The Thorian Sagas. 2. Insurrection.

That first night they had gone out—five of them, almost a week ago now—had been nerve-wracking. They had not known what to expect, or what would be coming at them out of the darkness. Their minds had played tricks until they’d learned to trust each other, always being drawn back to remember Stoker’s advice after he’d turned that wild pig loose into their midst, and letting them see that they were suddenly alive, and ready.

The first Frex had given them less than a second’s warning by taking a sudden intake of breath—barely heard—before it charged, as well as a low growl to freeze its prey, and to let others of its kind know what it was doing so that they could co-ordinate their attack.

That single second had been enough.

Those five had not frozen up with fear, nor had they been unprepared, sensing danger closing in around them.

Stoker had faced this each time he came through the wasteland to their city, and there had been only one of him to take on those threats, whereas there were five of them. Five of them outside of the city, but with all twenty of them linked in thought, experiencing it at the same time.

When these five went back into the city, the next five would go out, and they would all build on those experiences, gaining confidence, venturing a little farther and with more courage each time, as they rotated.

That necklace Stoker had presented them all with, brought their minds together, as though all twenty of them were outside of the city as one, and fighting off the Frexes.

It was over almost as quickly as it had begun, yet a full hour had gone by, as they could hear by the sonorous rumbling of the bell in the belltower in the middle of the city, ringing each hour.

Where had the time gone? It had seemed to be only a few minutes.

When they returned to the city after an hour of that, the adrenaline still flowing; all senses alive, they were all bloodied, jubilant, victorious, and full of a confidence they’d never felt before.

…As well as having a new appreciation of what 'life' was like.

They had just taken another step forward.

How had those Frexes known they were there?

How had ‘they’ known those Frexes had been stalking them?

They were questions that they would ask themselves often, over the next few days.

Wherever she went these days, Monique was usually armed. They all were. Stoker’s training had done that for them; for her, as well as giving her confidence in her own abilities. He had done that for all of them, but Stoker could no longer come to them, so they would have to adjust.

Peter had been another one like him, physically and mentally—another Thorian—and there was already a bond forming between them, even in the few hours that he had been in their city. It had been easy to trust him. Stoker had laid that foundation of trust.

Peter, was another ‘Stoker’, but with a different name, and younger. Would he stay the night? Would he continue their training?

This was not what Fenn expected of its warriors… consorting with the enemy, co-operating with them, giving them hospitality. Except Thorians were not the enemy. Those in the city were their own worst enemies.

The city council would have a lot to answer for, one day.

She laid her hand on that complete claw necklace that Peter, Stoker’s brother had presented her with, only hours earlier; the one she had tried so hard to win from Stoker each time he came.

She now had it, but she’d not won it as she’d hoped to do. Stoker had given it to her, as was his right; but she had indeed earned it. It had been a prize held just out of reach to encourage them all to work harder, to try a little harder. They were now beginning to taste of those rewards in their self-awareness and confidence to meet any challenge thrown at them.

She felt a strange power in that complete necklace, as though each claw was an amplifier to both her thoughts and to her senses. She could even feel the excitement and the impatience in the tributes, waiting impatiently below, but felt nothing of those two new ones, the two others that had been added moments earlier; the two from Fenn.

She knew why, and hastened to correct it.

Peter had left single-claw necklaces for them. They had not yet been given them, though that was being remedied even as she’d thought of it. She and her fellow warriors no longer questioned this strange thing that they knew in each other’s thoughts, but just did what was needed.

Then, she sensed those two tributes for herself, their fear and uncertainty, cruelly-felt at first, then slowly diminishing as this new world was opened up for them to peer into.

They felt at that moment that they were no longer alone. but that they were surrounded by new friends who wanted only to help them understand. The other tributes were helping there, too, helping to calm them in turn, reassuring them that what they feared, was not real, and trying to let them know what really awaited them, even if it was only a remote promise. A promise; but nevertheless, one that they knew they could believe.

