The wise men said they should try to gain peace so Kemi sent a message down to the attacking army below that had placed themselves very organised. She thought it would be of no point and told the soldiers to get ready for anything. The request was ignored as she thought it would be and right after she got the information, the attack began. The canons below went off and hit the walls that shook and cracked. The arrows started to fly down from the castle by the soldiers and the machines on the wall. The soldiers below had good protection from the arrows and very few got hit as they were flying down from the castle. The birds were not used and stood further away from the kingdom since their maximum height would not be enough to get them over the wall where they would perhaps have succeeded before they might risk getting shot down by the Grasoll lands army then.
The forest people had brought the canon up that they had been building and pointed it right down from the side of the castle where the enemy was not paying attention to it. The soldiers at the bottom got hit by the canon’s load that then started to fire. The shot from the canon landed on a group of soldiers standing next to a beast that was standing still. The blast made the beast explode as well and left eleven soldiers dead. One of the big machines changed direction and the forest people had to move the canon away quickly. It was heavy and it took many of them to pull it away. They made it just in time but damage was made on the wall where they shot the canon. A big chunk of the wall got damaged and fell to the ground. The forest people dragged the canon away to a different location and got ready for the next attack.
A canon load hit over the wall and on a tower standing next to the wall, a piece fell down and caused great damage on the city below. Another hit brought a couple of soldiers on the other side of the wall, down on top of a house.
Further away from the castle, the assassins sent to acquire the earth stone ran over the land and got to a house that was abandoned. They looked around to see if there was anyone left on the battlefield and they noticed several soldiers waiting and searching the land for people. The injured soldiers of the Darcolia army were being treated by their healers and some war machines were being repaired.
The men Kemi sent looked for a way through to the forest that was once again covering the entrance to the valley. They found a way going through some of the farm houses that stood abandoned not too far from the forest. They were able to get to the next farm but had to stop when three soldiers came around the corner and were searching the farm. They hid quickly behind a shed and waited for the soldiers to disappear. The assassins continued around the farm into the next but stayed in the field. They were forced to stop and lie in the crops to not be caught. The soldiers that made the men hide had torches and were four in total. They walked close but didn’t see the men that were only a few steps from them. They stopped not far away where they spoke about the win over the Grasoll kingdom.
Kemi’s men lay still and tried not to make any movement. A soldier suddenly walked closer as he needed to relieve himself. One of the assassins sent out from the castle was just next to him and had his eyes peeled on him. He brought a knife out and slowly moved it up towards him. The soldier saw him and he turned his face to shout to the others. When the other soldiers turned around, another of Kemi’s men came up and before the soldiers could move towards the shouting soldier, the six assassins all came up. They had their knives out and quickly cut the soldiers down before they made any more sounds. The last soldier turned around to run away to alert other soldiers but as he ran, he got a knife in the back by one of them.
The assassins quickly covered up the bodies in the crops and continued on. At the castle, the big Redonian and Darcolian army outside the Grasoll walls had finished setting up the camp a little further away from the castle. In the camp, the officers had assembled and talked about the plan to get in as well as what to do when the walls finally broke down. They had the two Alumrylite stones ready for attack and brought them into position to be used as soon as they were needed. When away from Amaya, they were guarded by six men bigger than anyone else on the entire battlefield. They never moved and not even when loud noises came did they even flinch.
The Redonian canons kept firing at the wall and also over it causing much damage to the houses inside when the projectiles hit them. Kemi told the soldiers to fight on for victory and many weapons were fired from her end as well. The arrows never stopped coming and whatever piece that fell off the wall was used to throw at the soldiers below. Luckily, they wouldn’t run out of arrows for a while since a big storage of them was available to them. Jay had an intense pain in the shoulder that increased for every minute and asked for more healing. When he finally took off his cover over the arm, he saw the real damage that had been done. The arm was swollen greatly and he couldn’t seem to be able to move it at all anymore.
One of the healers told him they must relieve the pleasure building up inside the arm or risk losing it. The arm got cut into and a lot of fluid came out. They also saw what had been causing the pain as, finally, a piece of metal was visible. The metal was seated in the bone and when they tried to take it out, Jay screamed out in pain. They stopped but Jay held on to a pole and told them to take it out. When they pulled it out, some blood sprayed on the wall and on those getting the piece of metal out. Jay fell on the floor and was gasping for air because of the pain. The healers quickly tried to clean up the cut but noticed a serious colour on the arm. The arm had been infected and it was possible the infection would spread fast, they told Jay. He had seen it many times on his soldiers and knew the severity.
The healers did the absolute best for him and wrapped him up with sheets that were drenched with an elixir that increased the healing process. There were several people observing him closely for signs of change. For a brief moment, the canons below stopped shooting and withdrew back. They saw the attacking army moved back as well further which gave relief to the kingdom. Kemi thought perhaps the magic stones would be used again, but the officers in the tents below were giving new orders. The army would surround the kingdom and make sure no one entered or exited the castle. Throughout the attack, there had been some attempts to flee from the castle that had been successful, but there would be none after that.
