by GARY DARBY
Tugging at my waistcoat to settle it around my shoulders, I take a step while muttering, “You can’t go from here to there without taking that first step. Only problem is that I know where here is, but I haven’t the foggiest idea where there is.”
I’ve not meandered far when the night’s stillness is broken by the distant howls of wolves. I suck in my breath and hold perfectly still, trying to determine if they’ve caught my scent and are hot on my trail.
Moments later, the wolf calls come again, this time closer. I hobble over to the nearest tree and gauge whether or not I could manage to reach its lowest branch and pull myself up into its sheltering limbs.
Stepping upon a jutting tree root, I reach for the nearest low branch. Just then, the howls come again, not far off.
Their closeness and my own fear spur me into action, and I leap upward to grab onto the arm-sized branch and—land hard on my back, having entirely missed the limb.
I let out a tiny moan from the sharp pain of tree roots jutting into my ribs.
Wolf howls come again, and I frantically get to my feet looking for a lower branch. I see one that seems a bit closer to the ground in a nearby tree and shuffle over to the dark trunk. I reach toward the branch only to freeze in place when the wolf cries sound again.
This time, they’re very close and now I’m afraid that if I make any noise I’ll alert them to my presence. I put my back against the tree trunk’s rough bark and force myself to not move or even breathe.
Tremors of fear shake my body as I wait in the forest’s gloom. There’s no sound, nothing to tell me where the wolves are.
They’ve gone quiet and that can only mean that they’re silently creeping toward me, their evil red eyes centered on the tree that hides me from their sight.
I reach for the handle of my short knife. I wrap my hand around the hilt and grip it tight. I tense my muscles, ready to whip it out and face the wolves.
One small knife against a host of fangs that are long, sharp, and deadly can only lead to one thing; a bloody and swift death for me.
The devil dogs’ wails sound again through the woodlands, and I stiffen in fear, but then let out a long breath and slump over. The cries have moved off in the distance.
The pack has passed me by and is dashing ahead. A part of me is grateful that the Vargs didn’t pick up my scent, another part hopes that Cara and the others found the refuge that they sought and are safe.
Taking up the trail again, I know that now I’m not only going in the same direction that my companions went but the wolves as well. Nevertheless, do I have a choice?
For now, it doesn’t seem that I do.
Clouds hide the moonlight, and the darkness is so smothering that I’m always tripping over tree roots and stubbing my foot against craggy rocks.
After a while, I’m convinced that I’m spending about as much time picking myself up off the forest floor as I am walking on top of the ground.
From the long practice of having to move and work in the dark without a lantern, I have good night sight, but these shadows are so deep that I can see little.
I finally come to a point where there’s no sense in continually tripping over tree roots, and I decide to stop and wait for the morning before going on.
Squinting my eyes, I try my best to spot a likely-looking place to hunker down for the night, but everything appears the same in the murkiness.
Climb a tree, I think. But the lowest branches of these mighty oaks are double my height off the ground.
If I were Alonya or Scamper, I could easily make my way up a trunk, but obviously, I’m not either one, so scaling the branches into the treetops is not a possibility.
So, it’s either curl up against a tree trunk amongst the roots or lie on the open ground. I resign myself to pushing through the brush in the dark and hope that I might find something more suitable in the next stand of trees.
My pace is plodding, my falls and spills frequent, my knees and elbows bruised and scraped.
Luckily, I haven’t broken any bones yet, but I may have to stop just so I have some semblance of knees left by morning.
After picking myself up for the umpteenth time from the leaf-strewn ground, I glance around, but everything is quiet and still.
I start to take a step when a giant hand whips out of the darkness. My voice is a squeak as I try to jerk back, but I’m not fast enough.
Hard, thick fingers squeeze around my body so tight that I can barely breathe. I’m lifted up and brought close to an enormous, bulbous, leering face.
Squinty eyes peer at me, and a mouth full of sharp teeth opens wide. “Mmmm,” the thing growls, “you a tiny tiny giant.”
