by Lenore, Lani
He should have known she wouldn’t be able to stay behind. Perhaps he had known that.
The rain had stopped by now, but the sky was still dark. She halted at the incline that would take her into the old Tribal camp – her former home before a battle between the Rifter and the Scourge had destroyed it. Now the structures were in ruins and the earth had been torn apart by quakes. It had once been a place to connect with the spirits, but the land had been scarred, and it was no longer sacred.
Everything was quiet now. The ruins dripped steadily with old rain. It made her shudder, knowing that the black clouds lived here.
Her mind was screaming for her to turn back, but she could not. Sly had come here, and so it was where she belonged as well. Cautiously, listening all around her, she made her way up the slope toward the cliff, but somehow, she knew that she was not going to find them all here. But if not, where would Rifter have taken them?
Reaching the top, she nearly dropped her satchel at the sight of the bodies.
Calico’s heart pounded, fear overtaking her breath. Without taking heed to any danger, she rushed over the ground, glancing down at mutilated corpses of pirates, looking for the one she loved – for any of them! There was a bit of ground to cover, but she found neither hide nor hair of the Wolf Pack.
Where could they be? There must be some sign!
Calico stopped, becoming still as she listened. Had she just heard a sound? No, perhaps not. She looked down once again, seeing a paling pirate corpse, guts spilling out from his torn stomach.
Sly’s work. She recognized it easily enough. Though the sight disgusted her, she knelt over the body to think. She felt she had known this was going to happen, but how had it happened?
“They’re not here.”
Calico’s muscles jerked at the voice, growing taut. She pulled a dagger swiftly from the corpse’s belt, facing upward to defend herself, but gasped at who she saw.
He was soaked with rain, his hair flattened against his head and face, his coat thoroughly soaked. He had left, hadn’t he? They had said he had gone back! So how on earth had he beaten her here?
“You– How did you?”
Nix crossed his arms, peering down at her with that one stern eye.
“No, I don’t know where they went,” he said, ignoring her. “But something definitely happened.”
Calico did not have to look around at the corpses again to grasp the unnecessary nature of his words.
“I have to find Sly,” she informed him, turning away. She wasn’t sure if she should have expected a confrontation about a relationship between her and one of his lost brothers, but she did not get one.
“Well, he’s not here.” That was all Nix said, but it was enough to rub her the wrong way.
She glared at him, her mouth twisted. Did he not know that this was serious? He didn’t have to be so haughty.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, relenting a bit. “You know I hate it.”
Calico turned her face and looked across the camp. Had the boys met with Rifter at all? Where had they gone? And most importantly, were they alright?
The huntress could think of nothing else to do but move forward then. She stood, intent on widening the scope of her search, when something caught her eye.
“What’s that?” she asked of the one standing near her. “Do you see it?”
She was standing near the slope, pointing down the incline. Nix joined her there, lending his eye to the ruts that had been kicked into the soft earth. They ran in a line and even though there was a short break after four, the holes did not stop there.
She understood it then: the clue. Every few steps across the ground, there was a deep rut, as if while walking through the mud, someone had forcibly dug their foot in deeper. The trail moved on farther than she could see. One of them had done this – a secret message for her to find.
Sly. He had asked her to stay behind for this very reason. He had known she would come.
Nix seemed proud at this cleverness. He smiled.
“Looks like they went this way,” he said.
Calico could not be on the path fast enough.
2
With their hands and legs freed, the Wolf Pack began to make decisions in the dark cave. They had been left with nothing except the clothes on their backs, but they were determined that this would not be their final stand. Finn and Mach looked around, but they saw nothing more than what they had observed before the cavern had collapsed. There was no other way out and nothing there to help them. Their only option was to dig.
They began to move the rocks with their hands, Toss working on the large ones while the others moved what they could. They worked diligently – for how much time, they didn’t know. Still, they could not see any light coming through the cracks. How thick was this wall that had been created by the explosion? They worked until they were tired, which didn’t take long. This work, piled atop their lack of sleep and their hunger, wore them down quickly.
“I need a break,” Finn declared, stepping back and taking a deep breath, but he suddenly remembered that there was precious little air inside this place.
The others continued to pull at the rocks, though with very slow, weary motions. Since they had begun digging, Sly had not spoken a word. At this moment, Finn was obliged to remember what he’d blurted earlier and yet had not explained.
“Sly, perhaps you’d want to go further into what you were rambling on about earlier? About Nix?”
The boy with gray-brown ears slowed his work nearly to a halt.
“I wouldn’t like to say,” he said, sounding much like his usual, reserved self now. “Not until I know for sure.”
Mach stopped his work at this, turning toward his brother. “And when will you know?” he demanded.
“Once we get out of here, I expect,” Sly said without even a shrug of uncertainty.
“So then what was all that shit about us being honest with each other?” the twin demanded.
