Inglebrook Chronicles
an excerpt

My first "dare chapter"

Chapter 8
Entr’acte: See this is what makes me crazy

“Are you two ready?” Valerius said early the next morning. The five of them were standing in the sitting room. The young centaur looked excited. He was wearing what he called a traveling blanket. It was like a cloak that covered his entire hindquarters. There were large deep pockets on either side almost like saddlebags which he’d stuffed all manner of things into. Both humans were wearing their regular clothes - cleaned during the night - and the cloaks that Valerius had given them the previous day. Elise looked anxious and Aeric looked scared.

“Are you sure you want to go, Vally?” Felicia asked sadly. She was clutching the book that she’d been coloring with Aeric in the previous day.

“Don’t worry, Felicia. I’ll be back soon enough. I want to learn about humans first hand though and this is the best way, all right?” Valerius set a reassuring hand on the little centaur’s head and turned back to Pholos. “Thanks for everything. I’ll see you around.”

“All right, we’ll go with that,” Pholos said. “Hmm... How to tell you this? I turned you in, sorry. The police will be coming any minute to take you away. Probably to a zoo… or a holding facility of some kind.”

“What?” Aeric asked, flabbergasted. “That’s... we trusted you!” His face was red and he was shaking.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door and Pholos said, “That’s probably them now.”

He turned to go answer it and Aeric murmured, “We have to get out of here. Valerius, does this place have a back door?”

“No but it looks like you’ve made one,” the centaur replied. He pointed behind the humans and they turned to find a glowing pool of blue hovering in front of them. He raised his voice so Pholos would hear and said, “You were right, Pholos it’s indignation that opens the portals - that and a need to escape. Sorry about tricking you, that’s just my Grandmare.”

“You be safe, young’s,” the old mare said as she came into the room behind Pholos. She hugged her grandfoal and said, “You grew up into a fine stallion when I wasn’t looking. Be well.”

“You too, Gra’mare. Thanks for everything. Pholos, look after her, please?”

“Count on it. Don’t do anything foolish, Vally. Come home with lots of stories to tell my daughter,” the older stallion said, shaking his hand.

“G’bye, Aeric. I had a lot of fun. I want you to have this,” Felicia said, handing him her coloring book.

“Thank you, Miss Felicia,” he said, taking the book and giving her a hug. “I’ll treasure this as a memento of our time together for many years to come. Farewell.” He turned toward the portal and said, “I suppose we should go now before the police truly do come. Farewell, Pholos.”

“Goodbye,” the centaur said simply and the three travelers stepped into the light.

**
They stepped out of the portal and onto a grassy plain in front of a high wall. Suddenly there was a tremendous crash not far away. They turned to find a large stone settling on the ground. Valerius turned toward the direction that the rock had come from.

“I believe that’s a trebuchet, specifically a counterweight trebuchet - to distinguish it from a traction trebuchet, which came even earlier.” Valerius said with surprising calm. “It’s a kind of siege engine. They can throw stones that were up to three hundred pounds in weight at tremendous speeds. Occasionally they would throw dead bodies into fortresses during a siege to cause disease to break out. Most likely they are at war with the people in the fortress behind us and are right now placing them under siege.”

“That’s very interesting,” Aeric said anxiously. “However, since it’s throwing those large rocks at the wall behind us, we had best move.” He turned away and closing his eyes, held his hands out in front of him. Between his hands another portal formed. “Let’s go!” he yelled as another rock sailed toward them.

**
Once more they stepped from the glowing portal. Once more they found themselves outdoors, this time in a forest. “‘Because it’s funny’ is not a valid reason for turning the enemy troops into fluffy pink bunnies,” a voice erupted from behind them. They whirled around to find a man in some kind of armor talking to a small blonde woman in blue robes. The couple seemed not to see them, so engrossed were they in their own conversation

“Well... if all the troops are bunnies they can’t offer much resistance and we can gather them up while they’re confused and less of our own troops are going to be injured and then we can put them in the dungeons and I can turn them back,” the girl replied.

