SEVEN DARK BELLS AND THE CRYSTAL SWORD : (BOOK 1) A CLASSIC SCI-FI BATTLE ADVENTURE FANTASY STORY: THE DARK BELLS CHRONICLES

by S. R. TABONE

  “And a dragon?” Nathan asked moving to stand between her and Dusur.

  “You trust him?” Olivia asked.

  “Like you trust your unipegs. I trust him with my life.” Nathan answered.

  “Then I’ll give him a chance to prove himself to me.” Olivia answered. Nathan helped Dusur escape. Olivia climbed on the dragon to reach the entrance. She cut the gel away and ducked. The sea rushed in. The dragon held them against the rush and pushed them out of the tombs into the sea. They swam to the surface. Dusur followed shortly behind. They climbed the rocks back onto the island. The flames fueled by the gases of decaying monsters and dragons from deep within the depths of the tombs of dragons stopped burning as the sea rushed in.

  They head for the ship to regroup and get an update on the battle. The lion that had been waiting for Olivia had been killed by flying dragons. On their way back to the ship, two lions ran from the battle towards Olivia and Nathan. Believing the dragon with Olivia and Nathan was one of the bad dragons they attacked. One of the lions pounced on Dusur’s back. The other lion ran under Dusur slicing the front of his body with its blades. The lion on top of Dusur climbed up his back to the dragon’s neck and bit. Dusur collapsed over the lion under it falling onto the blades. The lion stood and Dusur fell on his side and died by the morphine that ran into this bloodstream.

  Other dragons flying in the air viewed the end of the attack and swooped in. Olivia raised her sword but the dragons didn’t get close enough for her to strike. She ran pulling Nathan by his collar to run with her. The lions returned to the battle. The dragons took Dusur and flew his body to the courtyard. One of the giants peered through the window to Rex’ tower room and informed him about the captured dragon that’d escaped from the tombs.

  “Hold him until I return.” Rex told the giants. He joined the battle heavily protected by all of his giants and fieriest dragons. He rode on one of the dragons and held a sword and shield baring the Dark Bells chest, seven bells falling from a satellite like stars circling two dragons, one each side of the doors of the castles outer wall with the castle in the background.

  Olivia returned from the ship and made her way to the garden to check on the seeds. Rex fell of the dragon near some trees. Olivia rushed to kill him. She swung her sword, Rex raised his shield. The dragon breathed fire in her direction. She knelt and shielded herself under her cape. The fire had no affect. One of her lions turned and shot lasers at the dragon. It fell and died. She got up and was about to strike Rex again. She stopped when she heard Rex warn.

  “If you kill me you’ll never see your parents again.” He lowered his shield sure she wasn’t going to attack. She didn’t and asked him to take her to her parents. If this was a trap she’d have to have her wits about her.

  Chapter 12: The Headmaster’s Daughter?

  “How do I know they are even still alive?” she asked Rex.

  “I’ll show you.” Rex replied. She’d always hoped they were but she’d seen the blood on the courtyard and picked up pieces of their clothes. Ws this a trick to trap her in the castle she wondered? She went with Rex into the castle taking two lions with her as protection. Rex didn’t seem bothered about being killed by the lions though they roared at him as if they’d pounce on him at any moment.

  Rex took them to one of the towers. He unlocked a door and asked Olivia to follow. She saw her Dad in the background come towards the door. She rushed in hugged her Dad.

  “I thought you were…” she stopped.

  “I know, I know.” Alex replied.

  “Where is Mum?” Olivia asked.

  “She’s washing, she’ll be here soon.”

  “Leave us!” Olivia turned and said to Rex. He bowed and closed the door. The lions waited outside the door.

  “Has he told you?” Alex asked.

  “Told me what?” Olivia asked. “Don’t worry Dad; I’m here to save you.”

  “You’re so grown up now and all warrior like.” Alex said. “The truth is Olivia, we brought you up but you’re not our biological daughter.” Ales said.

  “What do you mean? Is this a joke?” Olivia asked pulling away. Was Alex even real she wondered? To be telling her this now and under these circumstances maybe he was a clone? She asked herself. Maybe he was an android or some kind of sophisticated hologram?

