By the Sword - By Sara Flower Page 0,25

she thought.“This is something that I must do alone. I want you to manage things for me while I am gone, which will not be long. Ready your army, and I will return in two days.”

“As you wish, my queen.”

*****

In her cot, staring at the ceiling, Talya thought about the last few days. It was well past midnight and everyone else in the barracks was sleeping except for her. Deep breathing and a mixture of soft and loud snores filled the air, but she was not the least bit tired.

The fact that Tanel was still angry with her did not sit well.

Hanten wouldn’t have held a grudge like this.

Talya closed her eyes. She missed him so much. She always would.

Why did Tanel have to turn his back on her now, of all times?

Then there was Edandir. Talya didn’t despise her father as much as she had before the journey. In fact, he mattered more to her now than she cared to admit.

She swallowed, ignoring the lump that had formed in her throat.

That is what scares me. If I get close to him, something bad could happen. Life just seems to work that way.

Talya sighed. She hated being afraid.

She remembered how they had all nearly lost their lives back in Malinor until God had put an end to Jalarn’s spell. She had been within seconds of death three times during the last week, all because of him.

Talya closed her eyes and imagined the ways that she could catch Jalarn off guard and kill him once they met again. There had to be some way to beat him. She would find it.

As her thoughts finally brought her into a fitful sleep, she dreamed.

A scrawny, sandy-haired boy of about nine was running through grimy, deserted streets. It was overcast and eerily dark. He was carrying a small, dirty sack of something.

He stopped in front of a small shack and opened the dilapidated door. Inside, it was dark, dirty, and dusty.

Talya could almost smell decaying food and human filth in the tiny cabin.

The lad stopped at the foot of a bed where a frail young woman lay. She appeared barely able to breathe, much less move.

She opened her mouth and wheezed.

It was so vivid, so real.

Then, the dream abruptly changed to the young lad fist fighting with two other boys. They weren’t wearing armor. Instead, they wore ragged tunics. A masked warrior stood and watched in the distance.

Tears streamed from the boy’s reddened eyes, forming pale streaks down his mud-covered face. The others, a little older, showed no emotion at all.

It was a battle to the death. The largest of the three continually pounded the smallest child in the face until he moved no more. He ran at the sandy-haired boy and they punched and kicked at one another like wild animals. Both of their faces were severely bloodied.

Talya wanted to reach out and stop them. They were only children. But she couldn’t move.

“Stop!” she shouted.

The wispy boy knocked down the larger one after kicking him hard in the face. He stood over him with a mad glare in his eyes. His tears had dried now. He bent over and punched him in the mouth so hard that several of his teeth flew out.

Rage had taken over the once tear-stricken youth. He finally beat the bigger boy to death.

The warrior walked up to the only surviving child.

“Now your mother may eat,” he said.

It was uncanny to Talya how a voice from a living soul could sound so hollow. She wanted to strike him. She had never seen anything so horrific in all of her life.

The knight gave the waif of a child some bread. The boy sprinted away, back down the dreary streets to the small shack. He shoved the loaf into the sick young woman’s hand, but she did not move.

“Ma, I’ve got some food for you! You can eat this whole loaf. Ma! Wake up…”

His mother lay motionless underneath torn shreds of blanket. Her skin was grey. The woman that barely looked old enough to be his mother had been dead for a while.

Her young son touched her face. Shocked from the iciness of her skin, he jerked his hand back.

He stared at her for a few seconds before crying a loud, mournful wail that echoed down the streets.

Talya awoke, sitting upright in her cot. She wiped the sweat from her forehead, panting. She could still hear the boy’s cry in her mind. She had never dreamed anything that was so realistic