Moon Rise (Twilight Shifters Book 2) (7 page)

Time morphed - to stretch into forever while seeming like it sped up.  She was sure years had passed and there was no way they could still be alive.  It had only been moments, though.  She grabbed the rope, tied it around her saddle, and threw the end to Lars.  He grabbed it and looped it around his horse's head.  If they could just get the animal going in the right direction, it would be all right, she kept telling herself.

It was then Finn took matters into his own hands.  He ran out on the boardwalk and then, with a mighty leap, he jumped into the bog.  Aein stifled back a cry as she saw the wolf's body sink, but he struggled on, coming up behind the horse to herd the animal towards safety.  Horses and werewolves usually were neutral with one another.  The wild werewolves only hunted human flesh and the horses seemed to have figured it out.  But not this time.

Step by fearful step, Finn drove Lars’s horse back towards the road, nipping at his hindquarters.  Aein drove her own horse forward, keeping the rope taut so Lars's mount knew which direction to go.  The sound of the wolf snarling and barking, the screams and pants of the horse, the sound of Lars shouting at the animal to keep it fighting - Aein knew they would color her nightmares.  Finally, half dragging the animal out of the bog, the horse was on the road.  Its ears were pressed against the back of its head and its eyes were white with terror. 

"Shhhh!  Shhhh!  Shhhh!" Aein whispered, trying to calm it. 

Though its breath was heaving in its sides and exhaustion should have quieted it, it snapped and bit and kicked whenever she tried to get near it.  She needed the rope and it was not cooperating.

Lars was sinking fast into the mud.  Every step was making it worse.  The weight of his armor was dragging him down.  Finn leapt and paddled to his side, but they were both in terrible danger.  Aein ran back to her saddle, throwing everything on the ground and rooting through the mess for something which might work.  She grabbed her bow, laid down on the road, and reached it out to Lars, using it as an extension of her arm.  He struggled and fought, half walking, half swimming, until the tips of his fingers reached the tip of the wood.  The mud was up to his chest.  Aein pulled with all her might.  Lars wrapped his arm around Finn's torso and hauled him along.  Aein cried out from the exertion, trying to keep focused on getting her friends to safety and not getting trampled by Lars's fool horse.  Finally, Lars's fingertips touched the road.

Aein leaned out and wrapped her hands around Lars's wrists, ready to haul him out, but instead, he shouted at Finn. "Climb up my back!"

She could almost see the wheels in Finn's mind spin, wanting to protest against getting out first, but the wolf relented.  Using Lars's back as a ladder, the wolf scrambled his way to safety.

And then Aein pulled with all her might.  Lars already outweighed her, but with the armor and the weight of the muck, she feared she might go into the bog with him.  She managed to get him to the road.  He rested his elbows on the wooden slats.  Lars swung one leg up, his toe catching the side, but couldn't hold it and fell again.  He was exhausted and had to pause to gather his strength, but the mud would not let him.  Finn paced back and forth, searching for some way to help.

Aein leaned down and wrapped her arms under Lars's armpits.  He clung to her neck like a frightened child.  She wriggled herself into a sitting position and leaned back, using all of Lars’s weight to fall backwards.  He came out of the muck with a squelching sound.  They lay there for several moments, too exhausted to move.  Finn came over and desperately began licking both their faces.

"I'm okay!  I'm okay," protested Lars, pushing him away.  "Just give me a minute."  Finn stepped back, shifting back and forth on his haunches as if ready to leap upon them again the moment they recovered.

Lars rolled off of Aein and fell beside her, his head resting on her arm as they caught their breath. 

"Thanks," he said, opening up his eyes just long enough to look at her.  He tapped his palm on his heart.  "I thought I was done for." 

Aein rolled over and hugged him tight.  Her body was still shaking from terror.  She thought she had lost him and in those moments it had felt like the whole world was going to end.  She never wanted to let go of him ever again.  "You're welcome," she whispered.

The moment was broken as Finn began to whine and bark.  Aein turned her head to see what was disturbing him.  "It's that damned bird again," she grunted.

"Maybe we should play dead," said Lars.  "I feel like I could play dead very well right now."

Finn continued barking, the insistence in his voice becoming clearer.

