(*12 years ago)
“Come on you pompous fool,” James smacked me in the arm, “Daphne is waiting outside for us. Honestly, I have no idea why she always insists you tag along with us.”
Daphne! I quickly got up ignoring the splinter I had gotten on my leg the day before that hurt really badly. The morning sun bathed my room with soft warm light.
“I’m coming guys wait for me,” I yelled to changing my robes.
We had agreed the day before that today we would play hide and seek. The palace walls were huge and offered a lot of hiding places.
“This time it’s your turn to count,” Daphne said poking me in the stomach. “We are going to hide and you are going to count to twenty slowly.”
Yeah sure! When was it never my turn? Of all the times we played this game I always ended up counting and it was really not fair.
“Why can’t James do it?” I whined kicking the ground softly, “he never gets to counts not even once.”
They didn’t listen to me, they always took me for granted and this time wasn’t any better. I rushed to one of the trees near me and started counting. I heard their dashing footsteps from the corner of my ears. When I finished counting, I opened my eyes looking around. This was going to be a long day. Since we had said nothing was off limits I had to search every place inside the palace from bottom up. Two hours went by so fast and I still hadn’t found anyone. It was starting to get annoying and tiring. The servants were everywhere working in kitchen, it was a busy day and all I was doing was getting in their way. Suddenly, I noticed the shelf slowly shift and open a little apart. There was something or someone inside it. I got excited, after spending more than two hours searching I was finally going to find someone. Quickly, I took a chair and climbed up the shelf. Carefully I opened the shelf door and I found Daphne. I was so happy that I didn’t care about how much time of the day I had spent looking for them. I didn’t care much about finding James, for all I knew it would be another two or three hours before I found him. So who cared if he stayed there and I never found him? Not me.
“How did you find me?” she asked with a puzzled look. “Wow did the sun already set?”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but finally it was just me and her, no meddlesome stepbrother of mine in sight.
“No it hasn’t set yet its still morning Daphne,” I replied smiling vividly.
“Don’t be a smart mouth Riyo,” she growled smacking me in back knob of my head. “I was just playing around.”
Wow! I kept forgetting about her anger tantrums which went off anytime of the day. I had to be careful around her otherwise she would break my skull one day.
“Let’s go find James,” I said tricking her into walking with me. “We have to find him otherwise we won’t be able to play again.”
I walked with her across the palace for half an hour. This feeling, I wanted this feeling of being around her to just last forever. She held my hand in hers and stopped walking, looking me straight in the eye. My small heart skipped a beat for a second.
“If anything ever happened to me would you forget about me?” she asked me in a sincere and yet serious manner.
Ok! Where was this going? Not clearly what I was expecting at all. How could I ever forget about her? I mean I was ten, but I doubted there was anything that would ever make me forget her. I would have to be insane or something for that to happen.
“No! I won’t and that’s a promise,” I responded gently squeezing her hand, smiling brightly. “And would you ever forget about me?”
She took some time to think about it. That really hurt me because a question like that deserved a short simple answer. Like maybe a yes would suffice for me.
“No because we’ll always be friends no matter where we end up,” she replied leaping in the air as the wind blew by. She let go off my hand and ran into the garden, looking gaudily at the red and blue petal flowers. “Promise me that if anything ever happened, you would always find your way back.”
Well, it wasn’t exactly the words I wanted to hear, but the way she said made everything alright.
I held her hand and nodded, sealing our promise with our pinkies. Shortly after, we sat by the edge of the garden looking down at the inner city. I felt something hit me in the back of the head roughly, causing me to yelp in pain. I turned my head and saw James, standing on top of the ledge and looking down into my eyes. His eyes were red with anger, his fist clenched and riled up.
“You got some nerve Riyo,” he bellowed and stepped down onto the ground. “I was hiding the whole time in plain sight for more than three hours and you are sitting here talking to Daphne? Don’t you know she is my future bride?”
Bride! Not if I could help it. If we were to end up battling for her hand in marriage, so be it.
“Oh James, I found you, “I said sarcastically rubbing the sore spot on my head. “I knew where you were there the whole time.”
He didn’t take it too kindly as he shacked hard with raging anger. In a flash of the moment, he swung his sword and hit me with the hilt of this sword of my cheek. An unnerving sense of pain jolted through my body as I jumped up and away from him. It was getting dangerous and I didn’t want Daphne to be hurt by this rampaging mad boy. James growled like a monster and side turned, moving roughly towards me. Would he kill me for Daphne? To be honest, I think he would. James wildly swung his miniature short sword at me and I barely ducked and ran for my life. My head hit something hard and I opened my eyes, feeling a throbbing ache on my forehead.
