The Harry Ferguson Chronicles Box Set

by William David Ellis

  The man’s eyes grew large. He pulled back and began to shake. He threw down his gun. Frantically he began to strip off his uniform, screaming, “It burns, it burns!” Steam rolled off his clothes, and his face reddened. Blisters formed on his cheeks. As he fell to the floor, clawing at his face, strips of flesh tore away. Blood spurted from burst veins. The skin peeled off his fingers. He pulled back his hands to stare, screaming as the white of his finger bones broke through. Suddenly he grew quiet, fell headlong on the floor, and was enveloped in a raging ball of flame. Belle and the other guards had already drawn back. Even Long moved back a few feet, his eyes riveted on the burning soldier. The flame roared up and an image formed, a sickly green caricature stretched and deformed. Belle recognized it as the soul of the incinerated guard. The image was still screaming, only in silent agony, terror etched on his face. Then a dark-red claw reached through the flames and seized him. As quickly as it had started, the flames were gone. A pile of white ash with small strands of smoke drifting up from it were all that remained.

  Laden stepped toward it looked down and then turned to Belle. “I think you get my point. Don’t you, dear?”

  Belle looked from the ash to Long and nodded. She gulped and then in a trembling voice asked, “What do you want from me?”

  “You are my leverage, Belle. If Ferguson refuses to offer himself willingly on the altar, I tell him that I will treat you to the same joys our recently departed friend experienced. Do you think he will allow you to be cast into that pit?” He didn’t give her time to answer. “I don’t think so. Our noble dragon rider would gladly sacrifice himself rather than see you suffer for eternity.”

  Belle dropped her gaze and stared at the floor. The ashes were still smoking. Long would have been stunned to read her thoughts. I wouldn’t be so sure, Laden, I wouldn’t be so sure.

  Chapter 47

  Four hours later, Brady knelt down and sniffed his noxious bomb. “Whew-wee, boy! If the explosion don’t hurt ’em, the smell will. Dang, your stuff stinks, dog

  Raleigh growled. “Raleigh stuff smell good. It’s Brady’s old nasty that bad smells. Make even Raleigh puke.” The big dog bent over and began to hack.

  Brady yelled, “Don’t do it! Don’t you do it. Not now. We are almost out of here, Raleigh, no!” It was too late. The dog hurled and it hit the bottom of Brady’s shoes and, worse yet, coated the stink bomb, as Brady had christened their concoction.

  “You know you could have waited. You have had days to do that, but no, you had to go and hurl all over the bomb… and uh-oh! Oh man…” The noxious and volatile pile of fecal matter had begun to sizzle. “This is not good, Raleigh! Not good… it’s too soon. I haven’t had time to place it. It’s too much too soon…” Brady grabbed a pile of the driest straw he could find in the room, scooped up the sizzling concoction, held his breath, and started smearing and cussing. “Oh Lord a mercy. Oh my goodness, this is nasty.” He succeeded in trimming the rusty iron door with the acidic explosive. “Raleigh, you need to get over here with me. It’s about to fire off and we need to get out of the direct path.” Raleigh slipped across the small cell and pushed as close to Brady as he could. Brady knelt, holding the big dog close.

  And started counting. “Ten… nine… eight…”

  “What Brady doing? What tin night ate mean, who tin night eat? Me hungry too!”

  “Shut up, dog. Five… four… three…” The sizzling stopped. Nothing. Brady blew out a long sigh, rolled his eyes, and…

  Boom!

  The shock wave shoved them against the wall. For a millisecond fire engulfed them, then retreated. Fighting to gain his feet, Brady stumbled, placed his hand on the wall, and screamed. “Damn, that’s hot!” He wiped the dirt and ash off his face away from his eyes and blinked. A large hole stood before them. He grabbed the small pile of stink bombs he had rolled into nasty meatballs and raced out the door, Raleigh running after him. He flung the silver bracelets off his arms and shifted into an eight-foot Sasquatch on the run. The hall was filled with smoke from the explosion, and he could hear the shouts of guards heading toward them. Raleigh ran in front of Brady. A bend in the tunnel later, Raleigh ripped into the first Nazis on the scene. Blinded by the smoke, the guards were not expecting to meet a two-hundred-pound wolf in the dark. They did not last long. Picking up their guns, Brady realized his fingers were too big in his present form for the triggers and shifted. In a heartbeat the professor of organic chemistry was back and racing behind his wolf down the dungeon corridor.

