Lucy at Last
Book Eight in the Undraland Series
An Undraland: Blood Novel
By
Mary E. Twomey
Copyright © 2015 Mary E. Twomey
Cover Art by Humble Nations
Author Photo by Lisabeth Photography
All rights reserved.
First Edition: August 2015
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
ISBN-13: 978-1519189172
ISBN-10: 1519189176
For information:
http://www.maryetwomey.com
DEDICATION
For Matt.
You let me paint black birds all over our living room wall without a blink.
With you, I don’t need to be more than I’m capable of, or less than I am.
I can be myself,
and at the end of a long day,
you remind me that that’s a beautiful thing.
One.
Jokull the Jackal
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been holding my breath, but the second I drew in a modicum of oxygen to refill my lungs, I was certain the sound could be heard. To the right was the path to the main town in Elvage, which would guarantee us a little safety. All we had to do was remain hidden until we reached Elvage. It was a quick trek through elf country, and then on to Nøkken, where my brother was buried. I had to reunite his body with his soul that my mother had preserved in my necklace. Easy, right? I could almost feel my brother elbowing me after he invented another stupid joke that barely had a punch line.
But of course Undraland wouldn’t let me be happy. Of course they would take a simple walk in the park and twist it into World War III. The ring of at least forty Tomten soldiers around the entrance after we crossed over from the Other Side closed off our options. We were invisible, which was the only reason we were still breathing. I was behind Jens, holding onto his belt loops. Tucker’s arm was tight around me, while his other hand clamped down on Jamie’s shoulder.
Tucker squeezed me, his lips brushing my ear in a light kiss. “Brace yourself for a headache, love.”
No sooner had I processed the words did Tucker port Jamie in the direction of Elvage’s main city, and away from the Tonttu soldiers (who really had no right enforcing their law in a country that wasn’t theirs, but whatever).
Instantly my head felt as if it was being split in two with an axe. Though my eyes were open, I couldn’t focus on anything as I clawed at Jens to make the pain stop. Despite the silence and the peaked tension, I let out a violent scream, falling away from Jens as I clawed at my head to make the agony stop. The pressure was so great, my eyes felt bugged out of my skull.
The soldiers had been expecting a rebellious Jamie, but what they got was a raving madwoman writhing on the grass.
“Take her in! The prince can’t be far,” the only man on a white horse ordered, pointing his sword at me. “Jens the Brave is the guldy’s Tom! Find him, too!” He was the man in charge, and everyone knew it. Several flinched when he spoke, and I could hear the cruelty in his unforgiving tone. He had a wide chest, hairy arms and curly brown hair, like Jamie’s, but he also had a hook nose and none of the kindness that made my prince a rare treasure.
As one, the soldiers lunged toward the center, and without much of a fight, I was scooped up and thrown over a shoulder. Vomit churned in my gut as my stomach was bent over the shoulder blade of the man whose butt Jens was surely going to kick. Tipping my head upside-down only made the impending aneurysm grow in its intensity.
What I did not expect was for Jens to materialize out of thin air with his hands up. His voice boomed out to the dozens of soldiers, who paused an attack at his surrender. “Shut up, Jokull. Man, being promoted to next in line for the throne after Jeremias bit it did nothing to help your personality. We’ll go willingly to see Johannes. Relax your butthole.”
Jokull’s nostrils flared. “Bring him in!”
Jens started to lose his cool, his volume climbing. “We’ve done nothing wrong! I was taking my charge to her uncle’s property in Elvage. Surely that’s not against the law. You have no jurisdiction here! This isn’t Tonttu, you idiot!”
Jokull reared back in time with his indignant horse. “An insult on the crown of the almighty Tomten? I’ll have your head! See how your jokes fare then!”
Jens ignored the toddler on the horse and addressed the captain of the guard with an open expression of hurt. “Pontus, what are you doing attacking me? I fought a whole tribe of trolls so you could have your land! Who told you to attack Jens the Brave? Johannes? It’d be just like him to shoot himself in the foot because someone thinks he’s capable of tripping.”
Jokull raged from his position of superiority, his long curly hair flinging about his neck as he tossed his chin from left to right. “Treason! Speaking against the Tonttu throne twice! Bring him in!”
Pontus flinched, obviously hating the child in charge. Pontus was a burly man, and looked like one who’d been used to giving the commands over the army, not taking them. “We’re under orders to bring the prince in for questioning. We received word that you were seen with him at the gate. We’ve been instructed to bring you in, as well.”
Jens shook his head in dismay at Pontus. “Bring me in like a criminal? This isn’t the warm welcome home from my kin I was expecting. Where’s the Gar and the women?”
“You’ll come with us to the palace.”
“On what grounds? Is this how you treat Tonttu’s favorite son?” He looked around animatedly. “Jamie’s not even here! He’s back on the Other Side, being the diplomat and smoothing things over with Queen Lucy that Johannes broke. He’s watching over her kingdom while she’s visiting her uncle here. They can appreciate a good ruler when they see one.” He spat on the ground. “The Other Side knows the difference between a king who steals from his people, and a queen who gives. Long live Queen Lucy! Long live King Jamie of Tonttu! May he bring sanity and fair trade back to those his father’s stolen from!” Jens pumped his fist in the air, and despite my blinding headache, I could see the mistake in this bravado. We were vastly outnumbered. I mean, forty on two.
