Alrighty...so I haven't got any reviews, but I'd still like some people to R&R...you know you want to!
Treasure Island fans, keep your pants on. Stuff's coming up, you'll see!
Robbie and Lana dashed from hut to hut until Caceril ran out of roofs, the shouts of the villagers ringing in their ears. Reaching the edge of the village, they paused for a short breather.
"What in the HELL is going on?" rasped Lana, clutching her cramping side. "Jaragons? King Harriam's tomb? Grandpa Lymo?"
"It doesn't make sense to me, either. But they were looking for something…didn't you hear them? Something Grandpa had…and I'll bet you forty handells that that key and this map is it."
"You've never even seen forty handells," muttered Lana. "But you're probably right. We promised Grandpa we'd keep them a secret. I bet he wanted us to find the tomb!"
"Well, we're not doing much finding sitting up here on the baker's roof," Robbie said, edging down the pitch of the thatch. "Come on. It won't take them long to figure out we're missing, along with the key. If we hurry, we can make it to Olfsen's barn before they spot us. Then we can rest for a bit," he continued, holding out a hand for Lana to take. She reached for it and missed, sliding down the slick thatch with a scream.
She landed with a harsh thwap in the wet mud, her ankle landing crookedly beneath her. She bit back another whimper of pain, blinking away tears.
"Lana!" Robbie whispered angrily, dropping down next to her. "Brilliant! You'll've brought them down on top of us!"
"My ankle's twisted," she replied, grasping Robbie's hand as he pulled her up. She wrapped her arm around his neck and they limped off as fast as they could, across the field towards Lindelin Wood. The brambles and nettles of the prairie snagged their clothes and skin, threatening to drag the hobbling pair down into the golden depths. Once or twice, they tripped, nearly landing face first into the dried grasses, only to regain their balance at the last instant and continue on with a growing sense of urgency.
The great creeping expanse of Lindelin Wood loomed closer and closer before them, the wild, tangled growth shining green in the Seed Moon air. Even in the depths of winter, the Wood remained green and untamable, reaching farther and farther into the fields each year. The local farmers combated this wood constantly, and would often blame their troubles on it. Some claimed that unspeakable demons dwelled in the forest, or that magic fed the unstoppable growth. "Nothing a good dose of weed killer won't cure," claimed Jeremiah Olfsen.
Farmer Olfsen was the village eccentric; a strange, outspoken man who had decided to build a barn in the woods. "Keep the bandits out," he said, but everyone knew that the demons of the forest were far worse than any mortal bandits. And so Lindelin had consumed the barn; and though Olfsen maintained that he could store any product there without fear, the villagers shunned the idea as the frivolous imaginings of an old man.
So the barn had become something of a curiosity among Caceril's children, the subject of fanciful tales and late-night whispers. Against their better judgement, Robbie and Lana crashed through the underbrush, searching frantically for the run-down shed.
Heavily accented cries echoed across the field, the sounds of the Jaragon dispatch hot on their trail. Robbie paused and slung his cousin over his shoulder, despite her protests, and started to run. The shouts faded as he ran deeper and deeper into the woods, Lana bouncing angrily on his shoulder.
Robbie collapsed, panting, at the edge of a clearing. Lana fell to the ground with a crunch. She glared at him as she sat up, leaves scattered in her hair. He laughed and she shushed him, peering into the green darkness.
"There," she whispered, using a sapling to haul herself upright. Robbie stood, breathing heavily. There would be time for rest when the reached the barn. He grasped her around the shoulders and the pair hobbled across the weedy expanse to Olfsen's hulking monstrosity.
A family of falcons watched them from the massive Elanwood hanging above their heads. Together they managed to clear the vines and creepers away from the door and make their way inside. The musty stench of rotting hay and wood erupted outwards into the air, making Robbie cough and Lana's nose run. They stumbled inside, and the rusty hinges swung the door shut behind them.
Small shafts of light filtered through the dust and onto the floor, providing a small amount of illumination. They dropped to the ground, leaning up against the ruined stalls, and tried to catch their breath.
Lana fell asleep against a decaying support beam, leaving Robbie alone with his thoughts. After several moments of drowsy boredom, he reached into his shirt and drew out the parchment, his fingers tingling with excitement.
He unrolled it gently, his green eyes caressing the thick vellum as he tried to take every bit in at once. The red-brown ink spider-webbed across the page, a thin, wiry cursive paragraph at each corner; according to the compass rose, one each at the north, south, east, and west.
His eyes trailed to the upper left-hand corner—south.
Face not the wind's southerly blows
For from them airy death flows
Sharp and true the arrows fly
And will end your earthly woes.
Robbie shuddered. Not a very pleasant message, to say the least. Wondering faintly what they could possibly mean, he began to read the right-hand, western stanza:
Setting sun upon my shoulder
Be wary of the western boulder
Hard and fast it falls upon you
And your bones will grow far colder.
In the bottom right, to the north:
Frigid knives all born from stone
High above your head they've grown
To fall upon your saddened soul
And watch bleed and die alone.
Deciding he wasn't terribly excited by the tone of these cryptic messages, Robbie glanced warily at the bottom left-hand corner of the worn map—the east.
