CHAPTER THIRTEEN◄CHAPTER FOURTEEN►CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The immensity of the desert had done well in concealing Talitha and Elkanah after they’d escaped their pursuers. Even if the Crown forces had dispatched another gunship to go after them, they were too far gone into the vastness of the sands to ever be spotted by air, and they’d already bypassed the retreating force that was the Crown Army moving northward. In the hopes of traveling ever quicker, Elkanah had also disposed of his armor plating way back in the desert, additionally hoping to attract minimal attention at first glance once they got into Confederate territory, though his fatigues might have still given him away as having some allegiance to the Crown, despite his defection. Perhaps a new set of clothes—for them both—was in order once they were in a friendlier land.

Now, the beginnings of the southern polar auroras had begun to swirl above the heads of Talitha and Elkanah as they moved ever southward atop their stolen Rakvah. From atop the dune on which they now stood, the oasis of Halaj Province stood before them, and just at the cusp of the horizon were the first semblances of light pollution from Sarat, and a handful of buildings protruding from its skyline. Nearer still, within only half a mile or so from them, were the beginnings of the oasis farmland, the parcels of land separated by irrigation canals and fencing creating a checkerboard-like appearance in the greenness of the land. Under normal circumstances, it would have looked like paradise, but right now, it didn’t.

In the midst of the otherwise pristine appearance, the remnants of the battle that had ravaged Halaj Province were still evident. The hulking wrecks of vehicles still peppered the landscape, along with the pockmarked scars of shell craters, dead Crown and Confederate troops alike, and civilian farmers who inhabited the land trying to clean up what they could with the help of friendly troops. The celebratory mood that had engulfed the province in the wake of repulsing the Crown’s offensive had now passed. Now, a more somber atmosphere had descended as the Confederacy prepared for their counterattack, unknown to either Talitha or Elkanah. It was a beauty that counteracted itself with the remnants of what had transpired here.

As the place was crawling with Confederate soldiers, none were too keen on seeing a Rakvah clad in the yellow armor of Phaziah Ishigar’s household troops. The riders themselves were too far off to be noticed in detail by them, but Elkanah took it upon himself that now would be the proper time to dismount and stroll forward passively. “I’m sure they’ll be wanting explanations,” he said to Talitha as he hopped down off the Rakvah, closing in on exhaustion from its multi-day race across the desert towards Halaj Province. He helped the girl down onto her footpaws as she soon dismounted as well. “So let’s descend nice and easy. I’ve heard stories about defections to the Confederacy, and I’m sure they’ll be head over heels to take us in. Most of them will be, anyway…”

Talitha said nothing but simply nodded in reply. She was too entranced by the aurora above her and the spanning green of the land—a color she had seldom seen in her life. Elkanah had to motion her along with his handpaw to keep her in motion. “They’re probably a little antsy judging by the battle that happened here. So be careful in what you say and do. We’ll head for that little command post over there,” he said, pointing to the makeshift encampment bordered with a few artillery pieces, anti-air guns, and tanks. Inside its perimeter were several dozen Confederate troops hard at work organizing the mess that cluttered the land around them—no doubt many other encampments like it were nearby.

The Rakvah panted heavily from its journey as it was led along by its reins, with Elkanah and Talitha soon descending the dune towards the massive oasis that was the beginning of Halaj Province. For the first time in days—in forever, even—Talitha was finding it easier to breathe and carry herself without the fear of somebody constantly watching her. Like a child in wonderment, she continually looked this way and that at all the amazing visuals still holding fast in the midst of the battleground. The dance of the aurora above was like a blessing in itself that the Zaket suns had never once given her during her enslavement. This was a true place of freedom and dreams.

An red furred Confederate captain was directing operations at the command post, looking down at the table full of maps before him whilst being advised by several others. He was locked in to the task presently before him, in charge of cleaning up and salvaging whatever could be acquired to prepare for the attack against Yerusa Province, all the while helping the populace similarly restore their own land and living space. It was a stressful job, no doubt, and he was in no mood for games or distractions, though one was approaching him now.

“Continue taking count of all the munitions we’ve scavenged off Crown Army vehicles and the dead, here, and here,” he said to his subordinates as he pointed to positions nearby on the map, though his underlings were now distracted by the sight coming up to the command post. “General Othor needs everything we can find to replenish everything we lost in defending this place, if we’re going to strike back northward.”

