Page 99 of The Teras Trials

Thought it would be more useful than it turned out to be.

This does nothing to spark more sympathy for me, and I can’t blame them. But neither can I feel anything more than I already feel. Guilt for Bellamy’s death is consuming me. Guilt for letting Thaddeus die, guilt for killing that student at the dean’s will, guilt for Peter Drike, who right now is probably dying all alone. Guilt for all my sins. What is one more when I am already laden with them? What is one more sin when I am overburdened by self-hatred?

“Okay,” I say, sighing. “I signed all of you up to fight the manticore, because I had no idea when the dean would call on us, and I was foolish enough to think it would be later in our education. It was before the first trial. I didn’t think—he was trying to whittle us down. I didn’t know.”

No reaction. I tell myself I am fine with that.

I look to the north-east. It’s past midday now, and winter is already settling on the sun, muting it. It’ll be dark soon.

“I’ll lure it out,” I say. I turn on my heel and walk before anyone can stop me.

Or before I can realise that no one plans to.

* * *

It takes a handful of minutes to find the town. It never had a name—it was a little holdout, perhaps four or five cob buildings with thatched roofs, and I never knew it existed, which makes its obliteration all the more upsetting. The settlement had cleared some trees, built a spiked fence, and it’s a mess of wood and gore, now. Fire burns in one of the houses. Two others have crumbled. There is no doubt in my mind that a manticore has barrelled through them, though if there was doubt, the half-mauled torso of a woman and the free limbs of several others would assuage that.

I am pressed into the snow beside a tree, and I have to disconnect the primal urge to panic. I am reminded of Watford, of sitting in the gore and blood of those townsfolk, which only cascades into me thinking about my brother. Stomach in his hands, pressed against a tree, dying in the snow—how beautifully cyclical it will be if I die here, mauled by the same beast.

But it won’t bloody happen. Be ruthless, Leo told me—so I will be.

Though first I must do something very stupid. I promised them I would lure it out.

I have no idea where the manticore is. Even with the blaze burning at my back, scattering the shadows, I can’t see much. And the roaring of the fire means I can’t hear it. Without the tell-tale clicking of its scorpion tail, I’ll be struck before I can do anything useful.

But I do remember that the manticore liked the chase. I bought Thaddeus a few more seconds of tortured breathing by running. So that is what I do now. I pick myself up from my hiding spot and step out into the clearing. And then I run.

My feet crunch loudly in the snow and sink deep. I fight the urge to back myself against the ruined hamlet and the false sense of safety those flames offer. I just run, from one side of the tree-line to the other, and then I pause.

There are shadows there, moving, and a creaking of a thousand birches freezing in the cold wind. I can’t tell if the shapes I see are cast from the packed canopy, or if they belong to the stalking bulk of the beast.

It hasn’t attacked me yet, so I turn and run back, and I feel stupid, like a bug flailing about in the seconds before it’s crushed. I get out Thaddeus’ gun, the gun that didn’t save him, and my left goes to the sparker, which probably has enough fuel for one more blinding spark, and I think: this won’t do anything. This won’t stop it. But I am compelled by the inevitability of my death to do something, and if that means running about in the snow whilst the people I doomed have a shot at life, then I should do that. Shouldn’t I?

God. I really don’t want to die.

“Cassius!”

It’s Leo voice, pitched in a desperate scream, howling for me.

I spin. Out of nothing but shadow, a tail materialises. Puckered, bulbous, black—the scorpion tail collides with me and I go flying. I am thrown through the air; dizzying and maddening, upside down; there is fire, snow, blood, night. I see a great shadow in the sky. Its wings are spread, bat-like brown skin pulled taught and veiny, and the human-face is open mouthed and screaming. The manticore’s eyes bulge. And it starts to dive after me.

“No.”

I scrabble to my feet, kick off the snow, stumble again. The manticore lands with such force I’m knocked to the ground. I think it’s on me, that I’m being crushed by it, but it’s just snow; an entire wave of it thrown up by the landing.

Tick, tick, tick, like the hour of my doom is approaching, like a clock that can tell me—the tail rears up to paralyse me. I raise my gun. My sparker. I squeeze my eyes and click it.

Intense white light flashes like the gates of heaven. I open my eyes just before it fades to see the manticore rearing on its hind legs with a scream. The light hasn’t settled; spots of it dance in my periphery, and the whole clearing is visible for half a second before shadow re-consumes it. And in that brief flash I see the others running out of the forest.

A pentagonal attack; the five of us surround the manticore before it recovers. Fred is already diving forward with her axe to hack away at its tendons. The manticore is screaming. Shots are going off in a beautiful, percussive symphony. One of them gets the fleshy white underbelly and red sprays from the wound.

I have the gall to think this is easy—

-—Which is when it all starts going to high hell.

A tail whips overhead. Silas screams. The scorpion stinger buries itself in his shoulder and whips out just as fast. Fred howls his name and carves a chunk out of the manticore’s ankle. But Silas is more than injured; he’s stunned. The manticore’s poison works through him quickly. He drops the sword and sways.

“Fred.” His voice cracks. And then he drops unconscious.

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