The Land's Whisper (45 page)

A soft clink sounded as Darse jumped forward
to attack.

The keys! There had been no time to return
them, and their clamoring presence in his pocket had erased all
stealth.

Jerem spun around on the balls of his feet,
as swiftly as a cat.

Darse blanched and froze.

Jerem offered the man a casual smile.
“Welcome, welcome. It impressed me as unlikely that our young
friend here had come alone, but I also did not want to
underestimate him.” His eyes summed up Darse, taking in every
minute detail, all the way down to his bulging pocket. When they
returned to Darse’s golden orbs, amazement flickered across his
features before his smile stretched even wider in diversion.

“I see you have been a busy ant. Your
efforts, however, are meaningless. I am not so negligent as to
leave keys about that are going to assist enemies in my very
office.” He wagged his finger at Darse. “No, sir.” Jerem emphasized
the “sir,” turning it in his mouth with a curved sneer.

His lips curled up again as Darse lunged. He
dodged easily aside with the smooth grace of a dancer. Thus began
the game.

Darse peered cautiously at his opponent with
glinting golden eyes, searching out his weaknesses. Perhaps it was
the need, perhaps it was his own steely grit, but his skills no
longer felt lacking. The knife now seemed a deadly extension of his
arm. He breathed carefully and continued their circling stalk.

Smirking, Jerem remarked, “I see you have
been getting forgetful recently.”

Darse blinked once but continued to match
the footfalls of his enemy.

A long, thin finger swept up and tapped at
the corner of his eye. “Or perhaps you were born with yellow eyes?”
Jerem’s lips rounded up in a sneer, and he returned his hands out
before him in their game of pursuit.

Darse shuddered in confusion but pushed his
shock over Jerem’s awareness down.
He is toying with you. Just
focus.

The two circuited the room, gazes locked.
Jerem knew the layout of the cave quite well, and his feet slid
naturally and without deliberation. Darse, while slower and weaker,
had the advantage of Brenol and his own knife. He sought to draw
the man toward the boy so that Brenol could trip him or utilize his
weapon. Jerem seemed aware of Darse’s thoughts and yet was
uncannily indifferent. He maintained his distance as well as the
placid, leering smile as he lunged and ducked in a counter rhythm
to Darse.

In the space of a breath, Jerem sprang
forward in a feint, reining in the motion with precise agility to
wait casually upon the balls of his feet. In reaction, Darse
scrambled for footing and balance and hit the stone behind him with
a jarring slam. The knife leaped from his hand under the impact and
slid across the floor. Jerem grinned, stooped down, and with a
dramatic air scooped up a large chain—likely two arm spans in
length—resting along the wall.

Darse sank at his error. He now realized
Jerem had been working his way to the chain for some time. He
floundered to scramble up but was far too slow. Jerem held the
chain high, and with the full force and motion of his body brought
it down upon Darse. The awful thud of metal meeting a bed of tissue
was followed by the rasping tinkle of the links moving away to
begin the motion anew. Darse howled, blinded momentarily by the
wrenching pain.

Colette stirred at his cries. Jerem froze
and peered down at her indecisively. She rolled to her side and
blinked slowly. Her eyes were a vibrant emerald. They stared
forward blankly. She sat up and rubbed her cheeks and eyes.

Darse awoke to the opportunity. His
adrenaline numbed the fire in his back, and he palmed up rocks and
sand while scrambling to his feet. He hurled the debris at Jerem’s
face and leaped forward, tackling the giant to the ground. They
both crashed in a heap, and the chain flew wildly from Jerem’s
fingers to skid before the heels of the young woman. Darse, atop
his opponent, could not extract himself enough to punch with much
force, but he managed to strike with both arms as Jerem attempted
to protect his face.

Darse delivered several solid strokes before
finally clouting him in the nose. Blood gushed out like a fountain,
but still Darse did not cease. Jerem grunted under each blow and
writhed in an astonished horror, as if pain had never before been
inflicted upon him. Brenol watched his friend pummel the bloody man
mercilessly. Darse was a gentle man, but a rage had been uncorked,
and it etched his face in hard hatred. Brenol wondered if he even
could stop.

