Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) (26 page)

  
The man cinched his blue belt tighter around a travel-stained gray cloak. “I can stay no longer. In this place only are you protected. Do not leave until it is dark. If you must go to your family then, so be it. You will find only sadness. Your world, Wave Strider, has changed. Grown darker. You are the only hope now.”

  
“Only hope??” Elia nearly screamed. “Why are you telling me this??? There are at least three others like me in the tribe! Have they died?? Has
everyone
died?? Please, tell me!
What is going on?!?!”

  
The Aura sighed. “Do not go back, young one. You have a part yet to play in this story, and so you have been spared. Do not disobey and risk your own death. We have spoken. Goodbye.”

  
He raised his staff, and Elia covered her eyes, expecting another flash of lightning. The wind blew and whirled the snow-dust around her feet, but nothing else moved.

  
Then she woke up. She was sweating profusely and lying on her back in the center of the Sacred Place, and the sun was setting behind her.

  
“What…” she started. The realization she had been dreaming came on her, and she got up. Her back hurt from lying down for so long. Had she been here all day? And if she had, then had it all really been a dream?

  
The tribe!
She suddenly recalled.
The other Wave Striders! MY FAMILY!
If she hadn’t really been dreaming, then they were all in grave danger!

  
Her mind told her it was impossible- that nothing as horrible as her dream seemed to foretell could have happened while she was gone. Nonetheless, she needed to know. It would mean disobeying the Aura who had visited her in her dream, but… but she
had
to do it. She
had
to be sure.

  
Elia took three steps across the ice and stopped. At her feet were two footprints. Not her own small, shoeless feet, but big booted ones that sank into the thin layer of snow over the ice.

  
No one in her tribe wore those kind of boots… but the man in her dream
had
.

  
The young sea nymph uttered a small, panicked cry. Then she set off at a dead run across the ice and snow away from the Sacred Place, letting her gift aid her momentum.

  
Between the Sacred Place and the Tribe Circle were the icewaves: dense, small, rolling hills of smooth ice. She sped in among them, making her way to the other side as fast as she could without slipping and cracking her head open. The only sound was her own forced breath, warm and moist as it fogged up the air in front of her. Elia felt so scared she could cry.

  
Then she made it out of the icewaves and stopped abruptly. She stood on a wide, flat sheet of ice that stretched out between her and what was left of the tents.
The tents!
They were gone, and in their place were piles of charred hide and yewlimb, the pliable branches sea nymphs used as skeletons for their homes.

  
Flames licked up to the sky here and there, and smoke blew along the ground towards her like an inky mist, not rising upwards on the wind like it should have.

  
“No!!!!!” she screamed.
How could this have happened?!?!?
Her cry was the only sound in a quiet, dead world. There were no noises of children playing or men working or women laughing… just silence, complete and devastating. Without a thought for her own safety, Elia sprinted towards her home, tears streaming down her face.

  
Please, please, please don’t let them all be dead. Don’t… don’t let this be real… Don’t let the little ones be killed. Don’t let them all be burned…

  
“Please, Maker of Sun and Moon,” she prayed hoarsely as she ran, “Please let me find them alive…”

~

  
She
did
find one of them, actually, but when she did she almost wished she hadn’t. The scene as she stumbled fearfully into the Treele camp was horrific, and it only got worse the farther she went. Most of the tents were razed, leaving nothing behind of their occupants except ashes and burnt skeletons. Elia thought she might faint with the pain she felt every time she passed a home she knew, and saw the marred husks of bodies inside.

  
Whoever or whatever had done this had done it soon after Elia had left: the Treele had been massacred in their beds. Those who had fled their tents in time had been cut down with deadly precision. Blood pooled in a hundred different places on the pale ice.

  
But the most frightening thing were the marks. They were sunk in the ice and the corpses of those who’d been slain; they crisscrossed back and forth frantically all over the Tribe Circle. They were footprints of huge beasts, but the claw-marks were long and chiseled, as if they had been made by metal beasts or stone dragons. Were there such things? Elia had seen an Ice Demon once, and only once- and it had scared her so that she had had nightmares for weeks afterwards.

  
Finally, horribly, she reached her own tent. It was burned to a shriveled crisp, her sleeping pool evaporated into thin air.

  
Her Father’s and Mother’s tent was beside her own. A quick glance told her all she needed to know, before she looked away and began to weep. Long, rending sobs wracked her as she sunk to her knees in front of the tattered tent and put her head in her hands.

