Tales of Minecraft: The Curse (Remake)

23: The Deserter

Alex's POV
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, OW JADE! Careful!"

"Sorry Alex," Jade apologised. He tied the bandage a little looser around my ankle and then sat back with a sigh. "I'm not trained to be a medic."

I critically examined the bandage. Jade had wiped off the blood from my ankle before tying the bandage on it, but it still hurt. "It'll do," I said, trying to make Jade feel better.

It must have worked because he grinned and helped me to stand up. I tried to put a little weight on my ankle as I stood. It hurt, but not as bad as it did a few hours ago. Jade helped me hobble over to the little fire that we had burning in the centre of our temporary camp. We didn't have any canvas for a covering or stuff, but we were in a little clearing in the middle of a forest, so I guess that we were partly sheltered by the leaves.

Tim was sharpening his axe, which had been dented by the endermen. Zip was sitting next to the fire, cross-legged, just staring at the flames as they danced. Luke was in the forest, collecting more wood for the fire. And partly keeping an eye out for Fury. She had walked off into the forest as soon as the portal from the End had spat us out here, in the middle of nowhere. Zip had told us what had happened, and we were all worried about her. She had left both of her swords here in their sheaths and a small backpack that she had somehow kept with her the whole time, so she had to come back at some point to get them.

We had taken off our diamond armour and had laid them out to one side, but close enough so that they couldn't be taken. I found myself looking for Wolf. Although he was small and didn't make a lot of noise, I was used to seeing him run around, sniffing at random objects and getting tangled up in our legs. But he wasn't here. He had been left behind. And we had had no choice, I knew that.

Jade help me limp over to the fire. Luke came out of the forest just as I was sitting down and he crouched next to me, putting the wood down next to the fire.

"I couldn't find Fury," he said quietly, but loud enough so that Jade, Zip and I could hear it.

"I hope she's okay," Jade said. He looked up at the setting sun as he said it.

"She won't be okay," Zip muttered. "Far from it."

We heard footsteps behind us and we spun around. Fury was striding in from the forest. She very purposely didn't make eye contact with any of us. She picked up both her swords from the ground and strapped them to her back.

"Where are you going?" Tim asked.

Fury kept her eyes on her strap as she tightened it. "I'm leaving," she said shortly, picking up her backpack and putting it between her two back-sheaths.

"What?" Zip scrambled up. "Why? Where would you go?"

"I'm going home," she said in an angry voice. "And you know why." At this, she gave Zip a pointed and furious glare.

"Fury, you can't go," Zip insisted. "We don't know where we are, you'll get lost or killed."

"I won't get hurt," Fury growled. "And I don't care. I'll find my way home. But I'm not staying here."

She turned to walk away, her brown plaited hair flicking behind her. Zip dashed up to her, grabbing her left wrist, her mouth opening to ask Fury to stay again. Faster than my eyes could track, Fury drew her sword with her right hand, held it in a backwards grip and swung it at Zip. Zip hurriedly dropped her hand and stumbled back, but not before Fury's sword at cut a thin, red line in her cheek. We all froze, Zip staring, her face blank, at Fury while Fury glared at Zip.

"I can't believe I trusted any of you," she said. "I should have let you all die to that Elite Skeleton."

She walked away, her back straight and stiff, her sword still in a backwards grip in her right hand. The trees swallowed her up quickly, but her bright blue jacket was visible for quite some time as she walked out of our lives forever.

----------------------------------

"Okay, I did not see that one coming, I'll admit."

"Luke, not helping."

"Sorry."

Zip wiped her face with the wet cloth one more time and then spread it next to the coals of the fire. It was fully dark now. Fury had been gone for just over an hour, and yet I still expected her to walk back and act like nothing had happened.

"We need to keep moving," Zip said in a firm voice. "We've got the Ender Crystal, all we need now is the glowstone and then we can make that potion. The next step is the Nether."

"But how do we make the potion?" I asked.

"The bag, Tim. Please."

Tim grabbed the leather bag that held the ingredients for the potion and handed it to Zip. She reached in and took out the piece of paper that had all the instructions.

"It says we need to go to the 'centre' to make the potion," she read. "But I have no idea what the centre is."

"Maybe..." Tim reached into the bag as well and took out another piece of paper. When he unfolded it, I saw that it was the map that Luke had found.... A day ago? Two days? I've lost track of time since we've been to the End. Tim was looking at the map, running his finger lightly over the paper when he suddenly stopped.

"Here," he said, putting the map on the ground so that we all could see. We crowded around. His finger was hovering over a word that said 'CENTRE' in capital letters, right over a mountain.

"That's great," Jade said. "But where are we?"

"In a forest in the middle of nowhere," Luke said. Then he sighed. "I know, not helpful, but I have no filter between my brain and my mouth, okay?"

"We'll have to look for landmarks in the morning," Zip said. "We can't see anything in the dark, and even if we could, we can't move around during the night. So we'll have to wait."

With that said, we headed to bed. We had no bedrolls or anything, so we had to make do with settling down on the softest log we could find. I didn't bother trying to find a log and just lay down on my arms. Tim took the first watch of the night, his axe resting beside him as he sat near the treeline. I thought I would never get to sleep with the slight throbbing in my ankle and the light of the fire, but I fell asleep as soon as my eyes shut.

I was standing in that dark room again, with the desk in front of me. The chair was still turned around and I still couldn't see the man who sat on it.

"So," he said in his low voice. "You and your friends have killed the Ender Dragon, and the only thing to show for it is your hurt ankle."

I tried to move but like before, my body wouldn't listen. I tried to say that Wolf had died fighting the Dragon, it wasn't just my hurt ankle, but I couldn't speak.

"Well, we can't have you injured when you're so close to the end," the man said. He didn't seem to move, but I felt my injured ankle suddenly heat up like it had been dipped in hot water. "We will meet soon my pawn. Just be patient."

Chapter in original book: 28 and first part of 29