Serve

by Laura Wylde

  Going through the tunnel meant shifting into human form once more. We would have only one advantage. The trolls were slow-moving. If we made it out the grate and onto solid ground, they would not follow. Not daring a single look back, knowing speed was all that could save us, we shifted into human form and dashed for the grate.

  It all happened so fast. We had been ambushed and barely got out with our lives. As my head broke above the water, I gasped for air and made like an Olympian swimmer for dry land. My feet hit solid ground, and I shifted once more into a phoenix making a beeline for the precinct.

  I arrived just ahead of Adonis and Todd, who had changed so fast, a few feathers clung to their clothing. Adonis ushered us into the office, trying to appear cool and professional. “Are we all accounted for? Todd? Thaddeus?” He glanced around, then glanced again, his eyes stabbing at every corner. His eyes turned bleak and the color faded from his face. “Thaddeus? Where’s Thaddeus? Where’s Tara?”

  A terrible pain exploded in my head and I sank to my knees, clutching at my temples. “What is it lad?” Asked Todd. “Did you receive a vision?”

  I nodded above the pounding pain. I felt like somebody had whacked me in the head with a board. “They are still in the caves! They’re trapped!”

  Adonis groaned, his hands covering his face with agony. “I’ve failed! Once more, I’ve failed to protect. It’s just like with Antonia. I failed to protect her.”

  I was trying to fight through the throbbing ache that left my vision blurred. Red pain mixed with dark shadows. Black shapes stretched tall in the lamp light. “They aren’t dead,” I panted. “They’ve been captured. We can still save them.”

  Adonis’ eyes glistened hopefully, and Todd added, “we know the tunnel system better now. We know where we can shift and where we can’t. We have Adrien to guide us. Wherever she is, he will find her.”

  Adonis pulled himself together with an effort and gripped my shoulders. “Can you do that, son? Can you find Tara?”

  The image remained fresh in my mind, her desperation biting hard at the edges, giving it increasing clarity. “The trolls are scattered throughout the cave system. If we can get in there without alerting any of them, we can get our team out, but if they know we are coming, they’ll start moving closer together.”

  “I’ve got a sword of elven steel,” said Todd. “If we’re going to be in human form, I want a weapon I can trust.”

  “Good idea. Adrien, I want you to put cleats on your boots. When you kick-box, break the troll’s legs, then come in with these two daggers…” He tossed to me what looked like two small, matching, ancient Egyptian knives. “Drive them straight into his ears. If you can’t land a kill blow, anywhere you drive the daggers into him will paralyze him. The knives were blessed by Ra. They will penetrate troll skin.”

  I admired the twin weapons. The color was midway between gold and copper. The pair had a serpentine design around the hilt. At the top, two sea serpents met each other and bowed their heads. Tiny emeralds twinkled in the eye sockets. “Have you ever shown this to Henry?”

  “No, I have not. We have ancient chemistry that humans aren’t ready for yet, and Adrien, you’re not going to teach them.”

  “Of course not.” I slid their sheaths reverently along my belt until they fit comfortably at my sides like six-shooters. “What will you be carrying, Master Obi-Wan-Kenobi, to even out the odds?”

  He reached in his pocket and brought out a metal ball, slightly smaller than a cue ball. When he pushed a button, little razor points stuck out in every direction, but when he curled his hand over it, the points collapsed harmlessly. “It’s a homing ball. It imprints on the nerve ends of your fingers. You direct where you want it to go and it will continue to pursue its target until you direct it back. Very persistent little gadget.”

  “Does it kill?” I asked. It seemed kind of small to me when compared to a troll.

  “Like a buzz saw!”

  That was a grisly enough picture to keep in my head while we foraged for trolls. The more vicious the ending, the happier I was to entertain it. A coyote flitted back and forth in the copse of trees just beyond the edge of Turtle Pond. It stopped and lowered its head as though hoping we wouldn’t see it, but it was just the code it used to let us know it hadn’t seen any trolls. We lowered ourselves once more into the tunnel.

