Logan growled anew, realizing he might need to give more of himself to the beast, and prepared to pounce onto the fresh frog-men emerging from the water. These fresh adversaries carried nets, sure to tip the odds in their favor.
Logan felt the pulse of energy hit him. It made him gasp as the beast was driven deep back into the dark cage it lived within. He stumbled and reached for the floor, intent on catching himself, but whatever had hit them all caused him to black out before the impact of flesh against wet rock.
* * * *
“Cap, you still breathing?”
Dexter groaned and opened his eyes. He shut them quickly, having been treated to a sight that would plague his sleep for weeks to come. Rosh’s grinning face was blocking out the sun, giving him a saintly halo effect that could not have been further from the truth. “I hope not,” Dexter muttered.
Rosh clapped him on the shoulder, making the Captain grunt, and then he felt the full warmth of the sun upon his face. He opened his eyes again and had to squint until he rolled over and raised himself up. Groans and snores surrounded him. Everywhere people were coming to their senses. Those that had already risen stared upwards and around in amazement.
“Is it over?” Dexter asked, seeing the sun and the mountains surrounding them.
No one answered. Dexter scowled and rose fully to his feet. His head ached and his body was bruised in a dozen places. He even felt one tooth that was loose. As his senses fully returned he saw Jenna slumped against the ziggurat, her swords fallen at her feet. He rushed to her, trying to avoid the slumbering elves around her.
“Jenna!” Dexter hissed, pressing his face next to hers to feel her breath upon his cheek. His heart relaxed and he looked around again, then gently shook her to rouse her. “Wake up,” he whispered to her. “I think we’re back.”
“What happened?” Dexter heard Xander call out.
Before he could respond some of the elves had reassembled themselves. They were muttering angrily and starting towards them again, but their conviction seemed less strong. Many kept glancing up to the sky. Sandis emerged, clutching an arm that was clearly broken, and walked purposefully towards Dexter.
“You are an evil man,” he said.
A pile of elves moved behind him. Keshira rose from within it, pushing the slumbering bodies off of her as she did so. As was typically the case, the unstoppable pleasure golem’s clothing was ripped and in total disarray. Dexter glanced at himself to see that his own garments were far from fresh, but at least he hadn’t been in the thick of a grasping mob.
“Call me what you want,” Dexter said, “The job’s done and you’re to be heading back to join your people.”
A cry went up in the distance. It spread quickly as others relayed it and soon enough a man rushed to Sandis’ side and spoke quietly to him. Jenna overheard with her keen elven ears and slipped her hand in Dexter’s to squeeze it encouragingly.
“You are no less evil for it,” Sandis said to him, having not understand what Dexter had said to him, “but it seems this world teems with life as it did before.”
Dexter felt his stomach flutter at the news. He looked at Jenna and she smiled. “At the base of the mountains they can see a city. The smoke from fires and the stink of metal working and tanneries rises from it,” she said over the din of the elves.
Dexter grinned. “All’s well then,” he said. “Time for us to be going.”
“Your grandpa owes me a new sword,” Rosh grumbled as he came around the side of the ziggurat. He held up the hilt of his once mighty sword that now had a blade the length of a hunting knife.
“I’m sure he’ll be happy to replace it,” Jenna said, rolling her eyes at everyone’s continuing inference of a relationship between her and the elder.
“Captain,” Xander said, rushing over to them as well. He was breathless in his excitement. “What happened? Rosh struck the hourglass, where did it go? What is this about the world being alive?”
Dexter held up a hand, silencing the wizard. “I reckon you know as much as we do,” he told him. “And we’d best be leaving it at that – staying here’s not high on my list of retirement opportunities.”
“Not high… what do you mean?” The wizard asked
“Captain, I might be of assistance,” Keshira said as she joined them.
“Be quick about it.”
“In the blink of an eye to you 12,000 years, 233 days passed. I was aware, but unable to move. We stayed where we were until the world caught up, and now it is our time again,” she summarized.
Dexter cocked his head as he looked at her. Gone was her constant grin but instead a look of relaxed complacency was on her face. “12,000 years? You were aware of it? That’s… that’s a long nap.”
She nodded then smiled. “It gives a lot of time for thinking.”
“Or madness,” Xander added.
She nodded and smiled at that as well. “Had I not had my bond with you and knew you were well, it could have come to that.”
Dexter looked at her again, then nodded. He sensed something different about her. The beginnings of that something she confirmed when she adjusted her shirt to cover herself on her own, without any prompting. “Seems like it might have done you well,” he suggested.
She smiled in return.
“Tell him to get his fleet together, they’re to report to the elders at Dasnari,” Dexter said. “And tell him we’ll be joining them, but first we’re bound for the Voidhawk.”
“12,000 years, you think it’ll still be there?” Jenna asked him worriedly.
Dexter shrugged. “The ‘Hawk’s had some long waits before. I reckon she went through something like we did. Just a long nap is all. All the same, make sure they know not to leave without us.”
Jenna smirked while Xander relayed Dexter’s wishes.
