|
West Wheel: The Twin MachinesChapter 3: HoundedBy: Joel 'Cop' Furches |
“What’s that sound, mama? What can it be?
It’s just a coyote howling at the moon
Where’s it coming from? I can’t see.
From up in the woods, now don’t you swoon
Why’s it getting nearer Maw, is it coming down?
No Darling, no, that’s just the breeze
What’s at the door? What’s that scratching sound?
It’s just the branches from the trees.”
Rider flew through the forest. His duster billowed behind him, and every step was a misstep for trees were many and open ground was scarce, and Rider flew. Quillan lay ahead, downhill, south, and hundreds of miles across farm and field and Rider flew.
The world behind did not exist. Every moment, more trees and more ground were eaten up in the world behind him, and that world did not exist, he would not look back. For back there was full of howls and snarls, sounding miles, or yards, or worlds away, and Rider flew.
Brown needles carpeted the world ahead, muffling his step and softening the ground. Green needles canopied the world above, blocking off the light, turning day to night and night to blindness, and Rider flew.
Rider flew until he fell, and when he fell he slept, and when he slept he dreamed… of… the Pylons.
Eric Rider had been born under the Pylons. They stretched at the rim of the valley, staggered and toppled and crooked and bordering all horizons like the devil’s own teeth. The Pylons. They were the reason that the good people of Stella-Terra walked with stooped head, looking at the ground. The ground, at least, was free, and theirs for the walking. But the skyline had a tollgate, the price was your spirit, and the gates were the Pylons. Walking day after day under the Pylons, one could almost forget they were there. But the people of Stella-Terra were fighters, and the Pylons were their daily reminder of their defeat. That fence, made of mighty pines, cut and slathered with tar, and toppled together in a haphazard fashion, was their prison.
Eric Rider had teethed under the Pylons, grown under the Pylons, and played under the Pylons. And when Eric Rider was broken and branded, he was broken and branded under the Pylons.
What was that noise? Rider realized he was shaking before he realized he was awake. The night was still upon him, and the forest was black. Cold sweat was dripping from his body as he fumbled with shaking hands to break off a pine branch thinking to light it and see around him.
He dropped the pine branch the moment he had broken it off. It was a stupid plan, think of a better one. Don’t you know the light will give you away? Climb, then. That’s what you’re good at. Grabbing the lower branches, Rider climbed.
He was breathing hard as he sat above the ground, howls and growls in the world below. Am I afraid? Rider asked himself this with every panting breath he exhaled. This felt the same as one of the mock wars they used to stage as children. Across acres of field stacked with loosely tied bails of hay they would chase one another with slingshots armed with spit wads. Get hit and you were out. Rider would pursue the game with a single-minded determination that the other children found alarming. They would mock him for it. He was also the first one to be out in almost every game. More than once he had attacked whoever shot him, infuriated, and would be trounced as the boys teamed up to beat him. After every game he would mentally anguish over his inability to win at games. Games frustrated him. But he never stopped playing them.
He clearly remembered crouching behind a hay-bail whispering his plan to himself. I’ll wait till I hear footsteps, and then I will jump up and shoot them, right? Right. And then the spit wad would strike him in the face, and he would look up and see a boy standing behind him, laughing at him. How could I be so blind, he would think, for him to sneak up on me?
And now the thought came to him. Mustn’t lose this time. This time I have to win. I have to show them I CAN win. And beneath it came that other voice, the one that said, ‘you can’t do anything right. You never could. You lost when it counted most, when it wasn’t a game at all, and you will never stop losing.’ Rider thought this voice was the same voice that had spoken to him from the well. “Get along, little cowpoke. Already the Hounds are nipping at your heals.”
The night did not pass well. Rider sat high in the tree in the cold night air with his long trail-coat wrapped up around him, his hands tucked deep into its folds. Every breath he exhaled floated away a long and trailing vapor, rising into the bristling branches to the obscured sky above. In the deep and unseen depths below him lay growlings and grumblings that erupted into ear-splitting howls exactly twelve times throughout the night. Rider sat motionless, his back to the sticky bark of the tree, his head low on his chest. Sleep would not come, which was just as well. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the Pylons.
