Into Tordon Page 3

  She snatched up the nearest leaf, crumpled and smelled it. It was mint, like her chewing gum.

  Were they in a real forest?

  Or was she dreaming?

  No, her arm was sore from where Zane had gripped it—this wasn’t a dream. But what had happened, where were they? Rumours had long floated around the Tordon chatroom that Kaleski had discovered a gateway to another dimension or world. Was this it?

  ‘Just gotta get this door, argh, come on!’ Zane shouted. Beth turned. The trunk of a massive tree—the kind she only saw in history books of once great rainforests—now crowded the space where they’d entered the house. Zane was trying to get a grip on the outline of a front door, but it was slowly fading, its edges blending into the bark.

  Beth jumped up, her eyes wide. There had to be another door.

  She spun around searching each trunk and the spaces between. But there was none. How were they going to get home?

  Zane yelled and thumped the wood of the large tree, but the door had already disappeared. In its place was an inscription, etched deep into the bark: Once a killing, twice the killing.

  What did that mean? There were two of them, but what about the killing part? She just wanted to go home now.

  Home. Beth felt anger grow inside her. They were in the middle of a strange nowhere, with no obvious way of getting back, and it was all his fault—Zane, Mr 007 tough-guy. Her fists clenched and she felt a tightening on her hands. The webbing was still stuck there. Had it thickened? A network of solid white lines crisscrossed her palms and around each finger. At each wrist was a thick white band with a glowing circle divided into segments. She tried pulling it off again, but tugging just pinched her skin. It was like rubber had melted onto her flesh.

  ‘What is this?’ Zane was also tugging at whatever coated his hands.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Beth snapped. ‘But you’d better figure it out, fast!’

  ‘Why me? You’re the champion.’

  ‘Because you got us into this mess. So you can get us out!’

  Zane turned on her then, fuming. ‘Me? You tricked me, trapped me inside this place! What did you do?’

  ‘You pushed me, remember!’ she shouted as if 6thDan’s inner Ki energy would flow through her voice and smack him down.

  Zane’s reply was stopped by a horrid shriek from the treetops above them. He stared up. ‘What was that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Beth, searching the tall forest again for any resemblance to the hallway from before. In the distance, she thought she saw something with a spear racing towards her. But that couldn’t be right.

  None of this was right.

  Another shriek.

  ‘What do we do?’ moaned Zane, parting leaves on the ground as if hoping to find a weapon. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Beth jumped as a branch cracked above them. ‘But I think something’s coming!’

  They gazed up into the thick vines dangling from the highest branches. What stared back was a multi-eyed monstrosity with fur, tentacles, sharp claws and huge fangs. It swung towards them, using vines to move through the trees like a giant hairy octopus. With every swing it glared harder as if incensed with a ravenous hunger.

  Beth changed her mind—she knew exactly what to do.

  ‘Run!’

  Chapter 4

  Beth spun around and sprinted as the monstrous creature shrieked again, and again—louder and louder as it followed them through the greenery, swinging from vine to vine. Low ferns smacked into her as she ran over the uneven forest floor. She swatted them aside while hopping over stones, buttress roots and tangles of undergrowth. She didn’t notice the spines on the branch in front of her until it was too late.

  ‘Ow!’ she yelled as it tore into her top and dug into her right arm. Blood oozed and it stung. Beth pressed her lips together and pushed on through the trees—she was not going to die here! Dad didn’t even know where she’d gone!

  ‘Slow—down!’ Zane panted, falling behind.

  But they couldn’t slow down—the thing was right behind them! ‘Come on! You’ll get us both killed!’ She grabbed his arm and pulled him with her. He may be to blame for their being here, but she wasn’t going to struggle through it alone!

  She noticed a brightness to their right.

  ‘A clearing!’ she shouted, pointing. ‘No vines! It might not be able to move without vines or branches.’ She glanced behind them. The thing was gaining on them, using its horrible tentacles to swing ever closer. She yanked Zane to the right and the brightness grew. Almost there! It looked to be a vast field.

  Was that voices? It sounded like there was a large crowd up ahead.

