Chapter 14: Before the walls of Illasium

  Julien

  It didn’t take them long to reach the capitol. A trip that took them almost a full day didn’t even take them two hours to return. The speed astounded him. They zipped between trees and finally out onto plains before the walls.

  They stayed on the road and silence reigned between them. He could tell each of them were trying to process what was for going on with them in their own way. Even after seventeen summers of life he had no frame of reference for what had been done to him.

  But while he was pretty sure Carlouse was horrified at the changes he saw it as a blessing. But it also came with understanding. In the distance the walls of Illasium came into focus fast. But his mind was turned inward. He now knew why they couldn’t beat the elf. He studied the countryside as they sped past. Everything looked frozen like flies in honey the grass swayed only at half the speed it would normally.

  If the elves could move as fast as they were now and he suspected they could then it was a miracle that they had managed to even knock him from the side of the hill.

  Julien looked up and realized they had were coming up on the city gates. The massive oaken doors were closed and the portcullis were down. On the top of the wall he could see guards in the chain mail and leather wielding spears. he started toward the gate but stopped just outside the torchlight when the voices of the guards as they watched from the wall drifted to him.

  His eyes widened as he began to make out words among the noise. He was more than a hundred paces from the wall and it was still at least fifty paces high. If he could hear their words… he sighed heavily, even his ears had been changed. He subconsciously reached up and fingered his ears. A soft sigh of relief escaped him when he found that the tips of his ears were rounded and not pointed. Then he shook his head. He was being ridiculous, he’d seen the others and none of their ears had been pointed either. But they had changed so much. He was going to reach up and traces his now much more pointed jaw line and cheeks but words from the wall snagged his attention.

  “Did you hear?” A gruff voice asked one of the guards shifted to face the other.

  “What is is now Athos? You drink before you came on shift?” There was a sharp annoyance to the tone of the second guard.

  “No I didn’t drink, you know the seargents always do a check before shift. Besides no one approaches the wall it’s damn borin if you ask me. What’s the harm in a little conversation.” The second guard grunted but didn’t respond.

  “I’ll take it you didn’t hear then.” The voice lowered just a bit like the first guard was attempting to be more quiet. Julien looked across the wall. These two where the only guards until the guards at the gate tower entrance which was more than fifty paces away.

  “Apparently the palace district has been locked up tight. The royal guard are crawling all over the district. I bet somethin big is going down with the those elf bastards that entered town awhile back.” H frantic hushing sound came from the second guard.

  “Watch what you say!! Didn’t you hear about that man down by the shadowed serpent tavern. They say he tried to punch one of them lanky looking elves and lost his head for his trouble.”

  “Yeah, I heard they said he used some sort of magic.” The second guard snorted.

  “It ain’t natural.”

  “Of course it ain’t natural that’s why it’s called magic,” the first guards said overriding the second guard. There was a pause and Julien heard a shift in the darkness behind him. He didn’t even have to look to know it was Altaya. He looked back and saw all four of the others were with her all seemed to be listening as well.

  “The servants were saying that Count Sherman is in an uproar and is mobilizing the entire guard. What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know,” the second guard interjected. “And I don’t care. Ain’t none of our business now you better shut your mouth. Gossiping is gonna get you in trouble one of these days. Just focus on doing yer job.” The first guards huffed but went silent.

  Julien didn’t wait for the others he turned and began walking away from the light. He heard the others follow. He moved away until he was sure no one from the wall could hear them. Even then he kept his voice low.

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  “We need to get back to the palace quickly,” he began.

  “Do we?” Carlouse interjected. Julien paused and the others looked to Carlouse.

  he was biting his lip nervously but he had a unfamiliar glint in his eyes.

  “What do you mean?” Altaya said. She had a coldness to her voice that Julien had never heard.

  “I mean why do we have to return? For all we know they won’t even recognize us anymore. If we go back what’s to say we don’t just get throne in a cell and experimented on.” His voice was frantic and his eyes were wide. Julien looked around his semi circle of friends and knew he had to be careful here.

  “What’s your plan then?” He asked finally.

  Carlouse blinked his now longer eye lashing almost looking feminine as they fluttered in astonishment. He recovered quickly though.

