Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
“I am not giving up,” he growls. “Nor am I convinced that your crazy, feeble, human mind hasn’t concocted this story in some attempt to get us to—”
“To what? I’m asking you to win a war. It’s what your people are born to do. And I’m not human anymore. Remember?”
He stands. “Break time is over.” He waves to Rool and to his people.
I look up at him and then over at Gabrio. I then look around at all the people depending on him to lead and protect them. “I hope I’m wrong, Alwar. I really do.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It takes a few more hours of hard, bumpy travel in Alwar’s hand to arrive to the War People’s land. I’m pretty sure I have a concussion from all the bouncing. Our massive party stops at a hill just on the other side of their farmland and meets up with the scout who ran ahead of us.
“You wait here, Lake.” Alwar sets me next to Gabrio. “You keep an eye on her,” he tells him.
General Rool and his men congregate beneath several of those purple trees in the shade. Strange. The sun here isn’t strong in terms of heat, but for a vampire its rays are definitely uncomfortable when they hit your skin. I feel warm, but okay. The poncho must be helping.
“Do you want to stand over there with your people?” Gabrio asks.
“No, I’m okay.”
“You could have fooled me.” His eyes focus on my fists, where my nails are digging into my palms.
I hadn’t realized I was doing that. I relax my hands and shake them out. “I should’ve known Mato was planning something like this.”
“We were all taken off guard, Lake. This is not your fault.” He gently squeezes my arm.
“Mato had to have been preparing this attack for months, while Benicio was still alive. So why did Mato fight for him? And why free Alwar instead of killing him?” Benicio convinced the Mountain People to attack the wall, since they weren’t bound by the Proxy Vow’s rules around killing only for food or self-defense. Like I mentioned before, Mato lost, but he took Alwar prisoner.
“If King Mato had his eye on the throne and the wall,” says Gabrio, “perhaps he did not intend to win. Why do all that fighting, risk so many of your men’s lives to gain control of the wall only to hand it over to the Blood King, who would surely have double-crossed Mato. If it were me, I would take Benicio off the throne first. And no one can argue that Benicio looked the fool for orchestrating such a failure of a plan. Mato probably made sure the other kingdoms, who are against the wall, knew that if he’d been in charge of the attack that day, he would have won the wall.”
It sounds like a sneaky way to drum up support for the throne, but nothing here is straightforward or simple. Monsterland is backstabbing politics at its finest.
He goes on, “As for Alwar, perhaps Mato took him prisoner as a show of strength to the other kingdoms. It is no small feat to capture a king such as Alwar. But killing him, especially with the Proxy Vow voided, would only instigate a battle with the War People. I doubt Mato would want the distraction if his true goal was something much greater: build a massive army to take the throne and the wall. For good.”
I see Gabrio’s point. And he would know, since he’s the strategic thinker among the brothers. “I still feel like I should’ve seen this coming.”
“I admit, Mato has devised a cunning plan, but it still would have to been mad to go up against the Blood King. He and his army have never been defeated. They are very fierce, very experienced fighters, hundreds of years old.”
“I guess Benicio’s death presented Mato with a wonderful opportunity,” I say, stumbling on something. “But if the Blood Army’s never been defeated, then how did Mato take the palace so easily?” That’s what Rool just told us a few hours ago. Mato was slaughtering the Blood People and took the palace. Yet, we left thousands of vampire soldiers back there. The Blood Army wouldn’t just sit by and let the attack happen.
Alwar comes marching up. “The scout sees nothing on the horizon. We believe it is safe to take the lifts.”
“Are you sure, brother?” Tiago says, walking up behind us. “The stairs are safer.”
Those stairs go all the way up for what looks like a mile. I’m exaggerating, but it takes a giant all day to climb them. At the top is a steel door as big as Alwar, and on the other side is a courtyard. To get inside the wall from there, you have to go through one of the thick stone slab doors. The lifts, on the other hand, are much faster. They’re basically crude elevators made of wooden platforms with a hand-powered—or giant-powered—pully system.