Darkness Risen (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 4) by Ako Emanuel Read Free Book Online

the Rite
of Solu,” Jeliya said to the group at large. “The Av’rujo gave me an image of
this place to av’tun to. She did not tell me where it was, though. So I went to
try and figure out if I had been here before.” She let Otaga and Pentuk lower
her to her pallet.
    “I wondered how we got here,” Staventu said,
nodding.
    “Itiri, would you take two of your scouts and see if
you can ascertain our position?” Otaga ordered, as Jahun’no came over to check
on Jeliya.
    “How do you feel?” he asked.
    “Well enough,” she said, not wanting to tell him
that she was bone tired. He considered.
    “Lor’den?” he asked quietly.
    She nodded. “I had a bout of it before. That’s what
drove me outside in the first place,” she admitted. “I hope I caught it in
time.” She also kept her voice low. The others politely ignored them.
    “We’ll see,” he replied, standing up and moving
aside to let a warru give Jeliya a bowl of food.
    She ate and watched her brothers and the Warru First
organize the egwae. Some began to clean up the signs of their brief residency.
Others tended to the mounts. When Itiri and the two others came back in, she
turned her attention to them, to hear what they had to say.
    “By the readings of Av, we are somewhere on the edge
of the Central lons,” Itiri reported, showing Otaga a complicated little device
with an Av’shadow and lines of latitude and longitude. The scouts with her had
similar devices, but their readings were each slightly different.
    “The triangulation of the Norae, Este and Weste, and
given the declination off absolute zenith, I would estimate - Ethelea’lon.”
    “Three hundred yori’turns Sor’weste of the Ritious
City,” Otaga mused. She nodded. “Make ready. When the Heir is able, we will
proceed.”
    Jeliya finished her food and wiped out her bowl,
stowed it away. She then began rolling up her pallet and desi. She finished a
little behind everyone else, but not by much. All eyes turned to her as she
stood, pack slung over her arm.
    “I am ready,” she lied.
     
    the darkness
turned...
     
    It took them two more av’tuns, with a turn of rest
between them, to come to within twenty yori’turns of the holdings outside the
Ritious City. They had taken the last three hundred odd yori’turns in easy
stages, others creating the av’tuns to let Jeliya and the other egwae leaders
rest, on the whispered advice of the warru ol’bey. Thus, the scouts had gone to
the fore, and over the next two turns and more than three hundred yori’turns
they came to within the bounds of Ava’Lon itself, the Central Wuman lon and Jeliya’s
home lon, at the center of which was T’Av’li. At this prearranged ‘tun point
they were met by one of the missing scouts, the one that Rilantu and another
scout had been unable to contact, who was full of apologies and explanations
and instructions. She told how she had watched her sister scouts die under the
claws of unholy creatures, even as the unfortunate ones tried to ‘tun a warning
to others farther away, or ‘tun away themselves. Only her absolute stillness
and silence in the ways of light had saved her. And after waiting for two turns
in that stillness, without food or rest, to make certain that the abominations
were truly gone, she had made her way overland to a neighoring lon and a small
town, and av’tunned back to T’Av’li from there. The High Queen knew of the Heir’s
return, knew about some of the attacks, and about the corrupt pearls. She had
left instructions for the egwae to make temporary camp in the nearby field,
during which time she would come to see the Heir herself. She held out an official
scroll with the High Queen’s own seal, which could be verified by a drop of
Jeliya’s blood. The egwae bowed to the instructions and bivouacked in the
indicated field.
    And here they stayed while the two freshest warru av’tunned
ahead with the lucky scout and the five warru escorting her to announce the
Heir’s