Fleck decided that she’d better report to Ember tonight, no matter how tired she was. After all, she had to tell him about the failed assassination and the new recruits.
Seizing her earpiece and shoving it on, Fleck said in a harsh whisper, “Ember! King Ember do you read me?”
For what seemed like forever, there was no answer, then, Ember mumbled exhaustedly, “What is it that you want, Fleck?”
Fleck told him about all that had happened since she had last spoken to him.
“You failed!” Ember raged in an unnecessarily loud voice. “You failed me! Oh, of course, your most important mission of the lot and you fail! I shouldn’t have left a man’s work to some girl, but still, I expected more from even you!”
“Now listen, you sexist fink!” Fleck hissed. “You’d better be quiet, or else you’ll wake up every cat for a hundred miles, and that includes me! I’m sure that you wouldn’t have been able to get even half as far as me. In addition, I’ve collected a nice bag of bolts for you and your ungrateful horde of cats.”
“And left them in Slate’s room!” Ember snarled. “Along with your belt and dagger! I mean, how useless can you get? He’s going to find your dagger and know that it was you because you--stupidly enough--told him that you used a dagger. What would my kingdom do with a bag of bolts, anyway?”
“Well, you could use them for making guns, not like any of you and you dummies could ever do that, or melt them down for the same purpose or for ammo.” Fleck’s voice was dangerously calm and falsely upbeat and feminine.
“Whatever,” Ember growled. “But I want you to have all of your things back by the next morning, and that’s an order! And while you’re at it, you might want to complete your failed mission!”
At that, Ember clicked his earpiece off, grumbling loudly as he did so. Fleck fumed as she turned her earpiece off and roughly tugged it out of her ear, snarling angrily under her breath all of the while.
“How dare he order me to do anything!” she hissed as she slipped out of the bush on silent paws. “Furthermore, how am I supposed to get my things with that wall of lasers in between me and them, anyway? Men!”
Fleck briskly padded in the direction of the hollow tree that served as the guards den and, more importantly, Slate’s den. She stealthily clawed her way up the rough trunk. It was a fairly long climb, and by the time she was finished, her pads were raw. She carefully checked for the motion-sensing pads, even though the engineers had only half-finished repairing even the hoover gun. Of course, and luckily at that, there were none.
Once Fleck was about a foot away from the threshold, she knew exactly what to do. It would be very tricky to do, especially as without her trusty FoeFlayer to help her.
Grinning to herself, Fleck unsheathed her claws, which caught the silvery moonlight in a menacing sort of way. Edging as close as she dared to the entranceway, Fleck used her kneif-sharp eyes to search the sides of the doorway. She tipped her head slightly to the side, attempting to catch the gleam of medal in the little light. Finally, she found something. It was a small, round bit of medal that looked much like a medal marble fixed into the age-softened wood.
Fleck used a single claw to unscrew the minuscule screws that lined the piece of medal’s middle. Once she had completed this step, the top half of the laser fell towards the ground. To prevent any sound that might be capable of waking anyone up, just as she had done with the tiny screws, Fleck caught the small semicircle in her paw. The other half of it was still embedded in the wood of the ash tree. Inside of it was a mess of wires and a tiny green chip. Hastily, Fleck rooted around in there, cutting wires as she went. She wanted to make it extremely difficult for the engineers to fix this to bide her time for her next mission, if there was one.
Fleck dug the chip out of the mass of useless wires. She placed this, the top half of the laser and the tiny screws in a neat little pile nearby to gather later. She then hastily, but with great care, set to work with the next one. It was quite tedious work, but soon it was done and her piled had swelled quite a bit.
Next, Fleck slipped soundlessly across the threshold, this time without the slightest problem. She easily scooped up her dagger, belt, and small bag full of bolts. Fleck then darted outside and added the other things to the small bag, which was now full to the brim.
Fleck then sidled noiselessly into the room once more. She drew her dagger from its sheath, readying herself for another attempt on King Slate’s life.
Dashing silently across the room, Fleck came to a locked door, which she supposed led to Slate’s bedroom. She nearly laughed at this. After all of this topnotch security, his bedroom was guarded by a merely locked door? Fleck examined the door for any signs of traps of any sort, but found none. Smiling winningly, she drew a thin medal wire from the overstuffed little bag and fitted it into the lock. With slight difficult, the expert was able to unlock the door with a barely audible little click.
Gingerly, Fleck pushed the door with a wary paw. It swung open obligingly on greased hinges without the slightest sound. Fleck placed the handy tool back into the little bag, gave the door a small push as to let in less light, and crept into the room on light paws, careful to keep to the shadows. She could hear Slate comically snoring thunderously on his conferrable bed of moss, ferns and feathers.
Warily stalking towards the said bed, Fleck rose her dagger to head-level. She was now at Slate’s bedside, FoeFlayer poised directly above his head, ready to taste the blood of the victim.
Fleck drove the dagger down, aiming to kill. The blood-hungry knife stopped dead in midair as Slate snuffled in his sleep. As he began to open a weary eye, Fleck hastily retreated into the shadows, heart pounding in her chest with such rapidity that she feared that Slate would be able to hear it. She quickly sheathed her dagger and waited, not daring to draw a breath.
Slate rose his head tiredly from where it had lay on top of his feather pillow, muttering incoherently. With halfway-closed eyes, he flopped his head heavily back onto the pillow, which released a downy white feather in retort. With more sleepy snuffling, he completed closing his eyes and the mutterings became rumbling snores.
Sighing heavily with relief, Fleck took her leave, decided that she couldn’t risk attempting to kill King Slate again. She felt like she had risked far too much already. Anyway, she had gotten what she needed. Nodding to herself, she exited the room, quietly shutting the door behind her. After re-locking the door with the trusty wire, Fleck slipped out of the room and climbed down the rotted tree trunk.
Fleck nipped soundlessly into the guards’ den after depositing her belt and supplies underneath the bramble bush to join her earpiece. She lay within her little cove curled up into a tight ball, exhausted from both hard work and stress. She wondered what Ember would think of her failing the mission for the second time in a row.
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-KittyLover8
© 2013
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