Chapter 85: Reunion
With Morden still resting on his shoulder, Darlus looked slightly relieved as he could feel his hard beating at a rather fast pace in his chest.
"He’s alive," he said, letting out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding.
Lisa crouched down on the other side, still shaken from what she had seen, though she did her best not to let it show on her face.
"We can’t stay here," she said.
"We already wasted enough time in this spot. If that man is still nearby, he could send something else after us."
Darlus nodded before pulling one of Morden’s arms over his shoulder. Lisa took the other side, and together they lifted him up, his feet dragging weakly against the dirt as they started moving.
"Where are we even going?" Darlus asked after a few minutes of walking.
"I don’t know, but what I do know is that we should just get away from here first," Lisa admitted.
They didn’t have any direction; they had that since they left the city gate the first time, just the instinct to put as much distance as possible between themselves and whoever was after them. Right now the list is just growing larger and larger.
The forest stretched out endlessly around them, and every shadow that moved wrong made Lisa’s grip tighten around Morden’s arm a little more.
****Near the City Gate****
The standoff had finally ended, though not with the kind of resolution either side wanted.
Marcus sat on a fallen log, pressing a cloth against his badly burnt area along his arm. Across from him, the Flaming Lion had retreated a little and was now curled in the grass, its flames dimmer, small gashes visible along its side where the fighting had gotten close.
The two of them had really given it their all to show dominance, and with their current state, it was obvious that none of them was really successful.
"This isn’t over," Marcus muttered.
"It never is," the Lion replied, not bothering to lift its head.
Not far away from the two, it was one of the two-ringed bearers standing near the gate who noticed it first, the absence that should have been obvious sooner.
"Wait," she said, scanning the crowd behind her.
"Where did the girl go? The one that tried sneaking through the gate?"
Another Bearer looked around too, and slowly the realization spread through the group like a chill.
"She’s gone. So are the two we thought went in ahead of her."
Marcus’s head snapped up so fast the cloth on his arm nearly fell. "You lost them? Despite all of this?"
"So I just started up a fight for nothing?"
"We were a little busy, sir; that fight made barely anyone able to focus," one of the Bearers said carefully.
"And who’s fault is that?" Marcus snapped, standing up despite the pain clearly written across his face.
"Those three are the reason this entire mess happened in the first place. Find them now." He barked out.
At this moment, his face had subconsciously grown much redder than it was even when he had just finished a fight. For a bunch of two-ringed bearers, they were just too unreliable.
The Flaming Lion lifted its head slightly at that, a low rumble echoing from its throat, almost like a laugh.
"Seems we agree on something after all," it said.
Within minutes, two separate search parties had formed, one made up of Marcus’s Bearers, the other made up of whatever remained of the Lion’s scattered creatures, both groups fanning out into the forest from opposite directions, and both were looking for the same three people for very different reasons.
****Back with the Trio****
"Grghgggghh," a groan sounded.
Morden’s eyes fluttered open slowly, but the world above him appeared blurry at first before it slowly came into focus. He was staring up at the canopy of trees, branches swaying gently overhead.
"He’s waking up," he heard Darlus say somewhere nearby.
Morden tried to sit up, and Lisa was already there to help steady him before he could fall back down.
Both his teammates looked exhausted, sweat lining their foreheads, their breathing still slightly uneven from carrying him so far.
"What happened?" Morden asked, rubbing at his throat where he could still feel a strange tightness.
"You don’t remember?" Darlus asked.
Morden shook his head slowly. The last thing he could recall clearly was talking about the Old World with his friends, followed by the feeling of being controlled and overpowered before everything went dark.
To Morden, even if he didn’t know what had happened, there was a specific feeling that remained rooted in him; it was helplessness.
Despite getting stronger, that feeling was still there. There was no change at all.
’More strength.’
While Darlus explained what had happened, the shadow, the fight, the crystal Lisa had spotted, and the one he’d destroyed,
Morden noticed something off about Lisa. She kept glancing at him, then away, then back again, like she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how to start.
"What’s up, Lisa? Were you injured?" Morden asked
"I’m fine," she said quickly, a little too quickly.
"Just tired."
Morden didn’t push it, though he made a note to ask her about it later, once things had settled down a bit more.
"There’s something I need to tell you both too," he said instead.
"Do you guys remember the red stones I showed you two earlier? I found it in the corner of my house. The same kind that was apparently powering that shadow."
Darlus’s eyes widened.
"Wait, you’re saying whoever attacked you tonight is the same person who’s been near your house?"
"I think so," Morden said, his voice quiet.
"Which means whoever this guy is, he’s not just watching me from a distance anymore."
"He followed you all the way into the Omnisphere," Lisa finished for him.
The three of them sat in silence for a moment, letting that sink in.
"We need to be more careful from here on out," Morden said finally. "Whoever this is, he’s clearly not done with me yet."