This choice: Before Laura can answer, there are more footfalls.... • Go Back...Chapter #7Before Laura can answer, there are more footfal... by: Osirantinous   Before Laura could answer ('I'm not hiding secrets' was her immediate gut reaction) a dragging, stepping sound came from their left. Loud enough that even she heard it, and couldn't deny that she had.
'See?' Steve hissed, rising onto his knees.
'It's probably just a rat,' Laura murmured, even if she didn't believe it. The sounds were definite steps and not hesitant, not like a rat who would be sniffing around, trying to decide if it should come closer or not. She looked at Steve; he knelt like stone in front of her as he listened. 'Steve?' she whispered.
When he turned to look at her the snapping flames made him seem mechanical and made his dark brown eyes black and glassy. She caught her breath but then he swallowed and blinked.
'Get behind me,' he said softly, rising and pulling the dagger from his boot. They were woefully under-armed for any sort of encounter, woefully unprepared in general. But then he'd never expected to come across a labyrinth with a monster and a wall springing up out of nowhere to prevent their retreat.
Steve shifted in front of the small fire, closed his eyes briefly so as to better get used to the dark that now stretched out in front of him. He didn't look to see if Laura had moved but then she said, 'should I put out the fire?'
'No,' he rasped with a shake of his head. 'If whatever it is has to look into the light, that's to our benefit. But, Laura, try not to stare into it yourself, alright?'
Laura mumbled an agreement to that, and shifted to the other side if the alley space so that the fire was more to her side than in front of her. She crouched to the ground; in her dark greens and browns she might be hard to see there and could act as an element of surprise to help Steve.
Once she'd fallen still, silence settled. Steve was standing, left foot slightly forward, dagger loose in his right fist. She'd seen him in this stance many times; he looked totally relaxed and uninterested but he could let that dagger go in an eye blink.
After maybe two minutes they heard the sound again, steps. Slow but unhesitating. Whatever was coming meant to come, whether it had heard them or not. Surely they had the advantage, having been round a slightly curve in the alley. The thing would not know there were two of them unless it had heard them talking earlier, and both Steve and Laura had kept their voices low.
Steve flexed his fingers around the dagger's hilt. His heart was leaping about and he drew in a steady breath to try and calm it. Despite his fears about the darkness and the monster in the labyrinth he felt mostly calm. He'd faced enemies before - human and otherwise. Better prepared, usually, but shortened odds did bring out the best in him.
The steps stopped just beyond the curve and then started forward again, and a large yet low shadow slid around the curve with a shuffle. Steve took a step sideways in an attempt to let the fire shed some light, and he blew out a breath at what he saw. 'It's a rat!'
Not ten feet from him, crouched now against the wall was a rat. A large one, maybe not even a rat but some other giant rodent, its fur hanging in dreds down to the ground. Steve shot a glance at Laura and prepared to laugh. Then the rat fixed him with its beady black eyes and said, 'don't insult me, I'm a mongoose.'
Steve choked on a swallow and Laura squeaked out a half-voiced scream. She scuttled back across the alley to the fire and their knapsack, now positioned behind Steve. She didn't mind rodents but talking ones were not something she was used to.
'And unless you give me some respect - such as putting away that knife - you're not going to make it out of this night alive.'
'Excuse me?' Steve demanded, raising the dagger.
'You don't act like a man who is deaf,' the mongoose grumbled. 'Oh blast it, if I must I must.'
Steve glanced back at Laura, totally bamboozled. She held one handover her mouth, pointed with the other. Steve turned back, and swore.
In front of him the mongoose was distorting with growth, sprouting longer limbs, while the dreds were shrinking and lengthening in random order. In a half minute, where the mongoose had crouched, a young man now crouched. 'You better give me some clothes.'
Steve probably would have just stared all night, even if he was used to weird stuff. A rodent-come-man wasn't something he'd seen a lot of!
'Come on,' the man said. 'I can't be of help if I freeze to death.'
'Here,' Laura said and Steve wasn't quick enough to stop her stepping passed and holding out a cloak. 'We don't have much,' she said.
The man took the cloak, mumbled a barely-there 'thank you' and slung the cloak around his shoulders. Once decent, he rose on two perfectly human feet and both Steve and Laura were somewhat surprised that the man was about Steve's height and only young. Maybe twenty?
'How about an explanation,' Steve said, 'before you take one step further.' He jabbed the dagger outward.
'How about you let me come closer to that pathetic excuse for a fire and warm my bones first?'
As Steve was opening his mouth to condemn the newcomer to his foulest words, Laura touched his arm. 'He's shivering,' she said, 'let him come closer.'
Steve grimaced. Laura was a soft touch often, but right now?? Then again, she had secrets... what if she and this mongoose man knew each other? Not that they'd shown any recognition. Steve rubbed his brow and shifted away from the fire, pulling Laura with him. He waved the man forward with his dagger wielding hand. 'Be our guest.'
The man didn't respond to the tone, just moved forward and then sank to his knees. He held his hands out to the flame and closed his eyes. Next thing, the fire was worthy of being called a fire - three times as large and giving off heat that Steve and Laura could feel even from their distance.
'What...' Steve began.
'Have you got any food?' the man asked. 'I wasn't able to find anything once the wall sprung up. I'm starving.'
'We're pretty low,' Laura admitted. 'Let me see though.'
'Laura...'
'Steve,' she responded in a tight tone. 'Just come and take a seat. Let our guest make himself comfortable before making him explain.'
The man smiled at Steve, which Steve read as she's got you whipped! and scowled. He did crouch at the fire side, though, and when he felt the warmth running through his body he even set the dagger on the ground by his knee. 'What's your name?' he asked.
'Darius,' the young man answered easily enough and thanked Laura for the pieces of meat and cheese she held out.
'Why do you sneak about as a rodent?' Steve asked.
'A mongoose is not a rodent,' Darius said stiffly around a mouthful of cheese.
'Then why do you sneak about as a mongoose?'
'I was hardly sneaking,' came another stiff answer. 'I was trying to find the end of this damn alley. The wall is too smooth for me to climb.' He pointed up at the stone at Laura and Steve's back.
'Why don't you move about in your human form?' Laura this time, curious.
'Because I can run faster the other way,' Darius responded wryly.
'Alright,' Steve growled, 'enough with the riddles. You look like a twenty-year-old kid in need of a bath and a barber, wearing just a cloak. Yet you reckon we won't survive the night without you. Start explaining before my patience wears out.'
'I said you wouldn't if you didn't show me respect,' Darius corrected mildly. 'But your interpretation is true too,' he added quickly, when Steve moved a hand toward the dagger. He took another bite of the cheese then rearranged the cloaked so it covered his crossed legs.
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