Attack of the Warrior Queen
Chapter One
Below me the destruction the aliens were leaving behind stretched as far as the eyes could see. The forest around the beautiful valley was a sobering contrast to the black boneyard of trees and the once lush green grasses; now gone, revealing only charred black soil. Trees that now looked like twisted, deformed black hands jutting out of the ground; soot lifting into the air by an unrelenting breeze that swept through the valley. The acrid smell made my nostrils flair with the burning sensation it left behind. Nothing was spared the destructive force of the sand demons. I watched, my heart pounding in my chest, as they continued to lay waste to everything within their reach.
Banrion and I were concealed by the billowing white thunderheads that were threatening to unleash more rain. We were high enough above the ground to keep our presence hidden, but I felt better as we climbed higher into the clouds making it less easy to glance up and see us.
“Come on Banrion,” I murmured, “we need to get out of here before they see us.” Even though she was a pure white griffin her immense size might be enough to cause one alien to see a flash of movement; to raise the alarm. As if they heard me; a fireball shot past her wing, sparks fanning out behind it. “Shit! We need to get out of here before their aim improves.” An explosion of air passed over her enormous wings, giving her strength as we tore through the clouds and out of sight.
When my heart stopped trying to beat my chest to death, I took a deep breath before I bid, Banrion, to take us home; home being our new camp on the other side of the mountains. The sound of exploding fire bombs grew dimmer as we left their destruction behind us. A shadow passed below us, causing me to peruse the surrounding clouds for an intruder. It must have been my imagination, I thought. But I still looked around nervously as we headed back to camp.
If someone had told me several years ago that I would be astride the back of an enormous griffin, combating aliens on a parallel world one day, I would have laughed in their face and told them they were watching too much television. And if they had said, oh yeah you will be the queen of a world full of mythical creatures, I would have called the nearest rehab and checked them in to have their head examined. But here I am, the chosen queen of an entire planet the size of Jupiter, flying on the back of a giant, white griffin as I looked down at an alien race that were hell bent on enslaving and destroying our beautiful planet of Htrae.
My best friend, Raithe, and I used to kid about not belonging on Earth. Like everyone else on the planet, we watched TV shows like ‘Ancient Aliens’ and thought to ourselves; why not? Some scientists believe we were drawing on the memories of our ancestors as our technology becomes more sophisticated. Are the people of Earth advancing so rapidly because of alien interference? Or is it because some of us are actually from another solar system? Planted there to accomplish what? Raithe and I were both kidnapped and brought to Htrae by the same Vampire. She was a seed while I turned out to be part of a thousand year old prophesy and well; the rest is history.
I wondered how long it would be before everyone knew that Humans might have come from someplace beyond this space and time. And I wondered how many twins were still on Earth, waiting to wake up one morning to find they were on the planet that they had been dreaming about for most of their lives. That was thanks to King Kasan, who was no longer king, for separating twins at birth and depositing one of them on Earth, seeds, to eventually marry and have children on Earth; while the other one remained here to survive on a hostile planet; depending on their species. At the age of forty the seeds on Earth were compelled to get a tattoo of a galaxy on the right side of their neck. This allowed the retrievers to find them and bring them back. Since Raithe and I were best friends she convinced me to get one too; the only difference was I was fifty. Later I discovered that Mother was the reason I had not gotten mine ten years before. I made a mental note to talk to Naken about the seeds and whether someone was retrieving them anymore. Naken was the one who brought Raithe and I to Htrae.
We had all talked ad nauseam about King Kasan’s reasons behind this. Most thought it was to make Humans live longer, but to what end? So far I was not able to figure out why, and I had my doubts that I would. Those who knew were not talking about the why behind it and I had a feeling it was something the priests designed. They were aliens on this planet; aliens who were now trying to take over our world for our natural resources. That was the reason for this war; to eradicate them all together before they could turn all of us into slaves, and destroy our planet.
On top of everything else, Earth had no idea that an alien race was on the verge of destroying their world and that another world was trying to stop them. I embraced Htrae as my planet and home, but for some reason I still thought of Earth as my world. I had nothing to do with Earth’s part in the aliens desire to destroy it but I still felt responsible. I wondered what would happen if I contacted the world leaders of Earth; filling them in on what was happening. Would they believe me? My guess is that they know more than the populous of Earth does regarding life on other worlds; fearing the worst if they divulged the information they had.
I decided it was time to stop surmising and go home. I sent, Banrion, an image of us banking left. We were almost to the mountains when Learden’s thoughts pervaded my mind.
