“Yeah, and you believe him more than me.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “I know they wouldn’t go to such great lengths to capture someone whom they just disliked. So what was it? Did you cheat them somehow? Did you steal their money?”
He was already shaking his head. “I didn’t do anything, okay? It’s just—this village used to be run solely by the men. All the women just took their crap, got beat up, shouted at…” He shook his head quickly with a frown as though from a bitter memory before he went on.
“All these guys did all day was get drunk and lounge around while the women worked. And it just so happened that with the couple I had stayed with, the wife and I got to talking about their…condition.” Then he added, offhand, “And I happened to mention that she didn’t need to be putting up with her husband. I told her about how it could be, how it was for some in my world.”
He shrugged again. “She believed me and left him. After that, I guess all the women started to believe they could also do better, so one by one they all left the village.”
I looked at him, shaking my head. “Why did you do that?”
He threw his hands up. “I don’t believe this! You think I should’ve just left them alone to get beaten up, don’t you?”
I pursed my lips. “Well, I think you must have disturbed a village that had its own workings—”
He shot me a skeptical look then shook his head again. “Never mind,” he dismissed. “You wouldn’t understand. I forgot I was talking to the guardian of routine and permanence and all things that do not change.”
“That is not what I am,” I declared pointedly.
Josh gave me an oh-please expression.
I gave him a suffering look. “If I were, then shouldn’t I still be in the Forest?” I countered. “Nothing would’ve changed and everything would’ve still been the way they always were. But nooo, you had to come along and make a mess of everything. If you had listened to me and left the relic alone, this would not have happened and we would not be hanging in these trees waiting for these barbarians to slaughter us.”
“Relax,” he spoke calmly. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Take care of this?” my voice went up a few decibels. “You keep saying that. But as far as I can tell, I’m still in this cage. And you’re just sitting there doing—oh—wait—nothing!” I snapped before launching into it, muttering indignantly to myself. “This is unbelievable. This can’t be happening to me. I shouldn’t even be here. If these people lay even one finger on me, I swear someone is going to pay. I knew I should’ve just stayed behind—”
“Hey,” he called. “Shut up.”
I winced, taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”
Josh sat up and looked toward the horizon where the Great Star was almost parallel then he cocked his head as if straining to listen for something.
I blinked. What the hell was he doing now?
He started to push backward in his cage and then forward. He did it a few more times, eventually moving it so that his cage began to swing back and forth.
“What are you doing?” I shot him another weird look yet again.
But after a few moments, his cage had swung far enough for him to snatch a couple of leaves or flowers or something off the nearest tree branch then he hunched over them for a while in his cage.
I squinted to try to see what he was doing with the leaves but the shadows of the falling dusk were getting in the way.
Then he swung out once more in an attempt to grab hold of the other end of the rope that held his cage suspended up the tree. It took him a few tries but he finally caught it. He groaned in the strain as he reached out and rubbed some type of sap onto the rope.
I looked warily down at the barbarians to see if any of them could see what was going on up here but most of them were sleeping, the rest were drunk.
I looked back up at Josh as he finished and raised my eyebrows at him expectantly but all he said between labored gasps was “Cross your fingers.”
Cross my what? I was going to ask for an explanation when I heard a faint screeching sound from far away.
And it seemed to be coming closer. “Uh… What’s…that…?”
Chapter Twelve
Josh was looking out to the horizon again, the expression on his face intense as he seemed to be waiting for something.
The screeching sound got louder and some of the men below us roused.
I glanced down at them before looking up again, squinting in the dark to try to identify what was coming.
At first, all I could see were the dark shadows of the thick forest. Then the shadows became denser and denser until they took shape—of a thousand flying creatures headed this way!
They came like a noisy storm, swooping down on the camp, their wings flapping in a mad rush. They swarmed the camp, waking up the men who scrambled and struggled to shoo them away. Some of the men yelled out and ran around, trying to fend off the winged attackers. Others ran into the forest in a frenzy.
A few of the creatures flew toward me and I made a face, waiting for them to possibly nibble me to death. But they were too big to fit through the wooden bars of the cage.
Besides, they weren’t after me.
I looked up to see where the creatures were headed. Into the trees. To feed. My mouth dropped open.
Then I heard a creaking sound and looked over just as the rope holding Josh’s cage gave way and his cage plummeted and hit the ground with a loud, satisfying wood-cracking sound.
I peered down the side of my cage to see Josh push out of the wooden rubble.
My eyes popped out in disbelief. That lunatic!
I looked around. Most of the men had scattered and nobody seemed to notice—or care—that Josh had escaped.
He went around the camp, gathering up a few of his belongings that the men had taken from him.
I scanned the grounds for the relic. The burly man with the crystal case in his hand was running away. “Hey, hey—he’s got the relic!” I shouted down to Josh.
He snapped up his head to look at me then to the direction I pointed and he took off.
I shuffled around the small cage to get a better view but they both disappeared behind the trees and I couldn’t see what was going on. “Dammit!” I pounded on the bars with my fists. I was still dangling from very high up.
