Chapter 20 ~ Plans

Will blinked in the sunlight. The people that had rescued him from the slave traders were clothed in bright, colorful clothes and most of them had tattoos or body art. Different colored dyes decorated the skin of a large man who walked toward him, spear in hand. An Indian near him poked him with the bottom of his spear, an evil grin covering his painted face. The large man let out a shrill call and the Indian took a step back, looking guilty. Will looked around nervously. “Not very friendly,” he thought, “Yet they haven’t killed me…” He shifted uncomfortably as the man approached him and walked in a slow circle around him, his dark eyes seeming to judge him. A deadly hush fell over the tribe as they watched with awe-filled faces. Will’s stomach turned as the man stopped circling him and looked him in the eye. Will held his gaze. Then the man looked at his hand, the one that was marked with the sign of the dragon rider. He turned to the silently waiting tribe. He opened his mouth and proclaimed in a loud voice while raising his arms, “Lepoonea!” The whole tribe shouted and raised their arms, jumping up and down and dancing. One of the men disappeared as the tribe rushed up to Will. He was engulfed by hands touching his hand or ruffling his hair. The man reappeared with a spear and a torch, and two other men trailed behind him with bundles of fire wood. “That’s the third time I’ve heard that word today…” thought Will, “and I’m beginning to not like it.”

Render, Levi, Luna, Cless, Charity, and Bonnie exchanged worried looks. The dragons paced around anxiously. “How can we find him? He could be anywhere,” said Charity. “Could you send him another mental message, like you did to us?” she asked Cless.

He closed his eyes for a second. They waited in silence. His eyes flashed open. “He’s too far away,” he said, lowering his head and looking thoughtful.

“We could send the dragons to look for him,” suggested Levi. They considered this for a moment. The people here still weren’t used to dragons, and many spies were sure to report anything suspicious to Borom.

“Isn’t there a kind of meeting place for the traders?” asked Luna, “Someplace we can be sure to find him?”

“Of course. It’s an underground area of the black market,” said Render, getting up from the rock he was sitting on and pacing. “We can go there, but we’ll have to be careful. That’s where all the traders sell the slaves. It’s illegal and many evil people are sure to be there, but I’ll bet Will has ended up there if he hasn’t escaped already.” They nodded and made ready to travel in that direction. The dragons would stay on the ground, walking beside their riders, and the whole group was to be silent. It was only a day away. The week was growing shorter. They needed to get Will and stop Borom before it was too late.

Will watched as the men began preparing a large bonfire. The Indians had circled him and were trying to talk to him, also offering him spices and cloth. Before he knew what was going on, he was wearing a hat covered with flowers and a necklace made of fruit. The Indians led him over to a tree near the growing pile of logs. They all stopped very suddenly and turned to look at the large man, whom Will guessed was their chief. He approached Will solemnly and spoke in a strange tongue. Will peered at the people, confused. The man stopped talking and five strong Indians approached Will. They grabbed his arms and as he struggled, tried to tie him to the tree. He kicked one of them in the stomach and he fell over. He managed to punch another in the eye. Eventually, he was overpowered by more Indians. After a flurry of arms and legs, they backed away from Will, now tied to the tree. The chief turned to face the anticipating Indians, and exclaimed solemnly, waving a lit torch in the air dangerously close to the pile of logs at Will’s feet, “Lepoonea!” Will blinked, finally guessing what Lepoonea meant. Sacrifice.

The group traveled through a large forest on the side of the waterfall. It was about afternoon time and the trees above them glared at them, almost daring them to step closer. They glanced nervously around them. “Stay close,” Clesseath warned, “There’s a tribe of Indians here. Not as short as pigmies, but equally dangerous.” As the day wore on, they began to hear a faint noise. It was loud and continually growing, like a whispered breath on the wind.

“Is that…chanting?” asked Luna. They quickened their pace but stayed closer to the shadows. Soon they crouched in some bushes and peered out at a large clearing with lots of colorful people dancing and chanting around … something. Levi peered at what they were surrounding. Charity sucked in a sharp breath. “Will!”

