Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild

by Peter Plasse

  Turning slowly to face him, he noticed immediately that Forrester looked consumed with grief.

  “She is gone,” he said, his voice cracking under the emotional strain.

  Orie extended his arms, saying, “Oh, Forrester, I’m sorry.”

  After Forrester had regained some composure, Orie asked, “What happened? How did you find her?”

  “She was barely alive when we got here. She must have been watching us approach, for she left me a note. She had her ways. She was waiting for us. There were things she needed to tell me, things that we will need to know in order to go after your sisters and your friends, but when I found her she was already unconscious. She was breathing, but it was very shallow and she never regained consciousness. She wanted to meet you. She wrote me that, but I’m afraid she couldn’t hang on and the Old One finally took her. Oh, Orie, that is too sad … ” He lowered his great head, taking his face in his hands, and succumbed again briefly to the grief … the shock … the overwhelming sadness.

  Orie guided him to a huge chair behind them and helped him into it. The silence was unsettling as he stood by and watched his friend grieve this terrible loss. He had so many questions but, out of respect, asked not a one of them while Forrester dealt with this blow in his own way. Instead, he continued to gaze out the back windows. The clouds that hung halfway down to the base of the monstrous chasm had started to blacken, and bolts of lightning began to flash all about the skies, some streaking all the way to the canyon floor where great bursts of light signaled their impact. Were the moment not so solemn, Orie undoubtedly would have had quite a narrative to go along with this most impressive show. But now, he merely waited patiently for his friend to come around.

  Doreen somehow remembered this drill. Once again she was awake in a strange bed feigning sleep. The voices were different, but her intent remained the same: Gather as much information as possible from those who spoke in her presence without them being aware that she was listening.

  Whereas the last time she had done this, she had been toasty warm and had felt clean top to bottom, this time she was cold, damp, and felt miserable. Her head pounded terribly, she was nauseated, and her feet were absolutely killing her. But she toughed it out and listened intently to the voices that spoke softly right beside her.

  “Why do you suppose she won’t wake up?” asked Diana.

  “Hard to say,” replied Jared. “I checked her over again. It looks like she had a pretty severe head injury not too long ago, judging by the bruising behind her ear, here.” He pointed to the large area of black and blue behind Doreen’s right ear. “And it looks to me like somebody has opened her skull, here. Maybe she’s suffering ill effects. It was a very bad crack on the head. No doubt about that.”

  “Well, I’m going to stay with her while you check the snares and hopefully get us another buck, or two. She needs to be cleaned up, and I’m sure she would prefer that there were no men present. Out you go, sir.”

  Unable to stay awake, Doreen fell back asleep.

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right here by yourself?” he asked. “I could stay for a little while. I mean, I would leave the cave and all, but I would like to be here when she wakes up. The snares can wait until later.”

  “And lose our rabbits to the coyotes?” snorted Diana. “Not a chance; Away with you, then. I have work to do. Just be sure you bring home some more Burnfast. We’re almost out.”

  Jared quickly closed the gap between them and hugged his newfound love tightly. It was all he could do to let go, but he forced himself away. Diana was right. They each had work to do. Important work.

  As he made the cave’s entrance, she asked, “Do you really believe she is the one?”

  He paused. “In my mind, there is no doubt.”

  With that, he left. Diana once again stripped all of Doreen’s clothes from her and covered her generously with the Broadleaf. When she had finally stopped shivering, she brought all of her clothes down to the stream, washed them out for the second time in two days, and hung them to dry in the crisp morning air. She checked the trotlines, hung the catch to dry, and returned to the cave only to find Doreen sitting upright.

  “Hello,” she said. “My name is Diana.”

  “Hello. Where are my clothes?” There was no politeness in her tone. She was cold, and she wanted her clothes back. Better to be dirty than to be cold.

  “Oh,” said Diana, “I’m sorry,” quickly covering her with the cloak that she had finished crafting the night before while Doreen slept. “They needed to be washed so I washed them out for you. They’re hanging to dry. I’m sorry, but they’re still wet. Here, let me make you a fire. I feel terrible. You must be freezing.”

  Neither spoke again for a while as Diana used the rest of the Burnfast to get a fire going. It took her several minutes, as she was nowhere near as proficient with the flints as Jared.

  As Doreen huddled by the flames, wrapping herself up as best she could in the crude garment, Diana went outside and brought her clothes back in from where she had hung them, arranging them as close as she could to the fire to help dry them out faster. “You didn’t tell me your name yet.”

  Doreen stared at her and said, “I wish I knew it.”

  “You don’t know your name?” she asked, arching her eyebrows in surprise.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I see,” she said quietly, then, “The one thing we appear to have plenty of at the moment is time. Perhaps you would like to tell it to me?”

  “Well, the plain truth is, I don’t remember anything from more than a couple of weeks ago, or however long it has been … ”

  She shared with her the amazing story of how she had awakened in the infirmary of the Troll fortress in Ghasten with no recollection as to how she had gotten there, nor any of the life she had had before, how they agreed that she would be called Doreen because that had been her doctor’s mother’s name, and how she had escaped with Daria, her doctor, and the handsome Prince of Ravenwild.

