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Boundaries of Mirkwood
Chapter 15
“The Price for Revenge”



Tyelco had surveyed the area from above. Arielle caught him before he could move in closer to the urk camped down in the ravine. Knowing what they had to work with now, they needed to find their reinforcements and quick, before the urks left. She suspected Tyelco’s eagerness to fight and reluctance to leave was because of Niobe. The jedi had never fully renounced her intention to play ET with the urks.

“You have found them,” Niobe stated just before the parities reunited. The three women hopped off the bike, and Abigail hid the cumbersome contraption under a bush, correctly assuming it was no longer needed.

“Voices down,” Arielle whispered softly. “Just in case. They’re up over a hill in that direction.” Arielle pointed. “There’s a heap of rocks, and the urk are holed up in one of the ravines at the moment; only one way out of it. If we hurry, we can ambush them before they make off with the edhel.”

“I assume you wish to attack from above, on the ravine edges.”

“Yep. Safest for us.”

“Mmm.” Niobe pressed his lips together, not entirely approving.

“Please tell me you’re not contemplating anything suicidal.”

“I thought we had agreed I should at least make contact.”

“Yeah, well, I’d hoped the past three hours had changed your mind.” Arielle’s voice rose, ignoring the danger.

“They did not,” Niobe informed.

“Well,” Arielle was a bit at a loss, stumbling over words, and then quieted. “Fine. If Tyelco can’t convince you edgewise and you promise you won’t do anything stupid, I won’t stop you.”

Niobe smiled, all too pleased with herself.

“But the cocoons are priority one, okay?”

Niobe nodded solemnly. “Those who cannot help themselves naturally take precedence over me.”

“Don’t make me regret it.” Arielle turned on the approaching Abigail. “You hear that Abby?”

“Save the cocoons. Right. Who’s on which side of the ravine?” Abigail was once again rubbing her wand between her hands, the whirling wood making a click, click, clicking against her ring.

“Me and Yumiko on the far side; you, Ty, and Niobe (who’s playing mediator down front) on the near,” Arielle proposed. “Niobe, you wouldn’t mind running that by Ty, would you?”

“Not at all.” Niobe turned to Tyelco who had actually been shifting his feet with impatience.

After a moment, Niobe said, “He does not agree; he will go up top and kill the scout, if it remains. From above in the back, he will easily be able to shoot, so long as the urks remain in the ravine. I should be able contain them if I do not successfully find their light. In such a case, you, Arielle will be on the far ridge, and Abigail and Yumiko shall be on the other. I must concede that this would be the prudent attack plan.”

Arielle didn’t like the idea of Yumiko and Abigail fighting without adult supervision, but then again, the risk was minimal for them. Everyone except Niobe would be out of the general mayhem.

“Of course, with me revealing myself, the element of surprise will be lost and there is always the danger of the urk killing the unconscious edhel,” Niobe said. “Therefore I urge all of you to do exactly as Arielle has said; worry about them, not me.” She looked pointedly at Yumiko.

“Hai!” Yumkio confirmed with a thumbs-up. Neko mewed.


***
Earlier that morning. . .
***

Yumiko didn’t know when the last time she’d been stuck in one spot for so long was.

Yesterday had been fraught with adventure and new friends; meeting Tyelco, then Arielle, then Neko, and Niobe and Abigail. Neko was fast on her way to becoming her new best friend. They’d frolicked and slept in the tree tops, played with Tyelco’s hair, and chatted about the virtues of sleep and lazy mornings with Niobe. At least the morning had started off well enough. She’d expected that the rest of the day would be as wonderfully eventful as the last. Niobe had told her that they would be hunting down those terrible spiders and rescuing Tyelco’s friends. It would be very dangerous, but Yumiko told her she was not afraid of the spiders, nor the evil obake which kept the other silk sacks, and was a champion archer. She was looking forward to the adventure, but so far they had not engaged in battle.

Oh yes, Abigail’s magical flying bike was positively remarkable for the first five minutes. Yumiko had put her finger lightly on the tread and felt the way the rubber tire spun about all on its own.

