Leaves crunched beneath his toes as Nick edged one foot forward. His eyes struggled to make sense of his surroundings. He looked up and saw a single point of light, one star that managed to show through the foliage above. There was so little light beneath the leafy overhang that all he could really see were dark shapes in front of lighter tones of grey, trees in front of trees.
Other leaves rustled, closer this time. The grumbling sound, when it came again, sounded even more like a growl. He couldn’t move. It was so dark, he didn’t know if he could walk safely across the uneven ground. Even if he could make it to a tree, their trunks were so thick that there would be no way to climb one.
Nick expected an attack, a heavy animal shape knocking him down, and a set of sharp teeth ripping at his throat.
But Nick found he was more angry than frightened. He had had enough of being pushed around by this brand-new world.
“Are you coming?” he shouted out at the darkness. “I’m ready for you!”
If he was going to die, at least he could take his killer with him. He drew his sword.
The blade glowed dully with a light of its own, a pale grey light that made Nick think of ghosts.
Something howled out in the woods.
The sword flared for an instant as bright as day. Nick threw his free hand in front of his face to protect his eyes. A chorus of cries came from the forest as the light startled whatever stalked him.
“Onne of the neww onesss,” the same animal voice somehow grumbled in words.
“He hass a ssworrdd,” a second voice growled.
“Fressh meeat,” the first voice reassured. “Fressh meeat.”
“The girrl wass too farrr,” other voices joined in the conversation. “The menn werrre too mannyy.”
“They taunnt ussss, ssso taassty, but alwayss beyond ourrr rrreach.”
The voices circled Nick now, coming from half a dozen points in the darkness.
“Thisss onne isss alonnne.”
“Ssso he hasss a sssword? We outnummber himm ssseven to one.”
“Beforrre he can ssstrike uss dowwn, we will have himm on the ground.”
Nick took his sword in both hands. The ghost glow brightened slightly. Nick thought he could see dark shapes pacing on all fours, shadows circling him through the trees.
“Hisss fresssh blood will slaake ourrrr thirrrsst.”
“Hisss meeat will sstill the grummble in ourrr belliesss.”
Nick turned slowly. The moving shadows were all around him. “Commme, booyy. Therrre isss noo hope forrr youuu.”
“Wee will ennd it quickly!”
“Fressh meeat,” the first voice chanted once more.
“Fressh meeat,” all the voices growled together.
As if that were a signal, two shadows separated from the surrounding gloom to rush toward the sword light. Nick made out legs and heads and matted fur as the shadows turned to wolves.
“No!” he yelled, swinging the sword before him. The weapon tugged in his grip, making him stumble to his left. The closer of the wolves veered to meet him. The sword jerked Nick to the right as it rose and fell, slicing the onrushing wolf on its flank. The first wolf yelped with pain as it rolled away, but the sword was already guiding Nick’s hands toward the second attacker.
The second wolf leapt from the ground with a sharp bark, ready to tear out Nick’s throat. The sword jerked forward so suddenly that Nick fell to his knees. The sword point swept upward, catching the now falling wolf full in the belly. The wolf screamed as the blade slipped through to its spine. The wolf’s momentum carried it over Nick’s head, tearing the sword from his hands.
Nick stood and turned, running the quick three steps to the fallen wolf carcass. He was dead if he didn’t rescue the sword. He placed his sneaker against the side of the dead animal as he grabbed the sword with both hands. The weapon came out slowly, almost reluctantly, the metal making an odd whistling sound, like the soft rush of air when you drink through a straw.
The sword glowed, no longer a pale grey but a vibrant, pulsating red. Oddly enough, the metal edge looked clean and dry, as if it had taken the blood that should be smeared there and drawn it into the blade.
None of the other wolves attacked. In fact, he could no longer see any movement in the shadows.
Instead, those creatures that remained all lifted their voices together in one great howl.
