Sea of the Dead

by Matthew Holmes

  Chapter 15: The Coast of the Dead

  The sun reached its highest point the next day as the four traveling heroes, a bounty hunter, a wolf, and a glowing reddish-yellow orb entered a beautiful grove with an unnaturally large tree at its center. It stood four times the height of the rest of the trees in the forest. The diameter of the massive pine was about fifty feet.

  All of the people in the group except for Kai gasped in unison.

  “Welcome to my home. There was no room for a cottage, so I made this beautiful tree into my own little playground,” She said in her normal voice.

  “You live in a tree?” Ryan said. “Like on the branches or something? Are you a squirrel?”

  “No, I’m not quite a squirrel. And I don’t live on the branches, I live in the tree,” She laughed.

  Ryan stared at her blankly. “I don’t get it.”

  “Come on, we don’t have all day,” She ran over to the tree, the rest of the group behind her. They all began to climb up, with the exception of Bastian, to a hole about twenty feet from the ground, but Ryan couldn’t get a good grip on the tree. After about a minute, Michael jumped down, grabbed Ryan’s shirt and dragged him up to the hole.

  The hole was actually the entrance to a wooden cave within the tree. Straight ahead was a long hallway. There was a ladder going up and down about five feet toward the center of the tree.

  “Up we go,” she said as she grabbed the ladder.

  Ten feet up the ladder, Kaitala jumped off onto a wood floor below. When the other people in the group did the same, they realized that it was another hall, but this one had rows upon rows of weapons. Kai began to walk along the rows, grabbing knives, daggers and arrows.

  “What about the bow?” Tristan asked.

  “Got it covered,” she said as she grabbed a small cylinder with grip marks on it and a bow string attached to both ends off of the wall. She wrapped the string around the cylinder and placed it in her bag.

  After she got all of her supplies, the traveling warriors left the treehouse and traveled toward the shore that was shown in the book taken from Ahtala’s shop, a body of water known as The Sea of the Dead.

  “Why does the sea have such a dark name?” Tristan asked.

  “Because of the amount of blood that was spilled during the battle which took place many years ago, staining the sands red,” Kaitala informed. “When the battle was over, all the bodies were either buried, burned, or tossed into the sea to rot.”

  The group walked for an hour before the sea came into view, it was another two before they reached the shore. The murky green water was surrounded by sand with a reddish tint to it. Nothing but algae and small flesh-eating insects lived near it.

  Ryan stepped out onto the sand and heard a loud crunching sound. He dared to look down, and what he saw almost made him vomit: the remains of a human skull poking out of the sand.

  “That’s disgusting!” Tristan stifled a gag.

  “So this is why they call it the Sea of the Dead,” Michael said, looking across the bone littered shore.

  “Now we need to figure out how to go under it,” Reno said as he scratched his chin under his thick beard.

  “Can’t we swim across?” Ryan asked.

  “Not unless you like leaches that are three feet long and currents that carry the remains of dead soldiers,” Kai said and shoved Ryan lightly.

  “But we have to get across somehow,” Michael stated.

  “Did you forget that Ahtala said to go under the sea?” Tristan said. “That means that there must be a cave or tunnel that goes under water,”

  “Right, a cave, let’s start looking,” Ryan said and ran off.

  After two hours of searching the many dunes and rocks upon the blood-stained sand, they had found nothing but death. It seemed like an impossible task, one that would take years to complete. Nevertheless, the entire group put forth an effort in the search.

  When hope of finding a tunnel under the sea faded away to nothing, the people and glowing ball returned to the site where they began.

  “No tunnels, at least not big enough for us to even crawl through,” Ryan sighed.

  Michael was too busy staring at the top of the shattered skull to notice that his companions were having a conversation. He was intrigued by the dead body because of the position it was in. the prince could tell that rather than lying down, the ancient, yellowed skeleton was in a standing position. Feeling drawn to the mysterious bones, he began to dig the soft sand away with his hands.

  “What are you doing?” Tristan asked, nervously staring at Michael’s odd behavior.

  “Don’t you think you should leave bones in peace?” Reno suggested.

  “Notice that he is standing?” Michael gestured toward the skeleton, “A corpse would never be buried like that, but for some reason he is,” Michael had uncovered the head and shoulder and discovered that he was fully armored. The entire set of armor, aside from the helmet, was intact.

  One inch at a time, the standing dead man was uncovered. In a few hours, he had reached the waist of the warrior, where he suddenly stopped.

  “Wow!” Tristan exclaimed as he leaned in for a closer look at the golden belt made of tiny rings, all looping into one another. On the front of the belt there was a pentagonal shape with a familiar symbol on it—an F with a tiny c between the two lines.

