Vulcan's Fury: The Dark Lands (42 page)

This new and most welcome knowledge provided a much needed boost to her flagging efforts to climb the escarpment. She wasn’t far from the top now, and wanted to get there before night fell. She didn’t know, of course, what might await her, but it certainly had to be better than spending a night on a steep slope, lying on a bed of venom-oozing thorny vines. At least she had worked her way past the blood-sucking vine trees, which did not grow past the upper half of the escarpment, where they gave way to what Valeria had hoped were more normal, if oversized, fern trees. On the other hand, she had seen other strange and frightening things, including what could only have been a snake moving through the foliage. It must have been huge: the part she had glimpsed had been as big around as her waist. She had caught sight of other things, too, darting through the ground cover or peering at her from the canopy above, things with glowing eyes that disappeared as soon as she looked in their direction.

Hacking at the offending vines with her dagger, she pushed on up the slope. In addition to the dagger, she now also carried a spear that she had fashioned from the trunk of a small vine tree after cutting away the tendrils. The tree seemed to know that she intended to kill it, for the vines did their best to kill her first. She grinned at the thought of the tendrils, writhing on the ground as they wilted and died after she had stripped them from the trunk. If she’d had a flint, she’d have made a fire and burned them. Slowly.

The spear also doubled as a walking stick, which had been useful up to this point. But now, with more and more of her ascent made on hands and knees, or climbing nearly straight up, it had become a hindrance. Despite the burden, she was reluctant to part with it.

At last, just as the sun was dipping toward the horizon, she found herself looking up at the underside of the rocky lip that marked the top of the escarpment. She had to move laterally for some distance until she found a place where the rock had broken away and formed a slope of sorts, for it would have been impossible to climb over the protruding edge without the benefit of someone hauling her up by rope. Even so, it was a hard, nerve-wracking climb up the rocky cut, but with one final heave she reached the top. Panting, she crawled to where she had tossed up her spear, then used it to get to her feet. Her entire body was shaking with exertion, but she felt a sense of relief — and no little pride, as well — that she had made it to the top. It was not an accomplishment of which many Roman noblewomen could boast. The thought made her grin.

Standing upon the bare rock, she watched the sun go to sleep, its reflection shimmering in the waves of the Haunted Sea as the sky glowed with bright hues of yellow, orange, and red. For just a moment, she was captivated by its beauty and forgot that she was alone, shipwrecked, and in a strange and hostile land.

As the last rays gave way to darkness, she turned inland and shivered at the shadows of the unknown that lay before her. Gathering her courage, she tightened her grip on the spear and began to search for a place where she might be able to safely hole up for the night.

***

Paulus and Pelonius were arguing over the nature of the enormous snake Marcus had killed, and that they were now eating for dinner, when a familiar sound reached their ears, followed by a spine chilling squeal.

As the sounds of the brief battle faded to silence, as one they said, “
Hercules!
”

“The big kitty survived,” Septimus said with obvious relief. With a look at Marcus, who stared back, dumbfounded, he added, “And if that big fluff ball is alive, there’s a good chance that Valeria is, too.”

“But where is he?” Paulus asked, looking about the forest around them as if he might be able to see the hexatiger from here.

“The jungle makes telling direction difficult,” Pelonius said, “but I would guess he’s somewhere within a mile, two at the most.”

“The sound came from that way,” Haakon said, pointing with his dagger, which had a fist sized chunk of half-roasted snake meat impaled upon it, to the northeast.
 

The others looked at him with obvious skepticism. “And how would you know that?” Septimus asked.

“Because I have great hearing.” He grinned. “I just choose not to listen.”

Marcus fixed him with a hard stare. “Are you sure?”

Wiping the smile from his face, Haakon nodded his head. “Yes. Distance I leave to Pelonius. But the sound definitely came from that direction.”

The centurion got to his feet, but Pelonius stopped him from doing anything more. “Sit down, Marcus. All of us are exhausted, and only the gods know what we might find in the forest at night. Traveling by day was dangerous enough.”

