Wolfehaven Page 3

  At the sound of a splash behind her, Tina spun again towards Jackie. However, he was no longer standing clothed on the bank, but wading toward her, his chest and arms bare above the water that came just above to his waist. As he made long strides through the water, his hands dipped in at each step, his arms sweeping like oars pushing him forward. And his smirking grin never faded.

  Tina lunged to her right and began struggling toward the bank. But she had made it only partway when she saw Jerry stepping through the ferns and stopping just where she was heading. Grinning, he held out his hand as though to help her out of the water.

  “No!” Tina shouted and turned toward another spot on the bank.

  “Come on, Tina,” Jackie said from not far behind her. “You need to find out how to use that fine body of yours. Jerry and I can teach you all kinds of things.”

  “No!” she shouted, her voice rising to almost a scream and beginning to break. “Leave me alone! You just leave me alone!” And she pushed herself toward the bank.

  Of course, Jerry had no trouble at all getting there before her. Grinning, he held out a helping hand.

  “No!” she screamed as she turned to find another spot on the bank that was not occupied, but Jackie was moving to intercept her. She spun and started back towards the opposite side of the bank now that both men were on the same side of the pond. If she could just get up out of the water before one of them grabbed her, she could run into the forest where she had a good chance of outdistancing them. She stretched out in a wild, swimming stroke, splashing and kicking her way across the pond. She was a good swimmer, a fast swimmer. She had a chance.

  The bank was suddenly right there in front of her, the bottom of the pond rising swiftly with boulders like a stairway. The ferns growing down to the water’s edge swept across her face and slipped through her fingers when she tried to use them to pull herself up. Then, at last, firm ground beneath her knee was dry and she knew she was out. She sprang to her feet and leaned forward, willing her body to move faster, to slip among the trees. The rough bark of the first tree had just scraped the palm of her hand when a strong arm wrapped around her waist from behind and pulled her back.

  “No!” she screamed.

  Jerry wrapped his other arm around her and pulled her in tight.

  “No!” she screamed.

  She was spun about so she could see Jackie as he stepped up out of the water on the same steps she had used. He was as naked as she and Jerry.

  “No!” she screamed.

  Jerry held her until Jackie could grab her legs. They carried her around the bank to a wide patch of moss and ferns where they laid her down, each one maintaining his hold of her to stop her from scrambling away, but not for long.

  “No!” she screamed.

  “Yes,” Jerry insisted, grinning.

  CHAPTER 4

  Satan lived.

  Emmie heard just the briefest sob from Raven as her friend stepped out of the ruined ferns and into the sunlight of the meadow. Although Raven walked with apparent confidence toward the other side of the open space where the kryl had fired its deadly weapon, Emmie sensed that Raven resisted the elation that knowing Satan lived should have caused. It could all be in error.

  Following in Raven’s steps, Emmie was pretty sure that was what Raven was thinking. Something else could have attacked the kryl, perhaps an angry black bear. Cougars were plentiful in the area even if grizzlies and wolves were not. It could have been a cougar...or maybe a really big, mean and nasty wild boar. There were lots of boars in the area, interbred with what used to be domestic pigs many generations ago according to Dagar, and they wouldn’t be afraid to tangle with a kryl or anything else except maybe a grizzly. Still, Raven had acted as though she had heard or felt Satan, whatever the correct term was for their special form of communication.

  As they drew near, the bushes quivered. It was no more than a small woodland creature might cause in its silent passage, just a flicker of frond here and a nudge of branch there. And then Emmie heard the whimper. She quickly looked over at Raven to see if her friend had heard it too and was met by the far-away gaze she knew so well.

  “He’s hurt,” Raven said rushing forward, wading through the brush with high steps and working her arms like oars.

