Defy (20 page)

They all looked at her when she trailed off.
C.K. reached out to put a hand on her shoulder in a show of
support. “And what?” she prompted in her calm voice.

Rubbing her hands up and down her arms,
Sophia shifted her gaze to some distant spot. Then she said, “I
believe that the Mercesti who attacked her…forced himself on her. I
could detect evidence of it.”

Tiege felt the words flow over him like a
chill in the air. He got to his feet, as did Quincy and Ini-herit.
“And you believe they have another female with them?” he asked.

“Yes. I did a thorough scan of the area in
the panther form, absorbing as many elements of the scene as I
could through the animal’s heightened senses. There was definitely
another female among them.” She frowned. “There was something about
the scent of the new female that felt different from the Mercesti
scents. It was cleaner somehow.”

“You mean, you think the female isn’t
Mercesti?” C.K. asked, her brows drawn in concern.

Sophia nodded.

“Could it be Tate?” Quincy asked, glancing at
Tiege.

The question had Tiege’s gut clenching. His
sister in the hands of these savages? He would kill every last one
of them.

“That would seem unlikely,” Ini-herit said.
He walked over to another edge of the clearing and studied the
ground. “It appears this group left in this direction. Exactly
opposite the direction we are headed.”

Tiege’s relief was short-lived. “That means
there's some other female still with them,” he said. He recalled
the conversation he and his cousin Joshua overheard among the
elders and his parents on the day Tate was taken by the kragen.
“The other elders said that a female Scultresti named Luvania was
killed in a violent manner here on the mainland. Luvania said that
her attacker was a male named Zachariah.”

Ini-herit and Quincy both stood straighter.
“Are you certain you heard the name correctly?” Ini-herit
asked.

“Yes.”

The two Corgloresti exchanged looks.

“What?” C.K. asked. “You two obviously know
something.”

“It’s odd,” Quincy replied. “Zachariah was
the second commander of the Gloresti. He was killed more than fifty
years ago by Mercesti raiders.”

Silence fell as they all processed this.

“Evidently, he’s still alive,” Tiege said at
last. “And I guess that explains why the elders all looked so
troubled and perplexed when they mentioned him.”

“You are saying that Zachariah is still alive
and is now living down here on the mainland, preyeing on females?”
Ini-herit asked.

Tiege shrugged and nodded.

The elder’s brow furrowed. His hands on his
hips, he gazed in the direction the Mercesti had taken. “That does
not sound like Zachariah.”

“If he’s killed someone like you’ve
described,” Quincy pointed out, “then he has converted to a
Mercesti.”

Once again, they all exchanged looks. Sophia
said, “Maybe he’s one of the Mercesti in this group. If so, what I
pieced together from my earlier investigation was that he killed
that Mercesti female with the other female nearby. He could be
doing it to entertain the Mercesti traveling with him. Who really
knows?”

C.K.’s frown increased. “That other female’s
life is in danger,” she said. “We have to try and help her.”

Tiege clenched his jaw in indecision. He
agreed with her. But Tate was in the opposite direction.

“We’ll have to split up,” Sophia said. “Some
of us go after Tate and some of us go after the female hostage.
It’s possible there will be some Waresti along the path who can
help.”

They all considered this idea in silence.
Tiege knew she was right.

“Tiege can track Tate,” C.K. said. “And Soph,
you can track that female if you shift.”

Sophia nodded.

C.K. glanced at Quincy. “You have some
supplies and healing skills. Ini-herit can heal with his power. So
it makes sense for Quincy and Sophia to stick together and head
after the unknown female.” Now, she shifted her gaze to Ini-herit.
“And you should take Tiege after Tate.”

“And you will come with us,” Ini-herit
added.

“I was thinking—”

“That was not a question.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, C.K. glared
at him. Before she could light into him as she clearly intended to,
Ini-herit moved forward and took her arm. They walked a far enough
distance away that whatever words they spoke were too low to hear.
After a moment, they returned. C.K.’s cheeks were flushed, but for
what reason Tiege couldn’t guess.

