Regina giggled. Her empty stomach roared with renewed appetite. She threw herself into the shadows past the open doorways and entered into darkness.
2. The Secret of the Scythe and Stone
Inside the tavern, Regina found only disarray. Candle sconces mounted to load-bearing pillars and oak archways provided only darkness beneath chairs that had been pushed away from their tables. Half-drained goblets were left to ripen the air with stale odours. Plates of foodstuffs lay abandoned to decay for a feast of flies. Dartboards hung in each corner of the main hall, each with clusters of forgotten feathered knives forever stuck to their numbered faces. Large wall posters that announced events of celebration for the coming Harvest Festival hung cast in shadow.
“Hullo?” Regina’s voice filled the empty tavern hall. “Mama, are you here?”
Only the hiss of the rain outside answered.
Regina shivered, cold and damp. Clutching her tail close to her chest, she weaved between tables and overturned chairs, led by flexing nostrils – but even her mama’s aroma had become lost to the stuffiness of soured drink, spoiled edibles, and faint remnants of fear.
Another scent filled Regina’s nostrils. Blood.
The coppery odour was fresher than anything else in the tavern. Regina sniffed her way over to an impressive curved serving bar that spanned the majority of the tavern hall’s right-hand side. Tall, velvet-seated stools stood pushed together around the serving bar like patches of metal trees. Some lay felled on their sides.
Regina hedged careful steps along the very edge of the bar with paw digits raking through bristled tail fur. The little skunk envisioned her mama cowering in the corner, licking at wounds. She imagined wild eyes, filled with pain and bemusement – widened, softening, at the realization that her daughter was not only safe and alive, but there with her. She heard her mama’s voice call out to Regina and throw her arms wide open to embrace her.
“Mama!” Regina bounded around the edge of the bar with excitement in her heart. On the other side she found only darkened shelves and cabinets. A light breeze brushed against her shins. It was stagnant and rich with the scent of blood and … food.
Regina’s eyes fell upon dark ruby droplets between her footpads that trailed along the hardwood floor and vanished into shadows beyond the reach of the edge of the serving bar, where the breeze seemed to emanate from. She looked over-shoulder and saw that she had unwittingly followed a path of spilt blood this whole time.
It was then when she noticed planks of false hardwood leaned against the edge of the bar and an adjacent cupboard. Within the deep darkness, a secret hole appeared in the floor.
Regina carefully stepped around the hole and fell to her paws and knees to peer over the edge. Her nose twitched against the grip of damp earth from within. Just below the lip, an unsteady staircase made with rope railings and slabs of wood led down to dark soil exposed only by the dim light around Regina. Her shadow stretched across the cellar’s distant dirt floor.
“Hullooo?” she called. “Mama, are you down there? … Mama, it’s me!”
Upon closer inspection, the rope staircase looked as though someone had gone at it with swift axe strokes, but had given up or had been pulled away in mid-process. A section of the upper part of the stairs was unfastened from the wall, causing the frame to sway unbalanced to one side where large nails kept the opposite end intact. The frame and railing sported deep gashes of unwinding manila and jute; splintered ends curled skyward like paw digits of a mammal reaching out in anguish.
Is Mama down there…?
The first step wobbled on uneasy threads beneath Regina’s bare footpad. She clung to what secure rope remained, descending into the hidden cellar as twine further peeled and snapped all around her. Regina dared not to look down as she groped along. It was a long drop – at least, a long drop for a small skunk. Gravity pushed her body into the unbalanced frame, caused the ropes to burn into flesh beneath fur and tear into her grasping palms.
Strained manila snapped all around her with noises like someone were plucking lute chords. Jute knots came undone and before Regina could stabilize her weight against the frame, the whole mid-section sagged like a heavy grain sack.
Regina shrieked, clung to whatever possible while wood slabs beneath her footpads simply vanished. She kicked, scrambled to hook her heels to ropes, the grooves in the wall, anything, but the frame’s unbalanced weight caused her body to slowly twirl in both clockwise and counter directions. Steam wavered from her paws as the ropes cut deeper into her grip. Her arms quickly lost strength, despite attempts to pull herself back up. Regina let out a yelp of pain and lost her grasp. Her shrieks filled the air while her body fell backwards. Then there was only sudden and sharp weightlessness.
