It was going to stop here. Whether Peter could defeat him or not, it didn’t matter. All that mattered now was that Peter was not going to be a scared child anymore.
“Peras, creature of lies!” Peter said, shocked at the power in his own voice. “Put him down and face me, if you’re man enough.”
For a moment, Peras looked unsure. The waves rocked the boat, and Peras seemed almost to lose his balance.
Then he lifted his head to the Shadow and bellowed. “Very well, I shall kill you first, wittle boy.” With a flick of his hand, Peras flung Kelman into the sea. “And we shall all feed on your flesh and drink your blood.”
Peter’s feet felt bolted to the raft. The only direction that seemed to offer no resistance to him was to jump. He could leap into the ocean and try to make it to land.
But the thought of running sickened him so much that he advanced on Peras instead. He would not embrace his fear.
The distance between them was small, but by the second step Peter was running. He came at Peras in a crouch, his left hand forward as if to grapple and his right hand poised to stab. The last steps of Peter Grant, the boy, and the first stride of Peter Grant, the man.
Peras caught Peter’s left wrist.
Peter had been expecting that. He used Peras’s own strength to give his strike extra power. He jabbed forward with his right hand, aiming the knife for the heart.
Peras jerked Peter down, but not enough. The blade sunk into his belly, just below the rib cage.
This time, Peras bellowed in surprise, anger, and pain. He became enraged, grabbed Peter by both shoulders, and slammed him to the floor of the raft.
Peter hit so hard he broke through a log and remained wedged there. Black seawater geysered through the hole.
The pain in Peter’s lower back was intense, but he didn’t care. He would have no second chance. The blade remained lodged in Peras’s gut, and he had to get it back.
Though something was wrong with his left shoulder, Peter nevertheless used both arms to pry himself out of the hole in the raft. He rolled out and got to his feet. Was it the sky that had darkened almost to the shade of night, or was it only his vision?
Peter was vaguely aware of the others on the raft. They seemed paralyzed, unable to do anything but watch with fascination. No matter. This wasn’t about them.
“Aaaaagh!” Peter shouted, and ran at Peras like a bear. He meant to smash into Peras right where the knife handle protruded — to drive it deeper in and maybe push them both overboard.
But Peras side-slapped Peter’s head, sending him spinning to the raft like a swatted fly.
Peter hit the logs but immediately sprang up. He landed on Peras’s left side and clung there as if trying to climb a tree.
Peras tried to shake him off, but Peter hung on.
He felt himself slipping, though, so he grabbed the handle of the knife. His first thought was to use it as a peg to hold his weight, but as soon as he grabbed it, it came out, followed by a spout of bright red blood.
With that, Peter fell to the floor of the raft. He spun away from Peras, but the big man was too fast. He caught Peter by the hair and lifted him into the air.
Peter wished his hair would rip out in Peras’s hand, but it didn’t. It just tore at his scalp with excruciating pain. But Peter wouldn’t give Peras the satisfaction of flailing like a fish, as Kelman had.
He stabbed at Peras’s arm with the knife. He stabbed and sliced and whittled. Deep cuts sprouted on Peras’s arm.
Peras howled. He reared back his left arm and slammed a fist into Peter’s ribs.
The world darkened around Peter, and he felt he might pass out. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t die while unconscious. He had to go out fighting. If Peras wasn’t going to let him live, he wasn’t going to stop slicing his arm.
Stab, stab, cut, slice, stab.
Another punch came, but Peter wrenched his arm back to partially block it. Though his arm took the blow, his ribs weren’t hurt any further.
Slice, cut, stab.
Blood flowed down Peras’s arm as if he’d dipped it in red paint. It poured out, dripped off, spattered onto Peter’s cheek.
Peras growled inhumanly and lifted Peter’s head to his own face. His eyes — once the kindly blue orbs of a savior — had turned black as tar pits, bottomless as the throat of the volcano. The Shadow above seemed to leave the sky and merge with those eyes. Whatever he’d seemed to be before, Peras was now revealed to be a creature of darkness.
