Gauntlet

Peeking her eyes open, Alizar checked to make sure everyone else was asleep, she knew she was close to running on empty after creating a miniature sun to melt the snow and warm the air, the magical barrier really took it out of her. She knew if they were going to the Capital, they needed backup, and she needed revenge.

Standing from the scorched earth campsite, the witch walked away from the fire, knowing the ball of flame wouldn’t last much longer if she left, but she thought she would be fine to sneak off as her new found friends would be safe from the elements here.

A few meters off from where they had made camp, Alizar thought long and hard about the journey Flint’s men took them on in the carriage after they won their freedom, following her memories like footsteps, she’d finished her thoughts inside the cell she’d been kept in before the final fight with San and the others.

With a deep breath, she mirrored the action of touching her thumb to her index finger in both hands. Creating loops with her fingers, she released the breath, slowly moving her hands closer together, finally snapping the rings together. She made sure to focus on that old, musty, damp cell as she snapped her fingers apart, and inhaled the dreadful smell.

Opening her eyes to the rusty bars she used to call home, Alizar wasted little time shrinking down and stepping under the bars that bound her. Bee-lining her way to the medic’s office, Alizar tried her best to remember, but the fortress’s terrible interior design had one major strength—if everything looks the same, it’s easy to get lost.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the medic’s door she found, a group of scurrying rats had stopped to see the peculiar sight, a woman half their size running around the corridors. The three rats had her pinned against the wall, and Alizar tried to talk her way out.

“I can understand humans aren’t the most kind to you, and you have every right to think of me like every other human who’s hurt you, but I’m telling you now, I am different, I mean you no harm so please, just let me…” she asked, trying to squeeze past as one of the rat’s fangs snapped at her torso.

Dashing back, Alizar knew she didn’t have time for this, quickly flicking her thumb, middle finger and ring finger together she launched a miniature gust of wind that sent the first aggressive rat flying across the hall. The second, being bold, lunged at her, only to meet the first rat’s fate. Now the last was either too scared to move or respected Alizar’s power, bowing its head as it stood before her.

Knowing she had never had the gift for taming animals, she was surprised as she approached, stroking its filthy hair. The rat maintained its composure, lowering itself from its feet to laying on its belly, and Alizar took its actions as an offer for a free ride.

Holding tufts of fur as the rodent scurried through the halls, Alizar had to admit to herself that this was much more fun than horseback riding, as they inevitably made their way to the dark blue doorway. Dismounting so her furry friend could mash its body under the frame, Alizar stepped through to realize her luck.

The rat hadn’t been drawn here from some mental bond they shared, knowing that this is where Alizar needed to be, but it simply smelled the food the good doctor must had forgotten here before going off to bed.

Returning to her normal size, Alizar allowed the rat to crawl onto her hand, placing her steed on the counter where the half-eaten dish was left as a reward. Leaving Alizar to dig through the cabinets until she recognized the row of vials that looked like the one San had given to her that fateful night of playing possum.

She took all the vials of antidote she could carry, as well as a few of the bruise be gone potions she had recognized in the cabinet above the antidotes, grabbing a them and storing them in a separate pocket as they seemed to have limitless potential for future adventures.

Unlocking the medic’s door as she was about to leave, Alizar stopped to look down at her friend that helped her get here, still enjoying the half a sandwich as stale as it must have been. Alizar couldn’t remember the last time she got along with an animal, and thought if the rat would accept, she would bring it on the journey.

“Yes you look like a Penelope to me,” Alizar said, lifting the rat up and placing her back to the ground. Stuffing the half sandwich into one of the unfilled robe pockets and returning to her tiny form, she had a few more stops to make this evening.

The next step, of course, was to lift a key off one of the sleep-deprived patrolling guards. Not long after leaving the medic’s office, the rat rider turned down a hall to find just such a guard leaning against the wall by a warming torch, resting his eyes and muttering to himself in his sleep.

As talented as Alizar was, she was severely lacking in levitating inanimate objects. Gusts of wind strong enough to defeat armies? Easy. Breathing fire? Walk in the park. But keys off some dumb guard’s belt was just not in her skill set. So, after making sure the coast was clear, she returned to normal size and slowly, very carefully, pulled on the ring of thick metal keys.

“Mhugh ugh, Jen, I’m sorry…” the guard muttered in his sleep, making the already tense Alizar ready to flick him point-blank with her gust of wind as her hand that wasn’t trying to lift the keyring was aimed at his head.

But alerting the guards early was the last thing she wanted, so she released her fingers from her thumb and continued to try and pry the rings from his rump, but the guard was leaning against the wall in just such a way that half of the keys were pinned between him and a hard place, the hard place being the stone wall of course.

An incredibly risky idea entered her head, as she whispered into the guard’s ear, “All is forgiven my darling, now come dance with me,” she asked as her hand held his hip, conveniently right next to the keyring, her other hand took his right hand, as they waltzed in his sleep.

One foot after another, he managed to do a whole box step, his head leaning on her shoulder as he mumbled “I love the way you smell,” into Alizar’s ear, his morning breath making her gag as she tried her best to keep her composure. She had the ring lifted from him the moment his back left the wall, now the only challenge was ever so softly laying him back against the brick so his fantasy could continue. On its own.

