Though it was still dark around her, she could feel the air touching her skin and she dragged it into her lungs eagerly. She could hear Athan gasping for breath the way that she was and knew that he hadn’t expected the dive off of the boulder into the creek, either. Mhavrych was still gripping their wrists and she felt his fingers tighten down into her skin even harder as he pulled her arm up out of the water. An instant later she felt her hand touch a slick, cold rock surface and her fingertips graze across small sections that felt rougher than the rest.
“What…” she started to protest, but before she could get the rest of the words out, she felt like she was being dragged forward toward the stones.
Ellora tried to resist the pull as she had with Mhavrych’s grip, but there was nothing that she could do. She noticed that it wasn’t Mhavrych that was pulling her, but something else, like an unseen force that was dragging her away from where they were still partly submerged in the water. In what could have been several minutes or just a matter of seconds, she felt the water around her disappear and pressure close in around her. Ellora didn’t know what was happening and she fought to swallow down the fear that was filling her. Finally her body hit something solid. Disoriented, she didn’t know if she had come into contact with the same stone that she had been touching or if she had fallen back through the water and was now on the bottom of the creek. She couldn’t feel any water near her though and after a few moments she realized that she was breathing comfortably and easily.
“We need to keep going,” Mhavrych said from beside her.
Ellora noticed that he wasn’t holding onto her any longer and she opened her eyes. It seemed far later in the night now and she became aware of a biting cold as she looked around and saw that they were now standing in what looked like an open field. The grass wasn’t tall and waving, but rather scrubby and a pale color that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Athan was still pulling himself off of the ground and Mhavrych reached down to take him by his elbow and drag him up to his feet.
“How much further to the kingdom?” Ellora asked.
Mhavrych looked at her and gave a short, almost mocking laugh.
“Much farther than you could understand,” he said.
He started walking, not looking back as if he simply expected that the other two would follow him. They continued along, the terrain becoming less and less familiar as they walked. Massive rocks seemed to grow up out of the grass and then dipped down into sand that led to another deep pool of water. Ellora braced herself to jump into the water again, but Mhavrych led them around the edge and to a row of scraggly trees at the edge of the water. When they reached one of them, he crouched down and brushed sand away from the base. In one fast movement he grabbed onto their wrists again and pulled their hands forward to touch the damp bark. She expected to feel only the cold softness of the tree, but instead she felt something hard, like a stone embedded in it. Before she could ask what was happening, she felt the same pulling, dragging feeling that she had felt when they were in the water, and then the pressure closing in around her.
Ellora tried to relax into the feeling this time. She knew that there was nothing else that she could do. She couldn’t fight the pulling feeling and there was nothing that she could do to stop whatever was happening to her. The feeling lasted longer this time and blackness started to press down on her. She didn’t want to let it take over. She wanted to stay in control, but soon she couldn’t resist it any longer.
She didn’t know how long she had been lying in the grass when awareness finally returned to her. She could feel someone’s hand patting her cheek, trying to rouse her, and she willed her eyes to open. Athan’s face was close to hers when her eyes opened and she felt relieved to see him. To one side she could see Mhavrych pacing, his steps tight and small as his eyes scanned their surroundings.
“Can you get up?” Athan asked.
“How long have I been here?” Ellora asked.
“A few minutes.”
“We need to go,” Mhavrych said, his voice sounding tighter and more anxious than it had before.
She didn’t like him compelling them forward again. She didn’t want to go through that feeling again and feel like she was getting further and further from what she knew. At this point, though, there was nothing else that she could do but what he said. She didn’t know where they were or how far they had gone, and would have no means of survival if she was alone.
Athan helped her to her feet and Ellora looked around. Everything looked familiar and she felt a sense of calm come over her as she realized that they were in the orchard of the kingdom, just within the barrier of the stone wall. While they were still a distance from the village, this was an area of the kingdom that was rarely used by anyone, particularly now that Idella was gone and it was only Lila who had any use for the home there. Most of the rest who lived in the kingdom either went to the far side of the orchard to gather food or waited until it was gathered by others and purchased or traded for it. This meant that it was far less likely that the Order would have people patrolling this area in as thick a concentration as they would in other areas, giving them much more opportunity to slip through the kingdom and into the village undetected.
“How did we do that?” Athan asked as they started forward through the orchard. “I didn’t recognize either of those places.”
“We did it because we had to,” Mhavrych answered. “There was no other way.”
“I don’t understand,” Ellora said. “We barely went anywhere, how could we possibly have traveled as far as we just did? Where were we?”
Mhavrych stopped and turned to look at Ellora sharply. There was an intensity on his face that told Ellora that he was done listening to her questions and wasn’t going to go any further in his explanation of how they just traveled than he thought he needed to. She nearly took a step back from him, but held her ground.