  “Erik?” cried Diana. “You escaped with Erik Fairman, Prince of Ravenwild?”

  “I did,” said Doreen, “You know of him?”

  “Know of him? He’s my brother!”

  Doreen retreated into silence. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Diana the story of how Erik had given his life to save hers by standing against impossible odds in order to hold off the Trolls long enough for her to get enough of a head start to outrun the rest. By her long face and downcast eyes, though, Diana deduced the terrible news, and was herself silent as tears formed in her eyes.

  She jumped up and threaded some cuts of venison onto a green stake and hung these to cook over the remaining coals, which were dying fast. “You need to eat,” she said. “Then we need to clean and dress your feet.” She handed Doreen her still-damp clothes, saying, “These should be dry enough for now.”

  They had scarcely finished tending to the wounds on Doreen’s feet when Jared returned. Five rabbits hung from a rope slung over his shoulder, as well as a fresh pelt from yet another deer in which were wrapped the hindquarters and tongue.

  “Well, well,” he chortled with a broad grin. “Look who’s up and about.”

  Neither returned his smile, and he knew that there was grave news in the offing. When Diana told him about the death of her brother, he hugged her gently. She buried her head in his neck and uttered a few soft sobs, then straightened, saying, “We will mourn him at a later date. I loved him, and I love him right now. Today. But I will not let it be that he died for no good reason. We will honor his memory by surviving this. We have work to do. Did you bring Burnfast?”

  Jared replied that he had, but had left it about halfway back to the plain’s edge because he had been making too much noise carrying so many things.

  “And salt?” she asked.

  He replied that yes, he had brought back salt, mumbling something about having found a large deposit in a piece of ledge overhang close to where they had found Doreen.

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nbsp; He decided he would return to get the wood and the forequarters of the deer. Diana and Doreen fell into cutting and salting the meat and fish, hanging these to dry in the afternoon sun. Finished with this, Doreen began to scrape the hides free of the fat and subcutaneous tissues in preparation for their salting. Instinctively, she went into the cave and tightened the hides that were already stretching out. “I get the feeling I’ve done this before,” she mused.

  “It looks like it,” said Diana. “And you have no recollection of anything before waking up in the fortress in Ghasten?”

  Doreen screwed up her face tight in concentration. “Nothing.”

  On an impulse, Diana walked over to Doreen and gently lifted the stone away from her neck. “Do you know what this is?”

  Doreen glanced down, and a torrent of visions, all disjointed, none meaningful, rushed forward from the veiled recesses of her memory, causing her to swoon. As she pitched forward, Diana caught her. She eased her to the ground and called out, “Doreen. Doreen. Are you all right? What did you see?”

  Doreen blinked and said, “I can’t remember.”

  “Think,” Diana said to her. “Try to remember.”

  Doreen held her forehead, obviously in great pain, and growled, “Which part of ‘I can’t remember’ don’t you understand?”

  Ryan carefully unfolded the map, making sure he did it quietly. Having crossed the Slova River into Ravenwild, they both felt a lot better about their chances of surviving this leg of the journey, but were determined to take no chances with their security. There was no such thing as friendly territory. There were only friendly peoples, and the Trolls or Gnomes that they encountered in Ravenwild were no less dangerous than any they encountered in Slova, so as soft a sound as that of the rustling of paper from such a benign act as unfolding a map could be fatal if heard by the wrong ears. Knowing that they were hopelessly out-manned, surrounded by enemies, and would eventually be hounded by those chasing them as soon as they too crossed the river, had forced them to be more “woods smart” as Orie called it. So Gracie and he had adopted a strict no-noise policy, which up to this point had worked.

  She awoke right then and sat up. “What’s on the map?” she asked, keeping her voice down. “Is there any indication of food?”

  He smiled a half-smile. They were in moderately poor shape, having pushed themselves to the limits every day for the last several days now, and subsisting on the last remnants of wild fruits, nuts, and berries overlooked by the birds, which were few and far between. Her stomach growled loudly. “I’m serious,” she said. “We need to figure out how to get some real food, or we won’t last much longer.”

  “You’re right,” he said, folding the map up quietly. “Everybody’s accounted for. Stephanie looks like she has made it to the northeastern border of Ravenwild. Jacqueline looks like she’s still in the Agden Woods, and a little closer to the southernmost border of Ravenwild, and Orie and Forrester are about halfway in between. Mr. and Mrs. Strong are pretty much where they were yesterday. That’s weird. I would have thought they would be on the move. Why would they camp out like that?”

  “Maybe they found a place that has lots of food, and they’re stocking up.”

  “Right,” he said. “Food again. You are right, though. We need to come up with some today. Any suggestions?”

  She didn’t respond right away, so he said, “We need to think like the Salem kids. We need to catch or trap something. How do we do that?”

  On a sudden inspiration, she walked over to the horses.

  “I didn’t mean eat the horses!” he said.

  Thunder picked his head up and flared his nostrils.

  “Only kidding,” he said.