“I’ll admit that makes a certain kind of sense, especially seeing as we’d rather not kill anyone,” the armored man said.

“Besides, it’s really funny!” the blond girl said with a giggle.

“That’s true enough,” the man agreed with a stifled chuckle. “But, Ann-belle, why pink?”

“Because it’s more entertaining!” the girl said, bursting into gales of laughter.

“Right…” Aeric said. “I think I have had enough of this. Let us depart.” He opened another portal and they turned to go through it.

“You’re getting better at this,” Valerius said as they stepped through the glowing circle.

**
The stepped out into a dark forest. Ahead of them were lights as if from a fire. They could hear rhythmic chanting from the same direction. The trio exchanged a glance before cautiously following the raised voices.

As they reached the fires the chanting stopped and a singe voice called, “All hail Lord Fluffinstuff!”

“Hail, hail!” the others in the clearing called.

“Humans a certainly strange creatures,” Valerius whispered. The people in the crowd were dressed in long pink robes and gathered around an equally pink teddy bear. The bear was the size of a small house and looked on the crowd of worshipers with an almost manic grin.

“We live to serve Lord Fluffinstuff. What is thy bidding dread lord?” the leader of the group said, turning towards the bear. The crowd was silent - as was the bear - but the leader turned toward the crowd with a cry of, “He requires a sacrifice!”

“A sacrifice! A sacrifice!” the on-lookers cried.

There was an almost animal-like scream and two burly men in long pink robes came out dragging a small dark haired person. “Let me go! I refuse to be sacrificed to a giant pink teddy bear. Let me go!” he yelled struggling with all his might but to no avail.

“What should we do?” Valerius asked. He reached into his pockets and drew out several items, including a ball of yarn, a roll of gray tape and a small round item. “We have to help him, right?”

“Right, but how?” Elise asked.

“This might help but I’m not very good at throwing,” Valerius said, holding up the round item he’d pulled out of his pocket.

“What’s that?” Aeric asked taking it from the centaur.

“You push that button down, and after several seconds a bright flash comes out and so does a really loud sound and it’ll stun them,” Valerius said.

“That will work, I believe,” Elise said. “Push the button and throw it, Aeric. We should be ready to move, I assume?”

“Right, it should be far enough away that we won’t be caught in the blast,” Valerius said as he crouched down and covered his ears. Elise followed suit and after a few moments there was a reverberating blast and they heard the the cries of the crowd of teddy worshipers.

The trio surged forward and Aeric snatched up the small dark haired man, who was writhing on the ground. They skirted around the semi-conscious men and women as they went back to the clearing they had burst from.

“Are you all right?” Valerius asked.

“I’m fine,” the small man snapped, pushing Aeric away. “Who are you people? Where did you come from?” He obviously could not see very well and by the way he was shouting he’d been at least partially deafened.

“Everything will recover in a short while; just relax,” the centaur said. “My name’s Valerius. These are Aeric and Elise.”

“I’m Janis. I suppose I should thank you for the timely rescue but it’s not exactly the kind of thing that I want to mention to anyone ever again.” He stood and brushed his clothes off. He looked around at them and took them in with a raised eyebrow. With a shake of his head, he continued, “You’re a bunch of kids and you rescued me from a crowd of teddy bear worshipping cultists. This is what I get for traveling by myself I suppose. You should never wander to strange places alone.” He stepped back and away from them. “I’ll leave you now and return to my home. Goodbye.”

The trio barely had time to catch their breaths as his form shimmered and streched from a small human into a long black creature with fur-like scales and a dark mane and he took off into the night. “That was… interesting,” Valerius murmured in awe. “He was… what was he?”

“I believe he was a dragon,” Elise said softly. “I cannot be sure, however, since he looked somewhat different from dragons that I have always seen in artwork and storybooks.”

“We should probably be away before those… cultists awaken,” Aeric said opening another portal.