"I think we shall roast this one next," one of the women said, gesturing to Thor.
Two more attendants, carrying a new pole, walked towards Thor and lowered it, preparing to bind him.
Krohn, lurking in the shadows, suddenly leapt forward, snarling, and sank his fangs into one of the attendant’s throats. She went down screaming, and Krohn pinned her down, standing on all fours on her chest, and would not let go until she stopped moving.
Krohn then turned and pounced on the other attendant, who tried to run. He sank his fangs into her calf, downing her, then pounced on the back of her throat, clamping his jaws and killing her.
One of the women took a burning hot spear and jabbed it at Krohn. He yelped as it hit his rear right leg, leaving a nasty burn mark on his thigh. But he then turned and leapt in the air, and bit off the woman's hand; she shrieked as she dropped the spear down to the ground.
The other women converged around Krohn, who stood before Thor, not letting anyone get close, snarling as the women approached with spears, all of them jabbing Krohn.
"Krohn, over here!" yelled Indra.
Krohn turned and took off, racing around the circular courtyard, dodging the spears, and running to Indra, who laid stretched out, bound by her ankles and wrists.
"Krohn, tear the ropes!" she screamed.
Krohn understood. He pounced on the ropes, sinking his fangs into them and shaking them violently until they severed.
“Now fetch me that knife!" Indra yelled, looking nervously over her shoulder as the other women began to bear down on her.
Krohn seemed to understand: he bounded over to a large dagger sitting on a table, grabbed it in his jaws, then ran back to Indra. She snatched it from his hand, reached over and cut the ropes binding her feet.
Indra rolled out of the way just as the first woman jabbed at her with a spear, then rolled back around and stabbed her in the throat.
The woman collapsed, wide-eyed, dead.
"I'm not a man,” Indra sneered down. “And I don’t like music.”
The other women, charging, suddenly hesitated, seeing who they were up against. Indra didn’t pause: she jumped forward, snatched a spear from one of the women’s hands, and spun it around and sliced her throat.
She then lunged forward and stabbed another woman in the gut.
Not wanting to waste any more of her precious energy on a confrontation with these women, Indra turned, sprinted across the courtyard, and went right for Thor, Krohn at her side. As she reached him, she saw his eyes were glazed over, that he was still in a trance.
Indra quickly sliced all the ropes binding him, then sliced the rope of his hammock, and he fell and hit the ground with a thud. He looked up at her, his eyes still glazed.
"Thor, listen to me," she said. "You're in a trance. Do you understand? You have to snap out of it! You have to save the others and yourself before it’s too late. Please. For my sake. Come back to me!”
Krohn leaned forward and licked Thor's face again and again.
Somewhere deep inside of Thor, a part of him began to stir. He began to realize that he was lost, deep in another realm. Slowly, the music of the sirens began to fade in his head, and the face of the woman before him came into focus.
Indra…the slave girl…she was speaking to him…telling him something…telling him to get up…to go…to go now!
Thor shook his head and jumped to his feet. Suddenly, he was free of the spell.
Thor felt a tingling rise within him, rising up from his toes through the tips of his fingers, felt himself overcome by a rush of heat.
As the first of the women reached him, charging with a spear, Thor sidestepped, snatched it from her hands, took the shaft, and butted her in the head with the wooden end, knocking her down.
He then spun around and used the spear as a staff, knocking the spears from the hands of the other women, then spinning around again and knocking them down. He didn't want to kill any of them—he just wanted to stop them, and to rescue his friends.
“Free the others!" Thor yelled to Indra.
Thor and Indra split up, Krohn running by Thor’s side, as they went from one legion member to the next, slicing their ropes, freeing them. They all remained in a trance, but as Thor knocked out more of the women, slowly the spell lifted. The boys finally became suggestible enough to at least obey Thor's command.
"Follow me!" Thor yelled to each of them.
Thor, Indra and Krohn ran with the others, leading them as they all crossed the small island, back to their boat.
They all jumped in, and Thor reached out with the tip of the spear and shoved off hard from shore, Indra doing the same beside him.
The other boys, all finally snapping out of it, began to paddle with all they had, fighting the tide as they pulled away slowly from the island.
The women left on the island ran to the shore, to the water’s edge, and watched them go; distraught, they began shrieking and tearing out their hair. Their screams, even more awful than the sound of their music, echoed off the waters, haunting Thor as the tide finally picked up and carried them away.
*
Thor was sullen as he paddled silently with the others. A somber feeling had permeated the boat, as they paddled for hours, putting more and more distance between themselves and that island. They passed by ever-shifting terrain, and Thor could not help but contemplate how close they had come to being killed. He still didn’t entirely understand what had happened back there.
After they had left that place, for the first several hours they had all been riding on adrenaline, their fear and excitement propelling them to keep the boat moving. But now, as the second sun grew long, the excitement was wearing off, and Thor and the others were feeling drained in the pervasive silence which had fallen over them. Thor's shoulders were growing tired and his back stiff, as he wondered if this paddling would ever end.
“How long shall we keep going on like this?” O’Connor finally asked aloud the question that had been on all of their minds, putting down his paddle and wiping the back of his head. “It is useless. We are not getting anywhere.”
“And we don’t even know where we’re going,” Elden added, in equal frustration.
“Yes we do,” Drake said defensively, hoisting the map.
“You and your stupid map,” Conval said. “The map of a thief. How do you even know it’s accurate?”
“It almost got us killed back there,” Conven said.