“Captain?” one of his sergeants begged his attention, pointing to the dune bordering the oasis grass that Elkanah and Talitha were descending towards. “We’ve got a visitor. Golden fur, the yellow armor of the household troops on a Rakvah, and a Sivathi in Crown Army fatigues. But no weapons from the looks of it. That’s a bizarre trio of characters if I ever saw one.”

The captain looked up from his maps at the approaching beast and its riders, instinctively hovering his handpaw close to the plasma pistol in his hip holster at being told about the presences of Crown symbols. Upon sighting them, however, he did see they were all unarmed, just as his sergeant had described. After having thought the surrounding place to be totally devoid of any Crown forces—ones that were still alive, at least—he stepped away from the table with a slack jawed look of awe on his face, unsure of what a set of Sivathi and a Rakvah like this were doing entering Halaj Province. He had to practically gather himself from the appearance of incredulity before addressing them. “You there!” he shouted out, pointing to Elkanah with his finger. “What business does one riding a lifeguard’s Rakvah and with a golden furred Sivathi have in Halaj Province?”

Elkanah kept one handpaw on the reins of the Rakvah as he held the other up high in a display of passiveness. “We have no ill intentions or any quarrel with you, Captain!” Elkanah replied. “We’ve traveled far in the wake of the battle on Zeshom Noor’s estate and seek shelter in Sarat. Myself, a renegade of the Crown Army, and a freed slave from the clutches of that old mud brick merchant!”

“You’ll understand if we don’t take defectors on a whim at their own words!” the captain laughed aloud with his men joining in. “Especially when the field of battle has been devoid of their presence for days now! And what kind of game are you even playing with the golden furred one behind you—the marks of nobility are all over here, yet you claim you’re here with a freed slave and seek shelter?”

Elkanah continued to push the Rakvah forward, feeling that they weren’t in any danger as of yet and would merely endure the taunting of the Confederates more than anything else. He’d presumed they would have been chomping at the bit to take defectors in, but perhaps he was finding out that he was mistaken, judging by the captain’s attitude. “A genetic defect,” he said, parroting the cover story he’d heard from Talitha. “Look beneath the top coat and you’ll see the tans of slave blood. That, and the collar has her registered to Zeshom Noor, assuming you lot have access to that kind of thing.”

The captain grimaced, knowing that the ownership signs of the collar would be hard to prove since the Confederate networks had been denied access to the planetary slave registry. He’d have to ascertain the truth to his story by seeing the girl up close and getting a look at what her collar read. Otherwise, he wasn’t about to just let them waltz in to Halaj Province, even though he had far more important things to do as a military man than to worry about two self-proclaimed refugees, one a deserter and the other a runaway slave.

“If you want passage through, then you’ll come here and answer all our questions, and quick, and under escort, at that. You’ll be surrendering your mount to us for Confederate use, too,” he said, ordering Elkanah and Talitha forward with a motion of his handpaw before motioning for his sergeant and a private to go forward with arms and herd them in to the command post. “And don’t dawdle on it, I have serious business to attend to!”

Elkanah threw a thumbs up to the captain, letting him know that he understood while keeping his handpaw in the air in a continued display of nonaggression. He looked back at Talitha for a moment, giving her some reassurance even though she was still taken in by all the wondrous sights around her, in spite of the battlefield damage. “He must be in a hurry,” he told her. “So with luck we get in and out of here with direction on where to go into Sarat.”

“I just want to be settled for once and no longer on the run,” Talitha said, finally looking to him as she broke her gaze from her surroundings. “To bask in the freedom we’ve earned. It’s so close, Elkanah, I can practically taste it.”

He winked to her and threw on a smile of goodwill, knowing that a time for proper rest seemed to be upon them. With that, he saw the private and sergeant come up with their weapons at the ready, still treating them with some skepticism, but more out of caution than anything else, for they weren’t openly threatening them. Elkanah handed the reins to the lower ranking soldier before dismounting, landing on his footpaws and grabbing his pack from the side saddlebag before helping Talitha down to her footpaws as well. With that, they soon began to follow the duo of troops under guard and towards the command post where the captain awaited them.

It only took a few minutes to get there, and the moment they did, the captain was waiting for them with his arms crossed. “Private,” he addressed the lesser soldier holding Elkanah’s former mount. “Have that Rakvah taken to the depot to get its armor repainted. We can’t have any signs of the lifeguards on our gear causing any confusion in our ranks.”

