Chapter 49
The Invisibles had gathered immediately after Avalina had fled the room, talking in hushed tones. The fourth had left to go see if there was anything Avalina needed, and to make sure she could find her way back to her room. The others were waiting in another room.
"Did you SEE that?!" The second whispered excitedly.
"ITS A SIGN!" The third whispered as loud as it could.
"I saw," the first said quietly. "He just. . .stood there."
"He loved it! He may not know it himself yet, but he loved it!"
"I just wish he'd said so to Avalina."
"He may, in time," the first answered. "Personally, I think he's bored out of his mind, with nothing to do around here. This will be something for him to help pass the time."
"Bored?" The second huffed, sounding offended. "Bored?!"
"How can he be BORED with US around?" The third asked.
"Yeah, we're like. . .the carnival."
"Full of jesters."
"Yeah, we're never boring."
"Ever."
"And like the carnival, you never seem to stop, even when everyone's tired of you," the first said dryly.
"But we don't hear anyone complaining but you! Because at carnivals, where the fun never ends, its so enjoyable that people who KNOW how to have fun just keep saying to themselves, "Five more minutes," despite the fact they're dog tired!"
"Hey, speaking of which, do we have any bells and cymbals around here?"
"No, we don't," the first said irritably. "And even if we did I'd still say no to your plan."
". . . What plan?"
"Yes, what is this 'Plan' of which you speak?"
"Don't feign innocence with me, I know what you're plotting!"
A short pause, before they answered together.
"You do?"
"You do?"
"Yes, and I'm not about to have you two racing the halls in trolleys clashing drums together and throwing paper everywhere, screaming random things at the top of your lungs, leaping out from corners at people."
". . . .Well, we were actually just going to try and cheer Avalina up somehow."
". . .Oh. I see."
Another pause.
"But we like your idea a whole lot better! Yippee!"
"To the storage rooms!"
The sound of the first presence facepalming could be heard, along with a muffled oath, right as the fourth came around the corner just in time to see the other two slam a door behind them, their muffled laughter fading away on the other side of it.
"What. Have I done?" The first moaned.
"Why so dejected?" The fourth asked.
"I've created a catastrophe."
"Well, that's ok, whatever it is, it can't possibly be as bad as *any* of the things *they* do."
A moan was its answer.
"What? What did I miss?"
"You're my friend, but please, please. . .just shut up."
"That bad?"
". . . . .Yeah."
"Oh. Sorry."
Silence.
". . .I guess this would be a bad time to tell you that Creeper found the mead, huh?"
"GAAAAAHHHHH!"
Avalina ran all the way to her room, feeling the tears flowing down her face.
Her door opened for her, so she could go straight in.
Sobbing, Avalina collapsed on the bed.
'Why? Why?'
She thought, as a fresh sob choked itself out.
'Why? Why did I have to want to play? If I'd just walked out and held my wants at bay this wouldn't have happened. And now I'm going to be facing him every day in there! I shouldn't have even touched that piano at all, but it was so beautiful, and I haven't played in so long. . . .For a single, blissful minute, I was actually happy away from the stable, and now. . .every moment with the very thing I love will be nothing but a curse.'
Avalina cradled her head in her arms and wept harder.
'I hate him! I hate him for what he's done! All those people that he's murdered without a single second thought. Why did *I* have to be the one held here? Why me? What have I ever done to deserve this? Are the Fates really that cruel? How *Can* they be this cruel? Do they enjoy this? I know *he* does!'
Avalina felt the Invisible that had opened the door for her come nearer, before feeling an air of sympathy around her, as if the Invisible was trying to comfort her, just like mother used to do.
'I'm supposed to be brave like a soldier, the Invisibles said, but I want to go home so bad! I want my mother! I'm not strong enough to be brave!'
The sobbing girl let the presence settle lightly over her shoulders, almost as if it were hugging her, as she felt its own pain and sympathy.
Arran had never really appreciated the horse his sister had until it was gone, despite the fact that he could not have possibly gotten any work around the farm done without it or Avalina. Now, he was working solo.
She could keep the animal moving at a smooth, swift pace for a very long time, making the long, dusty road to the nearest village seem like a midday outing. The horse had willingly carried them double without a single complaint, but the one and only time that Arran had tried to ride by himself while Avalina walked, he had been on the ground before he had even realized what had happened, the horse standing there with an expression in his eyes that had plainly said, "Go on, I dare you to try that one more time. You'll be in the treetops next."
Avalina had wanted to give the horse a bit of a break from having to carry two people at once, but it was obvious the animal wouldn't have any of it. She had laughed about that incident for a long time, and to this day she had never let him forget it.
The horse hadn't either.
So now he was walking to the village. Which was three days away on foot.
He carried food that his mother had sent, along with the bag of money at his side. She had sent him to buy a good horse to help him work the fields and such, along with the name of a horseman Avalina recommended.
His heart ached at the thought of his beautiful little sister. Heaven knew if she was even still alive!
As he approached a place in the road where a deer trail crossed on either side, he noticed a wide breach of dog-like tracks crossing the road, breaking him from his thoughts.
Stooping down, he studied them for a moment, before he felt his blood run cold.
One of the tracks had a toe missing.
Getting up, he fearfully looked around, before heading to the village with renewed speed, fear aiding his aching muscles.
He had to warn everyone that the Mad Pack was in the area.
It was extremely rare for a human to get attacked by wolves in this part of Prydain. With plentiful prey and vast open spaces, they were in reality shy animals at this time of year, shying from humanity and everything related to it, sticking to the depths of the wilderness. It virtually never happened.
Avalina had once told Arran that a person was five times more likely to get mauled by a big cat, four times more likely to get mauled by a bear, three times more likely to drown, and twice as likely to get struck by lightning than you were to get attacked by a wolf pack in Prydain.
Except for these.
A sort of a motley pack, these wolves had collected domesticated dog blood in them somewhere, causing them to look differently than the other wolves in the area, but that was not the reason for their name.
Many years ago, a foreigner from across the sea had came to Prydain with his hounds to make a living, but soon after arriving, they all became ill and went mad. He managed to kill all but one, which escaped and was found dead later, killed by a wolf pack.
The brush farmers thought it was over, until a certain small pack of wolves appeared, with scars from a recent fight on their bodies, bearing the mark of the hound's madness in their eyes.
And that was only the beginning of the nightmare.
The disease was incurable, and everytime the Mad Pack was sighted, there was always a bigger number than the amount previously counted and nobody ever got the same number twice.
In the twenty years since the Pack had emerged, there had been more predators found mauled to death than any other time in the history of Prydain, the meat rarely touched. Big cats, bears, entire wolf packs, any forest animal they could catch, livestock and even people had been lost to the Pack. They seemed to have no fear toward anything at all, robbed of all reason by the madness that wracked them. All they lived for anymore was the blood and the kill.
Since it had been formed two decades ago, the Mad Pack had been held accountable for the deaths of at least fifteen people, one of them a small child only a year or two younger than Avalina herself.
Most of these killings, if not all, occurred at night on the forest roads, but the child killing had been right outside the village toward which Arran was currently headed, in broad daylight. The pack had then attacked the villagers, wounding many and killing five, before being driven off.
With the aftertaste of human blood in their mouths, coupled with the incurable disease, there was nothing this Pack would not attack.
Nothing.
The current leader of the pack was a very large wolf, easily recognized by his long red coat and herding dog heritage. He had been caught in a trap as a pup and had lost a toe. After getting attacked and becoming ill himself, he provided a distinctive way to track the pack now.
And judging by the amount of tracks with him, Arran could only roughly guess that the Mad Pack now had a mass of over thirty wolves.
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