Ferus : Book 6 of the Heku Series (47 page)

“Yes?” Zohn asked, looking up.

Derrick sighed, “She’s digging again.”

Quinn frowned, “Where are her guards?”

“Still guarding the door
to the Cavalry’s barracks.”

“Of course they are… send
them away,” Chevalier said, and stood up.

“Let me go,” Camber suggested. “I can talk
to her about retirement.”

“Kyle… go with him.”

“Please, Elder… let me talk to her alone,”
Camber said. “She may be more open with me if we are alone… I’m the
only one she knows that’s ever come back from retirement.”

“I don’t know,” Chevalier
said, and his eyes narrowed.

“He has a point,” Zohn said.

Quinn nodded, “I agree… let him try.”

“Very well, but watch yourself,” Chevalier
warned.

Camber bowed slightly and disappeared from
the room. He walked up slowly to Leonid’s grave where Emily was
digging with a shovel.

“Can we talk for a
moment?” Camber asked.

Emily turned around and then started to
shovel again, “Start talking.”

“Stop shoveling, please.”

“No… he’s suffering, and I
need to help him.”

“He’s not suffering… my
retirement was peaceful. I don’t even remember it, but awoke
feeling refreshed and more alive,” Camber explained.

Emily stopped shoveling and looked over at
him, “What if the ceremony was preformed wrong? What if he’s simply
buried alive?”

Camber glanced around to make sure no one
was looking, “If I dig down enough you can hear if he’s screaming…
will you sit and let me talk to you?”

Emily looked down at her
measly hole and then nodded, “Yes.”

“Is 5 1/2 feet enough
then?” Camber asked, taking the shovel.

“Yes, I think I can hear him scream from
there.”

Camber began to dig, and
Emily sat to watch, unsure if he was going to fulfill his part of
the bargain or not. After only half an hour of digging, Camber
jumped out of the hole.

“5 1/2 feet,” he said, and
stood back.

Emily looked down in the
hole and jumped down. She noticed how the hole was taller than she
was, but ignored that and bent down to the ground,
“Leonid?”

She listened with her ear to the dirt.

“Leonid, if you need help,
you need to tell me now.”

She strained to hear
anything, but the cold ground was eerily silent. After a few
minutes, she sighed, “Ok, let me up.”

“First, let’s talk,”
Camber said, and sat down beside the hole.

Emily frowned, “Get me up and then we’ll
talk.”

“No, there you are
confined… and let me warn you, if you try to use your abilities on
me, you could spend a long time in that hole. I’ve told the Elders
that I was taking you to my coven for a week to help buy horses,
and you know how often the heku come out here. You would be down
with the heku’s dead.”

Emily gasped, “You wouldn’t.”

“I would… now listen to
me…” Camber said, and tried to lock her gaze.

“Stop it!” she yelled, and
turned her face.

“Hmm… have it your way,”
he said, and jumped down into the hole with her. Emily wasn’t ready
for his sudden movement to her arm, and tried to jerk away from him
when his teeth sunk into the soft side of her upper arm. She
started to scream, but felt the familiar relaxation take
over.

Camber immediately locked
her gaze when he finished feeding, taking enough blood to weaken
her resolve and allow her to be controlled.

“Alieno,” he whispered.
“Forget, Child… tomorrow, two hours after you wake, you will forget
all… Alieno. Look into yourself, what the Council wants you to be.
Alieno… forget your life and become what they desire. Alineo and
Verto, become what they want you to be, show them how life with a
Winchester should be.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Alieno et verto qui
consilium votum,” he chanted softly. “Alieno vestry, alieno quisnam
vos es.”

Camber dipped his finger
into the mud, and lifted her shirt slightly. He wrote an
intricately designed rune on her abdomen and the mud turned to
stain and sunk into her soft white skin and then faded until it
became invisible.

He smiled, “Sleep, Child.”

