Child of Thunder (Chapter Three)

Child of Thunder

Chapter Three: Strange Coincidence

When the scattered stars fled, I awoke in a haze, chained to a mossy stone wall. Vague dreams filled my head, all of them revolving around the life, and the world, that I came from.

I tried to move and was rewarded with limited success and a sharp stab of pain. I had an awful headache like nothing I'd ever experienced in my short life. There were times when I'd gotten knocked around accidentally, and I knew how to take my lumps. But I was Rex Rennington's son. Everyone had always tread carefully around me, afraid of raising the ire of their boss.

Not so here.

Not one bit.

I sighed and took a deep breath. I yanked at my bonds as hard as my slender arms would allow. It was a useless gesture. The heavy chains held fast. I was pinned to the wall, my arms hung slightly above my head. I could barely pull them from the damp rock. My legs were a different story. I had a little more give, but not much, maybe an extra foot.

It was hideously uncomfortable. Were it not for the mercy of sleep I could have lost my mind in that place. Trying to take my mind off my dire circumstances, I decided to study my surroundings. I appeared to be in some sort of dungeon. All was darkness. I tried to peer out into the gloom, but I could make out almost nothing. There were maybe some bars to my right, and possibly I saw a door in front of me, but the light was so faint I could not be sure.

I closed my eyes, attempting to use my other senses. I could hear voices, maybe even singing, but it was beyond my understanding, either because it was a foreign tongue, or simply very far away. I was also certain I could hear screaming.

I tasted blood on my tongue.

I did not like it at all.

When I breathed in deep to ascertain what I could smell, I immediately regretted it. The cell reeked of death. It was a sickeningly sour aroma, the pungent odor of rotten flesh. I gagged, struggling not to vomit all over myself. I couldn't help wondering if things could possibly get any worse.

As I hung there feeling miserable, I noticed that the sound I'd heard was growing louder. It seemed it was indeed singing. I could hear a deep, sonorous voice singing in low tones.

I couldn't make it out at first, but the words became clearer as the speaker grew nearer. I also noticed that the sounds I'd heard beyond my cell, the wailings of other captives, had ceased. It was as if the whole dungeon was listening to that voice.

"In a realm where white flowers bloom,
o'er grassy knolls lost in time,"

I could hear footsteps now layered beneath the beautiful singing. The words carried on, closer and closer.

"we found a place where hope can dwell,
so lament no more,"

I heard a clattering not far in front of me, where I thought I'd spied our a door in the gloom. Keys rattled. Was I being freed, or were my captors coming for me? I had to assume the latter. My heartbeat began to quicken.

"...when all is darkness,
do not a shed a tear
we have a place where hope can dwell."

As the song reached it's conclusion, the door opened. The faint firelight of a teeny lantern cast its glimmer into my cell, which I quickly saw was nothing but a little box. Bars on either side led to other cells, other little boxes filled with the dead and the soon to be dead.

The figure holding the lantern was nothing but a great shadow. A bear wrapped up in a woolen black cloak. When the bear walked nearer, I saw it had a scar on its cheek. The prince? The prince of the whole ursyne kingdom was here?

The bear prince stepped forward. His mouth stretched wide in what could have been a grin, but all I saw were dozens of wicked looking teeth. He spoke in a gruff whisper, which seemed odd to me, since he'd just been singing for all the world to hear. Surely he was here to eat me... right?

"Better get you out of those chains! We must escape this place at once!" A ring of keys appeared in one hand, and he immediately went to work freeing me. I pitched forward the moment my arms were unbound. My body was so stiff I could barely move. In spite of the immense strength he no doubt possessed, the prince caught me with surprisingly gentle arms.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked, mumbling around the wound in my mouth. I was pretty certain I'd bitten my tongue at some point.

