“Indeed.” Blayne nodded. “I know various secrets and various types of tricks with the armour, and my abilities in battle far exceed any of yours as I have been in various battles over the years. However, it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t need help. If you think, Kieran, that I am being too much, you can stop me anytime to correct me.”
“Well, that Armour is beautiful.” Kieran nodded, looking at Elora’s key necklace. His eyes gained an unholy tinge in them. “And the way that Elora wears it is perfect. It’s like it’s absolutely made for her. The very sight of the armour, its perfect making and how it looks is amazing, so amazing that I cannot believe it! I just—”
“Alright, Kieran, stop.” Elora laughed, her voice sounding like a bell tinkling in the night, creating the softest of all the melodies in Kieran’s ears. “I have heard enough, you know a lot about armours. I just need to learn how to use my sword and move properly inside of it. But still, you really like armours, don’t you?”
Chaiya, who was looking at Elora and her brother, smiled widely at the first ever normal conversation that they were having, without even noticing each other’s flaws. Perhaps, there was a way that Elora could do much, much more than just help him out. Perhaps Elora could actually be the person that Kieran loved the most. Only time would tell, though.
The time for fun, however, didn’t last long. As soon as the day rose, the group of eighteen campers all left the main camp to go all the way to Feather-Grove. It was a long way off, and they had a lot of things to worry about on the way. One of the most important thing was, they were about to take back a castle, and to an extent an entire land back on their name. That way they would not only get a stronghold to live at, but also a place where they could officially hide during the war, and a perfect way to escape if the need arose as well.
“So what is the plan here?” Elora, who wasn’t going to be a part of the full on attack force, but was going to go inside and check if there were any prisoners around, asked Kieran, who was the head of this entire coup on the castle of Feather Grove. Kieran and Elora were looking at the castle emotionally, looking at their home, but finally snapped out when Johan coughed.
“Y-yes. Alright, let me start by saying this is going to be absolutely insane,” Kieran said, looking at the group that had assembled together. “Even if there are only twenty warriors, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to be able to win, just like that. Nope, we are not going to do that, at all. We are going to go ahead and simply start killing. So Elora, you’ll only come out after Chaiya deals with the front guards. The rest of us will use the hole that we have there to enter and sneak up and out.”
“And Elora, you will be following me, as I’ll be your ‘guard’. Your mission is to find the prisoners, mine is to look out for all the soldiers on the ground floor and take them out. Once you and the prisoners are safe, if any, then we may look out for more soldiers in Feather Grove and try to get us a home base and area,” Chaiya said, nodding at Elora. Elora sighed but nodded, understanding the reason why they were doing this. “Alright? You get it?”
“Yes.” All of the soldiers, who now knew, what they had to do, nodded. Elora and Chaiya quickly snuck away to find a way to get to the front gates. As Chaiya knew what she was doing and where she had to go, she would be the one to lead. They quickly got up in position, and Chaiya quickly took air.
*Thwack*
*Thwack*
One after the other, two arrows were shot, and both of them met the heads of the two guards that were guarding the entrance into the castle of Feather Grove. Chaiya quickly motioned for Elora to follow her. Elora, who suddenly realized that now, would be the time to get ready, started to chant the phrase for her armor to get on. As they passed into the draw bridge, a red flash followed after which Elora was quickly in her armor. It didn’t make any noise, at all, as Elora and Chaiya stood behind one of the walls.
“Elora,” Chaiya whispered, looking at her helmed face. “I will look out and start shooting. Once I am clear, you move up ahead. I am sure that there are at least two guards up ahead.”
Elora nodded, and looked on as Chaiya took her bow and arrow, and got ready. She suddenly rolled off to the side, and got ready to shoot. And shoot she did. Instantly, one of the guards went down. She didn’t even wait to fire the second arrow and in two seconds two guards were down. Elora had to admire her fellow female camper’s shooting skills. She was really good with a bow and an arrow.