Emily immediately fell
asleep, and he caught her before she fell to the ground. He quickly
jumped out of the hole and laid her down. Within minutes, the
entire hole was filled in and hidden beneath perfectly preserved
sod.

Camber whispered and then said, “So you
understand now?”

Emily sat up and nodded, “I guess… I just
wish I knew for sure if he’s ok.”

“I’m sure he is. I enjoyed
my retirement.”

She looked over at Leonid’s tomb marker.

“Come inside, it’s going to rain soon.”

“Good morning,” Chevalier
said, and kissed the tip of her nose.

“You too,” she said, and
sat up and looked around the room.

“You ok?” he asked, and
gently ran his fingers up her back.

She shivered and grinned
at him, “Yes.”

“Any reason for the long sleeved flannel
nightgown… it’s… ugly.”

Emily grinned, “I was freezing.”

“Are you ready for the
Cavalry training?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.
It’s not as much fun with the guards coming out of Powan,” she told
him, and pulled the sheets up to cover herself when Chevalier
called out for the servants with her breakfast to enter.

“That’s good though,”
Chevalier said, and watched the servants deliver coffee and
pancakes before leaving.

“No, it’s boring,” she
told him, and ran to the bathroom. She came out a few minutes later
in her guard uniform as she buttoned her shirt and looked up. “Are
you staying in bed all day?”

“Thinking about it.”

“No! You aren’t allowed to stay in bed on a
day that I can’t join you.”

He grinned and got out of
bed, and he was already wearing pants.

“No fair, you got dressed while I was
sleeping.”

“Yes I did,” he said, and
moved to her quickly. He wrapped his arms around her and began to
kiss her softly, then reached to her back and unfastened her
bra.

“Chev! Stop it,” she said,
and pulled away from him to reattach it. She grinned, “Do that
again and I’ll just go braless today.”

His eyes narrowed,
“Hmm.”

Emily dug around in her dresser and finally
found the belt and holster with her .45. She slipped it around her
hips and fastened it.

“One heku Barbie at your
service,” she said, and looked in the mirror.

“I told you, I like it.”

“Of course you do! Seems all heku like heku
Barbie.”

“Have fun,” he said, and
smiled at her as she grabbed a pancake and ran out the
door.

“I’m late!” she yelled as
she ran down the stairs. She ran out to the barn where Mark was
waiting for her, having just barely gotten in from a mission. “I’m
sorry, the Elder was having issues.”

Mark grinned, “I bet… are you ready?”

“Sure,” Emily said, and
walked over to the eight new recruits, all standing perfectly still
and in perfect form. “Good morning.”

No one said anything, and
Emily glanced at Mark, but he nodded for her to go on.

“I’m Emily. I’m a
Commander in the Cavalry and will be hooking you up with a horse
and training you how to take care of it. From here on out, you are
responsible for your horse, making sure it’s fed, watered, has a
clean stall, and anything else involved with that. Any
questions?”

None of the new recruits
even blinked. She turned when Silas, Kralen, and Jaron walked
up.

Emily frowned at the new recruits, “Can you
talk?”

It irritated her that it
wasn’t until Mark nodded that they all responded in unison, “Yes,
Ma’am.”

She sighed, “Fine, be that
way… you, Shorty, come with me.”

Emily motioned for the
tallest recruit to come into the stables. He was close to 2 ½ feet
taller than she was, and she had just the horse picked out for him.
After grabbing a bridle, she headed deeper into the stables with
him.

“I have a stallion for
you, tallest horse in here,” she said, and stopped at a stall. She
leaned against it when she started to feel dizzy.

“Are you ill?” the guard asked when she sat
down.

“Just give me a moment,”
she whispered, and sat back against the door with her eyes
shut.

“Em?” Mark asked, kneeling down.

“I’m ok… just got dizzy,”
Emily told him, and stood up. She opened the stall door and showed
the guard how to put on the bridle, then handed him a brush and
went out to the next.

“Are you ok? You look pale,” Silas
asked.

