“Raoul,” she growled. “You better come clean right now. What’s happening? Who’s rotting out there?”
Raoul shook his head vigorously and started to sway, his knees weakening as tears started brimming in his eyes. “Please…..please believe me,” he sobbed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” A rustling noise could be heard behind one of the bushes. “Who’s there?” Taz yelled loudly. “Clayton?”
No response. Adelaide raised her knife.
“Taz, we should go,” she whispered. “We should go now.”
Cherry’s eyes turned big with fear as she clung at his shirt sleeve. “What is this? What’s happening?”
Raoul looked down at her, his look one of guilty despair. “Take care of her,” he said, shouldering his pack and pushing her towards Adelaide. “I would do anything to take back what I’ve done.”
“What have you done?” Taz screamed. A head poked around a large pine trunk momentarily in the distance, then darting back out of sight.
“Raoul, what did you do?” Adelaide yelled. “Tell us!” Raoul took a step back. His eyes were streaking with tears and his lips quivered uncontrollably. He turned and darted back towards the hill, his legs carrying him away is if hounds of darkness were nipping at his feet.
“Taz,” Adelaide said. Her voice broke as she started trembling. “What do we do?” Taz pointed forward and darted away. Adelaide followed close behind as she grabbed Cherry’s hand and pulled her along. Twigs, leaves, and branches behind them started to snap and break as the group of Tibris Guards who had been quietly following them leapt into the open and gave chase.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Back at the boulders, Clayton had arrived to find everything as they had just left it. Finn’s bag lay propped up nearby, just as Adelaide had claimed. He called out his name, but to no avail. Scanning the landscape, he finally turned his gaze up towards the cliff Raoul had scaled the day before.
“Worth a look,” Clayton thought and started to climb. Soon he had reached top, barely breaking a sweat along the way. The precipice ledge was open and bare, covered in small patches of dying brown grass. As he reached the top and paced around it, Clayton could see for miles across the forest. Faint wisps of perspiration rose above the trees, signaling the presence of a waterfall not far away. Glimmering colors drifted towards the sky as the low rumbling of rushing water reached his ears. He smiled and sighed deeply before turning his attention to the ground beneath his feet. Multiple scuffle marks littered the ground. Though it was obvious they were left by Raoul, their patterns were baffling to say the least. It almost appeared as if he had been dragging something with him, something heavy.
It was then that a low moan arose from behind a nearby stump. He rushed over to discover a shallow grave dug by hand. Inside it was a struggling figure bundled up tightly with a blanket and some rope. In its lap sat a solitary lorb, burning bright red like the one Huglund had held several days before at the Martello house. Clayton reached cautiously inside and pulled up on a free piece of rope. The blanket rolled off to reveal Finn. His eyes were flickering open and shutas if he’d been unconscious for most of the night.
Clayton cursed aloud as he pulled apart the remaining bondage. He was about to reach down for Finn’s hand when he felt the Acryptus Tree on his chest again start to burn. An uneasy sensation reached across his back as well, signaling the presence of someone watching him. Straightening himself up, he drew in a deep sigh and turned around.
A pair of Tibris Guards stood at the edge of the cliff. One had a long piece of barbed wire sliding in and out of his face, revealing itself at multiple breaks in the skin. This project of self mutilation fell short of his companion’s work, which consisted of shards of bloodied glass jammed into his gums where teeth should have been. Each stared forward with the dead glint of malice in their eyes. Clayton, his hand reaching down to where his mallet hung from his belt, addressed them with what courage he could muster.
“Good morning, gentleman. Now, let us pass and….I’ll spare your lives. What do you say to that?” The two Guards charged. One flanked his left. The other lunged right. Clayton let out a loud cry as the facially mutilated opponent’s blade pierced his arm, causing him to temporarily lose focus. Together, the attackers succeeded in subduing him, forcing him down onto the ground and kicking his weapon out from his grasp. Finn struggled to help, but only succeeded in being forced back down into the hole in which he’d been laid. As the dentally impaired Guard kept Finn occupied, the other one dragged Clayton by his hair towards the stump and firmly placed his head upon it. The Tibris Guard took his sword in his hand and held it high.
