Post date: May 27, 2017 11:54:00 PM
Caradorynee: Kin
#3
It was now Star’s turn to catch her breath but before she could say anything there was a loud commotion.
Lark’s head swivelled to the left. “We have to go.”
Star’s heart skipped a beat. Go! Go where?
Lark took the bowl from her hands and hastily stashed it within the folds of his robe. He rose just as a familiar roar echoed off the walls surrounding them.
Pouriecolt!
“There are numerous ways out of this cave, but we have to be quick. Come!” He commanded and turned to flee into the darkness.
Star hesitated, fear gripping her legs as if they were encased in hardened lava. Another roar echoed through the cavern and was answered by bellows and calls of so many variations of noise that Star’s throat clogged. Exactly how many beasts were after them?
“Child!”
Lark’s sharply barked demand snapped Star from her stupor. Her legs started to move even though her eyes could see nothing but blackness. Then a light suddenly appeared. No, not a light, the soft glow of Lark’s body’s outline. Orange and shimmering.
Star blindly followed him. Her feet tripping over the uneven surface of the cave’s rocky floor. She stumbled several times and went down hard, scrapping the palms of her hands as they raked the cave walls for purchase.
A cry escaped her lips. Both of her knees banged abruptly against the jagged rocks and a jolt of pain shot up her back.
Reaching upward she desperately felt along the wall to her right, and then pulled herself to her feet once more. Star staggered when a stabbing pain ripped from her kneecap down her shin. She swayed and bashed her right shoulder against cold, slick rock. She gasped and her heart raced. She wet her lips and tried to swallow. She couldn’t, her fear was too great.
“This way,” Lark’s voice called. “Hurry.”
Star thrust the throbbing of her knees to the back of her mind. She began running again and veered to her right following the direction of Lark’s clipped words.
She had to get her fear under control but how? Pouriecolts! She could hear them gaining on her.
The passageway suddenly narrowed. Star paused and reached out to touch the walls. Moist droplets clung to her fingertips as she pressed her hands against the rock feeling her way cautiously forward.
“Too slow!” Larked barked. “Faster or you die!”
The word ‘die’ had Star snapping to attention. She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. She just needed a bloody moment. There, she had it. Her mind cleared and her desire to survive kicked in, big time.
“Almost there.”
Her mind now keen and alert, Star fled down the passageway, her feet uncommonly agile as she swiftly followed Lark’s rough voice.
The passageway narrowed further. Star didn’t stop her pace although she could feel the walls now on either side of her becoming closer and closer until she had to stop and squeeze herself sideways.
Lark halted and waited for her to catch up.
The passageway had opened up enough that they could stand side-by-side with their arms stretched out.
He reached quickly into his robe and withdrew the chipped bowl. He smashed the bowl against the wall and quickly snatched the shards before they could fall to the cave floor. He thrust the shards in her direction.
“Defend yourself. Don’t forget you still have your knife. I’ll be back.”
“What?” Star shouted, her hands automatically taking the largest and sharpest piece of the cracked pottery.
“You have my blood. You will survive.”
And with that said, Lark pressed a hand to her face. Star’s check burned and then a sensation very similar to how she had felt during the Shegata marking ceremony engulfed her whole body. A moment later Lark was gone.
Star expected the darkness to fold around her but as Lark’s figure faded a soft glow appeared out of the blackness.
The glow was her. Somehow Lark had activated her Shegata markings.
A growl in the near distance had Star searching the enclosed passageway for some form of crevice or crack. If she could find a hiding place maybe the beasts after her would pass on by.
She reached for her knife. A sense of relief rushed over her when her fingers met the familiar leather of the sheath. Star quickly pulled ‘Mr. Bladey’ out and rotated the handle in her hand so that she could thrust the blade at any given moment. She clutched the pottery shard in her left hand.
The growl was nearing. She didn’t have much time.
Star scanned the walls, her eyes failing to locate any place she could hide. She looked up. Her eyes instantly fixing on an irregular shaped rock that jutted out from the rock wall. Then her eyes found another and another. They stretched up the rock face at approximately every two feet.
Star put the knife handle and shard in her mouth and clamped her teeth down as tight as she could. She grabbed the closest irregular rock and hoisted herself upward. The toes of her boots scrapped along the wall for a second then found a steady grip. She pushed herself up. She grabbed another rock and continued higher until she located a thin shelf of rock big enough that she could stand on.
Hoping the shelf would support her weight Star tested it first with a solid pull of her hands. When the shelf did not come away from the wall, she pulled herself up onto it and sat for a moment. Then she got to her feet and pressed her back against the wall. Dampness seeped into her clothing, steam rising slightly from the heat of her body.
She removed the knife and shard from her mouth, rubbed the clay taste from her tongue onto her sleeve, and with her heart pounding she waited.
©Human in Inhuman Worlds by Janet Merritt