~
She regained consciousness beneath a net of untwined ropes and splintered wood. The soil beneath her was soft, cool. The stagnant air was filled with various blends: nuts, berries, cheeses, breads. The scents roused Regina. She burrowed her way out of the wreckage of the fallen staircase and rose onto unsteady footpads. Her already unreliable eyes saw everything quadruple. She rubbed them until they were sore and stars appeared. Her brain felt like a trampled pumpkin. She thanked the Goddess nothing appeared to be broken.
Before her, several ceiling-high shelving units lined the right-hand area, like a makeshift wall. Midway down, two load-bearing oak pillars created a gap between them, like an archway into the next part of the cellar. She wobbled past large standing barrels branded with runic letters W-I-N-E (whatever that was) and larger kegs stacked on their sides like pyramids, branded with runic letters A-L-E (whatever that meant). Both smelled awful. The shelves, however, were host to all sorts of delicacies kept safe and secret inside bulging burlap sacks and pine boxes of various sizes.
Regina sniffed along open baskets and their contents – berries, nuts of every kind; jars of live and candied grubs presented themselves to her like a peace offering for the rope stairs mishap. Regina’s stomach grumbled to life. She used the hem of her nightgown to gather up whatever small edibles possible.
Nibbling on a walnut, she explored the area for further food and comfort and found two filled-up wicker bread baskets against the far corner of the cellar. The loaves were massive – twelve feet high, at least! To Regina, who as a child was only a little bit over two feet tall – about the size of a full-grown rat – they were of a goddess’ design. Her hungry eyes grew as large as the mother moon. She crunched the walnut into oblivion and scampered dutifully towards the bread baskets.
Everything dropped out of Regina’s nightgown when she pulled free one of the heavy loaves. She brandished it overhead like a stubborn patch of dandelion finally uprooted, and plunked down between the baskets. She looked upon the oak archway that led to the other side of the cellar. Though she couldn’t make out what lay beyond, her eyes feasted upon the darkness as she did the bread.
For a time, she ate in silence. Her mind was blank. Eyes grew listless, stared off into nothingness. Soon, the bread was but crumbs in her lap. Then, the berries she had dropped were gone. The fallen cheeses and nuts too were no more. Everything from inside her hem-basket had been consumed. Regina’s hunger was a sea’s vortex that dared to swallow every ship and island in its reach.
Fallen clutter sounded from beyond the archway. Regina leapt to her footpads, dropping another half-eaten bread loaf to the dirt. She dared a careful peek past the pillars. Large pyramid-laid kegs and barrels lined the shadows of the far wall. A harvest table to the right was the centerpiece to pushed-back chairs and fallen quills and papers that littered the ground around them. Folded sheets gusted through the din, like moulted feathers.
Just a fallen stack of documents, that’s all it was. Regina let out a sigh of relief. One of the fluttering pages swooped into her chest and fell upturned into her paws. She gazed down into a grid of detailed charts, benchmarks, and runic legends of a topographical expanse that represented the Keeton Forest, the Altusian Moor, and all tha
t closely surrounded them.
“Papa…” Regina whispered behind the choke of fresh tears. She hugged the map close to her body. The map he had finished only two days before. He’d been so happy to be done with it, just in time for that night’s council meeting. The sweet scent of lavender and duskroot smoke – his scent – clung to the canvas sheet like he was right there with her.
Her nose buried into the map and took in great whiffs of him. But there was something else, too. Something filthy, bloody … it was the scent of something, something – someone else down here with her.
“Hullo? … Mama, is that … is that you?” Regina stuffed the map down the front of her nightgown and investigated.
Two small orbs flashed from the darkness near the back of the room. “…Get … get away … I told ye, go – go and find yer father...”
Regina’s eyes focused upon a trembling hedgehog. He lay curled into a ball between some stacked barrels against the far corner. Drooping eyes glared at her. Bristled spines quivered, ready to fend off the unwelcome.
