The cart stopped, startling a yelp out of her. She opened her eyes, expecting to see the door of the cart shelter at Thyal’s house. Instead, the cart had stopped a dozen meters from the path to the house. She looked at Thyal, then turned to look where he looked, with a frown darkening his sharp-boned, tanned face.
Two men stood on the pathway to the front steps
and main door of the house. One faced the cart. The other turned around from
the door and looked at the children in the cart.
“Go, go, go,” Thyal snarled, and slapped the
controls for the cart. “Security. The intruders are at our house!”
The men yelled and raced after them. The cart
seemed to crawl as it moved forward. M’kar wanted to jump out of the cart and
run, but she knew it went faster than she could run. The smart move was to save
her energy. She turned to look as the men ran and shouted, cursing Thyal and
the cart and her.
M’kar understood those words. The language. They
were speaking Nisandrian. She hadn’t heard Nisandrian since leaving Nisandros.
She wanted to laugh at how strange the words sounded, but she couldn’t breathe.
Everything felt wrong. She should be able to fight and defend herself, but her
head pounded and her limbs had frozen. What was wrong with her? Had they
already shot her with a tranquilizer, and she didn’t feel the dart?
Go away. Go away! Leave me alone! I’m not going
back.
The bird cries and squeaks and pips and creaks of all the creatures filling her head to the point of bursting exploded into fury.
A dark cloud swirled down out of the sky and enclosed the two men. They screamed and cursed and waved their arms and spun around, trying to break through the cloud. It grew thicker. A matching cloud of darkness snaked across the ground. The animal sounds erupted out of M’kar’s head and into her ears. The darkness reared up like a wave and engulfed the men. They went down, lumpy shapes that writhed and screamed.
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