  They met two more groups of guards. The greetings were short and loud; then the halls grew quiet. No shouts, no sound of heavy boots running toward them. Brady stopped. Raleigh was panting heavily, his lips bloody from making the acquaintance of several Nazis.

  “Why Brady stop? Mean man’s gonna catch us. We need run off.” Then Raleigh turned his head toward a door that opened to their right and sniffed, his large nostrils flaring. “Raleigh smell Harry! Raleigh smell Harry! Come, Brady, knock door down and get Harry!”

  The dog was jumping and scampering like a goofy puppy. Brady put his hand up to shush him. “No, Raleigh, not Harry.” He reached for the door handle and pulled; surprisingly it opened. “Not Harry… Harry’s armor.” Brady walked into the dark room, pulled the cord to the antique light above his head, and grinned. “And not just his armor. His sword as well.”

  Brady shut the door behind him and Raleigh. He knew the halls would soon be full of soldiers. He had only minutes before they had to move out. Gingerly he ran his hand down the armor, noting that it was all there and that several bent tools bore witness to the failure of the Nazis to open it. How did they get it off of him? Brady thought, worried that they had cut him out of the armor piece by bloody piece. But there was no blood.

  Scratching his head, he moved toward the next table, where the sword lay. Brady frowned as he studied the sword. It was in a large tray covered by a solution. He bent down to smell the liquid, combining his Bigfoot nose with his professor of chemistry brain. He jumped back instantly, snorting and blowing his nose. The fluid was embryonic. Human. The Nazis had figured out that blood and now apparently a new discovery, embryonic fluid, could block the sword’s ability to communicate. “Poor Harry…” Brady murmured under his breath. “He really is all alone.”

  Chapter 48

  Harry slipped from darkness to pain and back again. Then he shifted back to the cave. The fire was burning low, just a few red coals left. He tried to sit up, couldn’t, then rolled over, pushed up with his hands, and succeeded. His heart raced from that simple act and his breath came in great gulps. He cursed, then groaned at the effort those few words cost him. He sank back into the blankets of his refuge and felt himself falling back into unconsciousness. Just as the first layer of gentle darkness covered him, he heard a voice.

  “Harry?” A warm hand touched his brow. Then he smelled a familiar breath and felt lips on his… a kiss? Now?

  “Oh, Harry, please wake up, please wake up.” The voice was so familiar but so far away.

  Harry felt he was in the bottom of a dark well, held down by heavy anchors. He fought to push through the night that held him to its breast, struggling to open his eyes that seemed to be glued shut. He managed a blink, then another, but could not keep his eyes open.

  A warm energy pulsed from the hand resting on his forehead. His face warmed, then grew hot. The warmth spread to his chest and arms. He tried to open his eyes again. He managed but only briefly before they closed like heavy curtains. But he’d gotten a glimpse. His heart was numb and could not hold fear or hope. The image he had glimpsed was Sarah, the enemy was back… maybe this time death would claim him and it would be over. He forced his bloodshot eyes to open and peered through the crack they gave him.

  “Enemy,” he whispered.

  “Never!” She shook him and he groaned. “I’m not a fake.”

  The longer she touched him, the stronger he felt. When he tried to open his eyes again, it wasn’t nearly as difficult
. Sarah’s face hovered over him. Her dark hair hung down between them. He smiled. “I’d know you anywhere.”

  Sarah bent down, and he felt her breath on his lips before she closed the distance. Her kiss infused him with too many things at once. The moment she broke the kiss, he felt cold. His eyes fluttered open a second time to see Sarah staring at him. Her green eyes veiled with worry, she smiled back, tired. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Sarah’s sad smile pained him in a way the wounds on his body couldn’t.

  She touched his hand. “You had me worried, peasant boy. It’s a good thing I’ve learned a thing or two about life force or…” Her eyes misted and she stopped. “Or I would have lost you… again.”

