. There were more people out there, many more. Lila's heart was pounding in her chest, joy flooding through her at the thought of an entire city full of people. It sounded too good to be true.

“So how did
you
get here?”

Lila shook her head to bring her thoughts back to the present as the question penetrated her reverie. “There used to be someone else. It's a really long story.”

Katie smiled, but it was without humor. “Isn't it always?”

Lila didn't know how to respond to that. She scrubbed the pot out with the rags and laid them over one of the rocks in the stream, filling the pot with water and a few strips of deer meat and setting it next to the fire. Next to the pile of her belongings that included a backpack, a small wooden box and a coil of rope, there was a row of carefully organized plant food arranged in piles. Tubers, a little basket full of berries, a couple of apples and several bunches of wild onions. She shredded a few of the green onion stalks and threw them into the pot, then chopped a tuber with the knife at her belt and added that as well.

“What do you
do
around here?” Katie asked after watching Lila put the food in the pot.

“I hunt, set traps, gather berries and tubers...”

“I mean other than that. I mean, you can't hunt all day.” Katie was rubbing her leg just above the bite, and seemed to be struggling with something.

“I do sometimes. All morning, at least.”

“But what about washing clothes? What else do you do to fill the abominable quiet all day?”

Lila plucked at her shirt. “I only have one set of clothing, I wash it every few days. It doesn't take long. The forest is never quiet in the daytime, there are always birds singing.”

“That's not what I meant.” Katie scrubbed at her face with her hands. “I mean there's nobody to talk to, no music, nothing to hear.”

Lila smiled wryly. “I talk to Seeker.”

“I don't know how you stand it.” Katie shook her head. “I think I would go mad.”

Strangely enough, this was never an option Lila had ever given a thought to. Death, yes. But not madness. “I had two options―survival or death. I chose to survive.”

Katie just nodded absently, staring out at the tunnel mouth while rubbing her hands on her belly.

“How much longer do you have?” Lila asked when Katie said nothing else.

“Oh.” Katie looked down at her belly. “Two or three months, I think. The days seem to blur together lately. I can barely even remember how long I've been out here.”

“Out here?”

“Yeah, out in the woods.”

“And before that?”

Katie rolled her eyes, making Lila tense with irritation. “I told you it doesn't matter. They didn't want me. That's all I care about.”

Lila had never considered that finding another survivor would leave her this frustrated. Shaking her head, she picked up a stick to stir the pot then cracked it over her knee and threw it back in the fire, watching as the flames licked at the smooth bark. When she looked up after a moment, Katie was asleep. On Lila's bed. Sighing, feeling a sense of frustration that she kicked herself for, Lila got up and covered the young woman with her one blanket before walking out to the edge of the tunnel with Seeker padding up beside her.

The wolves were just starting to creep out of the forest, their movements furtive and halting. Lila smiled with some satisfaction at the thought that this newly found caution on their part was her doing. Seeker let out a low growl before Lila's cuff on the dog's ear made her subside and sit down with a huff. The stars shone bright in the cloudless night and the moon was almost full, bathing the clearing below in silvery light.

Despite her irritation at Katie, and the sight of the wolves prowling below, Lila couldn't hold onto her bad mood for long.
I am not alone
. The awareness of this fact set joy thrumming through every fiber of her being. Where there was one, there could be others. There had to be others. The baby had a father, somewhere in this vast land of danger. Who knew if he was still alive? Who knew what stories Katie could tell, when her weariness had been quenched by sleep. A thin beam of moonlight crept under the top edge of the tunnel and played across the young woman's face, highlighting the hollows beneath her cheekbones. Her hands still rested protectively on the tiny life she carried within. Lila did not have much experience with human beauty, but it would not have mattered if this was the ugliest woman on the planet--to Lila, the knowledge that other survivors still lived was enough to make her feel that the face before her was the most beautiful sight in the world.

The night wore on, and though she felt too awake, too excited to sleep, Lila lay down on the hard concrete near the fire. Seeker curled up behind her knees, licking Lila's ankle until Lila kicked out and hissed at her to quit. After that, Seeker contented herself with laying her head over Lila's leg to keep a watchful eye on their guest. Lila cradled her head on her arm and watched Katie's face, serene in sleep, through the glow of the fire.