“Wait for Huglund,” growled his companion. Fresh blood trickled down his chin as he spoke. “ No. He is occupied elsewhere. We can do what needs to be done with these Red Hands. Worthless filth, they all deserve to die.” With that the Tibris Guard swung back the blade, intent on striking it down across Clayton’s exposed neck.
Before he could, a loud war cry suddenly sounded from the edge of the cliff. The hand holding Clayton down suddenly jerked away, allowing him to raise his head. His barbed tormentor was lying on the ground, his body twitching and thrashing around as Raoul King Jr proceeded to smash his face apart with a rock. The glass-toothed Guard hastened to his companion’s aid, but tripped forward as Finn clasped onto his legs, hitting the ground hard and remaining still. His partner struggled to stand as Raoul struck him again and again, caving in his face until there wasn’t much left. At long last, the Guard stopped struggling, his body going limp and slumping to the ground. Raoul turned to his companions, that same fiery look in his eyes that they contained when he had attacked Finn. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, a slow, agonizing cry escaped his lips. His body jerked slightly forward as the tip of a blade poked out from his chest. Clayton saw his shoulders sag and his legs start to quiver. His head dropped to the right and a short gurgle sounded as he stumbled to the ground. The Tibris Guard he had so savagely beaten rose above him, his blood soaked weapon in hand. Only one good eye was visible underneath the swollen flesh of his face. The wire looping throughout his cheeks and forehead was almost entirely exposed. Anyone else would have died from the pain, but there he stood over Raoul, as if in perfect health.
Clayton cursed loudly and charged forward. He narrowly ducked in time to miss a swipe of his opponent’s blade, before connecting his hands to the Guard’s chest. The same consummative energy that had filled him up back at Pinewood returned in full force. His hands struck with powerful, dangerous momentum. The Tibris Guard flew backwards, soaring over the edge of the cliff before plunging down onto the jagged rocks below. Even with the protection of the Firetongue armor, his spine snapped in half like a dry twig. His body twitched and squirmed before finally growing still.
Clayton and Finn quickly made their way over to where Raoul lay. His chest was rising and falling in slow, labored breaths. Clayton, his lip quivering, tried to slip a pellet of TOX into Raoul’s mouth. The wounded Red Hand shook his head and spat on the ground.
“ No. I’m going out clear,” he murmured.
“What about the pain?” Clayton asked.
“I’ll live….I’ll….well I guess, I won’t.” He laughed quietly, coughing up some blood as he did so.
“I…” Clayton stammered. “I don’t have anything….maybe, maybe I can….I could always….”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“No! I’m not going to let you die. I won’t. No one else is going to…”
Raoul smiled. The light in his eyes was fading, slowly, but steadily fading.
“Wessel,” he began. “I suppose it goes without saying that I owe you an apology.”
Finn looked at him suspiciously. “You see,” Raoul continued. “After I climbed up here yesterday to clear my head, I noticed a patrol of Tibris Guards moving through the forest, maybe a day and a half’s ride behind us. When I realized they would be here by dawn I…I let my anger guide me into concocting a plan of revenge.
I was so rotting consumed with it that I….I wanted you gone. I hoped if I left you up here with a lorb to attract them, your fate would be sealed before anyone decided to return to the knoll. In the end, I got what I deserved for it.”
Finn sat still, his eyes scanning Raoul’s face before resting on his gaping wound. He shook his head and forced a sympathetic smile.
“You just saved my life,” he declared. “You saved Clayton’s too. “I’d say we’re even, Blond...we’re good, King.” “His lungs are filling up,” Clayton determined solemnly as he checked the wound. “I can…I can apply pressure, but I can’t stop the bleeding. His…his breathing will….”
Raoul shook his head and raised his other hand to silence him. “ I never figured I’d die this young…out here in the middle of nowhere,” he whispered. “The worst part, of all this is…is me dying a….rotting traitorous fool. My plugging dad would be proud of me now. I brought this on myself…I deserve it.”
