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“Do you think this will work?” asked Daniel as Kelaria flew him and Adrian towards the convoy.

“It should,” Adrian replied. “Cutting through disguises like this is something my family are good at…” he trailed off.

“I sense a but coming,” Daniel said.

“No… at least, not really.” Adrian sighed heavily. “I’m worried about Kay, the real Kay… I want to go and rescue her now we know where she is, but this is more important so we have to deal with this first, but I’m worried it’s not a coincidence.”

“That’s possible,” Daniel conceded. “They could be trying to stop us rescuing her but it seems a bit drastic. It won’t delay us long, so we’ll find her tomorrow.”

“I hope so.” Adrian sighed again then pointed at the road below. “Here comes the convoy.” There was a pause. “Yes, I can sense him. He’s in the third truck.”

“Good,” Daniel said. “Can you get us into a good position, Kelaria-alra?”

Of course. She circled slowly before hovering above the road just ahead of the convoy. This should work.

Indeed. Adrian shifted slightly behind him. There was another pause the he felt Adrian strike down at the truck with his mind as it approached.

There was a shriek loud enough to be heard from where they were hovering well above the road then the roof of the truck burst open and a male kithreian who bore a startling resemblance to Dialdra flew out. He was looking around wildly and seemed dazed.

Well that worked, Daniel said. We should get out of here.

Not yet, Adrian said. He’ll recover in a few moments and probably wipe out the witnesses if we don’t stop him. Make it look like we did it.

Ugh. Daniel hadn’t thought of that. How do we do that without being seen?

Leave it to me, Adrian said.

Even as he spoke, the Kithreian seemed to recover slightly. He turned in the air and dived down towards the trucks, raining red rock on them. Fortunately he must still have been dazed because most of it missed. A couple of shards did hit the trucks but did little damage. As he reached the low point in his dive, Adrian lashed out at him again, knocking him out cold and sending him crashing into the ground.

There was a shocked pause, then several soldiers piled off the fourth truck accompanied by the brigadier. There was some whispered discussion before the brigadier himself took a gun from one of his underlings and fired it twice – into the Kithreian’s head and torso. The brigadier handed the gun back to the soldier and snapped an order at the driver of the truck who immediately radioed someone.

Okay, we’ve seen enough, Adrian said. Let’s get out of here. The clairvoyants can check if it’s made them pull back or if we still need to fight.

I can’t believe he killed a prisoner in cold blood, Daniel said.

What choice did he have? Kelaria asked. They could have drugged him I suppose but they can see he’s not human – how could they know it would work? He attacked them and if he woke up would likely do so again. They couldn’t risk it.

True, I suppose, he said. It’s just… well…

I know, she said. But in the circumstances I think he was right.

Looks like a vehicle has left the hill to go and help. Adrian pointed at where a truck was racing towards the stopped convoy. That must have been who they were calling.

Makes sense, Daniel agreed. Let’s go tell everyone them we successfully completed stage one.

 

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