The Last Summoning---Andrew and the Quest of Orion's Belt (Book Four) by Ivory Autumn

you!”
    “Wait!” a frantic woman in the crowd
screamed. “Everyone, give them what they want! Please!”
    “We’ll die anyway, if we don’t,” another
voice cried out.
    “Yes!” another shouted. “Bring them our
weapons. We have no need of them.”
    “Good!” the guard barked. “Hand over all of
your weapons and you shall have sufficient food and water for your
needs. “Quickly!”
    The crowd stirred, and burbled with angry
shouts and cries. The voice of the man who had spoken out against
the idea was quickly drowned out by a hundred other, more
desperate, voices. Swords, arrows, bows, and other assortments of
weapons of various makes and sizes were quickly brought out and
handed to the guards who emptied their carts of the supplies, and
in turn, the town’s people filled the carts full of their own
weapons. Gradually, the wagons were emptied of food, and were
heaped with weapons.
    Andrew watched all this with a growing
foreboding in his heart. There was little he could do to stop such
an exchange. Who was he to stop the people from receiving food and
water when they needed it so badly? Who was he to condemn these
people to certain death if they did not comply? What were swords,
compared to hunger and thirst? How very clever this plan was. He
saw, now, why The Drought had been released. By having the people
hand over their weapons, The Fallen now had full control.
    How could he stop it? Once the people had
given up their weapons, there would be no summoning. There could be
no battle. It was already lost on the battlefield of thirst and
hunger. Andrew searched the crowd for that one voice who had
questioned, yet the man had disappeared into the masses. Andrew
felt desperate. His heart felt heavy. He searched inside himself
for an answer. What to do? He had no idea what he was supposed to
do now. Destroying The Shade’s trees was one thing. But to stop a
Drought, to summon the people, to awaken them---was quite
another.
    “You there!” A guard shouted, pointing in
Andrew’s direction. “I said all the weapons. I can see your
sword hidden beneath your cape. Don’t try to hide it. Hand it over,
now!”
    Andrew’s heart beat faster. He looked to
Freddie and Croffin. His eyes filled with surprise and fear.
Croffin looked as if he might run up to the soldier and hand him
his small weapon. Andrew quickly yanked him back. Andrew stood in
front of his friends, unmoving, his eyes hard, and his jaw set.
    “I said, hand it in!” The soldier insisted,
looming before Andrew. “What are you waiting for? If you withhold
just one of your weapons, I won’t hesitate to take back all the
supplies we have given this village, do you understand!” His voice
had grown so loud that it had gotten the attention of the
villagers.
    They all looked at Andrew and the soldier,
their faces ridden with worry. “Give it to him. Give him what he
asks!” The voices of the towns’ people were angry, and
desperate.
    Andrew stood still, his eyes firm, and his
face angry. “No!”
    The soldier’s face turned red with anger.
“What did you say?”
    “I said no! I won’t give you my sword!”
    At his words, the villagers burst into an
angry roar, and surged in around him, trying to rip his sword from
his hands.
    “Freddie, Croffin, follow me!” He pushed
though the crowd. Without fully realizing what he was doing, he
raised his sword, and fought his way to the back of one of the
wagons filled with weapons, with Croffin and Freddie by his side.
Startled by this sudden burst of violence, the angry mob fell back,
mesmerized by the weapon that Andrew carried. Andrew steadied
himself on the piles of weapons and lifted up his sword, shouting
at the top of his lungs. His sword looked huge in his hands, like a
bar of lightning stuck to the end of a golden handle.
    The people gasped and fell back when they saw
it. The soldiers gathered around the wagon, their eyes filled with
fire, their own weapons ready to strike.
    “Stand back!”