***A/N: this chapter is narrated for the most part by Leon Black and sorry
about last chapter, it's fixed now though. It's a pretty long chapter and
it features some excitement but the next one is going to be all battle.***
Chapter 7: The Trials of Trust
"We started by finding Nyssa, Orias' sister and Donovan. Donovan was easy enough, we got him and introduced him to all these things and got a few gifts from your mother. He seemed to master his horse pretty well, unlike the rest of us" Leon said rubbing the back of his neck. "When we got to Nyssa's it was a little bit more challenging, though. Apparently there is some sort of rat on our side that informed Neregron we were coming. Anyway when we arrived we were ambushed from all sides without any way of retreat. If it wasn't for these armors we would have probably all been dead. When we got into the apartment everything was silent. There was a trail of blood leading to the living room and there Nyssa lay on the floor. She had lost a lot of blood, Donovan really seemed worried, but you know humans don't have healing powers. She's alright now as you can see." Leon pointed at Orias' sister who was supervising some of the humans that were setting up camp. "After that we made a few fascinating discoveries about the horses. As we were riding toward the ports. I said:
'We better get on one of those passenger shuttles; we don't want to attract attention.'
'I think it's a little too late for that, Leon.' Said Donovan pointing ahead. 'We're bound to attract attention in a crowd like that' Up ahead we saw a huge crowd yelling at a dwarf apparently in charge of that particular port.
'Crap!' Orias yelled. 'There's no way we can make through that thing undetected. We have to use the police ports to get topside.' At that exact moment the horses sped up and flew up an open port tunnel. So not only could they understand us they could also fly faster than any shuttle we ever made too. They also have a great sense of direction; normally shuttles use 1000 watt tunnel lights to penetrate the tunnels' darkness but the horses just knew how the courses went. Not that they needed to, and I'll tell you why in a second.
When we got topside we found ourselves in the Antarctic. I don't know why all those elves were dying to get here but there we were. Everything around us was white; even the sky was a menacing grey. Not a living creature in sight; just snow everywhere and more started to fall.
'OK, Donovan, which way?' Tom asked looking around.
'They usually move around but I'm pretty sure I know where they are.' Donovan responded.
'Great!' Nyssa said.
'So where are they?' Orias asked impatiently.
Donovan pondered for a few short moments and then remembered. 'They move clockwise from country to country when each Chinese New Year starts. When I finished training ten years ago we were in Laos.'
'Good.' I said, opening direct communication with Sayeed. 'Sayeed, I need you to find the tenth country away from Tibet going clockwise on the globe.'
'Right, Leo.' Sayeed responded.
'Don't call me...' I started.
'Found it.' Sayeed cut me off. 'That's a country called Uzbekistan.'
'Thanks a lot Sayeed.' I responded. 'You heard him guys were off to Uzbekistan.' The horses galloped across the frozen seas and to the east towards this unknown country. 'So why does this group change locations specifically on the Chinese New Year?'
'Well our martial arts master is Chinese.' Donovan said. 'We're in for a rough time there though. We have to pass the Trials of Trust before we can talk to the master.'
'Hey we're elves.' Wei said.
'Yeah, we're the most trustworthy creatures in the universe.' Tom continued.
'Literally.' Orias added.
'So what do you have to do exactly?' Nyssa asked.
'It's a test of strength, team work, courage and mind.' Donovan answered. 'It's a series of challenging events that rely mostly on our team work and trust for each other. Hence the name.' the icebergs and the sea flashed around us as the steeds flew towards our destination.
'Oh yeah, by the way guys, we're gonna' need a change in wardrobe if were gonna' fit in.' Nyssa pointed out.
'She's right.' Donovan agreed. 'We humans are really easily frightened or interested in something like aliens.'
'But we're elves.' Wei said.
'Yeah but in these suits we look like some alien race, to an average human.' Donovan pointed out.
'He's right.' Orias agreed, seemingly for the first time. 'Sayeed come in.'
'Sayeed here.'
'Are there any magical creatures living in Uzbekistan?' Orias asked.
'Let me check.' Sayeed responded. We could here the clickedy-click of his instruments, in our headphones. 'OK, here we go. And that's a yes. There's an M.C.P.A. port there. There are a lot of resources in the middle east.'
'I need coordinates.' I demanded. A holographic keyboard appeared out of my suit's wrist. The way it works is that each holographic button has a different wave pattern, when pressed those patterns are disturbed and send messages to the nano-computer in my suit. The buttons form a complicated language all on their own, since there are only ten of them.
'Coordinates: 5900 (these are made up, because they're in elvish).' Sayeed answered.
'Thanks, Sayeed, over and out.' Soon after we arrived at our base located in the Middle East and found something completely unexpected.
As we were dismounting our horses we heard distant gunshots, somewhere deep underground. When we entered the base, there was blood everywhere; orc and elf smeared all over the floor and walls. An elf turned a corner in a frantic sprint and got shot by a homing projectile. A distant orc chant could be heard we ran carelessly from towards the sound getting shot by every orc bullet left in their guns. We dispatched them easily, especially with those silver bullets. They left wholes the size of a fist in the stupid creatures; after a few minutes the whole room was covered in their oozing black blood. We managed to find a crate full of human clothing in some storage room. Donovan laughed his heart out when Tom wanted to wear a white dress with pink flowers.
'That's for women.' Donovan said in between gags of laughter.
'But it was in the human clothe box.' Tom tried to defend. By this time it was too late; we were all holding our stomachs and pointing at my foolish brother. A few minutes later we were in a large Uzbekistani city called, Samarkand (an actual city). It was extremely primitive looking with camels and all those smells."
"Well after you lived here for a few centuries it's hard to view a human city as futuristic and advanced." Roby interrupted.
"Yeah that's true." His father agreed, nodding his head slowly.
"Oh, but continue your story." Roby said again.
"Ok, where was I? Oh yeah." Leon remembered. "So once we arrived in Samarkand we started walking around aimlessly, following Donovan. After a while it got extremely exasperating. My head was spinning because of all the smells and the heat. Finally Donovan broke the silence and shocked us all:
'So where exactly are we going?' he asked.
'WHAT?!' Orias bellowed. 'Do you mean to say that we've been walking around here for absolutely nothing?!'
'Well I thought that Leon was...' Donovan attempted.
Orias groaned loudly and fell to his knees punching the ground; we were soon covered with dust aroused by Orias' anger frenzy. Nyssa coughed loudly and then gagged and collapsed on the soil. Orias stooped over her quickly; there was blood coming out of her left chest area. Orias whispered: "Medicor" and a bullet popped out of his sister's chest hitting Orias right in the forehead and knocking him unconscious. The rest of us surrounded them our weapons in our outstretched arms. Sweat role down my temples; I felt really uneasy. I had never been trapped in a human crossfire without a protection suit. A faint whooshing sound could be heard coming towards Wei. We all ducked but Donovan, being unable to hear stood up; the bullet zoomed past his left year and he opened fire out of habit. Wei pulled him to the ground quickly and Nyssa yelled: "Patrocinor" (to protect). We were now under a purple, transparent dome, stretching form the ground to just above Nyssa's (who was sitting down) head.
All the dust cleared and two figures dressed in a formal suit could be seen; in between them stood a short, crouched figure, who appeared to be an old woman. She was of Chinese ethnicity and looked somewhere around the human age of seventy-five. Wrinkles were all over her face and she seemed very wise. The group started walking towards us slowly and cautiously.
Wei shook Orias' unconscious body violently waking him up. As we all stood up, Nyssa's protection spell grew as well. I read Donovan's mind not wanting to give away the position of what we were doing. This was them, after all; the woman was Donovan's former sensei and mentor. He impressed me when the only thing in his mind was: "Stop reading my mind please, Leon." Donovan has a lot in him." At this Roby nodded approvingly, looking warmly at his lifelong human friend.
"Anyway the three humans were now standing directly out side the transparent, purple dome starring at us coldly. Tom popped an eyebrow looking at the three humans in his own strange perspective. Donovan bowed and the three humans returned the greeting. We followed Donovan's lead and waited patiently for something to happen. Nyssa released the spell and the dome disappeared silently. There was no one in the streets at this time and this was very peculiar.
