Part 2 Chapter 47
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Nessie gracefully floated in sky with ease, the warm breeze below us carried her graceful frame through the air.
Once in the sky I looked down at the Alyzzea's house below us.
I saw that the exterior had been painted black with white trimmings around its boarders.
Five towers rose up from its roof into the heavens and all five of their peaks looked sharp enough to impale a dragon and its two riders.
For a brief second I could've sworn I saw a figure standing on one of the pointy towers but I blinked and it was gone.
The rest of the land surrounding the house was consumed by a lush thick forest below. The canopy was so think that one could not see the ground from the air. The trees were split only by a lonely road that wound itself into the night.
Something moving in the darkness on that very same road caught my eye. Whatever it was, there were several of it and they were large. The unidentified objects lumbered forward surprisingly gracefully for something of their size. I counted thirteen of the mysterious things.
"Hey Henry, looked down there at the road. Are those...what do you call them... tanks?"
Henry looked down,"Yeah I think, I guess we discovered what Alyzzea and her cult friends were riding in," Henry said, but his voice sounded worried. We surpassed them, only for Nessie to turn around and circle back so we were behind them once again
"What's wrong?" I asked while Nessie once again circled above the tanks ambling up the narrow road.
"I'm not sure why they would need such highly armored vehicles, unless wherever we are going, it's going to be rough getting there."
"Well at least we have Nessie to help if things got rough. But I don't think Alyzzea would have let Arnold travel their on his clay doll if it was that dangerous," I pointed out.
"I don't think that little dwarf bag gave them much of a choice. He practically ran out the door, after stealing the location. For being as smart as he is, he really doesn't think sometimes."
"Didn't we just kind of practically run out the door to go ride on Nessie?" I asked and unscrewed the lid of the bottle. I brought the bottle to my mouth and took a small gulp. I winced again at the burning sensation in my throat.
"No," Henry replied. "I had discussed it carefully with her while you were passed out on the couch.
She wasn't exactly thrilled with us traveling separately but I made it very clear she didn't really have a choice, especially since she didn't even know how her and her cult friends were getting to the place this ritual is occurring at.
She did make me promise we would stay close to her. "
"Oh I see."
We rode in comfortable silence for what seemed like half an hour.
I continued to sip on green liquid and Henry continued flying Nessie in continuous circles around the tanks.
Eventually the forest thinned out to fields, and the fields gave way to what appeared to be a little town, but no light emanated from any of the houses or buildings.
Something suddenly caught my eye and caused me to jerk out of the relaxed trance I had fallen under."Hey, Henry what is that?" I asked, pointing to the ground. I could see lots of movement on the road up in front of the tanks.
"Fire!" Henry suddenly commanded and instantly a plum of fire billowed out of Nessie's mouth. What it illuminated made me gasp in horror.
There had to be at least a hundred drooling people milling around in the road in front of the tank. When the tank came into what I guess was their view, they began to slowly lumber towards it.
"We have to warn them!" I cried frantically, squeezing his shoulders hard from behind.
"We couldn't possibly warn them in time," Henry said calmly. "We can help them a little..."
"Henry give me that two way talky thing!" I cried, and reached for the black box that was secured around Henry's waist. I had no idea how to use it, but I bet I could force Henry to tell me how.
"Hey, cut that out you're-"
I had managed to free the radio from his belt, but I didn't have a good grip on it and it clumsily tumbled out of my hand, and it was losted to the night. Panic instantly bubbled in my brain.
"Oh my gods, now we can't warn them they aren't going to be able to get through-" I began but stopped when I saw that the tanks were already on the drooling people.
I watched in slight horror while the tanks plowed over the drooling people and left behind a bunch of mangled bodies in their wake.
It was at that moment that Nessie's fire went out
"Well that's one way to do it," Henry said, but his voice sounded uneasy.
"There had to be a better than that!" I cried, repulsed. "Some of those people could have been returned to normal!" I remembered when I had originally restored some of the souls. Some of those people walked away, well mostly ran away, alive.
"Not when time is of the essence. You heard what she said, you have to accomplish this before the sun can comes up."
