30
I led my companions through the dark passage, unaware of what lay ahead. We all felt it, the shattering sensation of the abyss awaiting us. The moment we got to the castle, war was going to break loose. Everything we had endured had been leading us to that moment. I was surprised, Kaya and Ogana hadn’t said anything for a while. Not to be ungrateful, but this tunnel was starting to annoy me. It was so narrow and so long, almost like it stretched into infinity. All we had to rely on was our faith in Masonku’s word. Something tumbled behind me. Slowly I stopped and looked back only to see Kaya on the ground. He looked tired and worn out. We had been running for a while without really getting a good night worth of sleep. In fact, we were all tired and hungry. But Kaya was the youngest and there truly no telling how much of this he could endure.
“I’m okay,” he spoke with anxiety within his voice. “I can handle a lot more than this.”
Little fool! He was just acting tough to impress us in my opinion. His burning love and desire to rescue his brother was commendable. I felt that same passion too, I wanted to rescue my friends no matter what. As long as I was alive, I was going to help him find his brother. But with the Rainku involved, there was just no telling how it would end. Kneeling on one knee, I gently grabbed Kaya and put him on my back.
“Stop it, I will carry you through the tunnel,” I said grabbing him quickly despite his retaliation. “We can no longer waste anymore time here. You know what’s at stake right?”
After I said that, he stopped struggling completely and held on to my neck with all his might. I got back to my feet and started running with the others.
“Come on you two,” Dashe said with a grin on his face.
I wanted to ask him about his sword, although I chose not to at the end. The last thing I wanted was to get into a fight with him. On the other hand, Ogana had stopped drinking. He was too quiet and drawn to himself. You know, it also appeared like he got taller and bigger. Showe was even quieter, never saying anything to anyone.
The moment I put Kaya on my back, I felt heavier and tired. It felt like Kaya was a giant boulder. He was so heavy I could barely run normally. Had he eaten a 3 horned elephant?
“Kaya, you are too heavy.” I said starting to feel signs of fatigue reach onto me. “It feels like I’m carrying two buffalos on my back.”
He didn’t answer, but from the sudden gestures he made frequently I could only assume he was blushing or embarrassed.
“I ate some of Suzanne’s cooking a while ago,” he replied. “A lady brought me some food Suzanne had cooked for us and I ate it all before we came here.”
Suzanne’s cooking! That didn’t sound good at all from all points of view. Was there even anyone who could handle her cooking? Perhaps Kaya lacked any sense of taste because no normal person would eat that. That alone still didn’t explain why he felt so heavy and I highly doubted even he knew the answer. I ignored the fatigue and kept on running to keep up with the others a few steps in front of me.
“You are a strange and yet brave kid Kaya?” I shook my head and smirked. “You should never eat anything Suzanne cooks, it’s terrible.”
I spoke out of experience, I had once eaten her food and it had been the worst thing I had ever eaten in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I adored her greatly, not so much her cooking skills.
“But it was so good,” he replied whispering near my ear. “It was the best food I ever ate in the world.”
“You are joking right?” I chuckled out of disbelief.
Clearly, he had banged his head somewhere when I was not looking. By adjusting his weight towards my legs, I got used to Kaya’s massive weight. It reminded me of what Ebi had made me do during our training in the yellow world of the gauntlet. He had tied huge stones to my legs and made me jump for a few hours up in the air. It had taken me more than three months to even start to get some leverage in the air and another four months to start jumping in the air freely despite the massive weight on my legs. Training with Ebi had been the most intense rigorous thing I had ever done in my life. It had pushed me to the extreme, the likes of which I had never seen before. Not to say, it hadn’t come with a steep price.
“What is that?” Dashe pointed up ahead to an open hole in the ground.
It looked like we had reached the end of the tunnel Masonku had created. There was no telling what we would come across the moment we crawled out. I took over the lead and began gazing over the surrounding. As I feared, the place was crawling with a large scale presence of numerous enemies. They were diverting from every corner of our location. Had we already entered the castle? No, I think we were still outside, next to its walls. The only way to be certain was to go up, something I dreaded doing.
“Conceal your energy Riyo,” Ogana finally spoke to me. “We are now in enemy territory so it is best we don’t alert them of our presence at all cost.”
The expression on his face was intimidating and yet respectful. He was acting rather odd, far less than his usual self. He had not touched his ale for a very long time. It felt like he was now a different person now. I was not imagining it, Ogana had somehow changed for the better.
“Ogana, call me crazy, but you seem kind of taller than usual,” I said in a confused manner trying to understand this new development.
“I am a tree giant after all Riyo,” he replied stretching one of arms as if warming up for battle. “I never lost my height, my excessive drinking only made me shrink a little, resulting in my strength decreasing.”
“Yeah sure that makes sense,” I sighed in disbelief, his explanation was out of my comprehension.
Was this even possible? Perhaps, it would have been wise not to ask because his answer left me even more confused than before. Obviously enough, I knew little about tree giants, most of them were not the kindest of folks. To think that booze shrank tree giants was something unheard of to me. How much more secret abilities was he hiding? I hunkered down and began to peer carefully through the opening. We had lost a lot of precious time, our only option was to charge head on.
“I guess we should go then!” I said slowly suppressing my first blast energy into my body, completely stopping the glowing yellow energy.
The tunnel became dark again with nothing, but the light of the four moons shining through the exit. Outside, we heard terrible growls from large and small creatures alike. Their very screams rattled all through the air, making me feel a slight sensation of fear. There were things above us of unknown origin, probably guarding the castle from intruders.
“This is no time to falter Rid,” Dashe said and took out two swords. One of which was his new purple sword.