The army backed off to give space and spread out to fill the outside with soldiers. During this time, there was no attack on the kingdom. It took many hours without anything happening so many took the chance to rest. It was soon early morning and the darkness was slowly turning into dark blue with the stars disappearing one by one. It was possible to see the damage inflicted on the castle. But also how very strong it was as the thick walls had been able to withstand the blows fairly well.
Kemi wasted no time and made repairs to the castle with materials from the city within the kingdom walls. She called for the high officers and they all assembled before her. During the battle outside, the kingdom’s two most high-ranking officers died and some other officers were wounded. Many soldiers had died and countless still lay wounded on the battlefield. What she had seen was that many soldiers from both Domoro and Grasoll land had been captured. There was a camp further away that had soldiers from Redonia and Darcolia surrounding them. The few prisoners they were in possession of had all been released which meant she had little to bargain with.
She looked at Jay who was clearly in pain but was putting on a brave face. She told them to come up with any idea that would give the spies more time to get the earth stone and the officers shared different thoughts around. As soon as something good came up, Kemi ordered it to be done. In case of the attacking soldiers breaching the city, they would make them struggle until the end. The city was filled with soldiers that lay in ambush and built traps for the enemy as they spoke. Several arrow machines were pointed towards the entrance and canons were placed in various locations. The last of the fire making gel had been done up in concentrated amount and placed in the jars to be used as weapons. They were collected and put in good locations around the wall. The single arrow machine that ha
d exploded tips on every arrow was standing alone, still at the gate and it was suggested that the machine would be used against the enemy as a first line of defence.
The substance used to give an exploded effect was then put back into the jars to save them for a great explosion. The machine was, instead, filled up with uncoated arrows. The machine had been altered to shoot faster than before and more intensely with more arrows. They moved the machine up on the highest point to have the most success rate as the arrows would fall down and gain more accuracy from there. On the other side of the wall, the soldiers had finished the movements of the army and then surrounded the kingdom. The man in charge of the whole attack was finally presented a message to Kemi from an arrow. It landed on the ground in front of the assembled officers at the top of the castle. She got read the letter by one of her servants and he read that it was truly the king himself leading the attack against them.
Amaya of the Redonia kingdom, she said to herself and thought about his brother, King Arobe. She read that he was ordering the immediate surrender of the kingdom and her arrest. He demanded the kingdom to lay down its weapon and came out in one line with their hands raised above their heads. If they did what he asked, he assured no more people would die from the war that had already costed too much lives. She read that the kingdom would get to continue on with a new ruler set by Redonia until a suitable candidate was ready to take over. The attack would commence in seven hours as the time for negotiation would finish.
Kemi asked the wise men if they had any more knowledge about Redonia that had not yet been shared. She wished to hear anything they could possibly know even if it seemed unimportant. The wise men brought several books up from the library that had not seen the light for hundreds of years and in the meantime, one of them talked about what he knew. The red flower they used as mark on their armour was because of flowers that grew everywhere in Redonia and nowhere else. The flower itself was eatable and was known for tasting sweet. From the side, Jay listened as he tried to concentrate on something else other than pain. He remembered a contestant that cooked with red flowers in the cooking competition many years ago. Many others remembered as well that the chef cooking, had the same mark on his banner as the ones attacking them.
The wise man continued with that King Arobe’s father took the land of Darcolia over when Arobe was ten. He was given the kingdom a few years later as a test to see if he would be able to rule. When the king later died, Amaya took over as the king of Redonia with the help of his uncle for a brief time before finally ruling by himself. Kemi knew all this and told him to continue faster. The wise man said that Amaya, who was standing with the two magic stones, also did not like to be called king and tried to keep a title as general. They knew he had all the reason to be angry with them since they attacked his brother many years ago.
Kemi wondered why the attack came now because they never showed any aggression when they brought Arobe as a prisoner. During the time that he was kept under the castle, they never asked to have him returned. An officer that had been guarding the Darcolian prisoners at that time had told him that Arobe had refused the help from Redonia and told them he didn’t want their help. They needed to investigate further, Kemi told them and ordered the officers to send a letter to Domoro letting them know the progress. She had no hope that Queen Lisaro would come to her aid and knew it would make no difference anyway. Kemi knew her father talked about Redonia rarely and only that he never wanted anything to do with them. She remembered someone coming long time ago from the kingdom of Redonia but was told to never set foot in the land again by her father.
When the wise men came back up, they divided the books and started to read. The books were older and talked about a time of Amaya’s grandfather. One of the wise men shook his head and said he might have found something about the Alumrylite stones. He said that they didn’t realise it before but reading the texts then made them think the magical stones were mentioned. The books never said the words that would identify the magic stones but reading between the lines, it was possible to guess.
