by Franc Ingram
She forgot her purpose and moved to calm everything. She pulled away from Joel and stood. She channeled the voice of the Twelve and screamed, “Stop!” The world around her stopped. She heard Joel’s voice echo hers but it sounded wrong, hoarse, and weak. Scatter, she ordered and she felt people move. She didn’t know how many, or on what side, but the progress made her happy. She could let go.
Oleana came back to herself in a rush and it felt like her body was too small to contain her. She felt like she was crammed into a box two times too small. Her nerve endings were on fire. The cotton of her underclothing felt like sandpaper against her skin, and even the gentle breeze that flowed in from the east felt like nails across her cheeks.
“Oleana,” someone called. “Oleana can you hear me?”
Oleana looked to see Mason. He placed his hand on her shoulder and she jumped back. He froze as if afraid to startle her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Are you okay?” she asked. “Joel.”
Oleana turned and knelt down. He was still breathing, no matter how shallow, and the wound at his neck was scabbed over. The bleeding stopped.
“By the Twelve, Oleana your side,” Mason’s eyes were impossibly wide as he pointed at her.
Oleana grabbed at the side where she’d been hit to find a short sword still lodged inside of her. She reached to pull it out when Mason’s hands clasped over hers.
“Don’t. You’ll bleed out. They’ve retreated. We need to find shelter and get you both taken care of.”
Oleana nodded. She released her hand and looked everywhere but at herself, fearing the sight of it would cause her to be reckless. What was left of their compliment staggered toward her, bruised, and battered. Oleana found her feet, afraid that they were coming to capture her. She wouldn’t fight but she might be able to flee.
“You saved us,” Paul said. Others behind him nodded. “Whatever it was that you did, thank you.”
“Henry, Paul, help with Joel. Arissa you help Oleana. All those still able to fight take the lead. Priority is speed and shelter. Move,” Mason ordered.
Oleana let Arissa take her arm. Together they walked toward the clearing and hopefully a nearby shelter. Oleana didn’t think she had enough in her to walk for long.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: ALONE
After they stumbled onto a system of caves carved out by some long gone raging river, the same one that died in the marshland, Oleana was patched up, as best as possible by the resident medic, Fallon. They had a little tiff about it since he wanted to treat her first, but Oleana insisted he tend to Joel. She tried to get some rest while she waited but there was no way for her to lay down with the hilt still sticking out of her.
Mason held onto her the whole time. His right eye was bruised and swollen, his lip split, his knuckles bloody, and he walked with a limp, but still he insisted on keeping her calm. For medical purposes Oleana was permitted to consume a flask of brandy, down to the last drop. It was like liquid happiness sliding down her throat.
The dark liquid calmed a screaming urge that she’d pushed to the back of her mind. She almost forgave him for the mind shattering agony that shot through her when he pulled the sword out. She begged for more liquid painkiller to no avail. Oleana didn’t remember much after that.
She woke up on a hard surface. The only light she had to see by was the fire crackling nearby. The smell of blood still clung to the air, mixing with the sharp mineral bite of rock and earth. Her armor’s padding had been balled up to act as her pillow, and her midsection was wrapped in so many bandages she was sure they’d exhausted their supply. Oleana wished they wouldn’t have gone through so much. She didn’t need to be coddled.
Two male voices whispered across the space. Oleana levered herself up on her elbows to get a look at who they were. Mason and Fallon were talking with their shoulders hunched and their eyes pointed away from each other, out the cave entrance. Oleana couldn’t make out what they were saying but both men held themselves so tight Oleana thought they might snap.
Biting her lip to keep quiet, Oleana got up on her feet and using the rocky walls as support she climbed over several sleeping bodies to reach them.
“What she gave him helped but it just….” Fallon looked up and his face went blank but Oleana caught the edges of grief written in the deep creases of his crow's feet.
“You should be resting,” Mason chided.
“Joel is dead,” Oleana said more of a statement than a question.
Fallon looked away. “A few minutes ago. What you did helped, but there was too much damage, too much blood loss. He couldn’t recover. I’m sorry.”
Oleana slammed her fist against the wall. “Years I sacrificed off my life. Years I gave to him only to have it go for nothing. Why did he save me? What makes me worth saving? Maybe I was ready to go. Did he stop to think that I might be tired of the running, and fighting, and tearing people's lives apart as I pass by?” Oleana helplessly rambled on in her grief.
Mason clamped his large hand over her mouth, cutting off any further ranting. “I understand your pain, but I won’t let you disrespect Joel like that. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it as many times as it takes for you to get it. What you represent is more important than you or me, or anybody else here. We’ll die, to the very last man here, if it means saving you, so you can accomplish what the legends say you will. We’ll die for the hope that lives in you.
I can’t imagine how heavy a burden that must be, and I’m sorry you have to bare it, but you must, for the sake of humanity.”
Oleana pushed Mason away as soon as his grip lightened. The movement sent her teetering and she slumped against the wall, falling on her behind. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she didn’t need them. She needed her anger. It was the only thing strong enough to keep her insides from falling out.