His name was Dwain, a few years older than Regina at twelve, and the middle son of Mr. Griswold Spikeclaw. She recognized him from errands to the general store. He was always either busy stocking shelves or on his way out the door to deliver goods of recent import from Keeto Town. Regina had no real opinion of him, other than she thought she liked him. Because of the difference in their ages, the children were mostly strangers to each other. Dwain was always nice to her, at least.
“By the paw of the Goddess, sod off, girl!” he snarled behind a croak of pain. “If’n I’m gonna die … I’ll do so in peace, yeah. Don’t … don’t need no rank skunk … to help suffocate …”
It took Regina a moment to realize that the visible trail she had followed up until now ended with Dwain. He shifted away from her, momentarily revealing the fact that he cradled a crushed and splintered paw close to his body.
“You’re … you’re hurt,” she said, shifting closer to him.
Dwain winced. “Aye, but it’s nothing a hardy Spikeclaw can’t mend with a tub o’ mead. At least, well, that’s what Da always declared, yeah. Oi, yer own father be a worried mess about ye.”
Regina stopped dead in her tracks. Slowly, shook her head no.
Dwain’s chin fell. “Aye … Alone, too, are ye.”
“Have you seen my mama?” Regina asked. “I’ve been searching all over, but…”
Dwain’s sleepy gaze firmed up. He said quickly – too quickly, perhaps, “No. I ain’t seen her.”
Regina blinked. “B-but … I – I followed her here though, and she came inside, and if you are here too, would you not have—”
“I ain’t seen her.” Dwain stared Regina down with hard deliberateness. His eyes softened when he saw the despair in Regina’s heart. “Must’a been me you followed in here, yeah. I’m sorry.”
“…Okay.” She started away from Dwain, mind foggy and numb to any new words he spoke to her. Her knees buckled under footpads that turned to ash motes. She clutched to a leg of the harvest table, but crumpled to her knees anyhow. Fresh tears spilled free. She turned away from the hedgehog and used her tail to cover her face while she wept, filled with shame and defeat.
“Oi! … Oi, lass—” Remorse filled the air. Regina heard Dwain shift his weight. He said in a stronger voice, “Hey … ye – ye name’s Regina, right? Reggie – That’s what yer mum calls ye, yeah? Ye gals come into the shop alla time! I remember ye, I does, yeah…” He fought back a fit of coughs. “Oi, then, ain’t no time for tears! Not all is lost!”
Regina sniffled, used the back of her paw to wipe her nose. She looked at him over-shoulder with large sad eyes.
Dwain, now sitting up against one of the many barrels, flashed her a bright grin. “Aw, there’s a bessy, then. Rescue’s on its way, yeah, I promise ye that,” said Dwain. “Once word is on the wind, all the merchants of Keeto Town will come to wage war on the curs who dared to invade us, with Alexia the Sage leadin’ the charge! In the meantime, we can’t stay down here forever.”
“Nowhere to go,” said Regina. “I broke the stairs.”
Dwain blanched. Then burst out into uproarious laughter, cut short by a fit of choking coughs. “Don’t tell me that – that racket all those ages ago was ye, then, yeah? I – I thought the whole place was comin’ down!” He took a deep breath, wiping one eye with his free paw. “Those ropes were frog’s droppin’s t’begin with, but if a girl yer size brought the whole thing to its knees! Such a mighty li’l thing ye must be!”
The hint of a smile dared to blossom at the corners of Regina’s lips. She hiccupped a small giggle.
Dwain uncoiled himself, sitting with legs splayed wide out. His tunic was just as filthy as her nightgown. Welts and gashes throbbed to life where fur and spines should have been. Regina’s sad gaze fell to his mangled paw. He shifted it into the safety of the shadows, out of her sight.
“Well then, now what?” he asked. “I ain’t dyin’ in frunna ye. T’would jus’ be ungentlemammal-like. How’dja manage out there, anyhow? Yer alive, and somehow unbroken. Remarkable, really. A true Harvest blessing!”
