“Those music boxes are a trademark of my world. A symbol of peace.” The Queen said.
“That could be why they are being used to make the explosives. Because they represent your peace.” I said, and everyone was amazed how Bryden and I came up with this. Before the conference call, he and I changed out of our armor; we decided to keep the defender part a secret until the right time.
“What were you two doing here on Cainya?” King Derrik asked.
“I am sorry Your Majesty, I needed to see the damage and good thing too, or like last time the music boxes could have been overlooked. You see if I hadn’t seen the pieces at blast point at the village, I would not have known what to look for here in the courtyard. That is why the investigators overlooked it. It looked like a harmless birthday gift.”
“Well, Queen Shannon, good job. Now we know where and what to look for. It gives us a starting point.”
“Yeah, mom, great job,” Rayna said looking proud.
“Queen Shannon, we will be sure to increase security around the villages and their shops. We should keep a watch out for these music boxes.” Galen added.
“I agree, we should. Queen Joanita? Have you heard any more from your resource?” I asked.
“No not of recent, but I will truly keep you all informed. Amadoria out.” And her line was disconnected.
I took a deep breath. “Well, I guess that is that.”
“We will take the same precaution Galen is taking, and search all shops that might have music boxes such as these.” King Derrik said.
“And we will do the same,” Bryden added.
“We will keep in contact if we spot anymore,” I said as we all agreed and closed connection.
“Wow. What a day.” I said, “You know I am concerned about Kaihu being next target.”
“Is it because Valaisha was first hit, then Cainya?” Bryden asked.
I looked at him, “That would be the logical choice.”
“Again, you are right. That would be the logical choice.” He said taking my hand and walking me out the door of the study.
“You have any suggestions,” I asked as he led me down the hall.
“For now? Yes, dinner in our room awaits us,” He stopped and turned to wrap his arms around my waist looking me in the eyes he continued, “And beginning tomorrow morning… we fly and do what we are meant to do. Be defenders.”
I smiled, “Sounds good to me.”
The next morning, we wore our armor and had our swords in case we were to see trouble. We mounted our tayrens and headed to Kaihu. We did let Kieran know what was happening and for her to not say anything, leaving the part out of our being defenders.
As we flew, we looked for anything or anyone suspicious. So far things seem quiet, a few hours later, we saw some men on tayrens flying, and we stopped them to ask questions.
They didn’t know who we were which was a good thing.
“Hey there,” Bryden said. “Where are you from and heading?”
“We were just out practicing.”
“Practicing?” Bryden asked.
“Yeah for more races.” They said.
“You are aware that for now the races have been canceled until further notice, right?”
“Yeah, we are aware. We just want to prepare for when they resume.”
I couldn’t help but noticed one of the men kept looking at me funny, and I also saw another one acted very nervous, while only one of them did the talking. What is it in the bag on the saddle of the one glaring at me? He saw me glancing at the bag and smirked at me. I continued to watch him, sizing him up. Something was not right, I felt it. My hand went slowly towards my hilt, and I lifted it out of the holster at my side carefully in anticipation.
Bryden didn’t see, as he was talking to the other man. The man who was looking intently at me noticed my move and continued to give a smug grin then pulled a gun out, and my sword blazed into action as did Bryden’s. My sword blocked the laser blast as I went into attack mode and with one swing cut the man’s hand off with the gun. As he grabbed his arm crying out in pain, I grabbed the item that was attached to his saddle, and Bryden went into action with the man he was talking with.
I quickly noticed the nervous man was trying to escape, and I reared my tayren in flight and took off after him.
“Stop!” I yelled at him. He was terrified of me. “I said Stop!!”
For some unknown reason, he did and put his hands up in surrender. “I don’t want to die; I don’t want to die!”
I got up to him, “Put your hands behind your back.” He obeyed, and I bound his hands together. I grabbed his tayrens reins and led him back to the others.
Bryden had to kill the one man, and the one injured was bound as Bryden was leading his tayren and the other one with the body on it. “You okay, Shannon?” He asked.
“Feeling great. I retrieved this from his saddle.” I indicated the one with one less hand. Bryden opened the bag, and sure enough there it was a music box.
“We will give this to the explosive experts.”
“I agree. And I feel we will get answers from this one.” I said of the one I was leading. We headed back to the portal that leads to Valaisha and the palace. We handed the music box over to the bomb expert and handed the men over to the guards. They looked at us strangely in our armors, but I only smiled and dismounted handing the tayrens to the stable hands.
Later after we were dressed and out of the armor the bomb expert came to us and told us. “I dismantled the item, and it was a timer set bomb. It wasn’t set though because you may have gotten to them before they had a chance to place it.”
“We had stopped another tragedy before it happened,” Bryden said.
10 trouble
Since I was the one the man who surrendered was afraid of, I set up a few things in the interrogation room, and I walked in with my full armor on and sword a blazing. The man chained to the back wall looked up as I walked in and I saw terror in his eyes.
