Chapter 28

A bird flew through the trees, heading for Vitari. It was a small bluebird but it was still pumping its wings as hard as it could. Its tiny brain had a message and a very important one at that. A sense of urgency suddenly filtered through it and it redoubled its efforts. It was exhausted, but it couldn’t disobey. It was almost to its destination. It could feel it. It looked ahead and found majestic buildings perched in the trees, nestled there like the nests it built for itself. It changed directions and focused on one building in particular. This one was much, much larger than all the rest. Standing outside was a human woman and a human boy. These were friends of the bird, it sensed. These humans were of the earth-talkers. The earth-talkers were friends to the animals.

It flew toward its target and a minute later was perched on the railing. Its tiny chest was puffing in and out as it labored to breathe. Its tiny heart was beating a million miles a minute.

The earth-talker woman held out her hand and the bluebird immediately walked onto its soft flesh. It felt itself being lifted up and then it was closer to the woman’s face.

“What have you found out?” she asked.

The bluebird immediately began chirping. Its melodic voice was high-pitched and a little unsteady.

The earth-talker woman listened for a bit and then nodded with a sad look on her face. She brought the bluebird inside the building and found a spot for it to relax.

“Rest here, friend. You have done well,” the earth-talker woman said. The bluebird did not disobey that order either. It settled in amongst a nest of soft blankets and immediately fell asleep.

Aeole turned to her son, Asher. There was a worried, pensive look on her face.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“It’s worse than we’ve feared. The forest is infested with Rooks. They are headed this way as we speak.”

Asher groaned. The first attack had only been yesterday. That wasn’t much of a respite.

“How many are there?”

“From what I could gather from the bird, hundreds of them. Those are just the ones heading here, to Vitari. I’ve gotten reports from other animals all over the forest. The Rooks have invaded almost everywhere. Even now, Ledun and Yowil are under attack. Cantu and Undari will be next.”

“What do we do?” Asher asked.

“We fight,” Aeole answered without hesitation.

She turned to leave, getting ready to prepare. Asher, however, grabbed her hand and pulled her back.

“You can’t,” he said, worried. “I saw what happened to you when you fought the first wave of Rooks. You were aging right before my eyes. You don’t have the strength to keep up that kind of fight forever. You’ll die.”

Aeole stared at her son with a small smile on her face. She reached out a hand and gently held the side of his face.

“I understand your fear, Asher,” she told him. “But I have to protect you. I have to protect all of us. Can you let me do that?”

“I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered back.

“We are only on this earth for a short while. If it is my time to leave, you must honor that,” she replied, trying not to cry. She could feel the tears stinging her eyes though.

“It won’t be,” Asher said, firmly. He looked at his mother, his face completely serious. “I’ll see to that. What do you need me to do to help prepare Vitari?”

“Get all the warriors ready,” she responded. “Soon, we’ll have an even bigger fight on our hands.”

“Do you know the penalty for desertion?” Captain Casius asked. His blaster was still aimed at Lord Guilder’s face.

Lord Guilder raised shaky hands, his cheeks quivering.

“W-we shouldn’t fight each other,” he tried to say. “The savages are going to kill us but if we work together, we can still make it out of this blasted forest alive.”

Captain Casius just stared at the fat, shaking Lord with a look of utter disgust.

“My orders were to destroy Vitari.” His words sounded hollow and empty. “And to kill you if you tried to run out on General Coran.”

What a pathetic waste.

Casius shuddered inwardly. The thought hadn’t come from him. It was faint and distant and it was full of corruption and filth. When he’d first heard that voice, he’d tried to fight it. Over the months, however, he realized that there was no way to win. The voice was insidious. It lingered and dug its fingers deeper and deeper into his mind. When he finally realized what was happening, he was already lost.

Kill him, the voice whispered and Cassius was helpless to obey.

Lord Guilder heard the low hum of the blaster charging up. He tried to say something but his throat closed up. He swallowed nervously and closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable. He would’ve tried to fight the Captain off, but that would’ve made his death even quicker. He took a deep breath and just waited.

Captain Casius was prepared to pull the trigger. A part of him wanted to resist being turned into a cold-blooded murderer, but the entity controlling him exerted more pressure on his mind. His eyes watered visibly, blurring his vision.

