Vale of Shadows:

  Highlands of Gaea

  By

  Juliette Barrymore

  © copyright February 2021 by Madris DePasture writing as Juliette Barrymore

  Cover art by Jenny Dixon, © copyright February 2021

  ISBN 978-1-60394

  Smashwords Edition

  New Concepts Publishing

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Chapter One

  “Miami tower? This is Cessna Light M491. Do you read?” Monica said into her microphone, trying to keep her voice calm and even when that wasn’t the case at all. A strange looking storm had seemingly formed out of nowhere. One minute the skies were clear and the next it looked like serious trouble. And it looked like it was moving toward her.

  “This is Miami tower, Cessna Light ….” The voice trailed off into a barrage of static that blew up in her ear.

  Rubbing her ear, Monica turned the volume down and tried again. “Miami Tower. Say again? You’re breaking up. Do you read?”

  “This is Miam ….”

  “Shit!” Monica exclaimed when the callback erupted into static again.

  Trying not to panic, she decided to report her problem in the hope that they could hear her even though she wasn’t picking up much besides static. “I’m seeing heavy weather up here. Getting a good bit of turbulence. The reports I got before I left didn’t indicate bad weather. In route to Bimini. Should I hold this heading? Or should I turn back?”

  That time she didn’t hear anything at all.

  She checked the time and instruments. She should be about halfway to Bimini by now, she decided. It would take as long to head back to land as to reach the land in front of her. Maybe they could hear her?

  It seemed unlikely considering the storm seemed to have formed ahead of her. It was getting darker by the minute. The clouds seemed to be closing in on her and she discovered when she looked in the rearview that she was surrounded, that turning around was no better option than keeping the course she’d set. “Bimini Tower! This is Cessna Light M491. Do you read? I have a situation here that’s getting worse by the second.”

  She switched from send to receive. “Bimini Tower? Do you read?”

  Nothing but dead air.

  “Don’t panic,” she muttered to herself, trying to recall anything in her lessons that she could use.

  There was nothing in her experience. She’d gotten in enough hours earlier in the year to fly solo and get her license and she’d put in as many flight hours as she could manage after that given her busy schedule and her finances. But she just hadn’t been flying long enough to deal with storms. She needed to be instrument certified before she could competently fly without a clear visual and she didn’t have that. She wouldn’t have taken off at all if she hadn’t been assured she was going to have daylight and clear skies all the way.

  “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”

  It made it worse that the trip was for no reason of any importance at all, that she’d risked her life, could lose it, for stupid. It wasn’t a trip she’d needed to make. It had nothing to do with business or work or even family business. She’d just arranged it for a lark with a couple of friends, a little get away for fun because they’d all been working so hard.

  And because she’d been so proud of herself for getting her license.

  It wasn’t worth dying for!

  Honestly, she couldn’t think of a single thing that was.

  The thought had barely crossed her mind when there was a flash of lightning followed almost instantaneously by a crack of thunder that sounded like it was on top of her. She jolted so hard the plane ‘staggered’, scaring the pure shit out of her. The next flash of lightning blinded her for a few moments and then she was in full panic mode.

  She was going to get blown out of the sky!

  “Mayday, Miami! Miami Tower! This is Cessna Light M491! Mayday! Mayday! I’m in trouble up here. There’s a thunderstorm right on top of me. Visibility is almost nil. The clouds are … well I’m in the middle of a huge storm now. It’s raining. It’s dark. Thunder and lightning. I can’t see a way out. I’m surrounded.”

  It was at that moment, when she looked at her instrument panel to see what to tell the tower about her position that she discovered her instruments had gone completely haywire.

  “Oh my god! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! My instruments are … just spinning. The compass is …. I can’t read my altitude or heading. Miami! Bimini Tower! Is anybody out there reading me? I can’t see anything! Are you tracking me? There’s lightning around me. The winds feel like they’re going to shake the plane to pieces.”

  A strange greenish glow invaded the cockpit and when she looked out, she saw the clouds were glowing with an eerie, almost neon green light.

  Monica felt like the hairs on her arms were standing on end—as if the cabin was full of static electricity.

  When she checked the clouds around her again, she saw that they’d closed in, that she was caught in what looked like a long tunnel. She could see a blue sky at the other end, as if she was looking down the barrel of a gun.

  It looked like it was closing, though.

  Focusing on it, she got her speed up and raced through the tube of clouds, trying to escape before it closed on her completely. She’d almost reached the hole at the end when she discovered that electricity was dancing along the ‘skin’ of the plane and she felt the moisture of the cloud crowding into the cockpit itself.

  Thankfully, just as she was beginning to think the plane was going to stall, she burst out of the tunnel into bright, blinding sunshine.

  Relief flooded her as she left the funnel behind.

  It didn’t last.

