Crik (11 page)

A groan, from the ground, separated them. Looking down Jack saw Krimble had not moved; he remained unconscious, though the groan had reminded them all that Krimble could wake up at any moment.

In the time it too
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them to carry Inara halfway down the worn stairs, she had stopped crying. Struggling with her weight, both boys took the steps slow. Inara burrowed her face into Jack’s shoulder. Did she expect to find Krimble at the door, waiting for them? Nothing came from the windowless room. Fed by Inara’s shaking body, Jack’s relief turned to acute anxiety. Blossoms of brilliant crimson mingled with the maroon and brown swirls staining the rags that bound her legs. Her blood reminded him of crushed roses.

They passed another of Krimble’s paintings, the frenzied brush strokes portrayed a field of dying corn, where worms writhed amidst the rotten roots. Narmacils hid amongst the failed harvest, some rolled in the spoilt earth, and others climbed the blackened stalks, while more peppered the distance, indistinct but for the characteristic golden gleam with the dissecting silver bolt. Knowing one lived inside him made Jack ill; nausea, making his stomach roil, hit him like surprise punch.

‘Yin, careful,’ said Bill, in alarm, as Inara dipped toward the floor.

‘Sorry,’ muttered Jack, tightening his hold. ‘This should lead outside.’ He nodded toward a white door, long blackened with mould.

Damp mist trailed into the house through the open door. The night sky shone with constellations. Freezing wind made them shudder as they stepped onto the grass. Despite the biting cold they all welcomed being outside, especially Inara, who peered up at the clear sky, and took a deep breath. Inara became lighter in Jack’s arms. Carrying her with less effort around the corner of the house, he came to a sudden, shocked, stop. A looming presence, wreathed in swirling eddies of mist, stood before them.

‘Come here Black,’ said Bill, with an impatient jerk of his head.

The wolf emerged, big and powerful, from the mist, his blue eyes reflecting starlight. His sodden black fur hung in twisted threads, with the ends of the matted hair trailing across the ground. A low growl escaped the square muzzle; Jack feared the wolf ignored Bill’s command, as had the rat.

‘Hush,’ said Bill, and Black, lowering his head, approached.

Clinging to Jack, so fiercely that she choked him, Inara whimpered. If she had legs she would have ran from the wolf. Pulling her arm from his neck, Jack gasped, ‘It’s alright, he’s with us. We named him Black for his colour, and if it were not for him, we would never have escaped the woods with our lives. Bill has him under control.’

‘Like he did with the rat,’ said Inara, not won over with the strength of Bill’s gift.

‘That’s not fair, Krimble blocked me,’ argued Bill in outrage. ‘I got it off you when Yang knocked him out didn’t I.’

‘It’s a lot bigger than a rat,’ she said, wary of them carrying her closer to the predator.

‘Trust me Inara,’ said Jack, ‘Bill has him under control. He carried us from danger, and he will again. We can’t hold you much longer; quick, climb onto Black’s back, before Krimble wakes.’

The threat of Krimble recapturing them spurred Inara into allowing Jack and Bill to lift her onto Black’s waiting back. Once perched atop Black she grabbed a hank of hair in closed fists, drawing an agitated growl from the wolf. She dug her knees into the wolf’s flank; Bill sat before her and hugged the wolf’s powerful neck.

The wolf, though large, could not carry three people. ‘I’ll walk beside you.’ Jack, having the better chance to traverse the wilderness than Bill, who still looked groggy from the drugged tea, took the lead. He strode through the wind-churned mist, eager to be on the move. They had tarried too long, at any moment Krimble could rush through the doors, and this time he had a wolf he could turn on them.

