PULL ME UNDER - Fear Of The Dark - Twenty

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Twenty

Their cloaks whipped at their backs as they raced, cold air numbing the exposed skin under their masks. No bark of the leapriver tree to ease the pain of riding such length, only urgent haste to power them in their need to return to Kaddusk—wearing the horses down until they stung to the touch like hot iron.

Ddun was furious, of all the dispatches he’s received and not a single mention of a “missing horizon.” There was no need for that old man to lie, and no need for any evil to deceive him, either—he flew no banners, held no alliances but to his family, like any minor clan they were surviving humbly and no one had any reason to pay attention, or to affect by magic what they could or could not see before them, if that was what happened to Ddun’s scouts.

The more families from the south that joined in the north, the better he could verify. He would call in all of them, hear them each, to discern the truth—how many of them already in Kaddusk had he paid no attention to, other than numbers on parchment. How many heads of livestock they brought, how many fighting men and boys ready to train. He ushered the horse faster, fighting off the pain and cold by sheer will, only for Tanner to suddenly stop his horse with a shout and a clumsy slip to the ground.

Ddun turned with confusion to check on his friend in the snow. Tanner clambered to a sit, mask knocked askew—hastily butting the gun against his shoulder as he shook, eyes wide and spittle flying from his lips with every breath.

Aiming right at Ddun.

His heart tried to escape his flesh but caught in his throat. Tanner’s face was white as the snow blowing in snake-like drifts over the dead grass—but there was a reflection in Tanner’s eyes that made to sense, shadows and light playing off them unnaturally. Ddun started to raise his hands, sweat spilling at the madness before him.

“Tanner—”

Bullets flew—Ddun’s heart gave up on escaping and erupted through his limbs—he threw himself from the horse to avoid the shots, but the bullets never came. Tanner shot again, short pops in triplets, directed at Ddun and the horse, but every bullet vanished before striking. Something was in between, but he was too frightened of getting shot to move and look.

“Get away from me, go away!” Tanner demanded of the something that frightened him. Ddun found the nerve to move, to see Tanner scrambling backwards, the gun swinging with his erratic crawl. A black-green limb formed from the aether, like the leg of an insect, dripping viscous liquid that melted the snow in hisses. Ddun pulled his sabre from the scabbard in a cautious, silent motion, and braced himself to run to Tanner’s side, to face the thing climbing out of nothingness. Ddun bolted, attempted to pull Tanner up from the grass, but he was immovable.

An oval of darkness, a platter of that familiar place seen only in sleep, the swirling colours of smoke the evidence Tanner had fired the shots that cut into the black. More insect-like legs came through, like a bundle of sticks for a fire, razor-edged hairs coating it thick. Tanner fired again, hitting a leg with a spray of frothy green, the leg retracted and more came. Ddun began slashing at the legs, cutting them like reeds but yet more came with every limb severed, hooks reaching—not for him, but Tanner, and with a sickening sense of futility Ddun gave one last roaring hack at the things before retreating again to where Tanner sat immobile, and dragged him by the armpits to gain distance.

A tickle at his neck, another platter behind him and more limbs extending out from the darkness. He slapped the back of Tanner’s skull—“move!”—and they both climbed on the nearest horse to flee. In a blink, as if walking from one room to another without noticing the doorway, they found themselves within that darkness, and his thoughts faltered—grip kept on Tanner as they spun on the horse, perhaps for comfort—Ddun was cracking at the sight of all the black.

No way out. There’s never been a way out.

The horse collapsed under them, a dead pool of skittering bits of metal, leaving the two of them in a heap.

“This is your dream,” Tanner stated knowingly, as gemstone tendrils crept up from beneath. “There’s got to be a way out.”

No way out. “I’ve yet to discover one,” Ddun tried his best to seem in control of himself, “but I always wind up choking and waking before I walk far.”

They stood with their backs pressed together, each with a sabre held tight in case those limbs or some other untold terror came out at them.

Ddun knew of the faces and grotesques the smoke would display—and also knew he was awake, and Tanner was with him, witnessing the same things. “Illusions will appear to you, but they will dissipate to touch them. At least, that’s how it is when I dream it.”

“We aren’t dreaming.”

