The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga (33 page)

“Did Gumptin happen to mention to you why exactly we
didn’t try this whole multiple army plan before?” Jade asked,
riding beside Avery.

It surprised Avery that Gumptin hadn’t said anything
to Jade about her past incarnation’s disapproval of the King, and
her subsequent discouragement in the plan. Then again, it was
Gumptin talking to Jade, and he usually tried to say and spend as
little time with her as possible. For a second, Avery considered
telling Jade exactly what Gumptin had told her, but then she
thought better of it. She didn’t want to have to deal with the
questions that she knew would follow. Jade would want to know why
Avery hadn’t approved of the King, and what exactly the incident
with the Fairies was. Avery didn’t have the answers to those
questions, and she knew Jade would just chastise her for not
pushing Gumptin harder to give her the answers. Avery was enjoying
the scenery and ride too much for that.

So, instead, she just said, “No, he didn’t mention
anything to me.”

If Avery had hoped that answer would satisfy and
quiet Jade, she was mistaken, “It just seems messed up, you know.”
Jade continued, as Avery rolled her eyes. “If we had a somewhat
good plan, and I’ll admit, this is a
somewhat
good plan,
then why would we all ride off to this incredibly guarded fortress
alone, on what seems to be a whim, and try to kill the
Emperor.”

Avery knew that Jade was making sense. She would have
loved to been able to have the answer to that question, but the
truth was she didn’t even have the slightest notion why they would
do something so reckless. From what Gumptin had told her, she
doubted even he knew why they had ridden out to the Emperor’s
fortress that night.

“I really don’t know.” Avery told Jade.

“It sounds like a suicide mission. No wonder we
died.” Jade sneered, “There’s no way I would have done something so
stupid, unless there was a damn good reason.”

Avery was sure that was true. For Jade to have ridden
out that night, she must have either been confident in the plan, or
else have a spectacular reason.

Not wanting to dwell on the subject of their deaths,
or what led up to them, Avery decided to switch the topic. She
asked Jade about Mrs. Bott’s sweet shop and what her favorite
treats were there. As Avery had already known, Jade leapt on the
topic. One of the perks of being best friends and spending an
obscene amount of time together is you know exactly what subjects
they can’t help but talk about. For Jade, it was food, music,
motorcycles, and although only Avery knew this, eighties movies,
Jane Austen novels, and Star Trek memorabilia.

The rest of the ride to the castle was a pleasant one
for the girls. They traveled down the Main Road for over an hour,
with nothing but the forest and its haunting serenity surrounding
them. They passed over a dozen small roads, all marked with small
wooden signs.

On the road, the girls passed the occasional
traveler, a young boy dragging a donkey, loaded down with misshapen
sacks, a scruffy looking man on top of a brown work horse,
galloping in the opposite direction. The Protectors had to ride
around a family of six loaded into a wooden cart, being pulled by a
giant slow moving draft horse. The mother and father sat up front,
while the children were packed into the back, amongst several
baskets of dark red apples. When the family recognized them as the
Protectors, they gave each of the girls one of their delicious
looking apples and thanked the Protectors for the work they did
fighting the Emperor. Jade was the first to grab an apple, scarf it
down, and then ask Avery if she was planning on eating hers.

A little while later, the girls came to an old
looking wooden bridge. A small sign, stuck into the ground in front
of the bridge, had the words, ‘Cooper Bridge’ carved into it. Below
that, it had an arrow and the words ‘Wildpoint Lookout’ carved on
it. The arrow pointed to a small path leading off into the forest,
to the right of the bridge. The bridge crossed over a softly moving
wide river below. From what Avery remembered of the maps Gumptin
had them study, the river was called Moonfound River and it started
in the Stormfell Mountain range, ran all the way through the
Darksin and Wildwood Forests, and ended in a giant lake called
Ravage Lake, bordering the Wasted Desert.

As they crossed the bridge, the sound of the flowing
crystal clear water below sounded like bubbling bells as the water
bounced off of the smooth stones and riverbed brush.