Then Neko started getting antsy; clawing about on her shoulders, mewing to be let down, and, no, she did not need any more petting or scratching or snuggles at the moment. The cat had jumped down and run alongside the bike. It was a fairly good solution, and when Neko was tired, she could climb back onto the bike. For Yumiko, it’d been fun to watch her leap and claw and scramble about overhead in the trees with Arielle, then run down beside the bike and up again.

But even this was not wholly interesting, so she then listened to Niobe and Abigail tell stories. Like Yumiko, they’d become bored and were interested in each other’s lives back on Earth as they knew it. Abigail insisted that nothing much remarkable happened in Wellington. Niobe requested that Abigail tell about the most remarkable thing to ever happen to her in Wellington. This was the story Abigail told.

One beautiful December day (for December in New Zealand is the middle of the summer and quite beautiful), Abigail had gone across town to stay with her Aunt and Uncle. She loved visiting them, for Abigail’s mom and dad did not believe in owning TVs or reading too many fairy stories, nor eating any sweets and her Aunt and Uncle had plenty of all three. It was there she’d discovered the delights of Harry Potter and would sneak books off the shelves (though she knew perfectly well she needn’t sneak them, as her aunt and uncle allowed her to do as she pleased) and bike down the lane to the outskirts and in a lovely sheep pasture, would climb up a rock face to a pasture up top. There, convinced she was safe, Abigail had read.

The last day of this particularly splendid week, her aunt and uncle had taken her to a parade. Abigail, being nine years old, didn’t really know what all the fuss was about for it was not a Christmas parade, but there were thousands and thousands of people lining the streets of the city. Her uncle had let her sit on his shoulders (for even then she was tiny for her age) and watch the people go by in costumes, playing drums, dancing, waving from convertibles, and generally soaking up the festive atmosphere. After the last had gone by, her uncle had set her down.

Now, she hadn’t wandered off, but as it happens in large crowds she’d momentarily gotten separated from her uncle. Being a sensible girl, she’d gone over to a short young man wearing a costume (for she assumed he’d be a part of the parade staff), and pronounced she was lost. The very nice young man probably had nothing to do with the parade staff, but in typical Kiwi spirit, safely returned her to her aunt and uncle. As a parting gift, he’d given her a ring, the very same one she wore now (she counted it a lucky ring).

Later that night when recounting the story at the dinner table, her uncle had asked to see the ring. Abigail had obliged. Her uncle held it for no more than a moment before exclaiming that it might actually be valuable. The very next morning, he and Abigail went to the appraiser’s, whom her uncle was good friends with. As it turned out, the ring given away to nine-year-old Abigail was actually a gold ring coated in platinum, illegally engraved on the inside. Its value on the black market was nearly $8,000 New Zealand Dollars. She’d never told her parents about it; they thought it was a dull silver ring, for it was perfectly plain in every other aspect and had no qualm with it as such.

Niobe had laughed, and Yumiko smiled broadly, thinking it a handsome story. After it was over, Arielle dropped down from the branches overhead and began conversing with the other girls over battle plans and other tactical matters. Yumiko nearly interrupted to demand another story or request songs, except just then they stopped, made a slight adjustment in their direction, and continued on.

It was tedious, and Yumiko was getting tired of sitting still for so long on the bike. At least conversation started up again, and she was thoroughly relived by that.

“Any more ideas on how we ended up here?” Abigail asked Niobe after presenting the rhetorical question of who exactly put Arielle in charge and answered this, her own question, with ‘no one.’

“None.” Niobe sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I’m afraid the merger of out two groups and my discussions with Tyelco have only lead to more questions. There is no indication that beings such as us have ever fallen into this world.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Niobe. I feel the strangest sensation; all of this is familiar, like something I’ve forgotten and the memory is only just beyond my recollection. Or a dream after you’ve woken and everything’s haze and illogical pieces.”

“Pieces?” Niobe questioned.

“Well,” Abigail hesitated. “This isn’t going to make much sense, but I’ll try to explain. You see, I use a particular mnemonic device to remember all the books I’ve ever read, movies I’ve ever seen, music I’ve heard, artwork or any other media as I have a photographic memory. It lets me store everything away in my head.”

