A Warrior's Revenge (11 page)

The Loric pulled the two rings off of where
they were tied to the letter by a ribbon. One was big and had an
elaborate design transcribed around a coat of arms of the Ta’lont
family crest. Loric slipped the ring onto his finger. He held the
other ring that sparkled with diamonds, as if unsure what to do
with it.

Kana seizing the moment bravely stuck her
hand out with her fingers extended hoping that she wouldn’t be
rejected, because that would just hurt too much. Call her crazy and
maybe she was, but she wanted everything the big reserved Hunter
had to offer subconsciously ever since he had hesitated in killing
her.

Loric slid the ring onto her finger without
hesitation and closed his hand tightly over hers, as he led her
back down the hall the way they had come.

Ellanara stopped them with her words, “Loric
there’s something else that you should have.”

The couple turned and watched, as Ellanara
pressed something under a corner of her parent’s burial tomb. A
panel slid out and she pulled a sword of majestic quality from out
of the drawer. Approaching Loric with it, Ellanara laid it across
her hands, as she extended it out to him and he took it as she
said, “Behold my father’s sword. May it shine for you like it did
for him and never let you down in battle.”

As she said the words the sword came
brilliantly alive with a radiance of shifting colors, even as Loric
gripped a hold of it. Loric studied it relishing the feel of the
sword that already felt as if it was but an extension of his
hand.

He hadn’t seen it before, but his wandering
fingers found the little piece of rolled up paper tied to the cross
guard of the sword.

He started to read it briefly, but stopped
looking up curiously at Ellanara. He pulled the paper and its
contents from off the sword and handed them to Ellanara. “I believe
this is for you.” He said.

Ellanara took the paper and gasped at the
sight of the two ornately scrolled silver rings that slid out of
the paper into her hand. Tears came to her eyes, as she recognized
Talaric’s and Evangelina’s wedding rings. She opened the little
scrolled piece of paper and began to read,
“Dear little sister,
these rings are for you. Tadias told me to give them to you. He
said they were very special and I know that they couldn’t have been
any more special to me and Eva than they have been. I hope they
bring you as much happiness as they did us. Oh and here’s something
Tadias told me to tell you along with giving you the rings, ‘Tell
her that they were gifts from an old friend of mine and that it’s
fitting that they should be returned to his people. Even as they
were given in the bond of friendship let them now unite that
friendship, which has been broken so that it might be restored
again even stronger and more lasting than before in a special haven
that only the bearer of these rings can find.’”

Ellanara folded the paper up as she held the
rings tightly in one palm. She met Loric’s gaze and he said, “I
believe we can go now sister.”

Smiling tearfully Ellanara responded, “Yes
brother, I believe we can.”

The three companions left the silent hall of
the honored dead, as quietly as they had come. The chamber would
never be visited again.

Ellanara stopped and the others of the group
fanned out to the sides to gaze unbelievably at the object at rest
within the huge underground cavern of the mountain.

“Is that an airship?” Eshta stammered out in
awed wonder.

“Yes it is and you’re going to learn how to
fly it.”

Eshta glanced from the gleaming surfaces of
the ship to Ellanara in sheer horror at her statement.

“In time that is.” Ellanara added
mischievously, as the others around chuckled at Eshta’s expense.
Eshta scowled at the offenders and they stopped.

“Is this the bar-Seth?” Loric asked quietly,
as he gazed in awe at the ship. He’d seen the airships that had
existed in his father’s time, but this ship was far larger than any
of the others had been, which had led him to believe this must’ve
been the ship of legend that he was staring at.

“No the bar-Seth sank below the waves long
ago and has stayed there. This ship I have named the
bar-Trinity.”

“How did you build such a ship down here
alone?” Loric asked in wonder.

Ellanara smiled, as Abby appeared beside
her, “I had a very good assistant, who helped me with all the
calculations involved and I had them do the physical side of
things.” She said in indication of the other room where an entire
army of strange devices and machines moved in a flurry of movement,
as if in response to her thoughts.