Gold sun rises from my breast
Follow me to find the chest
Deep inside my sparkling vaults
Here (a part here was smudged and unreadable) you end your quest.
He grunted. It seemed to him as though a different poet altogether had penned those final lines. If they had been forced to choose a direction there and then, any idiots would have certainly chosen the east. Returning his attention to the drawn part of the map, he frowned.
The red-brown ink was jumbled and seemed to overlap in places, some lines darker than others, some dashed, some barely there at all. He screwed up his eyes, trying to examine it all in the insufficient light filtering through the barn.
"There!"
Robbie jumped, the voice of the Jaragon joined by several others. He leapt to his feet, shaking Lana awake. He covered her mouth and dragged her over to the ladder leading to the hay loft. "Go!" he whispered, pushing her upwards. She hopped awkwardly up the ladder until she could slide herself up into the loft. Robbie followed hastily up after her, stuffing the map back into his shirt.
Silently, the cousins pulled the ladder up into the loft. Crawling to a corner where they would be more concealed, they peered down into the barn with bated breath.
"What's all this, then?"
Lana jerked upward, knocking her head on a low hanging beam. Eyes watering in pain and surprise, she looked back at the speaker. When she recognized him, her look of terror dissolved into a furious growl. Grabbing the offender around the neck, she dragged him to the floor.
"George Riley, if you say ONE WORD, I will personally rip out your spleen and feed it to the dogs," she muttered, looking daggers at the surprised redhead. He nodded fervently, his words of ascent muffled by the hand in front of his mouth.
The armored warriors burst into the room, scimitars drawn. The three inhabitants of the hayloft held their breath, drawing back from the edge. The Jaragons glared around into the darkness, their dark eyes squinted with suspicion. The tallest motioned around the barn, muttering to his companions in their guttural language; they spread out across the hay-strewn floor, swords extended before them.
"Robbie? Lana? This is no time for games! Your family misses you!" the tall warrior said, his voice high-pitched with false concern. "We aren't going to hurt you…come out, come out, where ever you are!" He slammed open the door to one of the stalls, hacking into the empty air. Lana gasped. Robbie clamped his hands over her mouth, but it was too late.
The Jaragon whirled around, his dark eyes scanning the loft. "Chira! Mesoma qwui kheeru!" he called to his companions, pointing to the upper levels. The questing warriors slunk out of the shadows like a pack of starving wolves, grinning viciously in the direction of their leader's gesture. "Children! This is your last chance! Come down from there, or I will have to be very angry!" he called. The warriors chuckled ominously, stroking their naked blades.
Robbie dragged the other two away from the edge of the loft, whispering angrily. "Oh, excellent work, O Silent One. Now what are we going to do?"
"They's after you?" said George, picking a piece of straw out of Lana's hair. The pair nodded. "I'll get youout. Follow me." He moved off, silent as a gnat, across the eaves.
Robbie and Lana glanced at each other. Robbie glared silently at his cousin, and then turned and followed George. Lana frowned and followed the boys, dragging her injured ankle after her as quietly as she could.
The Jaragons, however, had not been idle. Four had broken off from the assembly and had begun shimmying up the rotten supports. Another group was attempting to light a rapid fire in the damp hay, which had only succeeded in raising a large cloud of foul-smelling smoke. The tall lieutenant gave orders to bar the main door.
"Not the brightest, this lot," muttered George as the regrouped in the far corner. "Lighting a fire and shutting themselves in? It's a wonder they ever got out of Jarag." He gripped the edge of an ancient board with his wind burned hands, prying it gently from its loose moorings. It opened up right above one of the Jaragons, who was standing guard in front of a window whose shutters had been long ago reclaimed by the forest. "It's a tight fit…but if we can make it to the window, we're home free."
"We can't go home," whispered Lana. "There's more of them there."
"Jaragon's in Caceril? What is Merderon coming to!" mumbled George, rooting around in the surrounding hay for something. "For Lana…Usually Old Olfsen keeps…yes!" He withdrew his arm from the moldy hay, a rough burlap bag in his hands. He untied the hemp, revealing a pile of rusty…
"Horseshoes? George, are you insane? She's twisted her ankle, not thrown a shoe!" Robbie said, trying to wrench the bag away from the redhead. The look on the other boy's face stopped him.
"She's not wearing them…she's dropping them. We have to be ready to jump down and catch her." Lana nodded slowly, taking the heavy sack from him.
"Do what he says, Rob."
George grinned. "Ready? On three. One…umm…"
"Three!" Lana said loudly, dropping the weighty bag directly onto the head of the stunned Jaragon below. There was a sickening crack and the man collapsed.
Robbie and George leapt down after it, reaching up for Lana. George caught her as she tumbled, and tossed her unceremoniously over the sill to Robbie, who was already outside. He followed them, pausing only to utter a few disparaging remarks to the rest of the Jaragons. He reached down and thrust the rotting shutter back in through the window, catching one of the speedier warriors in the chest. Releasing the plank, he turned and high-tailed it into the woods after Robbie and Lana.
George carried Lana on his back as they charged through the Elanwood, Robbie close behind. "This way," the redhead said, leaping over the roots and briars with surprising speed. Robbie chased after him, the shouts of the Jaragons still resonating in his hears.