Without any more hesitation, Casius pulled the trigger.

A loud roar suddenly erupted from the forest. There were sounds of trees rustling as something big moved through them.

Several things happened at once. A beautiful cheetah crashed into Captain Casius, throwing off his shot. It went wide of Lord Guilder, who was still standing there with his eyes screwed shut. Two other creatures, a raccoon and an iguana, walked out of the brush. Their forms shimmered and a second later, two Terra warriors were standing there. They were both men and they were both staring at Lord Guilder with eager anticipation.

Lord Guilder, after finally realizing he wasn’t dead yet, opened his eyes. When he saw the Terras there, he let out a squeak.

The cheetah, having finished with the Captain, shimmered into its human form too, a woman with dark hair and dark eyes. Blood covered her chin and throat.

“Yiawe,” one of the men said, his face stern. “Tie up our prisoner. Aeole wants him alive.”

Lord Guilder stared mutely, his mind roaring with panic. He started hyperventilating as the woman drew out a long piece of rope. She started walking toward him.

The fear still gnawed at him, eating away his courage, but he wasn’t stupid enough to let them take him alive. Before they could stop him, he went through his blueprints and engaged one. His search had been hurried and he hoped for something deadly, but when his nanos flew out, they merged and created an orb about six inches in diameter. It hummed for a second and then let out a shockingly bright pulse of light.

The Terra warriors all yelled as they were blinded. When their vision finally cleared, the Rook was gone.

Lord Guilder had spent most of the day trying to tear through the forest as fast as he could to get away from the horror of the savages. He’d been lucky so far but he knew that it wouldn’t last. First Captain Casius had found him but the Terras had taken care of him. There was no one, however, to protect him from the savages. He was on his own.

His heart literally felt like it was going to explode. Exhaustion played a big part in that but outright terror did as well. He could still feel that raw, nerve-wracking fear pumping through him.

He was a mess, emotionally and physically. His body trembled and his clothes were filthy. The thick underbrush and tangle of giant tree roots had caused him to trip over a dozen times. His beautiful (and expensive) silk pants were completely ruined. There were stains all over them and on top of that there were several holes, tears, and rips.

He paused, placing a hand on the trunk of a monoak tree. The bark was surprisingly smooth, and warm. It felt alive.

A noise caused him to quickly turn his head. Pain erupted suddenly in his neck as a nerve was pinched. He rubbed it for a minute, grumbling to himself. He wanted out of this forest and out fast. He wasn’t built for battle. He was built for leading others…from afar. He had never had an interest in fighting, or war, or any of that nonsense.

And now I’ll die here, he thought. It was a nasty sounding string of words in his mind and it made a cold wash of dread fill his body and limbs.

He looked around but no matter which direction he faced, everything looked the same.

Endless forest.

Endless trees.

He brought his mechpak up and tapped through his screens. He found the icon he wanted and pressed a flabby finger to it. A map suddenly popped up with a small red dot. The red dot was his location and it showed him so deep into the forest that a powerful sense of hopelessness gripped him. When he’d run away, he’d ended up going deeper into the forest instead of out.

“Damnation!” he cried, slamming a fist into the tree trunk. He cursed again as pain flared in his hand.

The only thing left to do was plot a course out of the forest, find a hole somewhere out there, and crawl inside until all this business with Wilhelm was finished.

He pulled up the map’s menu and went about plotting a way out of the forest. It took about ten minutes and he was almost finished when something slammed into the screen. His arm jerked painfully into the tree trunk. His eyes went wide as he looked around, the adrenaline pumping through him causing his head to go fuzzy. He tried to start running but a tree root tripped him up again. He fell face first into the ground. Dirt, rocks, fallen branches, and other bits of forest detritus scraped across his exposed skin. Several cuts and abrasions appeared there, stinging painfully. He tried to get up but then something slammed into his other mechpak. It felt like someone had smashed a sledgehammer down on both arms.

He looked at his damaged mechpaks. An arrow was sticking out of each one.

No, he thought to himself as he rolled over onto his back.

This time there was no coming back.

I’m going to die, he thought.

He heard faint rustling in the forest and then something hit him on the side of the head, right on his left temple.

Then, the only thing he saw was darkness.