“That’s an understatement,” Paulus breathed. They had seen one of the vine trees that had ensnared a strange looking, horse-sized animal that looked like a cross between a zebra and a gazelle and was busy sucking it dry. Then they had stumbled on a huge flower in the middle of a circular clearing of bright grass that crunched under their sandals. The beautiful red and orange flower had opened at their approach, then shot a stream of sticky venom at Haakon. He would have been blinded, or worse, had Paulus not happened to ask him something at that moment, and the barbarian had turned to answer him. The fist sized gob of venom had landed in Haakon’s thick mane of blond hair, which was now shorn to a thin stubble over his skull. Then there was the troop of snow white monkeys that had howled at them and bombarded them with feces until Septimus, moving like a mongoose, took the head from one of them with his sword. The rest fled into the greenery, shrieking.
 

They had come across other strange things, too, but the one that had come the closest to killing them had been the snake. Marcus had been at the rear of their little procession through the jungle when he had felt an odd tingling, an instinctive alarm. Drawing his sword, he whirled around just as a snake, emerald green with yellow stripes and a head the size of Marcus’s chest, fell upon him from the trees. By a pure stroke of luck, he had managed to thrust his sword up through the roof of the thing’s open mouth, at the same time avoiding the extended dagger-length fangs that were all but spurting venom. He was trying to wrest his sword free of the writhing serpent when Haakon had grabbed him by the belt and hauled him away before the snake could curl itself around him. Setting down Pelonius, the others fell upon the beast, but they need not have bothered: it had been mortally wounded, the tip of Marcus’s sword having pierced its brain, and the thrashing of its body was nothing more than its death throes.
 

Tossing aside the scrawny monkey that Septimus had killed, they instead feasted on the snake, which Marcus had paced off to a length of no less than forty feet. Paulus had managed to get a fire going that had produced little smoke, and the four men had enjoyed the unexpected luxury of a cooked meal that tasted not altogether unlike roast chicken. While they had no wine, water was plentiful, stored in fist-sized flowers that resembled small amphorae that collected and stored rainwater.
 

The ready supply of food and drink, combined with their collective exhaustion, forced Marcus to reluctantly call a halt for the day. The top of the escarpment was near, but was clearly going to be a dangerous and exhausting enterprise to climb, especially carrying Pelonius.
 

Now, Marcus stood staring in the direction Haakon had pointed, a look of agonized indecision on his face. “I don’t want her to spend the night alone,” he whispered.

“If Hercules is with her,” Pelonius argued, using logic as his weapon, “she will not be alone. In fact, I daresay she will be far safer than we are.”

Marcus turned to face him, his face lit red by the reflected fire light. “And if they’re separated and she is alone?”

“Then we know nothing more of her fate than we did before, nor can we find or help her. But at least we know now that Hercules is alive, and he can certainly take care of himself until we find him or he finds us.”
 

“If Valeria’s not with him, she’ll certainly have heard him, just like we did,” Paulus said hopefully.
 

Septimus grunted. “I just hope she has ears like Haakon, or she won’t know which way to go.”

At last, Marcus sat back down and picked up his half-eaten meal. “We’re moving out at first light and climbing to the top. After that, we move northeast to try and find Hercules.” The others nodded in agreement. “Before we go, let’s get more of this snake cooked and take as much as we can with us. I don’t want to have to stop to forage for food unless we have to.”

***

As he had before, Karan followed behind Hercules as the big cat wove his way through the foliage that carpeted the top of the escarpment, following a well-worn game trail through deciduous trees that towered high above them, dwarfing even the largest of the vine trees of the jungle. The forest floor was covered with smaller trees, shrubs, and delicate flowers, but blessedly the thorn-laden vines were all but gone. Looking up, he saw the rays of the rising sun glowing through the mist of the morning. The sounds of animals scampering about came from everywhere around them, including above in the trees. Karan judged that most of the creatures were small, but he knew that even some of the small creatures that inhabited the lands of his onetime home could be foes to be reckoned with. Instinctively, he kept his right hand on the handle of his sword.

