Into the Raging Mountains

by Caroline Gill

  He had to plan this problem out. How could he and six young Lurkers get Azure and Laylada away from that blasted camp? That question and any plan he could figure out would require deception. It would call for more than just an element of surprise. It would call for something amazing, unforeseen, and stunning. Enough to harden and slow the responses of the incredibly capable, lethal Dirtmen.

  He couldn't figure what would amaze the callous hunters; the boy was still looking for some inspiration. A deep nightfall attack seemed best. With their eyesight and sense of smell to guide them, the Lurkers could go in and out of the camp without any detection. On the gloomier side of things, Cethel could only hope that his friend and Azure were still alive; he had no idea how much time had passed or when the enemy was killing people for the pit-bound monster. He knew time was of the essence; each day that passed was a day closer to alarming and irretrievable loss.

  The Lurkers' thoughts were young and eager just like his own inclinations. Their collective urge to go immediately and be done with the rescue was tempered by the reasoned, insightful, and sly voice of the Mother Lurker. Cethel had not ever seen the beast, but he was sure from her voice in his head that she was far older than her offspring. Hopefully that meant that she was far wiser, too.

  The Lurkers wanted to know his viewpoints regarding the camp, combing through the images in his head. Only two of them had been in the vicinity when Oldest Daughter was taken. Otherwise, they swore vehemently, they would not have let anyone harm her, let alone steal her from their clutch.

  She is Oldest Daughter! Their thoughts flew around that idea. Kin had been taken, kin must be avenged! Their young voices were joyous and ferocious within the same thoughts.

  Cethel found he listened more and more to the counsel given by the still, wise voice of the mother. Her words were not boisterous nor lighthearted. It was clear she held complete control over her offspring even from a great distance. Whenever he thought of her actual presence, he always got the impression of dryness, darkness, and warmth.

  I hope you are somewhere safe! Cethel called to her in his mind. Because this journey, this task is perilous. Those hunters are trained and will kill us if we are detected.

  Yesss, came the solemn reply. Yesss. I have seen their footsteps through the wooded lands. My children have watched them hunt; I know their abilities. Oldest Daughter can not be abandoned. She has been promised my protection. I keep my honor.

  I will keep mine as well.

  Cethel knew very well the price of failure. He could only agree that the task needed to be done and that they were the only ones who saw the need; therefore, his little band must act to change the course of history. Perhaps after all of the struggle is over, perhaps then Laylada will finally see me, finally know my heart? It seemed a near impossible task to accomplish, but if they did, if they could, Cethel would let it be known how he felt.

  There would be no more hiding in bushes, watching. He was already heartily sick of that. With growing fear and growing hope, he bent his head, resting its weight on his upturned palms and Cethel began to plan.

  All along the way, within his mind's ear the voices of the young Lurkers sounded and questioned. It was distracting at times, but valuable. They had their hunters' perspective, similar to his own, but pack oriented. They interrupted and fine-tuned each sequence of events, allowing for more options, opening up the correct actions should one of them fall to the Dirtmen.

  In complete silence, a chorus of voices hashed out the details. Finally, they had the basics of a rescue attempt. Not a plan of guaranteed success, but then what plan ever was? It required a few preparations, which they busily set about gathering.

  From their tremendous sense of smell, the Lurkers knew that two Dirtmen were presently hunched under a loosely woven mat of dirt, wood and moss covering just out of sight from their den, as Cethel's hidey hole had become. With a multitude of agreement, the six reptiles slithered as one from concealed safety, converging as a pack upon the fearless but unsuspecting hunters who had just become prey. Having decided on their course of action, they moved with ruthless efficiency. They attacked, slashing and biting.

  It was over in heartbeats. In the aftermath, silvered tongues licked warm, fresh blood off of their heads and bodies. Cethel witnessed the attack from within the group hunt connection. He wasn't sure he was so glad that the pack included him in the gruesome visual images that flooded his brain. Vicious and sudden, swift and merciless, the Lurkers struck and killed with a chilling efficiency.

