22. Jerrid
JERRID
Talos fought the entire way to the cave. It took all three of them to drag him through the undergrowth with the way he was kicking and screaming into his gag. Once they had him secured, however, he lay still against the wall, eyes seething.
Finnr returned to the camp, but Brynja lingered at the entrance as Jerrid gave the chain one last tug to make sure it was tight enough to keep him contained. He hesitated and then tugged the gag off of Talos’s mouth.
“If you start cussing again, I’ll put it back,” he warned.
Talos bared his teeth but remained blissfully silent.
“That’s better. If you behave yourself, I’ll leave it off.”
Talos opened his mouth but seemed to reconsider and clamped his lips closed again. His gaze slanted toward Brynja and then back to Jerrid.
“I know something you don’t know,” Talos blurted when Jerrid shifted onto the balls of his feet so that he could stand.
Jerrid settled back into a crouch, resisting the urge to see if Brynja was listening. He could hear her sharpening her dagger on a stone behind him. Talos’s eyes glinted, mingled with desperation and a hint of smugness.
“I’m listening,” Jerrid growled. “It had better be good.”
Talos’s cheek twitched. “It’s about Ava. And her brother. I know things about them, things you would benefit from hearing. If you let me go, I’ll tell you.”
“Fat chance.” Jerrid barked a laugh and eased to his feet, joints popping in protest.
When had he started to feel so old?
“If you don’t listen to me,” Talos snarled, firing out the words as if he were running out of time to say them, “she’ll hate you for it. She’ll never forgive you for robbing her of her one chance to save her brother.”
Jerrid stilled. What was he on about? Ava hadn’t even told him that she had a brother…or if she had, he’d forgotten. It hadn’t been important before. As Talos stared at him, eyes so dark they were nearly black in the shadows of the cave, Jerrid had to wonder: was it important now?
He inhaled a deep, aching breath. “Forget it, Talos. You just want me to unchain you, and that isn’t going to happen.”
Talos cussed soundly.
From the entrance of the cave, Brynja called out a mocking, “Ah ah ah. You heard what he said. Any cursing and we’ll put the gag back. And I’ll tie it good and tight, let me tell you.”
Talos clamped his lips closed, but his eyes still flung curses at them both. Jerrid turned his back on him and walked away, wondering if he would regret it later. What if the information that Talos possessed really was important?
He ducked to clear the low entrance to the cave. Brynja had made herself comfortable, feet propped up on a log as she sharpened her dagger. He did a double take before realizing it wasn’t a dagger at all but some sort of small chisel with a flat wedge on the end.
He’d seen his grandfather use such things when carving toy figurines for him and his brothers and sisters when they were little.
“I’ll keep the first watch,” she said without preamble. “Tell Finnr to relieve me in a few hours.”
Jerrid slid his hands into his pockets and hesitated, uncertain about the wisdom of leaving her alone with Talos, even if he was securely chained. “Do you, ah, need anything?”
Brynja speared him with an expressionless look that somehow looked pointed. She didn’t say a word, just pocketed her whetstone and then pulled a small bit of wood from a different pocket.
Breaking eye contact, she began to whittle at the partially formed stick. It had the vague appearance of a spoon, but it was hard to judge at this point in the development. Apparently Brynja used her carving skills for more useful things than toys.
Jerrid plodded back to the camp, his feet dead weights at the end of his legs. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this wasted, not even after long hours of flight with his father on their journey from Haldor to Eroth.
This was a different kind of weariness, the kind that went straight to the bone.
He stumbled his way down the narrow path Brynja had taken to the caves north of the camp. It wound down a gully and through a thick stand of trees before leading back into the northern edge of the camp. As Jerrid broke through the woods, loud voices echoed from the tents below.
He quickened his pace, blinking to eliminate the weariness fogging his vision. No one was in sight as he passed the first row of makeshift tents. He stepped into the inner camp before he saw any sign of life.
Siri stood with Roar clasped in her arms, struggling to keep hold of him.
“What’s wrong?” Jerrid asked as he jogged alongside them.
She lifted a pinched face toward him. “Something dragged one of the girls into the forest.”
“They went that way!” the boy hollered as he wiggled and tugged and twirled in an attempt to free himself. “Lemme go, Mum! I want to help!”
“Don’t make me sit on you!” she snapped.
