Remains of Urth Read online

  “Let’s go, scum,” one of the Urthmen with us shouts and uses the word the woman shouted at us. He gives the chain a firm tug and we all lurch forward. I trade glances with Kohl and swear he shares my desire to lean back with all my weight as hard as I can and offer a counter tug. But the bruises that mar my family are the reason I don’t. “We’re headed to that truck.” The same Urthman who referred to us as scum points a stubby finger to a convoy of vehicles waiting on the side of the road a little farther down. The notion of seeing trucks astounds me. They are the talk of a lifestyle humans enjoyed long ago, one that seemed so remote I believed it a myth of sorts. But seeing them now as I am, I know it wasn’t. I also make a few other connections. Parked at the edge of the forest, I realize that’s what they’d been doing. They’d been leaving their vehicles on the outskirts of the woods, scouting by day and leaving before sunset. On the days they couldn’t leave before dusk, the cave had been their refuge. I shudder to think how many times our paths could’ve crossed and how long they’d been conducting surveillance. Studying us. Watching and waiting to kill us.

  We make our way toward the convoy. As we do, an Urthman staggers toward us. Skin more yellow than the pale gray of the complexions of those surrounding us and with creases and bulging tissue beneath his eyes that make him look as though he hasn’t slept in weeks, he shouts words that are unintelligible. He totters closer. All of us stop.

  “He scares me,” Ara whispers.

  “Stay close. I won’t let anything happen to you,” I reply.

  “Hey! Lookie here! Humans.” He spits on the ground after saying the word then takes several strides. He stops inches from my face. “You sicken me.” His words are a low growl, venom rolling through each like a wave. “I can’t wait to watch you die.”

  His words cause the fine hairs on my body to rise and quiver. So much hate radiates from him. Why? I can’t help but wonder why? Why do these creatures despise us and long for our deaths? I just don’t understand, though at this point the feeling is growing mutual. They killed my parents. Wiped out my entire village. A seed of want for revenge has planted a field of hate within me that grows with every second spent in the presence of the Urthmen. I don’t know where to take the pain and rage I feel. I can’t run, and even if I could, this new feeling has manifested itself like a dark passenger. One that won’t be leaving me anytime soon. My life is in danger. More importantly, my brothers’ and sister’s lives are in danger.

  “Haha.” The Urthman who’s approached laughs mirthlessly, foul air emanating from his mouth. Dark, beady eyes land on Ara. “Watching her bleed will be fun.”

  “Stand down!” General Hild bellows just before he is beside us.

  “I’m on your side, soldier,” the Urthman answers without hiding his defensiveness.

  “What did you just call me?” Hild demands. “Did you just call me soldier?”

  Instinctively, I back away, placing my body in front of Ara.

  The Urthman, seeing Hild’s outrage, has enough sense to clamp his mouth shut. But this doesn’t satisfy Hild. “I am an Urthman General, commissioned by Prince Cadogan himself to preside over the entire Urthman military. So you are incorrect. I am not a mere soldier.” His voice is a sanctimonious toll that echoes all around us.

  “I-I,” the once brazen Urthman stammers. He clears his throat and blinks several times. “I’m sorry,” is all he manages breathlessly.

  General Hild makes a sound halfway between a growl and a sigh and turns to walk away. But he pivots quickly, unsheathing his sword at his hip and carving the air. His blade hacks a diagonal wound in the back of the Urthman. The Urthman howls out in pain and his eyes widen. Swung with such force, the blade is lodged in his back. General Hild grunts and props his foot up on the Urthman to release it then hoists it high in the air. Blood and metal catches sunlight and glistens savagely just before it slices the air and knocks the Urthman’s head off with a grisly thwacking sound. Gore sprays in every direction, spattering my clothes. Ara cries out. I’m grateful for any portion of her view that was obscured by me, and the fact that she doesn’t have the Urthman’s blood dotting her clothes and skin.

  “What the—” Kohl mutters, his eyes pinned to the scene that’s unfolded.