“Laurel, when are you coming back? The Commander is asking for you and the Elves are becoming concerned. They had no idea there would be so many of us. Are you alright?”
I smiled, “Yes, I am on my way back. I was perusing the damage the aliens have left behind. I was not able to locate Kronus. I am still not sure he is aiding the enemy. They have devastated the valley, Learden, and there are as many sand demons as there are aliens now. Even the tall ones are expanding in numbers, we need to look at the maps and decide which continent is the most viable for the aliens to survive on. Find out where all of the sand dunes are and how feasible they are to defend.”
“Alright, I am waiting for you, please get here sooner than later, I think there will be anarchy if you are delayed, and it is time to ‘not sleep’ again.” He sent.
My smile grew. Our ‘not sleeping’ was code for replenishing our energy; feeding while mating. It was coined by Naken after we replenished all through the night. “Yes, I know, my love, my body is feeling the need as well. I am over the mountains now.” Just as we banked left I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but before I realized what it was, I heard a familiar sound . . . zing . . . zing . . . zing. I had heard that sound two times since my life on Htrae began, and each time was devastating; the first time was when Learden and I were caught by the King’s Guard and the second was when Kiina, Kianas’ sister, who was like a sister to me, was killed. My breath caught in my throat; my fear ratcheting up, when Banrion’s shrill screech sliced through the chill night air. My hands flew to my ears; my eyes shut tight in lieu of the pain in my head. When my eyes finally opened, my heart beat flew up my throat; there were two arrows sticking out of her right wing. The first one was lodged in the membrane on the lower part of her wing, but the other one had sliced almost completely through the meaty part of the upper wing; and it was bleeding profusely.
“Banrion,” I yelled frantically. “Hold on, I will get you down!” I desperately sent her pictures as I perused the ground for an open field to set down in. As soon as I found it she practically fell out of the sky; gliding to keep from using the injured wing. I lay tense over her back, and whispered, “Show me the shooter! Instantly she sent me an image of Kronus.
I panicked, “Learden, Kronus just shot Banrion down; I have no idea where we are exactly, just that we are in a field somewhere in the center of the mountains.” I hit the ground running as soon as she landed to keep from being thrown when her wing dropped sideways. Her wing jerked into her body, followed by an earsplitting screech that shot pain through my head like a dagger.
Running to her, I reached for her neck and pulled her face down to mine, “Shhh . . . it will be okay,” I whispered. Trying and failing to calm my own nerves, I stroked her neck; our foreheads touching. She was breathing heavily, but she finally calmed as I managed to calm my own fluttering stomach; I knew her distress was more from fear than pain. Immediately I sent her images of the wounded wing open, and dropping to the ground. “I am going to break the arrows and pull them through, Banrion, then I will heal you; but you must be still until I am finished. Do you understand?”
She answered with the familiar trill that came with a vibration in her neck. When her breathing slowed, I moved slowly around to the injured wing as she watched me. I trusted Banrion with my life but an injured animal could be unpredictable. I perused the damage from the ground, which at first glance, did not look that bad, but it would take some doing on my part to get to it. Her size made it difficult to reach the part of her wing that sustained the worst damage and teleporting was out of the question. We were in a rocky area so it was easy to find something to stand on; I stacked the flat rocks high enough to reach the arrows. I quickly broke both arrows at vampire speed and pulled them through. The bleeding on the upper wing gushed faster than I would have liked but there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
I quickly put my hands over both wounds and imagined healing energy moving through me and into her through my right hand. At the same time I pulled her wound into my left hand, through my body, and allowed it to dissipate down my leg and foot into the ground.
She bucked under my hands, “Shhh . . . Banrion,” I whispered to calm her. The fountain of blood that poured out of the upper wound did not help, but I held on to her. Slowing my breathing I gathered the surrounding energy; allowing it to flow through her injuries through me taking the negative energy and sending it back into the ground where it would be purified to be used again; I hoped she would realize that the fire that moved through her was just the healing process that she felt.
Before I was able to complete the healing within myself, I was yanked abruptly away from, Banrion, and hurled to the ground. I gasped and collapsed over my body as pain shot through my right shoulder; Banrion, screeched. When I looked at the damage I noticed it was healing but since the healing was not finished I was bleeding pretty badly from the wound I had taken from her. I am an empath and have the ability to draw a wound into my body and heal myself after. Considering my shoulder was a lot smaller than Banrion’s my injury was larger, and I had not healed myself yet. We both turned toward our attacker at the same time.
“What the hell?” I yelled. When I realized who had pulled me so abruptly away from healing Banrion, the flair of heat ignited in my face. My heartbeat was loud in my ears as anger filled my thoughts; I stared into the hostile face of a Vampire; Kronus.
