It had taken nearly the whole first day to get to the grove in the first place, Caleb noted in annoyance. The duo had returned to Haven quickly enough after finding the scene; Caleb avoiding the area near the office by lurking behind the few permanent structures in the yard. However, instead of running into his callous employer, his sneaking had nearly landed him in Cornelia's lap as she took in the sun behind her railcar on one of few undisturbed spots of thick grass.
She gazed up at him with those bright blue eyes, shocked and annoyed by his intrusion into her sunbathing. The harshness seemed to fade slightly as she recognized his face, and she quickly brushed herself off and stood to greet him. Caleb felt that sweet tightening of his chest as she did, like a child looking upon the glory of spring in full bloom for the first time. Of course, all springs had their storms, Cornelia included. Her wedding band flashing in the peeking sun like the burn of lighting in the sky.
"Mister Hansen, I didn't expect to see you back so early." she said, her voice so curt it sounded forced. He had surprised her, the slight pinkening of her cheeks betraying the harshness of her voice.
"Well, you see," he smiled conspiratorially, leaning into her as if whispering a secret, "I have very special mission I must attend to."
It was a strange thing, that the presence of someone he barely knew could make him feel ten years younger, like the war had never happened, like his father had never…
"And what would that be?" she asked, the corners of her lips tugging up ever-slightly despite the sarcasm in her voice.
Caleb debated toying with her some more, but suddenly the locket in his pocket felt ever-so heavy and he remembered that someone out there in the wild needed him more than he needed to stare at Cornelia. He pulled out the locket, and held the picture out for Cornelia for inspection.
"Who are these people?" she asked, taking the locket from his grasp.
"I don't know," he admitted, leaning against the railcar besides her, "I found the rest of the family, but the girl is missing."
Cornelia glanced up at him, her eyes narrowed, and he couldn't place her expression off hand. "What happened to them?" she asked, her voice quiet.
"Dead, kahedrin attack." he told her.
Her brow furrowed, as she studied the faces captured in the picture. Her delicate fingers traced their frozen features, before looking back at the railcar. Caleb followed her gaze, as light peals of laughter floated on the wind back to them.
"Are you going to find her?" she asked.
"I'm going to try." he told her.
"Good," she stated, actual shortness entering her tone now. Caleb gently tugged the locket from her fingers and placed it back in his pocket.
"You must love playing the hero, Mister Hansen." she said sharply, and Caleb was taken aback by her accusation. Old wounds tugged at his heart, like a bullet splitting against bone and he turned away from the woman.
"I don't do it to 'play hero', I do it because it's the right thing to do." he told her, his tone even. He set off in the direction of his tent, to gather up his things for the trip. His father had accused him of 'playing hero' too, as he walked out of the door to join the army. A hero would have been with his father when the end came. Caleb was no hero, he was just…
"Wait!" Cornelia called out, before continuing almost shyly, "If need to borrow a horse, you can take Lady if you want. She could use the exercise."
Caleb felt a smile spread across his face of its own volition, despite it all. He gave her one one last glance, and told her,
"I will, and thanks."
The grin she gave in back in response could have lifted him though anything he thought, save actually mounting the damn horse. Lady gnashed at his fingers as he tried to put the bridle in her mouth, and whirled around him so fast he was sure the mare was going to crush him. Her eyes bulging, and the glint they contained could only be described as madness. Aldarn watched, looking slightly amused from atop the ragged looking chestnut he'd managed to acquire.
"You need to tie her up first," he offered, after Lady reared up on her hind legs and Caleb had been forced to leap out of the coral into the mud.
Caleb eyed the other two horses, the tall palomino gelding who was idly munching on hay from his trough, and the white horse had lazily trodden over, and pushed her nose into Caleb's vest looking for treats.
"Shouldn't I ask first?" he quipped, pushing Adira's head from his chest, who huffed and stamped her feet in displeasure.
Aldarn merely shook his head, and climbed off his horse to help him saddle up Lady. To Caleb's great displeasure, the great grey horse stood at the ready for Aldarn, mocking him as she stood leisurely while Aldarn put her saddle over her.
His companion held her while Caleb swung himself over the horse, however with Aldarn at her side the mare made no move to throw him or roll her shoulders under him. Caleb felt a slight pang of jealousy as took up the reigns; he'd never been good with animals, not even the ones at his own farm. His father had been the one with the patience and gentle nature, not him. He'd only ever been good at fighting. Fighting his father, fighting the war, fighting himself. The peaceful life of a farm boy laying in the sun dreaming of fair maidens seemed like the hazy memories from another age. He had met his fair maiden yes, and yet, she belonged to another. The sky would crack and bleed before he could snatch Cornelia away from her perfect marriage.