  
They had all been killed. Her whole family.

  
Covering her face, she cried her heart out- and was still doing it when a loud snarl broke through her broken world and reached her ears. Her head shot up- the sound had come from beyond the Tribe Circle, directly ahead of her a hundred feet where the iceberg dropped off into the ocean. As she did so, her eyes caught the sight of large footprints leading past her family’s tent and off towards the edge of the Berg. Blood was on each one, and not far behind was the heavy tread of whatever monster or monsters had inflicted this ruin on the Treele.

  
It all looked fresh. Trembling with fresh horror and a morbid desire to know what exactly had happened, Elia rose and followed the sound of whatever awaited her.

  
It took her a minute to make her slow, faltering way to the ice cliffs, all the while enduring the unearthly howls originating from some invisible point in front of her. Looking down into the ocean, she saw a sight that chilled her bones more than any of the terrors she had already seen.

  
A small hunk of ice had broken off from the main Berg. On it laid one of her own kind; a man in his Swimmer form, broken and cold where he’d evidently tried to leap into the ocean to escape. Watery blood seeped from ugly gashes all up his side and head. He was motionless, probably dead. Over him crouched the ugliest creature she had ever laid eyes on. Hair and matted fur overlapped with iron plates bolted to the thing’s flesh. Gears whirred in its shoulder and through a slash in its hide the young sea nymph thought she saw blood-soaked clockwork.

  
She didn’t know what it was, and even if she had it wouldn’t have made sense. Elia shuddered and turned away as the metal-and-flesh beast began to feast on its prey. She turned to go, fighting to hold back the panic that was growing inside her yet again.

  
Behind her, crouched just outside the Tribe Circle, were three more identical monsters.

  
“Oh no, oh no… no… no…” she whispered. The beast closest to her growled. Its head was partway between a wolf’s, a bear’s, and some sort of reptile. Its eyes glowed molten red.

  
Suddenly it threw back its head and roared at the sky. Then it and its companions charged, thundering across the ice intent on devouring the one nymph who’d somehow survived their massacre.

  
Something inside Elia’s head- or heart- clicked. She knew her chances of surviving were almost nothing, but the monsters had no way of knowing about her gifts- so it wasn’t impossible. She had seconds left.

  
Three…
She spun around and ran to the edge of the iceberg. The waves churned violently all those feet beneath her.

  
Two…
The monster on the ice-hunk below her looked up and snarled, eyes flashing with bloodlust and hunger.

  
One…
She leaped with all her strength, using her Wave Striding to let the ice push her off like an arrow from the bow. At the same time, the beast below leaped up incredibly high, sharp metal claws outreached to tear her apart. Behind her, its three companions launched off the iceberg as well.

  
As she flew forward, Elia’s mind concentrated on one thing: staying in the air.

  
A second passed as she soared onward. The world around her seemed to move in slow motion as she willed the tiny water particles in the evening air to cling to her, buoying her up a precious few seconds longer.

  
Then her weight grew to be too much. She wasn’t skilled enough and her plan worked only partially. Arching her back in a perfect dive, she fell towards the rolling waves below her.

  
The monsters behind her fell short: they were too heavy to jump so far.

  
As Elia dove, she willed her body to change and morph into her Swimmer Form. Her shape became slimmer, clearer, almost spirit-like. By the time she could see the bubbly foam on the crests of the waves, she was the translucent, watery color of a full nymph.

  
In an abstract way, she noticed that the sun was gone and it was almost night. She had just enough time to hope that the beasts after her couldn’t swim…

  
...when she hit the waves and plunged beneath the surface.

  
Father of nymphs and men, protect me with Your Aura.

  
The greatest chase of her life had begun.

To Be Continued...

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 
 
Well, this book has been a journey. It began as a short book, which became a long book, which became another short book, which became a
very
long book, which was split into three parts. My trilogy has become a series of nine parts.
Brother Thief
is the first of those parts, and I have several special people to thank for helping it get to the point it's at.

  
Firstly, I thank God. He's given me my talent, and He's swept me off my feet with what He can do.

  
Secondly, through God, I've had the grace to work with some amazing people, who I'd like to thank individually.

  
My mom: for doing an incredible job refining and pruning my story to a readable point.

  
My brother: for being the first reader and the first fan.

  
Nathanael: for reading through and pointing out the dumb mistakes that slip by me constantly.