  Harry sat up, surprised that he could. He pulled her into his chest, holding her tight, and inhaled the familiar scent of her hair… lavender. He couldn’t let her go. He could hear her heartbeat against his chest. “I’m finally dead and I am with her… thank you, God!”

  “Harry, you are most certainly not dead.” She tightened her hold around his neck. “Though, you’re still in bad shape. We need to get you out of here.”

  His eyes searched hers in disbelief. A cloud settled over him and the strength he’d found evaporated. He let her go. “If you’re a dream, don’t wake me. If you’re that damned old dragon, eat me, I just don’t care.” Then he stared at her and slowly shook his head. “What am I thinking? I’m such a fool. Sarah is gone; she chose a Berber king and she left. My body is on a metal table, ripped to shreds and held together with catgut and spit. Go away, deceiver.” He tried to stand but only stumbled. She reached out to catch him and he shoved her hands away. “Don’t touch me, don’t talk to me… I will not break, my soul is mine, and you cannot have it!” He sat on the large stone across from her, reached for another log, and threw it on the dying fire.

  Sarah paled. She frowned and sat staring at the fire, watching it catch up, and then spoke. “Harry, what can I say that would convince you I am Sarah?”

  Slipping down off the rock and stretching his legs out toward the fire, Harry thought. “I don’t know how much the strongman knows about you or us… I mean the real Sarah and I,” he said. “But… I am pretty sure she did not have access to where you have been and what you did. So tell me about it. I think I know Sarah enough to know a real Sarah story from a lie.”

  Sarah nodded. “I hope so. You just said you’d know me anywhere like five seconds ago. Okay… where do you want me to start?”

  “Wherever your heart leads you, and be very sure I will be listening for it. My Sarah lives from her heart.”

  At the phrase “my Sarah,” pain mingled with fresh memories and a single tear ran down her cheek. She wiped it away with the cuff of her dress.

  Harry’s eyes widened. She had never broken the habit of using her cuffs as tissue! “Sarah! It’s you, it’s really you! Am I dead… wait a minute, if I’m dead, aren’t you too? What’s going on? How did you get here? What happened to Kussala or Kesra or whatever that guy’s name is?”

  Sarah drew a long breath. Her cheeks burning, she sniffed. “Are you sure you believe me this time?”

  “Absolutely! I wanted to believe you from the start. Part of me may even have… But the demon came to me and claimed to be you, and I believed her. It almost killed me to believe her… had Belle not stepped in and saved me, I would have died from grief.”

  Sarah’s eyebrows arched and then furrowed. “I’m glad she kept you from dying.” A frown cemented itself in place.

  Harry was oblivious, but he also frowned, his thoughts racing and ending at the finish line of jealousy, and then blurted out, “You left me for him! Right when I needed you most.” His voice grew cold. “It didn’t take long either. I get this Dear Harry letter and poof, it’s all over. Just like that. Why are you here anyway? Did you have to ask permission?” he spat bitterly.

  Sarah’s eyes threw daggers as delicate tendrils of smoke started to drift from her nose.

  This time Harry noticed. “What are you going to do, kill me? You going to shift into dragon mode and bite my head off?” As soon as the angry words left his mouth, his heart condemned him. He bowed his head and stared at the cave floor.

  A long moment passed before he spoke. “I am not well, Sarah… that’s not an excuse; if anything, my weakness just exposes what I really feel. I have no excuse.” His voice trembled and he bit his lip, trying to hold back the sorrow. “I just missed you… so much. It hurt worse… than anything I have ever known. Even the tortures they are inflicting on me now couldn’t touch it.”

  Harry looked up to meet her eyes.

  “I love you, Harry. I always have… and I always will! I did not decide to stay with Kusaila because I loved him more. I didn’t. I decided to stay with Kusaila because I didn’t want you to lose your daughter. But imagining what had to happen for you to keep her undid me.”

  Harry nodded. “I would like to say I understand how all this… got so tangled. But I don’t know how. With my head I know you made the right decision. I knew it when I read your letter. But my heart wouldn’t let go. I tried to forget you.” His sadness came out in an unsteady laugh. “That’s why I’m here in this cave and my body is strapped to a steel table. I ran into this to get away from you.”

