7
The next two days went on the way all training goes; lots of orb throwing, dummy attacking and lectures on posture and such. The trainees hardly got bored; I had them working every second from way before dawn and way after dusk. (To be fair, in the North Pole we don't really have much sunlight during winter . . . ) they hardly had a chance to catch their breath. But even after two days, they were beginning to become stronger and better at everything. Barb had significantly improved her attitude, but she was still a pain in the neck. Qiwi was able to control her random bursts of madness a bit better and Thrush was becoming less bashful and clumsy. He was starting to feel more like a bear and less like a walrus.
"Good. Once you have your position, aim for the target and throw straight." I said, coaching Qiwi. I moved her back paw a little bit to the right.
She nodded, and I stepped back. She spun around once and threw the orb, sailing towards the target. It it the third ring in.
"That was better." I said. I noticed her tail twitching like she was excited and her ears pressed flat against her head. "That looked more natural to me. What do you think?"
"It was good. I felt really fast." Qiwi said.
"Fast is good. The faster you go the sooner and harder the orb hits. How did your aim feel?" I asked.
She looked to a corner suddenly, like she was avoiding my gaze. "Uh, yeah, I felt like my aim was better. I felt more in control, like I was in . . . Yeah."
Qiwi was acting odd. She was usually a little shy, but she was acting almost like she was afraid of me. Had I yelled to her the day before? Most likely, but everyone needs to be yelled at every now and then.
"Is there anything else you need help on?" I asked.
"Um, Kota?" She said, looking at me again. "This doesn't really have to do with the training, but it's been on my mind all day. There's this guy . . . I like him, but he doesn't know it. I'm kind of scared to tell him. It would make things really awkward between us." She looked at her paws shamefully.
I was about to yell at yer to stop day dreaming and to get back to training, but maybe that had been her problem. She was having a hard time focusing. "You know what? I'm no therapist or anything, but I think you should tell him. Get your feelings out there. Let him know before he's gone; Chasers get into some crazy stuff this time of year."
"Really?" Qiwi asked. "What if he likes- no, loves someone else? What do I do then?"
I was stumped. I didn't know what I would do. I tried to imagine myself in the same situation, but my brain didn't want to accept it. What if Mika liked- no, loved someone else?
Why was I using Mika as my example?
"I-I don't know. If they love someone else, and if they are happy, you should be happy for them too, I guess."
She simply nodded in reply and got back to throwing orbs.
Someone came down the metal stairs speedily, making the metal creak and groan. I was almost afraid they might break. We need new stairs; those rickety old scraps barely hold themselves up and they become bitterly cold in the winter. Jova came down as if he was being chased by a crazed baddie.
Jova stopped by me and panted for a second. Then with his tongue out, he said: "Nick wants you in the lecture hall immediately. He's planning a rescue for Mika and would like you to help organize it."
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I didn't know how I should feel. Excited? Nervous? Mad at Nick because he had postponed her rescue? Knowing the baddies, she could have been dead. Rescuing her might be useless. But it seemed like almost every baddie she encountered thought she was special. They wouldn't go through so much energy getting Mika just to kill her. She was most likely alive.
Getting into the workshop was easier at lunch time than the morning, but it was still like plowing through a mob of angry customers searching for deals on Black Friday. Elves and other workers were inside the building by lunchtime. The afternoon usually slowed down and was a less stressful process.
"Kota!" Frej yelled over the crowd. "Nick wants to see you now! Make a path, everyone!"
A few creatures graciously stepped out of my way, but most of them refused to loose their spot. Smoothest time ever getting into the workshop. Frej didn't even ask me any questions.
When I got to the door, Frej opened it for me with much difficulty. I nodded at him.
The workshop smelled like wrapping paper and tape today with a hint of pine. The elves were getting done with building and were going onto wrapping finally. It was amazing how many toys can get wrapped in a week. Three days before Christmas, the final wrapping day, produces many, many paper cuts.
The lecture hall was on the tenth floor to the left of the main entrance. It took forever to walk around each floor and up every staircase. That place needed an elevator, or at least a ladder. Heck, it would be quicker to just jump from balcony to balcony. (I was about to do that one day, but an elf yelled at me and said my claws would chip the wood or the balcony would break under my weight. Geez, I'm not that fat.)
After several long minutes of climbing, I got to the tenth floor. The door was tall and thin with a simple reindeer decoration. Inside the room was long with a table that seated two dozen with a grand window on the opposite wall. Big red drapes hung at the sides like arms. It wasn't open now, but a string with a ball on the end hung from a screen and a projector hung from the ceiling. On the right wall was a large white board with notes on it.
Sitting at the head of the table in a grand chair was Nick. He reclined back and looked at me over the rim of his glasses as I came in. Sitting on the left side of the table was Marsha, Jova, an elf I didn't know and Unke, an old monkey-dog thing that was once a baddie. On the right was Reesha, a thirty-something old man named Astor and Yag, a young monkey-cat-squirrel-fish thing.
I sat uncomfortably by Yag. He smelled surprisingly nice. (Maybe I shouldn't say nice. More like less-horribly disgusting than usual.)
Reesha gave me a small smile of courage from across the table.
"Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I know you are all on such tight schedules training and such, and I hate to draw you from your activities, but I feel like this is extremely important.
"I have delayed Mika's rescue because of the repairs needed in the North Pole." Nick started. "I need every hand or paw I can get clearing debris or training. I can't risk anyone in this great time of need. If Mika has been captured by the ice wolf, then the chances of successfully rescuing her are slim. I simply couldn't let the life of one get in the way of others.
