Chapter 51 - Chapter 51: The Letter - Interlude - Part 2

Chapter 51: The Letter – Interlude – Part ‘Damn, where is he.’

Lyrika started to push her way through the crowd, bumping into what felt like everyone in the village. The response she got as she tried to move past people was filled with annoyed grunts and words as the cat-kin tried to push them out of the way.

She ended up deep in the crowd, almost in the middle of it and it felt like it just went on forever. As she was about to despair that she would never find him in the mess of bunched-up people, she heard his voice again.

“Ok everyone. You know what the horn means, so no one is allowed to leave the village. The entrance to the village has been closed and only village guards will be able to exit the village until the monster is dealt with. Now, I want you all to remain calm while we deal with this threat.”

Looking up above the crowd as best she could, she saw Teagan standing on a platform and giving this speech. Once that was done, he headed down and followed the guards that were heading towards the entrance, talking to them as he did.

‘I need to go after him.’

Pushing through everyone, she finally made it out of the crowd and continued down the path where she eventually came across Teagan and the guards. She headed towards them, only to be stopped by a few of them that were stationed to block the way.

“I’m sorry, no one but guards and the chief is allowed beyond this point. This is for your own safety. I would ask you to head back into the centre of the village and wait out the monster attack.”

“No, this-this is important. I need to talk to Teagan. It’s about-”

“Teagan?” He replied looking surprised that someone was being so formal with the chief. “I’m sorry miss, but you need to head back. I’m sure you think whatever you have to say is important, but we need to deal with this monster first. It can wait.”

“No, it can’t. Just let me through.”

“Look it’s clear to see you have a thing for him given how informal you are with his name, many girls do the same, but he has more important things to deal with than needing to reject some random girl’s advances.”

Lyrika just ended up speechless after that, her mouth gaping open as she could believe this guard’s assumptions. As much as she wanted to retort about that, she realised that could wait as getting to the chief to inform him of Olivia was more important.

She broke herself out of her shock, but before she could say anything else, two other guards appeared and took her by the arms carrying her back into the centre of the village as she yelled for them to let go, before they deposited her with the rest of the villagers.

‘Damn, what do I do now.’

Watching the guards head back, she followed them as stealthily as she could, hiding behind buildings and shrubbery as best she could. As far as she could see, with the lines of houses, guards were along the only paths that could be taken to reach the entrance to the village. As she had seen before, the tightly packed houses meant there was no way to just squeeze past them, so she realised she only had one other option.

Finding the shortest house she could in the line, she got to climbing.

With all the rest of the village in the centre, there was thankfully no one around to see her do this.

The stone and wooden structure was not perfectly flat on the sides, which mean handholds were easy to find. It was, however, quite the chore and struggle to climb the structure. After a couple of slips, she manages to make it onto the thatched roof, where she needed to keep her footing on the areas where the wooden beams were, lest she make a grand entrance into someone’s living space.

With her needing to tightrope walk, more or less, across the building, she made it to the other side and climbed back down. Having accomplished that, she was now on the other side that the guards had closed off. She then headed across and stuck near to the houses as she moved down the path towards the entrance.

She managed to slip past the guards that had stopped her before, and now all that lie ahead of her was the large hardwood double door. On either side of the door, guards were on the wall, thankfully looking outwards. The only problem now was how to actually get on the other side of it.

Making her way over to the door, she did try to move it herself but very quickly realised she couldn’t budge it at all. It was then that she noticed, the massive beam of wood that locked it in place, but realised couldn’t move that either when she tried to lift it. So, with the front door not being an option, she headed past it and made her way up onto the wall.

If she couldn’t go through it, she would have to just go over it.

Sneaking her way up, she managed to get past the guard by the entrance, and then quickly dashed along it. Finding a reasonably short in height section of the wall, she hoped over the wooden poles of that acted as a railing, and slowly shimmied her way down it.

Things were going well…until.

“Hey, stop. What are you doing?!” was spoken by one of the nearby guards on the wall as he noticed her climbing down the wall. “Get back up here, there’s a monster on the loose.”

She paid no attention to him. Not even when he himself hopped over the wall and made his way down in order to catch her.

The wall was quite tall even on this smaller section, but she finally made it to the ground, and after a quick search, she found where all the guards had gathered, and so headed towards them. As she neared it she saw what they were surrounding. A large barn. Simple in design, but apparently sturdy, as she saw several men hacking away at the door to it with their swords and hammers.

‘Ok, got to find the chief quickly.’

It thankfully didn’t take her too long to find the man, him being taller than everyone else around him, so she sped up and dashed towards him. The guard that had followed her over the wall, had made it to the ground and was headed after her, shouting as he did. His voice soared through the air and caught the attention of the guards around Teagan, turning their attention to her.

As she made her final approach, the guards dashed forward and held her back.

“Miss, I’m sorry but you can’t be here.”

“No, you don’t understand. I need to talk to-” Looking up she saw Teagan who was now looking at her, so with a last-ditch effort she called out to him. “Chief Teagan! I need to talk to you. It will explain everything that is happening.”

He looked like he was going to just roll his eyes and tell his men to send her away. To him, dealing with the monster was more important than some cat-kins nonsense request. But before he could, Lyrika spoke up again.

“There’s an Orc in there isn’t there.” The single sentence got his attention, causing him to turn back to her. Reaching inside her pocket, she pulled out the letter she had been holding onto and held it. “This letter is from Yoban and will explain about the Orc.”

She could see him mouth the words, ‘How can Yoban explain an Orc being here’, but she had peaked enough of his interest that he ordered the guards to let her go.

Quickly heading over to him, she handed him the letter, to which he opened quickly. She was going to say something herself, but figured her word wouldn’t be enough to persuade him, so she let him read the letter.

His brow shifted all over the place as he read through it, trying to understand what his friend Yoban was saying. Lyrika didn’t know what was in the letter but figured he must have spoken of the attack on the village and the struggles they had been through. While he was still continuing to read through the letter, Lyrika noticed that the guards had managed to break down the door to the barn.

He obviously wasn’t going to stop dealing with the potentially dangerous monster, because some odd cat-kin had told him to, so the plan to take it out was still ongoing. But as he read through the letter, he realised that he needed to stop his men.

“Stop!”

He shouted out to all the men around him once he had finished the letter. The men that had all started to head into the barn froze in their movements, and silence was all that could be heard.

Now, all Lyrika could hope was that she had made it in time and that Olivia was fine.

“Everyone, stand down.”

On the final words of the chief, he beckoned her forward and so she headed into the barn and called out to the woman that had saved her and changed her life.