The thing turns me upside down and shakes me several times. My knife falls out of my tunic and clatters against the tree roots below.
I can barely breathe, and all that comes out of my mouth is a plaintiff squeak.
Turning me right side up, the brute sniffs at me with a nose full of snot, and then runs a slimy purple tongue up my back and over my head, leaving a thick goo in my hair.
“Smell different,” he mutters and sniffs me again. “But smell and taste good enough to eat.”
My eyes grow wide as he waves a giant club in front of my face as if deciding where to bash in my head. He brings it up and over his head and then hesitates.
Leaning close, the creature rumbles, “Maybe you taste better roasted.”
He lowers the club. With me swinging wildly at his side, he tromps off. My head is spinning, and my eyes can barely focus on my enormous captor, but one thought runs through my head.
I’m the captive of none other than Logath, the god who guards the underworld.
7
Logath stomps through the dark forest, breaking tree limbs that get in his way. Twice he brushes me up against a low-hanging branch, and I come away with scratches and torn skin. Of course, those hurts are nothing compared to what I know is coming next.
Burnt alive on a spit over a blazing fire.
I don’t know how long he trudges through the forest, his thudding steps so ponderous that his feet crush any loose branches that lie on the ground.
How I didn’t hear him as he thumped through the woods earlier is beyond me. I suppose I was so intent on trying not to trip over the roots that I didn’t hear his heavy footsteps.
Or, maybe he heard me, with all my crashing about, and simply waited for me to come to him.
What had Cara said about me moving through the forest—that she had heard wild boars rooting in the underbrush that were quieter than I.
How true and look where it’s gotten me.
Logath stops and in Osa’s waning light, I can see that we’re at the base of a massive cliff. He kneels and on all fours, squeezes through a craggy, though somewhat arched, dark opening in the cliffside.
Once inside, he stands, but has to bend his head slightly, or it would scrape the rocky ceiling. He turns and with one hand rolls a large boulder in front of the opening, sealing off the room from the outside.
There’s a tiny fire burning in the cave’s center, and Logath throws several large logs into the fire pit. Embers from the flames shoot upward, lighting up the room so that I can see I’m in an oblong cave that’s large to me, but somewhat small for my captor.
The cavern’s far end is shrouded in darkness as if the grotto may continue, but my eyes can’t make out any features beyond the firelight’s glow.
Off to one side, I notice several small cages made of vines and tree limbs. All are empty except that from the furthermost comes a fluttering noise. I have to twist my head so that I can see what’s making the sound.
To my amazement, in the last cage are four sprite dragons, two yellows, and two orange drakes. Their muzzles are tied shut by thin vines, but their wings are free, and it was their flapping that caught my attention.
Logath lifts the door to a cage and stuffs me inside. He slams the flap down and ties it shut with a large ropelike vine. The cage is so small that
I can barely squirm around to spy on what Logath is doing and what I see causes me to tremble uncontrollably.
Logath is putting together a roasting spit near the fire and from the wooden rod’s length and size, I know it’s not for one of the sprites.
Desperate, I call out, “Mighty Logath, Titan guardian of the underworld, please hear my plea. I did not intend to invade your realm, I just got lost and ended up in the wrong place.”
Logath stops what he’s doing and turns to gaze at me. His beady little eyes squint for a moment before he shuffles over. He comes close and leers.
I thought dragons stunk, but what spews out of his mouth makes dragons smell like a field full of lavenders. He being so close and his foul-smelling breath causes me to shrink away, even though the cage is so tight I can’t move much.
As it is, I hold my own breath so as to not breathe in an aroma that seems to be a mix of rotten goat meat, fresh blood, and skunk, tail and all.
“You think me Logath?”
“Well, uh, yes,” I stammer. “You are Logath, aren’t you?”
The brute starts a rumbling chuckle that turns into a belly laugh that causes the rolls of fat around his stomach to jiggle and dance. His laughter is so loud that it echoes in the cave chamber.
“Me Logath,” he roars and bursts out laughing again.
