Brainstorm (THE BLOOD-DIMMED TIDE Book 1)

by Jeff Siamon

  Connie didn’t appreciate Hille’s dilemma. Not at first. He had enough dilemmas of his own. But, of course, she did. She had come to ease his torment. There was never a thought of freeing him. That would have put her in a precarious position. With the silver-haired man. With the man she had just killed. But now precarious had become dangerous. For Connie as well. For if she didn’t free him, his fate would be the same as the man at her feet. So would be hers.

  “Hey-la,” he whispered to her. That much he had figured out ─ if she didn’t free him, he was a doomed man.

  “Sshh,” she whispered back. She undid the rope around his head. Then, with what Connie could now see was the blade of a knife taken from the dead man’s body, she began cutting the ropes that bound his arms. When she was done, his arms fell heavily to his side. He nearly followed them but the ropes around his neck and her hands kept him upright. He managed to reach the ropes around his neck but his fingers had forgotten how to work. It was her fingers that did the untying.

  Once free of all constraints, he inhaled his freedom. Ten was definitely better than a three. He took a few steps to test the numbness in his limbs. Then realized that ten had a few serious drawbacks. His legs had little feeling in them and he fell to the ground. Fortunately, with a groan rather than a gargle.

  Hille’s dilemma deepened. If he could escape, then everyone might think he had killed the man. If he escaped. She helped him to his feet, whispering to him her dilemma. His head was still ringing in four-four time but after he thought about what had just happened, he got the gist of her concern.

  They stood in silence for a moment. Listening. Thinking. She held on to him. But it wasn’t a lover’s embrace. Only because she was afraid he would fall again. He tried to take some more steps. Two firm ones. One wobbly one. She held on to his hand. When he stumbled, she yanked him upright. She had a strong grip, he realized, wishing it was his grip. And strength in her arms as well.

  But man pride made him shoo her away. “Let me try. Let me try.”

  “Sshh.” She let go of his hand.

  His first step was good. Firm. He liked his second step better. But his third stepped, he felt, sucked. It landed him again on the ground. “Shit!”

  “Sshh.” She helped him up.

  Another moment passed as both considered. Then the owl hooted once more and that seemed to have decided Hille. She whispered some more words into his ear and ─ gently but firmly ─ began to lead him towards a wall of blackness that turned out to be a forest of trees. She kept him from falling several times. He kept his curses to himself several times, while he downgraded his ten to an eight. Or possibly a seven. Sort of free but if they were discovered, he’d be looking at a one or a zero.

  After what seemed to Connie a futile trek in search of the lost city of something or other, they emerged into an open field. Everything lightened up a bit. Enough for him to make out the shapes of what must be horses. Some standing still. Others milling about seemingly disturbed by their presence.

  “Shit!” he breathed. Seeing the horses, he instantly knew what was in her mind.

  He had had two disastrous animal experiences when he was young. There was Skippy ─ “oh, he wouldn’t hurt a fly” ─ the dog. A surgeon managed to save Connie’s two fingers after they had found their way into the dog’s mouth. And on his twelfth birthday, there was the brief flight into space when the horse his parents had rented for him decided it didn’t like young boys, especially when it began to canter. Surgeons weren’t need, fortunately for Connie’s concussion. Just six months of rest. Ever since then, he had been secretly afraid of dogs and horses. (Evie had loved dogs and used to ride as a teenager.)

  Weapon wielding barbarians, Chicago gangsters, even the invasions of other worldly forces didn’t unnerve. But the thought of getting on a horse, much less riding one, made his already weak knees weaker. He paused in mid-stride to consider the irony of the situation.

  Hille continued on, wading into the midst of several horse. She spoke softly to them and grabbed a mane. As she led the horse to Connie, another horse followed head to tail.

  Connie looked over his shoulder at the dark swath that was the forest. There was no going back, he knew. But horses!

