Forces Collide - Jamie Wilson (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📗

towards me as I played with Gaelira's scales, running my fingers along her.

"Nuala, can I speak with her alone?" a male voice asked, a hint of surprise evident in his voice.

"Ah, so you do remember her still, of course," Nuala replied. I heard her move out onto the balcony, shutting the door behind her.

It was then that I raised my head to look at the newcomer. My eyes wandered over his appearance trying to recognize him.

The tall elf that stood before me was muscular. His eyes were a well-known warm chocolate brown and his hair was the same color. It reached to his shoulders right now, though I was sure when I left home it was a lot shorter. His face was more angular, I could tell that he was fully grown up now.

As I thought back to my life with my true people, I knew who he was. "Drannor!" I exclaimed in honest amazement. "What are you doing here?" I stood up and move over towards him a bit.

"I'm glad you remember me," Drannor laughed. "Missed you, Gem."

"Missed you too, Drannor. Still I cannot believe you came here," I told him.

He chuckled and as I moved a little closer to him I had the feeling Gaelira was about to do something. Sure enough I stepped just in the way as she whacked into my back, having leapt at Drannor in annoyance. As she tried to glide away to the ground I caught her and said in my mind, 'What's the matter, Gaelira?'

'You're ignoring me, put me down,' she growled in her mind.

'Gaelira, I have not seen Drannor for fifteen years. Let me spend some time with him alone,' I scolded her.

I did not get an understandable answer from her in words, but her feelings told me she would. Once I was sure she was not playing tricks on me, I put her down on the ground.

"There is another reason I came, Gem." Drannor turned from me for a second and called, "Nuala, can you come in here please?"

He then took a seat on the crudely made couch, while I sat on one of the other seats. Before I was settled, he tapped the seat next to him, and I laughed, shifting across to him. Obviously he had remembered the way things used to be between us.

Gaelira followed, grumbling under her breath as she did. Nuala came, in to some extent not surprised by where I was. She'd known about Drannor and I while I had actually lived in Anthatal.

"Nuala, the elves need you again," Drannor said, once she had taken a seat.

"What's happened this time?" Nuala asked, in interest.

"Those damn orc's have decided to raid the woods near Anthatal again. Some of the farmers that live outside the walls are starting to come in, looking for refuge," he explained.

Nuala sighed in annoyance. "Here we have a problem. I cannot leave Gem again, Gaelira is too young to travel such a distance."

"That’s easily fixed, leave them here with me. I can follow behind you, but at a slower pace. We won't leave until Gaelira can fly," Drannor offered.

I smiled. That plan would work. There was no way I would be near the fighting which I knew was what she was after. There was no chance that she would allow that until I could defend myself.

"Sounds fair, why did I not think of that when you turned up?" Nuala mused.

"Maybe because you were not really thinking about having to return all of a sudden?" I suggested. To remain here with Drannor would be nice.  I was looking forwards to that indeed. By allowing me to stay here with him, I was being given the chance to spend time with him alone.

"Possibly."

“Well, there are some friends in the orphanage that I simply do not want to leave behind,” I told her. I thought about Collin, Sam, Gemma and Ashlere - where did I know her name from?.

“We’ll go get them now.” Nuala then looked at Drannor. “Will you stay here and keep Gaelira safe?”

“As you wish.” Drannor looked at me. “Don’t be too long.”

“We won’t take long, I have to leave as soon as I can,” Nuala said. That said, we hurried to the orphanage.

I could see the four children playing in the street together. I moved towards them, while Nuala stopped a little way from them and watched. “Hello my friends,” I said in a cheery voice.

The first person to look at me was a tall sixteen year old fair haired boy, the only boy in the group. His light grey eyes brightened in reorganization of me. “Where did you disappear to?”

“We went to your room as you asked only to find you missing,” a grey eyed blond girl, twin of the boy told me.

“I was adopted as you can see. You would all like it to be out of there, wouldn’t you?”

They were all crowding around me, Sam giving me a giant hug. I noticed that Ashlere was looking at Nuala, as if she knew her. I was looking on in interest, glancing at Nuala.

To me the expression on Nuala’s face was the same as the one she’d had when she’d found me.

“You’re all going to come home with me, especially you, Gem, and you, Ashlere."


