Journeys in Myyttinen

Chapter Four

The land was a skeleton of the beautiful place it once was. The grass was dried up and the plants dead. The streets were cracked and the buildings falling apart. People scurried from place to place with their heads down, not speaking or making eye contact with the others. Ogres patrolled the streets occasionally grabbing people and dragging them away. In the distance a castle rose up. It still held most of it's former glory, but the whole thing was covered in a layer of ash. Outside of the castle, guarding it, were knights in black armor with glowing red eyes: demons. A dragon circled the roof spitting fire occasionally. Small fires were sparkling all over the remains of the City of Aika.

Inside of the castle, a woman stood by a window staring out into the ruins with a crooked smile. She is dressed in a long, black dress and had straight, black hair. She turns and speaks to a crowd of monsters behind her:

"The heirs are in Myyttinen. We must find all three. The first has remained hidden from us for some time now, but the second two were seen flying on the back of a phoenix toward the Winter Land. Send yetis there first thing. We must find them and stop them. We hold some strength over them with the former queen, but it may not be enough, do you understand?"

The crowd muttered there understanding and began to leave the room when a hooded figure stepped forward. The person spoke in a gruff voice to the queen.

"My lady, we need to take them alive. According to the prophecy, they are the chosen ones, need I remind you?"

The woman sighed and repeated the message to the hoard of monsters before dismissing them again. Now alone in the room, the hooded figure walked towards the woman.

"Queen Desdemona, you understand how important this girls are to us, correct?" The hooded figure figure hissed at her.

The queen drew herself up to her full height and spat, "I believe you are forgetting I am your queen. Undermine again and I will make sure that you won't survive another day, do you understand?"

The hooded figure bent it's head, "I understand. It won't happen again."

I woke up in a cold sweat. The dream had been so vivid. The queen, the monsters, the hooded figure. The hooded figure! It was the same one who had taken my mother! They had mentioned her too and us. What could it mean? I climbed out of bed and glanced out the window while I was getting dressed. It was still dark out, we might still have time. If my dream was real, they would be sending yetis and personally, I didn't feel like dealing with yetis. I ran out of my room and knocked on Helen's and Hermione's.

"What?" Hermione grumbled still half asleep as Helen stumbled out of her room.

I explained to the dream I had, had and how we should leave then.

"Look," I finished, "I don't know if it's real or not, but I'd rather not find out."

Helen ran towards me and grabbed my hand, "I don't want yetis, Cassie!"

Hermione nodded, "I agree, let's go grab some supplies and get out of here. If we take Ignis, my phoenix, we'll be long gone by the time they get here."

We hurried through the halls to the kitchen where we filled backpacks full of food, water, and other supplies. The initial shock of the nightmare had begun to wear off and I had begun to doubt it's authenticity. Except, something about the hooded figure continued to bug me. It-him-had something familiar about him. I shook it out of my head and followed Hermione and Helen to the armory.

"Here," Hermione said, tossing me a blade about the size of my forearm. The handle had a Latin engraving : solum usum habili, ut dignum dilecto fortitudo. Only the worthy may wield my true strength.

Hermione then threw Helen a small dagger before picking up a sword and turning to face us, "Cassie, your blade's name is Salvator or Savior and Helen, your blade is Fortis Lacob, the mighty one. Mine," She said flipping her sword over in her hand, "is Hiberno Laetissima Erinys: Winter's Fury. Mom made me study Latin when I was younger because most of our blades have Latin names."

I shook my head, "Why Salvator? I'm no savior."

Hermione looked at my out of the corner of her eye, "We'll talk later, right now we should get moving."

She then proceeded to lead us to the stables where she kept Ignis, but halfway across the snowy courtyard we found trouble in a towering seventeen foot yeti. Let me tell you, this thing was ugly. It's white hair was matted and snarly. The teeth it barred were brown and crooked and it's eyes were little black specks in it's face. I glanced at Hermione who shrugged and nodded signally that we would have to fight.

"Helen!" I shouted, "Get to the stables!"

Helen nodded and skirted around the yeti while Hermione and I dove at it. She slashed at it's huge legs while I stabbed one of its hands. The yeti roared and swatted Hermione away, sending her into a wall where she landing in a heap. I felt panic itching to overthrow me, but I knew I had to keep fighting. I dove at it again, but this time it grabbed me with its ginormous paw and brought me eye level. It smashed its teeth together and grinned. I screamed and leaped towards its face where I buried my blade into it's eye. It clawed at my, but I evaded it and stabbed out the other eye, something I had learned from the phoenix. I then jumped off of it into a nearby snow drift, gasping for breath.

The yeti was spinning in circles and yelling. I rolled over and spotted an ax leaned up against the stable door. Perfect. I grabbed it and charged the yeti, burying the ax into the creature's leg. Jumping out of the way of the brute's paws, I repeated this action several times until the yeti toppled over in pain. I threw the ax aside and gripped my blade, running across the yeti's stomach to its head. I lifted my blade into the air and with a shout of "Vestra frui mihi moram facias in Inferno!" I buried the blade into the creature's bloody eye socket, upwards, until it stopped moving.

"Holy crap, Cassandra! Where'd you learn to fight?!" Hermione exclaimed, appearing at my side, rubbing her head.

"I didn't!" I replied as we ran towards the stables.

We found Helen waiting for us on Ignis and quickly climbed on after her. As the phoenix climbed higher into the sky, we could hear the roars of more yetis, finding there comrade dead. I smiled to myself. Maybe I was this "savior" after all.