Alliance

Chapter 12: Shadows

Chapter 12: Shadows

~§~ Lady Sif ~§~

Sif stared in disbelief at the pile of clothing. What had happened to Tyr? She had not

known him of course, but it startled her to see him killed so abruptly, or had he been

killed? Had he been real? She moved her gaze to look at Katirya. Had the woman

killed him to silence him or was she telling the truth?

Confusion ruled within the chamber. The fact that there were intruders was the first

problem. This was compounded by the addition of the fact that they were

Cartherions, led by one of the Thirteen. Sif tried to make sense of it.

The silence was ended with a roar from Thor as he ran across the room to grab

Katirya. "GUARDS!" The city guards along with the Warriors Three entered the room

just as Thor closed in on Katirya. He reached out to grab her only to run through her.

Loki laughed. "When are you going to stop falling for that trick?"

Thor whirled to face Loki. "Seriously? Where is she then? Can you find her?"

Loki shrugged and began to look around the room. Sif noticed that he paused longer,

looking intently into one corner more than other areas of the room. She followed his

gaze, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"She's gone and so is the Tesseract! Guard the doors and sound the alarm!" Volstagg

shouted causing everyone to start shouting as they looked around the room for

Katirya. "She cannot have gotten past us!"

The guards had closed in on the Cartherion intruders, trying to force them towards a

corner of the room. The Cartherions were not so willing to accept defeat and started

to push back at their captors. They raised swords and began to shout at the guards

as they engaged them in battle. Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral left the doorway and

joined in the melee. Eight of the Thirteen had split off, moving to reinforce the

Cartherions when Thor raised his hammer and crashed it to the floor with another

roar. Stunned, all the combatants stopped. Thor turned to face the four remaining of

the Thirteen who had not moved to join the scuffle. "Where is your Queen?"

Mythean shook his head. "I do not know, but she is still near."

"She cannot have escaped; we were in the doorway until the argument started. Then

we all came in, but the doorway was still blocked." Sif finally spoke up. She knew

there had not been any opportunity for someone to get through the group that had

crowded through the doors. The child she had been protecting suddenly wrenched

his body out of her grasp and raced towards the door, only to fall when one of the

guards tripped him and scooped him up to hold him tightly. Screaming and kicking,

the boy tried to escape.

"Well, she clearly is not in here and the Tesseract is gone! She lied and came here