Ddun had no words of reassurance nor comfort, and could only swallow the growing lump of fear ready to choke him as sweat made tracks down his brow. He much preferred charging at men on the field—at least he knew what to expect. “We’ll try to run.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Forward. My forward. Ready?”

Tanner’s hands fumbled at Ddun’s cloak. More smoke formed the more they moved, and Ddun could feel his throat close up in trepidation—I’d wake up choking, but I’m not asleep.

“My head really hurts, Ddun. I can’t see.”

“It’s dark here—”

“It hurts!” His voice broke in a pitched crack.

“Hold on to me. We’ll run together. Ready… Now!” Ddun forced his own limbs into action, Tanner stumbled to keep pace, but held tight. Grinning twisted faces, sneering beasts silently laughing at them as they ran, the purples and pinks and blues twining up, thickening and threatening to constrict. Still they ran, without any walls or scenery it was hard to tell if they had moved at all.

“I can’t run, it hurts!”

Tanner fell to his knees, eyes clenched and teeth bared in a grimace, hands balled into fists, he hit himself as if to knock the pain out of his head.

The smoke wasn’t wrapping around Tanner, Ddun noted. Only around my feet, my legs. Tanner was left alone by it.

The hissing became louder, cracks like arthritic joints popping, and the insect-limbs came forward, trying again to hook themselves into Tanner. Ddun swung down at them, Tanner oblivious as he crouched in pain. Green blood-fluid gushed with every strike of the blade, but it only multiplied their numbers.

Lights began flashing in Ddun’s vision, just as always, a tremor of dread in his shoulders. A tendril of pink wrapped around his throat, and he couldn’t swing his arm. Stiffened, as if flat on a bed, though his eyes were open and he was very much alert.

The hooked limbs dug into Tanner’s cloak like thistles and he began to scream, pulling against it. Ddun wished he could wake… He couldn’t breathe, he should be waking, but Tanner was still screaming. Ddun’s eyes closed heavy, hand still gripping the sabre.

“Help me, I can pull him if you help me.” Lauren’s voice. Two pairs of hands gripped Ddun’s cloak, pulled as if he was stuck in thick mud. Light hit his face. “Hurry, come on!”

“I am hurrying!” Another woman’s voice.

The winter air cleared his mouth of the thick glue that made his tongue heavy, they pulled harder to get him through, but still his muscles refused to move. “Wait!” Lauren called. “Leave him through the gap. You have to go in to get Tanner.”

“What?”

“Please, Irynna, I can’t!”

“Right, of course you can’t.” The woman climbed over him like he was a sack of grain, he felt her keep a grip around his ankle as slowly his limbs tingled with sensation. The woman used him for leverage to pull Tanner out of the hooks.

Lauren’s hands pet his face, he felt her trembling, and his eyes opened to the most wonderful thing he had seen in months, bright as the sun, a miracle like a spirit’s blessing. There wasn’t time to get lost in her brilliant eyes, a smile exchanged between them as his arms came to life to touch her face.

The woman at his ankle squeezed painfully through his boot, he sat himself up to stupidly venture back through the circle of black, Lauren holding one arm, a human chain to free Tanner from whatever was pulling him the other direction.

“You, come through,” he told the woman at his foot. “I’ll get him.”

Drowning himself, but with ferocity in his heart to finish what the girl had started, he pulled Tanner’s legs as hard as he could.

“Come on, you prick, move! Come on!”

Tanner had a hook in his cheek, another hook in his shoulder, if Ddun pulled again it would rip Tanner open. But he had to pull, with a roar he pulled and Tanner came lose, the limbs slashing forward again as the two women pulled the men through, all with heaving breaths.

Ddun collapsed in the earth and stars filled his eyes.

***

All Tanner could taste was blood, his tongue prodded a strange hole in his cheek he didn’t remember having. Confused as to where he was, and why he had such a searing hot pain in his face and shoulder—but no complex thoughts through the haze of it all, only soft humming out his nose as he tried to lift his right arm, but the pain kept it down at his side.

Fingers twitched. Everything was still dark, but he felt the rough wool, above him and beneath him. He was in a bed. He could smell a fire, spices.

“Hush, don’t move.”

