The data from the dismembered android led them here. The strange map kept within the truck-driving thug’s electric mind bore an “X” marking the Rock of Níyol. It was one of many towering rock formations in the desert, its name being the Navajo word for “wind.” The descriptor was apt, the breeze whipping and stirring around the three automobiles as they pulled up. The sandy beige Hummer skidded to a halt while Brennus’ Mustang and Marcus’ Adventurer rolled to a gentle stop. As all four sandal-footed, sun-glass-wearing warriors stepped out, it was clear their leader was concerned.
“This cache better be good.” Val muttered, tossing her denim jacket back in the SUV. “If it ain’t all the guns, ammo and rations we’ll need to make it to Haven, I’ll blow the fucker to hell outta spite. Heat’s enough to melt your bones out ya fur.”
“I betcha it’s there in the cave,” Brennus observed, the muscled gray martial artist ditching his own long-sleeve shirt.
“Guess I’m the only fella who don’ have to strip,” Marcus chuckled, the buff red driver fanning himself with a few tugs of his Hawaiian shirt. His wife Sabina, however, left her leather jacket in the smiling DeSoto.
“My formosa,” she teased in her playful Latina tones, “You were born a lizard some days, I swear.”
“Least I know where to find the sweetest desert roses.” he teased in kind, snatching her up in his arms.
The red-furred couple nuzzled each other before Val chimed in with “no PDA, lovebirds, we got something these bots don’t want found down there.”
Out came shovels and metal detectors as the couples strolled up the trail and towards the mouth of Níyol’s cave. And though her admonishing was playful, Val kept close to Brennus herself, his gray arm wrapped gently around his white-furred lover. “How we feeling?” he asked. “Meditation still serving you well?”
“Much better.” Val smiled. “It’s flowing better. The thoughts. Letting ‘em go in and out. Guess you weren’t kidding about how you found peace all them years ago.”
The gray wolf nodded. “It’s even better now, with us all on a pretty even keel.” He pointed to the red couple ahead of them, Marcus’ Herculean build stood in stark contrast to the playful sway of Sabina’s hips. “Look at those two, letting their woes come and pass in the morning sessions. Never thought they’d be happy like that again.”
Valentina nodded. “Neither did I...by God, neither did I.”
“And look at you,” Brennus smiled. “Shaping up fine as a leader.”
“Well y’know what they say,” the white wolf nodded. “Behind every great woman is a great man.” The lovers embraced as they finally entered the Rock of Níyol.
Once in, they switched the detectors on and made their passes along the sandy floor. At first, there was nothing, safe for some stray chunks of unprocessed ore.
“At least we can smelt these, right?” asked Sabina.
“Absolutely,” Val nodded, “Chuck ‘em in our sack and—hold it! I think we got a live one.” The machines were going crazy over a patch by the cave’s western wall. Marcus and Brennus grabbed the shovels and started digging, though it wasn’t a smooth operation at first.
“Shit, ground’s like cement over here.” Brennus growled.
“Not if I can help it!” bellowed Marcus. With a stomp of his flat red paw, he drove the shovel deep in the dusty earth, lifting the top layer with a heaving grunt.
All he got for his trouble was a flat obsidian slab.
“There gotta be something in it, right?” he asked.
“Get me a brush,” answered Brennus. “There are lines filled in by the dust. This might be a door to somewhere.” When handed his brush, he dusted off the six-foot slab. Once cleaned, it was clear the slab was definitely metal, and definitely accessible. “Let’s use the shovels to pry ‘er open.”
The wolven men’s muscles bulged as they dug the shovels into the crack and pulled with all their might. Their claws dug into their sandals as they growled and fumed. With a final roar, the latch broke and the door flung open. Revealed to all were a set of circuits. No secret passage ways or traps, just a mess of wire on an unkempt motherboard. While the men toweled the sweat from their hands and paws, Valentina and Sabina inspected the array.
“Ain’t like any computer guts I ever seen.” the white wolf sighed. “But dig the pipe! It goes deeper into the tunnel.”
