by Amanda Fleet
“This is Ben,” he said. “We found him in bed. Give me the bag with the stones in and we’ll return Ben to his parents. Fight us and Ben dies.”
I sized them up. Both stood about my height, and neither of them looked all that beefy. I could beat them easily if my leg worked properly. Maybe even now. But by the time I’d dealt with one man, Ben would be dead. Could I take out the man holding Ben? He looked like he might be slower to a punch than me.
“Leave the boy alone. He’s done absolutely nothing. Your fight isn’t with him.” I held my hands up, running scenarios in my head, trying to see how I could beat the men, save the boy and leave with the stones. But whether I tried to take out the guy holding Ben first, or take on the other man, Ben was at risk. Should I put the bag down, wait until Ben was free, and then attack?
“Tick, tock, Aeron.” The man holding Ben nicked his skin with the knife, making him howl. “Hand over the bag. You know that even if by some miracle you save this boy, we will just attack other children.”
“If I get these stones back to The Realm, you can be free from the voices controlling you. Go back to the life you had.”
I wasn’t talking to the man though, I was talking to Aegyir. I should have known.
“Last chance, Aeron. Give me the bag.”
I hesitated. God help me, I hesitated. I wanted to save Ben, but I froze. Just for a second.
The knife sliced the boy’s throat wide open. A scream stalled in my throat, and I staggered, my eyes locked on the torrent of blood pouring from the child’s neck.
“That was your choice, Aeron. I promised I would spare the child if you handed over the bag, and the bag is still on your back. How many more children do I need to kill before you realise I am not joking?”
Ben’s body slumped to the ground, a crimson lake spilling out of him. The scream that had jammed in my chest broke free.
I launched myself at the men, all my training from Faran clicking together. They fought back valiantly, but two scrawny, untrained Outsiders were no match for a top Guardian of The Realm.
I punched the first guy in the throat, and he gurgled, slumping to the ground. The second man was more nimble, but I ducked under his fist, kicked him in the back of the knees and planted a knife between his shoulder blades. By this time, the first guy was back on his feet. He tried to grab me by the throat, leaving the side of his chest unguarded. My second knife slipped between his ribs, and I twisted. He collapsed to the ground, blood bubbling from his mouth.
The fat man emerged at the end of the footpath, wheezing his way towards me. I was damned if Ben’s death would be in vain. I tightened the straps on the backpack and ran down the road in the direction of the portal. God knows what I looked like – battered and bruised and covered in blood – but I would get back to The Realm. I didn’t care which direction any car came from, I would stand in the middle of the road and wave them down. It must be getting towards the morning rush hour. Someone would pass.
A car rounded the bend, heading towards me, and I waved frantically. “Stop! Please! Stop!”
The car skidded to a halt, and I ran to the passenger side and yanked the door open, hurling myself into the seat.
“Jesus! Are you okay?” The driver’s eyes widened, her voice shrill.
“No. Drive! Just drive!” I snapped the seatbelt on.
The young woman glanced up the road to see the blood and the bodies and a fat man pounding towards us.
“Just go!” I yelled. “He’s attacking me!”
She didn’t need a second invitation.
“What the hell’s happened? I’m Becky by the way.” She darted glances at me, colour draining from her face. I scanned her. Smartly dressed for an office job. Wedding ring. Child seat in the back.
“Erin.” It was close enough. “He got drunk. Came home, accused me of cheating on him and went mental.”
“Oh my God. Are you badly hurt? I’ll take you to the hospital.”
The nearest hospital was in the town I’d lived in, not far from where I used to live. Not far from the portal.
“Could you? Thank you.”
“Of course.” She swallowed. “Did I see a child back there?”
I couldn’t answer.
“Should I call the police? An ambulance?” She turned on to a road that would ultimately go close to the road I’d lived on. “My phone’s in my bag.”
If her phone was in her bag, she’d need to stop if I didn’t make the call. The last thing I needed was for the police to arrive.