It was during the night that a peculiar incident occurred. Rider had just been shaken from a nod by what he counted as the seventh howl. Out of habit, he placed his lean fingers on his hat and shoved it down over his crown. Before he could remove his hand from his hat, a great rushing sound, like a distant wind, came from above. The branches began to fly about his head. This rushing sound became a wind, and Rider nearly tumbled from his perch. He rolled quickly and grabbed the branch. It occurred to him as he hung there that his limbs were quite stiff. The wind persisted. Gazing up from where he awkwardly hung, Rider saw clear through the branches to the night sky for the first time. Whatever rush of air this was, it had tunneled a path through the thick branches, parting them like water. The stars were brilliant in the cold spring air, and there was no moon to be seen in the sky. Rider had once been taught to measure time by the movement of stars in the night sky. As he attempted to locate the Great Bear, he noticed that certain stars were blinking out. He squinted and looked hard into the night air above him. Were those lanterns in the sky? All at once a shape stood out against the sky. Rider nearly released the branch in his surprise. It was like an enormous bloated tick floating through the sky. Ropes and lanterns hung from beneath its belly. Whatever it was, it seemed to be the source of the wind, because when it passed from above him, the wind died down and the branches settled back against the sky. Rider was passed once again into darkness.
Dawn came gradually, shining through the forest with an unenthusiastic gray light. In the distance, Rider heard thunder, and smelled rain in the air. The growling and howling noises that had been under him all night were gone, and Rider worked his way stiffly toward the ground to investigate how safe he may be.
Rider’s head popped through the curtain of browning pine needles that hung at the base of the tree branches. He looked around, and seeing nothing, flipped, dropping to the forest floor in an undignified heap. Brushing himself off, Rider rose and inspected his surroundings a bit closer. If there had been animals prowling the forest floor while he was aloft at night, they left no evidence. The needles on the forest floor seemed undisturbed, no tree bark had been scuffed from the trunk, nor had any droppings appeared in the area. Rider was not a tracker by anyone’s estimation. It was possible the signs were in front of him and he had just missed them. Then again, it was also possible he had imagined the howlings and growlings in his sleep. This was not the first time he thought he might be going mad. He began walking south. When the howls sounded once more behind him, his walk became a jog.
The day had not brought much sunlight with it, and the sunlight had not brought any warmth. Rider tugged his wide collar up around his neck, and pulled his coat tight around his thin body. The thunder sounded closer now, and Rider knew that soon he would be very wet.
It occurred to Rider, despite the gloom and melancholy feeling that lay in his bones, that he was still running for his life. He could not, however, motivate himself to run today. He recalled rather dreamily something he had seen in the sky last night. It had likely been imagined, or a dream, like the dogs had been. Of course maybe all of it was real. Rider decided thinking was not helping, and stepped up his pace a bit more. Then the thunder cracked pistol-loud above his head, and the storm clouds let loose their bulging bellies.
The rain came down hard. The spreading canopy of trees above him channeled its flow so that it came down in waterfalls, buckets of water falling fast and hard through gaps in the forest ceiling. It drummed and flooded against his wide hat brim, until the sound of rain falling was all he could hear. The tread of his footfall became a steady rhythm against the erratic drumming and bursting of the rain on his hat. Drowsily, his mind drifted. He missed his horse. While there was no love lost between him and that particular animal, they had been fellow travelers for several months now. Besides his legs were growing tired.
He also missed his guns. It had been ten years, now, but his hands still dropped to his holsters in reaction to danger. It was not an instinct he could easily dismiss from his mind.
Through the drumming of rain and the daydreaming of thought, Rider hazily heard the growling behind him, the crackling of branches underfoot. He did not think to glance behind him, though, until he had heard the earsplitting howl.
The things charging at him through the curtain of rain were large and they were black, and that was all Rider saw before he turned and bolted, rabbit fast through the forest. Branches grabbed at his coat at every step, and his foot slipped against the wet nettles below. He slipped and skidded. As the world turned topsy-turvy, Rider saw the black shapes were nearly upon him. He was still slipping and his hands could not seem to find purchase in the muddy ground. Their grunts and heavy breathing were directly above him now. His body hit an embankment, and he began rolling.
I could fight, he thought, if I could ever stand again. The bottom of the bank came hard and he gasped and strained to draw air into his lungs. He coughed, spraying water and mud from his mouth, and rose shakily to his feet.