  “I’m sorry, but Rex gave us a gift too. We tried but we couldn’t have children. When Rex heard that Professor Habetowski gifted us the unipegs he wanted to give us a gift of his own. He gave us a baby girl and that baby is you.” Alex explained.

  “I'm Rex’ daughter?” Olivia let off a nervous laugh. If he is my father and who is my mother she asked herself.

  “I don’t believe you. If I’m he that evil man is my true dad then who my mother…a monster? Olivia asked.

  “We do not know.” Alex said. She looked confused, sad and anxious, eager for answers, answers that would point to the truth.

  “But we love you as if you had come from us.” Alex said.

  “Am I human? Am I real? Am I a creature!? Am I a monster!? Olivia shouted, blood filling her face, her blue eyes filling with tears. Alex stepped towards her to comfort her.

  “Get away from me! You’re lying…this cannot be true.” She said. She screamed. The lions roared, one of the pushing Rex aside. They smashed through the door open. She climbed on one of the lion’s necks. Alex held out his hands for her to stay. The other lion roared at him. She rode off out of the castle in tears unsure of what to do next.

  Chapter 13: The First Battle Concludes

  She heard Stokes calling her name. His voice came from the gardens. She remembered the seeds. She needed the knights to come to life. Rex instructed his assistance to sound all the bells at the same time. This would release more and more dragons from the abyss. Olivia rushed to the garden. It was full of knights and horses and unipegs. The knights had with them all manner of weapons. The garden couldn’t contain all of them as they kept appearing like moving shadows.

  The knights without horses or unicorns marched out of the garden and into the courtyard. And those with beasts rode in. The dragons watching over Dusur fled. One of the knights lanced Dusur just to make sure he was truly dead. Olivia mounted one of the unipegs whose wings it’d made to disappear; battle ready. She rode into the centre of the courtyard. The knights stood waiting for her orders. Still more and more continued to leave the garden.

  She could smell the burning fires from the battle outside. She could hear Rex shouting orders to the dragons that were filling the sky. She thought about her parents and about who she really was. She thought about her purpose and about the children she’d come to free. She thought about bell she needed to strike to start the process of destroying Rex and his island. The time to act was now. The time to win this battle, strike the first bell and get out alive with as many children as she could possibility free filled her conciseness.

  “Knights!” She raised her crystal sword in the air. I am Olivia, your Commander. You are here to help us win the battle. You are the greatest knights on earth.” The knights cheered. “Win this battle and I shall make homes for you and you shall choose maidens, women who’ll be waiting to marry you.” The knights cheered again. “You shall live forever and be honoured with medals; Order of the Crystal Sword being the highest. Go out and destroy the dragons, the monsters and the giants!” She lowered her sword, took her shield reared the unipeg up raised her sword again and rode off onto the battle field. The knights followed her.

  The dragons swooped down toward the courtyard before all of the knights left. And the battle commenced. Many knights took bows and shot arrows into the sky hitting some of the dragons. The ones that fell nearby were lanced by knights that rode horses. When all the arrows had been shot the unipegs opened their wings and took flight to strike the dragons with there horns. A lot of the unipegs were killed as they were overwhelmed by dragons in the sky.

  Stokes mounted a horse and rode off to find Olivia. She was striking dragons
so decided to disturb her. He found Nathan and asked is he new where the treasure was. Nathan told him he’d seen it would he’d need divers to get to it because the sea and filled the caves. Stokes was happy and asked him to point out the location. Nathan jumped on the neck of one of the lions that acted as his protector. He led the way. When Stokes was shown the place on the rocks that led to the caves he left Nathan and returned to the ship.

  He collected some diving equipment and a small copper fishing cage and some rope. He put on the diving suit and oxygen bottle on his back. He placed the wrapped up rope around his neck, across his chest and under one arm. He climbed into the sea and swam into the caves. He found the treasure and loaded as much gold as could fit in the cage. He tied the one end of the rope to the cage and swam out of the cave with the other end of the rope tied to his waist.