“I’ll travel with Ini-herit and Tiege,” she
said. “For now, we should get back to camp and get some rest. We’ll
want to get an early start tomorrow.”

Harold and the experienced Waresti under his
command didn’t stop to make camp during the night. There wasn’t any
need. Over time, Waresti developed the ability to go days without
sleeping or eating and still remain as vigilant and energetic as a
fully-rested Estilorian. Similarly, their burnt orange eyes
adjusted easily between varying degrees of light. While they
couldn’t see very well in the absolute dark like the Mercesti, they
had excellent night vision.

They were crafted for offense.

Moving in near-perfect silence, they fanned
out through the forest and looked for signs they were on the right
track. Harold relied largely on instinct to guide this rescue
effort. He also used what he knew of the five individuals traveling
in search of Tate to enhance his team’s chances of successfully
completing their mission.

Tiege was young, strong, intelligent and, due
to his mother’s nature, quite intuitive. He had been trained by his
family to defend himself and had been educated about nature and his
environment. But learning things in a classroom or training setting
and experiencing them himself were two different things. When it
came right down to it, Tiege was green and untried…and thus,
unpredictable.

Clara Kate shared many of the same traits as
her cousin. She also possessed patience, charisma and grace under
pressure, three things that made her a natural leader. Because she
was also quite loyal, Harold wouldn’t be surprised to learn that
she had been the one to direct the others to depart with Tiege, nor
would he be surprised if she made many of the decisions that guided
the group now. He had helped train her over the years and greatly
respected her judgment. Of all of the Kynzesti, he felt he knew her
the best. He could only hope that knowledge would help him find all
of them.

Tiege and Clara Kate’s cousin, Sophia, was
the true wild card in the group. With her ability to shift, she
could turn into just about any animal on the plane. In her animal
form, she would be nearly impossible to identify. It was a
remarkable ability, and one that concerned him. If Sophia wanted to
stay hidden, it was likely no one would find her. Harold figured
their only hope was that she stayed with the others on this
quest.

Quincy’s participation in this venture defied
Harold’s logic. By nature, Quincy was a rule-follower. He was
fiercely loyal to
kyria
Amber,
adelfi
Olivia and
adelfi
Skye. Their father had been his best friend, and the
sisters had once saved his life, making his commitment to them all
the more powerful. Leaving them when they were pregnant struck
Harold as very outside of his character. The only reason Harold
could conceive that might possibly compel the Corgloresti to leave
the sisters at their time of need was an even more powerful
loyalty.

Which brought him to the Corgloresti
elder.

Archigos
Ini-herit was about the most
level-headed, predictable being that Harold had ever met. Never in
all of his centuries of existence had the Waresti commander ever
known the Corgloresti elder to do something that, at least to
Harold’s thinking, was so rash. He could simply not reason why the
elder had gone on this odd excursion without apprising any of the
other elders. And he knew very well, since he shared thoughts with
his own class elder,
archigos
Uriel, that no such effort had
been made.

This had prompted Harold to carefully analyze
what he knew of
archigos
Ini-herit’s character. The one
thing that the Corgloresti elder had in spades was faith. And that,
above everything else, was what convinced Harold that Tate must
still be alive.

He insisted that the other Waresti proceed
with that same understanding. While the Waresti was not a class
known for its faith, it was known for its logic and ability to
assess situations. Among the Waresti, there was none better than
Harold at identifying the quickest and most efficient solution to
any problem. Thus, when he issued the order to search for Tate as
well as Tiege and his companions, there hadn’t been a single
argument voiced.

After nearly thirty-six hours of diligent
searching, however, Harold began to doubt his own abilities. He had
led one contingent in the direction that Celine predicted the
kragen went and had sent his second commander, Alexius, along the
likely path Tiege and the others traveled. Thus far, none of them
had encountered anything to support his theories.

