Hidden (Book 1) (16 page)

“Bastian?”

The voice sounded far away. He
floated between awake and asleep, not sure which direction to go.

“Bastian?”

There it was again. The voice
wouldn’t quiet. He considered reaching up and choking the person until they
left him alone, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to lift his arm. Maybe he
was restrained.

Who had captured him? Was he back in
Stacia’s
clutches? And Tressa. Where was Tressa? Fear choked
him.

He tried talking, needing to question
the person in the room. His lips were frozen like a statue. His tongue slipped
to the back of his throat. The words came out in a strangled garble.

“Don’t try to talk. It’s okay. You’re
safe. Farah saved your life. She urged you on until the two of you made it through
the fog into the village.”

Farah. The images blasted into
Bastian’s head as if a bubble had just been popped in his memory. She was safe.
But
Vinya
was gone. Devoured.

He struggled against the thickness in
his mouth, prohibiting him from speaking. The voice didn’t mention Tressa. He
needed to know if she’d made it back to the village too. Her safety mattered as
much as his.

His tongue moved.
Another
mangled query.

“
Shh
. Farah
is safe. She’s staying with the neighbors. Everyone is thrilled you’re home.
You’re a legend.
The first to ever make it back.
I’m
almost afraid to ask, but everyone wants to know what happened to Connor and
Tressa.”

His heart sank. Tressa hadn’t made it
back, then. She’d failed or she was still out there with that thing that ate
Vinya
. In his mind, Bastian punched a wall. His emotions
raged in his chest, slamming into his rib cage and tearing around his heart.
Pain surged through his limbs.

“The cool water will bring you back.
I know it probably hurts, Bastian. Just hang in there with me. You’ll be okay.”

Fire burned across his skin. His
muscles tightened up, refusing to unclench until he felt as if his entire body
would implode. When he couldn’t take one more second of the pain, his eyelids
ripped open.

“Good for you! Keep working and
pretty soon you’ll be up and around.”

Bastian’s eyes searched the room and
found a mop of red hair. Adam. He let out a sigh of relief. Now he knew for
sure he wasn’t tricked or being held captive. He was home. Without Tressa, but
home.

His arms and legs still wouldn’t
follow his mind’s commands. He needed to get up. Now. Had to get out there and
find Tressa before the beast tricked her and took her from him. He couldn’t
lose both Connor and Tressa. The gods wouldn’t allow that, would they?

Adam’s hand rested on Bastian’s arm.
“Don’t strain. It will all come back. I promise. You worked your body too hard.
Your muscles will soften up, but you need rest.” Adam held a cup to his lips.
“Drink this and sleep. The worst is behind you.”

Bastian tried to fight against the
warm, fruity liquid meandering down his throat leaving a bitter flavor in its
wake, but his tongue still wouldn’t follow his commands. His thoughts wandered
and he couldn’t remember why he cared…

***

Bastian’s eyes popped open. Darkness
overwhelmed his vision except for a flicker of light in the distance. Pushing
his palms onto the bed, he sat up. He felt tired, sore, but alive.

“Adam?” Bastian flexed his arms, his
muscles responding with a pop. Good. Everything worked again.

A snore answered him.

Bastian slipped onto the floor, his
bare feet mingling with the rushes. He stood for a moment, testing his
strength. He jumped in place three times and circled his arms in the air.
Nearly perfect.
Only slightly slow.
Adam was right. He would have it all back and soon.

He crept to his uncle. Sleeping in a
chair, Adams’ head was cocked to the side. Mouth open, framed by a fresh bit of
spittle.

“Adam,” Bastian yelled in his ear.

Adam jolted, his arms and legs
flailing in every direction. Before he could slip out of the chair and onto the
floor, Bastian grabbed his arm. “Son of a –”

“I’m awake,” Bastian said.

Adam let out a nervous laugh. “ I see
that. Now if you’ll excuse me while I go to my house and change my trousers.”

Bastian’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, I
didn’t mean to scare you.” He paused. “Well, not that much.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” He stood up and
clapped Bastian on the shoulder. “I see you’re doing well too. I’m glad I was
right.”

“Was there a doubt?” Bastian turned
his neck side to side, loosening up.

Adam rubbed his hands together in
front of the faint fire. “Until someone is up and walking around, there is
always a doubt. I’m not a miracle worker.
But you, my boy.
You may as well have risen from the dead.”

The unspoken hung in the air between
them like a dark veil. There were two missing. One Bastian knew was dead. The
other he couldn’t say.

Adam rested an arm over his nephew’s
shoulder. “Do you know what happened to them?”

Bastian took a deep breath and sat
down on the bed. “Connor is gone. Tressa… I don’t know. Her father told me
she’d entered the forest.”

Adam held up a hand. “Her father?
What?”