“Who dares oppose the Shadow?” Peras cried.
The sky erupted with lightning. It spidered overhead and joined together in cruel white columns. A bolt forked into the ocean, and for a moment the sea turned electric purple. A thunderclap crashed with almost physical force.
Someone screamed from across the waves, and Peter knew something had happened to Limas.
“Bothersome rodent!” Peras shouted, shaking Peter’s head and splashing him with blood. “You think you can defy the power of darkness in its finest hour? You will be crushed, and then I will turn on the others. On the children and the old.” Peras licked his lips wickedly. “And your women. On your precious Alyce and Louisa and …” he pressed his nose against Peter’s, “Julia. I will roast her alive.”
“You … will … not!” Darkness circled Peter’s vision. He couldn’t pass out. Couldn’t. “The Lord … of Hosts … will—”
“Will do nothing!” The sky spangled with lightning again, lighting Peras’s face like a madman in a frenzy. “The Lord of Hosts will watch and weep and sit on his hands, an impotent excuse for a god!”
The darkness increased, and this time Peter knew it was only his vision. He was slipping into unconsciousness. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, but it seemed far away. What Peter needed now was to sleep.
Everything went silent then. It was clear that Peras was shouting something right in Peter’s face, but it was as if Peter had gone deaf. The sea roiled and the sky shook and the volcano spewed fire, but it dissolved into muted whispers.
One sound emerged. Isolated from the others. The gentle sluicing of the waves against the rafts and up through the hole in the floor. How peaceful was water. How like a lullaby.
Peter realized his vision had gone sideways. Peras and the others stood on a wall to the right, their heads looking left. The volcano shot ash leftward instead of upward. The others…. They were no longer sitting but were engaged with Peras in a crazed dance on the wall.
Then Peter was alone on the raft. That was nice. A little privacy and rest, at last. In the corner of his mind he heard a voice he knew.
“Peter? Peter, where are you?”
Mother? Mother, I’m here!
Where was she? He looked all around, but all he saw were darkened hallways leading this way and that.
Mother?
“Peter? Peter!”
I’m looking!
“Peter! Wake up!”
A familiar face floated over him. But not Mother’s. It was a man. He had a name. Peter knew it, but he couldn’t think of it.
The face turned away. “He’s coming around.”
Peter felt himself being lifted up to a sitting position. The raft was no longer on its side. All was righted.
“Orrin?”
Orrin smiled at him, and the faces of others he recognized pressed in close and smiled too.
Peter blinked at them. It was nice to see them, but he’d been hoping to see his mother. “Why …” He swallowed. “Why are you all wet?”
That was apparently funny, because they all laughed. Peter would’ve liked to join them, but he became aware of pain throughout his body. His arm, his ribs, his scalp, his back.
Then he remembered. He sat up as if prodded. “Peras! Where is he?” He tried to get up, but someone held him down.
“It’s all right,” an old man said. Trevor — that was his name. “We took care of him.”
Now Peter thought he must be dreaming after all. “What do you mean?”
/> Mitchell — that was the teenager’s name, Peter felt sure — stood and propped his foot up on something. “He’s right here, Peter. But don’t worry.” Mitchell rolled something over with his foot, and Peter saw it was Peras, bound by vines and looking very small. “He won’t bother us anymore.”
Peter put his face in his hands and shook his head. “Someone better explain this to me. My head hurts too much to figure it out.”
Orrin reached back and pulled someone into Peter’s vision. It was a thin man with a pockmarked face and bits of exposed scalp. “It was Kelman here who took up where you left off,” Orrin said. “Peras was all, ‘I’m the king of the world, you measly humans,’ and then Kelman climbed up behind him and socked him in the kidney. Peras was so surprised, he dropped you and went to the ground like a sack of turnips.”
Peter looked at Kelman in surprise. “You, Kelman? But you’d been thrown off the boat!”
