Chapter 15:

Michael was back to them in a second, baffling Willow by not only his speed but how quiet he was. How was he walking through all those leaves and branches without making a sound?

                "Chelsea," he whispered. "The Kopors aren't Lyre's work. The knots are way too intricate for Mountain Lyres. And they were hit on the head to knock them out, Mountain Lyres aren't smart enough to think of that."

                Chris furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, "But why would someone dump a bunch of Kopors in a Mountain Lyre's feeding pen?"

                Michael shrugged, "Maybe they held a grudge against them."

                "Maybe their trying to pin the blame." Willow inquired, they all looked at her with confusion. Alicia was given her the this-person-has-stupid-ideas look and Willow immediately regretted the suggesting realizing how cheesy it was. "You know," she said defensively. "They beat these people up and didn't want anybody to know it was them, so they put them in the pen, pinning the blame on the Mountain Lyres."

                Alicia shook her head. "Nobody would punish them for beating up some people, happens all the time. Of course, if we were to find them with beaten up Kales we would make them stop, but we wouldn't go into an investigation to find out who did it. We're not like you UpperWorlders caring about every life lost.”

                "Maybe this is Machire’s work as a distraction," Chris whispered.

                “As a distraction? Why would Machire care about us? Why would he be distracting us?” Chelsea said. “No, this isn’t Machire’s work because it is pointless and Machire never does anything pointless.”

                "Guys,” Michael said, worry hinting his tone. “Let’s just get them out and ask questions later, they may be able to answer some things.”

                Chelsea nodded, “Let’s go.”

                They all got up from the crouches and slipped through the bushes. Willow was behind Michael, following closely behind him. The Ganashes were quiet, like feather, barely making any noise with every step they took, while Willow kept crunching and tripping and rustling, drawing attention to where they were. But the Lyres didn’t seem to notice, though. They were too busy singing loudly.

                They got to the pen within minutes and Michael immediately grabbed a dagger out. He started to cut the ropes, but Willow could tell it was going nowhere. She felt an anxiety rise in her chest as she looked over her shoulder at the Bolesgire. They were very close to them, too close for comfort. And one was literally right next to Alicia, its back to turned away from her. At any moment one of them could look over and catch them. She looked back at how Michael was doing, the rope didn’t look any different, his cutting was going nowhere.

                He said a very ungentlemanly word, and then explained, "It's enchanted, can't cut through it. Looks like an Tauhitehew spell, Rizkaet’s work." He swore again, and jammed the dagger back into his belt.

                "We need a Rizkaet’s weapon, but we’re never going to find one in a Lyre’s camp—“ Alicia started but was interrupted by Chelsea.

                “Think again, Alicia.” She whispered. “Look at the Lyre to the left, he’s got one.”

                They all looked over at the Lyre, Michael, Alicia and Chris nodded, seeing it. Willow though, could not tell which one was which. There were three weapons on the Lyre to the left, how could they tell which one was a Rizkaet’s weapon.”

                “You and Chris distract them,” Chelsea said, looking over at Willow as if to see if it was okay to give her a task like that. “We’ll grab the weapon.”         

                Alicia, Michael and Chelsea all literally disappeared within a second leaving Chris and Willow alone.

                “Let’s get distracting!” Chris whispered, motioning Willow to follow him. She did, they slipped into the bushes and headed the opposite way of where the weapon was. He stopped and looked over at Willow, “You ready?”

                “How do I distract?” Willow whispered, trying to hide the fact that she currently terrified. The monsters were huge, one flick of the finger and they were all goners.

                “Just lie. They’re stupid, they don’t understand anything. And they’re slow, so if all goes wrong, just running.”

                Willow nodded and Chris stepped out of the bushes, Willow behind him and hiding slightly behind his shoulder.

                “Good evening, Lyres.” Chris said. All the Lyres stopped singing and immediately turned to them. Willow could see Michael, nodding at Chris, probably signaling him, they were getting it.

                “May I ask you where the nearest Kopor village is?” Chris asked.

                “Kopor village?” A Lyre asked. “What you doing here, you Gnash?”

                “Ganash,” Chris corrected. “I told you, we’re trying to find the nearest Kopor village.”

                “Gunther!” The Lyre with the Rizkaet weapon said, looking over at the largest of their kind. “I don’t know what they want, but I am hungry.”

                “Sh, Baf!” Gunther replied, he pushed at Baf and fell backwards, almost landing on Chelsea. But Michael right on time got her out of the way. But also caught the attention of the Lyres.

                “Hey!” Gunther replied. “You thieves! You pay!” He grabbed Chelsea and Michael and the other Lyres grabbed Alicia. The third Lyre lunged for Chris and Willow literally stood frozen, Chris grabbing her arm and yanking her back, just to get himself caught. Willow was thrown into the bushes, branches digging into her skin.

                Shit, she thought to herself. She peeked over at the Lyres, who seemed to have forgotten about her completely. They were tying them up, but being unsuccessful considering they were cutting all the ropes every time they tied it.

                Willow felt an instant need to get them out, especially Chris because it was her fault he was in there. She jumped out of the bushes without thinking and yelled, “Hey!”

                All the Lyres turned to her and Michael, Chelsea, Alicia and Chris all froze.           

