Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Dragon's Future ❯ Yukari's Wings ( Chapter 14 )

Chapter 13: Yukari's Wings

Chid stared in dismay as the samurai hurried through the gate. They were carrying several of their comrades who were too wounded to walk, including Hama.

“What happened?” Chid cried.

One of the samurai stepped forward and saluted. “We were attacked by a mob of citizens, my lord. We just made it back with our lives.”

“Where are Allen and the Asturians?”

“We split up. The refugees were under attack, so half of our number and the Asturians went to their aid. We haven't seen them since.”

Hama struggled to sit up from where his men had set him down. “My lord, you must keep your men within the castle and guard all entrances! If this should turn into a general uprising, you might be in danger.”

“Why is this happening? How can this man turn my people against each other like this?”

Hama slumped back to the ground. “He must have some strange power to control men. The ones we fought tonight showed little concern for their own safety. This is not normal for farmers facing samurai.”

“Duke Chid!” a guard shouted from the gate. “The Asturians are returning!”

The gates were opened again, but the first to tumble through were beast-men. Men, women and children streamed through the gate, bloodied and terrified. They were followed by the soldiers, most of them sporting wounds and a few supporting badly wounded comrades. Allen was the last through the gate.

“Close it!” he shouted. “And keep it closed!” He looked around and saw the other samurai. “You made it.” He knelt down beside Hama. “Looks like you had a time of it. Where's Darvi?” He tried to make the inquiry sound casual, but the concern on his face was plain.

“He left us to find Yukari when we were forced to retreat.” Hama closed his eyes. “I was too busy to watch him. How will I explain this to King Van?”

Chid knelt down on the other side of Hama, facing Allen. “This is my fault. I should not have restrained you from using Scheherazade.” He reached across and gripped Allen's arm. “Please, take her and go find Yukari and Darvi.”

“My lord! Look!”

Chid looked at the man who shouted. He was pointing at the sky. Chid followed his pointing finger and then jumped to his feet in astonishment. Glowing in the light of the Mystic Moon were the wide white wings of a draconian. Hama struggled to sit up again, staring into the sky with a face suddenly flushed with hope. Allen stood up slowly, a wide smile spreading across his handsome face.

Everyone watched as Yukari flew high over the castle and then spiraled in for a landing. They could all see Darvi clinging to her as she approached. As she neared the ground, Darvi abruptly let go and dropped to the ground, twisting like the cat he was to land on his feet. Yukari folded her wings and plopped heavily onto her own feet, breathing hard. Darvi immediately embraced her.

“Good job untying that rope,” he said. “I don't think I could have held on much longer.”

Yukari wrinkled her nose at him. “You don't have to lie. I'll admit I was just about spent from lugging you.”

They continued to hold each other as everyone stared at them.

Chid finally broke the stunned silence. “How did you escape? Tell us what happened!”

Darvi immediately released Yukari and turned to face them. “That bastard priest tried to burn us at the stake, but apparently, he didn't know Yukari is a draconian. His people did such a poor job tying us up that we were able to get loose and fly away.”

“He tried to burn you?!” Hama exclaimed in furious indignation. He tried to stand up. “I'll kill the bastard myself!”

“Please, Hama, your wound needs tending first,” one of the samurai said.

Hama winced in pain as fresh blood began to well out of a nasty cut in his abdomen. He sank back to the ground. “Damn! This crime cannot go unanswered!” He groaned as the samurai who'd spoken pressed a cloth into the wound to stop the flow.

“It will not!” Chid assured him angrily. “Allen, you must take Scheherazade to the place where this occurred and find the man responsible. Do whatever is necessary to take him into your custody.”

Allen nodded sharply.

“Darvi, can you show Allen the way?”

“Yes!”

“We should go right away,” Allen said. “They may try to escape after losing the two of you.”

“Be careful, Darvi,” Yukari said softly. “Don't make all my hard work for nothing.”

Darvi smiled at her. “Don't worry. I'll be back.”

Darvi accompanied Allen to his guymelef. He waited while Allen climbed into the pilot seat and brought Scheherazade's systems on-line, and then climbed onto the large, mechanical hand that Allen held on the ground for him. He waved at Yukari as Scheherazade stepped over the wall and walked away.

“Princess Yukari,” Chid said, “we are all terribly relieved to have you back safely. But you should never have taken such a risk in the first place.”

Yukari hung her head. “I'm sorry, Chid. I really had not intended to stay out after nightfall. It was a foolish mistake and I am sorry that people were injured because of me.” She looked around at the wounded soldiers with a guilty expression.

“Do not feel too badly, your highness,” Gaddes said. “Had we not gone out to look for you, we wouldn't have been in position to help the refugees when they were attacked. A lot of lives were saved because of that.”