Finn nodded his agreement. Toss did not like confrontation of this sort, but he paused in his work, looking on with interest.
Sly stood and brushed his dirty hands on his pants, smearing the grime.
“Understand me,” he said to them. “If I tell you, and it isn’t true, then it will only confuse things. It could raise false hope, and I also sense your hostile doubts. I don’t think you will be able to understand it until you see it. I’m sorry for this, but right now, we need to concentrate on getting out of here.”
None of them seemed ready to surrender, but each one did. They would have to admit, whether they wanted to or not, that this was no time for a fight, and that was likely what this would escalate to if they didn’t back down.
“Alright, forget about that,” Finn said, raking a dirty hand across his hair. “Will you at least answer me one question? Just tell me what you see, will you?”
Sly turned his face toward the frustrated sound of his brother’s voice.
“Ask,” he bade. “I will tell you what I see, if anything.”
The boy with the fang tooth sighed shakily. “Is Rifter going to hurt Wren?”
The reply came instantaneously. “Rifter would never hurt Wren.”
“What about Rifter’s demon?”
To that, Sly did not make a reply, and the rest knew to fear the answer. They turned back to their work with new diligence.
“I know that Wren would never look at anyone but Rifter,” Toss began suddenly, “but I feel something so strongly for her. I – I don’t really know how to describe it…”
“Like you could never respect another woman more,” Mach said.
“Like she’s the only woman you could ever trust,” added Finn.
“As if she died, you would die, too,” Sly finished.
Once again, all the brothers were in agreement.
“So,” Toss said, “it is for Wren that we fight, and not Rifter. No matter what he tells us, and no matter how we feel about him, we have to fight this dar
kness. We have to do it for Wren. It’s what she deserves.”
“Well spoken,” Finn commented. Mach nodded.
“Yes,” Sly said, “and also for Wren, we must get ourselves out of here – swiftly.”
He did not have to say anything more than that. With renewed zeal, they all set back to work, peeling away rock after rock from the cave entrance.
Above their silent concentration and the sounds of the shifting rocks, a heavy scraping sound was heard as one of the rocks was dropped carelessly.
“Dammit! My bloody foot!” Mach yelled.
“Sorry for that,” Toss uttered.
As tense and hopeless as they were, none could keep from laughing. The sound echoed back to them from within their prison.
3
Wren awoke, struggling to lift her heavy eyelids. She didn’t know where she was, only able to acknowledge a dull pain at her wrists and ankles. The last thing she could remember was standing before Rifter – having him accuse her of turning against him. Was she with him still?
“You’re awake. Good. I was afraid you would sleep through it all.”
That can’t be. I don’t sleep.
The deep voice tickled her ears but nauseated her stomach. When she opened her swollen eyes, her vision adjusted easily to the dimness, noting jagged formations. She would guess that she was in a cave. It may have been just below the cliff of the Tribal camp itself, for several feet out from her was a large amount of water, perhaps running directly to the sea. There were a few torches lit around the area to lighten it, and the flickering illumination confused the shadows. But there was one dark form before her that was not confused.
No…
He needed no introduction. His face was hidden by bandages, but she did not have to see his features to know who he was. The Scourge stepped toward her where she was tied between two large stalagmites. He leaned in closer, and when she turned her face away, he put his lips – half-covered by the bindings – against her ear.
“I heard about those children,” the Scourge said quietly. “A dreadful business. But I assure you I had nothing to do with it, though if it is wrong to keep company with the one who did, then I have sinned against you.”
Wren caught a glimpse of light over his shoulder, and at that, she was persuaded to look toward it. There, drifting behind him was the one she hated – the fairy wisp that had ruined her life. Whisper said nothing, but she became the center of Wren’s universe.
Wretched thing! You killed them!
Whisper smiled with satisfaction, lighting herself to sit prettily on the Scourge’s broad shoulder.
What was this? There was amity between them now? Whisper knew who he was – was aware of exactly where the Scourge had come from. Rifter had sent her away, and since the fairy could not be with him, she had transferred her loyalties to the one who most closely resembled him, even if it was on the far end of the spectrum.
Wren was not sure what was happening before her, or how she might get out of it. There was a time when she would have had no doubts that her hero would save her, but now, she could not even say where he had gone. Hadn’t he just been with her? The times had indeed changed.
Done with her for now, the Scourge stepped back, turning his attention to the little devil on his shoulder.
“Why are you still here?” he asked bluntly, looking at the haughty wisp. “Don’t you have other business?”
Twisting her face but without complaint, the wisp shot away from them, clearing the area in a blink, leaving Wren alone with the dark man.
How did this happen? How did I get here, she wondered frantically.
Wren was aware of every breath that passed through her lungs, every beat of her heart. The Scourge turned toward her slowly and began to approach again. She shrunk back. Why did he exist? Rifter had made it this far, and now he had brought this wicked nightmare back to life?
