Taken - part 2

I stumble back, sure I must be mishearing. "What?" I whisper.
"Halie, what happened to you?" Max asks, looking seriously concerned.
"I don't know you," I repeat blankly.
"We met a year and a half ago when I came to live in your village. Your sister introduced us. We've been married for four months, now, but we're in trouble. Someone is chasing us, and we can't work out why. We were running through the forest and fell into the hole. I thought they would kill us for sure, but Erele chased them off. I hope they didn't hurt her..."
I am shaking my head, not understanding what he is saying. How can I be married to a man I don't know? This just isn't possible...
"Ok, tell me what you remember," Max says, making a visible effort to stay calm.
"I... I was at my sister's house. She was getting me tea. Then... I don't know, everything is blurred. I have flashes - bright colours, images, but that's all... What's wrong with me?" I whisper.
Max leans forward cautiously, putting a hand on my arm. "It's ok, we'll work this out. Someone has taken your memories, but we'll get them back, don't worry."
I'm still not sure I believe him, but what other explanation is there? Why else would my memory have such significant gaps in it? Besides, I can see just from looking at the trees that it is high summer; the last memory I have was in the middle of winter. I look surreptitiously at Max. He is tall and handsome, but as much as I try, I can't remember meeting him, let alone falling in love with and marrying him.
"Come on, we need to get back," Max says.
"Get back where?"
"To town. We woke up in the middle of the night and someone was in the house. We ran and were chased into the forest. We should get back and check that everyone is ok."
I nod, still trying to wrap my head around all this. I ran off to get help for Max. I obviously got a rope before I lost my memories, but somewhere on the way back, I was attacked or something.
"I don't suppose you know where our horses are, do you?" Max asks hopefully.
I shake my head.
"Ok, I guess we'll be walking, then. You'll have to splint my leg."
I take a deep breath. Yes, I can do that. Back home, I am a healer. I run a shop selling herbs and such to the other people in our town. I also deliver babies, splint bones, or whatever else is required of me. At first, people were suspicious that someone so young could be a healer, but I have won them all over through the years.
"Hold on," I mutter. I wander off, casting around for a branch. When I find one, I hurry back to Max.
"This is going to hurt," I warn.
"You've splinted me before, Halie," he says patiently, though I see he grits his teeth in anticipation of the pain.
In one swift motion, I pull his leg straight. Max makes an effort to muffle his yell of pain, and I work as fast as I can. By the time I have used some of the rope to tie the branch to his leg, he is covered in a sheen of sweat, but he smiles at me.
"Ok, let's get moving."
Before I can help him up, something huge drops down through the trees. I scream and skitter backwards, but Max grabs my arm. "It's ok, it's just Erele."
"Erele? Max, that's a dragon!"
"Yes, she's a dragon," Max says patiently. "Erele, we have a problem," he calls to her. Her green scales glisten in the light as she turns to us.
"Yes, we certainly do. Get up, we need to move. There are people not far away. I couldn't kill them all, so I came to take you to safety."
To my surprise, Max doesn't argue, and I am forced to grab him so that he doesn't fall over as he struggles to his feet.
"You climb up here," he says to me, pointing at some protruding scales. Though it is the last thing I want to do, I scramble up onto the dragon's back.
"What happened?" Erele asks. "Halie? Did you get help?"
"We have a problem, Erele," Max repeats. "Someone must have ambushed Halie on her way back. They took her memories."
"They took her memories?"
"Well, she can't remember anything from the past eighteen months, so yes, I'm going with memory thief."
Something in Max's voice makes me tense up. For the first time, he reveals how much pain he is in, and not physically. I wonder how I would feel if someone I love suddenly couldn't remember me... It's not pleasant, even in m head.
Before I can ask anything, Erele jumps into the air. My hands snatch at Max's waist, and he turns slightly. "It's ok, Erele won't let us fall," he says, and despite myself, I find that I am reassured.
Normally, I would be elated to be riding a dragon, but now I am too disturbed to notice much. Erele doesn't fly for long, but puts down in a cave on the edge of a cliff that I have seen from our village before.
"First, your leg," Erele says. I watch silently as a green glow covers Max's leg. He grimaces, but in seconds, the glow has dissipated and he is taking off the splint. I stare. His leg is as good as new.
Erele gets straight to business. "When you sent me the distress signal, I came immediately. I chased them away from you, and hunted them down, but there were too many for me to get all of them. When I got back, you and Halie were out of the hole. I don't know who attacked her, or why."
"I think I do," Max says softly. He looks at me. "The night we were attacked, you told me something. You said you'd seen something. You were freaked out, but you didn't want to say what it was. I told you we'd talk about it in the morning, that you should rest. Now, they have taken the memory of whatever you saw."
Erele looks grim.
"Who are these people?" I ask.
"We don't know," Max says. "I had no idea there was anyone who would want to hurt us until last night."
"Well, you do now," Erele says. "And you can bet that if they are willing to go so far as to erase Halie's memories, they won't stop until they have you, too, to see how much you know."
Despite the fact that I have only known Max for a few hours, I don't want him to get hurt.
"How do we stop them?" I ask.
Erele stares out at the forest below. "Without those memories, we can't know what they want. Without knowing what they want, they will just keep coming, and there's nothing any of us can do."

To be continued