The Curse of Deadman's Forest (37 page)

They walked as softly as they could, listening intently to the sounds of the forest. Periodically, there were short bursts of noise—gunfire, shouts, screams of terror. Ian knew that wherever these sounds were coming from, Lachestia was at their center, and he was grateful that for the moment, all of them seemed to be well away from where the dial was leading them.

After a time, Ian thought he began to recognize their surroundings, and as they emerged from behind a huge tree, he was certain that the small patch of gray and red in the distance was Eva’s cottage.

“We’re nearly there,” he said encouragingly to the wounded man.

“I don’t know how much farther I can go,” confessed the soldier.

With his free arm, Ian pointed. “Do you see that? We just need to make it to that cottage and you’ll be right as rain.”

The soldier said nothing more as they moved stealthily
ever closer to the little house. But when they got to the yard, Ian stopped short. He heard someone wailing desperately from inside, and felt his heart plummet. “Oh, no!” he whispered, immediately worried that something had happened to Theo or Carl.

“What is it?” the soldier groaned, clutching his side in pain.

But Ian couldn’t take time to explain. Instead, he lowered the soldier carefully to the ground, promising, “I’ll be right back!” And then he dashed as fast as he could to the house, throwing open the door.

The inside presented a chaotic scene. It appeared that every stick of furniture had been damaged or destroyed. Clothing was torn and strewn about, and bits of china lay scattered all across the floor.

In the center of the mess sat Eva, cradling the prone figure of her grandmother and rocking back and forth while she wailed pitifully. Next to her sat Theo, trying her best to comfort the girl. In the corner sat Carl, teary eyed and looking terribly forlorn until he saw Ian, at which point he shouted and flew out of his chair, rushing over to his friend.

“Ian! You’re all right!”

Ian offered him a half smile and assured him that he was fine. No sooner had he done so than he felt Theo wrap her arms tightly about his waist. “Thank heavens,” she said. “I was desperately worried!”

“I’m quite well,” he insisted, his eyes never straying from Eva, who continued to cry inconsolably and hug her grandmother. Ian saw now how pale and lifeless the old woman
was and he understood with a terrible certainty what must have happened.

“We came back and found her like that,” Carl whispered. “Poor old thing—she never had a chance.”

“Eva feels responsible,” Theo whispered. “She believes that if she’d been here when the soldiers came that she could have saved her grandmother.”

Ian shook his head. “She’d have been killed too,” he told her, loudly enough for Eva to hear.

The poor Polish girl lifted her head, tears running down both cheeks, and she sobbed, “I’m too late! Too late!”

Ian gave Theo’s shoulder a squeeze, moved over to Eva, and squatted down next to her. “It’s not your fault,” he said gently. “The soldiers would have killed you too if you’d been here.”

Eva continued to sob and bowed her head, lost in her grief. Ian stood and addressed his friends quietly. “Lachestia is killing anything that moves out in the forest,” he told them. “She very nearly had me, but a group of soldiers distracted her.”

“What happened to the soldiers?” Carl asked.

“She killed them all,” he said frankly. “Except the man who helped save our lives. He was shot by his own colonel and left to die.”

“The sergeant who pretended to shoot us?” Theo asked in amazement.

Ian nodded. “I’ve brought him back here.”

“You’ve brought him
here?”
Carl demanded. “Why would you do such a blooming foolish thing, mate?”

Ian shifted uncomfortably. “He saved our lives, Carl. We owe him as much.”

“He’s the
enemy!”
Carl shouted angrily. “And he or his mates did
that
to Eva’s grandmother!” Carl pointed at the poor lifeless woman on the ground.

Ian sighed and turned to look at the yard. Through the door he could see the soldier still lying where he’d left him, struggling just to remain still while the wound in his abdomen caused him great pain. “We have to help him,” Theo said, and Ian noticed that she too was peering outside.

Carl threw his hands up. “I’ll have nothing to do with it!”

Ian looked at Eva, who had obviously overheard their conversation. Gently, she lowered the lifeless body of her grandmother, smoothed out her hair, and got up. “Where is he?” she asked softly.

