II. Deneviuh.
Killion and the search party were still looking. Despite the fact that night had rolled in, this woman Havillah's mother had remained relentless. As she hovered above the rest in the area where they had tracked her daughter to, her gaze remained firm, transfixed in the direction that was south of the ravine looking as if she was seeing something that the rest of them could not.
"There! " She suddenly said as a bright light broke out from among the trees. Killion allowed his suit to lift him up to her position, the jet propulsion working hard to support his weight. As he came to hover beside her, his eyes followed the direction of her gaze, widening as they took in the sight that was before them.
"Are those wolves?" He gasped looking at the dark shadows that were freeing the fog that had been propelled outwards by the burst of light.
"It would seem so,but they are merely shadows. I don't know what is happening there but that light has Havillah written all over it." True enough, he check his tablet for readings and the pattern that he found was the very much the same as the one they had been looking for. Something else also appeared on the screen and he looked down at his tech team to see if he had noticed the same thing.
"So you've seen it too." He called out to the guy who he could now see was also looking up at him even as he whispered something to his colleagues that stood beside him.
"Seen what?" The woman turned to address him.
"There is another reading on the chart that is almost matching Havillah's own energy pattern."
"A terror?" She questioned.
"Possibly, but the fog could also be scrambling our signal. It should be higher than this for a terror, but it is so erratic that I cannot tell."
"What does that mean?"
He shrugged my shoulders. "I really do not know. I guess though, we will have to go there and investigate it."
She nodded. "Then, tell the others to pack up. We are moving out."
This time Killion was the one to nod even as he hovered down to him team that was waiting below. As their search had narrowed down, the teams had converged and now they were scouring a common area as one group that was broken down into several pairs. The Great however remained hovering in the clouds above them, checking from a birds eye view for any thing that the ground teams had missed.
"Sergeant." Killion beckoned for Calla and the head of the tech team guys to join him.
"Are we moving out already?" Calla asked as she sidled up to him. He could feel the gazes of the other two Great as she came even closer to him and he looked up to find the yellow blond throwing him a rather nasty look at Calla's action.
"Yes. We spotted something and we think that it could be what we have been looking for. Matthew? What are your thoughts on the other patterns?" He turned his gaze to the chief tech guy knowing fully well that Matthew's gadgets were more advanced than his and he would be able to give them a more clearer assessment of the readings.
"The patterns are red so it's definately a terror. However the scattered pattern and lower energies suggest that they are much smaller than the dragons and probably also many. The readings however are not conclusive taken from this distance. So I have to ask, when you were up there,what did you see captain?"
"There was a fog and shadows that appeared like wolves. I cannot be sure, but the Great up there suspects that our target is at the centre of it all." Calla frowned. She had been vexing him the entire journey, pointing out that finding Havillah was none of their concern and Killion was about tired of her attitude. "What now?" He almost cursed himself for asking.
"So we are now going by her word even though your teams are tired?" Calla challenged. This girl never backed down and between her and the other one Killion was growing very weary.
"If we wait our lead may go cold. Plus do you want to be the one to tell that mother dragon that we are too tired to go after her child?"
"She is not our responsibility! Why does she not do it herself if she is as awesome and capable as you say she is?"
"Because of something we call diplomacy and humanity? Great or not someone needs uslike it or not, where the terrors are involved, it is our duty to do something about it." At that she looked away agreeing to his sentiments grudgingly.
"Something else Captain?" the techguy looked up from his tablet to seek Killion's attention.
"What else have you found Matthew?"
"According to the maps, this side of the jungle is the territory of a man known as the mayor of Deneviuh, one of the remaining lesser lords that refused to be under military rule. It is possible that if we dive in this way, we may possibly be perceived as hostiles and who knows what kind of tech that guy may be in possession."
"Good observation Matthew. Mayor of Deneviuh you said. I have heard of him from my predecessors. Though we will have to go in and apologize later. If he tries to stop us, then I guess Calla will get to see what our mother up there will have to say about it."
With that Killion dispersed the meeting and ordered the camp to pack up. Slowly their little group of over twenty scaled down the ravine and up again before moving to the orchard that Havillah had earlier been in. They could sense the remnants of her energy there and assumed that she had moved towards town from there. The group followed a path that one of them had discovered, going in to the town from the west gate which surprisingly was not manned although they could see other entrances that had heat signatures of humans and several dogs manning them.
"I guess with the mountain and the ravine, it's totally unexpected for a foe to come in from this direction." Killion mumbled to Gabriel.
"And yet, here we are."
"We are not foes."
"You think the mayor of Deneviuh will see it that way?"
"One can only hope for the best to happen. It doesn't hurt to be too optimistic." He smiled.
"Sure." the younger man rolled his eyes.
As they passed through the gates on foot, they remarked at how quiet the town was. For some reason the fog that Killion had earlier seen had also dissipated, but a jittery coldness remained growing more intense as they drew closer and closer to the town square. Despite the quiet they could see the lights on in almost all the houses and it made him wonder what kind of a ghost town his group had wandered into.
From before them they saw the Great trio descend from the skies and Killion hurried his men along only to stop at the edge of the town square where a mass of dead bodies were scattered before thrm.
"What are these?" Calla hissed as the nearest one reached out to touch her. They were not bodies at all, Killion realised, but people with skeletal frames and cold empty eyes that stared out into nothingness. The occasional mumble would issue out from a mouth and every once in a while one of them would try to reach out or stand on their feet.
"What happened here?" Killion mumbled as he studied the way these people had been scattered out as if something had thrust them out, pushing them in that direction.
"Captain" Havillah's mother called him from the middle of the square. He walked avoiding the bodies with care until he reached the middle to find her hovering over a pool of drying blood and his heart jumped to his throat. "It's not hers." She said taking in his stricken expression, "However, she was here. This is maybe her work though it's surprising how much she has grown to even be able to do all these by herself.
"Did she hurt someone?" Killion gulped looking up to find the Great named Moriella bending to whisper in the woman's ear.
"I don't know. Though earlier on Captain you told us that she thrown that woman, right?"
"You mean to say that this could be the same as what happened back then?"
"I can't tell for sure as I didn't study the area back then, this however... "she trailed off not liking where this was headed.