Chapter 2
1901 Words
2
Sophie tumbled head-over-heels through the suffocating darkness that made up the inside of the portal. The blackness was so deep that she didn’t know if her eyes were open or closed.
Just when she felt like she couldn’t take anymore, a light appeared ahead of her. The speed of the vortex meant she was thrown from its mouth and crashed onto a hard, pine-needle covered surface. Her shoulder hit a rock on her tumble and cut her shirt open. She came to a stop against the trunk of a large tree.
Sophie looked up in time to watch the portal shrink until it vanished, leaving her alone in the dark. However, a quick look around told her she wasn’t in the park anymore. She lay in a small clearing surrounded by thorny brush. The soft-bark willow trees and birch were replaced by the rough trunks of large pine trees. They were so thick that she couldn’t see more than a hundred feet before countless more trees blocked her view.
There were no streetlights, only the twinkling of a vast tapestry of stars that peeked out through the thick canopy. The cobblestone path was now a hard-packed dirt trail that lay some ten feet away from her.
Sophie climbed to her feet and winced as her shoulder complained. She clapped her hand over the wound and shuffled over to where the portal had disappeared. Nothing remains but some disturbed pine needles.
She turned in a circle and bit her lower lip as her eyes surveyed the wild scene around her. “Where the hell am I?” she whispered.
A cool breeze swept over her. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. A flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned to look at the spot. Nothing moved. Nothing was seen.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” she called out.
A distant howl made her blood run cold. The noise echoed down the path and bounced off the trees that surrounded her. Her pulse quickened as she took a few steps back. Her heel stepped on a branch. She winced as the twig broke, making an audible cracking sound.
The howl didn’t repeat itself, but the silence that followed was far more unnerving. Her eyes flitted over every shadow and dark form. She breathed in short, quick gasps.
A low growl in front of her caught her attention. She whipped her head in that direction and her heart stopped. Before her, in the darkest shadows, was a pair of yellow glowing eyes. They stared at her with a hungry, cunning look.
Sophie swallowed the lump in her throat. Her eyes flickered down to the ground. A large stick lay near her feet. She bent her knees and eased herself down with her hand outstretched for the branch. The creature growled, making her freeze.
Her eyes widened as the beast stepped out of the brush and into the clearing. It was a monstrous wolf that stood on its hind legs. Its body was shaped like that of a man, but nearly seven feet tall and covered in gray fur. Its head was that of a wolf, but those eyes didn’t match the body. They were too smart, too attentive, too human.
The creature threw back its head and howled. Sophie grabbed the stick and stumbled back just as the wolf leapt at her. She raised the stick in front of her to block its body, but the creature knocked it out of her hands.
The beast shoved her to the ground and pinned her there with the weight of his own body. The thing leaned his long-snouted face down so that their noses nearly touched. It curled its lips back in a long snarl that showed off two rows of long, sharp teeth. She turned her face to one side and shut her eyes. Its warm, putrid breath wafted over her. She shuddered.
The wolf yelped and whipped its head up. She peeked open one eye. The creature sat over her and shook its head. It clawed at its right ear and growled.
A soft, low whistle floated through the woods and over the pair. The wolf perked up its head and its ears. The deadly look in its eyes vanished, replaced with an empty gaze. Sophie watched in amazement as she creature climbed off her and turned away. It trudged into the woods in the direction it had come without looking back.
Sophie scrambled to her feet and rushed in the opposite direction. Her feet pounded against the hard dirt as she rushed down the path. A shadow loomed up on her. She screamed and tried to stop, but her feet tripped over themselves. Sophie crashed face-first onto the ground in a pile of bruises and an aching shoulder.
A pair of heavy leather boots stepped up to her face. Her heart beat fast as her eyes traveled up the worn leather pants and across the heavy leather coat to the smiling face of a woman some thirty years old. She had long brown hair that cascaded over her shoulders and ringed her tanned face. Slung over one shoulder and behind her back was a large leather bag.
The woman leaned forward and into a stream of starlight. Her flat nose was that of a pig and the tips of her stubby fingers resembled hooves. “I wasn’t expecting a welcoming party from Bruin Bay,” the woman quipped.
Sophie gasped and sat up. She scrambled backward, but her direction was off and she skidded into a mess of thorny bushes. They caught hold of her clothes and stuck her fast to the spot.
The woman clomped up to her and kneel before the frightened woman with a crooked smile on her lips. “What’s gotten you so much in a fright? Haven’t you ever seen a traveling merchant before?” Sophie could only stare with wide eyes at the creature. The woman looked her up and down, and furrowed her brow. “That’s a strange set of clothes you’ve got on. Where are you from?”
Sophie swallowed the lump in her throat. “W-what are you?”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “What am I? Don’t you know?” Sophie shook her head. The woman leaned back and frowned. “What kind of backwater human settlement did you come from that you haven’t seen a sus?”
