Her mind, though frail, managed to summon her. Worry her. Even now. The thought of Laidea forced to go on alone became unbearable. They had shared their lives since the day they met. Perseathea knew Laidea's strength, but knew the deepness of her heart as well. Underneath the calm warrior lay a bleeding heart that pained deeper than anyone suspected. Laidea was tender, the woman just covered it well, suffering in silence. Perseathea saw her like no other ever had, and she knew that her death would break the warrior.
Perseathea, glorious Queen and unmatched Amazon warrior, looked up into the void, just a woman… searching strength as silent tears slipped her bruised cheeks. She tried to think on the happy memories of Laidea and her girls, her only wish to make these her last thoughts. Because she could not be strong any longer.
She looked up to the goddess in desperation, the hurt in her soul stinging far greater than any pain her body had known in her long thirty years. Now, she’d come to a place where she could no longer bare it. No longer fight it. At rest with the thought, Perseathea gave up, begging the goddess to take her. To turn her body cold. She thought on Laidea’s face, and on the day her girls were born. A weary smile gave curve to her lips as she let her head slump back on her neck. Breath fought up her chest, and then gave ragged decline. The black became blacker. Perseathea lost her sight, but her heart would not give up the love of her family. She held to them. Coldness shivered over her, dropping her numb… and she let go.
Chapter 23
A hiss fingered through the grass, waving the blades above my head, and I held my breath for the hundredth time. The night loomed dark. Black dark. And that hiss cloaked in it, coming and going through the field like a legion of ghosts. Tricking my eyes. Speeding my heart in my chest. Turning it into loud, coursing thumps in my ears. I hugged my knees. I just have to make it till daylight.
But a new wind brought a hint of that stench back, making me question my senses. Did I smell the decay? Or was I simply so frightened I was paranoid of it? A long while, I’m uncertain of the amount, passed me by with the stink gone. Which had reassured, as well as vexed me. If the reek disappeared, so might my friends.
The next foul breath of night wind answered my question. The death fumed in so heavy it felt as if my skin crawled with it, drinking the stink into my pores. My body, my hair, my nostrils felt gritty with it. Every breeze likened to the gate of the underworld opening up before me, coughing up the rot of its victims. Turning my stomach. I could taste it. I stopped breathing, sealing my lips to keep from vomiting.
A figure in the grass, just paces away, caught in my sight. In a sharp breath, the spoiled air sucked into my throat. Chill bumps rushed over my skin like ice water. White knuckling the axe in my hand, I slowly lifted to my feet. Shivering. Staring. I couldn’t make out more than the white of the eyes, nearly glowing in the dark. With the swaying blades tickling my shoulders, I strained to clear the figure. It was gone. I tightened the grip on my axe, my palm smearing in nervous sweat against the handle.
To my right, the grass gave a sudden jolt. I jerked to the side, craning. Staring without blink, my eyes dried under the desiccated breeze. I saw nothing. My tongue felt like sand in my mouth… and the grass behind me stirred. A sudden jolt to my left. Close enough for me to catch the movement in my peripheral. The stink now clouded unbearable. Suffocating. Choking into my mouth and nose.
Begging my nerves to calm, I kept a sweaty grip on my weapon, remembering the last thing Laidea said. I stood like a lone statue under the moonless night, refusing to move a muscle. The high grass shivered around me, a stinking ocean of hiss, and my body trembled in turn. I shook, holding back tears, and unexpectedly, began thinking about my mother.
Fear seemed to lift her to my thoughts. It reminded me of the child like part of me that still very much lived, making me yearn for her arms to hide in. To protect me. I needed to see the warmth in her face that always brought me comfort. I missed her. Her and my sister. So much sometimes that the loneliness in me ached like a phantom scrape across my heart, stinging with every beat.
Another gust wafted, fingering the decayed breeze through my hair. Molesting and taunting me. Gripping my heart with a near crippling dread for my friends. For Saratiese. For myself. At only sixteen, I’d never even heard tale of a place such as this. A land swallowing people up like a monster. A hungry monster now waiting to swallow me.
