Shards Of The Glass Slipper: Queen Alice by Mauritsen Roy A

Author:Mauritsen, Roy A. [Mauritsen, Roy A.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fairy Tales, YA, Fantasy
Publisher: Padwolf Publishing Inc.
Published: 2014-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

***

Down below, at the base of the beanstalk, the small group of soldiers that had been left on the ground watched as the doomed lift dropped, breaking up as it smashed against the great stalk and slammed into the ramp and platform. Large sections of wood tumbled down to the ground, raising a cloud of dirt and dust. The screams and yells of the men on the lifts could be heard until they were suddenly silenced as their fall, and their lives, ended abruptly. The ascending ramp was rendered totally impassible; three levels were crushed and left with gouged holes of shattered planks and beams where the lift had crashed through. Fires from broken lanterns and untended torches from the doomed lift began to catch and spread along the wooden structures.

Everyone in the camp ran toward the destruction and the debris. The soldiers on the ground were focused on the crash; they did not notice the large angry crowd of townspeople and farmers that had made their way to the campsite to confront them.

The guards, distracted from the storm and the destruction from the fallen lift, were quick to the defensive and on edge when they notice a large crowd had gathered in the area beneath the great stalk. The tone of the crowd was not peaceful; they were frightened by the beanstalk that had dominated the kingdom's horizon for months. The crowd shouted angrily that the beanstalk was a bad omen, that it was evil and should be destroyed. Others shouted that their crops had withered and died from lack of sunlight and the constant cold. Famine was inevitable at this rate.

The relatively small number of the soldiers that were left on the ground was vastly outnumbered by the hundreds in the crowd, but they tried their best to turn the crowd away. The mob, with torches and pitchforks, pushed back and soon the soldiers were struggling with the farmers and townspeople. From somewhere deep within the crowd, a rock was thrown that struck a soldier in the head and sent him bleeding and unconscious to the ground, Nervous and stressed, another guard let a crossbow bolt loose into the crowd. A man grabbed his stomach and fell to the ground. The others around him were suddenly enraged by the killing. The peasant crowd pushed closer to the beanstalk and the soldiers could do little but fall back. The mob shouted, demanding to destroy the beanstalk. Their crops were dying from the constant overcast the beanstalk had caused, and the army should destroy it instead of climbing it. The soldiers tried to warn off the approaching mob, ordering them to disband, and saying that the king is assessing the beanstalk and that they would defend themselves.

But assurances and warnings were not a satisfactory response. The crowd was close to the stalk now and from somewhere near the front of the angered crowd several clay containers of oil were lighted aflame and thrown high over the heads of villager and soldier alike.

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