Sandis glared at Dexter, then nodded. “Your recklessness will come back to you, Captain Silvercloud. If we make it to Dasnari I’ll speak with the council and, for your sake, hope that’s the worst of it.”
“If?” Dexter asked, suddenly concerned.
After the translation Sandis nodded. “We are here, our fleet is not. It lies in the bottom of nearby lake. Our kin forced us to land there and secure our ships, then they dammed the river to flood them.
Dexter stared at him, then turned away to hide the expression of disbelief and fury on his face. Finally, when he felt he could speak again, he turned back. “Rosh, might need you to go kill another snake and do some more fraternizing with the natives – we’re to be figuring out how to drain the water out of that lake the ‘Hawk’s in.”
Rosh stared at him, then grinned.
“Consider it an order,” Dexter added. “That way you don’t have to like it.”
* * * *
Bekka awoke in the dark. She blinked, not understanding the complete absence of light. She was part elven, she’d never been so completely without sight, even in the darkest of shadows. She struggled to control her breathing and slowly reached out, trying to find something.
The floor beneath her was cold and clammy; it stirred a memory in her, a memory of being trapped. She gasped as it came back to her, rushing in so rapidly that it left her breathless and threatened to drive her senses from her again. She was in the underwater cave still, where they had been taken by the frog-men. She assumed as much, for she couldn’t see to be sure. Her hands rose to her eyes, fearing that perhaps she had been stricken blind. She gasped when her fingers brushed against her eyeball, her eye stinging and tearing up at the contact.
A groan from nearby made her stifle her own breathing. She was sure the groan came from a man, she assumed that meant it was Logan. She slowly crawled forward, wincing as she used the scraped and bruised muscles in her leg. Carefully she inched along the wet floor, reaching out with each awkward four legged step until she felt her hand brush against warm flesh. She followed it, sliding her hand along the warmth, and identified the body part as his leg only when her hand came to rest on flesh much
softer and more pliant than his thigh had been.
“Oh!” She gasped, and quickly pulled her hand away. Logan groaned again and shifted on the rocky floor.
“What’s going on?” He demanded, his voice cutting through the darkness like a knife.
Startled by the sound, Bekka recoiled back and found herself sitting against the wall in a rush. “I heard you groan,” she stammered, embarrassed by her accidental groping. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Bekka?” He asked.
She nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her in the dark. “Yes… it’s me,” she said.
Another moan came from Bekka’s right. Followed by some gruff language that identified Jodyne.
“It’s all right,” Logan said softly, causing Bekka to smile again.
She heard him rise to his feet and she cautiously stood up to follow. In the dark, without knowing what was going on, she suddenly craved the contact of others. Normally she shunned it, preferring to be left alone because she’d always been so different. Cast aside as an aberration by birth, she’d accepted her lot as a loner. Now she realized she’d never felt truly alone, not like she did now.
She wondered how Dexter would feel, were he and Jenna down here. Would he cling to her? Would she to him? They were so strong. So individual. So powerful in their own ways. She envied them their strengths, but wondered if something like this would prove too much even for them.
“Logan,” Bekka whispered, her voice trembling a little. “Logan… where are you? It’s so dark… I… I’m…”
“Shh,” he said, his voice powerful in the darkness even as quiet as he made it.
His hand touched her arm and she felt the roughness of it. More than hands that had worked ropes and boards upon a ship, she felt the blood that was still wet on his hands from the frog-men. She ignored it and put her hand on top of his, then clung tightly to him. “Thank you,” she whispered because she knew he couldn’t see her smile. “I… it’s just so dark, I don’t want to get lost.”
She heard a chuckle in his breathing, but he said nothing and she was thankful for that. A moment later they were moving slowly along the wall, making their way to Jodyne. A grunt stopped them, and before Bekka could be prepared Logan knelt down and pulled her down with him.
“What?” She gasped, surprised.
“Willa? Are you okay?” Logan asked in the darkness. Bekka realized he must have run into her and kicked her on accident.
“Gods… am I… are we… are we dead?” Willa whispered. “I can’t see anything! It’s so dark and I’m cold… I hurt all over.”
“We’re not dead,” Logan reassured her. “I don’t know what happened, did anybody see anything? One moment we were fighting and then… nothing?”
Bekka heard the concern in his voice and it made her feel better. Then she realized why that concern might be. He’d changed during the fight; changed into the were-creature he was cursed with. Not completely, but enough that he worried he’d lost control or lost himself. She squeezed his hand reassuringly. “It was the same for me,” she said. “There should still be those strange frog-things amongst us, but they’re gone.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Jodyne said from a few feet away from them. “Ere the fight, I was checking the walls, looking to see if there might be a way out.”
“A way out?” Willa interrupted. “They were solid rock!”
“Aye, they was,” Jodyne said impatiently. “But these walls be limestone, no good reason for them to hold out the water and in the air. Still, limestone be known for holes in it, lots of pockets and such. If I could find something like that we might could break through to it.”
“Then what?” Willa said, her voice filled with defeat. Bekka could only agree, running from the things that had captured them would do them little good if they were trapped deep under the surface of the lake. Only drowning awaited them as an alternate fate to what the frogs had planned.
