(14) Little Choice

“Gah!” Tara gagged, the metal collar, already fitted tight, squeezing her throat as she ran.

Her wrists were bound with manacles, and the two manacles and her collar by a thick chain. She ran mostly with her legs, but the instinctive desire to pump her arms was always there, threatening her neck with another yank. Overriding instinctive behavior was difficult, she realized.

An older man in front of her stumbled and fell, rolling across the ground.

“Come on, we gotta go!” Tara said, grabbing the man under his arms and hoisting him to his feet.

It was rather rough treatment, but there was no time for manners. The man immediately started running once his feet hit the ground, no time wasted on thanks, which Tara appreciated.

The ground shook, further complicating their flight as their pursuers drew closer. Tara heard a scream behind her that cut off abruptly. She grit her teeth and kept running without looking back. There was nothing to be done about it now.

“See, word is that Nemesis is still there. Two hundred years of that energy beatin’ it up, and it’s survived somehow. Can’t just go knockin’ on the door now, can we? So, we’re gonna send ya in to see what’s goin’ on.

“Oh, and don’t even think a runnin’. We got some plans to make sure ya head straight for Nemesis, no detours,” Carga finished, his foul breath leaking through the missing teeth in his smile.

After Carga’s ominous declaration, she, along with all the other slaves, was rounded up and forced to march to the Crater. They were prodded with weapons the whole way, and it was not until they left the Peaks and entered the Crater proper that the manacles around Tara’s ankles were even undone.

That, under normal circumstances, would have made her nervous. Why would her captors aid her ability to run? Yet it was the least of her worries at that moment.

The Crater was the most dangerous place in the world. Nearly everything in there could kill you, from the air to the creatures. On top of that, they were being shepherded toward Nemesis, a place that was functionally just a legend. True, it existed in reality, but it had been inaccessible longer than her parents had—

She winced at the thought of her parents, quickly shaking it from her head. Now was not the time for distractions.

With a thud, a titanic claw cratered the ground next to her, nothing but bone fragments and a splash of blood remaining of the man she just helped up, gone without a scream.

This was not working.

Tara could see Nemesis, almost taunting them with its distance. They could make it with just a few more minutes of running, but they did not even have that. Reckoning with this fact, Tara made a snap decision and skidded to a halt, turning on her pursuers.

If death were inevitable, she would die fighting, not running.

“What are you doing?! Keep going!” a woman—Numa—shouted.

Numa was the only one Tara vaguely knew among the other slaves. When she was captured, she managed to injure a few of her captors, earning her solitary confinement. When she managed to injure even more of her captors as they tried to feed her, a slave was elected to bring her food. That was Numa, and Tara at least got to speak to her occasionally, making the confinement slightly less solitary.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Keep running. I’ll do what I can,” Tara said, her voice growing deeper, a growl rumbling in her throat.

Deep blue fur began to grow along her body, her fangs sharpened, her nails extended into claws, and she hunched over, her back muscles rippling beneath new fur. Her vision focused, details of her pursuers sharpening.