Nick held the sword before him at arm’s length, confident that the blade would lead him in whatever battle was to come.
“Ssommeday youu will not havve the ssword,” the first voice said. “Fressh meeat.”
The wolves vanished as quietly as they had arrived. There was a long moment of silence.
Nick heard a rustling behind him. He whirled around to see the wounded wolf whimper as it tried to drag itself away.
The sword tore itself from Nick’s grip and flew to the injured wolf, plunging itself into the animal’s upper body. Straight for the heart, Nick thought. The wolf shuddered once and then was as silent as the rest of the woods.
The two wolf bodies lay side by side on the forest floor. The first carcass was oddly flat, as if all the blood had been drained from it.
The second body shrank as Nick watched. The sword hilt rocked gently back and forth until it was done.
When the sword had what it needed, he stepped forward and pulled the blade free. The sword was there to save his life. If it wanted blood, he had to give it, one way or another.
He wasn’t home anymore.
Nick retreated to stand, back to a tree, the sword gripped in both his hands.
If he had to, he’d wait this way until morning.
Twenty-Five
Somewhere deep inside, she was as upset as she had ever been. But Mary Lou didn’t dare cry.
She had seen Todd down there. If only there was some way to get to him. She wanted to bolt from these creatures again, to run after Todd and his friends, calling for them to stop.
But she could barely move her foot. Her ankle hurt that much. And what if somehow she did manage to get down to the ground from here? Those wolves were down there, too. The minute she was alone, she was sure something terrible would happen to her.
Mary Lou winced as the People gathered around her, pushing her back up the path, waving with their torches for her to follow. She wanted to scream at them to leave her alone, to cry out with the pain, use all the grief and hurt and anger inside her to make everybody go away.
Crying and screaming were never the answer to anything. That’s what her mother had always said. You can’t run away from your problems, Mary Lou.
She didn’t know what else to believe.
The People had come to rescue her, after all. She didn’t want to hurt them. They just didn’t understand that she had been threatened by the wolves, and not by the people—the real people— with Todd.
She had to talk to the People, make them see what she needed. They could work something else out—after all, hadn’t the prince said that they considered her some sort of hero? They thought she was the reason they won against the red-furred creatures. A heroine should be granted anything she wanted. Shouldn’t she?
It was all a matter of making them understand. But, in order to do that, she had to wait for the prince. In an odd way, this was the most frustrating part of all the things that had happened to her. She wished there was some way she could call him herself, without waiting for the People to bring him to her. But then, she always wished for all sorts of things.
The People had stopped screaming when the humans disappeared. They tugged at Mary Lou’s blouse now, urging her to follow them back up the path they had built through the trees.
She let the People lead the way. She winced as she put her weight on her ankle. She’d twisted it, just like she had when she played field hockey in junior high. She was lucky she hadn’t done anything worse.
Lucky? Anything worse? That sounded like her mother talking, too. “Merrilu!” the Chieftain called to her when
he saw her limp. “Merrilu!” the other People echoed as they flocked around.
“Merrilu!”
Small hands pushed gently against her legs, stopping her from taking another step. Others pushed at the backs of her legs below her knees. She felt herself losing her balance. They were going to push her over! She tried to fight against the press and tug around her, but cried out the moment she put pressure on her ankle.
She didn’t fall. Instead, she was lifted, a dozen or more of the People gathered beneath her to carry her back to the stronghold.
“Merrilu!” they called her name over and over, but much more slowly and rhythmically than they had before, like a call to march. “Merrilu!” They paused for a beat. “Merrilu!” Pause. “Merrilu!”
She knew she should try to relax. Perhaps, in the morning, the prince would return, and she could convince the People that they had to take her back to the others of her kind.
Her eyes closed despite herself. She started to drift. She was exhausted.