Than another thought occurred to me, "Henry...how do you think Arnold got through those on his dolls?"
From below us, I could hear unearthly moans and sounds of breaking bones, while the tank continue to drive over the drooling people. That sound alone made me yearn for my 400 years of silence.
"I'm not sure, but I guess we find out when we reach the location," Henry said. "Or maybe not..."
"What do you mean?
I asked, than my eyes spotted some of Arnold's dolls scampering onto the tanks. One doll had a tiny figure on one of its shoulders.
"Good he's safe," I breathed a sigh of relief. "If something happens to him, than someone would definitely have to be sacrificed."
"Ha, serves him right that he messed up and had to be rescued!
" Henry gloated. "But not sure why he had to be pulled into the tank just now.
The herd of those things are thinning out, so he could of easily of gotten though, if his current clay dolls are anything like the ones I saw him create before this past year of training with your dad. "
I felt a small stab in my heart at the mention of my dad. His memory was going to be a painful one to me for a long time, and maybe for the rest of my life, however long that life may be.
But Henry was right about the drooling people.
Sure enough, I could see less and less drooling people in front of the tanks.
The drooling people that hadn't been crushed, were slowly pursuing the tanks, but they were falling more and more behind, and soon they would be so far away, that they would be out of sight.
Abruptly several tall beams of light appeared in the distance. They moved in a rhythmic back and forth motion.
"What is making those lights up ahead?" I asked, both curious and a little uneasy about their presence.
"If we still had the two way radio, we might be able to ask."
"Okay you know what, enough. It was an accident okay."
"Just stating a fact," Henry grumbled.
"Son of a witch!"
"What!?" I asked alarmed, then I saw it.
If I thought there had been a lot of drooling people on the road back there, I certainly wasn't prepared for this new cluster.
There was a sea of them now, and when we got closer, I saw that they seemed to be all congregated around one square portion of land were the lights were coming from.
The rectangular portion of land was about the size of two tackle ball fields, and seemed to be blocked off on all four sides by a great steal wall.
All four of its sides were surrounded by a swarm of that was at least thirty drooling people deep.
The beams were coming from somewhere within the iron wall, which had an iron mesh ceiling which soulless soldiers in their blood red uniforms and soulless soldiers in mismatched clothing crawled. Their awkward moving bodies were lit by the lights beaming high into the sky.
"That's the place, Violet," Henry said.
"That's the place Alyzzea wanted us to go to do the ritual? How do you know that's the place?"
"It was in my one of my visions a long time ago, never knew what it was until now though. Whatever happens next... it is defiantly going to happen in there."
"Oh I forgot sometimes that you have visions of the future."
"How could you forget I could see into the future?"
"Okay let's try and forget I just said that-"
" I'm sure you won't have to try."
"Anyways," I said changing the subject, "How are the tanks going to get through all those drooling people!? They can't flatten all of them over, can they? Actually, never mind them, how are we going to get in?"
"Again if we had the two way radio..."
Like most of my questions, except the ones I asked in the math of magic, my question was soon answered.
The tanks were almost at the drooling people, whom were now very aware of the tanks presence and were moving towards them.
The front of the fenced in area abruptly opened up slightly in the middle, and a long and thick metal pole shot into the sea of drooling people, impaling several of them.
Then, the pole separated into two skinnier poles, and one of the parts swept the drooling people to one side, while the other swept them to the other, until there was a clear path down the center.
The tanks drove down this newly cleared path and just before they reached the end the gates of the caged in area opened wide enough for the tanks to drive through.
And drive through they did, all thirteen of them.
The entrance of the iron gate began to close and the iron poles became one again.
Afterwards, it began to retract back from which it had emerged.
"Hold on tightly," Henry said to me, right before he sent Nessie into a sharp nose dive, that made my stomach flip, and tested my ability to keep my eyes open. We just barely made it between the gap in the door, before it closed with a clang behind us.
I had just enough time to witness a bunch of people scurrying about the tanks below us, before Henry attempted to land Nessie. We were almost on the ground, before, for the second time that day, I was throne off a dragon.