Adventures of Captain Xdey (16 page)

Minutes seemed like days. He was thrown around and scratched, but he never let out a peep. His only solace was the timing in between each toss and movement of the creature became less and less frequent as though it grew bored. In the darkness, he could smell a shift of scents from the dank swamp to wet dog. A clawed paw slapped him across the face. Something removed the wax covering from his eyes. He squeezed them tight. The ear plugs followed and so he covered his ears, but he could hear. “Mal! Get up!”

He winced. The familiar voice continued. “Mal. She’s gone. Whatever you did, you defeated her.”

Mal opened one eye to see a very dirty and very wet gnome leaning over him. Over Decyl’s shoulder stood Hiddle and his sopping wet hair fell straight down over his ears. Hiddle grinned and waved. Mal sat up. “She’s gone?”

Decyl nodded. “We dragged you down the road and away from the swamp. In case she changed her mind.”

Mal couldn’t take any chances. He cast a judgmental gaze upon the two. “Where did we meet?”

Decyl stood up and shook the excess water off of his fur. “On a bridge.”

Hiddle jumped back from the water droplets. “Hey!”

Decyl widened a grin. “Don’t stand too close. I have sharp teeth, too.”

Mal sighed. It was them all right. “What now?”

The gnome pointed east. “We promised to meet Xoey and Nadine in Upper City. That’s where we’ll go.”

Hiddle jumped over the rocky terrain. Mal fought with Decyl to put the guns away and stop aiming them at the kid. “He’s bad luck.”

“He’s just over-excited. He’s probably chained to a chair at home.”

Decyl’s eyes lit up like golden stars. His grin revealed his innermost thoughts.

“No.”

“You must love that word.”

“Not until I met you.”

Hiddle ran over to them. He bumped into Decyl by accident. Decyl slicked his ears back and kept his jowls taut. Mal gestured down to Hiddle’s shoes. “You should tie your laces.”

“Oh!” He knelt down and tied his tattered laces.

Mal felt they needed to do something fun before Decyl lost his mind and started firing shots. “We’re going to play Whoop. Hiddle, this rock,” Mal picked up a stick and made a giant circle around the rock, “is home.” He noticed Decyl’s curious expression and explained the rules. “Hiddle will go hide and we have to find him. When he’s ready, he shouts, ‘Whoop oh!’ If one of us finds him, we shout the same. If he catches one of us, we have to carry him home and then hide. If one of us catches him, he has to hide again.”

The gnome shooed him. “Run away, Hiddle.”

Hiddle rolled up his mismatched sleeves, slicked back his hair, and ran off toward the tree-line.

“Mal, you’re a genius. Let’s go.” Decyl walked in the opposite direction.

Mal guffawed as he ruffled his curls. “No, we’re not leaving him.” He imagined that the gnome’s black eyes twitched at the realization that they weren’t throwing one over on the kid.

“Whoop oh!” shouted in the distance.

Decyl snorted. Mal tugged on his arm. “Come on. Don’t be a sour pants.”

“I don’t think that’s the phrase.” Mal didn’t hear him. He was already running off.

Decyl rubbed his forehead and then he rubbed his cheeks. The damp, muddy gnome reluctantly shuffled behind.

Mal ran through the dense forest, looking around the trees for any sign of Hiddle.

Decyl was content lagging behind, unwilling to be on the lookout. His ears perked up at a sound. It was too late; Hiddle already wrapped his hands around the gnome’s waist. “Whoop oh!”

Mal spun around to see the sight of Decyl desperately pawing the kid off of him. He fell forward into giggle fits. Decyl took a step back, a mistake, as a large silver band shot up from the ground and clamped around his leg. Decyl, as usual, pointed all of his guns at the culprit, Hiddle. Hiddle slowly released his grasp. The gnome didn’t do anything beyond that that required moving a muscle.

Mal rubbed his head and felt slightly sick. “You’ve been trapped.” In the distance, they could hear howling and cheers of two men, who may have been in the sun for far too long. They seemed a bit on the delusional side in their excitement.