Hercules paused and lowered his nose to the ground to sniff. Then he looked up, his great amber eyes taking in their surroundings. He looked left, then right…and suddenly tensed.

After a moment, Karan heard it, too: something large blundering through the forest in their general direction. Or perhaps it wasn’t just one thing, but several, all of which were far larger than the animals traipsing through the forest around them.

With a barely audible growl, the big cat moved off the trail, silently pushing his way through the smaller trees and shrubs as he began to stalk whatever was coming toward them, and Karan followed. He drew his sword, careful that the blade made no sound as he freed it from its scabbard.

Moving through a small depression, they could hear whatever it was just over the next rise. Karan could not imagine what sort of animal made so much noise, and even Hercules seemed befuddled. Together, keeping low to the ground and utterly silent, the two predators moved to the top of the rise so they could look down upon the strange beast.

They were almost in sight of it when the beast seemed to stumble, thrashing around in the leaves and deadfall.

“
Bollocks!
”
 

Karan grinned. Only one man in the entire world could infuse such intense emotion into a single word.

“Is that you, Septimus?” Karan said as he sheathed his sword, rose to his full height, and pushed through the last of the foliage between him and the “beast” he and Hercules had been tracking.
 

Karan emerged into a joyful chorus of welcoming shouts and claps on the back, which became all the more heartfelt as Hercules came into view.

“Valeria,” Marcus asked, looking past Hercules with desperate hope. “Is she with you?”

Karan shook his head. “I had assumed she was with you.”

Crestfallen, Marcus said, “No. Something…something attacked the boat sometime after you’d been swept away and smashed it to bits. I saw…”

“You didn’t see a bloody thing,” Septimus interjected gently, “other than the boat getting smashed. Look, Hercules and Valeria were right together, and here the big fluff ball is. She must’ve gotten separated in the water and washed up a bit farther off, that’s all.”

Karan could see that Marcus was fighting to cling to the hope of what Septimus had said, but he saw in the eyes of the others, Septimus included, that they had given her up as lost.
 

“You are a very fortunate young man,” Pelonius, who was riding in a makeshift litter, said. Karan saw that Septimus must have dropped his end, which made the crashing sound and led to his trademark profanity. “We were sure you had been claimed by Neptune.”

“I would not argue,” Karan said, bowing his head in respect to the older man, “although our fortunes are mixed.”

Pelonius cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

Karan gestured around them. “Of all the places in our world where we could have come ashore, we could not have found worse.”

Septimus sighed. “I’m shocked.”

Marcus shot him an annoyed look. “Why do you say that?”

“The wild things here are among the most lethal in our world,” Karan told him. “I am actually surprised any of us have lived this long.”

Haakon snorted. “We already figured that out. Look at the snake Marcus killed.” He held up a hunk of meat from a pack they had fashioned from the snake skin. The treat immediately drew the attention of Hercules, despite having gorged himself on the huge pig the previous day. Gently pushing the cat’s probing nose away, Haakon put the cooked meat back in the pack.

“All right,” Marcus said, “we already had that part figured out.”

“The animals are not the only thing.” Karan took a deep breath. “This is the province where the soldiers commanded by the Masters are raised and trained. It is as if we landed in the center of an enemy army’s camp. And they are beyond brutal and cruel. If any of us are captured here…” He looked at the pack of meat Haakon carried.

“They’re cannibals?” Pelonius whispered.

“No,” Karan said. “They would be cannibals only if they ate their own kind. But we are not of their blood. Our flesh is not forbidden them.”

“But I thought the Swords like you were their soldiers,” Marcus said.

Karan shook his head. “No, we are simply playthings. We are adept at killing as might be your gladiators, and in the old tales we were used as scouts in battle, but we are not soldiers. The children of the Masters wear armor and weapons and are trained in the ways of war, and they are soulless brutes.” He swallowed. “Each season, Swords are sent here to help train the soldiers. Those who please the Masters are rewarded with their lives and returned to their owners. Those who do not…”