“We traveled in the way that we had to travel,” Mhavrych told her. “It is the way that I get around when I have to, and the way that I got from Penthos back here to Uoria without detection. That’s what was asked of me, wasn’t it?”
“But don’t you think that if we traveled that way, we should know how we did it? That we should know where we’ve been?” Athan asked.
“Would it be of any consequence to you if you did know?” Mhavrych asked, turning his attention to Athan. “Would it, in any way, change where we are now or what we have left ahead of us to accomplish?” Athan stared at him blankly, visibly unable to come up with an answer that he thought was appropriate. Mhavrych gave a slight nod. “Exactly. There are things that you do not need to understand to follow. Every day you do things because you think or know that you should do them without ever asking why. As a member of the Order, that applies more to you than to anyone else. This is one of those things. Either you continue to trust me and come with me the rest of the way to the village, or you are on your own. If you choose to be on your own, that is final. I will not protect you or help you in any way. You will be as the rest of the Order are to me. If you come along with me, you are to tell no one about how we traveled back to the kingdom. Nothing. Until I have decided who can be trusted to know anything that has happened, you are not to speak of it to anyone. Do you understand?”
Ellora wanted to resist. It was her instinct to push back against the aggression in the man’s voice and demand to know more about what was happening, but just as it had in the tunnels, Aegeus’s voice came to her, calming her. It told her to remain faithful to the promise that she had made him, to fulfill what he had started and protect the planet and their kind with everything that was in her. In her mind her husband soothed her and told her to be still in her strength and her determination, and trust Mhavrych as she would trust him. All would be made clear if she could only reach within herself and find the drive and the faith that he had within him when he walked into battle. She reminded herself that it was Mhavrych that had rescued her from the tunnel, even though he didn’t have to. He coul
d have allowed her to run through them until she tired and collapsed, or until she found her way back into the snare of the Order members who were pursuing her so violently. It would have been a distraction that could have benefitted him, making it easier for him to get out of the tunnels rather than having to help her and then Athan. Yet he didn’t. He offered his help to her without question, and it was up to her to offer her trust to him in the same way.
Chapter Five
Athan could nearly feel the eyes of the Order on them as they made their way through the orchard. It was so quiet in this section of the kingdom, as if it had been preserved as the last moment that Idella knew it and when she died the energy had been taken from it as well. Even in the stillness, though, he felt as though they were being pursued, always just steps from one of the members of the Order coming at them and taking them prisoner. His hand tightened around the handle of his sword at that thought. He had already witnessed his dearest friend taken prisoner and though he had yet to see him since discovering that he was still alive, Athan knew that Aegeus had gone through pure torture for the years that they had been apart. He had sacrificed himself, giving of his very life, to counteract the corruption of the Order and bring down the forces that were threatening Uoria and all of the Universe. He owed it to Aegeus and all of those years to stand strong against the enemy and swear to not be taken.
He walked close beside Ellora as they followed Mhavrych. His mind was still churning as he looked at the younger man’s back. He couldn’t understand who this man was or what he could have meant to Aegeus. He seemed so young and his face wasn’t at all familiar. It didn’t hold even the hint of features that Athan knew from his past and he knew that Aegeus had never mentioned his name to him before. Mhavrych had confirmed that Athan wouldn’t have known about him, and that Aegeus wouldn’t have told him about him, but that only made the situation seem more confusing. Aegeus and he had been inseparable for most of their lives. Though he was older than Aegeus, he had always respected him and the closeness of their bond had been unlike any other friendship that he had ever experienced. He had always shared everything with Aegeus and thought that his best friend had done the same for him. Not telling him about Mhavrych meant either that their friendship was not as close as Athan believed it to be, or that whatever Mhavrych meant to the mission that Aegeus had made for himself was so serious that he couldn’t even reach out to his most trusted of companions for help.
The crack of a branch in the near distance stopped Athan’s thoughts and stiffened his spine. He instinctively reached for Ellora and brought her closer to him, sweeping her to his side rather than in front or behind him because he couldn’t decipher from which direction the sound had come. Mhavrych had obviously heard the sound as well and was paused in his place, his hand hovering over the blade in his waistband. Athan saw his eyes flickering around the trees, trying to see through the thickening darkness to what created the sound. The men’s eyes met and Mhavrych gave a slight nod backwards.
“We need to keep moving,” he said, his voice lower. “We aren’t far from the edge of the orchard. Once we get there, we need to avoid the buildings that don’t usually have people in them and stay to the main road.”
“Won’t they expect us there?” Ellora asked.
Athan shook his head.
