Amanda Applewood and the Return of the False King: An Everworld Book

by Raymond Williamson

  Everett scanned the battlefield intently. He could see the thinning lines forming around the queen. Nearest Windy, he recognized Tribune Aban and his magnificent horse. He mumbled some words and blew them in the air towards the horse and rider.

  Moments later, Aban pointed towards the quickly thinning lines of the troll company. There was a sharp series of blasts from his horn and the escorting force of knights quickly formed up and galloped towards the gap in the enemy lines. With the Queen nestled amongst a squad of six close guards, they punched a hole through the surrounding hoard and charged away from the battle and towards the wizard and the wolf.

  The troll commander frantically bellowed more orders in an effort to keep his prize from slipping away. A squad of three ferocious ogres that he was holding in reserve charged into the gap to intercept the escaping troop.

  “STOP!” commanded Everett as loudly as he could. A bright green light burst forth from his fingertips. As though

  suddenly turned to stone, the ogres froze in place; the momentum of one caused it to tip over and fall on its face. The Queen with her escort thundered past them but an errant rock flung by the desperate troll chieftain struck her horse in the rump. Calamity stumbled and the Queen tumbled to the ground in a flurry of skirts and petticoats. Angry trolls rushed out after her.

  “Trevor quickly,” said Everett.

  The wolf leaped high in the air and landed halfway to Windy. He scrambled across the broken ground, jumped over obstacles, and dashed around low mounds to get to the Queen before the trolls. In a last-ditch effort, he flung himself high into the air over the heads of the rushing trolls. Everett clung to Trevor with his knees, squeezing tightly as he leaned over and pulled Windy into his arms. She clung desperately to Everett as they rode away to safety.

  The Truth Will Set You Free

  A wave of relief washed over Amanda when they crested a hill and saw someone wearing bright pink sitting next to a stream off in the distance.

  “Do you think that it’s her?” asked Percy as he looked across the broken forest between them.

  “It has to be. That’s got to be the only fuchsia colored T-shirt anywhere in Tarsinia,” she said with a slight smile; relieved that she’d found her sister. They shouted to her, but she couldn’t hear them, so they started to jog. As they hurried towards her, two shadows crossed their path as something flew overhead.

  “Dragons!” shouted Percy.

  They looked up, Jade and Esmeralda were streaking across the sky towards Sarah who was sitting unaware by the slow flowing stream. Their path dipped below a hill and Amanda lost sight of Sarah. As she ran on, her heart pounded against her ribs as she climbed the next steep incline. Percy looked over seeking to reassure her, though when he saw the look of grim determination on Amanda's face, he found he had to speed up to keep pace.

  They crested the hill and were still several hundreds of meters away when they caught sight of Sarah again. The dragons had landed and were circling the helpless child.

  “Oh Percy, I wish we had Lightening here,” said Amanda breathlessly between gasps.

  She said nothing further, and they quickened their pace just as a stand of trees interrupted their view for what seemed like an eternity. When they emerged, there was another small white winged creature the size of a dog between Sarah and the dragons. It was flapping its wings with the fury of an angry goose protecting its nest.

  Suddenly, one of the green dragons grabbed the white

  dragon by the wing and whipped it around like a ragdoll. Sarah threw rocks at her assailants and it seemed to Amanda that they were doomed as the other dragon turned, and began to stalk her.

  It took a low pose and prepared to pounce, but Sarah showed no sign of backing down. She’d grabbed a long stick and swung it back and forth like a club.

  “STOP!” Hollered Amanda. The whale song seemed distant as it responded to her spell with a pale-yellow light too weak to reach the stream.

  “We’re too far,” she lamented.

  She dug deep inside herself, looking for another gear, hoping to gain a little more speed. Percy began to lag behind. “Faster!” she cried, looking to encourage not to enchant.

