Tales of Minecraft: The Curse (Remake)

18: The Axe

Alex's POV
Running softly down the dark, stone corridors, I looked around nervously, ready to jump out of the way of the many zombies coming towards me, terrified that someone would see my shadow cast by the scarcely burning torches. I glanced into rooms as I passed them, seeing zombies doing the weirdest things: lounging in an indoor pool (or sinking, as some were), staring blankly at various objects, betting on chicken races and so on. Reaching the end of that corridor, I peeked around the next one that looked exactly the same. I groaned inwardly. For all I knew, I could have been going around in circles. And I could only have about seven minutes left to find the Zombie King's Axe and get out.

I silently dashed down that corridor, panic starting to take control. I turned blindly down passages, left, right, left, left, almost crashing into a zombie that was hurrying along with a stack of books in his arms. I barely managed to dodge him, my shoulder hitting the wall. My hiss of pain was mercifully covered by a sudden roar.

"MORE! MORE FOOD! WHERE IS THE SILLY PAGE?"

The zombie in front of me gave a little squeak of terror and hurried along, the books bouncing in his arms. Out of instinct, I followed him. He dashed into a room. I peeked my head around the door frame, trying to minimise any shadow I might cast. Dominating the room was a large wooden banquet table set in the middle (the zombie page was putting the books down here before backing out of the room), and the banquet table was dominated by a large chair at the opposite end, in which sat a zombie with a heavy gold crown on his head and a considerable girth. If it wasn't obvious by the servant zombies running around, bringing plates full of food to the table and carrying away plates with scraps of food left on them through a side door, then it was obvious by the crown. This zombie was the Zombie King.

"But.... sir- my king....we sh-should be getting ready," a zombie babbled to the king, ducking under a plate that went sailing over his head.

"READY FOR WHAT AGAIN?" the king yelled even though the zombie was right at his elbow. Clearly, the guy was drunk.

"The trip to the c-castle m'lord. The site of the curse."

"OH YES, THAT'S RIGHT!" The king (with tremendous effort) got up out of his throne and stumbled out of the room, a large wooden tankard in his hand with dark liquid sloshing out of it. I stepped back from the doorframe as he fell into it and he started walking down the corridor, singing some sort of old song as he went.

The zombie made a sharp gesture to one of the servant zombies, who ran up to him and bowed. "Pack food and drink, enough for one week, for your lord's trip to the Eastern Nether," the zombie said crisply before walking out of the room, taking the books from the table with him.

The servant quickly talked to the rest of the servants and they efficiently cleaned the room and left to the kitchen via the side door which they closed behind them. I breathed a sigh of relief and cautiously tiptoed into the room. If the Zombie King had been here, then maybe his Axe was here too. It was a small chance, but right now I had about five minutes left, so I was taking it. I walked around the table, looking underneath it, walked around the throne, even looked behind the tapestries. The Axe wasn't here.

A clunk came from behind me and I spun around, my heart in my mouth, terrified that I had been spotted, even with the invisibility potion. But all it was was a strange weapon that seemed to have fallen down from its upright position against the wall next to the door. The weapon had a handle long enough and fat enough for a war hammer, with a massive sharpened chunk of steel at one end that resembled a crude axe head. The head shimmered with a slight purple glow that I recognised as an enchantment, like the one my bow had one it.

"You can't be telling me that that is the King's Axe," I muttered to myself, seeing how crude the weapon was.

But it was an axe (however badly made it was) and it was enchanted and it was sitting in the throne room, so I picked it up and sneaked out of the room. Half of the job done, half to go, with four minutes left of the invisibility potion. I held the Axe close to me in a fruitless effort to hide it, but if any zombie turned the corner right now, they would easily see it. Which meant that I couldn't go back the way I had come. Which meant going down random corridors hoping to find the way out. I started running softly, just wanting to get out and silently yelling at Zip and Fury in my head for making me do this.