Alice

24. Battle

24. Battle

Nothing happened. I felt the touch of the blade, but it didn't hurt. I could still see Jack, his eyes were still wide open, still bright and blue. I could still feel my heart pounding. I could still hear, too: there was this bizarre roaring sound. Like a mob of people shouting at once.

Multiple things hit me at once: For whatever reason, I was still alive. This could mean that the axe was fake and that it couldn't cut anything at all, which was ridiculous. Of course it was a real axe. It looked just like one. Another option was that somehow I was immortal and could not be killed. That one was so crazy, I almost laughed out loud. So, that left only one option: something had happened that stopped the guards from lowering the axe hard enough to kill us.

I looked up and discovered that everyone was looking at something far to my right.

Built into the wall there was a tunnel that connected the arena with the outside world. Standing half in, half out of it was a crowd of people/creatures. And at the very front of them was Brokk.

He'd rounded up every citizen he could find. There were hundreds of animals, people, animal-people, and creatures. I recognized the Mad Hatter (who stood tall and straight, looking proud to be there and ready to take down the Queen) and the March Hare (who looked extremely nervous) standing in the crowd. The Cheshire Cat floated in the air next to Brokk, a wide grin on his face. I even saw the Blue Caterpillar amongst the crowd. In no less than ten minutes, Brokk had brought together half of Wonderland. I was astonished. It hadn't been my imagination; there really was a host of people who wanted to overthrow the Queen.

Jack and I stood up, trying to get a better look at the miracle that had occurred. The crowd sitting in the stands at the top of the arena all did the same.

"You did it, Brokk," I whispered, more to myself than to him.

I looked up, eager to see the Queen's reaction. I was rewarded. Her face changed color and expression: pale and shocked to white and disbelieved to purple and outraged to tomato red and furious.

"WHAT"S THIS?!" she screeched.

Brokk looked in Jack and my direction. Relief crossed his face when he saw that he hadn't been too late; we were both still alive. Then, he took a breath and said in a strong and determined voice, "We are here to fight for freedom!"

The Queen laughed, somewhat nervously. Then she glared down at Brokk. "Watch yourself, Rabbit. Or you could end up right alongside your friends," she warned him, gesturing to us. Brokk just glared back at her.

I was proud of him, and I wanted to stand beside him. So, I took a step towards him. That simple action set off chaos. The guard holding the axe that should have killed me grabbed my arm to stop me. I tried to free myself, unsuccessfully. Jack grabbed the guard's sword and cut off the chains around his wrist. I saw the guard behind him draw his own weapon.

"Jack, look out!" I cried. Jack whirled around just in time to block the very slash that would have killed him.

"Brokk, toss me a sword!" I called. What, you didn't think I was going to just watch a duel, did you?

Brokk pulled one out from his sheath and tossed it to me. It actually flipped through the air, just like in the movies. And yes, I caught the hilt in midair.

Quickly, I sliced through my restraints. Then I knocked the weaponless guard to the ground and turned around to help Jack. However, I couldn't, because already reinforcement soldiers were closing in on me. They seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and I had my hands full warding them off. I looked over just long enough to see Brook's crowd of citizens pulling out all kinds of weapons: torches, butter knives, clubs, pitchforks, scissors, pillows, clocks, and rope. Some even had a few real swords. I also saw other people leaving their spectators' seats above and running down the steps into the arena. They pulled items out of their pockets and wielded them as clubs and swords. Some just had their bare hands. Together with Brook's group, there seemed to be thousands of them.