The Battle of Ebulon (25 page)

I rested my hand on his
forehead, trying to center in on his voice with my eyes tightly
closed. Whereas the last voice had been so easy to find, for some
reason I could not get this one. I didn’t understand why I was
having such a hard time until a hand closed around my throat. My
eyes flew open and I tried to escape, but the Orc I had thought to
be dead had me in a vise-like grip, growling savagely as it
strangled me.

“Rachael!” Jesse was
suddenly there, stabbing his hunting knife deep into the creature’s
heart. I took in a pained breath as the Orc let go, falling onto my
back on the ground. “Are you alright?” I struggled to breathe, my
windpipe closing in on itself. I couldn’t think or answer him as
this Orc’s voice joined the others. Every minute added another
agonized voice to the masses screaming at me.

I couldn’t breathe, I
couldn’t think, I couldn’t talk. I didn’t want this job. I wanted
to go home and hide from all of this death and agony around me and
I wanted my mind back. The feeling of insanity closed in around me,
sending a panicked feeling through my body. Escape wasn’t an option
anymore. The only option was to calm down and get back to
work.

“Rachael.” Jesse’s
soothing voice broke through the chaos. I focused on his brilliant
blue eyes, my breathing swiftly going back to normal. I got up,
using the back of my hand to wipe the Orc’s blood off of my
face.

“I’m fine,” I told
him.

“Ok.” He nodded. I knew he
didn’t believe me. He knew I wasn’t actually ok. I placed my hand
on his forehead again, knowing he was actually dead this time. He
was far more hostile than the first Orc, mostly because he had died
trying to kill me. I decided to move on to a human then.

If I stumbled upon one who
was not actually dead at least they wouldn’t try to kill me. I
chose a young man, dressed in the uniform of Ebulon. He looked like
he was frozen in time; his eyes still wide open in shock and
horror. The snow fell onto and around him, covering his hair and
the fur on his uniform.

He might have been twenty
years old, if that. Dead long before his time. My hand melted the
frost and snowflakes on his forehead as his terrified voice led me
inside his mind.

“Hi.” I decided to say the
first thing since he was looking at me in fear.

“You’re an angel,” he
realized.

“Yes, I am.” It was better
to start small and build up to the fact that he was… well
dead.

“If you’re an angel, then
that means…” He struggled to build up the courage to say it. “That
means I’m dead, right?”

“Yes.” I didn’t know what
else to say. Maybe this was why Joshua was so angry and testy all
of the time. He had to tell people numerous times a day that they
were dead. Not that they were dying but that they were
dead.

“I’m not ready to die,” he
told me. “Please! I have a fiancé and she’s pregnant! I can’t leave
them all alone!”

“I’m truly very sorry,” I
answered. “There is nothing I can do…”

“I have heard stories
about people being spared.” He interrupted me. “They were dead for
hours or even days and they were brought back. You are the angel of
death; you must know something about that! You have to be able to
help me!”

“I’m not… I haven’t been
the angel of death for very long,” I admitted. “I don’t know what
caused something like that but I don’t think…”

“My leader’s name is Ky,”
he interrupted me again. “He was dead and has been for a long time
and yet he fights today in Ebulon because of the deal he made with
the angel of death. You’re the angel of death. I wish to make the
same deal with you as he did.”

“I didn’t make a deal with
anyone,” I insisted. “I don’t know who Ky is. If someone made a
deal with him; it was Joshua…”

“You have to help me!” He
repeated. “I cannot leave them alone! They need me! Don’t you
understand that? Isn’t there someone that you would give anything
to be with?”

“Yes.” My answer was
quiet. Jesse. I would give anything to be with him. I knew that my
mistress, Elizabeth, did not approve and she would do anything she
could to separate us. She knew it wouldn’t work though. Jesse had
been by my side since I was six years old, never letting anything
happen to me and never letting anyone hurt me. I knew what this man
was feeling.

“If this was you and you
were dying, wouldn’t you want someone to help you?” he asked. I
struggled with what I knew I was supposed to do and what I now
wanted to do. This man was right; it was possible. Joshua had done
at least three times. There was a way to do it. I had to think. The
soul was damaged right now.

It would be repaired once
it got to Heaven. That was where this man was destined to go. If I
could take it out and then repair it, I might be able to put it
back into his body and bring him back to life. The reason for death
in any human is the damaging of their soul. A person could sustain
horrible injuries to their body, but they only died when their soul
suffered injuries as well.

If I could heal his soul,
there would be no reason why he couldn’t live again. I had to at
least try. If I was in his place and I was the one who was dead, I
would want the angel of death to do everything they could to bring
me back to Jesse.

“Ok.” I agreed. “I will
help you.” I drew his soul out of his body, opening my eyes in the
snow-covered street inside Ebulon. The glowing orb floated over to
my hand, waiting for me to help it. I only knew basic healing and I
didn’t know if it would help the soul or not. I would try though. I
knew Joshua wouldn’t help me and Jesse wouldn’t approve either. I
had to do this on my own and fast.

I held my free hand over
the rotating sphere and started to slowly release a small amount of
healing energy into it. The slight red line started to turn with
the soul, filling in the little empty spaces and tears in its
surface.

“What are you doing?”
Jesse asked, moving to stand behind me. I didn’t answer him. I had
to concentrate. The soul kept drawing in more and more energy,
feeding itself and bringing itself back to life. “Rachael?” When
the soul stopped taking in my energy I knew it was healed. Now I
had to put him back in his body.

I didn’t know any way
other than to force it into his body like pure energy. It would
hurt but there was no other way. I slammed the soul down against
his chest, restarting his heart and re-embedding his soul at the
same time. The man jerked to a seated position, drawing in a sharp
and agonized breath.

