The Dark of Twilight (Twilight Shifters Book 1) (15 page)

He motioned to a man to bring forward a silver breastplate.  He turned back towards her.  "I would have you back in my service..."

"I cannot," she stammered.  "I must continue my search for the mushrooms."

He cut her off.  "You refuse to take on the yoke of service?  To obey the commands of your sworn lord?"

There was menace in that statement.  She realized it would take very clever thinking to stay alive.  She hoped the gods would forgive her lies. That they would look upon this moment and see that her lord was a tyrant, not a protector, and that by foreswearing her allegiance, she was refusing to serve one who would harm his own people.

"I must find the cure..."

"You must find the cure?  We are going to the Haidra lands to seize the cure!" he stated.  "Unless, of course, you are in league with those who want us to remain in this form forever."

"What?" she asked.  The werewolves around Lord Arnkell began to growl.

"Are you a collaborator with Princess Gisla?"

"What?"

"We know you are a deserter.  We know that you are weak minded and abandoned your friend to the border..."

"You left him for dead!  I warned you and you did not even send reinforcements!"

And that was when Aein realized she had overstepped and fallen directly into the confession Lord Arnkell was looking for.

"Tie her to that tree!" he called.

"What are you doing?" she cried as two men stepped forward and grabbed her elbows, frog-marching her to the trunk.  She shouted at Lord Arnkell, hoping someone would hear her.  "You were the one who commanded Cook Bolstad to make that dish!  You were the one who tricked me into bringing the mushrooms back!"

"Gag her and cut out her tongue if she utters another word!"

Aein clamped her mouth shut.  She knew that he was not lying.  He turned back to his army of man and beasts.  "This was a curse brought down upon us by the Haidra household and I have captured the Haidra bitch!"  He went over and kicked one of the female werewolves in the ribs.  The animal whimpered.  "I shall deliver her and all her minions of evil sent to her father's door.  He shall see what hell he unleashed.  We shall take over his lands and his people and WE shall reign!"

The men and women around him raised their swords with cries of lust.

Lord Arnkell turned back to Aein.  "And you my dear?  There is a pack of unharnessed werewolves coming for you right now.  I told those traitors you would be here.  I told them to come and find you, that you, my pretty warrior-girl, would have a cure for them.  We shall just leave you here until the dawn, for before sunrise, my girl, you shall feed their pretty bellies."  He turned back to his crew.  "A fitting end for the traitor who brought the curse down upon us!"

Aein struggled against her ropes and screamed out, but the gag muffled her voice. 

She watched Lord Arnkell's men take her two horses.  They dumped out her supplies, taking her weapons and armor.  They took her hatchet for cutting wood.  They took her bedroll.  They took everything—everything except for the berries hidden between her cleavage.  And then she saw something which made her heart stop.  She had missed one of the berries.  One of Lord Arnkell's men dumped her bags and picked it up.  Like a joke, he threw it up in the air and caught it in his mouth, chewing it happily.

They would know, she realized.  The moment he changed into a werewolf, he would know something was different and he would think back upon everything for some clue.  They would know.  They would figure it out.  They would come back.

She struggled again, but no one paid her any attention.  With laughs and jeers, Lord Arnkell's army faded into the darkness beyond the light of the campfire.  But before he left, Lord Arnkell looked back at her with pure hatred dripping from his eyes.  Quietly, so that no one else would hear, he said, "I told you I knew everything."

S
he struggled against her bonds as her mind raced.  There were wild werewolves on the way. 

She looked up at the stars and prayed to the gods that something would save her, that somehow she would escape.  But there was nothing.  Only silence as Lord Arnkell disappeared into the night.  Only the crackling pop of her dying fire.  Only the whisper of a cricket singing his lonely song.

And then she heard the baying dogs in the distance.  They would be upon her at any moment.  She struggled again, but the ropes were too tight.  She screamed and strained against them, but it was futile.  She hung her head forward and began to cry in fear and frustration.  She looked back up again.  No, she would meet this death bravely.  She would face it unflinching.

And then she felt the ropes begin to move.  She looked behind her.  Finn!  It was Finn!  She would have cried his name aloud, but the gag in her mouth prevented her.