  Emmie followed Raven into the shoulder-high bushes clumped across the edge of the meadow, providing a thick mass of nearly impenetrable brush a good ten feet across before the first of the trees on that side. Except for what was probably a deer trail that Sherri had come through in her flight, it was like a solid wall of leaf-covered tangles of wiry branches. Emmie was glad she was wearing her buckskin breeches and knee-high boots; if only her loose shirt were as effective a shield. She was still covered with a hundred scrapes and scratches by the time Raven called her to join her off to the right.

  Raven crouched beside Satan’s massive form, although he seemed less enormous, lying still and vulnerable as he was. Several feet away, among a tangle of broken brush lay the kryl. It, too, was unmoving and in a position that seemed awkward, even with knowing the natural postures for its kind. And, like Satan, it had several large and ghastly wounds from which thick blood oozed. Its terrible weapon lay beneath it, and one of its hands still curled into a fist and held a bladed instrument that was a kryl version of a knife-hatchet. The blade was about eight inches long, straight along the back with the cutting edge a graceful curve sweeping at least twelve inches from its point to near the pommel of the thing’s handle, making a wedge of steel five inches wide and almost half an inch thick at its base where it attached to an overlarge pistol-grip handle. Emmie cringed when she imagined the ghastly wounds such a weapon could inflict.

  As she knelt beside her friend who now sat beside the still dog, she felt the chill of fear that he was dead, after all. But then she heard another soft whine, not the sound of prolonged suffering but one of recognition of a loving touch. She made brief eye contact with him as he raised his head and before he peered back into Raven’s face. Again, he whined as he continued to maintain eye contact with Raven, who periodically nodded and grunted, and Emmie envied her friend’s ability to reach out and touch the mind of such a creature.

  Raven motioned Emmie forward as she climbed over to Satan’s other side to make room. Emmie examined several gaping wounds on his left side, belly, neck and shoulder and a hole burned through the upper portion of his right front leg. She reached out as though to caress them but with her fingertips an inch away from contact. As the lips of the gashes pulled together, the bleeding stopped. While Raven bandaged the now closed wounds, Emmie heard the approach of Sherri and her children and turned to beckon them closer. She was surprised to see the man who had tried to kill them supporting her as she hobbled across the open ground. The two figures sprawled on the ground held their focus.

  Emmie turned back when Raven said, “He’s hurt bad. We’ve got to get him back to the village and Lila.”

  “Can he walk?” Emmie asked.

  Blood coated his coat in crimson and had pooled on the ground under him.

  “Not well, or fast, or far,” Raven answered.

  “I don’t know how well I can carry both and keep both of ‘em from bouncing around.”

  Raven looked over her shoulder at the man supporting the woman, at the woman holding the baby and the small girl standing beside her. “You carry Satan. He’ll carry her. I’ll carry the baby and the girl if she can’t keep up.

  The man beside Sherri had heard the plan and spoke up. “Okay, I’ll carry Sherri. No problem. She’s not very big or heavy. But that dog must weigh a hundred and fifty or two hundred pounds. You expect this girl to carry him?”

  Emmie exchanged a look with Raven, and it was all she could do to keep from smirking. She said, “No problem. And let me know if you get tired...you know, if uh, Sherri, was it? — if Sherri gets too heavy. I’ll carry you both — and the dog. And, for your information, he’s two hundred and twenty pounds.”

  Raven stood, pulled away s
ome of the brush that still blocked Satan from the open meadow, and said, “Okay, then, let’s get going before we have more company. I doubt if the kryl was alone. They’re not solitary critters.”

  The man beside Sherri reached down and lifted her up into his arms like a child. She grimaced until he adjusted his hold with suggestions from Emmie. And then, when Raven reached to take the baby from her arms, she started to resist, but then relented. With them all moved out into the meadow, Emmie walked back and crouched beside Satan. She laid her hand gently on the side of his face and stroked it, eliciting a return from his tongue.

  Using her hands to focus her mind, she extended them toward Satan, as though they were beneath him although they were above him. Then, as she stood, he floated upwards. His eyes held steady contact with hers, and his legs started to jerk in reaction to the strange feeling. But Emmie knew that Raven had thoroughly informed him of how they were going to get him home, and it thrilled her to know that the beast now placed his trust so completely in her.

