Ellas - A dozen years ago

Kane

Days later I lay watching the Nargu as they toyed with their captive for the very last time.

My memory from that time was vague, and yet what I saw now somehow reaffirmed that hazy recollection.

The Nargu did not now take enjoyment from my torment as they had on earlier occasions. They seemed both elated and yet fearful at the same time.

Not surprising given my master’s temperament. Who knew how he would react to the prize they brought. Had I not been absolutely perfect for his needs, I am sure that they would have paid a very steep price for each and every imperfection he noted. They, too, knew that, I was sure, and that was at the heart of their discontent.

Slowly, one by one, the Nargu lay back, fitful sleep taking them. The form that was the man I had been, sat with his back to a low rock outcrop, his chin against his chest, as he slept the fitful, nightmare filled sleep that I remembered as a terrifying prelude to what came next.

I crept forward to lie in a shallow trench, mere yards from the sleeping forms. And then, I waited. Tonight was the night, I knew. The last night I had lived before the terror that was Dar’cen changed my life.

The man that I was jerked and muttered as he slept but did not wake. The Nargu fared little better, their harsh voices alternating between growls of anger and desperate pleading as they slept.

The night wore on with no change until dawn itself was but an hour away. And then, as the first rays of the day flickered across the far horizon, an unease came over me.

It was not sudden, it had been there with me the whole night, but I did not see it for what it was; it had hidden in the anxiety, excitement and no small fear of what I did that night, slowly growing until I now knew it for what it was.

With the realisation, the unease became a dread, a dread I had hoped to never again feel. Sweat beaded my brow and my breathing was suddenly harsh and ragged. I understood now the jerks and spasms that tormented those that slept before me.

Breath, damn you. Take deep breaths. Calm yourself. And I did, one deep breath, and then another, until the dread became a small thing, an inconsequential emotion locked away where it could no longer do as it once would have – terrify, immobilise and block all rational thought.

This is not good, I thought.

No. It is not, you fool man! Anna’s voice screamed in my mind.

You must leave. Now! He comes, and he will feel you. He will know then that you survived, and he will take you. You are not strong enough to defeat him, to resist him even. We are not strong enough. Think what it took to defeat him at the last… he will not again be so foolish. Come away!

Her last words were a command, a compulsion almost. Words that only with great effort could I resist. Words that I knew, I should ignore at my peril.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Stealthily, but not slowly, I rose and retraced my steps to where Bright was hobbled, almost a half mile from the Nargu.

Mere seconds later, I was mounted, reins in hand. But before I could urge Bright into a gallop, my dread broke free of its confines, and began to wrack my body with terror. In the same instant, Bright bucked in fear beneath me, his whinnying almost a scream as he yanked his head to and fro in his need to bolt for the horizon.

Too slow, came Anna’s words into the turmoil that was my mind.

‘Take my hand,’ she said, as I looked down in confusion on her face, as she formed from nothingness at Bright’s side. ‘Quickly!’ she commanded, as Bright quieted beneath me as he sensed her calming presence.

Our hands touched, my eyes vaguely saw the rod in her other hand, and then the world lurched, and we were far, far away; I still astride Bright and Anna’s small, frail hand still in mine.

‘Fool man,’ she said, even before the nausea of travelling had left me. ‘What were you doing? What were you thinking? Did you not feel him? Had he not come slowly, I would never have been able to warn you… would not have been able to come to you. Why? What was it that you would risk all for?’

I slide down off Bright, my hand running along his mane in apology for the terror I had placed upon him.

‘You were with me?’ I asked, my eyes locked with Anna’s.

‘With you? No. I was not with you. You left without telling me, and obviously did not wish me to know where it was you went, and so I respected that wish. I did not spy on you!’ she said, indignantly, her anger barely concealed.

‘The dread you felt, the dread that your mind sent wide across the world, touched me. Long have we been joined in ways you cannot begin to imagine. I felt your despair. I felt what you felt… and I knew he was close. So I came to you. Should I not have done?’ she ended, haughtily.

I swept her up in an embrace. ‘Thank you, Anna. I had forgotten the terror he exerts… and my defences have grown weak with disuse.’

I looked down into her eyes, her angry blue eyes. ‘This will not happen again… I promise you. I will not—’

‘No, you will not,’ Anna said, her voice hard and angry, yet her eyes betraying the worry in her words. ‘You have yet to answer my questions. Why have you been so foolish? What drove you to do this thing?’

I hesitated, knowing full well that I could not tell her. She would not listen anyway. ‘The past, Anna. My past drove me away from you to seek something that I should have left there, in the past where it belongs. I have an explanation… but your beliefs will not allow you to hear what it is,’ I said, grudgingly.

‘Ah,’ she said, sighing. ‘How I hate this thing that stops me from truly knowing you… how I sometimes yearn to know all that has been your life. But it is a curse I must live with as, I am sure, you live with yours.’

Again she sighed, but shaking her head as if to dismiss her comments, she said, ‘Come, there is an addition to our troupe that I would have you meet.’

‘Addition?’ I asked, vaguely, my mind still pondering Anna’s words of her curse.

‘Yes. You have been away, remember? Do you expect all to remain as it was because you are not there to oversee us all?’ she said, mockingly.

A young lad took Bright’s reins from me hesitantly, his eyes wide with alarm as the huge Destrier turned its head towards him.

‘Don’t worry. Just lead him, and he will follow peacefully,’ I said, grinning at the poor boy’s discomfort.

I walked alongside Anna toward the canvass covered area that served as a canteen for our small group. This newcomer that Anna talked of would make us a mere thirty strong. Not exactly an army… not yet anyway.

‘She is young but full of fire… one day I think she will serve us well in this fight of ours…’

Anna’s words droned on as my eyes lighted upon the one she talked of. She was stirring the kettle hung over the cook fire at the far end of our makeshift canteen. Her long black hair hung to her waist, and the set of her shoulders spoke of a strength that few women I knew possessed.

Hearing our approach she slowly turned. The sight of her face and Anna’s words chilled my blood.

‘Carthia, come meet the one I told you of. He has returned to us.’