Lars rolled onto his side, pausing for a moment on his hands and knees before pushing himself up to a standing position. He held out his hand to Aein.  "Duty calls."

Aein struggled to her feet.  She was encrusted in a layer of filthy brown.  Finn and Lars were in even worse shape, covered from head to foot in muck.

Lars turned and rested a hand on Finn's shoulder.  "Thank you," he said.

The wolf gave a whine.

Lars walked to his terrified horse and was able to unwind the rope from around its neck.  "Idiot animal.  Don't you know we execute soldiers who desert?"  He removed a shirt from his bedroll and tied it over the animal's eyes like a mask.  Immediately, it calmed down.  He gave it an understanding slap on its shoulders.  "Don't worry, my friend.  I feel the same way.  No one goes willingly into the swamp if they know what is in there."

As if to punctuate his words, a biting wind blew down the planks of the road.  Aein tried to tell herself it was just because the temperature was cooler beneath the trees, but she couldn't shake the sense that something watched in the shadows.  She shivered.

As they walked into the swamp, the fog was still present, but it did not wrap around them like it had in the past.  Aein wondered what had distracted it.  To generate fear seemed to be its only reason for existence. 

Moss dripped from bare branches like spider webs.  A layer of bright green algae covered the water, rippling sluggishly as it lapped the roots of the trees.  They walked on and soon came to the clearing with the bush.  Aein peered in.  Though the bush was still there, there was no sign of anyone from the Haidra kingdom.

"Where is the guard?" she murmured to Lars.

He shook his head, as mystified as her.  Finn crept beside them.  The fur on his back was raised, but not aimed at anything in particular. 

They continued on for hours.  Aein stifled the urge to call out to see if anyone was there.  She didn't want to attract unwanted attention.  The tension was so thick, it made her want to run and hide like a mouse.  Neither Lars nor Finn made a sound.  Even their horses seemed to step lightly. 

The road led to the campground where she and Lars had spent the first night, the night when he first transformed into a wolf and killed the guard.  He had been trapped here the rest of the time, slowly going insane. 

But while the fog had kept back from them during their journey, this time it blocked their way completely, cutting off the road like a curtain.  Lars pulled his horse to a stop.  He tugged at the neck of his armor as if the metal was cutting off his breath.  Aein reached over and gripped his hand, asking silently if he was able to go on.  Finn waited as Lars wrestled his feelings under control.  Finally, he nodded and all three of them stepped into the mist.

At first it was just white and grey.  Then came the sounds.  The snuffling, breathing sounds.  Then the noise of angry jaws snapping and biting.  It was just a trick of the fog, she told herself.

"That was me..." Lars's voice cracked.

And then they were through.  The campground sat before them, the wooden road gone as the land rose above the marshy waterline.

"They're dead," whispered Aein in horror.  "They are all dead."

A
ein choked back the bile as it rose in her throat.  She needed to be strong for Lars, she told herself.  She fixed on him, but as their eyes locked, she realized he was telling himself the same thing.

The campground was littered with bodies.  Their heads were twisted on their necks and their stomachs had been ripped open by something with sharp claws.  The doors had been ripped off the wooden sleeping shacks to get at the people inside.  They had been dead for some time.  The stench of the rot sat heavy in the air.  Flies and maggots were making a meal of these guardsmen, these loyal people who had faithfully served Queen Gisla.  They had not been killed by some wild animal for food, they had been killed for the joy of death. 

Finn sat on his haunches, unable to stop himself, and lifted his muzzle to the sky, letting out a plaintive howl.  He had known them all, Aein realized.  He served with these men and women.  He would have been the one to send them to this doom.

She ran forward and wrapped her arms around his body as he continued to cry in the only way his form would allow. She glanced up.  Lars was picking his way through the carnage.  He opened his hands and placed them against four evenly spaced slashes in the tree.  He could not spread his fingers wide enough to fit in the marks.  It was a monster who had done this, something so huge it could rip into the trunk of a tree with a swipe of its paw.

Aein thought of what Finn and Lars had been before they’d eaten the berries.  They had been driven by this same instinct to destroy.  Whatever did this was not just some animal, it was a creature of the swamp.