'Greetings sen...' Donovan began.
'Silence.' Snapped the woman. It was extremely strange how such small a figure had such a huge impact on Donovan. He bowed his head down in shame and backed down. 'Who are these strangers you bring to us?' she asked turning to Donovan. She had a pretty strong Chinese accent that reminded me of some sort of strange fisherman.
'We're elves.' I responded seriously.
'What is your business here?' the old lady kept firing at us.
'We seek the men that are great fighters and trustworthy unlike their kind.' I responded again. The old lady backed away and pulled out a gun, aiming it at my face. It went off slowly; first a loud slow snap, then the flash and then the bullet rushing toward my face. Without any of the men noticing I rushed by and hit the old lady flat in the face, propelling her about five meters into the air. She did a back flip in mid air and landed on her feet. A silver orb zoomed past my ear and hit the old sensei in the chest knocking her unconscious. Orias' gun was still pointed in her direction; Nyssa and Wei had knocked the other two humans out and were now standing over them, guns in hands.
'Crazy old, hag.' Tom frowned, shacking his head disapprovingly. If any human came close to our world he would be killed. 'So now what?'
'Well, you've proven yourselves worthy and once they wake up they'll take us to their headquarters.' Donovan answered seeming pleased. Tom had already wakened up the sensei, who seemed rather shocked and surprised. She got up and bowed to me and I bowed back in response.
'You have proven yourselves worthy, please follow me.' She said gesturing us to follow her. We were led into a building made of some type of clay, with a flat roof and wholes for windows, which were a menacing and eerie black. She led us down a series of steps deep underground. We arrived into a torch lit basement, where huge topless men were performing various martial arts techniques. They all stopped and bowed when their sensei walked in. 'These are our guests.' She said pointing to us. All the men bowed to us and we responded, bowing back. 'They seek our aid them in their elven wars. They shall now explain this matter further.' She stepped off to the side and sat cross legged among her pupils.
It was my duty to speak so I stepped forward, all the men eyed me closely. 'Greetings. The Maiar of the sun, Arien, has dubbed you trustworthy among your race of backstabbing people. She said if the need be, we can look to you for aid and support. I can see she was correct. I look at each of you and see in your eyes the great power of your forefathers that fought among us, mixed their blood with ours and were dubbed elven-friends.' I started pacing around the large basement, eyeing my audience. 'Our newest foe is named Neregron; he is great in knowledge and power and can not be vanquished by any except two of our kind. But they need all the support they can get; no dark lord has been vanquished without the force of men. I stand here before you and ask you: will you fulfill the duty of your for fathers that have fought with us, or will you cower here on the surface and throw yourself and his merciless feet once he enslaves your kind?'
There was a great silence in the dimly lit room. All the men were still starring at me vividly, their young faces lit by the poor firelight. They bowed their heads pondering their future: "Should we go, or should we stay?" The sensei got up again slowly and walked towards me. I stepped back toward my friends and crew and looked at them; they were all excited and awaited the humans' decisions.
'It seems this ancient race of brave hearted warriors and friends has asked our aid.' The old lady started. 'What is the decision of the trustworthy men?'
A small murmur sprouted slowly from their mouths and soon grew into a chant: "Trials of Trust! Trials of Trust!" The old sensei turned back to us and said:
'My men wish to test your worthiness. We need to see indeed what our allies are like. We can not be expected to do all the work in this war against the Dark Lord Neregron.' I turned my head to my friends and saw them nodding with the corner of my left eye.
'We accept this challenge, gracefully.' I answered. My team cracked their joints behind me in sign of readiness. I smiled at them, slyly in reassurance and we followed the old Chinese lady into a back chamber, if it can be called that. It was a cave; the walls were moist and the air humid and a little stuffy. And of course the penetrating darkness; if we took a few more steps we would be completely devoured by the darkness.
'Let's make it happen capt'n!' Tom yelled enthusiastically.
'Back to back, Donovan you're in the middle.' I commanded. 'Everyone else lights on!' everyone shot a beam of light out of their left hand and held their right hand ready to fire at any incoming targets. Our ears couldn't pick up anything but the occasional droplet of water splashing against the solid rock of the cave. We could hear any movement in the entire cave, but at the moment, there wasn't any. Suddenly our ears quivered as silent footsteps could be heard. Hair whooshed somewhere deep in the darkness; the soft crackle of clothes could be heard as well.
I concentrated hard and was able to transmit orders to my team telepathically. 'Ok, they obviously have some sort of swat team in here. What we just heard was probably their leader. Wait! You smell that? Their getting closer, but their something wrong with this odor.'
Donovan was completely lost; he couldn't hear or smell anything. I hit him in the back of the head knocking him unconscious. Wei put a tag on him so we could find him later with our revealing spells and Orias cast an invisibility spell on him so our pursuers couldn't find him. The footsteps and odors became more distinct; there were twenty of them, all wearing way too much cologne. One stood above the rest; their leader was a woman, with hair up to her shoulders and weighed about one hundred and forty pounds. The rest of the men weighed in between two hundred and fifty and two hundred and ninety pounds each. Their steps were heavy and loud (to us anyway). We all got into position and fired twenty silent shots. Nineteen groans could be heard, followed by nineteen lowed thuds, even a human could have heard.
Their leader had eluded us; it was exactly as I expected. She wasn't human; those silent shots were just loud enough to be heard by an elf and nothing else. As she tried to sneak up on us her smell and step could be distinguished clearly as of elven kind. Her step was heavier because her family probably immigrated to the top a while ago. She reached for her handgun and as it scraped against the holster, Wei, being closest to her, heard it and rushed toward her. The sound of bone hitting skin could be heard, along with a small grunt. We now started heading back for the basement, Wei carrying the unknown elf. Her breath gave away her position though."
"Let me guess." Roby said. "When a person is unconscious their breath is stable, but because she was still conscious her breath was uneasy."
"That's absolutely right. She tried to punch Wei in the face as we stopped to pick up Donovan. Wei eluded the hit and kneed her in the back at the perfect point to knock her out. This time he succeeded and we continued toward the exit, carefully. A dim light could soon be seen up ahead and we reached the sensei, who was waiting for us.
'Well done!' she congratulated us. 'I can see this girl is dear to you.' She said turning to Wei. She couldn't have been more right; Wei was eyeing her in a dreamy fashion looking at her face warmly. She was pretty cute, come to think of it; she had golden-brown hair and a very fair face. The light of her people shinned deep within her, and even though her apparent job was rough, her skin maintained a silky-smooth feeling. Don't tell your mother I said that though.
'Oh, what?' Wei finally reacted waking up from his trance. We all chuckled at this pathetic response, turning Wei's cheeks a bright red.
'So I guess the men trust us now?' Tom asked, recovering from the laughter.
'No, not yet.' The old sensei answered.
'It's called Trials' Donovan put a solid exclamation on the s. 'of Trust, for a reason. We still have two more challenges to overcome.'
'Oh joy.' Nyssa exclaimed sarcastically. The old lady smiled and switched on a series of lights in the cave and said:
'For your second challenge, you must recover a ruby from deep within the cave. You must rely on each other to overcome this task.' She pointed us to the entrance of the cave and we entered daringly. After a short period of time we reached a deep, dark whole in the cave floor. Donovan picked up a stone and threw it across the gapping mouth of this apparent abyss. With hundreds of whooshes, arrows sprang from the dark confounds of the whole splitting the stones into tiny pieces.
'Ok, I think this is where the team work comes in.' Nyssa said eyeing the dark gap carefully, as if more arrows were about to shoot out.
'Yeah definitely.' Tom agreed. 'So how are we gonna do it again?'
'We have to rely on one person to hold a shielding spell over the gap so the others can leap across.' Orias suggested.
