The trip to the island took longer than expected. The girls finally saw land in the early morning. "That has to be it," said Rae. They rowed the boat around to a small cove. Loa looked around uncertainly. "I don't see anyone anywhere, but I have a bad feeling about this…" "I think we made it without anyone noticing," said Rae. Just then an arrow whizzed by her, missing her by inches. She looked at Loa. Loa raised an eyebrow. "You were saying?" Suddenly arrows started to rain down on them. Rae jumped off the boat into the water. "We've been ambushed! Abandon ship!" Loa jumped in after Rae. "You should have used your power to make us invisible! This is wonderful. Where are we gonna go? How do we know that there aren't any animals, like sharks, in here?" "We don't know that, but we gotta get out of here before we're killed. Come on!" Rae pulled Loa away from the cove. "Rae! Slow down, I can't swim fast with this stupid cape on me." "Then ditch it." Loa and Rae dropped their capes and kept swimming. They finally made it to a small beach. Once on shore, both girls dropped in the sand. "I swear that we must have swam around at least half the island," said Loa. "Yeah. Thank the gods that we've been trained to do stuff like this." "Do you think that anyone has noticed that we're gone?" "Probably, but we still have a head start before word gets to the Enforcer." After catching their breath, both girls stood up and looked around. "Where are we?" said Loa. "I don't know…it looks like we're at the edge of the forest. I bet my mother is in there somewhere. We just have to be quiet and try to blend in." Loa rolled her eyes. "Rae can't you just make us invisible?" Rae slapped her forehead. "I am so stupid. Of course I can make us invisible, but only for a short time because I don't usually make two people invisible." "All right so do it." Rae made both of them invisible, and together they set off into the forest, not knowing what to expect.
Meanwhile back at the Amazon Academy Larc was going through the attendance for the day. She noticed one, no make that two missing details, Rae and Loa. She sent word to have their huts checked, but they were nowhere to be found. There was no question about it: Rae and Loa were missing.
Rae and Loa had been in the forest for a while now, and the invisibility was wearing off. "Rae we haven't found any signs of your mother. Are you sure that she wasn't found? For all we know she could be heading back to the Island," said Loa. "I know that, but…" Rae stopped in mid-sentence. "Wait…did you hear that?" "Hear what?" Rae listened closely. She could definatly hear moaning. "Someone or something is moaning. Listen carefully." Loa concentrated and listened. "You're right, and it's coming from that way." She pointed to some rocks. Rae made her way over to the rocks. "Be careful. It could be a trap," whispered Loa. Rae motioned for her to come over. "That's no trap. It's my mother and she's hurt badly."
Rae dropped to her knees beside her mother. There was an arrow sticking out of her side, and her arm looked broken. Loa gasped in shock. "Jade! Oh gods what has happened to her?" Rae looked around. "She must have gotten separated from the others somehow…my mother is smart. She wouldn't go off by herself. Maybe it was an ambush. Mother it's Rae. Can you hear me?" Jade's eyelids fluttered, but she didn't respond. "I think she's in shock. We have to get this arrow out of her, and her arm is broken so we have to put a splint on it." The girls got to work. The arrow had gone all the way through Jade, so all they had to do was break off the shaft and push the arrow through. "Now we need a bandage," said Rae. She tore off a piece of her skirt. "This'll work. I can get a new skirt when we get back home. Now we have to fix her arm." Loa found a stick that would make a good splint, and the girls set the arm as best as they could. Jade suddenly came to. She screamed in pain. "Mother! It's all right. We're here to get you home!" "Rae? Loa? You girls are supposed to be at the academy…" "Don't worry about that. Do you have any idea how to get back to camp?" Jade's eyes drifted. "Umm…" She blinked. "I can't see straight. Where are we?" A look of concern crossed Rae's face. "Gods…Loa I think she might have gotten hit with something…we have to find camp ourselves." Rae and Loa helped Jade stand. And they went off in search of camp, having no idea where they were going.
Night had fallen by the time that Rae and Loa saw signs of a camp. "Hey Rae, I have an idea. We don't want to be seen by anyone because we're already in enough trouble as it is. I think we should sneak your mother into camp, and then get out of there as fast as we can," said Loa. "I agree. We'll be back on our island before anyone gets a clue that we were here." They hid behind some bushes, surveying the camp, and tying to find the best way to sneak their mother in. "All right I've got an idea," said Rae. "We will leave my mother here, become invisible, and then we'll make noise so that everyone will find her. That way we can be sure that she'll be ok and that we won't be seen." "Good idea. It's a lot less risky than entering the camp." So Rae and Loa settled Jade where they were sure that she would be found, became invisible, and started making animal noises and rustling the bushes. Soon enough a group of amazons, led by the Enforcer, were investigating. Then they came upon Jade. There were exclaims of "Thank the Gods!" and "How did she ever find her way back to camp with all the wounds that she has?" The amazons lifted Jade to bring her back to the camp, and Rae and Loa heard that she was going to be sent back to the island so that she could recover at the healer's hut. Rae and Loa gave each other a high five, and ran back into the woods happily now that they knew that Rae's mother was safe.