“Hiddle, your cousins are here.” Decyl grabbed the cuff and in that process absorbed a wave of voltage. The scent of singed fur permeated through the air as Decyl’s knees buckled until he was a heap of fur on the ground.

“Come on, then.” Mal scooped up the guns.

Hiddle shifted uncomfortably. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“We’re not leaving him. The hunters are coming, and we can’t be seen.”

Hiddle’s eyes brightened. “Element of surprise.”

They ran headlong behind a tree and waited.

Mal poked his head around the base of the tree. An old man with a long scruffy white beard, a bald head, and narrow little eyes carefully removed the manacle holding Decyl. He grinned a crooked smile revealing a few funky teeth. Mal crinkled his nose at the sight of the hunter sniffing Decyl’s fur. “Well, I’ll be. We got a gnome. Bit far for that kind to be this way, but we’ll take it!”

A large man dressed in blue from head to toe, nodded. “Seems a bit odd for his kind to be unarmed.”

The eldest agreed, paused, and then looked to the tracks that Mal and Hiddle left behind. “Seems he wasn’t alone.”

Hiddle ran out from behind the tree. “Hey! Leave my pet alone!” He stormed over to the group, leaving Mal behind with a dropped jaw. The boy kicked the older man in the shin. “Do you know who my father is? Do you?”

The larger man shook his head, befuddled.

“Gesler is my father. Now let my pet go!”

The men exchanged glances. The old man, still clutching his shin, hissed and said, “Get him.” Hiddle giggled and then darted back the way he came. Mal stepped out from the tree as the man ran headlong. He fired the gun, pressing the blue button, and a bolt of electricity shot out, knocked the man down, and jolted him until he passed out. It wasn’t enough to kill him, but likely make him think twice before going on another hunt.

The old man held a very sharp knife up to Decyl’s neck. Fortunately for the gnome, he was still passed out. Hiddle and Mal paused at the sight.

“Drop your weapons,” he said rather cordially.

Not wanting to see their friend hurt, Mal did as he asked. Hiddle giggled from behind Mal. The man tightened the grip. “What is so funny?”

Hiddle and Mal pointed behind him. He turned to see Ramos’s fist and it was the last thing he saw before the old man was knocked to the ground. Ramos grinned and gingerly picked up Decyl.

“We need to hurry.”

Mal caught up with Ramos. “Why?”

Ramos shot him a look of sorrow. “Nix and Cap’n Pene have captured Xoey and your sister. Never been one for bedside manner, it seems.”

Hiddle, carrying the weapons, edged over to Mal. “I know where they’re being taken.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do,” said Mal, frustrated.

“I may be the youngest, but I’m not stupid. You think I’m a spy.” The happy-go-lucky kid wasn’t so happy-go-lucky anymore. His grey eyes welled up with tears, but he wasn’t going to cry.

Mal rubbed his face and then his eyes. He was tired, hungry, and worried. Ramos handed Mal the gnome. “What’s your name?”

Hiddle crossed his arms over his chest, defensively. He wasn’t in the mood to talk. Mal answered for him. “Hiddle. He’s Gesler’s son.”

Ramos offered his hand. “I’m Ramos.”

They walked out of the forest together. Decyl twitched, his legs moving in a run. He was dreaming. Mal groaned at the sharp claws. “Wake up.” He dropped Decyl into a pile of grass. Decyl jumped up and reached for his weapons to find the holsters empty. He snarled. Mal stifled a chuckle. “Not to worry. Hiddle has them.”

“That’s even worse!” He ran to catch up with Ramos and Hiddle.

Mal wiped his nose with his sleeve. He could feel the sadness sweep through him as the wind picked up. He wanted nothing more than to see his family again. Apparently, he was to save them all. It was a burden that rested heavily upon his shoulders. Hiddle ran back to him. “I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

Mal patted him on the head. “You still have his guns, don’t you?”