The grass jerked at my side, stopping my heart. To my front. Paces up. Paces back. They were all around me now. Everywhere. I stood cold, chest heaving. This was it. I was out of time. I slid a cautious hand to my amulet, touching it in prayer. And then I ran.
I didn’t make it three full paces before something ripped from the dark, grabbing my ankle. Screaming, I toppled to the ground in a jaw bruising thud, my axe tossing from my hand. Dirt and blood split my lip, burning and gritting in my mouth. I strained my fingers toward my weapon, veins sprouting my forearm, but before I could touch the handle, the axe sprung from the grass.
Whatever held my ankle bruised into my flesh, yanking me back so hard I thought my hip might break from its socket. I squirmed, fighting, rolling in the grass, screaming my throat ragged. I caught glimpses of movement behind me. A blackness flowing like demons. And a pale and dirty hand trying to break my ankle. But in my struggle, I never saw the beast clearly. The meadow clustered thick, hiding parts of who ever, or whatever, had me locked in this excruciating hold. And the night still loomed so black and starless that I could narrowly see a pace before me.
My face hot with screaming, I kicked wild at the hand with my free foot, but my captor stood strong, holding me with a single heavy grip. Struggling and clawing at the dirt, I wrestled violently in the grip, my quick breath burning my lungs. The blades and dirt scratching my stomach. Choking on the grit and blood, I floundered, twisting in the grass like a beached fish. My lower legs ribboned with slashes. Bleeding. Stinging. The more I resisted, the deeper the claws dug after me.
I turned onto my back, arms thrashing. I kicked again, fighting and out of breath, but the black flow with pale hands scratched up my thighs. Its face still hid from me, even as it clawed nearly to my waist. I kicked again, one after the other, for an uncountable series of jolts. But all I could see in my frenzied struggle were the whites of its eyes. And I could smell the blood busting from the center of its face.
Ripping backward, I felt the ground drop out from under my legs. I sucked down to my waist in the dirt before I could clench enough grass to hold on. The tall grass stung me with slices as I slid down, being swallowed up. Digging my fingers in the dirt, I fought to stay above ground, but the heavy arms below wrapped around my waist, yanking me down. My muscles shook as I heaved against them, gritting my teeth. Fighting. Kicking. Then suddenly, I sprung forward. Shoving face first into the dirt, my breath knocked from me, and the lightness of my legs came back. Scrambling to my knees, I got to my feet. Running.
Chapter 24
Blood streamed off with sweat as I ran. Chest burning. Side paining. I sprinted the dark, running at the top of my speed. The grass rose higher, snapping into my face, my outstretched hands guiding me.
And I tripped. Unable to merge my speed with my balance, down I flew, busting into my elbows in the dirt. I clawed back up, the night breezing my cheeks again before another moment could pass. I didn’t know if the demons were right behind me. Chasing. I refused to look after tearing out of that hole, never glancing back over my shoulder, but I ran like their breath heated my neck.
Sprinting the endless field, sharp grass sliced my skin in jags, like thorns. Bringing blood. But for the reoccurring sting, I barely noticed, my mind too panicked. The night hovered over me so dark, and the meadow stretched so broad, I couldn’t be certain which direction I was heading. Back to the valley? Or toward what lay beyond this cursed field? If the field ever ended. Disorientated, I desperately searched the black night, overwhelmed by the high grass now swallowing me up to my chin. Sweaty blood trickled into my eyes, stinging and blurri
ng my sight. I wiped it, only smearing it worse. And I pushed myself to keep running.
I didn’t know how long I’d been running, but it felt like forever. Forever, though, didn’t feel long enough. Whatever haunted this meadow, I couldn’t get away from it. Through burning lungs, I could still smell the stink. It floated everywhere. All around me.
With my mouth as dry as sand and my lungs on fire, I slowed my pace, trying to catch my breath. I walked the grass, eyes wide to my eerie surroundings. The same view as before. Yellow grass as far as I could see capped by an ink black sky. Salt tasted on my upper lip, dripping my chin. My chest heaved and my eyes still burned in the sting of salty blood. Stopping, I palmed over my face.
