A Warrior's Revenge (7 page)

Something seemed to bend in Loric, as he
allowed his arms to envelop Zora as he buried his head against her
neck. He whispered so low that both girls almost didn’t hear him,
“You know I will Ellasantha.”

Zora drew back after a long moment, “It’s
not just my girls you need to save Loric, but also the Hunters.
Tell me are they all Valley Landers?”

“Yes to a man.” Loric responded.

“Perhaps the Guardian will know how the save
them. Let us hope anyway. When are you going to take my girls to
Thunder Ridge Loric?” Zora asked worriedly.

Loric seem to think about it for a brief
moment, “The day after tomorrow.”

“Good! I will have all in readiness for
them, as well as some time to say goodbye.”

“Are you not coming Zora?” Eshta asked
stepping forward toward Zora in concern.

Zora turned back to both girls, “Goodness no
my dears, traveling over mountains such as you will have to face is
something that only the young can survive. No my dears you and the
other young woman of age are all that will be going on this quest.
Those of us who are older will stay behind.”

Both Eshta and Kana started to cry looking
for all the world like abandoned orphans left to survive in the
elements by themselves. Zora pulled both of them to her, “Stop this
crying my children! This is a good thing! I will be able to go to
my rest knowing that those, who I care about most are safe and not
only safe but that you have a future, as wide as the stars and
depths of deepest space! Now go my loves and get your rest for
there is much that we will have to do on the morrow to prepare for
your journey.”

Reluctantly both young woman pulled back
from Zora and made their way to their tent, as they stayed close to
each other leaning on the other in their shared grief. Zora watched
them go, as she leaned back against Loric, who supported her
tenderly from behind.

She patted his hand, “It is fitting that you
should have Kana as your woman Loric. It was a grand sire of yours
by the name of Roric that adopted a girl named Zarsha into his
family. Kana is a direct descendent of that woman. It is fitting
that a descendent of a woman worthy enough to be called a daughter
in name should also have a descendent of her own to be a daughter
also in blood forever bound into the blood line of our family. You
could not do better for yourself than her Loric!”

“I know.” Loric intoned deeply.

Zora leaned back against Loric reveling in
the strength that she had been so long without and had despaired of
ever seeing again. “Tell me Loric how many other Hunters are there
still?”

“Thirty-nine.” Loric said in response.

Zora chuckled softly, “Thirty-nine hunters
and thirty-nine young women. Add you and Kana in and that makes two
pairs of forty. It was forty years the children of Israel wandered
in the wilderness. It was forty days and forty nights that it
rained upon the Earth in the days of Noah. Do you not see how
ironic the numbers are, only now do I begin to see the pattern
emerge and the promise realized, because of the faithfulness of a
father and his daughter so long ago to do what was asked of them. I
envy you Loric, to see the things that you will both see and help
accomplish. Now start the days of our restoration as a people in
the worlds of our Maker’s creation.”

Zora was now completely out of sight and
both Eshta and Kana turned their weeping eyes forward and brushed
the tears from off their cheeks, as they focused on the man who was
leading them across the Barrens.

Three hours passed and the group had covered
a lot of ground, as bred by a life of survival, where few lived
past childhood the young women of the group were strong and able to
keep up with the fast pace that the former Hunter had set. Kana
alone knew and could appreciate just how much less he was requiring
of them all from what he could be making the pace to be.

Suddenly Loric stopped and put a hand to his
ear and then he abruptly turned back to the group and yelled, “Get
down! Hide!”

As one the group dove into whatever
concealment the barren landscape of scattered stones and shrubs
could offer. Kana heard a noise like the droning of a trapped
insect and then the ground beneath them shook moments later to be
followed by the sounds of explosions in the distance.

What were the Hunter’s blowing up and then
it hit her and she turned her head back towards the direction of
the camp, where she could see black smoke rising into the sky
staining the early morning horizon with a sense of loss. She cried
out and start to rise up, but Loric pushed her back down.