Loric looked from the robots to her, “You
control all those machines with your mind?”

“Yes much the same way that you are going to
control the other Hunters after their short circuited by the device
that I’ve made. Now let us be about the said rescue of the other
Hunters. Follow me please.” The wall opened and the group followed
after Ellanara, as she strode across the hangar floor towards the
massive ship named the bar-Trinity.

Loric could kind of understand the
significance of the name in relation to the ship. The ship sort of
looked like three ships artfully combined into one. The main
fuselage was round narrowed to a point and was very much similar to
the abdomen of an insect’s, while slightly flared out at the other
end. Slightly above the main fuselage and to either side of it were
the projections of two sharply pointed v-wings. At the apex of the
“v” was a small round fuselage, which had a circular framework that
went the length of the fuselage. The ship’s design was entirely
different than anything he had ever seen before.

A walkway extended down out of the ship and
the group marched upward into the ship. Once everyone was in the
ship and surrounded by the strangeness of technology that seemed to
exist everywhere the walkway closed and the hull of the ship
reformed where the doorway had been. Even Loric was somewhat
mystified by the elaborate interfaces that look deceptively simple,
but probably weren’t.

He was accustomed to higher technology, but
none of what he saw was familiar. He could only too well imagine
how Kana and the others were feeling surrounded by this alien
environment of never before seen technology.

“I want you all to relax and find a seat and
strap yourselves in. None of you are going to be responsible for
anything, until you’ve had time to learn it. I will manage all
aspects of flying, fighting and landing the ship, until such time
as you are able to take over and ease my burden some. Abby is going
to teach each and every one of you what your responsibilities will
be.”

Abby appeared and smiled sweetly at the
group of wide eyed women, “Don’t worry dears I have experience at
this and a perfect track record so far.” The words did little to
comfort.

Ellanara turned to Abby, “Are you completely
transferred over?”

Abby nodded yes and there was a brief moment
of barely controlled excitement visible within the digital
manifestation of an individual, which was odd to see in Loric’s
opinion, since she wasn’t human.

Ellanara smiled at Abby and asked, “Are you
ready to see the outside again?”

Abby vigorously nodded her head looking for
all the world as impatient as a two-year-old to see what was inside
a wrapped package. Ellanara stepped behind a central console in the
bridge of the ship and initiated the coming to life of the
bar-Trinity.

The bar-Trinity started upward and the
mountain above cracked and grumbled, as it slid back revealing an
opening to the night sky above. As Ellanara took the ship clear of
the mountain by no perceivable means other than her mind she said,
“Blow up the lab Abby.”

Ellanara guided the ship out across the
Valley Lands, as the mountain that Thunder Ridge had been a part of
for so many years literally crumbled and exploded outward in a
terrific eruption of force. Thunder Ridge was now the stuff of
legends and myths, only to be carried on in the hearts of those who
had called it home once.

The bar-Trinity hovered over the device that
had enslaved the Valley Lands into a perpetual winter. With one
brief pulse of blue light the device below exploded into a fireball
and almost immediately the heavens opened up in a downpour of rain
that began to melt the snow blanketing the valleys below.

Flying low the bar-Trinity skipped out over
the ocean headed for the Tranquil Islands. The closer they
approached the main island where the Hunters were located; the glow
of Ellanara’s eyes intensified into a storm of focused fury. Loric
alone stood in the center of a ring on the floor back from the
bridge of the ship armed only with the weapons that he had used as
a Hunter.

Kana had objected to Loric going down alone,
but she had been overruled and now she sat biting her lip staring
at him fretting over the danger he would soon be in. Loric noticed
her focused gaze on him before she could look down fast enough and
he started toward her.

Kana turned back around in her seat to face
the screen with information on it that made absolutely no sense
whatsoever to her. She heard Loric come up behind her shoulder and
then he leaned down and began to talk into her ear in a low tone
that only she could hear.