“Colette!” the man groaned between blows.
“Help me, Colette.”

Brenol squinted his eyes, dumbfounded, at
Jerem.
Does he really think that she’d save him? He is insane.
Not even his own mother would rescue him.

Colette tilted her head, listening to his
voice. She was extremely close, for the brawl had brought both men
to her side.

“Give it to me, Colette!” Jerem begged.

Brenol watched incredulously, as, with a
weak motion, Colette pushed the chain from her feet toward Jerem’s
grasping hand.

“Darse, watch out!” Brenol yelled. He threw
his own knife in pitiful desperation, but it merely joined the
other in a clatter. Darse turned his head to stare at the anguished
boy. Sweat dripped down his vacant face and collected under his
chin before falling to the floor. He blinked as sense began to
stream again through his consciousness, but returned his vision to
Jerem too late. His golden eyes widened in alarm just before the
iron drove into his face with a terrible crack. The second blow hit
with even greater force. The sound of the heavy thud made Brenol’s
stomach clench. He watched, unable to look away, even though all he
wanted was to curl up and sleep through the nightmare.

The third blow hit jaw bone, and Darse felt
warmth gush across his mouth. The fourth struck, and the world grew
dark.

~

Jerem beat Darse until his chest racked from
effort. Darse lay unconscious and limp, but that fact only seemed
to spur him on. Jerem smiled through his mangled and bleeding face.
“I am going to kill you for this, friend,” he said, and spat on
him.

Brenol felt anger rush to his heart and
steel him. The fear that had been paralyzing him drained away. His
entire being was fury and hatred. He even looked at Colette, who
had slumped back into a fitful and mumbling sleep, with loathing
for her part in it.

Jerem hauled Darse by a leg to a corner of
the room and released the limb with smug distaste and a final kick
to the slack form. Turning his attention to a bag, he rummaged
purposefully until he extracted a small kit. He seated himself
gingerly, with a sharp inhale and wince, and began to methodically
clean and treat his wounds. This continued for an unending span of
minutes.

The boy alternated his gaze between Jerem
and Darse. He craned his neck forward and strained his eyes, yet
could not determine if the man was breathing. A hollow sensation
crept into his chest.

Then he noticed the young man. Deniel did
not stir a limb, but he opened his eyes and peered around the room
with an intelligent glance. It lasted not three seconds before he
closed them silently and again took on the state of drugged
limpness. After several minutes, Brenol wondered if he had imagined
it.

Jerem finished attending to his wounds and
replaced the kit. He fished through his bag and retrieved a small
case. It reminded Brenol of a zippered manicure set he had seen
once in a store, only this had a snap clasp and smooth straps that
prevented the items from escaping. Jerem opened it and produced a
needle before scooping up and opening a jar by his feet. It swirled
with a foul, brown liquid. He filled the syringe quickly and, soft
as a mosquito, lit down upon Colette and injected her shoulder.

Her body sagged into deep unconsciousness.
Brenol could not help but feel a tug of smug vindication as she
sank back into her life as a rag doll. But as Jerem stood over her,
staring intensely, Brenol felt contrite for his previous
sentiments; no one deserved to be the recipient of that hard
leer.

Eventually, Jerem awoke from his thoughts
and glanced about. Whether he forgot in the midst of everything or
whether he deemed it unimportant, he did not drug Deniel again.
Instead he returned the case to his bag.

A faint hope rose in Brenol’s chest.
But
what can two bound men do against him?

The hope flickered out entirely as he saw
Jerem lift and belt a long knife. Its hilt rested on his hip, and
the sheath dipped down to mid-thigh.

He came and knelt before Brenol. He did not
smile. He spoke in a low voice. It was calm and honeyed, yet even a
senseless animal would cower back from him, for his face was taut
and evil.

“Boy, I am going to ask you a few questions
and then give you a moment to think about them. Answer fully and
honestly.” He glared venomously. “I will know if you lie. I will
know if you are withholding. I will know.” He nodded to attest to
this statement, teeth bared in a white grimace. “And then I will
hurt you until you believe your lies are the truth.”

Brenol swallowed hard.