  Chine Joe left the ship to tell Olivia to find out where the four unipegs that the dragons had taken from the lab in Austria where. She thanked him for reminded her and instructed some of her knights to search the castle. She also instructed Ella and some other knights to free as many children as they could find and lead them to the ship that was getting ready to sail.

  Rex was ready to release 10 sea monsters from caves under the sea. He ordered Charlie to raise the portcullis. Charlie selected the code to the sea monster cave and pressed enter on the keyboard of the computer control room in the castle. The heavy steel gate lifted between the grooves on each side of the rocks leading to the cave. Rex ordered the monsters to wait for the ship to sail before sinking it.

  Nathan returned to the battle. As he reached the castle he heard a scream. He looked up saw Rex grabbing Bella’s neck and pulling her back into a room from the balcony. “No!” Nathan shouted. Olivia heard Nathan’s shout and looked in his direction. She saw him looking up towards the castle. She looked in the same direction.

  “Mum!” she shouted lowering her crystal sword.

  “Come on!” Nathan shouted over the sounds of the dragons and knights at battle. He took Olivia’s arm wary of the dragons swooping from all directions. “We can’t save her now.” He said. “Hurry let’s get off this island bore the tide turns and our luck runs out.” He advised.

  “Okay. Stay close to my cape and don’t look back.” They ran towards the ship. A brown skinned dragon with brown eyes and horns swooped down in front of her breathing fire. A unipeg with its wings hidden raced in front of the dragon and spiked the dragon in its neck with his yellow glowing horn. At about the same time, Olivia sliced through the dragon’s tail. Blood and fire sparked out of the dragon’s neck and gooey green gassy oil splattered from the tail as it continued to wag hard beating Nathan but Olivia’s cape protected him.

  The knights, unipegs, horses and lions who’d survived the battle boarded the ship. None of the beetles survived. The monsters turned them over and feasted on their underbellies. Ella made it to the ship with many children she’d managed to free. She also freed the four imprisoned unipges.

  The ship hands untied the moorings and the ship moved away from the rocks. Stokes asked the captain to sail opposite the entrance to the caves of treasure. He dived into the sea and swam to the end of the rope he’d left hear the rocks. He swam back to the ship and tied the rope to the end of a winch cable and winched on board the copper cage with the gold.

  In all the drama of the battle Olivia had forgotten to fulfil the most important task. Without striking the smallest bell the castle and all the evil on the island couldn’t begin to be defeated. She called up the help of Morning-star. She mounted the bright winged unipeg and asked it to fly her to the smallest tower. Everyone on the ship looked on.

  Morning-star wasn’t able to land in the bell tower because the entrance was too small. He got as close as he could and Olivia jumped off. She slipped and hung on to the stone wall. Morning-star flew under her and lifted her legs. She climbed on the ledge and jumped into the bell tower.

  She drew her crystal sword in her right hand and looked at the dark bronze bell. She placed her left hand on the handle and tightened both hands around the handle. He brought the sword towards her face and kissed the silver handle. She raised the sword took in a deep breathe and struck the bell as hard as she could.

  As soon as the crystal sword made contact with the bell the tower and most of the castle went black as if a dense black hole had sucked the light in an instance. In those moments the only light Olivia could see what the thoughts in her mind.

  And the sound the bell made as it was smashed into pieces was like a million sets of pot and pans being banged all at the same time within a few seconds. Though the sound seemed to last a lifetime.

  When the great noise had stopped every creature in and around the castle fell silent for about ten minutes. The only prominent sounds that could be heard was Morning-star’s wings working in the air carrying Olivia to the ship that had begun to sail away from the island.

  Stokes asked Chutterbox to take him back to Blackpool. He arranged for the gold he’d managed to salvage from the caves to be sold in Austria and the funds paid into this bank account. The shit set sail. Chutterbox and Blaze flew into the sky. Joe on Blaze followed behind. Stokes hit Chutterbox trying to make it fly faster. All he could think about was retuning to recover the rest of the treasure.