Clayton shushed Raoul and took his head in his hands. “Now y ou listen to me; you acted on an imprudent rush of hate, which led to the endangerment of not only Finn and me…but of Adelaide, Taz and little Cherry too. Even so, you came back at great peril to yourself to save Finn and ended up saving both of us. That final act of selfless courage has defined you in Sorra’s eyes. I am proud to call you my friend. You die in good company.”
Raoul’s eyes were closing. His face lost color as his head moved slightly from side to side.
“You…you tell the girls whatever you want, Clayton. Tell Adelaide I…well, just tell her, alright? Please tell Cherry….tell her thanks, thanks for making mefeel more…just more. And Taz, she….she always…she always stood…”
Clayton nodded, his hand clasped on Raoul’s shoulder. He and Finn remained by his side, comforting him as best as they could in his final moments. At last, a quiet sigh left the heir’s throat, drawing long and low for several seconds, before stopping all together.
The ever steady calm demeanor of Clayton Hogg had disappeared. Rising to his feet, he squeezed the handle of his mallet firmly in both hands before walking over to where the glass-toothed Tibris Guard lay sprawled on his face.
“You should know,” he began, raising the mallet above his head. “I’m usually not a violent sort. It takes something personally painful and deep to push me to such extreme measures. So thank you, thank you so much for burning my home to the ground, for pursuing me and my friends and killing countless innocents along the way. And thank you for assisting in the death of that noble young man over there, my good friend, Raoul King Jr, of the village of Havendale, who was as honorable a man as I ever hope to meet. Remember him as he labels your fate, you sullen piece of rot.”
With that, he brought the weapon down onto the Guard’s unprotected head.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Adelaide could hear Kobal ’s laboring breathing and fearsome howls behind her. There must have been four or five Tibris Guards alongside him. Too afraid to turn, she plunged forward with Cherry’s hand grasped in hers. Taz was just up ahead, ripping aside foliage with one hand while waving the Hammerstahl wildly in the other. She turned abruptly and fired a shot past Adelaide’s shoulder. Bark shattered off a nearby tree as the bullet struck widely off target.
The Guards grew closer with every step. Cherry screamed as Kobal lunged out his hand trying to grab her. Adelaide jerked her out of reach just in time as his fingers brushed the back of her tunic. A few more paces, and he would be on them. They had to come up with a new plan, and as quickly as possible.
Just up ahead was an accumulation of thick, unyielding bushes. Taz disappeared from sight as she heedlessly leapt into the middle of them. Adelaide followed after her, ignoring the sudden cry emulating from where Taz had landed. A second later she found herself teetering on the edge of a steep decline. Cherry swung past her, screaming aloud as Adelaide pulled her back. Several feet down raged a swelling storm of foamy water. It was a river, well concealed by embanked trees and wild shrubbery. Air and water merged repeatedly to form dancing blankets of color that inspired turbulent awe. Forty feet to the left the torrents flowed over a stone wall beneath a thin veil of mist. The deep blue water dropped an unknown distance onto what Adelaide assumed to be a collection of slippery sharp rocks and frightfully shallow water. In any other situation, such a momentously colorful display of natural beauty would have given joyful goose bumps to any beholder. In that moment, however, even surrounded by all that wonder, Adelaide’s emotions were raw with panic. A splash to the right drew her attention to Taz. Her hands were gripping a moss covered branch half submerged below the water as she attempted to regain her footing. Her grip was the only thing keeping her from being dragged over the falls.
As Adelaide turned around, she let out a horrifying scream. There was Kobal, his face still as pale as the day she’d first beheld it. Not one drop of sweat was visible on it, nor did he seem particularly out of breath. His face was just inches away from hers as he jumped for her, his hands outstretched and his dead eye focused entirely on her. Cherry’s lips parted and the beginning of a yell escaped them before Kobal’s armored form collided into them. Together, the trio went crashing into the rushing river below. Taz’s yells were lost as Adelaide went beneath the surface, her hand being ripped away from Cherry’s by the impact of the fall. The first thing she felt as she submerged was her head striking down against the rough gravel riverbed. She could feel traces of blood gush from her scalp as she tried desperately to find her footing. The river was already pulling her along towards the waterfall’s edge before she could even reach the surface. When she finally did so, she saw that Taz was doing her best to reach for Cherry, who appeared to be floating unconscious just outside her grasp. There was no sign of the one eyed Tibris Guard anywhere.
