It dawned on me then that Jack could very well be an Adlet himself.
Scarlett
We entered the patch of woods less than a mile west, our horses gracefully keeping up with the six Adlets and a very excited Jack. The more I watched them run together, the more similarities I noticed between them, and the more certain I became that Jack was, somehow, related to the Adlets.
The rainy drizzle stopped by the time we reached a clearing, where two dozen other Adlets waited. The entire area was lined with mounds, all of them riddled with holes—each camouflaged with twigs, weeds, and dead leaves. In the middle, a small campfire burned. The Adlets all jumped to their feet, in humanoid form—the look of wariness on their faces unsurprisingly familiar. All Nerakians who had suffered at the hands of daemons and Exiled Maras wore it. No one was eager to welcome us, not until we made our intentions clear.
Gasps erupted from the pack when they saw Jack approach with the other six Adlets. Several males growled, moving in front of the females and children. The first Adlet that we’d met in the field shifted to humanoid form, grabbing a cloth from a pile near the fire and wrapping it around his waist. The other five followed suit, including the young Mahlon, who still had trouble taking his eyes off Jack.
“Don’t be alarmed,” the first Adlet said, nodding at us. “They’re here to help.”
One male Adlet caught my eye as I got off my horse and moved closer to Jack, who whimpered and sat on his hind legs. He was slightly taller and bulkier than the others, and wore white locks through his rich, reddish hair, along with several battle scars across his chest and arms.
“You had better have a good explanation for bringing strangers into our camp, Isom,” he said, glaring at the first Adlet, who raised his hands in a defensive gesture.
“They just want to talk, Colton,” Isom said. “They’re fighting the same foes as we are. And look who’s helping them.”
Isom then pointed at Jack, who was somewhat restless, but stayed by my side. Colton, their pack leader, stilled at the sight of my pit wolf. Recognition flickered in his amber eyes, briefly followed by surprise, then grief. His chest deflated as he exhaled sharply, the tremor in his voice confirming that they all knew Jack.
“How did you get him?” Colton asked, his gaze fixed on Jack.
“We rescued him from the Valley of Screams,” I replied. “The daemons use charmed collars to subdue creatures like him. I accidentally broke his during a fight, and he’s stayed close ever since.”
“State your business here, before we tear you to shreds!” A young male Adlet stepped forward. He froze when Colton growled at him, then slowly moved back, his cheeks burning red with embarrassment.
“Mind your tongue, Jahiem,” Colton barked. “Leave the questioning to me. You’re not the alpha here.”
Jahiem’s mother whispered something in his ear, prompting the young Adlet to nod slowly and stare at his feet. Colton crossed his arms, measuring each of us from head to toe, before settling his gaze back on Jack.
“Jahiem is my eldest, and a little too hot-headed for this conversation. We’ve been having more trouble than usual with daemons in these parts over the past few months, and we’re all on edge. We don’t take kindly to strangers, as there are few of us left, and, despite our stronghold here, the daemons have been getting more brazen. We sleep less, eat less, and fight more, but we still have these woods and most of the plains.”
“Are you the only Adlets in the region?” I asked.
“There’s another pack farther to the east, but they’ve been having the same troubles as us,” Colton replied. “Like I said, the daemons are starting to close in on us. The frequent rains work in our favor, but they won’t for much longer. We’re able to spot daemons and organize the occasional raid on their camps when they least expect it. Otherwise, we would’ve all ended up like him by now.”
He nodded at Jack.
“Wait, what do you mean? So, Jack is an Adlet, right?” I said, my gaze shifting between Colton and Isom.
Colton sighed, his shoulders dropping. “There’s a reason why the daemons aren’t in too much of a rush to exterminate our entire species,” he said. “They very well could, if they wanted to. All it’d take would be a small army of death claws in the middle of the night, and that would be the end of us. But they need us. They source their beasts from us.”
