Chapter 12 – The First Action
Now what?
That seemed to be the basic thought at The Rebellion’s meeting two weeks later in the Candlebar Inn’s back room. There were only nine people: Lunae, Selene, Elspeth, Redmond, Alye, Philipia, myself, and two villagers (both in their 20s or 30s) named Adaline and Harmon. They had the trust of pretty much every peasant in Glovebern and had volunteered to join up our little revolt counsel.
Lunae and Selene had entered the story in a rather unusual way. The evening after we’d successfully fooled the soldiers, Lunae had burst into the inn (where we were laughing over our success) in a suppressed rage.
“Where have you been?” the woodsgirl demanded of Philipia, who blanched slightly but stared back into the former’s sparking royal blue eyes. “You haven’t shown up for training in almost two weeks, you are never in the kitchen, the jester refuses to tell me anything about what’s going on,” and she directed a particularly furious glance at Redmond, whose face etched into a cheeky grin, “and now I’m hearing rumors that you lot have started a rebellion! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“Are you done?” Philipia sighed, rolling her eyes. Lunae glared.
“Almost. Why wasn’t I asked to join?”
Cricket chirp. Cricket chirp.
“Perhaps I’ve gone temporarily deaf,” Redmond interrupted. “Did you say you wanted to join?”
Slowly, a glint of expression other than anger appeared on her face. “Yes. I did.”
A stifled scream broke through the bewildered silence as the door was flung open. We whirled around, only to see Selene standing in the doorway.
“Am I late to sign up? And Lunae, if you were going to go to the inn, why didn’t you tell me?”
I jerked myself out of reminiscing and forced my mind to focus on the meeting, not an easy task. We were grouped around a wooden table (borrowed from one of the inn’s rooms) that had several papers sitting on top. Redmond was our inside agent for a reason, and because of his jester status, he had almost unlimited trust in the castle. It had been simple(r) for him to sneak out sheets that otherwise were only meant for high-ranking soldiers, Lord Delroy, or Aubrey.
“So…” Alye began, her head cupped in her hands as she stared without focus at the documents littering the table, “what do we do now?”
“We have to focus on our priorities,” Harmon said, his voice deep and slightly ponderous.
“But what are our priorities?” demanded Philipia, who still appeared to have lingering doubts over this escapade. “We hid the harvest. Isn’t that what we wanted to do when we first started this whole thing?”
“Funny, I could’ve sworn you were listening when I gave my soapbox speech,” I sighed, somewhat annoyed. I’d been working on some more magic earlier and it had been one ridiculously taxing experience.
“Before we start snapping at each other, let’s just take a look at what the jester brought,” Lunae interrupted. She snatched up one of the rolls of parchment, which was covered in excruciatingly dull-looking charts. Redmond, his usually humorous expression far more serious, leaned forward and grabbed another one, holding it up so we could all see it.
“First of all, this was trickier than most to get. I had to get inside the personal quarters of one of the commanders in order to steal it, but I don’t suppose anyone spotted me. What this paper describes is the food supply currently feeding the soldier barracks, which is at the far side of the castle, less than a league from the walls. The commanders sleep in the castle, but the rest of Lord Delroy’s personal army lives inside that garrison. It’s not a cheery place, but the soldiers inside have a better meal on average than any peasant around here does in a day.”
“You’re certainly right about that,” Adaline snapped. She’d established herself as having a fierce temper that was hidden underneath the oppression of her daily life. Twenty-five, she already had five kids living, two buried, and a husband who slaved away every single hour just to get the barest of meals.
“But wait,” Selene interrupted. “I thought the soldiers live on the villagers’ yearly tribute.”
“Not exactly,” our double agent replied. “I don’t know how he does it, but Aubrey regularly brags of providing plenty of food for his father’s bodyguards.”
“But we’ve already hidden the harvest,” Philipia kept harping.
“Yes, but it’s still barely enough,” Elspeth interjected (I’d been wondering if she was going to say anything). “I know, personally, that in my home, we are going to be on very short rations. We won’t starve, true, but we’ll be one step up from that.”
“So we’re supposed to break into the soldier’s barracks?” the resident midget (aka Alye) asked, a devilish grin creasing across her face. “Sounds fun.”
“We wouldn’t be getting in the barracks itself,” Redmond corrected. “The food is stored in the stables, which are an adjoining building, directly connected to the soldiers’ quarters. It’ll be difficult, but with these maps I have,” and he held up a plan of the barracks, “and your bizarre abilities, it might be possible.”
“But in that case,” I wondered aloud, “who should we take with us?”
On to details.
Several days later, our raiding party set out for the barracks. We had decided to cut through Lunae’s forest since people rarely went in there and it would look overly suspicious if a group of villagers went wandering around the countryside in the direction of Aubrey’s castle. The group consisted of the future trio (me, Alye, and Philipia, who was in her black horse form), a short girl named Kymber with long chestnut hair and green eyes with purple specks (her dad was the castle blacksmith and had made Alye’s swords), Elspeth, and Selene. We strode through the brush, Alye cutting through overly annoying thistles, and trekked until we spotted Lunae, her brown hair blending in with the nearby bark. She pointed through a barely-trod path.
