Tremble (Terraway Book 2)

by Mary E. Twomey

  Mason stood, casting a look of warning at Von before leaning in to kiss my lips again. The additional lip-lock took me by surprise and jerked out a noise of distress at having to feel things he didn’t deserve to be able to get out of me. “Stay safe, Kara.” He straightened and coughed twice. “Gracie. Stay safe, October Grace.” He said my name with purpose, but as he looked at my face, I could tell he was seeing her, even after the kiss was finished. He shook his head and blinked a few times before backing out of the hut with an apologetic bow of his head.

  I wanted to fall apart, but this was a one-room hut with no spare bedroom to lose my shiz in.

  Von’s arms crossed over his puffed chest. I knew that look. Von was in full-on big brother mode, but sweet as that was, I didn’t want to hear it. “You shouldn’t let him do that. I can see what it’s doing to you.” He touched his heart. “I can feel it. That’s a new one. I didn’t think this much empathy was in the cards for me these days, but man, I can feel your swings.”

  “Sorry. I can be cool.” I cast up a wan smile. “It’s really not a big deal. He should be able to see his wife. It’s unfair he didn’t get enough time with her.”

  Von shook his head, ignoring the growing commotion outside the hut, his sculpted lips in a tight line. “What are you on about?”

  My sarcasm swung a little too heavy. “It’s this foreign concept of putting other people’s needs ahead of your own discomfort. Weird, right?”

  “It’s a terrible rule for this situation.”

  “It’s not a rule that applies to only some things and not to others. It’s a blanket rule.”

  “Well, it’s stupid, and I bloody hate it.”

  I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “You’re being a child.”

  “Yeah? Well, you’re being a robot. That’s not you. Not the you I know, anyway.”

  “What do you know about me? We met like, barely two months ago.”

  “I know enough. You shouldn’t let him kiss you and think about Kara. That’s messed up, that is.”

  “I totally cherish your unwelcome opinions on my love life. What makes you think I wasn’t daydreaming about Bruce Campbell while I was kissing Mason?”

  “Because I know you!” His face twisted in distaste. “You know he’s a bit older than you, yeah? Your Bruce Campbell fetish goes deeper than I realized.”

  I sliced my hand through the air, mildly embarrassed. “We’re done talking about this.”

  “You deserve better.”

  “And how would you know what I deserve? You don’t know me. I’m about to sit back and let two women throw themselves in front of a bullet for me. I’m the worst kind of person. Bruce Campbell would be disgusted with me.”

  “Because we’re making you! And Bruce Campbell’s an actor, who probably wouldn’t want a young girl like yourself fighting on the front lines of a battle.” He shook his head at me.

  “Let me fight with them!”

  Von jerked me to him, his playboy casual nature running from the hut and leaving in its place a hardened man. “You listen to me, and listen good. King Geon can’t have you. He takes you, and it’s all over for Terraway. You have no idea what a terror Sama is. King Geon will hand you over to Sama, and you’ll beg for the days when a man kissing you and seeing another woman was the worst thing in your life.”

  I shoved Von. “Get off me.”

  Mason ran into the hut, eyes wide. “You won’t believe the plan they’ve got brewing. Stay in the hut, no matter what. Von, keep her safe and stay away from the window.” He tapped his fist to his chest twice, and Von mirrored the action with a tight frown. Then Von’s hand slipped into mine, not to comfort, but to keep me in place so I didn’t run out to fight.

  I was scared, so I held tight to Von and pursed my lips to keep my chin from quivering. If the king wanted me, he’d have to come and friggin’ get me.

  29

  Women and their Babies

  There were too many pounding footsteps marching in formation toward us. I heard a man I could only picture as cruel shouting, “Move now! Go back to your huts before the curfew hits. If any of you are hoarding buhay in your huts, you’ll be taken to the king and flogged for your greed.”

