“Kill her.” The Tibris Guard turned his one good eye on Adelaide. She looked in horror as his tongue poked out of his mouth like a snake, licking around the edge of his lips. He unsheathed his sword and advanced upon her. She had only a second to brace herself before Ronan shoved her towards the stairs, receiving the blow of Kobal’s weapon on his left shoulder. He went down, his shirt soaking with blood. Hattie started laughing hysterically as she looked on.
“Find the young one,” Huglund ordered Ptolemi. “Leave them alone , you rotters! Fight me,” Ronan groaned loudly, grabbing out at Kobal’s wrists as he struggled to his feet. “You got….you got nothing.”
“Ronan, no,” Adelaide sobbed, stumbling backwards up towards her room. Kobal struggled to break free from Ronan’s grip. His feet were slipping in small puddles of blood accumulating beneath him but he kept his hold on the one eyed Guard. As Ptolemi successfully located Gable, the young boy let out a frightened cry. Ronan turned, breaking his focus just long enough for Kobal to push him back into a wall, knocking the air from his lungs. The Tibris Guard raised his blade and lunged forward.
The last thing Adelaide heard her brother say before Kobal decapitated him was: “Keep running, Addy. Stay alive.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Adelaide retreated to her bedroom. Kobal and the unnamed Tibris Guard were close behind her. Clenching her eyes shut, she locked the door and leaned against it. She heard the nameless Guard curse angrily as he stumbled forward, and Kobal snickering behind him.
“He must have tripped on the top step,” she thought. Ronan had always promised to fix it. Adelaide desperately tried to wipe her eyes dry on the shoulder of her jacket. The image of her brother’s head toppling off his neck flashed repeatedly across her mind. Finally, she bent over, her stomach aching to release a deluge of vomit. Several seconds of painful dry heaving followed. A low, threatening growl informed her that Pallard was hiding under her bed. Adelaide shuddered as she heard Kobal slowly drag his fingernails down the other side of the door.
“Come out, little givie,” he hissed. “Come out and play with us.” Straightening herself upright, Adelaide towards her bed and pulled Pallard out of his hiding place. She glanced about before putting him inside her closet. Maybe in there he wouldn’t be a threat, and the Tibris Guards might leave him alone. She scrambled to locate her journal as Kobal continued his taunting.
“Please, please, pretty pl ease open the door, tiny flower. Don’t make me break it down. Break it down on your tiny, pretty head. Do you want that? Do you?”
Adelaide opened the bag Ronan had prepared in the kitchen. There was a sharpened, carving knife with a redwood handle, four fresh, green apples, a loaf of rye bread, and a thick slab of ham leftover from supper the night before. As she stuffed her book and a blanket in with the rest of the supplies, she hurried to the window. Her body shuddered uncontrollably as Kobal started hacking his way through the door. Bit by bit, his blade sliced through the wooden frames. Another few seconds and he’d be through. Adelaide took one last view of her bedroom before closing her eyes and leaping outside. A sharp pain shot up through her legs as her feet smacked down onto the ground. She stumbled forward, falling flat onto her stomach. Her knees and elbows scraped against the cobblestone street, causing her to whimper in pain. Years ago, in a moment like this, her father would have come running with a bag of ice and a shoulder to cry on. Those days, tragically, were forever gone. Adelaide lay there, unable to move, expecting to black out at any second.
“She’s outside!” Kobal screeched from above. “The givie is trying to escape!” Adelaide struggled to her feet. She managed to stand upright just as Ptolemi leapt through the open doorway, just a few feet away from her.
“You… think you can take me?” she groaned at him, clenching her fists and blinking away a tear. “I can still kick your rump, you murdering rot.”
Ptolemi stared at her, his expression blank. It was the same way he had looked back up on the hill. His hand moved slowly to his sword-handle where it stayed. Seeing this, Adelaide inched her way backwards, trying to give some distance between her and the Tibris Guard. No matter what happened, she wouldn’t be taken so easily, not without a fight.
