Andrew and the Quest of Orion's Belt (Rise of the Fallen)

by Ivory Autumn

  Chapter Two

  Terms of Peace

  Before Andrew could read the words on the scroll, angry shouts and hissings were heard behind him.

  “Over there,” the voices cried. “The boy ran over there! See that light? It’s him.”

  Andrew swiftly rolled up the glowing scroll, stuffed it back into his pack, and turned to flee. But he tripped on a stray root and fell, face first plowing into the earth. The instant his hands clawed the earth, warm heat passed through his hands into the field of hollyhocks, turning the entire field brown, exposing him to his enemies.

  “There he is!” the voices shouted. “Grab him before he escapes.”

  Andrew turned and ran through the brown field, down a dark path, and over to a giant tree. He pounded on the tree with his fists, like a door he was trying to break down. “Please!” he cried. “Let me up.”

  The tree refused to bend its branches and hoist him up to safety. “What’s wrong with you?” he shouted, clawing his way desperately up its trunk without any help from the tree, just managing to get to safety as the Sontars reached it. They hissed and growled, their glowing eyes flickering in the darkness.

  “Boy,” they hissed. “We know you are here, somewhere.”

  “If you don’t give yourself up, we will take and kill all the firstborn in your village.”

  The Sontars hissed, flicking out their cloven tongues as they circled round the tree. They looked as if they were about try and climb up the tree, but a voice called to them from behind. “We’ve found the boy. Come, see.”

  Andrew watched them as a Sontar guard cracked his whip over a long row of children chained at the wrists, moving in a line past the tree, with a congregation of frightened mothers and fathers wailing after them. Chained to the line prisoners he saw Freddie, and Talic, and his nemesis Gobo. Their faces were subdued, their eyes were cold, and filled with hatred for their captors.

  “Which one is it?” The captain asked. He had a large chain hanging around the neck, with bones dangling from it, and a double bladed sword in his hands. He hissed, eyeing the row of children with eager eyes.

  "Show your hands!" The Sontar command. Instantly, all the children held out their hands for the Sontar to inspect. When the Sontar guard came to Gobo, he yanked him from the row of boys and made him kneel with arms held out. “It’s-s-s-s this one. I’m ss-s-sure of it.”

  The Sontar captain stepped over to Gobo, holding aloft a lighted torch. He flicked his tongue in Gobo's face, tasting the air, and inspecting Goboe's arms and hands. There was nothing remarkable about Gobo's arms, except for the fact that they had funny looking diamond shaped blisters on them. “Curioussss,” the Sontar hissed. "They are strange markings. But our orders were, the marks were to be in his hands, not on chubby little arms!"

  "They could have got it wrong," A Sontar offered.

  "No!" the captain shouted, shoving Gobo back into the line. “You idiot, it’s not him! I want the boy, and I want him now!” The captain turned to the group of frightened parents, skulking a safe distance away. “People, if the boy with the strange markings in his hands is not found within the hour, I will be forced to kill your children before your eyes, one by one!”

  The Sontars drew their swords, and grabbed the Gobo, ready to carry out the order in an instant.

  “Wait!" Gobo piped up. "I know who it is. It's...it's..."

  “Me," Andrew leaping from the tree, and, stepping into full view of the Sontars. “Don’t hurt him. I’m the one you’re looking for…I think.”

  “You think?”

  "Grab him!" Take him." Sontar's cried.

  Andrew was forced to his knees, with his head bent low, and his palms outstretched. The diamond marks in them cast a brilliant light over their the Sontar's vial faces, causing them to squint because of the brightness.

  “It issss him!” the captain hissed, pleasure lighting his red eyes. “We’ve found what we’ve been looking for. Chain him to the row of children. Now let’s go. The levy for this town has been collected.”

  “I don't understand,” Andrew said. "The levy? If you were just looking for me, why not let the others go."

  “What?" The Sontar laughed. "The levy encompassesss all the firssstborn. Your town did not pay . So we came and collected as we promised. You, were just a special bonus."

  The Sontar hissed, and licked his chops, looking evil and demonic. "Chain him!" The Sontar ordered. "And do not let any of them escape!"

