Red Gold - 11. Chapter 11 - Touching Down to Danger and Suprises

Leelany cursed under her breath and cried out. “Hold the circle, don’t step back.” Leelany let go of Cai’s hand and, very quickly both she and Cai grabbed Ben’s hands joining him in the circle. There was a feeling of reality being stretched, pulling them upwards and outwards as though they were made of elastic, twisting and distorting everything around them.

The circle of light that surrounded them seemed a flimsy thing and there was a sense of…something... beating against it from the other side, and then suddenly the light became brittle and, exploding in a thousand glittering shards, fell away.

All around there was total darkness and the sense of movement at speed. It was cold, colder than any of them had ever experienced anywhere else. It was so cold that they lost the ability to feel each other’s hands and desperately gripped with numb fingers in the hope that their partner was doing the same. Breathing in the coldness was agony to the point that it became impossible to fill their lungs. The darkness around them began to fill their heads.

“Cai!”

Leelany’s voice was sharp, commanding but forced through clenched teeth. Cai grunted with pain as he drew in a deep breath of ice and let it out in a long sharp note of incredible clarity that seemed to slice through the darkness like a flare before them. Gripping Gabrielle’s hand convulsively as he struggled to draw another painful breath he managed to maintain the note and slowly the darkness lightened as the sense of travelling at speed intensified.

And then suddenly it was light and there was a sense of the world spinning around them. The feeling of being pulled out like an elastic band reversed and with something like a silent explosion of light they were all flung back into their bodies and the earth slammed into their feet as they landed on something crackling and soft.

They were all stunned at first and, unsurprisingly it was Leelany who recovered most quickly. Having hit the ground hard and rolled immediately to her feet she reacted to long ingrained instincts and her first action was to secure the area. To make sure that they were in no immediate danger she disappeared into the trees to scout. Both Ben and Gabrielle were shocked rigid by the experience, Ben even more so having been totally unsuspecting when he stepped through the door. They both sat with their knees drawn up and heads lowered shivering so hard they could barely breathe and struggling with a very real edge of panic.

Cai was the only one who had remained on his feet and he stood, ankle deep in leaves with one hand on the trunk of a tree. He had lost the blankets in the journey and was completely naked. With his head thrown back and his hair tumbling over his shoulders and down his back he looked like a wild wood sprite or tree spirit. Gabrielle, looking up at him through half closed eyes smiled.

“Gabrielle! What the hell do you think you are doing?”

Startled she looked up to see Leelany advancing from across the clearing, her face a mask of anger.

“What? Nothing… I… nothing.”

“So I see.” Her voice was deadly cold and dismissing her with glance she strode past her going straight to her brother. “Cai?” the coldness had vanished and her voice was gentle, so different to how Gabrielle had ever heard it that for an instant she thought it had come from someone else.

Leelany laid her hand on his shoulder and he raised his head to look at her. Gabrielle, now on her feet at Leelany’s shoulder gasped aloud to see that his teeth were clenched and his lips completely blue.

“Lee…cold…” his voice was forced and as she put her arms around him his head fell forwards onto her shoulder and his knees buckled.

“Don’t just stand there Gabrielle, help me. Don’t you ever think of him?”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“If you had a thought in your head you would have realised. And you…” she turned on Ben now. “… you are supposed to be a healer. You felt the cold of the void… and he had no protection. For shame to have left him like this.”

“Lee. Lee, le… le...leave them a…alone. I… I’m… alright.”

Cai was shivering so much he could barely speak but he still held out his hands to Gabrielle reassuringly. She was shocked again by how cold they were, shocked and chagrined.

“God Cai, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise.” Leelany had stripped off her jacket and wrapped it around her brother and Gabrielle did the same. Ben still had on his white coat which he contributed along with his jumper even though he was shivering himself. He hugged himself and rubbed vigorously at his arms to try and get warm.

Gabrielle had forgotten about being cold. Her only focus was Cai and she helped Leelany to rub life back into his body, listening to his laboured breathing gradually slow and deepen. He was half lying and half sitting in the leaves with his head on Leelany’s shoulder.

“’m alright now.”

“No, you’re not. You stay where you are for a while.”

“Need to move Lee, something coming.”

“What? What’s coming? How do you know?”

Pushing himself away from his sister’s steadying hands Cai got to his feet, grunting with pain, his hand pressed over the wound on his chest.

“Don’t know. Feel it. I need clothes.”

“Oh…sorry, I forgot, didn’t think… with everything.” Ben threw a bag at his feet. “It’s mine, I keep it at the hospital for emergencies. I guess this kind of is although I sure wish I had been slower getting it.”

Cai looked up and their eyes met. Although Ben had to have been at least a couple of years older it was he who looked like the lost boy here.

As quickly as he could, helped by Leelany and Gabrielle, Cai struggled into clothes that were a good size too big, except across the shoulders. The scuffed trainers were a pretty good fit, though Cai had to carefully consider whether they would be better than nothing in this environment. Dressed in faded jeans and cotton shirt Cai looked less like a god and more like a boy, until you looked into his face which held a look that was, at the same time, far away and more present in the moment that anyone else, even Leelany.

“Please, we have to hurry. There is something coming.”

“Then why can’t I feel it?”

“I don’t know Lee. But I do.”

“Are you sure Cai? You are not yourself and you were very young the last time you were here. I don’t see how you can be so attuned already.”

“Lee, we must go, we go now.” He was becoming agitated, drawing her towards the trees. She was reluctant, looking around, seeing nothing. “Do you have weapons?”