I kept a stern look on my face as I walked in and with what I had set up in that room, I began to do my maneuvers and ended chopping in half with one strike a hard metal steel thick beam. Then landed on my one knee, my arms back behind me sword still blazing and facing the man who I can now hear breathing heavy in fear, I then lifted my head slowly and looked up at him. I then slowly stood and stared at the man. He began shaking and trembling in fear.
I grinned a sly grin at the man. “I know you have information we need.” I began speaking.
“Wh, who are you?” He began to ask me. “P, please don’t hurt me.”
“Oh, I won’t hurt you… yet. And only if you don’t tell us what we need to know.” I said pacing back and forth slowly just in front of him. “Who sent you?”
“I, I don’t know.” He began. “Really, I don’t.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said swinging and welding my blazing sword as I paced in front of him, and the man’s eyes were huge with fear.
“I, I am telling the truth. It was a group of men getting a lot of us to volunteer for dangerous missions. Please, I promise you I have no idea who is the head of this group.”
“Why should I believe you? What did they say to convince you to join?” I asked still swinging my blazing sword pacing slowly back and forth.
“They convinced us it was for a worthy cause of peace. I am always for peace.”
“What world is this group from?” I asked stopping and facing him.
“They claim to be from Amadoria.”
“They claim… and where are you from and the others?”
“All over, it is a growing group that claims to want peace, but against how these three worlds are going about it.”
“These three worlds, such as Valaisha, Cainya, and Kaihu? These three?”
He nodded his head, “Yes. The group is rebelling against how you handled things even the peace talks.”
I glared at the man, “All we are is about peace. We negotiate peace, God’s way.”
“You see that is what upsets this group. They don’t believe in God or his way of peace. So, they are against you and your worlds.”
“What of these explosives? How peaceful is it killing innocent men, woman, and children?” I was just about getting angry again.
“Those were warnings.” He said watching my sword.
“Warnings?” I spoke harshly to him. “Warnings for what?”
He looked me finally dead in the eye, “For something bigger that is coming. That is all I know.”
I had left the thickest steel beam in tacked, and now with my anger, I turned and yelled and sliced it in half and began walking away.
“Who are you?” He yelled asking me.
I turned at the door, “The Defender of the worlds, sent by God!” and I walked out.
Bryden was in the next room watching and listening to everything on the monitor. I walked in and looked at the monitor studying the man. Bryden placed his arm around me. “You did great. He was scared of you.”
“And I was furious,” I said watching the man squirm in fear. “Do you believe he spoke the truth?”
“I watched the entire thing from the moment you walked in. That man in there was in complete fear for his life. I don’t believe he was capable of lying to you at this point. I believe him.”
“Do you think he knows what is heading our way?”
“I don’t believe so; I believe he just caught a word here and there. The higher up of the group must have kept it down to a minimum so that it wouldn’t get out in case.”
“In case any of them gets caught.” I finished.
Rayana’s Point of View:
“Hi, mom, what’s up?” I was sitting in my study having a personal one on one conference with her.
“We were able to foil an attempt on Kaihu soil. One of the men was interrogated and claims that this is bigger than we expected. It is a group of people from different worlds who don’t like how we deal with peace.”
“Don’t like how we deal with peace? We are about peace.”
“That is the situation; they are against God and His way of peace.” My mom said. I got up and began to pace back and forth.
“At least their attempt on Kaihu was stopped,” I said, stopping the pacing and looking at my mom. “There could have been many more casualties.”
“Yeah, but we must prepare for something bigger to come.” My mother said, and she is right. “Listen, sweetie; I am leaving it to you to inform Derrik and Kristana. Bryden and I have something important to do. Let them know we will all have a conference call tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, I will. I love you, mom.”
“I love you too sweetie. Talk to you tomorrow.” She disconnected, and I sat down. Wow, I have no idea who it was that foiled this attempt, but I am glad it was. It saved a lot of people’s lives. I reached over and dialed and connected to Cainya. The King and Queen were not in and was promised to have them contact me back.
I stood and walked out to find Galen and filled him in what my mother told me. I found him in our combat training room training to get prepared. He saw me walk in and stopped all sweating from a rigorous training, he walked over, and I explained what my mother told me.
“That is great and bad news.” He said. “I am glad they didn’t succeed in the bombing, and the other is an excellent reason to double or triple our training.” He said wrapping his arms around me. “Your mom has some good people to be observant enough to find these characters. I am grateful.”
“So am I,” I said hugging him tightly.
“Why don’t you go and change and we will do some training together.”
I smiled tiptoed and kissed him, “I will be right back.”
I went to our room and changed into my training outfit and went back to the room. Sometimes we train with others and other times we train against each other to become more improved. I noticed he had dismissed his combat partner and I smiled. “One on one time huh?”
He smiled back, “You give me more of a training, as we are equal in combat.”
“Oh, I agree. Now let’s begin.” I smiled going into my stance.
