Chapter Ten

No chapter nine for you...

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Chapter Ten

Jonathan was beginning to get used to waking up and having a splitting headache. However, waking up and finding that he was moving, was a new experience for him. Well, it was him moving, so much as the shaggy mount he was on. More than that, his hands were tightly tied to the saddle, a fact that was emphasized by his hands being completely numb.

It took only a few seconds for all this to process into his mind. Traveling with the Pennies, being attacked by the Traders, falling unconscious... His head shot up to get a look around, and he was met by a searing pain in his head. Clearly fast movements would be something he’d have to avoid from here on in.

There were several men around him, he recognized a few guards, but most of them were strangers. All were tied up and on mounts like he was. There were maybe twenty, he wasn’t sure because it was hard for him to concentrate. He wished that he could feel the back of his head, find out whether or not he was bleeding.

All around him and the Pennies, he saw the Traders, some walking, most riding, all dressed like forest dwellers. There were fewer than he remembered, being attacked in the forest like that must have made it appear as though more men were charging at them, that or at least half of the Traders had gone another way. Either way, there only seemed to be a hundred of them. That was of little consolation to Jonathan though, being that the numbers were still five to one.

"Excuse me," Jonathan looked to one of the Pennies riding nearby. "Is my head bleeding?

The man looked at him confused. "Jung?"

"Does that mean head? Is my head bleeding," he nodded his head. "My head. Ow." Ok, all movement should stop for a while.

"Jul ner elbh abeqvat elbhe uenq?"

Jonathan groaned. He wanted to yell, but he was pretty sure that would hurt as well. He leaned over, letting his head rest of his hands, trying to forget everything that was going on around him and trying to remember something good, something nice. Nothing immediately came to find. All his recent memories didn’t seem to cheer him up. Running from an explosion. Being lost. Being attacked my a mystical creature. Getting a splitting headache from said mystical creature. Getting locked up. Getting kidnaped... Having another splitting headache.

Of course, once he started thinking about that creature in the night, he started to think about what Zeal had said about him being able to use his mind to kill people. It would not be such a bad idea to find out once and for all if it was in fact him who had done that. After all, if he could kill someone with his mind, maybe he could kill a lot of people with his mind. Maybe a hundred.

Suddenly, there was hope in him once more.

He turned to the man beside him without lifting his head. "Do you think I can get us out of here with my mind?"

"Jung?"

"I bet that means ‘what’... My mind," he tried pointing to his head with his numb fingers, they barely responded, but still moved a little. "Mind," he said slowly. "Mind."

"Mind," the man repeated.

Jonathan smiled. "Yes, mind. Do you think I could kill them?"

He looked on blankly.

"How many do you think? One, ten? More you say? One hundred?" Jonathan sighed. "My name is Jonathan. What’s yours?"

"Jung?"

"Jonathan," he again pointed to himself. "Jonathan." He then tried to point to the other man. "What’s your name?"

"Mind?"

"Oh forget it, I don’t need your help anyway."

Zeal slowed her mount down and came to a halt. The Traders were at least an hour or so ahead of them. They could easily catch up, but first she needed to attempt to speak with the men who had followed. She did know a handful of words, though must of them related to currency and sizes. She did, of course, know the word for ‘trader’, and that would most likely come in handy.

The other men stopped and Zeal counted them. There were eight, including herself. This was not going to be easy. She dismounted and the others did the same. Then she sat down, and grabbed a stick. The man came around, some whispering to themselves, wondering what she was up to. She briefly wondered how far they were willing to follow her.

She drew a big circle. "Genqref," she pointed to it. ‘Traders.’ Then she drew a much smaller circle. "Us," she said, pointing to each on in turn.

"Qberf fur ezrna ehf?" One of the men asked another.

Another shrugged. "Eznlor."

She picked up a few words in there. Particularly ‘ehf’, she recognized that as another way of saying ‘hef’. ‘Us’. She pointed to the small circle again. "Lerf, ehf."