“Pit wolves are Adlets, subjected to months of torture and swamp witch magic,” Isom added. “They lose their thick coats, and their eyes turn red in the process. They also lose their ability to shift back to their bipedal form. Once the daemons snap those wretched collars on, that’s it. The Adlet is gone, and the obedient, bloodthirsty pit wolf is born.”
“The daemons raid our camps once a year and steal our people,” Colton continued. “They leave the younglings behind because they need full-grown adults to turn and use against the Imen, and anyone else who defies them, for that matter. Including us.”
My heart sank as I listened to this most painful confirmation. Somewhere behind those red eyes, Jack was an Adlet. He’d once belonged to a family, a pack of his own. Oh, dear.
“Jack is one of your own, isn’t he?” I breathed, connecting the dots as Jack looked at me.
“His name is Hundurr,” Colton replied, his eyes glassy with tears. His brow furrowed. “He was once our pack leader, the alpha before me.”
“Oh, Jack.” I sighed, then leaned into the pit wolf and wrapped my arms around his thick, muscular neck. He nuzzled my ear, then licked it, showing his affection in a way that surprised everyone around us, including the Adlets.
“It’s all in the collars,” Colton said. “The worst part is that, once they’re off, the pit wolf doesn’t turn back to Adlet. Once you become a pit wolf, that’s it. That’s all you’ll ever be. And, frankly, I’m surprised he’s still here, with you. We’ve managed to free some pit wolves ourselves, but they ran off. They don’t stick around. They’re consumed by shame and loneliness. They just… disappear.”
“The daemons use them for protection,” Isom added. “They’re big and can tear pretty much anyone to shreds. And Hundurr… He was our pride and beloved brother.”
“When was he taken?” Patrik asked, moving closer to Hundurr/Jack and me. The look on his face broke my heart, over and over, as I remembered his experience as the slave of an evil spell.
“A couple of years back,” Colton replied. “Hundurr, Isom, and I used to be inseparable. Pack leadership is passed down through the bloodline. Hundurr was… is our eldest brother. It’s a shame our mother passed away before she could see him return, even if this is all that’s left of him.”
A few moments passed as we all adjusted to the harsh and painful reality. Hundurr had been taken from his pack, torn from his family and friends, and turned into a pit wolf. He’d been forced to do the daemons’ bidding, killing innocent Imen and other creatures who dared to defy them. It was no wonder that he’d become so quickly attached to me. I’d given him something he’d never thought he’d get to experience ever again—freedom.
“He’s still in there, somewhere,” Patrik murmured, tears gathering in his deep blue eyes as he looked at Hundurr. “I know what it’s like to be turned into something you would never allow yourself to become. He must’ve fought long and hard to free himself, but to no avail. I’d thought he was just a savage beast, thankful to Scarlett for having freed him of the collar. Turns out Hundurr and I have more in common than I would’ve thought.”
I swallowed my own tears, watching as Hundurr inched closer and nuzzled Patrik’s face. Even Heron was getting emotional, the memories of his own ordeal at the hands of Azazel coming back to haunt him, no doubt.
“Back in our world, there was an evil Druid named Azazel,” Heron explained. “He turned to the dark side of magic, and used it to kill and destroy everything that was good and peaceful. He was greedy and cruel, and he imprisoned those of us he deemed useful. He turned other Druids into Destroyers, mindless beasts who did his bid
ding. Those he couldn’t benefit from, he simply killed.”
“I was once a Destroyer,” Patrik continued. “Forced to be something awful. I can never take back what I did under his influence. I cannot change the past. And neither can Hundurr. But we are both free now. And that’s all that matters.”
“What happened to Azazel?” Colton asked, taking a few steps forward. Isom joined him. They both kept their eyes on Hundurr. I could no longer bring myself to call him Jack. That was a name I’d given to a creature I’d known nothing about. Hundurr had a history, a life and family, well beyond the beast I’d rescued from the Valley of Screams.
“We defeated him,” Patrik said. “I broke my curse. I fought tooth and nail to regain my Druid form. I put myself through agonizing pain, just so I could look him in the eyes and watch him die. And I am telling you now, Colton, that your enemies can, and will, suffer the same fate. We’ll make sure of it.”