It was dark and crowded, all I could feel were the wheels turning hard beneath me. Everyone was asleep except for me and the driver. I tilted my head and looked down into my lap. That dream, it had happened in my past when I was still just a child. To think I would relive it again in form of a dream was truly torture. For the past weeks, it felt like I was reliving my entire childhood memories all over again. The scary part was I felt like it was really happening, every touch, feel, and sound was almost real. I remembered the promise I made to Daphne clearly. If only I could see her just one time, although that was impossible at the moment. I felt my stomach growl as I smelled something tasty. The source of this lovely scent was coming from the fresh fried meat near the canister Ogana was laying on. Silently, I reached out to the pot without waking anyone and grabbed a chunk of meat inside. I gobbled it like a wild man without hesitation or a moment’s thought. It was so good that I took another chunk from the pot and ate it all quickly. After I was done, I burped quietly and sighed in peace. My body felt well rested and fully recovered, even my head felt peaceful and calm. The woods around us were dark and void of life. The four horses made a whiny like noises as they run constantly through the rigid terrain of the forest. No city was in sight, I could clearly see the outskirts of nearby mountains thanks to my enhanced vision. By now, Katarina had probably realized I left the city and had her hounds searching for me in the forest. But why had she tried so hard to keep me away from this coat? What made it so special to her? Maybe it had another use unknown to me, far much greater than I could grasp my feeble mind on. That being mentioned, I did enjoy its other abilities like flight and color morphing. I had a powerful gauntlet as well as a mystical coat and yet I was still afraid. But why was I afraid of Katarina Fox? Her mere presence sent shivers down my spine, I couldn’t phantom this unending feeling. And yet I had been granted amazing powers that rivaled in hers in order to save my friends. But why was I still fearful? How could I be such a coward?
“Stop thinking like that!” I whispered to myself, trying not to fall victim to my own negative doubts.
Danyen was just far up ahead, maybe a good two days ride by horse. I could no longer afford to keep doubt in my heart. My greatest adversary was going to be waiting for me there along with my kidnapped friends. If I was to stand a chance, I had to get rid of all doubt and face my oblivion with courage and valor. I shifted to my right side, leaning my back against the wall. My stomach felt full and satisfied th
at I could finally fall asleep peacefully again.
“A good night sleep is all I need,” I whispered to myself falling slowly to sleep for the second time.
“Wake up,” someone rattled me wildly up.
I had just barely fallen asleep without having any weird flashback dreams so I really woke up irritated. I opened my eyes slowly and got hit a by ray of outside light. Next to me, I saw Kaya, shaking and trembling like was scared. He was pale and his freckles were blood red.
“What Kaya?” I whispered with my eyes half open. “Can’t I just sleep peacefully just this once?”
That didn’t come up right because I didn’t know what the situation so I had been rude in my words. I leaned half up on my back and looked into his eyes.
“Now is not the time to sleep,” Kaya whispered as he sat on his knees. “We have trouble on our hands.”
Trouble was the word I now resented the most. So close to Danyen, it seemed that was all we were going to get. Just once, I wished for things to go smoothly. Infiltrate and rescue without being seen; however, that was unlikely to happen. There was no one in the caravan except for me and Kaya. I felt something out of the ordinary lingering outside. In the air, a disturbingly foul odor that reeked of mayhem and chaos. It was so horrible it made my nose hurt.
“What’s going on Kaya?” I asked him nudging him a little. “Why have we stopped?”
He didn’t answer, he looked frightened as if he had seen something horrible. With his little finger he pointed outside shacking like a wet dog in the winter. This can’t be good. Of the little time I had known him, I had never seen him this scared before. Something had spooked the little boy. Slowly, I put my coat back and got out of the caravan cautiously. My nerves were still like iron from fear and crazed anticipation. The ground was covered in bones, some were human and some belonged to something else. There was almost no space without bones and dirt, truly a frightening sight to behold. What on earth happened here? I had never seen anything this nerve wrecking before, it was a little too terrifying even for me.
“This is the path to Danyen,” Suzanne sobbed quietly wiping tears from the corner of her eyes. “Are you sure you want to go there? Now is the time to decide Rid.”
After seeing this, I wasn’t so sure anymore. A piece of me wanted to turn back and run away as far as I could, away from this madness. Were Paul and Tye still alive? How could a human do this to another human? The stench only got worse as some of the bodies looked a month old. I could now tell why Kaya had been so frightened. This was truly suicide quest, we would surely and possibly lose our lives if we continued down this path. Although, I felt my heart burn with hope like something was pushing me forward. I could not explain it, but it felt warm and comforting. I had felt this presence inside me for a while; it came and went without my approval most of the time. There was no turning back now, I had to face my future like a man.
“Yes I do,” I said looking at each of them. “We must keep pushing through to the end for the sake of everyone who lost their lives. This time we are going to take a stand. This madness shall not stop us from what must be done.”