Yukari looked at the huddled refugees and her guilty expression turned to a relieved smile. “That is something to be thankful for.” She turned back to Chid. “They look like they could use food and medicine.”

“Of course,” said Chid. He smiled. “Since they are already accustomed to your care, why don't you see to it?”

“At once, my lord.” She gave him a grateful smile and hurried over to the refugees.

Chid issued orders to get medicine and food for the soldiers as well and to find quarters for the refugees. Taking care of these mundane tasks allowed him, for the moment, to not fret about what was happening with Darvi and Allen.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

“That way!” Darvi shouted and he pointed in the direction he wanted Allen to go. It was harder finding their way back to the spot than Darvi had expected, but then, he'd been running blind when he'd found it the first time, following his link to Yukari, and he had not been looking down when they flew away. Nevertheless, Darvi was sure he could find it, by the scent of smoke if nothing else.

The guymelef lumbered slowly through the streets. People scattered in a panic when they saw the towering machine striding toward them.

“There it is!” Darvi cried. The pyre was still burning furiously, thick black smoke billowing up into the star-filled sky. “Turn right at the corner, past the fire. The building I saw them bring Yukari from is the third one down.”

Allen marched to the corner and turned. People standing in the street shouted in surprise and several fled. A few dashed back into the building, which was an inn.

“That bastard has my sword!” Darvi shouted. “Put me down!”

“Let me make another entrance first,” Allen replied. He stopped next to the inn and calmly punched a hole in the roof. “There you go.” He lowered his other hand so Darvi could leap off onto the roof.

Darvi moved carefully to the edge of the hole, took a quick look and then leaped into the room below. It was an attic, dusty and none the worse for having the ceiling caved in. The room had only one door and it was not locked. He listened for a moment and then opened it carefully. The hallway outside was empty, but he could hear a commotion, probably one floor down. The stairs were only a few paces away, illuminated from below. Darvi slipped into the hall and moved to the stairs. He looked down. No one was in sight, but now he could hear people plainly. They were in a panic and it sounded like a fierce argument was in progress.

“…ridiculous! She's just a woman!” It was the priest's voice.

“Master, she is a draconian! They are a magical people and it is a bad omen to see one! We must leave this place.” The woman speaking sounded terrified.

“Listen to me, Master!” a man interrupted. “There is a guymelef outside! We're all going to be killed!”

“A what?!”

“A guymelef! A fighting machine! It will crush this building! Didn't you hear the crash?!”

“What are you talking about? You people are insane!” The priest sounded furious and confused.

Darvi smiled to himself. His nose told him the three he heard were the only ones there. He bounded down the stairs and charged into the hall below. Three startled faces turned to stare at him.

“You!” the priest shouted.

Darvi ignored him and went for the man holding his sword. The young man clearly didn't know how to use it. He swung it clumsily at Darvi as Darvi charged him. It took no effort at all to disarm him and run him through. Then Darvi calmly faced the priest and the woman.

“Duke Chid invites you to tour his prison personally and make an extended stay,” Darvi said lightly.

The priest's eyebrows lowered into a threatening glare. “I am not some hoodlum, beast-man,” he growled. “You cannot harm me.” His gaze bored into Darvi's. Darvi began to feel dizzy and his vision started to blur.

“Stop it!” Darvi shouted and he lunged forward with his sword extended.

“Ahh!” the priest cried. He grabbed the woman and thrust her in front of him just in time to take the point of Darvi's sword. She screamed pitifully as it plunged through her right breast. She collapsed, dragging Darvi's sword down with her, and the priest turned and ran.

“You bastard!” Darvi screamed. He yanked his sword free and raced after the fleeing man.

The priest plunged down a flight of stairs with Darvi close on his heels. But at the bottom, the stairs led into a common room filled with young men.

“Kill him!” the priest screamed as he rushed past them.

The young men crowded forward to block Darvi's path, brandishing knives and cudgels. Darvi didn't slow down. He slashed his way into the group with cold-blooded fury. He cut for the throat and the eyes to put his opponents down as quickly as possible, but it still took too long. By the time he got outside, the priest was gone.

The smell of smoke was too thick to give him any hope of following the man by scent.

“Allen!” Darvi cried. He waved up at the guymelef. “Did you see him? He just came out!”

“A bunch of people just ran out!” Allen boomed in response.

“He was dressed like a priest!”

Allen lowered his hand to the ground and Darvi leaped on. Allen strode up the street as Darvi began to swear. He could see people running in every direction, but none of them looked like the man he wanted.

“I'm sorry, Darvi! I don't know how I missed him!”