'Yeah, good idea.' I agreed nodding. 'Nyssa you hold the spell until we jump across. Then Orias you'll hold the spell so Nyssa can jump over.' They both nodded, seriously; we all took deep breaths. Nyssa held out her arms and concentrated; the transparent purple shield materialized over the dark gap. Orias leaped easily across the fifteen meter gap with ease and landed silently on the opposite side. Wei and Tom followed gracefully; I levitated Donovan across the gap as well leaving only me and Nyssa behind. Hundreds of arrows kept hitting the barrier as each person leaped across; Nyssa was sweating from the strain of holding the barrier. Her field of work didn't involve performing tough spells, so she couldn't guard against powerful attacks for long. I leaped across and saw the arrows rushing towards me and bouncing off the transparent purple barrier. This was too much for Nyssa she gave in under the pressure allowing the arrows to flow towards me.
'Leon!' everyone yelled. Orias immediately reacted and cast another spell under me. He wasn't quick enough; about fifty arrows managed to pass the barrier and twenty of them hit me head on. At first there was the great shock of getting hit so many times, than came the agonizing pain reaching deep inside your mind manipulating all the cells in your body to scream in agony. Wei levitated me to safety and healed me quickly, before the arrows could kill me. The light in front of my eyes vanished and my friend came slowly into focus; he sighed in relief, smiled and then pulled me up. Nyssa had already leaped across, so we continued on.
'God, Donovan, did any humans ever make it out of this thing?' Tom asked.
'Not that I can think of.' Donovan answered calmly. I was now walking ahead, my head swinging from side to side, keeping a look out for any more traps. Unfortunately the next one came from below me. As I stepped on suddenly my left foot sunk into the ground pulling the rest of my body with it. Donovan grabbed hold of me and managed to pull me out. 'Quick sand.'
'How long does it extend?' Nyssa asked.
'Yeah we can't just assume where it ends.' Wei added.
'Well there's only one way to find out.' Orias said. He walked up to a stalagmite and kicked as hard as he could. The stone broke free and landed at Orias' powerful feet.
'Oh, I follow you.' Tom nodded. He stepped one the stalagmite with his entire might, breaking it into smaller pieces. He picked up a piece and threw it about twenty meters; it sunk slowly into the false soil. Orias threw another about twenty five meters; it bounced and slid across the solid, moist floor.
'Well I guess that's our goal.' Nyssa said sighing deeply. 'What's the plan?'
Everyone pondered on what to do next. Wei snapped his fingers and his face brightened. 'I got it.' he exclaimed. 'We just have to levitate each other across the quicksand.'
'Wow that was so obvious.' Tom said, surprised at our poor logic.
'Yeah we really should have thought of that right away.' Orias agreed. Everyone starred at him wide eyed. He had just agreed with my brother, Tom on something; he soon realized what he did and responded coldly. 'Ah... don't get used to it.'
'Ok, let's get moving, team.' I interrupted. Nyssa was the first one over, than Wei, than Tom, etc. Orias levitated me over and we continued, stepping proudly, deeper and deeper inside the mysterious cave.
We leaped a few more puddles of quicksand and reached a wall going straight up, with a completely flat surface. We were all exhausted from this journey; we must have traveled twenty miles in the cave. Everyone sat with their back against the flat wall and held their stomach, which growled hungrily. We had to conserve energy for the return trip, which meant we couldn't use any more magic.
Tom groaned with hunger and fatigue and than turned his head toward me; I was panting trying not to fall asleep. 'I hope they feed us when we get back.'
'If we do get back.' Wei groaned.
Nyssa was resting on her brother's left shoulder her eyes half open and her mouth aghast. 'We must have been traveling for at least a day.' She whispered. Orias looked at the date on his watch.
'A day and a half.' He corrected her.
'We have to end this now.' I said. 'Let's get going. Everyone take a drink and let's get moving.'
'A drink!?' Tom asked. 'From where, genius? I don't see any lakes or rivers around.'
Everybody was getting frustrated about the entire situation. 'Lick the walls.' I answered. I went and performed this deed and felt somewhat better; everyone followed and seemed ready for the last obstacle. 'This is what we do. Wei I'm gonna boost you up the whole thirty meters up and you gonna pull yourself up. We do that with everyone until you guys are all up there. I'll wait here and see if I can find a shorter route.'
'And how do we get down?' Donovan asked. This was painstakingly obvious to all the elves.
'We just jump.' Tom answered coldly. 'We'll catch you monkey boy, don't worry.'
'Hey who...'
'Alright.' I cut in wanting to carry on and leave this forsaken place. 'Donovan you first.' I clanged my fingers together, tightly and Donovan adjusted his foot into them. We both pushed with all that we had and Donovan was able to grab on to the edge and pull himself up. Orias was next he landed gracefully at the top and awaited the others; in about four minutes of struggle everyone was at the top and I was left all by myself. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the exit. It turned out if we cut through the middle leaving the trail behind we would make it out twice as fast. This path didn't have any obstacles and was about three times shorter than the other; the only problem was it was dark. I sighed with regret I didn't think of finding another path before and closed my eyes; in a few seconds I was fast asleep. I didn't dream at all and a while later, I don't know how much, Wei woke me up.
'We got it.' Nyssa said pointing to Donovan. He held up his hand and in it could be seen a large ruby sparkling under the artificial lights.
'I found a shorter way.' I said, almost in a whisper. I got up and staggered from side to side almost falling over. I leaned against the wall with my left hand and raised my right to my forehead. 'I'm fine, let's get going.' Everyone followed me straight ahead into the darkness. No one talked, not even Tom, we all just walked silently toward the exit; our silence was broken by the occasional splash of a droplet of water.
Suddenly we heard hundreds of footsteps coming our way; men were coming this way heavily armed as well. We could see the exit, but it was soon shadowed by this army of humans. We split into pairs: Orias and I, Wei and Tom, and Nyssa and Donovan. 'Back to back.' I whispered. They were forming a circle around us; normally one of us could have dispatched them all but now we were all too exhausted to use magic.
We were all silent; only our breaths could be heard. Than the human breaths became more rapid and we braced for the attack. We all kicked and punched in all directions, cracking the unlucky humans' bones with our blows. Even Donovan was doing well; elves are twenty times more resistant than humans. Finally all the breathing levels of the humans dropped to normal and we raced with whatever strength we had left to the exit.
The old sensei and the elven women we found were meditating by the door. We all collapsed in front of them, gaping for air. 'Food...' Tom begged with a groan. They got up and showed us to a table weighed down by numerous delicacies. We stormed the table, our manners were safely locked away somewhere deep in our minds. In about ten minutes all the food was in our stomachs and we were all resting on the floor somewhere.
We were given a large chamber with some blankets and some straw to rest on. Before we slept we had a little conversation about our adventure and the one to come. 'Just one more trial, huh?' Wei asked.
We all nodded and put our heads down, waiting for sleep to creep up on us. 'So what's this one about, Donovan?' Orias asked calmly.
'Well the previous tests tested our strength, mind and team work.' Donovan answered.
'So that means this last one will test...' Tom began.
'...our courage.' Nyssa finished.
'Just as long as it isn't as long as the other one I'm fine with that.' I said. There was an approving murmur of: "Yeah." With that we all fell soundly asleep resting our tired bodies and minds.
The next morning we awoke at about ten in the morning, feeling rejuvenated. We had a plentiful breakfast and joined the old sensei and the elven woman, which we found out, was named Laura. Wei was flirting with her the entire morning and she seemed to like him as well, because she giggled whenever he finished his little "courtship speeches", as Tom called them. She appeared to be the sensei's personal assistant.
'So that's why I never get old.' She said, when Wei explained to her the basics about elves.
'Well you would age if you remain here, just more slowly.' Wei told her. 'You have to come with us underground and perform the ceremony to live and look like an elf.'
'Which one will face his demons first?' The sensei interrupted.
'Demons?' Nyssa asked. 'You mean our fears?'
The old lady nodded. 'That should no trouble for you, eh, Leon?' Wei asked me with a large grin. He and Laura were holding each other by the waist now; she was resting her head on his left shoulder smiling with her eyes closed.
'Shut up, "Lover Boy"!' Tom backed me up. Wei tried not to laugh at himself but he was unsuccessful.