As the second night of their search slowly
blanketed the plane, Harold considered calling off their present
course. It had felt right, but it was highly unusual for a
carefully planned maneuver to not pan out within two days. It was
beyond frustrating, especially with
archigos
Uriel checking
in frequently for updates. Harold understood the need for those
updates, as his elder was sitting with the parents of each of the
missing Kynzesti, and they were surely looking to him for answers.
That pressure only heightened Harold’s focus. He was determined not
to overlook any possible clue that would provide answers for the
beings he considered friends.

So when he saw Celine motioning at long last,
he felt a huge amount of relief and exultation. He knew his hunch
had been correct.

He and the other nearby Waresti approached
Celine, cautious not to get too close. Her motions indicated she
had found some helpful evidence, something they didn’t want to
disturb by trampling it. She used hand signals that the Waresti had
developed over the centuries. Although Harold could communicate
telepathically with
archigos
Uriel, Alexius and Donald, such
communication wasn’t possible among the rest of the Waresti.
Because stealth was always of high importance with Mercesti roaming
freely on this plane, the hand signals had been a necessary
adaptation.

Kragen tracks
, Celine signaled when
they approached.
They are large enough to belong to the one that
took Tate
.

Harold squatted beside the easily discernible
indentations that Celine found. Using hand signals, he indicated
that the Waresti circling around him follow his lead.

The tracks led to a cave not even fifty feet
away. Drawing his sword, Harold produced a ball of light and tossed
it into the yawning black cavern. Although only silence greeted
them, there was a rancid scent in the air that indicated something
either lay inside or had been there recently.

Hoping they weren’t too late, he moved
silently into the cave, scouting with his sharp eyes for any signs
of life or movement. Unfortunately, they didn’t find any.

But they did find blood.

Harold circled the smears of blood on the
ground, assessing how much of it there appeared to be. He reasoned
almost immediately that whatever wound had caused it hadn’t been
fatal. While that was a relief, it didn’t cause near the sense of
accomplishment as his next discovery.

“What is that, sir?” Celine whispered near
his elbow when he lifted his find.

“It’s a feather,” he responded.

And as he slipped it into his pocket and
reached for the two beads beside it, he smiled and sent out a
thought to his elder.

Tate woke up in the middle of a steamy dream
in which she and Sparky were kissing in the rain. Unfortunately,
that had really been a dream and not a part of their unusual
connection.

A pity.

She woke up to find herself face-down in a
puddle. Sputtering, she jerked fully awake and tried to push
herself up, only to slide in the mud with a loud splatter. She
realized as she managed to get her elbows planted and looked around
that it must have rained overnight and she slept right through it.
Her fire was nothing more than a mess of sloppy ashes.

The sun briefly peeked out as the gray clouds
parted. An anemic amount of light bathed the area, reminding Tate
that she was still near the water.

She was covered nearly head to toe with mud.
Although she desperately needed another bath, the idea of going
back into the freezing, murky river held no appeal whatsoever.
Taking stock of her supplies, she realized that she had just enough
of her soap nut and lemon balm cleanser from the night before to
use for one last scrubbing.

Sighing over her deplorable condition, she
got to her feet and gathered her things. It wouldn’t hurt to walk
along the banks of the river to see if it led to more impressive
waters, she reasoned. If worse came to worse, she’d jump into the
river again for a quick wash.

Making a face as her wet boots squished with
every step, she started walking. As she scoped out the water to her
right, her mind turned to the dream conversation she’d had with
Sparky the night before. Although at first she’d been appalled to
learn that he had left her behind in the cave, she could
acknowledge that he
had
saved her life. Sure, he hadn’t
waited around to nurse her back to health, but he hadn’t been
obligated to do anything. She could only appreciate the fact that
he chose to use the antitoxin, doing what he could to reverse Nyx’s
actions.