  “I can’t believe that just happened. I-I just can’t believe it.” Pike’s voice cracks. His tine is overwrought.

  “That is what happens to any citizen who interferes with military business.” General Hild gestures to the decapitated Urthman before wiping his blade clean, using the shirt of the corpse as a rag. “Does everyone understand?” he calls out and eyes everyone in earshot. All those who mill about lower their heads in fear. He waits several beats allowing his words and what he’s done to settle. Once he’s confident they have, his attention returns to us. “Let’s go! Move!”

  No one resists. Our feet begin moving immediately.

  After we’ve walked for a considerable amount of time, I speak. “Where could they be taking us?” I ask Kohl rhetorically. He’s fallen behind me. I can’t see him, but I hear his breathing.

  “I don’t think any of us wants to know,” he replies.

  Ara sobs softly. Her shoulder rests against mine, the bone sharper than I remember it being. She feels lighter leaning against me, smaller and fragile. Frail. It causes a swell of anger so concentrated I begin to shake. “It’s going to be alright,” I tell her, though I know damn well I’m lying. Nothing is alright. Not a single thing. Every cell in my body is certain we’re being transported to our deaths. How slow and torturously we’ll die is likely all that remains to be seen. But death is inevitable.

  That feeling multiplies when I hear the engine rumble and the vehicle starts moving. Rolling forward, my belly feels as if it’s being pulled backward, like all of me is being pulled in the opposite direction of the truck. It’s a strange, uncomfortable feeling. The smothering darkness and stifling heat does little to help matters. Nausea follows and continues for an undetermined amount of time. Just when the meager contents of my stomach threaten to spew, the truck grinds to a halt. The back door flies up and bright light blinds me. “Move, humans!” a horrid, gravelly Urthman voice barks. The chain connecting us is jerked forward. I’m nearest the door and am the first to spill from the back compartment. Everyone else who falls lands on top of me in a massive pile. An elbow jams into my spine and a skull connects with mine. The wind is knocked from my lungs. Every square inch of my body aches. I’m forced to wait until everyone is out then off me before I can roll to my side, and when I do, I’m able to see an enormous structure. I have no idea how large it is and wouldn’t bother venturing a guess. One side spans almost as far as the eye can see to form an elliptical shaped construct that, despite being in agonizing pain from having a dozen people fall on me, I marvel at. Composed of pale stone, it rises from the earth, soaring to the sky with ornate, square cutouts in the walls. Busts fill the squares. They look to be Urthmen, but I can’t tell for sure. All I’m certain of is that the details of the building are numerous and elaborate. I strain to see, to take them all in, but the chain is yanked and I’m dragged for a moment. I scramble to my feet and am led ahead, not allowed to stare in awe but brought, instead, to a doorway behind which a long tunnel waits. “Go!” an Urthman commands.

  Dark and narrow, the tunnel feels tight in all directions. Pallid light crawls along the dingy, uneven floor, making it difficult to see in the distance. Dank mustiness tinges the air, as well as the smell of decay. Following the curves and traveling deeper into the dark heart of wherever it is we’re going, my breathing becomes shorter and shallower. We begin passing rooms with barred doors, only the bars are made of metal, not wood as ours were. The barred rooms sit empty on either side, but eerie, unnatural stillness prevails. I turn to look over my shoulder to glimpse Ara, Kohl and Pike, but my head whips around when a bloodcurdling scream rips through the tunnel, ricocheting off the walls and filling the space. Within seconds, the cells, previously unoccupied, hold humans. Males mostly, t
heir beards are long as is their hair. Dirty and gaunt, their eyes are wild. They rant incoherently, shouting at us as we pass. Some lunge at us, slamming into the bars so hard they bounce off them, backward, as if the pain of collision was unexpected. Ara stays close to me, but the tunnel is so narrow that when a man dives forward and reaches out an arm, he is so thin, his arm slips between the bars and he manages to grab a handful of her hair. She cries out as she’s pulled back hard. I advance a step to kick at him and free her, but an Urthman beats me to it. He uses the butt of his club and slams it between the bars so that it lands squarely on the man’s forehead, the action so fluid and precise it’s obviously been performed time and time again. The man releases Ara, who is visibly shaken, his head rearing violently. He falls to the ground. A thin stream of blood trickles to his chin.