Upon it being unsheathed, the sword began to release a substantial amount of terrible aura. This weapon was too dangerous especially in the hands of an idiot like Dashe. I kept my mouth shut for now until I was really sure of the sword’s true nature. It would be have been foolish of me to tell Dashe to discard the weapon, knowing how much he was unlikely to cooperate.
“Let us go,” Ogana said jumping swiftly up, barely making any sound with his feet.
I had expected him to be the rational one but it looked like I was again wrong. Dashe and Showe followed him quickly while I lagged behind trying to get some leverage with Kaya on my back. I hovered up slowly using the power of the coat and landed loudly on the ground above. Phew! No one seemed to notice which was truly surprising. Indeed, we had made it to the castle walls just as Masonku said. But why did it look so empty? Where were the creatures I had been sensing?
“Keep it down will you?” Dashe yelled from the other side. “We don’t want anyone to notice we are here.”
Idiot! They had to notice his yelling. Sadly they did, I felt the creatures’ presences again, converging on our position. Their power was even greater than that of those Monga beasts I had destroyed. I saw the shadow of the first creature, coming out of the darkness of the castle’s wall. It had eyes glowing from the light of the moon and with a body o
f colossal proportions. Walking slowly towards us, its feet made the very ground shake softly. Oh my!
It was a wild manned lion, a very big and powerful one at that. This was my first time seeing it with my eyes. The creature snarled as it stopped in front of us, looking down upon us with blood lust.
“What is that?” Kaya trembled as tears fell down his cheek.
For a slight second, my body jolted from fear. I had not accounted for Katarina to have such a beast within her ranks. Just then, more wild manned lions came out of the hiding. Some were small and the others big, completely outnumbering us. The first one roared making the air stiff and wild. A powerful gust of wind shot out of its mouth, almost knocking us off our feet. The other lions followed suit and roared loudly too. Everything went crazy, wild winds were blowing in every direction. I put my left foot back and waited out the winds to pass. Darn!
Time was running out and we were still nowhere within the castle. The creatures surrounded every passage into the castle, making it impossible to run in. I peered through the castle walls directly into the creepy walls. Behind it, another large battalion of armed soldiers awaited us, ready to strike the moment we made it through. This was not going to be easy. Even if we somehow got through her pets, we had those soldiers to deal with too. Growling softly, a small manned lion leaped up toward me. I swerved out of its way and punched it hard it the stomach. Ow, its skin was tougher than I expected. Another trio dashed for me briefly after in the same predictable pattern, aiming for my neck. With three of them at once, there was no way I could use the same technique again. I looked around and noticed the small creatures also attack each and every one of my companions in the manner. The bigger ones were not attacking us for the moment which was good. All they did was create winds with their powerful roars at us. Sensing the impending danger, I spun on my axis and dodged through on opening between two of the creatures. They narrowly missed my head by a whim. I felt their musty breath and intent to kill, a tremendously awful feeling. Since my feet were no longer in the ground due to the last attack, the winds above swept me further into the castle wall. Kaya and I hit the wall hard and stayed there for second. The third small lion sprinted into the perfect position to attack, claws extended out forward. With Kaya on my back, it was not going to be easy to fend it off. The large lions’ wind roars had us pinned down. My arms and legs could barely twitch at all. To be honest, I could easily get out using the power of the gauntlet, but I wanted to conserve all of my energy for my battle with Katarina. In the nick of time, Ogana appeared in front of us, grabbing the third lion violently with his bare hands. He ripped it by the jaws and threw it violently on the ground. Phew! Another close call, any second later and it would have been too late.
“Thanks Ogana,” I stuttered trying to get a better grip of myself again. I had to admit, I had got scared when I saw the lion nick my neck with its teeth.“Kaya are you okay?”
He kept shacking heavily, startled from the recent events. I couldn’t blame him, I would be in the same state if I was his age.
“Get up, there are more coming,” Ogana roared fiercely adjusting his spear and shifting his weight to his left leg. “Put him down gently and let’s take care of these savage beasts. The sun will be up soon so we need to finish this quickly and be discreet as possible.”
Somehow I doubted discreet was still possible. With all the roaring these beasts were doing, it was possible that someone inside the castle had already noticed. I gently put Kaya on the ground, leaving him on next to a pile of rubble without speaking to him. The heavily shacking he was doing was truly frightening. Had his mind been traumatized? Now of all times, the huge lions began to move on us.
“This is going to take while,” I chuckled at them and charged forward.
Upon taking Kaya off my back, I felt lighter and much stronger than before. One of the large manned lions smashed in the ground where I had left Kaya sitting.
“Kaya,” I screamed.
The lion destroyed everything behind me. Kaya was nowhere in sight, I felt scared at the thought of losing him.
“Kaya,” I shouted at the top of my voice ducking from the menacing winds coming out of the lions’ mouth.
I could not see him or Ogana, everything had begun to fall apart on us. At this rate, the sun was going to come out way before we even entered the castle. I wanted to save my friends, but this was just too much. A small part of my heart was glad of these developments, deep down I was still a coward and wanted to get away from this place as soon as possible. Who was I truly to think I had a chance to face such adversaries? It looked like I wasn’t going to keep my promise to Ebi after all. I was trembling in my boots, unable to bear apart this madness. I had lost Kaya and Ogana to these savage beasts.
“Worry not Rid,” Ogana yelled from the east side of my position with Kaya in his hands. “I have him with me, just take care of these beasts.”
Yes, I looked towards his direction and felt relieved. My friends were still alive, well for the most part. There was no longer any need to hold back anymore. To make it into the castle, I had pull out all the stops. Jumping greatly, I blitzed towards the lions aiming to attack them first from the air. “Have at thee vile beasts, you shall test cold steel today.”