Chapter 10: Castle Aflame
The road to the castle entrance wasn't too long and Charlotte could still hear the burning fires behind them by the time they reached the entrance archway. The entrance itself was a stone block structure that was multiple times Charlotte's height and was wide enough for all four of them to fit through, with space to spare. On either side of the entrance was a long stone block wall that encircled a large interior section, with a walkway behind a short parapet on top of the wall.
Charlotte rushed through the archway, to keep up with Victoria, without knowing what would be waiting on the other side. Whilst normally this entrance would lead to a small grassy courtyard before the main castle building, the labyrinth had so far twisted the layouts of the area from what Charlotte was familiar with.
She raised her weapons up to a readied position, preparing to be jumped at the moment she passed into the grounds. Although Victoria had already charged through without incident, Charlotte didn't trust what she was running into.
As she passed the threshold of the entrance, the sky once again turned darker, with the sun missing from the sky. But this time not replaced by a shining night sky, but instead a thick cover of some kind of grey smoke that spread far across the sky. Even with the light from the sun gone, there still enough light that she could see things in detail, yet once again there was no shadows to be seen.
Down on the ground there was a similar layer of opaque smoke, reaching up to Charlotte's ankles, that filled the entire castle grounds. The courtyard was much larger than she was expecting, and larger than it seemed to be from the outside, that covered a huge ring of flat ground around the main castle building in the centre.
Even with the smoke, Charlotte was able to get a clear look at the main castle building ahead of her. The structure seemed to have kept its familiar shape, 4 corner towers and walls that doubled the size of the outer walls, with a mixture of large and small square shaped holes, that functioned as windows and arrow slits. The cloud of fog in the sky seemed to linger only a few meters above the top of the castle's towers, however each of the towers had a thin trail of the fog connecting them to the cloud.
Not all was the same though. All over the stone block walls and towers were statues and engravings made of a much darker stone, all of them depicted the same thing. The body and head of a winged dragon. Some were full standing statues, placed on plinths that jutted out from the walls, whilst some were like vines that were snaked around the stonework, as if trying to blend in with the stones.
As far as Charlotte could see, each of these dragons had differently shaped bodies and were all in unique poses. Only two similarities that seemed constant, their mouths were all wide open, with a small flickering orange light coming from deep inside the mouths, and a deep red, oval, gemstone affixed to their chests.
She didn't spend long looking at the statues as she was distracted by movement on top of the tower closest to her. This seemed to also catch Victoria's attention, as she came to a halt, giving Charlotte a chance to catch up stand alongside her, whilst Charlotte heard Athena and Rebecca come to a stop close behind.
On the top of the tower there was a movement of something dark moving back and forth past the parapets. Charlotte wasn't able to make out what it was from the few times this happened, but was quickly given a proper view as whatever it was seemed to lunge itself forward so that a large amount of its body was hanging over the wall.
To Charlotte it looked like a grotesque imitation of what a normal human would look like. It had two extremely short arms, almost as if it had no upper arm or elbow joint, with a patchwork of differently coloured skin segments. In its right arm it held a long sceptre made from a shimmering gold material, with a thin rectangular, glowing red, gemstone protruding out from the top.
If it had shoulders, they were covered by exaggeratedly large puffed shoulder pieces of an obnoxiously ornate, old fashioned, dress that the thing wore. The dress itself seemed to be made from a mainly bright right fabric, but included ribbons and bands of a dull brown colour around the seams.
The head that poked out from the neckline of the dress was at least double the size of any normal person's and hung drooped down slightly, from a weirdly extended neck. Charlotte thought that it looked as if the missing arm sections had been used to lengthen it's neck artificially.
The face contained no features other than two glowing red gemstones, in the place of eyes. The patchwork of oddly coloured skin pieces continued up the neck and for its face, with the two eyes placed onto a single patch. It had extremely long, white and grey coloured, hair which floated upwards and to the sides, as if ignoring gravity. Placed on the front of the hair, somehow also defying gravity, was a silver tiara.
"GUEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTSSSSSSSSS!" A shrill cry rang out and echoed off the outer walls of the grounds. Charlotte could tell that it had come from the creature on the tower, but there was no indication of how it had made such a sound. But the moment the cry ended, the creature began to flail around and pull its self back off from the edge of the wall. The echoing of the shout was instantly replaced by what seemed to be the creature, now out of sight, laughing maniacally.
"There's our witch." Victoria spoke just loud enough to be heard over the laughter and in a completely flat tone. Charlotte turned to her to see that Victoria's blue gemstone had begun to pulse out a brighter blue glow than it usually would have. She assumed her own gemstone would be doing similar under her armour, and a quick glance behind her confirmed that Athena and Rebecca's had started to glow with a greater intensity.
"Any ideas how…" Charlotte began to speak, unsure whether it was best for them to rush through the castle towards the witch, or if they should wait and try and draw it out closer to them. But she was cut short by the sound of metal footsteps clanking heavy against a stone floor approaching them.