  Ara gasps for breath, the shock and pain of being grabbed overwhelming her. I wish I could wrap an arm around her shoulder, embrace her and comfort her, but having my hands cuffed behind me prohibits me from doing so.

  “They’re locked up like animals,” Pike says, his eyes wide and with tears escaping from the corners.

  “They’re treated like animals, so they act like animals,” Kohl says flatly.

  “They are animals. You are animals,” the guard ahead of me hears what’s been said and comments.

  Kohl parts his lips to fire back. A quick look at Ara causes him to press them shut, however. He continues in silence. All of us do until the guards stop before an empty cell. The guard leading us issues a one-word command. “Stop.” He then points to me, Ara, Kohl, Pike and Maxx and two other girls from our village, each just eleven, Calyx and Acacia. “All of you, inside!” He unlocks the connective chain then our wrist cuffs. We’re thrust inside. Screams echo down the hallway and the remaining people who were taken captive are brought to a separate cell. We’re submerged in darkness. I hear the clack of shoes upon the stone floor grow distant and my stomach sinks. “Where are you taking them? Why are we here?” My voice echoes down the hallway but falls on deaf ears. I’m left with my siblings and cousin. What the Urthmen intend to do with us remains to be seen. The darkness, the screams, the threat of the unknown preys on my brain.

  We are going to die. When and how are the questions.

  The room around me spins. Panic settles over me like a mist of icy rain, bleeding my body of warmth. The chaotic swell of shouting and the flurry of activity fades. I sink to my knees on the hard, cold floor. My eyes roam my surroundings. Three walls of stone, one wall of bars, my sister and brothers and Maxx. That’s all I see. The space is unnaturally silent, save for the soft drip of condensation coming from somewhere in the dark shadows that stretch beyond the cell. I stand and move to the bars, pressing my face to them as I try to peer beyond the gloom, but see nothing.

  I close my eyes for the briefest of seconds, my forehead leaning against the cool metal of the bars, and feel the thick knot in my stomach ball tighter. The sting of tears, angry tears, burns my eyes. I furiously blink them back. “This is insane,” I say through clenched teeth. “What could they possibly want with those people out there?” I point out toward the detainees who shouted and grabbed at Ara. “Huh?” I ask though I know no one knows the answer to my question. “What’re they doing capturing people our age? To do what? Watch them grow old and lose their mind?” I slam my palm to the stone. “It doesn’t make sense! None of this makes sense!”

  “Yeah, why don’t they just kill us already?” Kohl’s deep voice reaches through the pitch-black ether and grabs me by my throat, choking me. He hasn’t said anything I haven’t thought already, but somehow hearing the words aloud, and from his lips, makes it all the more real.

  “Oh gosh,” Ara cries. Her voice is a wisp. My heart aches at the sound.

  “I-I don’t want to die,” Calyx says.

  “No one wants to die!” I feel like telling her. Not one among us. We saw our parents, aunts, uncles and friends slaughtered. We know what Urthmen are capable of. But the fact of the matter is we will. For whatever reason, those few haggard looking people we passed have been kept alive. I’m sure the reason is one that would sicken me.

  “This is crazy, just crazy.” I hear the tremor in Pike’s voice. His nerves are frayed.

  “I know. If they’re going to kill us, just do it already. Why wait? Makes me think they have something far worse in store for us.” Again, Kohl’s voice is a stranglehold, a giant hand gripping my throat and collapsing my windpipe. He’s right, of course. My blood chills several degrees in my veins. “And there isn’t a damn thing we can do but wait.” His tone is neither hostile nor resigned. It’s offhand. Terrifyingly offhand.

  “All I can see is what they did to Mom and Dad,” Ara says. Her voice is haunting, and immediately images of my parents’ murder flood my mind.

