Read Online The Omega Children - The Return of the Marauders (A young adult fiction best seller): An Action Adventure Mystery by Shane Mason - Free Book Online Page B

smells and aromatic smells - all richly mixing together and suggesting they were somewhere other than where they had been put to sleep.
    ‘Where are we?’ Ari said still groggy.
    ‘You will see when you are fully awake,’ came Antavahni’s voice.
     
    Melaleuca stirred and mumbled, waking to find her arms and legs did not work either. Blurry images filled her eyesight. Perturbed she tried moving her arm and managed to hit both Lexington and Quixote as they woke up.
    ‘Mel. It’s okay,’ said Ari, his voice sending a reassuring feeling through her. The crackle of a fire burst into life and its warmth fought the chilly air back, helping to thaw her wits out.
    Over and over she repeated the word “trust” mantra-like in her head and when she felt ready, she tried to stand up though she struggled.
    ‘Ari help me.’
    His strong hands gripped hers and he pulled her up. She leant on him and they both took in where they were.
     
    A rugged expanse of land, devoid of trees and teeming with small yellow bushes and autumn coloured scrub, spread out before them, and an all-pervading dampness hung in the air so intense she could smell the wetness.
    In one direction the land stretched as far as the eye could see - an empty distant horizon, semi-blending with the sky. In the opposite direction the land tilted up, gentle at first and then it climbed steeply into a mammoth mountain range, the tops of which were covered in rolling dark clouds.
     
    ‘Cool dream eh,’ Quixote said happy to stay lying on the ground.
    ‘It didn’t feel like a dream. Ari, can you work out where we are?’ Melaleuca said and cast a challenging look at Argus and Antavahni.
    ‘Hang on,’ he said gazing around.
    ‘It was too real for a dream,’ Lexington said sitting upright. ‘Which suggests we were actually there. But that cannot make sense, unless...’
    ‘Yes cousin,’ Melaleuca said, ‘now is the time to use your brain and work out what it was. Facts and stuff.’ She turned to Argus who stoked the fire. ‘Where are we?’
    Argus bent his head toward Antavahni and nodded as if to say he had the answers.
    ‘Yes. I will expect a full explanation from you,’ Melaleuca said pointing at Antavahni.
    Antavahni and a young looking Argus sat silent by the fire and tended it, staring into the dancing flames.
     
    A disquieting sensation leached off the land into Ari. At first he could not name it and then he grasped what drove such emptiness in him. The scrubby plain had no sound. No birds, no animals, no wind, no far off cries, no water moving, nothing, but an eerie silence that hung over it like a great solitude.
    ‘This is a land of nothing,’ he said. ‘What time of day is it?’
    Argus pointed to the sky.
    ‘Time does not matter here,’ said Antavahni.
    The overhead sun sat hidden behind hazy grey clouds that filled the entire sky. Ari had never seen a sky as bleak and lacking in brilliance. God had erased meaning and sheen from it, and the longer his eyes supped on it, the more arid he felt. A shiver ran through him and he pulled his eyes away and stared at the ground. A stunted bush of jagged twigs and small leaves stared up at him.
    ‘Well?’ said Lexington lifting her head and blinking her eyes to focus on Ari.
    Ari shook his head and Melaleuca knew what he felt in an instant.
    ‘Nothing. He feels nothing. We are nowhere.’
    Antavahni pulled a large pot of steaming liquid off the fire and poured it into four wooden cups.
    ‘This broth will help you wake up.’
    With eager hands they all cupped the broth, and warmth flooded through their fingers and down their arms. The rich mixture of spices and other unknown aromas tantalised them and they sipped it, discovering it tasted even better. The liquid flooded their bodies and filled their senses with wakefulness.
    Antavahni stood.
    ‘Come, we still have a ways to go. There is little chance any one followed us but we must push on.’
    Melaleuca shook her head at the others and then