Jokull tucked away his indignation and plastered on a sinister smile that made his hooked nose appear to dip down past his upper lip. “Keep ranting, fool! It’ll just be more we can use as evidence in your hanging!”
“I know these men, Jokull. They’re not idiots. They’re not as weak as you need them to be. These men belong to Jamie, because he belongs to his people!” When this did not get the soldiers to lower their weapons, Jens huffed. “How many of your children did I save when I slaughtered those trolls while you all ran? And this is the thanks I get?”
This seemed to strike a chord with Pontus, who held up his hand to stop any forthcoming attack. The men took a step back, and though they didn’t sheathe their weapons, they held them closer to their chests as opposed to aiming to pierce the heart of the man I loved. “If you come willingly with us, you’ll see no harm, Jens the Brave. On my honor.”
Jens’s abrupt smile was uncommonly cool. His shoulders rolled back as he lowered his arms. He looked like he was greeting an old poker buddy as he extended his hand to Pontus, shaking it without ill intent. “We’ll go see Johannes, sure. Everyone’s got to meet the guldy, right?” He jerked his thumb toward me, grimacing when he saw my face was turning purple. “Careful with my charge, Jarl! Jeez! Johannes did
n’t tell you to manhandle Queen Lucy of the Other Side, did he? Do you have any idea how bad you’re making things between our nations right now? She’s sick, so she’s come back to get medicine from Bedra.”
I probably looked fluish and pukish – I felt sick enough to conjure up a good gagging noise between moans of agony. My head was reaching a climax of symphonic agony, and I wasn’t sure how long I could hold on to lucidity.
Jens reached for me, but was rebuffed in the form of being restrained by seven men. “Get off me!” Jens shouted. “I see how it is! Jamie and I belong to the people, but you all belong to a useless throne! Tonttu will fall under Johannes! Look at your crops! It’s already falling! You all know it! Pontus, you serve a dying monarchy! Followers until your last day, all of you! You’re still running from the troll that takes your land! You deserve what you get!” He struggled against the soldiers who closed in around him, doubling and tripling their numbers to contain the beast that Jens was. “This is my land! I fought for it while you all fled! Now you take me as your prisoner? Queen Lucy curses this land!” Then with a triumphant fist in the air, he shouted, “Long live King Jamie! Long live King Jamie!”
Anxiety gripped me at the anger in Jens’s tone. It wasn’t the cool frustration he put on when opposition pissed him off. This was arguing with a wall that wouldn’t bend no matter how hard he beat on it. And now he’d declared his true allegiance, not that it was any real surprise how he felt.
I screamed for him, kicking the soldier and pounding him with my fists through the pain in my brain.
“Take her to the palace, Jarl,” Jokull instructed. “Father will be pleased to be given the guldy.” His tone dripped with the familiar lilt of a man who desperately needed to be locked up for lascivious behavior. Or, you know, for being an incurable pervy smackhole.
I was exchanged from one captor to the other, my head feeling like it was ripping apart as Jarl flipped me over his shoulder, ignoring my fruitless struggle. With every step, I was moved further from Jens, and worse, further from Jamie, wherever he was.
Ah! Lucy, Tucker’s coming! Hold on, syster! Ah! Jamie’s screams in my head didn’t help matters. “Go, Tucker! Get her quick! I’m fine, just go!” I heard him shout through the bond.
Jarl carried me none too gently, my abused head banging on his back with every other step he took. I screamed like a woman who knew her last breath was mere moments away. The pain in my head was so intense, it barely registered that Jarl slapped my butt to try to get me to shut up. I thrashed as I howled my pain to Jens, who was in his own ring of suffering further and further away from me. He’d murdered trolls, fought valiantly against Circhos and torn apart Weres with his bare hands. But this was thirty-nine armed soldiers against one brave hometown hero.
I heard his oofs and grunts of pain as he took a beating he didn’t deserve. “Jokull! You’ll burn for this, Jo! Jamie’s your brother! The Tonttu throne is just as much his as it is yours!”
Jokull reared back on his high horse. “You heard Jens the Slave! Make him suffer!” The men who delivered the blows looked as if they hated themselves for following through on their threats to bring their prisoner in by any means necessary. If only Jens would play along, he wouldn’t be taking punch after punch.
But that wasn’t my Jens. And I realized as I tried again to elbow Jarl in the back of the head as he carried me, playing along wasn’t for me, either. I’d been a prisoner too many times. I wouldn’t do it again. Before I could stop myself, I grabbed the hilt of the soldier’s sword, slid it out of his sheath and rammed the point with all my might through a weak spot in the leather armor on the right side of his lower back. Deeper I drove the blade into his skin as I screamed, not stopping at the resistance of an organ I knew he needed intact to survive.