  His stomach curled in on itself. That could have easily happened to me, he thought. If I …, if I hadn't been wearing the woven hair bracelet that had been left for me, it would have been me. A sigh of relief and a hardening of resolution occurred simultaneously.

  There is work to be done! he thought to the pack. There is much to do and precious little time to do it. Let us prepare.

  Sending two scouting reptiles up ahead of the group, they slowly began to travel the vast distance toward the hostile campsite. Careful to watch for all possible signs of habitation and traps, the going was incremental but the overall distance they covered was noticeable. Cethel could not have gone back to the site of nightmarish torture and murder without the knowledge that he was surrounded by sure and certain killers full of their own predator skills and power.

  They ghosted more than a day and a half into the dense forest canopy. The enemy's encampment was a bit further ahead. They had already avoided four scouts and dispatched two more pair of hidden Dirtmen. Cethel began to wonder why the Lurkers couldn't just save Azure themselves. There was no doubt that they were capable of killing skilled men, as long as their numbers were overwhelming towards their unsuspecting prey.

  What do you need me for? he thought quite plainly.

  The mother Lurker's voice answered him very precisely, For the other humans. They won't understand. We don't mean to die needlessly at their unknowing hands. You will speak to them. If any others are to be saved, it will be as the Gods see fit. Only you can warn them and lead them out.

  Ahhh, he nodded appreciatively. Thank you. That is admirable regard and good planning at the same time. Cethel concentrated on an image of Laylada in his mind's eye. This is who I also look for. She is my friend, like Oldest Daughter is to your pack. Do you understand? Help me look for her as well, please?

  A collective agreement was considered and returned.

  Then, in front of them, a stick snapped.

  The sound had come from up ahead, behind two large trees, whose mighty and dense branches hid the light of the sun from the forest floor. The scouts had missed something! Urgency flew across their shared vision. What is it? Who is it? A trap? An enemy?

  The two lead scouts doubled back and the pack as one split into slithering, silent, skilled predators, coming around the intertwined trees from all sides. Investigating the disturbance, ready to eliminate any threat, the pack of Lurkers left Cethel behind. He wished he didn't have to watch another butchery. Yet an enemy taken now was one less to fight later.

  If they did manage to rescue Azure and Laylada along with whomever else was left, they still had to escape the enemy's campsite. And then the captives would have to survive the almost two and a half days' journey back to the village without being recaptured. Clear the forest of all the filth! he thought. Kill them all!

  Noses in the air, the Lurkers came on, surrounding the area, heightened senses feeding back all available information to their group perceptions. Capable of making instantaneous decisions, what one saw and smelled, they all shared. They smelled the air Two. There are two. Crouching behind the scrub brush at the base of the second tree.

  Covered in some dirt and leaves, the smell of human was glaringly obvious to their trained and sophisticated noses. Yet, these humans smelled significantly different. They smelled of char and smoke, of beehive and crushed flowers. Well, it makes no difference to us. The way must be cleared! The enemy killed!

  Safety was always the only concern afte
r food, and it was to their own retreat that the reptiles regarded. The intruders must die before they could attack or alert any others. The Lurkers prepared to launch their devastating attack.

  A familiar scent filtered through the nose of a predator into Cethel's mind. That smell, that smell … that combination of smell I would recognize anywhere! Startled, Cethel silently screamed a command within the silence of the hunt. Wait!!

  All their muscles, bunched, ready to leap forward, stopped in that very moment. The reptiles sent an immediate question. They had not been detected and could still attack! Why stop?

  Cethel broke cover and stood tall and gangly in the middle of treacherous woods. He walked with great bravery and purpose to the Lurkers' hidden positions. Without a pause he moved past them, clearly exposed for anyone to see. Alarm colored all the mental questions the Lurkers threw at him, all jumbled together and agitated.