According to the books, what they then believed to be the Alumrylite stones, were originally taken from somewhere else but it didn’t say from where. The books depicted the Alumrylite stones as wind and fire and the books also told about the destruction and life both magical stones possessed for anyone using them. Reading the same books then changed the cryptic texts inside to make sense. The wise men had been reading books from different countries and stories about kingdoms they were yet to find anything about the Alumrylite stones that told them where they were from. An interesting old book having a Redonian ancient symbol on it suddenly dropped a clue about the magical stones’ origin as the same text was used to describe the Alumrylite stones. This increased the search for more information greatly.
The clue in the book then pointed to several songs that were really old. The songs from long ago were not sung anymore but a few of the wise men did remember parts of them. There were several of them that were written down that held words not used for hundreds of years but they did know what some of them meant. Many were also from the Redonian kingdom that told about the formation of it. The words of the songs were not all known and partly forgotten but the paintings in many books filled in some of the stories.
For the first time in several hundred years, they would be told again. Some new information that Kemi never knew was discovered in one of the books that told about the Grasoll kingdom’s founders. The founders had left the Redonian kingdom after they lost their territories and were forced to leave towards a new land in the south. Kemi knew her ancestors came from across the ocean but not that the Redonian kingdom took their land to force them to leave.
The wise men also became a little embarrassed after Kemi told them she was disappointed that they never knew that before and that it had needed a war for her to find out. They apologised and they had always thought that her ancestors came by their own will to claim the land. Kemi began to viciously insult the wise men’s intelligence and told them she would demote them all to cleaning the dungeons if they survived this. The time passed and more people, who were not preparing for the attack, were sent to the great library to search for anything that could be of help in the situation.
Jay looked tired and felt his strength left him more after every hour. It was not so much pain anymore and rather an uneasy feeling rushing through his arm. He was so tired that he couldn’t stand anymore and sat down on a chair next to the window from where he could see Gon’s martial arts school. He wondered how his friend was and how long it had been since he saw him.
Over at the school, Gon and the students had noticed around fifty soldiers coming close to the school and were now all hiding. The big door leading in to the school was boarded up tightly and when the soldiers knocked on the door and tried to peak through the small crevasses, they were unable to see any signs of life. The soldiers circled around the school and looked for any movement from within the complex. When they, after a while, were unable to see anyone, they stood still and talked to each other about whoever could live there.
Gon observed the soldiers and looked confused at them. He thought they would look like they did in his dream. He then believed, perhaps, the dream only gave him the message and he filled in the rest of the details. He had told his daughters about the dream and told Sophia that they looked different from what he remembered. She looked at him and then at the soldiers that suddenly left back towards the army. Gon told Sophia that if they came back, they would most likely break in and they must be ready. She knew what might happen and said she would fight with him until she couldn’t draw breath again. She gave a big smile to her father who put his hand on her head.
Further away, the assassins finally got to the forest that had grown half of what it was before and as they hid amongst the small trees, they brought out a map that the forest people gave them to locate the earth stone. After walking for ten minutes, they all froze where they were to make no sound. In the fores
t, they suddenly heard noises and they ducked down under some of the burnt wood that lay everywhere. They saw five men coming out from behind a tree. They were carrying axes and had shovels with them that they also carried.
One of the men pointed to the two last soldiers that to their discontent had already found the magical stone. Amaya must have realised they were using the earth stone and ordered people to stay behind and search for it. They then noticed several other people coming out from behind the trees and even a beast was appearing to follow them. ‘With ten men and one beast, the odds seem small,’ one of the assassins said. They knew that if the earth stone went back to the attackers, the chance for the kingdom to survive would be slim. They followed the soldiers and knew if they were going to do something, now would be the time as they got all too close to the forest edge. The beast went last and with the morning being upon them, the shadows started to show up as the darkness lifted from the sky.
One of the assassins’ got closer to the beast and it did not look like anyone noticed him. He jumped on the back of the mechanical beast to quickly reach the top of it and lay down on it. He saw the other soldiers in the front and also the two soldiers inside the beast controlling it. With them totally focused on avoiding the trees that had stopped growing since the earth stone was dug up, they didn’t notice the man on the top of the beast. He signalled the others that understood what he would do. They got ready and moved farther away to try to get in front of them. After a minute or so, the assassin on the roof of the beast had been able to use his knife to open the hatch a little so he could get down in the beast. He moved into position and took a deep breath then pulled the hatch open fast. The men inside the beast only heard the hatch fly open too late. He killed both of them without any sound.
The beast stopped moving and the assassin saw the other soldiers come closer to investigate what had happened. They all stood around and tried to get an answer when from behind the other assassins came out and killed three of the soldiers fast, then went for the rest. Two more soldiers fell to the ground after getting stabbed before they could defend. With many of the soldiers and the beast taken out, the odds suddenly increased for them. When the remaining five Redonian soldiers tried to attack the assassins, another soldier fell to the assassin coming out from the beast.
World of Taroo Page 49