She paused and waited for Frieda and Gramps to catch up to her and Sherlock. The air was colder than it had been near the mountain—something she thought was quite odd. The chilly weather brought along dark thoughts, which she willed away with a smile.
When Frieda and Gramps finally caught up, Gramps smiled back. “Oh, dear, Maria, you’ll have to forgive me. My age is showing. Come, come—to the gates we go.” Gramps pushed ahead, shedding Frieda’s support. Frieda gave Maria a reluctant look, as if to say she was sorry, but Maria knew her grandfather was as hardheaded as she was. There was no need to be sorry. The two women took a couple of hesitant steps after him.
Sherlock’s energy had come back, and he bounded past all of them.
“Sherlock!” Maria hissed.
Too many good smells! Sorry!
Maria could only shake her head. When the Bloodhound reached the fence, he started sniffing all along the iron.
Fish! No…dead fish! Even better. And…and…beef? I smell beef. And butter and oils. Weeks old trash dumped into the lake! Mmm! He paused, taking in a deep breath through his nostrils. Oh, it gets even better…blood!
She froze on the spot so abruptly that Frieda and Gramps stopped, too. Maria’s heart sank.
“Blood? Blood, are you sure?”
Sherlock inhaled deeply again.
Yep, blood and sweat and steel.
“This is no time to joke.”
I’m not, Maria. Don’t act surprised…this is why we came here, right? To battle the bad guys?
Maria nodded, her senses heightening. She thought she could smell the blood and sweat and steel herself. She walked over to Sherlock and then crouched, sticking close to the shadows thrown by the gate. She motioned Frieda and Gramps over.
Gramps had his wand out, and Frieda’s hands were clenched into half-fists, ready to turn a spark into a blaze.
Now Maria crept slowly along the fence toward the opening, her sword out. The steel felt natural in her hands; so much better than it had felt when Gramps first gifted it to her two or three Earth days ago.
“Careful,” Gramps whispered, almost soundlessly.
Maria looked back and nodded. She had learned to be careful very quickly in this magical world. First the unexpected powers resulting in unexpected explosions, then the Arachnids and the dark dreams and the visions where she talked to dead soldiers, and portal mishaps; not to mention the Raffin in the Elves’ library. Yeah, she was surprised she’d lasted this long.
The iron of the fence was replaced by wood, stretching for a length of nearly one-hundred feet only to give way to iron again closer to the opening. Beyond the fence was silence. It was as if they’d arrived at a ghost town. Through the slats, Maria could see nothing but an empty street; wooden buildings and huts rose up on each side of the dirt road. A few barrels stood out in front of the wooden shops, and tethers and troughs for the horses in front of those. But no people; no voices. Only dark, shuttered windows, and eerie quiet.
Are they all dead? Am I too late? If she was, it was all because of that bastard Widow, the ruler of the Arachnids.
“Open?” Gramps asked.
Maria put a hesitant hand on the gate and pulled.
It was locked.
She shook her head. “Nothing,” Maria said, daring to raise her voice a little higher so the rest of the group could hear.
Gramps waved her back. “We must find another way in. It shan’t be difficult,” Gramps said.
“I could melt the lock,” Frieda offered. She snapped her fingers, and a spark lit up the shadows that the group clung to.
“No,” said Gramps. “No, we must be as careful and stealthy as possible.”
Like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible! Sherlock said.
“We gotta stop letting you watch movies when everyone else is asleep,” Maria replied. “You’re definitely not Tom Cruise, so don’t go climbing up any fences.”
You underestimate my power!
“What’s that one? Star Wars? Yeah, I think it is. Episode III, right?”
Sherlock snarled.
“Gramps is right,” Maria decided, taking control. “We should go around—”
A clamor of voices cut her off from inside the gate.
Maria, Sherlock, Gramps, and Frieda all froze to the spot, their eyes darting to one another.
“…then I told that fuckin’ Gnome to cry as loud as he wanted! His gods don’t matter anymore. There’s only one God now!” a gruff man’s voice said.
Others laughed in reply. Maria didn’t think that could’ve been remotely funny, despite missing the beginning of the story. But her ears had perked up (as had Sherlock’s) at the mention of a Gnome.
Gelbus. It has to be Gelbus. God, I hope he isn’t hurt…or worse. We need him.
“Soon, my brethren, soon!” someone else declared. "Our God will rise."
The others cheered.
They sound like they’re getting closer…Rustling filled Maria’s ears.
The cheers stopped.
“What was that?” one of the men asked.
“What? I heard nothing.”
Maria’s heart stopped beating for a moment and she looked at Gramps. The tip of his wand was glowing blue, prepared for a fight. They were about thirty feet from the gate, but the only cover offered to them at that moment was the rolling hills, back the way they had come—and those were much farther than Maria wanted to risk. If they were to run toward them, they’d be out in the open for a solid thirty seconds; perhaps longer, with Gramps lagging behind. They’d be shot down or chased before they could reach safety.
The man laughed. “It is the sound of VICTORY!”
Maria relaxed. Frieda, who had been holding Gramps’s hand, looked down and quickly let go.
They were opening the gates.
“Shit,” Maria whispered. She waved the four of them back and they pressed themselves up against the fence as flat as they could.
A large man wearing a green hood walked out onto the path from the now-open gate. He stopped and sniffed almost as deeply as Sherlock had.
Maria held her breath.
More laughter and conversation floated out from behind the gate. The man reached into