The men nodded, they were probably thinking the same thing she was: ‘There are too many of them. There’s no chance.’

Then she drew an arrow from the small circle to the bigger one, and drew a crescent moon beside it. She wanted to attack at night. Take out their sentries, sneak in, release the prisoners and then sneak back out. Hopefully they could comepletely avoid a full on attack, especially seeing they’d most likely lose such a thing. Maybe once they freed the prisoners they’d have a chance... but even then it was unlikely. She knew too much about battle to be optimistic about this.

Much to her surprise, the men nodded. She was pretty sure they understood what she meant. One man, who she assumed was their leader, started to talk to the men. Was he explaining what she had drawn? She caught a few words, one caught her attention. ‘Avtug’.

She pointed to the moon. "Avtug?"

The man shook his head, but in a way that he was almost saying yes. He pointed to the moon. "Ezba," then he poked his finger in the sand a few times around the moon. "Fegnef," he said. Then he drew a circle around the dots and the moon and said, "avtug."

She looked down at the drawing. To her it looked like the moon and stars, and so ‘avtug’ probably meant ‘night’. She nodded, traced over the arrow and pointed to the picture. "Avtug." She wished she knew the word for ‘attack’, but she was pretty sure they understood her. These were seasoned men, had probably fought in quite a few battles, most of them had probably already thought to attack at night, but the important thing was they find a way to communicate, and she was sure that they had.

Zeal stood up, brushing the dirt from her heads. She nodded towards her mount. ‘Let’s go?’ She asked silently. The other men nodded.

"Elrf," he nodded. ‘Yes.’

The Traders came to a halt and Jonathan assumed that they meant they were stopping for the night. The Traders were starting to disperse, probably to set up camp. A few of the Traders then started to come up to the Pennies. They would untie their hands, and then drag them off to a tree where they would then throw a rope over a high branch, tying one end to the Penny’s hands and the other to a lower branch. They were basically hanging them up for the night.

Jonathan suddenly had a very uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to spent the night hanging by his hands from a tree. If he was going to try his ‘kill the Traders with his mind’ plan, he was going to have to try it now. A man grabbed him from behind, pulling him off the saddle before they even untied his hands.

"Ow! You’re twisting my hands off!" Jonathan yelled at the man behind him. The other Traders look at Jonathan with surprise, and it wasn’t hard to tell why. He was speaking in a language probably few had heard. Either they realized he wasn’t from around these parts, or they thought him to be absolutely mad.

Another man came around and untied Jonathan’s hands from the saddle, though his hands remained bound together. Immediately his hands shot to the back of his head to see what the damage was. He felt around, ignoring the pain from moving so much. He could feel something wet, and there was also something crusted around it. Jonathan felt sick. His head was bleeding, and as far as he could tell, badly.

The man behind him pushed him to the ground and yelled something at him. Then he kicked Jonathan in the ribs. Jonathan felt as though someone had sucked as the air out of his lungs. He clawed at the dirt, trying to will himself to breath again, panic flooding over him. Finally it passed, he could breath again. He glared up at the man who had kicked up. He had found his test subject.

The man grabbed him roughly and pulled him to his feet, Jonathan tried to kick him, tried to scramble away, but all his efforts did was make the man laugh as he pulled Jonathan away. Jonathan was yelling something less than pleasant at the man when he felt himself hit something hard. For a moment he wasn’t too sure what had happened, but then he realized that he had been thrown against a tree.

He closed his eyes, trying to regain composure, trying to concentrate. He felt someone grab his wrist, they were tying a rope to them. He ignored it. He was trying to focus on something... but what? If he wanted to kill this man with his mind, then he’d probably have to find this man’s mind. What did a mind even feel like? He concentrated as hard as he could, trying to picture the man’s mind. There was something, he could sense it. It was so close... He barely even noticed being hoisted up by his wrists.

He did notice when pain suddenly flashed through his head. His eyes shot up, his concentration was shattered. He could hear the man laughed as he could taste the blood running down the back of his throat.