They surrounded him, and in the curtain of water that fell from his hat brim, they looked like great, slick mounds of fur and muscles. Beyond that, he could not see. The one in front of him let out a growl that sounded like a lion’s roar, and leaped at him, impossibly wide jaws open in a slobbering grasp of death. Rider’s wits had not left him entirely, and he was able to duck under the jaws. The creature still struck him like a train, and Rider’s body sailed through the air, trailing behind a flapping black coattail as it rushed through curtains of rain. He struck a tree hard, and felt numb throughout his body as he fell to the ground. Struggling, Rider rose and saw the creatures bounding after him. Thoughts of fighting quickly left his mind, and he turned to run. He took two steps before he fell through the ground and plummeted for what seemed like eternity in the subterranean darkness.
It was the water that broke his fall. God, whom Rider felt justified to say was cruel, must have had a moment of sympathy for the poor orphan wanderer. Whatever pit he had fallen into, the rainwater, muddy and full of flotsam from the forest, fell in a torrent with him. He barely heard the splash of his broken fall, because suddenly everything was dark. He was unable to breath. He could not tell what way was up.
Eric gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. Blocking out the chilling cold of the water invading his skin and sucking the heat from his bones, blocking out the suffocating water forcing air from his lungs, Eric concentrated on letting go. He let go and he relaxed his body, holding what breath remained in him. He felt the air in his lungs pulling toward the air above him. With a desperate stroke, he broke the surface and gulped several breaths. Absurdly, his hat drifted past him on one of the waves pushing away from the torrent that poured from the hole above. He stroked toward his elusive hat, the water-drenched clothing clinging to his body, and dragging him down like lead. His hat continued to float, and fell into the inscrutable darkness beyond. His feet touched ground, and he began trudging toward the shallow. When he found the shore, he collapsed. Collapsed and shivered.
Under the Pylons he stood. He had never seen them this close, even through his father’s spyglass. They crisscrossed the brilliant blue sky in a tangled heap, like an enormous briar-patch. He could smell the sun-baked tar that had long ago been slathered and rubbed into the giant cedar beams. He could also smell the acrid smoke drifting up from the valley burning beneath him. His home, turned to hell on earth. His heart burned in his chest as the valley burned below. His mind refused to believe that all he had ever known was gone. Gone forever.
Eleven of his brothers had stayed behind to fight for the valley. He had watched them go proudly out. They had been training for this moment their entire lives. Live or die, the long siege was over. Rider had tried to understand this, but he could not. All his short life he had been trained to be a fighter, and all his life, he had failed. He would not admit his fear, but his father could see it in his eyes.
Now he knew his brothers were dead. He was the last. And he had made it to the Pylons now towering above him in serene apathy to the plight of man. His father’s own guns hung heavy at his hips. He moved through the Pylons, sometimes crawling under or squeezing through narrow spaces within them. They extended like a forest, further than he had ever imagined. He could almost see the end when a shout stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Stop right there!”
His eyes were wide as he turned slowly, slowly to the voice that had called after him. He could not summon the courage to drop his hand to his father’s gun. He felt himself at death’s door, but if he went for his gun, he knew death would surely follow.
“Drop those coffee mills to the ground, but slowly, kid!”
He met eyes with the face behind the voice, and gave a start. The boy who held him at rifle point was no older than he. Somehow this made his fear worse, gave it an edge it did not have before. Here was another boy jeering him, mocking him for his failure. Here was yet another kid who was better than him.
The rifle the boy held was enormous. He could see the boy’s hands quivering ever so slightly as he held it. Glancing to his side, he saw a space, a hollow within the jumbled beams that he could dive into. He realized his face was frozen in the hard and sour look that had always drawn mockery from the other kids. He shot his poison stare toward the other boy. The boy did not flinch.
“Drop them, kid. I won’t say it again.”
He threw himself sideways, the rifle roared and echoed endlessly through the Pylons. He could hear the other boy cursing behind him. Blood rushed through his veins as his heart pumped madly in his chest. For a moment he felt inspired. Pulling himself up onto a beam, he began to jump and leap up through the jumbled heap. He would make it. He would be his father’s son. He would stop this madness before it spread throughout his father’s land.
The pain that struck his back was followed by a rifle-roar. He heard it echo, near and far as he fell and fell through the hard, black Pylons.
The flickering in the darkness drew Rider’s attention. This new light threw deep and wavering shadows on the looming walls. Rider squinted at the high cavern walls. There was something different about them, something he could not quite make out.
Rising, Rider clenched his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering. Cold as the spring air outside had been, here underground it was colder still. Rider clenched his canvas coat tight around his body. Water dripped through the fiber. Slowly, Rider took silent strides toward the flickering deep within the cavern.