Regina shrugged with shoulders so heavy her head bobbled. She didn’t know what to tell him. There had only been darkness, and the heavy weight of so many, the wails and the moans of the young and the old all above and around her. They had buried her. Buried her deep. So deep she lay hidden. Hidden, and safe…
She shuddered and rose to a sudden stand to stave off the memories.
“I agree,” said Dwain. He grappled onto the barrel behind him and struggled to his footpads. Wincing with pain, he started along the back wall towards where further shadows gathered, using the barrels to keep him upright. “Here, lend me a paw a moment. Maybe we can get it open now.”
Regina’s ear twitched. She looked his way. “…Get what open?”
“Da told me – if’n there’s ever any trouble to come here straight-away. Down to the tavern’s cellar, he tol’ me, You kits git on over there like the lightening were biting at yer tail, that’s what he kept tellin’ us.” The shadows swallowed him up while he spoke. “The keg in the corner – put your shoulder into the keg in the corner…”
Regina followed Dwain’s trail and found him patting around one of the large kegs stacked in the opposite corner. His digits hooked around a hidden lip upon one of the exposed lids.
He flashed another stoic grin at Regina. “Here we go! C’mere and help put all your hate into this thing. It’s too heavy for me on m’own, with this broke paw. Let’s see if we can crack this barrel open!”
Regina hesitated. “…Where does it lead to?”
“Does it matter?” Dwain asked. “The moor, Keeto Town, maybe. Outta this grave tomb is all I know for sure.”
“…Out of the village?” A chill coursed through Regina’s body. Were she to help Dwain and leave here, that would mean she would leave everything behind. Her home … her parents … “But what if rescue comes? Like you said, people from Keeto Town might…”
“Reggie.” Dwain glared deeply into her soul. “Do ye wanna live?”
Regina’s fretful eyes met his. “What?”
“Do ye wanna live, I asked.”
Regina’s thoughts drifted. She couldn’t find the words to answer him. She considered everything up until now for long, long, minute. There was nothing left for them in Altus Village. Nothing else remained for either kit now except for uncertainty. Whether she wanted to live was not a question she could face. But with as much honesty she scavenged from the remnants of her young and broken heart, Regina had no idea if she could.
3. The Blood Hills
For as long as Regina understood the world around her, the coming of the Harvest was Altus’s most important celebration. It was a testament to the hardships of those who spent long days tending to crop fields. It marked the mutually beneficial pact between Altus Village and Keeto Town through the abundance of trade that the Harvest provided each year. And alongside the Harvest
was its Song, a gospel with no origin such as the Harvest, itself – it had always been, and always would be.
During the preparation of the great Harvest, the Song of the Harvest filled the infinite skies from father sunrise to mother moonset. And despite the threat of blight or infestation, or even the judgment of the wind itself, the Song of the Harvest never failed to bring strength to the crops from the tongues of those who sowed and reaped countless hours in the fields:
Row by row
These Crops we grow
They shall proclaim their worth
For by the blessed kiss of Wind
these seeds will sow rebirth
Row by row
These crops we grow
Great riches of the land
Praise to you oh blessed Wind
For Harvest marks our lives’ good work
Yes, Harvest marks our lives’ good work
Dwain urged Regina to sing it with him as they trekked the secret tunnel: “It will be our anthem, yeah – t’ the survival and championship of our village,” he told her. “And those who escaped t’ Keeto Town will hear us as we near and they shall join our voices, so that those canine mongrels who now hide as cowards will know Altus’s true glory!”
But to Regina, there was no longer any honour to the song. She reflected on the many silhouettes cast against orange evening horizons, choiring with such pride while they tended to the crops. She thought about the nights her mother lulled her to sleep with it under the scents of rose and orchid that brought maternal security. And as she and Dwain journeyed through the deep darkness of the physical unknown, it became apparent, despite her young age, that the hymn meant to benefit their village was but now a eulogy.
A round door made of planked wood awaited the children at the end of the tunnel. It stood above steps made of tightly-packed dirt and rested within a paw-crafted clay track that looked as though the door could be rolled away inside a deep crevice within the wall.
The Book of Wind: (The Quest for the Crystals #1) Page 2