“Adelaide,” Taz yelled, her mouth filling up with water. “Grab onto something!” Adelaide could see that in a few seconds she would go over the edge. She had no idea what lay at the bottom. She darted her head about looking for a rock or a branch to hold her back, but saw nothing. She reached underwater in the hopes of snatching a stable weed from the riverbed below. The water was a good five feet deep, but the current made it nearly impossible to stand upright, let alone keep from being pulled towards the swiftly approaching drop. Starting to panic, she finally threw her hand into the gravel, yanking a handful of it up without finding anything useful. “Just a couple more seconds,” she thought. “This is it….I’m going to die.”
A cold, clammy hand reached through the water and grabbed hers. She felt herself being hoisted to the surface, her body no longer being pulled towards certain doom. Whoever had grabbed her had managed to beat the current and was successfully standing still against the water. She rose from the current, her eyes still blurry from the foaming cold water. Kobal maliciously grinned down at her, licking his lips in greedy anticipation.
Adelaide stared back at him solemnly. His face was just as eerie as it had been in her dreams. The same empty glare came from his dead eye as he smacked his colorless lips together giddily and smirked. It was as if every nightmare she had ever experienced since that wretched night in Havendale was coming to life right before her. This time, however, she felt remarkably in control. She could hear Taz screaming from her branch as she kept losing her grip on Cherry. On the bank overlooking the swell, the remaining Tibris Guards were staring down at her, their eyes occasionally darting to where Kobal stood gleaming over his prize. Slowly, Adelaide reached down into her belt with her free hand. With a swift jerk, she whipped out her knife and jabbed it into Kobal’s remaining eye. The Tibris Guard released her hand and began wailing and cursing as he flopped around in the current until he was finally swept over the edge. Adelaide had a brief second to look up at Taz and smile before she followed him down. The mark of Acryptus glowed fiercely on the back of her neck as she fell, going unnoticed as she clenched her eyes shut and awaited the impending impact.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
As she descended,
the air around Adelaide grew still. Her heart slowed the pace of its beats. A strong warming sensation ran through her. She could feel Ronan alive, his stylish grin still livening up her day as he danced around in her head. She could see Gable darting about their house in Havendale, playing a game with Pallard. Her mom was cooking in the kitchen, preparing meat pies for lunch, steaming with gravy and freshly cut vegetables mixed with fresh cut venison and tender beef sirloin. She could feel her father watching them from his favorite chair, laughing along with some joke she had just thought of.
She heard Clayton and Finn chatting in the living room while Taz played her flute nearby. Even Raoul was close by, his hair fixed perfectly and Cherry’s hand gently stroking his blushing cheek. She could feel the world breathing around her, the voices of everyone she had ever known or loved laughing and playing together in harmony. The whole of Sanctumsea felt at ease, no orders from Lord Tiberion or villainy by Huglund and his rotters to upset it. All felt peaceful within her, and she was glad. It was then that she struck the water harder than she could have ever imagined and all feeling of joy and security she had shattered into a million pieces, leaving her cold and alone in total darkness.
When Adelaide finally opened her eyes again, she was propped up against a fallen tree trunk on the opposite shore. Her feet were still floating in the water and her back felt funny as it sunk down into the soft muddy bank. Her grey sweater was torn, with the sleeves ripped all the way up to her elbows. Looking down, she could see her knees were beaten and bruised, all color having left them in the water’s frigid temperature. She could taste blood in her mouth and licked her tongue across her lip, feeling a nasty gash running down the middle. She looked groggily down the river in search of where she had fallen and saw the waterfall just off in the distance. There were small dark lumps dotted around its base, like the tips of jagged rocks. She guessed that she had fallen straight into the depths without striking a single one. Her entire body was numb, and apart from the warm trickle of blood on her lip,she couldn’t a thing. There was no sign of Kobal, the other Tibris Guards, Taz, or Cherry anywhere. The sky above her head was cloudy and grim, as if marking the passing on of an innocent soul. Her father had always said cruel weather soon followed on the heels of a cruel death.
The Acryptus Tree Page 21