The Lost Warrior Princess

Worse than we thought

TRIGGER WARNING! CONTAINS DETAILS DESCRIPTIONS OF BLOOD AND MUTILATION! READ AT OWN RISK!

As we drove, I watched the world fly past me through the window. Everything was so green and alive out here. It reminded me of the little town I grew up in before they came and took me from my family. I missed home, I missed the smell of the fire my father would put on when he would get home and the smell of the beef and vegetable stew my mother made the night before the guards came and got me. I missed the sound of the stream that ran just a few metres from our house. I quickly shook my head trying to get those memories out of my mind, my family probably wouldn’t recognise me now. I wasn’t the sweet adventurous little girl that they raised anymore, I was a trained killer now. They probably thought I was dead by now.

Another couple of hours pass. They were the slowest hours I have ever experienced. It felt like this trip was already dragging on and so were my thoughts of the past. Suddenly Riley hit the brakes, I only just had enough time to put my hands up in front of me before my head could hit the dash in front of me.

“God Dammit Riley!” Alice yelled from behind us. “What did you do that for!?” She clearly wasn’t happy about the sudden stop and to be honest neither was I until I saw what was in front of us.

“Oh my f***ing god.” Alice said when she saw what Riley and I were looking at.

“What could have done this?” Max asked. “ it doesn’t look like something one rogue could have done.” He was right, the amount of bodies that were torn apart over the road were too many for just one werewolf or vampire and judging by the way the blood had dried it had happened either last night or early this morning. They weren’t just human body parts, there were parts of what looked like horses and livestock as well. It was strange, to see all of this c*****e only a few hours out of the City boarders. I looked over at Riley who had a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel. It wasn’t like anything any of us had seen before. In the calmest voice I could muster I said to everyone “ we have to keep moving, there is nothing we can do.” Riley let out a long exhale as he started steering the vehicle slowly through the remains of who ever these poor souls were. He tired to avoid as much of it as he could but couldn’t help having to go through some of it. We all just looked at each other with concern as we slowly sped up again. Riley seemed to be the most effected by what we saw. Alice and Max shared a worried look at each other that I saw out of the corner of my eye.

We travelled in silence for a long time. The next settlement that we came to was a farming settlement. Large overgrown fields lined the road, broken fencing lay on the ground in pieces. The closer we go the the town the slower we had to drive. The road was littered with pieces of buildings that the rogues had smashed through to get to the families that used to live in these homes. A small brown teddy bear lay covered in dirt and blood on the porch of a small house. The closer we go to the centre of the town the more we say drag marks streaked with blood. We were forced to stop once we reached the town centre. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw in the open courtyard out the front of the community hall. Large wooden spikes were protruding from the grassed area of the courtyard, stained with the blood of those who lived here. Bodies of the men and women were impaled on the large spikes, laying lifeless and colourless as crows pecked at them. As we looked ahead something caught my eye. “Riley, keep driving forward.” He looks at me with a confused look but does as I say. As we get closer, the scene that unfolds in front of us makes my stomach churn. Those monsters didn’t just impale the adults. No they tied bodies of our fellow warriors to poles and carved the words ‘WE’RE COMING’ On their bodies, not only were their bodies carved up with this message but they were covered in bite and claw marks all over. A couple of the bodies were missing limbs from being torn off. Those that still had heads looked to be not past seventeen maybe even younger.

Without a word, Riley accelerates forward and slowly drive past the bodies of our fallen. I hold my hand over my heart as do Alice and Max and say a silent prayer for their souls to find peace in the next life.

Just as we are leaving the settlement a blur of movement rushes past us. Before I can say anything a loud howl breaks through the silence. Riley slams his foot down on the accelerator as Max and Alice rummage through the weapons and armed themselves with their automatic riffles. Alice hands me a nine mil and I prepared for any attack that might come from in front of us. Another howl sounds followed by more in reply, this is bad. Riley speeds up even more and the cause of the howls appears. Riley slams on the breaks before we have a chance to go anywhere.