Kana’s gaze found Eshta’s across from her
and she saw Eshta’s chin quiver with emotion as she said, “She
must’ve known!”

Loric’s deep voice spoke, even as it was
tinged with the sadness that both girls felt, “She did. So did all
the others. The last registered position of my beacon locator would
be the first place the Hunters would look for me. Zora knew that if
the Hunters found the camp deserted that they would continue the
hunt, until every one of us was caught.”

Loric got to his feet and looked around at
the group of women that he had been tasked to lead. He spoke in a
loud voice meant to address all of them, “Each of you is a survivor
by virtue of your existence, but I need more than that from you
now! I need you to be warriors! I need you to fight past the pain
you’re feeling. I need you to fight as much as your need to keep
surviving has kept you alive to this moment in time. Now get up and
honor the sacrifice of those, who have given you the chance at
continued life by giving up their own! Get up now I say!”

The young woman rose to their feet one by
one, until they all stood. Loric then began to go to each woman, as
they busily dashed the tears from off their faces. He took their
right hand and bringing it up chest high he leaned forward to cross
arms and into the face of each woman he shouted, “Warrior!” And
then he would say, “Now you say it!”

“Warrior!” At first the women responded back
timidly, but then their voices raised to match Loric in intensity.
As each woman said ‘warrior’ he would step aside and push them
forward toward the mountains that were in the distance. He repeated
his actions with every woman and yet every woman felt changed after
the experience, as if suddenly stronger inside for the word spoken
and what had been demanded of them by a warrior they all
respected.

They were no longer just survivors, but
fighters instead; because they had looked into the eyes of a
warrior and had seen the evidence of the belief in his eyes that
they were, even so as he was, and in turn each believed it of
themselves.

They walked for hours and the hours became
days, until one day they reached the base of the great mountains
and saw just how much farther they had to go.

They began to climb and climb and climb.

It never stopped, but then neither did the
warrior that led them, with the coming of each day he attacked the
mountain slope first breaking through the heavy snow for the rest
of them to follow. In single file they followed him through the
bitter icy cold up into the very peaks of the mountains.

It was cold, so very cold. Without Loric
they would’ve died, but he always found the easiest of the ways to
go not that there was an easy way. He always found shelter of at
least some kind to rest at night and he inspired them every day to
never stop fighting and so they didn’t.

Kana could see that the indomitable warrior
was becoming worn out though and she glanced back at Eshta. Eshta
read her thoughts and nodded before saying, “We have to do
something.”

The two sisters slipped by the girls ahead
of them in the line, until they reached Loric, who was lost to the
world as he fought to make a way through the snow for the others to
follow. Eshta and Kana darted around either side of Loric and fell
into the deep snow ahead of him, but they fought their way to their
feet helping each other.

Loric waking up to what was happening
started to reach for them, but the girls behind him grabbed a hold
of him and slid by him one by one, until he was the last one of the
column and left to walk on the beaten path of forty pairs of feet.
Eshta and Kana were the strongest of the women, but even they, as
they side-by-side fought through the snow immediately became aware
of the amount of effort Loric had been putting out to break trail
for the rest of them.

They fought on and after several hours had
gone by two more girls, who were able enough stepped in front of
them and so on and so on repeated the cycle, as Loric walked at the
back of the group for the rest of the day and well into the
next.

The group was walking along a side slope
that did not have much snow cover on it, when they all felt the
ground shift slightly under their feet and then it shifted badly
and they were all thrown off their feet and one of the youngest of
them, a girl of sixteen called Solin, was carried on down the slope
and over a sharp drop-off.

Everyone could hear Solin screaming for
help, but she was out of sight. Individual girls started to slip
down the treacherous slope toward her cries, but stopped at Loric’s
voice, “Stop! We’re on a talus slope. We need to get as much weight
off of it as soon as possible or we’ll all go over! Slowly make
your way to that the jut of land up ahead of us at the end of the
loose rock. Eshta and Shalessa, I need your ropes tied together,
but keep one end of it.”