Yumiko thought this was the most fascinating thing she’d heard all day. To think, one could take a picture of anything, at any moment, and store it away like a bin of rice, or potatoes in the pantry.

“In my head, I have a three dimensional map of the world, and in every major city there is a library. I store each book in a library according to the origin of its author, or that work’s primary home. That way, I only need to know the ethnicity, name, or even region a media is from in order to recall it, or I can usually generalize and find what I need on any given topic.”

“I follow,” Niobe confirmed.

“Ever since this morning I’ve been getting the most irritating and conflicting signals; some from Queenstown, some from the university in Wellington. Then there are those from Toronto, Canada. I have the vaguest feelings from the western US, but nothing which rings a bell, but worst of all is England.”

“England?” Niobe question.

“Everywhere in England! I suppose it mostly focuses around Oxford and London, but still. It’s completely baffling; doesn’t make any coherent sense and I’ve been trying to examine those more, but something’s blocking my way around.”

“What do you mean?” Niobe asked as her voice lowered.

“I mean, I go into the Oxford library and try to snoop around, but I get the feeling stuff is missing. Gone. You see, I order my books in a certain way so that they’re all neat and pressed against one another, but I find there are gaps between books. Sort of like someone pulling one out to leaf through, and setting then it on the brown shelf, only there aren’t any brown shelves in my libraries. At any rate, books have been moved or are gone.” Abigail got quiet. “You don’t think, well, someone like you couldn’t go stealing books from my head, could you?”

“I don’t know,” Niobe answered with a distinct note of worry on her voice. “There is much we don’t know about our powers, or what may have brought us here. But it disturbs me, Abby.”

Yumiko drew Neko closer, much to the cat’s disdain; was there anything she was forgetting? She could still remember upsetting a pot of soup last week, and if there were anything she’d want to forget, that would be one of many embarrassing events. Was there any way to even know if she had lost anything? They were lucky Abigail was so clever; otherwise they would never know anything was gone in the first place.

“Perhaps we can combine knowledge and fill these gaps together,” Niobe suggested. “Tell me, where in these libraries are these gaps to be found?”

Abigail sighed. “Every other which way! Linguistics, biographies, historical texts, fiction books, children’s stories. I know I had two translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but one is definitely gone.”

“If that is the case, have you checked the rest of music and art sections? Movies?”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that! Goodness, I’ll check music in London and Berlin, movies in the States.” There was a long moment of silence where Yumiko sat very carefully, trying her best not to fidget and ruin Abigail’s thought process. It wasn’t much fun, but after what felt like forever, Abigail spoke.

“It’s no use; the plague is everywhere. I’m missing music albums, a few films and pictures and paintings.” Abigail sounded thoroughly miserable, and then became angry. “We’ve been robbed! I knew too much Niobe, I knew something.”

“We will find your missing items, Abby, I am sure of it,” Niobe assured. “And with it we have our—”

Niobe brought the bike to a dead halt, staring off into the woods.

“What?” Abigail asked, both she and Yumiko peering off into the gloom.

Niobe reluctantly said, “That is the third time I could have sworn I felt something shadowing us. It could be nothing more than a stray spider or two; nothing for us to worry over for such a creature could do us no lasting harm. Still. . .error on the side of caution.”

She pushed off with her foot and resumed pedaling toward the river. Yumiko thought it was a shame the bike only had one speed.


***
Return. . .
***


Tyelco sprinted off up into the trees; Arielle led the three other girls through the underbrush, her ears and eyes straining. The urks hadn’t left the ravine yet, but rising from the fissure was the distinct sound of grousing and breaking camp. It wasn’t too late for this to work.

Niobe broke off at the front of the ravine; there, there was a nice, shady patch of boulders for her to hide behind. She’d stay put until she heard Arielle signal by throwing a small stone against one of the trees. Arielle hoped that would momentarily divert the creatures’ attention so Niobe could jump out and take them before the creatures could do anything rash.

Leaving Niobe at the mouth all alone sucked. It sucked a lot. Arielle didn’t like stepping away while hearing grunting trills and the sound of metal and torn cloth only yards away. But Niobe was unperturbed; with an incline of her head (a motion Arielle now recognized as a trademark of this particular jedi), she slipped back into darkness, one hand gripping a long knife. With Abigail’s silencing spell on all their shoes and clothes, it was near impossible to hear any of their movement.

