Page 23 of Sea of Stars

The deep roars of lurking mountain dwellers began to rumble through the darkness. My anger swiftly turned to fear. I picked up my knapsack and reached inside for my dagger, but all I felt were bottles. I looked around helplessly. Breghton had stolen the Assassin’s Dagger. I gulped, frozen. I knew I should get to higher ground, but I couldn’t climb. My shoulder was still too sore. The growling was growing louder. Soon the mountain dwellers would be upon me. I listened to them as they approached, trying to determine the direction of the sounds. I could still run. My lip trembled as my hair confirmed what I already feared. They were lumbering toward me from every angle. I was completely surrounded.

My breathing grew rapid as my heart raced. I wanted to say the old prayers my father had taught me, but I stopped myself. The first few years I had lived behind the Iron Gate I had prayed every night to be saved. But after being whipped so many times, I grew up. Praying would not stop the leather whip from ripping my skin open. Mortwar had beaten my faith out of me. Instead of praying I fell to my knees and looked up into the sky.

“What have I done to deserve this end?” I whispered to the heavens. I was angry again. I didn’t care that death was upon me. “You took my parents and Jeremody,” I sobbed into my hands. “You let me be enslaved and abused. You let filth like Breghton live, letting him take the only thing with him that might help me survive.” I spat on the stone beneath my knees. “And now you will let me die, before I have even known what it is to live.” My jaw was set in a stubborn scowl as I stood. Tears streamed down my face. I thought about earlier when I had pleaded to the heavens to not forsake me. I laughed to myself. The Lords had abandoned me a long time ago. As far as I was concerned, they didn’t exist at all.

I clenched my fists and waited in the open. I wasn’t going to be eaten without a fight. Heat coursed through my body in anticipation of a battle. I was probably going to die and maybe it was fitting because I was doomed to walk in the fiery pits of hell for eternity. When the first mountain dweller came into sight, he stopped and stared at me. His lips were pulled tightly over his teeth as he growled. I stood firm and yelled as loud as I could right back at him. The mountain dweller stopped and tilted his head, confused by my behavior. Soon the others were beside him. They grew silent at the sight of me.

A maniacal laugh escaped from my lips as I saw one of them stand on his hind legs. Finally, one with the courage to fight me. The mountain dweller approached gracefully on two feet. He was much bigger than the rest of them. He must have become the new leader after Mikado had disappeared. I clenched my fists tighter as he made his way through the rest of the pack. When he reached the front and stood before them, I realized he wasn’t a mountain dweller at all. He only wore the pelt of one of the creatures around him. A head of a mountain dweller lay perched on top of his own. The bottom of the mountain dweller's jaw had been cut off, so just its top teeth were set across the man's forehead. The man was huge and hideous. His skin was gray like the mountains around him. There was no doubt in my mind. He was a brutarian.

My anger began to intertwine with fear. I couldn’t be enslaved again. All I wanted was death. “Brutarian,” I sneered.

The man looked at me and started speaking in a language that I did not understand. He was gesturing toward me, his voice growing louder as I just stood there dumbfounded. He pointed toward my torso and I looked down. My shirt was torn, clearly revealing the symbols on my back. Chinook had been right. Breghton was a liar and a thief. There was no doubt in my mind that he could read the devilish symbols. Breghton had ripped my shirt in or

der to see what symbols lay beneath it. He must have taken the dagger for the same reason. He was able to read the different markings that lit up the blade when he held it. I tried to pull the cloth together to hide my skin.

“Just kill me,” I demanded to the brutarian, but he just stared at me. I dropped the cloth I was holding in my hands, forgetting about covering up my body. I took a deep breath and ran toward the brutarian as I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was just about to leap on him, hoping to startle him and knock him onto the ground, when I saw his hand descending down. He bonked me hard on the head and I immediately collapsed.

When I began to regain consciousness, the first thing I did was reach up to feel the large lump on the top of my skull. I opened my eyes and saw the bars. I slowly sat up, the earth still dancing around me, and looked at my surroundings. The vertical bars on every side of me formed a small cage. It was just the right size for a divinare. The worst thing possible had happened. I was once again at the mercy of a gruesome brutarian. I studied the bars. They were crafted out of rough, unfinished wood. If I touched one I was sure to get splinters in my fingers. They were thick and sturdy looking. I tried to kick one with the bottom of my boot, but it didn’t budge. The small exertion made me feel tired. I looked down at my arm and saw that the cloth had been removed. The blood had stopped pouring out and had formed a black crust on top of the missing layer of skin. That was a good sign.