  Beth sped up, but as soon as they broke through the undergrowth, she wished they hadn’t—the voices didn’t belong to people, but a group of strange beast-like tribesmen charging forward, some with horns, others with fur, hooves, tails and claws. Most wore the familiar animal skins and tribal ornaments of…Tordon? Saliva-dripping mutts raced by their sides. All of them held raised spears, and one of them angled his weapon as if to throw it. He lunged and its tip glinted in the sun as it shot towards them.

  ‘Duck!’ she screamed, spinning ninety degrees and dragging Zane along the tree edge.

  Spears whizzed through the air.

  There was a colossal thud and a shriek as the tentacled beast fell to the ground.

  ‘Keep running!’ she yelled. ‘I don’t think they’ve seen us!’

  ‘I need—to rest,’ panted Zane as they neared the far edge of the field.

  Beth glanced back. The tribesmen were busy with the tentacled monster-thing, crowding around it and jumping up and down in celebration. Zane’s breath was ragged and he was running bent over, clutching at his side. She switched to a fast walk and let go of Zane’s arm. ‘We can rest over there.’ She pointed to where the field sloped down towards forest again, though the trees there seemed clear of vines.

  ‘I smell smoke,’ said Zane.

  Beth looked but couldn’t see what he meant. There was a dirt track, though, leading between the trees at the bottom of the slope.

  ‘Grrr,’ something snarled behind them. A mutt crept towards them from the trees on their right, saliva drooling from its muzzle. It crouched low, ready to pounce.

  ‘Quick!’ Beth yelled, turning and sprinting towards the track. Bursting onto what looked like a pathway, she stumbled on the roots of a tall tree.

  ‘Move!’ Zane shouted, slamming her aside.

  She glanced back but the mutt wasn’t following.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘I threw it a stick!’

  ‘And?’ she called after him, but if he replied she didn’t hear him over the roar of tribesmen. Whatever Zane had done must have caught their attention, because now the whole tribe were racing towards them. Beth took off after Zane, following the path until they ran into a cleared area that seemed to be a camp. She gasped. Several log seats circled a smouldering fire neatly contained by rocks. They were burning wood? So precious back home, yet here it was being destroyed.

  She looked around. A number of hammocks were slung high in the trees, covered by palm leaf shelters. Pots and pans were stacked to one side of the fire, and its smoke curled upwards in a breeze tinged with mint and sweet basil. Zane was already across the space at what looked like a pile of weapons, picking up something long and thin.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing? That’s not yours!’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he said, ‘but I’m having this.’ He held up a spear with four shiny points at one end. ‘And this sword too.’ It wasn’t anything as elegant as a Kumdo sword, but it was sharp and metal. It was also, therefore, a good idea.

  Beth hurried to the stack of weapons. The swords had crudely-shaped blades and were heavier than they looked. While Zane slashed his around to test its balance, Beth could barely lift hers. Maybe there was a lighter one? Yes, there at the back—a long thin blade with a lightweight handle. She had to move several aside to reach it
, but it was the perfect weight.

  Just in time.

  The mutt was creeping up on them.

  It bounded into the camp and leapt at her, its teeth bared and its claws stretched and sharp. Beth froze, but Zane didn’t hesitate. He dashed forward, swinging his spear into the mutt’s side.

  ‘The beastmen of Tordon!’ Zane cried, and it fell to the ground with a high-pitched whine.

  Beth grimaced, but Zane picked up another spear and aimed it at the trees, ready.

  ‘Athul!’ came a voice. ‘Athul, Athul?’

  A group of roaring tribesmen charged into the camp.

  Beth pointed her sword, gripping it with both hands. But the tribesmen slowed on spying their dead mutt and lowered their spears completely.

  Zane, however, was throwing his. ‘Take that!’ he shouted, laughing as the spear embedded itself deep into the arm of a tribesman. ‘Score!’

  The tribesman screamed in agony and grasped his furry arm, now dripping with blood. Bright—red—blood. Just like theirs.

  ‘Fifty extra points to me!’ Zane yelled.

