Hand of Fire (The Master of the Tane) (44 page)

A gentle breeze brushed his face as if inviting him to follow on its journey to tomorrow. He relaxed and let the feeling wash over him yearning to chase the wind as it took with it the pains and worries of the day. The gust picked up speed and soon he felt as if he were actually in motion, gliding gently on the night air rising higher into the sky. He felt so alive. He wanted more. Suddenly, the gust shot up from behind and he felt himself hurled faster and faster into
space. The rush was incredible. All the day’s aches had suddenly been forgotten as he seemed to float along, gliding through the night sky. The sensation was so realistic that he actually felt like he was ridding along large streams of air as they rushed for the distant horizon.

             
He thought he could sense the passing of trees and meadows below as the land slipped under him no longer having claim to him. He was free. Free from the physical world. Free from the limitations of his painful body. He wanted to open his eyes and see what he sensed around him. He wanted to skim gently over the treetops that felt so real beneath him. He wanted to experience it all but knew, in doing so, he would end this dream into which he had somehow fallen.

Then, like the lightest touch of a feather grazing the skin, he sensed the presence of something familiar. It brushed against his senses ever so faintly like an itch in the back of his mind. He focused on it, willing himself toward it. As he did so, he felt as if he suddenly turned sharply to the right. The familiar presence grew quickly in strength and it wasn’t long before he felt that it must be directly under him. Willing himself down, he could feel the earth come up and the branches of trees swing past his face. It was as if he were entering a grove, dropping down gently from the sky above. He could feel the swirls of wind circling around him, holding him inches from the ground, and he knew that the presence sat right in front of him. Who or what could it be? The urge to open his eyes and see it was incredibly strong but he resisted, not wanting to lose it to the dreams of the night.

              He concentrated harder on the form that called so strongly to him. It was so familiar yet, somehow changed. Then it struck him like a bolt from the sky. “Tam!” The sound of his voice echoed in his ears and his eyes, unable to resist any longer, shot wide open. There, two feet below him, was the figure of a young girl tied hand and foot to a tree.

“Tam?” he breathed. “Is it really you?”

              The young girl stirred and then lifted her head revealing a wretched looking face smeared with dirt and covered with small cuts and bruises. Her hair was a twisted jungle of mangled knots overflowing with tiny lice running up and down the long strands. Her eyes were dull, having lost their shine of life, and seemed not to be able to focus properly. She opened her mouth as if to say something but no voice came out.

             
“Tam, it’s me, Thane!”

             
A faint glimmer of recognition flashed across her filthy face but was quickly gone. Then, without the slightest warning, she started to scream. The shrills shattered the silence like the final cries of a dying animal and a large number of footsteps were heard coming up from behind. Thane whirled around and faced the towering forms of ten giant trolls crashing down on him. He threw up his hands and braced for the impact but the first troll passed right through him. The wind surrounding him was suddenly disrupted tossing him violently to the side and through the body of another approaching troll. His head began to spin and he tried to will himself higher to avoid any more collisions but the wind was beginning to fail, losing its strength with every crash of a passing troll. He felt stretched out with the dissipating wind feeling as if his body would be pulled apart in a hundred different directions. He turned towards Tam just in time see one of the trolls grab hold of her shirt and hurl a shattering back hand against the side of her head.

             
Thane wanted to scream, wanted to attack the trolls that went about mercilessly abusing her but he felt as if his own body was being torn apart. The pain was excruciating and he knew that this dream turned reality would soon destroy him, ripping him into little pieces. Suddenly, he felt himself jerked to the left with bone crushing strength and then he shot through a rushing void of darkness.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

              Thane slowly opened his eyes as Jack’s voice penetrated the dark abyss that had almost claimed him as an eternal victim. The blurry image sharpened gradually turning the wavy lines into Jack’s concerned face and Erl’s wet nose as it sniffed furiously about his face and body. A wall of pain crashed down on him and he quickly rolled to the side and emptied his stomach.

             
“Thane, it’s Jack. Are you all right? What’s going on? What happened to you?”

Thane pushed himself up with a great amount of effort and breathed deeply trying to settle his stomach.

“Answer me boy,” Jack’s voice boomed, ringing in his ears. “What happened to you?”

             
He opened his mouth to speak, letting out a raspy noise. He fought to form the words. “Ee CheeloNok.”

             
“What? Speak common Thane, I can’t understand you.”

             
“A...a dream.”

             
Jack was taken aback. “A dream? You’ve got to be kidding me. A dream did this to you? You act like you’ve been beaten to a bloody wad. That must have been some dream.”

             
“Yes.” Thane whispered then gasped for more breath.

             
Erl finished sniffing him, having covered his whole body and suddenly moved off to search the area. Jack watched the wolg for a moment, looking for any sign of alarm, before turning his attention back to Thane.

             
“What happen?” Thane asked still unable to get his voice above a whisper.

