Chapter 25: Doing the Walk

With a quick practiced motion I awaken my sword. It illuminates the tunnel around us. Once more we are surrounded by solid rock and clay. My three companions are waiting for me a few steps away from the hole.

"How did you know this was here?" Holliday looks around.

"Trade secrete." Is all I tell him.

"The universe." Diana says.

"She can do Magic." Alys says.

"Oh." he says.

We hurry down the tunnel.

"Alys, you reconsigned the dais and throne, right?" I try to be calm about my not so subtle line of questioning.

"That's right, Daddy away said that was the throne of god." She explains.

"Uh, Alys didn't you say that the men were not back from fishing, when the brutes attacked?" Diana starts her own line of questioning.

"They was late." she remembers.

"And now King Louie has your doors..." Diana doesn't finish her sentence, as she suddenly realizes what that means. And what it means to young Alys.

"How did Louie get our doors is what I don't understand? Why papa would die first before he would let some yellow bellied louse like Louie steal from us." she stopped in the middle of her rant.

"Papa ain't coming back." She whimpers out. The next thing we know Alys has stopped moving and is standing there crying out her heart. Of all the time she picks to figure that out. I sigh.

"Uh, what happened?" Holliday didn't follow the train of the conversion. All he saw was Alys went from cursing out Louie to cry in seconds.

"Give her a hug you dummy. " Diana chides him. Holliday manages to encircle Alys in his arms and still keep his guns out.

"Picture this." I describe one likely possibility. "the Brutes, kill off the men earlier that day, giving them plenty of time to come around and gang rape her mother and steal of the the girls. No worries, it is a small enough community that they had to be easy pickings." Holliday starts to curse the Brutes and their misbegotten ancient.

While he is doing that I feel a shift in the wind.

"Heads up, gang, We are about to have company." I listen to the mummers of the tunnelers making their way down to us. "Looks like Louie has a back bone after all and sent people after us." Holliday switches from cursing the brutes to cursing Louie in an ever increasing colorful fashion.

"The way I see we a can do one of two things." I start to say.

"Oh no not like your last plan." Diana holds up her hand to stop me from saying any more.

"Why?" Holliday asks. "What was your last plan?"

"Kill all the guards and run like hell." Diana says disdainfully.

"That's a great plan." Holliday remakes honestly. "That's what I would have done."

"You are not helping me here, Holliday." She says dryly.

"So do we fight or do we run some more and hope we out distance them?" I ask Diana in return.

"We can't fight them now, We have Alys to think of." Holliday points out the obvious as his arms tighten around the girl.

"That is what I have been saying all along." Diana agrees.

"So we run," I shrug, I can see I am going to be on the losing side of this argument. "I will see what I can do to slow them down." I sigh softly to myself.

Holliday starts to pull Alys along as we start moving.

At first Diana follows me "Can't you do your defect bullet thing again?" Diana wants to know.

"Yes but there is little room for me to use." I explain out the theory. "I can not anticipate what the ricochet effect will be. I can do bullets straight on, that is easy, but once they start to bounce, it gets hard. I might be able to work out one or two but not dozens. Not even my master was that good. And he was one who played the odds."