Hawk's Nest (Tremble Island) (10 page)

He dared not give voice to his worry over Lark. Since the two people were missing, it was obvious they had been taken together and should Pladrin recognize Lark, he would believe that he, Zurcho, would now fall in line to become another minion of Demons. He fought down the grief over the potential loss of his beloved friend and lover. Lark would be the first to tell him not to fall in with the evil ones. Now he had to deal with the Witch Fern, if her story was to be believed, Copper in a former life. His ancestor had killed a woman that was a potential mate because they were enemies? The reasons sounded skewed to him, and he wanted clarification before he committed himself to the cantankerous, bitterly confused, sassy mouthed female. The fact she was the most beautiful woman he had seen in his lifetime, was going into the equation also. Could he convince her that he, not she, would be the dominant one should they find solid ground to a satisfactory mating? She would make a magnificent partner in bed with the passions she unknowingly displayed. All of that built up emotion and fire could be his, if he could find words sweet enough to soothe her hurt feelings. Their children would be unmatched in face and… Such thoughts had to be shelved until he found his missing Lark. “
One problem at a time
,
old boy,
think of what’s in front of you
.”

Hawk took him to the sleeping room of Fern, with the advice, “If you hope to mate with the Witch, or gain her cooperation, show her the man that you are from the start. A woman will forgive a man most things, lies are not one of them.”

He stood for a moment to gather his thoughts, then opened the door.

Con refused to wait for the forces of Hawk’s Nest to gather and make the trek to Klonslow Hall. Hawk was the only one who had seen his alternate nature and at this moment, Hawk had to fight by the rules. His Amazons had not been tested against a true enemy as of yet, nor had most of the men who filled the ranks as defenders of the Hall. The terrified screams of the villagers filled the air as they watched the quiet giant friend of Lord Hawk step into the village square and transform into a true gigantic winged beast, the likes of which had never been seen on the island before. There had been tales of the giant beings whispered about, and many speculated on the nature of unusual screams and roars or trumpets in the night. Until now the beasts of old were said to be legends. This was no figment of anyone’s imagination.

The beast resembled a Dragon, yet had a head larger than two men. His feet and claws resembled those of a bear, but without hair or digits. There was claws, sharp log claws that could cleave a man in two should the beast decide to slap a wayward body from its path. The tail was easily as long as the training yard and crowned with thick round plates that resembled discs. The disk-like plates went up his neck and stopped at the blue crowned piece on top of its skull. Leathery scales covered the entire body of the being, and most cringed as it raised its head and roared its message of warning into the waning light of day. The creature took two giant hops forward, scattering gawking onlookers, and launched itself into the sky, opening his wings that had no room on the ground to expand. Hawk watched from the open doors of the Hall. He wished he had the freedom to go right this minute, but he had to have safety precautions in place here to protect the Hall and village, should they find themselves under attack. Quinlan was given his assignment and ten of the shifters volunteered to fight to retake the Witch Flora. He refused the four human Amazons enthusiastic responses and told them they would only slow them down. “You needn’t feel as if I discount your abilities or loyalty, someone needs to stay and defend the Hall and village. Quinlan will be in charge of the Hall in my and Con’s absence. You have seen Lord Con’s second nature, do you doubt his ability to level the place we go to before we get there? I will feel lucky if he leaves me one or two evil ones to fight to make me feel as if I still retain my manhood.” There were quiet laughs at his complaints, just as he had planned for. It was in fact a sad truth. Con was not in a mood to listen, and there had been nothing he could say that would stop him. He and the winged Amazons took to the skies, while five of the shifting men wore their furry hides to pace the forest floor in search of enemies along the way.

*****

Just as Lark began to believe they had been forgotten in their filthy dirt pit, the door was opened and two burly unwashed men came to pull them from the prison. They were pulled behind the jailers and it became a game of keep pace, or be dragged. By the time they came into the cavernous room, even their captors were out of breath from the long trek up the steps from the bowels of the dirt prison. They were stripped of their coverings and tied, arms and legs spread on a square wooden frame each.

There was not an inch of Flora’s body that had not been fondled during the disrobing and tying up process. She did her best not to cringe each time she felt the filthy hands pinching her flesh, especially the dusky crowns of her breasts. The last man pinched her nipples without remorse for the scream he elicited from her lips, and twisted the abused nubs to prolong her pain. The crack of a whip made him cease his play as the flesh on his exposed shoulder began to bleed, and he gave her an even crueler look before he turned to Lark. The man might deserve her wrath, but Lark did not deserve the crushing grasp that was put on limp prick and stones. His scream was ear shattering and she wanted to help him, but had no means to do so without giving herself away as a Witch. He warned her not to expose her ability, and seeing how they treated prisoners, she knew he spoke the truth. She tried to block the sounds of him retching the bile from his guts as the audience laughed. While they busied themselves torturing him, she searched out any possible energy from the immediate area, but could feel nothing. It was puzzling that Echo seemed dead in this place. Perhaps the occupants had drained all of the goodness from nature’s bounty and Echo, leaving a hopeless miserable place where nothing but evil could survive.