Ptolemi’s lips moved. No words came out; nothing but a low, ghostly moan, followed by a sharp shudder as he tightened his face. Whatever he wanted to say was causing him unfathomable pain. He stopped trying as the sound of Kobal crashing down the stairs resounded behind him. Staring intently at her, he cocked his head to the side, and jerked it violently. His message was clear: Run.
Adelaide hobbled off as quickly as she could. Her legs buckled and stung, and still she went. Limping along, she glanced back to see Ptolemi still standing there, his hand gripping tightly onto his sword handle. The expression of pain on his face was still noticeable, even as Kobal and his unnamed companion brushed past him to give chase. Thinking quickly, she ducked down an alleyway, stepping along until she found the side-door to one of the neighboring houses. She instantly smelled smoke as she hurried inside, slamming the door shut behind her and stumbling through what she interpreted as a well-kept laundry room. This had to have been Jo Rullenham’s house. Jo and her fiancée, Garvey Brahl, had just moved into it less than a month before, a wedding gift from Garvey’s parents. The wedding itself couldn’t have been more than a few weeks away, but given the present circumstances, Adelaide couldn’t recall. She turned abruptly into a hallway and tripped over what felt like someone’s body. Struggling to her feet, she rushed towards what appeared to be the front door. Wisps of thin, grey smoke were carrying down the nearby stairs, followed by the hopeless screams of a young woman.
“Jo,” Adelaide thought. She was trapped upstairs to die by some passing Guards. She had to help her before it was too late. “ Ha! Got you now, little givie,” Kobal exclaimed, his face peering from the entrance of the laundry room. “Where will you hide now?”
Adelaide screamed, falling back against the door. She knew that it was only a matter of minutes before the fire upstairs consumed Jo Rullenham. She closed her eyes tightly together as she struggled with her conscience.
“I….I can’t,” she thought. “I can’t…..leave her.” “Enough of this pitter patter,” Kobal yelled, advancing swiftly upon her. “Come and join your brother in the bleak emptiness beyond.”
With that, Adelaide reached for the door handle beside her and shoved it outward. She heard a loud crunch as it struck the face of the unnamed Tibris Guard on the other side, patiently awaiting her attempted escape. She didn’t wait to see how badly she’d hurt him as she limped along down the cobblestoned road. Quickening her pace, she ran past several Tibris Guards who were too distracted pulling out struggling, screaming villagers from their homes to notice her. Nearly every building in Havendale was on fire, sparked off by unstable lorbs cast by Tibris Guards to drive out hiding survivors. The smoke rose up high into the air, blacking out the sun and coating the village in a bleak, shifting atmosphere. The one eyed Kobal and his companion appeared to have become lost in the commotion. Adelaide hopelessly pressed her palms to her ears in the hope of drowning out the chaos, but to no avail. The noise followed her as she stumbled along, narrowly avoiding colliding with Tibris Guards or tripping over the dead and wounded. She passed several more blocks of agony and terror before maneuvering her way down an alleyway and finally arriving at the east gate. It appeared deserted from what she could see.
Glancing outside the open gateway, Adelaide saw a hundred yards of untended field, mostly covered in wildflowers and neglected weeds. A couple hundred feet beyond that stood The Wallowing Woods. There were no Tibris Guards in sight.