“He can control people's minds, Allen. Maybe he blurred your vision for a moment.” Darvi shook his head angrily. “We've lost him. Let's go back. I killed a lot of his people, so he's on his own now.”

“If he can control minds, he'll just acquire more.”

“I know. But it might not be so easy for him now. I heard one of his people talking about Yukari being a draconian. She sounded pretty scared.” He frowned at the memory of that woman. The priest had sacrificed her to save his own life without a second thought. The man deserved to die and Darvi hoped he would be the one to do it.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Brevan cowered under the broken remains of a crushed barrel at the mouth of an alley as the giant machine walked by. Peeking out through a knothole, he saw the fierce young beast-man standing on the machine's upraised hand, scanning the ground eagerly, looking for Brevan. Brevan shuddered with fear. He was not used to being afraid. That beast-man should not have been able to throw off Brevan's mind control like that. It was wrong and only proved how right he had been in trying to wipe those creatures out.

And now Zatia was dead, right when Brevan needed her the most. He needed help to get out of this city, to get back into the country so he could regroup. He wondered if any of his cadre of bodyguards had survived the beast-man's attack. He doubted it, since the beast-man had still been alive. Which meant Brevan was on his own. Well, he had been on his own before, and under worse circumstances.

What upset him was not understanding. He was accustomed to understanding people's motivations, even when they did not understand them themselves, but their unreasoning reaction to the sight of that young woman's wings had made no sense. His power over the mob had evaporated in an instant. Who were these draconians and why did they inspire such fear?

The sound of the giant machine's footsteps faded and Brevan crawled out of his hiding place. First things first. He needed to find out if any of his inner circle were still alive. And then he needed to deal with that young woman. The best way to overcome someone's fear was to give them something else to fear even more. If he destroyed this draconian, then people would come to fear him more than the draconians.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Yukari managed not to break down while she was looking after the refugees. Almost all of them were injured, even the children, so she had her work cut out for her helping to clean wounds, and tearing and winding bandages. But as soon as the refugees were settled in an empty barracks next to the Fanelian samurai, she hurried back to her own rooms.

Only when she was safely alone, where no one could see her, did she break down into tears. Reaction to the stress of her capture, near execution and escape wracked her with deep, shuddering sobs. She needed Darvi. She needed him to hold her while she wept so she could snuggle into his soft fur and forget about everything. Once again, he'd saved her life at the risk of his own. She had to stop doing this. She had to stop blundering into situations that might cost them any hope of being together.

But most of all, she had to be completely honest with herself about her feelings for him. Brevan Ramone had looked into her mind and declared that she loved Darvi. Yukari wrapped her arms around her knees as she sat in the middle of her bed, staring at her toes. Of course she loved Darvi, she always had. But saying it that way only revealed half of the truth. The other half hovered unsaid on the edge of her tongue.

“I am in love with Darvi,” she whispered. The admission lifted a tremendous weight off her heart. She raised her head and stared straight ahead. “I am in love with Darvi,” she declared aloud. It felt right to say. “I love you, Darvi.” Had he been in the room at that moment, she would have said it to his face. She promised herself that she would say it to him, the next chance she got.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Brevan stared up at the looming wall of the castle. The plain workman's garb he was wearing itched uncomfortably, but it was the only way to pass through the city unnoticed.

“The beast-men have been granted sanctuary in the castle, Master Ramone,” the young woman said. She stared at Brevan with wide, awed eyes. She had been a real find. The innkeeper and his family had disappeared when Brevan returned to the inn to look for his bodyguard, leaving only this girl behind. No doubt they had abandoned her because of her limited mental capacity, but that made her even easier for Brevan to control. And her simple innocence made people trust her. She was perfect, and not unattractive to boot. A real find.

“And what of the young woman with wings? The draconian?”

“Oh, she's there, too.” The girl became excited. “She's the daughter of the King and Queen of Fanelia! They saved Gaia, you know.”

“Did they?” he replied absently. He vaguely remembered someone telling a story about the Fanelian King and some girl saving the planet. It had sounded like a lot of nonsense. “I need to get into the castle to see this princess,” he said. “We will come back tonight.” He smiled at the girl. “But for now, I would like to relax. Do you know a place where we can eat and rest undisturbed?”

“Yes, Master!” She smiled brightly. “Let me show you.”

Brevan was feeling more like himself that night. An afternoon of pleasure was the perfect way to recover from a shock. Standing outside the castle, he watched as the girl, Coomie, chatted up one of the guards, trying to get him to open the gate. Brevan watched for only a few moments. It became obvious quickly that the guard was not going to open the gate, no matter how attractive Coomie made her offer. But it didn't matter. The distraction was all Brevan really needed. He stepped into view.