“Can I use your phone?” I said.
Becky nodded, and I rummaged in her handbag. Keeping the screen of the phone away from her, I pretended to make the call.
“Police and ambulance please.”
Becky glanced across, her face grim. I completed the charade of summoning help, while Becky sped down the country roads, rushing me ever closer to The Realm.
An ambulance wasn’t going to help Ben. A tear escaped, and I swiped at it. My hands were covered in blood, and the smell of it made me want to vomit. What would the police make of it all? Over eighteen months since anyone had last seen me and my ATM card was used, then two days later, bodies found, stabbed with knives that included my fingerprints. The cameras at the ATM would have captured images of me. Becky would certainly be able to give a solid description of me. Hell, she could give a variety of blood samples from the seat I was on, most of which weren’t mine. If I’d had any hope I could ever return Outside to live, I’d pretty much made that an impossibility now.
We reached the outskirts of the town, and I peered out of the side window. I needed to get out of the car before she got to the hospital. There were some traffic lights up ahead. If they were on red, I could get out and make a run for it.
They were green.
A block further on, the traffic slowed to a crawl as it approached a roundabout, and I took my chance.
“Thank you, Becky. You saved my life.” I grasped the handle, flung the door open and leapt out of the car, almost falling as my feet hit the pavement. Then I was off and running, back towards The Realm.
I turned on to the lane leading to my old house, my heart breaking. I couldn’t imagine the place with other people’s stuff in it. As I passed the middle cottage, there was a movement in the window, and I kept my head down. One of my old neighbours. The last time she’d seen me, I was being dragged up the track to the portal against my will, just after Finn’s funeral. I increased my speed, my thigh screaming at me to slow down.
“Reagan?” She stood in her doorway. It felt like years since I’d heard anyone call me that name.
I didn’t turn. I just kept running for the portal. As I climbed the track and turned the corner at the end, my heart plummeted.
I had a welcoming party to contend with.
16
At the top of the track, next to the portal back to The Realm, stood four burly men. I was so close. So close! I leaned on my knees to catch my breath, ready to scream with frustration. I screwed my eyes up, my shoulders sagging.
I didn’t think the men had seen me yet. Should I backtrack? Make my way round to the Hidden Gate – the other way into The Realm I knew? It was about an hour’s walk from here; less if I ran, but my leg was agony, and more importantly, Aegyir shouldn’t find out there was another portal to The Realm.
I took stock. I was battered and bruised and with few options. I had a little salve, so could heal, though that would leave me vulnerable while I did. I could hide somewhere and come back when these guys had gone, but there was no guarantee they would go, or that others wouldn’t come and take their place. I couldn’t wait them out. Faran would come out to find me, but only after seven days had passed out here, and I’d been Outside for just over three. Which left trying to fight my way past them and hurling myself at the portal to enter The Realm, where they couldn’t follow. Out of all the weapons I’d brought, I had three knives remaining in my possession. The rest were embedded in one person or another. I tapped my ch
est, my fingers finding only leather. I felt over my jacket. Shit! I’d lost my communications button. My heart plummeted. This close to The Realm, it might have worked.
The men at the rock face turned towards me.
“What are you waiting for, Aeron?” one of them called down. Aegyir’s cadence.
I had no choice but to go up and hope I could find a way to dodge past them to the rock face.
I hauled myself upright, secreted the knives into accessible places and climbed the track. As I approached, I tried to assess their weaknesses, spot a route through them. Two of the men were armed with metal pipes, the other two with just their fists, as far as I could tell. One man was as tall as me; the others shorter. All of them packed more muscle than I did. But then, so did Faran, Lord Sondan and Lord Eredan and I could beat them, on a good day. I swallowed. My leg screamed at me, exhaustion ached through every muscle, and adrenaline levels were running low to empty. Today was not a good day. I stopped a few paces from them.