She entered the gatehouse and picked up the microphone sitting on the desk. A distant cry briefly diverted her attention before she quickly spoke the poem-passage and waited for the humming sound of the Flammeau-11 to stop. With an afflicted sigh of anguish for Ronan and all the others who had died that day, she shouldered her bag and passed through the gateway. Hobbling al
ong, she cleared the fields and finally entered the woods, leaving the sounds of death far behind her as she stumbled into the dark of nightfall. With no lorb to guide her, she found herself blindly rushing past sharp branches with thorns that poked, slashed, and prodded her from every direction. It seemed so different from when she was a child. With her father holding her hand, nothing had frightened her. Now there was nothing calming about the woods. Every tree, bush, and stone appeared nightmarish and deadly. It was as she ran through it all that Adelaide started to remember how her father’s death had come about. It had been years ago, back when she was just around Gable’s age. The family had taken a stroll to their favorite clearing at the edge of the woods to enjoy some of Hattie Stokes’ gourmet sandwiches and homemade lemon cake. Once the meal had concluded, she had darted off to chase dancing butterflies. Sunbeams had penetrated the foliage above her head as she made her way deeper and deeper into the woods. Her mother’s calls for her swift return had fallen on deaf ears as she laughed and skipped her way out of sight from the safety of the clearing. It was only when she nearly tripped over a log concealed by fallen leaves that she realized her blunder in wandering away. Growing nervous, she had hurriedly tried retracing her steps. It was at that moment, when all seemed lost, that she saw her father appear not ten paces away. He smiled and started walking towards her before a loud, cracking noise that stung Adelaide’s eardrums shook the air. She saw her father stop, shudder, and slump to his knees, his hands clutching his chest. She had rushed over to where he knelt, reaching him just in time to see his eyes close and feel his final breath on her tear stained cheek. No one had come forward to confess to the horrible accident, and a thorough investigation had yielded little else. Since that tragic day, all firearms had been banned in Havendale, and many surrounding villages had done the same. Adelaide had never given much credence to this action, since doing it had no ability to bring her father back. Ever since his death, she had done her best to move on, gradually going a day or two without bursting into tears. The view from her bedroom window just narrowly missed the village cemetery. She had to sit sideways on the window ledge to get a view. Sometimes she would sit for hours there, staring out at where her father lay buried. If only he had been around that day. She had no doubt he could have kept their family safe. All five of them would surely be together on the run, armed to the teeth and hauling enough food and drink to last a month in hiding. Adelaide smiled at the thought before choking back a disparaging sob as the truth washed over her. Her father was dead and buried. Her mother was now a blubbering wink. Her little brother was dead or soon to be, and Ronan…oh Ronan.
Above the treetops, dark storm clouds were hastily forming. Her legs throbbed painfully and her feet felt swollen inside her shoes. Her mouth tasted like blood as her lips and face were constantly scraped and scratched by passing branches. There was neither path nor trail to lead her along. Only blind terror and the hope she didn’t end up back on the hill or somewhere close to Havendale.
A loud crack of thunder sounded high above her head. In her growing delirium, Adelaide couldn’t help but let her mind wander. She considered how the approaching storm might have affected things if Huglund and his Tibris Guards had never shown up. Perhaps Mayor Hare would have laughed his heartiest laugh, prompting Finn to tell some more jokes. Gable and his friends would have scurried along to the nearest table and sought shelter beneath it. Maybe Finn would have grabbed her hand and pulled her along to that old shack near the front gate, or further along to the abandoned barn down the road. Some place with just enough room for two people to stand close together, or maybe….maybe even lie down. A bolt of lightning might have struck Clayton Hogg just as he was finally submitted to Mimi Varrow’s eccentric seductions. Her brother, Ronan, would have danced with Jolene Ingram, and everyone on that rotting list of names would still be alive.
Then she tripped over something. It was crouched down directly in her path, and well concealed from sight until it was too late. Everything went silent as her head struck the ground. Darkness consumed her as she slipped away into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER SIX
Nightmares plagued Adelaide’s mind. She found herself drifting high above people from Havendale being slowly tortured and killed, all together in one great bloodbath. Struggled to close her eyes, she found them pulled open by some invisible force. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Ronan. She could make out his bloody, shuddering form bending beneath a glistening blade, held in the hands of none other than the deadeyed Kobal. He was grinning maliciously, rubbing the edge of the blade aggressively against the raw skin of Ronan’s neck, hissing and spitting down on his face. As he raised the sword to strike, he suddenly jerked up his head towards her. Though she felt invisible to his gaze, she still could feel his cold, murderous, solitary eye focusing on where she was floating. She saw his teeth start to crumble in his mouth as he spit and sputtered.
“T his is on you, lovely givie. Cringe under the scourging glare of Necrya. Be cast with all the little squirms screaming, all the pretty women weeping, all the fiery men fleeing. Be alone now, without hope, and see your brother die slow.”
