Nevermor (30 page)

“It’s
the Ren
,”
Finn said with a shudder, never taking his eyes off it.

She could hear
the fear in his voice, much like she’d heard when they’d found out her name. 
There was no question that this creature was something they feared.

“It can’t see
too well, but it will be alerted by movement.  Don’t move unless it moves,” Nix
instructed.

“And if it
does?” she wanted to know.

“
Run
.”

Wren looked
around at the area without turning her head much, wondering where she would run
if it came down to that.  Would going back toward the woods help?  Back to the
cave they had come from?  Both of those might be too far for her to go. 

The beast cried
out again, as if calling for something,
searching
.  It moved around a
bit, and she could feel the shocks under her feet.

“What are we
supposed to do?  Rifter’s not here!” Toss said.  There was fear in his voice,
but he tried to keep it quiet.

“We can handle
this!”  Nix said commandingly.  “Don’t act as if we can’t function without him
if we have to.”

“Yeah, but not
for the Ren!  It’s too dangerous!” said Mach.

“Just do what I
say and hold your ground.”

Wren caught
sight of her own shadow.  Even though it was cast in front of her, it had
turned its head to look at the thing.  She wondered why they were all just
standing there, but felt she had no right to speak out against it.  Were they
waiting for the nightmare to go away?  Were they trying to pretend that they
were part of the landscape so it would pass by them?

The Ren craned
its neck, turned its head and froze.  There was no mistaking that it had seen
them.  Wren felt her muscles tense, tasting panic.  She wasn’t sure why, but
she got the feeling that it was looking
right at her
.

“
Scatter
!”
Nix told them, and Wren was amazed at how quickly they moved – also at how fast
the beast ran at them as soon as they did.  She likely wouldn’t have moved at
all if Sly hadn’t grabbed her arm.

“
Run
!” 
he said as he rushed by her, tugging her arm to get her moving.

She saw the
others running off in different directions, but she was baffled, not knowing
which way to turn.  She didn’t know this terrain and didn’t know what the
creature was capable of.

Most of the boys
seemed to be running back toward the woods where they had first emerged, but
they already had a lead on her.  She was certain that she would be the
straggler, and if the monster had any of them for lunch, it would be her.  She
wasn’t as fast as she might have been since she was wearing the fur, and she
knew it.  Wren looked around frantically for an alternative, finally finding
one in a patch of trees to the east.

There!  Go, go!

She moved toward
the evergreens as quickly as she could in her heavy covering.  Her thin shoes
didn’t aid her much, but she made it there, even with the ground shaking
beneath her.

She dove beneath
the pines that were weighed down by ice and snow, drooping low in the cold
slush in an attempt to hide.  If the beast hadn’t seen her, the trees would
have been good cover, but she wasn’t sure she felt safe.  The creature was
bounding closer.  She could feel the way it shook the ground, and she was sure that
a creature this large and heavy would have no trouble knocking over a few trees
if it wanted.

What can I do? 
Where did the boys go?

Wren lifted her
eyes to look around, and then an even better hiding place caught her
attention.  There was an opening in the rocks not far away, and it appeared
large enough that she would be able to slip through.  It would be much better
protection than the trees.

Jumping up, she
rushed there and wedged herself in between the rocks, hoping that the beast
hadn’t seen her.  She thought she could hear her own heartbeat echoing off the
walls, and knew that she should be keeping her sharp breaths under control. 
When she was unable to do this, she clamped her hands over her mouth as if that
would hold in her gasps.

Outside, the
ground had settled.  The monster must have stopped running – or had taken to
the skies – making it much harder to know where it was.

That only lasted
a moment.

She heard its
roar again as it pierced the cold air.  The beast wasn’t far away, perhaps even
very near the trees she had just fled from.  She was lucky that she had moved
away from there.

I’m going to be
safe here,
she told herself, closing her eyes. 
The boys will be fine too.  They’ll
hide and then the creature will go away.  It will—

Heavy steps drew
her out of her fantasy.  She heard cracking and splintering sounds as trees
were broken like twigs.

Wren shrieked
when they fell over, the tops of them crashing in to block the opening in the
rocks, covering her in darkness.  The branches clicked together, rattling like
bones.  Her breathing was quick and shallow as she waited for more.

All was quiet. 
Wren held her breath, hoping that the creature hadn’t heard her scream.

Her wishing was
in vain.  The trees were ripped free of where they had fallen into the crevice,
replaced by a large violet eye that looked in at her.  She didn’t try to keep
quiet at that.  She screamed again, and the pupil widened with recognition.

The beast
reacted violently to the sound of her voice, trying to force its muzzle in, but
its face was too wide for the opening.  Once it had figured this out, it
reached in with its fingers, its nails so sharp that they scratched the surface
of the stone, creating long screeching ruts.  The Ren moved so quickly that all
she could see were flashes of teeth and claws, and eventually she just shut her
eyes and turned her face away.

No no no!  I
don’t want to die this way!

But there was
nothing she could do.  She was pressed back against the rocks as far as she
could get, and she had no weapon.  Would this beast give up before it attempted
to break the rock wall apart to get at her?

As the Ren
clawed away at the crevice, trying to best discover how it might get inside,
words that Nix had spoken to her came back to the front of her mind.

If you don’t
learn to fight your own battles, don’t expect me to.  Maybe the others will
take pity and put themselves in harm’s way for you, but not me.

He had been
right about her.  In a situation like this, she was completely useless.  The
only way that she could get out of this was if they put themselves back in
danger for her sake.

