Aela raised her golden shield above her and ducked down at the same moment that Darren dove beside her. He rolled to his back and aimed his gun skyward as the volley of artillery shells rained down on the two Prophets.
Pulling the trigger as fast as he could, Darren blasted away at the shells and knocked a dozen out of the sky. The volley was off-target, and as Darren retrieved his bullets in a half-second, the shots he’d allowed to pass exploded with repeated roars all around the highway.
The cars and buildings and even the APC with the dead soldiers inside blew to pieces as the artillery came down, hastily aimed and fired.
“Why aren’t the Torins shooting at the beachhead?” Aela asked as Darren fired and knocked a shell out of the air fifty meters above their heads.
“What?” Darren asked after the shell exploded, then fired again as a second volley flew into the air and arced down toward them.
“I said why aren’t they shooting at…” Aela stopped when Darren missed a shell. It was only a few yards above her, and she jumped up, sending a shockwave straight at the shell and knocking it out of the way. It exploded a short distance ahead of them, and knocked both her and her brother back to the ground, where Darren continued to fire.
“What?”
“I said…” Aela took a deep breath to shout the question. “Why aren’t the Torins shooting at the beachhead!”
“Because this isn’t Torin artillery,” Darren said as he fired, retrieving his bullets between the third volley.
“What?” Aela asked, nearly dropping her shield as a shell exploded a dozen yards away and sent half the hood of a truck careening against her shield. It bounced away but numbed Aela’s shield arm with pain.
“These are coming from the Joya lines.”
“But they’re our allies.”
A shell exploded behind the two Prophets that sent a piece of red-hot metal from a car door slicing through Darren’s lower leg. Darren screamed before shouting, “You can tell them that after they blow us up!”
The artillery slowed then stopped, burning vehicles and the screams of orders from the beachhead mixing with Darren’s panting. The Red Prophet sat up and looked out along the smoky street ahead, seeing a column of tanks fast approaching and with the siblings nearly in range of their rifled turrets.
“Tanks. Quick, heal my leg so I can attack them,” Darren said, cringing in pain as he tried to sit up.
“What? Attack them?” Aela asked, healing Darren’s leg but holding him down.
“It’s either that or they roll right over us. Let go, they’re almost in range.”
“Hold on, they probably just don’t know we’re Prophets. Maybe they think we’re Torin scouts.”
“Yeah, they sent a hundred artillery shells to kill two Torin riflemen.”
Aela ignored her brother and stood up, sending a pulse of energy through her shield so the advancing tanks could see the light shining toward them. “Don’t shoot! We’re Prophets! We—”
A tank shell blasted against Aela’s shield, knocking her to the ground in a daze.
“Aela!” Darren ran to his sister’s aid and fired at the lead tank, crimson bursts erupting against its thick metal body before it ground to a stop in front of the column. “Aela, get up.”
“They shot me!” Aela exclaimed, angry but not hurt. “They shot me!”
“They’re about to do it again, come on,” Darren said, lifting his sister’s shield arm so it protected them. “Get up!”
“I can’t believe they shot me!”
“Well believe it. Now put that shield up so I can blast these guys.” Darren leveled his pistol against his sister’s shield, resting it and preparing to knock out the tanks before they could get any closer.
“No, wait.” Aela pushed her brother so his shot went wildly into the street. “Don’t shoot them.”
“What?”
“Don’t shoot them they’re our allies.”
“They’re not our allies, they want to kill us!” Darren blasted away at a tank right as it got in range. His concentrated blast burst through the steel and into the engine, rendering the machine nothing more than a smoking husk. “They shot at us because they know we’re Prophets!”
“Then we shouldn’t give them a reason to keep shooting, whatever reason they have now,” Aela said as she ducked down and took another direct hit from a tank shell. This time she’d prepared for it and shook it off without falling. “Let’s get out of here. Run to the park and wait this out.”
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“What about Hendar?” Darren asked.
“If they’re shooting at us because we’re Prophets then I doubt Hendar’s with them, now let’s go!” Aela ran off toward the edge of the highway, with Darren firing to give them cover.
The highway at that point was suspended on massive concrete pillars a short distance above the markets and streets below. This enabled easier transportation, but also made it very difficult for someone to quickly flee from the highway to the inner city.
Darren and Aela screamed as tank shells burst behind them and they jumped off the highway. Aela did a tuck and roll that twisted her ankle. Her healing powers fixed this in a few painful seconds. Darren shot his gun straight at the ground so fast and with enough energy that his pistol gave him the tiniest amount of lift. He landed on his feet with intense pain but was otherwise unharmed.
“See, if you’d had a blade you could have just slid down the concrete pillar with it,” Aela said as she healed herself.
Darren cringed, saying, “Yeah, well, my way’s cooler,” and retrieved his bullets before following his sister back into the city.
It was sunset before they stopped running. Three twisted streets led them further north into the bombed-out shell that was the inner city. For a whole kilometer, neither of them said a word, only ran and darted from street to alley, trying to get as far away from the beachhead and their former allies as possible without heed of lensers. Luckily for them, they saw neither soldiers nor lensers in their flight back into the city’s center.