As he approached the light, Rider slowly realized what it was about the cavern that was different. The walls were made entirely of tree roots, winding and coiling together to form this great cave. These walls of wood had been carved. Ancient Scrayling faces stood out in every curve and root. Stylized faces looked down at Rider in all-seeing menace. Bears and eagles and wolves and bison all crowding together in intimate camaraderie. This was a sculpture unlike any Rider had ever seen. The tangled roots made the sculpted forms twist and wind together in a way that Rider thought was almost obscene.
The flickering light was coming from up ahead, shining from behind a mountainous root snaking across the cavern floor. Rider pressed himself up against its rough surface and peeked above it, beyond, to the bright source of the flickering light.
An ancient Scrayling sat Indian-style before a low fire. Muttering beneath his breath in a cracked voice, the Scrayling was working at some cords and beads in his lap. Pulled around his shoulders, the Scrayling wore a colorful blanket of enchanting patterns. His hair was twisted into several thick, gray braids that coiled down his back almost halfway to the ground.
Rider watched him for a time, and realized he was singing rather than muttering. The beads and cords in his lap disappeared into the blanket he wore, and the Scrayling dragged a beaded deer-hide satchel into his lap. From it, he produced a dried ear of Indian corn, the kernels running the spectrum through orange, brown, yellow, and red. With a stroke of his gnarled old hand, the Scrayling stripped the ear, its kernels falling into his lap with little plopping sounds. He spread the kernels out onto a smooth stone from his little fire-ring, and began grinding the kernels into a powdery meal with another rock. Into this meal he poured a little milky liquid from a water-skin, and kneaded this into two small cakes. Soon the cakes were sizzling on the stone before the fire. The smell wafted over to Rider, and the saliva came unbidden to his mouth. All his stealth could not prevent his stomach from rumbling before the assault of the delicious aroma. Without looking up from where he was poking the cakes with a small stick, the Scrayling said aloud, “Food all cooked, Dead Face. I make enough for us two. Also, the fire warm. Why you still hide?”
Awkwardly, Rider made his way around the enormous root that hid him, and sauntered up to the fire, keeping a respectful distance from the ancient Scrayling. The old man turned his golden eyes up toward Rider, and Eric saw for the first time that the Scrayling’s wrinkled and leathery old face was broken in a wide and friendly smile.
“Come, sit,” the old man gestured to Rider, “You are cold, ho?”
Rider immediately resented the hospitality. Hostility was what he was accustomed to, what he had learned to bear. He glared suspiciously at the old Scrayling.
“You maybe fear an old Isrean?” his host spread his hands, empty palms to the sky.
“I have old knife I use to skin meat,” the Scrayling pulled a stubby blade from his blanket, “I put knife out. See? It now out of reach. You eat with me now?”
Rider said nothing, but he removed his duster and spread it atop the giant root to dry in the glow of the fire. Then he pulled off his faded shirt and bandana. Beneath his skin was pale on his scrawny torso. The Scrayling waited this out patiently. Finally, Rider sat slowly across from the Scrayling and stared sharply at him across the flickering flames.
The Scrayling seemed pleased, now, smiling warmly at Rider and passing one of the cakes across to him.
“Take this food, Dead Face. You have long journey ahead.”
Rider accepted the cake in silence, but did not bite into it immediately. He held it and continued to look at the Scrayling. The old Scrayling’s eyes were sharp as he glanced back at Rider. He picked up his own cake, took a large bite, chewed it slowly, and swallowed. Then he passed his gaze back at Rider.
Rider nodded, satisfied, and gobbled the cake down. It was delicious; his hunger only sharpened its flavor. He immediately longed for another, but held his peace. He had met very few Scraylings in his life, and the stories he had heard of them had painted them as either magical, mysterious creatures of the wilderness, or animal-like savages who lusted for men’s blood. While he viewed these stories as tall tales, he also took them as words of caution. Scraylings are not to be trusted.
“Men can not trust what they do not know, Dead Face,” the Scrayling spoke suddenly, as if reading Rider’s thoughts. Rider’s face must have shown his surprise, because the Scrayling cackled at him suddenly, with a warm enthusiasm.
In his mind, Rider saw fifteen spots on the Scrayling in front of him that he could reach across and jab that would drop the old man dead. The thought came to him, as it always did, in a sudden rush. Rider felt immediately ashamed. He slowly brought his hands into his lap, and gripped them together. There was no strength in his fingers, or he would have gripped tighter. His hands quivered and trembled.
