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Chapter 7
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I scream as I start to fall forward into the darkness, but as I do I realize that I’m falling the wrong way. My feet are scrambling for stability as my arms flail in the same search. The darkness before me seems to stretch, deepen almost in expectancy as my body pitches forward into it. Then all of a sudden my body is reversing and my balance is horribly lost. My arms hit something hard as my back crashes into something warm. With my feet solid under me my scream stops, leaving only a ringing echo in my ears. I look down at my feet, dumbfounded by the fact that below my toes is blue moss. I didn’t fall into the darkness. Slowly I raise my gaze back to the talon I was previously in front of. It’s a solid thing, there’s no way I could have fallen into it. But that feeling...I felt so sure that I was falling forward. All of that terror, and panic. I was utterly paralyzed, I couldn’t move. So then how am I here now? How did I move away?
Tuning back into all my senses I now am aware of the tight warm grip of hands on my upper arms, the radiating heat of a hard chest pressed against my back, and the loud sound of breathing behind me. Slowly, I take a small step forward, stepping out of Daric’s grasp and turn to face him. His cheeks are a little red and giving him a winded expression. The way he’s looking at me is something I can’t place. It’s similar to confusion mixed with disbelief but that’s only what I can guess. The hands I stepped out of now run through his long dark hair as he just looks at me. Neither of us seem to know what to say.
“Are we leaving this forest tomorrow?” I can’t imagine staying here for even the rest of the night, let alone another day. He just nods, still unable to say anything. I know I can make a joke about him being speechless, but right now can’t feel anything except numb. After the high intensity terror, I feel empty in its absence. I may not feel scared anymore, but I don’t feel safe. The sooner we get out of here the better.
Even as I walk past speechless Daric I know I won’t get any sleep tonight. I can feel his gaze on my back as I settle down into my blanket again. The fire is still going so I turn to face the flames, turning my back on him. I can’t handle any questions right now, not when I have so many of my own. I can’t offer any answers when I don’t understand what actually happened.
When I was standing there, every moment passed like an eternity, but here in my blanket time feels like a blur. As I try to remember those moments individually, only one pronounces itself in my mind. It could have been a trick of light, but a deep part of me to believe my lie. It wasn’t as if the talon itself moved. It was more like the actual darkness shifted. All of it had been too black to distinguish anything separate from it, but was as if the darkness had shift against itself, or perhaps within itself. I don’t know, none of that makes any sense. Maybe if I close my eyes I can pretend it didn’t happen. Mind over matter, if I can forget about it, even for a little while then perhaps I can feel a semblance of comfort, even if it’s only for a moment.
Sometime during my internal coping Daric had returned back to his blanket near the fire. My eyes open as black images play behind my lids. As they open my gaze finds his. I don’t know what he sees in my eyes, but I hate what I see in his. Pity shines from his dark irises, glinting in the firelight. Before I can say anything he turns over in his blanket, turning his back to me. I bite my lip hard, willing myself not to cry as I furiously turn my gaze to the fire. I don’t need pity from anyone. It feels like such an insult, I have no place for something so useless. I focus on the fire, watching the flames dance as my mind begins to drift. He can keep his pity, because soon none of this will matter. Soon, I’m going to wake up.
I wake up with a scream stuck in my throat. My blanket is tossed to the side, and my entire body is coated in a thin sheen of sticky sweat. I don’t remember what I was dreaming about but a part of me is thankful for that. Swallowing the scream in my throat I sit up, ready to get out of here. My eyes search for Daric, finding him next to Blood Horse. He’s adjusting the straps and has already packed his blanket back into the saddle bag. As I stand he looks over at me. I turn away from him, not ready to think about last night, so instead I bend over and pick up my discarded blanket. I fold it up quickly before walking over and handing it to him. He takes it with a nod as I turn away and go for my pack. Making sure that everything is stored inside safely, I zip it up and swing it over my shoulder.
I look back over at Daric. He’s crouched next to the fire which somehow still has flames, digging a small hole in the ground beside it with his right hand. I watch, curious, then amazed as he finishes his hole and grabs the torch from the fire. Slowly, he uses the torch to push the base of the flames along the moss into the hole. Once all of the flames have slid in he starts pushing the blue moss in around the edges of the hole until it is entirely covered up and the flames have disappeared beneath the blue surface. All of this takes less than a few minutes, but I stand transfixed for every second of it. How does someone just move flames? Wouldn’t they burn through the moss? Apparently not because Daric gets up, ignoring me as I gawk at the spot where he buried the flames, and walks back over to Blood Horse.
The lack of oxygen would extinguish the flames but how did the fire not burn the moss before it was completely covered? I blink, breaking my concentration on the spot, and sigh. Guess I’ll just chalk that up to another mystery about this dream. It almost feels physically exhausting as my list of questions continues to grow.
I look back over to Blood Horse. Daric has already mounted him and is waiting for me with an expectant expression. His face does not look as pale as yesterday which is good. I can see some blood marks on the bandages but overall it seems he has made a quick recovery. I consider myself thankful for at least some sort of luck as I walk over to him. He extends a hand down to me and for a moment I debate not taking it. After tying me up and pitying me he’s one of the last guys I want to accept help from. But there is no way I am getting on this beast of a unicorn without his help.
