As soon as the Avitras border guards fell out of sight, Emily and her friends turned and hiked up the hill. They didn’t stop until they came to the place where Turk told Emily to take the lead. She looked back over her shoulder. Then she sank onto the ground and hugged her knees to her chest.
Chris rushed to her side. “What happened down there? Are your sisters okay?”
Emily heaved a shaky sigh. “One of them is.”
“Where’s the other one?” Faruk asked. “Is she....”
Emily shook her head. “They don’t know where she is. She vanished.”
Faruk frowned. Chris started back. “What do you mean—vanished?”
Emily took a deep breath. “My sister Anna is there. She’s staying with Penelope Ann—and Aquilla—until she makes her own permanent home. She looks great, and she’s happy there. It’s Frieda who disappeared.”
“What happened to her?” Chris asked.
“No one knows,” Emily replied. “She was standing on a balcony near one of the houses. The next minute, she was gone. The Avitras have searched their whole territory for her and never found a trace. That’s why Aquilla wasn’t there. He’s getting his guards to search for her. They never found her body or even a drop of blood under the balcony where she disappeared.”
Chris and Turk exchanged glances. “That’s impossible.”
“That’s what I said,” Emily replied. “That’s what everybody is saying.”
“So what are we going to do?” Chris asked. “We can’t just leave. We came all this way to find out what happened to your sisters.”
Emily stood up. “We have to leave. We can’t stay here. Penelope Ann said Aquilla might kill our whole party if came back and found an Ursidrean in his territory. I guess he’s still burning up about an Ursidrean killing his brother.”
“So what are you going to do?” Faruk asked. “You could stay until they find your sister, and we could go back......I mean....”
Emily smiled at him. “I’m not staying without you. You came all this way to help me. If you aren’t welcome here, I’m not staying, either. If they find Frieda, they can send word back to the Lycaon. I’m sure Anna will inform Aimee, and Aimee can get word to me through the warriors on the Ursidrean border.”
Faruk rubbed his chin. “This is no good at all.”
Emily waved her hand back over her shoulder and started walking back the way they came. “The Avitras don’t have a clue where Frieda is. I would be sitting around waiting, and for nothing. I’m not going to risk your life, and Chris and Turk’s lives, and the promise of our life together, on that. Let’s go.”
Faruk, Chris, and Turk exchanged glances. Then Faruk set off after her. Turk took a step forward, but Chris held him back. Faruk caught up to Emily with long strides. He walked at her side for a while. They crossed the hilltop and down the other side into the shrubbery at the edge of the forest. Emily looked over her shoulder. “Where are the others?”
Faruk took her hand. “They’ll be along in a minute.”
Emily started walking faster. Her hand hung limp in his. The usual charge of unbreakable connection didn’t translate up her arm into the rest of her body the way it usually did. She cast her eyes this way and that in a desperate search for something. “We should get down to the stream before night sets in. We’ll have to find a place to camp.”
Faruk didn’t answer. Once, she tripped over a fallen branch, and he caught her by the arm. “Steady.”
Emily got her feet under her and looked back again. “Where are they?”
Faruk stopped walking and turned her toward him. “Stop a minute, Emily.”
She looked up into his face. “What is it?”
He drew her close. “Something happened up there. What was it?”
Emily blinked. Then her chin dropped onto her chest. “I told you. Frieda’s gone.”
He took hold of both her shoulders and squared her to face him. “It wasn’t that. Tell me what happened.”
Her breath heaved in and out of her lungs. “I didn’t know....”
He stared into her yes. “You didn’t know what?”
“I don’t know where Frieda is,” she stammered, “but it doesn’t matter anymore. If the Avitras had welcomed us the way the Lycaon did, I might have stayed until they found her. I could have stayed with the Lycaon for years and felt at home. But I couldn’t stay there without you. I didn’t know it until Penelope Ann told me I had to stay alone if I wanted to stay. I couldn’t turn my back on you. I couldn’t let you walk away while I stayed behind—not even for Frieda.”
His expression softened. “Is that it? Is that what this is all about?”
She melted in his hands, and he pulled her against his chest. “I don’t want to stay there. I won’t stay there even if it means I never find out what happened to Frieda. I’m going home with you.”
His arms sheltered her, and he pressed his lips against her hair. “All right. Let’s go home.”
He went back and got Chris and Turk, and they all set off toward the Lycaon village. They stopped for the night next to the stream, but no one talked the way they did the day before. Emily stared into the fire. A thousand thoughts crowded her mind.
Chris and Turk rolled themselves up in their blankets early, but Faruk sat next to Emily and waited for her to say something. Deep into the night, she roused herself and cleared her throat. “You should go to sleep, too.”
He sniffed. “You should go to sleep. You’re the most exhausted of us all.”
She raised her head to look at him. “I’m not exhausted.”
He shook his head. “You’ve been through the most. You need rest. You’ve been racing all over the countryside, and now you’ve lost Frieda. You shouldn’t push yourself so hard.”