“I share my food. More I have to share, but you need ask.”
` “Why would you help me?” Rider spoke for the first time, his voice low and horse.
“Do kindness to stranger and you do kindness to God. Your elders do not teach this?” the Scrayling plucked the old knife up as he said this, winking slyly at Rider.
“What they teach is that there are no free meals. What do you want from me, old man?”
“I want you do what God has put in path for you to do. I do same.” The old man began carving out the corncob. When it was hollow, he sliced a small hole in its side and poked a little reed into it. He pulled a small pouch from his robe, hanging from his neck by a cord. From this he produced some flakes of tobacco, which he tamped down into the pipe with a browning thumbnail. Pulling a burning stick from the fire, he lit his new pipe and began to pull from it.
Rider hunkered on his squats for a time while the Scrayling prepared his smoke. Finally he said, “What is this place? Some kind of graveyard?”
The old Scrayling let out several raspy coughs. Rider realized he was laughing. Finally, after wheezing his breath back into his lungs, the ancient man replied,
“If this burial place, we both dishonor ancestors, Ho?” He coughed a few more laughs. “Doe, this deep place. Many fathers carve history into roots of Life Tree, you see?”
Rider did not see, but held his silence. The Scrayling seemed to know he was not getting through to the dense white-skin and explained further.
“Life Tree roots hold all of West Wheel together, from big water to great pit. Poi Drodidi is try to eat away at Life Tree like rot eat at roots of old tooth. Many deep places,” The old Scrayling nodded solemnly as if he had just concluded a very simple explanation. Rider could see that something had been lost in translation, and he frankly did not care.
“Fine. How do I get out of here?”
The Scrayling raised a delicate eyebrow on his age-ravished brow.
“So soon you go to be eat by dark dogs?”
Rider narrowed his eyes. The old man waved a hand dismissively. “You hear dogs for great distance, ho? Old ears not so dull,” he pointed slyly to his leathery flap of an ear.
“I’ll take my chances.”
The old Scrayling nodded gravely. Pulling a burning stick from the fire, the old man twisted a few turns of soft hide around the end. Rider smelled the animal fat on the hide as it burst into a steady flame. Without a word the old man handed the torch to Rider. Rider took it in both hands. It quivered as his hands shook, and he nearly dropped it. The Scrayling seemed not to notice, busily fishing a beaded necklace from his garments.
“Take this, white man. Sistra lay in dark,” he waved the beads toward a point deeper in the cavern. “Sistra not come near if you have this.”
“I don’t need your trinkets, old man. Just show me the way out.”
Wordlessly, the ancient Scrayling pointed deep into the darkness.
“Go, then. You find sky again. My prayer go with you.”
“Save your prayer, old man.”
The Scrayling smiled sadly, “Not you for tell me to do with my prayer, ho white man?”
Grunting, Rider pulled his drying shirt on and the old duster over it. Donning his hat again, he headed deeper into the wooden cave.
It took Rider quite a while to discover the passage the old Scrayling had indicated. This was because it was nothing more than a crawlspace that coiled through the roots that made up the cave. Walking along the walls and between the roots winding down from the ceiling and up from the floor, Rider had discovered the hole at the very back of the enormous room. It existed as a dark point where the roots converged to form an organic looking orifice that was the tunnel mouth. The Scrayling carvings in the roots of the cave were less and less frequent back here until by the time he reached the tunnel mouth there were none, save for a particularly hideous face that had been carved over the tunnel entrance. Rider imagined this some sort of old sign of warning. But Rider imagined a great deal that was more fantastic than actual, and had learned to push such imaginings out of mind. Gripping the torch in his teeth, Rider crawled headlong into the dry, twisting tunnel.
The crawl was uncomfortable at best. The hard roots dug into his knees and shins, and he had to take frequent breaks to shift the position of the torch within his aching jaw. The fumes from the torch burnt his nostrils as he tried to breath, and more than once he wondered if his lighting was burning the air down here. It entered into his mind once or twice to wonder how the feeble old Scrayling had made his way down such a tunnel. But the tunnel gave ample evidence that Scraylings had traveled it before. The bark had been worn from the roots, leaving them smoothed almost to a sheen. There were also frequent etchings in roots along the tunnel walls; patterns and symbols that looked alien to Rider’s eyes. The tunnel spiraled onward for what seemed like miles. Rider could see where, long ago, root structures were cut or redirected to keep the tunnel clear.
