Eleanor (25 page)

“Somewhere safe,” Eleanor replied, saving her breath and pushing her body to move faster.
 

Panting, sweaty, but chilling rapidly, Eleanor looked at the black void of the cave mouth for a moment. Taking a firm grip of Amelia’s hand, as much to reassure herself as her friend, she walked into the darkness, using a hand to feel her way along the tunnel, her breathing loud in her ears.
 

Eventually she felt the tunnel open out into the main cave.
 

“Amelia, can you let go of me for a second, so I can light a candle?” Eleanor asked. She was glad that Amelia could not see the look of relief on her face as her fingers were released from the vice-like grip. Moving slowly from memory, testing the way forward with her feet and hands, Eleanor found the stash of flints, kindling and candles. It took a couple of attempts with shaking hands to light the kindling and the first candle, but she managed and lit a couple of others, handing one each to Will and Amelia and then crouched to light a fire.

“You’ve been here before,” Will said, looking around. He found a pile of blankets and wrapped one around Amelia, who was sat staring into the fire. She smiled absently at him.

“It’s where Freddie and I used to come to practice my fighting,” Eleanor said, finding some water and putting it onto the fire to heat. She put mugs down next to the fire, so she could pour drinks. Her hands were still shaking and she stared at them.
What’s wrong with me?
Will took her by the shoulders and led her to the fire, forcing her to sit next to Amelia; he found her a blanket, placing it around her.

“You should rest while you can,” he said quietly. She wanted to object, wanted to point out that Conlan and Freddie could arrive at any moment, but something inside her prevented her from doing so. She needed sleep. Curling into a ball, she drifted into oblivion.

“Eleanor?”
 

A hand shook her shoulder. She emerged from sleep as a drowning man might breach the surface – gasping, frightened and confused - from a dream filled with tunnels, dark underground spaces and the melody in her head crashing through her consciousness in a wall of sound. She had no idea where she was. Panic tore at her. She sat up, scrambling away from the fire in front of her until her back hit the cave wall.

“Eleanor.” Will was speaking, saying something. There were words, but she had no idea what they meant; the music held her attention, but it was slowly subsiding.

“I have no idea what you are saying,” she said, fighting the fear. Will stuttered to a halt, his eyes wide.

“I was telling you that I can hear movement outside, I think they are here,” Will said slowly.
 

“Then why did you not just say that?” Eleanor snapped, the crashing music receding, a throbbing headache taking the space it had left.

“Eleanor, do you know you are speaking Dwarfish?” Will asked.
 

He must have been speaking English, but why didn’t I understand? Did I forget how to speak English? That’s ridiculous, of course I didn’t. I’m thinking in English, so Will must have just surprised me; and why won’t this stupid music go away?

“I guess I was just a little confused,” Eleanor said, switching back to English. “Must have been sleeping too deeply – it’s what you wanted, right?” she asked, smiling. Will did not smile back but continued to stare at her, fear for her sanity clear in his eyes. “Will, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“OK, I’ve got a bit of a headache and there’s music playing constantly in my head, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

Will sighed. “You’re overdoing it; you’ve been distracted since you got back from Baydon. It’s that book, you need to give it a rest.”

Eleanor gasped, distress washing through her. “The book, Will, its back home. What if the Protectors find it? I promised Gregor I’d keep it safe.”

“Eleanor? Are you OK?” Amelia asked, their conversation having woken her up.

Before she could answer, Conlan walked into the cave, the firelight casting shadows across his grim expression. Freddie followed.
 

“Where’s Rand?” Amelia asked, looking behind them.

“We left him by the mouth of the cave,” Conlan said.

“We can’t leave him there, someone will see,” Eleanor said.

Conlan shook his head. “We’re not going to be here long enough; we have to go, now.” He thrust a leather satchel at Eleanor, handed Will his medical bag and then walked toward the pile of equipment by the cave wall. Confused, Eleanor opened the bag and realised it had Gergor’s book in it. Relieved, she wrapped it back into the bag, making a promise to herself that it would never leave her sight again.
 

