by Lani Lenore
That was vague, but Wren supposed she didn’t need to hear the gruesome details.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” Nix said, still fuming about the whole thing. That was the first time he had shown any sympathy for weakness. It surprised her.
“How long was he with you?” She asked this, not so much out of respect, but she did wonder what the lifespan of the average boy was for surviving in this world.
“The days blend together,” Sly answered. “Time doesn’t mean much, but he was not here so long that we can’t remember when he first arrived, and it hasn’t been so long since he passed that we have forgotten him.”
He seemed to speak for them as a group, so she assumed that they had all been here for a long time.
“You have all been here together for a while? You seem comfortable enough around each other.”
“The twins were the last to come here,” Finn spoke up. “Cyprus was here before that, perhaps even before Toss. The rest of us are the ones that have been left as the numbers have been thinned. Sly has been here the longest. He was among the first.”
“But it has been a long time since we’ve lost one,” Toss added, as if to assure her that they were genuine.
“And we don’t intend to go anywhere,” Nix said. “Others come and go. Some never have a chance. But we look after each other. That’s what brothers are supposed to do.”
“And Rifter?” she asked.
“He will fight for us while we are alive, but if we fall, he will forget us too, just as he has forgotten them,” Sly said with a shrug. “He believes that if we die, we have broken the Vow. It’s to save himself the grief, I suppose. He won’t let us mention them, which is why we keep this a secret. As far as he’s concerned, we are the only ones that have ever been.
“It’s true though; he really doesn’t remember them, and he doesn’t want to be reminded. I’m sure he remembers Cyprus for now, but he will forget. The longer one stays here, the more one tends to forget, and that will be true for you too. Without these names, we would have forgotten them as well.”
Was it the island that made them forget, or was it their desire that made it so? She didn’t think she had forgotten anything yet, but this was only her second day. If she had been here for years – decades or more – she may have forgotten as well.
Maybe they have to forget. It’s the only thing that keeps them young. If they could remember, they would be old.
Wren looked up at the rock wall as the rest of them did. They searched over the names of the past, recalling to themselves what had happened – remembering the ones they’d seen die. They had seen it all before, but as she looked on the list for the first time, it struck her in a different way. What was it like to forget something as significant as the name of a loved one? As she peered across so many names, she could certainly understand why Rifter would want to put it from his mind. Who would want to deal with so much grief? At the same time, it seemed horrible that he wanted to forget the ones who had given their lives for him.
She went closer to the wall, looking over the names, touching them with her fingers, and she noticed that there were a few in bigger letters near the top, separated from the others.
“Why are those names divided from the rest?” she asked, pointing.
“It’s the highest honor,” Toss explained, lowering his head in a moment of silence.
When none of them answered, finally – surprisingly – it was Nix who took it on.
“It means they were killed by the Scourge,” he said darkly.
A collective shudder ran through them, even Wren, though she didn’t know what they were even speaking of. It was just the way he’d said it – the way they seemed to hold their breath afterward.
“What’s the Scourge?”
She wasn’t surprised when none of them volunteered to answer immediately. They always seemed on guard of what they said, whether Rifter was around or not, but this time – more than anything – she got the impression that they just didn’t want to talk about it.
She looked around for any of them who would offer her the truth, but Sly was the only one who would meet her eyes.
“The Scourge is the thing we all fear,” he said. “The world itself fears him because of the effect he has on it.”
“Wait,” Wren said, her eyes wide. “The Scourge is a man?”
“Yes,” Sly confirmed. “The most contemptible and evil sort you could imagine. No one can say where he came from, but ever since he showed up here – which has been longer than any of us can remember – there hasn’t ceased to be a threat to the world.”
“He rides on a black ship with an army of the most terrible men that have ever washed up here,” said Finn. “In a way, I guess they’re like us. They do what they want, but they have different ideas about what is fun.”
“The Scourge is a pirate,” Wren understood, looking for confirmation. This made sense, and also explained the men who had tried to attack her on the beach the first night. She shuddered to recall that incident.
“He’s the pirate,” Mech corrected her. “All the others fear him. They do what he tells them, or they die. That’s the way of it.”
“He wears a coat made of shadow, and his glare can stop your heart,” Toss said quietly. This was clearly not a subject he liked to talk about.
“He sits in a chair of human bones, pieced together from the ones he has killed. He’ll kill anyone without blinking, and sometimes when he kills them, he drinks their blood!” Mech said, his eyes wide as they caught on hers.
“He has no heart himself because he doesn’t want to feel emotion – not guilt or pity. He cut it out of his chest, and it was replaced by darkness!” Mach added elaborately.
“He has a heavy aura that you can feel on your skin if you get close enough, and everywhere he steps, the land dies,” Nix finished.
Wren thought it sounded like a tale used to terrify children, but she supposed that was what it really was. Were the things they'd said accurate, or simply like a wicked fairytale?
“Why is this the first time I’ve heard of him if he’s so terrifying?”
