by Jacinta Jade
Bracing herself as Baindan extended his own hand to grab hers, she began pulling while Baindan used her arms as leverage to help walk his legs up the rock. Several times he scrabbled against that slippery surface, and Siray hung on to his arm with all of her strength, biting her lip against the pain of the weight pulling on her arms and shoulders.
Finally, just as Siray was beginning to think it was hopeless, Baindan managed to get high enough up the boulder face to get a better grip on her, while Siray was also able to get a more solid grip on his soaked shirt with her other hand. Together, they got him to the top of the boulder, both of them collapsing in a tangled heap, almost hugging each other as they tried to ensure the other didn’t roll off the edge. The rain continued to drive into them as they attempted to catch their breath, and Siray tried to ignore the fact that every layer of clothing she wore was now soaked through.
After a moment, Baindan began moving again, pushing himself carefully up to his feet. Turning, Siray did the same, and they both took a good look at the way ahead.
More boulders and rocks were strewn before them, but none as big as the one they had just climbed. Their boulder seemed to rest against a shelf in the rising hill before them, and they were able to hike forwards a little before they were forced to climb again.
Using the same technique as before, they made slow progress, the water running in small streams down every surface and making the climb slippery and dangerous.
Siray felt herself tiring rapidly. Oddly, she wasn’t feeling the cold as much anymore, but when she tried to push wet hair from her eyes, the clumsy brush of her fingers against her cheek was icy.
About halfway up the hill, it was Siray’s turn to give Baindan a boost. They had been switching the role of booster in order to give each other a rest, yet, unlike Baindan, Siray wasn’t able to lift him with her arms alone. So, moving ahead of him, she rapidly knelt in front of the next large boulder, ignoring the water that pooled around her lowered knee. She was already soaked through anyway.
Baindan didn’t waste any time but placed a foot on her thigh, using that extra height to launch himself up towards the top of the large rock. Standing quickly, Siray grabbed one of his flailing boots and pushed it upwards from below.
Like they’d done previously, Baindan managed to get a grip and haul his body to a safe position on top of the boulder, and as he struggled to turn around on its top, a fork of purple-white lightning hit the rocks close by, lighting up the night around them with watery reflections and sparks.
Looking up in that instant, Siray saw a silhouette standing over Baindan on the rock above her, and she screamed a warning up at him. Somehow, Baindan must have heard her scream over the storm, as his head snapped down to look at her, but she realised he was unable to hear her actual words with the thunder that vibrated through air and stone around them.
Trying to communicate her alarm, Siray jabbed with her finger at the figure over Baindan’s shoulder, and she saw him whip his head around as he realised what the danger was.
In the darkness that followed the lightning, Siray had trouble getting back her night vision, but she saw Baindan roll to a safer position above her just before he began to lash out at that dark silhouette.
Unable to do anything or even see much from where she was, Siray wheeled about to look for ways to make it up to Baindan on her own. She ignored the boulder Baindan had just climbed, and looking to her far left, saw that there were smaller ledges she might be able to climb, although it would take time. Without much choice, she spun and began moving as fast as she could in that direction while passing over the treacherous dips and rises in the shelf of the hill, even jumping gaping dark holes in the rock beneath her at times.
At one point, when she slipped on a particularly smooth section of the rocky shelf, she had to fall forwards onto her knees and elbows and drag her hands against the rocks in order to save herself from a nasty drop to the rocks below. Her hands and knees numb and stinging, she pushed herself upwards again, looking to the next jump.
When she finally reached the ledges she had spied, she set about hauling herself up each one. Soon after, Siray thought she felt the leg of her pants tear on a sharp spot in the rock, but she didn’t slow and didn’t bother looking down at the injury.
After more torturous moments spent reaching, clawing, and pulling, she finally reached a height that she thought should be on level with where Baindan had been. Gasping from her exertions, Siray pushed herself to her feet for what felt like the hundredth time that night and then twisted back to her right to run in a half crouch against the wind back to where she thought Baindan was.
She was so intent on reaching him to help fight off his attacker that she almost passed the spot where she had last seen him. Stopping and turning back in alarm, she confirmed that it was the boulder Baindan had been climbing. But he wasn’t there.
Siray spun in both directions, squinting into the rain and dark to check again if she had the right location. She did.
Horrible thoughts began to race through her mind, and when her foot kicked something, she looked down quickly. A large chunk of rock rested beside her foot. Bending down, she scooped it up. The rock looked out of place on that wet and smooth surface. Had the attacker used this to stun Baindan? If so, where were they both now? Edging on her hands and knees towards the slippery edge of the boulder, Siray leaned forwards and looked down over the rounded side of the massive rock to where she had been standing below only moments before, an image of Baindan and his attacker lying motionless on the hard ground below forming in her mind.
But there was nothing.
Sighing with frustration and worry, Siray sat up and twisted back around to look at the hill behind her.
And started in fear at the face before her.
It was a wild and angry face, and foreign hands madly clawed for her eyes.
Screaming and ducking away from those hands, Siray moved in the only direction that was safe.
Forwards.