One hand holding her gun ready and the other steering Yumiko, Arielle led the trio up and around to the top. There was a decent ridge for them to crouch behind, and they painstakingly settled down. Pointing with her fingers and motioning to her eyes, Arielle directed Abigail to watch the forest for a sneak attack, Yumiko to be ready with her fireworks and watch for anything coming from the ravine, and for both of them to remain perfectly silent and still until Niobe did her thing.

As Arielle slinked away, she saw Yumiko direct Neko to overlook the precept. For a second, she wondered if the cat had actually just followed an order. Shaking her head, Arielle leapt up and made her way around the perimeter, motioning to Tyelco as she passed that all were in place and safe, except her. He readied his bow from up in his treetop perch as she flew past, dropped down to pick up a stone, and continued on.

Arielle also chose a tree to take up her sniper position. It would allow her to cover Niobe and still have a good angle on urks further back, as well as Yumiko and Abigail’s position. Abigail had promised to send up a flair should anything go amiss on their side.

Arielle waited. And waited. Her hands were shaking (she convinced herself that it was from the adrenaline). Then there was a shout, cutting off the rest of the din for a moment, followed by the unmistakable trudging of feet.

Those nasty, ugly creatures were just as grisly as the night before. In the dim light, Arielle could see that their skin ranged from a sickly gray to a blemished brown. They wore ripped leggings, loincloths, or crude leather armor. Several carried their weapons in one hand, a cocoon about the size of a person in the other. All eight had cocoons. There were more captured than Tyelco had supposed. To her surprise, they also carried a few spiders; carried, because their legs were either broken or entirely missing. What purpose this served took Arielle a few seconds to put together, but it dawned on her that the urk probably didn’t want their captives waking up anytime soon and they’d have their spider venom to keep the edhel unconscious one way or another.

Fist tightly squeezing the stone, Arielle watched as the gruesome company neared the exit confidently. Turning, she threw the stone away. Its impact made a very distinctive *THONK* and Arielle poised with her gun aimed back down at the company of urk.

Niobe was brilliant. Only half the urk had heard the sound for the others were too loud or distracted to notice. That meant Niobe was standing about two yards away from the leader before any of the monsters could blink.

The first urk in line dropped his cocoon and raised his scimitar with both hands, barking out orders to the others, something to the effect of “look up” as they were searching the edge for signs of ambush. Arielle drew back into the shadow of the tree to avoid being spotted now that they were looking; it meant she didn’t have such good a view anymore. She could see that some monsters had dropped their burdens since bows and arrows took two hands. One had a knife over a cocoon; she set her aim on it.

There were no words to hear. It was eerily quiet as Niobe and the monster starred at one another, daring the other to look away.

Niobe leaned forward; the urk mimicked the motion. She took a slow step; its scimitar wavered, lowering an inch. Its face slackened. Glances of confusion were being spread amid the other urk.

Arielle could feel her hands getting clammy, her mind racing. Fuck, fuck, the jedi is right; she’s gonna bring them down just by looking at them.

The scimitar lowered more, and the other urk were getting antsy.

Focus, Arielle. She cautioned herself, steadying her aim back on the monster threatening the unconscious being trapped under layers of silk. Her attention focused thus, she only heard the barbarous howl of furry and slick squish. Before she could process what had happened, she shot the urk she’d targeted and caught sight of the horror from the corner of her eye.

Niobe stood, her mouth open, sucking in breath and the thing she’d contacted tore its bloody scimitar out of her abdomen.







A/N: As my last chapter was a new first chapter, I decided to get this one finished early. Hopefully, the next won’t keep you waiting too long either.







urk (S) = ork; stupid, ugly, immoral, and violent bipedal creatures created by Morgoth; the perverse, involuntary corruption of elves.

edhel (S) = elves

hai (J) = a positive response; yes, agreed, confirmed, understood, would all be generalized cognates.

Obake (J) = ghosts, monsters, and spirits of traditional Japanese folklore, and I chose to use the general term, as I don’t know of any which would coencide with these spiders.

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