The Winter Letter (25 page)

“Saved my life! Saved my life! You—” Wohie paused for a moment. “Yeah so. But, then you kidnapped me, besides I wouldn’t have fell if it weren’t for you anyways!”

Andrias shook his head. “You are to see the King soon, but not now.”

“Then why am I dressed up and sitting in the courtyard?”

“You look nice, young one.” Wohie growled. “You are here because today I am to tell you a story.”

“A story? About what? Maybe how you
kidnapped
me and my friends!”

“You are a difficult one aren’t you?”

“You have NO idea.” 

Andrias seemed untrained at handling big attitudes in small bodies. “King Mel has commanded me to come and tell you this story today, so please, listen.” 

Wohie folded her arms and looked the other way in protest. 

“Well I must deliver the message nonetheless, if you listen or not. It was thousands of years ago, our time, when—” Andrias paused and looked around. He surveyed the windows surrounding the courtyard for so long Wohie got impatient. 

“When what?! What happened?”

“Quiet, please.” Andrias’s eyes danced from window to window.

“What are you looking for?” Wohie asked.

Andrias turned and looked at Wohie without answering. He stared at her for a moment, then he jerked around and made eye contact with Gatnom and Will, who was peeking over the edge of a window sill watching the conversation. 

***

“What is he looking for? Wait did he see us?”

“Quiet Will.” 

“Oh crap Gatnom, he sees us. He’s coming!”

“Dissipate, disappear, and dissolve our image!” yelled Gatnom, hoping for invisibility. Nothing happened. Gatnom tried again. Nothing. "I forgot; war magic doesn’t work in the city. We’ve got to either hide or fight him hand to hand.”

“Dude, that guy is super strong. There’s no way we can fight him without magic.”

At the end of a hallway Will could hear the clanging of soldiers approaching. Gatnom looked frustrated. He punched the floor. “We are so close!” he said. “But you’re right; we must flee. Come on! We’ll have to make a plan and return later.” 

Gatnom bolted back into the room. Will followed. They slammed the door just as the loud trampling of soldiers filled the hallway.

“Jump!” Gatnom said.

“What? Again?”

“Jump! It’s our only chance!”

“I’m tired of jumping out of windows!”

“GO!”

“THIS SUCKS!” Will yelled as he leapt from the fourth story and splashed into the moat. Instantly he was spinning, flipping, tossing, and turning with the rapids. Gatnom fell just after him, having jumped just as the soldiers knocked down the door. 

Jabber, who had slipped into a nap, was awoken by Will’s scream. He opened his eyes just in time to see Will, then Gatnom, be swallowed whole by the rapids. “Mr. Will! Hold on!” he yelled, launching into flight. South he flew, trailing the two boys by only a few yards, while Will and Gatnom bobbed in and out of sight, too disoriented to use their magic. They shot underneath the bridge to the main entrance of the palace. Jabber just missed flying head-first into the stone arch of the bridge. “Mr Will! Swim towards the edge! Mr. Will!”

Will couldn’t hear anything but his gargling of moat water.

“Mr. Will!” Jabber yelled again, “try reaching for—” Jabber collided face first with the massive south silver wall just as he watched Will and Gatnom disappeared beneath it. They had been expelled from the city, shot from an outlet, back into the battlefields they had rode through earlier that day.

***

Wohie had not known what was happening until she saw Gatnom’s top-hat pop up and rush away from the window. Andrias had blasted out of the courtyard, flying three feet above the ground, all the while yelling commands to the palace guard. She wanted to run, but before she could take five steps three guards had come to keep an eye on her. How had Gatnom and Will gotten into the palace? Were they captured already? Where were the other boys? Why was she supposed to see the king?

A tear tip-toed from the corner of her eye, sliding down her cheek. Over the past week she had shed more tears than she could remember ever shedding before. The prior months flashed through her mind’s eye, from Will falling from the sky to the ceremony where they were almost killed; from the boys being taken to their foolish disobedience of Master Jared’s orders. Look where
that
had gotten them. Everything had changed so fast, like a dream where you are in one place one moment then another the next. Surely things like this only happened to people in books and not in normal Baruvian life. This was crazy.