“And I bet,” ventured the red-furred Latina, “that the pipe is the same metal as this compartment. Which means we can follow the trail.”
The quartet did just that, running the metal detectors along the tunnel’s left-hand side. When the last bit of daylight was lost, the troop threw on their headlamps and kept going, deeper and deeper into the quiet cave. It was a surprisingly dry cave, no sign of stalagmites nor stalactites, no eerie drips echoing in the distance.
“Whatever it is,” Marcus surmised, “Gotta still be active if they knocked all the humidity outta here. Here’s hoping security don’t get messy.” He patted the sawed-off shotgun on his hip for good luck.
Instead, the magnetic trail led the hunters to a chamber of sorts. It was too desolate to be a grotto. The ground was smoothed over, however, a tell that someone took great care in arranging this space.
Valentina was the first to observe that it “felt like an arena.”
“Many things in life appear as such.” Brennus replied plainly.
What no one counted on was the appearance of a wolf deep in the cave.
Suddenly, warm candlelight lit up the dark. Stepping out from the shadows, with great buccaneer boots and his mass of shawls, was the wanderer from Valentina’s visions. A wanderer that all could see within the space.
“Welcome my friends,” he boomed in his sumptuous English baritone. “The fun’s about to begin.”
Marcus rested a hand on the grip of his sawed-off shotgun, only for Valentina to pipe up with a most peculiar remark.
“But I left you with the other rides!”
“The body, my child,” the black wolf clarified, dragging a long index finger along his snout, “but not the mind. Though I must admit, I’m not quite feeling myself.”
“Who are you?” Marcus asked, still on guard.
“The way you shall interface with this magic land of ours beneath the great Níyol. I hope it to be most enlightening.”
“You say ‘magic,’” Brennus pressed skeptically.
The Wanderer could only chuckle. “In as much as Clarke’s third law will allow.” he reassured. “In truth, I am but the manifestation of the strongest spirit in the room, and I must say, my dear Valentina, my how you have grown.”
She didn’t know whether to blush or shoot, so she tried one last hand for rationality.
“But you ain’t real!” the white wolf barked. “You just in my head. My...my Hummer for one, but I guess my subconscious for another.”
“Well, if we’re talking metaphysics, perhaps. But you all are in the hallowed halls of psychokinetic projection. In a sense, anything in your mind is fair game. And we’re about to put that to the test.”
“What test?” Sabina and Marcus chimed in unison. He couldn’t wrap his head around it all. “Mind” and “test” brought back the memories of therapy with Eric, of the terrible visions that had tortured him for years. The towering red hound held his woman tight, defiant in the face of a relapse.
“That’s the funny thing,” the Wanderer remarked, fixing his broad-brimmed hat. “Haven’t a clue. Trouble with firewalls and all that.”
“You can at least tell us the purpose.” Val ordered sternly.
“Purpose, yes.” he replied. “Fine idea. The secret of Níyol is to find the strongest warriors in the land. Warriors unbound by the frailties of wolfkind, the barbarisms and weaknesses that plague our flesh and fur. They are to be rewarded for their bravery at the end of this gauntlet.”
Puzzled glowers sat on each wolf’s face, still perplexed by the entire ordeal. “And how shall we be running this?” Brennus quizzed again.
“You’ll be running it. Right. Now!”
Darkness fell upon the cave. They couldn’t see, hear or feel each other in the shadows. When next the light rose, the wolven warriors would find themselves faced with a peculiar pair of bizarre scenarios...
Marcus and Sabina were right where they felt safest, behind the wheel of that smiling DeSoto Adventurer. Night had fallen, and they did as they always had beneath the full moon’s light. Sabina’s slender, voluptuous red body rippled along the gladiator frame of her man, both wolves oblivious to the world beyond their four-wheeled abode. The rumbling flash of warmth that rocketed through man and wife sent Sabina falling back against that toned body of his.
“Like a military rack, Formosa,” she teased, nuzzling his neck.
“Well you seem like a tough little army girl if you can sleep on it all night,” Marcus shot back with a smile. “Let’s see you rock-n-roll on the front lines.”