The two men set off at a decent pace towards the setting sun, and the woods. Aldarn kept a far enough distance between them on his horse that conversation could not be forced, so they rode in silence, save the horse's hooves slamming into the muddy earth. It was better this way, as the two men had few enough words for each other. Caleb couldn't help but think that this venture was a fool's errand, that no young girl would have enough wits to make it in the wilds with a Kahedrin horde at her back. She might have seen the fires from Haven glowing in the distance and tried to make her way there and been caught, with that much open land between the woods and their home. She might have never made it out alive in the first place, and perhaps her body had simply floated further down the river than the rest of her families, being the lightest and all. There were a million other reasons to turn around and return to Haven, and yet he never did. Caleb had never argued with anyone who had ever called him a fool either.
The slow descent of the sun chilled the plains, and a fog was drifting up from the winding river, hanging low and heavy over the rolling hills. It made the land look much eerier than it really was, and made the horses paw at the ground in hesitation. Caleb looked back at Aldarn, whose older chestnut had come to a sudden stop, nostrils flared and eyes wild. There was still many miles till they reached the woodline, and Caleb had no desire to camp in open land like this. Regret watered down the rising fear, they should have waited till morning to leave, he thought suddenly. Lady huffed in displeasure, her ears pinned back against her head, when a sharp howl drifted across the plains to the north. Across the river, a matching cry rose up not far where they were halted. Caleb felt the tension in his shoulders ease as he recognized the mournful sounds.
"Vulnixes," Aldarn breathed, sounding as relieved as Caleb felt, "I'm surprised they are this far north."
The two squinted in the direction of the closer howl, but only a slim red outline could be seen scurrying through the fog in the dying light.
"They must live in the forest," he commented. Vulnixes were rarely found past the great timbers of the South, and Caleb had seem a few during his time in the Grey Woods. They were skittish animals, with large round yellow eyes, silky red fur and huge pointed ears half the size of their whole head. They were avid hunters, but feared humans like the Light herself had burned them. Only the wealthiest ladies of the capitol wore their coats for their own, as they were too wily to often fall for traps. He wonderly idly, if Cornelia had one.
"Come on," he urged as the creature hurried out of view, the horses returning to some state of normalcy as it did.
Lady didn't seem thrilled to be traveling in the quickly fading light, her body tense and shaky under him, but they had little choice now. The two stayed closer together now, the horses nickering at each other warily as they crossed the plains in the growing moonlight.
The Vulnixes would howl to each other on occasion as the one hurried off towards the other in the north, and hoppers sang deep songs from their homes in the rivers, and he thought he heard the faint echoes of a wolves howling too in the distance, but if it was they were too far away to be any danger. Caleb had travelled many times at night with the army, when stealth was required, he'd never liked it, too many ways for things to go wrong, especially in smaller groups, and two was a very small group indeed.
The moon was high in the sky when the pair finally came in view of the patch of forest. They had rode the horses hard once light was gone trying to make the best time. He could feel Lady quivering, her exhaustion plain. If she hadn't him hated before, she surely would now, he thought. The two decided it was too late to make a true camp, so instead they unfurled their bedrolls near the tied up horses, but neither man felt like sleeping in the unfamiliar territory. The tall, black trees looming overhead reminded Caleb of his old home, however that fact did little to soothe his discomfort. He used to like the great oaks and pines, fragrant and mighty, austere in their beauty and charm; but now they seemed like towering ghosts liable to crush him at any time.
He kept watch for any flickering lights across the plains, but not even the rail camp could be seen through the fog that crept across the landscape. He could hear thunder rumbling across the plains, and lighting fork in the distance, however. Storms rolled in fast near the gorge, faster than anything he'd ever seen. So, he and Aldarn moved their bed rolls under a vast old pine. When the rain did come down they were mostly protected, through a few drops still dropped unto his face as he stared up at what he could see of the sky.
"What made you decide to work out here?" Aldarn asked from his side, finally breaking the hours long silence that hung between them.
What had made him choose to work on the rail? New beginnings? Fate? Destiny?
"A letter." he answered simply, remembering the crisp white letter with Martin's messy handwriting upon it. It wasn't as simple as that, it never was, of course, but Aldarn didn't seem to care.
"My father wanted to work here," he began quietly, "thought it would make things better."
Caleb blinked.
"Trying to make things better usually make them worse."