Sighing inwardly, I reluctantly grasp his hand. The instant my hand tightens around his I am hauled up into the air. My shock at the suddenness of my vertical ascension lets itself out through a small whimper as I find myself deposited in front of Daric. I look back at him and notice his annoyed stare at my pack. With all the bandages on his chest, it would probably jostle them off while riding. Carefully, I slide my arms through the loops of my pack and move it so it is on my chest before sliding my arms back through the loops. I guess that arrangement appeases him because he sits a little closer to close the gap my pack left and snaps Blood Horse’s reins. Finally, we are moving. I don’t care where we go. Anywhere is better than this damn forest. It’s an understatement to say that I am a bit eager to leave our campsite behind.
As we wander through the maze-like forest of talons I find myself relaxing slightly, knowing that we are leaving. During our traveling, I stare up at the pieces of sky that make it through the tangles of talons. When we first started moving there was a strange green hue to the sky, but now it’s white again. I bite my lip absentmindedly as I wonder about whether there are clouds in this world, or if they blend in with the sky so I can’t see them. My gaze slowly slides downward, examining the dark tall talons around us. Blood Horse weaves through them, barely fitting through certain gaps. Despite my surveillance, I still haven’t seen any animals yet. I’m starting to believe that nothing lives here when my eyes catch on the ground. The blue moss has started to become patchy. Looking forward now, I try to grasp a glimpse of anything ahead but there are too many talons to see anything clearly. Within a few minutes, the talons altogether stop, almost as if there is an invisible line that none of them grow beyond. Here, the patchy moss gives way entirely to brown dirt.
Before us is a huge sloping rock mountain. I had seen these before, when I was walking around the lake. Up close, they look even more like the sides of a bowl. Up close I can see the the small ridges on the sheer side. The ridges seemed big enough to walk on, and most of them connected, but the rock face itself was extremely vertical. I gulp slightly as Blood Horse continues to walk forward, undaunted by our apparent plan of ascension.
“Uh, where exactly are we going?” I try not to let my nervousness creep into my voice, but I can only hide so much. Daric’s voice on the other hand is aggravatingly calm.
“We need to get out of Advania,” to him, his words seem simple and self-evident. But, to a non-mind reader, they are less than clear.
“What do you mean we need to?” I ask suspiciously. Yes, I understand that it is better to have a guide in an unknown place, but that doesn’t mean I implicitly trust Daric’s navigational decisions. Daric is a thief, do I really want to stay with a criminal? If I get off Blood Horse right now I can still make my way back towards the lake. I can follow the outside of the talon forest. It might take a lot longer, but I could do it. Obviously Daric must have read into my thoughts because he nudged Blood Horse into a faster trot, following a sideways ridge that winds its way up the mountain.
“We need to leave because the royal guard will be searching the whole country for us. And yes, that means you too. Garrett and Maddox both got a good look at you when you jumped from that tree. You took down two of the most distinguished Slayers and in the process helped a wanted criminal escape. You’re just as wanted as I am,” he may be behind me but I can hear that smug smile in his tone. Somehow, my hoping they would forget about me was amusing to him. I grumble under my breath as I cross my arms on my pack. It only took me one day in a country to become of its most wanted criminals. Great.
“What are Slayers?” I question, already not liking the sound of the name.
“Slayers are an elite group of soldiers, tasked only with high priority missions,” he explains simply. That gives me pause for a moment.
“But we were safe in the forest?” I could kick myself for saying that. Of everything that I felt in that forest, safe was not a part of it.
“Yes, but that’s only because nobody goes into a ca’arum forest.”
“What’s a caharoom forest?” I try to sound the word out as I say it but the feel of it is foreign to my tongue.
“A ca’arum forest is a forest of ca’arums, those tall black things that surrounded us,” he spoke slowly, as if explaining something that is common knowledge to an idiot. I can feel his strange gaze boring holes into my head. He falls silent, and for a moment I think he’s about to ask a question but he says no more. I let the quiet settle between us as we continue to climb higher and higher.
Movement out of the corner of my eye pulls me from my sullen thoughts. I look up slightly to see Daric walking over to Blood Horse. I hadn’t even noticed the creature had been laying off to my right until Daric kneeled down beside it. He dug into one of the saddle bags. That must have been where he had gotten the jerky from. I wonder how much supplies are there. It was Blondie’s horse that we stole. Would he be upset that we stole it? The horse seemed just fine with us, it didn’t act as if it had any allegiance towards its former master. Maybe Blondie never was his master, maybe he just picked him for this ride.
My internal ramblings come to a halt as Daric stands and looks over at me. He has pulled out two rolled up blankets from the bag. He tosses one at me and tucks the other under his arm. I catch the blanket as it lands in my lap. The instant I touch it I become amazed. Never before have I felt something so soft. The fabric was both fuzzy and smooth at the same time. Its small rolled up size lied about its true length as I unroll it. This bundle that fills my two hands unrolls into a blanket that could easily cover someone twice my mere five foot four size. I smile as I wrap myself in its soft folds, instantly shutting out the cold with a cozy warmth.