She wasn’t sure
she could blame them if they didn’t.

2

“
Come on
!”
Nix yelled, ushering the rest of them toward the edge of the woods.

He and the
others were familiar with this particular nightmare, as had been indicated to
Wren before.  They had tried to kill the Ren some time ago and had barely
gotten away with their lives.  A few unfortunate natives had not been so
lucky.  Nix knew they were not ready to face it again now.  As much as it
pained him to flee, a swift retreat was their only option.  The flesh of the
beast was too thick to be penetrated by weapons – even Rifter’s blessed sword
trick hadn’t worked on it.  Perhaps there was a soft spot on the thing, but
they were not going to find that out today.  They needed to withdraw as quickly
as possible.

 Nix had seen
how the Ren had gotten distracted by something in the rocks, and he could only
assume that it was one of them, but there was only one way to know which.  The
others were running toward him now and once they had all come forward, he
didn’t even have to recognize them all before he knew which one of them wasn’t
there.  It didn’t surprise him.

This seems
right.  Might as well happen now rather than later.

“We need to get
out of here while it’s distracted,” he told them.

“Wait, where’s
Wren?”  Finn asked, out of breath.  The others hesitated as if to ask the same
thing.  Not one of them ran toward the woods like they’d been told.  Nix
suspected they knew the truth, but they often needed someone to spell things
out for them.

“Where do you
think?”

He pointed
toward the opening in the rocks where the Ren was so preoccupied, knowing he
wasn’t telling them anything they couldn’t have figured out.

“It’s after
her!” Sly said as if he’d known it all along.  “It didn’t even look at us!”

“How can we help
her?” Mach asked hurriedly.

“
Leave
her!” Nix persisted.  “If she’s what it wants, let it have her!”

They were all
looking at him like he was Lucifer himself, trying to lead them off into
damnation.

“No, we’re not
leaving her!” Finn declared, and the rest of them seemed to stand with him. 
Sly must have known Nix was right, but the issue was a moral dilemma for him. 
Not even he would agree to leave her to die like this.

“We could be gone
by the time it’s done with her,” he tried to tell them, but they still stood
firm.

“What if it was
one of us?” Finn accused.  “Would you leave us behind?”

“She’s
not
one
of us!” Nix claimed.  He was right, of course.  She hadn’t taken the Vow, and
Rifter hadn’t said that she would.  He had told them to take care of her, but
at the end of it, she was still an outsider.

“You’re the one
who said Rifter would be pissed if we let something happen to her!” Finn
claimed, but Nix was tired of listening.

“Which one of
you wants to risk your life for her, huh?” Nix asked them.  “Which of you would
be in her place?”

Nix expected
them all to be quiet at that, but he saw the fire in their eyes, and Toss stood
up a little straighter.

“Rifter would if
he was here,” the large boy said.  “He would step up.  We have to think of what
he would do, and that’s how I know it’s the right choice. 
I’ll
do it.”

Nix knew this
might have been the
right
choice, but it was not the best one.  He held
his tongue.

“We’re not going
to run away like cowards!” Finn assured him, and the twins set their faces
firmly.  Sly seemed indifferent, but he would go with the largest part of the
group.  It seemed they had won.  Nix may have been willing to abandon Wren, but
he would not desert his brothers if they were intent on this.

He saw he was
not going to change their minds.

With a roar of
anger, Nix shoved through them and ran toward the beast that was breaking away
at the rocks.  The rest followed him, just as they would if he had been
Rifter.  The closer they came, they could hear Wren screaming inside the cleft,
but the creature hadn’t gotten to her yet.  She was only expressing her fear. 
The sound was murder on their ears.

There wasn’t any
time to waste, for the monster was hell-bent on showing her exactly how it had
gotten its name.  The Ren – named for how it tore its prey apart.

“
Hey
!”
Nix yelled at the nightmare, waving his arms.  The others fell in with him.

“Hey, you ugly
son of a bitch!  Over here!”

“Come and get
us! 
Hey
!”

That didn’t work. 
The beast did not even know they were there, snarling and thrashing as it was. 
It was in a blind frenzy, though it had not even tasted her blood.

“It’s stuck on
her!” Sly insisted to Nix.  “It must have her scent!  It won’t matter if you
stand next to it and smack it on the head, it’s not going to forget about her!”

Nix knew that
Sly was probably right, but that had brought an idea to his mind.  Since it was
after Wren, they probably
could
get closer to the beast without it even
noticing.

“You’re right,”
he said.  “It’s not going to respond to anything except pain.”  He turned to
look at them.  “You’re not afraid of death?  Well you might get it today. 
Here’s what we’re going to do: Sly, cut its tail.  Can’t hope of killing it
that way, but it’ll turn around if it wants you gone.  Don’t forget that it’s
fast
. 
If you run away, it may not chase you, but as soon as it seems to notice the
pain, Toss, hurt it again.”

“How?” Toss
asked, looking a bit unsure.

“Doesn’t
matter.  Just get its attention away from Sly.  Finn, Mach and Mech, your turns
after that.  Pass it around so it won’t get too close to you.  It might forget
about Wren for long enough that I can pull her out of there.  Then we run like
hell to the woods and into the nearest tunnel.  Every man for himself.  Got
it?”

They nodded,
still resolute despite what the consequences might be.  Perhaps it was all
because of some romantic notion in their heads – that it was the ultimate
display of bravery to give their lives for a woman.  Nix wanted to slap them
all, but he had to go along with it.  They weren’t giving him a choice.