The flying creatures had come and gone with the wind. After a few moments, all was quiet again, save for the crackling of the fire below where the camp had been left empty.
I scanned the area for Josh but I couldn’t see him. He better not have gone and left me up here in this cage, I thought in annoyance. He had better come back and get me.
I was starting to get creeped out, being alone in the dark, strange forest. “Um…help!” I called out tentatively. “Somebody help!”
A figure stepped out from the shadows. “Well, well, lookee what they left for me. A little bird in a cage.”
I looked down and grimaced. It was that thin guy, Thalamus, or something. “Uh, hi,” I greeted, trying to sound pleasant. “Would you mind helping me down please?”
He laughed a laugh that made my skin crawl. “If I did, what would you give me?”
I swallowed hard. “Um, what do you want?”
Stupid question. I knew exactly what he’d want.
He laughed again. “I’m afraid I’m not quite as slow as the others,” he informed me, stepping closer. “I know exactly what you are.”
I held my breath. He did? “You do?”
He smirked. “You’re that pixie girl that haunts the Southern Forest. I’ve been there. I’ve heard everything there is to be heard. I know all about your relic too. I know what it’s been said to be able to do.”
“Oh, I believe someone else has run off with it.” I tried to distract him. “You might as well go after him.”
He shook his head and guffawed. “Heh, I ain’t interested in that relic. I got you.”
I shot him a dull look. “Then you must have misheard y
our gossip. I’m nothing. I was just the guardian.”
“Yeah right, you don’t fool me, pixie. I know you got powers too. You can conjure me up everything I need and give me everything I want.”
My stomach turned in disgust and I edged back against the cage again.
“That cage will come in mighty handy, I reckon,” he commented with another laugh—which was cut abrupt by a thwacking sound.
I blinked and peered over the side of my cage in time to see Thalmus crumple down before Josh, who tossed aside a large flat rock. I couldn’t stop myself from sighing in relief.
“You okay?” Josh called up to me.
I met his gaze, incredibly grateful. “Yes.”
“Okay, goodbye now,” he said and turned on his heel to leave.
My jaw dropped. “What? Are you leaving me here?” I started to get mad. “You are not leaving me up here in this cage! Hey, get back here and get me down!”
He turned around to look back up. “Why?”
I blinked. Why? What the hell did he mean why?
“Why should I help you?” he prompted. “I’m the evil being who stole your precious relic and got you into all sorts of trouble. I mean, think about it. I don’t exactly owe you anything, do I?”
I groaned. Great. Just great.
“I’ve got a long way to go and I sure don’t want a pixie girl shouting in my ear the entire time and blaming me for everything that goes wrong and always trying to get the relic from me and—”
“Okay! Okay!” I resigned. “What do you want me to say? You want me to apologize? Then I’m sorry, okay? There. Happy?” I barked. “Now get me down from here.”
“No.” He sounded resolved. “I want you to promise that you’ll leave the relic alone.”
I was taken aback. Abandon my one responsibility in the whole entire world? Not bloody likely.
“Come on, Magenta. What’ll it be?” he prodded.
I made another face, glaring at him. “Very well then if you’re not going to help me. I’ve managed to survive by myself all these centuries. Do you think I’ve ever really needed anyone’s help? So you just run along.” I waved him away. “I’m sure I’ll find another way out. Eventually.” I folded my arms across my chest, leaning back against the cage.
He stared up at me. “Jeez, you are crazy,” he muttered in disbelief.
After a moment, my cage shifted a bit lower and I jerked up in my seat, glancing back down at him.
Josh had loosened the ropes holding my cage and was starting to lower it.
I furrowed my eyebrows in question.
He pursed his lips. “You’re too insane to leave behind. Who knows what you’ll do if I leave you here alone?” He grunted for a while to pull me down at a slow pace and then when there was still quite a bit more rope to go, he let go.
The cage smashed on the ground with me still inside. “Ow!” I cried. “What’d you do that for?”
“Sorry.” He shrugged. “That was the only way the cage would break open.”
I tried to resurface from beneath the wooden debris and he held out his hand to help me up.
“You owe me. Again.” He gave me a pointed look.
“That hurt, you—” I rubbed my sore shoulder.
“Sorry.” Josh tried to help me massage my back and the back of my neck.
I stiffened at his touch and moved away.
“S-sorry.” He cleared his throat and averted his gaze.
I turned away from him then made a face, pulling out some pieces of splinter caught in my hair as I looked around the camp.
“We’d better get out of here,” he started. “These woods are dangerous, even without the village people.”
I nodded in agreement even as I sifted around the rummaged things to find Dantilian’s scrolls which the men had also taken.
Josh was looking up at the sky again. “Really, we should get out of here,” he urged.
“Hold on.” I spotted one of the scrolls rolled up under a cloak and went for it.
“What are you looking for? Let’s go.”
“Could you wait one moment? I’m just getting—” I stopped short when I heard him curse under his breath again and I saw his eyes widen as he looked past my shoulder.
I straightened up. “What?”
