Heed My Warnings And Survive
Chapter Seven: The Bargain

Chapter Seven

The Bargain

It had been about four days since the incident with Devin, and thus far he hadn’t returned. I was getting a little weary that he wouldn’t.

It was dark, and chilly, Finley Kiara, and I were sitting next to our fire, when we heard the rustling of leaves. We turned, getting into fighting stances, but it turned out to just be Devin, which I wasn’t ecstatic about, but he must have some information about Zander, or he would risk the sting of Finley’s sword.

“What do you have for us Devin?” I asked, maybe a bit harsher than I meant, but I didn’t like him very much, and I didn’t intend on showing him any favor. He coward at the tone,

“Zander, he’s aligned himself with a witch, and he’s hiring men to aid him.” I raised my eyebrows,

“An army to take down one person?” I asked.

“Well, two actually. He’s not fond of Finley, he’s promised the witch your souls, in return for those of his wife, and childs.” I froze.

“He’s trying to bring back Neireida?” I asked in disbelief. Devin nodded. I sat down hard, and put my head in my hands. I couldn’t believe this, I couldn’t believe Zander would go to these lengths, it was ridiculous. lengths.

“Why the army? That seems very unnecessary,” Kiara said.

“He fears the sword, and brilliant minds of his former friends.”

“I can’t take down an army, I’m one swordsman,” Finley argued.

“Maybe he means to capture us, and kill us himself, and the army is a precaution,” I reasoned.

“Well It’s not quite an army, as of yesterday it’s about thirty men, and more joining,” Devin informed.I got up, and started pacing, rubbing my forehead as I did.

“We’ll figure this out, Draven, we just need a plan,” Finley said confidently. I took a deep breath.

“Maybe, but what if we don’t, or what if- no I can’t think that way,” I mumbled the last part under my breath.

“We can’t sacrifice ourselves for them. We would be corrupting Zander if we let him get revenge, as well as aiding the witch, and he’d have to live with the guilt of two dead men of his conscience,” Finley reasoned. I nodded, agreeing with what he said

“Draven, would you really sacrifice yourself for her?” Kiara asked. I nodded,

“As I would for anyone of my friends.” Kiara nodded. “In truth I would do most anything for that family to be happy, as they once were.” I stated.

“Alas, they can never be the family they once were, if Neireida found out about the bringing about of our deaths, she’d never think the same of Zander, and if he decides not to kill us, then he dies, so he loses either way,” Finley said. I nodded, not quite listening to what he had said. My mind was racing, searching for ways for all of us to get out safely, but I couldn’t come to any conclusions. I groaned frustratedly. I shivered from the night air. I figured I’d sleep on this news, and dismissed Devin. I slept fitfully, my dreams weren’t pleasant, one in particular stood out to me. It was dark, and Kiara Finley, and I had reached the lake of monsters. There were a lot of abandoned boats, weapons. We gathered a few weapons, and took one of the boats. My dream seemed to fast forward to after we had found the sword, we were rowing back to land, and I was drenched. Halfway there our boat was overturned, and a giant Muano fish -Muano meaning flesh eater- ate us.

The next few days were dull and uneventful, and I hadn’t realized how close we had gotten to lake Mitono, until we started seeing the turn back signs, and suspicious white grimy “Sticks″ My stomach began to churn with nervousness, my dream had seemed so real, and the fear of getting eaten by a Muano was terrifying. I took a deep breath to calm myself, we would be fine, Muano’s were supposed to be extinct anyway, but the fear of my dream stayed in the back of my head, almost unnoticeable, but still present.

As we got closer to the lake, the forest seemed to grow darker, and more unsettling.

“Why couldn’t the Lake of Monsters be somewhere sunny?” Finley whined. Kiara chuckled,

“We couldn’t get that lucky,” She said, I smiled.

“If we were, we’d have to be Tuliana himself,” I put in.

“You know everyone talks like King Tiliana was some sort of god, or something, but in truth, he was just as normal as the three of us,” Kiara said, her royal knowledge showing for the first time. Finley scoffed.

“Yeah, except he conquered all of Rava, split it into five kingdoms with no arguments, and he lived till he was one hundred and fifty, that is not as normal as us Kiara.” Kiara smiled, and shook her head, and the two of them continued to debate the subject, until something caught our attention. It was a small gray fox, with very silver eyes, it seemed as if its eyes were beckoning us to follow it. Finley stepped forward, but one of Aria’s warnings krept into my head ‘Beware a gray fox with silver eyes.’ and I knew better than to ignore it.

“Wait, don’t follow it,” I said, grabbing his arm.

“Why? You know the rumor right? The gray fox shows you the way,”

“Yeah, and the other rumor is, you’ll be approached by two, follow the right one and it’ll show you the way, but the other will lead you to your death,” I told him. “Plus I have a bad feeling about this, and you know my skill at preserving myself is better than yours.” Finley nodded, and reluctantly turned from the beautiful fox. We continued on the path until we reached the lake. I was confused because I had never been here before, but my dream had replicated it perfectly, even down to the placement of thin moon beams breaking through the thick canopy of leaves above us.

“Wow. somehow the clearing is scarier than the woods,” Kiara said. Finley puffed out his chest.

“Not to worry fair maiden, I shall protect you.” Kiara laughed, and added

“Thank you kind gentlemen, I have every bit of confidence in you.” I rolled my eyes and smiled at them. Their humor was easing the pit in my stomach. It didn’t take long to replace a sturdy abandoned boat, and a pile of weapons, and again, every detail was exactly like my dream. My nerves were worsening with every similarity I saw. Kiara grabbed a bow and quiver from the pile, I grabbed a small dagger, and Finley still had his sword, so he didn’t bother.

