Only the Worthy (15 page)

Royce marched
with the group of boys into the Cave of Madness, taking one step at a time down
the steep, gravelly slope until the absolute blackness nearly consumed them.
The weak sunlight from high above filtered down, its rays getting weaker with
each step, hardly giving them any light to see by. Mark marched beside him, the
two of them in the middle of the group, the rest of the boys in front and
behind them, all of them marching as one, down into the monster’s lair.

Finally, they
were all one unit. They marched as a group, staying close, swords held out
before them with shaking hands, the fear in the air palpable. The tunnel was
cavernous, a hundred yards wide, the sound of their boots echoing, merging with
the sound of something dripping from the ceiling. Something scurried in the
darkness before them, then quickly disappeared. Royce did not like to think
what it may have been.

Worst of all was
the smell. It smelled like rot down here, Royce turning his head away as the
tremendous heat came up in waves, carrying the noxious smell. He was afraid to
consider its source: the noxious breath of the monster, waiting for them. It
only deepened his sense of dread.

A distant
rumble, like thunder, rolled off the walls, from somewhere far away, seeming to
fill the entire place, and Royce turned to Mark, who looked back. He felt his
own palms begin to sweat: whatever that was, there was no way they could defeat
it.

Royce saw Rubin
up ahead, flanked by the twins, for the first time not staring back at Royce
with hatred. Instead, he stared straight ahead, frozen in fear. He was too busy
marching to his death to worry about bullying others.

For the first
time, the twelve of them were all in this together. They had survived the ship
ride here together, had survived the march of the worthy, had survived these
past twelve moons here, and had all bonded—except, of course, for Rubin and the
twins, who had always remained aloof. But Royce and the eight others had formed
a bond deeper than friendship; they were now like brothers. They were all
marching to their deaths as a family. Royce would die for any of these boys,
and he knew that they would die for him. Somehow, that made it all the more
bearable.

It was something
that Rubin and the twins had never understood, something that they would miss
out on.

 “If we are to
survive this, we must remain close together.”

Royce did not
need to turn to know who was speaking; he recognized the voice. It was Altos,
walking up beside him, a tall muscular, clean-shaven boy with short black hair
and black eyes. All the boys looked up to and respected Altos, Royce amongst
them. Altos had always presented himself as a leader, had always taken the high
road, had always been the first to volunteer. He, Royce, and Mark had become
fast friends from the start.

“We must face
the beast as one,” Altos continued.

“If the beast
should attack,” chimed in Sanos, a fearless, wiry boy with flaming red hair,
endlessly loyal to Royce and the others, “we must work as a team, some of us
distracting while others attack.”

“You have your
strategies, we have ours,” interjected Rubin, turning back, glaring. “We do not
need you. I can fight alone. If you’re too scared to do so, you can do as you
please.”

“You can fight
alone and you can die alone,” Altos hissed back. “I care nothing for you.”

The tension
increased between the nine boys and Rubin and the twins, and Royce’s
apprehension deepened at the fractured group. He knew that Altos was right:
only if they worked together would they survive this. And they were not
together as of now; they were a group of nine and a group of three.

“Go your way and
we will go ours,” interjected the twins. “We’ll see who survives.”

Rubin and the
twins split off from the group, forking off to the right, deeper into the cave,
creating distance from themselves and the group.

 “The beast,
after all, will look for the larger group—and that means you,” Rubin added,
laughing as they disappeared into the blackness, now just a voice.

Royce shook his
head as they marched ahead, veering off in different directions.

“We’re better
off,” Mark said, voicing all of their thoughts. “Now at least we are truly one
unit.”

Royce’s heart
beat faster as they descended deeper and deeper into the cave, lower and lower,
the light becoming more diffused, harder to see by. There soon came a crunching
sound beneath his feet, and Royce looked down and squinted in the darkness. He
realized with a start he was stepping on bones. The bones, he assumed, of boys
who had come before him.

“Look!” Sanos
called out in horror.

Royce looked
over and watched Sanos bend over and pick up a sword, extracting it from the
grip of a skeletal hand. Royce gulped. It was the same sword he was holding.
The sword of a boy who had come before him, who had been sent on a mission just
like this.

Royce scanned
the cave floor and saw there was not just one sword—but dozens. This place was
not a battleground; it was a burial ground.

This was where
trainees were sent to die.

Royce suddenly
wondered if any of the boys had ever returned.

The group
continued on, silent, the air filled with nothing but the sound of boots
crunching on bones, and the rumbling of the beast, somewhere in the distance,
growing louder by the moment. The heat and noxious air was becoming stifling.
Royce soon found himself sweating, whether from heat or fear he did not know.

“If I don’t
survive and you do, and you ever return to the mainland,” Mark said, his voice
filled with fear, “return to my village of Ondor and tell my sister that I love
her.”

Royce turned to
see Mark looking straight ahead in the darkness, eyes wide with fear.

“And tell her
that I am sorry I let her down.”

Royce shook his
head.

“You can tell her
yourself, my friend,” Royce replied. “You are not dying on this day. And
neither am I.”

Yet as Royce
continued walking, he wondered if his words rang true.

Suddenly an
awful roar erupted, one that raised the hair on Royce’s neck. He stopped in his
tracks with the others, and as he looked up, what emerged from the depths of
the blackness only increased his sense of dread.

It was unlike
anything he had ever seen. The beast resembled a bear, with its long, brown
fur, yet was ten times the size, with a single, glowing red eye, sharpened
yellow claws, and two long horns protruding from the sides of its head. It
stood on its hind legs, towering over them, snarled, and roared again, the
sound nearly shattering Royce’s ears.

