Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Icome back into consciousness, gasping. My eyes flutter open but my vision is blurry and shaded.
I can taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth and it takes me a few moments to realize that there is a dark sack over my head.
I wiggle and feel that my arms and legs are bound tightly and judging by the sharp thing jabbing me in the gut and the jostling up and down I am guessing that I am slung over the shoulder of a varg.
“She’s awake. We will be there soon enough, sweet thing, quit wriggling.” The varg laughs at my grunt and gives me an extra hard jostle for good measure. I can hear the snicker of a few more vargs around us.
How long have I been out? Oleander betrayed me…
Did they make it out of the village? Why did she do it?
Where am I being taken? Why am I not dead?
They only had orders to not harm Marissa…
thinking she was me. Do they know I’m the one they were supposed to kidnap.
.. Oleander betrayed me! Thoughts are endlessly racing through my head as I helplessly hang over the varg’s shoulder, unable to move or fight back.
The anger and shame I feel for trusting Oleander makes me want to lash out but I know fighting back would be fruitless.
I must bide my time until they inevitably let me down at our next destination.
That is, if they aren’t taking me directly to The Wolf.
Don’t panic, don’t panic…
After a while, I wish I was still unconscious because all the blood is now pooled in my head and my feet are tingling from being suspended for so long.
The sharp pain in my stomach from the varg’s boney shoulder has long since eased into a dull throb but I know I will have a particularly nasty bruise there tomorrow.
I hear a few of the vargs call out what seems to be a signal before I am flopped down onto the ground.
My teeth clang in my head at the impact and I groan as I roll into a seat.
I try to get my bearings by using my remaining senses.
It smells damp, a bit like the rotting leaves of a forest floor and I hear water running nearby.
The hood is ripped off my face and it takes me a moment to register my surroundings.
We are indeed in a forest that looks similar to the Wildwood Forest behind my house back in Easthelm and, for a moment, I am confused as to whether all my encounters in the fae realm have been a dream and I am back in the human realm.
Then I see all the vargs milling about, and the happy illusion is crushed.
The sky is that purplish grey that could mean it is either dawn or dusk and I have no idea what day it is or how long I was unconscious.
The sound of the water consumes my attention as I feel how dry and acrid tasting my mouth is, it also feels like there is crusted blood on my face and the spot where the varg hit me is horribly itchy.
“Please… water,” I croak, feeling my throat burn at the lack of use. I must have been out for a while.
A shaggy, grey coated varg comes up to me with his canteen and grabs my chin to open my mouth, pouring some water in.
He pours it too fast and I choke and sputter, rolling over to the side to spit it out.
He just laughs and places the open canteen down beside me, leaving me to figure out how to drink it with my hands tied behind my back.
I manage to lean down and wrap my mouth around the opening to lift the bottle up with my teeth and take a few deep gulps before I let it drop back down to the ground.
“Look fellas, she’s good with her mouth,” one of them snickers, and the others look at me and snicker. All their eyes are giving me a predatory once over that thoroughly disgusts me. I spit at their feet in defiance.
“You’ll regret that!” I hear one of the vargs say from behind me as I feel its claw slice deeply into my shoulder. The feel of my skin ripping apart elicits a blood-curdling scream from my lips.
“Now you’ve done it Garr! We weren’t supposed to hurt her!” one of the vargs exclaims, and I sense a note of actual fear in his trembling voice.
“We were ordered to not hurt her sister fellas, we can do what we want with this one,” the one named Garr snarls. The terror I feel at the thought of what they might do is bigger than anything I have ever felt before.
Fuck, I can’t defend myself. Why am I here! Someone help me!
“I would advise against that, dogs,” the drawl of a posh male voice cautions the vargs but cannot see who is speaking.
“Oh! Uh… we were just joking around, Adviser Nerius. It won’t happen again. Please don’t report us to the Master!” Garr pleads to the man that I cannot see.
“See to it that she is cleaned up before you arrive. He has been impatiently waiting for days now. What took you so long?” the Adviser demands.
It sounds as if his voice is coming from the direction of the water.
