“Mother! Dad is waking!” Rena shouted as she stayed near him.
The tired tribe became alert and Brooke rushed over.
“Rena, not so loud.” Cage groaned as he sat up slowly. He began shaking his head as suddenly he became tightly embraced. He looked over as Brooke began to shake. “Babe, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” He looked around and blinked “Did we make it into the cave…? The last thing I remember…”
Cage’s eyes went wide and his headache vanished for a moment as he suddenly got to his feet and took a fighting stance. He looked around, finding only the Utala standing inside a cavern. Fifteen feet above stood a semi-sturdy ceiling and torches only illuminated a hundred feet at most of the cave as total darkness allowed no outside light in or it could have simply become dark. To his left stood fresh debris from a recent cave-in and to the right waited complete blackness. Around him stood men, women and children also looking startled and fearful. Horses and supplies were further away from where most everyone else congregated. When he didn’t sense any nearby threats his defensiveness melted and he spoke his thoughts aloud. “I remember fighting that sorcerer… using my flames against his… dropping thick trees in his path… What happened after…? Wait… I overdid magic again and passed out, right?” He turned around to see Brooke crying silently in agony, but it was what she clutched in her hand that drew his attention. It was Meeka’s eight inch, bowie-style, single edged knife with an engraving on the round pommel of a shield with three dots and three lines making up a triangle. The way Brooke clutched the blade to her chest and entire broken demeanor gave Cage a particular cold chill down his spine he hadn’t felt in several years. In a slow and tense voice he asked “Where’s Meeka?”
Brooke dropped to her knees and Rena came close and wrapped her spindly little seven year old arms around her distraught mother.
Cage looked around and tensely asked “Will someone tell me what is going on?”
Elder Metak went to go forward, but his love Shania put a hand on his arm and walked closer, drawing the new chieftain’s attention. “Chief, your other woman left to go help you and the priestess hold their forces back, to give us more time to get everyone else inside. Brooke and three others carried you into the cave, Meeka wasn’t with them when Brooke had us close the mouth of the cave. Yours and the priestess’s woman weren’t the only ones who are missing. Six others are likewise unaccounted for.”
Cage found it hard to swallow the frog lodged in his throat as he turned around to stare at the collapsed part of the cave. He closed his eyes and began to breathe heavily through his nose. “It’s no use getting upset about the uncontrollable. We cannot allow our emotions to cloud rational thoughts. Until I know exactly what happened to Meeka and the others I must focus.” Even though he whispered to calm anger and personal weakness his voice carried to the rest of the tribe who watched him expectantly. “Meeka wouldn’t want me to do something stupid. She would want me to keep a clear head and figure out what to do.” He looked at the rubble for a hard minute, trying to relieve the painful weight on his chest from all the dark thoughts that filled him with all that could have happened to her.
He turned around and met everyone’s eyes, including Brooke’s. Cage walked over to his love and picked her up. “Until we know what happened definitively to Meeka, we must remain strong, especially now. If she needs our help we cannot sit here crying. We both love her so let’s do what we can right here and now. Our people need us.” Brooke wiped the tears with her forearm and felt his long corded arms surround her. In a whisper he said “And if she’s dead I’ll kill every single one of them motherfuckers.”
New tears tried forming on her, but when she stated “Not alone, I’ll take half.” they receded. He pulled away and she felt his lips on her forehead. Those calm, confident words and gesture eased the heartbreak and dread she felt for her woman.
Rena apparently stood close enough to hear and drew her own little four inch knife and said “Leave some for me as well. They hurt you, Mother, you too Dad and Meeka Mother is gone and I want to hurt them back.”
Cage pulled away from Brooke and dropped to sit in his heels to look his recently acquired stepdaughter in the eye and smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t let your mother and I have all the fun, Kiddo. I’ll let you play with a few of their biggest and meanest men. You will show them that even a little girl of the Utala is a deadly little critter.”
Rena grinned and sheathed the knife back to her thigh. She had tears as well and opened his arms and she quickly rushed in for a much needed, fatherly hug.
