Book One: Rise of the King

Chapter Eleven

 Gray wasted no time getting to the forest. He pushed Horse as hard as she would let him and before nightfall they were there, the forest towering over them like a mountain. He dismounted slowly, rubbed Horse's neck. She made a sound and nudged him with her nose. He smiled at her. Once he had stretched, heard bones popping in his sore back, he reached around and loosened her girth so that she would have some relief. He looked into the forest, leaning his head on her neck.

"You gotta stay with me, Horse." He told her. "If I lose you in here, I may never find you again. And you know I need you."

He covered the last ten yards on foot, Horse at his side. She didn't seem afraid, which he thought was encouraging. He felt anxious, tired and ready to get the journey over with. They still had a long walk ahead of them, though. Moving into the forest, he didn't feel any different. It wasn't until the second day that he started to notice the change of being there. He didn't feel as tired, which seemed to be his constant state over the last few months. He was grateful that the relentless ache that had ensnared his entire body and spirit was abating.

It had been over a year since they had started on their journey. He hadn't consider the time as being fluid. He had spent much of it just surviving. He wondered if his parents would find him to be different. He knew there had to be some change. The loss of Amara and the children weighed on him. He had dreams about their unborn child, lying in the grass so tiny against his mother. Or had it been a girl? He would never know and that bothered him. He was under no delusion that he had been in-love with Amara, but he had cared deeply for her and the loss hurt. Perhaps he had been cruel to the warriors that awful night at the village, but his empathy didn't mean they could just lie down and die with their loved ones.

At first it seemed that every Gauran that died was a vindication. After a time, though, the burden of battle began to harass him and he tired of killing. He was good at it, but he didn't like it. He asked himself if the Gauran even liked their masters, wanted to serve the Komeh. What was their motivation for the pleasure they seemed to take in the brutal deaths of innocent people? From what he had seen from them, they whole-heartedly enjoyed their work. Were they aware there was a different way? A better way? Maybe he would never know the answers, but the questions bothered him.

His parents had always told him that there was a reason for everything. Everyone had a purpose, if they could only find it. Once they found it, they must be willing to recognize it. He hadn't let himself think too much about why they had ended up here, what purpose they served by being here rather than on Canaan. He had always wanted to believe, but he was afraid. He was afraid of being wrong, of being fooled. Sometimes he prayed. He hoped that God was real and listening to him.

Whether his understanding of God was tied in with this planet or not, the Komeh weren't gods. The Greek and Roman gods had slipped into obscurity and folklore because they had been petty and cruel, too human. He had to just keep thinking that this would be the fate of the Komeh, too. Where the pantheistic gods of ancient Earth had slipped away in the passage of time, the Komeh would have a different end. The Komeh would be slaughtered by men on purpose, not from neglect and inattention.

There was also the words of Clea, the story of the Adna'neh, the Na'adneh, the True God. He knew what it could mean to the survivors from Earth. He wasn't sure what it meant to him, though. Was it possible that his father's repetitive comment of God having a plan, that He worked in mysterious ways hold true everywhere? Was it possible that God had brought them to this place and that He had saved specific people on purpose? Was this path the one Gray was supposed to be on? Was he really the True King that Clea said he was?

He wasn't a man who had faith in much of anything. He had always just sort of stumbled through life hoping that the choices he made turned out to be advantageous in some way. He hadn't ever really put much stock in destiny or anything like that. He had always thought things happened by chance and that you just did the best you could. If what Clea said was true, and it seemed an extremely odd coincidence otherwise, then what did that mean for Gray, for all of them?