A Warrior's Revenge (20 page)

Narra looked over her approvingly before
saying, “My son must’ve been distracted by his emotions in order
not to have sensed you, for you have a very powerful presence one
not easily masked. I applaud you for your ability. Can I call you
Ella, because as the name implies you are very beautiful? My son is
very blessed to have you Ella!”

Ellanara nodded shyly, as a blush suffused
her cheeks at the woman’s praise of her. In return she said, “You
are very beautiful too!”

Narra’s smile deepened, “Well thank you!
It’s been longer than I care to mention since the last time that I
received a complement.” A moment of pain crossed over Narra’s
features, as she remembered that the last time she’d had a
complement it had been her husband who’d been the one to say it as
she lay dying.

Narra banished the old memory away with a
smile and asked, “So tell me Ella, what do you think of my
son?”

Ellanara visibly searched for something to
say, “He’s big.”

Ellanara abruptly smacked her forehead with
her hand as Narra laughed, “He certainly is that my darling!”

Regaining her composure as a serious light
came into her eyes Narra said, “His size must be rather
intimidating for you. I’m sorry.”

Ellanara in a rush to fix what must seem
like an insulting description to a mother in reference to her son
said, “I didn’t mean to say it like that! The truth is I don’t
know, but….But I’m starting to see things that I do like. That I
like a lot.” She finished lamely.

Narra spoke soothingly, “I know dear, he has
buried a lot of his finer points. Keep digging and be persistent. I
know the softhearted young man I raised is still in their behind
all that hardness somewhere.”

The two women stared at each other for a
moment and Narra broke the silence by saying, “You have such
gorgeous blue eyes my dear!”

Self-consciously Ellanara reached up to
touch her face. “You’re the second person to say that. Most people
look at me, as if I’m some kind of a freak.”

Narra spoke smoothly, “Let me guess it was
Salanicus wasn’t it? Ahhh I see my answer in your eyes. Let me tell
you a story about him when he was just a little boy. One day when
he saw Tadias’s wife Evala for the first time he was completely
smitten with her eyes. Now she had curly black hair instead of your
red colored curls, but both you and she have the same brilliant
blue eyes in all their glowing intensity. Salanicus said to me,
‘Mother why don’t I have eyes like that?’ I explained to him that
the Creator just made her that way and him another way, but that it
was good that he could appreciate the beauty of the eyes that the
Creator gave to someone else. He didn’t give up on his quest so
easily though. His next question was, ‘How do I get a pair of eyes
like that?’ I struggled to find a way of telling him that he was
stuck with what he had been born with when his own creative little
mind found a way. He said, ‘I know! I’ll marry someone with eyes
like that!’” Narra opened her arms and gestured to Ellanara, as to
the living statement those words had become in actuality.

Ellanara smiled briefly and looked out at
the forest surrounding the Chapel. “It’s hard to ever think of him
as a little boy.”

“Oh but he was! Such a sweet little boy. He
picked up a temper and a forceful way along life’s journey, but
having met you I believe you to be the perfect individual to unlock
that caring nature again. Now you really should be on your way my
dear. I thank you for your charming visit, as I don’t get visitors
very often and it has been a pleasure to meet you!”

Ellanara inclined her head forward in a bow,
“It has been very nice to meet you to your Majesty.” She turned to
go, but then she turned back to Narra and asked, “What will become
of you now?”

Narra looked down, “I suppose I will persist
in this place, until it is destroyed or time runs out. Why do you
ask?”

“Would you like to come with us?” Ellanara
asked softly.

In shock Narra breathed out, “Yes, but how?
I need a very specific range of parameters in order to exist and
function. I……”

Ellanara waved the questions away and held
up a small device that she had taken from her waist. “I can
download your whole program onto this device and once back at the
ship I can upload you to the ship’s network. There’s more than
enough room for you and I know my friend Abby, who is just like you
won’t mind sharing her space with you at all. So how about it,
would you like to come?”

