Read The Alchemist's Apprentice: and the Ogre's Curse Page 7

  Chapter 7

  Into the barrels

  The room we were standing in is was sparsely decorated, there was a chest pushed up against one of the plain stone walls and on the opposite side was a large stone bed with a pile of animal skins thrown on to it.

  "As I see it, the platform is on the eastern side of the castle, so if we keep heading east we should eventually find it." I said walking to the door.

  "That makes sense, but can I suggest..." Godwin started to say.

  A loud snorting noise coming from the animal skins interrupted his sentence. Why can't anything be simple I thought. "Come on." I whispered even though we hadn't been quiet so far.

  Godwin pulled some little bags out of his pocket and was going through them deciding which one to choose. "This is no time for that!" I said looking at the bed; I looked closer at the skins, amongst the furs there were two wide eyes staring right at me. My blood froze. Godwin was tip toeing over to me and the door still trying to pick a bag.

  The eyes held me in their gaze. Then there was an almighty scream and an Ogre in the bed sat up, pointed at me and screamed some more.

  Godwin nearly fell over in shock and screamed back, I stuck out my hands saying shh to the Ogre as if it would help, the Ogre continued to scream and point. Godwin had regained control of himself and finally found the bag he was looking for, he opened it up and tipped half the powdery contents in his hand and then blew the power at the screaming Ogre sitting in the bed. Blue dust sprinkled all around the Ogre's head. "Hold your breath boy!" Godwin shouted at me. "You won't want to be breathing that powder in."

  I did as I was told. The Ogre stopped its horrendous noise and started to cough and splutter, Godwin blew the rest of the bags contents into the air until the Ogre finally fell silent falling back in the bed. Godwin was covering his mouth and indicated to me to get out of here; we exited the room into a spacious corridor. "That should keep her quiet for a while," Godwin said to me. “I can't believe I had to use a whole bag! That sleeping dust takes three months to make."

  "You said her. It didn't look female to me." I said.

  "Have you ever seen a female Ogre before? No I don't expect you have. They look the same as the males, just slight differences. That was a child so we had better move now before the parents turn up to see what all the noise was about."

  We headed east down the corridor as far as it would go, we could hear footsteps behind us, maybe the child's mother checking on her daughter, hopefully she would think it was having a bad dream and we wouldn't be discovered. At the end of the corridor were some large stone steps leading down.

  "Well it looks like we are heading in the right direction." I said.

  "Take the lead Lemon, I will watch our backs."

  Typical I thought as I slowly descended the spiraling stairs. I could hear gruff voices at the bottom; they weren't coming up were they? If they were we would be trapped between them and the Ogres up the stairs in the corridor, I turned to go back up but Godwin put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head. I started to panic and then the voices faded away.

  "Be strong boy, keep going." Godwin told me. I took a big breath and carried on down and around the bend at the bottom. I stuck my head around a large stone statue and saw we were at an entrance to an expansive kitchen. Over the other side was an Ogre preparing a feast, the amount of food on show made me think some celebration was happening today. Godwin pushed me in and we both crouched behind a work surface.

  "Which way do we go now?" I whispered. Godwin just shrugged. I peeked over the top of the counter and saw that the Ogre was moving around the worktop to where we were hiding, I ducked back down and pushed Godwin to move around the work tops side, crouching we moved quickly just as the Ogre rounded the other side. Ahead of us were large metal barrels pushed up against a wall and another staircase leading down. Godwin nudged me and pointed to the stairs, I checked the Ogre wasn't looking this way; it was busy chopping up some sort of fruit with its back to us humming some sort of tune. I signalled the all clear to Godwin and we both made for the stairs. As we reached them we heard voices coming up, Godwin quickly turned nearly knocking me over. I looked back at the cook; he had nearly finished his preparation. Where to go?