All attention snapped back to the front of the castle, where a wooden door had appeared on the front wall. Victoria moved slightly further to the left, to give herself extra space from Charlotte to use her spear effectively. Whilst Rebecca moved forward and to Charlotte's right side, swords at the ready.
There was a few seconds of the clanking footsteps ringing above the maniacal laughter where Charlotte constantly shifted her position and grip on her sword. Unsure and anxious about what was about to come out through the door and worried about the state of her arm if she was drawn into combat.
The clattering metal stopped abruptly, although the laughing continued. A moment passed where Charlotte held her breath and made sure not to blink. The door burst open from the inside, sending a small shower of splinters outwards. Knights, armoured from head to toe in shining plate metal, rushed out from the doorway and barrelled towards them.
Each of the knights wore helmets that had ornamental bronze wings or dragon heads protruding off the top of the grey steel helms. Their visors had been locked down and Charlotte couldn't see anything past the thin opening slits. Over their chest plates was a dyed red tabard with the silhouette of a dragon's head in the centre and a bright orange lining on its edges.
At the joints of their armour there was a lining of chain-mail that covered any space that the plate armour did not, including their hands. In their hands they held two handed longswords, where the cross guard had been fashioned into the image of spread out wings.
Charlotte counted out 10 knights to have stormed through the doorway, although she knew it was no guarantee that more weren't waiting inside. The knights moved with no hesitation and formed up in a v shape and raised their swords ready to swing downwards once they reached in range.
Charlotte shifted her stance and the angle she held her shield, hoping to deflect the first downward strike and hoping that her shield arm wouldn't give out from under her. Before this could happen though she heard a whistling sound coming from above her.
"Get down!" Athena yelled from behind and Charlotte dropped to one knee and raised her shield up instinctively. She then heard a number of loud cracking sounds not too far above her head, joint with a strange flash of red and purple mixed together. Looking out over her shield she could see a barrage of arrows, with flaming tips, racing towards them, only to be met and destroyed by crescents of pink light that tore through the air.
Charlotte quickly scanned around for the source of the crescents to find that they were coming from Rebecca. But Rebecca herself was slumped forward, kneeling, on the ground with her hands loosely holding her swords and her eyes shut. A pace in front of her though, was a translucent pink figure, identical to Rebecca in appearance, holding her two swords and violently swinging them through the air.
Each time the translucent swords moved they left a trail of pink light that followed the path of the tip of the blade. And once the swing had completed and the blade had come to a stop, if only briefly, the trail of light shot forward in a crescent shape and up towards the hailing arrows. The crescents moved at such speed that Charlotte was surprised that there was no sonic boom accompanying them.
A quick glance to Athena showed that she wasn't even looking at Rebecca, seemingly unsurprised by what she was doing. And instead was frantically flicking through pages of her tome. Charlotte trusted that if Athena wasn't reacting to it, then she should similarly not worry, but the sight of Rebecca slumped on the ground drove a reaction in Charlotte that made her feel sick.
"Charlotte!" She was quickly snapped back from staring in fear at Rebecca by Victoria screaming at her. The urgency in Victoria's voice was matched by how close the knights were to the three of them, with the leader already starting its downward swing aimed directly for Charlotte's head.
Seeing how close the blade was, Charlotte gave up on her original deflection plan and tried to jump to the side. As she moved, she tried to angle her shield to make the longsword bounce off to the side rather than slamming flat down onto her or her shield.
Charlotte felt the sword make contact with her shield, where it bounced slightly off to the side but grazed down the side of her leg and ending up crashing into the ground. The contact made a wave of pain burst through her arm and a bout of nausea almost caused her to lose her footing and fall.
"Lupus vocare! Protegas puella!" Charlotte just about registered the shout that came from behind and hoped that it meant that Athena and Rebecca would be fine, given that she could still hear the cracks of arrows above her. To her other side Victoria had jumped forward and was already shouting with exertion.
The knight with Charlotte took its chance to pull its sword from the ground and swing it directly towards her her chest. Luckily for Charlotte, she was too close to the sword and the knight wasn't able to gain enough momentum behind the swing, so it hit past her shield and into her chain mail without much effect.
Charlotte took this opportunity to grab down with her arm on the sword, pressing it close between her chest and arm. And as the knight tried to pull its sword back to reposition, Charlotte almost rode along with the blade forward as she reached up with her own sword and stabbed through the side of the knight's neck. The chain mail around its neck gave way instantly, as if not even made out of metal, and within an instant the knight lost grip of its sword and crumpled into a pile of empty armour on the ground.
She was given no respite as two more longswords were already swinging towards her, one aimed as a diagonal sweep towards her left leg and the other an overhead swing down towards her head. She wouldn't be able to jump backwards out of the range of either of the swords in time and moving to her right too far could put her own sword arm out of reach. Knowing it was impossible to safely block both strikes she had to make a decision.
Charlotte raised her shield and sword up above her head to try and catch the falling sword between her own weapons and she hoped that she'd be able to direct its momentum away from her. But she had to mentally brace for the other sword to make contact with the armour on her leg and pray that it didn't penetrate any further.