That was her cue to fire the car up and take the two for a quick joyride. She gave the key a good twist, and revved the engine. The mountain of a hound behind her playfully yawned as she drummed the throttle, the Adventurer letting out barking revs with each stomp.
“You flood her, you fix her,” he teased.
“Yes sir,” Sabina retorted, punching in drive on the button-panel gearshift. When she gave the gas pedal one last shove, she was met with the scream of the beast’s tires, without said beast moving an inch. When she looked down at the footwell, she saw her lover’s broad sandaled paw flat on the brake. She wanted to wheel around on him, only to be met with a playful kiss.
“I just love it when you spin ‘er wheels,” he grinned. He snapped his paw up, she held hers down, and the DeSoto bolted away in a cloud of tire smoke, both lovers thrown back in their seat, besides themselves with laughter.
Screaming out of the desert night, from seemingly nowhere, was a patch of warmth, like sun through a thunderstorm. When the DeSoto bolted through the window between day and night, it skidded right into an arena. The arena where Marcus had once fought all those years ago. The skies were the burned orange of his visions, and the wretched, burnt tire smell lingered in the air.
Sabina slammed the brakes down and went tried to reverse, only to be met with the closed cage where a gladiator’s car would be housed.
“Marcus!” she cried, fearing the relapse that was sure to come. When Sabina turned around, she was met with his vacant stare. He said nothing, not a single word. He simply zipped up his shorts, shifted Sabina over into the passenger seat, and took the wheel. When he looked to her, to her petrified face, he at last smiled.
“We’ll make it, babe.” he grinned, caressing her tear-stained face. “Whatever it is, whatever it takes.”
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she laugh-cried.
“Just be glad we still got our heads on better than before.” he chuckled, He tightened the lace of his gladiator sandals, and with a mighty stomp, the barbarian wolf set his smiling machine to her task, looking for an exit he could find.
“There’s the gate,” he growled, clutching the wheel. He held the Adventurer to course, the Space Age muscle car roaring for the wrought iron rods, only for them to swing open, and for the head of a massive rattlesnake to shoot through the doors.
He slammed the brakes and swung the cream-colored convertible away, circling back to the cage they had entered through. “The hell is that doing here!?” he bellowed, the monstrous reptile pulling itself through the entrance, and coiling into the arena’s center.
“Challenggggge meeee.” it beckoned in a hoarse whisper, its death rattle shaking the arena. “Challenge me or die.”
The lovers sat completely confused. “You afraid of snakes?” Marcus asked. Sabina shook her head. “Good, neither am I.”
“Weren’t we reading something like this?” she asked innocently.
Marcus glanced upward, sifting through the million thoughts racing thru his head until he had an answer. “Oh yeah! One of my old adventure comics from the trunk. But ours was a cobra.”
“Our friend here is just for show.” boomed an old English voice. “Makes things more exciting. The real tests will come in due time.” Wherever he was, it was the strange cloaked hound from the caves!
“Knew it I didn’t like that fella,” Marcus growled. He loaded their sawed-off shotgun and handed it off to Sabina.
“Marcus? Formosa?” she asked softly.
“Whatsit, baby?”
The Latina pulled her man in for a kiss, and flashed a brave smile. “Just a little luck for the road.”
“Let’s getcha some snakeskins,” he grinned, fixing his shades. He slammed the throttle down, the DeSoto bolting for the lumbering rattlesnake. Sabina rolled the window down and swung her head out, aiming for the snake’s flat face.
Blow after blow whizzed by, occasionally skimming the skin. And even when the bullets landed, they weren’t doing much. Round after round peppered the diamondback’s scales, only for wounds to heal and bullets to vanish in its body.
“Well, we can’t shoot our way out through him,” Sabina sighed. “What can we...un momento. Look, in the backseat!”
Both wolves looked over their shoulders to find a large broadsword. Silver blade, black handle, and neither knew where it had come from.
“Guess he wants us to skin ‘im ourselves.” Marcus surmised.