Last night she had laid her hands on Lark and shared a small press of energy into his chest. “I am still mad at you, but this little bit might help you when the time comes and you may need it.” He had been humble in his thanks but she knew he believed they would die here. His greatest fear was that Lord Pladrin would use him to gain the Wizard’s alliance.

A large brutish man was coming toward her and in his hand was a whip. His grin was friendly, yet his eyes appeared dead. This must be the evil Lord and he was intent on her. She met his eyes with her own, refusing to look away. Whatever he did to her body would not affect her mind, or the woman inside, and as soon as she found a source to draw energy, she would send him to the demons he came from. He walked around to the side and went behind where she hung. She heard the lash before she felt its sting, and hissed through the pain as he continued to stripe her back, buttocks, and thighs with the thin tailed weapon. She had long since given up her ability to remain silent before he was finished turning her skin into a bizarre map of red welts and bloody rivers. When Lark began to scream as the whip worked its way up and down his backside in the same pattern as it had done to hers, she wept for the man. She looked toward him and watched as the meanest of the captors carved small chunks of flesh from his ribs and yanked them away.

There was a sound louder than the level of merriment being made in the room, coming from outside of the Hall. The second time the roar sounded, people were rushing through the doors, searching for safety inside the stone walls of Klonslow Hall. The cruel man rapidly transformed into a huge bear and went through the door into the darkness with five other animals of a size and nature to deal with any threat imaginable. Screams cut through the darkness and Pladrin roared in madness. He became the ugliest creature Flora had ever seen. He was of the size of Con in his human form, and had very wide thick shoulders and his arms hung almost to the ground. He swayed from side to side walking out of the door. His black furred body sported a large red ass that resembled lips, and if she was not in such pain, she would have laughed. Several people near her cringed, as he roared and beat on his chest, on his way out of the Hall. The roars and screams of the animals still outside of the Hall were frightening. Lark was passed out from the abuse his body had taken, but she knew he still lived by the shallow rise and fall of his chest. Several more creatures and human minions left the Hall to aid their Overlord, but the screams never stopped. When huge blocks from the uppermost story of the Hall began to tumble and shake ground when they fell, a few women screamed, but most remained deathly silent. They often heard a huge thud sound and it was followed by a scream cut short. A few brave souls watched through the small windows as blocks and boulders mowed down the Hall’s defenders. Still the loudest roar continued every few minutes causing shudders to trail down the spines of those gathered inside the rapidly crumbling structure. When the ceiling began to crumble, panic reigned inside the Hall. Screams and pained grunts from falling rock connecting with flesh and bones, added to the chaos as they decided to brave the darkness, rather than be left buried beneath the ruins of the place. Flora prayed to the Goddess to send deliverance. Lark had a new gash on the side of his head from a falling block. And she was stabbed by several shards of shattered rock over her chest and abused back. Her energy level was so depleted that she was close to passing out too.

The sounds from outside were still deafening, the screams and moans from the few people too frightened to leave the building soon quieted once the ceiling had stopped falling into the room. Someone was cutting the bindings on her wrists and ankles, while another held her body from dropping to the floor. She was too drained to see who held her or watch as Lark was taken down from his bindings too. Their rescuers took them from the building and carried them deep into the woods, away from the Hall, and laid them on a bed of soft grass.

Hawk and his soldiers got to Klonslow Hall in time to see the pissed off Raptor mowing down men with boulders and blocks of stone. He had a hairy human-like figure between his jaws, but still continued to tear the Hall down block after block. He took careful aim and crushed one of the figures running toward his perch, with a large stone to the head. Hawk flew by Con to let him know that help had arrived, but Con was busily knocking the building down brick by brick. The Amazons were truly a magnificent sight. They fought with swords and talons. Hammers and teeth, they fought with no hesitation. He engaged an enemy and just finished him off, when he became aware of running feet coming his way, he looked up in time to see the Amazon some called Swift, take a flying leap over his bent body. He turned in time to see her sword embed itself into an enemy intent upon Hawk’s back. The man had not considered the female a threat, or had not lost his focus on the murder of Hawk, either way he did not live long enough to rethink his actions. Sadly, Swift took the stab of his sword into her side. He only had time to move her to a small tree stump, with her sword and skin of water. He clasped her arm and nodded at her with a small smile, then left to rejoin the fight.

By the time small fingers of light began to filter through the darkness blending morning into the night, there was not a hovel standing. The pile of bodies burning in the pit of what was left of Klonslow Hall continued to be fed as the residents’ lifeless bodies were added to the flames. Con still wore his Raptor nature and continued to carry the ape being between his jaws as he stomped through the ruins. Hawk had tried to talk to the gigantic creature, but was ignored. The one thing Hawk noticed in this strange place was the absence of children. His forces would not have killed a child purposefully, but they didn’t have to worry about watching out for them, there were none. His grief over not finding Flora was hard to contain. The certainty that she was a captive in this evil place, and not finding her, made him wish to smash something, when he looked around, there was nothing left to smash.

He went to stand in front of Con, “Give me the coward, we have not found Flora. I will cut his stones off and make him eat them.” The ape hung limp in the jaws clamped over it, and Hawk hoped the bastard was not yet dead. He needed to kill the scum, anything to satisfy the grief clawing at his guts. The weary Hawk’s Nest defenders stood idly by watching their Overlord argue with the creature that had singularly dismantled the large stone Hall and used its residents as target practice with the rocks he had taken from the structure. None wished to tangle with the huge beast. Many turned their backs, allowing their eyes to scan the perimeter of the village, rather than watch Lord Hawk waving his sword and demanding the Raptor to comply with his authority.

Those that watched the Raptor sit on his haunches, pluck the creature from its jaws, and dangle it by a leg for Hawk to share, would have hours of recounting to do from this day over the coming years.

He was alive, his back was bent, and his limbs were hanging at odd angles, but he was breathing. Hawk grinned, finally, he would get his answers as to the whereabouts of his mate. “I know you can understand me, you can come back and die as a man, or lie in death as you are, I care nothing for your pain, you will die today.”

The eyes of the evil creature closed and he took a deep breath and then another before his body began to change. The way his back was angled told the tale of severed nerves, and the sight of half man/half ape was as good as the man could do. He had no feeling or control of his lower limbs. He still defied Hawk’s demands for answers, thinking he would receive a quick death. He whispered because he could not make his voice heard by all. “She welcomed the kiss of the lash, begged me for more as I licked the blood from her skin.”

Hawk took his side knife, ready to carve the teeth from the man’s head when he saw two bedraggled individuals hanging on each other, making their way toward him. He recognized the flame colored hair at once, turned to the Raptor and said, “She is found,” and pointed to a spot beyond the long tail. He left the evil one to his friend and ran to meet his mate and the one she was helping to make their way along the rock littered path.

She had no idea how she found the strength to crawl to a rock and pull herself to her knees and then to a standing position. Lark lay on his side holding his abused sac, moaning and silently crying. “Lark, Lark, come, use what you have left and let us be gone from this place. We will help each other to walk away, come on, we must move.” Her voice must have penetrated the pain-filled fog in his brain, the man rolled onto his hands and knees, gasping as he did so. He crawled to the rock and like she did, used it to pull himself into a standing position. After several minutes of breathing deep and attempting to bolster one another with words of encouragement, they started the journey. When they saw they had actually come back to the very last place that either of them wished to be, Flora hung her head in despair. Her head jerked back up when she heard Hawk yelling at someone, and she hugged Lark closer to her telling him, “It is Lord Hawk, he has come to rescue us.” She screamed as strong arms came around her body, picking her up to hold close.

Hawk let go when she screamed in his ear. He stepped back and brought his hands up to see the dirt-caked blood on them, and he walked around the cringing pair. Her backside was a ruin of bloody stripes and welts, and now as he took in the entire picture in front of him, the man was in worse physical condition than she was. He shouted, “
Kill him
, and hurry up about it,” to Con. He would not take the time away from his mate to give the bastard a swift death, if he walked away from her to kill him he would be hacking at his bones for hours, such was his rage. He held her head in his hands and touched his lips to hers.

He didn’t hear the cheer from the defenders as the man’s head exploded in a bright red bloom of color over the grey rock next to the fire. Nor did he care that when the body was added to the burning pile of evil creatures, the fire shot higher than the trees surrounding the settlement. A few embers landed on the bloody rock and greedily ate the wet coating before burning out.

Con thumped his way to their side. His forked tongue shot out to gently lick at the ugly welts on her back and shoulders. His huge head went skyward and he loosened such a deafening roar that it woke Lark from his numb trance, and she patted his neck to soothe his grief. She was in pain wanting to find the nearest clean river, so she told Hawk, “Please, the swiftest river is what I need to heal most of the hurts. Lark needs his Master’s care, and the rest need care too. I can do nothing, my energy is almost gone.”

As the words left her mouth Con curled his tail and wrapped it around her, lifted her and deposited her onto the wide expanse of his back, Hawk showed her how to hold onto the base of the first disc marching up the Raptor’s neck. He kissed her again, and patted Con’s back, before leaping down and standing back to get out of the way of Con’s wings. She would get to her river faster on the back of the giant creature than with any other transport. He knew it, but he felt the duties of being the Overlord of Hawk’s Nest laying heavily on his being. He hoped there would be few times that he must choose between his mate and the responsibilities of his office. The award of becoming the Lord of his new home had filled him with pride and purpose, but this test of his worthiness of the title was almost too much to ask. If Con had not been there to take her for healing, he wondered if his resolve would have wavered. Thankfully he did not have to make the choice.

He called the defenders together to assess their injuries and arrange transport for the injured. Swift had lost a great deal of blood, but she tried to stand with the others until he spied her and ordered her to lie with the injured. He wondered if she would take kindly to her new position as bodyguard to Flora. Knowing the woman’s fierce nature, she might not like the day to day boredom, yet he would trust no other to keep her safe.