GOING THROUGH THE BACK DOOR

26 FEBRUARY, FRIDAY, CONTINUED

"Shhh...." I waved my hand to the two squabbling boys to stop. I wasn't paying attention to what it was this time, but River and Keanu had an inexhaustible list of disagreements from music preference to River's propensity to trip over things. I was right about one thing though. River tripped over a lot of things from tree roots and stones, to his own two feet.

We had carefully picked our way through the forest. It wasn't just the fact that we had someone who'd trip over any unevenness in the ground. It was pretty tricky because of all the enchantments and hidden paths.

This had to be the Warlock's main portal out to anywhere. I guess it was convenient for him though. Imagine if you could just step out of your backyard and there would be a magic path to anywhere you'd like to go.

But then again, if the path started from your backyard, it wouldn't be somewhere you'd want to be seen going from your front gate either, would it?

Which explained why unlike the first magic path we took, the paths originating from behind Fount's tower were all hidden paths, carefully concealed in the forested part of the land. I wondered what secret places they would lead to?

But that wasn't the point, there was something else even more important right now, "Ben is near."

I felt quite sure of it. My alpha radar could pick him out quite clearly. He was with a bunch of my wolves... I'm going to assume my special team was still with him.

"Change of plan." I decided, "Let's go meet Ben first. My special team is probably with him too."

"Understood, goddess." Ki agreed at once.

The others considered this. River clutched his stone, it shone so brightly the light could be seen through the gaps between his fingers, "But we're so close."

Yeah. The tower was right in front of us, just beyond the shelter of these trees.

"I must get Ben." I insisted, more out of instinct than logic.

Wilhelm nodded, "Regrouping before confronting the warlock would indeed be a sound tactic. We cannot know what to expect from the warlock. The young beta and the special team warriors are extremely powerful wolves. They would certainly increase our chances."

Urm...yeah. Let's go with that.

But if I had to explain it, I would have said, Ben had been running with me since before we shifted, and everytime we got in trouble, Ben would take the hardest fall.

I guess at the back of my mind, I just... Well, it was just a thought, there was no scientific basis for it, but I thought, if I could see Ben safe in one piece, then chances were that all the other wolves that had come into the Warlock Lands with me would be okay too.

Like I said, it wasn't really anything to do with logic in the normal sense. It was just a feeling.

I started moving according to my lucky sense of direction again, "This way."

"Which way?" River asked looking in every direction.

"Eh, I think you should just keep going, Sam." Keanu said, "We'll follow behind you. We don't have a clue where we're going. But it seems as long as you lead, we won't have to step into any more of those traps."

Eh? What traps?

"Yes, our goddess steps are always a blessing to follow." Ki boasted, "She has a remarkable ability to sense even the most hidden traps and avoid them."

Well, more like, I was just lucky.

Keanu took the next ten minutes to complain about how River had led them into what had to be every single trap set in the forest. That was how they ended up in the gyaara nest - while some of the traps worked like a mirage of some sort. It kept its captives walking round in circles. Others would lead their captives right into lethally dangerous situations. Case in point, the gyaara nest.

Amazing how the guy with the all-powerful stone could still be trapped repeatedly.

"It's just too sneaky!" River protested, "We didn't even know we were in a trap!"

Because there were more obvious ones, like the kind that just trapped you in an invisible box. But if it were obvious, River could use his stone to disarm it.

I facepalmed, "So you guys spent hours walking around, not because you didn't have the ability to disarm the trap, but because you didn't realize you were in it?"

"Yeah, I guess." River laughed weakly.

"It was a good thing Wilhelm was with us." Keanu said.

I'd say.

"My abilities are nothing compared to the Alpha Princess' though." Wilhelm answered modestly, "It's truly remarkable that we had not stepped into any trap since."

I stopped suddenly. This was it. I raised my hand for my small party to stop too. This was where Ben should be. But he wasn't here. Funny.

We were just at the edge of the treeline now, and the tower's white stone backside was right in front of us.

I know it didn't make sense, but if I followed my internal radar, Ben should be here. I looked up. He wasn't in the tree. I looked down, so he was below us?

I looked down at my feet and tried to figure it out. Ben was underground. That was my only logical conclusion.

So some kind of basement? I had no idea.

I turned to my companions, "If I told you Ben was directly below us, what would you think?"

I mean, besides the fact that my radar was busted or that I was pranking you.

"Below us?" River looked down at his feet too. We were standing on leaves and twigs and dirt and grass and all the usual stuff you might find at the edge of the forest.