  He walked directly to the bushes, stopping in front and spoke calmly. “I know you are hiding. Stand and be accounted friends.” He chose the traditional ancient words of Wood and Hearth.

  The immobile bushes were still for a moment more and then they opened, stretching their trunks, moving their condensed branches, growing double in height in a heartbeat.

  Cethel nodded once toward each of the people now revealed, their arms and bodies lashed with bushes, branches, and dirt.

  With a pleasant and low voice, he whispered,“How come you to these dark and dangerous woods, Mother?” And then turning to the other camouflaged person, features masked, posture unmoving, he nodded again. Speaking evenly Cethel said,“For all the wrongs I have committed, have you come to punish me, then, Father?”

  *

  Time was a hazy thing for her to grasp anymore. Laylada registered the occasional drip of water against the buckets brought by her captors. The heat of day filtered into the slightly tented space, only the main impact of the full sun deflected by the sparse covering. Most days she felt half cooked by the time that the cool draft of sunfall air arrived that pushed through the netting and concealing cloth high overhead.

  Her sleep was often interrupted by noises. Some were benign, and then some were almost too terrifying to hear. Moments like those, half awake, half asleep in the darkness, Laylada was really glad she could not see the beasts which originated such terrible hisses and gnashings.

  Often, the repetitive thumping of a cord of thick rope against a pole was the only music in her days, and the girl used its rhythm to sing childhood songs within her mind, remembering other seasons full of softness and kind relatives. Her mother had been killed when she was but a baby herself, taken during the Hunt, dying in full glory, a warrior's death. Laylada had heard the story repeated by her aunt Sansha only twice in her life, yet each detail was still stunningly clear. Could I ever be as brave?

  Robbed of all the usual senses she relied on regularly, Laylada found her other minor abilities seemed to grow in strength and discernment. Her senses of smell and hearing sharpened. The bound captive was certain she could hear birds dropping their digested dinner in the nearby trees, each secretion plopping loudly as it fell to the earth. She dreaded the hissing and great gnashings that seemed to come from below her feet, outside the tented space and thankfully beyond her area of captivity.

  When the calm, soft, cool nightfall breezes played with the flaps of fabric and the dampness of sunfall coated the world, tickling the short hairs on her arms, Laylada, in gratitude of surviving another day, would pray quietly to the Bira Tre. It would be unfair to say she prayed only for herself, although her own survival was a constant entreaty.

  From the rustlings and scrapings that occasionally reached her ears, the captured girl knew that some others also lay captive nearby. Tied as she was and secured to a pole, she could not reach any others, could not discover who was there, tantalizingly close. Her mouth was bound, her eyesight covered and only the gag on her lips was ever removed, and then just for a brief moment as rough hands shoved food into her eager mouth. The men who had captured her moved with such grace and efficiency of effort that it often seemed as if the administering hands were attached to ghosts, so silent was their approach and departure.

  Her thoughts wandered. She missed Aunt Sansha's chiding and teaching, the sound of her voice as it carried throughout the home calling the family to meals. She missed the smell of her hairline and the softness of her upper arms when she hugged Laylada tight. She never would have thought that she would miss her little nieces, who so often drove her to distraction with questions and offers of help.

  Sometimes, the campfire scent of a cooking bird or a haunch of meat would waft through the air and Laylada would feel her spit spring into her mouth, certain that the edges of her lips lathered at the slightest thought of actual meat. The hard bread and stale water that she was given three times a day were never adequate and barely sustainable. Even without moving or doing any type of labor, her clothes began to hang off of her body and she often shivered violently in the coldness of deep nightfall.

  Three times during the interminable days she had heard the removal of someone from the area. Three times she had witnessed with her ears, the dragging of footsteps, the grunt of fear. Three times she had heard an odd singing from beyond the shelter of her prison and three times, the sound of heavy wood being carefully lifted, followed by the gleeful gorging of the hidden monster. Once taken from the enclosure, no one had been returned.