The private saluted swiftly as he tugged the reins along, dragging the tired beast behind him and toward the spot that had been designated. Meanwhile, the sergeant stood behind Elkanah and Talitha, the barrel of his gun not drawn directly on either of them, but still ready to be raised if the danger suddenly escalated. The captain then clasped his handpaws behind his back, pacing to and fro as he began his questioning.

“I’ll make this as brief but thorough as I can, you two,” he said, his eyes darting between the two of them. “Starting with you, soldier. What outfit were you with and how did you get all the way from Zeshom Noor’s estate to Halaj Province?”

Elkanah immediately cut to the chase, knowing that he didn’t want to linger here too long and get into the safety of Sarat as quickly as possible. “I am Sergeant—former Sergeant, anyway—Elkanah Judara of the 100th Mechanized Regiment,” he started to explain, going out of his way to be as honest and forthcoming as possible so as to garner trust between himself and his new acquaintance. “We were one of the units that had been ordered into the area where that troop transport came crashing down onto Zeshom Noor’s estate, in the hopes of securing it so that none of the contents within the vessel fell into Confederate hands. If we’d been a bit more thorough in scouring the underground, maybe they wouldn’t have beat us to the punch, but the chaos of the ambush originating in the caves around the estate caused enough chaos for me to slip away in desertion, which I’d been scheming for some time.”

“Had you, now?” the captain asked inquisitively, leaning forward a bit at Elknah with some degree of suspicion. “Do you know how often I hear such stories out of so-called ‘defectors’ who are really just trying to save their own hide, thinking that the only way to go on living is by halfheartedly serving the Confederacy? What makes you any different than that, boy?”

“How many have brought along a slave in tow, captain? I saw Zeshom Noor—this girl’s former master—kill her in a fit of rage after he lost everything in that crash. Only through intervening did I get her free of her bindings and spare her from his retribution,” Elkanah said, motioning to Talitha with his handpaw and not trying to sound overly self-righteous. “We fled southward together in the hopes of reaching Halaj Province before we absconded with a Rakvah of the household troops. It was the only way we were going to make it this far in the immensity and harshness of the desert. By footpaw alone, there’s no way we could have done it.”

“And you saw the need to do all that for her, why?” the captain asked. “You could have just left her for the Confederacy to pick up themselves, just like they’ve done to most of the other liberated slaves at Zeshom Noor’s estate. What, you think bringing one under your own escort makes you a hero and garners sympathy from us, as if you’re some kind of hero? Maybe you took her hostage yourself to make it look like you had good intentions. Assuming she’s even a slave at all—what kind of Sivathi has gold fur and wears a slave’s collar at the same time?”

Though Elkanah had told Talitha to let him do the talking, she felt that she was the only one who could stand up in his defense. He needed her to now more than ever, as risky as it might have been. She owed it to him after all the trouble he had bailed her out of. “He’s telling the truth,” she said, sticking her handpaw on her forearm and parting back the fur to show the tan undercoat beneath the gold top. She continued the lie that Zeshom Noor had told her for the time being, not yet comfortable enough to go about spouting the contrary stories she’d heard. “For one thing, it is a genetic defect that caused my discoloration. It isn’t noble blood; that mud brick merchant—cruel bastard—told me ever since I was a child. He had me chained to the estate’s millstone as punishment for intervening in the disciplining of one of my fellow slaves, and Sergeant Judara came to the rescue in the midst of the battle. I might have been trampled or killed in the crossfire if it hadn’t been for him. So don’t doubt his intentions for a second, because I know what I’ve seen, and he’s brought me this far—farther than I’ve ever been from Lathga Province in all my life!”

The captain reeled back a little, taken off guard by the sudden fiery temper of Talitha. Before he could even respond to her, she’d already come up several paces, tugging at the collar on her neck to show him the designation of her name and Zeshom Noor’s initials. “See?” she said, parting the fur around her neck to show the captain as much as possible of the text etched on her collar. “Talitha. My name. And then Zeshom Noor’s initials. Zaket suns know I can’t wait to be rid of the damned thing from my neck. If that doesn’t vouch for my origins, I don’t know what else will.”