             
“That’s what I’d like to know. You were gone for only a few minutes when I heard you yell something.” Jack scratched his head and furrowed his brow as if trying to remember. “Now let me see, it sounded something like ‘tan’ or something.”

             
Thane grabbed his friend’s arm. “Tam?”

             
“Yeah,” Jack said with a concerned look, “I believe that was it. I thought you were in some kind of trouble the way you started to shout in that language of yours. I thought I recognized a couple of words, but you were spitting them out so fast, I couldn’t be sure. So, Erl and I came out looking for you and here you were sitting like you were dead or something. Nearly scared me to death.”

             
Thane patted Jack’s knee weakly. “Sorry.”

             
Jack sat back, trying to hide his concern. “Yeah, well, you better be. Yelling like you were is liable to bring the whole putrid nation of trolls down on us.” Jack paused, as if waiting for Thane to reply but when he didn’t, he continued on. “So, are you going to tell me what you were dreaming or are we going to just sit here all night looking at each other and freeze to death?”

             
Thane smiled, suddenly feeling a great deal better. “Well,” he started, his voice coming out stronger, “I do not know what happen.”

             
“Happened,” Jack corrected.

             
“Happened,” Thane said, rolling his eyes. “I stopped here to rest and, I guessing, fell asleep. Next thing I know, I feel like wind floating over the earth.”

             
Jack gave him a strange look. “The wind, huh?”

             
“Yes. Then I feel like I moving very fast.”

             
Both turned their heads at the sound of crunching snow as Erl returned from his search. He was still sniffing furiously, moving his head back and forth, as if searching for a scent. They both watched him curiously as he moved around in front of Thane and then suddenly brought his head up.

             
“What is it?” asked Thane.

             
“I don’t know,” Jack answered. “I’ve never seen him act so strangely.”

             
Erl stared at Thane with great intensity and then let out a small growl.

             
“What is it boy?” Jack said reaching a hand out to the large wolg’s head.

             
Erl continued to growl, his hackles rising on his back, as he peered deeply into Thane’s eyes. Thane felt himself being drawn into the wolg’s mind again but this time he did not resist. He could feel his senses sharpen and the animal instincts rage within him. Suddenly, he was engulfed with a horrid smell and the memory of trolls entered his mind attaching to the scent. Thane recoiled from their interaction, suddenly jumping to his feet while pulling his dagger.

             
“What, in the evil halls of Dren, are you doing?” Jack asked a shiver of worry mixed in with his voice. “What is going on around here, Thane? You’re starting to get me spooked.”

             
Erl inched cautiously over and started to sniff him once more while Thane tried desperately to pierce the darkness with his night eyes. “There is a troll near. I can smell it. Erl can too.”

             
Jack was beside himself but pulled his own dagger for good measure. “What are you talking about? How can you smell...?”

             
Erl suddenly started whining and pawed frantically at Thane.

             
“Now what has gotten into him?”

             
Thane shrugged, looking worriedly at the wolg as its giant paw hit gently against his shoulder. “I do not know.” A light breeze blew across the frozen land brushing against Thane’s head and blowing on past Jack causing the older man’s face to curl in disgust.

             
“What is that horrid smell?”

             
Thane looked at his friend. “You smell it now too?”

             
“I smell something, but it’s either coming off of Erl or you.”

             
“What?” Thane looked at Jack in surprise. How could either of them smell like a stinking troll?
The dream!
  The memory of the trolls passing through him tumbled down on him like an avalanche of rocks.
But how can that be
?
It was just a dream
.
Wasn’t it
?  Thane brought his arm up to his nose and took a deep breath. The stench made him gag and he started coughing. “It is me,” he wheezed looking at Jack in horror. Erl kept whining and pawing. Jack unconsciously took a step backwards.

             
“What’s going on Thane?” he asked, bringing his dagger up in front of him. “Why do you stink like a bloody troll?”

             
Thane was dumbfounded. How could this be happening? The only thing that he could reason was that it had not been a dream after all.
But how could I have traveled like that
?
And the trolls, how could they have passed through me
? The voice of Thane’s father suddenly entered his thoughts.
You’re a freak boy
.
You don’t belong here
.
You’re a demon child
. Tears welled up in Thane’s eyes and started running, unchecked, down his face. “It was real,” he whispered staring at the snow-covered ground. “It must have been.”

             
“What was real?” Jack broke in, still holding up his dagger and taking another step back. “What’s going on Thane?” His voice was getting louder and more frantic. “What in all the hells happened?”

             
Thane looked up at Jack, wondering what he should say. Jack was his only friend, something of a father even. He couldn’t let him know what a freak he was. He couldn’t let him know what had really happened. Suddenly, Tam’s beaten face flashed in his mind and the realization that trolls must have captured her made his legs weak. He staggered for a moment before sitting down on a rock. Erl stopped his pawing and now sat at Thane’s feet with his head in his lap whining softly. He glanced at Erl and then turned back to Jack. “You have to believe Jack, I do not know what happened. Please, I need you to help me.”