“Yeah, but I know how to swim,” Kelman said. “I swam back to the raft as quickly as I could. I thought I was right as rain, but I hit him in the kidney when I was going for his head. Fell a little short.”
Everyone laughed.
“So,” Orrin said with a shrug, “when the brute fell, the rest of us saw our chance, and we jumped him. Even Limas joined in despite being zinged by lightning.”
Peter gazed at them with new respect. “You men are amazing!”
“We couldn’t let you be the only hero, now, could we?” Trevor said.
“I’m no hero,” Peter mumbled. “But then, why are all of you wet?”
“Oh, right,” Orrin said. “In the scuffle, we all went overboard. Limas was the tipping point. Rushed in with so much force we all tumbled in for a drink.”
“Oh, my,” Peter said. “But how did you overpower Peras?”
Trevor looked surprised. “Turns out our lumbering friend doesn’t like water much. Might not even know how to swim!”
“Cried like a baby, he did,” Mitchell said. “‘Save me! I’ll do anything!’“
Peter tried to imagine it, but couldn’t.
“We threatened to let him drown unless he did what we said,” Orrin said. “He sat there meek as a lamb as we tied him up and put the gag on him. He’s been the model prisoner ever since.”
Mitchell prodded Peras with his foot. “Haven’t you, little insect?”
Peter tried to get up, but the pain was too great. Orrin and Trevor helped him to his feet. From this vantage, Peter noticed that the seas had become calmer and that the freak lightning storm had passed. The day even looked more like a dim day now, not like a night of doom.
Peter stepped across the rafts, feeling his injuries with every move. He found Peras lying on his side on the raft with the hole in the floor. He lay in a puddle and appeared more concerned with keeping water out of his nose and mouth than conquering the earth. His wounded arm had been wrapped in strips of cloth torn from his own garments. Not that the bandage did much good, seeing as it was soaking wet. The stab hole in his belly had been filled with wadding and wrapped with more cloth, though all of it was stained red now. He gazed up with eyes that had turned blue again, and he seemed weak.
In all, with the bindings and the gag and the bandages, Peras looked to be a defeated enemy. But Peter had been tricked by this man’s appearance before.
“I don’t know,” Peter said. “I’m not sure how wise it is to leave him here. Let’s not forget how good he is at pretending to be one thing while really being something else.”
Mitchell sat against a log and put both feet against Peras’s back. “You think we should just roll him off into the ocean?”
This seemed to alarm Peras. He struggled and moaned.
“Stop, Mitchell,” Peter said, though he wasn’t exactly sure why.
Orrin stood at his shoulder. “It may be the best way. You’re right. He can’t be trusted.”
Peter’s head seemed to clear, and he remembered again that night he and Gregory had searched for mushrooms — the Gul’nog, how Peter wanted to run. Would’ve too, if he hadn’t been spotted.
How could he do that? How would he be any different from his enemies — the Gul’nog, or even Peras — if he did that?
“No,” Peter said resolutely. “Mitchell, put your feet down. We’ll not throw him overboard.”
Mitchell looked disappointed. “But why?”
“Because we are men, servants of the Lord of Hosts — not murderous Gul’nog. Besides,” Peter said, heading back across the raft, “he might prove useful.”
Mitchell and Orrin grumbled, and the others looked unsure, but no one contradicted Peter.
“Still,” Peter said, “I want six of us watching him at all times. If he chooses to abuse our mercy, then you can toss him into the deep.”
This seemed to encourage them. Several volunteers moved to surround Peras.
Peter picked up a smaller log that had come loose during the scuffle. “The rest of us, pick up something to use as a paddle. And let’s get back to Khemia, where we need to be.”
CHAPTER
12
“Why does it glow?”
Julia looked at Gregory as they tramped through the forest, then down at the talisman, which lit their immediate area with a blue light. “I don’t know. I don’t remember it glowing when we first put the pieces together. Maybe it had to warm up or something.” She saw Gregory wince as he pulled a small branch aside. “How’s your arm?”
He rubbed it briefly. “It’s all right. So long as we don’t jump off anymore cliffs or have to swim across the open seas again.”
