Chapter 20 #2
Instead, I found myself in a sprawling encampment.
Dozens of tents like the one I'd come from littered the sands and men and women hurried to and from them dressed in varying materials of leather and cotton. Some had weapons strapped to their hips, some had bows on their backs, some carried no weapons at all and dressed in lighter fashion. Cotton and silk pants of all colors with wide legs that billowed in the light breeze, matching shirts with short sleeves that kept their arms free for movement. Their feet were covered in the thinnest of slippers. Those who wore leather wore boots, cotton shirts under their leather vests, and pants made of a thicker material I couldn’t imagine was comfortable.
They were the ones who wielded weapons but they didn't seem to be ordering the others about.
Rather, the camp seemed to flow with ease as though everyone had a role and knew it well.
Beyond this camp, there was no sign of the Underground or the city above it, of home. Just an endless expanse of sand burning in the bright sun and clear blue skies stretched as far as even my enhanced eyesight could see. I whirled to Zya as she emerged from the tent behind me.
“Where are we?” I demanded.
“I think it’s time I take you to Gryfon,” she said simply and turned away from me. Her braids swung back and forth against her shoulders as she walked along the line of tents toward, I suspected, the slightly larger one at the end.
Some members of the camp turned to stare as we passed.
I avoided their gazes as best as I could, scratching at the itchy fabric of my gray supervisor’s uniform as I followed after Zya who seemed far more comfortable in this camp than I was.
I wondered then how long I'd been unconscious, how long she and the others had had to get used to their surroundings.
“We saved you!” someone was shouting from inside of the large tent as we approached it.
“We didn’t ask to be saved!” a familiar voice shouted back.
At the sound of it, I lunged forward and threw the flap back to enter the tent.
The argument stopped at once, every inhabitant of the tent turning to face me.
My gaze drifted over the men and women in leather seated at a large, circular table, to the other warriors gathered on the fringes, including the man with the silver hair and striking blue eyes who leaned against a wooden pole in the corner, frowning.
Then I turned to the other side of the table where Roxy, Kane, and Hugh sat, the latter’s leg healed entirely, not even a bandage remaining.
Darius stood behind them, having obviously leapt up from the singular abandoned chair beside Roxy.
His face was flushed red with anger and his chest heaved with the lingering emotion as his burning gaze found mine.
“Darius,” I breathed, true relief flooding through me for the first time since I'd awoken. “You’re alright.”
“Hardly,” he snapped. “These barbarians won’t take us home.”
I flinched. Barbarians? Home?
“Darius,” Roxy tried the gentler tactic, reaching up to place a comforting hand on his arm.
He softened but only slightly.
“You cannot return home,” one of the men on the opposite side of the table said in a way that let me know it wasn’t the first time he'd informed my friend of this fact.
“The leaders of the Underground will have patched up the hole by now. The Geist will be aware of the threat. There will be no way in. Not again.”
The Geist? I stared at the man who'd spoken.
“Who are you?” I asked, stepping forward. “Where are we? Where have you taken us?”
“The middle of nowhere,” Darius muttered and crossed his arms as he returned to his seat.
I drifted toward my friends, Zya following close behind me. We stood behind them, looking down at the two men and one woman who sat across from us, frowns on their weathered faces. The man who'd spoken, middle-aged and balding, sighed as he leaned forward.
“There's so much you don't know and I’m afraid we don’t have time to explain,” he said. “Not yet. We must get to safety first. Then, I swear, we'll answer your questions.”
“Safety?” Zya questioned, giving a pointed glance to the warriors who surrounded us. “Are we not safe in your camp?”
“It isn’t us you have to fear, young one,” the woman beside the man spoke.
She was younger than the men, her dark hair only showing the first signs of gray, and she was well-muscled beneath her leathers.
Strong arms crossed as she leaned back in her seat, glaring at all of us in a way that was spectacularly unimpressed.
“No one has escaped the Underground since it was created.
Until now, that is. Your disappearance will be noted.
We'll be suspected of aiding you. The creators of your prison will undoubtedly come for you. Far too much is at risk to allow your escape.”
“Creators?” Zya asked, eyes widening. “You don’t mean…the Geist? You think the gods themselves are after us?”
The woman scoffed.
“The Geist, yes,” she answered. “Gods, they are not.”
I eyed her for a moment. In any other circumstance, I might like her.
“Then we're doomed,” Zya muttered.
“Hardly,” the first man scoffed. “We’ve taken on the Geist before and we're prepared to do so again. Though I would rather face them with more of our forces and far more provisions than we have now. So we'll be returning to Archí.”
The man and woman on either side of him nodded in agreement with the plan, clearly having heard it before.
The warriors gathered on the sides of the tent seemed to nod as well.
All but the silver-haired man in the corner, Gryfon, who, I’d noticed, hadn’t taken his eyes off of me since the moment I’d entered.
“Archí?” Kane asked.
“Our homeland,” the third man with thick gray hair and a patchy beard replied with a bow of his ancient head. “It's where our leaders are and where the best ones to answer your questions will be.”
“How did you get past the border?” I asked then, remembering the magic around the tunnels and how long I'd had to practice phasing, how long I’d had to hold my intangibility, just to exist beyond it, invisible as I was.
The three at the table exchanged a glance as the tent fell into silence.
“You,” someone spoke from the corner.
I recognized the voice immediately, a sensation of familiarity nagging at the back of my subconscious. But then I looked up to find Gryfon pushing off of the tent pole to step forward and knew that couldn't be right.
“You broke through them with your power.”
I stared at him. Power?
“The shadows,” Roxy gasped.
Gryfon nodded but the others looked away, avoiding my gaze.
“How's that possible?” I asked. “Is that possible?”
“Apparently,” Darius muttered.
“The wards surrounding the Underground and Sanctuary, separating them from each other and the world beyond, are made of light,” Gryfon explained, his gaze remaining on me as he did.
“Your power is of darkness. When you…imploded, you blew a hole straight through them. We were able to move into the tunnel the moment the wards dissipated. That’s how we found you. ”
“You were just…waiting outside?” Zya asked, suspicious.
“We’ve been looking for a way into the Underground for centuries,” he said. “We’re always waiting outside. Always.”
His gaze met mine once more and something sparked in those blue eyes I simply couldn’t look away from. Something about him felt so familiar, even though I knew it was impossible we'd met before. But then he shifted his gaze away from me to my friends sitting before me and that expression hardened.
“The rest of you can either come with us or risk survival in the desert, as you wish,” he announced. “We’re here for her anyway.”
He nodded once in my direction before striding purposefully out of the tent, leaving the flap blowing in the breeze behind him.
It was then I realized why he seemed so familiar to me. It was his voice. Deep and drawling. Smooth. Like velvet.