“You went back? How many are there?” Will asked.

“Too many. We got as much of our valuable stuff as we could, but we couldn’t stay long, as they were too close,” Conlan muttered, not looking round. He was already sorting through the stuff that Freddie had squirrelled away in the cave, looking for things that would be useful.
 

We have to leave?
Although she had known it might be coming, suddenly Eleanor was deathly afraid – this was their home and they were being driven away.
I’m not ready!

“We could fight,” Eleanor said, trying very hard to make it a forceful statement.

“That’s what I said, but Conlan has other ideas,” Freddie informed her, a look of hurt anger filling his face. Conlan ignored him totally, shoving food and equipment into the bags. Eleanor felt for Freddie; he had a perfectly valid opinion, just as she did. Conlan was simply overriding them. What gave him the right to dictate their every move?

“We don’t have to follow Conlan’s orders,” Eleanor said quietly. Conlan froze. He dropped the bag he was packing and turned slowly to face them.

“You’re choosing
now
to question my authority?” he asked incredulously. “Eleanor, there are over a hundred heavily armed Protectors heading this way, and thanks to the Protector you stopped me killing they have a really good idea where to search. Five of us can’t take on a hundred men, and even if we did they would just box us in and wait until a thousand Protectors turned up. Life is unimportant to the Lords of Mydren; they will keep coming at us in ever-increasing numbers until they kill us. We have to leave.”

A hundred heavily armed men?
And it’s my fault.
On the surface Conlan’s argument made sense – five normal people could not take on a hundred and hope to win – but they were not normal people, so why was Conlan ignoring this fact?

“Conlan, I could wipe out a hundred men myself and there are four of us.”

He flashed her a dangerous look. “You’re talking about annihilating an army, taking lives we don’t need to.”

“No, that’s not what I’m suggesting, I was merely pointing out that I could! What I’m suggesting is frightening them off, getting them to leave. It’s going to come to a fight eventually, Conlan. We’re too powerful, too much of a threat to the Lords’ way of life. Perhaps we could give them a scare they won’t forget, make them think twice about coming after us…”

“NO!” Conlan roared, a heavy snarl bouncing off the cave walls. “I did not start this to deliver more senseless deaths. The Protectors are still human beings, with families, loves and lives. I will NOT take that from them!”

Eleanor opened her mouth, but Will shook his head vigorously. Eleanor huffed. “No, Will, I won’t just shut up.” She turned back to Conlan’s furious glare, working hard to hide her fear. “I don’t want to kill anyone, I never did, but the Lords of Mydren are hunting us – something you have freely acknowledged. How do you think this is going to end? That we’ll get the connection working and it will just be accepted? A big part of their control is the marginal influence they have over the elements, which we would effectively remove. Why can’t you see that?”

Conlan’s lip curled slightly, a growl starting deep in his throat. “And what, with your vast experience of my world and my people, do you think we should be doing?”

“We should be working towards making you the king you were born to be!” Eleanor yelled.

Thick treacle-like silence filled the cave.

Conlan was coiled so tightly that his body shook with the effort to control himself. Eleanor saw his disgust and fury, and her anger was rapidly fading, regret taking its place. She had overstepped the mark, but she had no idea how to take it back. Freddie and Amelia stood frozen, while Will rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“Is this what you’d prefer?” Conlan demanded of them, pointing at Eleanor. “Would you rather massacre those Protectors than take the peaceful option?”
 

Amelia paled and Freddie swallowed, eyes wide.

Frustrated, Eleanor tried to explain. “I…”
 

Conlan whipped round. “Eleanor, you’ve said enough.”

Taking a deep breath, reaching for calm and determined to get her point across, Eleanor tried again. “You can’t just shut me up because you say so, Conlan, just like you can’t just give orders without at least consulting us.”

“I have more experience, more knowledge and more idea of what is going on than you will
ever
have, Eleanor. I give orders to protect you, because I alone know the ramifications of our actions, and frankly it is highly insulting having you question that,” Conlan spat out, switching to Dwarfish, Eleanor assumed, so that he could add his deep growl of contempt for her.