The old sensei faked a cough to interrupt our vigorous argument. 'Who will be first?' she asked again. Everyone looked around at each other seriously; all eyes eventually fell on me.
'All right.' I accepted.
'You must remain in the cave for two hours.' Laura whispered to Wei. I overheard and walked inside cautiously. It was now dark again, and silent; even more silent than last time, not even the water seemed to be splashing. I wondered what could humans, possibly do to frighten an elf? And how did they know what we were afraid of? I kept walking around the cave aimlessly. I knew where I was of course just not what to expect.
I looked at my watch after what seemed an eternity and found out I had already been standing in the cave for an hour. Apparently the humans think I'm afraid of the dark, I thought to myself. I gave a of a sigh, containing both anticipation and boredom. What could they be doing? This was a complete waste of time; who knew what Neregron could have been planning at that exact moment. Maybe everyone was already dead underground; I was getting frustrated. I looked at my watch again, the numbers shocking me; only two minutes had passed since I last checked. Sweat mingled with stress poured from the pores of my body. Than I realized: what if this was what the old lady meant by facing your fears. I mean I was getting very stressed and scarred what could be happening to me.
Suddenly a shrill long scream broke the deep silence, penetrating your body and rattling the very marrow of your bones. My spine shivered violently, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I crouched low, kept me elbows tucked in and my palm wide open in front of me. Another scream broke the silence, this time closer, and even more horrible. I could now make out a faint light in the distance; it was growing fast. Soon it began to take form and...another scream beat on my eardrums. The form appeared to be a woman, no a ghost. Her detailed features could now be recognized: long black hair down to her waist, clear blue eyes, pale white skin and she was pretty tall. It was Kayri; but no, something was terribly wrong. Her neck was covered with deep red blood and a large scar could be made out.
Common sense suddenly came back to me and I realized that couldn't possibly be your mother; just some stupid human trick. She held her arms to her neck and than held them out towards me; her hands were all bloody. Common sense left me again and I backed away my eyes and my mouth were wide open.
'How could you...' she whispered slowly. 'How could you do this?'
I tried to speak but I could only shape my mouth to form a feeble "No". I was angry and scarred and I threw some random spell at this figure. It exploded into a shower of light and all was silent again. I was panting hard and was dripping sweat; I fell on all fours, regaining my breath and calm slowly. I was starring at the wet floor when light flowed over my fingers; I didn't look up. It was the same strange light as with the other figure. Slowly I got up, keeping my chin and my chest together; I raised my head slowly and saw the ghostly figure of a boy standing there right in front of me. It was you...you weren't bloody, but your eyes were white and your mouth was open. Your face had no expression; I remembered my studies at the academy. This was the expression a person killed by a powerful spell wore.
You chin started to move slowly and than you said: 'Why...'
I clenched my teeth together trying not to loose my ground again. 'NO!' I yelled. 'You're not real!'
'Why...'
I covered my ears with my hands and squeezed tightly. 'NO!'
'Why...' than your mouth materialized into a wicked smile. You gave off a deep evil laugh and said again: 'Why? Why did you leave us, Leon?' more voices now rang throughout the cave.
'Why did you leave us, Leon?' they all said. Your figure's was the deepest; more ghostly figures were now taking form behind yours. They were Wei and Orias; Wei had five wholes in his chest and Orias was missing his limbs, the bases of his arms and legs were dripping a ghostly red blood. Than your mother and Tom took form also; Kayri looked the same as last time and Tom held his head dripping blood under his right arm. More and more familiar figures materialized behind you; the general and Nyssa and many others.
'Why did you leave us, Leon?' their voices began to merge into one and all the figures turned black. They merged into one colossal figure that I suddenly recognized as Neregron. He laughed harshly, looking down at my whimpering figure. I stopped panting and caught my breath; I got up smiling and whipped some sweat off my forehead. I chuckled softly.
'I don't know how in Manwe's (leader of the Valar) name you think a stupid blend of light and color can scare me?' I said loudly to the figure. 'But you will certainly not waste any more elven time here today.' I held out my right arm and closed my eyes tightly. 'Ille fio homo despero terreo Elves. Modo ABEO!' (Those made [of] humans have no hope [of] frightening Elves. Now DIE!). Hundreds of crackling sounds rang through the cave and the giant figure slowly disappeared. I checked my watch again; two hours flat. I walked calmly to the exit where everyone was waiting for me.
'You owe me fifty, Wei.' Tom yelled. 'Knew you wouldn't be scarred.'
I smiled and shook my head. 'Sorry if I broke your little hologram projectors.' I apologized to the old lady.
'Yes...' she said. 'I guess we won't have time for to fix the projectors and test your friends. Luckily since your leader went first' She was now talking to all of us. 'he has also shown the courage of his men. Leaders bare the courage and knowledge of all their inferiors or they wouldn't be who they are.'
'Thank you, Leon.' Nyssa sighed with relief.
'Didn't think you could handle your demons, sis?' Orias asked tauntingly.
'Shut up, Orias!' She yelled at him. 'It's not like you faced yours.'
'OK!' I yelled. 'Can we please recruit these humans, now?'
The sensei nodded and pointed us to the familiar training room. All the men were training as usual, all bear chested. 'Our visitors have proven themselves worthy indeed.' The sensei began. 'Now who shall join them?'
All the men immediately stepped forward with their brows held high. We all smiled with satisfaction. We now had five hundred strong men willing to fight with us against Neregron. I stepped forward to say a few final words:
'Thank you very much. You are all honorable, strong and courageous warriors. You are willing to fight, knowing there is no material reward. If you prove yourselves worthy in battle and you survive your reward will be eternal life. You can come and leave our world anytime you wish...thank you all, again.' I bowed, ending my speech. All the men bowed in response.
We led them to the bloody stronghold we came from and equipped them all with elven armor and weapons. We trained with these weapons for about two weeks and than returned underground to the M.C.P.A. headquarters. General Widow congratulated us and we soon left to come here. We checked with Sayeed first and he gave us the following information:
'I'm picking up a large number of orcs headed towards the main road leading to this school. We already shut off the road to civilians.'
'What are they doing?' Tom asked examining the screen closely.
'Looks like their surrounding the road.' Wei said.
'Now their just waiting there.' Nyssa added.
'It's an ambush.' Everyone realized all of a sudden. We all shook our heads and looked blankly at the screen trying to figure out what the bests tactic was.
'Only one thing to do, then.' Came a voice from the doorway. It was Laura, all dressed in uniform. 'Widow appointed me to your little group, Leon.'
'Congratulations.' Nyssa shook Laura's hand politely.
'So what's your master plan?' Orias asked impatiently as always.
'We fight.' She responded simply.
'Hm...what about a bio-bomb (I told you ppl it had some Artemis Fowl in it)?' Sayeed asked.
'We have to use one of your low range ones though.' Wei pointed out.
'And we have to drop it exactly in the middle.' Orias added.
'So I'll just launch it from here.' Sayeed turned to his computer punched in something and pressed a green button, underneath his keyboard. 'Give it...never mind.' All the red dots on the screen disappeared suddenly.
'All right let's go, order the humans to get in some trucks, we need them in case Neregron ambushes the school.' I ordered.
And that's pretty much it; the rest you know. We got to the school and here we are."
"So you think they're going to attack?" Roby asked, looking at his father eagerly.
His father shook his head. "No I think Neregron still wants to maintain an air of secrecy for the moment. You know, catch everyone off guard. If he kills us all on the road no one will know, but if he ambushes the school everyone will call the police and so on and so forth."
Roby nodded, got up and stretched. "I'm gonna go to bed now, dad. Be careful out here, you guys." He yelled to everyone.
"Good night, son." Leon said.
He walked over to his group who were all sitting near a huge oak tree. "So do you really think they won't attack?" Laura asked.
"No, they will. Towards the morning though." Leon responded scratching the back of his neck. Nyssa joined them sighing deeply. "Is the guard set up?"
She nodded lying against the trunk of the old oak and closing her eyes. In about half an hour, everyone but the guards was sleeping on a patch of grass or tree root. In the back of their resting minds they were all preparing for the battle to come.