  The injured tribesman’s friends surrounded him. Wherever Kaleski’s Black-Door-With-No-Doorknob had transported them, these seemed to be real creatures, with a home, relationships and pets.

  Zane pulled his arm back, preparing to throw another spear.

  ‘Stop!’ Beth cried. ‘They’re not attacking!’

  Zane paused and his wild look faded as one of the tribesmen dropped to the ground, whimpering beside the mutt.

  ‘Athul,’ he murmured, his eyes full of despair.

  ‘What have you done?’ said Beth.

  The rest of the tribesmen eyed them angrily and shook their spears.

  ‘Oops.’ Zane took a step back and glanced about. Then he suddenly turned and ran into the forest.

  ‘Wait!’ Beth yelled, plunging into the undergrowth after him.

  He wouldn’t slow. ‘Zane! Wait!’

  The tribesmen didn’t seem to be following them— their voices faded the further Beth and Zane ran. Still Zane didn’t stop—not until the forest floor began to incline up a ridge. Then he changed his pace to a fast walk. ‘But we’re in Tordon,’ he was muttering to himself when Beth caught up to him, ‘once the killing, twice the killing—I don’t understand.’ He looked up. ‘Let’s get up this hill, then we’ll have a vantage point to see where we are.’

  Beth gazed up the looming hill. She’d never hiked before. Ha! She’d never fallen through a dimensional gateway before either—who knew what was a good idea here and what wasn’t? Tears pressed behind her eyes as she trudged after Zane. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. She’d just wanted to meet some other gamers. Now all she wanted was to go home. Perhaps from higher up they’d be able to see a way?

  Swallowing hard, she pushed up the hill. Crying wasn’t going to get her home.

  The further up the hill they hiked, the thicker the vegetation grew and they had to slash at it with their swords. Everything was so green! The path grew wetter and muddier and steeper. Shadows lengthened and Beth noticed vines growing here and there. They tramped on regardless, silent with their thoughts, even when spiked ferns scratched their skin and clothes. Bugs swarmed around their sweating faces and Beth jumped with each bird cry from the trees overhead—feeling as if something was going to attack them any moment. Zane kept grumbling so she knew it bothered him too.

  They came across a small dell covered in mossy stones and fallen tree trunks. Several boulders sat to one side, clumped together under a vertical rockface that towered behind them. Water dripped down the sides of the boulders into a small clear puddle that glistened in the dim light. Beth slumped beside it and Zane threw his sword on the ground before falling to his knees, breathing hard. He eyed the liquid as if it were priceless. His sweat-soaked hair looked ridiculous now, draping over his brow like a freshly wrung mop.

  He rinsed his hands in the puddle, then reached to cup some water from the drip.

  ‘Wait!’ said Beth. ‘I heard water not out of a tap carries diseases.’

  ‘And I know if someone doesn’t drink something, they’re dead in three days. Dad’s taken me hiking in worse places than this.’ He cupped his hands again and tried to fill them with the trickle. More dripped between his fingers than stayed in his web-coated palms—the webbing’s uneven surface causing the leaks—but he had enough to drink.

  Beth wondered how thirsty she was and looked down at her own hands. The sheer web-gloves covering them now showed patterns as well as lines connecting to the white band at her wrists, where a segmented circle continued to glow ominously. What did it mean?

  Zane leant back and smacked his lips. ‘I needed that. Can’t be half dead from thirst if I’m to fight.’

  ‘Fight? You mean another tree octopus-thing or those tribesmen?’ Zane shrugged. ‘Both.’

  ‘But the tribesmen didn’t even attack us! We’re the ones who ran into their camp and killed their mutt. What am I saying? You killed their mutt.’

  ‘They attacked us. It wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘This is all your fault.’ Tears stung Beth’s eyes again.

  ‘Who knows where we are, or how far from home, we’ve no way of getting back, and we’re surrounded by who knows what!’

  ‘Well, we do know what—they’re the beastmen of Tordon and this is Tordon.’ He gestured around them.

  ‘No, Zane. This is nothing like Tordon. You can’t die in Tordon. You can’t get these in Tordon.’ She jabbed at some deep scratches on her arm covered in dry blood. ‘And now we’re on the run from an entire tribe of, of people, for attacking them and killing their pet!’