“No one ahead,” they heard someone whisper from the other side. They saw Jeremy nod and pull his hood up as he walked up the stairs. Elora and Chaiya looked at each other and nodded, running off to the end of the hallway and around. As Jeremy had said, there was no one up ahead. Elora noticed the giant cellar room, and looked inside. There were prisoners inside after all, all of them locked up, full families and servants, without a means of escape.
“Who are you?” One of the men asked bravely. He fell silent when Chaiya entered inside. A Hush fell into the cellars but before anyone could even speak, Chaiya spoke.
“As glad as I am to see you alive, you must stay quiet. We don’t have much time,” Chaiya said, her voice a whisper. “This is my friend Elora, she’s going to stay here while I look out everything in the bottom floor and wait for my brother and his force to clear out the castle. Do not make noise, do you understand?”
All of the prisoners nodded, gladly listening to their lady. Elora sighed as she leaned off to the side, once again focusing only on what she would have to do to complete her destiny.
I wonder what my mother would think about this, Elora thought vindictively. I am sure she would be horrified what her ‘perfect little daughter’ was doing to her ‘perfect world’.
Her mother was a completely different matter. Elora’s love for her mother was still there, but not as much as it had been once. She had tried to change Elora’s interest from Archaeology to medicine because she was a doctor herself, and Elora hadn’t liked that. One thing lead to the other and Elora had moved away from Britain to USA to get her Archaeology scholarships and degrees. But this was once again not the time to think about that. She could hear someone coming down the aisle. She quickly hid behind the wall, and off to the side, preparing her sword. As soon as she was sure that the man was an enemy, she guessed swears and curses upon finding a dead body and shouts of ‘intruder!’ would be enough to designate him as such, she came out of the corner and slashed down upon the man.
The man gurgled, as the sword instantly slashed down upon his chest and easily cut his chest apart. He wasn’t even in armor, so there was nothing he could do about that either. Elora watched with wide eyes, as she, a simple girl, took a life for the first time.
“Elora!” Chaiya’s whispered voice came in. “Get back in! He’s not dead!”
Looking down, she looked down as he managed to stand up again, his eyes filled with fury and with agility defying herself, she ducked down to avoid the arrow that instantly lodged into the man’s forehead, killing him instantly. Elora sighed, her heart beat dying down as she got inside of the cellar and stood guard.
“Ground floor is clear,” Elora said, panting. Her face was smudged with blood and her eyes were wild with excretion and excitement over actually fighting like this. “Damn that was a good bout, I didn’t think that it would be this wild!”
“T-that’s good,” Elora said, taking a deep breath as she noticed her blood coated sword. She had taken someone’s blood. This was much different than the Gargoyle, much, much different. “That’s good.”
“Hey, listen, when you take your first blood, you also feel the same way. I did too,” Elora said, calming the girl down. “Don’t worry, nothing will happen, nothing at all.”
“I-I know. I-it’s just...shocking, that’s what it is,” Elora said, straightening up. She would break down and cry later. Right now was finding out how Kieran and the others did. “So what about Kieran and the others? Are they alright? Did they succeed?”
“Yes, I think that they did
,” Chaiya said, smirking in delight. “I don’t know for sure, but we were clearly the stronger ones. There were just the back-drop of the others left. I think we should head up and see for ourselves. Let’s free the prisoners first.”
There was a big cheer, as Chaiya walked inside of the cellars and opened up the cells of every single one of the prisoners by herself, looking at each of them with her deep, piercing eyes, the eyes of a monster, as they would say. She looked to see if anyone was treacherous and anyone was in for the right reasons and found none, so she simply nodded and looked at all of them.
“While I know not many of you will recognize me, or will, I am Chaiya Danon, the princess of Feather Grove,” Chaiya said. “And I have come here to re-take Feather Grove as most of the soldiers are called back to Castle Worth to train for the upcoming war. I ask of you right now, in this very moment, Feather Grove will be going to war against Claw Worth. It shall be a rebellion against Prince Italus of Claw Worth for daring to destroy us and kill our King and Queen. It shall be bloody, it shall be deadly and life will be lost. So hence, I ask of you, will you support us in war?”