Chapter 7: The Trials of Trust
"We started by finding Nyssa, Orias' sister and Donovan. Donovan was easy enough, we got him and introduced him to all these things and got a few gifts from your mother. He seemed to master his horse pretty well, unlike the rest of us" Leon said rubbing the back of his neck. "When we got to Nyssa's it was a little bit more challenging, though. Apparently there is some sort of rat on our side that informed Neregron we were coming. Anyway when we arrived we were ambushed from all sides without any way of retreat. If it wasn't for these armors we would have probably all been dead. When we got into the apartment everything was silent. There was a trail of blood leading to the living room and there Nyssa lay on the floor. She had lost a lot of blood, Donovan really seemed worried, but you know humans don't have healing powers. She's alright now as you can see." Leon pointed at Orias' sister who was supervising some of the humans that were setting up camp. "After that we made a few fascinating discoveries about the horses. As we were riding toward the ports. I said:
'We better get on one of those passenger shuttles; we don't want to attract attention.'
'I think it's a little too late for that, Leon.' Said Donovan pointing ahead. 'We're bound to attract attention in a crowd like that' Up ahead we saw a huge crowd yelling at a dwarf apparently in charge of that particular port.
'Crap!' Orias yelled. 'There's no way we can make through that thing undetected. We have to use the police ports to get topside.' At that exact moment the horses sped up and flew up an open port tunnel. So not only could they understand us they could also fly faster than any shuttle we ever made too. They also have a great sense of direction; normally shuttles use 1000 watt tunnel lights to penetrate the tunnels' darkness but the horses just knew how the courses went. Not that they needed to, and I'll tell you why in a second.
When we got topside we found ourselves in the Antarctic. I don't know why all those elves were dying to get here but there we were. Everything around us was white; even the sky was a menacing grey. Not a living creature in sight; just snow everywhere and more started to fall.
'OK, Donovan, which way?' Tom asked looking around.
'They usually move around but I'm pretty sure I know where they are.' Donovan responded.
'Great!' Nyssa said.
'So where are they?' Orias asked impatiently.
Donovan pondered for a few short moments and then remembered. 'They move clockwise from country to country when each Chinese New Year starts. When I finished training ten years ago we were in Laos.'
'Good.' I said, opening direct communication with Sayeed. 'Sayeed, I need you to find the tenth country away from Tibet going clockwise on the globe.'
'Right, Leo.' Sayeed responded.
'Don't call me...' I started.
'Found it.' Sayeed cut me off. 'That's a country called Uzbekistan.'
'Thanks a lot Sayeed.' I responded. 'You heard him guys were off to Uzbekistan.' The horses galloped across the frozen seas and to the east towards this unknown country. 'So why does this group change locations specifically on the Chinese New Year?'
'Well our martial arts master is Chinese.' Donovan said. 'We're in for a rough time there though. We have to pass the Trials of Trust before we can talk to the master.'
'Hey we're elves.' Wei said.
'Yeah, we're the most trustworthy creatures in the universe.' Tom continued.
'Literally.' Orias added.
'So what do you have to do exactly?' Nyssa asked.
'It's a test of strength, team work, courage and mind.' Donovan answered. 'It's a series of challenging events that rely mostly on our team work and trust for each other. Hence the name.' the icebergs and the sea flashed around us as the steeds flew towards our destination.
'Oh yeah, by the way guys, we're gonna' need a change in wardrobe if were gonna' fit in.' Nyssa pointed out.
'She's right.' Donovan agreed. 'We humans are really easily frightened or interested in something like aliens.'
'But we're elves.' Wei said.
'Yeah but in these suits we look like some alien race, to an average human.' Donovan pointed out.
'He's right.' Orias agreed, seemingly for the first time. 'Sayeed come in.'
'Sayeed here.'
'Are there any magical creatures living in Uzbekistan?' Orias asked.
'Let me check.' Sayeed responded. We could here the clickedy-click of his instruments, in our headphones. 'OK, here we go. And that's a yes. There's an M.C.P.A. port there. There are a lot of resources in the middle east.'
'I need coordinates.' I demanded. A holographic keyboard appeared out of my suit's wrist. The way it works is that each holographic button has a different wave pattern, when pressed those patterns are disturbed and send messages to the nano-computer in my suit. The buttons form a complicated language all on their own, since there are only ten of them.
'Coordinates: 5900 (these are made up, because they're in elvish).' Sayeed answered.
'Thanks, Sayeed, over and out.' Soon after we arrived at our base located in the Middle East and found something completely unexpected.
As we were dismounting our horses we heard distant gunshots, somewhere deep underground. When we entered the base, there was blood everywhere; orc and elf smeared all over the floor and walls. An elf turned a corner in a frantic sprint and got shot by a homing projectile. A distant orc chant could be heard we ran carelessly from towards the sound getting shot by every orc bullet left in their guns. We dispatched them easily, especially with those silver bullets. They left wholes the size of a fist in the stupid creatures; after a few minutes the whole room was covered in their oozing black blood. We managed to find a crate full of human clothing in some storage room. Donovan laughed his heart out when Tom wanted to wear a white dress with pink flowers.
'That's for women.' Donovan said in between gags of laughter.
'But it was in the human clothe box.' Tom tried to defend. By this time it was too late; we were all holding our stomachs and pointing at my foolish brother. A few minutes later we were in a large Uzbekistani city called, Samarkand (an actual city). It was extremely primitive looking with camels and all those smells."
"Well after you lived here for a few centuries it's hard to view a human city as futuristic and advanced." Roby interrupted.
"Yeah that's true." His father agreed, nodding his head slowly.
"Oh, but continue your story." Roby said again.
"Ok, where was I? Oh yeah." Leon remembered. "So once we arrived in Samarkand we started walking around aimlessly, following Donovan. After a while it got extremely exasperating. My head was spinning because of all the smells and the heat. Finally Donovan broke the silence and shocked us all:
'So where exactly are we going?' he asked.
'WHAT?!' Orias bellowed. 'Do you mean to say that we've been walking around here for absolutely nothing?!'
'Well I thought that Leon was...' Donovan attempted.
Orias groaned loudly and fell to his knees punching the ground; we were soon covered with dust aroused by Orias' anger frenzy. Nyssa coughed loudly and then gagged and collapsed on the soil. Orias stooped over her quickly; there was blood coming out of her left chest area. Orias whispered: "Medicor" and a bullet popped out of his sister's chest hitting Orias right in the forehead and knocking him unconscious. The rest of us surrounded them our weapons in our outstretched arms. Sweat role down my temples; I felt really uneasy. I had never been trapped in a human crossfire without a protection suit. A faint whooshing sound could be heard coming towards Wei. We all ducked but Donovan, being unable to hear stood up; the bullet zoomed past his left year and he opened fire out of habit. Wei pulled him to the ground quickly and Nyssa yelled: "Patrocinor" (to protect). We were now under a purple, transparent dome, stretching form the ground to just above Nyssa's (who was sitting down) head.
All the dust cleared and two figures dressed in a formal suit could be seen; in between them stood a short, crouched figure, who appeared to be an old woman. She was of Chinese ethnicity and looked somewhere around the human age of seventy-five. Wrinkles were all over her face and she seemed very wise. The group started walking towards us slowly and cautiously.
Wei shook Orias' unconscious body violently waking him up. As we all stood up, Nyssa's protection spell grew as well. I read Donovan's mind not wanting to give away the position of what we were doing. This was them, after all; the woman was Donovan's former sensei and mentor. He impressed me when the only thing in his mind was: "Stop reading my mind please, Leon." Donovan has a lot in him." At this Roby nodded approvingly, looking warmly at his lifelong human friend.
"Anyway the three humans were now standing directly out side the transparent, purple dome starring at us coldly. Tom popped an eyebrow looking at the three humans in his own strange perspective. Donovan bowed and the three humans returned the greeting. We followed Donovan's lead and waited patiently for something to happen. Nyssa released the spell and the dome disappeared silently. There was no one in the streets at this time and this was very peculiar.