“Rifter didn’t mention him to you?” Mach asked. He was munching away at some nuts that he’d picked up along the way, sharing them with his twin.
“That’s kind of strange, isn’t it?” Mech seconded.
“He probably didn’t want to scare her,” Finn guessed. “Or else he really believes that the man isn’t coming back.”
“Rifter’s main rule,” Sly disclosed, “is that we are not ever, under any circumstances, supposed to approach that man to take him on. Only Rifter can stand against him.”
“But there have been some of us in the past who have decided to be brave,” Nix said with a sigh, looking up at the wall. “It always ends the same way.”
Wren knew what that meant. It was clear enough in the names that were chiseled over her head.
“He hasn’t been around for a while though,” Mach said, breaking through. “Not after the last time.”
Their heads snapped up so fast to glare at him that Wren was startled.
“Shut-up, dumbass,” Mech scolded, slugging his brother in the shoulder and glowering at him, which proved to Wren that they were once again holding something back. She had to jump on it now if she wanted to get anything out of them.
“Where is he? Will he come back again?” she wanted to know.
“We’ll only know when it happens,” Finn said with a shrug, as if it was not worth talking about. “Brr, it’s cold! Let’s go back to the fire, Wren. I know you must be freezing!”
It was a clever maneuver to change the subject, but she certainly was cold, even out of the wind. She silently agreed to go along with it and let him guide her back out, away from the names of those who might have been forgotten – and away from talk of the Scourge.
But before they pulled her away, she was struck with an idea. Wren looked back at the wall once more, and there in the top area, she saw the object of her s
earch etched in large, bold letters.
CYPRUS… The truth was clear then. It was the Scourge that had gotten him.
Chapter Sixteen
1
Withdrawing from the depth of the cave, they all came out to sit by the fire. Wren was surprised by how warm it was inside the cavern, but she was grateful for it. She finally felt she was beginning to thaw.
The subject of conversation turned to things other than death, but Wren was alert through it all, unwilling to let them get too far from what she wanted to know. If she was ever to get a time to ask them questions, this was it. She wanted to ease into it naturally, however, and so she let them go on for a while as they were.
Eventually, the boys were led to speak of the ornaments that they adorned themselves with. They described the various trophies that were hanging from their belts. She learned about Sly’s gloves and Toss’s coat of many furs. Then Finn had taken to describing all the teeth on his necklace and where they had come from.
“This is a lioness’ tooth,” he said, pointing it out. “It’s a pretty funny story. Nix had been hunting it for a while, tracking it for weeks, but I happened to come upon it one day when I was scavenging. Killed it on the spot. He was taking forever to get it and it only took me one try!”
Nix was obviously annoyed with that. “And what is this I have here on my string? I do believe it’s one of Finn’s teeth! Don’t you remember? I knocked it out of your head after you stole my kill.”
Finn touched the side of his face as if recalling it. “That was one of my best teeth,” he said jokingly.
Wren laughed and then scolded herself inwardly. Don’t encourage that. It’s terrible. But she smiled anyway.
“I wonder where Rifter went,” Toss said thoughtfully, and Wren hoped they didn’t ask her. She sank down into her furs a bit as if she could hide from the question.
“I don’t care where he went as long as he brings us something back,” Finn said, stretching. “Do you think he will?”
“Judging by the way you annoyed him before he left? Probably not,” Sly answered.
Wren sat there by the crackling blaze, listening to them bicker and trying to look oblivious. She didn’t want them asking her if she knew where Rifter had gone because she wouldn’t be able to tell them. If it was a contest between the Pack and their leader, they couldn’t possibly win.
“May I ask a question?” she tried, as much to get information as to change the subject.
They all got quiet, and she could tell they were on guard for her inquiry – whatever it would be. They didn’t try to stop her, but she asked carefully.
“How did you all get here?”
“Rifter brought us here,” Toss said, though he seemed unsure why she didn’t know that already.
“Yes, but why? Where did you come from?”
“We’re not allowed to talk about that, so we’ve forgotten it,” Mech said.
“Besides, we don’t remember much anyway, whether we’ve talked about it or not,” Mach added. They both nodded as if that was a fine answer on all counts.
Was that true? Surely they remembered something. She would help them along.
“I’ve noticed that you all sound a bit different when you speak. I assume you are from different places in the world? I mean, the world we all came from first.”
“Perhaps,” Sly said. “One of Rifter’s rules is that those he chooses must at least speak the same language, but you might also consider that Rifter is unbound by time. Some of us have been here longer than others, therefore we have been lifted from different years – different ages. And who is to say that Rifter cannot drift forward and backward in time? The possibilities are endless when you really start to think about it. Perhaps some of us here now have been born hundreds of years apart.”
That all nearly blew Wren away. She wasn’t sure how she might begin to fathom it.
“Anyway,” Finn interrupted. “Best not think too hard about the things Sly says, Wren. It’ll make your head hurt. Rifter says we found this place because we were seeking an escape. That’s all I remember about when I was brought here. I’m happy to believe that this life is much better than the one I left.”