“Aeron, Aeron. So valiant. But you can’t win.” The tallest man tapped the metal pipe against his thigh, his scruffy jeans faded at the knee and his tan leather jacket looking like it had escaped from the seventies.
“I’m a Guardian of The Realm and you’re in my way.” I scowled, pulling myself up to my full height.
“Are you trying to be brave. Or are you just stupid?”
I pursed my lips. “It’s not a question of bravery when you know you’re going to win. Move.” I settled my weight, my eyes darting from one man to the next.
“Make us,” snarled the other guy carrying a pipe.
I eyed him. Shorter than me. Heavier than me. Not as fit as me.
“You may regret saying that,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. I hoped that even without my communications button, sounds would carry through the portal and that noise from any fight would reach the guards in The Realm. I tried not to think that if any help took five minutes Realm-time to arrive, there would be more than enough time out here for these guys to kill me.
I advanced, and the shorter man swung his metal pipe at my head, but he was slow and clumsy. I dodged it easily. However, his move was the signal the other three needed to attack.
“Faran!” I bellowed. “Faran!”
I ducked a punch and drove upwards with a knife, causing a soft squelching sound. I twisted, hot blood running over my hand as I wrenched the knife back out again. My breath shuddered with horror. The taller man with the pipe spotted my distraction, and his pipe crashed against my shoulder, numbing my left arm. I scrabbled away, flexing my fingers, trying to make them work again.
“Faran!” I had no evidence whatsoever that my voice could reach The Realm.
“Trying to call for help, little one?” mocked one of the men.
My left arm tingled uselessly. The man I’d stabbed gurgled on the ground; the other three circled closer. I judged the distance to the portal. Could I reach it?
No.
A solid punch hit me in the face and Faran’s voice rang in my head. “Get a guard up! How many times do I have to tell you that? Come on, Aeron. I taught you better than this!”
The words might be a memory of a training session, but they were what I needed to hear. For a moment, I had the upper hand, my punches landing, my defence solid.
But there were three of them still in the fight and only one of me. Just as I almost had my hand on the rock face, one of the pipes smacked me in the back of my head, and I collapsed on the ground. Rough hands pulled at my backpack, and I punched and clawed at them.
“Over my dead body,” I muttered, instantly regretting my phrase.
I kicked up, my boot landing squarely in the crotch of one of the men and sending him backwards. Just in time, my still-tingling left arm deflected another swing of the pipe at my head, and I sliced into the front of the man next to me with the knife in my right hand. Two stabbed; one clutching his balls.
One still armed, dangerous and angry.
He kicked me in the ribs, hitting exactly the spot that had been broken at Barsdal. It had healed, but it wasn’t perfect yet, and the breath whistled out of my lungs. I fought for air, trying to crawl free, but another kick booted me across the space next to the boulder. I turned my head to protect it from getting kicked and saw two new pairs of boots at my side.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I muttered in English, just before the pipe crashed into my face, splintering my nose.
My mouth and nose filled with blood, and I struggled for breath. Hands grabbed at me and at the backpack again – the newcomers – and I slashed at them with a dagger, swearing profusely.
Just as the pipe hit me again, turning my world black, I realised my blade was making no impression on the leather jackets of the newcomers.
***
I peered blearily at my surroundings. Soft quilt over me. Wooden chest of drawers. Closet. My brain floated free of my body, doing slow circuits around the room. Light pressure on my fingers brought my attention to the man next to me. Thick dark hair. Anguished green eyes. Blade-like cheekbones.
Faran.
“Aeron?”
My eyelids were too heavy to hold open, and I had no energy to speak. I drifted away from reality again.
When I opened my eyes again, Faran was still there, holding my hand, his face etched with worry. I squinted at the sky through the glass ceiling. I had no idea what time it was or how long I’d been out of it.
“What do you need?” Faran asked, his voice hitching.
“You. Just you.”