'Greetings sen...' Donovan began.
'Silence.' Snapped the woman. It was extremely strange how such small a figure had such a huge impact on Donovan. He bowed his head down in shame and backed down. 'Who are these strangers you bring to us?' she asked turning to Donovan. She had a pretty strong Chinese accent that reminded me of some sort of strange fisherman.
'We're elves.' I responded seriously.
'What is your business here?' the old lady kept firing at us.
'We seek the men that are great fighters and trustworthy unlike their kind.' I responded again. The old lady backed away and pulled out a gun, aiming it at my face. It went off slowly; first a loud slow snap, then the flash and then the bullet rushing toward my face. Without any of the men noticing I rushed by and hit the old lady flat in the face, propelling her about five meters into the air. She did a back flip in mid air and landed on her feet. A silver orb zoomed past my ear and hit the old sensei in the chest knocking her unconscious. Orias' gun was still pointed in her direction; Nyssa and Wei had knocked the other two humans out and were now standing over them, guns in hands.
'Crazy old, hag.' Tom frowned, shacking his head disapprovingly. If any human came close to our world he would be killed. 'So now what?'
'Well, you've proven yourselves worthy and once they wake up they'll take us to their headquarters.' Donovan answered seeming pleased. Tom had already wakened up the sensei, who seemed rather shocked and surprised. She got up and bowed to me and I bowed back in response.
'You have proven yourselves worthy, please follow me.' She said gesturing us to follow her. We were led into a building made of some type of clay, with a flat roof and wholes for windows, which were a menacing and eerie black. She led us down a series of steps deep underground. We arrived into a torch lit basement, where huge topless men were performing various martial arts techniques. They all stopped and bowed when their sensei walked in. 'These are our guests.' She said pointing to us. All the men bowed to us and we responded, bowing back. 'They seek our aid them in their elven wars. They shall now explain this matter further.' She stepped off to the side and sat cross legged among her pupils.
It was my duty to speak so I stepped forward, all the men eyed me closely. 'Greetings. The Maiar of the sun, Arien, has dubbed you trustworthy among your race of backstabbing people. She said if the need be, we can look to you for aid and support. I can see she was correct. I look at each of you and see in your eyes the great power of your forefathers that fought among us, mixed their blood with ours and were dubbed elven-friends.' I started pacing around the large basement, eyeing my audience. 'Our newest foe is named Neregron; he is great in knowledge and power and can not be vanquished by any except two of our kind. But they need all the support they can get; no dark lord has been vanquished without the force of men. I stand here before you and ask you: will you fulfill the duty of your for fathers that have fought with us, or will you cower here on the surface and throw yourself and his merciless feet once he enslaves your kind?'
There was a great silence in the dimly lit room. All the men were still starring at me vividly, their young faces lit by the poor firelight. They bowed their heads pondering their future: "Should we go, or should we stay?" The sensei got up again slowly and walked towards me. I stepped back toward my friends and crew and looked at them; they were all excited and awaited the humans' decisions.
'It seems this ancient race of brave hearted warriors and friends has asked our aid.' The old lady started. 'What is the decision of the trustworthy men?'
A small murmur sprouted slowly from their mouths and soon grew into a chant: "Trials of Trust! Trials of Trust!" The old sensei turned back to us and said:
'My men wish to test your worthiness. We need to see indeed what our allies are like. We can not be expected to do all the work in this war against the Dark Lord Neregron.' I turned my head to my friends and saw them nodding with the corner of my left eye.
'We accept this challenge, gracefully.' I answered. My team cracked their joints behind me in sign of readiness. I smiled at them, slyly in reassurance and we followed the old Chinese lady into a back chamber, if it can be called that. It was a cave; the walls were moist and the air humid and a little stuffy. And of course the penetrating darkness; if we took a few more steps we would be completely devoured by the darkness.
'Let's make it happen capt'n!' Tom yelled enthusiastically.
'Back to back, Donovan you're in the middle.' I commanded. 'Everyone else lights on!' everyone shot a beam of light out of their left hand and held their right hand ready to fire at any incoming targets. Our ears couldn't pick up anything but the occasional droplet of water splashing against the solid rock of the cave. We could hear any movement in the entire cave, but at the moment, there wasn't any. Suddenly our ears quivered as silent footsteps could be heard. Hair whooshed somewhere deep in the darkness; the soft crackle of clothes could be heard as well.
I concentrated hard and was able to transmit orders to my team telepathically. 'Ok, they obviously have some sort of swat team in here. What we just heard was probably their leader. Wait! You smell that? Their getting closer, but their something wrong with this odor.'
Donovan was completely lost; he couldn't hear or smell anything. I hit him in the back of the head knocking him unconscious. Wei put a tag on him so we could find him later with our revealing spells and Orias cast an invisibility spell on him so our pursuers couldn't find him. The footsteps and odors became more distinct; there were twenty of them, all wearing way too much cologne. One stood above the rest; their leader was a woman, with hair up to her shoulders and weighed about one hundred and forty pounds. The rest of the men weighed in between two hundred and fifty and two hundred and ninety pounds each. Their steps were heavy and loud (to us anyway). We all got into position and fired twenty silent shots. Nineteen groans could be heard, followed by nineteen lowed thuds, even a human could have heard.
Their leader had eluded us; it was exactly as I expected. She wasn't human; those silent shots were just loud enough to be heard by an elf and nothing else. As she tried to sneak up on us her smell and step could be distinguished clearly as of elven kind. Her step was heavier because her family probably immigrated to the top a while ago. She reached for her handgun and as it scraped against the holster, Wei, being closest to her, heard it and rushed toward her. The sound of bone hitting skin could be heard, along with a small grunt. We now started heading back for the basement, Wei carrying the unknown elf. Her breath gave away her position though."
"Let me guess." Roby said. "When a person is unconscious their breath is stable, but because she was still conscious her breath was uneasy."
"That's absolutely right. She tried to punch Wei in the face as we stopped to pick up Donovan. Wei eluded the hit and kneed her in the back at the perfect point to knock her out. This time he succeeded and we continued toward the exit, carefully. A dim light could soon be seen up ahead and we reached the sensei, who was waiting for us.
'Well done!' she congratulated us. 'I can see this girl is dear to you.' She said turning to Wei. She couldn't have been more right; Wei was eyeing her in a dreamy fashion looking at her face warmly. She was pretty cute, come to think of it; she had golden-brown hair and a very fair face. The light of her people shinned deep within her, and even though her apparent job was rough, her skin maintained a silky-smooth feeling. Don't tell your mother I said that though.
'Oh, what?' Wei finally reacted waking up from his trance. We all chuckled at this pathetic response, turning Wei's cheeks a bright red.
'So I guess the men trust us now?' Tom asked, recovering from the laughter.
'No, not yet.' The old sensei answered.
'It's called Trials' Donovan put a solid exclamation on the s. 'of Trust, for a reason. We still have two more challenges to overcome.'
'Oh joy.' Nyssa exclaimed sarcastically. The old lady smiled and switched on a series of lights in the cave and said:
'For your second challenge, you must recover a ruby from deep within the cave. You must rely on each other to overcome this task.' She pointed us to the entrance of the cave and we entered daringly. After a short period of time we reached a deep, dark whole in the cave floor. Donovan picked up a stone and threw it across the gapping mouth of this apparent abyss. With hundreds of whooshes, arrows sprang from the dark confounds of the whole splitting the stones into tiny pieces.
'Ok, I think this is where the team work comes in.' Nyssa said eyeing the dark gap carefully, as if more arrows were about to shoot out.
'Yeah definitely.' Tom agreed. 'So how are we gonna do it again?'
'We have to rely on one person to hold a shielding spell over the gap so the others can leap across.' Orias suggested.