  “Never!” was the resounding cry of the people. I’d assumed the rebels were a dozen or so that could gather on such short notice, but the answer came from hundreds outside the clusters of huts. I could pick out both men and women protesting the march of the soldiers. Now I was sweating from fear, not just the unforgiving suns. I was here, and I wasn’t supposed to be.

  The people of Sakuna would pay for their rebellion. I heard them clapping in a slow heartbeat using hand and wood on metal, their palms slapping and weapons beating together in one stalwart voice of get-the-flip-off-our-lawn.

  “We know the Omen is here with you! Give us the Omen, and no one will get hurt.”

  I swallowed hard, wondering how they’d found out I was here. Von’s grip on my hand tightened. “Stay,” he warned. “Giving yourself up kills far more than the lot of them out there. It kills all of Terraway. Remember that.”

  “He’s negotiating,” I whispered to Von. “That’s got to mean he’s a little afraid, right?”

  Mason seemed to be thinking the same thing from the battlefield just outside the huts. “Onward!” my Viking shouted from his position out with the people.

  Von moved carefully toward the window hole and peeked, motioning me to his side. “What are they doing?”

  I looked from our vantage point of seeing the whole battle from the side through our glass-less window. The soldiers of Sakuna were in perfect formation, staring ahead at the front line of civilians. I expected the men to take the more dangerous position at the front, but was shocked when I saw…

  Women and their babies?

  The women of Sakuna were a hundred strong at least, and I saw more running to stand with their sisters, infants in hand. Each of them cradled swaddled babies with their faces covered to their breasts, and they marched with heads held high and terrifying fury in their brown faces. “I thought the babies were killed. I don’t get it.”

  “They were.” Von’s brow furrowed as he peeked out the window with me.

  We watched as the women marched straight up to the line of soldiers. Then I heard a shrill demand of, “We will see the king! King Geon will answer for our children! He’ll come out of his high and mighty castle, get on his knees in the mud and see what he’s done to his people!” Malisiya shouted in the captain’s face like a woman possessed. I didn’t blame her. She’d just lost a baby because of that jackhole king.

  It was the baby she was holding in the blanket at her breast.

  But she hadn’t had a baby. So what was she holding? I recognized the swaddled lump as her bedsheet, trying to put the pieces together before the next move was made.

  The captain and his properly fed men were dressed in leather armor with helmets on to meet with the group of women who stood in front of their husbands and teenaged sons. The civilian men were armed with rocks, long pieces of wood and a smattering of knives. I didn’t understand why they were sending out their women to get slaughtered first. I saw Mason standing in front of the men, ordering the women forward. I didn’t know how he could sacrifice them like that while he stood back with the men. I wanted to cry out to Mason to stop the women, but a small part of me still harbored enough trust in Mason to handle an army. He was the King of Sombi and the former King of Hayop, after all. His expression was hard, his body lithe and ready to pounce – a Viking preparing to go off on a tear.

  The army’s commander had a large, wide nose and a missing canine tooth that left a gaping hole when he spoke. “The king doesn’t answer to slaves!” Then he pulled out his shining sword and ran Malisiya through before anyone could react.

  Von’s hand muffled my scream at Malisiya’s sacrifice. His face was alight with calculation, and then fear. “Those aren’t babies. Get back!”

  No sooner had I begun to process the horror of what I�
��d just witnessed did the women break out in a resounding cry of fury that set loose the beginnings of a war. I watched with my mouth hanging open as the babies who’d been cradled to their breasts were launched at the soldiers – straight into the front line and also hurled overhead to the ranks in the middle and the back.

  Only the things that flew out of the baby blankets weren’t cute and pink and precious. They were clay balls that exploded on impact, sending blown-off limbs of the doomed soldiers flying.

  Von ripped me from the window and shoved me into the far corner. “Get down!” he ordered, hefting up the straw mattress and lugging it over to me. He propped it up in between us and the battle, angling it to rest between the walls as he ducked down with me in the corner. The mattress was an adequate shield from errant clay bombs that might throw shrapnel our way through the hole in the wall that served as a window. Still, Von boxed me in the crevice of the corner with his body, his palms pressing to the wall on either side of me. He breathed heavily as his body caged me in to be my human shield. Or vampire-Duwende shield. “Don’t be my shield,” I begged, trying to somehow get him to switch places with me. “I can’t take this, Von.”