"But I have recently gained information about Mika from Yag, here." Yag bowed as honorably as he could muster. "The ice wolf is planning on turning her to their side tomorrow." A gasp fluttered in everyone's throats. "Once you have been influenced by the frost, you will never find warmth."
I felt like a lizard had crawled down my trachea and was chewing at my throat. Some kind of poison had filled my stomach and termites crawled through my bone marrow. To think that Mika would be turned was sickening. There would be no turning back. I wanted to save her immediately. I was mad that Nick had delayed her rescue to the last minute, and I had a hard time trying to not let it show.
"We have about twenty-four hours: possibly less. We know how lethal Mika can be. It would be horrible to loose such a valuable warrior." Nick said. It made me feel better hearing Mika being called a warrior. "I want a small team of Chasers who are especially skilled at evading and attacking baddies. I don't want any fights to break out; this is a silent mission, but if there is a fight I want them to have the upper hand, or paw. I would send my elves, but they have very little experience with baddies and they only know how to leave presents behind; not take things back. I would like Jova, Kota and one of Kota's trainees to go on the mission. I want Reesha to lead the mission."
There were nods and mutters of approval. Reesha looked dumbstruck. I empathized her. But behind all of my panic and fear, I was excited to see Mika again, even if I wasn't allowed to kick some baddie butt.
"You will all leave in two hours from now at 11:30 sharp. That should be plenty of time to select weapons and such. Yag, you have a map of the fryse dryet's lair, correct? Would you give us an overview of the palace and the routes we described?" Nick asked.
Yag pulled out three weathered-down paper scrolls that had been torn or burned on the edges. He crawled on the grand table and rolled out the ancient papers. To keep them open, he placed medium-sized stones on each corner. He slid the maps together to make one large map.
Yag stood up on the table. He was a grand total of about a meter tall. He cleared his throat and spoke in a scratchy, high-pitched voice that belonged on some kind of little goblin. "These maps are perhaps the last of their kind. A baddie from the thirteenth century drew them after he lost his job as a guard in the ice wolf's palace. He drew five copies of the grand map, which was a complete map of the entire palace, including the secret tunnels underneath the palace. Unfortunately, the maps were torn apart and burned and the maker of the maps was stone frozen. Every copy of the maps are gone except these pieces. I don't know how the survived, but I'm glad they did. This lower part here, closest to Kota, is of the fryse dryet's living quarters. The higher part, closest to Marsha, is the servant's quarters and torture chambers. A circular room separates them. The dungeon, where Mika is most likely being held, is here." Yag gently tapped a square with a quickly-drawn picture of chains. It was in the servants quarters, closer to Reesha. "But there is no way you will be able to get to the dungeon from one of the two entrances. Both are heavily guarded. Every turn has a guard or some kind of baddie. You could throw a purple orb, but you would need hundreds of them to just get through once. There are so many baddies, they would just overwhelm you. The only other way would be to go through the secret tunnels. The servants use them to get through the palace faster. But the tunnels go on for kilometers past the palace in all directions, and they are nearly impossible to navigate. I doubt even the most skilled of guards has been in every tunnel. But it's not nearly guarded as the palace, and it's too small for large amounts of baddies to come through. And as for navigating, we have a plan. Astor? Unke?" Yag crawled off the table and offered the spotlight to them.
Unke made a taking sound in his throat before speaking. As he talked, his jowls flopped around. "The frost horses were able to find Mika naturally. We're not exactly sure how or why, but they seemed naturally drawn to her. An entire herd. It was no coincidence; the frost horses didn't chase her for no reason. The were created to take her to the ice wolf." My hackles rose. "Their creator knew Mika was venerable to their touch, but after long exposure she could be killed. They were supposed to chase her to the back of the cave, corner her, and temporarily freeze her so she could then be transported to the ice wolf's palace. They wanted her alive, not dead. Normal frost horses would wear out before they got to the end of the tunnel and their touch would kill Mika faster."
Astor hobbled to his feet and walked to the white board. He grabbed a blue marker and drew a lovely sketch in ten seconds of a profile of a cat and a frost horse's head. "I'm not completely sure if this is how the frost horses found Mika, but it's my best theory. I'll keep it brief. The parietal part of the brain, about here," Astor scribbled blue underneath the ears. "Is where the brain understands smell. There is little research done on frost horses because they are so dangerous. They have a brain somewhat similar to a horses, but they are programmed differently. Luke a computer. They don't have a self-conscious. I believe the creator gave these horses the specific task of sniffing out Mika. In order to code in her scent, they would have needed some of her original scent from a scent gland." He scribbled in blue on the cat's face, the tail, near the rump and on the front paws. "I have no idea where they would get the scent, unless the creator rubbed a rag on a scent gland of hers. Again, this is just a theory. But I hope it's true to an extent."
Unke pulled out a necklace with a glass pendant. In the glass was a piece of blue ice the size of a human fist. "This is the parietal lobe of a normal frost horse's brain. It has been codes with Mika's scent; we found fur of hers in the training room. It won't work as good as the original frost horse, but better than nothing. It will fire more neurons as you get closer to Mika, making it glow." He put the necklace around Reesha's neck. She looked uncomfortable.
"Jova will go in more detail of the plan when you meet at the North Pole's sign. You are all dismissed: meet in two hours."
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