The ropes fell and he pulled her away, leaving her to remove the gag as they ran.  There was a shallow river and Aein and Finn splashed through.  The sound of the dogs still followed after.

"Lars is leading the group upstream.  Remember, we only need to stay ahead of the werewolves until the dawn."

"They took my sword.  I cannot protect anyone," Aein said.

Finn looked back and gave her a sparkling grin full of life.  "Then we run."

And so they did.  Upstream through the water.  She could not imagine that the sound of them splashing through would not alert the dogs which direction to head.  Then Finn grabbed her arm and hauled her up the bank.  She slid in the mud, desperately trying to find a toe-hold.  It almost seemed as if Finn's strength as an animal was beginning to bleed into his strength as a man. He did not seem to tire.  He pulled her up behind him like she weighed nothing.  In the far distance, there was the sound of footsteps hitting the water, the sound of baying.

Aein froze.  Surely there was a tree they could climb.  A defensible embankment.  A hovel hole.  Somewhere they could hide.

"Run," instructed Finn again.

And that was all she needed to tear on after him.  This time they remained wordless, trying to put as much distance between them and the river.  Finn pushed Aein one direction as he ran the other so that their paths parted and then met up again farther down the road.  Perhaps that might delay the dogs, thought Aein.  They did it again.  And then kept running.  The baying seemed more distant, but they did not slow.

"Here!" said Finn, pointing to a grove of trees.  A low fog hung around the base.

Aein pulled back, realizing what it was.  "No," she whispered, pleading.

"There is nowhere else," Finn replied, placing his hands upon her back and pushing her into the forest.

Only it wasn't just the forest.  It was the swamp.  The swamp had grown.  Its borders had become amoeba like, stretching around the solid lands like a sickening embrace.  The moment the fog touched Aein, she felt the panic begin to rise again in her throat. 

"It is just a little farther," Finn urged.  "I promise.  Just a little further."

Aein felt a spider web fall across her face, and she quickly brushed it off, the sticky threads being too much after the ropes which just bound her.  Her feet began to sink in the mud.  Finn was not faring any better, but he reached back to steady her and they continued on.  The howling of the dogs sounded like they were coming through a dream, but they were coming, and they were coming closer.

"Get in here!" said Finn.

The fog was so thick, she had not even seen the huge hillside.  There were massive rocks in front of it.  Between two of them, there was a small opening, just barely enough for a person to squeeze through.  But Aein did.  She pushed her body through the boulders and felt like there should have been a popping sound when she emerged.  Huddled together in this makeshift stone circle were all the others who escaped from her camp, but no Lars.

"Where is Lars?" Aein asked, spinning around.

Finn squeezed after her.  "He's fine."

It didn't reassure her.  "Then why isn’t he here?" she asked.

At that moment, the werewolves were at the boulder opening.  But they would step forward and then retreat, yipping in pain, before coming back to attack again.

"What is going on?" asked Aein.

Finn grinned as he caught his breath, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  "Silver ore."

"What?"

He pointed at the floor, at the rocks.  "Lars led us here, but when he tried to enter, he couldn't.  Just like those werewolves.  We're safe."

Aein leaned her hands upon her thighs and looked up.  She could see the sky overhead.  If the werewolves figured out how to scale the boulders they would be dead.  Lars was now out in the swamp alone...

"I will save my celebration until we see the morning," she said.

Finn placed a reassuring hand upon her shoulder.  "They are hunting us, not him.  He will be back with the sunrise.  He's been laying false tracks the entire time you and I were running.  It was the only way that we survived."

Yet again, she owed her life to a man she left abandoned in the swamp. 

Finn saw her shift in mood.  "Come," he said.  You're alive.  You must tell us everything that happened between the time we left and I found you tied to a tree."

And Aein realized that she owed her life to Finn, too.  If he had not been there to cut the rope.  If he had not come exactly when he did, instead of abandoning her like she had told him too... she hated to think about where she would be right now. 

Her face gentled as the fear begin to fade away.  Finn pushed back a muddy strand of her blonde hair.  "There.  If we cannot laugh in the face of our own deaths, what can we laugh at?"