  This time, when we came to the main chamber, we only used glowsticks to light the way. The cave entrances squatted, dark and echoing with unearthly sounds, mocking me. I hesitated, my mind reaching out to find hers. She was breathing heavily. She was scrambling with a load. She pleaded. “Hurry! Hurry!” I pointed to one of the corridors with certainty. “It’s this way.”

  Tara

  When you first get hit on the back of the head, you really do see stars. They burst out on all sides and explode in front of your eyes. Then you see red and black shadows moving mysteriously in and out of your line of sight, before your vision clears. I opened my eyes and saw straw bedding littered with bone fragments. I blinked. I could hear voices; human voices; but they seemed far away.

  I struggled to my knees and reached around to where it hurt the most. There was a hard, large lump close to the base of my skull, but there was no blood. That had to be a good sign. I tried to piece together what had happened.

  I remembered how happy I had been that Adonis had teamed me up with Thaddeus. I had been wanting to learn more about the gentle giant who was mercilessly trapped in an event that happened four hundred years ago. I wanted him to talk about happier times, and he told me about an island where the villagers loved the phoenix so much, every year they threw a giant celebration and offered the phoenixes fruits, flowers, spices and incense. His eyes shone when he talked. “At one time, people around the world adored us. Now, they don’t even believe in us.”

  “You don’t show yourselves to them. You keep everything secret.”

  “Oh, we had to. Humans don’t do well with superior beings. They want to be stronger, faster, know more magic. They even tried to tear down the doors of the gate keepers. They don’t have the wisdom for that type of power. Diseased humans let the monsters from the underworld loose. Humans hunted down the unicorn, so the only remaining ones live within the other dimension. Humans drove the mer people to the edge of extinction.”

  “You make us sound terrible. Why do you protect us?”

  “You’re not terrible.” He thought a moment. “Do you like small dogs?”

  “They’re kind of yappy.”

  “But they’re cute, aren’t they? And brave! Did you know Emperors in the Far East used to keep small dogs up their sleeves to attack would-be assassins? It’s true. Pekinese. Vicious little things, but very loyal. Humans are like little dogs. They’re noisy. They’re persistent. They get into a lot of trouble, but they’re cuter than shit.”

  It was the first time I had heard him swear and I started to laugh about it, when suddenly, I was clubbed from behind. I opened my eyes once or twice, unable to move and I saw Thaddeus fighting against three trolls. Thaddeus!

  I came fully awake and started panting as I looked around me. My eyes had adjusted enough to the dim light to make out that I was in a cell built into a large cave. There was an adjacent cell with the bent-over silhouettes of three people in various sitting positions. A dark lump in a corner told me I wasn’t alone in my cell, and I crawled over, feeling with my hands, hoping I wasn’t going to touch a corpse. The body was warm, but unresponsive. I moved closer, turning the unconscious man over and peered at his face. It was Thaddeus.

  I scooted across the ground until I had his shoulders propped up on my knees and his head cradled in my arms. I pulled my sleeves over my hands and used them to wipe away the blood, sweat and grime. There were bruises on his face that were already beginning to heal, and a lump on the side of his head where the blood clotted. There was water trickling down the side of the wall. I dipped my fingers in it to wipe away the dried blood and look at the wound. It was a small gash.
As the blood washed away, it began to close.

  I felt the bump against my conscious, an inquiring thought.Where are you? I focused. I remembered the corridor we had passed through and glimpses of other cages trailing into the dark depths of a cave. I pressed my face against the cave bars and stared down the passage. The entire floor was littered with bits of bone. They are eating us, I realized. Despite the forensic evidence, for the first time, it hit home. These hideous, other-worldly creatures were eating humans.

