Divided (29 page)

“There is something unnatural about it,” Leif agreed. 
Normally, when Aela spoke, Leif chose to ignore her entirely, but after their
brief talk, Leif had obviously opened up to the idea that Aela was here to
stay.  He was probably still patting himself on the back thinking she had
feelings for him.  Well, let him think that if it made him feel better.  “But
Lavus has always been lesser than human to our people.  Perhaps we will find
things are different than expected in Telandus,” he said.

They had traded for a few bottles of wine, and Leif took a
drink of it, then.  Aela had never been much for wine at the castle, but the
taste of something sweet—with flavor—out here was always welcome.  She held out
her tankard and Leif filled it obligingly.  “Perhaps,” she agreed.  She thought
back to Taeru, then.

She had held some hope that perhaps they would run into
him.  Every single sun she thought about it, about the possibility that he
would be in one of the towns they stopped in, or even that he would be a
trader.  Unfortunately, he had not been, and though her hope had not vanished,
she felt it growing less every sun.  If he was out here, the odds that she
would run into him while trying to stay off the main roads was—well—unlikely at
best.

The problem was that her mind didn’t seem to think that. 
Her mind wanted her to believe that if she didn’t run into Taeru, then that
meant that her brother was dead.  Yet, if she’d let herself think that, then she
would certainly have burst into tears and looked like a fool in front of all of
these men. 

No, she had to believe that Taeru was out here somewhere,
and that even if she didn’t run into him, that he was alive.  Taeru was too
intelligent to have let himself be killed by the wilderness, and guards and
bandits had very little reason to attack a lone traveler.  With that thought,
she pushed the idea of her brother’s death from her mind and focused on eating
the rest of the turkey leg.  That wasn’t hard, as they didn’t get to eat often,
and she’d found that she better eat food when it was offered or she might not
get it at all.

Once they had polished off the turkey, a few of the men
stood from their perches and stretched.  “That meal will keep me going for suns!”
Patea said cheerfully.  “We appreciate it, Aelic.”

Aela just nodded her head at the acknowledgement.  There was
no need to gloat over what she’d done for them, for she had done it as much for
herself than for any of them.  She picked at the remainder of the turkey,
trying to get as much food into her system as she could, and the other men did
another quick check of the camp.  “Perhaps I ought to hunt before we set off
again tomorrow,” Aela said, noticing a dropping on the ground.  “This place
seems like a good one.”

“Rain might draw them out too,” Leif said thoughtfully.  “If
you get up early enough, that might not be a bad idea.”

“Guess I ought to get to sleep, then,” Aela said.  She stood
from where she had been comfortably sitting for the duration of the evening and
stretched her own legs.  She couldn’t help looking forward to the sun they
arrived in Telandus.  Even if they were in unwelcome lands, surely there would
be comfortable inns in which they could sleep. 

There was a certain fearfulness to sleeping on the ground in
the middle of somewhere she didn’t know well.  She couldn’t help worrying every
sun that she would wake up in some tiger’s mouth.  The frightful stories she’d
heard of demons as a child plagued her still, and then there were the fabled
dragons.  There were so many things that could get to her now that she was no
longer behind city walls.

She longed for another town, and she longed for this to be
over.  As she turned to the tent that they had declared to be the one she would
stay in, she ducked under the sticks and unrolled her sleep skin.  They had
allowed themselves a little more comfort in the skins that they slept in, and
the soft warmth hugged her body so that she felt a fleeting sense of security. 

Aela had yet to imagine what would happen if they had found
some terrible secret in Telandus that meant that Cathalar couldn’t win the
war.  She had not yet faced the reality that there would be a reason in the
world that Cathalar should fall.  It was superior in every way to Telandus, and
she knew that not only because she lived there, but because she felt it with
every fiber of her being.  The knowledge was widespread, and there was not a
single nation—except possibly Dokak—that didn’t want to see Telandus on its
knees.

