Chapter 2: The sweet Escape (…Just a little piece of your Faith)

- Take him away.
- I make you pay for this, Vamon. I swear by the Goddess I will not rest until your beating heart is in my hand.
- Such unpleasantness.
- Kill then all. Burn the city down. Leave no prisoners.
These were the last words that Kian heard. Two Azadi soldiers threatened him to go straight on, to the airship.
At the same time there was major war going on. Kian had never seen anything like this, even though he was an old soldier too. Actually Azadies were much stronger than rebels, who didn't know anything about coming war, and they simply weren't ready. Rebels tried their best to defend their wives, children, homes, each other and of course themselves, but that was too hard. Azadies were unbeatable.
Kian remembered how he had to kill some rebels himself. He didn't know, how wrong he was then. "You've been blinded by Faith Kian, you can't see wrong from right. I feel sorry for you." He remembered these words clearly. And these words are burning and hurting his soul a lot, because now he knows, that the rebel leader, April(whom he should has killed), was right. He couldn't ever imagined he would do anything like this. But now it was too late to feel sorry for himself. He had undone his mission, and now he'd be punished, killed, definitely. He just couldn't help it anymore. But he couldn't feel any shame when he remembered words "duty or no duty, do only what you yourself believe to be right, and not what others tell you is right." He suffered still, though.
The Azadies led Kian to the Airship that was touched down. Before stepping in soldiers talked about something that Kian couldn't hear. There was too loud; everybody shouted something, like pleading, for help and mercy. But there was no way from cruel Azadies to listen. The roads would be soon, maybe in a couple of hours, filled with dead and badly hurt bodies. The only good thing was that Kian wouldn't probably see it with his own eyes.
- Open the door, one of the Azadies said. – ...while I'm gonna look after this judas- boy, he continued.
- Immediately, second answered.
He took a few steps to the airship, and touched the grip. In one second he opened it up, and when he heard poor scream:
- Now!!!!
Something sudden happened. The group of rebels attacked the Azadi, who had just opened the door, and half of the group attacked second one. Kian was wordless, he wasn't certain at all if the rebels would kill him too.
The first one, who was looking after Kian, fought hardly ten seconds before he got killed, and the second one, he fell down soundlessly after the man stabbed him deeply in the stomach.
Rebels gathered around Kian. There were over ten men in the group, when one of them asked:
- Who are you? You look like one of them … Azadies, but why he was looking after you like that?
- I am an Azadi… an old one. I failed my mission, and now I'm arrested and the Azadies were taking me to the airship. Look, I'm all weaponless.
- I see… but how can we trust you, an ex-Azadi? another man asked.
- I… don't know. Listen, I came here by my mission, then the others, Azadies, suddenly came too. The commander, a cruel man named Vamon, he gave me choice to kill your leader, a woman named April. But I refused. Kian spoke with such a disgust, especially about Vamon. After a short while he continued:
- And so on, I failed and now I'm here. Trust me, I have no part in this war. I didn't even know about it! He tried to sound as convincing as he could, and at least, that was truth.
Rebels looked at each other and whispered about something. It took some time, and Kian's heart beats faster and faster. They may kill him, because why should they trust him? At least he was an Azadi and he may forgive them… but no. After something like that he wouldn't ever forgive Azadies, especially commander Vamon.
After a short talk one of them took one step towards Kian and said:
- That may be wrong but… go on. You're free now. You seem to hate the Azadies as much as we do, right? he sounded still bit insecure.
- Trust me, I do! I won't ever forgive them what they've done!
- Very well… but remember, if you ever hurt one of us, be sure you'll be dead!
- I accept. I'm by your side now. Can I have a sword, I'll take a part to that war.
- We have already problem with weaponry but… Hey, take that Azadi- guys sword, he won't need it for a long time… anymore.
- Thank you again. I promise I won't let you down! Kian said and took the sword. Now he was ready. Ready to start a fight with Azadies.

- Wh-what is that? asked Zoë with wondering voice.
- Please don't go… she tried say it to Vagabond, but when she turned around to see the way he walked – he was gone. He couldn't fell down or jump into gap, but… what happened then? He just vanished!
But there was no time to think about it right now. The strange, black thing got closer and closer… It was so creepy, and Zoë couldn't realize what it was. "May that be the… the undreaming? It's free like Vagabond said… it's time to act... but why he wanted to hear my story? Maybe it helped him to go away, vanish? Like… Faith." Zoë said quietly. But time's running shorter and shorter. There was no time to think about past tense. The creepy .. undreaming .. was already close.
- What I have to do now? She asked herself and looked at the talisman, that Vagabond gave her. – Maybe… No, that's silly but I have no choice! She said herself. – Now or never…
Zoë screwed up her eyes form horrifying back undreaming and showed the talisman. She pointed the talisman right in front of the undream. But nothing happened.
She gave up and started to sob a bit…
- No! If I just cry here the undreaming will catch me immediately. And anything is better than nothing!
She picked up herself in one piece again, and now she was stronger. She found a piece of the Faith she had lost long ago.
- Whatever you do, I'll stay here defending myself 'till the end! She said and pointed the talisman again in fount of the undreaming, which was very close…
Because of the undreaming, the campfire had faded away long ago and the place became to be darker and … colder? Zoë began to feel coldness in the numb place.
- Dream! You tend to dream… you are the real dreamer Zoë, you are… she heard a voice, like a little girl was talking…
- Faith? She asked.
No answer. But now undreaming was everywhere. It filled her ears with creepy, dubious voices that Zoë couldn't realize. It filled even her eyes and nose. Now it was so hard to see, so hard to breath…
- I ain't … give up… She tried to say something else but she felt so intolerable. She took a few running steps but she fell down. The undream folded around her feet, so Zoë tried to crawl.
It was hard, but she got on a bit. The undreaming felt so disgusting.
- Hurry up, dream, Zoë, dream! You tend to dream… She heard again little girl's voice.
"If that's Faith, whatever she's doing there, I better listen. I've saved myself once just by dreaming…" Zoë thought.
She tried to imagine something nice and familiar, but the situation was so hopeless. She was already out of breath, and soon she might be blind and deaf, dead. The creepy voices just kept confusing her.
- I'm not giving up! She said, and at the same time she felt falling somewhere. There was only darkles left, so it was impossible to see, where was she.
The undreaming released at last her feet and she started to fall somewhere in infinity, endless, dark and noisy hole, probably into gap. The only thing she felt she had with her was Vagabond's talisman. But may it help her anymore?

