Not all the characters have been introduced yet, believe it or not.
Disclaimer: I USED TO RULE THE WORLD... SEAS WOULD RISE WHEN I GAVE THE WORD
Chapter 28
The First Gleam
Escape was now the first priority. Lizzie had been waiting for the perfect chance to leave, but now it was clear that the perfect time was now. Now, as in before Derek came down the hall and started dispatching everyone with that knife. After hearing the events that had just transpired, the old urge to hyperventilate had struck. Understandably. She tried to fight it down, with some success, and considered her resources.
A couple of lock-picks and other bits and bobs.
Hazard. Who had mentioned that he still hadn't been taught how to fight properly.
And a rather large pile of coal dust. Over the past few days, she and Hazard had run out of uses for the coal, and in their boredom, they'd started scraping it everywhere to produce a pile of black dust.
Well, actually, maybe she should wait just a moment before they made their escape attempt. Lizzie had gotten pretty good at swordfighting, but she didn't have any weapons right now, and she couldn't count on being able to take Derek on. She knew how good he was at fighting, though exactly how she'd found out was a story for another time. But trying to fight him wouldn't go well. Not to mention she would have to defend Hazard too.
If she tried to escape now, she'd have to go down the hallway. And at the end of the hallway would be Derek, who was well-armed and would definitely be able to see her coming. Better to wait until Derek was much closer, and surprise him so they'd hopefully be able to dart past him before he could react properly.
Derek had already gotten a few soldiers to handle Vikus's body (with firm orders to conceal its identity as well as possible) and was about to start down the corridor.
Don't let him kill anyone else, she thought. Make him come for me and Hazard first.
Lizzie would have been pleased to know that Thruma, Derek's bond, immediately alerted him to the fact that Lizzie's cell contained the most crucial prisoner. So he was in fact intending to dispose of her first. Lizzie smiled grimly as he approached.
Derek arrived at the door and peered in. He saw no one. Had the prisoner escaped? Because if he (Derek assumed it was a he) had...
He stuck the key in the lock and turned. The door swung open with a squeak, and he stalked inside with an irritated, careless gait.
His vision was suddenly rendered useless by a cloud of coal dust that also unhelpfully forced its way into his respiratory tract. When he instinctively brought his hand up to his face to cover his eyes and nose, the keys were snatched out of it, though it took half a moment for him to realize what was happening because he was coughing violently. He was further caught off guard when a foot hooked around the back of his ankle and sent him sprawling, and quick footsteps pattered around him and out the door.
Which was slammed shut with a thud.
And a click from the locking mechanism, which had just engaged.
By the time he managed to call for the guards (whom he'd sent out earlier) through his coughing, Hazard was on his way out the door with a sword. He had no idea how to use it, but thought he would grab one for Lizzie, who was some way behind him, almost done releasing the other prisoners and about to follow when she noticed the gunpowder lying on the floor near the cannon.
She scooped some up in one hand, and had a thought.
When gunpowder was lit on fire, it didn't immediately explode, right...? At least, they sometimes used it as a fuse in movies. So...
Might as well try it, she thought, and grabbed a torch from the wall. This would probably destroy the gunpowder, which would be considerably bothersome for anyone trying to shoot the cannon, though there was undoubtedly a bunch more locked away somewhere secret.
Then she decided she might as well mess with the cannon, too, and managed to aim it downward instead of at the palace, which it had still been pointing at. She put a bunch of gunpowder on the muzzle so it would hopefully carry the fire up into the cannon as well.
Lizzie was on her way out the door when the torch hit the gunpowder, and she was (almost literally) blown away by the result. She'd known gunpowder had a lot of energy stored in it, but she hadn't been ready for the sheer ferocity of the reaction.
A few guards were just arriving, and the first one cornered her outside only to receive a handful of extra gunpowder to the face, which could not have been pleasant considering that meant sulfur in his eyes. The rest would have gone after her if not for the cloud of fine powder obstructing their vision and the incredible fiery glow and roar from the smithy. There wasn't really any way to put the fire out—gunpowder didn't need an external source of oxygen—but it would probably burn out pretty quickly. A few of the guards managed to get around the fire and tried to let Derek out of the cell, but Lizzie had jammed something into the lock.
Meanwhile, Lizzie and Hazard managed to get away from the smithy. It was going to be impossible to walk through the city undetected, but Lizzie had a plan for that. Anyone watching would have called it sheer luck (it wasn't, though exactly how was another story), but less than thirty seconds after the two of them left the smithy, Josie's alert figure appeared in the air on the red-gold back of Hestia. The flier banked, flapped once, and landed for the two of them to board, before swiftly lifting off again and heading for the cave that a bat named Ares had once called home.
