Valkeryn 2: The Dark Lands (21 page)

He looked back down, and groaned. Come on, come on. His nerves were stretching tight now.  The Lygon line still trudged on, still a few to go. By Odin, hurry up, you dull brutes, he whispered and turned back to the thing that now stood on his lower back. It started to spray his upper body and shoulders. He moved his hands forward, determined to at least keep his sword arm free.

Breathing was becoming difficult; as the web dried, it seemed to set like stone. Sorenson looked back down for the last time he was able, and saw the line had passed on, but one of the Lygon had stopped directly below him to squat and relieve himself.

His time was up as the webbing fell on his sword arm, and was also starting to float down across the back of his head – either his arm would soon be pinned, or his vision would be shut off – either would mean certain death to him.

The thing advanced, confident now, and prodded its sharp legs into the meat of his back, perhaps   looking for the juiciest sections to pierce first. Sorenson heard a chittering from over his shoulder – a call of hunger, or victory?

His nerve broke. Lygon or not, he swung back with all his might. His movement was restricted, but he still managed to cleave the top of the thing’s head from its body. The remaining segments still clung to him, and its needle fangs continued to work. Sorenson wondered whether it would still strike at him, instinct taking over, regardless of the brain being removed. He swung again, this time using the flat of his blade, knocking it clean off his lower half to sail out towards the lower branches.

Before the carcass could drop to the ground, a flying creature swooped down and plucked the bleeding body from the air, carrying it back up into the higher canopy.

‘Thank you.’ Sorenson shook his head. ‘But by Odin’s beard, why didn’t you tell me you would have done that before?’

He rested his forehead on the branch for a few moments, then sucked in a deep breath, and began to saw at the hardened material covering his lower body like a cocoon.

Hmm, much safer in the trees?
As long as I have eyes in the back of my head, he thought as he pulled the solidified mesh from his legs and began to make his way to the ground.

*

‘Maybe.’ Arn contemplated the tree bough that leaned out over the water. Where they stood the river narrowed to just over a hundred feet across. The limb was as broad as a Buick at its base, and reaching out, narrowed as it reached more than three quarters of the way to the opposite bank. On the other side, there were more trees reaching back towards them, their tips meshing with the very ends of this one huge branch.

‘I think we can make it, Grim.’

Grimson nodded. ‘I know I can; I’m a good climber.’

Arn looked to the opposite bank, and then to the dark green water before them. The area they needed to cross lumped slightly from the swirling current due to the slight narrowing of the watercourse. A massive boulder the size of house had caused the constriction making the water work harder to keep pushing the millions of gallons through it, and Arn guessed it had probably gouged a deep trough beneath the surface. He bet it was probably deeper here than anywhere else for miles.

He stared into its mysterious depths; it was certainly darker, with no sign of the bottom even close to the bank. He shuddered; glad they would be climbing high over it. Oddly, the fish that had been trailing them as they hiked along the bank had vanished as they approached the darker area.
Must be the current
, he thought hopefully.

Arn circled the tree; its age-old, gnarled trunk provided many handholds up to the first of the huge lower branches. He leapt up and started to climb, quickly followed by Grimson. He was the first up on the broad limb, its wood cool and smooth beneath him. He stood and carefully walked out a few feet, angling his head to see through the dense growth. Gratefully he saw that the path forward looked fairly easy. Together, they edged along the bough. The further they went, the more Arn felt the limb start to move beneath him.

Half way across and the branch was narrowing. Now down to barrel thickness, it bounced ominously with each step either of them took. It would get a lot thinner before Arn and Grimson reached the tips of the opposing bank’s tree-limbs. Several times Arn called a halt to wait for the creaking branch to settle.

While waiting for the swaying limb to calm, Arn looked down at the slow moving water below. He was delighted to see that some of the fish had returned, and were drifting lazily beneath them, occasionally turning sideways to display a single glassy eye firmly fixed on the pair above.

‘That’s it, keep coming… and you’ll be our lunch when we get to the other side.’

‘Yech,’ from Grimson.