Ian felt a rush of relief. “He’s just inside the yard,” he said quickly. “I know that you can heal him, Eva. The crone passed her gift on to you—”

Ian was cut short when Eva moved past him through the door. It was only then that he noticed she’d picked up a poker from near the fireplace and was walking with purpose toward the soldier.

“No!” shouted Theo. “Ian, stop her!”

Ian flew out of the cottage after Eva with Carl and Theo close on his heels. He reached the Polish girl quickly and grabbed for the poker, but Eva was stronger and more determined than he expected. She held on to her weapon firmly and pushed and shoved and kicked at Ian for all she was
worth. “Stop it!” he yelled at her. “Stop it, Eva! He didn’t do this! He’s not the one who killed your grandmother!” With one final tug he managed to wrench the poker out of her hand, and he flung it away to land in the grass nearby.

Eva reacted by lunging at Ian, attacking him with her fists and her feet, pummeling, kicking, and beating him, all the while crying uncontrollably. He braced himself as best he could and took her blows without protest. He allowed her every kick, every punch until the poor girl was exhausted. And then he took her by the shoulders firmly but gently and forced her to look at him. “It won’t bring her back.”

Eva collapsed into his arms, clinging to him while she sobbed. He’d comforted Theo enough over the years to know how to pat Eva’s back gently and tell her it was going to be all right.

But the moment was cut short when a hoarse and unsettling voice broke the stillness of the woods. “Well, well, well! What have we here?”

Ian immediately let go of Eva and turned defensively toward the voice that he knew all too well.

On the other side of the lawn stood the cloaked, smoky figure of Magus the Black. “How delightful to find such a prize within the forest!”

“Theo,” Ian whispered urgently while still facing Magus, “take Eva. Get to the portal. Run as fast as you can, and do not look back.”

“What about you?” she asked desperately.

“Don’t worry about me,” he told her firmly. “Now go!”

Theo took Eva by the hand and began to run. No sooner had they taken a few steps away than Ian raced to the nearby poker, picking it up to raise it above his head and run straight at the sorcerer. He had taken only three strides when he felt his insides begin to burn. He fought against the pain and forced himself to take two more steps. The heat increased and he doubled over, shaking as he struggled to hold on to the poker in his hand.

Behind him he heard a scream and smelled the oaky scent of burning leaves. Ian gulped for air and lifted his foot, wobbling as he pushed forward one additional step. Then another. Then another. He was within ten feet of the sorcerer, who smiled delightedly at him, exposing those horrible jagged teeth. “Well, well,” said the sorcerer again as Ian raised his shaking hand, holding the poker. “It’s not everyone who can ignore the pain of my heat, but then, no mortal has ever stood against the full power of my touch.” With that, the sorcerer raised his arms. Ian focused hard through the increasing waves of pain radiating through him. He lifted his weapon higher and took one … more … step.

In the next instant, a mass of movement approached from the forest, and abruptly, the pain coursing through him vanished. The switch was so immediate that it left Ian frightfully dizzy, and he fell to the ground while the world about him swirled and chaos quickly followed.

I
an lay on his back, gasping for air. As he stared upward, his vision began to close in around him, but he fought against the darkness. And then Carl was beside him, tugging on Ian’s arm. “Get up!” he commanded. “Come on, mate! Get to your feet and run!”

Ian reached for Carl’s hand and was yanked to his feet. He immediately became aware of dozens of men charging through the yard, running for their lives, shouting in terror. In the chaos, he realized that Magus the Black had been derailed from finishing him off by a cluster of men who had all barreled into him on their mad dash through the forest.

Ian decided not to wait around for the sorcerer to recover himself. Instead, he forced his feet to move as Carl continued to yank on his arm, hurrying in the direction he’d sent Theo and Eva. But then he remembered the poor wounded soldier and he turned to see the man also struggling to get up. He looked desperate and terrified and Ian knew he couldn’t leave him behind.

He pulled away from Carl and darted over to the soldier. “We’ll have to run,” he said as he swung the soldier’s arm about his neck. “But it’s not far. And then we’ll get you to a doctor as quickly as possible,” he assured him.

The man groaned when they began to move. “The curse!” he said hoarsely. “It’s coming!”