Stagnant pools, surrounded by soft earth, conspired to ensnare Jack’s feet. He stumbled from one obstacle to the next. The mist thickened around the group. Visibility reduced to a few feet. Frustrated, he wanted to thump the ground, when he spied a long stick. Taking the wood, he immediately began prodding the soft ground ahead to warn him of any pitfalls. The slow progress frustrated the group. Black navigated the swamp better, circling the sinkholes and water with ease; a few times the wolf had no other option than to traipse, like Jack, through the mire. Whenever her wounds met cold water, Inara cried out. Hearing her painful sobs spurred Jack to lift her legs from the bog.

‘Where are we going Yin?’ Stars crowned Bill’s head, while impenetrable mist clung to his legs.

‘I don’t fancy making for the near wood, the wolves could still be waiting for us to leave the marsh.’ Wanting to get as much possible distance between them and the house Jack had paid little attention to their direction when he started to walk. ‘We’ll make for the northern woods.’ Looking to the heavens, he spotted a red star. ‘There’s the Maiden, waiting in her tower for her lost love, she’ll guide us to the trees.’

‘I always enjoyed that story,’ remarked Inara, smiling down. ‘My mother told me the Maiden’s father would not allow any man to see her, and would lock her in the tallest tower, where she grew lonely and sad. She often sat in darkness, looking out at the wild country; then one night she spotted a Huntsman.’ She pointed at another group of stars sinking into the western horizon. ‘Soot from the castle’s forge discoloured the stone of the tower to its roof, so every night it became invisible. To gain the Huntsman’s attention she lit a lamp. The rose tinted glass caught the man’s eye, and he came to the tower where they fell in love.’

‘Didn’t he have to outrun a hound with two heads?’ asked Bill.

‘The white hound, Numo,’ she agreed, ‘the favourite pet of the Ice Giant Dragonorth.’ Inara pointed out a larger constellation.

‘They don’t look like anything,’ remarked Bill, of the sprinkling of lights above them. ‘That one looks more like a frying pan than a hound.’

‘You have to look with better eyes,’ said Inara. ‘The handle of your pan is Numo’s tail, and there,’ she pointed at a cluster of bright stars, ‘his legs, and his pricked ears.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my eyes; it looks like a frying pan, or perhaps a bedpan.’

Jack let them argue, happy to hear Inara speak of things other than Krimble. Although he also agreed that the stars looked like a frying pan, he preferred Inara’s explanation; it reminded him of his mother’s stories.

Blisters covered his hands from holding the stick; his fingers jarred each time the end struck the ground. A frog leaping into a pond scared Inara, who broke off her argument with Bill to listen.

Without warning, the mist lifted, allowing them to see the shimmering land by moonlight. Casting his eye back, Jack spotted Krimble’s home. Alarm swept through him like a poison that weighed down his already tired legs. ‘We should be farther away than this,’ he heard himself say.

‘He’s awake,’ whispered Inara.

‘The fog confounded us. Krimble used his Talent to make us walk in a circle,’ said Jack. A hush fell over them. Exposed, and vulnerable, they each felt the searing stab of panic. Jack wanted to rant against the injustice of their predicament. They had escaped the Marsh House, spent hours walking, only to find themselves back where they had started. Hunkering low across Black, Bill planted his face into the wolf’s coarse hair, while Inara hugged his back. Crouching low, Jack clutched his walking stick so tight his blisters burst. Guiding them from the house, Jack hoped Krimble had missed them. Without the mist hampering their sight, they navigated the small ponds with ease, and spotted the larger bodies of water well before stumbling on them.

The spongy ground sapped Jack’s strength; he slipped on the wet grass where Black trod with surefootedness. Mud covered him to his waist.

‘Oh no,’ cried Inara, pointing up at the sky.

Jack followed her wavering hand to billowing storm clouds that obliterated the stars. The Maiden star stood resolute against the storm. Peering up at her light he refused to lower his gaze. A few wisps of cloud obscured the red light for only a moment. She will not abandon us, repeated Jack’s racing mind. When an anvil shaped Cumulonimbus cloud rolled in, to hide the Maiden star better than her father’s forge had hid her tower from searching eyes, he howled in despair. All turned dark, the still water no longer mirrored the sky, and the grass became a stretch of ink before them. Only silhouettes fed their hungry eyes.