“You should see the look on your face,” the man teased, and her thoughts halted. His voice had changed, slipping from deep tones to something more familiar. Wren was confused.
Daring to look up, she watched him peel the bandages away from his face, and while Wren did not want to look, expecting to see horrible boils and burns, she was surprised when the skin he revealed to her was smooth and youthful, untouched. The hat came off, followed by the long black hair, and Wren saw his truth. This was not the Scourge at all, and she cringed at the lie.
“Rifter!” she cried. Her mind was going in too many directions to get more words to exit her mouth.
The white-haired boy smiled at her, quite satisfied with his ruse, forgetting the fact that he had terrified her in thinking that he was the Scourge. But Wren did not feel much relief to see that it was him. She was angry, but that was quickly replaced by fear.
“Why am I tied up?” she asked carefully, knowing the answer would not be a good one.
“So that you won’t be able to run away, of course,” he answered. “It’s not time yet.”
She could not quite read him, but she understood what was happening before her.
Nix had been right all along…
“You-!” she sputtered. “Whisper!”
“Does she know about this?” he asked, filling in the rest of her sentence. “Of course. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely true that she and I haven’t seen each other in a while. She’s been helping me from a distance, monitoring the island – the pirates and the boys, waiting for the perfect time. She’s still as agreeable as ever – as easy to fool as you.”
Wren could only shake her head in disbelief, but she knew where all of this was going now.
That’s not Rifter, she realized then. It never has been Rifter. It was as they said – as they had all feared. The demon had taken over.
“I spent a lot of time with Rifter,” he said, his fiery eyes burning into hers. “I got to know him very well. His thoughts and memories – what was left of them – were not so hard to access. Now that you have gathered the Wolf Pack together, I can exterminate them. I have you, and I have the pirates eating out of my hand. All is going as I’d hoped. Just a little longer, and then–”
He stopped, smiling nastily with his pointed teeth. He stroked her face with a sweltering finger, but she could only look back at him sorrowfully.
“Rifter, please, this isn’t you! It’s the demon! You have to fight it!”
“Oh no,” he said with a laugh, clenching her face harshly between his fingers. “It’s much more than that. I’m just getting started!”
4
Mach’s fingers were bleeding, but he was sure that he wasn’t the only one. While his brothers around him were silently lost in their own thoughts, he was also caught up in his own.
His reflections centered on another boy, just his age, just his height. That boy was also the owner of a face just like his. How long had it been since they’d seen each other? Mach knew that his twin brother Mech was not what he had been once, and it was not only the remaining pirate influence that Mach was thinking of. That was why he had chosen to come – why he had to be a man. He could not let Wren do his work for him. If something happened to her or his brothers because of his neglect, he wouldn’t forgive himself. He had to step up to his brother, look him right in the eyes, and say–
His thoughts ceased as he pulled another rock away from the wall, making a great change to their situation. His eyes widened. He licked his dry lips.
“H-hey,” he started, hardly able to get more words out for the excitement of it. “I’ve got light, mates!”
This was only a small portion of light, but it was easily visible in the darkness. Mach could faintly taste the fresh air outside. The others stopped their own work immediately and made their way there, peering through the small, doubloon-sized hole.
“We’re almost there,” Finn said, tasting dirt when his lips moved.
Then, without the movement of their own hands, another rock was peeled away from the outside, letting in a bit more light. It was shocking at first, each boy sc
rambling away for fear that the loosened rocks were going to collapse upon them, but it was not long afterward that they heard a voice.
“Can anyone hear me? Sly, are you down there?”
Sly’s ears perked up at the sound. He moved back to the hole swiftly with the others behind him.
“We’re here, Calico,” he said, reaching up through the hole. On the other side, her hand grasped his.
“Is anyone hurt?” she asked.
“We’d just like to get out, is all,” Finn chimed in. “No rush or anything.”
“We’ve been digging in from this side,” Calico said. “We followed your trail.”
“We?” inquired Toss, but not loudly enough so that she could hear. She had turned her attention to something behind her. After a short moment, her hands were within the hole, blocking the light.
“Take this, Toss,” she instructed. What she offered to him was a rope. “Everyone get back as far as you can, and give it all you’ve got.”
Toss looked down at the rope questioningly, but if it was going to help them get out, there was no need for inquiries. They did as they were told, backing as far into the cave as they could possibly get. Their hearts all thudded with anticipation. Freedom! Toss gripped the rope securely. First giving slack, he pulled back as firmly as he could.
The rocks were loosed from one another, crashing down and flipping a bit before they stopped moving. On the other end of that rope – on the outside where the air was fresh – was the large hammer Toss had wielded, and the leverage against the rocks had broken the way. As soon as the rocks had stilled, the boys dashed out, as if the mouth would once again close on them.