  A surge of unwanted magic flowed through her and Percy took off like a rocket. His legs became a blur and he zoomed over the ground like the desert bird from a cartoon. Before she fully realized what she’d done, he barreled right into the dragon stalking Sarah and the two of them rolled head over heels across the stream into the bushes on the far bank. Percy emerged first with his sword in hand, slashing and swiping at the winged green beast that was furiously flapping her wings.

  “STOP!” yelled Amanda so hard that she could feel her vocal cords strain. The bright yellow magic erupted from her fingers. Still, nothing happened.

  She ran, sweat dripping from her face. She paused for the shortest of moments to catch her breath and tear off her skirt. After gathering her reserves, she started her final dash towards the battle. The last stretch of ground between her and the beach was mostly loose gravel, uneven and covered with an obstacle course of jagged rocks that had been pushed to the surface by the recent geological disturbances. In her carelessness, she tripped and went sprawling onto her face. She scraped her palms and knees and tore an ugly gash that would leave a scar from her lower lip to her chin that would forever remind her of this moment when-ever she looked in a mirror.

  She looked up, Percy next to Sarah now, was engaged in a ferocious battle. The white and green dragon were rolling about like six-year-olds on the playground. The smaller white dragon was proving to be more ferocious than his small size would indicate. He had a grasp on the larger dragon’s tail as the two combatants wrestled for advantage. Amanda rose to her feet, and wiped her hand across her stinging face. Blood painted her hand red. She took her first step and screamed in agony. An excruciating pain, worse than anything she’d ever felt before, shot up her leg and she collapsed.

  Again, she got to her feet. Wincing with each step she limped onwards, tears streamed down her face mixed with the blood that was running down onto her blouse. Undaunted, she made her way as quickly as she could to join the fray. She crashed through the bushes nearest to the fighting dragons.

  “Stop!” She shouted. The full fury of her pain and rage fueled a ray of power towards the pair. Both were immediately frozen in place like the stone gargoyles she’d marvelled at when she’d visited Notre Dame Cathedral. Surprised at the shout, Sarah looked around desperately looking for the cause of the sudden commotion.

  Breathlessly Amanda splashed into the creek mere feet away from the other battle.

  “Away!” she screamed at the angry green dragon fighting with Percy. The whale song soared in her mind as she fully embraced it. Esmeralda, as though struck by a massive invisible blow, was thrown away from Percy. She flared her wings and hissed furiously. After a second angry hiss, she flapped her translucent wings and flew off.

  Behind her, Jade and Jasper began to stir.

  As an owner would discipline a bad dog, she turned on Jade. “Drop it!” she commanded.

  The force of her words backed by the magic of Tarsinia compelled Jade to do as she was told and she released her bite on her brother’s bloody wing.

  “Away!” she screamed. Her confidence buoyed, she

  channeled more magic now, and she felt exhilarated by the power coursing through her. Jade tumbled and rolled as the spell struck her. Like her sister, she hissed and spat aggressively before flying off.

  Amanda grabbed her sister and pulled her close into a fierce embrace as tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Are you ok?” she said urgently.

  “That was pretty badass,” replied Sarah with a giant grin on her face. She reached up and made an ugly face as she delicately touched the gushing wound on her sister’s chin.

  Amanda laughed and wiped a tear from her cheek. Percy waded across the stream and joined them. “I’ve never heard that term before but it sounds about right. That was badass,
” he said with an approving nod and relieved smile.

  Amanda hugged him and pulled the three of them together. “You were amazing,” she said.

  “Not really, you flung me with the force of a bolt out of a crossbow. All I could think to do was crash into her. I didn’t have a lot of other options.”

  “You were going so fast, I could have killed you,” she argued.

  “No faster than on a moving horse, and I’ve fallen off a lot of horses,” he said as he rolled the shoulder that took the brunt impact and massaged the muscles in his neck.

  “Let me see what I can do for your shoulder,” she said as she opened the Grim.

  She giggled and blushed at the spell.

  “Handsome soldier as brave as Gawain,

  I take away,

  all of your pain.”