It was almost a relief to Rider when the torch died. His face had been burning, and he had pulled his bandanna over his mouth, gripping the torch through the cloth, now soaked with his own saliva and mucus. He threw the stick away and began groping his way along in the dark. The air was stale here, and he took this to be an indication that he had a long way to go. His fantasy of a hasty journey to the surface was rapidly dissolving. His internal clock told him it had been several hours since he had left the Scrayling in the wooden cavern to crawl through the root system of this forest. Now that he had lost light, his progress slowed considerably. He groped ahead carefully to avoid pitfalls and vermin that might hole up in these roots. He had not run across any sleeping snakes or bugs, and this made him a more wary than secure. This place was a natural shelter for such critters. If they were not here, what was eating THEM?
Rider woke from the world’s most uncomfortable nap to hear the scrabbling sound in the distance. He attempted to rise to his perpetual crouch and found his muscles fighting him. He was soar beyond belief. He had been crawling down this tunnel for at least a day, now, and each moment brought more serious thoughts about simply going back and trying to find another exit. Only two things kept him going. The first was that he had gone so far already that surely the end was near. The second was that he was already pointed in that direction, and turning around in this tunnel would be a harsh challenge.
Where the scrabbling sound was coming from, Rider could not be sure. He also found it impossible to tell how near it was. Sound echoed endlessly through this tight corridor, and Rider was reminded of the speaking well in the Judge’s chamber. It was not beyond believing that someone could talk for miles across cleverly constructed tunnels. The sound reminded Rider of a small dog that used to charge across the flagstone porch of his father’s mansion, its little legs blurring beneath it as its toenails clattered on the flat stones.
Whatever was clattering across the smooth wood of the tunnel seemed to be traveling quickly, and although Rider could not say for sure, it seemed to be getting louder. Ignoring the pain in his muscles and his throbbing kneecaps, Rider hoisted himself up and began groping along in the dark again. The air seemed fresher, but Rider granted that that might well have been wishful thinking.
As he moved, Rider strained to hear the pattering sounds of whatever else was moving through this tunnel. His own harsh breathing and his blood pounding in his ears made this nearly impossible. Rider considered stopping to listen for it, but decided that he’d rather just get out of this pit as soon as possible.
` In his mind flashed an image of him at the end of the tunnel, sunlight breaking through only to be shadowed by the great lumbering head of a Bloodhound. Stuck in the tunnel he laid, some unimaginable creature crawling up behind him. But what if it was ahead of him? Rider pushed these thoughts from his mind. Mr. Stephen had always said that Rider thought too much and acted too little. At the time Rider had believed Mr. Stephen was being foolish. Surely it was better to think before you acted. When Rider had mentioned this to his father, his father had replied, “A gunslinger’s hands are guided by his heart. And you’re heart does not think. It knows.”
Rider was sure whatever his father had said was true, but he had never really understood it. What he DID know was that thinking about something too much would often lead to a sort of paralysis. And time had shown that inaction was the one thing he could NOT afford.
Rider’s hands found a loose stick, which was a curiosity in this land of hard, unyielding roots. He picked the stick up and rubbed it along his face. One end was burnt and smelled of animal fat. It was a discarded torch. Rider let out a hail of curses. Had he been crawling in circles this whole time? He was suddenly very tired, not to mention thirsty.
Rider removed a glove and felt along the hilt of the torch. It was smooth. No teeth marks. He sighed in relief. This was most likely something cast off by the old Scrayling. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind, than he realized that he could vaguely make out the tunnel ahead of him. Light lay somewhere ahead. Rider began scrambling in an advanced crawl that hurt his already aching spine. He did not care. To stand up would be the greatest thing in the world.
