Fleck had planned ahead and knew exactly what she was going to do. First, she would sneak into Slate’s private kitchens and pour all of the poison into the food. Since Slate didn’t ever share his food with anyone and was eating alone, there was no way that the poison wouldn’t reach him. Tiger was guarding the chambers, but since the poison was clear and would be mixed in with a sauce or soup or something of the sort, wouldn’t suspect a thing. It was quite disappointing that Slate was posting sentries now, because Ember was going to expect her to work her way around them on ever mission from now on. But it had been inevitable, of course. Anyway, even though she would much rather not kill anyone, of all cats, she would like to kill Slate the most.
Fleck knew that she had to act now or never. Slate’s dinner probably was almost ready by now. She didn’t know exactly how she would find an opening to get the poison into the food, but she would have to figure it out somehow. And soon.
Fleck slipped away. Behind the innocent-looking hollow ash tree, there had been built an oak-wood extension to Slate’s chambers. In which, there was the food stores, the kitchens, and several other chambers, including which were Slate’s room and dining area. Fleck climbed the oaken shafts of wood until she had reached the window to Slate’s bedroom. She carefully pushed it open to make a crack just large enough for her to squeeze through and clambered inside of the currently vacant room.
Fleck shut the window behind her and crept noiselessly across the carpeted floor. She exited the room using the creaky door and entered Slate’s extravagantly decorated living room. Using one of the several doors, she left the large room and entered a smaller room. This one looked like a sunroom, with many large windows and countless couches and shag carpets.
Fleck rolled her eyes. How come he got sunrooms and bedrooms while she slept in a little ditch in the ground? She left the sunroom and went into another living room. Is there an end to these countless rooms? she wondered, distressed.
Finally, to her immense relief, Fleck entered the kitchens. It was a long series of rooms. The one that she had entered wasn’t busy at all, not a single cat was in it. But the next one was bustling with cats. There were so many cats that she could hardly see the old red tiled floor. She decided that it might be best if she momentarily blended in with the crowd.
When she finally got out of the swarm, she was by the other door on the opposite side of the room from where she had stood before. Near that was a number of small shelves. On which were kept spices and oils for cooking. Fleck used these to climb up higher. She leapt from shelf to shelf until she was all the way at the top. Now she could see everything that was going on below her. Things seemed to be centered around a large silver pot of soup. Fleck hid as best she could behind the oils on the shelf and listened to the voices of the bustling cats below, trying to make sure that the soup in the pot was meant for Slate to have for his dinner.
“Do you think it’s done, Chia?” a tabby tomcat asked a female cook.
“Hm...” the small black she-cat took a clean spoon out of a drawer and dipped in the stew. She tasted it in a delicate and enjoying manner. “Yes! You’ve done it again, Terri! Slate’ll love it too, I’m sure.”
The tabby sulked. “Stop calling me ‘Terri,’ You know that I hate that nickname!”
“Anyway, we’re a bit late. You’d better get this to him before we get too late,” The small black cat, Chia, said with a playful wink.
“Yeah,” the tabby cat laughed. “He’ll bite our heads off and have them for supper if we don’t get this to him in under a minute.”
Chia gave her friend a playful nudge and laughed along with him. “Then you’ better stop talking and start serving, you fool!”
Fleck had all of the information that she needed. Quick as a flash, she leapt from shelf to rafters to pot rack until she was dangling above the stew. She unscrewed the small vile of poison and poised it above to soup, ready to pour. She watched as ‘Terri’, as Chia called him, filled a clean white bowl with the stew. He then hurried off to get some rosemary for garnish. While no one was looking, Fleck poured every drop of the deadly poison into the soup.
She stayed where she was and watched as the tabby gave it a stir with a fresh spoon a carefully placed a sprig of rosemary in the center. Then a calico cat whisked the soup away on a intricate white plate and hurried outside with it. Fleck followed the cat until they reached the guarded gate. To hide from Tiger, Fleck kept to the shadows and watched.
“Who’s there?” Tiger asked, sounding thoroughly bored.
“It is Lyla, Slate’s personal waitress,” the calico announced, sounding a bit unnecessarily proud.
“What is that, potato soup?” Tiger said hungrily, licking his lips and staring at the steaming bowl.
“It is indeed,” Lyla said, a little nervously. “Now if you’ll just let me pass--”
“Let me have that,” Tiger demanded. Lyla was taken by surprise and Tiger was able to wrestle it from her paws. He touched the rim of the bowl to his lips, not even bothering to use the spoon.
No, you fool! Fleck thought. That poison is meant for Slate, not you! Even though she didn’t like Tiger very much, she still didn’t want him to be killed.
“Slate will have your head if you eat that!” Lyla warned.
Tiger waved an unhurried paw at the calico she-cat. “I’ve been out here all day,” he said importantly, sticking out his chest. “King Slate’s a good friend of mine. He wouldn’t mind if I just had a little taste.”
Once he had finished speaking, Tiger drank the soup deeply. Once he had finished, there wasn’t a single drop of soup left.
“Mm,” Tiger murmured happily. “That was th--”
Tiger stopped in mid-speech. His eyes grew wide with fear and he shuddered and fell to the ground. There he wreathed for a few moments and then was still. Lyra was frozen in horror. Then she dropped the plate onto the ground and screamed as loud as she could, realizing that Tiger was dead from a poison that had been meant for Slate.
Cats poured out from the kitchen, eager to see what had happened. Everyone seemed to take in an audible inhale when they saw Tiger’s unmoving body lying there on the ground, the shattered plate and bowl a foot away.
“What happened?” Chia asked Lyra, shaking the calico’s shoulder to snap her out of her horrified trance.
“I... I was bringing King Slate the soup... And this guard was hungry... And he took the bowl from me... And I couldn’t stop him... And he drank it... And then he... he...” the waitress was still in a state of shock and could barely say a thing. She struggled to say the word. “...d--died.”
Everyone gasped simultaneously in horror once again. While everyone was busy with all of this, Fleck silently slipped away, taking care to stick to the shadows and remain unseen. If she was caught on these premises, they would surely suspect her of the crime. She had snuck away while everyone else had been catching the evening prey, and now she had to do some serious hunting to catch up with everyone.
Once she had caught enough prey--a sparrow and two mice--and had put it in the food stores, Fleck returned to the guards’ den. There, she was greeted by the solemn faces of her fellow guards.
She knew what was the matter, but she inquired nevertheless. “What’s wrong, guys? Where’s Cinder, Ash and Tiger?”
Jade was the fist to speak. “Cinder and Ash are still hunting. Tiger, on the other hand...” Jade trailed off in a meaningful way.
“Wasn’t he supposed to be on guard duty for Slate?” Fleck asked with an innocent demeanor.
“Yeah,” said Ginger. “But while he was guarding the entranceway to Slate’s dining area, the waitress came in. She had some poisoned soup that no one seemed to know about, and the poor glutton ate it. It was meant for the king, so I’ll bet anything that this whole mess had something to do with Ember.”
Fleck acted surprised and angry. “What? He’s just killed poor Ob, and the next day he murders Tiger? How heartless can that wretched king get?” Fleck shook her head with sympathy for Tiger.
“Someday, that assassin is gonna get it where it hurts.” Jade made a jabbing motion with her huge rocket-launcher, the Destroyer.
Fleck winced at this comment. But she had the feeling that Jade was right. Someday she would be discovered and it would end with her head on a stake.
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-KittyLover8
© 2013Twenty Four
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