The Thorian Sagas. 2. Insurrection.

The invading force; psychologically and physically exhausted, walked ever closer to the city. It had taken them almost a week from the coast where they had landed, to get even this far. They could just see the flag flying from the highest point in the city; the water tower.

They congratulated themselves on having got almost to the end of the worst time in their entire lives. First, the difficult sea voyage, that had seemed never ending, with its cruel tortures; lack of sleep, inability to keep food down; fear of failure before they had even begun.

Then this. Slogging through sand in the overwhelming heat that made the eyes ache, and the head to throb. Then the never-ending thirst.

Everything they ate had sand in it. It seeped everywhere into their clothing, their eyes, their mouths. Into every sensitive and delicate orifice. But that had merely been a foretaste of what surrounded them. They could hear animals moving, getting closer, hunting. Hunting them? Yet, those animals never came close enough to be seen or to interact with them.

Despite all of that, and the terrors that the overnight hours brought; the cold during the long nighttime hours was the worst. The heat of the day slowly bled away into the night air, making it almost comfortable to sleep for an hour or two. It was a short-lived comfort before it then became much colder.

They did not understand it.

Fires helped, but you would have needed to have been sitting in the middle of it to get the warmth everywhere you needed it to be.

The desert nights became just as trying as those sleepless nights aboard the ships.

The wasteland was an unrelenting master, just like that lone Thorian, who came to their city each month and dragged away the cream of their young women; the tributes, from the families that they loved, never to be heard from again.

Their only consolation was that even this would soon be behind them. Just a little longer, and then all of this hardship and terror would have been worth it.

Fenn would have surrendered peacefully by then, as had been agreed upon, and without a second of conflict and without a drop of blood being shed to achieve it.

Tomorrow would see them welcomed into the city. It would be a peaceful way to overturn the treaty, if they understood it correctly.

There would be no more tributes sent out from here ever again if this worked out as they intended. It would be a peaceful rebellion. Passive resistance to villainy.

Such naïve dreams and rosy-eyed dreamers did not survive well at the hands of tyrants.

Let the Thorians do their worst! They would accept whatever punishment was thrown at them for this.

Everyone knew the tales of what Thorians did to those who resisted them or went against them.

They were terrified, but knew that they could say nothing. Theirs would be a small sacrifice to pay in the longer game.

If the worst came to worst, their sacrifice would be the first spark that would set all of the cities on fire to rise up even more strongly against their overlords.

By the time the Thorians discovered what the women had accomplished, it would be too late do anything about it, without being seen even more clearly for the tyrants that they were.

Their thoughts, and their fears and concerns, gave them little comfort. This would be the first step in a continuing war, if that was what it would take to change things.

However, that, was when the weather around them changed again. It was as though fate itself was conspiring with the Thorians against them, holding them back.

They could not know that Liam was playing his games with them; determined to wring hours, days even, keeping them back from the city. He and Monique had just discovered each other in that most personal of ways, and he was not about to give that up easily, without savoring it in greater depth and for at least another night or two. He had waited most of his life for this intimate moment, and he would not have it interrupted by these spineless interlopers that he’d followed for the last few weeks in his mind, and through the shared thoughts of others, while trying to protect them from being afraid of their own shadows; turning tail, and running.

But they hadn’t done that. He could at least give them credit for that.

They were not sure what was happening now. They could hear the ‘boom’ of a thunderstorm approaching them, but there was no obvious heavy downpour of rain, though there were ominous clouds moving in, above them, and a suggestion of wind speeding across the desert face, advancing toward them if the deepening haze of wind-blown sand was any indication.

There was nowhere they could hide from it.

Then they were in the middle of it. Lightning flashing around them, terrifying them; standing as they were above the waist-high vegetation; vulnerable to everything, especially the stinging sand.

They sought shelter within their immediate vicinity. There was none, so they had to sit down where they were in the questionable shelter of the scrub around them, and wait until it passed, keeping their heads down, covering their heads and their ears to protect against the sand and the noise, hoping nothing would creep in on them as they sat there, helpless, with eyes closed.

The dry desert air magnified the sound, giving the illusion that they were sitting in the depths of a kettle drum that was giving voice to this symphony of the weather, with its lulls and crescendos and diminuendos, as it raged on around them.

The wind strengthened and swirled, picking sand up in rotating spouts, vacuuming the sand around them down to a firmer surface, even down to bare rock, in places. It tugged at their clothing and hair, trying to lift them too. They interlinked their arms and prayed. Weather like this had never been part of their lives in the shelter of the cities they had left.

Too late for regrets!

