SPOILERS!!!!! Hey featherheads! Happy sunday! We're almost at the best chater in the whole book! chapter 53! Anyways this one is super fun!
Enjoy, the start of the climax!
Chapter 47 The War Has Begun
“Janner, wake up! We have a long day ahead of us.” Nia said as she shook him awake. “Five more minutes!” he groaned.
“Up now!” she said and then turned to Kalmar, shook her head, and said. “Kal, you have got to wake up!” His response was only just a snore.
“Janner, please wake your brother up. I'm going to the river with Sara, Maraly, and Leeli to wash up and then we'll get ready for the war.'' She said, as there was a sense of strength in her voice and a sense of worry. She helped Leeli get her crutch and walk with Sara and Maraly to the river.
Janner finally opened his eyes and immediately closed them because the light of the sun was too bright for his eyes. It stung them hard and it felt like all the gravity was pushing down on his eyes to make them close and he had to force against the gravity to open them. But he did it, and he found that it was an incredibly foggy morning.
It was about 5:00 a.m, that they were up and all of Anniera was covered in a thick layer of fog. The grass was covered in a sheet of fresh morning dew and there were still stars out in the sky. He yawned and stretched his arms and then looked at Kalmar who was still snoring away on his lap.
“Come on Kal, we gotta get up.” He said, and there was no response.
“Come on!” he said, shaking Kalmar. still no response. Janner sighed and thought carefully about this, saying, “Toothy Cow attack!!!” convincingly into Kalmar’s ear, and there was nothing, not even a move.
“It's the Dragon Day Festival and there's fresh plum yums!” Janner tried again. Still nothing but a snore. Janner tried about six more ways to wake Kalmar up. He was about ready to just shove him off his legs. But he thought of something, something that made him want to laugh like crazy.
He hunkered down next to Kalmar’s ear and whispered in a silly voice, “Kalmar Rose is here!”
To this Kalmar shot up and said “Where is Mr. Pancake?...Why, what…Where's Rose?”
At this, Janner could not contain himself, he burst into laughter and when Kalmar realized that Rose was actually not there he turned red and then tried to go back to sleep. Janner pushed him up and said, “Come on, we have to go get ready.” He said laughing.
“You couldn't have found a better way to wake me up?”
“I tried 11 times, Kalmar! that was the only thing that would get you up.” he said, still chuckling to himself.
“Fine but not a word of this to Leeli.”
Kalmar said, embarrassed.
The entire rest of the morning they spent training and getting ready for the coming War. Esben was amazed at the fact that his children knew so much about sword throwing and fighting in a war.
“How do you know all this stuff?” he asked, raising an eyebrow when Janner perfectly executed the sword movement.
“Oh, we've been in a war before.” Kalmar said, like this was no big deal.
“You were!?” Esben asked, surprised at this.
“Yeah, who do you think defeated Gnag the Nameless?” Janner said, as he won the match against Kalmar. Esben looked surprised and when he realized that Gnag wasn't in Aerwiar anymore, he was honestly quite proud of his children.
“Yeah, Great Uncle Gnag died heroically though.” Leeli said, thinking back to that day when they told Gnag his real name.
“Wait, what did you just say?” Esben asked, like he had just heard something that could not be possible in any shape or form or any time or space.
Artham walked up to Esben and patted him on the shoulder as he said, “I got news for you Es, the so-called Gnag the Nameless really had a name and he was our uncle”. He said this like it was something that they had all known for years.
“What!?” Esben exclaimed, shocked at this. “But that can't be true! Grandma only had two kids!”
“It's a really long story but let's just say your old advisor, Bonifer, who destroyed your cloven bot, had also liked grandma and when our grandfather came and married Madia, Bonifer was not happy about that. So he decided to get revenge on Ortham by stealing Madia’s second child, which was Devon Wingfeather; otherwise, known as Gnag the Nameless. Bonifer took Gnag to Ouster Will. Yes, Ouster Will is real. They raised Gnag up telling him that Madia had sent him out and that she didn't love him and she didn't even bother to give him a name. That turned Gnag so bitter and evil and heartbroken that he did all of this evil stuff. Oh, and he used your kids too. He just really wanted the Jewels of Anniera so he tracked us down from Glipwood causing our lives to turn into a mess of what it is now. He took them to Anniera to open the Fane of Fire and he then merged with this old sea dragon named Yurgen. Oskar then found in the First Book, once he translated it from Holish, the fact that Gnag the Nameless really had a name and that’s Devon Wingfeather. The Fangs scattered and we went back to Anniera, and well that's Uncle Gnag.” Artham said, waving his hands as he said this for dramatic flair.