Almost simultaneously the two longswords made contact with Charlotte. Her shield arm erupted in pain and quickly went limp, falling uselessly to her side, although she did manage to catch the sword enough that pushing down on her right arm allowed her to get her sword above the knight's, as the longsword crashed into the ground.
The strike to the leg went much worse for Charlotte, as she had expected. The sword made contact and although it seemed to not penetrate through her armour it took a few moments before it came to a stop. This caused Charlotte's leg to move far out of place and dropped her down onto her left knee and forced her to bend down with her other. Charlotte was surprised by the lack of sharp that came from the attack, but a pain slightly less severe than in her arm rocked through her leg and hips.
Doing what she could to ignore the spreading pain, Charlotte forced her body to move in the first way that came to mind. In a similar fashion as before, she lunged forward with her sword and tried to reach the knight's neck joint whilst it tried to pull its sword up from the ground. But without being able to put much pressure on her left leg she was only able to reach the shoulder joint in the plate armour.
She stabbed hard through the armpit section, horizontally, into the inside of its chest piece. To do this she had to essentially throw her whole body forward, so her face and chest was now pressed up against the metal armour as it crumpled to the ground, now vacant of its previous owner.
As the armour fell to the ground Charlotte crumpled forward with it, with her face pressed hard onto the plate metal. She had hit her face hard as she went down, causing her to be dazed for a moment before she properly registered that she was now on the ground with both her weapons trapped underneath her.
Knowing that the second knight would soon be on its way, Charlotte rolled herself to the right, onto her back. Although she had to practically force her left arm and leg to move by twisting whatever muscles still had leverage in those areas. Now on her back she could see that the knight had been fast to walk up and raise its longsword over Charlotte, point down, ready to stab her through her stomach.
Charlotte waited for the knight to commit to the stab before she rolled her body slightly again, this helped give her sword arm momentum enough to counter the knight. Her sword connected just below the point of the longsword and she was able to deflect it away from her centre where it ended up getting stuck in the ground between her left arm and chest.
With the knight now leaning down on its sword, its body was now just in range of Charlotte's reach. There was no way for her to reach up to its neck or shoulder joints, but she was able to turn her sword and swing to the right, through the joint between its left leg and torso. The sword dug into the joint area, but Charlotte had no idea how deep her swing had managed to go.
She was extremely relieved to see the knight fall to a knee, as proof that she had just managed to cut deep enough. Without much hesitation, Charlotte pushed her sword up and to the left, once again stabbing through the shoulder joint of the knight. And once again the strike held true and the armour collapsed into a heap of metal, this time directly on top of Charlotte.
Charlotte moved her left arm to push the empty armour off of her, and while she managed to shove the armour the amount of weight and pressure forced a spike of pain to run all the way up her arm. This along with the pain in her leg beginning to worsen led her to shutting her eyes tight and taking as deep breaths as she possibly could. Focusing on the breathing managed to distract her thoughts from the pain a small amount, but the slight relief was simply replaced by a sickening worry that she was defenceless.
She knew that laying on the ground with her eyes closed would only open her up to more pain and worse. Forcing her eyes back open, Charlotte looked up at the smoke covered sky where arrows continued to be struck mid flight. Not trusting her shield arm, she pushed herself up into a sitting position with her sword arm. From here she could see Athena, who's book and eyes were glowing a bright yellow colour.
Charlotte pushed up once again and threw her body around so that she was kneeling down, but there was no pressure placed on her injured leg yet. She breathed a quick sigh of relief at seeing that there wasn't any more of the knights approaching her and the doorway of the castle remained open and empty of any reinforcements.
To her left Victoria was dancing around a knight, stabbing towards its leg and arm openings in quick jabs that were part by part disabling the knight's ability to fight. On the ground around her were 3 empty sets of empty armour, none of which had reached where Victoria was originally standing. Even though she was successful in her battles, Charlotte could see long cuts in her dress and tights which were slowly being stained red with blood.
A look to her right confirmed that Athena had managed to keep Rebecca safe from attack. Accompanying the translucent pink figure, was a similarly translucent yellow wolf that stood easily as tall as Charlotte. The wolf's giant size translated to the claws and fangs that it was in the process of ripping apart armour with. Charlotte just managed to see as it jumped forward at the last of the approaching knights, pulling it down with its claws embedded into its plate armour, and ripping into its throat sections with its fangs.
Victoria gave a triumphant shout, that half sounded like a scream of pain, along with what sounded like her kicking hard at the piles of metal near her feet. "Everyone good!?" Victoria kept up her shouting volume, but sounded notably out of breath.
Charlotte looked over to Victoria and tried to speak, but her breath was caught up with pain, so she sufficed by simply nodding as much as she could. A long and loud howl seemed as close of a response as they would get from Athena, as she didn't respond herself.
Victoria's attention flicked from the howling wolf towards the translucent pink figure and Rebecca, still kneeling on the ground. The figure took two more hard swings before coming to an abrupt halt, the whistling of arrows from above also stopping, leaving the air with no sound other than the ominous laughing from inside the castle.