Royce could
barely hear himself think, the sound echoing all around them. The roar was
followed by the sound of squeaking, and Royce looked up to see thousands of
little creatures, resembling bats, flying away in a flock, clearly trying to
get away from the monster.

In the distance,
on the far side of the beast, Royce’s heart pounded as he spotted the Crystal Sword,
the very weapon his masters demanded they retrieve. Looking at it now, Royce
realized how impossible it was. There was no way they could get past this
monster—much less survive here.

Royce heard a
crunching noise and was shocked as he turned to see Leithna suddenly turn and
run in panic. Royce was disgusted at his cowardice, yet if there was anyone he
would expect to run it would be him; he had barely survived his training. Royce
could understand. That beast was hideous enough to inspire fear in even the
most intrepid heart.

Royce watched in
horror as the beast suddenly lunged forward, shockingly fast given its size,
and set its sights on Leithna as he fled across the cave. Within a few bounds
he had reached him, and as it swiped with its long arms, its yellow claws
slashed his back in half.

Leithna shrieked
and collapsed face-first to the ground in a pool of blood. Without pausing, the
beast picked him up in its claws and put him in his mouth, swallowing him
whole.

“Attack!” Altos
called out.

Altos ran
forward fearlessly, raising his sword, and Royce joined the others as they all
charged as one, raising their swords in a great outcry. As they closed in,
Royce, his heart pounding, continued running until he reached the beast and
stabbed it in its thigh. Mark and the others boys reached it, too, slashing and
stabbing it across its legs and shins, as high as they could reach. Altos
hurled his sword, sending it spinning end over end through the air until it
lodged deep into the beast’s thigh.

The beast leaned
back and shrieked in pain. Given all the expert wounds, Royce expected it to
stumble back and fall; after all, they had timed it perfectly and had attacked
with all they’d had. Royce was proud of his brothers. They were truly one unit
now.

Yet, to Royce’s
shock, the beast merely reached down, grabbed Altos in one hand, raised him up,
and moved to put him into his mouth, as if to swallow him whole. As the beast
squeezed its hand into a fist, Royce heard a sickening cracking sound, and he
realized it was Altos’s ribs cracking. Altos shrieked in agony.

Royce acted
quickly, knowing he had but moments if he wished to save his friend. He planted
his feet, reached back with his sword, took aim, and hurled it.

He watched it
sail end over end through the air and finally find a place in the beast’s eye.

The beast
shrieked and then dropped Altos. He fell twenty feet through the air and landed
on the hard cave floor, groaning, perhaps cracking more ribs. But at least he
was alive.

The beast,
roaring in fury, pulled the sword from his eye and, blinded, stomped around
madly, trying to kill anything in its path.

Royce’s brothers
ran, trying to escape the massive feet that came down like hammers, creating craters
in the earth. Royce watched in horror as five of them could not escape quickly
enough and were crushed and killed. Royce’s heart ached as he saw his new
friend Sanos lying there, amongst the unlucky ones, crushed into the earth.

That left six
dead, and Altos wounded. Which left Royce and Mark the only ones standing.
Royce could scarcely believe it. All these brave boys, boys he had trained and
lived with all of these moons, all of them killed so quickly.

The beast turned
toward them, as if sensing them in the blackness.

Royce detected
motion and he looked out of the corner of his eye to see Rubin and the twins
creep forward in the shadows. Now that the beast was blinded, they raised their
swords and rushed forward and jabbed them all the way through the beast’s thick
feet, pinning it to the ground.

The beast
roared, infuriated as it was stuck.

Royce expected
the beast to stay pinned, yet to his surprise it managed to lift one foot out
of the ground, then another. It bunched its hands into fists, raised them high
above its face, and brought one down blindly. Seth looked up in horror as its
fist came down and smashed him into the earth.

The beast then
roared, reached out, and somehow managed to sense Sylvan, snatching him up in
the air and in one quick motion eating him alive, drowning out his awful
shrieks as the boy entered his mouth.

The only who
remained now were Royce, Mark, Altos—lying on the ground, immobile—and Rubin.
Rubin, clearly sensing an opportunity, ran for the Crystal Sword at the far end
of the cave. Royce realized with indignation that Rubin meant to snatch the
sword and run out of the cave himself, while all the others died down here.

Rubin reached
the sword and grabbed it and prepared to run—when the beast detected him. It
spun, swiped its huge claws, and snatched Rubin up. It held him high, bringing
him close as if to eat him.

Royce knew that Rubin
deserved to die; even so, he did not feel he could allow it to happen. Even
though Rubin had behaved terribly, had been an awful person, Rubin was still
his brother-in-arms, after all. And it was not Royce’s way to sit there and let
a fellow boy die, even if he deserved it.

Royce let out a
great cry, feeling a rush of determination, and without thinking of his own
safety, he rushed forward, grabbed a sword off the ground, and leapt into the
air. As he jumped he felt a great heat rise within his body, felt the power
come to him. He found himself leaping higher and higher in the air, twenty,
thirty feet. It was surreal. It was almost as if he were flying.

Royce raised the
sword as he flew and, palms throbbing with power, he brought it down right for
the beast’s chest, plunging it in.

The beast
shrieked. It stared down as if in shock and dropped Rubin, who landed on the
ground far below. It then reached down and grabbed Royce.

But Royce held
onto the sword with all his might, dangling in the air, impaling it in its
chest, refusing to let go even as he felt the beast’s claws wrap around him.
Slowly, the beast’s claws tightened around him, squeezing the life out of him.
Royce did not know how much more pressure he could stand before he broke into
pieces. He knew he was about to die.