Ch.13 Who Took Her?

With them not being able to find princess Aalis after several hours of looking, King Foust issued a statement saying that the memorial for the queen would be postpone for the time being. The reason listed was that the princess had fallen slightly ill. This would also help to cover her not being seen around the castle at least for a few days.

Now into the sixth hour of searching, Elric and Blaze had checked around seventy percent of the castle and its grounds, with the other thirty percent checked by the personal guards of the king an princess. The search area was expanded to the fields and the capital city that surrounded the castle.

Elric could be seen riding Blaze through the fields and farms asking all of the peasants and land owners that he came across if they had seen anyone or anything of suspect in the last few days. if asked as to why he told them that he was chasseing down a wanted thief believed to have stolen something from the castile that belonged to the former queen. One of them said that his chickens had made a rather large fuss last night. When he had ran out of his home with a large knife in his hands ready to kill off the intruding fox he had thought got into the coup, he found no signs of one. There were no dead chickens or fresh fox tracks to be seen. He did find one boot print that was not his but did not think much of it at the time. However now that Elric told him of "the thief", he could not help but think it might have been the culprit running by so he told Elric about it.

Elric thought it was not much of a clue, but it did give him a direction to continue to look. The coup was located to the southwest of the castile around by almost a mile. Elric lead Blaze over to the boot print to check it out. He noticed the size and depth of the print indicated it to be of a slimmer build man that may have been carrying something around one third of his own weight. Blaze got a good sniff of it as well. She was able to pick up traces of flowers similar to those that grew in one of the fields that was back in the direction of the castile.

Blaze was able to tell this to Elric because of the strange connection the two shared. It was as if they had their own language, but it acted more like a telepathic connection at times. Armed with the new clues Elric and Blaze focused their search in the direction southwest and sent a messenger bird back to Odis in the castle. The Bird looked like cross between a raven an pigeon that had four wings and twin tails. Odis called them Twin Tails and were birds he raised as messengers to be used by him and the envoys and scouts of the kingdom. During this search each team carried two of them each using up all forty of his birds.

At the same time nineteen teams of three guards were searching the capital city. They used to same excuse as Elric, saying that they were looking for a thief to go door to door searching every shop, storehouse, home, and public space of the entire city. The guards were using a grid like system Odis had came up with to be sure not to miss a single place that the kidnapper may be hiding.

The guards were a lot more forceful in their search, barging into the homes of the kingdom's subjects with little or no warning only to heavily question anyone they found inside, while recklessly searching said home. Teams searching the market district were the most forceful of all. They open crates, slabbed piles of hay and dry flowers used to make dyes and fragrance oils with swords, and arrested anyone trying to cover their face or run. This made the search quite slow, but it did result in the capture of five wanted bandits and one murder suspect. One team was told of the broken roof slats found on the ground of a dye master's shop by one of the workers that was out buying more raw cloth to dye.

This information was also sent Back to Odis at the castile, who sent word to Elric to go over to were the broken roof was. Odis wanted to have Blaze smell around and see if it smelled the same as the footprint the two of them had found. This broken spot on the roof was in an almost straight line from where the footprint was found if one traveled southwest.

It took Blaze ten minutes to make the trip as they were told no to go at top speed as this would alert the residence of the city even more. Most of them were already on edge from all the guards searching, horse sized dragon running full bore was defiantly not going to make anyone fell comfortable. Once they got to the area Blaze was able to pickup the scent of the same flowers mixed with the smell of mud and chicken droppings. Elric had one of the guard teems send the new findings back to Odis via a twin tail. He did not want to use his last bird in case he found more clues.

Elric had already torn off on Blaze heading out the southwest gate of the city by the time the message reached Odis. Some distance away from the city He and Blaze came across a set of deep carriage tracks. Around the tracks were many footprints resembling the one he had been shown by the chicken coup. When Blaze sniffed them it smelled the same as the broken roof slats. Looking around Elric noticed seven branches scattered close by. He thought they could have been use as sort of a camouflage to hide a carriage. Elric took out his last twin tail and sent off a message to Odis telling him what he and Blaze had found. He kept looking in the area as he waited on a reply to come back from Odis as to what to do next.