Emily blinked at the flames. Only now when he mentioned it did she start to feel the weight on her shoulders. She might never find out what happened to her sister. “I won’t go racing all over the countryside anymore. I’ll rest when we get back to Harbeiz.”
The fire crackled. “Have you thought any more about our problem?”
She didn’t look up. “No.”
“I have,” he told her.
Emily’s head shot up. “You have? What have you thought of?”
“I’ve been thinking I can give up the mountains,” he replied. “I’ve been thinking I’ll tell Donen I want to coordinate the training of the border patrol from the city instead of traveling out to the borders to do it.”
“Is that possible?” she asked. “I didn’t know there was a coordinator position in the city.”
“There isn’t,” he replied. “I would invent one.”
Her eyes popped out of her head. “Will Donen go for that?”
“Under the circumstances, I’m sure he will,” he replied. “I’ve been responsible for training the patrols for years, but it was my choice to do it in the mountains instead of the city. The patrols come back to the city every few months to resupply and report on their operations. It makes sense that they would do their training there, too.”
“Are you sure you can be happy with that?” she asked. “You might get itchy feet sometimes.”
“I’m certain I will,” he replied, “lots of times. The advantage of this plan is that I can go out into the mountains to do training there, too. But I’ll be based in the city, so we won’t be separated the way we would be if I stayed on patrol.”
Emily nodded. “I’ll go along with any plan that makes you happy. I don’t want you sacrificing your happiness to stay with me.”
“You make me happy,” he replied.
“You didn’t like working in the infirmary because you wanted to be out in the mountains,” she told him. “What makes you think this will be any different?”
“I won’t be in the infirmary,” he replied. “I’ll be working with border patrols, and I will be out in the mountains. I’ll just be out in the mountains near the city, and I’ll co
me back there when I’m finished. When I get the itch to get out of the city, I’ll go.”
Emily smiled for the first time since she left the Avitras. “I might just come with you sometimes.”
He put his arm around her shoulder. “That would be great, and we wouldn’t have border patrolling to interfere with our time together. We could just enjoy ourselves.”
She settled into his embrace. “It sounds perfect.”
They listened to the fire hissing through the logs. The stars blazed overhead, but there was no aurora. “What do you think you’ll do back in the city?”
Emily shifted her weight. “I don’t know. I haven’t given myself a chance to think about it. I’ve got a lot of skills. I suppose I’ll show up to the labor pool like everybody else and see what they have available for me. I’ll do just about anything as long as I’m not in the military.”
“That rules out practically about every job on their books,” he told her.
“Aria works in the infirmary,” Emily pointed out. “I’m sure there are plenty of civil jobs I could do. Young people need teaching, budgets need balancing—it’s a regular city full of people trying to live their lives. That takes work.”
He breathed into her hair. “You’ll find your place.”
“And you’ll be there,” she went on. “I won’t be alone.”
“You wouldn’t be alone either way,” he pointed out. “You made friends with Aria and her family. You have a base to start with. In a way, you have more waiting for you back in Harbeiz than I do.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “You’ve been living there all your life.”
“I’ve never had a home of my own there,” he replied. “I’ve been in and out like a vagrant. I don’t have any real friends there. Maybe that’s why I never wanted to go back. All my friends are on the border patrol.”
She wrapped her arms around his chest and held him close. “I’ll protect you.”
He chuckled under his breath. “Thank goodness for that. I couldn’t handle it if you didn’t.”
She lifted her face to him, and they shared a long kiss. The fire warmed them against the crisp night air at their backs.
He pulled away. “We should go to sleep. We have a long hike ahead of us tomorrow.”
Emily pulled their blankets around them, and they stretched out next to the fire. Faruk took her in his arms again. The pleasant warmth of the fire and his protective presence made her drowsy. She closed her eyes and floated into a dreamy haze.
She gazed down from above over the whole territory she’d covered. Lycaon territory with its low huts and its welcoming fires lay to the southeast. Avitras territory, where Aquilla and his men still searched for Frieda, lay to the west. And Ursidrean territory, with its vibrant city, lay to the north. Harbeiz blazed in the distance with a thousand electric lights, and a beacon of hope and contentment called her back to it.
Her future beckoned to her, with children tumbling around her feet and meaningful work drawing her into a community of purposeful people. And the whole blessed vision came from Faruk. It stemmed from the fountain of her love and connection with him. He fed it and nurtured it and gave it life.
She opened her body and soul to him, and embraced him and the vision and the life that came out of him. He planted the seeds of it in her, and between them, it became real.
Chapter 14
Chris shaded her eyes from the sun. She gazed over the trackless expanse of forest all the way back into Lycaon territory. “There it is. It’s good to be home.”
“We aren’t home yet,” Turk replied. “We have some long miles to put behind us before we get back to the village.”
Chris started forward. “Then we better get moving. The day’s not getting any younger.”
Emily wasn’t looking that way, though. She fixed her eyes on the horizon to the north. “Somebody’s coming.”
Chris spun around. “Where?”
Emily pointed. “It looks like they’re coming from Harbeiz.”