“That’s the quickest way to the barracks,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. We nodded and shoved away the prickly branches, staring at last at a wooden and stone building standing in the clearing that broke apart the horizon. It was, frankly, hideous. I could smell horses cooped up in the stables and heard the raucous sounds of soldiers who had nothing to do. In addition, two sentries stood guard over the entrance, but that wasn’t where we wanted to go.
The stables also had a guard in front of the doors, so our first order of business was to distract him. Raising my staff, I gathered together a cluster of broken branches, dirt, and dry leaves, concentrating as they swirled into the shape of a (very rudimentary) person. Sweat was trickling down my forehead as I focused on the makeshift scarecrow, and with a final effort, I pushed it forward into the large glade. It hovered and threatened to fall apart, but I managed to keep it together and forced it to drift in the direction of the soldier. It took a couple minutes to process what he was seeing: a dark brown, person-shaped thing floating around in the grass. Even from this distance, I could see him draw his sword and start towards it. Quickly, the scarecrow dashed back into the thicket several dozen yards down the line. I could hear it stumbling through the trees and coming apart. But it did the trick. The soldier ran towards the area where the bizarre shape had disappeared. With a sigh of relief, I stopped the magic. We now had maybe a minute to run across the clearing and get into the stables.
Philipia nudged Alye onto her back and tore across the grass, the rest of us hot on her heels. Elspeth had become a cheetah and reached the stable door before any of us. I was panting, already tired from making that scarecrow, and I started to fall behind. Kymber glanced back and saw me stumbling, and I saw a flash of panic in her eyes. She turned toward Philipia.
And this is where it gets crazy.
Instead of speech, a series of loud whinnies escaped her mouth, causing Philipia to whirl around, nearly dumping Alye off her back. Selene stared backwards and nearly hit the wall of the stable. Kymber only kept talking, oblivious to the startled reactions of the rest of the group. I sped up and managed to reach the doorway of the stable as Alye leaped off Philipia and the shapeshifter turned back to her normal self. Kymber glanced around at our startled (nay, shocked) faces.
“What?”
“Did you just speak horse?” Selene demanded.
“I did?” Kymber started, her eyes widening. “What are you talking about?”
“Um…can we postpone this?” Elspeth asked, also back in human form. Some of the horses surrounding us had jolted at our presence but a couple of them were putting up a real fuss, whinnying loudly and stamping their feet. If we didn’t get them quiet, the soldiers next door were going to hear us!
Kymber ran forward to the nearest frightened horse and once again, horse talk came pouring out of her mouth. She gently stroked its head while crooning to it in neighs. The only reason we stopped staring at her was because footsteps were approaching, probably the sentry. We darted to the right side of the stable, where many barrels and burlap sacks were stacked, plunging into the midst of them. I took refuge inside a barrel with a few squished apples at the bottom, not a nice sensation. The crunching of grass outside the stable quickly shifted to dry stomping as the sentry marched across the earthen floor. His footsteps stopped for a brief minute, then turned and marched back outside. After a minute, I peeked out of the barrel. My companions did likewise. Philipia had had the guts to take refuge in an empty stall in her horse form. Selene crawled out from underneath a sack of wheat, yellow grain in her black hair, while Alye was pulling herself out of another empty barrel. Elspeth had turned into a light brown cat whose fur was almost the exact shade of the burlap sacks and simply jumped onto the pile, blending in nicely. But Kymber startled all of us when she rose quietly out of an occupied stall, still speaking softly in horse.
“How do you do that?” Philipia asked in a tight whisper.
Kymber raised her eyebrows. “Calm the horses down? It’s a matter of growing up with them.”
“Nuhuh,” Alye shook her head, “you were talking like a horse. And I should know, because Philipia nearly threw me off her back when she whipped around.”
“People!” I hissed. “We don’t have time to argue about who’s talking a freaky language or who nearly killed who! We have to gather up some of this food and get out of here!”
The rest nodded, some hesitantly. Kymber looked bewildered but seized a sack labeled salt, staggering under its weight (she was, after all, only a couple inches taller than Alye). I didn’t know how we were going to get out of here loaded down with supplies. I was levitating two heavy ones (“beaff” and “korn”) and my arms were trembling from the effort. Philipia and Elspeth, on the other hand, had turned themselves into a Clydesdale and lion respectively, and were pulling along sacks that had been lashed around their middles with some rope hanging in the wall. Lucky buggers.
We turned toward the door and were just walking out when everything went wrong.
A soldier, tousled hair flapping in a fresh breeze, appeared in the doorway, planning on sneaking in for extra rations or something. He and Alye, who was first in line to exit, stared at each other for a brief second, and then he hollered.
“THIEVES! THIEVES IN THE – AH!!” Alye had swung her bag around and walloped him; he tumbled to the ground and was still. We bolted, tripping over his unconscious form, and high-tailed it across the meadow. But it was too late; eight soldiers came swarming out of the barracks, swords in hand. We were burdened with heavy bags while they had only light armor and their weapons. One even had a bow, and he quickly fitted an arrow into the string. For a split second, he hesitated, aiming carefully, and then, almost in slow-motion, he fired.