Lars tied the horses to a far tree, giving them enough lead so they could eat what they could of the sparse grass.  Finn finally stopped howling.  He leaned his whole weight against Aein, whimpering with every breath.  Lars crouched down beside him.  "We have to burn the bodies before the sun goes down," he said, his emotions masked beneath the stone surface of duty.  "Bodies in the swamp have been known to rise."

She brushed back Finn's filthy mats of muddy fur.  "I need you to find safe water for us to clean ourselves in.  We will handle this," she promised.

Finn wobbled away, as if each step caused him pain. 

"Come on," said Lars to Aein.  "We have to do this."

They began gathering wood and got the pit started.  Once the fire was crackling, there was no putting it off any longer.  Aein and Lars, picking up and pulling what they could, drew the bodies to the fire.  It had been so long since they died that some of the body parts fell off as they carried them.  Aein had to stop to empty the contents of her stomach several times.  The stench of charred, rotting, human flesh was one of the worst things she ever endured.  Lars continued on with a grim stoicism.  Here she thought she would need to be the one to lend him strength, and he was the one taking it most in stride.

Finn returned, but they did not acknowledge him until the last body was on the fire.  The sun was hanging low in the sky by the time they were done.

Aein and Lars grabbed clean clothes from their packs and then followed Finn to a spring which they were both already very much aware was there.  They just needed to give Finn a job while they handled his friends.

Aein and Lars stripped, helping each other out of their armor and all three of them dove into the pond.  Between the muck from the bog and the filth Aein did not want to contemplate from the camp, the water was soon murky and brown.  Aein kept an alert eye for creatures who might try to sneak up on them.  By the time they were clean, it was almost time for the transformation.  Aein climbed out of the water followed by Finn and Lars.  They dressed in silence.  None of them made a move to go back to the campground.

The shift came.  It was a gentle ripple.  One minute, Finn was in wolf form, and the next he was human.  His eyes were full of tears, his face full of grief.

"Thank you for saving me in the bog," said Lars, coming forward and gripping Finn's arm.  The man nodded his head in acceptance.

"We must decide what we need to do next," said Finn, his voice cracking.  "What is your recommendation?"

Lars rubbed his hands through his wet, red hair.  "That we set fire to this entire swamp and call it a day?"

Finn laughed a harsh, sad chuckle.  "I shall be the first with a torch."

"We have to leave two here on the border," Lars stated.  There was a resigned finality to his tone.  He knew he was the best choice to stay.  "If we don't, more of what caused this will come through.  We have to hold the swamp—"

That was all they had time for.  Just as Lars was about to continue his sentence, he faded.  Frustration crossed his face before his emotions were lost behind his muzzle and fur. 

Finn rested his hand upon Lars's powerful shoulder. "We shall hold the border," he promised.  He directed Aein.  "You will need to ride as quickly as possible to Queen Gisla—"

Aein cut him off.  "You mean
you
need to ride as quickly as possible to Queen Gisla."

The silence between them was charged with energy.  Even the birds stopped singing.  Finn turned back to Lars and asked, "Would you give us a minute?"

The wolf got up quickly, as if he wanted no part of this discussion.  He trotted off towards the camp without pausing to look back.

When he was out of sight, Finn came back to Aein.  "I cannot leave you here in the swamp," argued Finn.

"This swamp is a part of the land which I belong," Aein pointed out.  "If a soldier from Lord Arnkell's stronghold shows up here and sees you, he'll kill you.  No questions asked.  It will be a sign of war and end whatever truce, uneasy as it might be, between Queen Gisla and Lord Arnkell.  At least if I stay, there's a chance it might be someone I know and can talk some sense to them."

"That's not an option—" Finn began.

But Aein would not give.  She held up her hand and ticked off the points on each of her fingers.  "You are the only one who knew these men and women and you owe it to them to deliver this news to their families.  You're the only one who knows what size an army needs to be brought back.  You're the only one who can organize the troops.  And finally..." Aein glanced away.  A strange lump rose in her throat.  "I cannot lead a war."  She shrugged apologetically.  "If I came across Lord Arnkell marching with a battalion of guards, I do not know if I could tell Queen Gisla's army to attack my old friends.  Please don't make me kill my people until I absolutely have to."