  She said something to him. When he didn’t move, she repeated her speech only the words sounded harsher. A command rather than a conversation. She put both hands on the mane of one of the horses and mimicked getting onto its back. The horse wasn’t sure what she was doing so it grew edging and tried to back away. A poke to its withers informed the horse who was boss.

  Connie took a step away from the horse and gave the line of trees another glance as if to suggest that perhaps there was another means of escape. Hille looked, too. Her face tensed anticipating danger. When there was nothing but trees and horses, she relaxed. But not with Connie. She took him by the arm and spoke sternly to him. Ending her brief speech with his name ─ “Con-nee” ─ and another quick look in the direction from which they had come. Her voice betrayed her frustration with him. She took both of his hands and placed them on her demonstrator horse. The horse shied until it received another poke.

  This was what bravery was all about, he realized. Wading into real fear and not flinching. It didn’t matter that at this moment going for a night horse ride was like walking hand-in-hand with your sweetheart compared to what he had already faced. He would have shrugged at the irony if it wasn’t for the stiffness in his shoulders. He got on the horse. Or rather with the help of Hille’s hands on his butt on his third try, he got on the horse. His legs dangled and he wondered how the hell he was going to hang on.

  Hille was far more agile. She mounted the horse in one leap. Then she came around to his side, said something with a “Con-nee” ending. And gave his horse a rap on its rear.

  The horse took off. He held on, hands clutching its mane. Legs pressed against its flanks. And all he could think about as he bounced up and down, at any moment about to fall off, was: Where the fuck was the saddle on this fucking horse?

  45

  His horse had an easy canter. Fortunately for him, because his hands would often grab air instead of the horse’s mane. Those times he was forced to throw his arms around the horse’s neck until he could regain his balance. Gone was any reluctance he may have had. It had been knocked out of him by the hundreds of times his backside struck the horse’s back. But after a while, his body somehow found the right rhythm and instead of slapping himself against the horse, he moved in sync with its motion. It was only then that he was able to look up. To notice the veil of stars that cascaded across the sky. To see if Hille was still in front of him.

  She was. She had kept watch on him as they rode. Slowing the pace when it looked like Connie was about to fall off. Speeding up a little when his body seemed less frantic. Now when she glanced back and saw he was more upright, she pressed her horse into a gallop. Connie’s horse matched her animal’s gait. And once again, Connie was forced to wrap his arms around his horse’s neck, pressing his thighs as hard as he could on its flanks.

  They rode at the gallop for several minutes. It was only when Connie’s horse began to slow down that he was able to raise his head high enough to look forward. They were coming to a dark mass that, the closer they approached, he realized was a line of trees. Hille stopped her horse when she reached them. Connie’s horse did the same.

  She looked back where they had ridden from. So did Connie. They had been riding across an open meadow. In the distance, behind it, were the dark imprints of the forest they had emerged from. That’s all they saw. No one was pursuing them. Yet.

  Hille slid off her horse and motioned for Connie to do the same. His slide was more like a belly flop. He landed heavily on the ground, the cast on his wrist breaking his fall and adding a few more cracks to its casing. The tenderness in his wrist as well as his more than tender butt reminded him why he had disliked horses.

  When she saw him fall, she raced to his prone body, grabbing his shoulders to help
him. He got up on his hands and knees with her help, but then had another attack of manly pride. He wriggled out from her grasp and finished the process of standing up himself.

  She didn’t answer the smile he gave her. Instead she spoke what sounded like harsh words. He was about to say something in his defense when she began gesturing. She pointed at him and then at the ground. Each time ending the charade with his name. Connie thought she was censuring him for his stupid fall. When she grabbed him and repeated her gestures, he shook his head, trying to shrug away his clumsiness. Finally, he groaned an “Oh!” when he realized what she was trying to tell him. He nodded. She led him to just inside the thicket of trees and bushes and once again pointed to the ground. This time pushing down on his shoulders.