'Yeah, good idea.' I agreed nodding. 'Nyssa you hold the spell until we jump across. Then Orias you'll hold the spell so Nyssa can jump over.' They both nodded, seriously; we all took deep breaths. Nyssa held out her arms and concentrated; the transparent purple shield materialized over the dark gap. Orias leaped easily across the fifteen meter gap with ease and landed silently on the opposite side. Wei and Tom followed gracefully; I levitated Donovan across the gap as well leaving only me and Nyssa behind. Hundreds of arrows kept hitting the barrier as each person leaped across; Nyssa was sweating from the strain of holding the barrier. Her field of work didn't involve performing tough spells, so she couldn't guard against powerful attacks for long. I leaped across and saw the arrows rushing towards me and bouncing off the transparent purple barrier. This was too much for Nyssa she gave in under the pressure allowing the arrows to flow towards me.
'Leon!' everyone yelled. Orias immediately reacted and cast another spell under me. He wasn't quick enough; about fifty arrows managed to pass the barrier and twenty of them hit me head on. At first there was the great shock of getting hit so many times, than came the agonizing pain reaching deep inside your mind manipulating all the cells in your body to scream in agony. Wei levitated me to safety and healed me quickly, before the arrows could kill me. The light in front of my eyes vanished and my friend came slowly into focus; he sighed in relief, smiled and then pulled me up. Nyssa had already leaped across, so we continued on.
'God, Donovan, did any humans ever make it out of this thing?' Tom asked.
'Not that I can think of.' Donovan answered calmly. I was now walking ahead, my head swinging from side to side, keeping a look out for any more traps. Unfortunately the next one came from below me. As I stepped on suddenly my left foot sunk into the ground pulling the rest of my body with it. Donovan grabbed hold of me and managed to pull me out. 'Quick sand.'
'How long does it extend?' Nyssa asked.
'Yeah we can't just assume where it ends.' Wei added.
'Well there's only one way to find out.' Orias said. He walked up to a stalagmite and kicked as hard as he could. The stone broke free and landed at Orias' powerful feet.
'Oh, I follow you.' Tom nodded. He stepped one the stalagmite with his entire might, breaking it into smaller pieces. He picked up a piece and threw it about twenty meters; it sunk slowly into the false soil. Orias threw another about twenty five meters; it bounced and slid across the solid, moist floor.
'Well I guess that's our goal.' Nyssa said sighing deeply. 'What's the plan?'
Everyone pondered on what to do next. Wei snapped his fingers and his face brightened. 'I got it.' he exclaimed. 'We just have to levitate each other across the quicksand.'
'Wow that was so obvious.' Tom said, surprised at our poor logic.
'Yeah we really should have thought of that right away.' Orias agreed. Everyone starred at him wide eyed. He had just agreed with my brother, Tom on something; he soon realized what he did and responded coldly. 'Ah... don't get used to it.'
'Ok, let's get moving, team.' I interrupted. Nyssa was the first one over, than Wei, than Tom, etc. Orias levitated me over and we continued, stepping proudly, deeper and deeper inside the mysterious cave.
We leaped a few more puddles of quicksand and reached a wall going straight up, with a completely flat surface. We were all exhausted from this journey; we must have traveled twenty miles in the cave. Everyone sat with their back against the flat wall and held their stomach, which growled hungrily. We had to conserve energy for the return trip, which meant we couldn't use any more magic.
Tom groaned with hunger and fatigue and than turned his head toward me; I was panting trying not to fall asleep. 'I hope they feed us when we get back.'
'If we do get back.' Wei groaned.
Nyssa was resting on her brother's left shoulder her eyes half open and her mouth aghast. 'We must have been traveling for at least a day.' She whispered. Orias looked at the date on his watch.
'A day and a half.' He corrected her.
'We have to end this now.' I said. 'Let's get going. Everyone take a drink and let's get moving.'
'A drink!?' Tom asked. 'From where, genius? I don't see any lakes or rivers around.'
Everybody was getting frustrated about the entire situation. 'Lick the walls.' I answered. I went and performed this deed and felt somewhat better; everyone followed and seemed ready for the last obstacle. 'This is what we do. Wei I'm gonna boost you up the whole thirty meters up and you gonna pull yourself up. We do that with everyone until you guys are all up there. I'll wait here and see if I can find a shorter route.'
'And how do we get down?' Donovan asked. This was painstakingly obvious to all the elves.
'We just jump.' Tom answered coldly. 'We'll catch you monkey boy, don't worry.'
'Hey who...'
'Alright.' I cut in wanting to carry on and leave this forsaken place. 'Donovan you first.' I clanged my fingers together, tightly and Donovan adjusted his foot into them. We both pushed with all that we had and Donovan was able to grab on to the edge and pull himself up. Orias was next he landed gracefully at the top and awaited the others; in about four minutes of struggle everyone was at the top and I was left all by myself. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the exit. It turned out if we cut through the middle leaving the trail behind we would make it out twice as fast. This path didn't have any obstacles and was about three times shorter than the other; the only problem was it was dark. I sighed with regret I didn't think of finding another path before and closed my eyes; in a few seconds I was fast asleep. I didn't dream at all and a while later, I don't know how much, Wei woke me up.
'We got it.' Nyssa said pointing to Donovan. He held up his hand and in it could be seen a large ruby sparkling under the artificial lights.
'I found a shorter way.' I said, almost in a whisper. I got up and staggered from side to side almost falling over. I leaned against the wall with my left hand and raised my right to my forehead. 'I'm fine, let's get going.' Everyone followed me straight ahead into the darkness. No one talked, not even Tom, we all just walked silently toward the exit; our silence was broken by the occasional splash of a droplet of water.
Suddenly we heard hundreds of footsteps coming our way; men were coming this way heavily armed as well. We could see the exit, but it was soon shadowed by this army of humans. We split into pairs: Orias and I, Wei and Tom, and Nyssa and Donovan. 'Back to back.' I whispered. They were forming a circle around us; normally one of us could have dispatched them all but now we were all too exhausted to use magic.
We were all silent; only our breaths could be heard. Than the human breaths became more rapid and we braced for the attack. We all kicked and punched in all directions, cracking the unlucky humans' bones with our blows. Even Donovan was doing well; elves are twenty times more resistant than humans. Finally all the breathing levels of the humans dropped to normal and we raced with whatever strength we had left to the exit.
The old sensei and the elven women we found were meditating by the door. We all collapsed in front of them, gaping for air. 'Food...' Tom begged with a groan. They got up and showed us to a table weighed down by numerous delicacies. We stormed the table, our manners were safely locked away somewhere deep in our minds. In about ten minutes all the food was in our stomachs and we were all resting on the floor somewhere.
We were given a large chamber with some blankets and some straw to rest on. Before we slept we had a little conversation about our adventure and the one to come. 'Just one more trial, huh?' Wei asked.
We all nodded and put our heads down, waiting for sleep to creep up on us. 'So what's this one about, Donovan?' Orias asked calmly.
'Well the previous tests tested our strength, mind and team work.' Donovan answered.
'So that means this last one will test...' Tom began.
'...our courage.' Nyssa finished.
'Just as long as it isn't as long as the other one I'm fine with that.' I said. There was an approving murmur of: "Yeah." With that we all fell soundly asleep resting our tired bodies and minds.
The next morning we awoke at about ten in the morning, feeling rejuvenated. We had a plentiful breakfast and joined the old sensei and the elven woman, which we found out, was named Laura. Wei was flirting with her the entire morning and she seemed to like him as well, because she giggled whenever he finished his little "courtship speeches", as Tom called them. She appeared to be the sensei's personal assistant.
'So that's why I never get old.' She said, when Wei explained to her the basics about elves.
'Well you would age if you remain here, just more slowly.' Wei told her. 'You have to come with us underground and perform the ceremony to live and look like an elf.'
'Which one will face his demons first?' The sensei interrupted.
'Demons?' Nyssa asked. 'You mean our fears?'
The old lady nodded. 'That should no trouble for you, eh, Leon?' Wei asked me with a large grin. He and Laura were holding each other by the waist now; she was resting her head on his left shoulder smiling with her eyes closed.
'Shut up, "Lover Boy"!' Tom backed me up. Wei tried not to laugh at himself but he was unsuccessful.
