Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (46 page)

“We need to check it out. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

“No,” said Gracie. “We go together. All of us.”

“All right,” said Ryan. “Slowly. Quietly. Woods quiet.”

They eased forward as slowly as could be. The forest was now devoid of any of the normal sounds. No birds calling. No squirrels chattering. Something was definitely wrong.

They came to the edge of a clearing on the far side of which was a small house, smoke puffing from its crude stone chimney. In the dooryard was a family of four Humans on their knees before a squad of Gnomes. One of the Gnomes was screaming at them, gesturing wildly about with his arms. They couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it definitely didn’t look good for the small family, the faces of which all bore looks of terror.

“We have to help them,” said Ryan.

Gracie nodded.

“We have to act fast. I’m going to work my way around them. I see five. There may be more. I’ll take out that one that’s doing all the yelling. You ride in and surprise them. Try and get weapons to the man and that boy. He looks old enough. Then,” he said, “we fight.”

Gracie nodded again. She checked her sword to be sure it was loose in its scabbard. Ryan did the same. She checked her boot knives. He nocked an arrow, patted her shoulder, and slid away, silent as a falling leaf.

Gracie waited. As she did, Lightning eased over to her and nudged her gently. She looked him in the eye and hugged him fiercely. As she disengaged, he nodded his head up and down as if to say that this was all going to be all right. Then, suddenly, she understood what he was really saying. She swallowed hard and mounted up.

The leader of the Gnomes unsheathed his sword and began screaming again at the family kneeling in front of him. With obvious lethal intent, he raised it high over the head of the man. As it began its descent, Ryan’s arrow struck him in the neck, and he fell, dead. Two of the Gnomes rushed away, leaving the other two guarding the family. Gracie began screaming at the top of her lungs and charged in. The hooves of the three horses thundered as she crossed the clearing. One of the Gnomes aimed a crossbow at her, and she rolled over onto Lightning’s side. The crossbolt whizzed harmlessly by where she had sat upright moments before. She was suddenly thankful for all of the hours she and Stephanie had spent riding back home, practicing on Mickie and Johnny what had been tricks learned just for the fun of it in those days. The other charged her with his sword held high, but Lightning jumped clear over him like he wasn’t there, Gracie turning back upright even as he made his wild leap. With a loud grunt, she landed a few yards from the family. They were now all on their feet. The mother was shooing the little one towards the front door of the house. The father and the older boy charged towards the two Gnomes. “
Hey
!” she screamed, and tossed her sword towards the father. He caught it in midair and began to do battle with the Gnome closest to him. “
Hey
!” she called to the boy, and drew one of her boot knives, which she buried in the wall beside him. He tore it out and gave chase to the Gnome that had fired on her.

She reined Lightning in hard, dismounted, and snatched her bow and quiver from his back, racing in the direction that the other two Gnomes had fled, figuring that they were after Ryan. She figured right, because in a matter of seconds she came across them in the backyard. One of the Gnomes lay sprawled on his face, the broken shaft of an arrow protruding from his back. The other had a crossbow pointed straight at Ryan, who lay helpless across a stonewall, a large gash on his head. From a distance she could see that blood was flowing freely from the wound.

She drew up and aimed at the Gnome. “Don’t do it!” she yelled. “He dies you die. There’s been enough killing here today. Let it go. I don’t want to kill you. Lower that weapon. I mean it. Lower your weapon.”

“You will kill me anyway,” said the Gnome.

“No I won’t. You have my word.”

Time seemed to stop.

There was a prolonged pause.

It ended with a thunk as Gracie’s boot knife buried itself in the Gnome’s back. He pitched forward and the crossbolt released, coming within inches of Ryan’s head and clattering harmlessly into the rocks on which he lay sprawled.

“Are you all right?” called the boy as he raced forward, retrieved the knife with a vicious yank, and removed the Gnome’s short sword from its sheath.

He didn’t wait for the answer that never came, but turned and ran back towards the front of the house where the sounds of the fight continued.