Wohie slid off the bench and crumbled to the ground. She put her face on her knees and wept. There was no reason to act strong. Not here. Not now. At this moment the borders of the entire world were no larger than the inner edges of her pained heart. This story was so full of loose ends and tangled briars, and she was tired of trying to cut through the weeds. She knew nothing at this moment other than she wanted to see her brother, Seth.

“Ascena, here Love, sit back,” said Mei’s voice. She held out a handkerchief. Wohie refused, so Mei sat beside her on the grass and said nothing. A few minutes later Lord Andrias approached and knelt in front of them.

“Where are my friends?!” Wohie demanded.

“They have been swept out of the city by the moat. My men are pursuing them. I will catch up soon and bring them back.”

“Why are you waiting?” Wohie snapped.

“Because I have a story to tell you before I go.” And so he began to tell her the tale of the First Baruvian War and of Lord Eleazar Guardian, one of the three original High Knights of King Neba. After he was finished he stood. “So, will you come with me? Will you help?” Andrias asked.

“Absolutely,” Wohie answered.

Twenty Two
Retreat

Normally Jabber would have been able to squeeze through a crack, but the wall around the City of Neba was flawless, so he was forced up and over. His flying had gotten much better, but still to go up for so long required such wing-work that by the time he reached the top he was spent. The young butterbug huffed and puffed and caught his breath while sitting on top of the great wall. Far below, the river came from beneath the city wall and sliced the war plains in half as it pushed south towards the Sudden Peaks. The farther from the city, the less intense the rapids.

Jabber caught his breath and dove from the wall. He followed the river until the magic of the city faded from it and the rapids turned smooth. This is where he found Will and Gatnom climbing out of the water. 

“Hey! Hey! Mr. Will!” Jabber yelled.

Will, who was laying face up on a small sandbank, yelled back with out of breath words no one can spell. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay. What happened?” Jabber asked. Will sat up. Gatnom was beside him, on his own sandbank. The look on his face matched the one from the valley. He was shaking his head staring back towards the city.

“Wohie was there, but Andrias saw us. We had to run,” Will answered.

Jabber landed on Will’s shoulder. Now all three were out of breath.

“Will,” said Gatnom. “Do you still have the goggles?”

Will felt in his bag and pulled out a pair of dripping binoculars, the ones he had accidentally taken from Tobby a month before.

“Look there,” said Gatnom, pointing back towards the main gate of the city. “What’s that coming our way?”

Will put the goggles to his eyes. Suddenly it was like he was standing at the gate. He jumped back as a group of guards came clanging out on horseback. “Oh snap, we’ve got to go. The guards are coming!”

“We have to try and make it to the foothills, it’s our only hope. If we can get into the forest at the base of the peaks then we might be able to hide.”

Will looked again. This time he felt like he was riding on a horse next to the guards. They were scanning the banks of the river, searching. “They’re coming fast, but I don’t think they’ve seen us yet.”

“Good, let’s stay near the river, in its banks. If we get on level ground they’ll be able to see us above the grass. Jabber, go find out how many there are and come tell us. Stay high so they don’t see you.”

“Yes sir!”

Gatnom and Will crouched slightly and began the trudge through the sandy banks. Every once in a while they peaked over the edge to see how far behind their pursuers were. They still had plenty of time before the horsemen would catch up. The river had carried them far away from the city in a blurry instant. One minute they were leaping out the window, the next they were miles outside the city wall’s coughing up water on a sandbar. They were at least half way through the plains that had taken all day to cross in the put-put cart. Here, the river was kicked back and relaxing, flowing smooth through its green banks. The strands of neon grass bumped against the sandbars and was at least a foot thick. Each green strand lazily laid on top of the ones next to it, tangled together as if they were fighting for space. It made the ground look soft enough to sleep on. The water from the river was unusually brown (for Baru anyway) because the farther it crept from the city the more dirt it picked up.

“We have got to go faster,” Gatnom said after taking the goggles and looking for himself.

“This sand is hard to walk in,” Will answered.

“I know, but it will take them a few hours to get here by foot. We’ve got a good head start.”

Jabber landed on Will’s shoulder out of nowhere. “Mr. Will! Mr. Will!” the butterbug yelled.

