Chapter 10.

This is the tenth chapter. Hope you enjoy it. By the way, I forgot to add at the end of the last chapter: I don't know much about German Teutonic Knights, but I hope my description was good enough. And the ice cave will be a rocky cavern instead of ice.

Just after Balto made the horses walk on, Star then opened his mouth wide, as if he were about to sneeze. Then suddenly, he did a really loud SNEEZE which echoed throughout the entire area. "Gesundheit." One of the men said to him. However, the echo caused the snow to begin falling in huge quantities off side of the large hill to their rear. It was an avalanche! It broke any tree it came to contact with to pieces and kept on going down, nothing stopping it. And it was rapidly advancing on the sledge team. Balto then suddenly heard a noise that wasn't something you normally hear in the trenches- screaming, shouting, rain and thunder, artillery shells exploding all around you, the occasional aircraft in the air. This sounded like something rumbling. Something big and dangerous. H e looked behind them and saw the avalanche rapidly coming towards them. He instantly made the Horses trot on, but the avalanche was probably going faster than they were, as it was already a few metres behind them, and before they knew it, the front of it was barely touching the end of the sledge. Balto looked ahead and saw the path just kept going on, until he noticed something on the right that someone with good and fast eyesight could see: An entrance to a cave in the hills! He then swiftly turned the horses to the right and made them go inside the cave, which then revealed to be a tunnel, just mere moments before the avalanche blocked the entrance.

The avalanche had blocked the entrance, filling the cave with total darkness. However, they sledge crew still had the lantern, which had been alight the whole time, and which has helped them see in the dark. And now it as needed. They had absolutely no idea how much snow was blocking the entrance, and knew it could take them days to dig out with no tools, time they didn't have! So, they had no choice but to go forward and see where the cave led. The lantern filled the tunnel with light as they moved on, and they then noticed stalagmites on their left side, Star laughing as he saw his reflection in some of them. They then came out of the tunnel into a large cavern filled with stalagmite's and stalactites. Balto then felt a drop of water on his head and looked up. He saw stalactites directly above them, some of which were dripping water. He then "shushed" the others and made the horses walk and slowly/quiet as possible. Star then began to develop another sneeze, his mouth opening. But luckily Nikki quickly covered Star's mouth before he could. Nikki then took his hand away from Star's mouth, who nodded a thanks. The horses led the sledge down an edge, which made the front go before the end, and when the end came down, it made a rather loud noise as it landed. The sound made Balto gasp, and then he looked up and the stalactites above them begin to crack. Suddenly, one bit fell from the cavern front and landed with a loud CRACK, which sound like in came from the behind the sledge, and the sound of wood cracking had come with it. The entire sledge crew looked to their rear to see that the bit of stalactite had landed on the very back of the sledge and had made a jagged hole, where it had fallen through. Suddenly more cracking sounds came from above. Thinking quickly again, Balto made the horses trot, saying "Trot!" outload as he did so.

The horses led the sledge as fast they could, but the stalactites, (which covered the whole roof), began to crack and fall all around them, some in front and besides, making Balto having to turn the horses sharply to avoid ramming them. Suddenly one of the horses slipped and caused the entire formation 9the horses and sledge) to move slightly too the side of the cavern, the sledge getting a bigger hit, as some of the nails on the left hand side of the medicine crate came loose, making the wooden side coming loose, exposing some of the medicine vials. Something inside him told Balto to look behind him and saw one of the medicine vials fall out of the damaged crate and smash on impacting the rocky ground. His heart literally stopping with shock, Balto, moving as quick as the wind, hand the reins to Star, leaped from where he was sitting on the sledge to where the medicine crate was tied and used to hands to push the loose wooden, back into place, and then slammed the loose nails back into their holes. Smiling at his success, he then got back to his place on the sledge and retook the reins from Star. Looking ahead, his smile faded as he saw they still weren't out of trouble. There was a way out up ahead, as they could see it and felt a draught from up ahead, but they were stalactites just right by the roof of the exit, and they then started to crack, and then slowly fall down, as if time itself was slowing down for Balto. He tugged the reins, making the horses trot as fast as they could, and before he knew it, they had reached the exit and the end of the sledge was out mere moments before the falling stalactites landed on the cave floor. They were out!

And that's the tenth chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. Please review. The story's nearly done. The next and probably last chapter will be out soon.

By the way, I would like to say that you MUST listen to what your governments say (to those who read this is different countries other than the UK) about what to do in this Coronavirus pandemic, particularly if you're countries are in lockdown. So, I would like to say what everyone's telling us do to in the UK to you:

Stay at home – Protech your health services – Save lives