He gently patted Hundurr’s neck before stepping back for Colton and Isom to get closer. Both Adlets stared at the pit wolf for a while, then hugged him. I noticed the tears streaming down their cheeks—the entire pack was crying, and I couldn’t hold mine back any longer, either. Hundurr shuddered, his muscles twitching as he yelped in his brothers’ arms. A family reunited.
They’d all missed him, and I could only imagine what a wonderful leader he must have been. I was already fond of him, and I’d never really met him—the original Hundurr, the Adlet who led his pack through these woods and across the Plains of Lagerith, who had friends and went hunting moon-bison on rainy mornings. The Adlet who would’ve stopped at nothing to protect his people.
But I knew the pit wolf Hundurr. The vicious fighter. The gentle giant who tore my enemies to shreds, and did everything he could to keep me and my friends safe from daemons and Exiled Maras. And my heart swelled as I watched him rejoice at the touch of his brothers. Hundurr was home.
Patrik
The Adlets welcomed us into their camp, now that they understood how much we had in common, despite our origins. We gathered around the fire while the younglings went off to prepare several holes in one of the mounds for us to sleep in.
At first, I’d been worried that Hundurr might end up hurting Scarlett. However, the more time I’d spent around him, the more I’d understood that the pit wolf was fiercely loyal to her. But there was an Adlet behind those glimmering red eyes. A creature who understood more than I’d given him credit for.
Like me, Hundurr had fallen victim to the machinations of an evil overlord. Unlike me, Hundurr was stuck in that form. But was he, really? What magic was truly permanent and irreversible in the end? I’d thought the same of my existence as a Destroyer. I’d thought I could never come back, and yet, thanks to Vita, I’d managed to break free.
“Tell us about what brought you here,” Colton said, taking his seat by the fire.
Scarlett and I sat next to each other, and Hundurr settled by our side. Dion and Alles stayed close to Heron and Avril, visibly intimidated by the Adlets. Compared to them, the two Imen scouts were tiny and a little too easy to break, especially after they’d seen their full wolf forms.
“After we defeated Azazel,” I said, “we aligned ourselves with GASP, an organization that spans across multiple worlds now and is dedicated to protecting creatures of all kinds, to restoring peace and balance where chaos and murder reign. We opened up a base on my home planet, Calliope, and we chose our strongest and brightest to join new teams. The purpose was to help rebuild our society and return it to its former glory. We were well into that when an Exiled Mara returned to Calliope using swamp witch magic. Rewa of House Xunn, to be precise.”
“Ugh. I’d love to chew on her entrails right about now,” Jahiem muttered.
“You know her?” Scarlett asked.
“We know all the so-called royals in Azure Heights,” Isom replied. “We made it our business to know our enemies, and their friends. We’ve also had a couple of altercations with the Exiled Maras. In fact, the last time we had issues with a convoy of House Xunn Maras, Hundurr nearly ripped Darius’s throat out. Rewa promised vengeance, and, well, two weeks later, Hundurr was taken by the daemons during a hunt on the far east side of the plains.”
As tragic as what happened to Hundurr was, I couldn’t help but think this would work in our favor now. The stronger their hatred of the daemons and the Exiled Maras, the better the chances of us counting on the Adlets’ support for what came next.
“Rewa told us about Azure Heights, about how they’d resettled here on Neraka—”
“Mind you, the Maras were already kicked off one planet, thousands of years ago, for doing the same crap they’re doing now,” Heron interrupted me, and for good reason. It dawned on me that the Adlets might not be fully aware of the Maras’ dark history.
“The Maras came from Calliope,” I said. “They killed innocent creatures for blood, and were exiled as a result. Those who repented were allowed to stay and rebuild, including Heron’s forefathers. We never heard from the Exiled Maras again, until just recently, when Rewa came to us asking for our help. She told us her people were vanishing, and that the Exiled Maras had turned over a new leaf here, on Neraka. That they were peaceful and kind, and so on.”
