Six
'OK…' Jess managed to gasp, 'OK, um, if we could all just calm down…'
'Don't you worry,' snarled the Wolfman, pulling Eric back a little, his claws still pressed against the boy's throat, 'I'm perfectly calm.'
'Hey…' Eric's voice was beginning to crack with panic. 'Didn't I say? If you don't let me go, I'm gonna tell Venger…'
'It's dark in here,' hissed the Wolfman, 'and we all look so alike. You got confused.'
'Huh?'
The Wolfman pointed at the larger of his concussed comrades on the floor. 'It was that one who assaulted you, not me.'
'…assaulted…?' squeaked Eric.
The Wolfman kneeled himself and the Cavalier down in front of the collapsed creature.
'Yes. I saw her do it before I could get to her. And that is why…' there was a flash of white claw, and then a fountain of fresh blood began to spurt from the unconscious Wolfman's ripped throat. '…I killed her,' continued the Wolfman, above the humans' shocked screams. 'To defend the honour of Lady Venger.'
'You… you killed a female?' gulped Jess from her post.
The Wolfman, or Wolfwoman, or whatever the Hell it was, gave her a sly grin.
'So you really are a pack of bitches,' muttered Eric, unwisely.
His comment was rewarded with a hard backhand to the eye that sent him reeling to the ground. The Wolfcreature sprang after him, grabbing his collar and pulling him upright.
'Who knows what else the other one did to you before I rescued you?' spat the beast.
'She didn't do anything to me!' cried Eric.
'Venger doesn't know that, though,' grinned the creature, 'does she?'
'You really think she'd believe you?' interrupted Jess.
'You really think she'd believe you two?' retorted their captor.
'She knows us to be honest at the very least,' replied Jess. 'I wonder what she thinks of your kind?'
The creature looked from Cavalier to Ranger and back again, snarling.
'I suppose there's only one way to find out,' growled the beast. 'You said you'd talk to Venger.' The Wolfcreature snatched the keys from Eric's grasp and freed one of Jess' hands, manacling the other to Eric's wrist. 'So I think it's about time you did just that.'
-x-
A bucket of freezing water brought the Wolfman round into consciousness. Startled, he sat bolt upright in the gloomy tunnel, and saw the throng of his own kind surrounding it. The human couple were nowhere to be seen.
'Tell me,' said a deep, sinister voice from deep within the crowd, 'that the prisoners are still in the dungeon.'
The Wolfman coughed a little, wincing at the painful bruise around his throat that his captives had left.
'I was bringing them to you, Lord. The girl was ready to talk.'
The crowd of Wolfmen parted, and Venger stepped through to face the injured creature.
'You were escorting them?' asked Venger, calmly, 'Alone?'
The Wolfman gulped, and winced again. 'There was an incident in the dungeon. The others were killed. I did the best that I could, under the circumstances. I shackled them together,' he added, hopefully.
'Yet they still escaped.'
'They are quick creatures, Lord, and I didn't think to bind their legs' replied the Wolfman. 'One moment they were walking ahead of me, timid as mice, the next, they had turned and charged me. They wrapped the chain that bound them together around my throat until I passed out…' He clutched at his throat. 'Who would think that they could use a handicap to their advantage?'
'I would,' answered Venger, flatly. 'As should any of my servants worth keeping in my employ.'
The Wolfman began to grovel miserably. Venger ignored him and turned his head upwards to the narrow ventilation shaft that serviced the complex subterranean lair, which the Wolfmen had dug beneath the Forest of Myra. The wretched beast had been right about one thing. They were fast little creatures - nimble and slippery. Give them a gap in the fence and a couple of seconds' head start and they'll escape, like rats. Binding their wrists together would slow them down, but not very much. It appeared that he had a hunt on his hands. It was important that he get to them, all of them, before Myra did.
He turned his eyes down to the prostrate Wolfman, finally.
'You are relieved of duty,' he told the creature. 'Do give your Captain my regards when you see him.'
The Wolfman looked confused. Still, Venger turned from him and began to walk away.
'My Lord?' asked the beast, 'my Captain is dead.'
Venger paused before turning the corner, but still didn't look back at the creature, or at the rest of the pack closing in on him.
'I know.'
And then there was nothing but screams.