She threw herself at the figure’s torso and grappled with it, feeling a thin but sinewy body under her as she fought. She didn’t know if this was a male or a female, but she did know who it was.
A Lost One.
With a strength born from insanity, the figure swiftly overpowered her with an agonising grip, and Siray was forced to sink to her knees, at the same time raising one hand up for protection while the Lost One rained blows down on her.
Crying out in pain as she was hit again and again, Siray bowed her head even further to her chest for protection. Which was how she realised she was still holding that chunk of rock in one hand.
Without hesitation, she tightened her grip on it and lashed out at the first thing she saw before her—a knee. The rock in her hand connected with a satisfying crunch that Siray couldn’t hear but felt through the hand holding the rock.
Her attacker fell backwards and screamed in anger loudly enough that Siray could hear the cry even over the storm. Rolling eyes glared at her, and an arm came out of the night with whiplike force, connecting with the side of her head, and a whole new light show began flashing before Siray’s eyes as she fell from her knees to collapse onto her back.
With a bell ringing in one ear and the sound of the storm in the other, Siray was partially blind and deaf as she lay there in the rain, motionless with shock from the blow.
As rain drove down into her upturned face, sharp fingers grabbed cruelly at her hair and began dragging her painfully across the rock. Siray cried out and tried to grab at the fist that pulled on her hair with one hand while she tried to hit out at her attacker with the other, but both only caused her greater pain as her hair was wrenched more viciously still.
Siray next tried to find purchase with her feet against the ground, but the slipperiness of the rocks and the speed with which she was being dragged rendered her efforts useless.
After she had been dragged for what felt like a couple of body lengths, with a searing pain to her scalp, she was yanke
d forwards and found herself suddenly falling through darkness.
***
Screaming as she slid down through the blackness at speed, Siray clawed at the rock whizzing by her in an effort to suspend or slow her descent through the shadows. Then, her direction of fall altered, and suddenly her stomach felt like it was rising up into her throat as air rushed past her sodden body, chilling her as her body flew through the air.
Realising she might be about to plunge to her death, and visualising a long fall before her onto sharp rocks, she drew in a final breath to scream.
And had the air whoosh out of her as her body slammed into flat ground an instant later.
Her speed coming out of the slippery rock shoot was such that her body rolled several times before she at last came to a stop. Stunned and in pain, Siray lay still for a long moment before she gingerly sat up, testing for injuries. After a quick check, she gave a pained sigh of relief. Somehow, she had escaped receiving any serious injury, and she turned her attention back to her immediate surroundings.
Now kneeling, Siray pivoted as she sought to see anything in that dark place, but only more blackness met her gaze. Of course, this wasn’t the first time she had been in an almost totally dark space … Siray began breathing more rapidly as memories of her time in her cell and the stints between it started to flash through her mind.
That was, until slashes of purple light cast shadows through the space, the flashes from lighting way above finding ways between the cracks in the rocks.
In that instant of light and shadow, Siray saw that a still form lay a short distance in front of her. Identifying the clothing on that form, she scrambled over to Baindan, still picturing exactly where he lay as the purple lightning faded away once more. Reaching the approximate spot where he should be, Siray reached out with her hands and felt for his body.
At the same time, she heard a wild cackle sound from the chute, somewhere to her left.
Her trembling fingers finally touching Baindan’s wet clothes, she kept moving them up his body until she found his shoulder.
‘Baindan!’ she whispered urgently, leaning over him. She shook his shoulder gently, hoping that he, too, had escaped serious injury.
‘Siray?’ Baindan’s response was croaky, but she felt his shoulder move under her hand as he groaned.
Her brows narrowing, she leaned closer. ‘Yes, it’s me. Are you hurt?’
He grumbled. ‘Must have landed on my shoulder. It’s hurting, but I can move.’
Siray kept her hand on his shoulder, afraid if she let go that she might lose him in the dark. Even though she knew she wouldn’t be able to see anything, she glanced nervously back in the direction of the chute they had just slid down.
‘We’ve got to move. The Lost One is still around here somewhere.’
Siray didn’t want to know why the Lost One hadn’t come down after them yet—she just wanted out. She would even be grateful to feel the wrath of the storm outside again, if it meant that they would be safe.
She sensed Baindan’s arm moving and then felt his hand clasp her arm. Obligingly, she supported him as he carefully stood.
‘Let’s not hang around and wait for that thing to come find us again,’ Baindan said.
Siray nodded but then remembered that nonverbal responses were useless. ‘We can’t see anything—we’ll have to wait for another flash to see if there’s a way out of here.’
A crazed cackle sounded again. From the opposite direction this time.
Siray stiffened, and Baindan’s arm tensed beneath her hand.
When a purple flash helpfully lit up the space around them, Siray promptly looked around. She saw Baindan standing pale beside her, his shirt torn and his shoulder bleeding as he looked her up and down.
She had enough time to feel another wave of relief that he hadn’t been injured more seriously before another flash of lightning came an instant later.
And as she turned and looked away from Baindan to seek a way out, she saw a wild-looking figure running silently at them.