“Relax!” the captain said, not wanting to escalate things any further when he knew he didn’t have time to be going into fine details about these two new arrivals. If it were up to him, he’d be screening them for every last bit of information about their stories, but alas, he didn’t have his choice in the matter owing to the situation at present. Moreover, he wasn’t about to get into a heated argument with a liberated slave—especially when he knew better as an officer of the Confederacy. They were fighting to free these Sivathi, after all.

“We just seek entry into Sarat, Captain. Not just to seek greener pastures for our lives, but to offer what help we can to the Confederacy of Liberation,” Elkanah said, stretching the truth somewhat. He wasn’t sure what exactly he intended to do upon getting into Sarat, but it sure beat living life on the run, and he felt inclined to uncover the mysteries surrounding Talitha. “So please, so as not to waste any more of your time, as you seem quite busy, just instruct us where we go next. You did say you wanted to keep this brief, yes?”

The captain cut back on his unshakeable nature for the time being, conceding to the pair. “I did, yes,” he said. “You’ll have to forgive me for being so inquisitive. We’re all on edge here since the battle at the doorstep of our capital.”

“Of course, Captain,” Elkanah said, rolling forth his handpaw a few times to get his answer regarding where to proceed next. “And entry into Sarat requires..?”

The captain waved to where a cluster of tents were situated behind him, where a short line of Sivathi was snaking into. “You’ll want to report there to get your entry papers,” he explained. “That process is actually a lot less stringent than I wish I could be, if not for my duties calling my attention elsewhere, but the Confederacy needs able bodies to fight and the screenings have been relaxed. So upon completing a quick interview there, you’ll take your papers on the next transport into town that departs first thing in the morning. From there, you present your papers at one of the checkpoints into the city—Palak Station, in your case, most likely—and you’re semi-officially in the Confederacy of Liberation.”

“Semi-officially?” Talitha repeated the captain’s words.

“Though the Confederacy is scraping the bottom of the barrel for any Sivathi that can fire a gun, you’ll find that it still has some procedure,” he said. “The papers won’t do it for you alone. You’ll need to go to the main temple to get direction and have that collar removed, plus meals. There, they’ll give you direction on and assistance on how you might be best able to serve the Confederacy of Liberation.” He paused for a moment, pointing at Elkanah. “Like you, if you truly are adamant in your desertion of the Crown Army—you might be the newest enlistee to our cause. You?” he said, changing the direction of his pointing to Talitha before lowering it, unsure of what she could offer based on face value alone.

“In any case,” he began to finish up. “You’ll need to excuse me. I’ve spent enough time on this issue when I have to focus on getting these munitions scavenged up and the damage repaired from the battle.”

“Of course, Captain,” Elkanah said, giving a hasty salute with his handpaw in the habit of his military training, though he still didn’t have any official loyalty to one faction or the other, no matter how badly he wished he was rid of the Crown of Siva. “I thank you for your time. We’ll proceed straight away to get our entry papers per your instructions.”

“Save the thanks,” he said, turning back to the table of maps with his subordinates standing nearby. He was already beginning to fall back into his mannerisms of insulting wordcraft and accusatory nature, practically forgetting that he was addressing Sivathi that aspired for freedoms they’d been denied. “Just don’t make me regret it. If I hear stories about a solar poisoned freak and a treacherous deserter mooching off the Confederacy’s generosity…”

“You won’t be hearing such tales, believe me, Captain,” Elkanah said as he ushered Talitha along, who was about to pipe up at being called such a name, feeling at liberty to stand up for herself for once in her life now that she was practically free of the chains that had bound her. Under the supervision of the sergeant, they found themselves led in the direction of the tent they’d been shown, joining the short line of Sivathi—likely similar refugees that were seeking entry into Sarat.

“Putting aside the harsher words of my captain, let me be the first to welcome you to Sarat,” the sergeant said in a kinder tone of voice as he motioned for the two of them to join the line at the back.

Elkanah nodded thankfully to the sergeant, bidding him goodbye with a wave of his hand as he departed to go rejoin his commanding officer. No sooner had he done so, Elkanah caught sight of Talitha’s handpaw gingerly tugging at the collar around her neck, almost in an anticipatory way after hearing that it could soon be removed.

In all this, it was the first time he’d felt free of danger since joining the Crown Army, and especially after having defected. No longer did he have to worry about being on the run or feel like he had to look over his shoulder for his own safety. The same went for Talitha. Both of them were now just Sivathi, plain and simple. He was no longer a soldier, and she was no longer a slave.