  ‘But remember that engraving on the tree? Once a killing, twice the killing? ’ Zane’s eyes pleaded with her. ‘I thought it meant to kill. It’s so much like Tordon here, you’ve got to admit it. Look at the trees. And those beastmen wear the same stuff, and the mutts.’

  ‘And the blood?’

  He glanced at his own scratches. ‘Well, no, not the blood.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I guess I got it wrong.’ He looked up at the surrounding forest. ‘This has to be one of the places that inspired Kaleski to create Tordon though.’

  ‘Do you think?’ Beth muttered sarcastically.

  ‘So those rumours about him finding a dimensional gateway were true?’ He paused. ‘Which means there has to be a way back.’

  Beth nodded. If Kaleski came here and got back home, it must be possible for them too. ‘If we survive long enough,’ she said miserably, scanning the bark of the trees as if one of them might contain a shiny black door. ‘There has to be a way back, somewhere.’

  A green lizard climbed onto a nearby branch, curling its tail so as to hug the branch, and cocked its head. She’d never seen a lizard like it before, so green and yet so— orange? It was changing colour like a chameleon. White stripes formed along its orange sides until they looked like lines ending in arrowheads. The lizard’s big green eyes swirled and looked forward, following the direction of its streaks. Its tongue flicked that way too. Then its eyes swivelled back to stare directly at Beth before looking again in the direction of its arrows—towards the vertical rockface beyond the boulders. There was a flat ledge in the rockface, just above head height. Was the lizard trying to tell her something?

  Slowly it changed colour again, until its body matched its surroundings, blending so completely it became invisible from tail to nose. Only its green eyes remained, as if floating in space. They looked at her briefly and winked, then disappeared too.

  ‘Did you see that?’ Beth whispered.

  ‘What?’ said Zane, washing the sweat from his hair. As he pushed it back into its usual style, a terrible yet distant shriek pierced the air.

  ‘Did you hear that? We should find somewhere safer,’ Beth said, standing. ‘How about up there?’ She pointed to the flat ledge, pointed out by the lizard.

  ‘And how are we supposed to get up there?’

  ‘It’s not that high.’


  Zane rubbed his chin. ‘Maybe. Might be difficult though. Could you pull yourself up there?’

  ‘Could you?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he snapped, sucking in his stomach. ‘I’d probably beat you to the top! What do you think I am, a lazybones?’

  Beth raised her eyebrows. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘We sure will.’

  ‘Great, let’s go.’

  He didn’t answer, just stood still eyeing the ledge. ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘Not keen on heights, that’s all.’

  Beth rolled her eyes, tucked her sword through her belt, moved around the boulders and found a sturdy bulge in the rockface. Another shriek sounded in the distance. She glanced back at Zane. ‘Now’s the time to get over it. What do you fear more—heights, vine-swinging monsters or angry beastmen?’

  Zane searched the trees behind him, jittery, then eyed the ledge. ‘I’ll watch where you go first.’

  ‘Fine.’ She shook her head and heaved herself up to her first foothold. It was harder than she’d expected, especially with muddy shoes making the rock slippery. She was soon out of breath and struggling.

  ‘A little to your right,’ Zane said under his breath. Beth saw the handhold he meant and pulled herself up, swinging a knee onto the ledge’s flat top, then rolling herself up and on. ‘Your turn,’ she called down.

  He took a deep breath, secured his sword and reached for the rockface. With one foot on the first bulge, he climbed well enough until he was halfway up. There, balancing on a particularly large bulge, he bounced as if about to launch himself upward, yet both feet remained firmly on the bulge.

  ‘Here,’ Beth said, securing herself and lowering her hand to help.

  He ignored it and began climbing again, though his arms shook and he kept looking down.

  ‘What’s your dad do anyway?’ Beth asked, thinking he needed a distraction.

  ‘Navy marine,’ he grunted, bitterness in his voice. ‘Does stuff like this for fun.’ His muddy feet slipped on a foothold.