“Rachael!” Jesse pulled me
to my feet, moving me away from him.

“Jesse, it’s fine!” I
insisted. “I did that for him. He had a family. He wasn’t ready to
die. It wasn’t his time.”

“Actually.” Joshua
wandered back over. “It was his time. There are no rules against
bringing souls back from the dead but there will be consequences.
There always are. They can come in any form and most end in the
person you saved dying again.”

“It wasn’t his time,” I
repeated. I knew I was wrong but I had to believe that things would
work out for this man.

“I’m not here to argue
with you.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m here to escape a few hours of
torment. However this is turning out to be even worse than the
torture I suffer in Hell. I’d rather have my ears cut off than
listen to either of you for one more minute.” Joshua moved to yet
another victim after his rampage.

“Thank you.” The man I had
brought back got to his knees in front of me, grasping my hand
tightly. “I will repay you. I swear.”

“You don’t have to repay
me,” I told him. “It was nothing.”

“But it wasn’t nothing!”
his eyes started to tear up. “You have given me my life back! I
will never forget what you have done for me today.” I didn’t know
what to say. I was still new to… well all of this. Everything to do
with being an angel of death. I didn’t like it and I really wished
I hadn’t doomed myself to this.

“Find your family,” I
stated. “They will be looking for you.” He quickly got to his feet,
dashing further into the city. “Don’t say anything.” I knew Jesse
didn’t like this. I wasn’t about to let him tell me what I had done
was wrong, though.

“I wasn’t going to.” He
surprised me by sounding pleased with it. “I think you did a good
thing. I don’t like this whole angel of death business any more
than you do. I don’t like anything that puts you or the
baby…”

“Don’t talk about it in
front of him,” I stopped him before he went too far. Joshua was
beside an Orc, deep inside the creatures mind, but I knew him well
enough to know he was always listening and he wasn’t supposed to
know about that.

“Sorry.” Jesse glanced
over at him. “I don’t like anything that puts you in danger. Or
her.” He spoke quieter, resting a tender hand on my
stomach.

“Jesse.” I turned as
Joshua drew the soul out of its body. Jesse quickly moved his hand
so he didn’t draw attention to where it was placed.

“What are you standing
around for?” Joshua wanted to know. “Move! Go reap someone so I’m
not stuck here any longer than I absolutely have to be.” I closed
my eyes briefly so I wouldn’t snap at him. I had murdered him. I
deserved to be treated like that. He should get a free shot at
me.

I bent down next to
another human, searching for his voice. I let myself disappear into
his mind, cut off from the rest of the world. It was the worst
thing I could have done at that moment. I just wouldn’t know it
until it was too late.

“Who are you?” It was a
question I would get used to.

“My name is Rachael,” I
answered. “I am here to take you to your place of rest.”

“No!” He was angrier than
any of the other ones were. “You will not kill me!”

“I am not the one who
killed you!” I tried to calm him down. “I am here to help
you.”

“You want to help me?!” he
demanded. “Then get the hell out of my head!”

“I’m trying…”

“No!” he shouted. “You are
not trying anything! You will not kill me!”

“I don’t want to…” It
wasn’t him that cut me off this time. It was an agonizing, shooting
pain in my back. I choked on the sensation, rippling through my
disconnected body.

“What’s wrong with you?”
His voice faded as my subconscious ripped its way through his mind,
trying to get back to my body. The pain threaded its way through
every vein in my system, tearing through me.

“Rachael!” Jesse’s voice
slowly made its way into my panicking mind. He guided me back to
the reality of Ebulon where I found myself in worse pain than I had
been in that man’s head. I couldn’t even scream; it hurt that bad.
What was going on?

“I thought you said that
there weren’t any more coming!” Joshua’s angry shout momentarily
distracted me enough from the pain to see the tip of a barbed arrow
piercing the skin under my collar bone.

“What…? What happened?” I
could barely whisper.

“There weren’t!” Jesse
didn’t answer me, turning to Joshua instead.

“Well you didn’t do enough
research, now did you?” Joshua was standing near the gates to the
city, his sword in his hand. I turned slightly, the pain
intensifying. Jesse was next to Joshua, his hunting knives in his
hands. They were looking out at a huge squadron of Orcs, charging
towards the city.

“Jesse.” I tried to get
his attention. Neither of them realized I had been shot by an arrow
because they were focused on the approaching army. The arrow had
gone into my back and went the entire way through my body. If it
had hit something vital, I would have known. I had to help them
because they couldn’t help me.

I started to get up,
gritting my teeth against the pain. As soon as I tried to take a
step, the darkness descended around my vision. I stumbled and
started to fall, the poison from the arrow flowing through my blood
stream.

*********

“Jesse.” I barely heard
her whisper as I turned around. Rachael fell towards the ground, an
arrow embedded in her back.

“No!” I ran to her side,
barely catching her before she hit the street.

“What are you…? Good God!”
Joshua turned to see what had happened.

“Jesse.” She struggled to
breathe, her wide, panicked eyes focused on me. A cold sweat
covered her skin and her heart was beating so fast I could feel it
against my leg from her body resting on my lap. Her blood spilled
out onto the hand I held tightly around the base of the arrow in
her back.

“You’re ok, sweetheart.” I
tried to reassure her but I had no idea what I was going to do. I
didn’t have the kind of training required to help her. She had a
poisoned arrow shot the entire way through her body.

“You need to pull it out
and you need to do it fast,” Joshua told me, glancing back and
forth between Rachael and the quickly approaching Orcs.

“She might bleed out!” I
wasn’t just going to pull this thing out. I could kill
her.

“If you don’t get it out
of her, she’ll die from the poison,” he stated.