"My Family, my people I must go help them" screaming, she tried running towards the town but Bravial immediately grasped her hand and pulled her back.
" You will put everyone into trouble if you run like this. The witch would immediately guess there would be other people around and will order a search for others. So calm down and let the elders think of a way out." He made her sit under a tree and went back to the elders while his mother sat with her as she kept on crying.
The elders decided quickly that first two or three of them would go first and find out what the situation was, so a strong plan could be made against the witch. Bravial opted that he would go along with other two men to check the situation.
They slowly creeped through the bushes, being careful that they wouldn't be caught as they were sure that the witch's soldiers would be walking around, guarding the entire area. As they neared the town, they hid behind some taller bushes and looked around to make a plan mentally about which places were guarded and which places were safe to enter the town. As they stood there taking note of every corner they could see from behind the bushes, the charioteer of the witch came to feed his horse in the grass.
"Shuu! don't make any noise someone is approaching"
"Why don't we get hold of him so that we can get some information out of him"
"Ya, that's a good idea"
They hid behind the bushes till the man and his horse were almost near them. He tied the horse to a tree with a rope long enough for it to be free and feed itself by moving around. The four of them came out of the bushes and leapt at him, quickly holding him down and shuting his mouth so that he doesn't make any noise. They held out a dagger towards him and warned him that if he made any noise, they would kill him.
" Reply only to the questions that we ask, and don't try to shout.Tell us who are you?"
" I am the charioteer for the witch."
" What is she upto, and why has she held everyone captive?"
" In order to satisfy the demon, she is going to sacrifice all the girls of this town all together this time. She believes that if she does this, the demon will make her immortal." Then he didn't say further,so they shut his mouth and pierced the dagger into his arms. Tears rolled out of his eyes as he couldn't scream.
"Tell us what else do you know or should we kill you right now"
" The witch is going to perform the rituals tonight as it's the full moon"
"How can we stop her?"
"I don't know anything about that "
They were again going to shut his mouth and raised the dagger but in fear he quickly said aloud,
" No, no please don't kill me I will tell you. There is a special lavender flower that grows only in the valleys, if you get the witch to smell it's fragrance then she will lose her power and you can kill her easily."
" How do you know, what if you are lying?" Saying again they held the dagger towards him.
" I am saying the truth, once I heard the witch talking to the horse by herself as if the horse understood everything. I was standing near the barn but she didn't see me otherwise I wouldn't be alive now."
Bravial believed him because he knew which flower he was talking about.
" How can we believe him?" Others asked Bravial
"You can believe him because I know which flower he is talking about " everyone looked at him unbelievingly
The horse had started making noise due to sudden chaos which had attracted the soldiers. Seeing the horse getting exasperated, the soldiers started moving in that direction. The group was so busy in questioning the charioteer that they didn't notice the approaching danger.
"I will go back and get the flower, you three wait here and keep an eye. I will be back soon" saying Bravial ran back to get the flower from violla.
"Catch him, there someone is trying to escape" shouted the soldiers.
All turned towards the noise and saw the soldiers catch hold of Bravial's father, but the soldiers had not seen them. By this time Bravial had left to get the flower as soon as possible so he didn't notice it. They got frightened and did not know what to do so they stayed in the bushes and decided to see what the soldiers were going to do. Bravial's father had noticed the soldiers move towards the direction of boys and deliberately got himself to catch the attention of the soldiers. They held him captive and took him to the witch who was sitting on a large chair in the middle of the town. The boys followed them and tried to keep as near as possible to keep a check of the entire scene. They tied his hands and threw him in front of the witch.
"Ah! Who else should I expect here. Of course! the chief himself who escaped with the entire town. Where are the others?" She asked demonically holding the sword towards him.
Bravial ran back as fast as he could making sure not to come into the sight of the soldiers. Thankfully the high bushes helped him to trick them out.
"Where is Violla?" He asked his mother when he got back.
" She is in the carriage, why what happened?" His mother asked him completely annoyed by his return but he didn't stopped there to reply and quickly went to find Violla leaving everyone staring at him with the same annoyance.
She was still crying when he found her sitting with her head down on a wooden box. She raised her head as she heard the voice of someone entering the carriage. Her eyes brightened as she saw him, hoping to get some positive news. But instead of giving her any news about her town, he started asking her about the flower he had given her. Completely shocked he looked at him with surprise. He understood her look and explained her quickly about what had happened and told her to give the flower quickly as he had no time to lose.
She opened the box on which she had put her head down and a bright light broke out of it. There the flower was lying on a velvet cloth, which seemed to shine brighter than before. He quickly took the flower wrapping it into the cloth and started to go back but his mother stopped him.
" Where's your father and where are the others? He had come looking for you?"
Finally the witch's magic ended and magical white clouds of breeze swept through them and for a while nothing was visible. But slowly the cloud disappeared, making everything visible again and putting everyone shocked seeing each other. Vialla's entire village people were of the same height as Bravial's town people. After the moment of realisation they understood that it had been the witch's spell on vialla's village that people had grown so tall and now they were back to the original self.
The awaited view