  A soothing spread out of her fingers into the soldier and he visibly relaxed, the discomfort on his face melted away like an ice cube on a hot summer day.

  From out of nowhere, Amanda felt a blind side check that knocked her into the creek. She looked up to see a dragon

  carrying Sarah off; its leather wings spread out like the sails of a schooner.

  “Oh, I don’t think so!” said Amanda.

  The song screamed in her head and the image of the deer in the woods from that night on the farm appeared in her mind. Amanda scrambled up, balancing awkwardly on her good foot she tried to recreate the weightlessness she’d experienced that night. The feeling came and went. Drained from the battle, she knew the melody but couldn’t quite make out the song. Her panic grew as Sarah moved further and further away becoming just a little pink dot in the sky.

  “Calm. Be calm.” She breathed, in the manner that Sensei Tanaka had taught her; slow, deep, cleansing, breaths. She closed her eyes and tried to find the serenity that she’d felt that night. She thought of Papa, and fishing, and brushing Sarah's soft hair under the warm summer sun. For the first time, she could fell the land restoring her lifeforce; slowly filling her up.

  Still, it wasn’t fast enough. She began to feel frustrated; the magic wouldn’t come. Just as she was about to give up, she thought of the Christmas morning and of her feeding the doe and calm spread over her like the feeling you get you slide between crisp, freshly washed linens at the end of a long day. In her minds-eye, she pictured the ground beneath her fall away. When she opened her eyes, she was twenty meters in the air and in the same manner she directed her flight to Toronto, she focused on the fleeing dragon and rocketed after her.

  The wind whistled through her hair and made her eyes water as she chased the laden beast with the focus of a falcon aiming at a sparrow. Quickly, Amanda gained on them and crashed into the dragon. She felt the primal urges of a mother bear protecting her cub as she wrapped her legs around the dragon’s neck and pounded her fists on the beast’s horned skull;

  shredding her knuckles in the process. She channelled the pain she felt in each blow and it intensified the fury of her attack.

  With each strike, her fists hardened until they formed into iron balls that pummeled the dragon until it shrieked in terror and released Sarah.

  Horror. The look on Sarah’s face as she fell could only have been described as movie theatre horror. After an initial moment of surprise, Amanda released the dragon and shot downward towards her plummeting sister hoping to win the race against gravity. Bare moments before her sister’s certain impact she grabbed Sarah’s hands and pulled her close into a death grip as she slowed them to a stop inches above the rocky ground.

  Moments later, the two girls landed next to Percy and Jasper, laughing like they’d just been on a spectacular roller coaster ride.

  “So, now that you can fly and stuff, you’re going need a secret identity and start wearing a cape.”

  “Funny,” said Amanda.

  “That’s ugly,” said Percy as he gently touched Amanda’s chin. “Let me take care of it.”

  Taking her silence for acquiescence, he scooped her up in his powerful arms and carried her over to sit on a rock by the stream. Very carefully, he slipped off her battered sneaker. His touch on her calf as he massaged the muscle, made her quiver. He placed her sprained ankle in the cool water to help with the swelling and then gently washed her wounds using the soap from his kit; its familiar scent of herbs and flowers soothed her as he worked.

  Amanda winced when he got to the gash on her chin. “I’m going to need to sew that up,” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” she protested.

  “Well if you want a scar on your chin as wide as my thumb you can leave it. But I’d suggest you let me fix it.”

  “Have you done this before?”

  He took a small round needle from out of a piece of folded

  paper that was tucked under his razor.

  “More than a few times,” he said as he plucked a long

  black hair off of his head. “This’ll do.” He said and with a practiced hand he treaded the needle with the strand.

  “That’s not very sterile,” warned Amanda.

  “Shhh…now sit still. This is going to sting,” he cautioned.

  “Sting, my ass. Hella! That hurts,” she screamed as he pierced her pale skin.

  He paused and waited patiently for her to get her emotions under control as the needle dangled from her face like a silkworm on a thread.