"Are you sure, Sam?" Keanu asked.

"Like quite sure?" I answered.

"That doesn't make any sense." River said, "Could it be another underground cave?"

Wilhelm and Ki looked gravely at the ground, and then Wilhelm hazzarded a suggestion, "Perhaps an underground facility or some sort?"

"Oh, like a dungeon?" Keanu asked.

Wilhelm looked most hesistant to respond to that.

I nodded, "That would explain it."

I mean, what other underground facility could there possibly be?

"Explain what, Sam?" River asked. I think he was the last one to figure it out. Finally! Someone who was slower than me to figure things out! So I got to be the one to explain, "Ben and the others are underground. A dungeon would make sense since his location was unchanged since I first sensed him. It's very likely he has been caught by the warlock."

We all looked at the tower wall and then at the ground at our feet.

"The question it, where would the entrance to this underground dungeon be?" Keanu said.

"Okay, you guys wait here. I'll go scout around." I decided.

"May I accompany you goddess?" Ki asked.

I shook my head. Ki was okay. I knew he would be able to keep up and not accidentally trigger any of the traps BUT I couldn't leave River unsupervised.

"You need to stay here and make sure River doesn't get into trouble." I told him.

"Wilhelm and I can do that." Keanu said, "It would be safer to have Ki with you."

"You think I don't know that?" I decided to play Wolfgang again, "But I also know that you and Wilhelm would just end up giving in to him. I might need to rescue Ben and the others in a while, and I don't want to have to double back and rescue the three of you again, so Ki will stay here.

To Ki, I said, "If any of the humans try to leave, you may break their legs."

Of course I was just joking.

Ki smiled his killion dollar smile, "Understood goddess."

His response was enough to indicate to Wilhelm that it wasn't going to be literally carried out, so the human warrior's shoulders relaxed.

But River properly freaked out.

"Sam, you wouldn't!" River gasped.

I laughed, "Don't try me, River."

As I left, I heard River worry, "I think Sam might actually be scarier than Wolfgang in some ways."

"Is that so?" Keanu answered lightly. Keanu was the kind of guy who enjoyed scaring the crap out of his best friend, "They do say that beautiful girls are the most vicious."

So was I ugly or vicious? Lol, but whatever. As long as River didn't try to go face the warlock alone or randomly walk into one of those secret paths and get himself lost again.

Unlike with my betas and wolves, my radar did not register humans at all, so if I did lose them, there would be little hope of finding them again.

I carefully made my way closer to the tower. I sure hope there was an entrance from outside. Then I remembered how River had fallen down a trap door in the ground at Roy's place. Who put trap doors in the ground like that?

But maybe that might be a thing in the Warlock lands. Maybe, just maybe, Roy had gotten the idea from Fount?

I didn't want to leave the cover of the treeline. I didn't want to trigger any of the traps. At least the crystals hidden in the trees did not shoot lasers like before, although this could be because I still had the crystal key with me.

I tried to scan around the area. If I were a warlock, where would I put the entrance to my dungeons?

Hmmm...perhaps I wouldn't even put it so close to my home. I returned to Ki and the humans.

"Did you find it?" River asked.

I shook my head, "I think it's probably a bit further from his tower, maybe on that side. This way, if Fount brought back prisoners, he would be able to transport them through one of his hidden paths and straight into the dungeon without exposing the location of his tower."

"That makes sense." Keanu agreed.

"Then perhaps it might also be over on that side, Alpha Princess." Wilhelm suggested, "It would make it harder for his prisoner to escape through the hidden paths from there."

That's true. If the dungeon entrance was where Wilhelm indicated, the Warlock could take his prisoner directly to his dungeons, while the prisoner would have to run across the warlock's front lawn to get back to the hidden paths.

But that also meant that we would have to run across the front lawn too. That, or flank around the wooded area all the way to the other side.

I sighed, "Okay, but someone has to carry River."

If we were going to make the effort to creep along the edges of the forest around the entire warlock tower, then I wasn't going to risk River triggering any of the traps to alert the warlock.

We've come so far, I needed to be patient. And the closer we got to my goal, the more cautiously I needed to move.

I know I've only been running here for half a day, but I've already learned from my first mistake. If the warlock was anything like the array of magic in his land, then to win, I can't just rush straight in the way I did when we first got here.

I had to move cautiously and bid my time. Nothing in the warlock lands was straightforward, but it was a lot like trying to run alongside all those prophecies too. It wasn't about being the fastest or strongest. It was about stepping into the right place at the right time for each step of the prophecy to be fulfilled.