THE END OF BEGINNINGS

SIXTEEN (Part 2)

Geras wasn't very far at all.  He'd hurried back to the edge of the village, but stopped before returning to the brightly lit plaza.  He'd begun to sense the rage vibrating through the air the closer he had gotten to the low, stone wall that marked the outer edge of Agan.  He breathed in and out quickly, his pulse still racing.  He could feel adrenaline beginning to course through his body.  Geras had to push his focus past that, to calm the anxiousness of his own mind and find the one stalking in the dark.
A wave of the psychic fury crashed through the air.  It was heart-stopping and almost overwhelming.  Geras gasped as it consumed his abilities before suddenly retreating out of his reach.  He breathed deep then looked out into the night.  It had come from somewhere off to his left.  Moros stood in place, peering along the length of the wall.  The light of the rising moon helped him see a little better into the darkness between the burning crystals. The smoking shards were mounted on posts at long, sparse intervals along the Aganni boundary.
Geras looked toward the heart of the village, then turned all the way to his left.  He hurried along the waist-high, stone barrier at a little more than an anxious jog.  He shifted his eyes back and forth, looking ahead of him before glancing out into the dark blanketing the grassy hills.  Where is it, he thought fearfully.  I know it's out there.  But where? 
Come on, he shouted in his thoughts.  Show yourself!
Just at that moment, as if it were answering Geras' frustrated plea, the powerful presence brushed against his senses.  It was closer now, much closer.  It was also on the inside of the Aganni boundary.  Geras couldn't see it, but he knew it was there, stalking and pacing along the tall, timber-made inner wall that encircled the village.
Geras suddenly shifted his gaze to a figure moving to his left.  It was a person, an Aganni sentry walking slowly along his patrol line.  Geras hurried closer toward the young man.  "Hey," he whispered in the guard's language when he was only an arm's length away.  The thin man, a decade younger and a head shorter than Geras, flinched frightfully at the sound of the other man's voice.  Geras held his hands up so the sentry could clearly see them.  "I am Geras.  You know of me."
"Yes.  Why are you here," the sentry asked, his voice at a more normal volume than Geras'.
"There is danger.  You must sound your horn immediately."
"What danger?  Where?  I have seen nothing tonight.  I cannot interrupt the ceremony, my lord."
"There is danger.  Something...another dea'esh, I think, is about to attack the village.
"My lord, a dea'esh is very big.  Its feet are very heavy.  I would have seen and heard it coming.  I think you are having fun with me," the sentry said with smile and laugh as he patted Geras on the shoulder.
Geras grabbed the man's hand before he could pull it away.  "Listen to me," Geras said, practically growling.  "It is here.  And Aganni are going to die if you don't sound that horn!"
"But, my lord-"  The sentry was about to protest again.  His words were cut off, his thought dropping away into oblivion when something suddenly moved swiftly through the dark.  Both men felt the grassy ground under their feet tremble.  A brief, gurgled shout rang out from the shadows between the light of the crystals and the rising moon.
"What was that," the sentry asked nervously.
"It sounded like someone crying out," Geras whispered.
"Kibi'ayan is also on patrol.  He was over in that direction."
Geras stared into the shadows in front of them.  The furious presence was still there.  Its buzzing anger pummeled Geras' senses.  He wondered if he and the beast stalking in the dark were staring each other down, both with their eyes and their thoughts.
There was something else moving through the air.  It was softer and more subtle than the fury thundering into Geras' consciousness.  He barely sensed it at first.  It was pulsing through the narrow lanes of the village and out past the tall, wooden wall on his right.  It took Geras a moment to recognize what it was.  The sentry beside him made Geras realize the obviousness of the situation.  The shorter man was trembling as they stood there.  He was afraid.
And so is the dea'esh in the village, Geras realized.  The captured animal was afraid.  It was yearning desperately to be free and back...
Geras looked into the dark with an obvious thought at the front of his mind: ...With its mate.  "They're calling out to each other," Geras whispered to himself.  "They can sense each other."
The sentry turned to look at Geras questioningly.  He hadn't understood the language the man had spoken.  "My lord?"
Geras turned his head sharply to meet the man's frightened eyes.  "Sound the horn.  Do it.  Then follow me.  It's going to head for the ceremony."
Geras turned his back to the sentry.  The nervous man watched him head quickly toward the closest gate into the village.  With both hands shaking, the guard unhooked the hollow tube of hardened bone that had been dangling from the narrow belt on his waist.  The instrument was only half the length of his forearm with a shallow curve at its midsection and a flared, bell-shape at its end.  He pressed his lips to the narrow mouthpiece then breathed in deeply through his flared nostrils.  The racing thump of his heart pounded deafeningly inside his ears.  He was hesitating, his breath sitting in his inflated lungs.  He was afraid.  He was afraid of causing a distraction to the ceremony.  He was afraid of the villagers and elders that would be upset with him.  But, he was also afraid of whatever was lurking in the dark.  How was it going to react to the sound of his horn?
Geras arrived at the gate.  He pressed his hands against the stiff bindings tied around the shaved, splintery tree stocks of the wide door.  He glanced back toward the man standing silently at the wall.  His eyes met the sentry's.  Geras nodded his head reassuringly.  "Do it," he whispered loud enough to be heard across the gap between them.
The sentry closed his eyes.  His fingers tightened around the smooth, painted surface of the horn.  With his chest burning from the breath still held in his lungs, the frightened guard exhaled at last.  The current of air trapped in his body rushed up and past his lips with all the strength he had to move it.  An echoing, nasally blast exploded from the vibrating bell at the horn's end.  The mighty sound reached above the wall and into the moonlit night.