  Her heart managed to stammer out several joyful pitty-pats as a land mass came into view and then she saw the mountains.

  There were no mountains on Bimini.

  There were no mountains in Florida.

  “Where the hell am I?”

  Nothing looked familiar.

  Not that she’d flown to that many places where she might have gotten familiar with the aerial view, but she was familiar enough with the geography to know there shouldn’t have been any place with a mountain in range of her considering her fuel range, her speed, and the time that had passed.

  Her instruments, she saw, were working again—or at least appeared to be.

  But if she was still on the same heading and the time was right and speed—there shouldn’t have been anything within view but Bimini—or maybe Miami if she’d somehow gotten turned around.

  Except the compass reading still showed her moving roughly east and if she’d gotten turned around it should indicate that she was heading west.

  The location of the sun confirmed the compass heading as far as she could see. It would be to the west by this time of day if she was still headed east—south east.

  As she got closer, all she saw was green and rocks.

  There was no sign of the hotels and roads and boats—nothing that said ‘vacation spot’.

  She was still trying to decide what to do when it not only didn’t look the least bit familiar, she also didn’t see any sign of an airport or a landing strip, when it felt like something struck the bottom of the plane.

  She screamed, gripping the stick frantically until she managed to stabilize the plane enough to look behind her, fully expecting to see holes in the plane.

  It looked intact, but something had happened, something seriously bad. She was losing altitude and the stick was sluggish. She had to wrestle it to point the plane toward the landmass in front of her.

  “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Bimini Tower! I’m going down! This is Cessna Light M491. Repeat! I’m losing altitude, going to try to land. There’s a landmass if I can find an area level enough to bring it in! Are you tracking? Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Miami tower! Comeback.”

  Her belly tied itself in knots.

  Could she land it in one piece?

  Could she land it and keep herself in one piece?

  She had a really, really bad feeling they hadn’t heard her cries for help or, if they had, didn’t have a clue of where she was.

  Because she sure as hell didn’t!

  It didn’t look any more inhabited or familiar the closer she got.

  It looked pristine … as in never touched by the hand of man.

  “Oh god.” If she survived the landing—or crash—how long could she hang on waiting for a rescue?

  She saw something huge as she neared the mountain range marching along the coast facing her. Dividing her attention between watching where she was going and throwing glances at the rocky face, she tried to decide if it was actually a living thing, or just the rocks formed in a vaguely familiar shape.

  Then it moved, turned its head at the hum of her engine and stared straight at her.

  “OH MY GOD!” What the hell was that thing?

  It had wings.

  Uh oh.

  The closer she got the bigger it got until she could see it was damned near as big as her plane—maybe bigger.

  And it wasn’t a bird.

  It stretched its long neck out and opened an enormous mouth and … bellowed?

  Just as she came even with it so that she could get a really, really good look, it launched itself from its perch and direct

ly into her path.

  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” Monica chanted, fighting the plane in a desperate attempt to avoid a collision.

  She didn’t manage it.

  The damned thing hit one of her wings hard enough to rip the tip off. The plane slewed sideways and started going down … fast.

  “Mayday! Mayday! I just hit a … a … dinosaur or maybe a dragon—no shit! And it took a piece of my wing off! Help! Help! Somebody! Anybody! Answer me! Just answer! Please, please, please ….”

  She managed to clear the rocks. Just on the other side was what looked like a very wide, completely flat plain.

  She knew it probably wasn’t, but it seemed likely it was her best shot at surviving.

  Maybe.

  She glanced around to see what had become of the thing that had leapt at her from the cliff and saw it was banking.

  “Oh my god! I am so screwed!”

  She couldn’t outrun it or out maneuver it.

  She didn’t want to land on an island where something like that lived, but she couldn’t take the plane off the island again the way it was. There was nothing but ocean that she’d seen and the plane wasn’t going to stay in the air much longer.

  She struggled to dismiss that problem and all extraneous thoughts and focus on recalling the steps for a crash landing.

  Chapter Two

  It was hard to accept that she had no choices that were the least bit acceptable, but Monica forced herself to acknowledge that she didn’t and acted accordingly. She was missing a good foot from the tip of one wing and it had already been hard to guide it from whatever else had gone wrong before that. She had plenty of gas to get to Bimini, but she didn’t have enough gas to cruise around the ocean trying to find land when she had no clue of where she was.

  It was the ocean or the island, but she was going down.

  And the best hope of survival was the relatively level plain below her.

  Mentally bracing herself, she focused on keeping the plane as level as possible, decreased her speed and began to glide toward the ground.

  As Monica dropped lower a horse came into view—running, as if it was racing the plane. She gasped with pleasure when saw there were others, a virtual herd of wild horses racing across the wide space.

  For a handful of seconds, she was enchanted by the sight.

  Then she dropped lower and saw they weren’t horses at all—wild or otherwise.