  “No!” Andrew yelled, swinging his pack at the Sontars as they tried to chain his hands. Angry, the Sontar's ripped it away, flinging it onto the ground, jerking him violently back, chaining him to the row of children.

  “Move!” the Sontars cried, cracking a whip on Andrew’s back, causing him to gasp in pain. The children slowly trudged forward through the dark night as the frightening sounds of thunder engraved its ominous sounds into air, and flashes of purple lightning cut through the dark sky. Andrew and the rest of the children were shoved down the road where Sontars, who were still jerking children from their beds, and sons from their mothers, filled the streets. Everywhere, screams and haunting sorrowful howls assaulted their ears.

  As the line of prisoners passed by Andrew's house, he heard his mother call out to him from the porch. He could see his parents standing there in the doorway of his home, looking on, unable to do anything. Ashamed, Andrew looked down, his throat tightening with emotion. How he wished he could dig his hands through the muddy earth, and call the trees and plants to his aid. But the plants did not hear his calls for help. And he did not hear them either. The foliage life in the Hollow was unusually silent. The customary hum and gossip of the old trees that filled the hollow was hushed. Even the weed that had pestered him while he was painting had grown silent. It was as if they all had forsaken him.

  “Get moving, you ssslavess!” the Sontar guard cried, cracking his whip across the children’s backs. “Move, or taste the end of my whip!”

  Above them, thunder rumbled, and rain began pelting down in cold icy sheets. Startled back to reality, Andrew cast one last look at his parents, and was forced to moved on through what was left of the village where buildings burned, and men stood in the streets, with a look of surrender on their faces. Why was this happening? Why hadn’t the trees heard his call for help? The pack his parents had given to him was gone, mashed into the ground, the unread the scroll crumpled in the mud. In just a few hours his quiet, country life had been thrown into chaos.

  On through the night they pressed, never stopping, on into a new day, just as dreary as the day before, past the burnt town ofTromburg, and into new country that Andrew had never seen before. They were led across a grimy bridge, under which a small trickle of water flowed, to a hilly, moorish land. On all sides of them, small wildflowers grew on red dirt, and great hills and valleys spread out before them, like a royal carpet. A cool north wind blew the smell of damp earth and rain into the prisoner's nostrils.

  Andrew shivered. He was getting hungry and thirsty. The Sontars had kept them marching for so many hours he could hardly feel his feet, and he had nearly fallen asleep on his feet a dozen times. When he thought he couldn’t go on any longer, the finally Sontars called out, “Haltssss!”

  Andrew gladly slumped to the ground, exhausted. He looked at the long row of tired prisoners, and tried to comfort a small child next to him, who was crying. He rubbed the child's cold hands in his own and pulled him into a hug. In an effort to comfort the child, Andrew began singing in a low voice.

  "Some people are trying to sleep around here," Gobo growled, sitting up from the ground and clanking the chains around his arms in irritation.

  Andrew lowered his voice, and rocked the child back and forth, ignoring Gobo's stupid stare.

  “Andrew,” Freddie called few prisoners back from Andrew. “Happy Birthday, for what it's worth."

  “Yeah,” Talic chimed in, his head peering up from a row of prisoners behind Andrew. "Some Birthday,
huh."

  "Birthday?" Andrew asked. "Oh, I'd forgotten."

  Freddie glanced spitefully behind him at the Sontars. “Those grimy beast will be sorry once the army of Danspire catches up with them. I know they will never let our country stand such ill treatment.

  A Sontar who’d heard Freddie's comment, hissed in disgust. “Dansssspire is our ally, you fool! Lucky for Danspire, the new king was smart enough to agree to The Fallen's conditions of peace. Soon all other kingdoms will follow their example or pay the price.”

  “What price?”

  “Total annihilation,” the Sontar retorted. "Just as Tromberg did."

  “Some terms of peace this is,” Freddie murmured, turning his back on the Sontar.

  “Who would have ever thought,” Andrew murmured, looking around him at the vast collection of prisoners, “that we'd be slaves of serpents?”