The pink figure seemed to wait a second before it took a pace backwards so that it was standing in the same spot as Rebecca, with its legs simply moving inside of Rebecca's actual legs and body. The figure then knelt down and moved its body so that it was posed exactly like Rebecca and vanished from sight.
Rebecca's eyes flew open, her hands tensed on her swords, and she took in a sharp and deep breath of air. After a few more deep breaths she flew into a fit of coughing to the point where it looked like she might fall face forward into the ground. She managed to steady herself by leaning forward onto her hands, where in between coughs she turned to Charlotte and Victoria, "I'll be fine." She attempted to smile, but broke out into coughing once more.
"Rebecca what was that?" Charlotte's confusion and curiosity of what just happened to Rebecca was all she could think of, outside of her own pain. Rebecca coughed a few more times before turning to Charlotte and opening her mouth to speak, before being interrupted by Victoria.
"No time now. The dragons." An urgency and seriousness had returned to Victoria's tone, no longer any triumph to be heard. She was also rushing over to Charlotte with her spear held in one hand and her other pointing people's focus towards the castle.
Charlotte reluctantly turned her head once again towards the walls of the castle, fearing what Victoria had seen. Across the walls all of the red stones had begun to glow brightly, as if the dragons had come awake. And from each of the mouths was coming a jet of dark smoke, that quickly made its way to the ground.
The smoke coalesced on the ground, in what seemed a darker second layer to the smoke that had already covered the area. And almost with a kind of sentience, the smoke began to move from all directions towards a few meters in front of the doorway. Within a few seconds the smoke had built up and was in the process of creating a distinct form.
While watching the smoke, Charlotte had been frozen, not knowing how to react to what was appearing in front of her. But this stopped abruptly when Victoria reached her and grabbed Charlotte from under her right shoulder and started dragging her, at speed, away from the forming smoke towards Rebecca and Athena.
Charlotte turned her attention to Victoria and the ground they were crossing and did what she could to push herself up from the ground, in an attempt to give Victoria an easier time of hauling her. It only took the two of them a few seconds to reach their destination, where Victoria promptly put Charlotte down without much grace. But in that time the jets of smoke coming from the castle had stopped and the moving smoke had finished coalescing.
Stood on 4 thick legs in front of them was what Charlotte would only be able to describe as a dragon. From Charlotte's position she could see that the dragon's head reached at least half the height of the castle. It's head had two long horns growing towards its back, its eyes were glowing red specks within the mass of dark smoke. And unlike all the other depictions of dragon's the labyrinth had contained until now, this was the only one that could move.
The dragon took a heavy step forward, so much so that Charlotte felt the ground shake a little, spread its wings from its body and reared its head upwards. The wings themselves were immense in their span and completely blocked out the view of the castle. The dragon opened its mouth and a sound like rolling thunder swept across the courtyard.
It then furled its wings back to its body, showing that the jets of smoke on the castle had been replaced by bursts of bright blue flames. Each burst came from a dragon on the castle, but each of the bursts seemed to follow no order or consistency. With some only releasing small flashes of flame every few seconds, whilst others threw out persistent pillars of boiling blue flames.
The smoke dragon took another step forward, once again shaking the ground, and looked in the direction of the four girls, all of whom were frozen in place. The dragon lowered its head down and opened its mouth so that Charlotte could see a small blue flame deep within the smoke.
"Time to move!" Victoria was the first to break from their frozen state, where she instantly moved down to pick Charlotte back up off the ground. But against her instincts screaming for her to run away, Charlotte dug her sword in the ground and refused to let Victoria move her.
"Get behind me." Charlotte spoke much quieter than she had intended, her voice catching slightly. She guessed, that given the size of the dragon, they were already much too late to move out of its range. And even if they could, they would need to get past it somehow in order to reach the Witch.
Instead Charlotte decided to follow a simple idea. An idea that to Charlotte seemed to come out of nowhere and something that she was almost thoughtlessly drawn towards doing.
Charlotte pushed herself up from a reclining position and threw her body forward onto her good knee. Using that momentum she rammed her shield into the ground, with help from her right arm to push down on the top of the shield to keep it and her arm, that was now screaming in pain, steady.
She closed her eyes for a short moment, during which she could only see a blue pulsing glow from her chest. Opening her eyes again she saw that the blue flame in the dragon's mouth had grown in size and now nearly covered the entire space inside its mouth.
The dark metal surface of Charlotte's shield had vanished, replaced by the moving colours of red orange and yellow. The glowing colours swirled as the shield warped out of shape, as though it was a slowly burning flame. Charlotte could feel a rising heat flood through her shield arm, completely replacing the pain that was once there.
The dragon pulled its head back a moment, before pushing it forward, causing a giant burst of blue flame to erupt towards Charlotte.
"Praeuro."
A wall of orange and yellow flames exploded outwards in response to Charlotte's command. The command erupted with enough force to clear the smoke that covered the ground in front of and around Charlotte, revealing the soon to be scorched grass below. The initial shock had rocketed Charlotte's arm backwards and upwards, but with by throwing her entire body weight onto both her arms she was just about able to keep steady.