  Looking skeptical, she shifted and said, “Harry, I was a thousand years away…”

  “From the memory of you, Sarah. I would see you every place I looked. I thought about you every moment. I couldn’t even get away when I looked up at the stars. There is a dragon in the skies, and of course every time I looked at it… well… I thought of you.”

  “So, you volunteered for the worst possible mission with extremely limited chance for survival and just plowed right in! Harry, that is the dumbest, craziest,” she stared at the cave floor, which had suddenly gotten a lot of attention from both of them, and slowly continued, “most romantic and heartbreaking thing I think I have ever heard.” She got up and moved toward him. He rose to meet her. Their eyes were glistening as they looked deeply into each other’s souls. He opened a door into his heart and she traipsed across eagerly. She drew closer cautiously; he didn’t back away. She closed her eyes, tilted her head, and captured his heart yet again. His lips touched hers and he knew he was home. Their souls met in a breathless moment, tenderly touching, gently receiving, pulling into one another. Finally, he pulled back.

  She looked up at him, an eyebrow raised, questioning. “What are we going to do, Harry?”

  Harry took a deep breath. “You can’t help me now. It’s almost over. There is not enough of me left to fight. This place is my last stand. These moments the last on this planet.” He stepped back further. “You need to go back to Kusaila and love him. And—”

  Sarah shook her head. “Kusaila is dead. He died protecting me from a storm of arrows.” Harry closed his eyes. “He covered me with his body and I felt the arrows strike him.”

  “Mercy, Lord… Oh, Sarah, I am so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “But that’s not all. I saw him ascend. The North Star came for him with all his dragon hosts, and I saw Kusaila’s spirit rise to meet him. But before he left, Kusaila spoke to me. He said ‘live with joy, Sarah.’ And he said, ‘Go to him’… to you, Harry. He knew I was supposed to be with you.”

  A thousand thoughts dashed through Harry’s mind, each clamoring and shouting for attention. Finally, he sat down hard and just kept shaking his head, staring at the very interesting cave floor.

  Sarah didn’t have that problem. She placed both hands on her hips and said, “Harry, Kusaila knew he was not my first choice. He loved me anyway, and I loved him for it. We didn’t marry.” Her voice softened. “No marriage, no consummation.” And then her voice hardened. “Because some goofy-ass redneck dragon rider had already won my heart and I couldn’t let him go.”

  He looked up at her, grinning with his familiar jackass-eating-briars smile, only to be met by her ever-present arched eyebrows, which hid a question b
ehind them, but not very well.

  Harry immediately saw the elephant hiding from the dragon in the room and dodged.

  “Sarah, we are going to have to have this conversation someday soon.” If I live through this, and if I don’t, hey, maybe there is a bright side to all this. I won’t have to talk about Belle, he thought.

  Sarah tilted her head in an all-knowing fashion. “By the way, did I ever tell you that in caves like this thoughts and words are indistinguishable?”

  Harry closed his eyes and gulped. He tried holding his breath but it didn’t help. Finally, he exhaled and Sarah, hands on hips, said, “You know, we have had the Kusaila conversation, but I don’t recall talking about the… hmmm, how shall I say this. Ah, oh yes… the witch in your life? Hmmm?”

  Even in the extreme circumstances of their danger, Harry was not surprised that he and Sarah were having this argument, discussion, painful probing of broken promises, whatever you called it no matter where they held it. He was sure they had to have it. So quite naturally he dodged again.

  “Sarah, we are on limited time here. I mean I could go any minute… and you could be snatched away. So is this really a conversation we need to have now?”

  She didn’t bat an eye. “Yes, it is. You are not getting out of this cave till you answer some questions, and if you die, I will just die with you. We’ll be the Romeo and Juliet of this time stream, and we will finish this in the North Star’s home while sipping sweet tea and Dr Pepper.”

  Harry couldn’t help himself—he chuckled. In the darkness of that cave, with his lifeblood slipping away, with horror surrounding him and the love of his life before him, he laughed! It didn’t last long because he didn’t have the strength to hold on to it. But when he finished, he felt stronger and more whole than he had in days. And Sarah still stood hands on hips, eyebrows arched, head tilted, toe tapping, waiting.