"Because I know where you come from. Others, when they see you, they don't realize what you are, but I know a human when I see one. Your kind has always been a sign to our world, a signal of history turning a new page." The words were spoken while a foul-smelling salve was applied to my wrists, which were raw and red from the chains. The prince's claws, I noticed, were filed down. The bears of this world did not seem to have such different hands from my own, once they were trimmed.

"There is a legend, a prophecy some say..." the bear continued as he pulled out a black cloak from a satchel at his side. It was similar to his own but much smaller. "That one called the Child of Thunder will come, a boy that will rid our world of war and chaos." He wrapped me up in the cloak, pulling the hood down so it obscured most of my face. I nearly retched when I took my next breath. The cloth stank like wet animal fur.

"But perhaps that is best discussed at another time. Now, listen to me. This is very important. If anyone sees you, you are going to die. If anyone hears you, you are going to die. If anyone smells you, you are probably going to die. Got it?"

When I nodded solemnly I was ushered out in the dark, narrow hallway beyond my cell. It was a long corridor, filled with all the remnants of its captives anguish. The piteous crying and tormented screams I'd thought I heard grew in volume now. Moans and shrieks echoed off the walls, seeming to come from everywhere.

"Delightful place, isn't it?" The prince snarled. "This is my father's legacy." I couldn't see much with my hood pulled down low and nothing about my surroundings gave me much reason to change that. Even as it was I still saw furry hands reaching through cell bars, grasping after the freedom that was now mine. It made me uncomfortable. I didn't want to think about all the animal eyes trained on me, eyes more used to darkness than light.

In that moment, I could not have been more grateful to have been freed so quickly.

As the prince made to leave, I stopped dead in my tracks. "Where is Needha?" I asked stubbornly. "I don't want to leave her."

"She's been sent to a labor camp," the bear replied. "You'll have to leave rescuing her to me." I wasn't so sure I wanted to do that, but I decided for now the best thing for me was to do as I was told.

We moved up a dank spiral staircase that seemed to climb forever. We passed doors that led to other levels, other cells filled with misery. The two of us bypassed it all, however, to wind up in a surprisingly cheerful foyer. A desk sat to our right, occupied by a scrawny white bear.

Further off, several bears in uniform were playing cards at a dining table. Weapons sat on the floor near their feet. Other than the warm hearth glowing near their table, and a wider than usual door straight ahead there was not much else to say about the room. The prince removed his hood. "Checking out prisoner 0-5-2-1," he declared, turning towards the beast he was addressing but not really looking at him.

"Yes, majesty," the bear behind the desk replied stiffly. "Mackanjaw, rabbit, designation 0-5-2-1 has been checked out to his royal higness Daale. Sign here please." As "Daale" leaned over the paperwork on the desk, the littler bear's eyes seemed to be glowing in admiration.

"S-sorry to h-hear about your loss at Gryndyr Hill, majesty." The bear's added nervously. "You'll get 'em next time." The prince grunted at this and said nothing. He moved towards the far door and I followed. I was wondering how a boy like me could pass for a rabbit, and what that said about the rabbits of this world, when one of the bears at the card table called out.

"Ho there, prince!" I recognized that voice. "What's the rabbit for? Was it not your own initiatives that made stewin' em up illegal?" I could see a silver stripe across the outspoken creature's left eye. This was the very same bear that had mocked Daale when Needha and I had been captured.

"I need a new servant, Basson, not that it's any of your affair." The prince turned once more to leave, reaching back to tug impatiently on my arm. I stumbled towards him, nearly lurching to the floor.

"I'm hurt, Daale!" the bear replied with an injured tone that rang false. "I thought we were friends." He turned to train his eyes on me. I was certain "Basson" couldn't see me but I still had to resist the urge to squirm under his studious gaze.

"I'll let you go, just let me get a good look at the fellow's face. Knew a rabbit once... owes me money. Just want to make sure it's not the same scamp." A mischievous grin crossed the monster's face. We were trapped now and he knew it.

Basson nodded and waved toward me with a casual flick of his long, untrimmed claws. Suddenly my hood was ripped back, exposing my face.