The fire gave off such a glow that for Charlotte it was almost as if the sun had suddenly reappeared in the sky. Although all she could see was the small patch of ground below her arms and the ferocious storm of fire that she had summoned in front of her. Any sight of the dragon, or even its burst of blue flame, had vanished behind the ever expanding wall of orange fire.
Charlotte's shield continued to spew out the blaze and with each second passing the intensity and ferocity of the flames grew. Whilst it had started with slightly calmer orange and yellow, the shield was consistently shooting out white hot flames, that somehow managed to warm even Charlotte's skin.
Charlotte lost track of how long she had been kneeling there, holding her shield down with everything she had, but she was forced to shut her eyes tight and move her head behind her shield. The light had started to blind her, whilst the heat felt as though it was burning her skin with its radiance. A feeling that shocked Charlotte as she had not felt anything like it for many years.
Yet even still, the eruption continued and the pressure pushing against her arm only seemed to increase in strength. From what little Charlotte could see, the flames hadn't just burst forward, but were now spreading outwards to her sides and behind her. She had no idea how far back it reached, but the heat was without a doubt reaching the other girls.
The fire seemed untroubled by Charlotte's thoughts and worries and simply refused to stop growing. It wasn't long before Charlotte felt herself and her shield start to slip slightly on the ground. A look down confirmed that the top layer of ground had started to come apart and melt away from the hardened surface it once was. She had no idea whether she should try to move and attempt to not get stuck in the liquid mud, but any attempt at shifting her body was met with her slipping and almost losing her balance.
Charlotte soon started to have trouble breathing in the air around her. She was taking in deep breaths, but it felt as if she wasn't breathing at all and her vision started to dim and become fuzzy, whilst her thoughts were reduced to concentrating on holding her shield and nothing more.
A sudden darkness took over Charlotte and all feeling in her body seemed to vanish, replaced by a neutral coldness. She was momentarily shocked when she found that she was managing to breath in properly again, and could actually feel the air moving in and out through her mouth and nose. She had managed to avoid blacking out.
She continued to take in deep breaths, where the air was sharply cold in her mouth, until the blackness started to recede from the edges of her eyes. The first thing she saw properly was the unstable ground below her legs, it had returned to a solid state, but had a loose layer of dirt that partly covered her armoured legs.
Charlotte moved her head up slowly, fighting against stiff muscles, and peeked out over the top of her shield, which had returned to its normal dark and stiff appearance. Any sign of the dragon was long since gone, with the entire courtyard devoid of the smoke that had covered the ground. In its place was a wake of scorched and disturbed earth.
The castle had fared somewhat better, but the damage the fire had dealt was extensive. The walls were blackened from top to bottom and a number of the statues and engravings looked as if they had cracked apart under the heat, many with body pieces missing from sight. Yet the general structure of the castle remained intact, along with a few of the statues still spewing out blue fire.
Behind her the ground was scorched for a few meters, before Charlotte could see some surviving grass poking out of the ground. Even further behind this was the wolf that Athena had summoned, lying on the ground in an almost curled position, with its head turned away from Charlotte.
Through the translucent body of the wolf, Charlotte was relieved to see the other three girls crouching and laying behind the wolf, all of them covering their heads with their arms. It looked as though they had managed to be protected from the worst of the heat, but Charlotte had no idea if the wolf had been injured in its duty.
"It's over." Charlotte tried shouting to them, but her voice was much weaker than she was expecting and she ended up bursting into a fit of coughing. While she wasn't sure if any of them had been able to hear her, the wolf's ears pricked up and it shifted its head along the floor to look at Charlotte.
The wolf stared at Charlotte, still coughing, for a second before closing its eyes and shifting its head back to a more straight position. It then began to fade away, turning more and more transparent until it had completely vanished from sight, leaving the three girls on the floor completely open.
Athena was the first to realise what had happened and raised her head out of her hands. she took a few glances around and toward Charlotte, before nudging the other two and saying something that Charlotte couldn't hear. Both Victoria and Rebecca pulled their heads up quickly and after a brief panning of their eyes they both got to their feet.
Charlotte managed a smile towards them, seeing that they were all safe and uninjured enough to be standing. Athena was slower to her feet, but all 3 rushed forward without much hesitation until there were a small distance from Charlotte. They all abruptly stopped and pulled hands up in front of their faces and Athena turned her body side on to Charlotte.
"Your armour is giving off so much heat again." Athena spoke with a flat tone and with clear exhaustion, even though she herself hadn't been in any combat. Charlotte guessed that losing another of her summoned animals had taken a toll on Athena, but she wasn't fully certain how her magic effected her or if he even had any limits.
"Athena's right you know, you two are going to get us all killed." Rebecca seemed shockingly unconcerned, given what she had actually said, and actually began laughing, "If you manage not to get us killed though, You need to show me how you do that and I'll show you how I do my thing."
"That sounds like a plan." Charlotte once again spoke with a weaker voice, although she didn't fall into a bout of coughing this time around. And even she couldn't deny that what Rebecca had said was probably not too far off reality.