The giant sits down on his rump and puts both hands on his warty knees as he rocks back and forth and guffaws. Running a hand over his slobbering mouth, he wipes the messy dribble on his breechcloth.
Chortling loudly through slobber, he leans forward. “Me no Logath, me Rupus.”
His fist pounds on his thick chest. “Me smart troll from mountains.”
I sputter, “You’re a troll?” I’ve never heard of trolls talking before though Amil did say that they were much larger than goblins and Rupus is certainly evidence of that being true.
He scowls as he leans his warty, bulbous face close to the cage. He gives my vine-wrapped pen a thump with his hand, sending it rocking back and forth. “Smart troll.”
“Oh, yes,” I instantly answer as my little prison comes to a standstill. “That’s what I meant to say, you’re Rupus the smart troll.”
Rupus chuckles in his deep, bass voice. “Others think Logath live here, leave Rupus alone, no kill Rupus.”
His fingers first scratch at his lumpy, hairless head, and pointy ears, then at his bulbous nose. “Good that Rupus alone, but not much food.”
He reaches out and shakes my cage from side to side. “But Rupus eat good tonight.”
Frantic, I call out, “Uh, no, Rupus, you won’t eat well tonight.”
He leans over, his thin eyebrows deeply furrowed, his beady little eyes squinting at me. “Why Rupus no eat good tonight? You scrawny, but after long roasting, you taste good.”
“Actually no,” I answer with as much firmness as I can. “We Drachs aren’t good eating at night. We’re much juicier and tender in the morning. Uh, the late morning, to be exact.”
I pause and then speak in a thoughtful voice as if I actually know what I’m talking about. “In fact, the later in the day that you eat us, the more delicious we are.”
With a suspicious look on his face, Rupus takes a finger and pokes me in the stomach. “Me eat Drach before. All time. Day, night, same taste.”
He leans closer with a menacing expression on his face. “You try trick Rupus.”
In a rush of words, I stress, “Oh no, I’m not trying to trick Rupus. But you see, what you ate before was an everyday, ordinary Drach. I’m a special kind of Drach.”
I can’t think of anything else so I blurt out, “I’m a Hooper clan Drach.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and hold my breath. Hooper clan Drach? What was I thinking? It didn’t work before, what makes me assume that it’ll work this time?
Rupus sniffs and pokes at me again. “Um, you do smell different. What make Hooper clan Drach different?”
I pop my eyes open. This might work, after all.
“Well,” I begin, “for starters, we eat a lot of tasty food like baked ham, strawberry pies covered with fresh cream, candied yams and apples, cinnamon and blueberry cakes. And that’s just for our first meal.
“Then we have our midmorning breakfast, which is usually a stack of buttered flatcakes with maplewood syrup and sausages.
“Then, at noon, there’s sweet potatoes, fried squash, and tomatoes, a thick, creamy stew, caramel muffins, and fresh milk.
“Midafternoon meal is usually an assortment of sweetmeats, at least two or three different flavored pies; my favorite is apple jelly.
“Last meal is basted venison, buttered carrots, fried yellow squash, pumpkin pie or perhaps a white cake slathered in whipped cream. So you see, all that delicious food makes us taste that much better.”
I swallow and continue. “Now, I just ate a big meal. Actually, it was a gigantic meal, so you have to let the food sort of get into my insides and spread throughout my body so you’ll get the full flavor.”
I take a deep breath and as sincerely as I can, declare, “But that’s going to take a while, and I want your first eating experience of a Hooper Drach to be an excellent one.
“So I highly recommend that you get a good night’s sleep and in the morning, I’ll tell you the best way to prepare a Hooper for eating late, late in the day.”
Rupus’ eyes squint together until they’re mere slits, and he lets out a long, throaty, “Hmmm,” that sounds like low thunder in the cave.
He scowls at me and leans close. “You sure you not try trick Rupus?”
“Oh, no,” I answer with a feigned expression of indignation. “How could I? Rupus is a smart mountain troll, remember? And I’m sure that you’re a lot smarter than any ol’ Drach, even a Hooper clan Drach.”