“No,” he said. “The Order thinks logically, but sometimes that means overlooking what might really happen. To them, the logical thing would be for us to go to the smaller side roads to avoid the main road because we would think that they would be on the main road, so they will go to the side roads. There might still be someone patrolling the main road, but we will have a better chance there. Move quickly, and as soon as you see anyone you recognize as not being a part of the Order, get their attention. Be as loud as you can. It doesn’t matter what you say or what you talk about when you get near them, just bring as much focus to you as you possibly can.”
“Why would we do that?” Ellora asked. “Don’t we want to get to the village and find Creia without anyone noticing?”
“The Order doesn’t want to be detected. There is nothing strange about you walking through the kingdom. You live here. You always have. And you have known Athan for many years. No one would question the two of you being together. The Order, though, does not want to seem out of place. They wouldn’t want to risk anyone seeing one of their members confront you and then have you disappear. The more attention that you bring to yourselves, the less likely it is for someone in the Order to come out and try to take you prisoner.”
“Why are you talking as though it is only the two of us who are continuing on?” Athan asked. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
“I’ll go with you for as far as I can,” Mhavrych said. “I cannot guarantee that I will be able to be with you the whole way.”
“What would stop you?” Athan asked.
Mhavrych shook his head.
“I’ll go with you as far as I can.”
They started out of the orchard again and Athan took a final glance back over his shoulder. As he did, he thought he noticed movement behind a nearby tree and the hint of a face disappear from view.
Mhavrych’s warning reverberated through his mind as they continued toward the village. He didn’t understand what would stop the man from being with them the entire way, especially considering it had been him who had been so insistent that they get away from the planet as quickly as possible. Now that Athan knew that he traveled far distances without needing a ship, however, he realized that there was very little that he really needed from the two of them. Him going along with them was for another purpose, though he didn’t quite know what that purpose could be.
Just as they had planned, they got to the edge of the orchard and increased their pace. They made it to the main road that led through the kingdom and into the main village. He looked around at the buildings in this section of the kingdom that were rarely used. There were emergency shelters and supply houses, extra homes for visiting species and even the occasional abandoned house or shop from generations past. They steered clear of these buildings, knowing that they were the least likely to have anyone near them, and therefore the most likely to have members of the Order hiding within or around them, ready to swoop down on the insurgents.
The feeling of their eyes on him was getting stronger. He knew that he was imagining it, but he felt as though they were all around him, scrutinizing his every movement, their judging gaze burning into him as they shot hatred of him and his betrayal through his body. Mhavrych remained in his place in front of him, and Athan found himself hoping that he didn’t leave. He didn’t know why. It might have been the growing sense of camaraderie and kinship that was building among them as they traveled across the planet. It might have been a simple sense of uncertainty about the man that made him uncomfortable with the idea of him disappearing and him not knowing where he went or what he might be doing. Whatever the reason, Athan wanted to keep his eyes on Mhavrych and ensure that they remained near one another, at least until they returned to the village and were somewhat safer.
They pushed themselves faster, running now as they made their way along the main road toward the more populated area of the kingdom. The sense that they were being watched was only increasing with every step and out of the corner of his eye Athan saw a figure step out from around the corner of a small building used during the harvest to store food before it was processed and distributed. He touched his hand to Ellora’s back and applied pressure, pushing her to move faster. He wanted to call out to Mhavrych, but his voice wouldn’t come. He didn’t want the Order member to know that he had seen him. Somehow that seemed that it would put them in even greater danger.
Behind them the man had walked out onto the main road and was following them, keeping his pace steady so that he was approaching them rapidly. Athan felt panic start to form in his belly. It was only one man, but that meant that there were others. He remembered the early training that he had gone through when he was firs
t initiated into the organization. They were taught to always remain in close enough proximity to one another that even if it looked as though they were alone, several others could be at their side in a matter of moments to ensure that they were protected and that they were able to complete the mission that they had be sent to fulfill.
They continued to run and Athan saw another figure join the first. This one held a weapon in his hand and Athan knew that at any instant the figure could throw it, grievously wounding whoever it hit. He pushed Ellora slightly harder and they caught up to Mhavrych so that soon the three were running beside one another, creating a line across the road. It made Athan feel as though they were more vulnerable, but at the same time, it meant that none were in front and none were behind. They were all equal.
It was obvious that the other two could hear the footsteps of the Order members coming toward them now, but neither relented to look back over their shoulders. Ahead of them Athan saw another figure step out into the road and his heart leapt into his throat. They were surrounded now. with two men behind and at least one in front, they had little chance of overcoming the Order. As they continued forward, no other option to fuel them in another direction, however, Athan realized that the figure ahead of them was not a member of the Order sent to find them. Relief swept through him as the young, familiar face came into full view. Gathering all of the strength within him and fighting through the fear that told him to stay quiet, he shouted.
“Kyven!”
The Alien's Back! (Uoria Mates V Book 1) Page 4