Before my fingers left my forehead, I felt my leg rip out from under me, busting my chin into the dirt. Black flashed in my eyes, ache grabbing hold of my jaw. Dazed, I staggered to my knees, squinting through the sting, scanning the grass behind me. Nothing. The grass mashed down with my fall, but nothing waited for me there, even though I could still feel the bruise of a phantom hand around my ankle. I listened to the night. My own racing breaths, loud and vulnerable, dominated the breeze. My tongue swelled, warming blood into my mouth.
Something moved a stone‘s throw from me, shoving my heart up my throat. Recoiling into a crouch, a tremble took my bleeding lips. In the grass, white eyes stared up at me, somehow from beneath the ground’s surface.
Before I knew what was happening, my ankles ripped back, dropping me to my stomach. The night sky disappeared, the soil itself swallowing me in. I sank in the dirt until only my hands felt the night air above. I fell, the wind knocking from me as I hit the dirt floor. And I began to drag. The rutted ground scraped my stomach and I couldn't see anything in front of me, only a dim tunnel that I was quickly leaving behind. Sliding backward, I clawed at the dirt with no fortune. The cloaked one dragging me clenched far too strong. Torches lined the walls of the cramped underground path. I looked up, seeing sink holes in the top of the tunnel.
When my breath came back, I choked on the taste of smoke and dust. Digging my fingernails in the dirt, clutching at sharp edged stones as they passed under me, I struggled under the hand bruising into my ankles. My feet began to tingle under the crushing fingers. I squirmed, fighting to look up at my captor, but could only catch glimpses of the flowing black cloak as it trailed behind the figure. My leathers pulled up under my arms, leaving my Allegiance wound the brunt, tattering the binding into the dirt. My chest already swelled with bruises and now blood smeared it again, my blisters busting and oozing. Blood seeped into the dirt in front of me. With the sting and tingle of the ground tearing open my scabs, I felt my energy draining out as well. Barely able to breathe and near vomiting from the pain, my eyes rolled back.
The dragging stopped. The black Cloak dropped my swollen ankles to the dirt in a heavy thud. I tried to focus my blurring eyes, dirt and blood as bitter as vinegar on my tongue. Hot gags wrenched in my throat, trying to force my vomit. My breast wound fired, bleeding and aching, the pain of my ceremony ripped wide open. The cloaked figure leaned over, pulling me up by the hair. Its white hand came down in a flash, bludgeoning my cheek. I dropped into black.
Chapter 25
I woke up in the dark. How long had it been? Days? Hours?
"I can’t…" mumbles fell off my swollen lips. I turned to lift and realized, "I can’t see."
Lightheaded, bewilderment blurred me and I laid back down in the dirt. Blackness shrouded, refusing to give way to any shapes. My hair sopped with sweat, trickling the salt into my eyes, drenching my face.
"Why can't I see?" My panic got lost in the dark. Sitting up again, I smeared the sweat and grit from my face, blinking repeatedly.
"Where am I?” I asked myself, wiping blind eyes, palming into my sockets. After long, black moments, dim surroundings began to emerge.I slid a wet palm over my face, trying to regain clear thinking. This dark was hot. Cramped hot. Like the walls were closing in on. Sweat saturated my whole body. The mysterious place likened to being trapped in a tomb, and just the thought made me struggle for breath.
I sat smothering in my boiling sweat, gritty with dirt, gasping for air like a fish plucked from water. Breathing in so deep, the smell of my sweat steamed up my nostrils, bringing something else with it. It smelled as if I had been… soaked in something. My skin felt strangely soft, the deep smell of blood and grime gone. Instead, my skin smelled like spoiled fruit.
I grimaced, sniffing over my arm. The pungent smell amalgamated with my sweat to create a rotting odor that reminded me of dead animals putrefying under a hot sun… and molding peaches? The same stench from the meadow, and it fumed heavy in this black place.
Then the sounds came, taking my attention. Screams. Sounds of pain. Maybe torture? Definite fear. A few moments later, a collection of many screams sounded all at once. I couldn’t wager an exact number, but it sounded to be the noise of a crowd. And then they dropped into mumbles, too far away, too low, for me to decipher. After these voices faded, a whistling of wind came to me. Howling, it moaned in and out, all around me, from whatever loomed beyond my place in the dark.