His sure words seemed to truly make the whole tribe relax now that their chief is back to retake control and help.
Rena’s words made Cage look more closely at himself and others. His arms, feet and shins were unharmed thanks to special material that became one with his own flesh and no weapon so far has even nicked the metal hard skin. Beyond the headache he felt scratches and puncture wounds on his right side and back. His personal check shifted to Brooke as she sustained several deep cuts on her arms and back. Even some drying blood had trickled from her ears and down her neck. The beautiful woman was almost completely covered from head to toe with dirt, most likely from the cave-in. His gaze swept to everyone else just as dirty. He felt tired and weak so he began asking questions “Brooke, tell me what happened after I did my last spell. Before that though, can someone bring me my pack.”
Rena gladly volunteered and moved quickly to her horse where she tied their four packs. She grabbed the largest and brought it back to see most of the tribe had sat down again to rest and recover. She gladly handed it to him and sat down right in her mother’s lap for closeness and comfort.
Brooke wrapped her arms lovingly around her child and waited for a moment as Cage began eating carrots and peppers, sipping on his water. “First, I know you want to know how long you were out and it has been only an hour, approximately. After you collapsed, that magic-man and Familiar made an explosion, causing much dust and debris. I believe the dust is all that saved us. Myself and three others were able to get you into the cave.” She looked down and kissed the top of Rena’s head. “I knew we had to block off that clearly powerful magic-man or all of us would suffer at his hands… I saw a few of our hunters still had the arrows you spelled and I figured that if they worked on those men protected from normal arrows, that it could cut through rock. I didn’t have time to consider anything else to put something between our people and that man. The arrows worked better than I thought and collapsed the entire mouth. It must still be daylight, but for the moment, we are safe.”
“Hmm… I’m surprised the arrows didn’t break… Maybe because the magic felt resistance of the stone it parted the rock like it would against a magical barrier… The speed I put on them would surely make the arrow go much deeper and loosen the rock’s stability… We’re very lucky the whole mountain didn’t come crashing down.” He grinned after the spoken reflection of the plausible way it worked. “Good thinking, Sweetheart.” She smiled at the odd endearment he used, being from another world and all. He looked around and asked “How far back does the cave go? Is it a dead end and we’ve simply made our own tomb?”
Elder Metak shook his head. “We have sent a few to look and they returned not long before you awoke. They said the tunnel is deep and has many branches.”
“So we are in a labyrinth of caves?” He inquired.
The old, retired chief nodded. “We believe so. My grandfather didn’t tell me much, but he did warn there were dangers as anyone familiar with caves can attest. But the hunters who went searching said they didn’t see even the slightest hint of a nearby exit. For the moment I believe Brooke’s rash thinking saved all of us. If we don’t find an exit though…” His sentence hung for others to fill in.
“Alright, what about the kids? Did they all make it? Who isn’t here?”
Brooke gladly picked up the conversation. “Other than our love, Zatal, Hammit, Lanna, Quitte, Allai and Moril are missi
ng. They were the warriors with us when you fought that man on the bull. All of the young ones are safe, as are each of the elders. One of my sister felt labor pains, but while we rested Jada’s pains stopped. Since we pushed so hard these past few days I decided to allow everyone to rest here for the time being.”
He nodded and she saw he appeared to feel better.
Cage felt less exhausted as the food hit his stomach. He closed his eyes and focused on all the injuries and knew the wounds were dirty and would get infected in little time, but he saw that at the moment water needed to be rationed. He sent a healing spell to first cleanse the wounds of all foreign particles and followed it with another to nearly instantly heal every site. Intense itching blossomed all over his skin and he knew the magic began to work. The only down side to rapid healing is the overwhelming itching. It’s like wanting to scratch a scab, only ten times more annoying. Further making it unbearable is when it is in one’s ears. The villagers saw blue light come off from his body as he sat still and became anxious.