  It wasn’t my intention to be on the menu. Shifting through the bone fragments, I found one long enough and slim enough to serve as a pick. I reached my hands up to check the lock. It was a relatively simple one, the kind that can be opened with a skeleton key. I inserted the pick and jiggled it around until it found the locking mechanism. I pushed it in, and it clicked, the metal door swinging open a few inches. I scrambled back to Thaddeus and tried to wake him. He groaned. I ran my hands over his body, checking for broken bones. His ankle turned in more than it should. I took it in both hands, looked at him, and said in a firm voice as though he was arguing, “Okay, you big lug. You’re the one who said phoenixes heal quickly and you’ve got a bone fracture. Now, I’m going to move it back into place and you’re going to start healing. Is it a deal?” He didn’t answer, so I put one hand on the ankle, the other on the foot, and moved the bone back in place, hoping I hadn’t just destroyed his ability to walk for life.

  He stirred, grumbled, rose half-way up, then sighed, settling back again on the ground. I wondered if that meant the bone could now start healing. I pulled up his pant leg and took another peak. The swelling was going down. I began to appreciate just how serious Todd’s injury had been when a phoenix’s fractured ankle could begin healing just by moving the bone into place. It had taken Todd two days to begin moving around.

  He still hadn’t regained consciousness, but I couldn’t wait. I began dragging him to the door. That something bumped against my mind again. We’re on our way. I sent back a desperate message. Hurry!

  I knew the way out. I was guided by the same force that had invaded my mind. After pulling Thaddeus about fifteen feet down the corridor, he began to flounder and pull himself upright. He sputtered. “What the…”

  I put a finger to his lips. “Be quiet. We were captured by the trolls, but we’re going to escape. I picked the lock. We just have to make it to the tunnels.”

  “Sweetie, you go on ahead. I’ll slow you down. I think my ankle was broken. If I don’t set it, it will heal wrong.”

  “I already set it.”

  “Did you now?” He raised up his pant leg cautiously. “Will you look at that? You’re a natural healer. Still, it hasn’t firmed up yet. I’ll be useless to you for at least twenty minutes. You could be out of the tunnel by then.”

  I crouched beside him. “I’m not going anywhere without you. If you sit here for twenty minutes, I’m sitting here for twenty minutes. If you want to put out the effort to limp along, I’ll take you by the arm, but I’m not leaving you.”

  He let out a moan. “There’s what I mean about humans. When you least expect it, they are at their noblest and their most foolish. You’re not going to leave me? Then I have no choice but to hobble along by your side, but just remember when we get caught, it was your idea to drag me along.”

  I didn’t let his grumbling bother me. There were times, growing up, with my dad would stumble down the wrong path coming home at night, after a few too many drinks at the bar. I would always find him and bring him home, guided by our big German Shephard. It wasn’t easy. I was a kid, a small, skinny one at that and dad didn’t think he needed assistance. He would flail against me, try to get away and fall on the ground. My solution was to grab him by the arm, pull him back up and keep going while he raged at me for sins I had not even considered trying out. In comparison, Thaddeus was a lamb.

  We passed three more cells on our way through the cave system. Two were empty. In the third, I saw dark, naked arms stretched out pleadingly, hoarse voices begging to be set free.Their fear and pain stabbed at me. “I’ll come back for you,” I whispered guiltily. Their confinement was my failure, my responsibility. “I’ll come back.”

  Just before the corridor to the main chamber, Thaddeus called a halt. “What is it?” I asked, kneeling beside him as he sat on the ground.

  He lifted a finger. “Clearing my head. The corridor isn’t wide enough to fly in and I’m still handicapped in my human form. If we run into trolls, what can we bring to the battle?”

  I patted my hip. “The trolls took my assault weapon, but they didn’t take my Glock, and I’ve got plenty of ammunition.”

  He grunted. “Trolls aren’t very smart. They don’t think about body searches. If they see something they like, they just take it. I should have,” he fumbled inside his boot. “An elven long blade! Far more effective than your bullets.”

  It didn’t look more effective. It looked like an ordinary hunting knife made from good steel, with a thick metal handle instead of wood. But if Thaddeus said it was more effective, I was going to take his word for it. Whatever gave him the confidence to get up and move. “I’ll shoot for the legs,” I said, remembering Adonis’ lecture on weak legs.

  He nodded. “Good idea. Break the legs and we can finish them off.”