The arrow sliced through the air, barely missing my forehead, and lodged itself in the front leg of Philipia. She screamed a terrible cry and, in reflex, melted away into her human form, her two heavy bags rolling onto the grass. The arrow stuck out of her left arm, blood dripping onto the grass. I thought Alye was going to explode. Her eyes were popping out of her head and she made to turn around, but Selene pushed her forward and they tumbled into the line of trees. Elspeth darted ahead, dropping her sacks into the ground, and turned to face the approaching soldiers, snarling and spitting. There were five coming; the archer had stayed behind, trying to aim at Elspeth, who shifted her position constantly. Two soldiers had gathered around the prone form of Philipia. I threw down my sacks and ran out of the trees, yelling a mixture of sobs and words I’d rather not repeat. A surge of energy swelled in me and a blaze of blue erupted from my staff, smiting three of the soldiers in the chest. They fell backwards and didn’t get up.
I swayed, dizzy from the inane amount of magic I’d just used. I slumped onto my knees and hit the soft grass. As my vision blanked and the world went black, I thought I saw Selene flinging fireballs from her lit hands…
So tired. Massive headache. Not cool. Migraine beyond all reason. A haze of color swirled around my barely opened eyes, while vague and completely garbled words chased their way into my ears. I blinked. Focus, I muttered to myself, what’s going on? I blinked again and then the memory of what had just happened thundered into my brain. I shot up and nearly cracked my head against a wooden overhang. What the heck?
I was lying on a pile of blankets underneath the table in our meeting room. Grouped around the table were the members of our raiding party except for Selene…and Philipia. Lunae and Redmond were there too, and they peered under the table at me.
“Had a nice nap?” Redmond inquired, ever cheery, although his blue eyes were flashing.
“I feel like my brain’s imploded but thanks for asking,” I snapped, rolling out slowly from the blankets and standing up. A fresh wave of dizziness hit me but I gripped the wooden table and managed not to fall. “What’s happened?”
“Well, the good news is, we got away with plenty of supplies,” Alye said quietly, her green and hazel eyes suffused with a blank look. “Selene’s resting since she took a ton of Inosital and needs to sleep it off. But…Philipia’s still in the barracks. And I don’t get why we can’t go FREAKING RESCUE HER!” she shouted the last few words with venom I’ve never heard.
“We’ve been over this,” Lunae sighed, pacing. “The chances of getting inside the barracks, much less finding her, are remote at best. It would be a suicide mission.”
“I don’t care!” Alye snarled. “She’s my best friend and we’ve left her to freaking die!”
“Will you calm down?” Kymber asked impatiently. “Aren’t you listening? There’s no point in going back if you’re only going to land yourself in the same situation.”
“Not that you need to,” a familiar voice said.
We turned.
Philipia. Philipia standing in the doorway with a bloody and bandaged arm, her face pale and hair matted, but she still was there. I had to be hallucinating.
Alye stepped forward, eyes very wide. She stared for several seconds…and then punched Philipia in her uninjured arm. The shapeshifter stumbled backwards and glared with absolute fury at her friend.
“What the heck was that for?” she demanded loudly.
“Just checking to see if you were real!” her friend replied cheekily.
“But how…wha…” I stammered, mouth nearly on the floor.
“Long…well, not really…but crazy story,” Philipia grinned, stepping into the room and plopping down on a chair that lay against the wall. She winced as she accidentally jogged her arm.
“Well, as you all know, I was very conveniently shot in the arm with an arrow, something that is not very helpful when trying to run away. I blacked out as two of those idiot soldiers came up, and when I woke, I was lying in a very dusty, moldy wooden room that smelled like…well…you know. Someone had managed to stop my arm from bleeding and bandaged me up, but needless to say, it hurt like heck. So there I was, stuck in this room, not sure exactly where, but when I heard a group of soldiers walking by my door, I realized I was still in the barracks. I’m guessing they were going to keep me there until Lord Delroy figured out what to do with me.
“It took a couple minutes for me to process everything, but I realized I had to get out. My first thought was of smashing the door down, but I figured that if I did that, I might wreck my chances of getting out since that would alert everyone this side of the Atlantic.
“So, instead I opted for *dum dum dum* stealth. It’s a tricky thing to do when you’ve got a bandaged and bleeding arm, but I managed to become a mouse and slip through the cracks underneath the door. Of course, then I had to dodge all these giant boots coming out of nowhere. Still, I managed to get through a hole in the wall and found myself in lovely fresh air. I had to keep moving and I couldn’t afford to change back or else I’d be spotted. I managed to get into the forest without getting killed, and once I got in, I turned into my horse form and trotted on back. Stumbled a few times and nearly broke my leg over an awkward branch, but I found my way back to Glovebern and here I am.”
Several seconds of silence followed this little narrative. And then I felt tears flooding into my eyes. I ducked my head and felt like an idiot, but I would deal with it. It’s not every day you’re scared your friend’s died of an arrow wound.
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