Technological tears coursed down Narra’s
face, as she nodded her head vigorously to choked up for a moment
to speak, “Yes! I would like that very much!”

“Good! Where’s your conserge point focus
located?” Ellanara asked.

Narra pointed to a spot located deeper
within the Chapel and watched, as Ellanara headed off towards it
talking to herself about what she’d have to do in order to make the
transfer a success. Narra watched her work, as she wiped imagined
tears away from her face. She was going to get to see her son happy
and her people become free once more! It was more than she could
have ever hoped for.

Narra gazed lovingly upon the hunched over
figure of the smaller statured woman, who was her savior from this
still lonely place in the forest. Quietly, she marveled at how the
plan given to her husband in a vision in the night by the Great
Creator was all coming to pass so many years later. She caught the
golden flash of the ring on Ellanara’s finger in the darkened
interior gloom of the temple and subconsciously she felt at her
finger, where once in life that same ring had once rested.

“Oh darling, I wish you were here to see
your plans come to fruition!” She said, as she brought her hand up
and kissed the place on her finger where the ring had once been
that had yoked her to the love of her life.

Ellanara hurried back through the forest
headed for the ship. It had taken longer than she had thought to
download Narra, but she’d finally managed to accomplish it. Her
lateness would be noted though. Salanicus would be no doubt
furious, when he found out that she had followed him let alone what
she’d done.

He was mad enough most of the time without
deliberately goading him. She was a fool! A big fool! Well make
that a small fool in the context of the Sallaconese people. She
should never have come after him and yet she didn’t regret it,
because Narra was worth saving and she’d learned valuable things
about Salanicus.

Snap!

Ellanara gasped, even as she jumped in
surprise from the loud sound in the forest off to the left side of
her. There was more snapping of brush and in the reasoning part of
her brain she quickly reasoned that it couldn’t be Salanicus. He
would never have made so much noise. Even as mad, as he was going
to be with her she would’ve preferred to have seen him right now
more than anything else.

A deep nasty sounding gargle of a roar
issued forth from the undergrowth of the forest and she screamed,
“Salanicus!” Before she turned and ran as hard as she could for the
ship in the distance that she still couldn’t see because of the
forest.

She could hear branches snapping behind her.
Whatever it was it was big and it was gaining on her. Her cloak was
ripped off of her by an outreaching stub of a dead branch on a
nearby tree.

“Where are you?” Came the distinct thought
in her mind that she identified as belonging to Salanicus.

“I don’t know!” Ellanara thought back in
reply, even as she panted hard and swerved around tree trunks
hoping that the tight growth of the forest she ran through would
slow down her pursuer, which it seemed to be doing so.

“I’m coming! Keep running in the direction
that you are!” Came Salanicus’s reply across her consciousness. It
was amazing how much comfort she derived from the thought of him
coming to her rescue.

She broke out into a clearing and made a mad
dash to get across it to the other side. Halfway across the meadow
she felt herself tripped and then she was jerked upward into the
air. The beast had gotten her! And then she came back down and then
back up and then down. What was going on?

Ellanara looked upward from her upside down
position and saw both of her feet caught in a rope tied to a nearby
tree. She looked down and saw the grass of the clearing six feet
below her head and then it dawned on her what had happened. She’d
tripped a hunter’s deer snare. She had to get free of it, but it
was too late, as the beast chasing her burst into the clearing with
an awful snarl.

It drew up abruptly eyeing the rope holding
her warily. It must’ve decided that she was worth the risk because
it sprang for her. Ellanara shrieked in pure terror, as the strange
beast came straight at her with taloned forepaws and bared
canines.

A speeding black blur of movement crashed
into the beast knocking it upward onto its back feet. It was
Salanicus. Ellanara watched, as Salanicus forcefully marched the
beast backward to slam into a tree at the edge of the clearing. She
shrieked out in agony at the sight of the beast’s taloned forepaws
sinking deeply into the back of Salanicus’s shoulders, even as
Salanicus pulled the slobbering jaws of the beast wide with both
hands.

