Statera - The Balanced One

Chapter Twenty-Three

Owen touched my shoulder and said, "It appears that way." He looked completely defeated when Art crossed to stand next to his twin.

"Not quite, dear brother. That is stage one in the process, coming up on stage two. We'll need to ensure we kill them immediately if we encounter immobile ones. It means they are in the last stages of becoming a Cusith. This place wreaks of Afflicted—hordes of them. I hate to even think this, but the immobile ones will be highly protected because I have a hunch Senka may be purposely making Cusith. That is not good for anyone, not to mention she is courting death. The Cusith she creates will likely kill her in the end."

"Well, we'll have to move quickly in between encounters, so there's no chance of them warning the others and spoiling our element of surprise," Anissa said.

The rest of us concurred with her way of thinking, and when everyone still didn't move, Samantha said, "The night is not getting any younger. So let's get going."

Owen and Art stepped to the front of the group and, in unison, said, "No!"

Samantha was shocked but obeyed all the same. She shrunk back on her haunches and waited for further instruction.

"We're waiting for the rovers to return, and we'll ambush them when they do. Only then will we head in the direction they came from."

No one dared question either man; they were, after all, the Dominants of this group, with Art being the Head Dominant. So, we took up our instructed spots and waited for Cole to signal when he heard them coming back twenty minutes later. Everyone waited, alert and on edge. Dahlia and Owen stood in plain sight, dead center of the large cavern opening, ready to charge as soon as the trio could be seen.

When the sentries returned, they were so focused on Owen and Dahlia that they didn't notice the rest of us on either side, obscured in the shadows. Keitan, Quinn, and Cole took the Afflicted on the right, while Samantha, Eric, and I took the one on the left. Anissa had climbed up to a ledge just above. She dropped atop the hound-like creature as Owen and Dahlia started charging the same target.

Anissa landed on the snarling creature's back and, quick as lightning, snapped its neck. Dahlia and Owen attacked the still form of the beast ravenously and tore it in two. Dahlia came away with the creature's head and spine dangling from her mouth while Owen tossed the hindquarters onto the heap of already dismantled sentries. The sentries had not known what hit them.

Josh had stood in the shadows, a spectator to the gruesome onslaught from within the protection of his bubble. He walked over to rejoin us, and we silently walked down the corridor of the left cavern.

We must have walked for fifteen minutes when the cavern, with its twists and turns, let out into a much larger cave. This area seemed to be the heart of the natural rock structures. It was multileveled, and I could hear water trickling down the far walls into an enormous cave lake. In the center of this lake was a small mass of land about the size of a basketball court. A platform lifted a central canopied structure off the island's surface. On either side of the fancy, canopied area was large, metal cages that held a shadowy hound creature with seething red eyes. They didn't look happy. Samantha's trait kept our scent hidden, but that didn't seem enough because the two hounds got to their feet, and Afflicted materialized on the lowest level. There were fewer than I'd suspected, only about forty, but our group was still greatly outnumbered. After a moment of observation, I saw it wasn't us that had caused the sudden shift in activity.

A tirade of howls and yips ensued and went on for several minutes and then ceased. The hounds dropped to their haunches, and every Afflicted went down to one knee, head downcast. Then, a large silver-colored Lycan stepped forward from beneath the canopied area—not an Afflicted, but a Natural Lycan.