After about an hour and twenty minutes of slow
riding, the girls reached a section where the road diverged off
into three separate paths. There was a large wooden post sign in
the center of the three paths, with multiple directional signs
pointing to different villages, nailed onto it. At the very top of
the sign there was a board that pointed straight ahead. On it was
written the name, ‘Knighton’. Below it was nailed a board pointing
to the right road, which read, ‘Blackmore’. Below that, pointing to
the left road was a sign that read, ‘Stormfell’. Then, below that,
another sign pointing to the right that said, ‘Vowhollow’. Followed
by a sign nailed beneath, pointing left, that read, ‘Divinwood‘.
Then, a final sign, that pointed right, with the word, ‘Darksin’
written on it and a small black, X carved into the wood after it,
in what appeared to be a warning. The sign made it easy enough for
the Protectors to understand that they wanted to continue traveling
straight.

The farther they rode past the sign, the denser the
forest became. With less light able to shine through the compact
tree tops, a darkness fell over them, and a thickness hung in the
air. It felt as if the very atmosphere itself were pushing in on
them. The trees began to grow so close together, that as the
Protectors trotted down the road; it looked as if they were
surrounded on either side bay a dark brown wall. When Avery did
manage to catch a glimpse of the forest between the trees, the only
thing she was able to make out were dark shadows and the occasional
ray of light, illuminating a patch of ankle high green grass. The
only real color Avery could see were the spattering of multi
colored wildflowers lining the edges where the forest met the
road.

After riding for about twenty minutes down the more
primitive road, the path began to gradually incline up a large
hill. The top of the hill was also where the forest ended.

The moment they reached the top of the high hill, the
trees opened up and a flood of sunlight smashed into the
Protectors’ eyes. Avery pulled Phantom up to a halt, allowing her
eyes time to adjust to the new brightness. The rest of the
Protectors followed her lead. As she reached her hand up above her
eyes to shield them from the sun, Avery scanned the horizon in
front of her. What she saw almost took her breath away.

The dirt road they were on led down a hill of
Christmas green colored grass, and as the wind blew through it,
creating waves, it made the Protectors feel like they were standing
in the center of a vast green ocean. When the road reached the
bottom of the grassy hill, it leveled out into an expansive valley
below. On each side of the road were scatterings of small straw
farm houses, each with their own little section of land. From high
above the valley, most of the farms looked like they were growing
wheat and different types of vegetables. There were animals, sheep,
chickens, horses, pigs, bunnies, and the occasional cow fenced into
pastures around the houses.

There were two roads that led off of the Main Road
once it leveled out in the valley, one to the right and one to the
left. The roads led off into separate sections of the forest. Over
a dozen people were using the road, most of them the farmers who
had homes in the valley. They were using their horse and carts to
take their crops towards the castle. The entire valley and castle
were surrounded by the dense Wildwood forest.

It was the castle that was really leaving Avery in a
state of awe. It was the biggest castle she had ever seen. Of
course, up until this point, the closest Avery had ever come to
seeing a castle was the pink and purple fiberglass castle on course
four of Bobcat Bob’s Miniature Golf World, back on Redemption. So
she was completely unprepared for the magnificent structure her
eyes were now gazing at.

The castle sat on top of a high hill and was
surrounded by a large octangular stone wall. The Main Road they
were on led up the hill to the outer wall of the castle and right
up to the drawbridge, which led to an arched gatehouse. The outer
wall was massive, with high battlement walls built out of a light
colored stone. It had a total of eight square towers built into
each edge. The top of every tower had a low battlement and circular
balcony with arrowslits wrapping around it. The castle, itself, was
comprised of a mixture of light and dark gray stones. The tallest
tower, cylindrical in shape, was in the dead center of the castle.
It had a dark blue cone shaped roof with a long pole coming out of
it and a black flag with a silver wolf emblem attached to the top
of the pole. There were four smaller cylindrical towers on each
edge of the castle. Each had the exact same cone shaped dark blue
roof and pole with the flag attached. Built into the castle wall,
on the north and south side, were two more towers. These had a flat
roof with high parapets. Every tower had a wide circular balcony
wrapped around it, near the top. All except for two square shaped
towers, bordering the entrance to the actual castle. Arched windows
and arrowslits lined the walls of the castle.