Jonathan swung his head forward to avoid any more blood running down his throat. He couldn’t believe this! Any of this! How had things turned so bad for him? He looked up at the man, laughing at him, and he felt anger surge through like he had never before. This man, this cocky, ignorant, cold-hearted man laughing at him was more than he could bear.

"Shut up!" Jonathan screamed at him.

The man stopped suddenly, his hand went up to his forehead in pain. There was fear in his eyes. He stumbled, fell to his knees. Other men noticed, started asking him what was wrong. Jonathan could only smile. He had done that, he had actually done that with just his mind. He could feel power and strength running through his mind. Even Atanax wasn’t as powerful as this, she needed a Crystal. He just needed his mind.

He tried not to let the thought go to his head too much. Powerful or not, he was still hanging from a tree and all he had really done was make a man fall to his knees. Then his mind started wandering. What if he could do more than not? Not just kill him... but control him. What if he could send order into this man’s mind? What if he could tell him to let him down?

"Untie me," Jonathan said calmly, closing his eyes again, trying to concentrate even harder. "Untie me, now." He could feel it, a strong connection between the two of them, pulsing like a vein. He could do this, he was sure of it.

The man staggered to his feet, reaching for his sword.

"Untie me," Jonathan repeated.

"Vy refge ha zebafger!" He screamed, and his sword swung out.

Suddenly Jonathan understood something clearly. He understood that he wasn’t controling this man, more than that though, he probably couldn’t control anyone. This, of course, all became very clear when he felt a searing pain in his right arm, and when he opened his eyes he saw that the man’s sword had lodge itself into his arm.

To anyone else, they’d probably write it off as a scratch, but to Jonathan, who up to now had lived a rather sheltered life, it felt as if someone had cut his entire arm off. He screamed, and then fell to the ground. Finding himself on the ground was enough to calm his nerves and look up. The man’s sword, while still lodged in the tree, had cut the rope along with his arm.

The Traders were already running towards him, swords out, they were yelling at him. He scrambled to his feet, grabbing the sword and trying to pull it out of the tree. That’s when he noticed the man, still standing behind him, but not moving. Jonathan looked at him, terrified that the man would lunge at him, try to kill him, but he didn’t move. He stared at Jonathan with cold blood-shot eyes and then he simply fell to the ground.

He was dead.

Suddenly the sword came free, Jonathan staggered back, almost tripping over the body behind up, but managed to stay on his feet.

"Eha!!!" One of the Pennies tied to a tree yelled.

Jonathan had no idea what the man had yelled, but he took of running. Those who weren’t tied to trees took their cue to fight even harder, Jonathan didn’t have to look back to know that a few of them had managed to break free as well, maybe even grab a sword and fight. Jonathan just ran, his hands still bound and holding onto the sword, and rope trailing behind him.

"Neerg!" A Trader yelled, jumping out from behind a tree, Jonathan didn’t even think, he ram forward, the sword plunged into the man’s gut, spraying Jonathan with blood. He let go of the hilt and kept running as the man fell behind him.
He wasn’t going to make it, there were too many men chasing him, and more there were others coming towards him, who were going to cut him off. He had to concentrate, but he was too frantic to concentrate. His lungs and legs burned too much from the effort of running. He hoped that behind him, what few men had managed to get lose were at least killing as many men as they could.

Suddenly Jonathan saw a mount come out of the trees and cut one of the Traders down. Jonathan came to a halt as the man rode towards him, killing other as he went. It took a moment for Jonathan to understand what was going on. It was a Penny, come to rescue them, and he hadn’t come alone. He turned around as saw more mounts riding out of the forest and cutting men down, just a handful, but it was enough to make Jonathan smile.

He also saw that there were at least ten Pennies who had escaped and had swords. The Traders were just starting to understand that they were under attack, they were just starting to organize themselves, but already at least twenty of them were dead.

