The King's Challenge #15

TKC 15

A solid item in a heavy fist starts banging on my coffin. The din is incredible, and my entire body shakes. Almost I shove the covering upwards, seeking to end it.

I hear shouting over it and then I hear something else. It is the silence of absence, but the lack of sound does not last long, for I hear something more.

Rain.

To the stars with this. I heave the lid up employing hands and feet to remove it, to get it away. Gasping, I straighten. Never will I voluntarily clamber into a coffin again. It is the most terrifying experience, and also humiliating. Not caring about safety, I abscond the confining box for the dead.

The deadhouse interior is emptied of everything but coffins. The old man has vanished also. Rain hurtles down to drum upon the tin roof. That din I am able to live with, though.

“Damin!”

Two shaped shadows away, a lid crashes open. Damin sits up. He appears disorientated. “What is that noise?”

“Rain,” I mutter.

He stares at me. “It is raining?” Suddenly his confusion is gone and an insane kind of glee replaces it. “It is raining! That is why they went.” Then he sobers and swiftly leaves his coffin. “We must go too. If it rains more than twenty minutes, it means the wet season has arrived. It will flood within an hour and we will not reach the path to the plateau.”

This is the longest, most intense night of my life, but it is not yet over. I drag my cloak free and swing it on. “Then let us go.”

Flashing his grin, Damin takes my hand and heads for the door. No one is in the vicinity.

“Lyra, now we run until we are above this.”

We run.