Leaves whisper drily under my boots as I creep through the underbrush. I can see the small huddled figure across the clearing but I wait, cautious of the nearing return of his captors.
“What do you see Aiolos?”
A slight breeze sweeps the whispered words from me only to return a moment later with a breathy answer, “Four soldiers… One unknown… They call him the reader…”
I’ve never heard anything about a reader before…
Rell is across from me, crouched behind the tree the man is tied to. Taking a closer look at him I can easily deduce where he escaped from. Dirty, tattered clothing several sizes too small, sunken, haunted eyes, dark purple bags from never knowing a full nights rest, brutal scars up and down his extremities and visible through the ragged tears on the back of his shirt. This is another escapee from Hell.
Curbing my rage, I store it for later. I can’t lose control now but I can use it later if need be. Instead I start inching forward out of the bush, attempting not to startle the poor man.
At the sound of movement his eyes snap up and meet mine, panic and confusion evident within. I answer his wordless question with a small nod. We are here. We are helping.
“Quin…. They’re on their way back… You have… five minutes…”
Shit. “Rell, start untying him, now.”
I glance around the campsite, wary of leaving any foot prints. Several sleeping sacks surround a small fire pit. There are indents in the dirt when travel packs were dropped and rummaged through to find cooking utensils, food, and weapons. The packs themselves are probably hanging in a tree somewhere. I should locate them to see if they have the man’s file but from what I’ve seen and heard of the General, whose name is as well known on the surface as his hand with the whip is underneath, he is rather possessive of his information.
Instead, what catches my eye is a disturbed bit of dirt where the fifth person must have slept. It’s separate from the rest, away from the fire, and the sleeping sack and travel pack were obviously packed up and placed back on their owner’s back according to the slightly deeper footprints leaving the spot. Also, there’s… something odd, about this space. It’s like, I know a person was here. There is physical evidence of it but… the air feels empty.
“Quin. We need to go. He’s untied and walking. Call Aiolos.”
Glancing at Rell as she gently supports the limping man, I nod. Reaching towards the water in the air, I call Aiolos’s breeze towards my mouth. “We’re ready.”
“Good…. Move quickly…”
Swiftly and as silently as possible, Arelliana, Aiolos, our new, unnamed companion, and I disappear into the darkening forest.
***
“Fuck.”
The reader lashes out at a clump of grass, kicking it until the small bit of green in the dusty clearing is stamped to a miserable clump. The prisoner should not have gotten away. He was weak, malnourished, wounded. He had to have had help but that was impossible. If anyone had been within miles of their camp the reader would have known. He was the best of the best. No one could match his abilities. He could even sense normal people, which was quite the anomaly among his kind.
“How could this have happened reader? You said he would be fine while we hunted. You said there was no one.”
“I KNOW!! Shut your rotting maw and let me think goddammit. There was no one. I checked for miles and there wasn’t a living soul in-“
He stops
“Interesting….” Only natural readers left a space as blank as that. He would know.
“Alright you ugly brutes. One of you send off a bird to Volkov. We have a remarkable bunch to catch. Tell him to send the missing file.” and cocks his head to the side. There, on the ground, leading right up to where he himself had slept the night before, is a trail of footprints. As far as he could read in the air, there had only been two rescuers. One was a female Pyre and the other an older, male Zephyr. This extra set of footprints…….. The reader could read nothing from them. It was like the person never existed.
YOU ARE READING
The Named
AdventureA boy without a name / A man without a purpose / A girl without a love / A people left helpless. Together they'll ignite a flame / In the heart's of the blameless / So when push comes to shove / They will battle the heinous.
