Bloodguard

chapter 67

Leith

Gunther peeks over his shoulder, his eyes red and swollen from crying. He breaks down when I step inside the crate. He hobbles forward, dragging his injured foot, and I catch him in a one-armed embrace.

His frail body is mere bones around a broken soul. He hugs me harder. “Bluh guar. Bluh guar, blood guar,” he says, crying so hard he can barely speak the words.

“Not yet,” I say.

I ignore the pain his tight hold inflicts on my broken rib and pass a hand over the ridges of the scars on his scalp, flattening the few spiky hairs that survived the years of cruelty dealt upon him.

My eyes squeeze shut. This could have been Dahlia or Rose had I tried to bring them with me. Being girls wouldn’t have spared them from the abuse immigrants to Arrow are subjected to. Far from it. Not that living in Grey spared them, either.

Fuck, this world is heartless.

My family didn’t make it.

Gunther must .

Another crate explodes— fucking Soro— and the monsters are on the move.

Sand shoots past us as the ferocious colt races by. The explosion adds to the crowd’s unrelenting excitement. I can’t hear much inside this crate, and the noise outside makes it impossible to figure out exactly what’s happening.

Thunderous gallops have me whirling with my axe and sword out. Gunther yelps, clinging to my thigh and almost making me lose my balance. I shove him away, ready to fight.

The colt doubles back and storms by, her gray body and white mane bloody from the deep claw and fang marks the bear made.

Not that he won. Not that I expected him to.

The bear hangs from the colt’s left pointed horn. He isn’t moving, and his entrails drag along in the sand. Behind them, the saws follow. But that colt is too smart and clears them with ease.

It won’t take her long to finish her victory lap and suck down her meal.

Unless she’s still in the mood for a hunt. We must get out of this crate before we’re shredded by saws or, worse, trapped in here with her.

I grab the boy by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Gunther. You can’t hang on to me, understand? I can’t protect us if you throw me off balance.”

His eyes well with apologetic tears, and I’m reminded that he’s just a scared little boy.

He opens his hands and shows me the bent nail he’s carrying. “I h-h-help. I-I-I fight.”

I soften my tone. “Yes. You fight and you protect the others.”

“Others?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. “Exactly.”

I yank us back when the colt reverses and trots in the direction of her burning crate. It doesn’t surprise me—they’re curious creatures, taking in everything that might help or hinder them.

My back is pressed against the wall, and my free arm keeps Gunther beside me. The partially closed door is barely enough to conceal us. I hold my breath as the colt stops in the space between the crate we hide in and the next, allowing me a glimpse of her head and neck.

We remain quiet as she grabs the troll bear’s corpse in her sharp teeth and trots away from the flames to eat, giggling loud enough to be heard above the bone-rattling cheers from the audience and the whirling saws in search of flesh to maim. The cut along her long, thick tongue doesn’t appear to impede her appetite. The gross thing burrows into the bear’s gut and fervently sucks.

With a sigh that does nothing to relieve the stress weighing me down, I return my attention to Gunther. “I want you to follow me, stay quiet, and do exactly what I say.”

Gunther nods and holds out his small hand to offer me his nail.

“Keep it,” I say, maintaining a calm tone, heart aching at the valor of this child who has suffered such cruelty. “You’ll need it to help the others, remember, Gunther? They need you to protect them.” Again, he nods in that way of his. “You’re going to get on top of the crate where our friends are.”

“Friends?”

He asks in a way that makes me think he’s never had one.

“Yes, friends,” I repeat. “Get up on the crate and listen to whatever they say. Fight to stay alive.”

“A-a-nd potect dem,” he says.

“Yes, Gunther. You protect them.”

I hold out a hand to keep him still and edge toward the opening. Using tremendous care, I poke my head out. The colt is a few crates away now with her back to us. From here, I can’t judge where Pega and Luther might be. With the crackling of the burning crates, the smoke, and that frenzied crowd demanding I appear, I can’t get a fix on anything.

If I go right, I’ll interrupt the colt’s meal, and she’s almost done. The bear’s body has shrunk inward and is collapsing into its skeleton.

There’s no time to waste. We must move now.

I sheath my sword and motion to Gunther, cringing at the slapping sound he makes as he hobbles across the wooden floor. As he reaches me, I slip onto the sand.

The colt raises her head, her ears twitching. My knuckles ache from my grip on the axe. I don’t move. I don’t breathe.

The crowd’s gasps and eager murmurs work to my advantage. The colt fixates on them, slurping her tongue inward to whinny in that blood-curdling way of hers. The crowd eats it up. She’s enjoying the attention. As tall as she is, she can see over the wall of fire that continues to burn around us, trapping all of us in here with her .

Her tail flicks. She’s not scared of anything and is probably thinking about how to jump the fire wall and pick her way through the royals.

Okay. Maybe she’s not all bad.

I ease away from the crate, motioning Gunther out. My nerves, already on edge, actually sting when Gunther steps onto the sand.

We start backward, and I swallow a curse. Gunther’s pace is slow and conspicuous. He’s trying to be careful, except the way he bears his weight creates a scratching sound in the sand.

Every drag of his foot kicks up dust and adds to the cacophony of sound.

I’m doubting whether I can get us through this.

That doubt triples when the buzzing sound resumes behind us. I throw Gunther over my shoulder and run in the direction of the saws. There are now six saws—two crisscrossing in the front, three spinning side by side, and one more taking up the rear.

Plus a raging vampire colt in full gallop behind us.

Without much thought, I leap over the zigzagging saws. I time it just right.

If I wasn’t carrying Gunther, my balance wouldn’t be off. And I could have cleared the next few blades.

But I do have Gunther.

My balance is compromised.

And I don’t clear those last few saws.

I throw Gunther to my right and stumble to the left.

He’s safe and rolls away.

The first saw cuts through my boot and slices my instep.

The second scrapes the skin off most of my upper arm.

The third cuts into my shoulder blade when I roll.

Agony blinds me with white-hot pain as my screams are swallowed whole by the crowd.

Gunther cries out, pleading with me to get up.

I murmur in response, telling him to run.

If I can’t save him, he must save himself.

At first, he doesn’t listen. But then he hobbles away as another terrified voice calls my name.

Maeve .

Maeve remains with me. She tells me to stand, pleads with me to fight, and her sweet voice echoes softly in my head like it did the night she told me she loved me.

But then the saws burst through the sand, and she screams.

Her terror is enough to jolt me to action. I scramble to my feet as the latest of the buzzing sounds pass by me and rebound toward the colt, who kicks and leaps and races to safety.

Of course she doesn’t get cut.

Of fucking course.

I fumble ahead, the first few steps I take further punishing my mangled foot. I almost fall when I reach for my discarded axe.

The energy I had when this match first started is long gone. My left shoulder is too weak to help me power through all the locks at once.

Two crates left.

Which can I open to cause the most havoc?

Hell if I know.

If my friends can make it and I can make it along with them, we stand a shot.

I curse myself for not opening that mangled crate earlier. I would have had a better chance of helping Gunther.

Would have. Could have. Should have. These words have plagued me in every arena game. They won’t plague me now.

Squaring my shoulders, I position myself in front of the mangled door. “Get to the last crate!” I yell.

I don’t know where the others are or if they can even hear me amidst the chaos. More and more crates are up in flames and splintering into shards. Chunks of burning wood litter the sand, shrinking the open space inside the circle.

Last one , I tell myself. This last crate and then that damned colt.

“Leith, she’s coming,” Pega calls out, coughing from all the smoke. “She knows where you are. Run .”