I closed my eyes, exhausted. He released my hand, and the loss of contact with him devastated me. My lips moved as I tried to say his name, call him back, but no air moved. Next to me, the bed dipped and he was back, lying beside me. His arm squeezed under my shoulders, and he rolled me so that I leaned on his chest.
“I’m here. I have you. Now rest.” His voice cracked over the words.
My fingers tugged hopelessly at his top but it was too firmly tucked into his waistband for me to move. A low chuckle erupted from him, and he yanked his top free. “Is that what you want?”
I slipped my hand under the material, my fingers searching his skin until they came to rest over his heart. And then I slept again.
When I woke, I breathed him in – the spicy smell of the soap here, wool, leather, him. “Faran?”
“I’m here.” His lips brushed my hair.
“What did the healer give me?”
“Why?”
“Trippy.”
“Trippy?” Confusion danced through his voice.
“Mm. I’m so tired.”
“Sh. Just rest. I have you.”
When I slept that time, visions of the fight at the portal filled my head. My last memory was of hands reaching for the backpack, pulling it off me and me being unable to stop them. I sat up, hyperventilating. “The stones!”
Faran drew me back down into his arms. “Sh. They’re safe. Sondan took them to the technicians. They’re safe. Just rest.”
My shoulders softened, and I calmed my breathing.
“Why aren’t you training? Or on patrol?” I asked after a few minutes.
He laughed lightly. “When my father carried you back through the portal, all you said was my name. Over and over. You only settled once he had me pulled out of training and brought here.”
My brow puckered. “Your father carried me through the portal?”
“Mm. You couldn’t walk.” His voice caught on the words, and I wondered how badly I’d been injured.
I tried to assess my body. “My face feels strange.”
“Rest!” He tilted me to see my face and touched a light kiss to my lips. “Please?”
But as soon as I closed my eyes, a small child had his throat cut in front of me, and I screamed. “Ben!”
Faran cradled me against his chest. I craved more of whatever the healer had given me. I needed my brain to be somewhere else. My tears soaked into Faran’s top, and he fussed with the
hair at the nape of my neck, his fingers gentle on my skin. “Sh. Sh. I’m here.”
I don’t know how long I bawled on him. His top was wringing wet by the time I snuffled over my last sobs. I dozed again, but the sound of someone arriving in the outer room woke me. Whoever it was didn’t knock on the bedroom door, but marched straight in. Faran leapt up, blade in hand, immediately letting his arm fall to his side when he saw who had arrived.
“Lord Father. Sondan.”
His father smirked, eyeing the knife in his son’s hand. “As you were. We’re here to see how Lady Aeron is.”
Faran sat on the bed again, and my hand sought him, worming back around him. His father plonked a chair down from the outer room and sat. Lord Sondan stood behind him.
“Lady Aeron,” said Lord Eredan, looking more kindly towards me than I’d ever seen before. “Are you well enough to give us a verbal report?”
I tried to sit up, and Lord Eredan flapped his hand at me. “Stay where you are. You’re still healing.”
I sank back, sapped of energy. Lord Sondan’s gaze darted over my face, his lips pressed tightly together. Judging from Lord Sondan’s grim expression, Faran was keeping something bad from me.
“Can you tell us what happened Outside?” asked Lord Eredan.
I marshalled my thoughts, taking my time, before telling him everything that had happened since I left. When I reached the events of the last day, I needed to stop. Lord Eredan waited patiently. I took several deep breaths, Faran cuddling me close as if trying to lend me his strength. Finally, I stumbled over what had happened to Ben, tears tracking down my cheeks as I spoke. Faran’s arms tightened around me as he swallowed.
“Lady Aeron, I can see that you grieve for this child, but you didn’t kill him.” Lord Eredan’s voice was gentle.
“I just froze. I should have saved him. I should have handed over the bag, saved him and then got the bag back.”
“You did the right thing. If these stones are the ones from the myths, you’ll save more people than one small child.”
“I should have saved him too. I shouldn’t have hesitated.” I scrubbed my nose with my knuckles.