When he opened his eyes he felt a large wave of exhaustion and tiny black dots swimming in his vision. He began to breathe slow and deep till they cleared nearly an hour later. The Utala began relaxing for the first real time in five, hard-pressed days.
Eventually he looked up to say “Before we can even think of staying here we need to find water. I’ve never done a spell like this before so I’ll need complete silence. Caves are well known for having leaks or springs so I should find us a place with water. When I find it we can rest through the night in relative safety. Now, please I need silence.” And they gave it willingly.
Never had he attempted such a spell, but he knew if there is to be any way to help get them out he needed to find the best way. He closed his eyes to focus and pictured wanting to find a way to the nearest readily available water source and maybe a way out. With that in mind he lifted his hand, opened his eyes and felt the tingle of magic between his shoulders blossom as the spell began. The six inch string of white light seemed to rise straight out of his palm. He last used it to find Meeka’s money when someone foolishly tried stealing it back in Vin’re.
Cage felt his magic flow into the glowing string that began to undulate like a snake. The tip bent and aimed down the tunnel when something unexpected happened. The white, wormlike, string began to sprout threads like a growing tree root. Everyone else watched the working of magic. The string also began to get longer, now ten inches and the end still connected to his upturned palm. The branches of light began to weave and split apart. In only a few seconds the white string of light took dozens and dozens of paths. Then all of a sudden there came a tiny red pulse of light on one of the stems, then another further on another string pulsed the same color. Cage began to quickly get lightheaded as the spell fed on his already depleted mana, the body’s fuel to utilize magic. He gritted his teeth and said “Someone… Hurry and draw this in the dirt… I can’t hold it for long. Hurry…”
Rena reacted first to his command while everyone sat in amazement. She pulled herself out of Brook’s grip, grabbed a rock and ran to his side and began drawing in the dirt, as best she could copy from what she saw.
Unable to keep the magic going longer he let it go and leaned back to breathe as if he ran as hard as he could to the brink of collapse. The threads of light vanished like the switch of a light bulb. He fell on his back and heard furious scraping sounds just before he found Brooke leaning over him with concern. “You need to not push yourself so hard, Cage Love…” She looked away for a moment to smile. “Excellent work, Rena…” She returned her worried eyes to him, moved and lifted his head to rest on her smooth thighs. “What was that magic you did anyway?”
“I believe he just made us a map of the caves.” Elder Shania assumed with a touch of awe. She moved over as Rena huffed “Dad, I did as much as I could.”
He chuckled between breaths and ruffled her shoulder length of black hair like her mother. She giggled and knocked his hand off her head. The eldest woman of the whole tribe knelt beside the child and looked closely at the dirt drawling to say “Zanza, come over here and see if this looks anything like the cave branches you and the hunters found earlier.”
A great warrior huntress who helped Cage learn about the Laqura enemy approached and knelt. She put her finger close to the dirt, but not on it to disturb the work. The woman nodded “If what I saw the chief do is correct, we are here… the first three paths are correct… we took each for a little ways and by the looks of it the chief’s and Rena’s map are just as I remember scouting… so the red lights… I don’t know what they mean…”
“Either a way out or a place where we can locate water.” Cage stated from Brooke’s lap when he caught enough of a breath. “That is how I worked the spell and I got a feeling those pulsating red areas are where we’ll find a better place to set up camp. Take a piece of leather and a piece of charcoal to copy Rena’s good work.” The girl blushed at his praise while grinning at the attention. “Take a scouting party and use the map and see what the closest location means. Be careful and don’t take any unnecessary chances. Don’t take any unneeded risks and be absolutely sure you tell me if I’m wrong. If my spell isn’t right, I need to know so it can be corrected. The rest will stay here and recover.”
“Yes, Chief.” Zanza said and hurried away, grabbed a piece of hide and cut a section off her own tent for it hadn’t stayed together as well as the others. She returned to find Rena as the best little helper of all the young had gotten a piece of charred wood from one of the few fires that lit the section of cave to see by. Zanza began carefully copying the hastily drawn map in the ground.