“Let us begin.” He clapped his hands and
began rubbing them together. “Who are you? Why are you here? How
did you get here? Do you know us? How did you find out about us?
Who else knows about us? Are more coming here?”

Jerem scrutinized the boy’s face. His back
was to Deniel, who had cautiously slid his eyes open in feline
softness. The young man locked his shockingly yellow eyes with
Brenol for a moment and made a gesture—rolling his hand around in a
repeating circle—that seemed an instruction to distract Jerem.
Brenol was all too willing to comply.

“My name is Bren.” He stopped to breathe.
His voice had wobbled as if it was his first time using it.

“Bren, my name is Jerem.” He bowed his head
in cloying politeness.

The boy turned his gaze momentarily to the
floor; staring into those hard eyes made him dizzy. Jerem cleared
his throat, and Brenol forced out a few more words from his
reticent tongue. “I came to Massada with my friend. He has a portal
in his house and we came through it to the lake.”

“Ah. A portal.” He tried the word out on his
lips, tasting it.

Brenol suddenly had an idea. “Yes, a portal.
We have only been here for a septspan or so but have yet to get to
the mainland. We were exploring the tunnels here because we wanted
to find a way over.”

Jerem raised a sandy eyebrow.

Brenol continued, a bit too fast, “Yes. It’s
been awful too. Digging around here in the dirt, looking for life.
We haven’t found any food for ages…” He glanced up quickly to see
the man’s reaction and was greeted with amused eyes. It sent his
head spinning and left his tongue wagging nonsense. “That was when
we discovered these two chained. And I stepped into this.” Brenol
swallowed again. He never had been good at lying.

The man did not even pretend to credit the
story. He sneered. “I told you lies were useless. And now I shall
punish you.” He slowly drew his blade. It was a sinister looking
weapon, as wide as the butchering knives Darse stowed in the barn,
but longer. Symbols marked the flat of the metal in a rusty black
flourish. It glinted a cold gray in the lamp light.

Jerem toed nearer to Brenol, and his smile
widened. His eyes sparkled in pleasure, and Brenol could smell the
sharp odor of musty spice that clung to the man’s costly clothes.
The boy looked desperately to Deniel, terrified and ready to claw
away from the Jerem. He could see, though, that the young man was
too far away to offer any kind of assistance.

Deniel gazed about with a calm assurance.
His hand twitched as his glance fell to Colette, but he did not
reach out to touch her. Instead, he nodded to himself and somberly
pressed his lips together. He met Brenol’s eyes with an intensity
and purpose, as though he could convey the world to him in a mere
glance. He continued that vehement and golden stare until Brenol
finally broke from it.

Jerem closed the remaining space and crowded
into Brenol’s entire vision.

All was going to end. The boy shut his eyes
and felt his entire body shaking as it cringed, awaiting the cold
serration of Jerem’s blade. Suddenly, instead, a flash of lightning
pain seared across his mind. It was acute and powerful and drew
down a mass of confused thoughts and emotions. He felt as if he
were drowning in the sea of his psyche, unable to see or think or
breathe. The surge intensified beyond endurance, and the world fell
black.

Saving one soul is often all that is required to
save the world.

-Genesifin

Brenol awoke in confusion.
Deniel?
Jerem?
His head ached. It was a strange pain too, for it was
inside
his mind. His skull felt like it had been opened—the
top half of his brain sawed off just to get to the center—and then
swirled around into pudding with a jagged metal spoon. It was
awful. His hands tiptoed up to cradle his tender temples.

Flash! Flash!
A barrage of pictures.
Emotions swarmed. Brenol’s head spun.

It stopped. He again cradled his searing
head.

Flash!

It was dusk. Leaves littered the forest
floor, crunching despite his efforts to be stealthy. He panted and
felt his lungs protest in their exertion. He did not care though.
No, he cared only about finding her.

She was in his arms. His sweet sister, his
Colette. Her dark hair brushed lightly against his forearms and she
clung weakly about his neck. She was no stronger than an infant. He
stared down at her. Her cheeks no longer held the freckles from
when they had played and run the lengths of Veronia. It made a hot
fury fan through him.