“Enjoying yourself?” I can tell by his tone that he thinks I’m a child as I revel in my blanket. I fix him with a defiant glare, challenging his patronizing tone.
“As a matter of fact I am,” this has been the most comfort I’ve had all day. I’m not going to let anyone ruin that, not even a weird long haired shirtless guy.
“I’m not surprised. Maddox likes to pack for luxury. These are two person military blankets. They’re meant to be big enough to cover two men in case of serious cold. That way they can share body heat to stay warmer,” he scoffs as he unrolls his blanket. “The man has two of these. How much does he think he needs,” the sarcasm in his voice was not lost on my ears, but there was something else. Something else that was deeper than sarcasm, what was it? Bitterness? It could have been some underlying anger, hatred even. After all Blondie, Maddox I guess, did want to take Daric to cut his head off. I shuddered at that thought. Beheaded just for trying to steal the crown? That seems pretty serious for a theft gone wrong. I glance over at Daric who seems to be reluctantly unfolding the blanket over himself. I guess it’s probably not the best time to poke that issue.
I sigh as I settle in on the ground with my blanket. No matter what Maddox does or does not need, I’m glad he packed these blankets. A small smile creeps across my face that I hide in the softness of the blanket. I am starting to get used to these sleep-on-the-ground nights. At least this time will be better than sleeping in a field. Hopefully I won’t wake tied up again. Then I might be the one who kills Daric.
As soon as I make that joke my mind sobers. Daric really is wanted dead by those men, and I helped them. Will they kill me too for helping him? I mean all I did was tackle the old guy, and… spray Maddox in the face with hair spray. I wonder if he’s still mad about that… If I don’t see him again I won’t have to find out. There’s no way that they’re still chasing us. This spooky forest is hard to navigate with even a single horse. Not to mention that there’s nothing living here besides the moss. During our entire journey into this forest I didn’t see any animals anywhere. There were none skittering across the ground, climbing in the trees, nothing. The eerie feeling of being here still hasn’t faded. Even now as I look at the talons surrounding me they seem like something out of a fairy tale, and I don’t mean the Disney kind. I mean the original Perrault and Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales, the kind where Sleeping Beauty is raped in her sleep and Cinderella’s step-sisters cut off parts of their foot to make it fit in the slipper.
I close my eyes to shut out those images. We’ll leave the forest tomorrow and be done with it. And then after that… What is after that? I still don’t know how to wake up from this dream. What if I’m in a coma and I can’t wake up? What am I going to do here? My arms wrap tighter around myself. The confining feeling of entrapment starts to surround me. What if I’m trapped in my own mind? How can you escape yourself?
My eyes pop open at the thought of never waking up. I can’t think like that, those thoughts aren’t going to help anything. At this point, even the softness of my blanket has ceased to give me comfort. An inescapable mind trapped in an eerie forest being chased by bloodthirsty men. I scoff under my breath. When phrased like that it does sound a bit melodramatic and completely impossible. I look around at the talons around me. The light of the fire has dimmed to mostly coals with a few small flames. Their light barely illuminates the outlines of the talons. But it’s not completely dark beyond that. The moon is extremely bright tonight. Despite the fact that only spots of pale blue light actually make it to the ground, it’s still enough that I can see in front of me. I slowly slip out from under my blanket and rise to my feet. If my rampaging thoughts are not going to let me sleep then I might as well stop trying. The nap I took earlier should hold me for a while anyways.
With that in mind I walk over to the nearest talon to my left, away from the fire. I don’t know why these talons fill me with such a dark feeling but only knowledge can cure fears. Or prove them right, a small voice counters in the back of my mind. I shove it down, refusing to acknowledge its words. If I can be sure that there is nothing scary about these talons then I’ll stop feeling that they are. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. But as I take a step closer and then another closer to the large talon my feeling gets worse and worse.
My feet come together, planted three inches away from its large black base. I feel it like before, the rising panic rising from the pit in my stomach. I tear my eyes away from my feet and attach them to the point where the ground meets the talon. The muted sensation of pain coming from my clenched hands doesn’t faze my haze of fear. Slowly, my gaze claws up the talon, every inch taking all my strength to keep my gaze climbing. My mind is blank, void of everything except for the talon looming in front of me. By the time I am staring at eye level at the talon my heart feels as if it is pounding through my ribs, trying to run away on its own since my feet refuse to move. My mouth is dry and my hands are sticky with sweat. The only thing that seems to exist is the black in front of me. It encompasses my whole gaze getting darker and darker the longer I look. If my feet could move any farther forward I know I would fall into that darkness, like a black hole. Every fiber of my being is screaming at me to run as I only stare harder. I can’t look away. Far away I can feel a burning sensation. It grows but never seems to pierce my trance. Nothing can seem to pierce it. Something in my mind is telling me, shouting at me to turn back but I physically can’t. The power to physically move my feet is gone. In the back of my mind I know I should be panicking, but not even my mind can turn its focus away from this obsidian trance. My gaze is drawn deeper and deeper into the darkness, looking harder and harder into the absolute nothingness.
And then it moved.
And so did I.