  The barrels I thought. I peered into the closest one, it was half full with a brown liquid so I checked the next and it was empty. I grabbed Godwin's arm and pulled him over to me, then while keeping an eye on the cook I quietly climbed in. The voices were getting louder from the stairway as Godwin flopped down on top of me; I had to muffle a cry as his weight crushed my body in the tight confines of the barrel. The chopping suddenly stopped and we held our breath as we heard the cook’s footsteps coming towards us. The sounds of the Ogres ascending from the stairs were now in the kitchen, we could hear them talking to the cook although I couldn't understand what they were saying. We both kept as quiet as we possibly could, not daring to move in case we were heard. The Ogres were laughing and now standing directly next to us, we heard some bashing and I guessed they were putting a lid on the barrel beside us. They are going to see us! I felt a panic attack welling up inside me. One Ogre was standing above our barrel still taking to the others; I could see his shadow looming above. Then the world went dark and the lid was put on our barrel.

  We waited for the noises outside to die down before we shifted about to get more comfortable, Godwin managed to slide down next to me. "What a lovely mess you've got us into." He said, the alchemist was not very happy.

  We were so close to each other I could smell his breath; it was sweet like his tea. "It was either this or we get caught." I whispered angrily.

  Godwin put both hands on the lid above and twisted it, the lid moved. "Well at least it isn't secured down," he said. "We will have to stay in here until it's totally quiet outside." I nodded even though it was completely dark and he wouldn't be able to see me.

  We were still in the barrel and I guessed an hour had already gone by; I wouldn't last much longer in here I thought. Twice we tried to get out but each time we heard someone come into the kitchen, there were still Ogres moving about but we had enough of being stuck in here, we were going to take a chance. Just as Godwin was about to unscrew the lid we started to move. The barrel rocked back and forth, so I pressed my hands against the sides to steady myself, then we crashed down on our side and I was now laying on top of Godwin, the worst feeling I ever felt came next even worse than traveling in the transport. We started rolling, Godwin and myself were bashing against each other as we spun round and round, I was on top then he was on top, I was starting to feel sick and I knew Godwin was as I heard him gagging. Please don't throw up I prayed as we rolled and bashed about for at least ten minutes before we finally stopped and was stood back up. "Are you alright?" I whispered.

  "Can't...talk..." Godwin said gagging in between words.

  The noise outside was now very loud, there were a lot of Ogres out there. "I've got to get out!" I moaned.

  "Me too." He replied.

  Just as we were going to take a chance and undo the lid again someone started hitting the barrel, the sound was horrendous hurting both of our ears.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  On the third bang a small round tube of metal entered the barrel at the bottom. We heard angry grumbling and then the barrel shook vigorously. There was silence and the lid began to twist off and bright light shone in hurting our eyes. An ugly wrinkled face peered in over the top and stared in surprise at us. The game is up I thought.

  Massive hands the size of plates reached in grabbed us both by the collars and lifted us out.

  Dangling a foot off the ground I could see we were in a banquet hall, there must have been seventy or eighty of the massive Ogres staring at us. "Surprise!" Godwin shouted throwing his arms apart. He got no reaction. We were taken towards the end of the hall to be unceremoniously dumped in front of an ornate throne with the largest Ogre you have ever seen sitting on it. He shouted something at us in its own language and he
sounded very angry. We were forced to kneel on the floor facing the angry Ogre, neither of us wanted to look at him, fear was now running through both our veins. This had to be the dreaded warlord.

  "Why are you here? Are you spies?" The Ogre warlord asked in the common language.

  "No, no! We are not here to spy, we are here to pledge our allegiance to you." Godwin said in a shaky voice attempting a bow.

  Somehow I didn't think the warlord would buy that.

  The warlord looked us up and down. "You Wood Riders!" he spat. "Vermin!"

  Godwin went to protest, I was too scared to look up from the floor.

  "Throw them below!" The Ogre shouted. "I shall kill you after I feast. You will be our entertainment." The Ogres erupted in cheers as their master stood up and pointed to a window, I glanced up to see what was out there. It was the fighting platform. This was bad, very bad indeed.