The Ævislåvia Chronicles

The Assault in Africa

When Luke returned to his mountain home, he found the place in ruins. Paper and clothes were flung everywhere and his shelving units had all been flung down. But that wasn't the worst of it.

The back of the house had been completely blasted apart. There was debris everywhere. Loose bricks and countless shards of glass were scattered all over the place and there were small fires spread around the gaping hole in the wall. He had just about lost his cool by then when he saw a person clad in black and yellow running and stumbling down the mountain. This time, though, he didn't immediately reach for his bow, as he usually would have done. Instead, he ran back to the front of the building where his horse was lazily snuffling around, jumped on its back, and rode quickly in pursuit of the stranger.

Wait a second, Luke thought to himself. I don't need to try and catch them. I just need to follow them without them realising what I'm doing. This way, I can find out where they're going and report back to the army, and get them to charge them.

Luke rode quickly back to the house to see if his old rotary dial phone had been trashed. Thankfully, it seemed to have been spared the worst of the blast, having fallen off the table onto a thick, soft rug. He picked it up, put it on the slightly uneven table it had previously sat on, fiddled with the dial, and held the receiver to his ear.

"Good evening, Chief General of the Ævski army speaking," replied a faint yet clear voice. "Please state your purpose, and don't waste my time."

"You don't tell me what to do, General," snapped Luke.

The voice on the other end of the line spluttered and gasped for a while, until he regained control enough to respond, "I'm awfully sorry, sir, I did not realise it was you. What can I do for you?"

"Somebody has just searched and then bombed my mountain home in the Bavarian Alps. Find somebody who knows everything I hold in my house to come up here right away to see if there is anything important missing. In the meantime, stay on full alert. I will call again shortly."

"Yes, sir, send one knowledgeable soldier to your home and stay on full alert," the slightly stunned General recited at once. "But sir, may I ask–"

"No, you may not," said Luke, rather sharply. "Get on with your orders at once."

Luke hung up and looked back out of the gap in the back wall. The yellow and black clad soldier was just disappearing from view. Luke ran back to his now rather grumpy horse and rode out to where the soldier was fading into the distance.

* * *

Three hours later, the fading sunlight made it increasingly difficult to follow the mysterious figure. Luke found himself crossing the Germany-Austria border, into a little town called Hallein. He passed a set of rather shabby looking shops and markets, and the light gleaming from inside them illuminated certain sections of the road ahead of him, making it easier to follow the shifty, yellow armoured being. He saw his quarry duck into a pitch black alleyway and disappear from view. What had made him vanish like that?

Just in case, Luke dismounted from his horse and crept into the alley on foot. He looked around cautiously, silently. There were faint scuffling sounds coming from the end of the alleyway, behind what looked like a stack of cardboard boxes. Luke was about to confront the stranger, but stopped just short of shouting into the darkness. He decided to creep back out of the alley and hide behind the corner until the figure came back out. When he did, about a minute later, he ran over a nearby bridge, showing no sign of noticing his stalker. Luke snuck back round the corner into the alley and rushed up to the pile of boxes. However, the boxes were all empty, so he decided to look around the boxes, as he had seen the stranger doing something behind them. But, there was absolutely nothing in front of, to the side of, or behind the boxes. Whatever it was the strange figure had been doing, it wasn't here. He had obviously taken whatever it was with him. Luke ran back outside to his even grumpier stallion and jumped back on its back to continue pursuing the stranger. The darkness of the night made it even more difficult to do this, however, but Luke was persistent. He was determined to catch whoever it was. He couldn't see where the stranger went, but he knew that he had run across the bridge that was just a little way down the road, and he wasted no time in spurring his steed across it. He carried on along the wide street and looked frantically around for the figure, but nothing materialised out of the darkness. He decided to head back home to try and puzzle it out.