"I would take a court jester any day of the week," said Aein.

"So tell me a joke about those that invaded the camp."

Aein tried to ignore the relentless sound of the rabid werewolves trying to get into their sanctuary.  She told them all about Lord Arnkell and his betrayal.  She was glad that there was almost no light so she did not have to see the look of shock upon their face.  She told them of how he was going to use the werewolves to attack the Haidra lands, that she saw at least eighty, forty men and forty werewolves, among his company.  She also told them that Lord Arnkell had captured the Princess Gisla.

Aein noted it was the news of the princess's fate which seemed to bother Finn the most.  Finn had his back against one of the boulders and was seated in a crouch.  When Aein finally ran out of words, she heard him sigh.

"What do we do?" she asked.

"We must go to the Haidra lands and warn them," said Finn.  "We must tell King Haidra that his daughter is lost."

T
he next morning, it was the gradual lightening which woke Aein.  Or perhaps it was the absence of the dogs outside.

"Wake up!" she said to the others.  "Get up before you change!"

Sleepily, they had already started to shift.  One of the women pulled back her hand.  Smoke was pouring from where it had touched the silver ore in the ground.  She gasped, recoiling as if she had placed her hand on a hot stove, and raced outside.  The other followed her as soon as she was clear of the opening.  One after another, they squeezed through.  Finn winced as he waited his turn, last except for Aein, to make sure everyone got safely out.  His feet were already becoming paws, his legs were already canine.  He finally squeezed through the gap, crying in pain as he changed, his skin coming into contact with the boulders.

He fell onto the ground.  Aein dashed out of the rocks and to his side.  By the time she got there, everyone had completed their change.  The werewolves from the night before were now terrified people who had taken off towards the forest, but were slowly coming back when they realized no one was making chase.  Finn lay on his side, though, his breathing labored.  Where he had brushed against the stone, great welts were left in his skin, leaving silver burns where the fur did not come in.  There wasn't anything to do.  They had no healer.  No water to wash the wound.  Nothing.

She turned around, aware that the pack that hunted them were now in their human form.

"Should we kill him while he's down?" asked one.

"NO!" shouted Aein.  "No!"

The group stepped back from her fierceness.

Suddenly, a familiar voice spoke.  Lars stepped forward, now human once again, and placed himself beside Aein.  "He is our friend.  Like I told you, she has a cure."

"Look at how good it has cured him," spat one of the men, pointing at Finn.

"It was the silver ore," Aein said.  "The silver in that rock.  It is what kept us safe from you."

The crowd shuffled back and forth, unsure of what to say.  That same older man stepped forward.  "Is it true, though?  You have something that can help us?"

Aein nodded, but inwardly did a head count.  She did not have enough berries.  Would half of one be enough?  Should she ration them out?  How did someone give twenty-one berries to forty people?

"I don’t know if I have enough..."Aein confessed.

"Well, give to me!" the man said, pushing his way forward.  "I'll take them!"

At once, it was like a riot, people pushing and grabbing at Aein in desperation.  Suddenly, Finn's large, black, flying mass knocked down the older man, holding him flat on the ground, his snarling mouth close to the man's face.  Any pain he was in seemed to disappear with this call to duty.

It was enough to calm the crowd.

"We will split what we have.  We will be fair," said Aein.  "I don't know what effect they will have, only giving you half a dose, but we must do what we can."

"Line up!" directed Lars.  "Any who do not cooperate will not receive any!"

The werewolves around the people circled.  Though not threatening, they kept their eyes on the crowd like sheep dogs upon a flock.

Aein picked up one of the berries and held it up to the first woman.  "Do you swear you will bite this in half?" she asked.

The woman before her nodded.  She took it from Aein, bit it in half and then passed it to the person beside her.  This went on down the line until finally, Aein reached the final person.  It was a young boy, perhaps eleven or twelve.  Aein stared into his face.  She had one whole berry.  Would it be better to have him eat half and give the other half to someone stronger?  Someone wiser?  Someone whom she would be better served to have sane and at her side?