As the rest of the group made it to the safe
ground past the loose rock of the talus slope Loric was making his
way down the talus slope to the edge of the drop-off. Reaching the
edge he peered over and saw Solin. The only thing keeping her from
plunging several thousand feet down was that her hand had gotten
caught between two rocks. She looked up at him, as her blonde hair
blew in the breeze freely, “Leave me.” Was all she said.

“Never!” Was all Loric said in return,
before he climbed down over the edge onto some rocky projections.
Loric got as close as he could before he leaned over and grabbed a
hold of the girl’s coat, as her hand and arm were to bloody to get
a good grip on. He lifted her carefully, until she was able to
extend her other arm up to him. He took her arm and pulled her up
the rest of the way and then holding her against him he made his
way back up over the edge onto the slope of loose rock.

The rocks slipped out from underneath him
and for a moment both he and Solin fell over the edge. Eshta and
Shalessa were jerked off the bank onto the talus, their heels
digging deep, with screams of panic the rest of the group piled on
top of the rope trailing out behind the two girls being drug toward
the edge. The slide toward the edge stopped and gathering
themselves the girls began to pull and Loric soon appeared back
over the edge with Solin held tightly against him. Within moments
the two were safely past the loose rocks and on the solid ground
that the rest of the group stood on.

Loric studied Solin’s arm and hand and came
to the conclusion that they could be saved, but her fingers were
shredded beyond repair. He glanced up at her and she met his gaze
resolutely. She pulled a knife out and handed it to him the
intenseness of her gaze betrayed by the quiver of her lips.

Loric took the knife and glanced at Kana,
who nodding took it from him, as she unslung her pack. Loric moved
around Solin and held her still, while a few of the other girls
helped Kana.

Solin cried out grinding her teeth into the
rope length she held in her mouth and breathed heavy for a moment
before she passed out against Loric. Kana finished up with
bandaging Solin’s hand and arm and Loric stood up and gently lifted
Solin into his arms as the group started out again.

In the early afternoon they cleared the rise
of a mountain ridge and the group stared in dismay at the endless
stretch of peaks and ridges that lay out before them. Everyone
stared in dismay, except for Loric. He was smiling.

Kana stared at him at a loss as to why he
would be smiling. It was the first time she’d ever seen him smile
and the effect was mesmerizing, but how could he be smiling at a
time like this? All she saw when she looked out over the endless
expanse of the tops of mountains was a death sentence. There was no
way they could survive the cold to cross the barren mountain
landscape in front of them.

“I know where I am now.” Loric said as if to
himself.

Kana blinked and the group at large turned
to look at Loric. Eshta put into words what everyone else was
thinking, “You haven’t traveled over the mountains before?”

“No, I was only a boy, but I have been to
this place before. Head for that dark rise of rock over there.”
Loric said pointing off to the left.

Eshta looked mad and for a moment it looked
like she was about to say something, but she held it back and
started out for the dark rise of rock that Loric had indicated.
They reached the dark sided cliff face towards dusk. It was so cold
and this place unlike the good camps the group had stayed at before
had no shelter from the wind.

Kana looked around and could see that the
others looked as miserable and hopeless as she felt. Loric was the
subject of many a dirty look, as he made his way through the group
walking towards the dark wall, until he and Solin completely
disappeared. There was a collective gasp from the group at large,
who had surged to their feet at the disappearance of Loric and
Solin. Loric’s voice called out for them to follow and immediately
everyone felt better.

Kana stepped into the rock wall only to find
herself in a cavern that was lit by light that came from a glowing
ball of color on the ceiling. She had heard of such inventions from
the time before, but she had never seen them. The group followed
Loric, as he went progressively downward and they collectively
realized with relief that they weren’t going to have to cross that
impossible range of mountains, but rather they were going to go
under it instead.