Leanna looked down from her vantage point in the trees. The rain was falling around her, but she hardly noticed it. The sight before her was all that her mind could comprehend. The village was gone. Some buildings remained – those that had not burned completely to the ground before the rains had come - but the heart and soul of the village – its people – were gone. The smoke still rose into the sky, coming from fires that fought to burn on despite the downpour. There would be no further damage done here this day, but what had happened was enough. Leanna climbed down her tree, her bare hands and feet moving swiftly down the bark, and walked into the ruins. She was confident that there was no reason to be cautious – she’d watched the site long enough to be sure that none of the attackers had remained. Carefully, she looked through the damaged buildings and the burned-out spaces in between them, looking for where the people of this village had hidden their heartstone. It would be somewhere – all of the villages had one and it was unlikely that the invaders had taken it. Not impossible, but unlikely. If it had gone, or she couldn’t find it, she would need to track them – this possibility didn’t overly concern her, other than the time it would take. If she could find the heartstone, she could be far swifter. She moved aside some debris and found it, right up against the side of one of the buildings and completely covered with the burned remains of undergrowth. It appeared that the villagers here had either forgotten the old ways or had been remarkably clever to hide the stone as soon as they saw danger approach. Either way, she could still use it to find them. The stone was giving off heat, but not from the fires – they couldn’t have touched it. No – heartstones burned with an inner heat, the heat of the soul of the village. Only when every soul that was connected to this stone was dead would that heat fade, and the sense of warmth gave Leanna hope. She placed her hands upon it, attuning to the stone and adding her own energy to that which it already held. She compressed hundreds of days of belonging into an instant and, in a very real way, joined this community. As soon as it was done, she could feel where her people were. Somewhere to the south-east, a few miles away. Movement had clearly been difficult through the forests with so many people or they would have made greater speed, but that was all to her benefit. She could find her friends and family swiftly. Jericho walked as part of the line of villagers, carefully stepping over tree roots and other obstacles, desperately not wanting to trip. He had seen what had happened to those of his friends that had slowed down the weary procession through the forests. Each time, somebody nearby in the line had tried to stop the abuse, the whips, the beatings – but all that that had achieved had been two people being punished rather than one. Still, they kept doing it though – they were a community. Something had changed though. He could feel it and see it in the expressions of his friends. The faces that had seemed despairing now had a glimmer of hope in them. In himself, he recognised a newfound sense of confidence. This was temporary. They would escape, or be saved, or something. He didn’t know where it came from, and it seemed completely inappropriate. He knew from the masks that their guards wore that they were being delivered to be sacrificed to their foul god. Now, when villagers met each other’s eyes, it was with a smile, rather than with fear. He heard a soft sound from his left and looked over. There had been a guard there a moment earlier. Hadn’t there? He took a moment to glance over his shoulder, looking back where they had come and wondered. Surely, there had been more guards behind him before? Where were they now? As he watched, he saw some return to the line, but still – it didn’t look like it was all of them, and those that did appeared to be spooked. They moved slowly, and looked everywhere, on edge rather than celebrating their raid. One ran forward along the line. Some of the villagers caught Jericho’s eye and grinned at him. Not even the smile of confidence that rescue would come, but the grin of knowledge that it had arrived. He watched the single guard run forwards, presumably to tell something to his superiors at the head of the line. He didn’t get there. One moment he was running and, the next, as they rounded a corner, he was gone. Jericho marked the place where he had been and, when he passed it himself, he saw the footprints in the ground simply stopped. He looked up into the trees and saw her face. She smiled at him, and raised one finger to her lips, requesting his silence. He couldn’t make out much of her, hidden in the trees as she was, but he felt that he should know her, as if she was somebody that he saw every day but couldn’t quite remember. Either way, he knew that he could trust her. He glanced up and down the line – all of the guards looked concerned now. Each was looking into the woods and paying little attention to the villagers that they were supposed to be guarding. She saw others emerge from woods, each looking even more worried than those that had stayed on the line. They were learning what it was like to be the prey when there was a predator around. Leanna climbed quickly back up into the canopy of the trees so she could watch the whole procession of guards and their prisoners. She had managed to thin the numbers, but there were still too many for her to finish swiftly. There were more of them than she had anticipated but she couldn’t stop now. These were her people. She made her way through the treetops. The line of people was moving even more slowly now that the guards knew that there was