Gracie rushed to Ryan’s side. He was dazed, but conscious. “I’m all right,” he mumbled, attempting to sit up without success. “Go help them.” He waved her away and slumped forward.

She nocked an arrow and called, “Stay awake. I’ll be right back,” as she turned and ran towards the front of the house.

The fighting had stopped when she got there. There were dead Gnomes everywhere. Apparently there had been more than Ryan and Gracie had thought. “
Is everybody okay
?” she shouted.

The father nodded, “Yes.”

“Amazingly enough, none of us got hurt,” he said, “Thanks to you and your friend.” He looked around. “Where is he? Is he all right?”

“No,” she said. “Follow me!” Then, “are they all … ?”

“Yes, they’re all dead. There were nine in the group, and they’re all accounted for.”

They all sprinted to the backyard. Ryan was as she had left him. “Ryan,” she shouted directly into his ear. “Wake up. Wake up!”

He groaned, but made no intelligible speech.

“Come on,” she barked, “We need to get him inside. Move it now!”

The father and son formed a human-sling with their arms, carried him inside, and placed him gently on the kitchen table.

“Get me some clean water and a clean cloth,” she ordered the wife, who hurried to comply.

She carefully washed the laceration, which could be seen to have penetrated his scalp all the way to the skull. Fortunately, the bleeding had slowed down dramatically, so she made the best of Ryan’s obtunded state to thoroughly clean it and flush it with copious amounts of the water. He groaned a lot while she did her work, which she took as a good sign. At least he was conscious enough to feel pain. Once she had cleaned it to her satisfaction, she inserted her finger directly into the wound and probed around. Grunting, she shook her head as she pulled out a large piece of rock that she threw onto the floor. She continued to probe. Finding nothing else, she asked the wife for another piece of clean cloth. This time her tone was more civil, and the wife managed a weak smile as she went to get it.

“Are you a healer?” asked the boy, who had watched, mostly with an open mouth, the entire procedure.

“Hardly,” she said.

The wife handed her the cloth, which she used to bind his head. Not liking the result, she did it again.

“We need to get him into a bed,” she said. “Point the way.”

“In here,” said the husband, and he and his son moved Ryan into the marital bed in the back bedroom.

Gracie stayed at his side for perhaps an hour, during which time she talked softly to him while she held his hand, which she kissed repeatedly. There was nothing else she could think to do. “You’re going to be all right, RyeRye,” she said, “You’re going to be all right.”

At first, he moaned a lot while she spoke to him, but eventually fell into a deep sleep.

Gracie returned to the kitchen and sat down heavily in one of the chairs.

“My name is Grace,” she said.

“Mine is Matthew,” said the man, “Matthew Kaylor. And this is my wife, Sarah. This is my son, Alexander, and my daughter, Shannon.” Alexander nodded politely and Shannon offered a tiny wave from her kitchen bed, where she was sucking her thumb with a vengeance.

“I need food,” she said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I need food and drink or I will drop here and maybe never get up.”

“Of course you do, my dear,” said Sarah. “Alexander, go to the root cellar and bring in some fruit and some cheese. Shannon, you help him. You bring a roast, the finest one we have, and a jug of cider. Off with you now.”

The children jumped to comply, only too happy to offer their best efforts for the girl who had helped save them all from certain death.

Once she had wolfed down a few apples and a slab of cheese, along with the tart cider, Gracie felt well enough to engage in real conversation.

“Why were those Gnomes going to kill you?” she asked.

“Because we refused to tell them where our root cellar is. They were making their annual migration back to Vultura. They were afraid they would freeze to death before they got there. They chose to rob us rather than stop and hunt or gather. This happened to us before, and we gave up our food to them. It cost us two children … ” She stifled a sob.

“Well then, I’m glad they’re dead.”

“Me too,” echoed Alexander. “I’m glad that they’re dead.”

“Now, Alexander,” said Sarah. “The Old One is a merciful God. His teaching is that we always try
first
to love our enemy.”

“Well they were
going to kill us!”
screeched Alexander. “And last year they took all our food and … and little M.J., and Carol Lee died … and … ”

Sarah held up her hand, and Alexander stopped talking, heading slowly towards the door.