-x-
Muddy, exhausted, cut and bruised, they ran blindly through the forest, slipping and tripping, and pulling desperately at the chain that bound them together.
'Escaping out of the ventilation system,' panted Bella as she ran, 'what a cliché!'
Hank paused briefly to hold a low hanging branch over their heads as they passed under it. 'Hey. We lost them, didn't we?'
'Yep,' sneered Bella. 'We're good at losing things, aren't we?'
It had been around half an hour since they'd overpowered the Wolfman and crawled up the narrow shaft into the dim green daylight, and, while Hank was fairly confident that they were a reasonable distance away from the lair, and had left an untraceable trail, they still had absolutely no idea where they, or the rest of the gang, or their weapons were. And now, they had the extra issue of being chained together.
'And now,' added Bella, 'we've got the extra issue of our being chained together.'
'Really?' Hank widened his eyes, innocently. 'I hadn't even thought about that.'
Bella pursed her lips at him. 'Sarcasm doesn't suit you one bit, you know.'
'Well, I can't see how. I've learned it off such a master of the subtle art of irony…'
'You're still doing it! Stop it!'
'Guess your influence is just rubbing off on me.' He frowned at her, her frazzled, red eyed exhaustion the perfect mirror to his own feelings, and held the chain up in front of her. 'And you'd better get used to it. I don't think I can get this thing off.'
'Presto'll be able to magic it open,' stated the Cavalier with ill guided confidence, 'just as soon as we find her.'
'Him,' corrected Hank.
'Her,' Bella snapped back.
'Him!'
'Her!'
'HIM!'
'HER!' Bella pointed her free finger at Hank. 'You're still in my Universe, Buster.'
'Not any more.' A little surprised at his own anger, Hank grabbed her pointed finger and pushed it away from him. 'Didn't you notice? Venger was my Venger. And none of those Wolfmen seemed at all shocked that he was a he. Now, I didn't notice when I walked through that first portal. Who's to say we didn't both go through it again without knowing?'
'But…' Bella frowned, trying to work out the maths. 'But that would put you back in the right reality, and I'd… I'd be the one in the wrong one.'
'It would explain our weapons,' added Hank, his voice beginning to calm. 'They must have been left in the portal when we passed. Maybe this Myra has them.'
'I don't wanna be in the wrong dimension!' whined Bella.
'I think the only way out of this is to find Myra,' continued Hank.
'Well,' snapped Bella, 'it's not like we haven't been looking!'
'No…' Hank agreed. 'And from what DM said, it sounds like he… she...'
'…it…'
'…they are all over this forest,' reasoned Hank, 'inhabiting lots of different versions of it at once. They must know that we're here.'
'So it's hiding?'
'Guess so,' Hank pondered. 'Maybe we're doing something wrong. Maybe they're waiting for us to do something that we haven't done yet.'
'You think somebody might be putting us through Hell just to see what happens?' mocked Bella, 'Because that sort of thing never happens to us.'
Hank just shrugged.
-x-
Far away, and yet right beside, and above, and behind them, the figure sighed.
'Boring!'
Maybe they needed another nudge.
-x-
Jess' finely tuned Ranger's senses felt the faint movement under their feet first. She held her free hand up as an indication for Eric to stay quiet and still.
'What?'
'Sshhh. Do you feel that?'
'No.' Eric's voice, like Jess', was barely a whisper. 'What does it feel like?'
There was a more sudden, stronger shift. They both looked down at their feet and then up at each other in dismay.
'Something just cracked,' said Jess.
'No…'
Gingerly, Jess bent down to pick at the moss they were standing on.
'There's no grass,' she muttered. 'No grass, no soil… this is just a layer of moss.'
Eric licked his lips nervously, and then asked in a voice that expected the worst possible answer 'covering what?'
Jess straightened, and looked at him. 'Nest.'
'Dragon?'
'Most likely. It's the only nest big enough.'
'And the crack we felt would be…'
'An egg beginning to hatch.'
Eric nodded, sagely. 'Of course it is.'
The egg beneath them shook, and a large crack began to become visible in the moss.
'They eat human flesh from hatching, don't they?' added Eric.
'Most of 'em,' replied Jess, breaking into a speed walk and pulling the Cavalier along with her. 'It'll have smelled us already.'