  “This is my job, love. I take your bullets, and your job is to let me.”

  “I don’t want this job. Not one that gets you hurt.” I coiled my arms around him, burying my face in his neck. I positioned one hand on his back to shield his heart, and the other to shield one of his lungs. His spine was still exposed, and I didn’t trust the straw mattress to keep Von safe, so I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling myself onto his lap. My calves shielded his kidneys and the base of his spine. It was the best I could do, since he wouldn’t trade positions with me.

  One of Von’s steady hands reached around to cup the back of my head, while his lips migrated to my forehead. “Now, now. We’ll be alright.” His words were paired with the shrieks of the damned and the angry clanging of too many swords just outside the hut, so I was dubious.

  I was shaken to the core, covering my mouth with his neck as I listened to the sounds of men and women screaming just outside the huts. I couldn’t tell who was winning; all I knew was that as the minutes ticked by, more and more from each side were dying. As it usually was in a war, no one really won. It seemed that was the whole point of the people standing up to the guards. Though they knew they couldn’t win, they were determined to at least make it so that the soldiers didn’t win, either.

  30

  My Precious Menaces

  The mayhem outside was still evenly matched as far as who was overpowering the other. The soldiers were well-armed, but the people had fury that could fuel a thousand cannons. I tried to make out clear voices, but it was a jumble of shouts until I heard the captain bellow, “Curfew!”

  This seemed to invoke renewed fear into the people, and I knew why. Sigbins were cute little animals that had heads like scaly goats, long taloned forearms and short back legs. They ripped out the hearts of the people who roamed about after curfew, and wore them around their necks. They were terrifying.

  I was kind of in love with one of them who’d taken a shine to me. When you got down to the heart of it, they were abused animals groomed for one thing – death. I’d always been good with animals. I hadn’t known why the pit bull next door growing up tore at burglars but wagged his tail happily for me. When the new additions to my life informed me it was a perk from my Matruculan genetics, the magic of it somehow took away a little of the magic in it. Funny how that works. I’d thought I was good with animals because of how much I loved them. Turns out, anyone with my DNA could do it.

  Well, not anyone. Mason had confessed that even though he was Matruculan, he’d never heard of anyone getting a sigbin to purr for me the way my little Edward Scissorteeth had.

  “I can help,” I told Von, who was still boxing me in with his body.

  Von scooped me more firmly to him, his free hand cupping my rear to keep me from running into the battle. “Your job is to get a piece of the sagrado stone to the well. Nothing else, love.”

  “I can calm the sigbins down!”

  “Not a chance. You’ll sit here and wait it out.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” I pried myself from Von’s grip and stood to peek out the window, horrified at the number of dead bodies from both sides that were lying about underfoot of those still fighting. Mason was clashing… an arm? Yes, he was holding a ripped-off arm of a man he’d stolen and was using it like a sword against six soldiers, besting them all, sword to bone.

  The sigbins came bounding up to the carnage, eager to rip, tear, kill. I recognized my sweet little Edward Scissorteeth in the mix by the ugly gash he had across his nose. Von tugged at me, but I let out a short whistle that drew Edward’s eye. Just like that, my killer went from a beast to a puppy, bounding over to me and jumping in through the window to lick my face. “Hi, baby!” I cooed as I smoothed my hand over his scales. “I missed you, Edward.” Edward nuzzled into my hand, eager for the scratch to calm him down.

  I knew that feeling well.

  I hugged my puppy that actually looked more like a janky miniature dragon, and kissed the top of his head. “You want to rest? You want to hide out in here? Go get the others, baby. Bring your buddies in here, and you can all hide out.”