“Your wish is our command my lady.” The remaining soldiers that were punished and prisoned said, standing straight up, head first, as they grinned. “We are ready for war.”
“We cannot help in active battle, but outside it we will do our best to help out as well.” The females nodded. Chaiya grinned.
“Well said,” a Familiar, yet unfamiliar voice came from behind them. All of them turned to look at six people, all armored, walk towards them. Kieran and Jeremy came from another direction, all of them looking at the six new figures with trepidation, especially Chaiya, Kieran and Elora. “I am sure you remember us.”
“You’re the Gargoyle’s, aren’t you?” Elora asked, her face a mask of shock as she now looked at Blayne. Instead of the once dangerous, vile beast whose wing she had cut off now stood a well-built man, with a tall frame. His hair was short, and his eyes were sharp. He had a scar over his right eye and under it, almost appearing that he had lost his eye, and another scar under his left eye, and was wearing an armor with a very familiar symbol under it.
“That is correct. We are Gargoyles, or were gargoyles, but as all of you, we were once men,” Blayne said, his chest puffing up proudly. “We fought for Tarith, and we fought valiantly for our own king, and then, we were cursed. We were cursed because of reasons I won’t discuss, and turned into Gargoyle, guarding the enchanted armor of the great warrior of the prophecy. For two hundred years, we did that, two hundred full years. We killed all those that didn’t make it to the spot, and guarded all with all that we had. But eventually, the great warrior returned and freed us from the curse.”
Blayne pulled out a Heart Knife that he had on him, and Kieran’s jaw dropped. He knew that he was feeling something else there, he just knew it.
“We were once known as the Sentinel six of Tarith,” Blayne continued, and a hush fell around everyone. “Now we are the Sentinel six of the Legend. We have come here, to help you in this war, against Claw Worth, against those that wish to harm the wielder of the armor.”
For Elora, though, this was a beacon of hope. For the first time, she could see a small, glimmer of life in the endless darkness, as she looked at the six Sentinels, the army destroyers, stand in front of them.
There was still hope.
Epilogue
The reparations of the castle and the surrounding areas took a long time, to say the least. None of them even knew as to why did it take a long time, but it did. It was in fact, ridiculous as the campers slowly came back from the main camp, into Feather Grove’s castle, as they together moved in. But not all was good, as Elora discovered.
She was reading a simple book she found inside the castle, hidden behind the last piece of the wall. She wanted to test out a theory to see if it would work, and it did work. It was true, there were people who hid things in the last wall of the castle so that no one would look at it. And it was a strange book, to say the least. She didn’t even know whom it belonged to at first until she noticed the name.
It belonged to the queen of Feather Grove, Kieran’s and Chaiya’s mother. It was a strange diary that she had kept, where she had written down some really, really mysterious entries. She didn’t recognize any of those mysterious entries. Any, but she did recognize one thing, a simple letter written down to someone she didn’t even know. There was no name on the letter, just a letter.
It wasn’t the letter, but the last part of the letter that made her curious, and dumbfounded her.
About Kieran...my sweet Kieran...it is so sad that he had to be born in such a place at such a time. There was such hopes that I had for him but now because of this one, stupid, little thing all of those hopes are going to be backtracked.
Kieran was meant to be a king, a ruler of Feather Grove. He was the eldest and was meant to rule over when his father died, and become a good King at that. But instead of this simple, fickle, little thing known as destiny his fate is going to be much, much more darker. The prophecy does state, after all, that the first child born of the Feather’s would be sacrificed for the greater good.
No one knows what this means, but I know. I have known enough about Destinies to know that this is eventually going to come true about Kieran. I just don’t know why he will have to sacrifice himself. Will it be for the better? Or will it be for the worse. Will it help everyone out? Or will it just be harmful to everyone. I don’t know, and I honestly don’t want to know. I don’t want Kieran to be harmed over anything and I don’t want him to be harmed at all. He is a king of kings, the ruler of rulers, he is not meant to be in such battles so soon in his life.
