Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (34 page)

Three of them danced around him, kicking dirt in his face, which caused him to cough and choke as he lay unconscious before her.

Jessica reached out with her foot to try and clear some of the dirt away, knowing he could asphyxiate.

“Stop it, please stop it,” she pleaded. She tried hard to keep any anger out of her voice. “You’ll kill him.”

Now, five of the Gnomes were gathered around him. They continued the taunting.

“Poor Human lady. He doesn’t look so good to
me
.”

“He looks like he has one bad headache.”

“Does he always pass out with these headaches?”

With every jibe, they would howl with laughter, dancing and gesticulating wildly about.

The captain got tired of the ruckus they were raising and stormed out of his tent.

“Enough!” he hollered. “Oddwaddle, Biliar, get back on night watch. The rest of you finish up with that meat.” With that, he re-entered his tent and flipped the entry flap back into place.

Jessica, meanwhile, continued to try to clear the dirt and leaves and such away from his mouth and nose, knowing that an obstruction of his airway would be lethal in no time. Her task was not an easy one as she could barely reach it, and doing so forced her to stretch her bindings to the point that she threatened dislocating both shoulders, but within a few minutes, she knew his airway would be all right. Now, if only he would wake up. She jabbed him repeatedly with her toe, calling out softly to him. She didn’t want the wrath of the Gnome captain coming down on her for being too loud, but couldn't stop herself from calling, “Wake up. Wake up, Blake.”

He stayed asleep.

Eventually, she too fell asleep, leaning against the large tree to which she had been tied.

He awakened in the middle of the night, tightly bound beside her. The sky had cleared, the two moons were out and full, and it was almost as bright as daylight. He worked feverishly at his bonds, but when it became painfully obvious that they were not going to loosen, he stopped trying. Through slits of eyes he surveyed the camp. This was no ramshackle affair. All was neat and in place. The weapons were placed centrally, all polished and gleaming in the moonlight. All were within an arm’s reach of the tents of the Gnomes that slept beside them. Uniforms and other clothing articles, that looked to have been freshly laundered, hung on lines at the perimeter.

One Gnome tended the fire, smoking and drying meat from the carcass of what looked like another of the small moose-like creatures hanging nearby.

“Hey Gnome,” he called out softly. “Hey. Please.”

To his surprise, the Gnome approached him, stopping a few feet away. He didn’t say anything so Blake spoke first. “Gnome, could you please loosen these straps a bit. I can’t feel my hands. I give you a soldier’s oath that I will not try to harm you, or try to escape.”

“Human,” said the Gnome, expertly flipping the butcher knife he had been using on the moose-like animal, “you will not need your hands in the cooking pot of the Trolls. Three days from now you will be food. Trolls like Humans. With onions, in a stew.” He started to laugh, walking away. He stopped suddenly and turned on his heel. “You are a soldier, then?” he asked.

“Not anymore,” said Blake. “I used to be, many years ago. Now I am a doctor.”

“Oh,” said the Gnome. “Well, I hope you’re a good doctor, because you’re a terrible soldier.”

The Gnome turned to leave again and Blake asked, “Why do you say that?” The Gnome cocked his head and put a finger to the side of his cheek as though he were pondering a highly intellectual issue. Then he answered. “Because it’s true.”

He resumed laughing and walked away.

Jacqueline was quite surprised to find herself in a tree, holding Cinnamon. She was not surprised that Hemlock was nowhere to be seen. The tree was a massive thing, with a trunk at the base easily ten feet across. The branch upon which she and her kitty sat was at least three feet wide, maybe four, and she figured they could sleep in this thing if it proved necessary. “Hemlock!” she shouted.

“I don’t think we’ll be seeing him around here any time soon,” said the cat.

Jacqueline nearly fell off of the huge limb, which would have been certain death.

“Cinnamon! Y-you can talk? A-and you have a British accent?” she stammered.

“Well of course. What did you expect? I could always talk. I’ve been talking to you since we were both little. You didn’t happen to speak ‘cat’. As for the accent, my parents were from Great Britain. Anyway, it is certainly my dream come true that now we really
can
talk. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

“Well, it sure makes being alone in the woods a lot less scary. Where’s Hemlock, anyway?”

“Forget about him,” said Cinnamon. “We won’t see him again. The way I read it is that he sent us both here to die. Think of it. He transported us to the middle of the woods with no food and no water, and absolutely no way of providing for our needs. Then he abandoned us. No, make no mistake about it, this ‘wizard’ is a bad, bad dude.”

“Oh,” said Jacqueline. Her fear returned, which must have registered on her face because Cinnamon said, “Relax. You’ve got me, and I’ve got you. I’m a cat remember? And we cats have been providing for ourselves for centuries. We’ll land on our feet. Trust me.”

She hopped out of her lap and walked a short way down the branch. There was a long pause as each took the time to survey their surroundings. Enveloped in a sea of greenery, it was apparent they were in a dense forest. The trees were the largest that either of them had ever seen. Thick vines hung everywhere, draping over the canopy and hanging down like one gigantic spider web that has been subjected to the high winds of a ravaging storm. Jacqueline noticed that many of these hung all the way to the ground, on which there was a light scrub growth, mostly large ferns. They could hear birds chirping raucously, and the smell was that of the deep forest in summer.

Finally, Jacqueline spoke. “Do you think it’s morning or afternoon?”

“Hard to say,” replied Cinnamon. “But I had better be off to do some checking, don’t you think? Besides, I have to get us something for dinner. You sit tight, and I’ll be back as soon as I can, hopefully with something to eat.”

