Philippa Ballantine - Wrayth

His head twisted around, as he peered down into the darkness. He could smell the Wrayth below. He knew there would be a way out down there, for the peons to come and go. It was the only way he was going to get free of the Wrayth.

Folding his wings about him, the Rossin released his claws from the grating and dived into the darkness.

The smell of the Wrayth was stronger the farther he went; the reek of blood and flesh combined with the sharp odor of the geistlord itself. He transformed a moment before he reached the ground, and dropped to the dirt in his feline form. It was his most powerful shape; a thickly muscled cat the height of a human’s shoulder, with spotted fur and teeth made to rend. It also meant that he was silent and deadly—useful things in this situation.

As he moved forward, the Rossin crunched over the broken remains of Raed’s pack, and paused to consider. It was humiliating to even have to think about his host, but should they be trapped in a position as they had been just recently the weak creature would need his weapons and clothing. With a derisive snort through his nose, the beast took the pack in its mouth and padded on.

The heat down this deep into the Shin fortress was terrible, especially to a huge beast covered in fur. It was the mass of flesh his fellow geistlord commanded that created such a hot, humid atmosphere. The Wrayth were not known for their kindness to any creature—even among other geistlords, but the Rossin was ready to hurt them in return. They had fought in the chaos of the Otherside, a battle of survival, and now it appeared they would continue it in this realm.

The Rossin moved deeper into the hive, his ears flicking back and forth seeking any movement. The smooth walls of higher up in the fortress had devolved into rough stone passages, but his massive padded paws took them with ease, though his mortal host might have had problems with the darkness and uneven terrain. Mortals often had problems with many things. When his plan came to fruition it might well be a relief to his Young Pretender.

The Rossin paused and inhaled. The stink of the Wrayth was now overcoming every other scent, and he knew that there would be many of them ahead. He clenched his claws, their creamy length puncturing the earth. A growl remained deep in his chest and largely unvoiced.

Shoulders scything, the Rossin eased himself still deeper into the Wrayth hive.

Many geistlords used humans as tethers to this world; from his own ability to hide within the bloodline of a family, to Hatipai’s method of actually birthing a half-geist child of her own to act as a link. The Wrayth’s method combined a little of both; as was immediately apparent when the great cat climbed through a breach in the earthen wall, and peered down into his fellow geistlord’s breeding chamber.

It stank of humanity—a lot of unwashed, highly sexed humanity. At least his own host did not reek as badly as the Wrayth’s—but mainly that was to do with sheer numbers. He had found his enemy’s breeding pit. Women, all of them with their belly’s swollen in various states of pregnancy, wore very little except the brand of the Wrayth. A pair of claw marks on the shoulder. Their eyes were vacant and staring. Their skin white from lack of sun.

Moving among them were drones, males with the same mark upon them. All of them stank of the blood ties the Wrayth used. This geistlord was vast in number and the most dangerous of the Rossin’s enemies and kin. The great cat’s eyes narrowed, and his head sunk between his shoulders. He could charge down now among all those peons of the Wrayth, but there was a chance they could overwhelm him. He had rage, but they certainly had numbers.

The Rossin bathed in blood, grew strong from it, but for the peons and their geistlord blood was more than that. It was a web that bound them together in a vast network of people. Each child born here became another peon and carrier of the enemy. This was one opponent that the Rossin could not easily destroy—even with all his strength.

So instead, he chose to leave them. His host would have been greatly surprised; but the Rossin was more than a mere Beast. He had his own plans and means, and when he was sated by blood he could think and act as clearly as any of the other geistlords. It was the restriction of being tied in blood. The Wrayth had found their own way around it, and that rankled.

Still they had to breed constantly lest the geistlord within them weaken. It was a vulnerability that the Rossin could not yet think of a way to exploit.

Letting a little huff of annoyance escape through his gaping mouth, the Beast padded around the room of silent and pale-eyed peons. The Wrayth’s attention was not here—not yet. The Rossin could feel it above him, flitting about among other higher-level peons.

Deeper into the hive, the warmth was now so extreme that the great cat felt it laying like a blanket on him. He let his mouth droop open and began panting. New noises filtered from below, sounds that drew the Rossin; the echoes of human pain. Despite his caution, the geistlord found himself caught by curiosity and followed the sounds.

That was how he found the cells. Swinging his head from side to side, carefully placing his massive paws down as delicately as a house cat, the Rossin peered into them. These were pregnant women too, but not happy in their servitude to their Wrayth overlord. Even the Rossin felt something close to pity for these scraps of humanity tethered to the wall, their swelling bellies attached to wasted and wretched bodies.

The smell of them was strange; not merely just the reek of shackled humanity, but an odd mixture of Wrayth and something else. The cat stood at the bars of a cell and tilted its head, regarding the woman within, for a moment confused. She carried a Wrayth child, but was not of the Wrayth herself. She was something more trained, more powerful. She looked blankly back at the geistlord, broken inside and out, but there was a flicker of her past in there.

The Rossin’s growl was deep and threatening as all trace of pity was wiped away. The prisoner’s head jerked upright. She’d been a Deacon. Though she had no Gauntlets or Strop anymore, she still nursed a tiny spark of the Order within her. Many Deacons were presumed killed by geists, but obviously not all of them had been. Intriguingly enough, it appeared the Wrayth was occupied in some kind of breeding program—though to what end the Rossin could not tell.

If they had met in different circumstances he and this Deacon would have been enemies, now they were the same; trapped in the Wrayth hive. On the Otherside the geists consumed each other and the souls of the dead, but they did not shackle each other in such a way. The Wrayth had obviously learned some new skills in this realm.

The woman lurched forward, wrapping one hand around the bar while reaching out with the other toward the great cat. “Kill me,” she gasped, her voice a rasp of horror. “Take my blood. Take me!”

The Rossin flinched back with a snarl. However other women in the row of cells had heard their fellow prisoner’s call. Soon a dozen hands were thrust through the gaps, opening and closing in supplication.

“Take me!” one howled.

“No, me,” other unseen women screamed.

“Have pity,” the first woman said, and her fingers actually brushed the fur of the Rossin.

Despite his love of blood and violence, there was something repellant about what had been done to these women. He backed away, hissing and growling in disgust.

Then, from down the corridor, came the sounds of many people coming toward him. He could hear feet slapping on the stone, and smell the Wrayth coming toward him.

It damaged his pride to turn around and run, but on the Otherside the geistlord had learned to do what it took to survive. The Wrayth were coming, and the Rossin fled down the corridors in huge bounds, yet he snarled all the way.