Victoria though, was slowly walking around in front of Charlotte and trying to slowly get closer to her, with her face still turned to the side. She managed to get almost within reach of Charlotte and stretched out her spear handle, horizontally with a hand on either side, towards charlotte.
"Grab hold and I'll help you up." Victoria had a serious and almost annoyed tone to her words, but Charlotte couldn't properly see her face to confirm. Although she seemed to ignore the comment from Rebecca, or was unwilling to challenge it.
Charlotte first tried to push herself forward with her legs, but she found that they were too weak to even move under her own weight. The pain in her left leg starting to return as she started putting pressure on it. So instead she tried leaning forward and wrapped her sword arm around the spear and gripped as hard as she could to the wood.
She saw Victoria take a deep breath, before she yanked herself backwards and pulled Charlotte along with her. This managed to pull her out of the softened mud and broke apart a lot of the hardened mud that was partially encasing her legs to the ground. After this Charlotte managed to move her right leg enough to put pressure down and lift herself off the ground, along with moving her arm up from the spear and instead held onto it with her hand, with what free space was left with her sword handle being held.
"Don't do something like that again, we still need you." She spoke without looking at Charlotte and the annoyed tone fell away as she spoke. Charlotte instantly felt guilty and that she needed to apologise, considering she had barely given them any warning and had no idea at the time if it would have worked.
Charlotte didn't get the chance to speak though, as Victoria continued to pull forward on her spear, "Later." She spoke quietly, seemingly directed towards Charlotte even though she hadn't turned around. "We need to get inside fast." She continued louder and with a steady tone.
"There's still a dragon above the door that we need to watch for." Rebecca, moving up beside Victoria, was gesturing up to the doorway with her sword. Above the doorway was a gargoyle like statue of a dragon, and although it was missing a wing its head and mouth were aimed down and ready to launch fire at any who pass.
"I can stand under it and use my shield." Charlotte assumed that anything that would come out of the gargoyle would be much safer than what she had already gone against so far. She had no idea how her arm would cope with it, but it seemed better than letting them all get burnt properly.
"Make sure you check what's inside before you do anything." Athena sounded slightly more alert than before, although she remained the quietest of the three of them. As Charlotte took a closer look at the doorway, it looked as if it led instantly round a corner where anything could be waiting to ambush them.
Regardless of the possible threat, the four of them rushed towards the doorway, across the scorched and grass-less courtyard. Victoria and Charlotte, still both holding onto Victoria's spear, stood far to the left side of the door, making sure that they were plenty far from the dragon gargoyle. Athena and Rebecca did similar on the right side of the door.
Charlotte let go of the spear and used her shoulder against the wall to keep her balance. Like this she pulled herself along the wall, causing random splinters of stone to fracture off the wall and a line of lighter coloured stone where her armour had scratched off a layer of scorched material.
As she got closer to the doorway she slowed down and raised her shield up, with a good amount of effort put into making her arm respond. She moved her sword so that it was outstretched, ready to stab towards anything inside the doorway. She crept along the wall up until she was just to the side of the door and not yet under the gargoyle.
She waited a moment and took a deep breath in and listened for anything inside the door. Other than the echoing laughter, which had yet to stop, she could hear music of some kind coming from much further inside. But there was no sound coming from anything close to the door, so Charlotte took a step forward and poked her head into the entrance.
Inside was a small space before a wall and then a long, dark, corridor to the right which likely led to where the music was coming from. There was no sign of anything lurking in the shadows of the corridor, nor of any traps like the gargoyles on the walls.
Charlotte pulled her head back out, took a step back, but kept her shield raised in position to block the gargoyle. "Looks empty here."
The moment Charlotte finished speaking Rebecca moved without hesitation, swords held horizontally in front of her. She rushed through the door and quickly disappeared into the hallway. Athena didn't wait for any signal from Rebecca, and was swiftly through the doorway.
Victoria was next to move and she moved close around Charlotte's back and then straight through the door. Unlike the other two though she waited for Charlotte just inside the doorway, turning and reaching out the handle of her spear once again, "If you need it to move."
Charlotte reached out her hand and grabbed hold of the spear again, followed by Victoria almost instantly yanking her forward and through the doorway. Once inside, Charlotte realised the corridor was much more cramped than she was expecting, barely able to fit them in single file. This meant that she was able to lean her self up against the wall for support and let go of the spear, giving Victoria her full movement back.
Rebecca and Athena had already set off down the corridor, leaving Charlotte and Victoria to catch up with them. While Victoria seemed to be able to move at full speed she took a much slower pace, Charlotte could just about see her intentionally putting less pressure on her cut leg.
As they moved down the corridor, the music got clearer and louder as well as a light at the end of the hallway getting bigger. It sounded as if there was a single violin like instrument playing music and constantly varying its speeds every few seconds, as if shifting from song to song at random. Charlotte half expected to hear singing, clapping or stomping to accompany the violin, but was left with just the echoing laughter.
It took them nearly 2 minutes to reach their way to end of the corridor, where they moved through a tight doorway and out into a large and high ceilinged ball room of sorts. The floor was made from a varnished dark wood, the walls seemed to have wallpaper made from soft dark green fabrics with gold patterns weaved into it.