He pulled the DeSoto back to the spot they had entered from. Sabina took the wheel while her lover grabbed the blade. With a flip of her long dark hair and a slap of her paw, the car was off again, racing towards nearest chunk of coil.
Once close, Marcus drove the sword into the skin with a feral roar and let his bitch’s lead foot split the coil open. The snake hissed and shrieked as blood spilled from the slit drawn. The rattler came swinging for the car, but Sabina cut the wheel and bolted away. The sands were stained red as the leviathan diamondback seethed, the lovers swing in for the next round. Same as before, the broadsword was jammed into the coiled snake, Sabina following the curve to the letter. It was all going perfectly. Too perfectly.
Midway through their second diamondback gutting, the sword caught in the reptiles body. It ripped out of Marcus’ hands and sent the DeSoto spinning wildly from the sudden shift in momentum. Sabina fought for control, soothing their metal beast as she fought for control.
“Bring me back around.” Marcus growled. “We ain’t licked just yet.”
The DeSoto roared towards the stuck blade as the diamondback writhed, the head diving towards the car. Sabina swerved, the car spitting dust into the snake’s mouth.
“Alright,” the red gladiator sighed, “Let’s try hoofing it.”
Without a second thought, Marcus leapt from the car. Sprinting towards the blade, he managed to grab hold of it, only for the sword to remain stuck. Tried as he might, he couldn’t get the damn thing out. Worse still, the coiled snake began to ripple and bulge. As the mass grew, Marcus clung to his blade as it carried him higher and higher. The coils folded and rolled through each other, bringing the mighty red wolf right to the snake’s massive maw.
Sabina grabbed the sawed-off, ready to blast the beast right through his venomous jaws, only to feel a blade to her throat, and a hand jammed in her stomach. Her eyes went wide as she saw the assailant in the rear-view.
He was jet-black, but not a black wolf. Like a mass of shadow with a knife for a hand, white light for eyes, and a devious grin. She reached for the gun again, only for the mass to slam her arm back in her gut. He held her down so tight, his arm felt the true blade, ready to cleave through her by sheer force. She dared not move, dared not drive, as she saw a third hand wrap around, snaking beneath her restraints. She felt the disgusting brush of it along her body, breasts, and legs.
“What a beauty you’ll make for,” it greasily whispered in the snake’s voice. The hand snapped onto her throat, the glowing sliver knife pressed against her neck. Sabina’s gut tighten, her vision dimming. She felt the cold breath of this infernal beast, its lecherous gaze, the world dying around her. She then saw what could be the last thing she’d ever see: her lover swallowed by that horrendous rattlesnake, tongue hissing and sizzling in anticipation.
In a last gasp, she cried “MARCUS,” at the top of her lungs, and in that moment, saved them both.
Marcus, for all his new-found strength, couldn’t free the sword. He was drawn closer and closer to the wretched rattlesnake and his devilish eyes, savoring the struggle of his prey. It was only when he heard the cry of his woman, and caught sight of that tender body bound by those heinous shadows, that he found that extra shot of adrenaline-soaked rage. With a feral roar, a hard jab into the snake’s skin, and a leaping shove, the muscled red wolf freed himself! He swung himself out of the snake’s clutches, and drug the sword down the length of his mountainous coil, blood flowing freely as the beast shrieked in pain.
Sabina, the image of Marcus dead in the snake’s gullet, slammed the gas down, ripped through the shadow’s vice grip and grabbed the blade with her bare hands. She pitched the blade out the window, and whipped the shadowed creature down over the seat by its neck. With a pull of the trigger, the sawed-off fired, point blank. The shadowed demon blew to pieces, blood soaking the passenger seat, though it was nothing compared the gushing red waterfall her husband was making of their scaly foe.
“Get in!” she barked, pulling up just as he landed. Marcus did just that, as the duo bolted away from the deflating reptile and towards the now-cleared exit. The second they were free, the world went dark again.
Brennus was home. Same wooden shack, same red sands beyond. And nestled against him, from the comfort of his bed, was Valentina. But not his Valentina. He still felt in her soft white body that miserable shiver of their first night together. The shiver of a young woman snared by the tortures he himself had only just escaped a few years ago. It was before his own attempt at releasing Val’s trauma, but he saw through the illusion shortly.