Fallon reached for her. “Are you…”
“I’m fine,” Oleana said, brushing his hand away. “I’ll live.” Pain burned its way up her back and into her head and she wanted to curl up into a ball and die, but Oleana wasn’t going to share that with them. Instead, she sat as still as she could, taking shallow breaths, trying to still her pounding heart.
“We have to find somewhere to bury the body and hope that once things settle down someone will be able to retrieve him for a proper funeral, along with the others,” Mason said.
“How many did you lose?” Oleana asked, making sure to keep her voice under control. She didn’t wish to anger Mason further.
“Four including Joel.” Mason looked her over. “Four more seriously injured.”
Oleana guessed that included her. She couldn’t disagree. The walk, of all of five steps, took all she had. She’d be sleeping at the mouth of the cave if no one carried her back to her makeshift bed. She hadn’t done her hand any good by putting it against the rock wall. If her back didn’t hurt so much she would have been really worried about the pain.
“And after you finish with that, what's the plan?” Oleana asked Mason. She needed to focus on the next step. Drown out what her body was screaming at her. Keep focused and moving forward.
“This cave is secure. I think we should send out for help and hold down here until it comes. I can’t move the injured, and I can’t leave them. It's the only option I’ve got.”
“How long do we wait before admitting they might not be coming back?” Oleana asked unable to stop herself from thinking the worse.
“If the next night comes with no sign of rescue, then we move on to plan B.”
Oleana heard a twig snap and she reached for her sais but they weren’t there. She didn’t even have the sheaths strapped to her thighs. Mason held his hand out to stay her. He whistled two quick tones. Three long returned.
“It’s okay,” Mason said.
A young man, looked close to Lysander’s age, parted the bushes and stepped into the cave. Oleana recognized him from the squad. He was pulling up the rear of their march to the caves. His face was covered in mud and his armor showed signs of th
e battle he’d fought hard in.
“Bring me good news Henry,” Mason ordered.
“Sorry sir. The two messengers got away clean, but on my way back I spotted yetis on the search. Don’t think they noticed me, took a roundabout way back here, but I don’t think we are going to stay hidden for a day.”
Mason didn’t say anything for a long moment and Oleana thought this would be the straw that broke his patience, his courage. Oleana was scared. She couldn’t even defend herself if the yetis came. Feeling helpless was not for her.
“Take Jax and explore the cave. Paul, and I will shore up this entrance. We just need to survive the next day. Fallon, take who you need and move the wounded as far inside as you can, that includes you, Guardian.”
Oleana frowned at the return of the formal address, but she didn’t have the energy to argue. “Yeah, I can’t move without help,” she admitted.
Fallon put one arm behind her back and one under her legs. Oleana wrapped her hands around his neck. She let him lift her, and while the sensation still sent pain through her, she was grateful for his smooth delivery.
Following Henry’s lead, they moved further in until only the light from Henry's torch lit their way. The further they moved back, the more the ceiling sloped at odd angles forcing them to stoop and bend. There came a fork in the cave leading two different directions. At first glance neither of them looked appealing. Dark and rough.
“Stay here for now while we search out these two,” Henry said.
“Won’t be going anywhere,” Oleana said after Fallon lowered her to the floor.
“You sure you're okay,” Fallon asked.
“As okay as I’m going to get.”
“Okay I’m going to go round up the others.”
Oleana waved him away. She didn’t need him hovering over her. Fallon and Henry left in different directions leaving her with only a hastily started baby of a fire. The noises of the cave whispered doom in her ears. Her choices yelled at her from the shadows. Sit by and wait in fear. Be selfish and do what it takes to save yourself. Do something for someone else and send Mason into a tizzy.
The first question was, did she have the ability to do the second two? Oleana took three deep breaths, bit down on her lip and pushed herself into a standing position. Her legs felt like lead weights but she took her first step forward. Oleana carefully scooped up the discarded torch and relit it. Then she stumbled her way forward knowing if she stopped to think about what she was doing she would lose her nerve.
100101
Lorn stared up at the Crystal Tower, mouth open at the breathtaking beauty of the structure and the knowing that he was finally there. Four lifetimes of trying and he finally stood in front of the place he yearned for the most. He may not have been able to remember the other three lifetimes, fragments lingered in his mind from his mother’s memories, but the weight of them pressed in on him. Reaching Evermore, seeing the tower, it gave him a sense of relief that was too old for his sixteen-year-old self. It was a feeling that cut back through time and generations, a culmination of a century’s worth of effort.
After the constant strain of being on the run for days, Lorn felt near collapse. His heart thudded against his chest and his legs felt too weak to support a feather, much less the weight of his body. The hundred feet between him and the tower seemed like an impossible distance to cover.
The tower itself radiated an energy that called to Lorn. Looking at it directly hurt his eyes. The sharp angles of the crystal structure captured the light and spit out different colors, oranges, greens, and reds, to the point Lorn wasn’t sure what color was true. Except for the arched doorway, Lorn saw no breaks in the surface for windows or a veranda.
Still, more striking than the building itself was what it represented, a chance to reunite with those he cared about. Leaving his mother, Lysander, and Leith, felt like a torture too hard to bare. Every second without them in sight, he couldn’t help but think about where they may be or if they’d found safety.
