Chapter Fifteen
Rebels
Taverna looked at the fifty deamons assembled in front of him. Standing there, the deamons all aknowledged Taverna as their new leader. He had, after all, freed them from the ruins of Fortress Metawar where they had all been slaves. Each deamon was fully prepared to die for Taverna. In the revolution against Bellcast that Taverna had warned them was approaching, each deamon would follow Taverna to death.
***
Four weeks earlier... Exaltoskull exploded in a cloud of dark shadows. Nara and Taverna watched in horror as their companion who had guided them through the Fog departed in death. Whatever had just happened was beyond anything Nara had seen.
The three deamons had just returned from the depths of the Fog, and as they entered Speed, Exaltoskull was attacked, or hit by an unseen force. Taverna had acted on instinct when he had dived over Nara and carried her out of harms way. Nara growled at Taverna once Exaltoskull was gone, but inside she knew he may have saved her life.
"What now?" she asked.
"What d'you mean? We go back to normal, like before Crioone led us into Metawar."
Nara eyed Taverna, then responded to him.
"What about Crioone?"
Taverna shrunk back. He had forgotten that Crioone might still be alive. He even remembered when Crioone had wanted to find Nara even after she had betrayed them, whatever her motives had been. "... Fine. We look around for Crioone, but we stay away from Bellcast or anyone who's working with him. We don't do anything stupid that wrecks our cover."
"Okay. But if we do this we have to not attack each other every minute."
"Just don't do anything that might kill me or banish me from Speed."
Nara looked at the ground. "One day I'll tell you why I did that. And maybe then, when the time is right, you'll understand."