“What?” Chris asked.
“The Ursidrean capital city,” Emily explained. “And it’s a lot of them coming. Look at the dust cloud.”
Faruk squinted into the distance. “It looks like the army coming out, and they’re heading toward the west.”
Emily stiffened. “That’s Felsite territory.”
“They’re invading again,” Turk growled. “I always knew they would.”
“They can’t be,” Emily exclaimed. “Donen swore off attacking other factions. I heard him say so himself.”
Faruk shook his head. “It looks like he lost out to the Supreme Council after all. I wondered if he would have the power to stand against them, but I guess every Alpha has a limit. He can’t contravene his own people.”
Emily whirled away. “This can’t be happening, not when we’re coming home with the news that peace is possible. We have to do something to stop them.”
Faruk walked after her. “What can we do? If the army is set on invasion, they won’t stop for two people.”
Emily waved both arms. “We can’t let this happen. We have to intercept them and tell them what we know. If they invade the Felsite again, one or both factions could be utterly destroyed. Maybe the Supreme Council doesn’t know it, but Donen does. He can’t let the Ursidrean people fall like this, and we have to do what we can to stop it. This could be our only chance.”
Faruk caught up to her and caught her by the hand. “Wait a minute, Emily. Stop and think.”
She rounded on him. “I am thinking. If we don’t stop this, there won’t be a Harbeiz to go back to. There won’t be an Ursidrean faction. We’re the only ones who can carry this information to them in time to stop the invasion.”
Chris stepped forward. “I’m coming with you. We can tell Donen the Lycaon are in the same boat. If we convince him all the other factions have the same shortage of men, we could stop the war before it starts. We could be the only ones who can convince him.”
Turk came to Chris’s side. “If we’re going to do this, we have to move fast. At the speed they’re moving, that column will cross into Felsite territory before the end of the day. We won’t get there in time by walking.”
“What can we do?” Emily asked.
Chris smiled. “We can run.”
Emily stared at her. “Run—there? It must be fifty miles.”
“We can make it,” Chris told her. “We’ve done it before.”
“You might,” Faruk replied, “but Emily and I can’t. For one thing, I’m too big and heavy to move that fast and Emily hasn’t had the physical conditioning to do it. You’ve built up to it over months of practice, Chris, and Turk comes to it naturally. But we can’t do it. We’ll have to find another way to get there.”
“We could go ahead of you,” Chris suggested. “We could run there and stop the column and you could catch up.”
Faruk shook his head. “It won’t work. If you and Turk tried to reason with Donen, you could make him even more determined to carry out this course of action. No, the information has to come from an Ursidrean, an Ursidrean who has been inside Lycaon territory and Avitras territory and seen the situation for himself. Donen has been a close friend of mine for years. I’ve advised him on the border situation dozens of times, and now I’ve personally spoken to the Lycaon Alpha and with the Avitras Captain of the Border Guard. He’ll listen to me.”
“You still haven’t explained how you’re going to get there in time,” Turk pointed out.
Emily gazed over the countryside. Then her arm shot out. “There!”
Her friends followed her pointing finger to a black line chiseled in the landscape. Faruk sucked his breath between his teeth. “You’re not serious!”
“It’s our only chance,” Emily told him. “We have to try it.”
“Excuse me,” Chris interrupted, “but what are you talking about?”
“Look,” Emily told her. “There’s a pass
cutting between Ursidrean territory and Felsite territory. It leads to that escarpment between the two territories. We can follow the pass and intercept the column before it crosses the border.”
“Are you sure?” Chris asked. “How can you tell from here?”
“Emily is right,” Faruk told her. “I know all the Ursidrean borders, and this pass does cut through the two territories. It will lead us around in front of the column so they have to meet us before they cross the border.”
“Let’s go.” Emily started forward, and Faruk fell in at her side. He took her hand.
Chris called after them, “Hey, wait a minute!”
“We don’t have a minute to wait,” Emily called back. “If you’re coming, let’s go. We can’t run there. This is our only option.”
Chris and Turk exchanged glances. Then Turk shrugged and he and Chris caught up with them. They walked two by two down the hill. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing. I was looking forward to going back to the village.”
Emily called over her shoulder. “You don’t have to come. You can go back if you want to.”
“This is Angondran history in the making,” Chris replied. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
They wound their way through the trees. “How can we find the pass in this forest?” Emily asked. “We won’t know if we’re heading the right direction.”
“I know how to find it,” Faruk told her. “The river that cuts through the pass has its headwaters at the bottom of this mountain. All we have to do is get down this mountain and follow the water down. It will lead us to the pass, and the river cuts through Felsite territory on its way to the sea. The column won’t be able to enter Felsite territory without crossing the river.”
His hand gave Emily all the confidence she needed. She picked her way down the mountain with a light step, but after an hour or two, they couldn’t walk side by side anymore. She let go of Faruk’s hand and would have fallen behind him, but he hung back and let her take the front position. This was her mission. She struck out through the trees.
Angondra Holiday Special Page 36