Will started. “Jabber, you scared the begebees out of me! What is it?” 

“Begebees? What’s that?”

“Forget it, whats up?”

“The spy just walked out of the gate. He’s coming this way, and he’s got Wohie with him!”

“What? She’s with Lord Andrias?” Gatnom asked.

“Yes sir. She walked out with him, then some guards came out and pointed towards the river.”

Will spun around just in time to see Andrias lift up with Wohie holding tightly onto his back. “It’s true Gat. They are coming towards us. It won’t take him long to get here. He’s flippin flying again!”

Here Gatnom was hit head-on with another of his many decisions. This time the response came faster. “He must be going to use her as a hostage against us. We need to run with every bit of magic we have and let him see us.”

“What?!”

“Perhaps we can regroup and try to fight him. That way it will be
only
him against us.” 

“Are you sure?” Will asked.

“It’s our only choice. Did you see how fast he flew over the valley?” Will had. Gatnom was right.

“Besides the only chance we will have against Andrias is in the forest where we can hide. Maybe there I can distract him and you can grab Wohie.”

“Okay, let’s go then.” Will remembered how strong Andrias was. He didn’t want an open fight with such a big man.

“On three. One. Two. Three!”  The two jumped out of the river banks and began running with magi speed toward the hills. The last five miles took less than ten minutes, but even with the push of magic the foothills were still a challenge to climb. When they finally reached the wood line they had to battle their way through the dense brush, flinging briars and bushes out of the way. Here, the trees huddled together tightly, and the ground hid underneath the waist high growth. Will felt like at any second Andrias would drop out of the sky. He was ready, nervous, but ready. Jabber kept hopping from Will’s shoulder to the tree tops checking to see where Andrias was. 

“He’s still a ways off Mr. Will!”

“This is thick! We’re getting nowhere!” Will said.

“Just keep going; there’s a clearing just ahead. There we can—”

“What? We can what?” Will ran slap into the back of Gatnom, who had stopped and was staring straight ahead.

“Master Jared?”

“What?” asked Will. He pushed his way up beside Gatnom. In the clearing Master Jared and a small band of men sat on horses.

“Master Jared! Thank the King of All!” Gatnom said again, his eyes suddenly awakened with new hope. Master Jared said nothing. The man on the right of Jared took a step forward on his horse. He had dirty blond cropped short hair and wore the uniform of a captain.

“Where is Ascena?” the blonde man asked.

“Seth... I mean Captain Seth,” Gatnom answered. Will looked at the man on the horse. He could see the resemblance between he and Wohie in the eyes. He had a small scar on his cheek and wore a saber on his hip. Gatnom continued. “Wohie was taken to the King’s castle by Lord Andrias. We went to find her, but they saw us, and now Andrias is coming after us. He’s bringing Wohie with him. If we work together we can rescue her, but I fear he may try to use your sister as a hostage.”

Seth turned and looked at Master Jared. He looked troubled. “Master, are they speaking of Lord Andrias Shielder, the original surviving Guardian of Baru?”

“Yes, the last one alive other than Lord Markus.” The other riders moved uneasy in their saddles.

“What should we do sir?”

“What do you mean what should we do? If he comes, we fight. What else? If we defeat him it will be a great victory for the Under-Kingdom.”

“But sir, last time we attacked one of the original guardians head on it was a disaster. We must again use the element of surprise.” 

Jared turned and looked at Seth. “We will handle this so called High Protector of King Mel just as we handled the third Knight. When the time comes, you take your sister, but for now lead your men out of sight. At my signal you and your men flank him from the west.” Jared turned to Gatnom. “Mount the horse Gatnom and go with Seth. We will deal with your rebellion later.”

“I can stay and fight.”

”You have caused enough trouble with your pride. Mount up! Now!”

Gatnom lowered his head. “Come Will, let’s go,” he said as he took a step towards the pack of horses. 

Master Jared’s horse stomped, snarled, and reared up on two back legs. “Not him,” Jared said coldly.

“Sir?”

“I said, not him. He is not coming.”

“Master, he must. We can’t leave him here.”

“Mount up Gatnom, you need not be involved in this,” said Jared.