His tongue poked at the wound again and he felt stitching. His eyelashes were stuck together, the crust of sleep and blood. A warm damp cloth came and gently cleared the debris, and wiped his brow and mouth, and he shook his head to free himself of the nagging thing, blinking, struggling to focus his eyes on whoever it was that hovered there to clean him. Green eyes and freckles. “Irynna?”

“I said don’t move. You don’t listen well, do you?”

He was suddenly aware of his heartbeat, and with each beat the pain pulsed in those two spots. “Why do I have a hole in my face?”

“You had hooks in you. Like a fish.”

“A fish.” He couldn’t remember anything, so he let his eyes close again. “Where am I?”

“Home, with the rest of us.”

“How’d I get here?” They were miles away, riding between Kaddusk and Kisku, weren’t they? He and Ddun.

She chuckled. “You tell me. I took Lauren out with Yol and saw you both.”

“Who’s Yol?”

“My falcon.”

He opened his eyes again, brow pursed. He watched her face for any sign of deception, waiting to see if she might turn into some monster, but her face was unwavering, just a stern look. Behind her hung dried herbs, and he realized he was in the medicine tent. He really had crossed the world to them. “Did Lauren find us?”

“No. She doesn’t use her magic at all.”

There was shouting outside the tent, Irynna’s head snapped to the sound, and the shouting came closer, until the flap of the medicine tent was torn open—Ddun stood, with steam off his bare shoulders. Eyes on fire, teeth bared in a snarl, and before Irynna could halt the madman he was on top of Tanner, hands wrapped around throat—the pressure put immense pain in the wound on Tanner’s cheek, he clawed at his friend’s hands through the pain in his shoulder while Irynna knocked Ddun about the head to get him to cease his assault—Ddun growled: “You didn’t tell me, you useless, stupid bastard, you didn’t tell me she was with child you fucking prick!”

All Tanner could do was croak a voiceless “I don’t know—what you’re talking about—Ack!” through clenched teeth, kicking his legs out to try to unbalance Ddun. Lauren was there with Irynna now, and Grandmother, all three women pounding on Ddun’s back and head trying to convince him to relent. Just as Tanner’s eyes went crossed and he was close to death, Ddun let go and Tanner gasped for breath like a newborn.

“You swear to your God you didn’t know?”

“He didn’t know! Ddun, I never told him!”

“She never told me! You stupid fuck!” He could barely speak. Then the lightbulb in his brain burst open and he looked at his sister, on her knees crying, face flushed and beautiful with Irynna’s arms around her shoulders. “You’re pregnant?” When she nodded, there was no pain in him, Ddun hadn’t just choked him half to death, his cheek wasn’t freshly bleeding into his mouth, and he dove to embrace her, holding her tight and laughing in her ear as best he could with a busted in windpipe. She hugged him back and they rocked with cries and smiles and he hadn’t felt so warm in his life. He was going to be an uncle. An uncle!

Ddun leaned into the post at the foot of the bedding, knees up, head low, with a hand at his brow to hide his face. He looked like a drunk about to be sick. Tanner gave him a backhanded slap on the knee, “congratulations, Pops,” with suppressed mirth at the sight of his friend’s distress. Ddun was motionless, and Lauren started crying again. Grandmother ushered all the women out of the tent and left the men, Tanner limp on the bedding with the pain returned, swallowing blood and feeling nauseated as it hit his gut. He needed to just lie there and accept his body was a wreck. But he was going to be an uncle, and somehow that made it all alright.

“No wonder she wanted to leave there,” Ddun finally spoke. “She said she didn’t want me worrying over her.”

“Sounds like Lauren.” The earth spun under him.

“You sound terrible.”

“You choked me!” He coughed.

“I needed to choke somebody and it’s difficult to choke oneself.”

He couldn’t refute that logic. “Does she know how we got here?”

“You opened the way.”

“I did?”

“Wasn’t her. Wasn’t me or that other woman. Had to be you.”

Tanner felt a buzz in his skull as the earth continued it’s uncomfortable spin, tried to focus his vision on the roof of the tent where the supports met, the hole to the sky hazed by smoke drifting through. His eyebrows knit again. “I did?”

“Do you remember what happened?”

“Not a thing.” He gave up trying to focus.

“For the best.”

All was quiet again, and Tanner fell back asleep.