In his town, when he had just barely reached his manhood they spoke of the war like it was greatest thing this country had ever seen. It was supposed to be exciting, and grand and important. Instead it had stunk, sometimes he could still smell it in his dreams. When bullets ripped into stomachs and cut open intestines and bile pussed out of gaping wounds. When men weren't even safe in their deathbeds…
"I'm sorry about your father." he said, almost absently.
"It doesn't matter," came the answer in the dark.
Caleb could taste the words in the back of his mouth, but held them back. He could hear Lady and the other horse pawing the ground again, anxious and fearful once more. This time however, the cold pulse of blood that shot up his neck warned him the danger was more than a passing animal. Aldarn made a quiet shr shr as he pulled his knife from his bag. Caleb should have brought him a gun, he thought miserably, but he only had his own.
"Eh? What's that Borris?"
It was a man's voice, deep and gravelly creeping through the black night through the trees behind them. Caleb ran his thumb over the metal cylinder of his revolver, hoping Aldarn would hold steady as well. The dark was too dense to signal him.
"Horses!" cried another voice that he suspected was not Borris by the softer, feminine tone of the voice.
"Shush!" implored yet another person. He could hear them trying to strike a lantern but it was too damp. But it was enough. He could see the spark of the match.
In one swift motion, he pushed himself up and fired a shot into the darkness where the match had been. He heard the thud where the bullet impacted and the shosh of blood hitting the ground and rasping gurgle told him that he had guessed true.
The other two yelped in surprise, and the horses reared and screamed in fear but the ropes held.
"Run!" he heard the women yell, and another shot rang out into the forest, and Caleb heard the tree behind him splinter and explode. He froze, not wanting to give away his position, but they were in full retreat, their footsteps in the wet leaves leading to the east.
"What the hell?" yelled Aldarn, "you didn't even know who they were?"
Caleb replaced his gun in his holster, and shook his head, not that the other man could see.
"No one good," he assured him.
"You don't know that, what if it was the girl?" he snapped. Caleb wandered over to the body, and blindly fiddled for the fallen lantern and matches. It took him a minute but the Therbite eventually took to flame. He held the light over the man, for inspection. His face was scarred and grey and most certainly Kahedrin, broad and plain with pointed ears.
Somehow, this seemed to make Aldarn madder.
"But you didn't know that when you shot him!" he declared.
"Who do you think we are fighting?" he asked, quickly rolling up his bed roll. They would be back, he knew and soon.
Aldarn had no words for him, as he stood over the corpse, him lips pursed in annoyance. Had this same man not lectured him on patience and restraint just hours earlier? And now he was shooting bullets into the darkness? What sort of madness was that?
Caleb handed Aldarn his bed roll and ushered him back towards the horses. They needed to leave, and fast. Reinforcements would soon follow, no doubt and they needed to be away from here and somewhere they could spring a trap, if at all possible.
"Wait!" Aldarn cried out to him, pointing to something in the ground. He had to hand it to his companion, he was very observant if nothing else. He trotted over to where Aldarn stood.
The two men lingered over a strange...dent in the earth, for lack of a better term. Caleb looked at it cautiously, fearful of the others returning.
"It almost looks like a semi-collapsed mine shaft," Aldarn began, "or a sinkhole."
Caleb took another step forward on what he hoped what a ledge of solid ground. It wasn't. In an instant the earth hoped her great black maw, and swallowed the two men up. He heard Lady nickering above him as he fell, and he could have sworn it sounded amused.
"It's my fault!" she decompressed noisily into Miranda's shoulder. The other woman patted her awkwardly, knowing in some ways it was true.
"Yes, but it would have been you, if it hadn't been her." she told her, her eyes sharper than broken glass. Miranda never had been one to mince words, after all.
Irma knew that, and it made her feel even worse when she felt a pinch of relief in the statement. She'd spent the most wonderful night with a man who had been both gentle and kind, a rare enough thing in her line of work. Who had thanked her for making him feel better, spent the night with her, and left little pink flowers by her side when he left in the morning. That wonderful illusion however had all come crashing back down when she returned to the cat house in the morning. Raythor had been standing outside, his face pale and drawn as it was when he was working, and none too relieved when he saw her.
"I thought you were missing too girl," he explained, as she had sauntered back to him.
"Missing? Who is missing?" she asked harshly, the fear that had been her constant companion on the rail creeping back into her bones.
" Well," he began, looking slightly bashful at his choice of words, "She ain't missing."
"I don't understand" she said, even though she did. "Who?"