Lighting the area was a number of huge chandeliers that had hundreds of burning candles, that gave off an unusual amount of light. The room itself was much too large to have been inside the castle, but there wasn't any windows to help confirm whether they were still in the same place.
As Charlotte entered the room she saw that there was a stairway just a few meters to their side, but instead of rushing towards them all of their attentions were on the ballroom. There was 4 figures on the ballroom moving with precision at speed, with a violin floating mid air and playing off to the side of them.
Although instead of there being solid figures, it seemed as if the 4 revellers were made up of floating clothes. Identical in fashion to how the knight armour ended up being devoid of any bodies within. All but one of them wore intricate dresses which seemed to have sections that skin would normally have been visible at, instead now replaced by nothing but air.
The one that wasn't a dress was much closer to a formal set of armour, although their hands and head were exposed and therefore replaced by thin air. It was a hardened leather breastplate, with double layered shoulder pads that covered most of the upper arms. Covering the stomach was a vest of shining scale mail that fed under the leather breastplate. Under the armour was a simple white cloth shirt which passed below the hips and had long sleeves. There were plain brown cloth trousers, with leather boots that reached up to where the knees would normally be.
The next closest to Charlotte was a bright white dress that had amounts of armour mixed into it. The main body of the dress was made out of a white material that split off to the sides from below the chest, with a much thicker, pleated, blue material making up the inner and the skirt. From the chest up was a dark sheer material that connected up to a thick white collar with a dark pink rose embroidered onto it.
It was a backless and sleeveless dress, exposing large empty sections of air where Charlotte would have expected a body. But on both hands were dull metal gauntlets that reached all the way up to the elbows. Under these gauntlets poked out white lace elbow gloves, that had been stitched into patterns of roses.
On either side of the hips was the main eye catching point. On each side was a large dark pink rose that had been stitched together through many layers of hardened fabrics. Along with pink dye creeping into the white material all around these roses.
Whilst the trail of the dress was touching the ground, the front of it was cut high with the short blue skirt around the top of the legs. Cloth leggings came up the legs and were, similar to the arms, covered from foot to knee in dull metal greaves and boots.
The third of the group looked much closer to winter expedition wear than attire for a ballroom. A thick navy blue coat with fuzzy black fur linings down the middle and around all of the edges, along with an extra throw over the shoulders and down to the elbows, that tied on around the neck.
It had thick black fur cuffs that were held tight at the end of long blue sleeves, by silver buttons. The hands were then covered in black leather gloves. Along the sleeves and the sides of the coat were small black ribbons as well as silver coloured patterns embroidered into it.
At the bottom of the coat was a lighter blue skirt that was made from many many layers of fabric, so much that Charlotte couldn't properly count. Which in part fell down to the knees, whilst the top layers seemed to hold stiff, pointing horizontally outwards. Under the skirt were thick light blue leggings that led into thick leather boots, with bright blue coloured soles.
Charlotte took a few seconds trying to recognise each of these, but nothing sprung to mind until she looked at the last of the four. She instantly recognised the blue dress that was dancing around the ballroom in front of them.
Charlotte looked over to Victoria, worried what her reaction would be. Victoria looked as if she had started moving towards the staircase, but was frozen in place staring at the dancers. Both Rebecca and Athena were also looking towards Victoria, with a few worried glances between her and the dancers.
"Victoria?" Charlotte tried to get some kind of reaction or movement from Victoria, but she remained still.
"Victoria do you know what's going on?" Athena was much more forceful with her question, which seemed to manage getting a reaction from Victoria.
She turned her head back to the stairs and resumed rushing towards it, "Deal with the witch first, that's far more important now." And with that she started up the stairs that spiralled off to the right.
"Victoria, please?!" Athena shouted after Victoria, although from her tone Charlotte could tell she knew it was pointless. "At least wait for us." She continued shouting up towards Victoria, but now racing up to the stairs to follow her.
"Time to go I guess." Rebecca spoke, directed to Charlotte, and sounded unimpressed. Although she promptly turned and went to join Athena, following after Victoria who had already passed out of sight up the stairs.
Charlotte hesitated though, and stared at the ballroom dancers as they twirled elegantly around the hall. They all seemed to be dancing the same steps and with arms outstretched as if joined to some non existent partner.
The stained glass windows in the Cathedral, the weapons and gemstones outside and now the closest representation to the magical girls without them actually being there. Charlotte had never seen such explicit imagery of magical girls inside of a labyrinth. Only ever would there be strangely distorted and warped mockeries of magical girls, born from the confusing minds of the witches.
She continued to watch the dancers as they sped up in pace along with the violin, wondering if the violin was playing anything specific that she didn't recognise or if the dance itself held further importance. But Rebecca had already moved out of sight and Charlotte could only guess how long the staircase would be.
Not wanting to be left too far behind, she turned away from the ballroom and pushed herself along towards the staircase. The tempo of the violin continued to increase with each step closer to the stairs Charlotte got, until it came to an abrupt halt when she hopped up the first stair.