If Telandus were to win this war, then there would surely be
infinite repercussions.  Lavus couldn’t be allowed any more power than what he
already had, and she knew that as well as anyone in Elyst.  Veyron was a king
as any ordinary man could be.  He loved the power, but he didn’t let it control
him, and he retained his sense of humanity as he ruled.  He let himself feel
superior, but not to the degree of which Lavus seemed guilty.  If whatever
Lavus was planning involved some way for his nation to win the war against all
the others, then Aela knew she would die sooner than she would have it
unleashed.

However, the stranger thought was that there would be
nothing there—that Lavus had no means of defeating Cathalar, and that the
foolish man was simply attempting to start a war that he knew he couldn’t win. 
Either way, no matter what, there would be a war—and many lives would be lost. 
Why did Lavus want that when he knew the inevitability would be the loss of his
power? 

That didn’t make sense, and Aela knew that there was no way
she could accept that he was simply that insane.  No man alive was that crazy,
and even if Lavus was, he was too worried with retaining his power to let that
be how he expressed himself.  No, if there were no secret weapon lying behind
the walls of Telandus, then she was sure that there must be something greater
at work.  Something possibly even more frightening.

In her dreams, she walked the streets of Telandus.  The
buildings gleamed red with blood, and the people around her emitted misery into
the air.  She knew that she ought not be here, and that she wanted to leave,
but there was a purpose for her walking the streets.  She walked them, even as
they became soaked with blood from people that were dying in the distance.

Her feet moved her, though, as though a voice was calling to
her from somewhere in the distance.  Telandus.  This was the city that she had
been taught was filled with hate.  It burned underneath her feet, but she knew
there was something in this wretched place that she should find.  The city,
though, was becoming twisted as she walked through it.

The people were no longer people, and they morphed into
terrifying monsters.  Even children twisted into black creatures that all
watched Aela, as if they knew that she shouldn’t be there.  They did know, but
Aela was aware that there was nothing they could do to her.  She had to
continue, or else she wouldn’t get to her goal.  If she didn’t reach her destination,
then she might have to stay in this Lightless place forever. 

When she reached the end of the street, the blood-soaked
buildings gave way and the walls seemed to evaporate in front of her.  She
stood in a field of flowers, only the red of the flowers was frightening. 
Nervousness crept up her spine, but she kept moving and saw a silhouette a
little bit ahead of her.  “Excuse me,” she said instinctively.

She wanted her voice back, surely she shouldn’t have been
speaking so freely in a place such as this, but she was sure that the figure
meant her no harm.  In fact, she wanted to go to it—she was afraid for the
person before her.  That was why she had walked, because she had known that
despite her own safety in this place—this individual was not safe.

The form turned to answer her call, and she saw the soft,
blue eyes of her brother.  He stood in front of some frightfully monstrous
structure.  A twisted obelisk that seemed to wind up into the air and pull at
the sky itself.  The blue eyes were bright, but they were afraid, and they
looked exhausted.  Taeru.  “Taeru!” she shouted.  She began to run towards him,
and suddenly, her movements seemed slowed.

He said nothing, and instead just watched her with growing
fear as she approached.  He was afraid of her, and he seemed afraid of
everything.  He didn’t want to be there, and yet he seemed rooted to where he
stood.  “Taeru, what are you doing?” she asked.  Her voice seemed warped by the
air, twisting all around her and tossed about on the wind.

“Aela,” he finally spoke with a weak voice.  The voice was
his, but he sounded as though he’d just endured an unending beating.  When she
looked more closely, she could see the bruises along his jawline—the marks
along his neck.  “I’m sorry,” he said anxiously.

“No.  Why are you sorry?” she asked him gently.  She couldn’t
keep moving, but at least they could talk to one another now.  Still, he needed
to get away from the obelisk, of that much she was certain, though her body and
mouth seemed unable to provide that singular thought to him. 

His eyes softened, and he just shook his head, as if he didn’t
want to answer the question.  The creation behind him was moving, and Aela
thought she saw tentacles.  If Taeru didn’t move, they were going to grab him. 
“Get away from there!” she finally forced her mouth to say.  The sound was
obscured far worse this time.

