Book One: Rise of the King

Chapter Eighteen

 The banners left the handpicked warriors and the Night Guard on the west bank of the Kimer River. Anna had wanted to stay, but Gray insisted that she return to the village to tend to the wounded. She had convinced him to keep a medic, Danna, who she considered her prized pupil. Intuk had only been gone a few hours. There was no way he would be back in less than a week, but that was too long to wait. The Komeh would know there would be a problem at the mine soon, if not already. With nothing being delivered on the other end of the third conveyer, the Komeh wouldn't be able to miss it. He would have preferred to wait for Intuk to bring Benton Singer to him, but there was too much at risk. Intuk would have to make a push up the mountain and find them.

"We can spend the night here, but we've to get out of here in the morning." Gray told the Guard. "The Komeh are going to know something's wrong. We shut down part of their operation. They won't miss that."

"Then should we even stay?" Charlie asked, wondering what was going to happen now.

Gray frowned. "Even at a hard pace it's going to take us at least a day to get back to where we were. I'm not sure how long it's going to take to get all the way to the top of the mountain."

He sat down on a fallen tree, rubbed his hands over his face tiredly. He let out a heavy breath. "I could really use a vacation right now."

Nate grinned. "That'd be nice, wouldn't it?"

"Where would you go?" Eli asked.

Gray shrugged, looked off with a sigh, elbows on his knees. "Some place warm and lazy. Maybe the Keys."

"Key West would be nice." Charlie agreed, sitting down.

Gray shook his head slowly, pushed himself off the tree trunk. "Far away and long ago, my friends."

"So what now?" Nate asked.

"I just want to get this over with." Gray admitted. He walked toward Josan, who was standing off to the side, trying to catch as much as she could of their conversation. He gave her a little smile, stroked her cheek. She closed her eyes and focused on the feel of his hand on her skin. When his hand fell back to his side, her eyes caught his, held the strange new color.

"Eyes look wrong." She said in broken English.

"I know."

"You see what?"

"Everything." He whispered, sounding sad.

Gray let out a breath and turned to face the others. He looked at each of them in turn. There was Charlie, with his intelligent brown eyes. Nate had that easy smile. Eli still managed to hold onto his innocence. Gray felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Let's crash here tonight and take off as soon as the sun comes up." he decided. "In the meanwhile, I'm going to go for a swim."

That was exactly what he did, too. He found a place to stash his clothes and jumped into the river. The water was the perfect temperature and he didn't care that it was that weird brown color. He swam to the far bank and back. When he got back to the west bank, he saw Josan standing there. She was smiling at him. He grinned at her, splashed at her.

"Come out," she said.

"Come in," he countered, his tone suggestive toward her for the first time.

"I cannot swim," she replied, blushing and lowering her eyes shyly.

He was about to say something else, something more, but he stopped himself. He frowned, wondering what was wrong with him. He had never come onto her before and now was hardly the time to start seducing teenage girls. He let out a breath, moving closer to the bank.