In that regard, maybe this was now the first opportunity that the both of them now truly had to acknowledge each other on such terms. With the sweetness of freedom son to be ahead, they could see each other with unburdened eyes. Elkanah couldn’t help but take in the shimmer in Talitha’s golden fur as it shone under the light of the aurora overhead. He’d never really taken the time to look into her face in depth before, owing to the distractions of survival and flight from the enemy in recent days, but now that he did so, there could be little doubt about Zeshom Noor’s dying words. Perhaps she really was a princess behind the slave rags and the collar. Her fur tone said it all, along with the beautiful trademarks of a noble line deep within her face. He fumbled around in his pocket for a brief moment, pulling out a single talir—a pentagonal shaped coin—etched with the twin pronged crown on one side, and on the other the profile of Phaziah Ishigar on the other. He held it up before his gaze, positioning it alongside Talitha’s own face and going back in forth in shifting focus on her own side profile and then to that of the coin.

The resemblance was quite uncanny. To be sure, only so much could be divulged from the crude rendition of the High King’s profile in a heavily used talir coin, and there were many others among the dukes and duchesses who shared similar features, but Talitha had the same stoic line of the muzzle tapered off in the softness of the tufts of cheek fur, the same steady brow and eye shape and how her gaze met the world; slaves in Zeshom Noor’s ownership would never have questioned it since they’d seldom even seen the High King’s image. Maybe others would in her newfound freedom, but that didn’t matter now. She didn’t have the grandeur of his bearing, perhaps, but the echo of it, softened by hardship and innocence.

In the comparison, he couldn’t deny the beauty of it all, either. Elkanah had to blink a few times to break his staring, entranced as he was by the dancing light on her outwardly noble fur, the tan undercoat hidden by the night. As he clasped his fist around the coin and stuffed it back into his pocket, Talitha finally turned her head back in his direction as she still toyed with the front clasp of her collar. It seemed like it was the first time that they could now look each other in the eye under the simplest circumstances, with nobody out to get them.

As they locked eyes, Talitha couldn’t help but throw the slightest smile across her lips, her golden irises meeting the blues of Elkanah’s. She felt so indebted to him for having whisked her away from a nightmare; from paws that had only beat her every day of her life and with tones that cursed her in the same frequency. She thought back to the caring touch when he’d helped heal her wounded back, the first touch she’d felt that had ever felt like it had cared about her wellbeing or had concern for her. A voice that soothed and assured her that all would be well, and a handsome, white furred face of trust that had brought them through hell and back.

She continued looking at her rescuer, her ears fanning backward in a sheepish way as did her best to conceal the blush that had crept up on her cheeks. Elkanah, with his white fur masking little, had no such luxury, and couldn’t hide it. He had felt so invested in safeguarding Talitha as a means for atoning for his past, but now, for the first time, he understood that the stakes would be escalated if she truly was a hidden princess, and also…

…That it might be for something a bit more that he hadn’t realized at first when he’d freed her from slavery.

“Wh-what?” Elkanah finally stammered, finally breaking his eye contact with her and looking up and away at the aurora nonchalantly, scratching the back of his neck idly.

Talitha stifled a giggle at the sight. It felt like the only natural thing she could do, for it was a glimpse that filled her with joy deep down inside. How could it not when all she’d known were saddened faces and cruel glares? It was charming. More than charming. Liberating. “You really think they’ll take this off, Elkanah?” she said, continuing to lightly tug at the collar on her neck, deescalating the sudden spike of emotions with a question that steered things in a different direction.

Elkanah looked around at the others in the line as he heard her question. Most of them were commoners, with a handful of freed slaves still collared as well, likely aspiring for the same outcome that Talitha sought. “They will,” he said. “And after that, who knows? But I’m certain of one thing.”

“What’s that?” Talitha asked, shuffling forward a few steps as she overheard the clerk’s voice call for the next in line to come forward.

He looked up at the aurora overhead, almost symbolic of the past world that had ensnared them both was exhaling the last vestiges of misery from their former lives. New horizons awaited them both. “That whatever comes next, all this,” he said, looking back down from the aurora and at the light pollution of Sarat from afar, its skyline just barely visible. “Is ours now, even if it’s only the start. Let’s make it ours, and let’s not look back.”