Regalia looked fine in terms of first appearances, thought Simon. There was a whole new system of what was probably defensive structures on the fields outside the city, especially around the tunnel leading to cutter territory. But other than that, the city looked about the same as always. The same elegant architecture and dusky lights were plainly visible, and there were no signs of massive upheaval. Okay, well, there might have been one fire. Just one. No big deal, probably. Though what exactly was burning, considering the city was made of stone, was a good question. Perhaps somebody liked their steak really well done. Although if it was actually on fire, Simon was unsure whether it would be proper to still call it well done. More appropriate would be just done, as in the chef was done for. The chef was going to be fired. Har har. Especially if the boss had a smoldering temper, in which case he might be given a thorough roasting first. No, don't look at me like that. Puns keep the mind sharp, you disrespectful nugget. Drop and give me fifty. [1]
For whatever reason, the Iphuryn insisted on not returning to the city, but hiding out somewhere instead. Probably for the best, given the chance that something political had happened in Luxa's absence. Better to be safe, Simon supposed. What if Stellovet or somebody had managed to seize power? Or those missing Dead Landers... ugh, imagine that.
Still, he thought, it was good to be back. Regalia had started to really feel like home.
Without making themselves too visible from the city, the group headed for the tunnel that led to Ares' cave. And they were pleasantly surprised to find out who was already there.
Gregor's grumbling floated from the corner into Joshua's ears. "Unnnnrg. I still can't believe Stellovet's actually..."
Honestly, he felt like the rager should just stop interrupting. Lizzie's brief account of very recent events was really quite interesting. Although Joshua couldn't really fault him for his grumbling; he himself was having similar problems with comprehension.
Stellovet. He didn't know much about Stellovet, except that she was apparently kind of nasty and wanted to be queen.
There were a lot of people in the cave. Gregor, Joshua, Luxa (still injured and asleep, if he recalled correctly), Simon, Arian, Lizzie, Josie, Boots, Larry, Angelina, what was his name... Howard, Dreki, Nichron, Aurora, that other golden/red bat, and Simon and Arian's bonds. Ripred had vanished recently, they were told.
Joshua put his hands behind his neck and stretched a little. He was feeling surprisingly well. Almost healed up, actually, about the same as Dreki. Which was completely unnatural, sure, but he had no complaints.
"So the cannon is destroyed?" asked Arian expectantly.
Lizzie shrugged. "I don't know. Probably not. It was just burning gunpowder, so I don't think it could have done much."
"Hey," Simon offered, "if jet fuel can't melt steel beams—"
Gregor, jerking out of his Stellovet-induced daze, gave him an incensed stare. "Hey, you probably don't even know how horrible the story behind—"
"Oh, come on," Lizzie broke in. "We're back together for the first time in weeks and you guys want to spend it like this? Come on, we've got to figure out what to do here."
Joshua blinked. Did Lizzie just tell them off? Wow, she'd really come a long way from the timid, nervous character she'd had a few years ago. Thinking about this got him thinking about other things, and eventually he just sort of started skimming bits of the conversation past his ears while he accomodated his own internal thought train.
But he still followed the talking well enough to pick up a few big pieces of information over the next hour or so. So, apparently, Stellovet was assisted by this new Dead Lander, Derek, and his sister Sarna. They had the loyalty of the army, and had increased its training and equipment vastly. So maybe they would have a better chance against the cutters, but at the same time, a powerful army was a political force to be reckoned with. Or threatened with. Big-army diplomacy, pretty straightforward.
From what the group could gather, the Regalian people still weren't completely sure about following Stellovet, but seemed to have mostly accepted her. That had to change; they started brainstorming, and during that time Joshua paid more attention to the discussion.
The council still had a lot of power, and Stellovet wouldn't be acknowledged as queen without going through some kind of legal procedure that involved getting permission from a bunch of people involved with the previous royal family. At least, that was the theory. It would explain Lizzie's account of how Derek wanted Vikus's signature. If they could prevent the council from getting the signatures, Stellovet would have a much harder time getting onto the throne.
"So we're going to have to go after a stupid piece of paper?" Larry griped. "Wouldn't it be simpler to just kill Stellovet?"
"Maybe," Angelina conceded, "but we'd probably end up on trial because of the council."
"If you don't want the paper mission, there are other things to do," Arian put in. "Like making an entrance with Luxa. Make sure everyone knows who the real queen is."
Lizzie put a hand to her face, and looked at Josie with legitimate concern. "Oh, we forgot to tell them!"
The other girl stared. "About wh—? Ohhh. You've got to be kidding me. Did we actually forget to talk about that?"
"Talk about what?" asked Simon.
END OF PART 4
So, guys. I think I'll post this chapter early so you can all speculate. What did they forget to talk about? There are clues (admittedly pretty subtle) in this chapter and a few chapters back (25).
[1] "...you disrespectful nugget. Drop and give me fifty." Simon ≈ Ripred
