“Sam, do you know where Theo and Bets are?” I ask.
“I allowed them to exit through one of the back service entrances and then resealed the door. They have gone into the woods and are past my detection.” Relief surges through me — they have a chance.
Iggy hops up and down, producing an odd wheeze that must be a nauron cheer. Gorian groans. I gently touch her taught belly — false labor pains.
“Gorian, breathe calmly and the pain will subside. The stress set you into false labor. You’ll be fine soon. No baby yet.”
“Well, Amy, I don’t feel fine.” She grunts.
I lean back on the cool wall. “Well, we’re safe for now. But, at some point, we’re going to have to emerge for water and food. They’ll wait us out.”
Gorian pants. “What do you think are the chances Bets and Theo will return with help?”
“From where?” I ask. “We’re on the side of a mountain.”
“Excuse me,” Sam interrupts. “You may want to see this.”
The grubs circle the building while thunder rumbles.
Iggy tilts his head. “Isn’t it a bit early in spring for a rain storm?”
Sam zooms his screen at the eastern perimeter. The buck’s back and not alone. Hundreds of woodland creatures, deer, caribou, elk, black bears, and magpies burst through the treeline. The grubs turn, seemingly startled. As the animals rush forward, ribbons of rain fall from the sky, transforming the snow on the ground to mush. The grubs, once weightless on the snow, are now mired in the muck. As the rain beats on the creatures, they begin to melt, ooze dripping from their backs. They shrink helplessly. The woodland animals pass the brown hulks and trample the few soldiers still standing their ground. Sam shifts the image to the front door, which is now a gaping hole. The animals rush in and we hear Thresh and Jonah yelling. They run out of the lodge into the melting snow, hacking fruitlessly with their blades at the rearing animals. They jump on the horses and ride away. It’s a shame that Silius and Phineus did not respond magically to whatever spell has been cast on the woodland creatures, throwing Thresh and Jonah and trampling them to death. I try to reach out to my beloved horses, but they can’t hear me.
The rain lessens and Gorian seems better. Sam announces, “Four humans and one large humanoid are approaching from the east.” We look at his screen and I gasp. Theo, Bets, Wenn, and father are walking through the mud to the lodge. Fromer follows behind them.
Iggy mutters, “Fromer?”
“You’ve met him then?” I ask.
Gorian says, “What? Do you know him? Nevermind. He was our security officer on the planet C9. He passed out of our universe through the portal there — we think — and became a superhero of sorts.” She pauses thoughtfully. “That sounds really weird. Regardless, I’d never have expected to see him here.”
“I did. Let’s head up and greet them. You also might like to meet my father and husband.”
Gorian struggles to her feet. “Holy cow.”
Chapter 58 – Unification
“Is there any ale left?” Wenn’s arm is wrapped around Theo’s neck. They’re quite tittered.
“No, my boy, we’ve finished it.”
“Dammit.”
Bets sips the last of the honey wine, looking relieved. I’m unsure whether she’s happy to have defeated Thresh or that Wenn’s come back to me, making Theo unattainable. Perhaps a little of both.
I’m in shock. We’re all dealing with the aftermath of the attack differently. Instead of drinking, Gorian’s sleeping soundly and Iggy’s trying to repair Sam’s damaged systems. Fromer’s sent the wild animals back to their business in the forest and lumbers in the frozen mud piling bodies onto a huge fire. Father helps him. For me, the alcohol’s a tempting path, but I’m wondering why we’re letting Thresh and Jonah go.
After contemplating the acrid, black soot billowing from the carnal pyre, I decide to act, my face burning. Wenn and Theo are lolling about, while Bets looks on in amusement.
I pour the ale on Wenn’s head. “Wenn, after all this time, you decide to drink yourself into a stupor rather than pursue the bitch that stole your daughter and killed our kin? Look at the three of you — pitiful. The least you could do is to help father and Fromer’ cleanse this place.”
Wenn’s dripping and suddenly sober, a hardness I’ve never seen on him scored across his clenched jawline. He grabs a cloth and wipes his face. “What the hell is wrong with you woman? Take a moment to think. If you had an inkling of what Ansam and I went through for the sake of you girls — all of you — you’d think more about jumping down my yapper. We’ll pursue at dawn, although our pace will be slow. We can only hope that Thresh’s horses are slowed by the conditions as well. We have no horses left. They perished in the mountains.”
“Where did you go? Why did you abandon us? Fromer can be convincing but I’d never leave Eliza. Yet you did.”
Wenn’s glass of ale flies across the room, shattering on the stone floor. “The beast, god, Fromer, whatever he is appeared one night while you were in the garden. He showed us images — the fate of you and the baby — Eliza — if we’d stayed.” His eyes are dark and distant. “Fromer can see the future and knows the paths. I had to leave you to save you, which was the most horrible and unfair thing that could fall on a man.”
“Did you consider that Fromer was lying?”
“Gods, woman, he can travel in animals, place thoughts in your mind, make pictures from darkness. Just look at him. There’s no denying. I had to leave my unborn child for him. That’s sacrifice.”
I’m unconvinced. I think he never had the chance to bond with the child. She’s abstract to him. He’s trying to mask his guilt.
Theo stands, unsteady. “Amy, easy on us. It’s dark and dangerous. We need to gather provisions and weapons before going after Thresh. No telling if she’s got troops downhill. For all we know, she’s coming back.”
“Theo, I have a link to that woman. I can tell she’s not coming back, especially if Fromer’s with us. She’s outmatched by the natural world. If I could only do a little bit of what he did to those animals—”
“Oh, Amy. You can and you will.” Fromer stands in the doorway scratching his patch of hair.
I run to the beast and punch his chest. He’s real, cool to the touch. His enormous heart pounds, just like mine. How can he be alive if he left this world? “Why are you doing this to us?” I yell.
“If they’d stayed in the village, events would have been very different. You’d be dead and Eliza would be lost. I can only ask that you trust me. Ansam and Wenn have played their role very well. When Thresh arrives at the portal, she’ll find a measure of resistance that she never would’ve expected.”
My father appears, wiping his hands his coat. “What a damned mess out there. Amy, Fromer’s right you know. We had no choice. We followed him across the mountains to a village. The people had been watching the fog seep out of the lake — the portal as you call it — for years. They were terrified. Horrid things they saw, dead walking, creatures like the grubs — but bigger, nastier — and weird storms. People were disappearing. But the worse for them was the voices of their kin and friends, long in their graves but risen again. Was like the veil between our world and that of the dead was ripping. People weren’t just fearing for their lives, they was lamenting the fate of their souls.”
Wenn gazes into the distance. “With Fromer’s urging, we built a foundry in the town. Fromer brought strange metals to use which we forged into blades and other weapons. The villagers discovered these tools were effective against the creatures crawling out of that mist. They got their lives back.” He pulls his sword from its scabbard, the blade gleaming white in the darkness. “The name of the town is Yellow Stone. It’s the best hope we have to stop the things from completely passing over here to earth.”