Pain lanced from her ankle. She jerked awake and discovered she was back on the great platform where the People had built their village. “Merrilu,” the Chieftain urged. He held a wooden cup filled with dark liquid in his hands. Other hands pushed at her shoulders, urging her up into a sitting position. The Chieftain thrust the cup forward so that it rested against her chin. Her mouth was so dry that the skin tore as she pulled her lips apart. The Chieftain tipped the cup to her mouth.
For an instant, as the liquid touched her lips, she was afraid it might be blood.
It was sweet to the taste. She guessed it was some sort of fruit juice.
So much else had been going on, she hadn’t thought how thirsty she might be. She drank everything that was in the cup, and nodded her thanks.
The helping hands lowered her back to the platform. She noticed that she had been placed on a pile of furs. She didn’t want to think about where they had come from. At least the People didn’t offer her anything else to eat.
“Merrilu,” they called, although their voices were so quiet that the chant almost sounded like a lullaby.
She felt a gentle pressure on her shoulders as her ankle was suddenly jarred with pain. She could only raise her head slightly, barely enough to see that a crowd of the People were taking off her shoe and sock. Another crowd rested on her shoulders, keeping her from rising.
Mary Lou fought against panic. What were they going to do? “Merrilu,” the People whispered. “Merrilu.”
She stopped struggling. The whole tribe had rushed down the trail to save her. Why would the People want to hurt her now?
Two more of the people approached her resting place. One carried a bowl, another, two great fistfuls of the huge dark leaves that grew on the ever-present vines. Working quickly, they applied a gooey mixture to the leaves and wrapped the great green foliage around her ankle, one leaf right after another.
“Merrilu,” they whispered. The leaves wrapped around her ankle felt pleasantly warm. The healers finished their work, and the Chieftain waved them and all the others away.
“Merrilu,” they whispered as they bowed their heads and backed away.
The Chieftain opened his arms to the sky. “Merrilu!” he called once in a high, piercing tone. Then he, too, bowed to her and backed away, the last of the People to disappear from her sight.
The furs beneath her were cured. They were soft and warm. She exhaled, doing her best to relax, and looked up beyond the village. From here, Mary Lou could see the whole sky filled with stars. She was on a whole different world now. Were all the stars different as well?
She wanted to know more about this place, figure out how she fit in with all that was happening around her. She seemed to have a reason to be here. At least Nunn and the People seemed to believe that. The wizard wanted her; the People wanted her, too. Only the prince seemed above using Mary Lou for his own selfish ends.
She wished again that the prince could be here with her, right now, in this quiet moment under the stars. If only one thing could come true in all her life, she thought. Oh, how she wished! “Mary Lou?” a deep voice whispered by her ear.
She turned and stared at the apparition, even more like a spirit in the starlight.
“Prince?” she asked.
“That’s what you still choose to call me,” the prince replied, amusement in his voice. “One name is as good as another. Better, really, if the name comes from you.”
Mary Lou blinked. That was the nicest thing the prince had ever said to her. It was so warm wrapped in these furs, so quiet without the constant chattering of the People, so calm compared to everything that had gone before. She wondered if all of this was really happening.
“No, I’m not a dream,” he replied as if he could read her thoughts. “I’m as real, well, as I ever am.”
She liked the way he gently kidded himself. And the way he smiled when he saw her.
“And yet you called me, didn’t you?” He looked down at his ghostly hands. “Somehow I could come here without the People’s aid. Strange, isn’t it? As though the two of us are developing some sort of bond.”
Mary Lou had felt that—or wished for that—from the very beginning. She was so glad to learn it was true.
“What will the People say?” she whispered back to him.
The prince turned to look across the platform. “I doubt they need to say anything just yet. I don’t think they’ll even notice us, at least for a little while. They’ve had a great victory and a great feast. I have been among them long enough to know their habits. In the morning, a few of them will salt the remaining meat. For the remainder of the tribe, it will be a day of rest.”
But the prince is here! A small voice said inside Mary Lou. She should change things now, call the People to them, let them know that the humans were her friends and that she had to see them.