‘Where to now,’ asked Bill.

‘Keep straight, we were heading toward the woods when the clouds appeared,’ replied Jack. He did not voice his concern on how to remain in a straight line over a land designed to confound their every step.

A roll of thunder crashed down, to reverberate in the chests of the small group. The wind picked up strength, snapping Inara’s skirt and fluttering Jack’s collar around his reddened cheeks.

‘Keep moving,’ cried Jack over the dying thunder.

Knowing the house grew smaller with every step encouraged Jack onward. He took hold of Black’s fur, trusting the lupine’s keener senses to keep them on track.

A spark of dazzling white lit up the world. In the brilliance, Yang appeared as a giant, towering over them. Jack quailed at the sight; positive the demon meant them harm. He threw his hands up over his face in fear. The vanishing light took Yang with it. Breathing in the night air, Jack kept his eyes fixed on where Yang had sprung above them.

‘He’s looking for us,’ laughed Inara. ‘It’s his searchlight.’

‘Shut up, stop laughing,’ Bill shouted, his hands jammed against his ears. The terrible searchlight flashed again, leaving the indelible image of Inara’s terror-stricken face to haunt them.

Inara’s mad laugh continued in the dark. She expressed her anguish no words could describe.

‘She’s losing it again,’ said Bill.

‘Leave her alone,’ said Jack, ‘she’s frightened. She’ll calm done in a minute.’

‘It’s alright for you; you haven’t got her shaking on your back. If she continues for much longer, I’m likely to go insane.’

With each flash, the land came into focus, revealing the layout of the marsh for an instant at a time. Rounded grassy knolls, and clumps of reed, made the lumpy terrain difficult to remember when the darkness swept back in. They clambered over small hillocks on hurried feet, seeking lower ground, away from Krimble’s searching gaze.

Jack found himself wishing Dwayne Blizzard were with them, they could use Dwayne’s Talent to guide them in the dark.

Coming to an especially high hillock, Bill said, ‘We shouldn’t climb that, Krimble will spot us. Let’s walk around.’

‘We don’t want him to see us,’ mirrored Inara.

Jack shook his head. ‘No, if we start to deviate from our path we won’t be able to find the woods. We have to climb and hope we’re far enough from the house to avoid detection.’

They waited for the next flash of light before starting to climb. Black, carrying Bill and Inara, easily scampered up the slick slope, pulling along Jack, who still held onto the wolf’s long hair. They stopped at the summit, looking down the slope at Krimble’s home.

‘How,’ said Jack in amazement. ‘We’ve been walking for over an hour, we can’t have circled back to him?’

‘This hill was never by his house, I would’ve remembered it.’ Bill shook his head.

Inara chewed her lip.

‘He altered it, just like he altered the path by Inara’s home,’ said Jack. ‘Come on, we have to go back.’ He turned to retrace his steps, when Black tugged him toward the house. ‘Bill, stop him.’

‘I can’t he’s doing it by himself.’

‘He’s controlling the wolf,’ whispered Inara.

With desperation, Jack realized they could not just ditch Black; they needed the wolf to carry Inara, without his help they had no chance of getting out of the swamp. Resolute, he marched beside his friends; no way would he let them face Krimble without him. Grounding his teeth, he readied himself for the confrontation. 

The house remained the same; the firelight danced on the window, creating shadows on the glass. Krimble’s stooped figure stood before the door, a flash of lightning showing up his scars to great effect. Blood ran from his lip to his chin.

‘I got a little excited,’ said Krimble, when Black brought them forward, ‘so I lost my concentration.’ He looked apologetic. He turned to the shadow that appeared in the glow cast from the window. ‘I won’t make that mistake a second time.’

‘We are going home,’ cried Jack, ‘all of us.’ He looked at Inara, who shivered behind Bill. ‘Now leave us alone, or you’ll suffer more than a busted lip.’