                “What are you doing?” Willow asked, feeling completely stupid to have gone through this without a plan.

                “We tie them to eat them because they are thieves.” Gunther said, Willow easily figured out it was Gunther because he was the largest one.

                “They’re not thieves.” Willow said, she watched as the Ganashes easily slipped out of the badly tone roping around them and slipped into the shadows. What now?

                “Yes they are! They tried to steal something!” Baf replied.

                “And what did they try to steal?” Willow asked, although she was looking over at the bush where Michael, Chelsea, Alicia and Chris was hiding. Michael gestured for her to continue while Chelsea and Chris seemed to be arguing.

                “I don’t know.” Gunther said.

                “Then how do you know they were stealing it?” She replied, saying what first came to her head.

                “I don’t know.” Another Lyre replied whom Willow did not know its name.

                “Then you have a problem.” She said, and that was about when an idea popped in her head. They needed to get the Kopors out which meant they needed the Lyres to leave.

                “I think we do.” Baf replied, looking over at Gunther for the solution.   

                “What do we do to fix the problem?” Gunther asked. Perfect, Willow thought to herself. Her plan had turned out to be easier than she thought.

                “There is an old wizard called….Gandalf…” She said, taking the first name that popped in her head of the Lord of the Rings. “And he…um, he tells you what your problems are fixes them!” Willow paused, checking to see if they had caught on to the trick, they hadn’t. They were just looking at her with fascination. “And…um, he lives—he lives down there!” She pointed south, back towards some castle looking thing. “He lives on a river that has purple water. You have to find the river and then you can talk to him—“

                The Lyres didn’t even let her finish, they were all already stomping down the woods looking for the river with purple water.

                Michael and Chris came out clapping, and Chelsea laughed, “Excellent Willow, super smart move! Purple water, they’ll be looking for years!”

                Willow smiled as Chris lightly punched her in the shoulder, “Excellent job, Glasspiers!”

                “Thanks,” she replied. For some odd reason she looked over at Michael, who was smiling at her.

                “You are so creative,” he teased her. “’Gandalf’! Where did you get that amazing name?” She could tell by his tone and the way he was looking at her that he knew about The Lord of the Rings.

                She laughed, “I have this little voice called J. R. R. Tolkien that tells me genius names.”

                Michael laughed, seeming to be the only one who understood because Alicia was looking at the two of them as if they were speaking gibberish.

                “Let’s get the Kopors out,” Chelsea said, walking over at the beaten up Kopors.

                “Missing something!” Chris called out, stopping Chelsea in her tracks. “It seems that while Willow has made the Lyres go away, she missed the valuable point that they still have the Rizkaet weapon on them.

                “Aw, nice job, Willow!” Alicia accused, swinging her arm accusingly towards her. “You should have thought that through!”

                Willow felt immediately defensive, it wasn’t her fault that she had never been trained nor that she had ever encountered Lyres before! “Well, you didn’t think it through either or you wouldn’t have appraised me!”

                Alicia rolled her eyes, “It doesn’t mean we appraised you that we aren’t stupid! Anybody would’ve remembered the true purpose to why we were here in the first place!”

                “To bother them! That’s what we were here for!” Willow exclaimed, anger and annoyance building up in her chest.

                “Yes, but—“Alicia started, but Michael came next to her and covered her mouth with his hand.

                “Shut up, Alicia,” he said. “We all know you hadn’t thought of it either, so stop being so superior.” He reached behind him and pulled out a long sword. “And, as I am not only the good looking one of the group, I am the smart one. Here you guys go,” he handed the weapon to Chelsea and Alicia glared at him.

                “Nice job, Michael!” Chelsea exclaimed, and then looked over at Willow, “Just ignore Alicia, she hates it when she forgets something, it’s nothing personal.” And Willow, not usually being one to hold a grudge, let it drop. She rarely ever took anything personally, and if she did Jasper would catch her on it; something she hated.

                Chelsea, Alicia, Chris and Michael was immediately went to freeing the Kopors. Willow was about to join them, when she heard rustling in the leaves. She squinted her eyes, it's just some kind of animal, she told herself. Chelsea said there was nothing to worry about in this forest and probably meant it.

                She was about to turn around when she heard again, but this time with a low growl, accompanied by something appearing in the shadows. Willow couldn't see it exactly, but she could see the long claws, pointed teeth and creepy black face well enough.

                "Chelsea?" Willow asked. None of them turned around, too busy taking out the Kopors.

                "Yes?" Chelsea replied, not looking back at Willow.

                "Remember when you said that there was nothing to worry about in this forest?" Willow asked, taking a slow step back.

                "Yeah?" She replied, slumping a unconscious Kopor over her shoulder.

                "Did you mean that?" Willow asked, surprised her voice wasn’t trembling as the creature moved forward.

                "Yes."

                "Are you sure? Because this looks pretty dangerous." Willow whispered. The thing had stepped out of the shadows; its eyes were black holes, bugs were crawling all over him as if he was rotten (and he sure did smell rotten) and his mouth dripped a thick black liquid. There must have been something in Willow's voice because they all turned simultaneously, just as the thing lunged at Willow and Michael shouted "Bolesgire!"