The Waterpine Chipmunk, Chapter 15

Otto, wearing a black cloak that he had, for some reason put in his pouch, was doing his best to be mistaken for an undersized rat. Even though it was dark, Otto could see silhouettes of about twenty large square-rigged caravels in the distance. When they started to near them, Govmam started barking orders, “Flaggon, give ‘em the signal! Gitrattuggs fly ahead and clear a landing spot on the Manofwar! You… Hey! I’ve never seen you before! He pointed at Otto and shouted, “Who are you and where did you come from!” “That’s for you to know and find out.” Otto answered calmly. That must have fired up Govmam’s temper because then he barked, “I am your commanding officer and I chose my squad and you’re not in it!” Otto put his paw on his rapier just in case Govmam started to charge him. Before Govmam could charge Otto, a rat behind Otto pulled Otto’s cloak off! “Look what we have here chief, a funny looking mouse!” The rat sneered. Otto drew his rapier and put him to sleep with a backstab. Govmam saw his chance and leapt upon Otto. The struggle lasted for about five seconds. Even though Govmam was bigger and heavier, Otto was stronger. Therefore, Otto threw Govmam off the dragonfly and into thin air where, in about fifteen seconds, did a faceplant on the deck of one of the ships. As he did, a weasel grabbed Otto in the leg and was struggling to chain it to the weasel’s belt. Otto kicked back and knocked the weasel off his dragonfly. That was a big mistake. Otto and the weasel fell down, down, down. Otto’s heart leapt up to his mouth and his ears hurt terribly because of the air. As he started to near the ocean, panic gripped him. After what felt like hours, Otto hit the water with a loud SPlASH! Abruptly, Otto was in a cold underwater world.

Lord Rufus sat at the officers table during the noontime meal. He and the other leaders of their large force were discussing what they were to do the in the next few weeks. “Tomorrow we should dig graves for our lost ones and throw the vermin into the sea,” suggested Tark. Then Maria continued, “Then we should start preparing for our next conflict. Otto would be very good at training sword beasts; you should have seen him practicing at Waterpine. Besides, where is Otto?” Immediately after Maria said that, Christian was gone.

King Simon had no time to deal with the rat and his gang. He had taken their weapons away and tied them to a tree. He and the major officers of the squad were discussing what to do with them. Maybe we should leave them here,” suggested Brennan. “But they’ll die here!” said a young chipmunk who was eavesdropping on their conversation. “Marshall Houghton, will you please deal with him?” asked Simon. A large chipmunk brought the young chipmunk away without answering and started to scold him for eavesdropping. “Even though he eavesdropped, he was right,” said Simon, “We aren’t the creatures to leave another creature there to die.” Simon drew his rapier as he thought he could hear a screech in the distance. Simon signaled the other officers to follow and ran in the direction of the noise. He ran out of camp with the officers right behind him.

Osmond, the youngest of the major officers, had a love for action. He wasn’t as experienced as the other officers and sometimes forgot that if you are running with a knife, you should always keep the knife pointed down. He ran like the wind. Catching up to Simon quickly, the young chipmunk didn’t see a root sticking from out of the ground. He tripped and the knife got stuck in his armpit. The noise that Simon heard was not but the wind.