He is meant to sit on a throne and enjoy his life, not face endless strife and misery. He is not meant for such a fate and yet, the gods have given us such. But he will succeed, just you wait, he will succeed. Just...he is not meant to know this. He doesn’t have to know this. His destiny is his own, and only when he realizes it must he figure out how to come to it.
That was all that was written in the unknown letter for some reason. Elora had no clue as to why, but this was the reason why it was written down. What was worse was she couldn’t even show it to anyone. It was written down well enough and she didn’t want to annoy Kieran’s mother. For some reason she felt as if she would fail in one of her most important tasks if she did. But she didn’t care.
Elora sighed and looked up at the blue sky. Kieran had gone on to scout out with her phone near Claw Worth, to get some answers. He wanted to get some reports about their enemy and his forces and even if Claw Worth’s forces were ten times as big, he wasn’t going to give hi, and neither was Elora. They would fight, win and come back as the victors, and free everyone from the fear and shadows of Italus.
But will it be soon? A voice whispered in her mind, a very familiar voice. She gasped and looked around. ‘It is nice to hear you alive, Elora.’
Y-you...you’re the one that knocked me out of my dream in Velia! Who are you?! Elora exclaimed inside of her head, looking around. Is this a dream?
I wish it was. This time, she knew definitely that the voice was that of a female. It is not a dream. But I just wanted to know if you were safe or not. But there is the question that remains. Will you win the war? Or will you lose it? Will this end up as a success? Or as a failure for everyone regardless of the result. Only time will tell. Until then, Elora, I cannot wait to meet you.
And the voice vanished from the inside of her head. Elora stood up straight and looked around, hoping that the voice would return, but it didn’t.
Please! Wait! Answer my question at least! Where can I find the tapestry’s missing piece?! Elora exclaimed inside of her head. There was no reply. Elora sighed and shook her head. Of course there was no reply. She couldn’t believe what was happening to her. Now she was hearing voices as well.
“Elora.” Chaiya came running up to her location. Elora quickly hid the book behind her. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, was tired by reading the book, again and again, so I was...just looking around.” Elora shrugged. “What is it Chaiya?”
“Kieran came back, and he got the pictures.” That did snap Elora’s attention to Chaiya, as they grinned together. “Come! We have things to see.”
Elora quickly ran behind Chaiya, hoping that Kieran was unharmed. He was, at least that is what it seemed as they reached him. He was tired, beyond tired, but he was unharmed, and was drinking a big glass of water in the main room of the castle.
“That was a trip,” Kieran said, panting. “Had to run all the way from the borders. Was almost caught, but luckily I escaped. That witch is seriously something, she has wards and defenses all over the castle. I just couldn’t get close enough but I got enough. Here.”
Elora had taught Kieran how to use her phone for once, so he could take the photos. Kieran was a quick learner, and he had done so quickly, and knew how to switch on the phone, take the photos, switch it off again and come back. Elora quickly took her phone and switched it on, looking inside of it and straight up went to the Gallery where Kieran had taken some photos from.
The first few photos were of the army, and the size of them. It was at least five to eight times as big as the rebels and all the allies that Kieran had, but they didn’t care. She saw how Italus was having the army trained and how they were preparing for war. She saw everything that she needed to see, here and there, and even the castle of Claw Worth. She saw a picture of Sinara as well. But what surprised her the most, and shocked her the most, was the picture of one man.
He was handsome and tall, walking from a balcony to the other. He had a small beard and deep eyes, as he walked. It was in the middle of a walk and he was facing the camera, so she could also see that there was something around his neck that grabbed her attention in the first place.
It was a piece that she recognized, the shape that was haunting her dreams ever since she learned how to go back home. It was something that she had wanted for such a long, long time that she couldn’t even sleep without wondering about it. It was the shape of the missing piece of the Tapestry, and it was around his neck, on a necklace.
Shadows and Sorcery: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 275
