Tales of the Journeyman. The Golden Arch

Chapter 4 The Warp

Chapter 4.  The Warp.

Fred struggled to free his ankle from the painful, biting grip when, to his dismay, the other foot was grabbed in the same vice like clamp. He was helpless as he was lifted bodily off the ground, vainly clawing the air with his hands to clutch on to anything that might prevent his captor from dragging him away. In desperation he reached for the floor and the sides of the tunnel but to no avail.

Fred was carried back along the right hand fork of the eerie passageway, no longer able to see Hannah ahead of him. He saw the darkness sweep on past the mouth of the fork and feared that Hannah would be overcome by its swift tide. He groaned and twisted his body in an attempt to see who or what had hold of him. The force of his movement backwards prevented him from turning around far enough to see anything. It seemed that his journey was never going to end but after two or three minutes they came to a stop.

Fred was thrown roughly to the ground and for the first time caught sight of his abductors. There were two of them. Squat-like figures, muscular and broad shouldered with sparse, rough hair covering most of their bodies. It was their faces that filled the boy with terror. They had wide skull shaped heads with a deep furrow dividing the head from just above the eyebrows. Evil, slanted eyes that burned red from sunken sockets. Their large pointed ears were bat-like ending in tufts of hair and their bodies were a ghastly grey green colour. Fred shivered as he noticed that they had nasty short swords at their belts and a sort of metal breast plate held by leather straps over bare shoulders.

Unbeknown to Fred,these were in fact the Vurbats that Fearic had described to Hannah. The creatures appeared to be conversing in low guttural tones. They turned their captive and bound him hand and foot with short lengths of rough rope and he was slung like a sack of potatoes over the shoulder of the tallest one. Powerless to do anything now, the boy was carried on down the tunnel occasionally catching a glimpse of the legs and bare feet of the following captor.

After what seemed an age of bouncing and jolting along miles of endless, winding tunnel, the two Vurbats slowed down to walking pace. Fred noticed that the passage seemed wider now and the floor and what little he could see of the walls were much smoother. He felt bruised all over and his ribs ached from constantly bouncing up and down on the muscular shoulder of this strange being. They finally stopped and he was flung roughly to the floor, so hard in fact that the force knocked all the breath out of his lungs. Fred fought for air briefly and then groaned as he felt the pain in his bruised body. He winced again and rolled over onto his back.

The two evil looking characters were standing over him gabbling away to each other in their rough tongue. He was in a huge, vaulted chamber and within seconds there were half a dozen or so more Vurbats conversing in the same guttural language pointing at him and waving their swords in the most threatening manner. Eventually the cacophony died down and they dragged him to his feet, loosed his bonds and frog-marched him across the chamber.

Fred was filled with dread because he had no idea what his weird captors were going to do with him next. At the other side of the vault there was a deep alcove hewn out of the rock, so deep in fact that at first Fred thought that it was another tunnel. He was pushed to the back of the hollow and sank to his knees in dank, foul smelling straw that covered the floor. One of the creatures stayed at the entrance with his back to the boy and the others withdrew to the centre of the chamber.

He sat with his back to the wall and gingerly shifted his weight to a position where the aches and pains in his bruised body were eased a little. Now he had a chance to get his breath back and time to think. Think what? Where was he, who were these strange beings and why had they brought him to this place? Hannah! What had happened to Hannah? He suddenly felt very guilty and quite ashamed of himself. In the turmoil of their flight from the darkness and his sudden capture by these weird creatures he had been so preoccupied by his own plight that he had completely forgotten about his friend. Obviously she hadn’t been taken or she would surely be here. Maybe the darkness had engulfed her.

Fred felt his resolve returning. This wasn’t the time to worry about these questions.  More important was how best to get himself out of this situation and find Hannah if she was still alive. Somehow he had to escape from this but at the moment he felt so alone and powerless. He would give anything to be back in his own bedroom with the sun streaming through the window. How many hours ago was it? It seemed he had been away for days and days but he knew that wasn’t so. Somehow they had fallen through that strange, golden arch into another world filled with frightening and dangerous life forms.

Suddenly he was startled from his musings by a harsh command. One of the Vurbats was standing over him holding a bowl and a wooden goblet. These were placed on the floor before him with more ugly grunts presumably urging him to eat. Well at least if they were feeding him they obviously wanted to keep him alive. The food consisted of chunks of stale bread which Fred did try to eat but it had a musty, unpleasant taste. The liquid in the goblet was at least refreshing. It had a slightly bitter taste and reminded him of the beer he had been allowed to sip from his father’s glass. Feeling his spirits raised after his strange meal, Fred started to think of escape. Maybe if he waited for his jailers to fall asleep, he could sneak around the edge of the chamber and make a dash for freedom back up the tunnel.

The Vurbats had by now broken up into smaller groups. Some were squatting on their haunches sharpening their swords; others he saw carried short spears and axes. The guard remained standing with his back to the boy but Fred noticed he was leaning heavily on his spear. The boy’s hopes of escape were soon to be dashed though. The chamber started to fill with more of the ugly dwarf-like creatures. He had no idea of time but before an hour had elapsed their number had increased to about two hundred and their low chatter filled the cave.

Fred could feel an air of expectancy in the crowd, like an audience before the show starts. The chatter began to subside and he furtively crawled forward craning his head round the legs of the guard at the entrance. There was movement at the opposite side of the cavern. Two lines of the dwarf like Vurbats entered the chamber. They looked like a formal guard and were more elaborately dressed than the others. They were led by a Vurbat who was head and shoulders taller than the other creatures and of a heavier build. He carried an ugly looking ornate axe and to Fred looked even more grotesque than the others.  This was their leader and his name was Rant, but Fred would not discover this until later. Rant was a brutal and merciless killer feared by both his adversaries and his own kind as well. He had been the unopposed ruler of these creatures for many years now.

An expectant hush hung over the whole company and a figure appeared through the vaulted stone entrance. A figure much taller than Rant even and far more sinister followed the Vurbats into the chamber. Fred caught his breath and shivered with pure fear. This strange humanoid wore a heavy, dark green cloak fastened high around the neck, his face was white without any colour and he had a thin, black moustache with a forked beard. He had a huge  sword hanging from his belt on one side and what looked like some kind of a gun on his other side. The whole effect was, Fred thought, menacing and it certainly worked. The newcomer spoke for several minutes to Rant. The boy watched fascinated until finally the tall figure turned on his heel and left followed by Rant and the guards.

After this visitation, activity in the chamber seemed to die down quickly and he noticed that several of the Vurbats were either sitting or lying down. Within his field of vision two or three of them actually looked like they were sleeping. His own guard had squatted down on the stone floor and he saw his head beginning to nod forward. Unfortunately Fred was also beginning to feel tired. He must stay awake but his eyelids were beginning to droop of their own accord. He fought desperately to resist sleep but recent events had taken their toll. If he could just close his eyes for a minute or two perhaps he would feel better. His head fell forward and Fred was fast asleep.