Arn edged along sideways now, the limb bouncing with every careful step he took. Out over the river, the wind caught the ends of the branches and lifted them like sails. Arn grabbed onto a small branching limb as the huge limb rose beneath his feet. ‘Surfs up, Grim. Hang on.’

He pushed on, each footstep now was a matter of slide, wait, slide wait; a shuffle that frustrated Grimson who walked behind him, arms-out like a miniature tightrope walker. He continually jeered Arn for his lack of balance.

From below him there was a surge of water. Arn needed every speck of concentration, and couldn’t spare an atom’s worth to look down – besides, surely it was just some sort of white-water breaking over shallows.

The wind lifted the thinning branch again, and Arn had to go to his knees for a few seconds. He peered ahead; the tips of the branches of the trees on the opposite bank were in sight. They touched their own limb and then moved away, touched and then whipped back and forth as if some giant was throttling them from behind.

‘Not going to be easy. We might have to jump.’

Arn watched for a while and then cursed softy – he should have expected this – the thinning of the branch meant it was influenced more by their weight, and therefore bending lower the closer they got to its end. There was a surging once again from the water below, and this time it sounded closer. He chanced a look down. In a billow of water, fragments of the orange-silver fish swirled around on the surface before they fell slowly into the dark green depths of the river.

‘Grim, did you see that?’ Arn looked over his shoulder. Grimson shrugged and shook his head.

‘Okay, forget it. C’mon.’

Arn inched along, this time keeping one eye on the water as the limb dipped further towards it. They now found themselves only twenty feet above its surface, and glancing down, Arn thought he saw an enormous shadow pass underneath them.

‘Oh great.’ He peered up though the branches, hoping it had been nothing more than a cloud passing over the fading sun. No such luck – the sky was darkening, but clear. Arn suddenly had a pretty good idea why the fish were cautious about moving out over the deeper water, and those that did, ended up being shredded – this spot in the river belonged to something that lived down in its green depths… and that something was now coming to the surface.

From behind him he heard Grimson. ‘I’m hot, and the fish are gone. I can swim from here.’

Arn spun around. ‘Don’t you…’

The young Wolfen had already left the branch.

Arn quickly edged out along the thinning branch, trying to keep his balance while also watching Grimson paddle across the water. The small Wolfen swum strongly, probably now only thirty or so feet from where Arn watched from the tips of the branches, and closing rapidly on the far bank.

Arn’s heart galloped in his chest, and willed the youth to greater speed – he suspected there was something watching from the depths, and he had to stop himself from yelling out lest he panic the youth.

‘Come on,’ he whispered, and he felt his spirits lift as Grim passed over the bottomless dark water at the centre of the slow moving river. Huge flat stones could be made out beneath him now, but as the water was so clear, they could have been ten feet or fifty below him.

Arn swayed on the branch and looked over his shoulder. Just downstream, a V-shaped wave was moving across the water, made by an object that was travelling below the surface. Something of considerable size was coming up from the inky depths, and trying to beat Grimson to the shore. Arn gave up on not trying to panic the young Wolfen.

‘Grim, swim, swim faster!’

Grimson stopped and turned. ‘Huh.’

Arn spluttered and pointed, having trouble maintaining his balance and pointing downstream at the same time.

‘Something’s coming. Swim, Grim, swim! Don’t look back – go, go
go
!’ He yelled until his voice became hoarse, and then drew his blade. If need be, he’d dive down from the overhanging branches. To do what, he had no idea. For now, all he could do was watch… and pray.

Grimson started to swim, but then stopped and looked around. Perhaps he noticed the huge lump in the water or sensed the monstrous presence approaching, but he whined and then quickly flipped over to start thrashing with all his strength to the bank.

Arn had moved as far along the branch as he could, the thinning branches creaking ominously beneath him, their ends now barely above the water. He steeled himself – if whatever was beneath the water breached before Grimson was safe, he would launch himself, missile-like onto its back. He knew it would be big, and given what they had already encountered, he hoped to do little more than startle it long enough for Grimson, and himself, to get to the bank.