Hurt and embarrassed, Eleanor felt her argument crushed by Conlan’s icy glare.

“At the risk of getting my head bitten off too, I would also question the assumption that you are always going to know what is right for us, Conlan.” Will’s Dwarfish ended in the gentle, quiet bark that requested calm from a superior.

Eleanor watched uncertainty flitter across Conlan’s face.
 

“Have I done such a bad job so far?” Conlan asked. Eleanor noticed the reasonable tone of his dwarfish with which he addressed Will and envied the respect Conlan was according him.

“No, Conlan, that is not what I am saying. Neither was it what Eleanor was saying. I simply believe that as we grow and change, we are moving into new territory and we are going to make a world even you know nothing about. There may even be instances when we are better placed to advise you on the outcome of a course of action than you are to advise us. We need to operate much more as a team.”

Conlan narrowed his eyes, a deep suspicious growl through the dwarfish.
 

“And how would we achieve this?”

“We should vote!” Eleanor blurted out in English, not knowing the Dwarfish word for ‘vote’.

“Vote?” Conlan asked confused.

Will smiled slightly. “Not quite what I had in mind, but it will do. We each decide what we want to do in a situation and we agree to go with the majority.”

“Will, in a fight that could get us all killed.” Conlan looked horrified, the rumbling growl running through dwarfish indicating his level of distress.

“No, in immediate life-and-death situations you will still have the lead, we will always require your expertise in this area,” Will reassured him. “But we should get some say as to whether we get into that life-and-death situation in the first place, if possible.”
 

There was more silence as Conlan considered this suggestion.

“If this is a discussion that affects all of us, please can we stick to English?” Freddie asked, looking peeved.

Conlan sighed. “Eleanor and Will were just saying decisions should be made between all of us. We’re each going to get a say in a course of action and we’ll all then follow the majority. We’re going to ‘vote’.”

“So we get to vote on whether we should drive off the Protectors or run with our tails between our legs?” Freddie asked, ignoring Conlan’s sharp look.

Will nodded. “However, we can’t vote if we don’t understand what we are voting on, so, Conlan, please could you explain why you think we should leave?”

Not looking at all pleased with the request, Conlan thought for a moment.
 

“There are just five of us. I don’t care how powerful you think you are, we don’t have the connection working and we therefore can’t fight as one – we have weaknesses. Taking on the Protectors now could reveal those weaknesses, which is something I would rather not do. At the moment they have little idea what we are capable of, so hopefully this will make them pause, sap their courage a little, if we find battle with them unavoidable… and I don’t want you to kill, any of you, if it can be avoided. Purposefully taking a life is unpleasant, nasty, it does things to you.” He looked straight at Eleanor, his voice a whisper. “I never wanted that for you.” Conlan looked Freddie, Amelia and Will in the eye in turn as he continued. “As powerful as you believe yourselves to be, you all still have a lot to learn and I can’t afford to take the risk that I might lose one or all of you. We don’t need to fight a battle we’re not ready for, a battle
I’m
not ready for, so we should leave.”

Will nodded. “Eleanor, why do you feel we should stay and fight?”

“I… I just wanted to scare them away, a rockslide or a flood, something that would drive them back, maybe not even let them know it was us…” She stopped, realising how childish this idea was. The Protectors would know it was them, and they would know for certain they were out there, that they were dangerous. Conlan was right, there were possible outcomes here she had not considered. When she failed to speak further, Will filled the silence.

“OK, everyone gets one vote. Amelia?”

“I want to leave.”

Will nodded, a response he had expected. “Freddie?”

Freddie looked torn, his eyes moving from Eleanor to Conlan. “I didn’t want to turn and run, because it felt like the coward’s way out, but Conlan’s right – we’re not ready for this. We should go.”

Will nodded again. “I believe we should leave. If we’re going to announce ourselves I’d like there to be a solid strategic reason for it. I’m assuming Conlan that you still want to leave?”
 

“Definitely.”
 

Will nodded. “Fine, four against one. We’re leaving, Eleanor.”