The girls had been running through the woods during the night, and as morning approached, a surprise awaited them. They had slowed down to a walk when suddenly they were no longer on the ground. Startled they realized that they were in a net hanging at least fifteen feet off the forest floor. "We better figure out how to get out of this as fast as we can. There is no doubt that this is a trap laid by the barbarians," said Loa. "Use your daggers to cut the rope," suggested Rae. "There you go again. You act without thinking. Might I remind you that we are fifteen feet off the forest floor." "I know, but we can hold on to the rope and swing down." "Don't you think that the barbarians check their traps? We might run into them or something." "Hey I'd rather run into them knowing that I had a chance to run instead of having them find me in their net. We would be taken prisoner, and then who knows what." "All right you have a point. Here take one of my daggers and start cutting." Before long the girls had cut the rope, and swung down to the ground safely. Rae sighed with relief. "Here's your dagger. We better get out of here because, like you said, the barbarians might check their traps, and I don't wanna be around when they check this one."
After a while the girls were getting tired. "Rae we are so lost," complained Loa. "I know. And I'm hungry. There isn't any game in this forest." They continued walking when suddenly Rae stopped. "What is it Rae?" "Something flying through the air at a great speed coming towards us, and… duck! It's an arrow!" The girls ducked, and an arrow flew past them, missing Loa by inches. "So let me guess. The barbarians found us." "No kidding. RUN!" Rae and Loa took off through the forest. They could hear the stomping of the barbarians behind them. More arrows flew at them. "We have to run faster!" shouted Loa. They ran until they came to the edge of a cliff. The barbarians were closing in on them. They had their bows and arrows ready. They were ready to kill two amazons. "This happens all the time in movies," commented Rae. "Wonderful. So now what do we do?" "Do like people in the movies do and JUMP!" Rae grabbed Loa's hand and pulled her with her down, down, down off the cliff.
They landed in the ocean with a huge splash. Rae instantly recognized where they were. "Hey we're at the cove where we first landed." "Our boat probably drifted off though. What are we gonna do? Swim back to the island?" "I guess so. Hey we can make it! We outran the barbarians, and survived jumping off a cliff." "But there's animals like sharks in the open ocean…" "But there's dolphins too. The dolphins in the area love our tribe. You know that. They'll protect us if anything should happen." "Oh…all right. We better start back now. We might have a chance of making it to the island before dark."
Unfortunately getting to the island before dark did not happen. The girls estimated that they were close to the island, but they couldn't pinpoint where it was. Now they were alone in the open ocean at night without a boat or anything to keep them safe. There was no moon that night, so their only guide would be the stars. "Oh gods Rae we're lost in the ocean. If we don't find our way back soon we'll die of exhaustion or dehydration," said Loa. Rae tried not to think about it, but Loa was right. They hadn't gotten any sleep since the day before they set out to find Rae's mother. It was only a mater of time until they would be too tired to move. Dehydration was another problem. Rae and Loa had made sure to eat well before they set off on their journey, but it had been hours since they had something to eat, and they couldn't drink the salty water of the ocean because they would just become more thirsty. "We have to use the stars as our guide," said Rae. "I paid attention to that class at the academy. Look for the North Star." "There it is!" shouted Loa. "All right now all we do is…follow it I guess." The girls swam in the direction where they thought the island was, but time was running out. They were getting more and more tired by the minute. Finally Loa stopped swimming and started to tread water weakly. "Rae I can't do this. It doesn't matter how much physical training we've had. We can't go on without food or sleep, and there is no way that we can sleep here. For all we know we could be swimming in the wrong direction." "I know that, but we can't give up. We came all this way and now we're…gonna die for it. Come on." They swam a bit further when Rae suddenly realized that she was alone. "Loa? Oh gods!" She dove under the water, feeling around for anything that might be Loa. It was pitch dark since there was no moon. Rae couldn't find Loa, and she was about to go back up for air, but she suddenly couldn't find her way to the surface. The lack of food and sleep was making her lose her senses, and the last thing she thought before she blacked out was "Oh gods I am going to die."