The chief turned to Will, met his eyes, smiled, and lowered the torch to the logs. Will struggled violently. He suddenly remembered his knife and tried to get it out of his boot. A flaming arrow came out of no where and killed the Indian on the spot just as Baladon came roaring out the trees, eyes aflame, scorching the trice. The Indian fell, but the torch fell with him, lighting the wood on fire. Luna, Render, and Cless were firing arrows from the trees surrounding the clearing and using magic to fight the tribe. Levi, Charity, and Bonnie jumped out of the bushes, swinging their weapons wildly and striking anyone in their path. The minor dragons flew to Will, spitting on the fire in an attempt to put it out. Will clenched his teeth as he clutched his knife and began sawing away at the bonds tying him to the tree. In a few second he was free, and he joined in the brawl. The dragons erupted out the trees, flames of varied colors engulfing the Indians in a brilliant show of lights. The archers’ arrows struck their targets every time. The fighters fought hard. Eventually, the clearing was no more than an almost empty, scorched patch of grassless earth. Once the last of the cannibalistic Indians was properly disposed of, the gang cleaned their weapons and approached Will. He grinned at the sight of his friends. Charity laughed. He frowned. She pointed at his head. He reached up and pulled off the flowery hat, smiling too. Render dropped out of his tree without a sound and welcomed Will. Cless flew down and Luna followed him, gracefully landing on her toes. Bonnie approached him and they briefly swapped stories. He noted she was now wearing a loose, brown shirt under a leather jacket with black pants and a large belt filled with her knives and her sword hanging at her side. Her hat was the same as normal, as were her rings, and she smiled broadly when he explained he had almost been eaten. Charity told him of her pyromaniac removal of her captors. He laughed at that.

They camped there for the night and determined to tackle the castle tomorrow. Render and Cless spent the night talking over various plans. The others listened, ejecting ideas occasionally, or slept. The morning came with a light mist and a slight amount of rain. The minor dragons raced around, excited. The large dragons and riders left for a nice, long ride. They had been absent from the sky for too long, and they used the mist as an excuse for riding without being seen. When they got back they talked a bit more about the plan and set out toward the castle. There was no need to continue to the black market since they had met up with Will. It was straight to Borom from here on out.

“Alright, so, one more time, run the plan by me again?” asked Will as he trailed behind Baladon.

“We split up,” started Render. “Back group climbs through the garbage chute. Front group rides in the back of the wine cart through the front gate. You’ll have to sneak into the cart when the guards aren’t looking, but there are hollow barrels at the back of the cart for you to stow away in. Front group goes directly to the King’s chambers, once they’re inside an unattended, staying in the shadows. Back group slays all guards, making rounds around the castle. Lock all the doors and windows. There can’t be any way for the army of Borom to enter. Front group has to somehow take care of Borom and make sure the King lives. Once he is safe and the castle is clear, we’ll meet up,” said Render.

“Hm…are you sure you thought this out all the way through?” asked Charity, skeptically.

“No,” he replied truthfully, “But we’re short on time and this is the best we can do.” They nodded and walked in silence for a while. Cless walked in silence, doubtful thoughts leaking into his consciousness. Tomorrow was the big day. Tomorrow was the day that they had to change. Tomorrow was the day in history when things went wrong, and they had to stop it. Tomorrow was the day that they would re-write time…….hopefully.

~ Bonnie Spinner

Chapter 19 ~ Escape!