As if to confirm that statement, a loud rumble echoed from the forest and Ian heard screams as men were sucked under the earth by the terrible sorceress just below the surface. Ian risked looking back as the shouting and cries of panic intensified. The noise sounded as if it was coming closer, and to his astonishment, he saw Magus the Black free himself from the tangle of soldiers and swirling soil that had entered the yard. “Arise, my sister!” Magus commanded. “Arise and greet your brother, for I have come to fr—”

The sorcerer said no more. Instead, just like all the others, he was sucked unceremoniously belowground.

Ian wanted to laugh, and if he hadn’t been so afraid of the approaching sorceress, he would have stopped to applaud. But he had to get everyone to the portal and the soldier was slowing him down. Just as Ian began to wonder if they’d reach it in time, Carl appeared and pulled the man up by the other shoulder. “It’s that way!” Carl told Ian, pointing to an outcropping of rock with a small cave at its center, just visible through two massive tree trunks.

Ian squinted and saw the figures of Theo and Eva crouch and dart into the cave. He prayed that the portal would be open and that at the very least, the girls would reach safety.
He also hoped that the hellhound would be gone from the other side when they got through.

The rumbling behind them grew louder. “The soil!” Carl shouted, and Ian could feel it too. The dirt underneath their feet began to loosen and become slippery.

“Keep going!” Ian ordered. “We’ve got to make it to the portal!”

Ahead of them Theo appeared from the mouth of the cave. Spotting them, she shouted, “Run! Run for your lives! The portal is open!”

Ian gritted his teeth; the soldier was having a terrible time keeping up with the younger boys’ strides. “Let me go!” the German panted. “Drop me and save yourselves!”

“We’re almost there!” Carl shouted. “Come on, mate! We can make it!”

Fast footfalls approached. Someone was running up right behind them, but Ian dared not look back to see who it was, lest he lose some of the forward momentum they needed to reach the portal. The footsteps continued, coming closer and closer, until he was sure the stranger would run right into them, but at the last moment, there was a loud shriek and a gasp of pain and surprise, and then the footfalls were no more.

“She’s right behind us!” Carl yelled.

“Run, run, run!” Theo begged.

And then the surging energy bubbling along behind them seemed to swell the ground underneath, and Ian, Carl, and the soldier were pushed upward with the earth before it
moved forward and away. Ian could hardly believe their luck! Somehow the sorceress had missed the trio, but his relief was short lived, because in the next instant, a great explosion thrust dirt and fire high into the air and he and his companions were thrown sideways.

They landed in a tumble, and Ian, struggling to untangle his limbs from Carl and the soldier, sat up only to discover Magus the Black, smeared with dirt, his black cloak smoldering with hot embers, standing angrily not ten meters away.

He barely had time to take in the sight when Lachestia herself shot to the surface, spraying her brother with even more sticky wet clods.

“Enough!” Magus roared at her, and a flame shot out of his palm, scorching the sorceress’s branchlike arm.

Lachestia hissed and buried her limb in the ground, dousing the flame. “Three
thousand
years, Magus?” she screeched, her voice sending a chill down Ian’s spine. “You left me here for
three thousand years?”

“I had not the means to free you, you fool!” he shouted back at her. “And if you had taken care to kill your
own
mother at birth like the rest of us, then you would never have been imprisoned from the start!”

Ian felt a tug on his shirt and tore his eyes away from the warring siblings now circling each other menacingly. “Let’s go!” Carl whispered.

Ian reached for the soldier, who was still lying in the dirt. “Leave me!” he mouthed.

Ian shook his head firmly and he lifted the man’s arm
over his head. “Now, come on,” he whispered. “We’ve only a short way to go.”

Carl took the other side and together they lifted the wounded man and the three set off, crouching low while giving Magus and Lachestia a wide berth.

The sorcerer was still trying to reason with his sister. “The time for our sire’s uprising is at hand!” he said, darting away when the blind sorceress tried to tackle him.

“What do I care for Demogorgon’s idle causes?” she spat.

“You will care when he is free from the underworld!” Magus argued, throwing another burst of flame just to the left of his sister when she got too near.

Ian’s heart was racing. They were very close to the portal now, and it seemed that Magus and Lachestia were far too preoccupied with each other to notice them.