I spotted my knapsack by my foot. Brutarians really were foolish creatures. I grabbed my bag and opened it. I closed my eyes tightly hoping I had imagined Breghton stealing my dagger, but when I looked inside, it was still missing. I sighed, feeling defeated. Breghton had also stolen the maps. Swishel’s warnings of the dangerous villages were all but forgotten. The image of Swishel’s body swinging in the breeze came into my head. I had been so blind. Swishel had warned me not to trust anyone. I was foolish to have ever grown attached to Breghton. I tried to focus on what I remembered of the maps, but I had barely had any time to look at Breghton's map. All I could remember was that the closest village was a little farther east. And maybe the old divinare kingdom was west. Yes. It was definitely west past this huge mountain range.

I closed my knapsack and looked outside of the cage. The pelts of mountain dwellers were hung up all around me. Last night the mountain dwellers seemed to listen to the brutarian. But why? The pelts on the walls made it seem like he ate the mountain dwellers. Or worse, maybe he skinned them alive. Brutarians were awful enough to do something like that. I shuddered at the thought. I looked away from the large furs on the walls. I was definitely in a cave. The familiar dampness in the air confirmed it. The cave was small and narrow. I turned around and could see clearly outside. My heart skipped a beat. The brutarian was just outside the cave’s entrance. A mountain dweller was sitting next to him. It looked like he was waiting for his master’s next order.

In the daylight the brutarian looked even scarier. His slimy skin had the normal brutarian gray tint to it and it was worn with age. The skin hung loosely on his arms and back, but it didn’t hide the rippling muscles beneath it. It looked like he had been in countless fights because his back was badly scarred. Maybe he had earned the mountain dwellers respect by beating their previous leader in a fight. I wouldn’t put it past him, all the brutarians I had ever come across were brutal and fierce. He had removed the mountain dweller pelt and headdress. The little hair he did have on his head was wiry and sticking up at a strange angle. His ears, which let him hear, were large and pointed at the top. They looked much bigger than Mortwar’s ears. But then again, this brutarian was bigger than Mortwar in every way.

The brutarian turned to the side and I got a glimpse of his front. There was a thin, diagonal scar across his face. He wore a necklace of mountain dweller teeth. His eyes were a deep green like Mortwar's. The rest of the brutarians at the Iron Gates had eyes as black as coal. I squinted my eyes and looked at the small tattoo on his stomach. The symbolic anvil was burned onto the bottom right of his torso. The only other brutarian I had ever seen with this tattoo was Mortwar. Had this brutarian once lived at the Iron Gates? Possibly as a former leader? If I didn't escape soon, he would probably take me back to the prison camp.

After studying the brutarian, I finally realized what he was busy doing. I gulped as I watched him sliding a small stick across a rock, slowly sharpening it. It looked like he was creating some kind of torturing device. It didn’t take me very long to realize it was probably for me. I looked around the cage and did the only thing I could think of. I kicked every wooden bar as hard as I could with my foot, but they were all perfectly secure.

Brutarians were bad at hearing, but I looked back at my captor just in case. He was still preoccupied sharpening his stick, but then he slowly began to stand. I fell to the bottom of my cage and closed my eyes, pretending I was still knocked out. His feet pounded the rock as he bounded toward me with large, heavy steps. I tried not to close my eyes too tightly. I wanted it to look like I was sleeping naturally, but I could feel my body trembling with fear. He began speaking again in his strange language. His voice grew louder as I continued to lay there. The next thing I knew the brutarian was shaking the cage. I moaned groggily but kept my eyes closed. I couldn’t understand his tongue, but I was pretty sure he was cursing.

I could feel his warm, smelly breath entering the cage. He must have been studying me to see if I had died yet. I took a few deep breaths, letting my chest rise and fall, to show him I was still alive. He grunted angrily. I felt the cage turn to the side. He began speaking in his strange language again, slowly this time. I wasn’t sure why he thought speaking slowly would help me understand. He shook the cage again and continued talking. Then he dropped the cage back in position and grunted. I didn’t open my eyes until I could no longer hear his footsteps leaving the cave.

I opened my eyes a tiny bit to make sure he wasn’t still nearby. The glow of the symbols was coming through my torn shirt. I had an eerie feeling that the brutarian had been reading the symbols on my body. The slit in my shirt separated to reveal more skin. It seemed like everyone could read them but me. Maybe the brutarian was speaking the same language that these symbols were in. I shook my head. It didn’t matter if he was. I couldn’t understand him anyway. Besides, he was probably just happy to see that another brutarian had already been abusing me.

I got back into the position that the brutarian had left me in and closed my eyes. I had a plan to escape, but I needed the darkness of the night to aid me.

The night sky had finally enveloped the sun. The brutarian had tried to awaken me a few more times, but I continued my sleeping act. His last attempt had been the most forceful. He had turned the cage entirely upside down and then back, almost knocking me out again for real. Each time he left the cave I watched him. His loyal mountain dweller lay next to him and he patted the animal’s head. Seeing them together made me miss Chinook even more. I had a darkening suspicion that Breghton may have killed her. No other explanation made sense. Chinook would have found me by now if she was still alive. I tried not to think about it, but feared it had to be true. My mother had been taken from me again.