  “Okay. Go on,” she said hesitantly.

  As fast and efficient as any emergency room doctor and with the care of a fine plastic surgeon, the soldier stitched up the wound. When he was done, he opened a very small tin and a sharp smell assaulted her nose.

  “That smells foul. What is it?”

  “It’ll keep the sepsis spirits away.” Gently, he used the tip of his thumb and coated the wound from her lip to chin with the pungent salve. Amanda couldn’t help stare into his ice colored eyes as he worked diligently on his task.

  “There, all done. Milady. That’s as fine job as I’ve ever done.”

  He looked up. Their eyes locked and Percy leaned in. For a moment Amanda was certain that she was about to have her first real kiss. She leaned in and opened her lips slightly…

  “Eh, hem,” said Sarah, and the moment was lost in time forever. She looked over at the little white dragon and her sister who were staring at them intently.

  “This is Jasper,” said Sarah by way of introduction.

  Percy noticed blood, and as he inspected the brave dragon’s injured wing it suddenly became as dark as night. They looked up to see the full span of Elkor as he flew across the sky blotting out the sun from view.

  “He’s heading for the gap!” exclaimed Amanda pointing to where the skies of the different worlds merged.

  “You need to keep him in this world,” said Percy urgently.

  “I don’t understand. Why?” she replied.

  “He’s tied to the land. It’s part of our lore, Elkor is as old as Tarsinia and Tarsinia can only exist as long as the dragon lives beneath the mountain. That’s why your Uncle didn’t kill him when they fought. You have to bring him back.”

  Amanda called out a spell, “Come back,” but nothing happened.

  Failing, she consulted the Grimoire for help and was presented with a picture of her mother standing in the middle of a storm.

  Is that a Dragon?

  Earth

  It was just past dusk. The sun had dropped below the horizon and the long summer day was just relinquishing itself to the night. By the uneven yellow the glow of hurricane lamps, shadows danced around the protest camp kitchen; the acrid smell of burning kerosene hung in the humid air. The protesters huddled around a hand crank powered radio, kept for emergencies, listening intently to the news reports that followed the 9.0 earthquake that had ripped through Sweetwater and the surrounding area earlier that day.

  El studied Rick with a new objectivity as he seized upon the opportunity and climbed up on a table to rant on about the evils of the oil industry; blaming them for the recent calamity with the passion of
a minister casting out demons. She watched as he looked over towards Brigit after one of his more fervent denunciations. It was the way he used to look at her. Usually, right before he’d asked her to do something questionable that she’d foolishly agree to do.

  “Someone needs to be brave enough to step up and take action! Words are not enough!”

  El watched Brigit, beguiled by his intense stare. A noise caught her attention and she looked away. When she looked back, Brigit was gone. She’d slipped away from the group and disappeared into the night.

  Unable to stomach the rhetoric she’d once found inspiring, and unable to get the healing of the cliff face out of her mind, with her phone casting a pale light to guide her way, El wandered over to the shale wall. What she discovered was something out of the book of Narnia. The crack in the shale wall broken wide open and revealed the daylight of another world.

  Bright sunlight streamed through a gap as wide as a house and that continued high into the sky. She leaned around the edge of breach and gazed upon a vast lake in the middle of a turquoise colored world. As she stared in wonder, the ground beneath her darkened. She looked up as the shadow of something vast beyond imagination passed overhead.

  Her view of the sky wasn't perfectly clear, but El was sure that she saw what looked like a dragon right out of a fairytale soar across the sky. As its gigantic wings pressed down on the air for lift, powerful gusts of wind almost knocked her to the ground. She watched in disbelief as it flew off towards the fracking fields. She tried to take pictures with her phone, but the cheap Korean camera, designed to take portraits from no further than across the room, returned only dark inconclusive evidence of the great flying serpent’s passing.

  It was a story only fit for the Enquirer, except that it was true. She had work to do.