Moon-chan: Hello everyone! I know that I should update more often, but let's just be happy that I got around to it earlier than I thought I would shall we? *smiles at readers* Any who here is chapter five…chapter six is in the works so keep a look out for it come next month.

The Bonded Ones

Chapter 5

Ana appeared in my tent her veil slightly askew and just from that I could tell that her particular power of foresight had shown her something that was not a mere foreboding; she had actually seen a glimpse of what would happen. "Faye, we need to intervene," she stated quickly her voice breathy from her run.

I stood and place my hands on her shoulders in a soothing gesture. "What did you see?" I asked my gleaming amber orbs watching her body language with an intensity that would have freaked out most other beings.

Her head lifted ever so slightly to look me in the eye through the opaque fabric. "I saw Doom for all. If events occur as I fear then everyone in Alegisa will not live past the next fortnight." I could tell that Ana wasn't happy with this pronouncement. She hated more than anything else the thought of any creature dying in this ongoing war though she knew that there were always casualties.

"So basically the backlash from whatever happens takes the life energies from everyone and everything in the kingdom and makes the land barren, correct?" Ana nodded her clenched hands speaking of fear and anguish. Life was precious to her, something to do our elfish upbringing.

She was shaking with anger something that rarely happened, if ever, with her gentle exterior. Ana was gentle as far as I could throw her. That was pretty far, but eventually something would wake the beast slumbering inside. Even Ana can't be demure all the time. I stood then and placed my hands on her shoulders. "Well considering the fact that the caravan is about to leave Alegisa we won't get there in time by horse." I tapped my chin thoughtfully as I started to pace.

"We're going to make an awful lot of noise aren't we?" Ana asked as she followed my progress with a turn of her head.

I tuned to her a grin on my face as my hand reached for the pommel of my sword at my hip. "We're going into battle of course we're going to cause a racket." I looked away a moment and turned to grab the rest of my weapons, not bothering to grab my armor. It wasn't that I wouldn't need it, but it would only slow us down and we needed to make all the haste that we could. That wasn't counting the fact that I could summon anything of my possession to me even over a vast distance. My sister could likewise though she always carried her twin short swords, her bow and arrows as well as her bag of herbs.

Once I had gathered my things, namely my three swords and daggers, I turned to Ana and asked my face grim, "Wings or shift?" To answer any questions as to why we don't to say it a crude and easily understandable term…Teleport, well that was simple really we can't do that over more than thirty leagues. If one had to guess then where we had to go was well over that from where we were.

Ana though her face was covered bore a smile, a weak one. I could tell because of the fact that I had practically been with her every waking moment since she was born. "Wings," she answered softly her hands wringing anxiously in front of her. I knew that she meant that we had to leave immediately what she had seen had caused her severe distress.

We hurriedly moved from our position with my tent, and over to where Nar'Lok was standing watch. "Ho, Nar'Lok," I called as we made it to the top of the hill.

"Good evening my ladies," he said in his gravel like voice. "What brings you both from your pavilions so late? Nar'Lok was a rather cultured Urgal, he liked to speak like a human even though his horns were one of the largest that we had ever seen on a Kull.

"We'll be leaving the company for a while, but we want you to continue to stay the course in the meantime," I stated my tone business like. I wasn't going to mince words. I didn't have time for such foolishness.

He merely nodded. He had excepted something like this to happen seeing as he like most of his kind could smell a battle on the air no matter how far it was from him. He knew almost as well as Ana did when something concerning the Blue rider would happen. Most of the conflict of late had concerned Eragon and his Dragon.

We concluded our discussion and then moved quickly to a hill further away from camp. Once there Ana and I pulled our cowls up and cast a shadowing spell on our faces. Ana also enveloped her hair into this action. Then we both turned to face one another the wind picking up as we did, as though summoned by our impending actions.

We lifted our hands and clasped them together then threw our heads back so that our eyes were looking at the moon. Then even as the wind gained in force we rose into the air the sound of strong wing beats filling the otherwise silent hill. The reason for the wing beats was because of the fact that as a Bonded we have the ability to use the abilities of other creatures or beings. Currently we were using one of the three sets of wings that every Bonded had the feathered ones that we have been remind other of angels though Ana is closer to the description of such a being As soon as we had reached a reasonable altitude we shot off letting the warm stream of air coming from the Hadrac desert carry us to Urubane.

When we arrived the battle was already under way. I spared not a glance for it although my blood called for the dance. There were more important matters at hand than a release for my aggression. Midflight both Ana and I dropped from the sky, our wings disappearing back into the ether from whence they came. Landing just inside the fate of the palace I heard a voice project mentally. "We cannot maintain this spell much longer."

Glancing at Lurana I quickly pulled my hood away from my hair, at the same time releasing the glamour on my face. My tresses curling about my visage as I and my sister reached out our minds and took the burden from the old ones. Ana spoke to them, "Rest Ebrithil, we take the burden now." The pressure was immense once they let go, but the battle around us had quieted a lament going through the elves, the queen was dead. The structure underneath the weight we had just taken charge of was crumbling.

I sensed Murtagh , and his panic. I sent a wave of comforting warmth his way through our link. I felt him then move and I knew that he and Eragon as well as the others had leapt into action. Ana and I let it go cutting our magic from the building, choosing instead to shield the people hidden with the palace. Well our bonded and their companions any way.

One thing that has always been true of humans and other creatures of the ground, they rarely look up. That is why none of those that were running about on the ground even noticed the two cloaked figures on the roof of the building that stood next to the citadel.

Grinning about the foolishness of those that didn't fear the creatures of the sky I settled down to wait until there was something I could actually do. The sitting and waiting game chafed me though. I hated having to sit on the sidelines more than the average female as one could tell just by taking a gander at the three swords very obviously seen on my person.

It didn't take long for something to happen for which I am thankful because only Leaf and Star know what I might have done had there not been some action soon at that point. Ana as per usual was the picture of calm, but that was a mask that she wore, even as a child. I may have raised my younger sister, but in many ways she was like unto a tree, calm and serene above ground, but a torrent of activity beneath the soil.

Murtagh and Thorn had fled the city leaving Ajhad's whelp alone with tears streaming down her face. Eragon and Sapphira were hot on their tail. Without saying a word or even glancing at one another Ana and I took to the wind again our lithe bodies instinctively following our riders.

When we landed on the other side of the hill we heard Umaroth, "Beware the deeps, and tread not where the frond grows black and brittle and the air smells of brimstone, for in those places evil lurks." My breath caught in my throat even as my fist tightened until my nails drew blood from my palms.

More than anything else my race feared the creatures of the black lands, they being the first evil in this land, sealed into their domain by the Grey folk.

I had meant to reveal myself and let Murtagh and Thorn know I was there, but now I was frozen to the spot my golden eyes narrowed, but that was not the half of it; no, not at all. The Eldenari had actually been warning my sister and I more than the riders, they didn't know this legend, no one, but those of the dragons did. Ana didn't share my ability to see the past as it played out. A gift that I inherited from our mother, foresight was given to Ana.

Shaking with wither rage or fear I didn't know, but at that moment I knew that , however distant…we'd be at war with them again, Demons were rising again and it was up those that were created to protect the world to take up their mantle once again. Leaf and Star what will become of us?