In a few minutes the children returned with the rest of the foodstuff that Sarah had ordered up, slamming the door behind them. A short while after that, Sarah had prepared Gracie a veritable feast and she tore in, starting with several swallows of the cider. She soon felt much better and Sarah cautioned, “Make sure you eat it slowly, else you will take ill. Pains and all.” She pointed to her belly, caressing it in small circles.

Gracie headed her caution and started chewing more slowly. “Now what? Thank you for the food.” Then, “We need to get fluids into Ryan. Right now!”

She jumped up, poured another mug of cider, and sprinted to the back room.

“Ryan!” she screamed, “You
have
to wake up. You’re starving, and dehydrated. Maybe badly dehydrated. You need
fluids.
You need fluids!!!”

Like all kids, Gracie had done her share of screaming at her brother and sister, but this was by far the loudest scream of her life, and there was a degree of desperation in her voice that was chilling.

Ryan made small murmuring sounds. It seemed as though on some plane he could hear her, understand her even, and he made small, slurping sounds as she forced him to take the cider.

“Drink RyeRye,” she said as she held the mug up, carefully cradling his head in the crook of her arm to avoid putting any pressure on his wounds. He definitely choked somewhat, and sputtered and coughed and all, but he held down a lot of the fresh apple cider, and managed to give her a smile and a thumbs-up sign, then drifted off again, all the while smiling.

“Here it is,” she said, folding the coarse face towel she had used to wipe the cider from his face and neck. “Take it or leave it. I’m not from here. Like, really not from here … I mean … from this planet, this world, this globe, this
world,
I said that. And how about this? Our world is
way
ahead of this one, like thousands of years. About a thousand, I guess, probably more, and … anyway … what I need to do is round up all of the people from
my
world, that somehow ended up in this crazy place, and then we can all go home together.

“Okay, so, like, I know you all think I’m crazy right now, but I can prove it.”

She retrieved her pack and pulled out the maps.

“All right,” she said, unrolling the sheaf of papers on the small table. She selected the one she wanted from the bundle, replacing the others carefully.

“Here we are,” she said, pointing to their exact location. “Have you seen these? We call this a map. This is Vultura. This is, of course, Ravenwild, see, we are here in Ravenwild. This would be Slova to the east, and this would be Vultura to the west. To the north we have the Northland, it looks like it says, and to the south, the Agden Woods. Does this map make sense to you? Do you understand how to read it?”

Matthew quickly nodded, “No,” but continued to study it intensely. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he said, “See Alexander, see Shannon, here is the river where we catch the fish, and
here
is the bend in the river where we make camp. Right?”

“Good,” said Gracie. “Well, here’s how it is. See these dots? These are Mr. and Mrs. Strong, and it looks they’re about a hundred miles from the Northland, and two hundred miles east of the Slovan Plains. They haven’t moved for a while. I’m wondering if they have been caught. They are my friend, Stephanie’s, mother and father. Now, Stephanie is my best friend where I come from. And she’s who started this whole thing by getting talked into coming to this place with some sort of transporter device. It’s a thing, with buttons, that you push, which makes you disappear from one place and appear in another.” She saw she was making absolutely no sense to her medieval audience, so she said, “Never mind. Forget that. Anyway, Stephanie, my friend, came here from there first. And then her mother and father came, and then Orie, Stephanie’s older brother, and Ryan,” she pointed towards the bedroom, “and I came here next. Then Jacqueline, Orie and Stephanie’s little sister, she’s your age Shannon, transported here too. Or at least that’s what we think. Since we have been here, a new dot has appeared. So we are definitely closest to Mr. and Mrs. Strong. That looks about … three hundred miles north and one hundred and fifty miles west. With the horses we can make that in a week, five, six days, maybe. Now, Stephanie is way up here, and over here, by the northeastern border of Ravenwild and Slova. Now this, is Orie.” She looked. His dot, and that of Forrester, were both gone. Had they been missing when she had first opened it? Oh no. This was, maybe, bad.