Chapter 16: Ambushed.
By the time evening had come around, Carlyle knocked on the door of the guest room.
"Are you two ready to go?"
"We're ready," Sans said.
The three met up with Semi and the other six wizards outside the castle border. Carlyle lead the way to the cave. The ten waited concealed in the trees. A skeleton in green armor stood at the entrance looking around.
Sans conjured a long white bone and shoved it in their direction.
"You dolt."
Aster covered Semi's mouth with his hands.
"Shhh"
The skeleton guarding the cave caught the bone in their hand and crushed it. While it was distracted another bone had knocked it out from above.
Aster removed his hands.
"How dare you. You could have got us killed. What if your plan didn't work, huh?"
Sans turned and smirked.
"Well it did didn't it?"
"Don't get cocky. That arrogance is going to get you killed one of these days."
"Quiet you two," Carlyle said. "Listen Sykes, Sealey and Aldwyn can guard the entrance. The rest of us will head inside."
The three men nodded.
Carefully the four other wizards scouted the entrance. All of a sudden Sans spotted a skeletal hand reaching out from under the ground. It grabbed Carlyle by the ankle. Sans shot a bone at the skeletal hand shattering it to pieces.
"Run," Sans yelled grabbing Carlyle's hand and dragging him towards the cave. Semi conjured a barrage of bones as a bunch of skeletons clung to the back of Carlyle and Sans.
"Do you have no self preservation? These skeletons aren't gonna stop til' you're dead," Semi snapped. "Honestly you need to take this more seriously."
"Oh no."
"What is it, Sigourney?" Carlyle asked.
"The full moon is out."
Carlyle's eyes widened. They looked horrified.
"It shouldn't be out for another week."
"Hahahahaha, you foolish humans."
A large creature with grey and black fur walked into the moon's shadow.
"Did you really think I'd be that stupid? A little gravitational magic was all that was needed for my plan to work. I simply moved the moon out of it's normal rotation and you're supposed to be wizards and you didn't even anticipate that."
The creature growled before charging at them. It's paws swiped at them. Sigourney and Candice were merely knocked away. Corliss however wasn't so lucky. Her face was scratched up and she was knocked back against a tree trunk.
"Corliss!"
Sigourney ran to her side. Before the werewolf could hurt everyone else, Sans teleported closer to the enemy parading him with a barrage of blue bones. The werewolf was moving with such killing intent he didn't even notice.
"You think that's going to hurt. It didn't even put a dent in me, skeleton."
Sans' pupils disappeared.
"It didn't? Why don't you take a good look."
Suddenly the werewolf fell to it's knees.
"What but how?"
It clutched it's abdomen. A large gash was slashed across it's abdomen multiple times as if it stepped through a series of blades.
"If I told you then you'd know my secret," Sans said.
The werewolf chuckled.
"Well it's still a nice thought knowing even if you kill me you'll never truly win."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you know what a werewolf does? You know why we're so dangerous? It's because we turn humans into creatures of the undead. You kill the creature responsible for turning another they both die. So if you kill me you also kill the queen. Hahahahaha."
Carlyle ran to Sans looking very horrified by the events.
"Are you alright?" They asked. "You look a little pale."
"The queen is dead. This a-hole killed her."
Carlyle sighed.
"The odds were never really on our side."
"We could have saved her."
"Don't act so cocky," Semi said smacking Sans on the back of the head. "Just because you can use your magic very efficiently doesn't assure you victory. Sometimes you just got to accept the loss."
The four approached Sigourney as she was treating Corliss.
"Is she alright?" Sans asked.
"No, she isn't. How convenient and it's all thanks to you."
"What did I do?" He snapped.
"If you had attacked earlier none of this would have happened but you couldn't afford to do that without doing some bold move. You really are a cocky b-d aren't you?"
"That's ridiculous," Carlyle said. "You can't blame him."
"She was my sister," Sigourney said through teary eyes. "My sister."
Sans sighed. He was certain if the same thing had happened to his brother he'd have been upset too.
"I understand if you want to blame me you can."
It was just as they were heading back, Sigourney and Aldwyn carrying Corliss back in a stretcher that Carlyle caught sight of some guards heading their way.
"What's going on?" They asked.
"We're here to arrest these two skeletons."
The guards took Aster and Sans.
"Why?" Carlyle asked.
"Unwin's orders."
As soon as they left, Semi spoke.
"Now do you want to listen. Your negligence is why this escalated."
"You know it's too late for me to actually intervene."
Once Sans and Aster were taken to their cells the two became restless. Sans paced around the cell while Aster sat on the bed his hands folded under his chin.
"What's going on?" Aster asked.
"I don't know but it might have to do with this 'Gaster', Semi was talking about."
"My my your son is very bright isn't he?"
Sans and Aster looked up and saw it was Unwin.
"Gaster happened to be my assistant. He happened to inform me of your arrival and you two apparently are too powerful to be taken too lightly. Want to know what I intend to do with you?"