  “You want faster? Chutterbox asked. “Then here have faster!” The unipeg flew super fast for a brief moment and slowed. The jerk caused Stokes to fall off the creature’s back. As Stokes dropped though the air towards the sea he shouted curses about the unipeg.

  Leli, one of the sea monsters heard him and rushed to greet him. The sea monster opened its mouth and Stokes was never heard off again. Chuuterbox landed on the ship and retuned to Austria with the others.

  Joe returned to his house on Blaze and was reunited with Snobby. He paid Mavis all he owed her and gave her a few gold coins she could sell at the local pawn shop. Worried about the debt she owed Tony Stokes, she asked if he was around. Joe told her that Tony went for a swim. Blaze returned to join the others back in Austria.

  Olivia decided to stay in Austria and plan for the second battle. She placed the crystal sword in a greenhouse to expose it to as much sunlight as it needed. Nathan and the other children, all those that had been freed choose to stay with her.

  The children melted some of the gold coins and made two crowns in the lab. They held a ceremony in the forest belonging to the Professor. They crowned Olivia Princess of Warriors, Leader of the Knights and Bearer of the Crystal Sword. The other crown was given to Ella who they named Princess Ella for freeing many of the children and the four unipegs that’d been gifted to the Parkers.

  Olivia wanted to know the truth. She wanted to know who she was but regretted not saving Alex and Bella from the castle. Maybe it was a mistake she thought. Maybe she should’ve returned on the unipegs to try find out more from them. But in the end she couldn’t deal with the emotions that tormented following what Alex had said. Maybe, just maybe, if they were still there when she returned to fight the second battle she’d try and find out more.

  Chapter 14: The Twins Mend the Wing

  Several months had gone by and the twins had continued to meet with the unipegs and listened to the story about their parents, Olivia and Nathan and how the first battle had came about. The twins wondered if they could travel to Dark Bells. They really wanted to meet their Ma and Da. They couldn’t remember them because they were too young.

  “Can we go to Dark Bells?” Kirsten asked the unipegs. She and her sister, Nicole worried for their parents. They had heard how Rex had kept people and some of the good creatures in prison. And they could let go of the thought that their parents could be in prison to this day.

  “It isn’t a nice place to be.” Morning-star replied.

  “Yes, and besides we’re too old now—too old to fight, we don’t have the energy we used to have.” Little Jewel said.

  “Yes I agree.” Morning-star said. “Great battles were fought there and we’ve foug
ht in most of them but I have to agree with Little Jewel I feel we our age will prevent us from surviving another battle.” The unipeg concluded.

  “We’re not asking you to fight only to go and see.” Nicole said.

  “You’re not too old, you just feel old, and unicorns don’t die of old age, do they?” Kirsten asked. The truth was Little Jewel was too afraid to return to the island even if she could fly. But in any case one of her wings was damaged thus she cannot fly. The unipegs feared that the twins were asking Morning-star to leave Little Jewel behind and take them to the island. They didn’t ask him to do this but the unipegs moreover Morning-star could read between the lines. He knew that that was what the twins were getting at.

  Overnight the twins came up with a plan to try and mend Little Jewel’s wing. If they were successful many be then the unipegs would change their mind and fly them to the island. But even if the unipegs agreed to, Doris, the twin’s great-grandma would never allow the twins to.

  The next day the twins visited the unipegs to explain their plan. “We’ve found flight feathers, there some near the lochan.” Nicole said.

  “They are swans feathers. They didn’t need to fly so they shed their flight feathers. And now we’ll try and use them to repair your wing Little Jewel.” Kirsten said.

  “We’re taking you out for a ride to the lochan.” Nicole said. She and Kirsten took the unipegs out of the barn and climbed on and rode away from the farm.

  “Run fast.” Kirsten said to the unipegs, if grandma finds out she’d be angry with us.

  They passed Mr Peter’s the Cowherd. He was sitting behind a true smoking and drinking. “Fine pair of horses you have there girls. I, very bright.” He saw the backs of them as they passed by. The unipegs’ wings were folded tight into their bodies. The last battle they’d fought in had damaged their ability to make their wings and their horns disappear and appear whenever they needed.