  “We could leave go somewhere else where no one knows where who we are or what we are. The elves will never let this kingdom go! Not after the king’s open resistance of them. They will bring the full might of their strength to bare on this kingdom as they have done in the past.” He paused his rant gulping in air, and Julien could almost see the existential fear on his teammate’s face.

  Carlouse had always been the level headed one of them. And he had known somewhere in the back of his mind that there would be repercussions for his father’s move.

  Carlouse saw the destruction before him and was scared. And honestly Julien didn’t blame him. But he was missing a few key facts. And facts he knew was the only was to pull his old friend out of the fear he was in and convince him.

  “You know that’s not a bad idea. Especially since we discovered my father used us as bait.”

  “Exactly!” Carlouse interrupted now heating up. “I know he’s your father and all. But that doesn’t mean I trust him. The elves may be horrible but that doesn’t mean your father is any better. He saw his son in danger and the first thing he did was try to use you for his own gain. Yet you want me to trust that he won’t do the same with me.”

  Now Julien felt his own ire rising. Normally he managed to keep his emotions in check. It was something he was taught by his mother very early.

  “Watch your tongue!” Altaya hissed reaching to her side for a blade that was no longer there.

  “Or what!” Carlouse shouted. It was clear his fear was outweighing his cautiousness.

  “The King you love so much all but used us. And then didn’t even bother recovering our bodies.”

  “I hate to say it but I’m starting to agree with Carlouse,” Katrina spoke up. Her jaw was set and her eyes blazed. “No matter what you say Altaya, the king used us. And so..”

  “What!?” Julien yelled his grip on his anger slipped if only a little. “What’s your plan? Because all I’m hearing is idiotic fearful grumbling. You want to what?” He snorted at their shocked faces he almost never yelled. “Leave the kingdom go our own way? We have no supplies, no horses, no money! And even if we did leave and successfully get away the elves will find out about us eventually. We can’t exactly hide this!” As he said the last part he thrust his hands out and gestured at himself.

  “We are all naked as the day we were born with only a pair of brown robes to our name,” he continued forcing his anger down. He could see the shocked look on their faces. All except Aramin who was leaning on a nearby road post watching the wide road in both directions. He caught Julien looking at him and only shrugged.

  “ I guess he doesn’t care which way we go.” The thought calmed him more.

  “Do I agree with what the king,” he paused taking a deep breath. “My father did,” he continued. “No, I don’t. And I plan to give him an earful myself. I also know that when not if the elves find out about us they will hunt us. I don’t know what happened any more than you guys do but the alternative is we don’t get to find out what happened to us or have any support of any kind.”

  “Even if that help is just so the king can use us in his political games?” Carlouse asked now more subdued.

  “At least then we’ll know the help will be reliable,” Katrina mused finger tapping her new pointed chin. “What ever happened to us you know the king will want to find a way to reproduce it. To do the same thing for his soldiers.”

  “Besides if we wanted to leave again I doubted the soldiers could stop us as we are now. Look at how fast we moved to get here.” Her anger seemed to have abated as well.

  “You are all overlooking one important fact,” Aramin rumbled his eyes not even looking at them but constantly scanning the thinly sparsed grassy plains around them. All their eyes fell on the big man. He was the oldest out of all of them and had led them up the hillside during the battle. Julien braced himself his opinion would most likely be the deciding factor in the argument.

  “You are all forgetting the Academy,” he said simply.

  “That’s right!” Altaya snapped her fingers. Julien’s heart soared. How had he forgotten about that.l?

  “Even if it is mostly a Military academy the best minds of the kingdom have gathered there,” Aramin continued. “We were never going to be able to get into the palace not if it is as locked down as we heard those guards talking about.”

  “But if we go to the academy the Commander might be able to help us get a hold of the king before we are thrown into a cell,” Julien said aloud warming to the idea.

  “Not to mention Petra is there,” Carlouse said aloud. He too had returned to his logical self.

  “As our kingdoms one and only ancient Medical specialist if anyone can figure out what exactly has happened to us she can.” Julien nodded to himself before looking to the others. They all gave silent nods of approval. “Then it seems we have a plan. Now then we just have to figure out how to get inside the city.”