Iscladon Breaking (Book One in the Cerios Chronicles)

Chapter 5-Fight

Chapter 5

Fight

"Let's go," Eilan said impatiently, "we're wasting daylight, we can be at Kara Point in a couple of days if we hurry."

Kara Point was a penetrating peninsula with a port laying at the furthest part of it. It was the best place to start any expedition from, particularly if you didn't want to be in sight of land for very long.

It was generally unknown in the port itself that it was controlled by the rebels. It was a popular launching point for their excursions into the midst of Lake Cerios.

Slikver learned eventually that The Suns were in fact three ships, Alnyran, Alshyms, and Nm. Each of the ships worked with different parts of Lake Cerios as pirates, protecting the deep waters from expansion. The Suns were also apparently crewed entirely by non-human creatures, though their captain, Markus, was a Dhw'a Sabalh Mar, a light-walker. The reaction Yeerlin had to this was rather amusing.

"What do you mean, they aren't human?" Yeerlin demanded, "When I was on that ship, every one of them was human, and I'm sure I'd remember since I last saw them chasing me with weapons."

Salek smiled, "Markus has had several crews; I'd guess the one you saw was them trying to blend in. Most likely they were all light-walkers."

Yeerlin shook his head, "Great, psycho creatures after me, it was bad enough when I thought they were human."

There was little more he knew about the ships, aside from the fact that his father had once blown one of them up. He was more than a little worried by that fact, but it sounded like Salek was welcome aboard them, so he hoped that Markus wouldn't assume that he had inherited his father's more destructive tendencies.

Granted, he wouldn't be wrong.

Slikver couldn't help grinning at the thought, glad to have a family around him, even if they would be leaving soon.

Quaren had announced, after they had left the meeting place, that he would be leaving with Yeerlin, working to help further their efforts in the rebellion.

Slikver couldn't help but be sad at the thought of his brother and father, who he had barely been apart from since birth, leaving him to face something new and certainly strange on his own. He couldn't blame them, though, they were needed elsewhere, and he refused to consider the future until it came.

Besides, he had plenty else to deal with, between training, asking leading questions in the hope Salek slipped something about his former student, and trying to spend enough time with Eilan to learn the methods of the other Titan races, Slikver had almost no free time.

Which may have been a good thing, all things considered, as more time to think would not have been a good thing for him. He couldn't help but hear Salek's desperate voice whenever he talked to him, and he couldn't decide what to do.

He could always confront Salek, tell him what he knew and ask for the rest of the information, but Krios had warned him against it, and Slikver had a feeling that the creature knew better than him what he needed to know.

Between everything, he barely noticed the miles disappearing beneath their feet, or paws and wings in some cases. Before he had much chance to think, they had reached Kara Point, and the port that lied at its' tip.

The port was a rough place, but so packed with people that Slikver doubted there was much crime, as it would be difficult to find a time or place to make it go unnoticed.

When they arrive, it was nearing sunset, and a man was giving a rousing political speech to a group of aristocratic men and women.

"Who are we," he asked dramatically, "to allow a usurper to rule over us. Would we be any more than a group of pathetic squabbling rats if some cretin, some abomination of birth, was allowed to rule us all."