Chapter 2: The Kidnapping of Silver
The following morning, Blaze awoke to terror and tears. The entire castle and the city surrounding it were in complete disarray. There had been an attack.
Blaze rushed into the throne room, where both her parents were busy consulting with different captains, giving orders on what to do. Tinder noticed Blaze's entry and walked up to her, allowing Elaine to tend to the orders of the captains.
"Father, what's happened?" she demanded upon walking in.
"We've been attacked" he said quickly, a stern look on his face.
"Brigands?" Blaze said, concerned for the state of the castle. Tinder shook his head.
"We...we're not sure of what attacked..." he said quietly.
"What do you mean, you're not sure? Father, what's wrong? You look terrible..." Blaze noted. Tinder then placed a hand on Blaze shoulder and looked intensely at her.
"Blaze...they kidnapped Silver"
Blaze could feel a heavy hum ring in her mind at that moment. Her eye sight became unfocused, there was a strange, momentous feeling swirling in her body. She felt a sort of poison stab through her body and mind, a great bearing on her mind. It was as if someone had struck her across the head with a heavy lead weight. A baseball bat. Anything, but she knew that she was starting to hurt like hell. She couldn't even cry or scream out in anguish. All she could manage was a cold stare.
"...N-...no..."
At that moment, a guard burst in.
"My king, Field Commander Amadeus has regained consciousness in the infirmaries!" the guard noted.
"Excellent, we must go to him now!" Tinder ordered.
"Amadeus, why him?" Blaze asked as she found herself hurriedly following her father, still in a dazed shock of the news she had just heard.
"He saw the attack. I believe I can tell us what happened to Silver"
Once in the infirmary, where many wounded soldiers and citizens were being treated by whatever staff was on hand to help, they made their way into a secluded room where Amadeus was, sat up on his bed. He was looking bitterly at the bloodied bandages wrapped around the stump where his right hand once was.
"Amadeus...how are you feeling?" Tinder asked as he and Blaze walked in.
"They took my hand..." Amadeus spat bitterly. "...Bastards"
"Tell me what you saw...everything, if you will" Tinder asked. Amadeus looked at Tinder, resting his injury.
"...I was only conscious for a certain amount of time" he explained. "...It was about four in the morning. The garrison was in the middle of night watch, and I was sleeping when one of the guards woke me up and told me that something strange was happening at the front gates of the castle" he explained. "So when I got there...you wouldn't believe what we saw!" he explained.
"What did you see!" Tinder asked in frustration.
"We saw...a giant mothership of some kind floating right in front of the gates!" Amadeus explained. Tinder couldn't believe what he was hearing, but pressed onwards.
"What did it look like?" he asked.
"It...it looked like a great stone spire that was emergin fron the clouds, and it wasn't fully revealed, but I could see ramparts around the base of the spire up high with a drawbridge...it looked like a giant floating castle!" he explained. Both Blaze and Tinder looked on in shock.
"...A floating what?" Tinder said in disbelief.
"A floating castle..." Amadeus repeated, a little quieter, looking at his hand. "It was being held in the air by what looked like big pipes spurting out blue flames..."
"Father, what's he talking about?" Blaze asked.
"...It appears this 'floating castle' must be a mechanical device of some sort, like a mothership. By the description, there must be some form of cutting edge technology involved, and...ngh!" Tinder tutted in frustration. "We can worry about what attacked us later. Tell us what happened next!" Tinder ordered.
"We watched it for a minute, but suddenly, soldiers appeared, falling down from the castle! They seemed unhurt on landing, and they just started attacking us! They were dressed in dark armour and fought with blades and weapons that emnated a strange chill from them, like they had been refrigerated or something!"
"And Silver?" Blaze spurted out suddenly.
"I saw a large brute grab Silver whilst they were fighting and started to run for the castle. I gave chase...that was when I was caught off guard and my hand was severed" Amadeus explained, looking at his stump wrist. "Then, the guy fired something from his arm towards the floating castle, and before I knew it, he just shot up with Silver. He literally vanished, just like the rest of them did a few minutes after!" he explained. Blaze looked down, devastated. She suddenly looked up in a spring of hope.
"Where did the castle go?" she blurted out suddenly.
"I was unconscious not long after Silver was taken" Amadeus explained. "...But reports from the conscious guards say that it just started moving away, rising higher until it had vanished behind the clouds"
Tinder looked down in deep thought.
"...Why Silver? Did they capture anyone else?" Tinder asked. Amadeus shook his head.
"I checked the registers of the guard, only Silver's is missing" he confirmed.
"This is really confusing..." Tinder said quietly to himself. "A great floating castle that spawns guards attacked us, stole Silver and retreated...there are so many questions that need answering..." Tinder thought. "Thank you Amadeus. Rest yourself, we shall handle the rest"
The two walked out of the room and headed back towards the throne room. There was so much in disarray, and the ominous, inexplicable floating castle that plagued Blaze's mind continued to do so for the rest of the day. The images of Silver, his kidnapping and the mysterious floating castle would be burned into Blaze's mind for a very long time in the future...