All day I couldn’t stop thinking about the evils that Breghton had thrust upon me. He had somehow tricked Chinook into going out for food, or he had more likely killed her. Then he had taken my dagger, map, and Mikado and fled. He could even read the divinare dialect or whatever he had called it. All he had ever said was a lie. By pretending to like me, he had successfully tricked me into trusting him. He was a master of deception. He had left me for dead. I thought about yesterday when I had fallen asleep in his arms. He had told me that he was sorry. I had assumed he meant for trying to ride Mikado in the first place, but maybe he was apologizing for what he was about to do instead. One thing was clear: I was not accepting his apology. Earlier in the day, I was saddened by the thought of him leaving me. I missed him. But soon I realized that I couldn’t miss him because I didn’t even know him. I had swayed from Swishel's wise advice and Chinook's nagging and trusted him. All I knew were his lies.

My sadness turned to anger. I hated that I let him hold me the way Jeremody always had. I hated that I let him kiss me. And I hated that I’d kissed him back. I touched my lips and blinked away my tears. I hated how foolish I’d been. But most of all, I hated him.

Through the darkness I could see the brutarian making a fire. The smell of the burning logs was just what I needed in order to make my plan work, but I still felt depressed. Part of me wanted to just lay there until he killed me or ate me. I had overcome so many obstacles, but sitting in this cage made me realize that I had never done it alone. My parents, Swishel, Jeremody, Chinook, Mikado, and even Breghton had all helped me survive to this point. I had no chance of making this journey by myself. So why not just accept my fate and die? For all I knew, that’s what the symbols were predicting on the side of my body. They probably just said, “Helpless girl will be killed by a different brutarian.”

An image of the brutarian skinning a mountain dweller shook me out of my stupor. I took a deep breath and vowed not to die by being skinned alive. Just because I had help in the past didn't mean I couldn't save myself. I was a prisoner at the Iron Gates for ten years. Mortwar hadn’t killed me. I had endured the whippings and I was still breathing. This situation could be figured out on my own. Swishel’s had told me not to trust anyone, and I would never forget her words again. It was just me from now on.

It took a long time, but eventually the brutarian nuzzled up to the mountain dweller and they both drifted off to sleep. The main part of the plan I had sorted out was escaping from the cage. Beyond that I would have to improvise. But I was small and light on my toes, so I hoped I’d just be able to walk by them. I continued to stare at the duo while they slept. I didn’t want to start my escape until I was sure they were deep in slumber. Soon I began to nod off too. I shook my head, trying to focus. I knew it was now or never. If I waited any longer I would be the next one falling asleep. The fire next to the brutarian was dwindling low, but the smell of burning wood still floated in the air.

I pulled my shirt up and looked down at the blue symbols. My hand hovered ov

er the markings and felt the heat radiating off of them. I turned to face the brutarian so that the blue light would not awaken him or his pet mountain dweller. I took a deep breath and placed my back against one of the wooden bars. Splinters began to cut into my skin but I remained still. I took a few more deep breaths and waited. I looked down and gulped. Nothing was happening. This was my only plan, it had to work. I pressed my skin harder on the wooden bar. The splinters deepened and I tried hard not to think about it.

Still nothing happened. I put my hands on the other side of the bar. I held my breath as I pulled, using their leverage to deepen my symbols against the wood. Now splinters started to enter my hands as well. I looked back at the brutarian and mountain dweller and was relieved to see that they were still sleeping. When I turned back toward the bar I saw smoke curling into the sky. I held still. The more smoke I saw the less I noticed the pain of the splinters. After a few more moments the wood finally sparked. I quickly moved away and watched the flame snake up the wood.

When most of the wooden bar had turned black, I tapped the bar with my foot. I looked back and saw that my captor and his pet were still sound asleep. This time I kicked the wood harder and the pressure broke it in half. The top of the wood fell with a light thud onto the stone below. I turned again toward the sleeping pair and was relieved to see them still unaware of my escape. I climbed out of the cage and stomped lightly on the wood to douse the flame. As quietly as I could, I tiptoed out of the cave.

I stopped right in front of the pair sleeping. Divinares I had seen sleeping always had peaceful looks on their faces. I had never seen a brutarian sleep, but this one’s face made me pause before continuing my escape. He didn’t look peaceful, he looked sad. There were lines around his eyes and mouth which made him look older than the brutarians who lived at the Iron Gates. The brutarian sniffed in his sleep and I jumped back a few steps. The image of his sleeping face almost made me feel guilty for fleeing, but I had no choice. I turned and ran as fast as I could.

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