  She stood directly in front of them and glanced from one to the other, saying, “Thunder, Lightning, Fury, we need you to get us to some food. Real food. If we don’t get some real food soon, we’re toast. Can you get us to some food?”

  “Toast,” said Ryan. “No pun intended … ”

  They broke camp and started to head west, but the horses kept insisting that they go north. At first they tried to keep them pointed in the direction that Orie had wanted them to go, but soon realized that maybe the animals were trying to comply with Gracie’s request, so they let them continue on in the direction that they wanted to go. They were leading them now, too exhausted to keep a seat and barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Besides, walking meant that they didn’t have to dismount every time they saw a few berries, or one of the last of the withering fruits, or some wild nuts on which to chew.

  Their difficulties were made no easier by the fact that they were clearly going up now, up into the mountains that formed the eastern border of Ravenwild, the same mountains in which the maps showed Stephanie to the far north and Mr. and Mrs. Strong to her west. With gritty determination they continued to hike along, not knowing why they were going the way they were going, trusting entirely in the horses to do right by them. Lightning led, followed by Gracie, then Fury and Ryan, then Thunder.

  Gracie smelled it first and held up an arm in warning. They stopped, fear temporarily chasing away the exhaustion that threatened to drop them to the ground with every step. “What do we do?” asked Gracie.

  “We need to check it out. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  “No,” said Gracie. “We go together. All of us.”

  “All right,” said Ryan. “Slowly. Quietly. Woods quiet.”

  They eased forward as slowly as could be. The forest was now devoid of any of the normal sounds. No birds calling. No squirrels chattering. Something was definitely wrong.

  They came to the edge of a clearing on the far side of which was a small house, smoke puffing from its crude stone chimney. In the dooryard was a family of four Humans on their knees before a squad of Gnomes. One of the Gnomes was screaming at them, gesturing wildly about with his arms. They couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it definitely didn’t look good for the small family, the faces of which all bore looks of terror.

  “We have to help them,” said Ryan.

  Gracie nodded.

  “We have to act fast. I’m going to work my way around them. I see five. There may be more. I’ll take out that one that’s doing all the yelling. You ride in and surprise them. Try and get weapons to the man and that boy. He looks old enough. Then,” he said, “we fight.”

  Gracie nodded again. She checked her sword to be sure it was loose in its scabbard. Ryan did the same. She checked her boot knives. He nocked an arrow, patted her shoulder, and slid away, silent as a falling leaf.

  Gracie waited. As she did, Lightning eased over to her and nudged her gently. She looked him in the eye and hugged him fiercely. As she disengaged, he nodded his head up and down as if to say that this was all going to be all right. Then, suddenly, she understood what he was really saying. She swallowed hard and mounted up.

  The leader of the Gnomes unsheathed his sword and began screaming again at the family kneeling in front of him. With obvious lethal intent, he raised it high over the head of the man. As it began its descent, Ryan’s arrow struck him in the neck, and he fell, dead. Two of the Gnomes rushed away, leaving the other two guarding the family. Gracie began screaming at the top of her lungs and charged in. The hooves of the three horses thundered as she crossed the clearing. One of the Gnomes aimed a crossbow at her, and she rolled over onto Lightning’s side. The crossbolt whizzed harmlessly by where she had sat upright moments before. She was suddenly thankful for all of the hours she and Stephanie had spent riding back home, practicing on Mickie and Johnny what had been tricks learned just for the fun of it in those days. The other charged her with his sword held high, but Lightning jumped clear over him like he wasn’t there, Gracie turning back upright even as he made his wild leap. With a loud grunt, she landed a few yards from the family. They were now all on their feet. The mother was shooing the little one towards the front door of the house. The father and the older boy charged towards the two Gnomes. “Hey!”
she screamed, and tossed her sword towards the father. He caught it in midair and began to do battle with the Gnome closest to him. “Hey!” she called to the boy, and drew one of her boot knives, which she buried in the wall beside him. He tore it out and gave chase to the Gnome that had fired on her.

  She reined Lightning in hard, dismounted, and snatched her bow and quiver from his back, racing in the direction that the other two Gnomes had fled, figuring that they were after Ryan. She figured right, because in a matter of seconds she came across them in the backyard. One of the Gnomes lay sprawled on his face, the broken shaft of an arrow protruding from his back. The other had a crossbow pointed straight at Ryan, who lay helpless across a stonewall, a large gash on his head. From a distance she could see that blood was flowing freely from the wound.

  She drew up and aimed at the Gnome. “Don’t do it!” she yelled. “He dies you die. There’s been enough killing here today. Let it go. I don’t want to kill you. Lower that weapon. I mean it. Lower your weapon.”

  “You will kill me anyway,” said the Gnome.

  “No I won’t. You have my word.”

  Time seemed to stop.

  There was a prolonged pause.

  It ended with a thunk as Gracie’s boot knife buried itself in the Gnome’s back. He pitched forward and the crossbolt released, coming within inches of Ryan’s head and clattering harmlessly into the rocks on which he lay sprawled.

  “Are you all right?” called the boy as he raced forward, retrieved the knife with a vicious yank, and removed the Gnome’s short sword from its sheath.