Chapter 3

Several weeks passed by as Drannor and I waited for Gaelira to grow up enough that she could stay airborne. He did not want to leave until she could stay in the sky and frequently we all went out into the open, out of sight of the guards of the town, to see us and I would help her learn to take off. The others were all easily amused by her; they seemed to become good friends to her.
“I like your friends a lot,” Gaelira told me. “Especially: the boy Collin. He'd make a good Uruohtar one day. He's very attentive when he watches us.”

“You think so?’” I asked.

“Yes, I'm sure he'd be good for it one day.”
As the day for our departure loomed ahead of us in a few days time, I knew that the people of Adurna should get to know just who they had been looking after all this time. Drannor agreed, he thought it was worth showing them that we could still get on without trouble. After all for the last few weeks we'd been hiding here unnoticed. Not to mention I had lived her for fifteen years, right under their noses.
No trouble did I ever cause either. Now I truly wondered why it was that we were so unliked by Lindan Marcos. He was able to do many of the things we had. Not to mention he was immortal, unless someone, hopefully me killed his wyvern. Rhothilion had flown over the town once, but he had not come down. He'd been hunting most likely. Plus Lindan Marcos did not really bother about checking in with the lord of Adurna very often. Maybe because we were so far from Nuduien.
But then again, who was I to ever know what he was thinking when it came to this town? After all, to him it obviously meant nothing. All he ever did was recruit the young boys into his army, not that that was something I was going to allow for much longer.
Once I got back home and learnt how to fight, his reign would be over. He probably thought we were just hiding in the woods, too scared of him. That was not going to be the case for much longer. I would see to that myself.
Gaelira nudged me playfully. “What are you thinking about, little one?”
“You’re the little on, not me at the moment,” I teased. “Just thinking about what will happen soon. Thinking about the human’s false king, and the fact that he probably thinks we are cowards waiting for him to come in and conquer us.” I laughed scornfully. “I know my people are nothing of the sort.”
“So do I. I've known for a long time that I would have a hard job ahead of me when I found you. Bizandra told me once, when she checked to see if I had hatched yet.”
“She told you while you were in your egg?”
“Yes.”
So on the morning of our planned day to leave, I got up and when I saw everyone else waiting for me, I told them, "I'm going for a walk with Gaelira while you all finish eating. I shall not be long."
"Want me to come?" Drannor asked. I knew he was not willing to let me out of his sight. I did not however, know why that was.
“We should reveal ourselves to the world alone. I don't think anyone would dare to harm her with me standing nearby,” Gaelira said.
“You're right, Gaelira, we will do that,” I said. "I'll just be gone for a few minutes. Then we will come back and we'll all leave this place."
I knew that it was time to leave, the soldiers would undoubtedly be on their way again. We had to leave before they got here, I did not want Collin and Sam separated by them. If I could help it, Collin would not be taken like so many others.
Just then, someone knocked on the door. Who would come up here? I wondered, hurrying over to the door. Drannor did not endeavor to stop me, which was not usual. Typically he insisted to get the door, not me. I opened the door a little and looked through. A youthful woman, with silver eyes and auburn hair, stood there.
"Hello Gem. Nuala sent me," the woman said.
I let her in, and shut the door then looked at her in bewilderment. "Why did she send you, a human to me?" My observations told me that she was very deprived; her clothes were patched and threadbare.
"I'm here because Nuala sent me to make your wyvern a saddle. She already paid me for them," the woman replied.
It was then that Gaelira came walking over to her, her head bowed as she could not raise it up properly, the roof was too low. She was about the size of a small horse's full size in length alone now and she ate almost the same amount as a pony. Only she ate meat, and that would start to attract attention soon if we did not leave.
The human bowed her head to Gaelira and then undid the bundle she'd been carrying. I watched as she revealed a lot of leather, and some uncomplicated tools, of which I took little notice.
She got to work and before long, a saddle was made. After she'd finished she looked at me and said, "I'll show you how to put this on her, and then I must depart."
"One question first, how do you know so much about wyverns and anything to do with them?" I asked. It was starting to bug me how much she seemed to know about my wyvern's kind.
"I used to be an Uruohtar. My wyvern was slain, many years ago. Now I work behind Lindan Marcos' back, helping the occasional new wyvern Rider like you to obtain a saddle." I noticed the tone of her voice; she obviously did not wan to talk of that.
She then proceeded to show me how to put them on Gaelira. Gaelira simply squatted down as much as she could, to make things easier for me. The straps