Bastian relayed the story to him.
Adam’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he realized his sister was still
alive and on the other side of the fog.

“So I followed Tressa into the
forest. I couldn’t find the spot she entered. No broken branches or trampled
grass. Yet I have no reason to doubt her father. She’s out there somewhere,
Adam. I have to find her.”

His uncle scratched his scruffy
ginger beard. “And your wife? What of her? Farah brought you back, but her
mother is still missing.”

Bastian lay back down on the table,
crossing his arms behind his head. “She’s dead too. Eaten by the beast in the
fog. Farah and I barely got away with our lives.”

“You seem more concerned about Tressa
than
Vinya
.”

Bastian rolled his eyes. “I’m not
happy
Vinya
is dead. But Tressa is, and always has
been, the only one in my heart.”

Adam coughed. “And as the resident
physic, it is against my oath to speak ill of the dead. Perhaps we shouldn’t
speak of her again.”

“Agreed.”

“But in public…”

“I will mourn her. For the sake of
our daughter only.”

“A wise decision.” Adam stood up and
paced the small bedroom. “While I am concerned about Tressa’s safety as well,
for the gods’ sake I loved her as if she was my own daughter, there are bigger
problems here.”

Bastian rolled to his side, fighting
the urge to run back into the fog in search of Tressa. “How many people know
I’m back?”

“Everyone. There’s already been a
council meeting to address it. They plan to march out in the morning.”

Bastian bolted upright. “No. They
can’t. They don’t know of the dangers or how to get out. They’ll all die.”

Adam nodded. “I told them as much. I
urged them to wait until you were recovered. I assured them you would have
knowledge they’d need to beat the fog.” He poured two cups of water and handed
one to Bastian. “But they wouldn’t listen. The plague has elevated their haste.
No one wants to be here anymore. People continue to die, three or four a day.
We no longer hold public viewings. Despite the smell, the bodies are burned out
behind the pasture. Our town is slowly dying and no one wants to be the last
person standing.”

“I understand that, but death awaits
them.” Bastian ran his fingers through his hair. “That beast is not the only
enemy. I’ve met another.” He shuddered when he thought of the woman bound to
the tree. He pounded his fist into his palm. “And there may be others. No one
can leave unprepared.”

“What do you suggest?”

Bastian thought for a moment. He
didn’t want any of his townspeople to die in the fog. He needed them to form an
army.
One that could find Tressa and one that could march
against whoever trapped them in the fog.
One that
could stop Stacia from killing another innocent like Connor.

“We will train. In the shadow of
death and plague, we will arm our men. They will learn to fight. We will train
day and night until we are ready to march. No one else needs to die. Not under
my watch.”

“You will have a hard time convincing
the village of this. Their plan is to gather as much as we can carry and move
into the fog like a group of wary refugees, taking our chances with the unknown
to get away from the known danger of the plague.”

“Then they are fools.”

“I’m not arguing with you.”

“Tell me,” Bastian said, shifting
carefully to avoid too much pain, “what happened to the dragon?”

“After you left, we took care of it.”

“Meaning?” Bastian’s head hurt, but
he was desperate to know. Somehow it mattered to him.

“We skinned it. Divided up the meat.
The residents of Hutton’s Bridge will feast on it for a long while.” Adam
laughed and patted Bastian on the shoulder. “Lay down. Get a couple more hours
of sleep. I promise I’ll have you up before they plan to leave. You can state
your case then and hope a few are willing to listen to you.”

“Is there something in this water?”
Bastian asked, his eyelids growing heavy.

“Of course. Now sleep, nephew. You
need your strength for the dawn.”

Bastian drifted off, visions of
Tressa lost in the fog racing through his mind.

Bastian stepped out into the village center the next
morning. A crowd had gathered. Bedraggled children clutched the hands of their
wary mothers. Men clutched garden
implements,
others
held old weapons from the armory. They were preparing to walk into a massacre.

“Wait!” Bastian shoved his way through
the crowd until he stood in the center. He stood on the slab where Sophia’s
dead body had lain. “I’m the only one who’s gone out there,” Bastian pointed at
the fog, “and come back. Well, other than my daughter, but she isn’t old enough
to lead you. Will you listen to me?”

No one answered. Bastian wanted to
scream. It was the same as the day he, Tressa, and Connor left. No one wanted
to stand up for them. No one wanted the truth. He wondered for a moment why he
even bothered.

Bastian looked out into their faces.
The women huddled behind their husbands. The men didn’t know where to look,
their eyes focused either on their toes or the sky. Pathetic.
Every single one of them.

He pulled his sword out of the sheath
on his hip. The metal glistened in the sunlight, except for the length of it
stained by blood. There hadn’t been time to clean it. Just as well. Now they
had proof of what awaited them in the mists.

“I lost someone I love in the fog. Do
you want that to happen to your wives? Your children?”

