Mist upon the Marsh: The Story of Nessa and Cassie (16 page)

XIX:

F
light

T
he house flew into an immediate frenzy. While the true fates of Huro and Kael were still unknown, it was agreed that no one should leave; but now that their deaths were revealed, it was decided that they all should depart for Mindren. They were already making ready to go, when Dahro remembered his earlier intention to phone the police. He knew that he could not keep from it. Yet he looked to all the others, and said, “My own family will stay with me, till this is done – but all others will go on to Mindren. Morachi should be delivered this news personally.”

Ceir, Caramon and Nessa went to stand beside him; and the others made towards the hill. But suddenly Baer looked back, and spoke.

“Perhaps you should not call,” he said to Dahro. “The humans may attempt to hold us responsible for the humans’ deaths.”

“Would you have me leave their bodies to the forest?” Dahro returned.

“Perhaps,” Baer repeated quietly.

Nevertheless, the heads of Huro and Kael were removed from their place beneath the porch, and wrapped carefully so as to be delivered to the fortress. Dahro issued his and Huro’s houses and final farewell; and then the call was placed. Soon, an officer named Martin steered his patrol car into the space of dirt before the barn. An officer named Meeks sat beside him, emptying a pack of Twinkies and a can of Coca-Cola.

Martin exited the car first, strode purposefully past the wild garden, and across the wide front lawn. He had to stop about halfway to his destination, however, to shout at Meeks, “to get his lazy ass out of the car.” Ever obedient to his taller, stronger, and more handsome partner, Meeks scurried after him into the yard.

Dahro stepped out onto the porch, to meet Martin as he ascended the steps. “Hello, Officer,” he said.

“Morning, sir,” said Martin. “Now – what’s this I hear, about two dead bodies behind your house?”

Dahro stared at him for a moment, seemingly unsure as to the quality of his question. “There are two dead bodies,” he said slowly. “Behind the house.”

“And when did you stumble across these two dead bodies, sir – if I may ask?”

“It was a very short while ago,” answered Dahro. “My children were walking through the woods, and came upon the bodies there.”

“Could you be a little more specific, sir?”

“It was just after six o’clock.”

“They were walking in the woods, at six o’clock in the morning?”

“Yes.”

Martin coughed; snuffled his nose; and cleared his throat.

“Is there anything else you can tell me, sir?”

“There is nothing I can tell you, that you will not see for yourself.”

“And where exactly are the bodies?”

“About a half-mile past the trees, nearly a mile and a half from the East-hand boundary. My children will lead you to them.”

Martin looked mightily perplexed at this statement; but then Nessa and Caramon came out onto the porch, and he nodded. “Lead the way, young people.”

Martin turned from Dahro, and stepped down from the porch. He took firm hold of the back of Meeks’s belt (the fellow had been bending down to stare quite interestedly into a bush of wild roses, sniffing them several times, and each time with the result of violent sneezing; though it seemed he never did make the connexion between the sniffing and the sneezing) and yanked him in the direction of the wood.

“Where are we going?” asked Meeks.

“For a little walk,” answered Martin. “We’ve got to find those bodies, after all.”

Meeks made a pouting face; but trotted along, puffing heavily already, in the wake of his partner’s wide gait.

~

The officers returned with Nessa and Caramon, some five-and-forty minutes later. Martin went to the patrol car, and called in a request for backup. Meeks was doubled over by the wild roses, panting like a dog, sweating like a pig, and sneezing profusely.

Finally Officer Martin returned to the porch, and made to speak; but was obliged to pause, when an amount of bile rose up in his throat, to lean over the rail, and clear his mouth into a patch of fireweed. He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his lips. Then he turned to Dahro.

“Well,” he said, “we found what you said we would, where you said we would.”

Meeks had caught his breath, and was heaving himself now up the porch steps. He looked round at the four members of the house who had remained; and smiled in a way that he apparently thought cunning.

“You know,” he said, “it’s the strangest thing. Those poor young ladies seem to have been mauled by wolves!”

“That’s terrible,” said Dahro.

Meeks nodded in concession. “Oh, surely – surely it is. But the strange thing
about
it, you see, is this. I’ve heard a lot, now, about people spotting wolves in this particular area. Always at least four of them, they say, at a time. Now, what was that? – just last year, old man Gribble shot down a pair of them, near to his fence. Said they were after his chickens.”

Caramon made a low growl at this. Ceir put out a hand to quiet him, but was obviously no less incensed. Truly, old man Gribble – terrible excuse for a human being that he was – had killed two wolves the April past. Rya and Alet had been their names, mates from the house of Kaegan. They had been nowhere near the property of Ernest Gribble, at that time – but had been instead patrolling the trees of the forest West of Mindren. Gribble had been lurking in the trees, spying for game, and had caught sight of them, running in a group of six. They smelt him too late – and by the time they knew to flee, both Alet and Rya had been already shot down. They did not die instantly, but were hefted onto the backs of Alet’s brothers, and returned to their house, where they suffered grievously for long days. It had taken much restraint, to keep Eroh (father of Alet) from slaying Gribble.

“I hate to hasten you, Officer,” said Dahro; “but what is your point?”

“My
point,”
said Meeks, “is that this is a right strange place. Wolves running all about, all year long! More here than any other place! Can you explain that to me?”

“Why ever would I be able to explain that, Officer Meeks?”

“This is the forest and marshland of Louisiana,” said Nessa. “There are wolves, and all sorts of dangerous things, stalking the night. And I assure you, sir – that this is not the only place they stalk.”

Dahro issued her a cautioning glance, barely discernible.

