The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 55

Part 11

“What are you laughing about?” Helemia teased. “You’ve been legally adopted by Kragorram and Povon, so you’re a prince of Serminaki Draconia through your father, and a prince regent of Serminak through your mother. But you can’t call me Your Highness because our positions aren’t hereditary, and you can’t say I’m the princess of anything because I’m not the ruling monarch, the way Alilia is The Princess of The People of Life. I’m just a princess of Hilia. Our titles are just a courtesy, and we only get to use them as long as our parents still rule.”

“Wouldn’t you inherit the rule of Hilia?” Karzog asked.

“We’d inherit all the land, and all the buildings and stuff in Hilia, and our house here, because our parents bought it outright with their own money and with contributions, none of which came from taxes. But we wouldn’t inherit their political rule unless they explicitly say so, and designate one of us as their heir. I doubt they’ll do that, they’ll probably do the elven thing and let the people decide who’ll rule after they’re gone. I think they’d even step down if the citizens demanded it, but that’s about as probable as the sky turning pink.”

“Still, it’s a fine thing, I think.” Karzog grinned. “I’ve never thought of myself as a prince before.”

“We’ve gotten distracted.” Reggie pointed out. “As I was going to say, now that they’ve built all the shelters and emplacements, I’d bet that the next time they have war games they’ll have a full community drill, and everyone will take their kids to the shelters like it was a real attack. I bet Quewanak will do it by surprise too, probably in the middle of the night, instead of at their regular training time. He might even do it tonight just to surprise the four of us, since he already knows that we’re planning on joining the exercises. The grownups will probably put us in as reserves and observers, so if we pick the right moment, we can give everyone a good surprise.

“First we have to familiarize ourselves with all the exercises they’ve had before. In order to keep the training advancing, Quewanak and Ria always have their demons come up with a way to counter whatever the grownups do. Usually a spell or a tactic only works one to three times before ‘the demons’ figure out how to counter it, so we need to know everything they’ve learned to counter already, and plan some stuff they haven’t seen before. And we only have an hour till suppertime.

“Here’s the Reading I got from Father about it last night.”

Their verbal conversation ended as the four of them were Linked by the twins.

Surprisingly, the demons that Quewanak simulated for the community exercises were distinct from the ones that Ria simulated for their family training every evening, and they used different methods, even though Ria assisted Quewanak with the larger exercises.

In the early stages of the war games, the demons had attacked by flight, giving the community plenty of warning when they were detected approaching over the horizon. Later they came up out of the sea at the perimeter of the archipelago, then from the channels in the heart of the islands. Then they’d appeared through Gates that appeared at the periphery of the community, and lately they'd been Translocating into the heart of the community in packs.

They appeared in a cavern in black rock shaped like a low dome with a flat floor, over forty-six meters wide and fifteen meters high in the center. It obviously served as both the community’s main shelter and their command center. Around them among rows of simple beds were the village’s other children, and the adult non-combatants who were mostly older human women. Around the perimeter of the cavern were full silos of food, huge barrels of water, and pens for their animals, which had been Translocated in by Povon and Equemev along with the children. In the center of the room beneath a bright cone of light was an oval table over seven meters long with a scale model of the Hiliani archipelago on it. Around the table were their parents, Yazadril, Povon, and Equemev, who were obviously the command group this time.

Everyone was still in their nightclothes, but over the next second the adults present donned arms and armor by Translocating it onto their bodies. All around them the other children were screaming and crying, and Sana and the other women immediately set to calming them and checking them for injuries.

The twins and Valentia calmed themselves in a moment and Linked with Karzog, who was eighteen meters away on the far side of the situation table. They immediately moved as surreptitiously as possible as close to the table as they could get without bothering the adults. As they did so, they passed through a spell that blocked the sounds and spells at the table from the surrounding non-combatants, and realized this was done to avoid frightening the children any further.

Meanwhile, Yazadril had called out; “I have command!” and cast on the table, even as Mark yelled; “Quewanak, is this a drill?!!”

“Not now, I’m busy.” was Quewanak’s hurried psionic reply, which they heard as Yazadril’s spell on the table became active.