His route to the tower took several steps back toward the border before it was clear enough to move forward. He knew a lecture about being stealthy and fast lay in his future, and for the first time Lorn looked forward to it. Three sleepless nights and all he needed was to hear his mother’s voice, even the angry version, and he could finally get the rest he needed.
“Sir we need to move to cover,” his second in command said. The man was young, close to Lysander’s age. He even carried some of the same features, dark olive skin color, tall and lean with the Caledon accent that Lorn was starting to get used to. The young man taught Lorn a lot about survival over the last couple of days and Lorn was grateful, but he preferred his mother.
“Lead the way,” Lorn said, nodding to the man.
Before they got to the door, they were greeted by a dozen Caledon soldiers who popped out of a dozen different hiding spots as they approached. “Identify yourself,” the one closest to the door yelled.
“Come on,” Lorn replied irritated by the hindrance. “You see who we are as clearly as I see you as part of desert squad, Leith’s squad.”
The guard at the door look unimpressed by Lorn’s answer. After days on the run like a hunted animal, he was near hysterical at being stopped so close to his goal.
“Let me through or I will let myself in. You don’t want to mess with me,” Lorn said. He emphasizing his point with the tip of his sword aimed at the man’s face.
His second stepped in between Lorn and the guard. “Lieutenant Stillwaters and crescent squad reporting to the tower as ordered. Passcode, dragon five nine ranta three.”
The guard nodded and Lorn watched his companions disappear back into their dark holes. “Passcode accepted. The others inside will be glad to know you’ve finally arrived,” he said moving aside. “And sir I’m sorry, but I’m just following orders.”
Lorn waved him off without another thought. Stillwaters pushed the door open and Lorn was inside searching for any sign of his mother. He ran down the corridor not worried about what passed by in a blur but moving toward the voices he heard. The hall lead to an opening with a massive set of crystal stairs leading up far enough for Lorn to lose track.
He peered around them to see another room with one of its double doors open and people coming in and out. He nearly ran into Daycia as she was coming out.
“Lorn my boy, why in such a rush?”
“How did you get here before us?” He waved the question off before she could answer. “Never mind, I’m sure we can talk about it later. Where’s my mother? Is she okay? Are the others okay?”
“Come inside and we can talk about all of that,” Daycia said, laying her hand on his shoulder.
Her touch was light and warm, but Lorn was not comforted. She tried too hard to be gentle and it made him suspicious. “What’s wrong? Is my mother okay? Just tell me.”
“She’s not here. Come inside and the others can explain it better than I.”
“She’s not here yet? Since we were forced to bed down for an entire day I was sure we’d be the last ones to filter in,” Lorn said. He let himself be led by Daycia inside the grand room behind the stairs. He glanced up to see two dozen men and women either gathered around a large rectangular table centered in the room, or milling about in groups of two or three at the edges. “Maybe we should go back out, see if we can find her, bring her in where its safe.”
“They can explain everything,” Daycia said in a diplomatic tone.
Lorn spotted Leith and Lysander at the table looking over a map with a woman who was clearly something other than human. Her skin was a pale cream color with a shimmer to it as she moved. Her oval eyes were green on green with no black pupil and she was as tall as him with a similar slender build.
Leith was the first to spot him. Looking up from the map relief washed over his face at spotting Lorn. His shoulders relaxed noticeably then he lowered his eyes as if it was too hard for him to look at Lorn.
“Ah, Lorn you made it,” Lys
ander said standing up.
Lorn embraced each of his brothers in turn. “Good to see you both alive and in one piece. They didn’t make the trek here easy. The longer Mom stays out there the more danger she’s in.”
“Daycia didn’t…?” Lysander asked.
“I figured it was best if it came from you,” Daycia said.
“Maybe you sit first,” Leith said offering Lorn a chair.
He let himself be maneuvered into a chair, hoping that if he stayed quiet long enough they would stop fidgeting and tell him what he wanted to know. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep his mouth shut.
Lysander knelt in front of him, the length of his sword, still strapped to his hip, scraping against the hard tile floor. “Moon squad returned after being cornered by Cornelius and the men of Failsea.” Lorn would have jumped out of his seat if the movement wouldn’t have knocked Lysander over. “They suffered severe injuries after the first attack but managed to take cover in some caves. Oleana knew her men couldn’t take another assault so she…” again Lysander looked away as if he couldn’t bear to look at Lorn, as if the knowledge he held was too horrible to let out.
Lorn shook his head. He knew his mother couldn’t be dead. He would have felt that, he was sure of it.
“She went alone to save her men. No sign a her out there,” Leith finished.
“She’s not dead. We would have felt it.”
Leith nodded. “Wit Cornelius just a matter of time.”
Lorn did stand on that note, forcing Lysander back on his hands before falling on his behind. Lorn sidestepped the crowd that had gathered around him. “She may be out there hiding, waiting to be rescued. Did you think of that? You’re all standing in here, relaxing, patting yourselves on the back for surviving while she could be out there injured, counting on us to find her. What a disappointment we all turned out to be.”