“So do you know where in the lake the sword is located?” Finley asked. I shook my head.

“Well let’s take a boat and search, ″ Kiara suggested.

“No!” I said quickly. “Let’s split up. The lake’s not too big, and if anyone needs help it’ll be easy to reach them.” Finley, and Kiara looked skeptical, but they didn’t argue, which I was grateful for.

We each took a section of the lake to search. Finley paused before entering the water.

“We need light draven. Not sure about you, but I usually can’t see at the bottom of a dark lake,” Finley said. I hit my forehead,

“Of course, Search the trees, Fin,” I said, starting to climb a nearby tree. As did Finley.

“What are you looking for?” Kiara asked. I didn’t explain, but I found what I was looking for. In on of the many holes in the tree was a cluster of Brula Mothas -Brula means glowing-

“Found some Fin,” I called. Finley drops from his tree hands full of the Brula’s favorite food. Shredded tree bark.

“You wake them,” He said. I nodded, stuck my hand into the tree, and shook it around, startling the Brula awake. They fluttered around, in panic for a moment before exiting the tree, I climbed down before they could swarm, and blind me for disturbing them.

When Finley saw the Mothas exit the tree he crunched the tree bark in his hands, catching the attention of the large Mothas. They all flew in his direction, their wings starting to glow as they went. Several of them landed on Finley’s hands. I approached slowly, so as not to startle them, then once I was close enough I grabbed two of them, pinching their wings together so they couldn’t fly away, Finley freed one of his hands, and did the same. The rest fluttered away.

“Platum Draven these are huge,” Finley said. I chuckled, platum was one of our countries lighter swears, and the only one Finley ever uttered.

“Those are beautiful,” Kiara said. “What are they?” I smiled.

“They’re called Brula Mothas. They glow when there attracted towards something, or if they’re submerged in water,” I said. Kiara furrowed her eyebrows.

“Won’t that kill them?” She asked. I shook my head.

“No, they can breath under water,”

“Wow, that’s incredible.” I smiled at her wonder.

“Here could you hold them for a second, I’ve gotta replace something they’ll shine through,” I said, holding the giant Mothas out to Kiara. She nodded, pinching their wings like I had been doing. I rummaged through my bag replaceing three decent sized vials, three pieces of leather, and some thin rope. Since the openings of the vials were too small for the Brula, I broke the tops off, put the Brula in, and covered it with the leather, securing it with the thin rope and poking small holes in the leather so the Brula would get submerged. I handed one each to Kiara, and Finley.

“Alright, now that our problem of light is solved let’s look for that sword.

We searched for hours, having to stop for breaks., and we must have pulled up hundreds of swords, but at last I dived down and found the sword matching the blacksmith’s description exactly. I grabbed it from where it rested, and resurfaced.

“I found it,” I called to my friends. They didn’t call back, but I heard the sounds of yelling, and the clanging of swords. I immediately let the glowing Brula in my jar free, dived underwater, and resurfaced in a different location. I searched the bank, my eyes landing on the source of the noise, the yelling was coming from some burly men holding a struggling Kiara by the arms, and the clanging was coming from the swords of Finley, and. My heart sank as I saw my two old friends fighting. I’d seen them spare before, but Zander was fighting to kill now.

“Where is Draven Finley?” he growled as they continued their deadly dance.

“As if I’d tell you, even if I did know. He ran away when you chased him, and with any luck he’s far far from this horrible forest,” Finley retorted as he fought effortlessly against Zander. I knew he couldn’t keep that up for long though.

“Don’t think I am ignorant Finley, I’ve been stitched up by him too.” A flicker of remorse showed in Zanders’ eyes as he recalled the times I had cared for his wounds, but the anger, and hate came back quickly. I watched the scene for a few more moments, until I remembered they didn’t know where I was, or even if I was there at all, it seems they didn’t hear my shout. I swam quietly to the shore sword in hand, as if that would help me. I went into the treeline, and skirted around until I was behind the fight, and Zander had no chance of seeing me, I was about to start up a tree when I noticed a guard coming towards me, I couldn’t climb the tree fast enough for him not to see me, and alert Zander, and my mind was occupied by the plan I was trying to carry out, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do, but hide around one side of the tree, where I wasn’t visible to the guards in a ring watching the sword fight I slipped off my dripping shirt, balled it up, then waited till the guard was close enough. I darted out from behind the tree, using all my strength to run the sword to the man’s chest, and placing the dripping balled up shirt over his mouth so that if he screamed, no one could hear it over the competition happening in the clearing. My stomach churned as I wrenched the sword out of the now dead man I had just killed. I breathed deeply, I couldn’t think about that right now, my friends needed my help. I climbed the tree, replaceing another nest of giant sleeping Brula. I collected some of the tree bark, and crunched it to wake them, once they heard it they started fluttering around not yet glowing. I gathered more of the bark, crunched it, and threw it down toward the ring of people. The giant Brula raised after it, startling those who hadn’t already seen them, the two men holding Kiara let go, and started batting away the Morthas. Kiara pulled out her bow, and in one swift moment got an arrow in Zanders thigh. Zander screamed in pain, and the sound made me want to rush over, and help him. But I knew I couldn’t, instead, I climbed down the tree, rendezvoused with Kiara, and Finley, and ran, like there was a pack of Flateps chasing us -territorial dog like creatures the could tear your head off- We ran until we were sure we were far enough away. I panted, and collapsed on the ground. Once again we had lost all our supplies, even the money I had pocketed.