Zenora

Sunday evening.

We packed everything in the bags and we were loading them onto the Rhydian. We strapped everything on his armour while he didn’t even flinch by the extra weight that was put up on him. Dennis was a bit reluctant about the idea to ride the Rhydian, but since the truck engine was broken down, he didn’t really have a choice.

I got familiar with the way the Rhydian thought as I had been trying for an hour or two already and the beast accepted all I wanted from him. It was actually a nice and docile creature once I got to know him. But besides me getting to know him, it was still difficult to mount him though. He was big, so I let him lay on his belly so I could step up on his foot and climb on top. I rode him for a few minutes and stepped off thanking him by caressing his snout, which he answered with a slight happy growl.

Suddenly, I heard engines rolling and soon after, two big vans with both horse trailers behind them came driving in. Dennis had called them to say where our truck was attacked, so they came to us, instead of the location we were actually heading to before we got attacked.

They all got out of the vans, seven of them in total. Six men and one female. All of the men were looking quite strong, with big muscles, tight-fitting black shirts, pants in survival colours and big black boots. Some of them even had tattoos on their arms and necks of strange figures which I couldn’t describe. The largest of the men had this aura around him like he was the leader. He held his head up and walked straight up to Dennis, only to glance at me for a second and turned to Dennis again.

“Are you alright and have you set up a perimeter?” He asked Dennis with a heavy voice.

“Yes, after the attack, Anna and I set up devices, set to go off if a new intruder would approach us.” Dennis explained to him, standing straight with his arms behind his back. He had turned into a military pose as soon as he had seen the man approach.

Anna had told me she was an engineer, but I didn’t see any devices. Nor have I seen that they placed them somewhere. They must have put them up in spots where I couldn’t see them and did that when I was unconscious after I hit my head.

“Alani, Michael and Tom, perimeter check and Charlie you go with Brandon to load off the horses and pack them with our supplies.” The leader said with a firm voice and the men did exactly what he commanded.

The leader seemed a bit annoyed that we had to use the horses now, instead of driving with the trucks to the destination he and Dennis agreed upon at first. But there was not enough room in the trucks for all the supplies we had brought along and no extra place to sit for us three. So now we had to use the Rhydian and the horses.

The man intimidated me a bit with his great built and deep voice, but somehow I was not afraid of him. Maybe it was because I was used to a strict life and a commanding attitude from Dennis, but even though I was, I didn’t believe it was that. I think it was because I liked the way he talked to his men, firm but in a somewhat caring way. By the reaction of his men, I could tell they admired their leader and would follow him without a single question.

But nearly forgotten the woman, I switched my gaze and looked at her from a distance. When she came out of the van, I was stunned at her beauty. I mean, I know I’m not the ugliest person on the planet, but looking at her just amazed me.

She had gorgeous long silver-grey hair even though she was not an old woman. I could tell because she had no wrinkles on her face and she walked with a straight back, giving me the idea that she was fit and in the glory of her life. She wore a blue dress of a light fabric, which was waving in the soft wind that blew between the trees of the forest.

Suddenly, I heard this soft voice. “Hi there Emily, nice to meet you.”

I looked straight at her, she was still standing by the last car and not moving her mouth. So how could I have heard that?

“Because I can communicate with you from a distance and I can read your mind, silly.” Again, just whispers, but apparently, they were in my head!

She giggled softly from behind the car while walking toward me. I was completely blown away by the way she communicated, not noticing my mouth was open in awe.

“My name is Cirilya and I am a mage.” She said now in a normal voice and not in my head, but still I couldn’t answer her!

And when she came closer, I noticed her ears! They were pointy and slightly bigger than human ears. She had beautiful earrings in them with tiny, delicate, silver chains connecting the bottom rings with the upper ones. And they were moving just as light as her blue wavy dress. By her total vision I was wondering…

“Thank you and yes I am an Elf.” She said smiling at me, knowing that I called her earrings beautiful in my mind and thought of Elves because of her pointy ears.

I hadn’t said a word out loud yet, so shame took over this awkward situation. But finally, I managed to say a shy hi and gave her a hand in greeting. I wanted to know more about Elves and wanted to ask her a rain of questions, but the leader of the men walked up to us and came standing in between me and Cirilya when he spoke up to me.

“Hi there, my name is Brock.” He introduced himself, taking my hand and shaking it.

He had these big green astonishing eyes, blond hair cut short, broad shoulders and from this close, he looked awfully good, sexy even. He gave me shivers down my spine and I couldn’t answer him either! I saw Cirilya smiling, and suddenly I was remembering that she just said she could read my mind!

“Okay, stop thinking these sexy thoughts about him and just answer normally now, please!” I thought in my head still holding Brock’s hand and saw Cirilya smirk and trying to hold her laugh. Ashamed of my thoughts I let go of his hand and tried to look away from him, hoping that she wouldn’t say a thing and luckily, she didn’t.

“Did you do that?” He pointed at the Rhydian, which was still standing all packed up like a good behaving donkey.

“Uh yes, I guess so.” I answered slightly smiling but still ashamed. Although Brock didn’t seem to notice that.

“Dennis just told me you can control it, which I still cannot believe. Can you show it to me?” He asked politely and I nodded gently.

I commanded the big Rhydian to walk towards me and when he did, Brock’s men came rushing in to be ready to charge into the beast, all drawing swords that they picked up from their supplies, which they had unloaded earlier as commanded by their leader.

I stepped in front of the beast and made him stop before the men could hurt him. They were all astonished by this sight and couldn’t believe that a girl like me could command this big creature, a creature that was never controlled before.

Brock started smiling but stopped when he saw I looked at him.

“Hmph, I have seen the biggest and strongest hunters having trouble with controlling a normal-sized tiger and yet you, just turning twenty-one without any experience, control a full-grown Rhydian without a sweat? You, little one, amaze me already.” He smiled slightly now and his men were startled by it, did they not see his smile often?

“I guess you will be riding the Rhydian? Anna can join you and luckily for Dennis I have a spare horse he can ride.” Brock said. Dennis sighed in relief, not having to ride the Rhydian. Brock then commanded his men to saddle up and soon we were on our way.

To where? I don’t have a single clue.