“Well, you sure seem to know a lot about all that, missy.” Meeks cocked his head to the side; and his hat very nearly fell off. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Nessa.”

“Well, Miss Nessa,” said Meeks, extracting a small memorandum book from his pocket, and beginning to jot down the name. But then he looked up, and asked, “What’s your last name?”

“I don’t have one.”

“You’re some right strange folk,” said Meeks. “Something ‘bout you all doesn’t sit right with me. What do you think, Bill?”

He looked to Martin; but the second man only glared at him, as if he were the absolute most ignorant person he had ever met. “Shut your mouth, Meeks!” he snapped. “This is no time for fooling.”

Meeks stuffed his notebook back into his pocket, fell behind his partner, and assumed an air of submissiveness with which he was all too familiar.

~

Soon after Martin placed his request to the dispatcher, the land around Dog’s Hill became quickly crowded with additional emergency vehicles. Dahro and Ceir retreated into the house, but Nessa and Caramon stood long on the porch. They watched, as the two bodies were rolled out of the trees, in black plastic bags atop gurneys.

It was a long while before the chaos died down. Additional officers posed additional questions, and tramped in and out of the house requesting coffee; but finally they all were gone. Officer Martin came again to Dahro, before he quit the place, and stood talking with him a moment.

“Is your business concluded,” Dahro inquired kindly, “or might we be expecting you back again?”

“No, no,” said Martin, shaking his head in rather a dazed fashion. “The coroner’s called it death by animal, no doubt about it – and we won’t be troubling you folks anymore. I just hope your young people can get the sight’a those girls out of their minds; ‘cause I’m not sure whether
I
can.”

Dahro provided the officer, then, with a comforting pat on the shoulder; and the fellow walked away, with a most blank expression upon his face.

~

The halls of Mindren were alive with activity. The runners had arrived long before, and set the place into a flurry. Morachi had thereafter summoned the houses of Fendon, Silo and Kaegan. Presently wolfen and human shapes darted this way and that, in either errand of madness; and it was incredibly difficult for the last four arrivals to squeeze their way into the entrance tunnel.

Dahro conferred with passing friends, and discovered that a meeting would convene shortly in the Hall of Modendo. It seemed that the Ziruk had fallen, too, upon the house of Silo – though none there had been slain. Ceir was called away to see to their injuries.

Dahro folded immediately into the shuffle, and sent his children to join the remainder of their house in the dining hall. Here, a large number of the Endai milled about, with anxious movements and voices.

The younger Endai had now the chance to sit down together, and lean their heads down in conversation. Faevin was in a terrible state, shaking ever with an intense fury, and speaking each second of the death blows he would deal.

“Those brutes are finished,” he muttered through clenched teeth, while his fist pounded down upon the table. “They are finished!”

“Peace, brother,” said Caramon, laying a hand on his arm.

“Peace!” exclaimed Faevin, shaking Caramon away. “Have peace – at a time like this! Show yourself a man for once – won’t you, Caramon?”

“And what is it, to be a man?” demanded Caramon. “To lose one’s head, and speak of acts the likes of which he knows he cannot achieve? Should I foam at the mouth, and slam my fists against the tabletop? Will that make me a man, Faevin?”

“Do not test me, Caramon!”

“Stop this!” shouted Orin. “This is not the time for unrest amongst ourselves!”

Faevin went back to his mumbling, and turned away from the rest towards Leyra. He laid his head for a moment on her shoulder, growling and snapping his teeth.

Leyra looked with quite the unhappiest countenance imaginable, in Nessa’s direction; but Nessa had not a thought of pity for her.

“What do you think will happen?” asked Orin. “Will we be able to return home?”

Nessa snapped her head towards him. “And why should we not?” she asked loudly.

“Do use your sense, sister!” said Caramon. “There is danger abroad.”

“And so there has been – for years now, brother.”

“An Endalin has never been killed like this!”

“Is that so? What of Eparo, and all those like him? What of them, brother?”

“That was different. That was cowardice! Never since then have the Ziruk attempted such a – such a –”

Nessa was the one, this time, to bang her hand upon the table. “And what of the night Dechtire was injured? She would have died, if help had not come when it did. And you forget that Arod was killed? Arol will spare no effort now.”

“All the more reason to remain at Mindren!” cried Caramon.

“Will we hide here forever?” Nessa demanded. “Will we remain crouched in this hole, never again to see the light of day?”

“Not forever,” Caramon rejoined calmly. “But, yes – for now.”

Nessa set her face, and planted her elbows on the table. There was nothing more to argue.

~

An hour later, each clan sat crowded together in the Hall of Modendo.

The Hall of Modendo – thus named for the first King of the American Endai, father many generations past of Morachi himself. Perhaps the most intricately crafted chamber in the fortress, the walls here offered more than a view of dark and damp stone. Wrought almost in the beauty of an ancient cathedral, there were colourful murals (mostly scenes of the hunt and the chase) painted upon every surface, including the ceiling. The moulding was of genuine gold, shaped handsomely into the fashion of a running braid. At the head of the hall was a wide stage, shining brightly in the light from above: the one and only thing at Mindren, which was fashioned of wood.

The house of Dahro was seated at the front of the hall, near to the grieving house of Huro. In a corner, Morachi stood with Dahro and several other sires, speaking loudly in the Endalin tongue. It seemed that the former’s anger had not yet been restrained; for he glanced repeatedly towards the house of Huro, with a look of thirsting vengeance in his flashing eyes. The muscles in his arms and shoulders bulged threateningly through the fabric of his shirt, and he could not keep his feet still. When the hand of one of the sires came down to rest upon his shoulder, he shook it away, and strode directly to the front of the hall. He mounted the stage, and began to speak.