Exposing me.

A bear I hadn't seen had slipped behind me. A chorus of gasps filled the room. "The prince... a traitor." Daale asked without sincerity, faking surprise. "The emperor will want to hear about this!"

Before anyone could react further, Daale snatched me up with one arm and threw me onto his shoulders. Lowering himself to all fours, the beast plowed right through the door, turning it into splinters. Once more, all I could do was hold on for dear life.

We exploded onto a busy street, little flecks of wood raining down around us. Above ground, the prison we'd fled was nothing but a small tower. It's stature here belied the depths hidden under the earth.

"What is that guy's problem?" I asked as we hit the cobblestone road, surrounded by bears going about their everyday business. I wasn't sure what normal was for a bear but it looked like my world's version of normal.

"He wants to be me!" Daale replied. "Basson wants me to lose favor with my father so that he can get closer to him!"

The bears for their part reacted exactly the way I would have expected any city back home to. They looked on in surprise but did nothing. Behind us I could hear the commotion as the prison guards scrabbled about, crying "Seize them!" and the like.

Daale's paws hammered a steady beat against the road as we ran. The city we were in seemed to rise and fall in waves. Every street rose sharply only to plunge into a steep drop. Buildings stood on either side like walls of a canyon, hemming us in. I would realize soon enough that the city was carved into the face of a mountain. Every street had been formed following a quarrying process that ripped out enormous veins in the crag. It was a fortress unlike anything I had ever seen in my own world.

In an effort to disappear we seemed to following some invisible path I could not discern. We whipped around corners, slinked down back allies, zigging and zagging here and there. Most of the time the bear prince stayed on all fours but sometimes he walked on two, causing me to almost tumble to the ground.

When we emerged into a marketplace so crowded we could barely walk, I began to feel safe. The prince, lungs heaving with the exertion of our escape, stood and shrugged his shoulders to shake me off. I was afraid our black cloaks would give us away, but there were many in that crowd dressed in black cloaks. I pulled my hood down as low as I could, afraid a stray gust of wind would knock it back unexpectedly.

Strange coincidence was our undoing. Trying to slip through the crowd of mostly bears without getting trampled, I bumped into a skinny figure wrapped in his own darkly colored cape. A ram with spiraling horns pulled back his hood to look down on me with frightening red eyes. The creature fixed me with an unblinking, uncomprehending stare.

"What sort of whatsit are you?" He asked, his voice high and bleating, exactly like a sheep's, or a goat's. Before I could shrink back, he pushed the cloth back from my head, revealing me to the world.

"I'm a rabbit," I replied, despite the fact that I was clearly nothing of the kind. I petulantly flipped my hood back over my face, noticing that I was about to lose Daale in the crowd.

A strong hand gripped my bicep tighlty before I could walk away. "I think... I think you're that prisoner who just escaped." My blood went cold. I didn't know how he knew who I was, only that I needed to escape.

I fought against the creature, but he didn't let up. Reaching into my pocket, I grasped the claw that surprisingly never been confiscated. Another strange coincidence, it seemed. I slashed at the goat-thing's arm with the wicked talon, securing my release.

The ram cried out, grasping at his injured arm. He took a deep deep breath and screamed "GUARDS! GUARDS!" As I fled into the crowd. More and more passersby were beginning to take notice of me. And not all of them bears. I could see panthers, cheetahs, wolves, and some creatures I didn't recognize.

Space was beginning to surround me. Everyone was keeping their distance, not wanting to get between me and the bears that would come for me. I could only hope the prince could get to me first.

And then I heard the scuffle begin. Far off, I could see Daale caught up in a battle. He was wielding a mighty sword against at least a dozen beasts, too preoccupied to be able to come back for me. Rescue was not coming.

I was surrounded by enemies on all sides, and there was no one who could help me now. That thought kept repeating in my head, over and over. I couldn't seem to erase it.

Rescue was not coming.