However, the two new tributes would also be able to see those other, deeper thoughts… to sense the violent upheaval in Saltash a day earlier that had seen two bears attack them.

They could envisage two mountains of terrifying, short-tempered ferocity that intended to kill them, once those bears had finished off the man.

They’d sensed that, and the sudden terror that had been sparked in them by that attack, only to see it change to a fearful anger as they’d submerged their own fears to help someone who been nothing but kindness itself to them: Stoker. He had slowly dispelled their preconceived notions of how they would be treated in the time they had travelled together with him as their protector. They had never been so well protected before, or been so well considered.

At that moment, those tributes had united, to take on those never-before-seen animals, lending their help to the man they had all come to know.

That adventure and how it had unfolded was still fresh in their minds. They shared those thoughts and those pulse-quickening changes with these two neophytes, seeing their last moments coming at them as though they themselves had actually been there.

There was such a tumultuous flood of emotions for them to have to deal with in a brief moment of time, but they could handle it. Monique tried to slow it down for them, and lent her thoughts to that process to bring calm once more; to reassure them. If they could ever be re-assured after seeing those images. Still seeing them.

Her help was no longer needed, so she dragged her own conscious thoughts back to where she was now. On the wall.

There were so many things Monique could sense around her.

She was even able to sense Peter and that Yunk, hours away now, and on their way back to Golden. They were still ready for trouble if it came at them, though they’d left hours earlier.

Peter had been curious about her; protective, as Stoker had once been. He still was being protective of her, of them all, still concerned about them, so he was leaving that mental portal, open. She was thankful for that.

Each noise beyond the wall, was identifiable now. A cat; various larger animals. They were hunting, but at the same time, they were being called away from the city wall beneath her. Something was dispersing them, moving them away from the wall at that location. Perhaps in preparation for the tributes leaving the city the next morning to make sure they had a clear path out into the wasteland.

That could be the only explanation.

She sensed that the Frexes had already gone.

Thorians were doing that.

She felt that they were out there somewhere close, welcoming her into their select society. They knew about her, but their minds were shielded in some way and all she could detect were vague, ghost-like forms as though they were seen through murky water. She felt that they could sense her strongly enough in turn, but she caught only the faintest hint of them. They were afraid of overwhelming her senses; of damaging her with their intensity.

They were waiting out there, also eager for the tributes to emerge from the city that next morning as those tributes were equally eager to do. There was something deeply personal, promised in that meeting… and it would not be the first meeting between them either. They knew each other. Had met.

The tributes knew these men, these Thorians waiting for them. They were the same Thorians who had been at Saltash and had removed the bodies of those bears, and then had paid fealty to those tributes for their contribution to that fight to help their friend, despite their fears.

These tributes were the first group that had ever evinced such an eagerness to get out of the city and its protection, to meet that unknown fate. No longer unknown. The violence had not frightened them nearly so much as meeting those Thorians had infected them with a desire to meet everything head on, come what may.

Monique could feel their excitement and their impatience. They had been infected by what had happened to them in Saltash. The violence of that moment had even extended to involve Monique and her fellow warriors sitting behind the walls of Fenn, causing them to pause and to reach out to each other, and to try and give help to those in Saltash, but they had been too far away to help.

One of those Thorians out there was in her head more strongly than any of the others, but it wasn’t Stoker. She’d grown used to him, and how he’d patiently approached her, gradually pulling her in closer to him; first, to trade for that coat, and then encouraging her to challenge him for that necklace… this necklace.

He’d done that deliberately. She knew that now. It had been part of his larger plan.

Where had that year gone since then? It had not been a dream, though parts of it felt as though it had.

She touched at the necklace again and froze.

There was someone with her, yet not truly with her; someone standing beside her, yet not beside her; floating around her and probing gently at her thoughts: a Thorian, but not Stoker.

She was powerless to resist.