Still no one made a sound.

Bastian refused to give up so easily.
“I am the only one to ever make it back in the history of the fog. Do you think
you will fare better? None of you were eager to volunteer when I chose to leave.
Why are you so brave now?”

He waited, ready for a rebuke. Still,
none came.

“All you’re doing is running from a plague.
You’re trading one death for another.” Bastian sighed and sheathed his sword.
He didn’t know how to make them see beyond their tiny understanding of the
world.

“Even if you make it out of the fog,
there’s an army out there, waiting to destroy us. They killed Connor. They will
kill you too. Unless you learn to fight!”

“I want to learn!”

A child pushed his way through the
crowd. Lukas.
Geoff’s son.

“My mother and father died from the
plague, but I didn’t. I’m strong. I want to fight.” The boy rested a fist on
his hip. “I won’t be a coward like the rest of you. My Papa taught me to be
brave. Didn’t yours?”

Bastian held back a laugh. Children
always spoke the truth, especially when it was inconvenient for everyone else.
He placed a hand on Lukas’ shoulder. “I accept your help, Lukas. Thank you for
joining me.”

“You can’t fight with a child!”

Bastian couldn’t see which woman
voiced her concern. It didn’t stop him from responding. “Why not? My daughter
saved me out there. She’s younger than Lukas. Obviously the children do have
something to contribute. Without her, I might have died. The beast would have
torn me apart, just like it did
Vinya
and countless
others from our village who were sent out over the years.

“If you want to escape Hutton’s
Bridge and keep your lives intact, then give me time. Learn to fight.”

A man pushed his way through the
crowd.
Tom, the butcher.
“How much time? People are
dying here. The plague is spreading and we don’t know how to contain it. We
could all die within weeks.”

“You will die if you go out there.”
Bastian caught the man’s eyes. Neither of them looked away.

“You’re alive.”

“I was lucky. Please. Be patient. I
will teach you what you need to know.”

Tom rubbed his temples. Bastian could
see the exhaustion in his eyes. Drooping and bloodshot, Tom’s eyes carried a
tale of hardship. The sheltered world of Hutton’s Bridge was slowly collapsing
around them. There were no good solutions. Yet, Bastian wanted so badly to help
them before they marched out to their deaths.

Children wouldn’t stand a chance
against the beast. They’d mistake its call for their mother, wander off into
the fog, and never return. Families would be ripped apart.

“Stay.” Bastian pleaded with them. He
gripped Lukas’ shoulder even tighter. The boy’s strength fed his own
conviction.

Whispers spread through the crowd.
Finally. They were seeing Bastian’s pleading made sense.

“But if we stay, we will continue to
be exposed to the disease.” A woman stepped forward. She clutched a child in
her arms. “Even a day can make the difference between life and death.” She
moved in a slow circle, giving everyone a chance to see her face. “I vote we
leave. Cowardice has kept us trapped here our whole lives.”

Bastian looked to Udor. He’d been
oddly silent the whole time. When Bastian, Tressa, and Connor left, he’d been
the most vocal. Now he didn’t utter a word.

“Udor, what do you think of all this?”
Bastian asked. He knew he was taking a risk. The townspeople trusted Udor’s
word, despite his selfish motives and lying heart. Few ever stood up to him.

Udor rubbed the tip of his gray
beard. “I want to speak with you in private, Bastian. Will you allow us this?”
he asked the crowd.

Knowing they really didn’t have a
choice, the people parted, forming a path to the front door of the town hall.
Bastian followed him in. Tressa had told him what took place in here right
after her great grandmother died. Bastian’s fists trembled as he fought the
urge to punch Udor.

Before the door could close all the
way, Udor asked, “Where is Tressa?”

Bastian sighed and leaned up against
the wooden wall. “I don’t know.” Lying wouldn’t do him any good. If Udor had
any hand in helping him find Tressa, Bastian would give over his very life.
“She entered the fog hours before I did. I didn’t find her in there.”

“And your wife?”

“Don’t you already know her fate?” Bastian
had a hard time believing the news hadn’t made it to the leader of the town
yet.

“I want to hear it from you.”

“She’s dead. Eaten by a beast.”

“Did you try to save her?”

Bastian sat down at the table. “As
much as I could have tried. I couldn’t see her. When the beast attacked, I
chose to save Farah instead.”

Udor nodded. “If it had been Tressa
instead of Farah?”

Bastian wrung his hands together.
“I’m glad I didn’t have to make that choice.”

“It’s as I suspected, then. You do
love her.”

Bastian’s eyes narrowed. He stood up,
letting the chair clatter to the floor. “That is none of your business.”

“But it is, especially if she feels
the same about you.”

“I don’t speak for Tressa.” Bastian
was growing more irritated by the second. Udor had no right to ask him such
personal questions.

