Page 50 of Princess (Marinah and the Apocalypse #5)

Ruth

We waited in the tunnels. Some Shadow Women held children, some entertained them. One group sang funny songs, and a smile escaped me a time or two.

Mostly, I waited for an attack. I looked at Julia and saw the same look in her eyes. We couldn’t trust the Shadow Women to defend us. We stood between life and death for the children.

I had watched hellhounds tear my father apart.

My mother and I barely escaped. I wouldn’t run again.

Maylen asked me to take her head if she died.

I knew I could do it. If I’d been injected with the hellhound shit, I would want the same thing.

I couldn’t remember the little girl I had been once.

Death and war were what I remembered. The kids on my team hadn’t had it as bad but they had all lost someone.

We were tired of being insignificant and a liability.

My friend Che sat against the stone wall, holding a small sword. Che’s father and then his stepfather were killed by the monsters. He was too young to battle hellhounds on his own. I was too, but I now had a team standing with me, and we would kill the enemy.

Waiting was the hardest part. It was something Marinah told me and she’d been right. I was worried about my mother and glanced over at my baby brother, held by a Shadow Woman. He slept peacefully and had no idea what we were facing.

Julia and I were becoming friends. She didn’t see me as a child.

I was only a year younger than her. I knew part of her story, but she wouldn’t talk about most of it.

Her brother, Desmond, had gone with Marinah.

She was worried about him. Desmond fascinated me.

He seemed older than he was. I hoped he would be okay but I knew that there was always a chance he wouldn’t return.

Suddenly, the walls shook, and small rocks and dust rained down from above.

“The tunnel has been breached,” a Shadow Woman said loudly.

I jumped my feet. The women grabbed children and placed them in the far corner establishing a defensive wall around them.

Maylin had injected them with the serum that hopefully would protect them from a hellhound bite or scratch.

No one knew if it would work because they didn’t shift to Warrior.

They had no claws or teeth and I had no idea how they would protect the children.

If they couldn’t fight, they were only good for babysitting.

My mind snapped back to the present as the sound of scraping claws and muffled growls filled the tunnel.

A few children cried, but I wasn’t afraid.

I’d watched the hellhounds kill too many people. One day it would happen to me. I wanted to die fighting. Togg placed his hand on my back.

“Like we’ve trained,” he said.

I nodded, then looked toward the entrance.

The first two grotesque shapes materialized. Togg, in his Warrior form, leapt in front of me and attacked the hounds. Julia and I spread further apart. The other kids on our team did the same. Togg killed the first two hounds and grabbed at two more, but one broke free.

Julia struck first, and I came in from the other side. Its claw almost got me, but I was too quick. Our group fought just as we had trained. It was my strike that ended its life. There was no time to cheer because another broke past Togg. No, two.

A Shadow Woman landed on one. I was shocked because she attacked with a blade.

I hadn’t realized any of them were armed.

I thrust my sword into the side of the hellhound in front of me, pulled back, and another one of our team came in low and stabbed its gut.

Che took the next swipe. He was supposed to be behind the line of Shadow Women, but I should have known he would fight.

He stayed in close and didn’t pull back. I grabbed his shirt and jerked him away. Then it was my turn again. We took the hound down.

I was breathing hard as I looked for another. Togg clamped a hound in his jaws and tore its head off. That was pretty cool. I would never have teeth or claws, but I had a bloody sword in my hand, and that was cool, too.

I glanced behind me and saw the Shadow Women facing the entrance, each with a knife in their hands. Two of them were injured by hellhounds, but it didn’t look serious, at least if the serum worked.

“What do we do?” I yelled at Togg.

“The hounds made it through, and that means the guards are dead. We need to block the entrance so the hounds can’t get as close.”

Our team followed Togg. Yes, he was bossy, but he never treated me like a child. I wasn’t that old yet, but there was no time to be young when people all around me died.

The door separating the tunnel from daylight was torn off its hinges and lay a few feet away.

“Explosives,” Togg explained quietly.

That meant there were human soldiers somewhere. They had sent the hellhounds in.

My back straightened. The soldiers would know that children were down here, and they didn’t care.

“What do we do?” I whispered to Togg.

“We wait. If we go outside, they’ll take us out. Move closer to the walls and stick to the shadows.”

We followed his direction. It seemed like forever before a man stuck his head in and then pulled back out of sight.

“Block the tunnel again, and we’ll let the hellhounds finish them,” a soldier said.

Togg sprang forward and burst outside. The sounds the soldiers made were horrible. Julia was in front of me. She was the only one with a gun, and a shot rang in my ears. A soldier fell. I ran forward and brought my sword down on his neck. It took four strikes to take off his head.

Togg fell back with a soldier in his grasp. Several shots rang out, and Togg’s body jerked. I stabbed my sword into the soldier’s side. Togg rolled over and released the man.

Julia fired again, and the soldier stopped fighting. The smoke from the gunfire wrapped around us. Several of our team ran forward and looked outside. Someone yelled, “Clear.”

“Guard the entrance,” Julia shouted at them.

I dropped to my knees by Togg.

“I’ll be okay,” he said.

I wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t sound okay, and blood was seeping past his hands and claws where he held his stomach. His head fell back.

“Togg?”

“I’m good,” he said softly.

He wasn’t good.

“Did you get scratched or bitten?” he asked me.

“No, we’re okay.”

“You’re a hell of a fighter. I’m glad I was able to help you train. It’s been an honor.”

“Togg,” I all but shouted.

I pressed my fingers over his and shoved my weight down to stop the bleeding.

“Honor,” he said again, but this time much softer.

Maylin dropped on her knees beside me. I’d forgotten about her. She could fix him. She worked with Axel all the time.

She peeled back our hands to examine the wound. She looked up at me and shook her head. When I looked down, I could see his intestines and so much blood.

I took Togg’s hand in mine and rubbed my other one over his fingers.

“It’s been my honor,” I whispered to him.

He looked up at me, and his jaws pulled back. He grinned showing all his teeth. His eyes glazed over with the grin in place.