  I don’t know how he understood what I was saying, but just like the therapy dog I’d had to see, and the dogs and cats around the trailer park, he seemed to get me. Edward meandered into the fray, letting out a few yips and a howl that had a hiss to it under the layers of animalistic sound.

  Von was sweating when all seven sigbins came bounding into the hut, growling and spitting until Edward reasoned with them in his adorable puppy-like way. One by one, they all sat down when I raised my hand, barking like cuties instead of the abused monsters they’d been groomed to be. “Poor babies!” I exclaimed in dismay at the state of their damaged scaly coats. Though a couple had fresh wounds, most of the missing scales and scars were old, indicating years of mistreatment. They moved like a mixture between a cat and a snake with legs, circling and batting their hands over their faces when they realized they didn’t want to eat my heart out, but wanted to play coy games instead.

  I knelt down in the center of the room, motioning for them to come up to me if they wanted to be loved on. “I won’t hurt you,” I promised. “Come take a break. You’re all much too young and sweet to be out in a battlefield.”

  There was utter carnage outside, but it was obedience school in the hut. They took impatient turns letting me run my fingers over their scales, admiring the shimmer through the tears in their flesh. The shiny rubbery material had a greenish hue to the silver that glinted when it caught the last vestiges of the twilight poking in through the window. “Come on out,” I said to Von. He was kneeling behind the straw mattress, looking like he was torn between wanting to grab me and run out of the hut, or wanting to play with the cool monsters. “They won’t hurt you.”

  “I can’t decide if I want to pee myself or join you.”

  “Join me. Peeing yourself isn’t nearly as fun as you’re thinking.”

  Von got down so he wasn’t seen through the window and crawled over to me with caution. He sat to my right, eyes wide as he watched the animals flop next to me and over me so they could get a good belly scratch. “I don’t understand how you’re doing this.”

  “I’m magic,” I replied with a tease in my tone. I picked up his hand and placed it on the smallest one’s belly so he could rub it. “This one’s Cindy. She’s the littlest. And this is Jan and Marcia.” I pointed to Edward, who was by far the largest one. “That’s my Edward. You already met him last time. And this is Greg, Mike and Bobby.”

  “Brady Bunch fan?”

  “It’s only the greatest show in the world.” I switched from bellies to stroking under their chins, giving a good scratch while they whined for more of the love I had no end of. “The Brady Bunch is always happy. They have problems like who gets to play with which toy, and
what time Alice is going to make them all dinner. They have a mama and an Alice. They have a dad.” I tried to keep the longing out of my voice, but I was a lousy actress.

  Von’s arm went around me, pulling me tight to his sweaty armpit. “When we get out of here, I’ll watch the whole series with you, start to finish. We’ll have a marathon and sit there till our eyes bleed. I could use some Brady optimism.” He pointed to Marcia. “Looks like this one loves you the most. Sneezes at me when I try to pet her.”

  “Aw, you’ll get the hang of it.”

  “Who am I? You gave all of them Brady Bunch roles, but what about me? Noisy neighbor? Sexy policeman?”

  I smiled, resting my head to his shoulder. “You can be Mr. Brady. He’s an architect, which is sort of like an artist, like you.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I knew it. You’re in love with me. Already casting me in the role of your perfect television husband.”

  I pulled Cindy closer, snapping my fingers twice so she gave Von a kiss. I loved when Von laughed. He was built for it. “I’m Alice. I’m the one who takes care of the family. I’m near the family, but not in it. Big difference.”

  Von squinted down at me. “Well Mrs. Brady, you’ve just been promoted. You and I are going to raise these little rugrats to be upstanding members of society.”

  “Is that so? Then I think we should start now.” I kissed each of my babies and clapped them to attention, pleased when they all sat before me like precious little soldiers, trying not to wiggle too much. “Okay, love muffins. If you want to stay with Mama and Daddy, you can. If you want to go out there and get back at the people who hurt you, that’s fine too. But you can’t attack the civilians, understood? They need your help. You up for it?”