Ellanara watched the muscular ripple of
exertion course across Salanicus’s back, as the creature
momentarily grunted out in pain, even as it tried to escape, but it
was too late. The beast’s jaw broke, as Salanicus pulled it apart
with a loud snap.

“Not today or any other day laztata! She’s
mine!” I affirmed, as I let the beast fall to the ground. I turned
from the beast to see if Ellanara was all right. She appeared to
be, but she was crying. Any anger I had felt melted away instantly
at the sight of the tears dripping off her face to the ground. I
went to her and reaching up to her face I cradled the back of her
head with my hands.

“Are you all right Ellanara?” I asked
concerned.

“Your back!” She managed to get out through
her sobs.

“My back? Oh! It’s alright! Really it’s
okay!” I said hurriedly, as some deep part of me warmed to the fact
that her tears were for me.

“But I saw it grab you!” She insisted
reaching out to me with her hands.

I pulled the shreds of what was left of my
shirt off and bawling it up I hurriedly wiped away the blood from
off my shoulders and back and then I turned my back to her, “See
it’s fine.” I said.

I felt her fingers trace the upraised pink
lines of the scars that had already closed over and healed.

“How?” She stuttered out in shock at what
she saw.

I turned back around and with a shrug I
said, “It’s a blessing and a curse. I’ll tell you about it later.
Now, mind telling me what you’re doing out here in the forest in
the first place?”

She was quiet and I could see apprehension
of what was to come in her eyes, as her lips started to quiver.

“You followed me to the Chapel?”

She nodded her eyes beginning to tear up
again. Somewhat mesmerized by her eyes I asked, “What did you think
of her?”

“I liked her. We talked for a bit and then I
downloaded her.” Ellanara said on a hurried note just before she
closed her eyes and scrunched up her face, as if she expected to be
hit.

I blinked completely stunned. What had she
just said? My voice husky sounding I asked, “Did you say that you
downloaded my mother?”

“Yes!” She wailed out.

Before I could say anything she quickly
blubbered out, “She was so nice and I hated to see her left alone
there in that place. I know what that feels like. It’s terrible! I
thought to myself that there’s plenty of room on the ship’s network
mainframe for her and Abby both and I knew Abby wouldn’t mind. I
know she’s not your real mother, but she’s just like her and I
thought you might feel better if you could at least take the memory
of her with you and not have to leave her behind when we leave like
everything else of your past. I know you’re probably justifiably
angry with me, but……”

She just kept going on and on. She thought I
was angry with her? In a husky tone I said cutting into her
diatribe, “That was very sweet of you!”

“I know! I know I’m terrible! I shouldn’t
have intervened, but I….I…. What did you say?” She asked in
surprise, as my words finally registered to her.

I cut off any further words, as I speared my
fingers into her cascading hair and kissed her. After a moment of
hesitation I felt both of her hands come up to hold my head to
hers. Reluctantly I drew back from her after a long moment. I was
breathing hard and my heart felt like it was about to come out of
my chest, but this wasn’t the time or the place to carry anything
farther in the way that I wanted to with this woman.

Her eyes opened and I relished the look of
passion for me that I saw within her twin blue glowing depths of
beauty. She reached for me, but I caught her hands and kissed each
of them, “I would love to go on with this, but we need to get back
to the ship and we need to get you down from here before you turn
part bat.”

She giggled and I had to smile at the sound
of her infectious laughter. I cut her loose and turned her to set
her down on her feet, but before she could reach the ground and
while she was still eye level with me I couldn’t resist the urge to
taste her passion for me again. I kissed her again and she kissed
me back willingly, as my hands molded around her waist loving what
they felt, even as the feel of her pressed up against me was
intoxicating. Groaning I set her down on the ground away from me.
The woman was a temptation not to be denied, but I had to resist
before I went too far.

She didn’t say anything, but the look she
gave me was different. I wasn’t quite sure in what way it was
different, only in that it seemed better, far better than she’d
ever looked at me before. Timidly she reached out her hand and
grasped mine, “Shall we go?”