There was nothing they could do. They were unable to move under that onslaught other than to turn their backs to it, feeling it pushing them. Lifting the bushes, plucking them out of the sand all around them and sending them higher into the sky also.

Now, without even the little shelter that those bushes had afforded, the women rose to their feet, still with their arms linked, two, three, four of them together to ensure that none of them was picked up like those bushes, feeling other bushes tumbling in around them, hitting at their legs. Some bushes had sharper thorns, and other had a stinging feel to them, much like the sting of a nettle. They could not resist. The bushes herded them, pushing them ahead of them; forcing them to retreat no matter how hard they resisted.

Eventually, they were pushed into a shallow gulley where there was shelter from the wind, and where they could wait it out as the bushes bounced above them and as the sand cascaded in upon them. There would be no getting to the city until this had blown itself out, whenever that would be.

They huddled under the protection afforded by the few rocks jutting out above them.

It would soon be dark and cold again, as it seemed to be every night in this friendless, scrubby wasteland.

They had soon learned which bushes burned best and gave out the most heat. When the wind dropped, they would start their fires, dig into the last of their rations, eat well, despite the sand, and would then try to rest. They would reach the city tomorrow or the day after.

However, Liam still had other plans for them.

The desert did not see much rain, but when it rained, it poured. They saw more rain come down in just a few minutes than they usually saw in a month where they had come from, and with it, was a repeat of the same lightning and thunder that they had first seen.

That was not the end of it.

It got wet underfoot, deepening around their feet with each minute that went by.

It would be folly to stay where they were, or they would be swept away with the increasing rush of water that had worn this gully down in the first place over the eons. They clambered quickly up the side of the gully as the water… a trickle at first, then a stream... turned into a torrent. They felt the wind pick up again, pushing them farther away from the city as though a large hand was moving them back.

They could see nothing to give them their bearings in all of this blowing rain. There would be another day lost, maybe two.

Boril saw it all. He would have to help them. Liam was being selfish.

They could at least replenish their water, once they thought about it. He would remind them of that need.

There had been no reasoning with Liam about this disruption. But one should never try to reason with a man caught up in the first mad rush of love, and especially not with ten of them infected that way.

It would take these women another day or two, at least, to fight their way through the numerous barriers of scrub brush, built up between them and the city; but that had been Liam’s intent, now that he and Monique had found each other, and needed time together.

Boril felt sorry for these wet and bedraggled women. They were not used to this, and could never have expected any of this.

He’d watched carefully over them, just as Liam had. Why should they walk into defeat and failure?

That was the problem with Thorians. They too often saw only their own interest in everything.

However, both the Kelts and the Thorians were charged with looking after and protecting these four cities of women.

He sighed. Sometimes, Thorians needed to be reminded of the true state of things. Maybe it was time to interfere in their plans again, but in a not too invasive way. The end, would be the same, just arrived at in a different way.

‘What are you up to, my friend?’ Liam sensed Boril’s concerns and his mischievous intent.

‘I am going to do what I was charged with, Liam. To keep order. I am going to manage the wastelands and everything that transpires in it, now that you’ve had your moment of fun with them. Get back to your rest.’

Or whatever it was that he was doing. Some rest! Little as there would be of it.

‘You’ll find out soon enough what I have in mind. All I ask is that you step back from this when I ask. Don’t worry. It will all work out, and maybe even better than planned. But you, will stay on the sidelines for this one.’

‘Boril, my friend. I am hurt. Since when, did I ever question your authority or judgment?’

Boril shot back, but always with a touch of humor.

’Since when have Thorians ‘not’ questioned it! It was always the way of you Thorians.’

They knew each other too well to be offended, or to object.

Boril transferred his attention back to the beleaguered women. They’d got this far despite all of their fears and should be rewarded for that, at least.

He saw the three leaders, one from each of the delegations, huddled close together, trying to see their way forward now, plotting a new strategy. They knew little about Thorians, but they knew ‘nothing’ of Kelts. He had things to tell them that they needed to know.

A slow approach was always desirable this first time, seeking a way into their minds, using their own thoughts to piggy-back him, without scaring them.

What Stoker had done for Monique and her fellow warriors over the course of a year, he would do for these women in the next two days. He would give them confidence in themselves by letting them know he would be there to help them.

They would have to trust him; and they soon would.

It was time they learned of the true order of things… most of the time.

Liam and his fellow Thorians could have their moment of lascivious relaxation with those Fennian warriors, but Boril would not waste his time while they were otherwise disporting themselves.

He took three rounded pebbles from his belt and decided upon a course of action.

Monique would be the key to solving this; not Liam and not him, either. Stoker had set this ball rolling. Where it would stop, no one could know.