{Render is having fun on vacation. I got this via email...here it is.}

Escape!
Bonnie fell to the floor. She saw nothing. It did not take her long to untie the ropes on her hands and dispose of the gag and blindfold. She noted her surroundings. She was in a small dirty prison cell. This place was quite disgusting, so much so that I do not wish to describe to you the grime and dirt of this unpleasant place. She saw through the cell bars that the other wall of the hall way was also occupied by cells each one of them with a prisoner inside. She had noticed quickly that the floor was soaking wet for her clothes that were in contact with the floor were soaked by who knows what. There was an awful smell of rotting flesh. She jumped when she felt squirming in her Moonbeam cloak! She reached into the hallow and pulled out a reptilian creature. She recognized the red scaled face to be Miya. “Miya you little rascal.” Bonnie said softly while also stroking the soft spot behind Miya’s ear. It was then that Bonnie noticed a disaster! She reached up to her head and there was no hat! “NO!” she screamed! She searched the whole room with a frightened stare. Nowhere in the room could she find her awesome hat. She sat in the corner and crossed her arms. “That was such a cool hat!” Bonnie said with a scowl. “I need to get out of here.” Bonnie then watched Miya walk through the bars of the prison cell. “Miya go find the keys but don’t let anyone see you!” Miya shook her head with a disagreeing face. Miya was scared. “Miya we need to get out of here, it will be the best for the both of us.” Miya looked down the hall and back at Bonnie. With a look of determination Miya scurried away. Through the time Miya was gone Bonnie got a live scene in her mind, she was seeing and hearing everything Miya was. Miya sneaked up the hallway to the right. The opposite side was a dead end. Up at the end of the other side were four guards all playing a game of cards. Miya looked up. From Miya’s point of view she was very low to the ground which Bonnie wasn’t use to. Miya searched each of the Guard’s belts for a key chain. The one closest to her had no keys to be seen neither did the guard next to him on his left or right. It was the furthest guard who had the keys in his possession. Miya, like a mouse crept under the table. She and Bonnie jumped when one of the guards screamed “Cheat!” and the table fell over and the three other guards started beating up the guard with the keys. They took no notice of the little Minor Dragon cowering behind a broken chair. She sneaked over to the guard who was on the ground. “That’ll teach ya to never cheat in a game I am in!” said one of the guards. The three took out the knocked out guard’s bag full of gold and walked out of the prison. Miya had noticed that the guard was knocked out to a bloody pulp, therefore, giving her the opportune moment to take the keys. “You can do it Miya.” Bonnie said through her mind to Miya’s. Miya took the key chain in her mouth but to no avail. The key chain was secured on the man’s belt well, much to well for a Minor Dragon. Miya had an idea. She spat on the chain. This corrosive saliva that the Minor Dragon had produced proved to be worthy of many uses. The chain melted and snapped releasing the keys. Miya ran back to Bonnie. “You did it!” Bonnie said. She was proud of her little Dragon. Bonnie tried many keys before she got the right one. The door opened and Bonnie was fully aware of the hallway for Miya had seen the whole place before. She walked down the hallway. She took the remaining keys and threw them in another cell with another prisoner and walked out. She had noticed now that she was on a porch that was hanging right off a hill and under the porch was a large river. This porch was connected to hundreds of rope bridges going to house and market buildings all over the place. This place had an eerie green light to it. The trees were so spread with leaves that the sky was not seen. Bonnie knew that she couldn’t be seen in the clothes she had now, so she looked for a target with a comfortable style yet inconspicuous. She looked around and noticed someone with a suit that quite matched her style. She then headed for this “target.”

Charity was alone in a room that looked like a restaurant storage closet for it was full of food stuff. The “owner” came in and forced her to stand up. Screaming and twisting Chair’s arm the man said “You will work for me with no complaining or your suffering will become legendary!” the man threw her into the kitchen very close to braking Charity’s arm. “Start with the Dishes!” the man finished while walking out the door. He shouldn’t be messing around with me! She thought rubbing her arm. She looked at a container that had rolled out of another closet opposite of the room that said: “Lighter fluid: Highly flammable! keep out of reach of children! Use caution when using around flames!” She walked over to the closet and opened the door. The Closet was completely full of these containers of Lighter fluid and highly flammable logs that are used to start the huge oven in the kitchen and fireplaces in the main dining room. She looked around for matches and found some. She took out a steak knife from the silverware drawer and punched a hole in one of the containers and spilled the fluid all over everything in the closet with flammable components. “Oops. “ She said also making a trail of this liquid out of the closet near the middle of the Kitchen. She dipped one of the log’s top in the remaining fluid and set it aflame. She searched the kitchen for the exit. She got to the exit with the flaming stick. She threw the stick to the trail of fluid that wound and curved its way into the explosive closet. The fluid caught on fire and danced around the room following the trail toward the closet. She then walked away. She didn’t look back and was within a safe distance when she heard a huge explosion and a gust of hot air blew across the river she was next to. There was screaming and destruction. Charity had escaped with a grin on her face.

The trail was dark and rough. Render saw through the bag that was supposed to blind him. The bag was made of a weak material. He sat in a large stage coach that had a good sized collection of slaves. The Grobdenite chains were still secure. The bag was then removed from his face. “You will help us get into the castle or your friend dies!” it was the castle Borom was about to take over, the very castle the king was in. The old man they had “met” at the stall that had access to the cart then removed the bag from the face of the gagged Luna! At the same time Render saw all these little things flying toward them with a surprising speed. He knew that they were Luna’s Minor dragons coming to the rescue! He had also seen a large black thing fly across the moon. He reached the mind of the flying creature. It was Ancalagon! “We are here.” the voice of Cless in Render’s mind had said this. “You do not want to be killing her.” said Render. “Why not!” said the Old man. At that moment a huge explosion of black fire had erupted from Ancalagon’s mouth and spewed over a small group of Borom’s army. The old man looked over where the flames had come from. At the same time the minor dragon’s had swooped in and started to dissolve the Grobdenite chains with their corrosive saliva! Render and Luna broke free. Cless flew to the rescue from his hiding spot and started shooting fireballs from the palms of his hands. The flames would change color as they flew through the air. Render had used magic to retrieve his swords and other weapons. With the weapons flying in the air he had dispatched of the old man. Luna had escaped behind a rock with the minor dragons. Ancalagon roared and landed near Render. Render jumped onto Ancalagon and they launched away towards the moon. Cless had said a word that was undecipherable and as he thrust his hand toward the remaining soldiers of Borom’s army they all fell over as a huge shockwave of blue energy blasted them across the battlefield.