Violently, Rider was seized from behind. His hands flew out from beneath him and his head struck the tunnel floor hard. Through the bursts of light that floated in front of his eyes, Rider fought to grab hold of the root-lined tunnel walls. His gloved hands slipped again and again as whatever was behind him squeezed his legs together in a crushing grip. Whatever it was, was now working up his body, gripping at his thighs and now his groin. Knives dug into Rider’s thighs, and he let out a cry of pain. Something like liquid fire was now flowing into his blood, spreading down his entire leg. He thrashed blindly with his balled fists, and felt them strike something meaty and hard. There was an inhuman hissing squeal and the knives released from his leg, which now hung heavy and burned from within. The creature shot up to his chest with inhuman speed, and Rider felt his breath being crushed from his lungs. Something grasped for his face, and pulled his forearm up to guard his head just in time. Now the knives dug into his arm. Before more poison could be pushed into his body, Rider swiftly rolled over on top of the creature and dug his free elbow into it with a force that could have snapped bones. Another hissing screech came out of the creature, and Rider pulled free, the jaws ripping at the meat of his arm. He quickly scrambled onward, but the beast was on him again, once again crushing his feet together. This time Rider was ready. Rolling over on his back, he twisted his foot digging the spur on his boot into whatever this thing was. It screamed then, and Rider did not let up, rolling the spur up and down, and thrusting his body upward, against the tunnel ceiling to push the spur down with the power of his entire body. The screaming was deafening. With a savage kick, Rider freed himself again from the beast, and scrambled away. Rider crawled painfully onward. He could feel himself bleeding from the arm, and his left leg hung heavy and useless. It throbbed and it was stiff and probably swollen. He could hear the hesitant clattering of whatever was behind him. He could only hope he hurt it as much as it had hurt him. He kept crawling, ignoring his imagining of the unseen claws and jaws of this beast behind him. He found the light about an hour later. The thing never approached him again. He had the feeling it did not cotton to the light. He, on the other hand, was nearly blinded by the days of darkness he had endured.
Rider crawled into the light. It was late afternoon. His left leg was stiff and entirely useless, and his body ached unbelievably. It was all he could do to not give into the desire to collapse and never move again. He knew there was a poison in his system, injected by some unseen creature in the dark. Only through movement could he purge the poison from his system. Movement and water.
Unfortunately the tunnel exited from a hole in a heap of granite stones broken and penetrated by the roots of the tree in the forest behind. Before him stretched fields, but no water in sight. He knew he must press forward, but he felt so tired. He lay there, each moment willing himself to rise up, get moving, cowboy onward. And each moment he lay there, the fight seeped from his body. Reality moved progressively past him and he wavered into black and sweet oblivion. And as he fell from the edge of consciousness, he heard the howls.
What came into focus above him were slats of pine. A lantern hung somewhere just out of sight, its soft glow falling across the aged ceiling that hung above him. His body felt as if it was made of lead. His lips were thick and cold against his dry tongue. His skin burned, but his bones felt like ice. He tried to keep himself still, find out where he was and what was going on, but he could not keep himself from shivering. He also felt sweat beading across his body. His mind felt hot and sluggish.
“I think he’s coming ‘round,” a voice, sounding old and tired, spoke from beyond his vision.
“He’d better be. Tell him to take himself and his troubles elsewhere.” The second voice was unmistakably a woman, shrill and shrewish.
“Shush woman, go soak some rags. This man’s burnin’ up something fierce.”
He heard the voice of the woman retreating, muttering, “Softhearted old fool, bringin’ disease into ma’ house…”
Eric felt a hand underneath his head, raising it, and then water tipped to his mouth. He sipped thirstily in spite of himself. The dizzying ache in his head subsided a bit, and he turned his head to look up into the kindly face of a white-bearded farmer.
“Where am I?”
“This here’s my farm, son. Edge of the Hedgehog woods in Durdsbury.”
Rider struggled to consider this. He was still some distance from Quillan, but at least he was out of the woods.
“Sheep?” he asked.
“Alp. Sheep an’ some crops. ‘Baccer an’ alfalfa and the such. Never pays to mix them.”
From behind the farmer, he heard a snort.
“Well, useter be sheep till you came along, dragging your hounds with you.”
The woman that came up behind the farmer was old, and time had not been kind to her. She had apparently been farming most of her life, and hardness showed in ever line in her face. She slung a few damp rags at Rider. The farmer quickly adjusted them around his skin. Only now did Rider realize his shirt was gone, his upper body naked.
“How did I get here?” Rider rasped through cracked lips.
“Jest wandered up here in the night, lookin’ like death and draggin’ yer leg behind,” the woman said in sing-song voice. “I’d say a snake gotcha, but by the looks of the bite, it were somethin’ bigger. Last two nights been full o’ howls, and our sheep have all been drug off with their innards eaten out. I done said to Josiah here that you wuz bad luck walkin’, but he ain’t never been one to turn away a stranger.”