Jonathan was then thrown to the ground, he felt a weight on his back, screaming at him, cursing at him, but Jonathan hadn’t a clue what the man was yelling. Jonathan managed to get on his back in an attempt to fight back, he turned around just in time to see a knife coming at his head. He quickly moved to the side, the knife lodge into the ground. Jonathan looked at the man, looked into his eyes.

It suddenly seemed to simple how to kill the man. He could feel the man’s mind as though he was holding it in the palm of his hand. All he had to do was make a fist, squish the life out of his assailant. The man had pulled the knife out of the ground, he was about the bring it back down on Jonathan’s head when he fell backwards, screaming in agony. The knife went flying and Jonathan got back to his feet and kept on running away from the fighting.

Nobody was paying attention to him anymore, they were all running towards the middle of the camp, where the real threat was. He was safe, he was going to get out of there alive, he was going to survive and then he was going to go home and save his people. Everything was going to be alright.

"Fageboch!"

Jonathan tried to stop, but he was going to fast that he fell to his knees. He looked up and saw a line of men holding bows, aimed at him. He looked back for a moment and saw that he hadn’t been forgotten by the Traders after all, there was at least a dozen charging. He looked back and saw the men pulling their bows back.

He almost screamed in fright, trying to convince them that he wasn’t the enemy, that he meant them no harm and he needed help, but he didn’t move. He sat back on his knees, his numb and bleeding hands on his wrists and looked up at them with no expression. He wasn’t worried anymore. He wasn’t afraid anymore. He just kept thinking back to what Zeal had said, about him dying a very old man. He was going to live, he was sure about it.

"Shver!" A man in the line screamed and all at once the arrows fired, and not one of them hit him. They all flew over his head and struck down the men behind him.

Just as quickly as they had fired, there were already bows ready in their hands once more. "Shver!" The man yelled again.

The fight was moving this way now, he could hear men yelling and running this way. Agaian the bows were held ready, and again they fired. Jonathan still didn’t move. He felt oddly safe sitting in front of a line of arrows like that. They weren’t going to fire at him, they weren’t going to kill him, he was sure of it.

Then he hearing galloping behind him. He turned and saw dozens of dead bodies lying behind him, some so close he could touch them, all had arrows stick out of them. He looked at those on the mounts. The last of the Traders, he thought, the last of the threat. He heard the bows getting ready, ready to kill these men.

Then he saw her, he saw Zeal. She had come to rescue him, even though she might have died and never been able to save Serra, she had come to rescue him. He felt tears come to his eyes at the thought of her risking everything for him, and then he remembered the bows ready to shoot her down.

"AB!!!" Jonathan leapt to his feet, facing the archers now. "AB!!!"

The mounts behind him came to a halt. The archers looked at him with confusion.

"FRIENDS!!!" Jonathan yelled, pointing to the mounts behind him with his bound hands. "Friends!" They didn’t understand. "What’s the word for ‘friend’ Zeal?"

"Sevraq." He heard Zeal’s voice behind him and he felt comforted.

"Sevraq," he repeated nodding. "Sevraq."

"Sevrah?" A woman’s voice behind the line of archers asked. Jonathan could see her face, but he saw someone moving behind them.

He nodded. "Sevrah, friends. My friends. Sevrah."

A woman stepped forth from the line of archers, she turned to one and gave an order. The bows were all lowered. She started walking towards Jonathan and he felt his heart stop. She was beautiful. She has long wavy dark brown hair and dark chocolate brown eyes. She had olive skin that seemed to make her face glow in the sun. But it wasn’t her beauty that took his breath away, it was because he recognized her face. This was the face he had seen in the other dimension, the face he had seen right before he lost his visions. She had been his last vision.

He felt week and found himself falling to his knees. She came up to him and knelt down, her soft and gentle hand went for him, undoing the ropes that bound them together.

"Ilbeh cheba na..." She said softly, caressing his cheek.

"I don’t... understand," he said, not caring that she wouldn’t understand him either.

"Zel anzre vef Thravivre."

"Thravivre," he whispered, and then he felt himself collapse in her arms.

(Love is in the wair, la la la la la la la...)