Rupus thumps his head with a fist and grunts loudly, “Rupus is smart.”
He turns his head to peer at the cage holding the little dragons. “I eat them in morning and you later. Roasted Hooper clan Drach, roasted dragon. Rupus eat good tomorrow.”
He pushes himself to his six-toed hairy feet, and I almost faint in relief. I can’t believe it worked, I think to myself. Somehow, I’ve gotten myself a reprieve until tomorrow.
But what then?
Rupus trundles over next to the fire and plops himself down with his back to the rock wall. He pulls his knees up, and it’s not long before his thick neck is bent down and his chin folds ride his chest.
Blubbering snores come out of his slobbering mouth, greenish goop hangs down from the corners of his mouth and drips onto his bulging belly.
I wait a bit to make sure that he’s soundly asleep before I reach up to try and undo the knot in the vine that’s holding the cage door shut. I grip the creeping limb as hard as I can and pull.
It’s too tight, I can’t budge it at all. I reach inside my tunic and bring out the dragon gem. It’s cool to the touch and there’s no emerald colored glow as I hold it against the vine.
I whisper, “Vald Hitta Sasi Ein, Power Comes to this One.” I wait, but nothing happens.
A little louder, I say again, “Vald Hitta Sasi Ein, Power Comes to this One!”
Neither the vines nor the cage responds to my commands, but Rupus stirs in his sleep and I hastily hide the gem out of sight.
I think about trying to roll the cage over to the fire even though the flames are flickering low and using the coals to burn through the vines.
My fear is that if I wake Rupus, and he sees that I’m trying to escape, he’s going to forget about having me for breakfast and eat me now.
I wait awhile longer before I reach up and grab the thick branches that make up the cage’s top. I’m just about ready to try and rock the cage to one side when I hear the slightest of sounds behind me.
I scrunch my head around and find myself staring into two black eyes.
Scamper!
I was never so glad to see the little ball of lard in my whole life. Then I hear the tiny scratching of talons. I squir
m around, and my eyes go even wider.
The four little sprogs have followed Scamper into the cave.
As if they were tiptoeing, they sneak over to the cage. All have their faces turned toward Rupus and I’m sure their eyes are every bit as big as mine.
They come up to the binding on the cage and as if he’s in charge of a troop of dragons, Scamper quietly paws at one vine but with his fuzz-face turned to the sprogs.
Regal Wind squishes up his muzzle, gives his body a little shake and spits out a little ball of dragon fire. The bit of flame cuts through a small portion of the vine.
Next, Wind Glow waddles up to the vine, works his snout like he’s chewing on something, digs his talons in, pulls his head back, thrusts it forward and shoots out a small ball of dragon fire. It too burns into the vine, but not enough to sever it clean through.
Both sapphires, Wind Sparkle, and Wind Strider toddle up to the ropelike vine, wiggle their tails, get a very intent expression on their faces, rear back, snap their heads frontward and pop out two tiny balls of dragon breath.
This time, the flame cuts the vine completely. I reach up and quietly pull the knotted vine away from my cage. I silently lift the door up and stand. The cage creaks a little, and I freeze in place, but Rupus keeps snoring. I lift one leg over the edge and then my other leg.
I’m free!
The sprogs cluster around my ankles and Regal looks like he’s going to start screeping in excitement so I bend down and wrap my hand around his snout. I hold it there just for a moment so he gets the idea that now is not the time to start squawking.
With Scamper and the four baby dragons in tow, I tiptoe toward the huge boulder which is obviously where Scamper and the sprogs gained entrance into the cavern.
But before I’ve taken more than a few steps, Scamper nips at my legs. I bring a finger up to my lips to shush him, but instead of heeding my plea to be quiet, he runs over to the cage holding the four sprites.
I shake my head vehemently at him and furiously point at the boulder, letting him know in no uncertain terms that we are not going to risk our lives over those four sprites. I have enough to handle with the sprogs at my feet that I’m all but tripping over.