“It’s him,” a voice whispered, urgently.

There was anger in it Lord Guilder realized groggily.

His head hurt and a weak groan escaped him. He tried to open his eyes but even that felt like too much effort. He simply sat there, his head lolling to one side.

“Are you sure?” another voice asked.

This one, he was sure, was female. It was soft, almost musical.

“Yes.” The other voice again. “He’s the one that took Keiara. I saw it. I…,” the voice hesitated and Lord Guilder could hear regret and sadness in it. “I’ll never forget it.”

Realization finally sunk in as to what they were talking about. He shivered in fear. Nothing good would come of this. The girl he’d taken was obviously a relation to the speakers. Either that or she’d been a good friend to them. Either way he looked at it, however, his situation was way beyond desperate now.

“Pl-please…,” he tried to speak. His voice felt raw and it hurt to talk. After a second or two, he tried again. “Please. Th-that wasn’t my f-fault.”

Something sharp pierced the skin on his cheek. He cried out in pain, the sound pathetic and weak.

“I am going to put this arrow through your fat head,” the other voice, the male one, said.

A trail of blood trickled down his cheek.

“Open your eyes, coward!”

Lord Guilder refused. In fact, he kept them shut even tighter. He didn’t want to see his death coming.

“Asher, please,” the woman said. “Wait outside. Let me take care of our prisoner.”

There was a heated string of protests from the male, but eventually Lord Guilder could hear him walking away.

He opened his eyes, cautiously.

The light hurt, especially his head. He could feel it stabbing into his eyes and making his enormous headache hurt a hundred times worse. He gritted his teeth against the pain and focused on the woman.

She was very beautiful, he had to admit. For a savage. She was tall and slender with a kind and pretty face. There were streaks of white in her hair and a few wrinkles marring her face but other than that, she seemed very youthful.

“Who are you?” he asked. The pain in his throat caused him to cough harshly but the woman brought him a cup and gently put it to his lips.

He drank greedily.

“I am Aeole and that was my son, Asher,” she responded. The kindness she was showing was unnerving all on its own. “He’s angry because you kidnapped his sister, Keiara. Do you remember her? Do you remember when you took my daughter from me?”

Lord Guilder’s heart erupted with panic. The softness to the woman, and the kindness, slid off her features and was replaced by a mask of solid hatred.

“I told you that wasn’t my fault,” he tried to say.

The woman’s hand flashed up, the fingers claw-like. She clenched her fist closed. Four thick branches suddenly whipped into the room where he was being held. They came in through the windows.

He cried out in terror.

The tree branches flew toward him and all he could do was watch as they pierced into his skin. Two of them burrowed into his arms while the other two ripped through his silk pants and burrowed into his thighs.

The pain was excruciating.

He thought they were going to drive all the way through his veins so they could pierce his heart. But, unfortunately for him, he wasn’t that lucky. They stopped burrowing into him after a few inches and just kept him there, pinned like an insect to a card.

The woman’s eyes started glowing pale green.

“Lord Reginald Harold Oliver Guilder the Fifth,” she intoned, her voice deep and powerful. “I can sense your heart. You are full of greed, pride, selfishness, and malice. You are abusive. You are a coward and a tyrant. You care for no one but yourself.”

He sat there, shivering with pain and fear. Every few seconds the branches would twitch, sending new waves of agony coursing through him.

“Wh-what…are…you g-going to d-do to me,” he managed to ask, his voice filled with anguish.

The woman didn’t answer. Instead, her eyes glowed even more intensely. The branches twitched again, causing him to cry out.

“Pl-please stop,” he cried. Tears were streaming down his fat face. His cheeks were bouncing up and down.

“You took my daughter, Reginald,” the woman whispered. “You have caused so much pain. You have caused so much damage. To others…,” she paused and leaned closer to him, “but mostly to yourself.”

“I-I’m s-sorry,” he blubbered.

The woman smiled at him. It was a pitying smile.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “You will have your chance at redemption.”

Her eyes lit up pale green again. This time, however, the branches did too. He watched that light seep into his veins, lighting them up. It travelled up each arm and from each thigh. It seeped through blood vessels, arteries, and veins until it reached his heart and mind. Then everything around him disappeared.

The only thing he saw was that soft, green light.