“Just one.” He patted his leg. Mal wasn’t going to ask how he strapped it down. “I told him one of the men broke a gun over my head while trying to save him.”

“He believed you?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so,” Mal said.

“What is Xoey like?”

Mal scratched his head. His green eyes narrowed in thought. They walked alongside the train tracks that led into Old Town. “Ever see a beautiful creature with marvelous colors, so pretty it should be a girl? But, then you find out it is a boy?”

Hiddle nodded sagely.

“Yeah, that’s Xoey.”

Hiddle crinkled his nose. “Wait, Xoey is a boy?”

“No. She’s pretty like a girl, but acts like a boy.”

“Oh…”

Mal tilted his head in thought. “Why did your father throw you overboard?”

“Beats me.” He shrugged. “He never liked me to begin with. I heard him yelling at my mom about me before she died.”

“But I thought—”

Hiddle shook his head. “My real mom. My step-mom is another story. She’s not nice.”

They walked up a corridor and then up a set of stone steps into Old Town. In the darkness, they crossed a wooden bridge, and then they entered a small tavern. It smelled ravenously of food, stale ale marrying with the earthly scents of pipe smoke. It was loud, brash, and overwhelming. They shuffled in after a long day. A few eyes peered over the steins of ale. Some were observant and others seemed filled with thoughts of murder. Mal chuckled under his breath. Decyl appeared right at home, while Ramos held fast on Hiddle’s suspenders.

A rugged man with a flop of black hair stood behind the bar. He looked at them impassively. That is, until Decyl handed him a few coins. Where he kept them, Mal didn’t want to know. “We’ll have three cups of cider, one cup of ale, and four orders of the fish and stew.”

The man counted the money, twice for good measure. He bit on the coins to ensure he wasn’t fooled by the gnome. Satisfied, he slid over the four steins. “Order will be up in a jiffy.”

They walked through death’s aisle and sat down at a round table with four chairs. Mal tilted his chair forward to let the crumbs from the last visitor slide to the floor. Decyl sat down rather content in his mind. Ramos remained standing, with his back against the wall, to watch the front door.

Hiddle pressed his hands flat on the table and groaned. “The table is sticky,” he said. Uncertain of where to wipe the remnants, he gave up and rested his hands, palm up on his lap.

Decyl pointed a clawed finger at the door to the right of the bar. “Go wash them.”

Ramos kept his gaze upon Hiddle as he pushed his chair back. The youngest one ran through the crowd and into the bathroom. Decyl looked over at Mal. “He has my gun, doesn’t he?”

Mal shrugged. “Never can tell with that one.”

Four steaming hot bowls of grub were dropped without care onto their table by a man with a greasy apron and no shirt. Mal chuckled nervously at the fish eye floating in the soup. Hiddle returned to his seat, grabbed a spoon, and scooped out his eye. “Bet you didn’t know—” he dropped the eye on the table, “that they bounce.”

Mal giggled helplessly. He felt in good spirits for once.

Decyl raised up his ears, alert. Mal and Hiddle were still joking about eyeballs. Ramos stiffened at the sight of four guards entering the tavern. He pressed a hand upon Hiddle’s mouth. Hiddle squirmed until Ramos turned his head to get a good look at the danger. Mal shrunk down in his seat. “What are we going to do?”

With a twitch of his thumb, Decyl prepared to pull all four guns.

Xoey ran past the surrounded tavern and then ran back. She kneeled behind the stone wall that rested parallel with the street before the tavern door. Four guards walked inside. There were, at least, ten guards outside.

“Surround the tavern,” he said. A man of ridiculous proportions with a chiseled face, long blond hair, and blue eyes gestured to the guards. “See that no one leaves.”

She guessed him to be in charge as he was giving commands. Xoey debated heading back to Gaim to gather forces. She paused at the schooma hopping up next to her. His large brown eyes stared up at her. “What are you doing here?” she asked quietly.