“Well you heard the man,” Ogana said raising his right arm towards Danyen. “We are going no matter what.”
“Yeah,” Masonku and his pose screamed and now seemed livelier than ever. “This time we take the fight to them.”
That was truly amazing. My words had actually motivated someone which had been something I had never done before. I truly sounded like a leader, a man befitting of the future crown of Rogue, unlike James. Now I was ready to march my unified band of misfits against the powerful tyrant. I put my courage face on and looked really brave for the others. They now looked up to me so running away was out of the option. Suddenly, Dashe fell onto a skeleton and freaked out, punching in every direction like a deranged man. Coincidentally, his actions caused the skeleton to hug him. Everyone including me laughed, we needed that laugh after all the horror we had just witnessed.
“Can one of you idiots help me?” Dashe yelped as it looked like the skeleton was strangling him. “It’s choking the life out of me.”
Wait, I looked closely at this unlikely bond. Something was terribly wrong. I felt a residual aura out of all the skeletons on the ground. Strangely, there were somehow coming back to life, well skeleton life that is. I quickly dashed towards Dashe and grabbed the skeleton from the other side, trying to release its tight hold on him. I broke its grasp free from him only to see a horde of skeletons getting up from the ground. They snarled and started to move towards us. Pulling Dashe up, we both moved back and regrouped with the others. This was like a nightmare brought forth to life, almost similar to one of my uncle’s late night stories. I never imagined that one of them would be real and yet here they were.
“This is the infamous Skeletal Road,” Suzanne said knocking over one of the skeletal that had leaped toward her. She bolted towards them using her shadow’s power and knocked a few of them off their feet quickly.
Couldn’t they have picked a better road to Okaya? I shook my head carelessly and took my battle stance.
“This is important information you could have told me before using this road,” I yelled at her as I soared up in the sky and pulled out my flintlocks.
I fired a series of bullets at them, hoping to end it as soon as I could. Even when we knocked them down, they got back up and kept coming. Some of them went as far as to merge with other skeletons to make an even worthy adversaries.
“Is there a way to beat them?” Dashe spun backwards, unleashing a series of fierce sword slashes at half a dozen skeletons at the same time. “We can’t keep this up much longer and there seems to be no end to them.”
Masonku and Glazer worked together and released a sequence of brutal attacks with their flintlock rifles and swords combo. Showe and Dien also seemed to be holding their ground, but not so much with Ogana. He was dizzy from all the drinking he had been doing and all he seemed to be doing was get in the way. Hardly what I would call useful. Perhaps Dashe had been right, we should have left Ogana back in Saza. He was too much of a loose cannon to depend on.
“This is an army of cursed souls,” Suzanne yelled moving back towards Dein and the others. “It must be the power of one of the Rainku so there is truly no way to beat them. We have to get inside the caravan and get out of here.”
And she tells us now? If there was one thing I didn’t like about her, it had to be her imperfect timing. I looked down and realized how useless our actions were. This sort of power of was not something that could be so easy to defeat. Meaning escape was our only choice at hand.
“Okay,” I yelled out to all of them. “Get in the caravan, I will cover the driver as he steers us out of here. Can someone also help Ogana before he gets himself killed?”
It was truly not the right time for him to be playing around with booze. Hard to think anyone would drink this heavily during broad day, but apparently he could. After shooting away a horde of skeleton behind us, I descended slowly next to the driver. This was just insane; they just kept coming and coming.
“Now what?” the driver screamed looking at me in a blank frightened way. “The path ahead is blocked with these creatures. The horses are spooked out to move. What should I do?”
Without hesitation, I shot away the skeletons in front of us with my bullets of rage, making a clear path in the process.
“Now go, they won’t stay down forever.” I yelled at him, clearing another pose of skeletons coming from our sides. It was so frustrating; I had never faced such relentless adversaries like these before. They never seemed to feel pain or fear, all they knew was fighting.
Our driver whipped the horses hard and they galloped quickly through the opened path. Some skeletons had somehow managed to get on top of the caravan, becoming very annoying. The wind was raging fast against us in the different direction. A few of the skeletons were knocked out and some were blasted off by my energy bullets. Danyen truly did no
t like us. I had been truly wrong to think that I could live here happily. This country was truly a nightmare. It was nothing like Tye had described earlier before all this happened. I guess each country had its dark secrets, although I never imagined it to be this ghastly and sinister. As we sped past the horde of multiple skeletons, I noticed the air around us get colder again as if something was approaching. I had sensed this cold chill air whenever Katarina was close within my range. Could she? I got scared at the thought of it. No wait! This feeling was different from before, it wasn’t as terribly cold as before and it felt like it was all around me in the ground and trees.