Moonhunter

Chapter 20 .:To Have Friends:.

Chapter 20

.:To Have Friends:.

                “Dammit, Darai!” snapped Luna. “Calm down. We aren’t getting anywhere with you running around.” She caught him by the back of his shirt and hauled him to her. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him roughly. “I get it. Your friend you thought you could trust betrayed you. Understandable—“

                “Understand?” laughed Darai darkly. “What would you know—?”

                The look she gave him was frosty. “My own brother killed my grandfather. Don’t you dare say I don’t know what betrayal is.” Darai stopped and looked at her. “Don’t you—“

                “Alright, alright,” he said hastily, eyeing Moondancer with caution. “Then what am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to do?”

                Luna looked away, unable to reply. Her way had been to lock herself in the training room under her house for years. That wasn’t something she was proud of. “The Harpoons were here, but I’ve handled that.” She gestured around at the dozen or so bodies on the ground. “But they aren’t dead. I kill Qaars. I don’t kill people.” Darai looked numb. “Fine,” she said finally. “Fine.” She looked up in the sky. “Looks like the sun is going down anyway.”

                “What?”

                “I need to find Aldric first,” she began. Just then, someone—obviously Aldric—hurtled out of the trees towards her. “I should say that more often,” she said, watching him cough.

                “I—just ran—can’t—you blasted Moonhunter!” He doubled over, trying to catch his breath.

                She laughed in spite of herself. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said, immediately clearing her expression. Darai was looking murderous. She whispered in Aldric’s ear the plan she had been thinking of ever since she had come face to face with the Harpoons. Quincy’s identity as the mole didn’t come to her as too much of a shock. She had the means to do so—and who knows? Perhaps she had the motive, too. The only reason Darai hadn’t realized it was because of his personal attachment to her. The security measures she’d been so proud of had been bypassed at the same time of the Harpoons’ attack. It was no mere coincidence.

                “What can I do?” Darai asked eagerly. “I can help.”

                “Go back to Kain,” she said, sighing. He would be a hindrance rather than help in his current state. “Tell him all you’ve told me. The villagers must know.”

                “They’ll kill her!” he erupted. “How can you suggest that—“

                “She almost killed you,” she snapped. “She was ready to act. You need to do so, too. Go to Kain. But first round up the children from the Academy. They’re with... I think she’s their teacher.” He nodded. “Take them to the village. You have to set up borders.” She swiftly cut her palm with Moondancer before he could say a word and breathed a spell. “I’ve made the outline. It won’t hold for long. I need my energy for something else.”

                “Where is this outline?”

                “The village square.” She smiled wryly. “Where ‘Kain’ tried to kill me.”

                “Where Kain… Ah, right. Where are you going, then?”

                She gave him a stern look. “To find your friend. And maybe knock some sense into her.”