  She heard gasps and whispers behind her, the expected reactions from Sherri and her would-be assassin, but she kept her concentration on Satan and the immediate task of getting him out of the tangle of underbrush. Once they were in the clearing, she could divert enough of her attention to explain to them what was happening, what was going to happen, and what was expected of them.

  With Satan clear from the brush and suspended a couple of feet above the ground and the low, flowering plants growing in the meadow, Raven checked over his wounds and bandages again. His only reaction was a long, wet tongue to her hand when it was within range. Otherwise, he rested easily in the embrace of Emmie’s power.

  “He’s hurt bad, Emmie. We’ve got to get him home quick. Even then...I don’t know.”

  “Then let’s start moving,” Emmie responded as she turned to say to the others, “We’ve got to hurry, so you’ll have to keep up. And, you, mister,” she added to the man carrying Sherri, “don’t make us delay or I’ll turn you into a wart-covered toad.”

  The man adjusted his arms slightly until Sherri whimpered, his gaze shifting between the giant dog floating in the air and Emmie. From the way he nodded his head, he appeared to believe she could and would do what she threatened.

  Leaning toward Raven walking past to the front of the procession, Emmie snickered and whispered, “I’ve always wanted to say that to someone.”

  With the infant in her arms, Raven led the way at between a fast walk and a slow trot, easing off to a slow walk often enough for Sarah to keep up. Satan floated along six feet or so behind her with Emmie staying no more than four or five feet behind him. Sherri and her bearer never lagged more than ten feet behind Emmie.

  After fording a foaming creek rushing between boulders and fallen limbs and crossing another meadow, they left behind the oak forest that gave way to the shadowy world of an old growth redwood grove.

  As they passed the first of the towering giants and when Emmie glanced back at Raven who had dropped back to monitor their progress, Emmie slowed and called out, “Raven, I’ve got to stop. Something’s wrong.”

  With her focus darting in every direction, Raven rushed forward to her friend. “What is it? Is Satan okay? What’s wrong?”

  Emmie eased the dog to the ground and then eased herself to her knees. She touched both sides of her head with her fingers, just the tips as though searching for the source of an itch.

  “Is he getting too heavy? Do you need to take a break?”

  “No…no, it’s not Satan. I think I got dizzy or…”

  “You think you got dizzy? How could you not know if you were dizzy?”

  “No…I just…hold on.” Emmie looked about her, probing into the shadows of the giants all about them. “I saw…I think I saw two kryls. But I don’t know where. I mean, I was looking straight back there past you, at where we had just come through the trees. But that’s not where I saw them. I saw them across an open space, and they were among oaks. It looked like the place back there just before where we crossed that meadow with the lone tree in the middle. But that’s…what, half a mile back? I couldn’t see them that far away, not with all the other trees and a couple of hills in the way. Besides, they looked close, close enough to see details on them.”

  Raven gazed at her for long, silent moments before she nodded and responded. “Another kind of human magic, one that is so rare we’ve never encountered it, is far-sight. I know about it only because of Ronald, and he had seen it only a couple of times. It sure would be handy if you’ve got it. Can you still see them?”

  Emmie closed her eyes for a couple of seconds. Then she shook her head and reopened them. “Huh uh. It was just a flicker when I did see them, just enough to recognize that big old tree. But there’s nothing now.”

  “Okay, I guess it’s like all the other abilities. It comes on when it’s needed, but it still takes time to learn how to use it. Pay attention and recognize it for what it is if it happens again. Try to remember how you were thinking at the time and try to duplicate it. Work on it when you can. Like I said, it could be really handy. And, if you did see kryls on our trail, we’d better get moving.”

  Emmie hoisted Satan again and nodded to Raven, who led off.