“A s-sus?” Sophie repeated.
“Yeah. You know, what you and dragons call pig people,” she explained.
Sophie blinked at her. “Dragons?”
A sly smile slipped onto the sus’s face. “You’re really lost, aren’t you? Let’s get you out of there and then we’ll talk.”
The stranger picked the brambles off Sophie’s clothes and pulled her to her feet. Sophie put her weight on her left foot and cried as a pain shot up her leg.
“Hold still,” the woman ordered her as she stooped in front of her. She wrapped her hands around Sophie’s ankle and squeezed. Sophie yelped. “Just a bad sprang. It should be fine in the morning.” The woman stood and slipped beside Sophie. She hefted one of Sophie’s arms over her shoulders and smiled at her. “There’s a small clearing ahead of us that we can stop for the night. You might have seen it as you ran down the path.”
Sophie’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “N-not there! There’s a wolf thing there!”
The sus arched an eyebrow. “Wolf thing? Oh, you mean a werewolf? A nice fire should scare them away.”
“Werewolf. . .” Sophie whispered.
“Come on. I’m getting hungry.”
Together the pair stumbled their way up the path to the clearing where Sophie had made her entry in this strange woods. The woman eased her onto a fallen tree and went about making a ring of stones in front of her.
Sophie wrapped her arms around herself and glanced around. “Don’t be so nervous. If it does come back I have a solution to it-” she patted her bag that lay near her, “-right here.”
Sophie stopped looking around and turned her attention to the piggish woman. “Where am I?”
“In Wolfswald, or Wolf Forest to those who don’t know the local tongue,” she told her. She stacked a few sticks and dry moss in the completed ring of circles. “The werewolves are thick in here, hence the name. I’m surprised the one you saw didn’t eat you. They hate humans more than dragons. Probably jealous of your normalcy.”
Sophie shook her head. “I don’t know why it left. It just sort of walked off.”
“Well, we’ll make sure it doesn’t come back,” the sus woman assured her as she pulled out a primitive match.
She struck one of the rocks and lit the kindling. Soon a large, warm fire burned in her pit. She took a seat beside Sophie with her bag on her other side and held out her hand to the young woman.
“The name’s Bertie. What’s yours?”
Sophie smiled and shook her hand. “Sophie.”
Bertie arched an eyebrow. “Sophie. Doesn’t that come from the Alexandria area?”
Sophie blinked at her new acquaintance and shook her head. “I don’t really know where that is.”
“Then where are you from?” Bertie asked her.
“I’m from the city of Colmouth.”
Bertie smiled as she turned her attention to her bag on her left. “Sounds like a big place,” she commented as she rummaged around in her bag.
Sophie looked up and swept her eyes over the canopy and the stars. “It’s a little different from this place.”
“I bet it is.” Bertie drew out a couple of mushrooms and held one out to Sophie. “Here. You’re probably starved.”
Sophie eyed the shroom with apprehension. “I don’t know about eating that. . .”
“I picked it myself. See?” Bertie took a big bite out of hers and chewed. “It’s safe.”
Sophie accepted the mushroom, but looked over her friend. “So you’re a what again? A suck?”
“I’m a sus, and selling wares is my game,” Bertie told her as she took another bite. A few spittles of the mushroom rained out of her mouth as she nodded at Sophie’s food. “You’d better eat. It’ll take a few hours to get to Bruin Bay tomorrow.”
Sophie took a small bite and chewed. The mushroom was hard and had a smoky flavor. “What’s there?”
“The largest city in the Braun dragon lord’s domain,” she told her.
Sophie’s mouth dropped open and her bit of food rolled out and onto the ground. “There’s dragons?”
Bertie glared at the spoiled food in the dirt before her narrowed eyes flickered up to Sophia. “Yes, there are dragons, but you won’t see them if you don’t eat something and swallow it.”
Sophie shrank back and took a big bite of her food. “The dragons don’t eat humans, do they?” she wondered, her question sending spittle of food everywhere.
Bertie snorted. “Most of them aren’t vicious enough to eat a lamb, much less a scrawny thing like you.”
Sophie swallowed the large lump of her chewed food. “Do they look like dragons, or are they different than the stories?”
Bertie shrugged. “I don’t know what stories you’ve been told, but they look like you humans except sometimes they show off their wings.”
The young woman blinked and furrowed her brow as she stared at the fire. “Is it getting warm to you?”
Her companion smiled and shook her head. “No, why?”
“I just-” Sophie’s hands lost their grip and the mushroom dropped to the ground at her feet. The world around her began to blur. “I don’t feel-” She tried to stand, but her legs weakened and she collapsed onto her side.
Bertie stepped up to Sophie as the young woman’s eyes began to close. “Pleasant dreams, my little bundle of gold.”
- Writer