“Once you make them aware of the
dangers in the fog, will you follow them in or stay here and wait for Tressa?”

“I’m heading back into the fog to find
her.” Bastian hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. But he knew when he spoke the
words that he couldn’t sit idly by in the village while others went out there.
He had to find her and make sure she was safe.

Udor slapped Bastian on the back.
“Then I will stay. So if she arrives here while you’re out there, I can keep
her safe for you.”

Bastian knew the implied threat.
Still, it didn’t make sense. “Aren’t you afraid of the plague?”

Udor paced the room. “I should be,
shouldn’t I? You haven’t seen the dead. Did your uncle tell you how many have passed?”

Bastian shook his head. They hadn’t
had time to delve into the affairs of the village. He’d fallen asleep before he
could learn much from Adam.

“About a dozen. It’s not many,
considering the size of our village, but it’s enough to send people into a
frenzy.” Udor stopped in front of a window. With a finger, he pushed back the
curtain. Bastian could see the people outside. They milled around aimlessly.
Arguing. No clear leader or consensus among them. “It is always this way. There
are too many of them who want out. The plague has only provided them with a
good excuse to leave. It’s what they want, you know. To leave.”

“And you have never wanted to leave.”
Bastian knew the truth of it. Not once did he believe it a coincidence that Udor
hadn’t ever been chosen to enter the fog.

“I love this town. And you know now,
just as well as I do, that there are things out there that want to kill us.”

Bastian drummed his fingers on the
table. “What things are you referring to?”

Udor rushed at Bastian and grabbed
his red hair, scrunching it in his fingers like a wet cloth he wanted to wring
dry. He twisted his wrist to the side. Bastian’s neck yanked down, his ear
nearly touching shoulder. “The dragons. They’re coming.”

“Let me go or I swear I’ll drive your
head into the wall and let it hang there like one of your trophies.”

Udor released his grip. Bastian
stretched his neck from one side to the other, loosening up his muscles. He
wouldn’t be caught unaware again.

“What do you mean, the dragons are
coming?”

“You saw the one that landed here
before you left. Have you seen more?” Udor’s eyes were wide and dilated.
Almost as if he had smoked the tall grass on the edge of the
pasture.

Bastian thought of the claws raking
across Connor’s body as it disappeared into the door. Tressa swore it was a
dragon like the one that had landed injured in Hutton’s Bridge. He knew the
truth, though. The woman in the tree had injured the dragon, forcing it to make
an unexpected landing. Or maybe it had meant to penetrate their town in the
first place.

“No,” Bastian said. It wasn’t an
outright lie. It had only been Tressa’s opinion. He couldn’t verify it then and
certainly not now.

Udor hurried over to the enclosed
bookcase where the village kept their most prized books. Riffling through the
pages with a careful, but shaky, hand, Udor found the page he was looking for.
His fat forefinger rested on a picture. He tapped it twice, uncaring that the gold
leaf flaked off. “Dragon.” He pointed outside where the beast had landed the
day Bastian left. “Dragons. There are more.”

Bastian knew there were.
At least one.
He hoped that was all.

“The history books tell of
dragonlords
. Men who ruled the dragons and therefore ruled
the kingdom.” He sat down in the nearest chair.

“Tell me more,” Bastian said.

“Before the fog fell upon us, there
were five
dragonlords
. One hailed from the north, two
from the west, one to the south, and our own
dragonlord
on the Blue Throne. The peace was maintained until the Black Dragon in the south
attacked his own people.” The old man scratched his beard, picked out a nit,
and flicked it to the floor. “The other
dragonlords
debated attacking. They met at the town nearest to all of their borders –
Hutton’s Bridge.”

Bastian’s eyebrows rose. He thought
he’d heard all of the stories. Not this one. Not even a whisper.

“At the meeting, they decided to
attack the Black. Show him that he couldn’t hurt his own people without facing
retribution. Hutton’s Bridge was to be their main outpost for the war.”

The old man pushed the book in front
of Bastian. He didn’t know how to read, but the pictures made it all obvious to
him. “Why hasn’t anyone ever talked about this?”

“Sophia was the only one who knew. We
found this book hidden in her cottage after the three of you left.”

“You went through Tressa’s things?”

Udor sighed. “Bastian. No one ever
comes back. The resources must be divided up amongst the rest of the villagers.
It’s never been any different. Why should we have suspected you’d show up
half-dead last night?”

He wanted to insist that he, Tressa,
and Connor were different. That everyone should have known they’d return. He
knew the truth as well as anyone else. They weren’t special. They were dead the
moment they disappeared into the fog.

“If we leave and find a way to destroy
the fog, it’ll re-ignite a war, placing us right at the center. Is that what
you want, Bastian?”

He didn’t respond. He was too distracted
by the image in the upper right corner.