Jerrid bolted in the direction Roar had pointed. The voices grew louder ahead of him, branches crackling and echoing in the stillness of the forest. Jerrid left the perimeter of the camp and forced his way through the undergrowth, following the trampled foliage.
Through the tree branches, torches bobbed up and down and cast long, eerie shadows between the tree trunks. Branches lashed at his legs as he forged a path through the brush to catch up with the others.
Ava’s voice rose above the others and bellowed, “Don’t let go of her! Whatever you do, don’t let go!”
Several high-pitched voices clamored in response, the words tumbling over one another and making them unintelligible.
Jerrid burst through a thicket of small saplings and slipped over the edge of a small gully. He skidded down to the bottom where the others had already gathered.
There you are, that familiar, dark voice whispered to him. I thought you were going to miss out on all the fun.
Jerrid ground his teeth together and shoved his way through the crowd of girls. At the front of the group, Finnr and Ava both had their arms wrapped around a girl of about sixteen years. The other girls were hanging onto her arms and hands, all of them working as a group to hold her off the ground.
What were they—
His question broke off when he saw the tentacle wrapped around the girl’s ankle.
He wormed his way around Finnr, slipping on the slanted edge of the ravine as he tried to reach the girl.
The thing clinging to her writhed as if it were truly the tentacle of a great sea creature, but it lacked substance—nothing more than shadow and smoke.
Jerrid tried to grab it, but his hands went right through.
“We already tried that!” Ava grunted, sweat streaming down her face as she struggled to hang on to the weeping girl.
The tentacle yanked, and the entire group skidded several feet farther down the ravine. The thing inside Jerrid’s head laughed. He pressed a hand to his temple, teeth gritted against the pain.
“Let go of her!” he snarled.
He ignored the confused looks from the others and turned away from them, facing the writhing pit of shadows at the end of the gully where the tentacle began. He took a step toward it, but faltered, common sense warning him that if he walked into that mass of shadows, he’d never walk back out again.
But what choice did he have?
The others cried out as the tentacle dragged them deeper down the gully. Finnr bumped into Jerrid and knocked him forward several more feet. Jerrid righted himself and spun, calling for Dragon to help him.
He swiped out at the shadowy tentacle, but his human hand sliced through it as if it were nothing more than smoke.
Dragon growled something that Jerrid couldn’t understand, his voice too far away to decipher.
He shot Ava a quick glance as he caught hold of the girl’s shin to help hold her back.
Sure enough, wings had sprouted from Ava’s shoulder blades once again, and she braced against the ground with scaled claws peeking out from beneath her skirts.
Everyone screamed as the tentacle dragged them deeper down the ravine.
“Jerrid!” Ava shouted, almost as if it were a desperate plea.
He stared at her over the girl’s body, unsure what to do, what to say. How did you fight something that you couldn’t touch? How did you fight a shadow?
You don’t. The shadow laughed, the sound pummeling against his temples with each wicked peal. I live in shadow and darkness. This is my realm, and you cannot touch me.
“My realm,” he echoed around heavy gasps for air.
Ava held his gaze, a question in her eyes.
“How do you fight darkness?” he asked her, a spark of hope igniting in his chest. “With light! Light!”
Understanding brightened her features.
“The torches!” Finnr bellowed. “Someone use the torches!”
One of the older girls dropped to all fours and crawled beneath the form of her suspended friend so that she could get to the front of the line. She thrust the torch toward the shadow, but it merely flickered and carved a path around the orange-red flames. She tried again and again.
It wasn’t working.
“Ava! Use your flame!” Jerrid ordered, his hands slipping when another jolt from the shadow yanked them again. “Use your magic!”
He adjusted his footing and his grip around the girl’s leg, just above the shadow’s grasp. The thundering in his head intensified, convincing him his idea must have merit.
“Hold her! Hold her tight! I need to let go!” Ava cried.
They redoubled their efforts as Ava slowly released her grip on the girl’s waist. She ran ahead of them and held her palm toward the writhing tentacle while the other girl took her place in line.
If this didn’t work…
Jerrid couldn’t even finish the thought because they were all out of options. He wasn’t strong enough to save them, not this time. Not on his own, without Dragon. Even with Dragon he was more of a threat than a help.
Worthless! the shadow screamed at him, its emotions raw and wild.
“Now!” Jerrid yelled, the pain so blinding he could no longer see.
Blue filled his vision, and Ava cried out. The tether that bound him to Dragon snapped taut as the pain became all he knew.