I lifted, crouching on sweaty toes, tensing them in the dirt. Bulging my near blind eyes, I brooded over the screams that threatened me from not too far away. The people sounded close, sounding just beyond my limited sight. I tilted my ear up to where they had sounded just moments before, somewhere above my head. The howling wind brought their murmurs back to my black den. I held still. Listening to… chanting. Faint at first, the voices lifted, filling the place, until it echoed the underground. Sending a chill under my skin. I couldn’t understand the chants. They were sung in words I’d never before heard, but I sensed it in my soul, they rung out ill omened. A chant for the damned.
Am I the only one left? The only one alive? I thought over many things, but mostly on Saratiese. I forced my mind to cut off from her image. It stirred me with too many concerns and emotions. The thought of her did no more than fill me with fear. Fear and dread. More than I would have thinking only on myself. And I knew that if I wanted to find her, I had to believe she was still alive, whether my heart was truly convinced or not. It didn’t matter. The only way out of this place was in believing Sara to be well and waiting. Waiting for me. Saratiese, Laidea, and the others. I would find them, and we would all get out of here. Out of all of this. Or die trying.
Attempting to stand, I thudded my already aching head, learning fast that there was but enough room to crouch in this space. After caressing my throbbing head, I felt my way through the pit, searching blindly with my hands. Dust coated my throat, and the death stench filled every crook in the hole. My body bruised sore, and there were no words for the excruciating pain that tightened my chest.
I put my thoughts on Queen Perseathea, dwelling on her strength. Her courage. Her example as a warrior and a Queen. She would never be defeated by this. She accepted no failure. Swallowed all pain. Rallied on, forcing fear to bow its knee. This is who I could become. Who I longed to become. And now was my chance to grow into that Amazon warrior. With new resolve, I kept my thoughts on my Queen, paying no heed to the sinister chants resonating the distance.
A flicker of light appeared. The beam gave my eyes a slight guidance over the hole, revealing me a place to stand just a few paces away. The mystery light shone through what looked to be a crudely cut porthole with wooden bars, carved into the dirt wall up diagonally from my place in the dirt. The amber glow bounced rhythmically behind the bars. Growing. I stared, my fingers tensing the dirt. Someone was coming. The fire floated in the black. Bobbing, brighter and brighter.
Now, the light blared directly behind the bars. My mind rushed with terrified thoughts. Of who held the torch and if it was those abnormally tall black cloaks. I knew the answer. Who else could it be? But I’d never seen any race of people take down a company of Amazons so quickly before, and take down the greatest of our warriors. Hippolyta, Laidea. How could I fight such things?
&nb
sp; A grating sound scraped the dirt from above, raising the hair on my arms with a chill. The light burned inside the hole now, two cloaked figures hovering like tall shadows behind it. Heat from the torch burned my cheeks, suffocating me with its black smoke. A white hand levitated out from behind the fire. I stared on it, but with the fire so bright and the hole so dark, I couldn‘t make out the faces. So the heavy hand struck me, dropping me on my face in the dirt. Again, I tasted warm blood in my mouth, a taste becoming far too familiar these last couple of days. My unbearable sweat still saturated me, coating my wet skin with dust and grime. The heavy hands floated over me, like white bones piercing the dark, and the two figures garbled back and forth in strange words.
A swift kick thrashed into my stomach, stealing my air and tossing me onto my back. I looked up at them, my head aching, hazing, as the two figures began to blur. I felt so weak. Not yet recovered from the tear in my wound, my energy remained elusive. My whole body ached. Tired. Another boot busted my nose. The burn of blood trickled inside my nose, tasting in the back of my throat, and I drifted into another sleep.
Chapter 26
Silence… as if no sound existed. Silence so tranquil it became feeling. An emotion. An experience. A warm and soothing wave, as gentle as the womb, embraced Perseathea. Cradling her exhausted muscles and caressing her whole body. Akin to waking after a satisfying slumber, she opened her eyes, meeting with vague shapes swirling above her in various hues of turquoise, blurring also mauve and sparks of gold. All of it hovering as if by magic. Floating herself, she felt parallel to that magic. Drawn into it.
Amazon: Signs of the Secret Page 15
