Roots of Earth ~ A Ninjago Fanfiction

Chapter 84: The Pawreleser's Guide to Avoiding Unicorns

The trio of Pawreles fugitives eventually found a place to spend the night. Kaeden directed Kai to a small cave that sat tucked away against the rocky riverbank. The moon was setting and hints of dawn were seeping from the horizon when they found the spot and Kai landed his dragon by the dark river. Jukeni and Kaeden found themselves scrambling in midair when the dragon suddenly dissipated without a trace, and they plummeted with startled grunts while Kai landed smoothly on his feet.

"Couldn't ya give us a little warning next time?" Jukeni groaned as he stood and rubbed his backside.

"My bad," Kai replied, not bothering to hide his smirk.

Kaeden led them into the small cave tucked away into the shelf of gray rocks that made a slanted cliffside several meters tall. There the threesome attempted to make their chilly, cramped conditions a little more comfortable by kicking away pebbles and clearing away a patch of sand to bed on. The sleeping conditions were pathetic, and all of the boys shivered and rubbed their arms constantly, being only in their thin night garments. Still, there wasn't much that they could do to make themselves more comfortable. Jukeni wouldn't even allow Kai to build a fire, for fear it would give them away to Pingous soldiers and spies. He warned him there were plenty of Pingousers prowling around the villages and forests, especially now after the break-in at Stonefort.

"The military base we broke into," Kaeden clarified for Kai.

They'd settled as comfortably on the cave floor as they could when Kai asked, "I saw you guys that night, when you came back from the break-in."

"Really?" It looked like Jukeni frowned, although it was hard to tell, his face hard to see in the darkness of the cave. The only light source was from the narrow entrance, and there the blackness of night had not yet released its hold from the land.

Kai nodded, despite the boys not being able to see one another very clearly. He felt his arm brush against Kaeden's thick fur to his right, and he shifted away as much as he could. "I wanted to ask about it the next day, but Nama never gave me a chance. Did you break in the fort by yourselves?" Ever since the revelation that Kaeden and Jukeni were rebel warriors, Kai had begun regarding the two of them with something like new respect. Obviously, they were not the simple-minded farm boys he had originally assumed them to be.

"We had our teammates with us," Jukeni explained. "There were about a dozen of all altogether that night. You'll meet them when we get to Tinny."

"What about the documents?" Kai persisted. "Where are they? Jukeni, you kept them with you. That means they're still at the house..."

"Nope," Jukeni responded triumphantly. His silhouette shifted and bent over, and after a few moments the crinkling of paper could be heard. "I've had it with me the whole time."

"In his pants," Kaeden clarified with mild amusement.
"Nice. You might wanna wash those before you hand them to your boss," Kai deadpanned.

Jukeni huffed, "They were in a secret pocket."

"What's so special about these documents, anyway?"

"They're information and blueprints of all the neighboring military bases in this province, but the most important of them is of Lord Hälogen's castle in Jämlen," Kaeden responded. "His estate was originally built by the Pawreles provinces centuries ago. Back then, nearly every castle was equipped with secret passages, tunnels in and out of the castle, and sometimes even traps for invaders. They were mostly made for the royal families or high officials, which means—if we know where the right passages are—we could enter a tunnel that leads straight into the heart of the castle."