Siray gasped and felt Baindan turn just as darkness filled the room once more. Tensing, Siray pulled Baindan to the side out of harm’s way and, lifting her knee, kicked out strongly in front of her as if she were kicking down a door, throwing her hips and torso into the blow.
Amazingly, she felt her foot connect with something both soft and hard, and heard something give a pained grunt, which was then followed by several muted thuds.
Another flash of purple-white light filled the cave, and Siray spied the Lost One rolling away on the ground.
She also saw another dark hole situated in the rock wall just past that tumbling body and, without turning her body as the darkness took them again, screamed at Baindan, ‘Move!’
Holding tightly to his good arm, she pulled him forwards, past where the Lost One had fallen and on to where she had seen the opposite rock wall. The light had lit up that hole for just a heartbeat, but it had been enough to show Siray that it looked like another chute.
She hoped.
Keeping one hand on Baindan, Siray desperately stretched out her hand for the surface of the wall. Finding it, she began searching for that dark space that had filled her with hope. Straining her ears for the sound of anything stirring behind them, she passed her hand quickly across the face of the wall, slapping away at it in desperation.
‘What are you doing?’ Baindan whispered.
He hadn’t seen the hole, then. ‘Sssssh!’ she hissed at him. ‘There might be a way out here!’
Now Baindan held tightly to her arm with his good one while Siray used both her hands to continue the search, her desperation growing as her hope began to slowly fade. She knew it was only a matter of breaths until the Lost One located them there in the dark.
When her hand suddenly seemed to move through the surface of the wall, Siray froze for an instant, then took a sharp breath. She had found the hole!
Placing a hand on one of its edges, Siray put her other hand on Baindan’s shoulders and guided him to a position in front of it.
From somewhere behind them, an angry growl sounded, followed closely by a thunderclap that shook and reverberated through the rock.
Siray took advantage of the storm’s violence to lean in close to Baindan and yell into his ear, ‘Into the hole!’
Baindan didn’t argue, or if he did, she didn’t hear the words, and she guided his hand onto the edge of the gap. She felt him proceed to seat himself on its lip and shift himself around. Still holding on to one of his arms, Siray climbed into the hole behind him, wrapping her arms and legs around his torso. If they got separated down there, they may never be able to find each other again.
As ready as she could be, Siray prepared to push them both off from the flat edge they were perched on. She reached out her arm to push against the wall, but then a strong and bony hand clamped down tightly onto her wrist.
Sharp nails bit into her skin, piercing flesh, and a strength that was almost unbelievable of the figure she knew to be responsible pulled.
Siray sobbed in desperation, trying to resist the pull as it began to drag her from the edge of the hole, but it was no use. The Lost One was too strong.
Her desperation peaking, Siray stopped trying to break the grip on her wrist and instead threw her upper body towards the offending limb. When her chin bumped into something warm near her own wrist, Siray didn’t hesitate but leaned forwards and bit down.
A chilling scream rang out in the darkness.
The grip on Siray’s wrist disappeared.
Pushing away from her attacker and grabbing a hold of Baindan once more around his waist, Siray pushed off from the wall with force, sending both her and Baindan sliding down through darkness once more, praying to the Mother that this was indeed a way out.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SLIDING OUT the end of the second chute while she still clutched at Baindan, Siray felt both their bodies leave the slippery rock and rise into the air briefly before they crashed
down onto the hard ground, Baindan grunting as she landed partly on top of him.
She felt Baindan push her legs off him as he struggled to sit up beside her, groaning. As she also tried to right herself, she realised she was getting used to not being able to see anything now, but she still couldn’t fight the instinct to look around to get her bearings. Yet the only thing she was sure of was that the sound of the rain was more distant here.
She also listened hard for the sounds of pursuit sliding down the chute after them, but apart from the slightly muted background noise of thunder and rain, there were no other noises.
When she felt a tapping on her arm, she started slightly, only to realise it was Baindan trying to get a hold on her so they wouldn’t get separated in the darkness.
‘Siray—I think I saw something,’ Baindan whispered, tightening his grip on her arm.
Siray tensed. ‘What kind of something?’ she said, scanning around her wildly before she realised again that it was useless.
‘I think there might be a way out over here.’
She didn’t even try to guess at the direction Baindan meant and, instead of reminding him that she couldn’t see where he was pointing, simply asked, ‘Why’s that?’
‘Because I saw a flash of purple light,’ he responded.
Siray shrugged and then almost slapped herself on the head for trying to communicate visually. ‘That could just be lightning reflecting in like the last cave,’ she said cautiously, not sure she wanted to go hiking through an unknown cavern in the dark.
Baindan’s hand patted her arm excitedly. ‘I just saw it again—we should go this way,’ he said.
Siray shook her head, still having no idea which direction he meant. Then she shrugged to herself. What did it matter? ‘Well, it’s all we’ve got to go on, so lead on.’
She felt Baindan shift his grip down her arm to her hand and grasp it tightly.
‘I think this will be an easier way to navigate us both,’ he said. ‘Keep your eyes open in case that crazy comes back.’