“I cannot believe that Gnag the Nameless, the person who forced all of us, including myself, out of our own kingdom, was actually our uncle! And while all of this other stuff was going on I was trapped inside of a cold dark dungeon by an evil queen!” Esben said, exasperated at this truth.
“Yep, that's our life for you.” Kalmar said, as he swung his sword in the air, hitting Janner's with a clang.
It was about 7:00 a.m. when they started to hear things like ships, dragons, and things that they had no idea what they were but they sounded horribly, horribly bad. They knew that at this time the war was going to begin. In Anniera there is a large green field, one that doesn't really have anything on it; it was just a playing field called Fairy Fields. This was where they were supposed to go to meet Opal for the war.
They marched up with all the Annierains behind them. The children's adrenaline was rushing. Esben looked them each in the eye and said, “Remember no matter if we win or lose, we need to stick together and always remember that no matter what, The Maker will get us through this.”
Then they all stood in a circle, held hands and prayed to The Maker for safety and guidance in the war.
The next thing they knew, Opal came walking up one of the rolling
hills of the field with no one behind her. The only thing different about her was her clothes and what she was carrying. She wore armor over her purple dress. It was a silver purplish color, and it covered every part of her and on her neck she wore a green glowing amulet. Janner had seen the amulet before; it was the same one that was laying on the top of her bed when they had accidentally gone into her room. In her hand, she carried two extremely sharp swords that were also extremely long, and they were double-sided. She walked up to them as far as she could, but still kept her distance where they could hear her and she shouted,
“Hello, Wingfeathers! Are you ready to see the project that I have completed and been through so much of a hassle, to get it done?” she asked, with an evil grin.
None of them responded but they were all terrified of what this horrible project that Opal was working on could be. “You know, although I despised Gnag the Nameless and absolutely thought his ways were the most foolish of them all; I quite liked his Fangs of Dang idea. The only problem with it was that they were so easily killed. So I thought what if there could be a way where Fangs could be indestructible and controlled to destroy the enemies. So I came up with a plan after plan theory and I finally found out how to make the Indestructible Fangs. The only problem was they required a little element from the world called Milky Way. So I realized that I needed to get all of the crystal shards and knowing that only someone with Annerian royal blood could retrieve the crystal shards, I thought why not do two things at once and get revenge on the Wingfeathers while getting crystal shards. So I dragged you all along on a wild goose chase making tons of enemies across all the lands, and I took you to the Milky Way where I got the element that I needed. Then I sent you off back to your home so that you may have a tiny bit of hope for today so that I may crush it! Now I will show you my Indestructible Fangs.
Wingfeathers and all Annierains meet the Titanium Fangs!” she said, stepping back, holding her hands in the air as an army of hundreds and thousands of Titanium Fangs both in the lizard form and in the wolf form marched across the field. They looked terrifying! They were made out of solid titanium but in the chest they had a glowing red ruby that seemed to control the whole thing. They carried ginormous spears, arrows, bows, clubs, and shields! Their evil grin was soul crushing, and their teeth were sharper than glass when it breaks into a million pieces.
The Wingfeathers and all the Annierians looked in horror at the terrifying creatures! “Are you kidding me!” Kalmar managed to say.
“She made Titanium Fangs!” Janner repeated still in disbelief of what he was seeing before his eyes.
“How are we ever going to defeat these things?” Sara said, for she was out of ideas.
“I don't think we can…” Leeli said, hopelessly, as she looked at the Fangs then to her little twisted leg and then back at the Fangs and wanted to cry.
“There has to be a way to defeat them, right?” Janner asked, hopefully to Nia, Esben, Artham, and Oskar. He waited with baited breath at their answer for what they could say might deepen the tiny sliver of hope that he still had.
They looked at him sadly and Nia said, “We'll try our best, that's all we can do. But I have no idea how we will defeat these Fangs.”
At this point everything looked pretty much hopeless to Janner. They were up against one of the toughest villains they've ever encountered who has a titanium army of Fangs that outnumbered them by thousands, maybe even hundred thousands. Everything may end up standing in ruins, while all of the Annerians who had just been brought out of being half Fangs were now up against Opal who probably has some way of turning them back into fangs.
Janner wished with all his life that things could just go back to normal. That no one would chase them, that no one would try to kill them, that there would be no dangerous cliffhangers, just “home”. Nothing else but home. All Janner wanted to do was curl up with a good book and be safe at home with his family. But that was not the real world, for their world was currently at war. Thinking of all this made him want to cry.
Titanium fangs?!?!