A large grey wolf stood in front of us bearing its teeth with drool dripping from its mouth. Two more wolves flanked the large grey wolf. The wolf on the right of the large grey one was smaller with muddy brown fur that was mattered on its underbelly. The wolf on the left crouched low, snarling ready to attack. Its golden brown fur stained with dried blood and mud. The wolves stared us down with their bright blood red eyes. “Riley, get us moving. . . NOW!” With that we get accelerating forward again toward the three large wolves. The grey wolf and the golden brown wolf jumped out of the way just before being hit while the smaller brown wolf was not so lucky. The keep hit the wolf head on with a loud thud, it let out a yelp of pain as it was flung to the side of the road. We picked up speed as the remaining two wolves followed behind us growling and snapping. Alice and max opened the small shooting hatches that were in the side of the Jeep. Pointing the nose of the riffles out of the hatches to shoot at the wolves, the loud banging echoed in the cabin of the vehicle. The wolves started to slam up against the walls of the Jeep trying to shove us off the road into the ditch on the other side. “They are trying to run us off the road!” Riley yelled from the drivers seat. I turn around and unbuckle myself fro my seat and quickly do the one of the hatches and see where the two wolves are. I aim my gun out the hatch and shoot towards the large grey wolf. “Keep us as steady as you can Riley!” I yelled from the back.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” He yells back. I get sight of the golden wolf and just as I’m about to fire Max and Alice take it down with one shot to its side and the other to its neck causing blood to gush from its wounds as it falls to the grown. The large grey wolf lets out a loud howl as it slams into us sending Max, Alice and I to fall back. “Bloody hell! You guys alright back there?!” Riley asks as he accelerates more to try and outrun the rogue wolf still on our tail. I quickly just up and rush back to the hatch to get visual of where the remaining wolf is. I spot it getting ready to ram us again and quickly bring my gun up and fire, once, twice, three times and each hitting its mark. The wolfs lifeless body rolls to a stop on the road as we get the hell out of here. “What the bloody hell was that?” Alice asks, “those rogues were more coordinated and were working together.”

Normally rogues were solitary by nature, they didn’t like being in groups or conforming to pack life. It was odd that those rogues were working together. “Did you see the size of that grey one? It was half the size of the jeep!” Max says in reply.

“Yes I saw, there is something going on the Commander told us that there were reports of the rogues working together. We may have more trouble with this protection mission than we were first told. We are going to have to keep an eye open and watch everyone’s backs.” This was not good. The rest of the journey was quiet, the radio was turned off and Alice and Max kept their weapons close as did I. The next few settlements we went through were much the same. Buildings ransacked, blood splatters over the ground and buildings. We didn’t dare slow down as we passed through them. The sun was setting and we were running out of sunlight. Once the sun went down we were going to be in even bigger trouble. If we hadn’t reached the Vampire kingdom by night fall we would have rogue vampires to deal with as well as the rogue werewolves. Hungry crazed rogue vampires were much harder to deal with when only a shot to the head or heart could kill along with beheading. Werewolves you just had to hit a major artery or organ to cause fatal damage. So head, neck or heart were the best places to injure a werewolf.

We were only a few minutes away from the vampire kingdoms territory when the sun set, we were all tense the last few hours the closer we got to the sun going down. This was not good, not good at all. Rogue werewolves were one thing but rogue vampires were a lot worse. We continued to scan our surroundings. I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed in the back with Alice and Max and we each took our positions to keen watch for an attack. “We’re close, I can see the lights of the Kingdom.” Riley said from the front seat. “ don’t relax just yet, we are still not out of the woods.” The last thing I needed was for everyone to relax and have us be caught off guard. As we got closer a loud ear piercing screech came from behind us. I turned to Max “What can you see?” Max checked out the small hatched. “we have incoming!” He yelled just as wave of screeching sounded. I didn’t need to ask how many, I knew there were a lot of them. I was thankful I had grabbed the automatic riffle out and had already loaded my weapon. As I look out the hatch I catch sight of a dozen rogue vampires running as well as flying. Their pitch black eyes unnerving and their bat like wings torn and mangled. We all started firing at the oncoming wave of blood crazed rogue vampires. Max was shouting that he had a dozen following us, Alice was shouting how she also had at least a dozen on her side. I shouted back my orders to take as many down as possible and for Riley not to stop under any circumstances. The shells of our ammunition littered the floor of the jeep. We kept taking them down and more kept coming. There were so many, they normally weren’t this close to the territory. More and more just kept coming from the forest on our left. I heard Riley shout that we were only a few minutes from the kingdom walls. I told Riley to signal the guards that we were coming in with rogues hot on our tail. Thank goodness we had the red light within reach. All vehicles had one in them, they were an emergency light for when we were in a situation and needing immediate entry into a territory. Max, Alice and I kept taking the vampires down. We were getting closer, the guards on the kingdom walls started attacking the rogues as well to help get them off of us. We didn’t stop shooting until we were only meters away from the gate. After what seemed like an eternity we crossed through the gate of the vampire kingdom and Riley slammed on the breaks bring the vehicular to a screeching halt. I let out a breath I didn’t realise I was holding, it was going to be a long mission if this is what we have to look out for the entity time.

