A/N – I know, that last chapter was like, nothing. Something will happen in this chapter, I promise! This one is somewhat violent, so just a caution. But it's nothing too bad, as I am not the greatest person at writing violence. ~Emma~

Chap 23

            Venitia slept fitfully that night. She was having a horrible dream.

            She was walking down a long, gloomy hall. Suddenly, the hall turned left, and so did she.  She was straining her eyes to see what was in front of her, but couldn't see anything but darkness.  Suddenly, she felt her feet go down stairs, and she could see a faint light at the bottom. The stairs went on endlessly it seemed, until finally, the light seemed to be coming closer.  Her feet found the end of the stairs, and walked into a deserted room.  She heard a noise, a strange, mournful music.  She seemed to walk automatically to the window, but saw nothing but fog.  A rustle behind her made her turn. Where there was nothing before, skeletons filled the room. They began to move, and she heard someone screaming "SAVE ME! SAVE ME!"

            Venitia woke screaming, drenched in sweat.  She sat in her tent, breathing heavily, hearing no noise outside. 

            "It was just a dream," she told herself. "Just a dream."

            She collected herself, and then left her tent.  The camp was deserted; everyone was still over on the other side of the valley. Not wanting to think about it, Venitia rekindled the fire, and then fixed herself some breakfast.

            She sat there, kind of lonely, by the fire and ate her food. She thought of what her parents were doing right now, and her sisters.  She wondered how often they thought of her, if they thought of her as much as she had been thinking of them.  She wished she could tell her father her adventure, everything that had happened the day before. He would be so excited that she had had an adventure, probably similar to one from his younger days.  She laughed at the thought of her mother, being frightened yet excited at her thrilling tale.  And little Muriel, probably terrified, but interested all the same. And Almira, who would probably just scoff and say that Venitia was just making it up.

            She felt that she probably should go over there, but was not ready to yet. Finished with her breakfast, she sighed and went to the creek to clean up. The water was refreshing and calming, and she cleaned all the muck from the previous day off of her.  When she got out of the creek, she thought she heard a noise, but no, it was only birds. 

            "I have got to snap out of this," she scolded herself. She changed, put on her weapons belt, and began to walk toward the bridge, but stopped halfway there.

            "Don't be such a coward," she said to herself, something she seemed to be doing a lot today. "Just go over there."  But she couldn't.  Stamping her foot on the ground, she plopped herself on a boulder that overlooked the valley. She tried to redirect her thoughts, but they always managed to come back to the cave, and whatever was in there.  It had been so…creepy…eerie… to tell the truth, it had been terrifying.  With a frustrated noise in her throat, she left the boulder and wandered around the large camp aimlessly.  Then she heard it again: that rustling noise by the creek.  Puzzled, she walked toward the edge of the forest that bordered the camp.   The rustling became louder, and now it was followed by a long hiss.  Not stopping to think, she entered the forest.

            It was dark underneath the thick leaves of the trees, although the day was sunny and mild.  Venitia strained her eyes, but saw nothing.  She shrugged, and mumbled, "You're just imagining it," and turned to leave the forest.  But she didn't get one foot out of the trees, when she was suddenly yanked back by her shirt.  Surprised, she gave a yelp, but after some investigating, found it was merely a branch sticking to her shirt.  She sighed annoyingly, and made to walk out again.  But something stopped her.

            A strange hiss, followed by an even stranger yell made Venitia sure she was not alone.  She ran out of the forest, but heard the beating of hooves behind her.  Grabbing the sword her father made her, she stood there, ready to fight but with no one to fight with.  Then, suddenly, bursting through the trees came a goblin, of the ugliest kind, mounted on what seemed to be half-wolf and half-horse. Surprised but not blinded, Venitia killed the wolf-horse, and the goblin fell off.  He was much taller than she, but skinny and very brittle.  His nose was extremely crooked and his eyes were small and beady.  He walked evilly at her, but she was ready for him. They fought savagely for a minute or two until he lunged at her, but she ducked and came up behind him. With one slice of her sword, the goblin was dead.  She was breathing heavily, but not from fatigue. 

She was about to cross the bridge when many hisses and many yells told her she was not finished quite yet.  She turned slowly to find at least six more goblins bursting through the trees.  She sighed, but ran toward them with the might of twenty men.  The wolf-horses were not so hard to kill, as long as she dodged their mouths.  They let out long, piercing screams as they died. The goblins seemed surprised at such a strong woman, but did their best to thwart her anyhow.  The rocky area of the camp from the trees to the edge of the valley was very wide, and the goblins soon filled it.  Venitia killed her way to the trees, knocking out the goblins in the front, who were either too surprised or too blinded by the bright sun. Sometimes they fell on top of her, their scaly skin scratching hers, and she had to quick heave them off before her own head was chopped off. The ones at the back were harder to fight off, and Venitia more than once felt a blade penetrate her skin.  But she kept going, running on a high adrenaline that wouldn't let up. The goblins' blades were sharp but crooked, and they were not the smartest of creatures. She easily stabbed them, or decapitated them, and she even saw one that ran away.

            With less than five to go, Venitia felt herself becoming tired, and the wounds she had come by were beginning to hurt.  But she didn't let up; her father hadn't raised her to give up.  The last goblin kept her for more than five minutes, refusing to be as stupid as his fallen comrades.  But a stroke of luck made him turn the other way, and Venitia took the opportunity to chop his ugly head off.  Making sure none were left, Venitia stared down at herself; she was covered with her own blood and the thick, black blood of the goblins.  The pain in her arms and left leg, where she had been wounded, was coming now in full force, and she wasn't sure how much longer she would be able to stand up. 

            Just as she was about to fall to the ground, a great hiss behind her caught her off guard, and her left arm was caught in the strong mouth of one of the wolf-horses, its malevolent riding sneering down at her.

            "Now I'm going to make an example of you," it snarled.  Her left arm was flailing hopelessly, and her legs and torso were dragging along the ground.  She tried to wrench her arm out of the thing's mouth, but that just made it close down even harder.  Desperate, she tried to swing her right arm to catch the bridle, but only caught his leg.  He snickered, but she managed to punch him in the stomach, causing the wind to be knocked out of him. Thinking faster than she ever had in her life, Venitia grabbed the knife sticking out of his pocket, and jabbed it into his stomach.  This caused the goblin to kick the wolf-horse, and it went at full speed.  Venitia was now being pulled full-force on the ground, and her legs were starting to burn. The goblin saw the nearing edge of the steep valley, and pulled the princess up by her hair.

            "If I'm going to die, your going to die with me," it snarled.  Venitia's eyes opened wide, and he dropped her again.  The rocks on the ground were digging into her, and she just barely caught a glimpse of a split sword in its belt before she suddenly fell over the cliff. 

            She continued to fall, skidding along the rock, until she hit a boulder, and fell unconscious, the last thing she heard being a spine-chilling, sinister music.