Will was dreaming. And this is what he had dreamt: he was on a beach with pink sand and purple butterflies. People surrounded him. These people were having tea parties and laughing as purple dolphins jumped in and out of the pink ocean. Unicorns and pink buffaloes were running up and down the rainbows and flowers which were singing. He was running down the beach with long silky hair that was flowing in the wind. Suddenly he had awakened in a dark deep pit. He looked up and found that he was being stared back at by a little boy who looked like he was an Indian of sorts. “lepoonea!” the little boy screamed. “What?” asked Will. The little Indian boy ran away. A few moments later Will heard footsteps. A whole group of these Indians looked down at him and spoke in their strange language. One threw a rope down to Will. Will hesitated. Here he was going to climb a rope up to either his death or life. He started climbing the rope and the Indians got excited. Will reached the top of the crater he crawled out of and looked around. Obviously the slavers got ambushed by the Indians for there were dead people and broken wheelbarrows and stuff scattered everywhere. “LEPOONEA!” the whole group of Indian people screamed. Will flinched when they screamed.

Bonnie was walking along being as inconspicuous as possible. At moments she would try to cover her face with the large hat she wore as people passed her by on the road. It was nothing like her other hat. She missed it… allot… She then noticed a rough fight going on further down the road. “I saw it first!” said a man’s voice. “I know who owns this hat!” screamed a familiar feminine voice. “That is a LIE!” the man yelled. Bonnie ran toward them. From the back she took out the sword she had found and took the hilt and slammed it on the man’s head. He fell over and at the same time revealing the girl who was arguing with the now knocked out man. It was Charity! “Chair!” “Bon-Bon!” they embraced and exchanged their stories. The two great friends had reunited. After they had told each other their story as detailed as possible Bonnie wasn’t surprised at what Charity did to that restaurant and neither was chair surprised at how bonnie got a hold of her new threads. “I found something of yours” said Chair handing over her awesome hat. “You found it!” said Bonnie very happy! They headed down the road both very happy that they had found each other and that they had found Bonnie’s wonderful hat.

Because of the mental message Render received from Levi the group of magic users and both minor and major dragons went straight for a huge waterfall to meet up with their elvish wizard. Luna and Render flew on Ancalagon and Cless flew with the help of his dragon wings. The minor dragons were tucked away in Luna’s hallows. They caught sight of the waterfall but there was no elvish wizard. They landed near the waterfall. The minor dragons jumped out and into the water playing around with the small minnows and splashing each other, diving in and out. There was warmth to the water. Render and Cless already knew what was going on and so did Luna in her own way. A shape started to form by the waterfall, the shape of a dragon. It was first the outline of the shape and then it started to fill in. it changed from the color gray to green. Soon it stopped morphing and changing and turned out to be Clesseath and Leviticus. “Here is my little green Wizard!” exclaimed Render. “The same.” replied Levi. “Listen, we need to find Charity Bonnie and Will. They are the last missing peoples.” “I will try to commune with them by the way of the mind.” said Cless, sounding all profound.

It was nightfall. The sun had just disappeared and the moon was only starting to fly over the sky. Mist was flowing from the grass and road like a steaming pot. In some places the mist was thicker revealing no surroundings. The mist arose also from the calm river that danced near the road calming down the tension of any who walked by them. The clouds which were few were illuminated by the beams of the large white moon. Bonnie and charity were moving slowly. “Come where the water is singing the loudest. “ said a voice in Bonnie’s mind that sounded much like Cless. “Chair.” Bonnie said. “What?” “I heard a voice that said: Come where the water is singing the loudest. What do you think it means?” asked Bonnie. “Reminds me of a waterfall.” answered Charity. “You are a genius!” they walked along the water hoping that soon they would find this waterfall. There was a sound of water splashing and spraying. They moved faster. The trees cleared out some revealing the waterfall and the people around it. There under the moonlight stood Ancalagon, Clesseath, Cless, Luna, Render and Levi. The minor dragons were flying toward Bonnie and chair at a fast speed. There was little Moss determined to find Miya. Miya crept out of her Pocket-Den and looked up to her best friend. They came to each other and made all kinds of noise. The other Minor Dragons joined them. Charity and Bonnie made it over to the group camped by the waterfall. The group by the waterfall looked at what Bonnie was wearing. Render came to Bonnie. “Will is missing.” He said. Bonnie had a look of shock!

~ Render Moonarrow {posted by Bonnie}