And before his back rejoined at the warm spot next to the torch, Alizar had already shrank back to her waiting steed, mounting her as she tried her best to remain undetected. Recklessly riding a rat down the cobbled corridors. Alizar made sure to stop at every cell that looked like it had a decent fighter in it, even those who didn’t, as one of her last was just a feeble old man sitting on the ground with his eyes closed.

She instructed them all that this was going to be a prison break, she was going to free all of them on one condition—that they help her bring down the Capital. Most laughed, saying that it was an impossible act, but after just watching a witch the size of their thumb ride a rat into their cell and hand over the antidote they needed, most were sold.

All but one it seemed, a Large man claiming to be one of the Prince’s most noble nights, and he would never go against the crown.

“Oh, but the brat doesn’t even wear the crown, and he never will. If you heard the rumors, he is a bit of a panty waist, can’t even withstand a sneeze,” Alizar joked, making the other men in that cell laugh, but this noble knight had had enough “Guards, Guards, intruder!” he called, grinning, thinking he had her caught.

As she regained her tiny form, she went back outside the bars, the knight’s blabber mouth was caught with a swift jab from his cellmates who were ready to fight for their freedom. Standing off to the side in a dark corner, she waited as one guard slowly sauntered over, rubbing his tired eyes, looking frustrated at the fool for calling on him.

“Intruder?” he scoffed, looking at the men behind there bars, but it was too late, Alizar had already regrown behind him, and jabbed her palm at the back of his neck, making his face clang against the rusting bars. As the guard fell, the loud-mouth knight soon followed as his cellmates shoved him against the iron beams the exact same way.

“Right then, lads. Follow me,” she said to the now seven unlocked cells, where most had about four able bodies, leaving the last with only the one old man who only rose from his meditation when called.

Following Alizar, her small army of warriors segued the halls. Luckily, there were very few posted guards, as none of the men had weapons or armor, Leaving Alizar and Penelope to lead the charge, regular-sized, of course. There was no use sneaking with almost thirty bastards trooping down the cramped hall, Penelope had more than earned her reward, now safely in Alizar’s pocket with her sandwich.

Making their way to the armory to solve their main issue of the unarmed warriors, they were stopped by the main hulking tyrant behind the whole operation, Warlord Flint himself was standing between them and their weapons. Wearing his own armor with many intricate little details it looked like it was made with love, but it was likely he just stole it as Flint was a seven-foot-tall, muscular pug-faced man, with a face only a mother could love, certainly not with a nice enough personality to receive gifts.

“We knew you escaped, witch, but we weren’t sure you were stupid enough to come back,” Flint bellowed, looking down at the captured warriors his men had accumulated over the past weeks. Grabbing Alizar by the scuff of her robe, he lifted her to see him eye to eye. Which Alizar mistook as dumb ignorance to her power, but it seemed Flint wasn’t as stupid as he looked.

As Alizar quickly made the shape with her hand to blow his dumb head clean off, she flicked and nothing happened, again and again to no avail as the defining disgusting spitty laughter of Flint overcame her.

“Do you not see the sigils on my armor? do you not know of their significance?” he asked, surprising Alizar that the pea-brain knew such a big word.

“I assumed they were just pretty decor,” Alizar said, trying to make light of the moment that very well could be her last, that was unless they had a fighter among them, a fighter who didn’t need a weapon to prove his might. As the old man sifted through the ranks, moving through the other’s shoulders like a leaf floating on a pond, he stood not much taller than Flint’s knee, and Flint barely even noticed the figure approach as he was too preoccupied with making an example of the witch, his booming laugh only making her slow death that much worse as he pinched her neck against the wall.

The other warriors gave the old monk his space as he took a pose, primed and ready to fire with a wide stance, one arm raised and the other drawn back as he quickly shot his palm into Flint’s knee. The magic resistant armor was apparently not palm proof as its enchanted metal quickly bent inward, making its way into the bone, denting into Flint’s flesh, his shattered knee cap oozing blood down into the grout of the stone floor. His laughing quickly turned to sobbing in pain as he held his disfigured leg, dropping the witch as she gasped for air.

“Thank you,” she said softly to the monk who nodded at her before finishing the warlord off with one more swift strike to his skull. Now, the other guards who’d backed Flint up watched his massacre and left to find their own safety, piling through the back of the armory as Alizar’s band of warriors suited up. Picking the place clean with anything and everything that suited their fancy.

With every man and woman armed to the teeth, they managed to make their way outside. As the frigid but warming air met the group’s nostrils for the first time in months, they let out a powerful cheer, for victory had been made against their oppressor.

“Quickly now, I have one more trick up my sleeve,” Alizar said to her new loyal band, “half of you form a circle around me, the other half form lines crossing in the middle to make a circle with a cross through it with me in the center,” she instructed, but of course it was late, adrenaline was pumping and most had no clue what she was talking about.

So after fifteen minutes of organizing overgrown warriors in armor to hold hands in a circle, Alizar got four of them to hold onto her as they met the center of the circle and the other brutes who held onto them held onto the edges of the circle.

“No matter what, don’t let go,” she instructed, forming the rings with her hands as she had done to get here. Snapping her ring fingers apart, they were back. About a day’s walk to the Capital.