“Oh, Cinnamon,” Jacqueline groaned. “Please don’t leave me. I don’t know what I’ll do with you gone.”

Cinnamon jumped back into her lap, where Jacqueline stroked her with all the love she had ever felt for her animal friend, tears silently wetting her cheeks.

After a fashion Cinnamon said, “I heard one of your Dad’s friends say once that the monster in your mind will always be worse than the actual monster that is out there, so let’s take this one baby step at a time. I’ll only be gone for a few minutes. You wait right here. Try to sing, maybe. That might help. But sitting here isn’t going to get the cow to give milk, now is it?”

“I guess not,” said Jacqueline, “but I’m so afraid. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it if you leave.”

Cinnamon stood up and licked her on the ear.

“You’ll be fine, my darling. We’ll get through this. I promise. I’ll be right back.”

She skipped to the nearest branch, disappearing up into the vast cover overhead.

Perhaps an hour passed. Then another.

Jacqueline spent the first night in their tree in a state of near catatonia, curled up in a ball and lying against the smooth bark. With the passage of every minute she became more fearful that Cinnamon would never return and she would be left to fend for herself all alone in this great forest. She tried humming, as she remembered Cinnamon saying that singing might help, but found that she wasn’t up to it. After that she tried mumbling to herself and found that at least by doing that she wasn’t on the verge of panic every moment. She had little pretend conversations with her mother and her friend, Collin, from home.

She heard a large rustle in the branches and jumped up, crying, “Cinnamon!” But it was a large bird that had come to roost and, upon spying her, had flown away as quickly as it had landed. She lay back down and began to softly cry. “I hate you, Hemlock Simpleton,” she mumbled and, gratefully, fell asleep.

When she awoke, she at first thought it was sunup, but it was the bright nighttime cast from the twin Inam'Ra moons. Because there was still no sign of her cat, she began talking to herself again, becoming more and more detached from reality.

She found she had to pee something terrible, so she inched her way out a little on the limb and relieved herself. She made her way back slowly and fell asleep again.

The next time she awoke it
was
sunup, and this time Cinnamon was sitting exactly where she should have been.

“Oh Cinnamon, you’re back!” she cried out.

By now she was used to the tree enough so that she did not make the mistake of jumping about, but instead sat in the crotch of the limb, whereupon Cinnamon hopped into her lap. After Jacqueline had nearly hugged the life out of her, Cinnamon spoke softly.

“My dear, I have some good news, some bad news, and some more bad news. Where shall I start?”

“Start with the bad news first,” said Jacqueline, “because I’ve already had good news.”

“And what is that?”

“That you’re back, of course. Did you bring any food?”

“Sorry, no.” said Cinnamon. “But that is part of the good news. I did some chatting with some of the forest creatures I ran into. It’s midsummer here. But, from what I gather, I believe the seasons pass much more swiftly than they do at home.

Because of this, things ripen here much quicker. At any rate, we’ll be able to find you all sorts of berries and other wild fruits to keep you from starving right away. I’ll also be able to provide some smaller game animals, which will help. Oh, and I found a clean stream that is right close by, so you’ll be able to get a drink in a few minutes, and I’m told that there are lots of springs and streams in these woods. That means water should not be a problem. Now, as to the bad news … ”

Jacqueline interrupted her, saying, “Oh Cinnamon, can we please go get a drink before I hear the bad news?”

“Well,” said Cinnamon, “no, the reason being the safety of going down on the forest floor at all. Let me explain.” She hopped out of her lap, stretched mightily, and turned around to face her.

“Our good buddy, Hemlock, has transported us to a part of this world known as the Agden Woods. The thing of it is, the planet we are on is not named Ravenwild. It’s named Inam'Ra. It is much, much smaller than Earth, as I told you, and there are basically five parts to it: Ravenwild, the citizens of which are Humans, Elves, and Dwarves, and there are two other countries called Slova and Vultura. Slova is occupied by Trolls, and Vultura by Gnomes. They are allied in a war against Ravenwild that has gone on for a long time.

“Okay, these two countries basically wrap around Ravenwild like this,” she made a sweeping motion with her paws, like a gigantic doughnut. “In other words, Ravenwild is basically surrounded. Now, there are two other large parts of this world that are not part of any of the three countries. One is some huge tract of land to the north that nobody can enter, because nobody who does so survives.” She put a dot with one paw at the top of her imaginary doughnut. “I forget the name, but it doesn’t matter because we will never be going there. The second is where we are, in these Agden Woods. This is to the south.” She put another dot with her paw. “Nobody goes in here either. Same reason. Now nobody seemed to know why it is that you can’t go into this place in the north, something about it being spelled or something, but it’s pretty clear why nobody enters
this
place.” She paused as if not wanting to go on.

Jacqueline waited, chewing furiously at her bottom lip.

“You ought not to do that,” said Cinnamon. “Your mother has told you it’s why your lips are always chapped.”

“Don’t change the subject,” said Jacqueline.

“Yes, of course. Well, the reason nobody enters these woods is they are the home of the most feared creatures of this world. The Agden Wolves.”

She paused again. “You see, these Wolves are not ordinary wolves. First of all, they are about three times the size of an ordinary wolf, meaning one of them can take down the largest unarmed Troll, who would be about one and a half times the size of a Human. But secondly, and most importantly, they
eat
Trolls. And they are known to eat Humans … and Dwarves … and undoubtedly, cats.”