Part 11 of Epic Co-written Story
They were incredibly still and silent for a long time, then Angel started muttering some incomprehensible words and suddenly it looked as though some sort of veil had fallen between them and the rest of the cave (making it even darker).
“Some lookout you turned out to be…”
It was barely audible but everyone knew to who it was addressed although they also knew that it was neither the time or place to have any kind of conversation.
Angel was furious, if it had been her on the lookout at the end of the night she would never have missed this and they would’ve been able to avoid their precarious situation. Damn that incompetent boy. All they could do now was be completely silent and hope that no-one noticed the fake wall they were hiding behind (an illusion she had created). The woman felt for the knife strapped to her leg and hoped that she wouldn’t need it. The best thing for each of them to do was to think of a way out.
Nikke was sitting with her back against the wall trying to think happy thoughts, it wasn’t working. Her father had been a soldier from Raven’s Hollow and she knew all too well why the biggest orphanage was in the second military district of the city (Hummingbird Bay wasn’t really a place where many people lived). She knew what it felt like when people died and by then she also knew that soldiers weren’t the only ones that were harmed; some of the kids in the orphanage had come from raided villages far from the citadel and been brought there by whoever had survived. The kingdom’s borders weren’t a very safe place to be, especially the one long border shared with orcs and goblins. Shivering against the wall, she had no idea what to do.
The others were wondering how in hell anything like this could happen so fast.
…
Sasha had watched the army approach swiftly and silently, he was near the top of the mountain, someone had spent the night in the cave that led to his home and they hadn’t left yet. The cloaking spell he had cast on himself worked perfectly, but then again it had no reason not to. The other spell he had cast to deflect danger hadn’t been needed yet but seeing the royal fleet approaching he had no doubt it would be very useful. He was a bit annoyed about being in the centre of the fighting but he guessed he would have to work with that.
The majestic battleships shined in their armour, all cannons aimed down and raining fire as soon as they were within reach of the enemy, it was beautiful. Sasha smiled as he put his goggles on and his mask up, this would be fun! His bombs were in reach and his arm guns (which shot sharp wooden bullets) were loaded and his magic grappling hooks were loose, as soon as the fleet came near enough he would be able to launch himself into the air and rain destruction slightly more precisely than the big cannons. His goal was to find whoever was in any sort of command, if he eradicated those, the lesser pawns could end up running around like headless chicken.
Finally the ships were near enough, using his magic grappling hooks and aiming with his mind Sasha pulled himself up and flew, raining poisonous gas in dirty glass bombs wherever there wasn’t fire. Bullets, cannonballs and shrapnel all swerved around him while he looked for someone in charge, swinging from bronze hull to bronze hull.
…
Meanwhile Marissa was not fussing over a way out or how to keep everyone alive and whole, or busy thinking about the dead, or asking herself how on earth she could have missed an entire army, or trying to put away clanky things completely noiselessly. She was worried about her sister but that didn’t stop her from noticing a darker part of the wall that almost looked like a tunnel. All her childhood she had been looking (more or less successfully) for secret passages in the castle and this tunnel looked as if it might want to be a secret.
“Hey guys,” she dared whisper, “I think I found a way out!”
Luckily there was enough chaos outside for her not to be killed by the others, namely Angel who seemed to have unsheathed a knife from nowhere. They simply made signs as if saying “well? Go in!” Marissa figured they might still want to kill her and made signs to say “I’m not going first!” (It was unsure whether that was the message received).
…
Sasha was annoyed to get alerted by the alarm that was sent off when the first alarm to check for intruders was deactivated. Someone had found his home. He could only hope that they wouldn’t touch anything. He had already put down three potential leaders and he would be home soon. Whoever’s army this was, they were pretty stupid to think that they could invade from the mountains, or maybe they thought no-one would be waiting for them because it was an easily defended site: because of the uneven ground all of their machinery would have trouble moving and being aimed whereas the flying ships could easily bombard them. The third option was that this was a diversion and the real fight was somewhere else, but if so it was a pretty convincing one and led Sasha to wonder how many soldiers they had in the real army. It all seemed so stupid, all this bloodshed because of the disagreement of two men. Or whatever else had caused it. Even more pathetic was the fact that it was two armies of the same race… that was only pitiful, if humans couldn’t get along with each other how could they ever hope to achieve peace with any other race?
The alarm that was supposed to go off when the traps were disabled just alarmed him that the traps had been disabled. Why couldn’t he just live in peace?
……………………………………..zzzzzZZZZZZrflsnooregoodnightmunchkins………………………………….
At first I was going to make Sasha another girl but then I felt kind of sorry for DragonSpark (having to figure out what could be going on in the heads of so many girls/women 😉 ) so I evened up the numbers a bit…
I made a small drawing of what I thought Sasha’s magic grappling hooks could look like: