The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 27

PART 6

Life continued without any further exceptional developments for the next six weeks. Then there came a warm summer’s evening that found the twins relaxing in the grass beside the chicken pen. They were six and a half months old, and were playing vlah; a basic war game they’d learned from the unicorns, played on a hexagonal board covered with triangles on which three kinds of markers were moved in turn to capture territory. The moves on the board were only half the competition, since they each had to block the other from their mind enough to conceal their moves, which was exceedingly difficult for both of them. As each of their turns came and they considered their next move, the other would be probing their mental barriers and offering ingenious distractions.

Then Reggie’s barriers slipped, and Helemia saw his entire strategy.

“Ha! I’ve got you now!” she crowed as she prepared to counter his forces.

“Wait. Check Stripe.” Reggie told her.

Their barriers dissolved, and they thought almost as one again.

Reggie had psionicly ‘heard’ what sounded like Stripe growling in the distance. When they checked his rudimentary thoughts, they found that he was stalking, and that he hated his prey because his quarry meant harm to Helemia and Reggie. And there were more than one of them. Furthermore, he hated them because he couldn’t see, hear, or smell them, though he knew that they were there with his psionic sensitivity. The discrepancy irritated him to no end.

The two pets hadn’t been back to the house for weeks. They’d hunted for food, while patrolling for the Sylvan scouts who’d occasionally approached the settlement. Now there were more than scouts; there was a force of enemies moving into position.

“Stripe, wait.” Reggie commanded, and the cat froze.

The twins spent a long moment checking the vicinity, while continuing to play their game without any apparent distraction, in case they were being watched.

“It’s Vanakit Lamitkeze. And he’s brought a lot of friends.” Helemia realized.

“Yes.” Reggie agreed. “They’ve cast a big domed Shield over this whole valley. A really strong one, psionic as well as Force, I bet. I don’t know if we can break through it to call for help. There really is a lot of them. And they’ve found a way to get past Father’s Wards. We’ve all underestimated these Sylvan. They’ve had a very long time with nothing to do but get better at being dangerous in every way. We should’ve thought about that more.”

“They picked a good time.” she noted. “Father and everyone else are all doing a training exercise. No doubt Vanakit planned it that way; the community schedule is pretty obvious if they’ve been watching. A bunch of them are on the top of the cliffs on either side of the pass. They’re probably waiting to ambush us when we go home. The rest are scattered along the ridge around the valley. They’re probably going to try to scare us into running home, and make sure they herd us the right way. They’ll likely wait until it gets dark, if we don’t try to go home first.

“I can’t tell what Vanakit’s thinking. He’s gotten a lot better at Shielding, and he has a couple of the others helping him with it. He sure hates me though. I’m surprised he managed to get so close without me noticing.

“This… This is actually pretty scary. But it’s pretty exciting too!”

“Yup!” Reggie agreed, suppressing a grin. “Let’s see if we can find some with less mental Shielding. We’ll have to be careful to make sure they don’t know they’ve been Read.

“Ah, here’s one. Just her surface thoughts and emotions, but… Ha! They’re just as scared as we are! They’re scared of Vanakit ‘cause they think he’s crazy and he hurts them a lot, they’re scared their god will be mad at them for attacking us, and they’re scared of… Something unseen that they know has been stalking them. That’d be Stripe! He’s about the only thing that’s as stealthy as they are!”