“Then we’d keep looking,” Logan answered. “The Captain won’t leave us behind; he’s found a way to do things that can’t be done before. Why, he even once rescued a dying slave girl from a life where no rescue could be found.”
Logan was talking of how Willa had come to join the Voidhawk. He reminded all of them, in fact, that they’d seen bleak situations before. Situations where survival, let alone victory, seemed as likely as living to tell about being adrift in the void in the midst of a meteor shower. Bekka gave his hand another squeeze and wondered what it took to have faith like that. Even if it was requisite for a priest it still amazed her.
“He rescued all of us, one time or another,” Bailynn said in the darkness, surprising them all. She padded across the floor softly to join them. “He’ll come if he can, but he’d be mighty disappointed if we didn’t do our best to reckon our own way out of it.”
Bekka smirked at the horrible impersonation Bailynn had tried. She wanted to ask the girl how she fared; she remembered seeing her bloodied before the fungus that grew on the walls and filled the room with the eerie light had disappeared. She opened her mouth but was interrupted before she could say anything.
“Are ya done gabbing like old ladies over needlepoint?” Jodyne asked testily. Nobody responded so she continued, “There be a hole in the wall where I thought I was hearing something hollow. It’s a narrow crack, mind you.”
“How narrow?” Logan asked nervously.
“Feel it yourself.”
Bekka let Logan pull her slowly along the wall until he found it. He switched hands with Bekka, turning to face her, and carefully tried to slide into the crack. She could hear his breath catch a few times, but he pulled her in after him.
“Willa!” Bekka said as she realized he wasn’t slowing down. “Take my hand. Jodyne, follow behind us.”
“I been looking past your pointy ears,” Jodyne called out, her voice muffled from her distance ahead of them all in the narrow tunnel, “don’t be making me change me mind!”
Bekka grinned in spite of herself, then heard Willa’s hand against the rocks, groping for hers. Bekka reached out and made a few blind grabs until her hand landed on the woman’s side. Willa grabbed her arm and Bekka could feel her let out a breath of relief. Bekka smiled again, she knew the feeling. “Come on,” she whispered encouragingly to her. “’Lynn, can you come behind us?”
“I will,” she assured them.
Both her hands occupied, Bekka felt herself dragged painfully a few times against the wet limestone of the narrow tunnel. They continued on and soon enough heard a victorious cry from Jodyne. “There be room enough to breathe!”
With a few more grunts and curses, they joined the cook and stared sightlessly around them. It was roughly another round chamber, though this time they felt an openness above them. “What is it?” Logan asked softly.
“A shaft,” Jodyne said. “Goes up. Might be hunnerds of feet, maybe only a dozen.”
“How do we get up it?” Bekka asked.
“You swallow too much water on your way down?” Jodyne asked.
Bekka was confused. She glanced around, pointlessly, and stammer out a confused reply.
“Can’t you make another one of them shiny light tricks to show us around?”
Bekka gasped. Her magic! So seldom was it of any practical use she’d forgotten all about it. She could do some truly delightful things with potions and poultices, even craft some amazing candles and such, but she considered them parlor tricks or boons for tending the wounded. That, or, if she bent her craft another way, for poisoning the healthy.
But this time, yes, she could do just that. All she needed was an object, something she could pull some light into. She patted her pockets and clothing, then felt despair begin to weigh her shoulders and stomach. “I’ve nothing to use,” she whispered.
Jodyne grunted. “I’ve no more daggers, just me clothes. A site more than the priest’s got though,” she chuckled. “Willa?”
“I…,” Willa paused, taking her hand from Bek
ka’s and then returning it after hastily patting herself down. “They took everything I had.”
“Me too,” Bailynn said in the darkness.
Bekka sighed and took her hands from Logan and Willa. Immediately she felt the darkness closing in on her. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused instead of images of a fiery sun burning brightly off the stern of the Voidhawk. She slipped her shirt up and over her head quickly, then wound it into a ball around her hand. Eyes still closed she concentrated on it, focusing her thoughts and redirecting the energies she instinctively knew how to channel. She spoke her mystical words and then felt the dazzling brilliance pierce through her eyelids as a light sprung up within the bundled cloth.
The others gasped and squinted as the glowing shirt blinded them. It was no brighter than a torch, but with the absolute darkness they’d endured, it seemed impossibly bright. They looked away and hooded their eyes, trying desperately to make out their surroundings. The limestone walls of the fissure and shaft dripped with wetness, yet they were largely absent of hand and foot holds. Looking up they could see it went less than a six feet until it opened up into a larger cavern.
“What did you – Oh!” Willa started to ask. She stopped abruptly when she saw through squinted eyes that Bekka was nude from the waist up.
Bekka smiled and shrugged. “A small sacrifice,” she offered.
Willa and Logan, who had already quickly looked away, blushed. “We’ll need a rope,” Willa said a moment later, staring up at the lip of the limestone shaft.
Voidhawk: The Elder Race Page 20