“I’m ok, just got dizzy in there for a
sec.”

She showed each guard to
his new horse, and then climbed on her stallion that was already
saddled and waiting for her at the hitching post.

“Head on out with them, just walk them to
us,” Emily said.

The new recruits lined up with their horses,
facing the commanding officers.

“Great… now…” Emily
started. All of a sudden, her eyes rolled back into her head and
Kralen caught her as she slipped off of her horse. He laid her down
on the ground.

“Em?” he asked
softly.

“Get a cool rag,” Silas
ordered, and one of the guards disappeared, and then reappeared
with a cold wet rag. Silas put it across her forehead.

“Emily,” Kralen said
again, and touched her face.

Emily’s eyes flew open and
she sat up suddenly, “What happened?”

“Are you feeling ok?” Mark asked.

“Yes, General, I’m sorry,”
she said, and stood up.

Mark frowned slightly. She
only called him General if she was angry at him.

Emily walked over, still
limping slightly, and stood beside Jaron.

Silas shrugged and tied up
her stallion. Mark waited for Emily to continue, and when she
didn’t, he began going over some of the basics of horse care. Silas
watched Emily closely and noticed she hadn’t moved, and was
standing perfectly quiet at Jaron’s side.

“Do you have anything to add?” Mark asked,
turning to Emily when he was finished.

“No, General,” she said.
Her tone of voice was off, and the heku that knew her all turned to
face her.

“You sure you’re ok?” Kralen asked.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Did you tick her off again?” Silas asked,
too quietly for Emily to hear.

“Not that I know of… must
have though. She’s only called me Captain once before, and she was
mad.”

Mark shook his head and
turned to the new recruits, “Put your horses back, give them fresh
food and water, and then we’ll go for uniform fittings.”

“Yes, General,” they all
said in unison, and headed inside.

Mark walked over to Emily,
“You need to go eat. It’s lunch time.”

Emily frowned, “Is that a joke,
General?”

“No… it’s lunch time.”

“I’m not thirsty. I fed a
few nights ago.”

“You fed?”

“Yes, General.”

“Suit yourself,” he
grumbled, still not sure why she was mad at him. “I’ll finish here.
Why don’t you go take your posts?”

Silas glanced at Emily
when she nodded and got onto her stallion. He, Jaron, and Kralen
mounted their horses and started for the city.

Silas stopped his horse and turned around to
Emily, “Where are you headed off to?”

“The roster board said
Commanders were covering southwest area 9 today,” she told
him.

“Oh, and you want to come out with us
today?” Jaron asked.

She frowned, “I’m a
Commander, am I not?”

He nodded, “Yes, you are…we need to get
permission for you to hang with us though.”

“I’m a Commander, and if
my post says area 9, then that’s where I’ll be,” she said, and
kicked her horse, heading to the southwest corner of the
city.

“Captain?” Jaron asked,
glancing at Kralen.

Kralen shrugged, “If she wants to play guard
today then let her, it’s quiet.”

“Ok,” Jaron said, and
kicked his horse to catch up with Emily. They rode to the post for
area 9 and both pulled their horses beside the two other
Commanders, who were already there. They sat quietly at their post,
all uncomfortable with Emily being there, and how silent and still
she was.

When a light rain began to
fall, Jaron turned to her, “This is going to turn into snow
tonight. Do you want to head in?”

“Why would I head in? This is my post.”

Jaron frowned slightly and called for
Mark.

“Emily? You’re still out here? It’s been 8
hours,” Mark said when he rode up.

“My shift is 12 hours long,” she informed
him.

Mark looked at Jaron when he explained how
quiet and still Emily was being, uncharacteristic for her.

“Are you feeling sick still?” Mark asked
her.

“Sick, Sir?”

“Yes, sick… You passed out
on horseback earlier.”

“Impossible, Sir, heku don’t get sick.”

Mark frowned, “Since when
do you consider yourself a heku?”