Ten minuets later a twin tail landed on Elric's shoulder with a note attached to its right leg. It was from Odis and said to stay there; he and the guard where going to come out to this location an help him search. It took close to an hour for Odis and twenty-four guards to arrive. Elric waved them over and went to speak to Odis. "Do you have any idea who took her?" Elric asked Odis.

"I have some ideas, I think someone hired an assassin's guild to kidnap her. As far as to who I thought it might be at prince that had made threats to her, but the direction the kidnapper fled is wrong." Odis told him. Looking around Odis and the others thought this was definitely were a hand off had happend. Based on the clues they had, an assassin and snuck into the castile knocking over the cup of juice while kidnaping the princess an fled southwest. He had passed by the chicken coup and dye master's shop on his way here. Once he got here the assassin handed off princess Aalis to whoever had hired him to kidnap her. They had hidden a carriage here covering it with tree branches while waiting for the assassin to arrive with the kidnaped princess. After the handoff they fled in the carriage still heading mostly in a southwestern direction.

Odis ordered the guards to send out scouts following the direction that the tracks left by he carriage indicated. He added that they were to ride out disguised and to fan out widening the search area. The disguise was to try and keep the kidnaper from being tipped off by the uniform of the scouts. Odis did not want them to know that their trail had been discovered until it was to late for them to run or hide.

He had Elric and Blaze go back to the castile with him as the two of them would stand out as much as a lantern on a moonless night. Also it was for their safety, Elric was still only a ten year old boy in his eyes. Yes he had a very young fire breathing dragon and could hold his own in a one on one sword fight with most adults but this fact still remained.

The scouts headed out with most following the road as as few spread out from the start. The further the scouts traveled more would spread out; after twenty miles most had split off leaving only three on the road. These three would split at the up coming crossroads. One would keep riding south and the other two would head east and west.

Like this the scouts keep searching for any clues that a carriage passed through carrying a young girl. Five days later one of the scouts manage to catch a break. He as asked around a tavern in a small village and the barkeep had told him that a hooded man with a young unconscious girl tucked under his arm came in wanting to by food. The barkeep found it quite odd as the man also asked if the keep knew anyone interested in buying a carriage or willing to trade it for fast mounts. In fact the carriage was still out back, the tavern's owner had traded a swift terarex for the carriage and four horses that were pulling it. He had bought the terarex a year back from a traveling merchant that had racked up a small debt he was unable to pay the tavern. Being afraid to ride it himself he found it to be a good deal to trade it for a carriage and four horses of good quality.

This all happened three days back according to the barkeep. The scout went back outside and used the twin tail he had been given to send a message back to Odis. After he send the bird off he went to go check on the carriage to see if it held any clues. During his search he wished that he had waited to send off the twin tail as he only had the one. He did not know any time magic and there is no medicine for regret so all he could do for now was keep searching an burn the few hours it would take for the bird to make a round trip to the castle and back to him.

The scout found a doll that was of a type common in Foust Kingdom, but this one had on a dress that was a deep blue and matched one of Princess Aalis. Some might say it was her favorite dress so this doll was more than likely hers. By the time that the twin tail made it back he had gone to see the horses as well. The four of them were of exceptional quality matching the quality of the carriage's construction. From this he could tell it was quite expensive and did not belong to just anyone.

After reading the Note from Odis that said he was to keep looking around the pace and that a few of the other scouts would redirected to his location, He started to inspect the harnesses of the horses' that were used hook them to the carriage so they could pull it. On the coupler that attached the four harnesses together he found an emblem of a large clay pot.

One of the other scouts that joined him found a similar one under the seat of the carriage. This meant that someone had tried to cover up who the carriage had belong to but did not know of these hidden "makers marks". The scouts questioned the tavern owner as to if he had done any thing to the carriage such as removing any emblems or other such markings. They were told he had done no such thing and had only quickly looked at it before making the trade. He was going to use it in a days time for the first time in an attempt to impress a girl he was courting's father.