Sans glared at him.
"Your execution will be at the end of the week. I like a good beheading don't you. It's a pity you'll probably turn to dust right afterwards. You ought to be happy though I don't grant this privilege to everyone."
"I can't imagine the king would agree to something like this."
"Hahaha, you'll be amazed what the king would agree to with much persuasion."
Days flew by, the was another meeting with the circle of wizards. King Ulfred dropped by in the middle of their meeting.
"Aldwyn get your colleagues ready for battle. My brother declared war against our kingdom."
"My sister is still injured though," Sigourney said.
"We have no time to lose."
It was just as the king left that Semi stopped Carlyle.
"He's already possessed the king. You saw his eyes didn't you? If you don't intervene-" Semi said before his pupils disappeared. "I will. That's my grandson in jail."
Carlyle's eyes hardened.
"I'll do it but only if you promise to obey my colleagues. We can't afford to lose anybody else. I'm doing this to protect you."
Semi followed the other wizards outside.
Carlyle sighed before heading to the king's chambers.
"Just where do you think you're going?"
He whirled around.
"Unwin."
"Did you really think it would be that simple?"
"Why are you doing this?"
"You know why. You may think you can conceal it but you can't hide it forever. You've always wanted power at any cost."
"I only wanted to protect the people that I loved."
"Is that what you say to convince yourself?"
"I don't have many options and I wasn't given the opportunity to refuse."
"What a lame excuse."
"Yeah, if I was looking for one but I won't be making that mistake again."
With a burst of fire magic coming from Carlyle's hands, Unwin was knocked back by the force of the attack.
Quickly Carlyle ran towards the king's room and opened the door. The king glanced at Carlyle.
"Intruder."
With a wave of his hand, the enchantment left the king.
"Your majesty are you alright?"
"I'm fine," he muttered to himself. "I've done a terrible thing though. Unwin made me resign my position as king."
"You couldn't have possibly known he would enchant you. It's my fault. Unwin was the evil part of myself that split from myself because my magic was too weak to completely harness him in. I want to make up for my mistake."
"No," the king said. "Just like you I also have sins of my own to bear. Everyone is working so hard and doing their best so I will too."
Carlyle conjured a magic circle below the king.
"I have enough magic to send you back to the time and location you desire. You only need to have the determination to do so."
The king closed his eyes and promptly vanished.
Aster groaned from within their cell.
"Now what do we do?"
"We could try to escape," Sans suggested.
"How?"
Suddenly the king materialised outside their cell.
"Whaa?"
Sans looked at him in awe.
"Impressive. Can you teleport too?"
"How did you do that?" Aster asked.
"I didn't do it. It was Carlyle. Look we don't have any time Carlyle gave me the keys to your cells," he said as he opened the cell door. "I'm letting you two free. You two need to get out of here or they will get ahold of your time machine."
"What about you?"
"I'll be fine. I'm a fighter at heart. Promise me you won't look back no matter what happens to me."
Sans was hesitant.
"We promise," Aster said.
The three ran with the king covering them from the rear. Sans caught sight of the wizards in front of a cave nearby as the king lead them to their machine. An army of humans surrounded the cave. Just then he saw Carlyle come up towards the wizards.
"What are you doing, Aldwyn?"
"The king told us to take the prisoners underground and seal the cave."
"You can't do that. What about Semi?"
Aldwyn's face grew cold.
"He's dead. He refused to fight the other monster and he turned on us so we killed him."
Carlyle paled.
"Why? Why? How could he do something like that?"
"He he he give into grief and despair. It'll make my job a lot easier."
"Look alive over there," the king said as Carlyle's aura darkened and electrified the air.
Carlyle looked up with a nasty grin, his teeth gleaming with glee. He shot a blast of dark looking magic in their direction. Sans and Aster ducked. There was a loud groan coming from their left side.
"Fools I will kill all of you."
Sans and Aster dodged another magical attack. The younger skeleton looked to his left to see the king clutching his chest. His hands were covered in blood. Feeling compassion for the man he crawled at the king's feet. His eyes were alit with pain.
"Does it hurt?"
"This? This is nothing," he said chuckling.
Suddenly a foot stomped on his face.
"I bet it hurts now you old fool."
Sans looked up, staring icily into Carlyle's face.
"Not going to say anything skeleton? Don't worry you're next."
Sans chuckled darkly.
"Sans run," Aster said clutching on the back of his son's cloak and pull him away.
"What about the king?"
"What did the king say? We promised we wouldn't move back. We got to move forward."
Aster pulled the remote from his pocket and pressed the switch. The machine door opened up. Right before Sans was dragged inside, a bone snapped through the wizard's chest.
'What?' Sans thought. It seemed somehow a skeletal monsters had used their magic to kill him.
He cried out as he clutched his chest. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
"This isn't over," he said as he collapsed to his knees. He glared icily at Sans. "I'll be back."
He sputtered as bone after bone was shot through his chest. Aster closed the door before he could see who had killed the dark wizard.