Dreams of Fury: Descendants of the Fall Book IV by Hodges Aaron

Author:Hodges, Aaron
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780995142213
Published: 2021-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

21

The Fugitive

Erika struggled to make headway as the crowd pressed against her, the dense bodies threatening to swallow her up. Refugees from all across southern Flumeer had converged on Mildeth, fleeing before the retreating army and the Tangata surging across the kingdom. The chaos had made it easy to enter the city unnoticed by Amina’s guards, but it complicated her plans. The unwanted Calafe, after more than a year spent camped without the walls, had finally been allowed into the city. If she could not find them, she had already failed.

Alongside her, Cara struggled with the crowd even more than Erika. While she had healed enough to fly on their journey, she wore a jacket they had taken from the farmhouse to cover her wings. Rumours of the winged creatures that harried the queen’s army had raced ahead of the battle, and now instead of looking upon the Anahera in awe, the Flumeerens spoke of them in the same breath as the monstrous Tangata.

But it was the crowd itself that was causing Cara problems. She had coped fine in Fogmore, but that had been a backwater village compared to the population of Mildeth. Thousands surged around them, more people than the young Anahera had ever seen before, and Erika could see the anxiety in her friend’s eyes, could feel it in the strength of Cara’s grip around her hand. She was pretty sure that grip was the only thing keeping the Goddess from fleeing into the sky.

Thankfully, Cara kept her feet on the ground, at least for now. They were chasing a rumour that the Calafe refugees had taken up residence in a plaza not far from the citadel itself. She wondered what Amina would think of that, should the woman survive long enough to return. Erika still prayed the Tangata would strike the queen down, but given her Anaheran strength and the human magic she wielded, the odds seemed stacked in Amina’s favour.

A princess could dream though.

Finally the crowd began to shift. They went with the flow rather than trying to force themselves in a particular direction. All roads in Mildeth lead towards the citadel—it was only once you reached the mountain on which the citadel perched that the way would be barred. Certainly, the nobles Amina had left to oversee the city would keep themselves aloof from the refugees flooding through their gates.

Still, the crowd thinned as they approached the citadel, as the refugees were taken in by those households and taverns willing to help, or more often found a spot on the sidewalks, plazas or parks—wherever they could find space not already occupied by another lost soul. Compared to the tranquil city she had last left just months before, Erika could hardly believe the raucous difference now.

But then, the Tangata were coming.

They found the plaza they wanted crowded like all the others, but it was difficult to tell immediately whether the rumours had been true, that the Calafe were the ones who occupied this space. Certainly, the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.