The old sensei faked a cough to interrupt our vigorous argument. 'Who will be first?' she asked again. Everyone looked around at each other seriously; all eyes eventually fell on me.
'All right.' I accepted.
'You must remain in the cave for two hours.' Laura whispered to Wei. I overheard and walked inside cautiously. It was now dark again, and silent; even more silent than last time, not even the water seemed to be splashing. I wondered what could humans, possibly do to frighten an elf? And how did they know what we were afraid of? I kept walking around the cave aimlessly. I knew where I was of course just not what to expect.
I looked at my watch after what seemed an eternity and found out I had already been standing in the cave for an hour. Apparently the humans think I'm afraid of the dark, I thought to myself. I gave a of a sigh, containing both anticipation and boredom. What could they be doing? This was a complete waste of time; who knew what Neregron could have been planning at that exact moment. Maybe everyone was already dead underground; I was getting frustrated. I looked at my watch again, the numbers shocking me; only two minutes had passed since I last checked. Sweat mingled with stress poured from the pores of my body. Than I realized: what if this was what the old lady meant by facing your fears. I mean I was getting very stressed and scarred what could be happening to me.
Suddenly a shrill long scream broke the deep silence, penetrating your body and rattling the very marrow of your bones. My spine shivered violently, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I crouched low, kept me elbows tucked in and my palm wide open in front of me. Another scream broke the silence, this time closer, and even more horrible. I could now make out a faint light in the distance; it was growing fast. Soon it began to take form and...another scream beat on my eardrums. The form appeared to be a woman, no a ghost. Her detailed features could now be recognized: long black hair down to her waist, clear blue eyes, pale white skin and she was pretty tall. It was Kayri; but no, something was terribly wrong. Her neck was covered with deep red blood and a large scar could be made out.
Common sense suddenly came back to me and I realized that couldn't possibly be your mother; just some stupid human trick. She held her arms to her neck and than held them out towards me; her hands were all bloody. Common sense left me again and I backed away my eyes and my mouth were wide open.
'How could you...' she whispered slowly. 'How could you do this?'
I tried to speak but I could only shape my mouth to form a feeble "No". I was angry and scarred and I threw some random spell at this figure. It exploded into a shower of light and all was silent again. I was panting hard and was dripping sweat; I fell on all fours, regaining my breath and calm slowly. I was starring at the wet floor when light flowed over my fingers; I didn't look up. It was the same strange light as with the other figure. Slowly I got up, keeping my chin and my chest together; I raised my head slowly and saw the ghostly figure of a boy standing there right in front of me. It was you...you weren't bloody, but your eyes were white and your mouth was open. Your face had no expression; I remembered my studies at the academy. This was the expression a person killed by a powerful spell wore.
You chin started to move slowly and than you said: 'Why...'
I clenched my teeth together trying not to loose my ground again. 'NO!' I yelled. 'You're not real!'
'Why...'
I covered my ears with my hands and squeezed tightly. 'NO!'
'Why...' than your mouth materialized into a wicked smile. You gave off a deep evil laugh and said again: 'Why? Why did you leave us, Leon?' more voices now rang throughout the cave.
'Why did you leave us, Leon?' they all said. Your figure's was the deepest; more ghostly figures were now taking form behind yours. They were Wei and Orias; Wei had five wholes in his chest and Orias was missing his limbs, the bases of his arms and legs were dripping a ghostly red blood. Than your mother and Tom took form also; Kayri looked the same as last time and Tom held his head dripping blood under his right arm. More and more familiar figures materialized behind you; the general and Nyssa and many others.
'Why did you leave us, Leon?' their voices began to merge into one and all the figures turned black. They merged into one colossal figure that I suddenly recognized as Neregron. He laughed harshly, looking down at my whimpering figure. I stopped panting and caught my breath; I got up smiling and whipped some sweat off my forehead. I chuckled softly.
'I don't know how in Manwe's (leader of the Valar) name you think a stupid blend of light and color can scare me?' I said loudly to the figure. 'But you will certainly not waste any more elven time here today.' I held out my right arm and closed my eyes tightly. 'Ille fio homo despero terreo Elves. Modo ABEO!' (Those made [of] humans have no hope [of] frightening Elves. Now DIE!). Hundreds of crackling sounds rang through the cave and the giant figure slowly disappeared. I checked my watch again; two hours flat. I walked calmly to the exit where everyone was waiting for me.
'You owe me fifty, Wei.' Tom yelled. 'Knew you wouldn't be scarred.'
I smiled and shook my head. 'Sorry if I broke your little hologram projectors.' I apologized to the old lady.
'Yes...' she said. 'I guess we won't have time for to fix the projectors and test your friends. Luckily since your leader went first' She was now talking to all of us. 'he has also shown the courage of his men. Leaders bare the courage and knowledge of all their inferiors or they wouldn't be who they are.'
'Thank you, Leon.' Nyssa sighed with relief.
'Didn't think you could handle your demons, sis?' Orias asked tauntingly.
'Shut up, Orias!' She yelled at him. 'It's not like you faced yours.'
'OK!' I yelled. 'Can we please recruit these humans, now?'
The sensei nodded and pointed us to the familiar training room. All the men were training as usual, all bear chested. 'Our visitors have proven themselves worthy indeed.' The sensei began. 'Now who shall join them?'
All the men immediately stepped forward with their brows held high. We all smiled with satisfaction. We now had five hundred strong men willing to fight with us against Neregron. I stepped forward to say a few final words:
'Thank you very much. You are all honorable, strong and courageous warriors. You are willing to fight, knowing there is no material reward. If you prove yourselves worthy in battle and you survive your reward will be eternal life. You can come and leave our world anytime you wish...thank you all, again.' I bowed, ending my speech. All the men bowed in response.
We led them to the bloody stronghold we came from and equipped them all with elven armor and weapons. We trained with these weapons for about two weeks and than returned underground to the M.C.P.A. headquarters. General Widow congratulated us and we soon left to come here. We checked with Sayeed first and he gave us the following information:
'I'm picking up a large number of orcs headed towards the main road leading to this school. We already shut off the road to civilians.'
'What are they doing?' Tom asked examining the screen closely.
'Looks like their surrounding the road.' Wei said.
'Now their just waiting there.' Nyssa added.
'It's an ambush.' Everyone realized all of a sudden. We all shook our heads and looked blankly at the screen trying to figure out what the bests tactic was.
'Only one thing to do, then.' Came a voice from the doorway. It was Laura, all dressed in uniform. 'Widow appointed me to your little group, Leon.'
'Congratulations.' Nyssa shook Laura's hand politely.
'So what's your master plan?' Orias asked impatiently as always.
'We fight.' She responded simply.
'Hm...what about a bio-bomb (I told you ppl it had some Artemis Fowl in it)?' Sayeed asked.
'We have to use one of your low range ones though.' Wei pointed out.
'And we have to drop it exactly in the middle.' Orias added.
'So I'll just launch it from here.' Sayeed turned to his computer punched in something and pressed a green button, underneath his keyboard. 'Give it...never mind.' All the red dots on the screen disappeared suddenly.
'All right let's go, order the humans to get in some trucks, we need them in case Neregron ambushes the school.' I ordered.
And that's pretty much it; the rest you know. We got to the school and here we are."
"So you think they're going to attack?" Roby asked, looking at his father eagerly.
His father shook his head. "No I think Neregron still wants to maintain an air of secrecy for the moment. You know, catch everyone off guard. If he kills us all on the road no one will know, but if he ambushes the school everyone will call the police and so on and so forth."
Roby nodded, got up and stretched. "I'm gonna go to bed now, dad. Be careful out here, you guys." He yelled to everyone.
"Good night, son." Leon said.
He walked over to his group who were all sitting near a huge oak tree. "So do you really think they won't attack?" Laura asked.
"No, they will. Towards the morning though." Leon responded scratching the back of his neck. Nyssa joined them sighing deeply. "Is the guard set up?"
She nodded lying against the trunk of the old oak and closing her eyes. In about half an hour, everyone but the guards was sleeping on a patch of grass or tree root. In the back of their resting minds they were all preparing for the battle to come.