While the huntress continued to draw, Cage recovered enough to sit up. He dug in his pack and retrieved the coiled rope he kept. He then downed all of his water and Brooke asked “What are you doing, Cage. We should not drink all our water at once.”
“I know, but it is necessary.” He said and outstretched the rope and empty container. “Zanza, take these. I’m going to be out of commission for a few hours at least. The rope is strong enough for one person at a time if you need to climb or rappel, but if the map leads you to water, don’t drink it whatever you do. Fill up my container and bring it right back. If you drink the water straight you might be fine, but then again it might make you sick if something defecates in it or something poisonous might grow. Let me check if it is safe first.”
“I will, Chief.” Zanza said and took the rope and empty wooden water container. She threw the rope over her shoulder and rolled up the piece of leather. “Who would like to accompany me?” Six volunteered and armed themselves with a bow, arrows, a lance, knife and carried simple provisions. They wouldn’t take any chances as their chief requested. The group grabbed three torches, keeping only one lit to conserve and expand what time they could explore. The tribe watched the glow get ever fainter down the tunnel as the hunters went off.
Brooke said “We should all rest while they are gone. Children, stay away from the horses. No telling how they will react after being in the caves with us.” Brooke went to her horse and pulled out a fur, holding the tears in as the memories of her first time with Meeka was on it. She brought it over and laid it out. “Rena, you rest with your father and I.”
She beamed and came over to lay down. Brooke looked over her shoulder to find Cage already on the fur and asleep in mere seconds. Brooke wrapped her arms around Rena and put her between herself and the sleeping giant of a mate. She closed her eyes and saw only Meeka hurt somewhere and all alone. She had a nightmare while Cage slept soundly, never having dreamed before.
Hours passed and the group started getting worried until a child who watched the tunnel shouted “I see a light!”
That woke Cage and many others who had fallen asleep. His headache remained, just not as prominently as before. Much of his strength also returned, enough to move without pain. He roused Brooke who had a trail of old tears. She woke with a start, doing the same to Rena. The two actually l
ooked better after sleeping as well. He stretched out aching limbs and then moved forward to meet the seven returning figures. Brooke stood at his side. When they came close he admitted “From how much better I feel, you have been gone awhile. What did you find out?”
Zanza said “We had trouble getting water from the first, nearest location. It was deep down in a hole no man could fit. We had to tie your container to the rope just to get it down. While we were out we also decided to go to the second location and see what it had to offer. It took more time because we missed a turn. We only found it because we heard the water drip loudly from the ceiling. The second was easier to collect because it was a large underground pond. We collected water from it as well and didn’t drink as you warned.” She held out two containers, one of wood and one of buffalo leather. She smirked “I hope you can determine which location the two sources come from.”
He chuckled and Brooke scowled, not finding their situation humorous. Cage took the two samples and opened his container first. He sent a spell to the water and watched as a thumb size accumulation of putrid gunk separated from the water and wrinkled his nose. Zanza and the others also grimaced. He looked at her. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t drink any?”
“I am now.” The huntress responded.
Cage used magic to throw the horrible glob of problems away on the cave wall, away from everyone. He turned around “Who’s thirsty.” Many adults backed away. “Wha…” He looked at the container and chuckled. “Don’t worry, I cleaned it like I did for all you when we gathered. Here, I’ll show you.” He tilted his head and took a dramatic swallow to prove the water pure. A five month old pregnant woman approached. “I’m quite thirsty, Chief.” He passed it over. He waited while she drank it all and she said “Thank you.”
He then poured the contents of the water skin into the empty bottle. Again he cleaned it and this time only a small pea seed sized blob of gunk slipped out of the water. He smiled and sensed what lay contained in the blob. “It seems this pond is our best bet. It just has a bit of algae. It will be more than safe enough to drink straight.” He handed the drink down. “Rena, share this with any of the youngest kids who’re thirsty.” The girl took it and went off to the others. “Zanza, do you remember your way back to this pond?”
Familiar's Ancient Throne (Book 2 of the Death Incarnate Saga) Page 2