Whatever your game is, he decried from within, you’ll have to do more than the past can manage.
“I’m glad you think that,” rang the Wanderer’s booming voice. “I can see you all made quite a step forward. Now put that best paw to good use.”
Brennus stood up, slipped into his jeans, buckled his sandals, and walked to the front door. Sat next to the hat rack was a broadsword with a black handle. Without a second thought, the bare-chested gray filled his hand, and opened the door. Staring back at him were six eyes, sat in the dark. In fact, darkness had consumed all beyond the door. Whatever this infernal contraption was doing to his mind, it was playing off old information.
“You could use with an update,” Brennus scowled, blade raised. “We’ve grown a lot since then.”
He swung a sharp blow at the malevolent whatsit at his door, only for the eyes to dart from view. All that remained was the void, and the gentle tap of a small white hand on his shoulder.
“The hell was that?” Val gasped.
He thought he heard his lover’s old twang, instead of the clean, matured woman he was now so familiar with. When he answered with a cool “trying to figure that out,” his Valentina’s voice emerged, jade eyes wide awake.
“You alright?” she asked calmly, slipping into her denim jacket. “I feel like I was hung out to dry.”
“God I hope so,” Brennus sighed. “You realize where we are?”
“Back at your shack, yeah.”
By the grace of God, it seemed the two were sharing in this delusion. “Arm yourself,” he sighed. “I don’t know what kind of test this is.”
“Lil’ convenient that they said ‘warrior,’” the short white wolf answered, grabbing a baseball bat, “My money’s on a trap. In fact, I’d say a trap just for all of us, anyone who managed to survive the bloodsports in Haven.”
“Only one way to find out!” echoed the Wanderer’s voice from afar.
Suddenly, the six eyes became hundreds. Not hundreds of individual pairs, nor dozens of six-sets, but the black of the void rippled into a sea of eyes, watching and staring at the couple. Their gaze stung, a physical, powerful pain, as they all stared packed against one another like seeds in a sunflower’s head. But the gaze alone wasn’t enough to deter Valentina and Brennus. They looked into each other’s eyes, the warmth and compassion.
“Remember why I took you in?” he asked her softly.
“Remember why I wrapped my mad little mind around yours?” she asked in kind.
They both knew the answer, and with a nod between each other, launched themselves into the grotesque menagerie. Cleaving, bashing, breaking every solitary white orb, every black pupil, clearing glowering gaze in a blind fury of martial skill. Each lunge of the sword, each swing of the bat, each abnormal eye gored and gone. The lovers fought in an equilibrium of force, the other’s action always matched, an eye for an eye. But the forces within this peculiar space were not done with the hounds.
As the trypophobic array dwindled, the vacant space was revealed for what it was, a black void. For a moment, all was still.
“It’s gotten easier.” Brennus remarked. “Easier to deal with being seen in the world. Easier to—”
CRACK!
It was the sound of a skull split wide, answered by a banshee’s scream. Valentina whipped around just in time to see her Brennus drop to the ground, twitching from the shock, and the culprit behind him...was Valentina.
A white-eyed, mangy Valentina, limbs and breasts bulging with muscles to rival Marcus, and a large snout trimmed with sharp teeth. And yet, when faced with her own malformed mirror image, a doppelganger of what was or could yet be, Valentina raced towards her and locked clubs. The wood cracked against one another, the grotesque white wolf lunging savagely at her short, demure counterpart.
“If you do this to me,” she growled with each blow, “I will bring the whole fucking house down on you! You’ll never get away with what you’ve done to us!”
The savage bitch didn’t answer, choosing only to snarl and growl as they fought. The jade-eyed Valentina met the overwhelming scale and might with tenacity aplomb, trading blow after blow. She knew what she was fighting; it wasn’t her, it wasn’t even some dark part of her. It was what should could have become thanks to that wretched Colosseum. It was what she feared Marcus would become, and what she feared Brennus would devolve into. And she fought that hellish life tooth and nail. Even as her cheek and nose bled, even as her eyes watered from sheer exhaustion, and of the horrible despair of losing that one man of hers she had come to rely on, she fought with a god’s might.