  “Okay, okay,” he told her. “I get it.” He got down on his knees and then on his belly when she pointed to the ground. The vegetation, mostly grass, was damp but it fell a lot better than the pounding he had gotten on the horse’s back. He was facing the meadow so he watched her walk back to the horses who were now heads down munching on the grass. She took hold of her horse’s head and swung the animal around so it was facing her. The other horse turned to her as well. She stood there for a moment looking in Connie’s direction.

  There was something in her stance that made him think she was going to leave him. Especially when she mounted her horse. So much for his ten, he thought. If she left him stranded out here in the middle of this episode’s nowhere, it wasn’t the kind of freedom he had been hoping for.

  His fear seemed to be confirmed when he could see that she was riding in the direction they had come from, sticking close to the line of bushes. His horse was following her lead. Hell, he thought, should he go after her? He stood up and took a few half-hearted steps into the meadow. He saw the horses enter the brush. “Hey!” he shouted as the horses disappeared from view. Indecision made him take a few more steps. Then he stopped. If in fact she was leaving him, running after her wasn’t going to accomplish much. Not unless he could trot like a horse. This wasn’t good, he thought. Not that anything that had been happening was any better. But she could have at least left him her knife.

  He went back to the bramble of bushes and brush and crawled into the underbrush. If pursuers showed up, he didn’t want to be seen. There he sat, his legs tucked under him, ready to leap up if he had to.

  The conviction that she wasn’t coming back played with his imagination while the darkness around him made him feel sleepy. It was difficult for him to tell if his eyes were open or shut. It was only the sensation of falling over that would convince him that his eyes were closed. Then, to keep himself alert, he would crawl out to the edge of the thicket and scan the open space either for her return or for people in pursuit of them. Each time, he reminded himself that, without knowing where he was or how he might seek some kind of sanctuary, he better just stay put. At least until sunrise. Then, if she still hadn’t returned, he’d rethink his position. He crawled out twice and would have added a third time if he hadn’t fallen asleep.

  It was a deep sleep, but not dreamless. There were visions of swordsmen coming after him. Horses galloping from somewhere to somewhere. And hot pokers gouging out his eyes. But there was nothing to offer his dream-self a means of escape from this world. No dream girl to lead him back home. No invasion to repulse. No dark shadow to vanquish. Only these trio of dreams that suddenly ended with the dream sensation of falling. His body twitching in an effort to save itself.

  But he didn’t wake up until the second round of twitches. They sent his muscles on alert. He could feel there was a hand pressing on his shoulder. His sleep must have energized him because as soon as his waking senses returned, he twisted away from the hand. And at the same, grabbed its wrist with a combatant’s ferocity and pulled its owner to the ground.

  At the other end of the hand, a voice cried out. Both in surprise and in pain. He would have dislocated the person’s arm but for the brush of hair that fell across his face. Hille! He let go of her hand.

  Both stood up. Slowly. She had bruised her knee when she had fallen and her arm was sore. He felt stupid and ashamed for distrusting her. His shame increased when she spit out a few words without adding a Con-nee tag line. A rebuke. She repeated the words and then began to move deeper into the thicket.

  This time, he did follow her. But it wasn’t easy. Most of the time, he had to crawl his way through the tangle, frequently stopping to break branches so that he could continue on. He soon lost sight of her backside and so had to stop moving in order to determine from the sounds she made which direction she was moving in. That was a good thing since most of these times, he appeared to be going in the wrong direction. So much for being a Prince Charming, he thought. On his own, he’d never be able to reach the Sleeping Beauty.

  But he did finally manage to emerge out of the thicket. His hands met water just as his ears heard the sound of a flowing stream. The sky was beginning to lighten, casting the shimmer of its cool light on the water. And on Hille. When he looked up, he saw her standing in the stream, some yards away from the shore. Like a Sleeping Beauty ─ awakened. Her hair, long and draped over her chest, flowed in the breeze. Her mouth, half open from exertion, seemed ready to be kissed. Her breasts outlined the dampness of her dress. The only thing that wasn’t beauty-like was the sound of her voice when she spoke to him. Bursts of harsh words that lasted for a full minute. They were ended by a stare that matched her outburst. Then she pointed upstream, in the direction she took. Not waiting to see if he would follow her.

