Chapter Six
Reality came slowly to him and with reality and wakefulness came the rushing sensation of pain. Pain that radiated from his rib cage and from the side of his head. Best to check the head first, he thought as he reached for it. A bandage was wrapped tightly around it and he moaned as his hand fell limply by his side once more.
"Then you're awake, are you?" a familiar voice sounded in his ears.
"Mikhail."
"Yes yes," the Druse answered. As he leaned into the small light set by Ali's bed, the younger man could see his sad expression. "I thought I had gotten the warning to the two of you in time."
"The warning? You knew?"
"I did, but not soon enough, it should seem."
Ali's memory seemed to be making a painful return. Ever so slowly he pieced it together. They'd been hurrying toward Farash's village and had stopped for the night. A shape of a man – Mikhail – and the hurried clean up of the camp. They'd almost made it when the Turks attacked. The young man groaned as he remembered the sound of the gun firing right in front of him and the burning sensation that the bullet passing through him had left, and the intense pain that had followed the cracking sound which he was sure had been a rib snapping.
"Ali?"
He waved off the concern of his brother's close friend, then his eyes shot open. "Mahmoud."
"Taken."
"Taken?" Ali demanded.
"By the Turks."
"Then we will go after him," the wounded man declared as he began to sit up, trying as best he could to ignore the searing pain that raced up and down his side. His body protested mightily against the movement and Mikhail protested almost as loudly.
"No, you must lie back."
"I will do Mahmoud no good lying in bed. I must go after him,"
"You'll do your brother no good dead," Mikhail said sternly.
"Then what?"
"Then you have patience."
Ali snorted, not really meaning too but not really caring. "I can't… just stay here. I have to go to him. How long have I lost?"
Mikhail turned his eyes downward. "It has been several hours yet. We did send spies out for him."
The younger man shifted his weight to one side, half rolling to a sitting position very slowly. He grit his teeth to keep from crying out. "What news did they return with?"
"None yet."
"I will wait one hour more for their return. Nothing more." He would need no less than an hour to make sure he could get himself to his feet and make sure he could walk. He was sure that he'd be much slower than he would ever care to admit, but Mikhail did not know that. He glanced to the table to see his beautiful knife. "I will not leave him for the Turks."
"None of us would."
"I know."
"I will leave you to collect yourself," Mikhail said as he turned to leave. "Then we will go after your brother."
Ali's eyes widened slightly. "We?"
There was a twinkle in Mikhail's dark eyes as he turned to glance at the younger man. "Of course. Be ready in your hour."
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A/N: I know that is very, very short, and I am sorry, but I have very little time and I'm also working on a fic for the TV show Numb3rs. Really good show! I suggest it to all! Even a non-math person like me can appreciate and become addicted to it. Anyway, I'll try to sit back and write short chapters for this when I can.
Ophelia Russell: Ah! I was so happy when all of your reviews came in! You don't know how happy it makes me to pull up hotmail and have all those emails in my inbox :) I know I tend to write a lot of dialog, and I'm sorry. I'm going to just pretend it's on purpose and say I've learned it from Jane Austin and Pride and Prejudice. It makes me sound like I've meant to do it lol. You did like how I passed time? Oh that's good! I was a bit worried about passing some-odd years so quickly there. Actually, the marriage I was talking about was Phillida and Darling's marriage (I've blanked out on his first name, never did like him). I'm real big on getting time lines correct, and according to what I've read Marsh and Iris were married that year that he spent back in England (I'm pretty sure, if I remember what I worked out… Really should have written all that down…) Ah yes, dramatic endings to chapters are fun. Hence the reason I'm scurrying off to write another chapter for my Numb3rs fic, b/c I ended it dramatically and had demands on that one too. But I thought I'd update this one first :)