“I can’t,” Taeru said weakly.  He glanced back to the
obelisk, and when he turned to the thing behind him, Aela could see him begin
to tremble.  When he turned back around, he looked more worried about her,
though.  “Wake up, Aela.”

“Taeru!  Taeru, you have to get away from there!  It’s going
to kill you.”

His lips pressed into a thin line, and then he gritted his
teeth.  “You have to wake up,” he informed her again.  The fear was still
there, but it was fading, and he was staring at her with very genuine purpose.

“Taeru!  Please!  Listen to me!” she cried.

“Wake up!” he cried, and this time his voice was distorted. 
She saw a tentacle from the obelisk reach up and grab him by the arm.  He
pulled against it, and then he gave her one last imploring look.  “Aela, wake
up!”

“Taeru!  NO!”

“Aela!  Wake up!  Please!”  The voice wasn’t Taeru’s
anymore, and now it wasn’t distorted, but rather it was a whisper.  Her eyes
fluttered open and she jolted forward. 

“Taeru!” she cried desperately.  No, that had only been a
dream.  The field, the blood, all of Telandus had only been a dream, and yet
she found herself more terrified than ever for her brother’s safety. 

Leif was with her, now, but he looked panicked.  She was
sure that he wasn’t just worried about her dream, and this was emphasized by
the way he’d slammed his hand over her mouth.  “Telandan guards,” he said.  He
held her bow out and thrust it into her hands.  “We have to fight.”

Aela’s eyes widened at the realization.  Being thrown from
such a horrifying dream into this moment was the worst thing that could have
happened, because no matter what, the image of Taeru fighting against that
monstrous, black pylon would not leave her.  She was forced to leave it,
though, when one of the guards slammed into the tent and Leif jumped to her
defense.

His sword caught the guard, and Leif thrust the man
backwards.  She grabbed her quiver and pulled it onto her back as she aimed an
arrow at another man who tried to enter the tent.  With a few more parries,
Leif managed to cut the first man’s throat, and he fell to the ground.  Blood
soaked the dirt, and Aela made a pained whimper at the sight of the dying man. 

The sight also reminded her that she had not killed her own
target.  Leif seemed to take his immobility as enough of an opportunity, and
the dark haired spy leapt forward and stabbed the fallen man in the chest. 
“Aela!  Let’s go!  There are seven more of them!” he called. 

Aela did a quick kick at Patea, one of the other men that
was staying in their tent.  He was up in an instant, and the last man—one that
she didn’t know the name of, was as well.  They pulled themselves out of the
tent quickly, and she glanced across with horror at one of the other tents,
which was lying cut and broken on the ground.  She didn’t see the others for a
moment, until her eyes found the other guards.

The third tent had been attacked too, and the guards were
fighting the men inside of it.  One man specifically.  The fight between this
spy and guard was one-sided, as the guard was wearing full armor and had much
larger weapons than the man he fought.  With a thrust, Teral was impaled on the
man’s sword and flung to the ground.  “Traders shouldn’t be so heavily armed,”
the man who’d just killed Teral said.  “They must be spies!”

Leif pounced forward, striking the man across the shoulder
with one of his short swords and then plunging his second through the man’s
abdomen. The armor was strong against regular hits, but it could not protect
entirely from direct assaults like the ones Leif was producing.  That meant Aela
had to make sure that her arrows hit directly.

With the thought, she pulled the first arrow into her bow. 
She couldn’t think about the death, or else she would soon be joining the ones
who were already dead.  Leif engaged another man, who had just killed another
of their group.  Aela didn’t know whom it was, and she felt a pang of anguish
at not having gotten to know the other men better.  Maybe she would be able to
help them once the fight was over, she promised herself.  Turning to find Patea
fighting another man, she narrowed her eyes and then released the arrow.

The arrow caught the man in the shoulder, and she let out a
curse.  Her aim was not as good when she was panicking over seeing her friends
die.  Rather than dwelling on it, she pulled another arrow.  Before she could
shoot this one, though, another of the guards grabbed her by the hair and flung
her to the ground.