“Excuse me, good sir, but is this the home of the renowned Duke Chid?”

The guard leaned a little farther out of the observation window above the gate to look at him and Brevan caught his eye. The guard's face went slack as Brevan crushed the will out of the man's mind.

“Open the gate,” he ordered.

“Yes, Master,” the guard replied tonelessly. He disappeared from the window. A moment later, they could hear the bolt being drawn.

“What are you doing? The gate is to remain shut!”

There was a thud, followed by a faint cry. Then the bolt was drawn back and the left-hand gate swung open. Brevan immediately stepped through. Coomie started to follow him.

“No, my dear, you must wait for me here.”

“But, Master...!”

“Stay here,” he ordered, putting mental force into the command. Coomie went still. Brevan looked at the guard. “Close the gate, but leave the bolt open.” He glanced down at the unconscious guard. “Hide that outside the gate and then come with me.” The guard nodded and obeyed him.

“Now,” Brevan said. “Take me to the Fanelian princess.”

The guard led the way without a word.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

It was simply not fair. Yukari had fully expected to get some time alone with Darvi after he and Allen returned from their unsuccessful hunt for Brevan Ramone, but it wasn't so. After reporting to Chid, Darvi had gone back out with some of the samurai and the Asturians to do a ground search, while Allen watched over them from Scheherazade. They still had not returned.

Yukari looked at the miniscule amount of embroidery she had completed while she waited. Her flowers looked like cat's ears again. She sighed. Then she looked up in surprise at the sound of someone opening her door without knocking. Everyone knocked here. A man stepped through the door and Yukari jumped to her feet, her embroidery tumbling to the floor, forgotten.

“What are you doing here?” she cried in astonishment.

“I have come to finish what I started,” Brevan said harshly. “You think yourself so clever, flying away from my just punishment! But there is no escape.” He stepped toward her, a cruel grin on his face. “My judgment is final!”

Yukari was oddly surprised. She wasn't afraid at all. What she felt was a slowly engulfing fury. Who did this man think he was, coming here with his foreign ideas and destroying the lives of innocent people? She met his glare evenly.

“Get over yourself!” she snarled. “I'm not afraid of you!”

“You don't have your beast-man lover to save you this time!” he growled back. “This time, I will finish you myself.” He fixed her with a sharp stare, trying to force his way into her mind.

Yukari could feel the pressure of his mental power. He was trying to immobilize her. She grinned at him. “You know something? I don't think your mind control works on draconians.”

Brevan's face became rigid and his eyes widened. “Witch!” he cried and he jumped at her.

Yukari leaped aside. Brevan tried to turn to follow her, but he slipped on her dropped embroidery and tumbled into the couch. Yukari snatched her sewing scissors from her basket on the floor and skipped backward, the scissors raised menacingly.

“Get the hell out!” she screamed.

Brevan surged to his feet and charged her with an incoherent cry. He made a grab for the scissors. Yukari ducked under his hand and jabbed the scissors into his neck. Blood spurted over her hand and Brevan's mouth worked silently. He stared at her with a look of utter shock. He grabbed Yukari by the shoulders, but his grip was already weak.

Yukari stared him in the eye. “I told you I wasn't afraid of you.”

He gurgled and foamy bubbles of blood formed on his lips.

Yukari pushed him away.

Brevan staggered backward and collapsed onto the couch, blood pumping out around the scissors in his neck. He stared at her, trying weakly to speak, but no sound came out.

“Your highness, I heard you cry out, is something wrong?” Mirabel stood in the doorway.

Yukari turned around and Mirabel screamed. Yukari looked down at herself. She was covered in Brevan's blood.

“Mirabel, it's all right! I'm not hurt!”

“B… bl… blood!” Mirabel gasped out.

“Yes, it's blood,” Yukari said in a deliberately calm voice. She pointed at Brevan. “His blood.”

Mirabel stared round-eyed at Brevan and then fainted on the spot.

“Great!” Yukari muttered.

And then suddenly there were dozens of people crowding into the room. Yukari let them sweep her away and treat her like a fragile flower for the time being. She was stripped, bathed and dressed in fresh garments. Chid was beside himself with concern, even when it was clear she had not been injured.

“I am so sorry, Princess Yukari! My people failed you!”

“Please, Duke Chid, I'm fine! Brevan Ramone could control people's minds. It's no one's fault.”

“But he attacked you in my castle!”

“And he's dead.” Yukari put a hand on Chid's arm. “Please, my lord, don't be distressed. Everything will be all right now. The man who was causing all the trouble in your country is dead. You can restore your people's lives.”

Chid put his arm around her. “Thanks to you.” He kissed her cheek.

Yukari grinned. “For once, I did something right!”