After another couple minutes I saw the guards were still at the gate and on the wall taking care of the remaining rogues. I slump back against the seat while we waited for the guards to come over and check our mission request papers.

After the remaining rogue vampires were taken care of or had retreated back to the forest one of the guards walked over while the others stayed at their posts.

“State your business.” He said in a harsh tone.

“We were requested by the King and Queen.” Was all Riley said back.

“Proof of request?” The guard really didn’t seen to like that we were here or the rogues we just had following us. Riley handed the guard the request order for our assistance. The guard looked over them for a few seconds before handing them back and waving at us to move on. Riley ignored the nod from the guards positioned close to the wall and just drove towards the castle in the centre of the city. He still seemed really tense after what we saw on the road, we all did but him the most. I didn’t know much about Riley from his life before being taken to the camp, he didn’t like talking about it. It just made me have so many questions.

I glanced over at Alice and Max in the back and then at Riley before turning to see the path in front of us leading to the castle. The buildings that lined the streets all looked the same light grey colour in the dark but with the bursts of lights shining in the streets, the buildings that were bathed in the glowing white light of the street lamps were a crisp bright white. The window shutters and doors were all different shades of reds and blue and some were even yellow. They made this streets seem more inviting.

It didn’t take long for us to reach the castle entrance. We pulled into the castle courtyard, It was one of the most beautiful buildings I had ever seen. The drive was covered in little pebbles, in the middle of the courtyard there was a large round fountain. At first glance it looked like it just had water spilling from the top but on closer inspection the top was actually a little winged child holding a vase that the water flowed out of. Then just below the winged child there was what looked like females carved into the marble also holding vases with more water flowing out of them into the fountain pool bellow. The fountain was full of beautiful floating flowers in pinks and white along with floating Lilly pads. The fountain was surrounded by a stone path with a bench on either side of the fountain. The grass in the middle of the courtyard was well kept and looked like it was perfect for walking on bare foot. There were a few small bushes around the edge of the grass that acted like a boarder.

I was pulled from my thoughts by the Jeep’s engine cutting off, I moved to get out of my seat and open the door. As I stepped down from the vehicle the sight of the castle itself caught my attention. It had the same crisp white finish to it as all the homes and buildings but there were vines running up the side of the castle with stunning deep purple flowers going all the way to the second floor balcony’s. They twisted up over the side of the balcony’s and kept going up half way between the second and third floors. The windows had gold detailing and the few windows that were facing into the courtyard had stunning red drapes framing them. The main entry way into the castle had a few steps to walk up with a large arch way that framed the large timber doors that also had the same gold trim the windows had.

I heard the drivers door slam shut snapping me out of my thoughts. I quickly moved to the back of the Jeep to open the back door for Alice and Max to get out. They looked just as overwhelmed by the view as I had been only a few seconds ago. Riley just glanced up long enough to let out a hum before going to grab the bags from the back. After a few moments we had all grabbed our bags and were just shutting the back door to the Jeep when we heard footsteps approaching on the pebble drive. We all turned to see a thin bald man walking over to us with a guard on either side of him. As he got closer I could see that he was actually human, he was dressed in a black suit with a white dress shirt and shiny black dress shoes. My guess was he was a servant, the vampires liked to keep some humans around to serve them and tend to their livestock and farms as well as be willing blood donors.

“Welcome to the Southern Kingdom, my name is Franklin.” He greeted, “ I am to be your guide while you are staying with us in the castle, if you need anything while you are here just ask and I will do my best to make your stay as welcoming as possible.”

“Thank you.” We all replied in unison. Franklin smiled a little before he noticed that we all had our bags. “I would be more than happy to have someone come and collect your bags to take to your rooms.”

“Oh... thank you but we would rather take them up ourselves.” I said with a small smile. One thing you learn fast with being a warrior against supernatural creatures is you never let someone else handle your weapons. He seemed to be a little uncomfortable with my response but didn’t say much more about it instead he continued onto the next thing. “The King and Queen would like an audience with you once you’re settled into your rooms.” He said, he looked at our bags one more times before he continued. “Follow me and I will show you your rooms and then I will escort you to the throne room where the king and queen are waiting.”