'You reckon we can outrun it?'
Jess stopped at a large tree, gazing up the trunk. 'I don't know about that. But it won't be able to fly yet.'
She reached up to a large knot in the bark and began to pull herself up.
Eric groaned. 'We're gonna climb a tree to escape? You're yanking my chain.'
Jess yanked at his chain. 'I know I am. Hurry up and climb.'
Grudgingly, Eric followed the Ranger. 'Can't junior just burn this thing down?'
'Not one newly hatched, no.'
Beneath them there was a louder crack, and the high, catlike cry of a freshly hatched dragon.
'And what about Mommy Dragon?'
Jess reached up to a higher branch, irritably. 'Mommy Dragon could be days yet.'
'Great. So, what – we just starve to death, then?'
Jess pulled harshly on the manacles. 'For the last time, Eric, you are not gonna die…'
She pulled too hard, and Eric's grip on his branch slipped. Free arm flailing, he missed the next branch and his feet came away from the trunk.
'Augh!'
Jess automatically tightened her grasp of her branch, wrapping her legs around it. She grunted in pain as the Cavalier fell entirely away from the tree, hanging from the chain around their wrists.
'Oh God! Oh God, don't drop me!'
'I… can't… drop… you…' replied Jess through gritted teeth.
Helpless, Eric continued to flail with panic. 'Whadda I do?'
'Don't… don't look down…'
'Why?' Eric looked down. He was rewarded with the sight of a twenty-foot drop with a hungry looking baby dragon sitting at the end of it. 'Don't drop me, Jess!' he repeated, evidently having failed to grasp the aforementioned fact that she couldn't do so even if she wanted to.
Jess reached down her free hand. 'Take this.'
With difficulty, Eric managed to reach up and grab hold of the girl's wrist. Then, with even more difficulty, Jess took the young man's weight and began to pull him up onto the safety of her branch.
'Hey,' she grinned grimly, when they both perched, panting in the uncomfortable foliage, 'guess you do know my real name after all.'
'I hate you,' gasped Eric.
'What? I just saved your life, you ungrateful…'
'Like you had a choice with this thing.' Eric shook the chain at her. 'I still hate you and your stupid tree and your stupid world.'
Jess scowled. 'The Realm is no more my world than yours, Eric.'
'I hate this stupid forest!' Eric continued, 'We're lost, we're tired, we're hurt… it's got Venger, it's got dragons, it's got some other jackass we haven't even seen messing around with us, it's like a distilled version of this whole dumb Realm, full of all of the things that I really, really hate!'
-x-
'Hey,' snapped Hank, 'do you think this has been a picnic for me, Bella? Who got beaten up?'
-x-
'We both did!' Yelled Eric, 'And now I'm up a tree with no hope of rescue, chained to you, of all people, and not just you, because it's Girl You. It's Girl You being deliberately hot just to remind me how attractive you are to the opposite sex…'
-x-
'Don't even start with the "opposite sex" stuff, Woman!' Hank knew that his voice was growing out of control, but he couldn't calm down, not this time. 'I mean, what was with all the flirting earlier, huh? I can see through it all, you know. In spite of this thing we've got here, I can see you're still you!'
-x-
'What in the Hell is that even supposed to mean, Jess? What Thing? People like you and me aren't supposed to like each other. I don't like you, I damn well hate you! I always have!' Eric faltered a little. 'There. I've said it.'
-x-
'Well, I hate you, too,' screamed Hank, 'and it is such a relief for me to be able to say it!'
-x-
'Why? I mean, I know I can be kinda difficult, but you've got no reason to resent me the way I resent you, with your charm and your teeth and all your admirers and hair…'
-x-
'Because you always get to say what I'm thinking!' replied Hank. 'Don't you think I get that dark little bitchy voice in the back of my head sometimes? Why can't I voice it, too?'
-x-
'I guess that's the price you pay when you're just so Goddam wonderful! I mean, my God, why do you always have to be so perfect?'
-x-
'Why do you always have to be so honest?'
He looked at Bella, breathless and overwhelmed for a moment. And then he grabbed her face and she grabbed his hair and they pressed their lips together and opened their mouths into a long, hard kiss.