The major war between rebels and Azadis in the Rebel City was worse and longer than people ever thought.
Rebels amassed their powers, so they weren't as weak as Azadis were expecting. That makes the war more difficult. Enemies died, but instead there came both Azadis and other Rebels. Even Dolmaries built quickly the army and took a part in war.
Like Kian was expecting, the streets were full of dead and hurt bodies in a couple of hours, both rebel's and Azadi's. You couldn't simply know whose group lost more people or who would win. At least now Kian wasn't lying down dead or hurt.
He had killed many Azadis in such a long time, and now he was exhausted. "I promise I won't let you down!" He remembered his promising to rebels when they saved him and let go, but he'd be soon dead if he continued fighting to the end of the war. "I must rest some time" he said to himself.
When he tried to escape some Azadis stopped him three times, so he needed to fight more. Luckily, he didn't loose.
After three hard fights against his old people, Kian found a way out. He looked once around, but he turned his head immediately back. "The Azadis are wrong…" Kian thought. "…they don't follow the light of the Goddess – they are all in shadows!" Actually Kian ran into shadow too. He didn't want to be noticed by others, the warriors. He didn't even know should him afraid more of rebels, who would kill him if they saw him drawing off, or Azadis, his current enemies…
After a pretty long walk Kian had two choices: go to the Marcuria city, where he wouldn't be safe for long time, or follow the dark path by the beach. "I have no place to go so…" Kian looked left, to the dark beach path.
"I'm not taking risks… In fact, I'm doing it all the time." he thought himself. At last he chose left path.
He started to walk down the coal black way that leads somewhere. Kian expected there wouldn't be any other people – not rebels nor Azadis - hopefully. "If I have enough luck, I could find a place to sleep and rest." he said.
It was almost midnight. The weather was pretty good, bit chilly but if you were dressed up well you'd enjoy that, definitely. Kian felt the same way. It would be good just walk around, when you're not scared of anything, when there wouldn't be any wars, and when there would be peace everywhere. He felt that he was missing Sadir – how nice it would be just to be an ordinary Apostle student, studying somewhere where was at least one man, Garmon Koumas, who cares at least a bit. But, it is his destiny, and nothing in this world can change it.
Suddenly Kian started to think about April. He tried to forget her but he saw some kind of visions about her every time he closed his eyes. "It was written in her destiny. And I can't help it – she'd die still." Kian explained to himself. "How much I miss her…" He whispered eventually and took a deep breath. "She was the only one who…"
It was a slow and silent night, regardless of the war that Kian was far enough. He didn't know how much time it was, but he was certain it was small hours.
Kian started to look at the sky, it was exactly same like in Sadir in the darkest nights. The moon and stars were blindly shining that looked wonderful. When Kian looked back on the way he saw something in front of him: there was something white and… was it a human body?
Kian went closer and noticed that he was right. It was a human who was lying in white underwear. She looked like a female. When Kian went more closer he saw a person totally good: she was a woman, with dark hair and in clean, white underwear. The woman was all wet because the waves were beating against her every five second. She was lying on her stomach and holding something in her hand. She looked like she was dead, or in some kind of coma.
Kian turned her on her back and the first where he looked was her face. Kian couldn't say how old she was, but she looked like twenty-year-old, or maybe younger. It was too dark to guess rightly. But she looked still vaguely familiar, like he had seen her, but he couldn't remember where. The point is, that she didn't looked like April, and her stomach wasn't bloody or hurt some other way. "I've seen a lot of women in my life, and I don't remember their faces or how they looked like. But she does look familiar, and at the same time I see her first time" He said and bowed down to see a woman better.
She looked more familiar, but Kian simply couldn't recognise her – even when he tried so hard. Suddenly Kian looked at woman's hand. She held definitely something. Kian felt a bit guilty, but still opened woman's fist and took the thing that she was holding. It was a strange medaillon, and in fact it looked like a talisman. Kian got again a strange feeling he has seen this design before, but that was totally impossible. "I'm just too tired …" he sighed deeply.
Kian noticed a bit late the fact that woman breathed, so she couldn't be dead. Still she lay so quitely, so immobility. Maybe she was in coma when? Kian considering continuing his journey to find a save place, but he felt too guilty again to let the poor, helpless woman lie cold and wet somewhere, so he took her in his arms.
He began to walk down the path again, keeping the woman closely in his arms. It wasn't so easy to walk, but he felt better now that if he would let her on her own. Kian had taken only few steps, when he heard the woman started talking about something. Her talk was so quiet and not such understandable, so Kian heard things vaguely:
- Where... am I? I'm not in …mumble anymore? Her talk was only low sputter, so Kian didn't hear or understand everything, at least very well.
- The ..umn-dream-ing… is… . Kian heard form her voice she was very tired, and bit shocked.
- Don't worry, miss. We'll be safe soon, I promise. Kian said auspiciously. And actually he meant it. The woman was alive, it was an important point. And at the same time he found a little piece of Faith deep inside himself, so he was certain they will survive somehow – just somehow.