“Only these.” Leelany fished two throwing knives out of her bag. They were only a couple of inches long but they looked wicked sharp.

“I wish I had my own knife. These will have to do.”

“What is it, Cai, do you know?”

“See to them.” He nodded towards Gabrielle and Ben. “It is here.”

Cai’s voice was a hiss and he went into a crouch, facing the clearing. For a moment nothing happened, there was no sign of movement within the trees on the other side of the clearing and everything was still and silent. Both Leelany and Gabrielle began to think that Cai had been mistaken. They thought he was imagining danger, hallucinating from his ordeal. Ben thought nothing at all, being still too shocked and too spooked for thought.

And then they came. There were three of them, little more than shadows flowing over the grass at impossible speed.

Trusting Leelany to protect Gabrielle and Ben, Cai sprang. Gabrielle stared in astonishment as he took two steps towards the demons and leaped high into the air, twisting so that he seemed to hang suspended and spin; an impossible, shining, whirlwind of flying hair and sparking metal. The leap took him past the shadows and he landed on the grass behind them, facing back towards his shocked friends. His back leg swept out behind him so when he stopped he was low to the ground in a deep lunge, his arms raised over his head the knives gleaming scarlet in the sunshine. In the clearing two of the demons had fallen never to rise again, their blood staining the grass from severed throats.

The third demon turned to face him, howling an inhuman sound of rage and pain. Cai did not move, locked into position, not even seeming to look directly at the demon, instead staring almost dreamily into the distance beyond. The two of them froze, the one little more than a dark shadow, collar turned up and black hair hanging so that no face could be seen between, the other blazing like a comet, almost painful to look at he was so bright.

The demon paced slowly back and forth, like a cat watching for an opening to spring. Its eyes never left Cai; Cai’s never rested on it. As the demon paced Cai remained completely immobile, holding a stance that must have taken a considerable amount of energy. Gabrielle wondered why, and whether it was to impress, although he hardly needed to. She never considered, as young girls rarely ever do, that it might have had less to do with looking good to her as with showing strength and hiding weakness from the enemy.

For long moments everyone remained frozen in position, watching, waiting. And then the demon moved, just one step, that is all he had the chance to take even though it was taken at a speed that could not have been matched, at least not by Gabrielle or Ben. As the demon moved forwards Cai leaped again. Using the demon’s own chest as a springboard he soared upwards and then came down hard both feet out to catch the demon in its upturned face, snapping its head back and breaking its neck even before both head and feet hit the floor and Cai, following through the momentum of his leap, rolled and came to his feet standing for a moment immobile with the knives raised until it became obvious that none of the demons would be giving them any further trouble.

Stooping to wipe the knives carefully in the grass Cai stood up and walked slowly back towards his friends, wincing at ever step.

“I felt nothing Cai, how did you know?”

“I don’t know, just be thankful I did.”

“Are there more of them?”

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Were they waiting for us?”

“Possibly. I think they were triggered by the gate rather than us particularly.”

“We should strike out, get as far away from here as we can while the light holds. Do you know where we are?”

He shook his head. “How am I supposed to know that?”

“Well you seem to be the one with all the answers here so far.”

She sounded petulant and he frowned at her but didn’t say anything. Now was not the time for a full scale argument and he saw one bubbling right under the surface and sighed.

“Wait here. I will scout ahead, try and get our bearings. Keep your eyes open and stay alert.”

“Yessir.” As she disappeared into the trees he muttered. “It isn’t as if it was me that took out the last ones or anything.”

“That was amazing.” Cai smiled, drawn out of his angry musings. He shook his head

“Not really. It’s just what I do, what I have always done.”

“What the hell were those… those … things? Where the hell are we?”

Cai looked at Ben with genuine regret in his eyes.

“I’m really sorry about this. This wasn’t meant to happen. We never meant to drag you into this.”

“Drag me into what? What the hell happened? Where are we?”

“It’s hard to explain. This is our world... Lee’s, Gabrielle’s and mine. We were born here, brought up here together for a time. Then we had to leave. Someone was… wanting to hurt Gabrielle and she had to be taken away. Lee and I were sent with her to protect her, until she was old enough to face her destiny.”

“What destiny?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a lore keeper. I am just a protector.”

“And who should have been protecting you?”

“Ah well, usually I can take care of myself… but there are some things I can’t fight.”

“Like something that can come into your room past dozens of people without being seen, stop your heart and disappear without anyone even being aware it was there at all?”

Cai gave him an odd look then smiled. “Yes, something like that.”

“I thought I saw something. In the instant the alarms started going off I looked up and the door to your room was open and I saw something… something like a shadow… something like…” he nodded towards the fallen demons. “…that.”

“Yes… something like it.”

“Will I be able to go back?”

“I would think so. There are those who pass through the gateways at will… or at least there used to be. Lee will find the way to our village and when we are there I am sure there will be someone who can get you home.”

“What about Gabrielle?”

“Gabrielle is home.”

“Is that true Gabrielle? Do you think of this as your home?”

“Yes, yes I do. Cai is here.”

Cai put his arm around her shoulders and looked down into her face as she looked up into his. “We are home, or at least we soon will be. This is not home yet; this is not safe. We have to keep alert, all the time. There are more than just shadow demons in these woods.”

“Really? Aren’t they enough?”

“Hush…” Cai thrust Gabrielle behind him and raised the knives. “…something comes.”