Aide Me

Chapter Twenty-Five - Shock Me

Back in her hut, Emaia started to hear some disturbances outside. She was still angry and hurt about what had just happened, but this was distracting her. She heard loud, panicked voices outside, running towards the front gate. What was going on?

She stepped outside and followed the scared mob, all the way to the big wooden gate. They were sealed shut, and adults as kids were staring at it with frightened eyes. In the corner of her eye, she saw Hanke arriving with Dashel close behind. Emaia ran up to them.

"What's going on?" She frantically asked when they looked seriously at the gates, too. "Why is everyone scared?"

"The King's men have found us somehow," Dashel replied while pulling his sword from his scabbard. "They don't know how, nobody knows they're here."

"Someone ratted us out," Hanke shouted and glared around to his men that were also joining up. "We have traitor amongst us!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Hanke," Emaia snapped. "If we did, Aide would've known. He would've seen someone acting suspiciously."

"For all we know, he could be the traitor!" Hanke barked. "He could be the dirty cheat who's trying to kill us! I knew we shouldn't have trusted him!"

"Hanke!" Emaia snapped irritated, though he wasn't completely wrong. "How many of them are there?"

"Around four dozen," Kai's voice said from behind them. He was followed closely by Tessmia, Dom, and to Emaia's displeasure, Aide. She noticed his cheek was still slightly red.

Good, she thought and looked at Kai. "So why don't we fight them?"

"We are not armed enough," He replied, "and we're certainly not prepared. All we have are arrows, and a few swords, we can't fight them like that. And that gate won't hold them out forever." He turned and looked at Aide for some reason, and that's when Emaia noticed; his hands were slightly shaking.

Was he scared? She thought incredulously. That was impossible. It was Aide – he didn't get scared.

"Mahbrah," Tessmia said and looked Aide too. She said something to him in Elven that made him clench his jaw. He looked down at her, then out to the people.

Suddenly, they heard a loud bang. Many of them yelped in shock when the gates started to vibrate; They were right outside, trying to knock the door down.

"Hero, please," Tessmia begged. She continued to talk to him in Elven.

When Aide replied in the same tongue and looked worriedly down at her, Emaia's curiosity burned in her stomach. What were they saying that they weren't allowed to hear?

Suddenly more and more of the elven people came up to Aide. They started speaking to him in the Elven tongue, all of them sounding scared, and almost begging him. Some even fell to their knees. The banging on the gate continued and made everyone even more scared when the wooden doors started to object.

Finally, Aide snapped loudly and held up his hand. "Alright!"

Everyone cheered in relief for some reason and stepped away from him to allow him passage. Emaia and everyone else then watched as Aide walked into the crowd that split the path open for him. They created a circle around him where he stopped and glanced down. He took a deep breath.

"What's going on?" Hanke bickered, and looked after Aide. "Is he about to perform some rain dance for the Gods or what?"

"He's going to do a little more than that," Kai replied. Emaia noticed he looked a little paler than usual. Dom, his mate, took his hand and squeezed it tightly. Tessmia's bottom lip quivered, and that's when Emaia realized that he was about to do something big – something that was dangerous - which was why they were all scared.