Learning this they figured it had to have been done by the one who traded it to him. This was more than likely done before the kidnap of Princess Aalis. This meant that whoever took her wanted to hide who they were and that this kidnaping was planed out and not a spur of the moment thing. The scouts sent a twin tail carrying a message containing the new findings back to Odis.

Upon receiving the news Odis went to see King Foust on the throne room. Understanding why Odis had came the King quickly ordered the subjects that had came to have the king pass judgements on disputes or wanting of a permit to leave. Odis quickly told the king of the scouts findings after all the unwanted eyes and ears had left. "Your majesty with what they found, I have come to the conclusion that it must have been someone of noble status from the Ash Kingdom. I it may even be someone that is part of to close to the royal family of Ash." Odis said

The Ash Kingdom was not named after the Royal family but after the main trade good of the kingdom potash an thus the emblem was that of a large clay pot. Hearing this King Foust called his generals and ordered them to prepare for war. He also ordered Odis to pen a letter to the King of Ash demanding an explanation and to see if the royal family of Ash Kingdom was involved directly or not. The letter stated if there was no response within three days or it was discovered that the royal family was behind it before getting a reply the Foust Army would invade them. He also made sure to remind the King of Ash Kingdom about Blaze being a fire breathing dragon capable of burning the entirety of the small kingdom to ashes in a matter of days.

The Kingdom of Ash was only one third to size of Foust both in size and power. So Blaze under Elric's command really could do it; and knowing how Elric felt about Princess Aalis and how he took his job as her protector very seriously it might be impossible to keep him from doing such. Odis thought that if Elric found out that the Ash Kingdom was responsible, and if the princess was harmed or killed that he truly would feed every last one of them to Blaze and turn the kingdom to ashes when he got older.

In two days a reply came from the Ash Kingdom carried by one of their fastest riders. The messenger was brought before the king and Odis in the throne room under heavy guard. One of the guards also sent word to Elric and Blaze that were out patrolling the Capital City Of Foust as part of the increase in security that started after princess Aalis kidnaping, before he was told to do so or not to. Receiving the message via twin tail Elric and Blaze tore off to the castle only taking seven minuets to get to the throne room from the time he got the message.

This caused him to arrive behind the messenger just as he began to speak letting the two of them hear everything. The messenger not knowing there was horse sized dragon with its mouth open directly above his head standing behind him. Or the fact that Elric had placed a sword in his shoulder delivered the message it was told to repeat.

"Your Majesty King Jhon of Foust Kingdom, The third prince of Ash Kingdom currently has your Crown Princess Aalis in his care. I was told this by the Third prince and the king of Ash Kingdom as well. I was told to tell you that she is unharmed and will remain so. The king and third prince are willing to return her as such. "IF" she is to be betrothed to the third prince and a marriage alliance is formed between the two kingdoms of Foust and Ash.

Upon Hearing this Elric parted the messenger's head from his shoulders and Blaze chomped down catching it in her mouth. She swallowed it whole and then began drinking the spraying blood not missing a single drop. When the blood stopped Blaze spit out fire roasting the headless body of messenger before eating it as well. No one had ever told her or Elric it was rude to kill the messenger of bad news, however the practice was still quite common. To King Foust it did not matter, the response was clear Ash Kingdom Had His Daughter. It was just one less prisoner to feed. The way Elric and Blaze dealt with the messenger only confirmed what he and Odis thought would happen to anyone the two found to have brought harm to Princess Aalis. The king thought his decision to name Elric her protector, despite his young age was possibly the best one he had ever made.

Now knowing without a doubt that the royal family of Ash Kingdom was responsible, King Foust once again called his generals. "How soon can the army move on the capital city and castle of Ash Kingdom?" asked King Foust. The head general of the army said, " We can move out as early as in three days, I will take us close to the same to march to the capital your Majesty. As such we could begin the siege by weeks end. If you where willing to send Crown Princess Aalis' Protector Elric and Blaze ahead of the Army the two could be there by nightfall or early morning at the latest.

"Good I want you to set out and lay waste to Ash Kingdom as soon as possible General Stone. As far as if I will send out Elric and his dragon, I will decide later today." ordered King Foust.