Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 5

Unable to relax, I listen to the low breathing of the men and Kel's snoring. I've never been so tired but sleep won't come. The wolf dog's breath blows against the back of my neck. Tug must have him in the fur throws beside him. I fight against my glued eyes, unable to open them. At first, I thought Tug blinded us out of superstition, because he believed our physical sight assisted our 'powers'. But he is not afraid of the glitter-eyes like Brin and most Carucans. For Tug, it is a matter of practicality: I can't see; I can't hunt. Only a fool would try to get Kel away from them now.

I reach for my lodestone necklace, press my finger into one end of the two-sided arrow. It is my compass and my guide through these wastelands, always pointing to the Bright Star when set on a floating leaf. Clinging to it, I eventually fall into a fitful sleep, still holding on.

The next three days we trek through an ever-shifting landscape, following the frozen river as it curls south-west through the Silvana hills, hills my father has pointed out many times from the glacial mountains. Tug binds our hands with thick rope every morning and we are dragged blindly along beside the sled, which scrapes across the narrow river as the two men pull their catch of deer, rabbit, and the injured wolf dog. Far easier the frozen river than hauling it across land.

Kel grows quieter and quieter. At first I draw memories around him, trying to offer comfort, but it does no good. He worries about our parents, and all hope he had of my being able to rescue him has vanished. Only at night does he pull close to me, wrap his arms around me and hold on as if I might disappear.

It is as I lie resting beside him, listening to his gentle breathing, and the men sit out by the fire, that I travel into their pasts, hoping to learn something that will show me a way out of this. Each night, I skim through their recent memories of the day's progress, matching my own interpretation of the shifting ground, the sounds of the forest, the change in the wind, with their mental images of the landscape. Through their eyes I see where we are headed. I memorize the angle of the sun and the peaks of the mountains, drawing a map in my mind of our progress. After I have done this, I search their lives for useful information.

Brin is an opportunist, born in the lands between Delladea and Rangrain, two northern forts on the tree line. Both forts are isolated from the rest of the Kingdom, and Brin's village lay outside the forts, outside the protection of any lord. It was often raided. Two of his younger brothers starved to death when they were children. He was thrown out by his father to make his own way in the world when he was twelve, struggled, thieved and served a vast array of cruel benefactors.

Tug is infinitely more complex. Just when I think I have figured him out, some other passage from his past muddles it all up again. He has been both street-fighter and soldier, low-life drunk and strategist in noble circles. He has fought in campaigns that have gone far south to the Kingdom of Etea and far north, across the tundra, to the Kingdom of Rudeash. He guards many secrets, secrets he hides easily from my sight as though in some distant past he began purposefully concealing them from Uru Ana like me.

On the fourth day, we reach signs of civilisation and eat lunch, concealed from the river in an abandoned stone home. Brin and Tug do not build a fire. They move about silently, alert to signs of other hunters roaming the forest. From time to time a memory flashes in the mind-world, like lights on the horizon at the onset of winter. Ordinarily, our captors would have no trouble defending themselves against thieves and thugs; it is unlikely they would even be approached. But Kel and I, blinded and bound would arouse interest.

I'm sitting beside my brother, licking the tiny bones of a half-thawed mudfish when Tug approaches with his wet dog and sweat stink, liquid sloshing in a skin flask. Kel drinks first, swallowing and spluttering.

"Drink," Tug orders. I hold my hands still. The rope presses into grooves where it has rubbed my wrists raw. What's going on? The flask is pushed to my lips and smells terrible. Liquid sets my throat on fire.

"This is going to hurt," he says. The next thing I know, a toxic-smelling cloth smothers me. Tug rubs the damp fabric into my eyes. It sears like he's peeling the skin off my eyeballs. I panic. His hand claps over my mouth to stop me screaming. I fight, but Tug grips my wounded arm, which sets a new flare of lightning pain throughout my shoulder. I stop squirming so that he'll let go.

"Almost done," he says. "But if you scream again I'll knock your teeth out." I nod, wanting this over with.

It finally ends. I scrabble to scrape up snow from the ground and pack it on my eyes. The agony ebbs, and I am left weeping pus. Dusky light weaves between my half-closed lashes, but they are no longer stuck together. I can see again. Sort of.

"Hold the boy," Tug says.

"No, please, please," I beg. "Let me do it." Kel's small fingers cling to my leg, and he whimpers. "Please," I say. Through a blurry haze, I see Tug nod at Brin, drop the wet cloth into my lap, and the two of them stroll away.

The idea of hurting Kel scorches a hole right through me. But I'd prefer he clings to me, that I am the one to talk him through the pain, than watch Brin hold him down while Tug dissolves the glue.

My tied hands make the job awkward. I dab Kel's eyes, let him rub his eyelids with snow, then repeat when he is ready. His body trembles and pus oozes between his lashes, but he does not yelp or cry out. Which is just as well. Tug wouldn't hesitate to come and shut him up.

As I work, I whisper to him that it's going to be all right. Though I know I'm a liar. It's not all right. I haven't stopped them doing this to him. And I'm starting to believe both of us will be sold into strange cities, slaved, and left to live miserable lives where the opportunities of ever seeing each other again will dwindle to nothing. But I cannot ask him to keep hoping, if I give up. What chance does he have then? I will not live in the knowledge that my brother, not yet six years old, has been ruined, broken into a husk of his self, driven into apathy and hopelessness.

Pa once told me that a man who fights monsters must be careful he does not become one. Men risk turning into the very thing that nearly destroys them. Brin had his boyhood stolen and now he is the monster doing the stealing. I don't know what happened to Tug to rip his heart from his chest. But I must find out. Because he is the one I need to break if I am to save Kel.