Ignoring me he crouched low as he watched the griffin ready to kill her if she attacked.
He was still the tall, muscular, dark Hybrid that I knew intimately, but at the same time; he was different. He wore the black uniform of the Hybrid. His face was drawn, his features sharper and his eyes were blue crystals. His fangs below his upper lip sent the message, I have the power, and I knew he would not heed anything I had to say. My gut told me that I had to get, Banrion, into the sky and away from him. “Learden, my love, I am sending Banrion to get you, but you must be careful. Kronus will kill her if he can and I am wounded from trying to heal her wing. He stopped me from completing the healing and he has a crossbow.” I sent quickly. Learden’s thoughts were quick to respond, “We are on our way, Laurel, I will watch for Banrion and guide her to us. Stay alive, I will find you. I will rip out his heart if he touches you. What does he want?”
“I do not know, he is still threatening to kill Banrion, but so far he has said nothing.” I could tell Learden was angry, I could almost hear the growl in his voice.
I trained hostile eyes on him as I communicated with Learden giving away nothing to Kronus, “I should have known the stories were true.” I growled with every word. “How could you turn against your own kind? What do you have to gain by this Kronus?” Pain, sharp and hot, shot through my shoulder as I moved toward him. I grabbed my arm, trying not to show the pain on my face. I was glad, at least, that Banrion was fully healed. “I saved your life Kronus, and this is how you recompense my kindness?”
One corner of his mouth turned up as he made a mocking bow to me, “it is good to see you as well my queen.” I eyed him warily as he walked slowly around me, one eye still on the griffin. He reached out to press his hand down hard over the wound in my shoulder forcing me to my knees. The bleeding had slowed, but started again, with his abuse. Still; I could feel it healing, one of the perks of being Hybrid Vampire. I could not, however, stifle a groan; which brought a smile to his lips.
Banrion lunged at Kronus, her powerful beak open and ready to bite him if he came too close. “If I were you, I would back away; she could kill you with one bite.” I said; a malevolent smile on my face.
His smile faded as he stumbled back a few steps; his eyes guarded when he looked up at her. He pulled the crossbow from behind his back, “I think not, my queen,” He growled with anger, “she would feel the bite of my arrows before she had a chance. I would suggest you make her stay back if you want her to live.” He finished with a menacing growl.
“What do you want Kronus? I have already told Learden that you brought us down. He is on his way to find me and when he does, you will die. Withdraw while you still can,” I hissed at him. Banrion moved closer behind me and Kronus stepped back again. Holding my arm close to my body I tried to stand up while pulling my knife from my boot; hiding it in my hand by turning the tip of the dagger up my arm.
Before I could stop him he raised his crossbow and fired at, Banrion, narrowly missing her when she raised her wings. “That was a warning,” he growled. “The next one will be between her eyes.” “No!” I yelled moving in front of her; I dropped the knife back into my boot, then I frantically sent her an image of what would happen if she interfered; sending another image of her flying away. Holding my arms out in surrender, I begged him, “please do not harm her, she is only trying to protect me.” He just glared at me and kept his crossbow aimed at, Banrion’s head.
An image of Learden on her back flickered through my mind; I took a chance and turned my back on Kronus. Reaching up to stroke her neck, I returned her image and whispered, “Make it quick, he will try to shoot you down.”
When I turned back to Kronus, the crossbow was still aimed at her, but he could not watch us both. I lunged at him, knocking the bow out of his hands, making him lose his balance; then I heard the familiar sound of wings as, Banrion, took to the sky. When he realized she was gone he let out a low growl, “That was a mistake you will regret, Queen Laurel.” He grabbed my wounded shoulder and pushed me to the ground again. I fought back a whimper, trying to keep him from realizing the extent of my wounds but I could not keep him from seeing the tears in my eyes.
With the crossbow aimed at me, he leaned down and reached behind a rock; pulling a backpack out. “I guess we will have to do this the hard way,” he growled. He pulled out a brightly colored rope. “Turn around!” He said roughly.
I complied and he jerked my arms behind my back. “Ouch!” I complained. “You know you will never get away with this,” I said as I tried to pull away from him, “Learden will find me.” My first thought was how naive he was to expect ropes to hold me; he knew what I could do. But as soon as the rope touched the skin on my wrists I understood. They began to burn, as if he had set the rope on fire. I finally realized it was the rope the aliens use on the sand demons, to contain them, and I soon discovered I could not teleport out of them. When the ropes were secured he picked me up, throwing me over his shoulder. . . . . . . . . . .