Snapping her head back to the ballroom, Charlotte just saw as the violin smashed on the wooden floor sending splinters everywhere. The dancing clothes fell to the ground unceremoniously, into small messy piles on the floor. Leaving only the sound of the high pitched laughing that was now much closer.
Turning back she pushed herself forward as fast as her legs allowed her, with some extra difficulty where the staircase veered to the right. The staircase was a full upwards spiral, with the steps becoming steeper and thinner with each full turn. Meaning that, by the time Charlotte saw the back of Rebecca, she had to have her feet twisted to even have them half on the step.
The other 3 girls were standing in line, just before a small opening that seemed to lead outside. Charlotte couldn't truly tell whether it was leading to the roof as all she could see was a blue glow that shifted from bright to dark.
"Charlotte's here." Rebecca called up to Victoria at the front, while giving a thumbs up to Charlotte.
Victoria didn't respond instantly, but poked her head around the entrance for a moment, before looking back down the stairs. "I can only see one thing in the middle, lets go." Then without waiting she sprinted through the entrance, head down and spear at the ready.
Athena was next through, holding her tome close to her chest and head down covering its top. Rebecca waited for Athena to be fully through before she jumped up multiple stairs at a time and barrelled through herself.
Charlotte took in a deep breath, trying to get rid of the strain in her legs from rushing up the staircase, as well as bracing herself for whatever would be on the other side. For what she hoped was the last time, Charlotte raised her weapons to the ready, even if her shield arm was mostly useless now, and rushed out to join the others.
The entrance led directly onto the roof of the castle, with the darkened sky far above them and the smoke trails leading up from the four towers. The four of them had walked out from the inside of one the towers and onto a large square inner section of the roof. There were ramps on each side that led up onto a raised wall, with a further set of steep stairs that climbed up to the top of the towers.
Along the outside of each of the stone parapets was an almost complete wall of blue flame, rising upwards into the sky. The flames warped and blew in different directions as well as changing from a bright burning blue to a much duller colour, as if the fuel was running out and then being replaced.
In the centre, where Victoria and Rebecca were charging towards, was the Witch, causing Charlotte's gemstone to pulsate and shift under her armour. The Witch up close looked even more grotesque with the sections of skin being poorly stitched together, leaving visible pieces of flesh that Charlotte had been unable to see from the ground. Below its waist was a large exaggerated bell like skirt that obscured its legs and feet and was covered in the black smoke.
The Witch seemed to have noticed the approaching attackers and the constant laughs changed to frantic screeching. To Charlotte it sounded akin to a cornered animal about to be pounced upon by vicious predators, but she had no qualms about knowing that she was one of the predators for this Witch.
Charlotte charged forward and moved her sword upwards, ready for a downward swing, even though she knew Victoria and Rebecca would reach it long before she could. She had seen what Witches themselves could be capable of and wanted to leave nothing to chance.
Victoria was the first to strike. Her spear held aloft, she cut downwards towards its shoulder and intended to sweep through its chest and hip. But, the spear never made solid contact as the Witch had begun spinning and suddenly rose high into the sky with its body instantly covered in the smoke that reached up from its skirt.
The Witch kept spinning into the cloud of black smoke in the sky and disappearing for a second. Victoria loudly swore as she desperately tried to correct her swing in time to hit the Witch. The next moment the Witch reappeared and came spinning down one of the trails of smoke, as if the Witch was swirling around a funnel.
It landed on the roof of the tower and continued its screeching, yet it didn't seem to move from its podium or make any actions to protect itself any further.
"One person on each tower, trap it on its way up or down!" Athena shouted almost the instant after the Witch had landed. Victoria and Rebecca reacted instantly and split up to take positions on the two far towers. Charlotte turned and moved as fast as she could to the tower the Witch was currently occupying, leaving the last of the towers to Athena.
As Charlotte got close to the Witch a wave of stench, more horrid than anything she had smelt before, hit her and slowed her down. She almost tripped up the stairs to the tower, as she felt bile running up her throat causing her to nearly vomit.
Charlotte stumbled up the stairs and leaped forward with a downward swing of her sword. Much like with Victoria, the Witch began to spin and dodged out of the way of the blade and swirled up along the smoke trail and into the sky. With no contact for her sword, Charlotte crashed to the ground, but she was able to get back to her knees in time to see the Witch swirling back down the smoke trail that led directly to Victoria.
The moment it got in range, Victoria stabbed her spear upwards and this time managed to stab straight through its smoke covered skirt. As soon as she saw her spear connect she yanked upwards pushing her spear further into its body, over hear head and then slammed down to the ground. The Witch flew in an arc dictated by the spear and smashed hard onto the stone rooftop, so much that Charlotte could hear something like glass shattering.
Victoria walked forward and dug one of her feet into the Witch's neck, pinning it down from another spot. She pulled her spear from the skirt and raised it perpendicular above the Witch's head, which was now flailing about in any direction it could move to avoid the spear.
Charlotte saw Victoria's mouth open as she spoke a few words that she couldn't hear from this distance.
Victoria then closed her eyes and stabbed down through the Witch's head.