somebody hunting them and getting in front of them was easy. Leanna waited on a high branch that reached across the path that they were taking and watched them approach. She allowed the first few guards to pass under and then, before any of the prisoners could get too close, dove down to land on one of masked men. As she landed, all turned to see her. This was her most blatant attack yet, but it was needed. As she bore him to the ground, her feet on his chest, she slit his throat and dove into the woods again. Their leader dispatched five of his men to chase her down and she wondered if he knew that he would never see them again. Once she was in the woods, she could not be bested by such as these, as least in such low numbers. She led them on a chase through the woods, always keeping the feel of the villagers in her mind and not moving too far away. She wanted enough distance that they couldn’t call for backup, but not so much that she couldn’t quickly return. She led them to a ditch, nimbly leaping over it herself, but then turned to watch them cross it. They were not capable of the leap she had made and so, as a unit, fell in. She left them to the snakes that she knew resided there. Leanna climbed high again, taking stock of where in the forest they were, and moved towards the line of people again. She found them and was surprised to see that they had stopped completely. Each guard was holding a prisoner, with a sword to their throats. They had gotten wise to her tricks and had worked out what her goals were. The leader at the front was shouting something, but she didn’t concern herself with his words – the intent was clear enough. She must surrender, or these people would die. She moved ahead of the people – her only option now was to be able to scare them into leaving their prisoners alone. She descended to the ground and moved carefully, herself suddenly aware that she was vulnerable, but needing to take the risk. She saw the cave, set into a hillside, and moved in quietly. She could hear the heavy breathing of the creatures within and knew that they were already aware of her. One careful step at a time, she approached, until she saw the first of the wolves. It padded up to her, seemingly more curious than concerned, and she reached out with her energy, with her sense of connection. That same sense that told her that the villagers were still confident that she would save them. That same sense now inserted her into this pack. She spoke, not with words, but in the way of wolves with ideas that they themselves sensed through that shared connection. She thought of the people that were threatened and how they were also family. Also pack. The wolf howled, the sound echoing through the cave, and the rest of the pack stalked up to join it. They were all connected. Now Leana turned and ran and the pack ran with her. Jericho stood quietly, a knife to his throat. Long minutes had passed since their captors had stopped the procession through the woods and started to make demands. He still felt that their saviour was out there somewhere. He wasn’t worried. Yes, he was threatened, but she was coming back, and she would save them.
Though he wasn’t sure how. The leader was still shouting out into the forest, ordering her to give herself up. Of course, she wouldn’t do that. Jericho was sure of that – threatening to kill the prisoners might make her act more swiftly, less cautiously, but it wouldn’t make her surrender. She would know that they were only being taken to be sacrificed anyway. The howls echoed through the forest, seemingly coming from all around them. Wolves? The guards holding them started to look round again, filled with that instinctive fear of predators. Jericho didn’t feel the same. Perhaps it was that he was already in danger, and the addition of wolves didn’t change that. Or, somehow, he felt that they wouldn’t harm him. Some of the guards lost their nerve and dropped their prisoners, running into the forest. Screams followed shortly after, which made even more panic and run. The leader shouted at his men to stand. He called for them to stay with the prisoners. Safety was in numbers, not alone amongst the trees. The wolves emerged from the treeline, quietly and with menace. They stared at the guards. One of them leapt to attack the nearest wolf, but to no avail and he died swiftly, it’s teeth on his throat. Another threw a prisoner at a wolf, possibly seeking to distract it. The wolf ignored this, and let the prisoner run into the trees and escape. Elsewhere, a guard moved to cut the throat of his prisoner, and the nearest wolf growled. He stopped. Jericho heard a noise from the front of the line and looked – the woman had come running out of the treeline with two wolves flanking her. They ran straight for the leader of the cultists and, at that sight, even he lost his nerve. He dropped his prisoner, he dropped his weapons, and he dropped to the floor. The wolves showed no mercy, ripping into him with ferocity sufficient to break the courage of all of the rest of them who, likewise, dropped their prisoners and ran into the forest. The screams followed soon after. As soon as the threat was gone, the woman started to move through the crowds of prisoners, cutting bonds. As each was freed, they moved to free others, and the task didn’t take long. The woman herself came up to Jericho to release him. “I knew you would come,” he said to her as she cut the ropes that bound his wrists. “But who are you? I feel like I should recognise you.” She smiled at him, a look that could have been threatening but, to him, seemed friendly. “My name is Leanna. I’m a friend.”
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October 2021
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