Eshta watched the creamy skin of her
sister’s face go darker with a flush, as Loric spoke into her ear
and Eshta flushed a little at the imagining of what he could be
telling her sister to provoke such a reaction like that. Eshta only
caught what his last words to her sister were, “Do you think I want
to miss out on any of that? I’m coming back do you understand
me?”

Kana’s head nodded, as she continued staring
at the screen in front of her. Loric pulled her flushed face around
and kissed her for almost a solid minute. It wasn’t a soft kiss,
but rather it was a hard passionate kiss that had Kana reaching out
after him, as he stepped away, as she evidently did not want the
kiss to ever end.

Loric went back to standing on the ring in
the center of the floor, as the couple was the subject of several
giggling conversations throughout the bridge of the control room.
Eshta hadn’t really thought much of the other side of life before,
but the math of their being equal numbers of Hunters to women had
not escaped her. Was there a Hunter that would be right for her?
She was actually starting to hope so, which surprised her greatly.
She blamed her sister for this new awareness of life that was
unsettling the clear and decisive pathway that she had ordered her
life to function within up till now.

The bar-Trinity glided toward the main city
of Zastu on the big island uncontested, as it did not register on
any of the enemy’s screens, even though the ship was clearly
visible to the naked eye. A schematic of a building outlined in
green tracer lines that extended far underground lit up before
Loric.

“Is this the building that they are housed
in?” Ellanara asked.

“Yes! Here on this level is where they are
kept.” Loric said pointing to the thirty third floor of the
underground section.

A yellow flashing light appeared on the
selected floor. “Very well then. Are you ready?” Ellanara
asked.

“Yes!” Loric responded.

The bar-Trinity centered over the facility
and a wide measured circular beam shot down into the facility with
terrific force. The 3-D schematic showed the beam penetrating all
the way to the thirty third floor, as easily as plunging a stick to
the bottom of the bucket of water. The ring around Loric’s feet
lifted up and a whirlwind of colored air swirled up around him.

Ellanara called out looking up from her
screens for the first time, “Remember that you have only a little
more than fifteen minutes to get the Hunters topside before the
bunker’s fail safe charges might go off!”

Loric nodded affirmatively and then he was
gone.

The veil of colored winds spiraled down out
of the ship and shot down through the whole the beam had created to
stop where the beam had stopped and spun away into nothingness to
reveal Loric standing in the smoky atmosphere of the penetrated
high-security bunker that had alarms going off everywhere. Water
sprayed down onto Loric from sprinklers on the ceiling that had
been set off by fires on other floors.

Loric stepped forward from the beam down
location and pulled the device from his belt and started to
activate it, but it was knocked from his hands, as he was hit from
behind. Swinging around he grappled with the massive Hunter that
was even bigger than he was.

It was a vicious series of strike and
counterstrike. Each opponent both skillfully blocked and delivered
hits to the other in a harmony of fluid movement that bespoke of
years of training and experience at fighting. It was a battle
between men, who fought silently and as savagely as wild
beasts.

Loric’s opponent was both bigger and
stronger, but Loric was faster. Loric was getting the best of his
opponent, but it was taking too long. Blinking sweat and blood out
of one of his eyes from a cut above it he saw seven more Hunters
running down the hall at him.

He was out of time. His opponent lashed out
with the left hand and Loric dodged to the side of it and then
quickly grasped the back of the man’s extended left shoulder and
pulled himself forward, as he did so his right arm wrapped around
the man’s throat, even as his knees shoved hard into the man’s back
stunning him momentarily from the savage blow to his kidneys.

Both men fell over backward to the floor, as
Loric held desperately onto his forearm grip around the Hunter’s
throat, even as he shoved off powerfully with both of his legs
pulling the Hunter along with him across the floor in the direction
of the fallen device. The Hunter’s hands came up and grabbed a hold
of Loric’s arm and he was unable to keep his hold on the man’s
throat.