Josh yanked me away just as a huge creature half as tall as the trees appeared out of nowhere and snapped its jaws right in the spot where I had been standing.
I screamed. “Wha—what’s that?”
The creature growled so loudly that the trees surrounding us shook.
Several of the flying creatures from earlier emerged from the trees, flapping about in a panic, and were immediately snapped up by the big monster’s huge mouth.
“It’s a Dreadtaur,” Josh replied before cursing again as we hurried to hide behind a tree. “It feeds on the Sallows—”
The beast whacked several trees down, including the one we were crouching behind.
I squeaked in fright and we staggered back.
“—and occasionally on people too.”
“Oh dammit!”
The Dreadtaur seemed to dig at the ground, huffing, the way an animal does before it charges at its enemy. Unfortunately, this time, we were the enemy. The animal let out another cry that reverberated throughout the forest before it lunged.
“Time to run,” Josh yelled and pulled me in his wake as he bolted through the forest, headed for the next village.
I nearly trampled over some decaying matter on the ground as we ran and I made the mistake of looking back, only to see that the creature chasing after us had incredible speed with its huge strides. I screamed again and ran faster. I could practically hear its jaws snapping up, could feel the air whoosh behind us every time it came close.
Josh tried to run it around, going under fallen trees, zigzagging through vines, into thick patches of bushes, but the beast simply plowed through the forest.
Even though we were already going faster than humanly possible, the creature kept gaining on us.
When the lanterns of the next village came into view, an idea popped into my head.
“When we get to the end of the forest, stop,” I called to Josh in between gasps.
“Stop what?”
“Stop running,” I repeated.
“Stop running? Are you crazy?”
“It’s just a simple beast. I should be able to take care of it,” I assured him.
“You?” he asked in disbelief even as he panted.
We reached the edge of the forest, at the arched shrine marking the entrance to the village, and skidded to a stop.
I turned to Josh, my eyes wide with urgency. “Give me the relic,” I pressed.
“What? No!”
“Do you want to die?” I prompted. “I’ll need to activate the power of the relic to be able to do this.”
“You just told me nobody can use the relic—unless you have a crazy level of some type of magic.”
I pursed my lips. “I know what I said. And I don’t know if it’ll work. I haven’t used my powers like this in a while but what else can we do?”
He shook his head briskly. “It’s not even open!”
“I still have to try.” I shot him an expectant look. “Unless you have a better idea?”
He studied my face. It was as though he was calculating how much he could trust me not to steal the relic back against how much danger he thought we were in.
I was heaving in alarm. I wasn’t about to tell him I was a powerless fairy right then and that I didn’t have the smallest inkling of this plan actually working.
What I did know was that the relic was the most powerful thing in the whole entire world and I had relied on its power to protect me for thousands of years. It had to save us.
“I’m the only one who could possibly do this right now,” I compelled, my gaze distracting up toward the charging Dreadtaur beast that was almost upon us.
Josh followed my gaze, cursed under his breath, and within a
blink of an eye, took the relic casing out of his pocket and tugged me back against him. He wound his arm around my waist, the relic in his other hand clasped against mine. “This is as close to it as you’re going to get,” he declared.
I blinked. I had no choice. “I’ll try it.” I nodded and held both my arms outstretched in front of us, making a face in an effort to concentrate.
I saw the great creature charging toward us from the dark forest. If I couldn’t pull this off, even the whole village would be flattened.
Oh please, oh please, oh please. I directed all my energy into my hands, summoning the forces of the Southern Forest, murmuring an ancient incantation and the wind blew fiercely in response.
I squinted in the wind as the Dreadtaur got closer. I could feel Josh’s labored breath near my neck. I was gasping myself. I hadn’t done any major conjuring in a pretty long while and the last time I did, I was safely within the realm of the Lake with the all-powerful relic all nicely tucked in and still protected within it.
I gritted my teeth. Don’t you dare fail me now.
“I hope this works,” I heard Josh say behind my ear.
So do I, I thought, fervently repeating the incantation as the Dreadtaur made a great leap to charge in our direction.
It gave out a loud growl as it pounced toward us head-on and I squeezed my eyes shut, already wincing in dread.
Then I heard a screech, a sort of whimpering.
I opened my eyes cautiously and saw that the boundary sphere around the village had lit up. But only for a moment to repel the Dreadtaur beast.
The creature tried again, jumping at us from the forest only to be repelled once more by the invisible barrier. After another attempt, the monster let out a loud pained howl before retreating into the woods and disappearing into the night.
When all was quiet, I dropped my arms, absolutely exhausted.
“Wow,” I heard Josh say from behind me as he loosened his hold.
I tried to give him a haughty look but found myself incredibly weakened and I began to slump to the ground instead.
“Whoa.” He caught me. “You okay? You were amazing! How did you even do that? That was some show!” he commented with an impressed smile.
Conjuring always took a lot out of me, especially being out of practice as I was. I tried to nod.
The Curse of the Arcadian Stone: Vol. 1 Stolen Oath (Nameless Fay) Page 8