  All we had to do was reach the main chamber. Once there, Thaddeus could shapeshift. We would have a fighting chance to reach the tunnel and swim back to the surface. As we rounded a sixty-degree angle in the corridor, it split in two, with several small cave entrances in between the two pathways. “This is one of the inter-connecting points,” I whispered. “It’s not far from where we were attacked. If we can fight through here without sending up a general alert to the other trolls, we’ll have a better chance of making it to the main chamber.”

  “Where we were attacked… there were also other branching tunnels. I remember seeing trolls slipping out of the caves while I was battling. And the chamber itself is honeycombed with caves.”

  His eyes were beginning to roll wildly, while sweat gathered and trickled down his neck. He was panicking. I put my hand on his knee, anchoring his reality. “Thaddeus. I know the war was a terrible thing and brought the most hideous creatures. But you survived it! You won the war! Now isn’t the time to remember the cost, it’s the time to remember how you did it.”

  Thaddeus’ eyes narrowed and he drew out his blade. In the near-darkness, it shone bluish-white and flashed its reflection against the tunnel walls. He shielded it inside his jacket. “Keep your weapon drawn, but from here, absolute stealth. They won’t notice our shadow, but they will notice anything that shines. If we are attacked, we must kill all in the group quickly, making as little noise as possible. The natural cave system doesn’t allow individual sounds to travel far, but all they need is to call out a signal that will travel to the next inter-connecting tunnel.”

  As we approached the fork, Thaddeus whispered, “they will attack us from behind. We’ll go back to back. You take the lead.”

  He was planning to take on the heavy artillery. Still, somebody had to lead, and I knew the terrain a little better than he did. My gun was raised but shielded by my jacket. I wanted no random bit of light to accidentally reflect off the hard steel. Leerily, side-stepping instead of walking straight ahead, I inched my way into the corridor, Thaddeus’ back bumping against my shoulders.

  The corridor wasn’t more than twelve feet wide with a low over-head. It gave us very little fighting space. The deeper we entered, the more uneasy we became. If a large number entered, we wouldn’t be able to overcome them. We would be outnumbered. I gripped my gun more tightly and forged ahead.

  Thaddeus nudged me, then sprang into a crouching position, his knife gleaming. Two trolls stood in front of him. They looked surprised. “Don’t fire your gun,” he whispered. “It will attract more.”

  He danced toward them and I began to see what an Elven blade was all about. As deadly as the trolls were with their razor-edged f
isticuffs, Thaddeus was deadlier. He was faster than the trolls. His reach was longer. And when the blade sliced, it sank deeply into their flesh. It was over in seconds, but one gave a muffled cry as he slit its throat.

  “Do you think he alerted others?” I asked, referring to the dying troll and its last protest.

  I watched with macabre fascination as Thaddeus wiped the troll blood off the knife. Troll blood is a dark purple color that turns black as it dries. Even in death, there seems to be something terrible and evil about them. His eyes were dark and sorrowful. “I don’t know.”

  The corridor gradually grew wider and taller. We were almost to the main chamber! But before reaching it, we would have to go through a mouth that was pocketed with caves. We peered around the bend. Trolls were standing in our path, waiting. My gut twisted with serious pain. There were so many of them, it seemed impossible to fight our way out. Thaddeus placed a sympathetic hand on my arm. “Well, this is it, sweetheart. The end of the line. We could go back to the fork and look for an alternate route. The badgers say there is one.”

  I started to agree when that familiar thump hit against my consciousness once more. It almost blinded me. I reached for my head like it suddenly ached and squeezed my eyes shut. They were fighting for us on the other side. They were pushing through. I straightened up and checked my gun magazine. It was full. I cocked it and began marching forward. “We make our stand here.”

  They came in two’s and three’s, teeth gnashing, drool slobbering down their lips, weapons in their hands. They waddled on their frog-like legs. I realized why their legs were their weakness. They were too spindly to hold upright their massive upper bodies without walking in a squatting position. I held my gun straight out and aimed low, firing at the kneecaps. I left it to Thaddeus to follow from behind and finish the job.