From behind her, Avery heard Sasha say, “That’s it,
forget Havyn, we’re staying there.”

Avery nudged Phantom into a walk, and the Protectors
continued down the path towards the castle.

The closer they got to the valley below the forest;
they noticed people beginning to come out of their houses. Men who
were working in their fields stopped and stared as the Protectors
approached. A group of young children playing in a wheat field
began waving at the girls. Avery waved tentatively back. It was an
odd feeling, having people she didn’t know interested in her
presence. Back in Redemption, even if people knew you, it didn’t
mean they were the least bit interested in your comings or
goings.

As they passed a large potato field, a man, who had
been tending his crop close to the road, took off his cap as they
neared him and said to them, “You is them, ain’t ya…the
Protectors?”

The girls nodded and Jade replied, “Yeah, I suppose
we are.”

The man seemed to get excited, and clutched tightly
at the cap in his hands, “Might good to see ya!” The man ginned,
“All of us here were just so happy to hear ya weren’t dead!”

Jade let out a saucy laugh, “Us too, buddy.”

After they had ridden a few feet away from the man,
they heard him yell out loudly, “It’s them!”

Sasha leaned in closer towards the other girls and
said, “Let’s move it a little faster, ladies. I don’t want any more
hick farmers telling me how excited I make them.”

Avery looked back and gave Sasha a disapproving look,
as Skylar laughed and told her, “You need to get over yourself,
girl.”

To which Jade responded by snorting and saying, “When
horses shit apple pie.”

They walked their horses up the hill towards the
castle. When they reached the end of the road, the drawbridge was
down, allowing them to cross the steep ravine between the castle
and the road. Phantom and the other horses’ hooves clomped on the
heavy wooden drawbridge as they crossed it.

There were two guards posted at each side of the
entrance to the castle. They were dressed in chain mail and wore a
black tunic with a silver wolf’s head on it, belted over it. The
silver helmets they wore made their eyes the only visible features
on their face. Each of them held in their hand a tall lance and had
a sword attached to a belt around their waist.

Avery slowed Phantom up slightly as they passed the
guards. It was an instinct, like when she used to slow down her car
back on Redemption when she would pass a police car, even if she
was going the speed limit.

Once inside the outer walls, it was like a whole
other village had just opened up to them. There were wide flagstone
streets. On both sides of the street there were multiple wooden
shops, houses, and stands built up against the large outer wall and
the castle wall. A hundred different scents and sounds accosted the
Protectors’ senses. The smell of food, and smoke, flowers, hay, and
horses all mingled together with the smell of human sweat. There
were people talking, and shouting, and haggling over prices of
merchandise.

Avery glanced up and saw a guard, in uniform, posted
every ten feet along the top of the outer wall. Along the walls of
the castle, including the tower walls, there were also uniformed
guards positioned every ten feet.

“Apples, ten in a bunch!” A woman to the right of
them, standing behind a fruit stand, shouted.

To the left, a man hollered, “Fresh fish!”

Dogs were barking and children were crying and
laughing. People were carrying baskets full of goods, pushing
carts, and strolling along on their way. They walked in front of,
behind, and in-between the Protectors and their horses. It was by
far the busiest place the Protectors had ever been to on Orcatia.
The bustle threw them off guard.

Avery looked behind her to the other Protectors,
looking for a little guidance, since she wasn’t quite sure where
she was suppose to go to now that they were inside the outer castle
walls. Unfortunately, the others were no help. Sasha ignored her,
Skylar was distracted by a lean muscled blacksmith working nearby,
Bunny looked more lost than Avery, and Jade just shrugged her
shoulders and shook her head.

While she was still turned to the other Protectors,
Avery heard a man’s voice shout above the other noises, “I take it
you are the Protectors.”