“The Wrennlins are here, Addie. But it doesn’t mean they will come for us.”
“Oh, Chele.”
The gray serpentine body. The eyeless head with the gaping mouth. The flapping loose lips dripping stringy drool. The nightmare was real, and it lived just below the surface, lurking, slithering, waiting to burst out.
“But if they do,” Chele continued, unaware of the panic that seized Addie up, “the mountains are the way to safety. Indeed, Wrennlins can’t breach solid rock. But here, in the foothills, we’re still vulnerable. Keep the boots on.”
Chele lay down and covered herself and Oh’na up with the blanket.
Addie stretched on her own pallet, tense and hyper-alert. It was a long time before she could force her body to relax.
???
The Wrennlins came at the end of the night. It happened suddenly and went down fast. At the first sound of the alarm, Addie sprang from her pallet leaving it where it lay, grabbed her fully packed sack with one hand and Oh’na with the other, and ran for the mountains. An uninviting jagged monolith that they were, she couldn't imagine a more dear sight as she raced, out of breath, toward a narrow passage in the wake of the rest of the women and children.
She had been asleep when it happened, but it was as if her body had remained on alert, prepared for the attack. It saved her life - that and the boots. She wouldn’t have been able to run at full speed on sharp rocks barefoot.
Once in the passage, she stopped and turned, the higher elevation giving her a clear view of the plateau below. Their strongest men were chopping up at the monsters, holding down the line while others were retreating with belongings. One woman, Mekni, with a clinging toddler on her hip was still there, looking disoriented and having a difficult time running. Two men stepped up to her, lifted her and the baby, and ran to the passage where Addie stood surrounded by the people.
So there were flexibilities in the Rule of the Fallen, after all.
Chele, frantic, pushed through to Addie. “I thought I lost Oh’na! She was on the pallet with me, and then she was gone. You snatched her so fast.”
“I’m sorry, Chele, I didn’t have time to think.” She hung her head, shuddering. “They are so scary.”
Oh’na gave Addie a small awkward pat on the arm. “Don’t be upset, Addie. Wrennlins can’t get to us now.”
The rest of the men soon arrived, and the entire tribe congregated together watching the Wrennlins wreathe down below in an obscene dance, jerking heads seeking warm bodies, tongueless mouths with flapping lips opening wide in hunger in a nightmarish imitation of bird hatchlings wanting to be fed.
The Wrennlins had busted out near the camp, not directly in the middle of it, and only this pure dumb luck saved their lives. Even so, the tribe suffered a casualty.
Wixab, who’d been up and walking around the camp at the exact moment of the monsters’ eruption, had perished at the mouths of the Wrennlins. He’d been able to shout out a warning, and then he was no more.
Addie hugged herself tightly. Life was fragile and precious in these parts. And short. It could end with no warning.
But wait, therehadbeen a warning. Zoarkhadtried to convince the yellow-robed management of the danger, but they hadn’t listened. Why would they? He had abum knee.
Morons, Addie thought, suddenly angry.
She made her way to Illied and Melmie, and her heart squeezed painfully at the sight of them. Illied wasn’t crying, but she had this lost look on her face. Wixab may not have been the love of her life, but they’d been mates for a long time. He had been the only father Melmie knew. It was a senseless loss, preventable.
She searched for Zoark with her eyes and found his shirt-covered form standing on the fringes of the men’s group. In the greenish light of the nighttime Ihr, surrounded by somber gray shadows of the mountains, he looked tired, and at the same time, unbreakable. There was quiet energy about him that didn’t spout forth like a fountain but flowed, full as a river. He had an unbeatable will to live, to push forward, against all odds. Against his own better judgment. The mere sight of him grounded her.
Chapter 21
After Wixab’s backpack was brought to Illied, women and men distributed its contents among themselves to help carry them for her. It was all the tribe could do for Illied’s family in the wake of her loss.
Chemmusaayl gave a signal, and the tribe started their ascent through the narrow passage hugged tightly on both sides by craggy gray stones.
The path was steep and the walking surface was littered with sharp loose rocks that practically invited ankles to twist. The passage was very narrow in places - so much so that the men had to take off their wide backpacks and turn them sideways to make them fit in between the encroaching walls of stone.
Their pace had slowed down significantly, but it was a welcome change to Addie.
“How much longer?” She heard Oh’na ask Chele from behind.
“We’ll keep going until we reach the caves. There isn’t a way to camp out in this passage, Oh’na.”
“But how much longer till the caves?” Oh’na’s voice held a whiny note in it.