The walk up to our rooms was quiet, no one wanted to say anything when there were two vampiric guards behind us. So I just looked around as we walked through the large arched hallways, The walls were lined with paintings of different people and a few were of different landscapes of forests and lakes. The floors were dark stained timber with deep red rugs along the hallways. After walking around the castle for what felt like forever, Franklin finally stopped in front of a door. It looked like all the other doors that we had past walking up to the second floor. He placed his hand on the handle and turned it. With a small push he opened the door and gestured for us to enter before him. I stepped in and was instantly wide-eyed, the room was huge. A large king bed on the right wall with stunning gold and white bedding with cream coloured lounges in the middle of the room surrounding a marble coffee table with white roses in the centre of it. The left wall had two doors, one looked like it went to the bathroom while the other looked like it joined onto another room. Franklin walked in behind us with a smile, he seemed to find our reaction funny. “I hope the rooms are to your liking, there are fresh towels in the bathroom for each of you and a bed in the joining room. The Queen thought you would all feel more comfortable being closer together instead of in seperate rooms.” Well the Queen was right, it was harder to try and kill us if we were all together instead of alone.

“Hell yeah this is to our liking, we haven’t ever stayed in a place like this!” Alice said in excitement.

Riley just rolled his eyes as he dropped his bags on the floor, “I’m not sleeping in the same bed as him.” He said as he pointed to Max.

“Oh come on man, you would love it.” Max said with a laugh and a wink in Riley’s direction.

“Okay, we can sort out sleeping arrangements after we finish our meeting with the King and Queen. For now put your bags down in here and make yourselves presentable.” I said, “Riley that means tuck your shirt in and for god sake don’t say or do anything stupid or offensive.”

“No way in hell can I promise that.” He replied. He did as he was asked though and tucked his shirt in and even ran his fingers through his hair to make it look less messy. Giving me a ‘is this good enough’ look when he was done. I just nodded at him and turned back to Franklin signalling that we were ready to go see the King and Queen. He bowed his head and turned back to the door we entered in. We walked up the large spiral staircase at the end of the hall, the same one that we had come up to get to our rooms. As we reached the top of the stairs, the room opened up into what looked like a large waiting area with hallways leading off in different directions. In front of us were two large doors with a guard either side of it. As we approached Franklin gave the guards a slight nod. As he did the guards turned and grabbed the handles and opened the doors. We followed Franklin through the doors into the large marble floored room. Tall white stone columns on either side of the room with guards standing in between each gap. Each one holding a long spear. They were all dressed in a royal blue uniform with shiny silver armour on facing towards the centre of the room. On the far side of the room sat two large gold thrones, both with vibrant red fabric cushions. Behind the thrones was a large floor to ceiling window with the same red drapes that I could see when we first arrived. Franklin led us to the bottom of the steps below the two thrones.

In the thrones sat a rather large muscular man with tidy white blonde hair, pale skin and deep emerald green eyes. He was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, hands set on the armrests of his throne. His tailored black suit with his silver dress shirt made him look a lot younger than he actually was.

In the other throne sat a stunning women, her long jet black hair pulled back into an intricate half up half down style. Her skin was like flawless porcelain, her eyes the lightest shade of blue they could be. Her dark navy blue full length dress clung to her curves like a second skin. She smiled at us as we stopped in front of them.

“Your Majesties.” Franklin began. “The warriors from the human city have arrived.”

“Thank you franklin.” The Queen replied. Still smiling at us. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

I bowed my head before I replied. “You’re most welcome, it is an honour to meet you your Majesties.” I heard Riley give a huff at my response. The King looked at us, I hadn’t noticed that he hadn’t been before but now that he was I hoped he wouldn’t be for much longer. It felt like he was diving into the darkest depts of my soul to my fears and nightmares. It was unnerving.

“Your college doesn’t seem to show the same respect that you do.” The kings strong husky voice rang out through the room. It had a hint of anger to it, his expression reflected that anger.

“I’m sorry your Majesties, it has been a long journey so far and my team are tired but that is still no excuse. I will personally make sure they behave in an appropriate manner from this point onward.” I said as I turned to give Riley a serious look. He just has to behave long enough to get back to our rooms and then he can sleep off what ever is pissing him off. The King raised a brow but didn’t say anything else on the matter, the Queen just placed her hand on his.

“We understand and we will try to make this quick as you will have a long journey ahead of you in the coming days.” The Queen said in a soothing voice. “We wouldn’t have requested your assistance if it wasn’t for the seriousness of the situation. We have lost many of our men to the rogues and they are only getting more bold. They have started killing closer to our boarders and with the need to renew and make the the treaty between the northern mountains pack and us perminant, we need people who know what they are up against and how to handle multiple rogues if the situation arises.” She had a hint of worry in her voice as she spoke.

“We need you to escort our son Prince Nicolas to have a meeting with the pack Alpha and negotiate the terms of the treaty and the signing.” The King finished just before the door to the left of the thrones opened and a tall man with the same jet black hair as the queen walked in.

“Mother... father, you requested my presence?”