  Since she had no idea how many captives there were, or what was being done to them, the young woman had no way to guess when rough arms would do more than grab her upright and force food into her mouth. Each time the strangers touched her, each time the abductors set her back down, bound and blind, Laylada gave thanks. At least she was alive, another day of breathing, another day of thinking and hoping.

  Whoever had taken Azure had obviously stolen her away as well. Surely the villagers knew she was gone by now, since untold days had passed, flickering by. Has anyone come after Azure and me? Is anyone still alive in the village who could track our stealthy captors?

  The language that she occasionally heard spoken around the campsite was guttural, sharp, slurred, and definitely that of an outsider. Laylada's schooling had not taught her enough to know where such a language may have come from, but her ears told her the strange singing from beyond the fire was another kind of language entirely. Her skin prickled and tensed every time she had heard the dreaded song begin, knowing that its singing brought no good into the world. She was very much afraid of the meaning of its silent conclusion.

  Other than the snatch of the one bit of lullaby she had heard when the young woman had first been brought to the captives' shelter, she had had no other clue to the well being or number of her companions. Am I all alone?

  A thought percolated in Laylada's spinning brain, idling away the precious hours, seeking any new knowledge of her surroundings. She deliberately tapped her foot hard against the ground. She waited for a response. Three more taps, and she waited again. Two thuds answered her, pounding the ground slightly, and then several more. Not wanting to draw attention to herself or their surreptitious communications, Laylada did nothing for a long time, feeling the partial sunlight caress her face and hair, glad in the simple knowledge that she was not alone in her confinement and fear.

  After ghost captor hands came and forced her to eat and swallow a few sips of water, after all sounds had vanished from the administration of scant meals to the other captives and the uneasy peace of nightfall settled around the tent, she tried again. Using her feet, she tapped the first line of the Godsday sermon, humming softly through the gag. Pausing as the sounds around the outside campfire roared and diminished, Laylada used the song to ask a specific question.

  How many faithful have gathered to hear the truest words? Her foot pounded out the rhythm with care. After she completed the song's opening question the girl waited three breaths and then tapped her feet together once. A tap to her side, very near to her position followed. Another soun
ded beyond that, and another. Everyone who laid in the dirt, captive like animals for the butcher's store, strung up and bound, each one patiently waited their turn and answered with a tap of their feet. A great sadness filled her as she counted with the tapping, as she listened to the number of villagers held forcefully for unknown purposes. Ten and seven, ten and eight, ten and nine … twenty and nine! The tapping stopped.

  Twenty-nine people were gripped in the clutches of trained hunters of the forest. It was a large number, large enough that their capture made her heart sick and tears sprung from weary eyes, yet not big enough to escape from the haphazard prison that held them bound. Not even thirty people! All of them were tied and gagged by seasoned hunters, bait in some terrible trap! It was clear that they could do little with so few a number to change their meager destinies, yet Laylada had to believe that simply lying on the ground waiting for death or worse to come for her had to be resisted. What can I do? What could they do?

  When I went berry picking that day so long ago, what was I wearing? Her dress and underclothes were worn and loose. Her shoes had fallen off somewhere along the path through the forest. Held only loosely after so long unattended, her braid consisted of less hair than it restrained. They had not taken her necklace, nor her barrette.

  Bound as she was it was of little consequence, but should Laylada ever get the chance, the edge of her silver hair adornment had nicked her fingers a few times. There was a sharp area there. Sharp enough to cut through these ropes? Maybe, maybe …

  For the moment, it seemed that Laylada could do nothing but wait, wait and plan and hope for her captors to make a crucial mistake. She prayed she would see the opportunity when it came and that she would have the courage to do something about it. Laylada had always loved the beautiful story of her mother's final sacrifice. Like my mother before me, I am a true warrior! Death was nothing to fear, not if honor still burned brightly in the heart. Given the choice though, Laylada knew she would choose life.