“So she lied to your faces and brought you all over here for what, exactly? And how long did it take you to figure out what Rewa and her people have been up to?” Colton replied.
“Well, they put on quite the theatrical display, I’ll give them credit for that,” Avril chimed in. “It took us a few days, and we almost got ourselves killed in the process, but we managed to get out of Azure Heights.”
“Thing is, we can’t get off the planet,” I added. “A powerful shield went up after we came here. It’s stopping everything and everyone trying to leave. We can’t communicate with our base, and they can’t reach out to us, either. We know about the Druid delegation that the Maras hijacked, and we know that the swamp witch who was on it is still alive. If we find her and rescue her, she’ll bring the shield down. It’s the only way for us to stop all this madness and obliterate both the daemons and the Maras. We have armies of creatures far more powerful than these fiends. We have dragons and Druids, witches and jinn. All the daemon cities would be reduced to a pile of dust in a matter of hours. We just need to find the swamp witch.”
Colton nodded slowly, occasionally glancing at Hundurr and smiling softly. “For bringing Hundurr back to us,” he said, “you have our strength and our allegiance, Druid. But I don’t know how we could possibly help, since we don’t know where they’re keeping the swamp witch.”
“We suspect she’s in Draconis, and the rest of our team is currently on their way there,” I replied. “What we need from you is exactly what you offered—your strength. A time will come, and soon, when we will have to fight the daemons and the Exiled Maras. Our strength does not lie in numbers, but in our abilities, and we will have to keep these bastards at bay while the swamp witch brings down the shield. You know as well as I do that, once they lose the witch, the daemons and the Maras will stop at nothing to get her back.”
“That is true. They’ve been using swamp witch magic for millennia now, and they won’t give up their mystical motherlode so easily,” Colton said. “I have to give her credit, though, for surviving until now. But what if she’s sided with them? What if she’s willingly helping them?”
“It’s against a swamp witch’s very nature to tilt the balance of the world in the favor of darkness,” I said, remembering everything I’d learned about swamp witches during the months I’d spent on Calliope. “Swamp witches use the power of the word for their magic. They function with precise formulas and exact quantities. Everything is measured. Everything is balanced. They would never empower one nation against another. They don’t even get involved in wars. Most importantly, they know how valuable their magic is, which is why they keep their distance from creatures who are prone to such mindless violence. Frankly, I don’t think she belonged in that delegat
ion in the first place, but what’s done is done.”
“We’ve only heard rumors of the witch still being alive, you know,” Isom replied. “We’ve never seen her. The only thing we’re certain of is the damage of her magic. Hundurr, here, is a prime example. Does that look like balance to you?”
“The collars, much like all the magic the daemons use, are a perversion of the original swamp witch spells,” I said. I’d read Viola’s translations of the witches’ tome over and over. I knew their mindset better than most. “Swamp witch magic doesn’t adhere to good or evil. Those are abstract terms. Instead, their spells focus on what is ethical. What hurts other creatures, and what doesn’t. What is useful in times of war, and what is necessary in times of peace. The collars themselves would have been meant to tame violent beasts, for example. Not to enslave innocent creatures. It’s not the spell that is evil; it’s the person wielding it.”
“Besides, I doubt that the witch gave away the most powerful of her spells,” Heron added. “From what we’ve seen so far, the daemons’ knowledge of swamp witch magic is somewhat limited.”
“You know more than they do?” Colton replied, raising his eyebrows.
“We probably do, but we don’t have the ingredients,” I said. “Every spell that the daemons are using is adapted to Nerakian plants and crystals. We have the recipes for powerful magic, but they’re based on Eritopian ingredients. So we’re a bit stuck on that end. Which is one more reason as to why we need to get the swamp witch away from the daemons.”
“Before they adapt the more powerful spells to our world, right?” Colton asked, and I nodded. “I understand. So you’re trying to strike up some alliances with those of us who continue to resist the daemons, then?”