Somehow, though, finding Todd and the others didn’t seem anywhere near as urgent as it had a few minutes before. Any conversation she and the prince might have with the People could certainly wait until morning.
The prince smiled at her, then turned to study his dark surroundings. “It’s good to be here, with no work from the People. My life, or whatever you would call this, is filled with performing the wishes of others. But now”—he laughed—“at this minute, I’ve nothing to do but talk to you and stare up at the stars.” He paused for a long moment as he did just that. “It seems to me I used to know something about the stars. Maybe I’ll remember what it was someday.” He looked back at Mary Lou. “I have a feeling that things are changing. Many things will change, now that you are here.” He paused again, then chuckled. “I wonder if I will remember where those feelings of mine come from as well.”
Mary Lou yawned despite herself. “Excuse me,” she said quickly. “I’ve had a—busy day.”
“Much more than that, I would think,” the prince replied. “You should sleep. The way things are changing, I think we might have a great deal of time—together.”
Mary Lou smiled at that and lay back in the furs. She drifted, and in her sleep she felt her prince take her by the arm and lead her to a castle built high in the clouds, much closer to the stars.
Mary Lou opened her eyes to a clear sky and a hint of sun peeking through the forest leaves. She remembered how the prince had come to visit her during the night. It had been such a wonderful dream.
“Well, good morning.” The prince’s face materialized above her. He greeted her with a smile.
“You were here last night?” she asked as she rubbed her sleep-puffed eyes.
“And I still am,” the prince answered with a nod. “When you want somebody around, you can be pretty persuasive.”
Mary Lou blushed.
“The People have checked on you from time to time,” the prince continued. He didn’t seem to notice her embarrassment. “They haven’t seen me. I have—well, ways to hide when I’d rather people didn’t know I was around.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I thought it be
st that nobody shared our little secret, at least not yet.”
They were sharing this secret life together, then? Now she felt both embarrassed and thrilled. It would be wonderful to really share something with the prince.
“I should get up,” she said quickly. Maybe, if she could walk around, the prince wouldn’t notice how flustered she was. That is, if she could walk at all.
She sat up and felt the dried mixture that coated the leaves wrapped around her ankle. The stuff had dried there, like a plaster cast. She flexed her toes, then her whole foot, waiting for the ankle to complain. There was no pain at all.
“I’m going to stand up,” she announced abruptly. She wished there was some way that the prince could reach out a strong hand to help. Still, she managed on her own, getting her feet beneath her in a squat, then raising herself up slowly, careful of her balance. She felt the slightest twinge when she put weight on that foot, but the leaf cast seemed to keep all the muscles in place. Whatever was in that concoction with the leaves, it seemed to have taken away all but a slight tenderness from the sprain. In another day, she bet she wouldn’t feel any pain at all.
“They used Garo leaves,” the prince said suddenly, as if it was something he had just remembered. “They come from those great dark vines that hang from the trees. When used in the proper way—well, you see what they can do.”
The prince smiled in delight. “This is very strange. Over the course of the past few moments, I feel as though memories are coming back, like I’m coming out of—” His hands waved around as if he might grab the missing words out of the air.
“Some sort of magic spell?” Mary Lou prompted.
“It could be.” The prince laughed as he looked through his ghostly hand. “Appropriate to our surroundings, I’d guess. But I was going to say that I was coming out of a cave, or a tunnel. It’s like I’ve been living in darkness for a long time, and for the first time I can see the slightest bit of light.”
Mary Lou was happy for him. She wondered if she had anything to do with it.
“You talked about a spell,” the prince said after a moment. “I knew both the wizards, once. I think their magic does have something to do with what has become of me.” He laughed, waving his transparent fingers in front of his eyes. “Does any of this mean anything? I still don’t even know if I’m truly alive. What if I am no more than some sorcery—some memory of what I was when I could claim flesh and blood?”
Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) Page 20
