Eternal Beasts

Chapter 10: The Shrine of Lost Futures

The four of them went nearly a kilometer to the north of the outpost before Merik and the other riders slowed down enough for Jared to plant his feet. And he immediately made to sprint southward. Only to find the three riders blocking his way.

"You need to stay right here, Jared," Merik firmly indicated, holding up a hand to stop him from leaving. "Kaylee didn't sacrifice her well-being just so you could go charging back in there and put everybody at risk!"

When Jared turned a hard look on the senior rider, he returned the look with a determined one of his own.

"You know I'm right. Cholim inquisitori now infest our outpost. You would have to kill all of them, then the cholim and corrupted dragon riders that follow to buy us enough time to evacuate."

"Evacuate?" Jared repeated.

"You go back and get discovered, the outpost is lost," one of the other two riders pointed out. "To keep the inhabitants safe from a purge by the inquisitori, we would need to evacuate them all back into the mountains."

"Magnus will heal Kaylee's injuries," the other said, reaching out to put a reassuring hand on Jared's shoulder. "She will be restored completely in a few hours. You needn't fear for her."

Jared looked at him.

"But I do," he said before looking at Merik. "I fear for her. And I want to protect her."

"That, she knew. Which is why she made this plan to get you out of Kaem Borath in case the cholim came for you," Merik indicated. He made a motion and one of the other riders reached behind a boulder to draw out a heavy pack and Jared's satchel.

"You need to put as much distance between Kaem Borath and yourself as is physically possible, Jared." Taking the pack and satchel from his fellow rider, he turned and held it out towards the big human. "The flight doesn't want you to leave. You are a part of us, a rider, like we are. But Kaylee wants you somewhere that she knows you'll be safe, far from the cholim and their inquisitions. Only then will she feel free to act against them."

Taking the pack and the satchel with a grimace.

"But then she won't be safe," he said tautly.

"True," Merik conceded. "But she will have us." His expression became resolute. "You would do it for her."

Jared sagged.

"In a heartbeat," he breathed. Then the pack went over his shoulders and the satchel's strap as well. Then he was grunting as Merik embraced him to give him a hard squeeze before stepping aside and letting the other two riders do the same.

"She will look for you in the suns' set," Merik said, his voice suddenly thick with emotion, his hand on Jared's shoulder.

"In the suns' set," Jared said, tears filling his eyes. Then he was turning and running as hard as he could northward.

Powered by destiny and fate, the big human chewed through the kilometers like they were individual steps. He didn't know where he was going. Only that the further away he could get from Kaem Borath, the safer his Kaylee would be.

It was perhaps four or five hours of steady travel later that, with a shifting of the satchel at his side, he heard:

- Back on mission. Good, - the book's dry voice said into the depths of his mind. - Did you enjoy your time off, consorting with the enemy? -

- Fuck you, book, - Jared silently snarled. - You hung me out to dry by disappearing right outside the outpost without as much as a 'see ya', and a set of directions.. I just made the best of it with a bunch of uncorrupted dragon riders. -

- Who still pledged allegiance to the Harbingers, - the book bluntly pointed out.

- And sacrificed much to make sure I didn't fall into their hands! - Jared retorted. - Now give me some damn directions so we can find this shrine already! -

The book was silent for a long moment. But, just before Jared was about to repeat his request, the voice was back inside his head.

- Change your course by three degrees eastward, - the book directed. - The shrine is close by. Within twenty kilometers. -

Twenty kilometers? Added to what he had already traversed, that put Kaem Borath only five hundred kilometers from the shrine! Was it a coincidence?

- Not a coincidence, - the book indicated, reading his thoughts. - The enemy spent a great deal of energy and resources searching for this particular shrine, the Shrine of Forgotten Futures. You see, they captured one of the sentinels guarding the shrine where I was residing in an attack and tortured him into giving up the shrine's existence and purpose. -

The book paused slightly, as it did when it was in explanation slash teaching mode. Then:

- Knowing that it was the key to restoring the griffon flights and giving the people of the Prophets hope that they could actually win the next War of Balance, the Harbingers needed to find that shrine. Find it and destroy it. -

A map appeared in Jared's mind's eye, with his current location highlighted. And another site nearby. Then, in a wink of light, it was surrounded by several red marks.

- Harbinger outposts. Including your Kaem Borath. While they couldn't locate the shrine's exact location due to the powerful spells cloaking it, they had magic users powerful enough to sense the energy used to hide the shrine. And so built outpost after outpost in their efforts to physically locate it. -

- So that's why those cholim were so hardassed about a nysim possibly passing through Kaem Borath, - he breathed in realization. - They knew they were close to the shrine! -

- Makes sense, now that you point it out, - the book replied. - And explains those dragons that have been pacing you for the last ten kilometers or so. -

Jared slowed enough to take a look skyward. Sure enough, there they were, six dragons nearly three kilometers straight up. And now slowly circling to make sure they didn't fly faster than he was running.

- Do you think they've tracked me back to Kaem Borath? - he asked, his heart suddenly up painfully in his throat.

- Uncertain. But, if they had, you would think the outpost would be burning by now. And it isn't. In fact, the flight that brought the inquisitor has returned to gather up the inquisitori left behind to head straight back to Tammen Gall. And the Outlander flight has been called out to join the pursuit. -

Jared frowned as he sped back up to full velocity once again, his booted feet barely touching the ground as he flew along the uneven ground of the northeastern reaches of the Cael Nerath. They must've used the standard rate of travel for a nysim on foot to calculate the distance he should've traveled in the week he spent at the outpost. And finding him over four hundred kilometers beyond that immediately threw their calculations into doubt. Not to mention their calculations that put him at the outpost to begin with, two months after the death of the observers.

As those calculations led the cholim inquisitors to believe he was in Kaem Borath, now they were convinced that he had bypassed the outpost and forged on. And, for now at least, that new conclusion was keeping Kaylee safe. Which was something he could live with.