Ch. 18 Into the Belly of the Beast
The Crew Marches To the Dragon's Lair
Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam
+JMJ+
May Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary grant success to this attempt at pleasing Her and Her children with a story.
Last time: After running away from home and being chased through the woods by a cat, Bill met with a knight named Phillip, who had been separated from his fellow knights to save the kingdom of Corcrist from an evil dragon. On the way, they met a strange hermit named Br. Christopher, who joined them to assist the good people in their spiritual desolation. In an overgrown forest, all three were captured by evil, self-indulgent dryads and locked in a cage where they were harrassed by one of Phillip’s own friends who had joined the dryads. They escaped just to meet a ferocious werewolf which turned out to be another of Phillip’s friends. Finally returning to the road, a group of men in dark, hooded robes stood in their way led by the last of Phillip’s comrades, Ignatius, who had sworn allegiance to the dragon. This villainous traitor made no effort to stall them, trusting his new master’s power to defeat Phillip. Approaching Corcrist, they met the Queen Esther who politely told them to go away just before the dragon appeared, and Phillip four with it. After the dragon flew away, Phillip fell unconscious and was brought into Corcrist to be healed. Having woken up, he suggests that they follow Ignatius, who came to threaten the town one last timme, into the dragon’s own lair…
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The group moved slowly through the trees. Dressed only in light mail, the knights had found Ignatius’s trail quickly. Following from a safe distance, their pace slackened as they moved through a mysterious footpath in the woods. Expecting that their horses would be no help, Esther, Phillip, Roderick, Jerome, and Bill had traveled on foot.
“So, Bill, how did you come into this adventure?” Esther asked. “Although you handle yourself well, you seem hardly to be a trained squire. Were you, perhaps, a meager lord’s child or the youngest of several boys, doomed to walk in the shadow of their inheritance?”
“No, ma’am,” Bill said. “I was running away from home and ran into Sir Phillip by chance. My father’s just a poor farmer.”
“Oh! What horrible things must have been happening in your home to make you run away?”
“I… um…” here, Bill paused for a moment, trying to express the indignance that he had felt at his parents’ discipline. However, in the face of almost certain death, he found it difficult to still be frustrated or to even be mad at his parents. The only feelings that came to him were remorse and agony that he may never see his family again. He could never ask for their forgiveness. All of the issues he thought were so big while at home seemed small now. “My parents punished me for not doing my chores, ma’am.”
“And your response was to run away?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m sure that you had your reasons. I can only say that if I had the chance to see my father one more time, I would cherish it forever. But I imagine you feel the same way now.”
Bill’s face started pouring with tears. “I would, your ladyship. I’d give anything just to ask them to forgive me.”
Falling behind the other three a few paces, Esther wrapped Bill in a rather uncomfortable hug, considering the armor and shields that they carried. Still, Bill held tight to her, short, quiet sobs escaping his lungs in bursts.
“You are very brave Bill,” Esther said. Bill didn’t feel brave. He felt like a foolish child who had stumbled his way into a world too big for him. More than anything, he wanted to climb a tree and hide there forever.
Esther continued. “Your parents would be very proud if they could see you now.” One last fit of sobs came out of him, and he felt Esther’s gloved hands stroke his back gently. “Come,” she said. “We must catch back up with the others.”
Together, they trotted quickly up. Bill wiped his face vigorously, but he knew that his red eyes would be obvious no matter what he tried. Fortunately, the three knights were kind enough not to bring it up. They had all faced similar fears in their time.
From behind them, an all too familiar voice mocked. “He knew you would try to follow me.”
All three knights spun around with their spears pointed at the speaker. There was Ignatius sitting against a tree chewing on some berries.
“He said you’d try to find him, now that you had a champion to lead the charge.”
“What’s his plan to stop us?” Phillip asked.
“Nothing. I was instructed to lead you back to him.” Ignatius’s eyes drifted lazily to Esther and Bill. “Although… he didn’t say anything about you two. Why are they here?”
“That’s none of your business,” Roderick answered. “Now, are you going to lead us to this dragon or not?”
“Hold on a moment, Roderick,” Phillip said, pulling a piece of rope out of his backpack. “I don’t trust this fellow any farther than I can throw him. It’d be best to tie him up first.”
Ignatius held out his hands bemused. “Go ahead,” he said. “The dragon told me you’d do that.”
Phillip gritted his teeth. “Well, we’ll see how well your dragon anticipated our steel blades.”
Ignatius grinned, his eyes glinting with a twisted pleasure that scared Bill.
Behind Bill came a tiny ‘mew’. He turned to see a cat--the same cat that he had met at the beginning of his adventure. The look it gave seemed almost as if it had been waiting since they last saw it in the woods. With a cocky flick of its tail, it stretched its back and began lazily walking away towards an offshoot in the road.
“Phillip!” Bill called. “Look! It’s the cat again.”
“Surely, it’s not the same cat, Bill. Are you sure those are the same stripes?”
“No, really, it has to be, Phillip! Look, it’s even asking us to follow it into the forest.”
The cat was, indeed, looking back at them as if to say, “Why aren’t you coming yet?”
Unable to control himself, Ignatius began snickering. “You can’t be serious,” he said. “A cat to guide you through my master’s woods? What’s next? Will the queen sing to some birds and ask them to bring you food?”
At this, Phillip and Roderick shared a meaningful look. “Mock us as much as you like, but we are serious,” Roderick said, “and, now that I contemplate it further, I realize that I would much rather follow some strange cat than you, mongrel. What say you, Phillip, if we tie the villain to a tree and try our luck with the cat?”
“I would say that’s a mighty fine idea, Roderick,” Phillip answered.
Ignatius’s face blanched. “You… you’re bluffing.”
“What do you imagine we would be gambling on?” Roderick countered.
Ignatius’ voice grew desperate. “You- you want me to lead you to the dragon without my knowing, so you’re going to tie me poorly and hide behind a bush until I break free.”
“Weren’t you going to lead us there anyways?”
“Well, yes, but you think I’ll trap you.”
“Were you going to do that?”
“No, but you don’t know that.”
“We do now, and we’re still going to follow the cat. I prefer you stay as far away from us as possible tied up while we fight that monster. You would only try to trip us at the wrong moment.”
“No, you can’t! The dragon said I would lead you. That this was my part to play. He knows everything.”
“Apparently not.”
Roderick quickly tied Ignatius’s hands and feet to a small tree a few feet beyond the treeline. With that, the party followed their willing and surprisingly patient guide. Ignatius’s yelling was soon muffled by the overgrowth.
Before long, the cat had taken them to a clearing where a large cave opened in the mountainside. At the roof of the cave, a steady stream of smoke drifted out. All five people’s hearts fell gazing into the darkness of that cave where their enemy waited menacingly. Instead of leaving or walking towards the cave, the cat sauntered along the side of the mountain.
“Maybe it doesn’t want us to go in right now,” Esther said.
“Do you think it knows a different way?” Roderick asked.
“Let’s follow and see,” the queen decided.