  That was a split second before they began to attack the plane with the spears and bows and arrows they were armed with.

  “Oh my god! What is this place?” They looked like—well half man and half horse.

  She vaguely recalled something from some story or ancient beliefs about these half man half horse creatures called … not unicorns. Centaurs!

  First a dragon, now centaurs?

  Was she dead already?

  Dying and hallucinating?

  Abruptly she recalled the tales she’d heard about the Bermuda Triangle and all of planes and boats that had gone missing in that area—this area.

  Was this where they went missing to?

  She didn’t know, but she didn’t have time to speculate. She didn’t have much time for anything left, but her instincts told her that landing in the midst of a herd or pack of wild centaurs lobbing sharp objects at her wasn’t a good idea.

  She fought for control of her descent, pulling back on the yoke for all she was worth, then when the plane sluggishly responded, began to climb by agonizing inches, she accelerated. There was a low wall of rock in front of her. She didn’t know what was on the other side, but she knew what was on this side. She thought whatever was over there wouldn’t be worse.

  “Come on, you bastard climb!” she growled, watching as the plane drew closer and closer to the rocks. “I can make it! I can make it!”

  She clenched all over when she got right on top of the rocks, as if she could physically lift the plane over the rocks.

  For a split second, she thought she’d made it.

  Then one wheel slammed into a jugging rock and the plane did a belly flop that rattled her teeth and her eyeballs. It took long moments to stop moving. By the time it did she was battered all over and in a state of shock that made her feel like she’d been rolled up in cotton.

  Her instincts were still kicking though, urging her to get up and run. But even with adrenalin pumping through her, she couldn’t hop up and take off. It was a struggle to get loose from her safety belt and then batter the door open. She fell out on the rocky ground and was in so much pain, so dizzy and disoriented it was all she could do to push herself to her feet.

  She swayed precariously when she had, as if she was standing at an impossible angle, but the screams and bellows of a tribe of furious centaurs finally penetrated. Her gaze zoomed in on the horde racing up the hill toward her and that galvanized her enough to put a little giddy-up in her step. She whirled away and began to hobble down the other side of the rocks as fast as she could.

  She almost tripped and launched herself into flight down the hill—which, fortunately for her was a shallow one edging a great wide plateau much like the one she’d tried to land on before she saw the centaurs.

  It sucked that she could’ve found level ground to land if she’d just made it over the ridge.

  And that she didn’t see a damn place to hide now that she needed that and the wide open space was just another hazard.

  She did her best to run anyway, but she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t make it far before she was yanked off the ground by a pair of scary strong arms.

  She screamed—half terror and half war cry at the threat, fighting the man that had snatched her up for all she was worth.

  The battle was a short one. He dropped her, but, before she could jump up and run again, he reached down, grabbed her in a bear hug that pinned her arms to her sides, and lifted her up again.

  “Be still, little rat, if you do not want to find yourself bound and gagged,” the warrior centaur growled at her in perfectly understandable English despite the noticeable accent he had.

  * * * *

  It would be inaccurate to say that he shook some sense into her. Although it was true that he shook the hysterics out of her, though, he didn’t shake the desperation to survive out of her.

  But it did give her pause to try to figure out her situation.

  She wasn’t just caught by the one who’d grabbed her and locked her into the vice of his arms, she was surrounded by at least a dozen of them—all of them brawny like bodybuilders and four-legged, which meant they could outrun her like she was standing still even if she’d hadn’t been banged up and shook up by the crash.

  It occurred to her forcefully that, given the circumstances, she would be better off to pretend to cooperate and watch for a possibility of escape later—when they’d had time to let down their guard and decide she was completely docile.

  Unfortunately, the thoughts that followed that assessment were less optimistic—a lot less, because her mind leapt to all of the women she’d ever heard of that were attacked, hauled off, and then raped and murdered.

  And although she couldn’t claim to have any idea of what their intentions might be, she just couldn’t convince herself that they were good.

  They’d put an awful lot of effort into chasing her down and trying to fill the plane full of holes with spears and arrows.

  And it was the last thoughts that prompted a less than fortunate response.

  “Fuck you!” she snarled, and bit him, scrambling between his legs when she hit the ground that time.

  She gave it her best effort, but she didn’t get far.

  The other centaurs dragged her out from under him and plunked her down on his back and then proceeded to tie her so tightly to his human back that she couldn’t even move her head. Her cheek was squashed against the spot between his shoulder blades and her boobs flattened against his back just below that.

  He twisted his head around to look down at her. “Comfy, little rat? Or would you also like the gag?”

  She snuffled against his back, trying to get a grip on the skin with her teeth, but finally gave up. “Scwew you, athhole!”

  One of the others spoke in a completely incomprehensible language.

  The man holding her prisoner glanced back at her again and responded in the same tongue.

 

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