A few hours later and quite wet with lots of sweat, we sat on the floor catching our breath. “As I said, you always give me a run for the money,” Galen said smiling and I looked over and smiled back.
“Well, at least we are getting in shape and gaining strength.” I took a deep calming breath, “You know we should train with our swords and learn more welding moves. We only used them during that last battle with Lucas. We need to strengthen with the light too. If something bigger is coming, we will need to know all we can to be prepared.”
He nodded, “You are right, we will begin tomorrow. I will get us a good practice course ready. And private.”
I smiled, “And flameproof.”
He laughed, “Yeah that too.” He leaned over and kissed me. “Ready for round three?”
I smiled back, “You bet.”
Later after a rigorous combat work out, we had a quiet dinner in our room when a tap came on the door.
“Come in,” Galen said, and a servant came in.
“Your Majesties, there is a call for you both from Cainya.”
“All right thank you Florise, we will take it here.” He walked over to the wall screen and turned it on, and Galen’s parents appeared. Galen and I both stood next to each other, and his father began speaking.
“There was a message for us to call. We were out and about surveying the damage from the bomb.”
“Yes, Her Majesty Shannon called and informed us that two of three men were captured, and one had a music box bomb here on Kaihu. As one of the men were being interrogated he mentioned, this is only a small part of something bigger and,” he paused and continued, “It is a group that started from Amadoria and from our worlds against our way of peace.”
Derrik rubbed his chin, “I see. Why would anyone be against peace? Wait, you said our way of peace?”
“God’s way. They are against God.” Galen said.
“Oh, I am glad they caught the men before they could place the bomb. It could have been another horrible tragedy. Now it seems we will need to prepare for what looks like a war against us. Does Queen Joanita know it was a group that started from her world?”
“I believe my mother is informing her. As for preparing, Galen and I are training much harder, and tomorrow we will be training with the special weapons given us by God.” I put in.
“Good, good. We will do our part over here. Keep up the training and keep us informed.”
“Will do dad.”
“Son, please be careful,” He took a short pause, “Both of you.”
“We will.” Then the connection ended.
We have already upped the security around the world of Kaihu, and now it was a waiting game. And all we could do was continue training. And training we did for the next few days.
We were getting better with our aim with the flaming swords. The light seems to be what guides us in our moves when it comes to our weapons. Galen suggested to use the flaming swords; we don’t need to be together for them to work and he wants me to carry it around for safety reasons. He now is doing the same.
I was in total agreement with that. Today my mother invited me to lunch a mother and daughters time as Kieran will be joining us. It was a week after my mother’s wedding when they gave a private ceremony for Kieran and announced her as the new princess of Valaisha. She has been assigned princess duties and been busy, but since the threat is getting worse, they decided to stop her new royal duties until new peace is established.
Now we are having a nice lunch, and my mother said something to Kieran that surprised us both. “Kieran dear, I decided you need to train with your skills as we all are.”
“We all?” I asked, and Kieran placed her fork down.
“What do you mean?” Kieran asked.
“Well, I know Rayna and Galen are training and preparing. I plan to talk to Derrik and Kristana
and suggest they train with their abilities. I cannot help but believe it will take all of us together to defeat this new threat.”
“I hadn’t known of Derrik and Kristana’s abilities. I never stopped to ask.” I said curiously now.
My mother smiled, “It is quite impressive, Derrik can channel electricity and Kristana has telekinesis powers.”
“I hadn’t known this. That sounds amazing.” I said. “Do you have special abilities other than knowing the future?” I asked my mother “And what of Bryden?”
My mother looked at me strangely. And I raised my eyebrows waiting. “What makes you believe I have another ability?” she asked me.
“I don’t know, seems we all have something physical, so it made me wonder if you and Bryden did.”
“Bryden has a special ability that pertains to combat moves.” My mother said taking a bite of her food.
“And you?” I persisted. I felt she was hiding something.
I heard her take a deep breath, “Alright both of you come with me.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin and stood up, and a servant was ready to clear our things away. “Maggie, we will be back for our dessert in about an hour.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
We followed my mother to her study, and she had us sit down, and she turned on her giant wall screen. She clicked something, and we saw a room with Steel bars and other such obstacles including a man chained to a wall.
Then a woman came in wearing a mask, and the man looked horrified, and she made combat moves so amazing, doing jumps and spins in the air perfectly and was slicing these steel bars with one slice with a glowing sword. When she stopped on one knee and her arms back she slowly lifted her head and began speaking and the man answering her every question. I recognized the woman’s voice of my mother.
Then after the one last question, she spun and sliced the thickest steel beam in one slice. The man was visibly shaking in terror. Then the woman walked away, and he asked a question, and her answer was, “The Defender of the worlds, sent by God!”
I sat there in stunned silence as did Kieran.
Valaisha Defenders: An Incredible Fantasy (Gateway Trilogy Book 2) Page 9