Rider did not remember rising from the spot he fell outside the tunnel. He did not remember a tortured journey here or two nights of fevered thrashing. Perhaps this was for the best.
“Obliged.”
The woman sighed, “I ain’t gonna say it weren’t nothin’. You done cost us a lot, though I ain’t sayin’ it was yer fault.”
“You gotta understand,” Josiah interrupted, “Since the Baron’s army dragged our son’s away to enlist, the farm is all we have. Me and Mariah are gettin’ to be too old to run things like they need. It’s like that in all the farms roundabouts. Everybody needs wool, and everyone wants their ‘baccer, but the Baron don’t care. He just wants to kill Scraylin’s.”
“Well you ain’t helpin’ us none by bein kind to any fool Scraylin’ that wanders through our land, like that old feller a few weeks back,” Mariah scorned. Rider sensed that Mariah had a kind heart under her blustering words. The old man grunted in reply.
“I should go,” Rider said, attempting to rise to his feet. Instantly he was struck by a spell of dizziness, and fell back on the bed.
“Y’ain’t goin’ nowheres like you is. We done said our prayers to the good Lord an’ hung us a cross on the door. The likes of your Bloodhounds won’t enter here.”
It can be said for certain that Rider did not understand the nature of the creatures pursuing him. He did, however, believe that a few prayers and a cross on a door would not stop them. Still, they hadn’t yet attacked him, even in his weakened state. What was keeping them?
The old couple saw the gaunt and fevered stranger drift back into unconsciousness. Josiah stayed a while longer, sopping at his fevered body with the damp cloths. When his wife retired to bed, he knelt to pray.
“Dear Lord in heaven above,” he breathed, “I come to you a’gin with thanks. Thanks for life and for th’ love o’ my wife. Thanks fer my land and my heritage. Thanks for m’maw n’ m’paw and the time you gave them. Thanks fer m’boys, and be with them in th’war. If’n they die, bring them to your face. If’n they live keep them and bring them home.
“I come now before you askin’ for your grace. This young man came to us fer help, an’ we helped. Keep him safe and heal him up. Keep th’ wolves from off our doorstep. I ain’t got much room t’be makin’ requests, but you are good, O Lord, and I know you got some love left ‘fer me ‘n mine. Amen.”
With this simple prayer, the old man rose, shuffled further back into the house, and quietly closed the curtain to the bedroom he shared with his wife.
Rider, sick as he was, was not quite so unconscious as he seemed. He laid, eyes closed, fighting the yawing dizziness in his head to remain alert. He heard the man in prayer, and heard him retreat to his bedroom. He did not deserve the kindness of these people. More to the point, these people did not deserve the trouble he had brought to their doorstep. He waited, slipping in and out of consciousness, for the night to progress. The howls began at moonrise. Rider heard them and struggled up from where he lay. Sitting up was a challenge, but once he was upright, the dizziness that came with movement subsided. He then stood fully, slowly, faltering many times, but finally gained his feet. A pitcher of water lay on the washstand next to his bed. Rider took it in weak and shaky hands and downed half the water in the pitcher. He did not feel well, but he certainly felt better. The chill in his bones was gone, and he suddenly needed to pass water. He found his cloths, cleaned and pressed, laying at his bedside. His silver and black boots had been polished and the nickel emblems on his hat were no longer tarnished. In unsteady silence, he dressed himself and hobbled toward the door. His left leg was still stiff, but it moved when he told it to, and that was all he wanted from the tool.
Rider stepped out into the cold night air. It hit him like a wall, and he felt better, his dizziness almost leaving him entirely. The sky was partially visible through the clouds, and his sharp eyes located the North Star easily enough. Rider took a few lurching steps southward, pulling his duster tight around his fevered body. A roaring growl erupted from behind him, and Rider was knocked flat and sent rolling by a dark mass hitting him like a train. Rider looked up from the grass where he lay. Three massive creatures circled him, growling dangerously. He tried to rise, but found himself far too weak. One snarled and lunged, sinking its teeth into his side. Rider felt his ribs start to separate, and tissue in his body rip. Seeing their prey down, the other dogs joined the fray, pushing their muzzles in for a bite of the tender human morsel. Rider shot an elbow up into the nose of the dog biting him. The dog yipped and let go, but now the others were on him, and the pain was more than he could handle. Rider accepted, at this moment, that he would die. He was going to die, and for one gleeful second he realized that now he knew. He knew that he was scared.