Aside from a few stumbles through collapsed buildings and the fires of burning wrecks in the streets, the siblings made it away without hindrance. Both sighed with relief every time a fighter or bomber passed overhead and turned back before coming near the city’s center. This happened with both Torin, Joya Union, and Ieral planes.
“Hold on, hold on,” Darren finally said when they reached the main road that led to the central square. He took a deep breath, surveying the wrecked buildings and dusty streets around him. “Where are we going?”
Aela looked around as well. Not because she expected to find anything. She looked because her brother had and she wondered if he was seeing something she wasn’t. He wasn’t.
“We’re going away from the people shooting at us,” Aela said after some thought.
“Oh, great.” Darren leaned against the building he stood next to, a single wall the only piece still intact on what used to be an upscale apartment complex. “I guess we’re getting off this planet then.”
“No. It means we’re, we’re…” Aela looked around, still trying to find something that was useful or enlightening. All she saw was the empty windows of the buildings, the glass blown out months ago. “It means we’re not ready to switch sides.”
“Switch sides? Aela, there are no sides anymore. There’s the Torins, the Joya Union and Ieral, and all of them shooting at us. We need to get out of here and not just out of this city. I mean get out of this war entirely.” Darren looked around with actual concern this time, searching for lensers and listening for signs of approaching vehicles or soldiers. “We can’t stay here long. It’s only a matter of time before the Torins launch another assault or the others move back into the central districts.”
“Why would they attack us? I sent them a message, coded it perfectly. Torins landing assault on western shore of river. Prophets here. Get ready for attack. How did the Ierilans not figure out we were trying to help them?”
“I don’t know. But I have a feeling it has something to do with Hendar.” Darren sighed, looking back toward where he knew the Joya Union and Ierilan soldiers were. “We should keep moving. I don’t want to be anywhere near either side when it gets dark.”
Darren walked on the side of the street, heading toward the central square and keeping to the shadows as much as possible. Aela walked beside him, talking in a low voice. “We have to find Hendar then,” Aela whispered.
“Not to sound like a pessimist, sis,” Darren said, nearly slipping up saying those words in that order, “but that’s pretty much what we’ve been doing all day. All it got us was a lot of walking and several artillery shells shot at us.” The sun disappeared behind the buildings of the inner city, bathing Gradennes in darkness. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do tonight.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the Ierilans. They only recently—”
“It was them too.” Darren turned around, stopping suddenly to face his sister. “I saw the Ierilan pyramid and the circle of stars of the Joya Union on the tanks attacking us. We’re done fighting for those people and we’re done with this war.” Darren turned and continued walking.
“You’re done?” Aela asked, following. “You’re just going to quit and allow this war to keep going, let the Torins win?”
“I’m sure the Sept is behind this, Aela. They wouldn’t let the Prophets fail on this planet. If they did something that caused both sides to hate us then I’m sure it’s for the best.”
“So that’s the side you fight for.”
“It’s not a side. It’s the Sept. And you’re supposed to follow it too.”
“Not blindly. There’s nothing about being a Prophet that says you have to follow the Sept. Sure it’s become more powerful but it’s not the only voice of reason.”
Darren gripped his pistol, its red lining shining through the darkened streets. Prophets of all three colors could use their weapons to supply them with energy, temporarily eliminating the need for sleep or food. Darren breathed deeply as the weapon reinvigorated him, and he ignored the thirst aching on his tongue.
“You’re tired,” Aela said.
“I’m fine,” Darren replied, dimming the glow of his gun.
“You’ve been fighting for days.”
“And all I need is a little more strength so I can stop.” Darren stopped, turning around and smiling weakly. “I’ve got it. We’ll steal a boat from the Torins, one of the little landing craft we saw today. We’ll take it upriver as far as we can and find a way to get in contact with—”
“Aren’t you at all curious?”
“Curious?”
“About why the Prophets are gone, why both sides of this war are trying to kill us?”
Darren shook his head. “I only care that they’re still fighting and I can’t help them anymore. It’s time for us to go and I can only imagine that’s exactly what Hendar and the others thought.”
“Unless they were killed,” Aela said without sadness, only a reasoned curiosity.
Darren tightened his grip on his pistol, feeling the cool metal in his hand as he said between his teeth, “Hendar and the others are not dead.”
“Then why did they desert us?”
Darren swiftly walked away from his sister, heading toward the square with his eyes straining to see in the darkening streets.
“Darren,” Aela said as she caught up and walked beside her brother. “Why would they abandon you and me unless they were dead?”
Her brother was too lost in his own anger to respond. Aela felt pity for him. While Reds embraced their emotions as a necessary element in channeling their abilities, Golds had to use the power of the Prophets with a clear and calm mind, immune to the harmful effects of emotion in conflict. This enabled her to reason through to a logical conclusion.
“Unless Hendar thought we were dead,” Darren said right before Aela was about to make the same reasoned statement. “Unless they abandoned us and this war because it’s lost and there’s nothing the Prophets can do anymore.”