ONE (Book 1 in the Amnesia Archives)

Chapter 10

"Acer, wake up for the sake of the deities, Wake up!" Sarphi screamed at me in a panicked voice, interrupting my very pleasant dreamless sleep which I had fallen into after nearly collapsing from exhaustion on the side of the road.

I jolted awake, making incomprehensible noises and glancing around groggily. "What...what is it?" I asked, rubbing my head.

My hand was pulled away from my head and I was brought to my feet. "We have to go." Sarphi threw my bags in my arms whilst Senka climbed up my trouser leg and hid herself in my bag. "Can't you hear them?"

I hadn't really been awake enough to pay attention to my surroundings, but as she mentioned it, I began to hear the pounding of feet and loud voices.

"Patrollers," I identified with a groan. I shouldered my bag and began trying to catch up with Aknon, who was already a fair bit down the road. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," he snapped. I then noticed that his fists were clenched, and his tail was wrapped around him. I thought that meant that quite the opposite was the case, there was definitely something wrong.

But I elected to ignore it as I turned to Sarphi, making sure that she had her bag with everything inside of it before we got too far from where we slept. "I didn't think we'd sleep that long." I sighed and looked up at the sky, where the sun had risen quite a bit.

"Me too, now shut up." Sarphi put her hand on my shoulder and began walking me forward even quicker. We were walking in a single-file line along the road, so we would convince most who saw us from behind that we were only a single person. Aknon moved to walk behind us, hiding Sarphi easily.

The three of us kept walking in silence, my hand on Sarphi's so that we could move more fluidly. We used to use our tails for this, but they were rather sensitive and pulling on them unexpectedly caused more shouts and got us caught far more often than it helped us.

We tried to walk quicker than the patrol, but for some reason this particular group was almost charging along the road. We began moving off the path, following a thin road through the field. It was difficult keeping ourselves disguised as one. I even heard Aknon muttering some prayers or enchantments under his breath.

I'd thought that we'd finally lost them when I heard a "halt!" from behind me. I glanced back at Aknon, who just shook his head before turning around on the spot to look at the patrollers. Sarphi and I moved to stand by his side, if not a little behind him.

"Can we help you?" Aknon asked in a rather professional tone, which didn't show just how much he was panicking inside.

"Yes, what is your business here?" the patroller in front asked us, pointing their sword in our direction. Their voice was echoey due to the helmet they wore, in addition to their really heavy-looking armour, which I would struggle to move in if I was ever tasked with wearing it. They all looked the same; intimidating and lethal.

"We are travelling," Aknon replied. "My siblings and I are travelling to find help for my sister's condition." This was the excuse we always used, since it wasn't very uncommon to see people travelling for cures.

The patroller seemed to laugh, the noise sounding horrible and metallic. "And what condition would that be?" I knew what they were indicating, and I wasn't impressed, but I kept my mouth shut.

"She's weak and gets ill easily." Aknon gestured to her. "She has been ever since she was a child, and we've been searching for a cure for this illness."

"I think you're all ill," the patroller to the main one's right commented, apparently rather amused by Aknon's words.

"We get that a lot," I replied, my eyes narrowed. The patrollers demanded respect, but that doesn't mean that they were getting it from me. "Do you have any recommendations of healers we could visit? We're running out of ideas."