“I didn’t want to jump off the cliff in the first place, remember?” She checked behind them. “But I will say you did throw them off our path. Too bad you had to throw us off to do it!”
The morning had passed without incident. Their fear of pursuit had all but disappeared.
“How’s your cut?” Julia asked.
“Fine,” Gregory said, touching the gash over his eye. “Crusty.”
They walked together in comfortable silence. They were following a deer path, which meant their feet were mostly clear of brambles or large obstacles, but they had to bend over quite a bit to avoid low-hanging branches and vines. In those places where she could stand upright, Julia had learned to walk with her arm stretched up before her. The spider webs were usually invisible until they were right upon them. It was better to break through one of the sticky nets with her arm than her face, Julia had found. Besides, the thought of spiders crawling through her hair was almost enough to make her scream.
And why hadn’t her scream worked? Julia recalled so vividly screaming before and seeing those three horsemen knocked out of their saddles. That was more than just surprise — some force had gone out with that scream and pushed them back. So why hadn’t it worked with the Gul’nog at the cliff? She should’ve been able to scream them into a full retreat, just as she and Peter had screamed down the walls that had held the children prisoner. Had Julia done something wrong? Or was not working just a one-time thing?
Maybe she wasn’t Aedyn’s Deliverer anymore.
Julia looked at Gregory as he walked behind her. He still believed she was chosen by the Lord of Hosts. She smiled sadly. It was amazing how different she felt toward him now compared to how she’d felt just yesterday. They’d been through something together. Too bad she would have to go back to her world one day. Probably one day soon. She would miss him.
“Oh!” Julia stopped mid step.
Gregory turned around. “What is it?”
“I forgot to look for mushrooms, and now we’re almost back.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think Louisa will mind. Not when you hand her that talisman.”
Julia fingered the strap she’d rigged so she could carry the talisman around her neck. “I suppose you’re right. Besides, I’m sick of mushrooms.”
Fifteen minutes later, they emerged into their clearing at the bottom of the cliff face. It didn’t appear any more work had been done to c
lear the rubble from around the cave entrance, but a glance into the forest showed that the others had begun burying the bodies. Julia and Gregory stepped into the clearing just as the sun dipped behind the edge of the Shadow, throwing the scene into gloom.
“Wait,” Julia said to Gregory. “I have a bad feeling.”
“Nonsense,” he said, striding forward. “Everything’s fine. You’ll s—”
“Halt!” It was a woman’s voice, and she sounded deadly serious. The voice came from the cave entrance.
Gregory and Julia held their hands up.
“It’s just us,” Gregory said. “It’s Gregory and Julia.”
Julia got ready to run.
Priscilla stepped out from the cave, holding a spear made of a leafy branch with a sharpened end. The young woman looked so tired and thin that she might fall over if she walked into a spider web. But she wasn’t a Gul’nog.
“Priscilla,” Julia said, “good job challenging us. But we need to go inside. Is everything all right?”
Priscilla seemed to be having trouble concentrating. “Stay … stay back.” She jabbed at them listlessly with the branch. Its leaves rustled.
“Now, Priscilla—”
An arm came out from the cave and pulled Pricilla’s branch away. “Nonsense,” another female voice said. “Priscilla, go get a nap. I’ve got this.”
It was Louisa. She spun Priscilla around and marched her toward the interior of the cave. Louisa turned back and opened her arms to Julia and Gregory.
“What was that about?” Julia asked, as they embraced.
“Oh, nothing,” Louisa said, moving from Julia to Gregory for a hug. “We’ve just been sleeping very little since you two didn’t return when we expected. And it’s a terrible thing to dig graves for people you knew and cared about. We’re all on edge. Inside, they’re certain the Gul’nog will return to finish them all off. But we’ll be fine now.” Her gaze turned serious as she reached for Gregory’s face. “What happened to you?”
He pulled her hand away from his eye. “It’s all right. But we’ve had … an adventure.”
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