Grim was now only about fifteen feet from being able to stand.
Hurry up
, thought Arn as the dark mass started to rise from the depths and take shape. He grimaced. Thoughts of plunging a blade into the thing’s back were swept away as the creature took form. It was a crustacean, like a bullet shaped crab, or crayfish without a tail, easily fifty feet in length and mottled a dark green. Two claws the size of trashcans were held out to its sides, and black bulb eyes on stalks were trained on the thrashing youth ahead of it.

Arn imagined a shell many inches thick, and well beyond any simple stabbing to put it the chance of a quick meal. He sucked in a huge breath, readying himself. He had sworn an oath to the king that he would keep his son safe. He would honor that pledge, or die trying.

‘Guess I’ll see you soon, grandfather.’

The giant crustacean broke the surface, the bulb eyes appearing first like a pair of shiny periscopes, followed by a mottled back as wide as a truck and glistening in the rising moonlight.

Arn leapt.

Chapter 25

Beautiful Valkeryn, What Have TheyDone to You?

Eilif endured the taunts and the torments of the Lygon and
Panterran that accompanied her to the castle. She was in no doubt that a slow death was assured when she arrived back. Her life mattered little now that she was denied the opportunity to track Arn into the Dark Lands. The Panterran and Lygon would eventually catch him up, and then…

She just hoped Bergborr’s Wolfen spirit would rise in the defense of her brother. It was strange; whenever she thought of the dark Wolfen, one of her kinfolk, there was always a small seed of reservation in the deepest corners of her mind. Try as she might, she couldn’t understand why she felt this way.

She was pushed from behind and she stumbled. Her clothes had been shredded, and as a cruel joke, the Panterrans had draped her in a filthy blanket – a cloak of royalty, for a princess of nothing.

She walked slowly with it pulled over her head her like a hood, not wanting to see the disgusting beasts around her. Another shove brought her back to her current predicament. Her mind worked on plans for escape, but in the long flat lands of her former kingdom, and with her hands bound and neck tethered to the giant brutes, there was little chance of breaking free here and now.

Soon she would be in the castle, and, with luck, unbound. If she was not immediately presented to Mogahrr, or put to death or chained, then there was a flicker of hope. The castle was her home, she knew it and loved it – there were many secret passages, and she just
needed to be in the right place, and alone for only a few seconds.

Eilif drew in a breath, and eased it out. And if she were killed would it matter? Not if Arn also lost his life. Then she would not want to live. Perhaps they could meet again, across the rainbow bridge in Valhalla. She knew in her heart he had the
sáál
of a Wolfen. Perhaps death would be better for her, better for them, than this life.

‘Please Odin hear me. If I am to die, make it an honorable death,’ she whispered. The Panterrans delighted in delivering pain through torture. She would rob them of that pleasure. She made up her mind – she would die in battle. When a chance presented it, she would escape or fight to the death. 

The familiar landmarks told her she was close to her once beloved Valkeryn kingdom. The only difference was the reek of death that still hung over the lands.

Valkeryn, beautiful Valkeryn, what have they done to you? She thought miserably.

*

Becky and Edward sat huddled against the wall in the cold cell. They had pulled together scraps of material from around the tiny room and fashioned them into rough clothing – although clothing was a flattering term for their efforts. Edward thought they both looked like refuges from some lost tribe, with Becky’s scraps barely providing any modesty. Considering they had been naked for hours, Edward guessed the time for shyness had long past.

‘What do you think they’ll do with us?’ Becky’s arms rested on her knees, and her head was lowered onto them. Her voice drifted up from between her legs.

‘Don’t know. They don’t need us, and I don’t think they see us as particularly unique or valuable given the way they dispatched Briggs’ soldier. Maybe they’ll keep us as pets.’

She sniffed wetly. ‘They tore him apart. I don’t want to die like that… I don’t want to die at all. I just want to go home. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. No one told me it’d be like this,’ she sobbed.

Edward sighed. Why did people think that the future was always going to be some sort of hippy nirvana where everyone ate fruit and hugged each other in the sunshine? If the past and present proved anything, it was that life had always been brutal.