At least a dozen soldiers swarmed me as Jarl’s knees hit the ground. Hands ripped the sword from my grip and tore me from my victim. I was flung to the grass and kicked a few times in the gut to ensure I didn’t get back up. My wrists were secured behind me this time, and when I was hefted to my feet, a sword was poised across my throat in case I took a breath out of turn. The breastplate of Pontus’s leather armor pressed to my back, his arm banding around my chest to move me forward without further incident to the other soldiers.
I was a threat to them. Good.
Jokull’s voice was laced with venom and a classic middle-child “I’ll show them all” whine. “Tell father that his heir to the throne sends him a grand gift. She’s a young one. Lots of fight in her.”
I despised the way he looked down his beak-like nose at me. I raged at the thought that any man assumed I would go easily into the dark. I’d been in the dark. Lived in it.
I wouldn’t go back.
“Good luck bringing me to your sorry excuse for a king,” I seethed, my voice uneven due to my headache that nearly tore me apart. I was crazy, and wouldn’t hold back an ounce of the madness. “I’m still a Tribeswoman of one of the four powers. When they hear how you’ve handled one of theirs, your land’ll be flooded in a hot second with sadistic Grimens with no conscience and an excuse to unleash on you. How do you think your king’ll handle a sea of hulking men all hopped up on the Depravity of Man curse? Who do you think he’s going to send out to be slaughtered when they come? You might bring me in today, but I’ll have all your heads!” I shouted like the madwoman I was.
Pontus lifted the sword that was pressed to my neck, lifting me to my toes to avoid being sliced. It dawned on me that if he drew even a little of my glittery siren blood, any chance of escape would be null and void. Pontus spoke low in my ear. “You’ll never live to see that day come about if you don’t shut your fair mouth. You’re a little thing. What menace do you imagine you have at your hand now? We’ll have to kill your Tom if he won’t cooperate, though that fact brings me no joy.”
I couldn’t think, the pain in my brain was so intense. I shouted to the sky, “I call down the powers of Vin Diesel on your heads! May he smite you all with his Fast and Furious Triple X Kung Fu! All who come against me now bear the wrath of his torment!”
“Long live Queen Lucy!” Jens shouted. “You tell him!” I heard a punch land, and then saw him go down. The soldiers bent to maim him further, and I heard the sickening sounds of too many kicks, too many punches, too many swords flashing in the air.
I wanted to whimper at the awful sounds of Jens’s fight going south on him, but I was afraid the noise might cost me my life. I could barely see straight, and my moxie was ebbing to incoherency as the pressure in my brain squeezed like a vice. My eyes shut from the pain of focusing too hard while my brain was actively trying to slice itself in half to reach Jamie. Pontus walked forward with me, and I prayed I wouldn’t trip and impale myself.
A new wave of commotion turned a few soldiers’ heads, and I could only hope it was some sort of Santa Claus fairy come to airlift me the smack outta Dodge.
It wasn’t a fairy; it was Tucker.
A fight broke out to my left, but I couldn’t turn my head to see it, lest I slice my throat on the blade that pressed further into my skin. Pontus quickened his pace, moving me further from the din. The additional distance from Jamie made my vision tunnel, and I began a disjointed babble of protest.
My least favorite elf ran in front of me, punched my captor in the nose and flashed me a grin all before I could utter a word of warning for him to save Jens. Soldiers lunged for me, but Tucker was quick. His arms yanked me to his chest, and the hands and swords that reached for me vanished as I was ported through space to Jamie’s side in a puff of gold dust.
Two.
Partial Rescue
The headache was instantly gone, but the pain had been so intense, it still echoed through me as I writhed with madness in Tucker’s arms. “Jens!” I finally shouted. “Save Jens!”
“Ever the ungrateful child, you are,” Tucker scolded, sounding drunk as he released me. I fell to the grass in a heap of limbs, my hands still bound behind my back.
T
ucker collapsed atop me, his height and weight knocking the breath from my lungs. “Get off!” I growled, angry that I was being mauled.
The elf propped himself up on his elbows, but collapsed on me again. “Forgive me, my queen. I seem to be out of practice. Porting in Undraland is more difficult than on the Other Slide.” His words began to slur as he murmured into my bosom, giving me the warm chills and the icks simultaneously.
Jamie was no help at all. He was just as disoriented as the rest of us, coming out of his fog of head torture slower than I would have liked.
I donned my Nurse Nightingale voice, adding extra sweetness to cover the shouting I wanted to do. “Tucker, darling, are you alright?”
He offered up half a drunken smile, his eyelids drooping as he looked down at my body that was tied and pinned beneath his. “’M fine, love.”
“Then please get the smack off of me and save Jens right now!”
This seemed to sober Tucker as much as was possible. He kissed my cheek and managed to right himself, taking a few cleansing breaths as he stood and attempted to focus his mind and body for the task at hand. After a few seconds, he growled in frustration, shaking out his hands and taking on the stance of a wrestler readying for the match.
After what felt like the longest twenty seconds of my life, Tucker vanished. My muscles released their tension as the relief of my head not hurting anymore flooded through me. I rested on the grass, staring up at the dusky sky as my chest heaved up and down.
“Are you alright?” Jamie asked, just as out of sorts as I was.
“Yup. Jens isn’t, though. And this rope is killing me softly. Can you cut it or something?”
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