Chapter 23

The force holding the audience away from the ring cut off all sound. The noise outside died, and an eerie silence fell over Raleigh’s ears.

Raleigh didn’t give herself a chance to think twice. She launched herself at the lion on top of Angela. Raleigh bellowed her war cry and slashed her blade down across the cat’s shoulder.

He reared back spitting mad. His legs coiled under him and he leapt at Raleigh the way he leapt on Angela. She let loose with her cube, but he compensated. He must have fought those weapons many times. They didn’t disturb him at all. In a split second, he covered the ring and hit Raleigh full force.

He knocked her on her back, and his hideous snapping teeth lashed into her face. She scrambled over on her stomach and slithered back between his legs to get away. She got under his stomach and rolled over on her back. She cut him across the belly with her blade and broke free.

He howled in rage and pain. Blood stained his fur, but the wound didn’t slow him down. He twisted onto his feet, and in a few loping steps, he set off running her down. Raleigh bolted across the ring, but she could never outrun that cat.

He bounded up behind her. Raleigh’s instincts took over, and she went into combat mode. She spun around and fired her cube at close range where she couldn’t miss. She hit him in the chest with everything she had. The scorching energy shot out of her hand and catapulted him backward. He struck the barrier across the ring and slide down to the floor.

Raleigh didn’t stop running. She raced across the ring to the very far side and spun around on her heel. She fought monsters bigger and stronger than him, and she knew how to deal with them.

She wheeled to face him and whipped her crossbow off her shoulder. In one fluid movement, she pulled a bolt from her wallet and fitted it to the string. Ariel’s liquid body compacted for another spring. Raleigh braced her legs under her and shouldered her bow to fire.

In that last quiet moment, her fear and anxiety dissolved to ice-cold determination. She squinted down her sights and let her bolt fly. It struck the big lion in the eye.

His momentum kept him flying through the air. He would have hit Raleigh again, but she danced to one side. He bumped his head on the barrier behind her and fell into a lifeless heap at her feet.

Raleigh drew another bolt. She nocked it on the string and aimed it down at his twitching body, but he didn’t rise again. His muscles spasmed all over, his eyes glazed over, and his lips quivered over his dripping fangs.

Raleigh kept her bow in position while she backed over to Angela. She helped her friend to her feet. “Are you all right?”

Angela nodded. “You okay?”

Raleigh nodded back, but she couldn’t speak over her panting breaths. She and Angela stood back to back, and Raleigh swept her bow over the crowd in a wordless challenge. Who would face her next? Adrenaline burned through her chest. She was ready for anything they could throw at her.

Angela gasped behind her. “Look, Raleigh!”

Raleigh didn’t like to take her eyes off the crowd. Their staring eyes returned her challenge. They would come up with some way to repay her for this. The Eol’i hissed and snarled. She killed their great hero. She couldn’t expect to walk out of here. She couldn’t walk out of here if she tried. She had to wait for Dax.

Angela shook her by the arm so she had to look back. That’s when she saw what Angela wanted her to see. Instead of a huge lion, a man lay on the floor where the lion fell. He wore a green velvet doublet and knee breeches, white stockings and black buckle shoes. A sword in its scabbard hung from his belt and lay askew against his legs. Golden curls bobbed around his suntanned cheeks, and his clean-shaven face looked beautifully angelic. Only the bolt embedded in his left eye marred his features.

Angela whispered under her breath. “Eol’i.”

Raleigh went back to scanning the crowd for any sign of attack. “What?”

“He’s Eol’i. “

“What are you talking about?”

“They’re all like this. They can change into people.”

Raleigh’s eyes darted around the stands. “Are you telling me every one of these cats can change into a person?”

“Yes.”

Raleigh didn’t answer. What was the point of facing these hundreds upon hundreds of creatures with a crossbow and a handful of bolts? Each and every one of them could handle a weapon as powerful or more so. They would overrun her in seconds.

At that moment, the deafening noise from the stands pounded against Raleigh’s ears. It took her one terrible instant to understand. The barrier was down. Whoever watched and controlled this scene from out of sight erased the force field separating her from the crowd.

The Eol’i understood at the same moment she realized what was happening. In one wild torrent of flailing bodies, they launched themselves into the ring. Fur and claws and high-pitched shrieks filled the air.

Raleigh let her bolt fly and drew another three between her fingers. An Eol’i she didn’t know hit the ground. She plucked another three out of the air, but hundreds more sailed at her from every direction. She could fire without aiming and hit something no matter which way she turned.

Angela pressed into her from behind. Her arms moving told Raleigh Angela had her weapons out, too. No one could hear a thing over the din. Far in the back of the stands, men got to their feet and started running down the cloud-ramps to join the fight.

Somewhere in the back of Raleigh’s mind, she registered the subtle change in the rules of engagement. The Eochehxea took down the barrier. They also let Raleigh kill Ariel and gave Angela free access to her weapons.

The Eochehxea weren’t imposing any further disadvantages on Raleigh and Angela anymore. They let the Eol’i and the Guildsman move in to attack. The Eochehxea wanted to see this fight. They wanted to pit their guests against each other and observe the outcome.

Raleigh had too much to worry about to give the Eochehxea a second thought. If she survived the next few minutes, she could worry about the Eochehxea later, along with the problem of getting herself and Angela out of Solaris.

In the meantime, she spent all her bolts. She threw her bow over her shoulder and got out her cube again. She fired willy-nilly into the crowd, and the blood-curdling screeches of Eol’i falling right and left gave her a grim satisfaction. Every cat she shot was one she wouldn’t have to fight later.

Any Eol’i that came too close to shoot, she slashed to a bloody pulp with her blade. She severed their little heads and hacked off their limbs. Their blood splattered her face and sent her into a killing frenzy. She licked their blood off her lips and gloried in the taste.

She almost forgot to use her cube in the satisfying crunch of her blade in flesh and bone. Guts and brain covered her skin and clothes. She became a harbinger of death. She roared her challenge to anyone she saw. Who wanted to take their chances against her? Who wanted to meet their death at the end of her arm?

She cleared a space around herself, and the Eol’i hesitated before they launched in to attack her. They hung back, but the Guildsmen rushed in to fill the gap. They came at Raleigh and Angela from all sides, and they wielded weapons as strong as hers to gun her down.

The Eol’i watched the Guildsmen move in, and a strange change came over the crowd. At the sight of people charging forward to attack, the Eol’i started to transform. First ones and twos here and there rose on their hind feet. Their faces flattened out, and their limbs grew longer.

Faster and faster, the terrible transformation swept over the crowd. The Eol’i changed into people, all armed and ready to fight. Hard on the Guildsmen’s heels, the next wave rushed in.

Raleigh quaked in her boots. Two Guildsmen led the charge. They drew their swords in one hand and whirled them over their heads. They aimed their cubes in their other hands. Raleigh couldn’t fight all these warriors. At least she and Angela would meet their deaths quickly.

Another scream stabbed her in the head, and Angela’s protective presence disappeared from behind Raleigh’s back. She glanced back just as the Guildsmen closed in to see Angela rising into the air the same way she did before. That mystic force plucked her out of the melee and carried her skyward.

Raleigh whipped around. “Angela!”

Angela screamed and screamed, but her voice dwindled farther and farther into the cloud-studded sky. She soared far away until she shrank to a distant speck. Her screams echoed down the wind to the far corners of the Earth.