As if on some morbid cue, one of the men carried out the body. She was covered with a blanket and only a pale limp hand hung out from under it. Irma felt herself freeze, her arms suddenly weighing a hundred pounds each and made of solid ice.
Unbiddenly, she reached out and pulled the blanket from her face. It had been Alchemy, her face swollen and bruised even in death, her nose cooked and broken, her lip split and hair mussed. Irma let the blanket fall back over her, silent.
There had been no answers as to the culprit, and yet somehow, Sondra's unwillingness to speak on the matter told her all she needed to know. It wasn't fair, she thought to herself.
It didn't make sense, a madam was supposed to protect her girls and her girls made her money in turn and yet Sondra could barely seem to care whether they lived or died. She wondered, her stomach churning, if somehow she got extra money for the ones that got hurt. And next week two more girls would take Alchemy's place on the train in, and her ginger haired friend would be forgotten, left for the vultures to pick at .
She hated her so much. She hated it all, Sondra, Frost, every last one of them. Alchemy had been good, and kind, and gentle and they had killed her. Who would be next, when the next john pushed a little too hard and Sondra didn't care. Her? Miranda? Did that even matter?
"We have to stop this, somehow, someway!" she cried. Miranda didn't seem particularly interested in her cries however, and merely shook her head.
"You better keep your head down, or you will be next." she warned, her voice hard but not without a sliver of concern for her friend.
Irma didn't care. She couldn't sit here and let this happen, that wasn't her. Her blood would turn to water and spill from her veins like air before she would let them hurt people just because they could.
She stood up abruptly, as Miranda looked up at her wearily. "Irma…" she started.
"No." she shook her head, the words having trouble forming in her mouth for once, but that did nothing to weaken her resolve. She had came to this railroad for fun and adventure, and now she would right her own wrongs. Like the heros in the story, but it would just be her fighting the injustices of the world...and well, maybe…
Irma cocked her eyebrow at the cross looking Miranda, a silent plea for her help.
For a moment, her face was unreadable. Irma saw the flicker of something slink across her face, that made Irma's own stomach tighten in a strange way, but it was gone as quickly as it came. Miranda was always notoriously hard to read.
"Fine." she groaned, clearly not enthused with Irma's righteousness. Still, for reasons not even the brunette knew, Miranda was like to follow her anywhere.
This was it. She could feel herself trembling, the world spinning around her, and through the fear; excitement.
Black, yellow, orange, and green?
Caleb blinked away the blur from his eyesight, and was greeted by Aldarn's almost human face gazing down at him. The dim light from their fractured lantern highlighted the harsh white bones that accented his brow.
"What happened?" the other man asked, but Caleb must have hit his head harder than he thought and words sounded jumbled.
"What?" he questioned, his own voice loud enough to make him flinch. Aldarn just shook his head, and helped Caleb to his feet. Nothing hurt besides his head, and even that was a dull pain, compared to some things he'd experienced in life. Caleb glanced around their surroundings, he could hear the horses worrying far above them, but their broken lantern couldn't cast enough light to illuminate that far above them. Instead it cast cracked shadows on the obsidian black walls that funneled around them.
"This doesn't look like a mineshaft," Aldarn mumbled from behind him. Caleb had never seen a mineshaft before, so he would take the Galhots word for it.
"Mudslug tunnel?" he asked. The huge worm-like creatures usually lived farther out in the plains, but it wouldn't be unheard of to see one here. Aldarn shook his head in the negative through, and pointed to the rock walls. Upon inspection the black rock bore small but prominent chip marks in it down the length of the wall.
"I thought this wasn't a mining tunnel?" he snapped, as he traced his hands on the primitive looking marks.
"I think it's...just a tunnel." his fellow responded, his heavy brow furrowed in confusion.
Ignoring (to the best of his ability) the somewhat ominous implications of tunnels in the middle of nowhere, Caleb picked up what was left of their light source, the Therbite's unnatural glow was dimming as they spoke, and turned to the east running tunnel. Deeper into the forest, or under it rather. They couldn't stay here, or hope to scale the walls, and surely, he thought, the tunnel must end up somewhere.
"Well, when in doubt, keep to the right." he intoned. Aldarn groaned from beside him, and the two men descended further into the blackness.
AN: Yeah...
I had some trouble with this chapter as you can probably tell from both length and quality, but I was determined to get this chapter out. Thanks to everyone for their support and reviews. A special shout-out to DarkCat for reviewing every chapter so far! Next chapter should be out sooner. Thank you again! RoR out.