I try to sit back up to look but the searing pain in my shoulder keeps me hunched over.
“There was a slight hiccup… Uh this is the target’s sister,” Garr speaks up, bowing his head at their blunder.
“He will not be pleased! Report directly to his study when you arrive. I will let you explain yourself then,” Nerius barks at the vargs. I hear a splash and the vargs start muttering to themselves.
“Well you heard him, get her cleaned up and let’s get a move on fellas!” Garr orders the others and I am scooped up in one of their arms and tossed into the water.
The shock of cold takes over my body’s movements for a moment and I can feel myself sinking to the bottom, when a big hand shoots down and grasps me by the arms and pulls me back up.
“There, that ought to do it,” the varg who is now standing in the water with me calls back to shore.
Garr gives him a quick nod before I am tossed over this one’s shoulder and hauled out of the water.
The pain in my stomach is intensified from the slight break it had from being repeatedly bumped on a bony shoulder and I can feel my fresh wound burn as it starts to slowly stitch itself back together.
I had never been aware of the healing of my body before but perhaps the feeling only comes when the wound is this large.
It feels as though thousands of tiny hands are stabbing miniature sewing needles into the rough edges of my flesh and pulling them back together.
The dark sack is pulled over my head once again and all goes hazy.
I am left with only the various pains along my body and the grunts and stench of the vargs to tell me I am still alive.
We carry on for a few hours and I now know that the purple-grey sky from before was indeed dawn because I can feel the searing midday sun on my back, drying my soggy clothes, turning me into a ball of steam. I am suffocating in this sack as each inhale is full of condensation.
“Please, I can’t breathe. I have no idea where we are and won’t run away, please remove the hood!
” I beg, the varg carrying me grunts as he pulls the sack off my head.
We left the shade of the forest behind a while ago and the blaring sun makes my eyes water.
From this distance I can see that the vargs must have hiked down a mountain similar to the Easthelm Mountain when I was unconscious.
This is all so familiar… are the two realms mirror images of each other? I couldn’t tell we were at such an altitude when we were in Inverdell, it was so warm. Similar to Granny Mog’s glen I suppose…
I am trying to decipher the layout of this realm as we all come to a halt and I am set down on my feet. The feeling of standing upright after being airborne for so long has my feet feeling like there are a thousand needles sticking in them and I sway forward, losing my balance.
The varg that was carrying me grabs my arms and his big claws dig in almost to the point of breaking skin and I wince at the pain in my left shoulder.
“Release her hands and feet. We are close enough now and we don’t want the Master to think we mistreated the girl,” Garr chuckles, signalling the varg who is holding me to untie my bonds.
“You even think about running and I’ll whack you across the head again,” he bares his teeth.
I rub my chafed wrists and give my feet a little shake when they are finally free and turn around to see an expansive estate sprawling before us.
The soft rolling hills level out to a small lake with swans and geese floating on top and fluffy bulrushes swaying in the breeze.
A herd of majestic horses similar to Durga, except black, roam freely, grazing on the waving grasses.
Past the lake there is a gravel road lined with big oak trees that lean over the path like lovers reaching for an embrace, leading up to a massive red-brick house.
The house itself is stunning, with dark wood trimmings around the windows and two pointed towers on either side.
I can see some smaller buildings to the left of the house, slightly removed, which I guess are stables or housing for servants.
I have only ever seen such places in period piece movies with frustratingly slow-burn love stories.
Delia loves watching them. I know that this is definitely not that as I am shoved in the back by a hairy snarl-toothed varg.
“Keep walking!”
I snarl back at him. “Who is this Master anyway? What does he want with me?” I say with a little dash of snark in my tone, feeling not so afraid of the vargs after the commands they received in the woods. Whoever that Nerius guy was, I owe him big time.
“He does not want you, little creature, so I would watch the tone. Master Pyralis is a force to fear. He is one of The King’s trusted advisers,” Garr replies in his usual snarling voice, but I also sense a note of pride in his Master.
These are not The King’s minions as Oleander had thought. They belong to this Pyralis guy. I wonder why I am being brought here instead of directly to The King.