  He waded into the stream. The water rose to his waist. The cold shocked his body. He stood without moving while the water swirled around him. Hille was now several dozen feet up river of him. Looking back at him. He couldn’t quite see her face but by the rigid way she stood, with her hands on her hips, he could guess her mood. Thoroughly annoyed with him.

  Well, could he blame her? She had gone to him only to ease his discomfort and that kind gesture had ended with her becoming a fugitive. Like he was. She hissed some more words at him. Jabbed at the air, pointing upstream. Then shouted some kind of command which he was beginning to understand. Something like, “fogga me-a.” Not waiting to see if he understood, she continued upstream.

  “Right,” he mumbled. “Lead on, MacDuff.” He began sloshing his way after her, only to suddenly lose his footing. With a cry of surprise, he went under the water. That stopped her. But not for long. When he emerged, she shook her head, turned and continued on. Connie slipped and fell a few more times. Although the splashing sounds he made falling into the water were loud, she didn’t bother to look back or stop.

  By the time he reached the spot in the stream where he saw the horses standing ─ their backs to the movement of the current ─ he was thoroughly soaked. And Hille was thoroughly disgusted with him. He could sense that by the hard look she gave him. And the way she dismissed his attempt at light heartedness (“Anyone for a swim?”) with a toss of her head. She didn’t understand his words, but his tone was obvious.

  He noted the look and had to agree. There was nothing light hearted about their situation. He went up to her. Decided he would do the manly thing. After all, it was his episode. She shouldn’t be made to pay for it.

  He pointed at her and then at himself. Then into the brush and trees along the river bank. “I go. Con-nee goes.” He pointed to himself. “You go back.” He pointed at her and then downstream. “Hey-la goes back.”

  The look she gave him acknowledged that she understood what he was trying to say, but she shook her head. Though there was no joy in her face. She went up to his horse and touched its flank until it turned crossways to the current. She motioned for Connie to come to her, yelling what he thought was: “Common Z.” Finally, he began to get the gist out of what she had been calling to him as they made their way up the stream: Get a move on! With the tone of her voice adding, “You idiot!”

  He managed to reach her without falling, glad to have retained some of his di
gnity. But that was something he was about to lose. She pointed to his horse. Took both of his hands and placed them on the horse’s mane. Then she pushed and shoved his rear and back until he was on top. After her graceful mount, she gave him a toss of her head and kicked her horse into moving up stream.

  He followed. Chastened enough to forget what was really happening to him and Hille. At least for the moment.

  46

  Stupid idiot, stupid idiot ─ these were words that kept pace with Hille’s horse’s gait. The curse was for both herself and this Con-nee man. They had left the stream and were travelling overland along a natural trail beside a river that had once been the stream.

  Hille had been living such a precarious life since Adelhard had died. No longer the mate of the tribal Lord, yet still revered enough to keep her from harm’s way. From Evald, the elder, whose son was now Lord. And from the new Lord himself ─ Medard ─ whom she had spurned. First by wedding Adelhard. And then once again when, upon his death, Medard had pressed her to be his wife.

  But ─ oh ─ she had been a stupid idiot when the stranger had appeared. Why had she come to his aid and treated his wounds? Why had she defended his life with Evald when he and everyone said that this man was a black angel from Hell come to bring destruction on them? This stranger ─ this Con-nee man meant nothing to her. And because of this man, what had she become? A stupid idiot. Friendless. Homeless. A murderess. And now, no doubt pursued. It would matter not that she was defending herself against Medard. She had only the Con-nee man as witness. And he was both deaf and dumb to the ways of her life.

  For that matter, she thought as they rode along, what manner of a man is he? He fights like a mythic warrior and yet cannot ride a horse. A man who is as clumsy as a greased pig and yet can break stout ropes with one flick of his leg. A man who bleeds like a mortal and yet has the strength of a God.