  Ten minutes later, they stopped at the crest of a hill and looked back across a shadow rimmed dell they had just crossed. Where their trail emerged from a dense grove of towering redwoods into the bright sunlight of a grassy meadow, Raven saw movement. After motioning the others to take a breather out of sight beyond the crest, she peered back at what had been following them.

  She might have mistaken them for men if not for their recent, nearly deadly encounter. Now, she instantly recognized the loping gait of two kryls.

  As soon as she scooted backward over the crest, she spoke to Emmie in a coarse whisper while getting everyone on the trail again, “Get moving! Two kryls, and they are on our trail, and not that far behind either. They’re catching up way too fast, too. I can’t tell the colors of their sashes, but one is smaller, so it’s probably a gllurik, which means we’re gonna have a hell of a time shakin’ ‘em.”

  When they reached the floor of the next dell, Emmie paused at the bank of the creek carving its way through the mountains. With Satan hovering nearby, she looked upstream and grabbed Raven’s arm as she was going past.

  “Look,” Emmie said, pointing at the steep slope on the right side of the creek.

  The trail split at the creek, and one branch ascended the rocky cliff to the right of the waterway. The other branch, the one that would take them back to the village, was less noticeable after it crossed the creek and meandered through broken trees and boulders until it went up and over the hill on that side.

  “At what?” Raven asked.

  “You said the kryls are following our trail. We sure don’t want ‘em to follow us to the village, so let’s get ‘em to follow it up that way.”

  Raven studied the terrain for a moment and asked, “How? Why would they?”

  “All we have to do is go up there near the top, and then...” After Emmie outlined her plan, Raven agreed it was worth a try.

  The trail was steep and winding. At one point, they passed beneath a rocky overhang laced with seams and crevices, and, while hovering Satan close by, Emmie carefully examined the cliff rising above her. When she caught up with the others near the top, she nodded at Raven.

  “Okay,” Raven called Sherri and her bearer back from the trail above. “This is as far as we go up this side — time to switch.” Then turning back to Emmie, she asked, “You sure you can do it? I mean, yourself, too? Have you ever done yourself before?”

  Emmie shrugged and grinned as she settled Satan down on a bed of pine needles. “Well, I’ve come close a couple of times. I wasn’t really trying that hard, though. I didn’t really have much incentive. You know, just curiosity. And vital need seems to be the trigger that allows new abilities to come out. At least that’s the way it’s always worked before.”

&nb
sp; “Oh, great, so now we might wind up over there and you stuck over here — or down there on the rocks. Then what?”

  Emmie could see that Raven was not so much angry as anxious, but they had to do something. They couldn’t take the time to lead the kryls off to hell and gone; both Sherri and Satan needed to get to Lila.

  “I can do it. I know I can. I have to.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Oh, quit your damned crying,” Jackie said as he rolled over on his moss bed and stretched beneath the warm sun. Beneath his head were Tina’s clothes wadded up for a pillow. “You know you enjoyed it as much as we did. Who do you think you’re fooling?”

  Tina, sobbed quietly on the far side of the area of moss covered pond bank that her rapists had selected for their comfort. She raised her face towards him and shouted, “You hurt me! How could you do that?”

  Jerry turned grinning where he stretched in the water just a couple feet from the bank. “Well, hold on for a bit while I rejuvenate, and I’ll show you.” He had slipped into the water when he finished raping Tina, practically pushed into the water by Jackie in his eagerness to be next.

  Jackie pushed himself up onto his elbows and leered at her as she sat huddled, her arms wrapped about her drawn up knees in a futile effort to shield her nakedness.

  With tears still streaming down her cheeks, Tina met his eyes and said, “I want my clothes.”

  Jackie held her gaze for a few moments then looked over at Jerry. “What do you think? Should we let her get dressed? I’m thinking I’m not quite done, yet. You?”

  Jerry’s grin spread wider as he answered, “Like I said, give me another minute, and I’m good to go again.”

  “Yeah, me too. Twice is nice, but thrice is awesome!” Jackie looked back over at Tina and said, “Just be patient, sweet-cakes. The party ain’t over.”