  “I know,” Pike says. He sniffs several times, fighting back tears.

  “Cian, my parents, your parents and theirs,” Maxx refers to Calyx and Acacia last. “All of them murdered. And for what? What is it they kill for?” he asks the question that burned in my mind for so long. That is, until I saw them kill my parents. Now I see them as heartless beasts who butcher humans because they can. They are hateful beings. Nothing more. Maybe it makes me no better than them to see them that way, but it’s impossible to see them in any other way.

  “They kill because that’s what they do. They hate us. It’s in their blood,” I say and am surprised by how flat my voice sounds. “It’ll never change.”

  “We could’ve risen against them if we hadn’t been outnumbered,” Pike says. “Humans are smarter.

  “Hmm, we’d have needed to raise an army of ten thousand to have had an uprising. And considering that there were probably ten thousand of them for every one of us who lived, that would’ve been impossible.” Bitterness laces Kohl’s words. And it’s not directed at Pike. It just comes with being the hunted species. The endangered species. Our village was the only one of its kind. As far as I know, the humans held in this tunnel are the last remaining human beings on the planet. Knowing now that the Urthmen have been scouring surrounding woodlands solidifies that. The woman Avery I met a few years ago told me that there had been a human army but that it had been defeated. That there may be no humans left.

  We continue talking for several minutes. Wondering and speculating. Our conversation is interrupted when a small group of Urthmen returns. I see them. The measly light from the tunnel draws deep shadows beneath their eyes and along their cheeks, deepening and darkening the hollows of their features and making them more frightening in appearance than before. They peer into each cell. Passing ones with occupants until they reach ours. “This one,” one of them says. He points into the oblivion at us. He unlocks the door of bars. “Let’s go! Move!” he shouts.

  “Where are we going?” Kohl demands.

  “You’ll find out,” the Urthman replies with a sinister chuckle.

  “Lucas, what’s happening?” Ara is trembling and crying. She clings to my arm with both hands.

  “I have no idea,” I answer, feeling the blood drain from my face and a cold sweat break out on my body.

  Ara, Kohl, Pike, Maxx and I, along with Calyx and Acacia, are ushered out into the tunnel.

  Worry howls through my core like a bitter wind, freezing every muscle in place.

  “Move now!” he screams when I don’t move right away. His tone, added to the deadly looking blade he carries, sets my limbs into motion. I do as he says and walk out. Ara follows. She slips her hand into mine and squeezes. Pike and Kohl are right behind us.

  Three of the six Urthmen are ahead of us. They begin walking. Deep-seated intuition warns that perhaps it is a death march, and we are the guests of honor.

  “Keep going, straight down the corridor,” the Urthman continues to instruct us. He and the other two with him pick up the rear.

  I have no clue what’s happening or where we’re being led, just that we have to follow. I glance over my shoulder at Kohl to gauge his r
eaction. His jaw is set and his brow low, his lips pressed together tightly. He looks prepared for anything, but deep down, he must be scared and confused, just as I am. His eyes roam the hallway. There’s nothing to see, just an endless stretch of dark, curved walls. But there’s a faint buzz in the air I’ve never experienced before, an excitement that resonates in the atmosphere and is palpable. And it’s more than the nervous energy radiating from my brothers and sister, my cousin and fellow survivors from the village. It’s not fueled by terror. It’s something else entirely. I find myself panicked by what generates it.

  Soon, the faint buzz swells.

  As we walk, what began as a weak hum transforms. It surges around the walls of the tunnel. Growling and rolling like a hungry beast, it echoes and grows louder the longer we walk. By the time we’re midway down the corridor, the sound is a deafening roar. Even the walls vibrate. I’ve never heard such a commotion. Thunderous cheers, clapping, and stomping, all merge to create a rumble that shakes the earth beneath my feet.

  I can’t hear my thoughts by the time we reach the end of the tunnel and stand before a cage with a closed door on the other side of it.

  One of the Urthmen unlocks the door to the cage. “In,” he snaps.