“No….” Adelaide whimpered. Her voice sounded small and muffled, like she was speaking into a pillow. “No, Ronan. I…I didn’t mean to….you promised. Please….Oh please.”
The image of Kobal’ s sword slicing down jerked her back awake. A layer of cold sweat covered her face and a freshly made tear started to fall warmly down her cheek. The rain had stopped above her head and everything around her seemed freshly illuminated.
“ It must be morning,” she thought. The sky was still grey from the night’s storm. Dark, scattered clouds floated overhead. Stray drops of water fell from the tips of the branches and leaves, some landing on or around her. There was a certain magic in it all, not that Adelaide knew much about the magic of Sanctumsea. Her educator, Miss Imelda Barnum, had taught them all about the four castaways, sunweed, the distribution of land into four provinces, and how the discovery of lorbs had greatly simplified living. When it came to issues of other magic and the ability to wield it, however, Miss Barnum had skipped a chapter or two. Then again, perhaps there had been no chapter to skip. In the remote regions of Sanctumsea, where towns and villages like Havendale existed, people brave enough to study such items were difficult to find. The abundant lorbs provided all necessary functions to those who handle them. Those who mined them seemed rarely interested in the radiant qualities they possessed. At the end of the day, each unique sphere performed its duty without fail, and for the people of Sanctumsea, that was enough. The only person who had ever been intrigued by seemingly magical fossils of Sanctumsea before The Swelling was Adelaide’s own hero, Jonah Longstreet. His stories were always full of such things, inspiring the imagination and creating debatable thoughts for his readers. He demanded curiosity without apology and seemed intent on educating those who turned his pages with more fantastical ideas than how to farm produce or hem clothing. Any myth or legend concerning Sanctumsea had been successfully woven into his tales. Adelaide found herself wondering just how much Longstreet could have truly known about the time before the rising of their land, and where his information came from. Its fictional background only enticed her more as she debated the odds of how much of it was real and what parts might be purely made up. If only she could meet him…just once.
As Adelaide pondered all this, a sharp, shrill whistle sounded in the distance. It was immediately followed by a fevered bark and the sound of something with four legs running swiftly towards her.She winced as she pictured one of Huglund’s savage dogs bounding in her direction, intent on ripping her to pieces. Reaching into her knapsack lying beside her, she withdrew the sharpened kitchen knife, grasping the handle tightly. The mangy beast wouldn’t take her easily. Not without a fight. She pulled herself upright and raised the blade in anticipation. A few more seconds and the vicious animal would be in sight. Adelaide took a deep breath and thought about everyone in Havendale sh
e had ever loved, and how she would be with them soon.
Suddenly, a loud yelp from where the creature would have been drew her attention. A sickening whimper and a loud gurgling noise immediately followed. Then, all grew silent. Puzzled, she slowly crawled towards where the snarling had stopped and peered through a raspberry bush blocking her view.
Five yards away, hanging from a long strand of wire, were the mangled remains of the savage canine. Its head had been crushed in some sort of homemade wooden vise. Its eyes bulged from its sockets, and its neck was almost completely twisted around. The snare, though crudely made, was clearly effective. The animal had died instantly.
“Ah. Like my trap, do you?” a friendly voice asked. Adelaide swung around.
Clayton Hogg stood before her. His hair was disheveled and his party clothes were crusted with mud. In one hand he held a satchel brimming with supplies, and in the other he clutched a hand carved wooden mallet from one of Havendale’s tool shops.
“Easy there,” he chuckled, taking a step back. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Well, I…” Adelaide started, trying to seem nonchalance. “I thought you were a Tibris Guard.”
Clayton smiled broadly and started sorting through her bag. “Wow, you didn’t really plan this out, did you? Some bread and fruit? Thatwouldn’t last you two days out here.” “My brother made that for me,” Adelaide snapped. “Right before he was killed by a Tibris Guard.”
Clayton, clearly apologetic, cleared his throat and changed the conversation. “Oh…well, y ou know I doubt you would have made it much further if you hadn’t bumped your head last night. Lucky thing I found you when I did.”
The Acryptus Tree Page 5