Rifter had said that to her as well. He’d said she was here because she was seeking an escape from a life she hadn’t wanted anymore.
“You don’t have any memories of your old life at all?”
“Why would we want to remember?” Nix asked, jumping in before anyone else could. “We came here to get away from it.”
The rest of them were quiet after that. The disapproval in his tone had shut them down. They didn’t want to remember their pasts, and none of them even bothered to ask her what her life had been just a few days ago.
But she wasn’t done asking questions.
“Rifter said some things to me that I didn’t quite understand,” she went on. “He told me that this was his world, and then he showed me that the wisps recognized him as being part of it. What does all that mean? Is it true that he made this place?”
“Sly holds that tale,” Nix said, drawing out a pipe from his coat. He lit it and began to smoke, and though it was a bad habit for a boy to have, the smell reminded her of her father’s house.
She looked at Sly, who was staring at the fire. She had already tried to ask him this before, and he had denied her. Would he be more willing now that the others were there waiting for it as well?
“Rifter’s story is complicated,” he began finally, “and incomplete. I’ve always believed that he made this place – dreamed it up out of his own head and then came here to escape his other life. Nevermor is affected by him in ways that just can’t be explained. It reacts to his moods; it becomes what he desires. This doesn’t happen directly, mind you. He can’t just stand back and command the mountains to move, but the land is affected by him nonetheless. But there are unending questions. Such as: if it can be accepted that Rifter made this world simply because he has power over it, then what of the Scourge? Where did he come from?”
There was that name again. They could not dodge it this time. She needed to know.
“What do you mean?”
Sly sighed, but he wouldn’t look at her, instead looking at the flames. “The Rifter and the Scourge are very different, and yet they are the same. The Scourge also has an effect on the world, but in an opposite way. Rifter—”
“Rifter makes the world live, and the Scourge kills it,” Wren guessed. She’d gathered that from what Toss had said. Everywhere he steps, the land dies.
Sly nodded, pleased that she had deduced this. “And so that is what they do. Forever. They both expect certain things from the world, but Rifter has greater control over it.”
“Because he created it, like you said.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “The Scourge is constantly trying to take that away. This is why they fight, and when they come together…”
Sly hesitated, perhaps unable to find words for what he was trying to say.
“It’s chaos,” Mech finished for him.
“The world doesn’t like it,” added Mach, shaking his head dramatically.
“And why?” Sly picked up again. “Is it because there must always be a balance? Have the two of them always existed? Which was first? If Rifter made this world, where did the Scourge come from?”
“Stop saying his name so much,” Toss said. “It seems wrong.”
Sly shook his head and looked at her. “There are so many questions, Wren, and we just don’t have the answers. It’s like I told you before. There are some things you have to let go of because you’ll never be satisfied.”
She believed him. That wasn’t the issue. She just wasn’t sure that was good enough for her. Was this to be an eternal mystery? Sly may not have known and Rifter may have forgotten, but there had to be a way to find out the truth. She would not give up until she saw it for herself. The answers must have been somewhere.
But she left it alone for now.
It wasn’t lon
g afterward that they decided to head back to the forest. They would hunt on the way back and then they could have a meal, settle in for the night and wait for Rifter. They did not know when he would return and wanted to be back before he knew they’d been gone.
The Pack traveled quietly across the snowy ground, and Wren smiled a little to herself as she thought of seeing her brothers again. Once they were here, she could stop worrying and start to enjoy her new life. Until then, she relished the peaceful silence and the crunch of their footsteps, ready to believe that she could close her eyes and walk in a line back to the underground – to rest while she was walking and wake herself up when she got there because she knew the way home – but it was in the midst of feeling so relaxed that she felt a vibration in the ground beneath her feet.
She stopped on instinct, looking down, wondering what the disturbance might have been, or if she had even felt it at all.
“Did you feel that?” she asked, but the Pack had all come to attention already, drawing their weapons without waiting.
It wasn’t clear where the source of the quake had come from, at least not to her, but the rest of them turned around to look back toward the way they’d come. She followed their gaze, and though the falling snow was thicker in the distance, something was there that hadn’t been before.
“Oh no…” one of them uttered in a fearful whisper.
A creature was there, pale in color, nearly blending with the snow. It was a shade darker in comparison, a gray shadow across the way, but it moved with serpent-like ease. There was no question that it was alive. It was a thick-skinned, scaly beast with a long snout full of razor teeth. It had wings, folded against its back now, and she wondered if the quake had come when the beast had touched down from flight.
Wren was reminded of a dragon, which had been a beast she’d always included in her tales of knights and princesses until Max had told her that he’d had a nightmare about an evil dragon.
A nightmare…
There was a screeching roar, more piercing than the cry of any bird. The shadow of the thing moved about, swaying its head, and Wren could feel the tremors in the ground as it took steps.