The savage, white-eyed wolf she sparred with kept the war coming. Its assault never wavered, never showed signs of weakening. It only ended when the real Valentina landed a final blow, square on the head. The skull cracked as the muscled white wolf dropped. With her own banshee cry, Valentina clubbed the contorted, muscular body with everything left in her. All the hate, all the rage, every soured emotion left from her torturous time in that sanguinary arena. Blood spilled and bone shattered, the body deflating with each bludgeoning until it looked like her again. The last thing she crushed were those perma-white eyes, popped with a final stomp of her sandaled paw.
With nothing left in her, Valentina staggered towards her fallen man, now dressed his familiar black long-sleeve. She collapsed next to him, but didn’t pass out just yet. She had to know.
“Please,” she wept, “Please, for the love of God, don’t let me do this. I would never have. Never, never, never, never.”
She trailed off, a broken hound, only to hear that calm, tender voice. The voice she heard whispered to her in the bed of that old shack, and on the dark desert night he had tried to help her.
“It wasn’t you that blindsided me,” he hoarsely whispered. “It was what you coulda been. I made one mistake that night...I didn’t know how bad you were hurting. I didn’t cut to the core. But it’s all over now. It’s all over.”
He pulled her in close, with every ounce of strength he had, and held her until the world went black once more.
All of that, in five seconds time. The team staggered to their feet when relieved of the machine’s analysis, the Wanderer waiting patiently for them to get their bearings. It was good to be back in the material world, and good to know everyone was alright, each couple locked in a feverish embrace.
“It seems you’ve all passed with flying colors.” the Wanderer remarked gleefully. “Time to dole out prizes. Downloading...nowhere. Hmph?”
The team looked puzzled. “What were you gonna download?” Val asked, brow furrowed.
The shawl-wrapped black wolf glanced around, looking at a display invisible to Val and the Pack. “I have a protocol labeled EXE.002-X. Supposed to send somewhere in you lot, but it hasn’t anywhere to go.”
The red couple were lost while Valentina racked her brain. It was Brennus who drew up the answer. “Wasn’t 002-X one of the options from our CRT droid from a while back?”
“You’re right!” chimed Sabina.
“And it’s attached to an executable,” the broad-shouldered gray continued. “Or perhaps, a file earmarked for executions?”
The Wanderer simply shrugged. “Count yourselves lucky, I guess.”
“Not lucky,” Marcus answered, “But damn fortunate. We got the coordinates from a busted-up bot in Machan.”
“So it’s a trap!” Val exclaimed. “A trap to suss out who made the conversion! Only reason we even survived was ‘cuz we ain’t augged! We don’t have any of the cybernetics, so there’s nowhere to download it in us!”
“Our minds must have the profile of an superwolf,” added Brennus, “But you can’t download shit to a big ol’ packa gray matter!”
The lovers rejoiced at their survival, but the joy was short-lived.
“You may have,” the Wanderer answered plainly, “but it appears you aren’t the only ones bearing these brain patterns.”
Everyone froze.
“Someone’s coming up the road to Níyol. And I do believe there is a destination for this file, should he prove himself, of course.”
What began as a mere cache had turned into a revealing glance through the Colosseum survivor’s minds, and what would be their first meeting with a bastard of Nero. And each hound’s heart began to pound with terrible might, as the footsteps drew nearer and nearer to the cave mouth. They had to know more, and they had to stop what was almost assuredly the bastard’s destruction.
The four wolves broke into a sprint, racing back through the cave, tripping over rocks in their mad scramble. Paws pounding the rocks and sand, frantic to reach the hound before he took a step further. They rushed up to the cave mouth and skidded on their heels to a stop.
There he was. And there they were. Distant relations forged in fire, now stood face to face for the first time. And for Valentina, the day would change her life forever…
Very exciting and cleverly done.