  “That has to be the royal belt of the Defre-Lanc! But why is it here?” Michael reached down with two fingers and brushed the dirt off of the crest, revealing the white symbol embedded into the sparkling blue stone around it.

  “So, what do we do?” Reno pondered

  “We take it to the owners of the belt, that’s what we should do,” Michael said as he began to take the belt off of the body.

  “It could be a while before we get there,” Ryan said as he examined the belt.

  “We will keep it safe until then,” the prince removed the belt from the hole and held it in his hand.

  “Michael, it’s moving!” Reno exclaimed as the ends of the belt seemed to reach for his companions.

  Michael began to feel as if the gold was melting the flesh on his hand. The heat was so unbearable that he threw the belt to the red sand below. His eyes widened as he watched the skin on his hand bubble and bleed.

  He heard a sound that was a cross between a bark and a chuckle. He quickly turned in the direction of the sound, only to see the white coated wolf.

  The belt lay there on the red sand. Michael noticed that slowly the sand around it turned white. Soon, the circle of white on the reddish sand reached the toes of Michael’s boots. He bent over and grabbed the belt with a thick piece of cloth that Kai had brought.

  “He is not happy,” Sphergol said, still glowing red with almost evil power.

  “Who is not happy?” Tristan inquired.

  “Aamad, he was the first leader of the Defre-Lanc. Aamad may be dead, but his essence lives on for eternity in the belt, fueling its power.”

  Michael quickly looked around, as if searching for the ghost of Aamad. There was nothing there, so he looked back at Sphergol. The prince folded the belt as well as he could and opened his satchel to place it inside.

  Ryan looked into the bag and noticed the sheath that held the odd blade known as the Talon. “What is that?” he asked.

  “I stole this from my father before I fled the castle. He said it was powerful, but I think it’s just a decoration.”

  Ryan’s eyes seemed to glimmer, but he shook it off and turned away. Michael gazed at him for a moment, then hurried down into his hole and continued to dig.

  He reached the knees and ankles, but before he uncovered the feet, the prince heard a loud rumble from overhead, and a shadow blocked out the sun. He looked up and saw nothing but the blue sky and a cloud that moved a fair amount too fast. He studied the unique spiral movement and he noticed that it was getting closer.

  The cloud remained the same shape, but the sky around it rippled and seemed to form arms, legs and
a head. As it drew closer he realized that it was not the sky at all, but a huge beast with claws and fangs. The wings were shaped almost like bat wings; thin soft membrane ribbed a bony hand-shaped frame. It was all sky blue, aside from the patches of white on the belly and gray back.

  “What is that thing, a dragon?” Ryan asked.

  “No! Dragons are a myth, fool. This is a Heavyfang; this one was bred to hide in the sky, whether it is a clear day or foggy. Amazing creatures, really, and extremely rare,” Sphergol held a strange reverence to the beast.

  “Well that amazing creature wants to eat us!” Ryan yelled at her.

  “No, we’re too small for even a mouthful. We are more likely to fight the person riding it, who is either Malumous himself, or one of his pawns. Either way, it shall indeed be amusing to watch,” Sphergol chuckled.

  “You don’t plan on helping?” Michael asked Sphergol.

  “No, I may possibly watch though. I would prefer not to get dirty,” She chimed.

  “What is your problem? Ever since you entered into my mind to save me from changing over to dark magic, you’ve been acting strange.”

  “No I haven’t!”

  “Whether you want to agree or not, something is wrong with you. We all noticed it,” Michael said, as the monster and its human master descended upon them.

  The ground shook and a sound like thunder sounded as the beast landed on its front legs, lowering the thin rear legs to the ground slowly. The muscles in its front limbs and huge chest rippled as it lay down. The beast let out a piercing roar that left Michael clutching his ears.

  Kaitala pulled the hood up over her hair and wrapped the black scarf around her face.

  Michael looked up at the beast and saw a red figure standing between the two massive horns on its head. The figure, who Michael assumed was male, walked down the beast’s flat head toward the rounded snout. Before he reached the nostrils, which were wide enough for a young child to crawl into, he made a great leap in the direction of the five humans and the Magic Sphere.

  The jump seemed to last for minutes until he began to descend in a freefall for over a hundred feet. He folded his arms across his chest and stiffened his body in order to fall with more speed. When he was twenty yards from the ground, he let himself loose as if he were laying on a soft bed.

  “He’s going to kill himself!” Reno yelled just before the strange man collided with the sand.

  Blood-stained earth splashed in every direction, and dust billowed. Ten still seconds passed before the dust faded and revealed a tall man, armored in red with Malumous’s black dagger on both the breastplate and the helm, which covered his entire face aside from the eye slit across his face. The man stood and drew two long, thin swords from the black cloth sheaths that crossed his back. He ran toward the five people who were prepared for the attack. The tips of his two single edged swords scratched parallel lines in the sand.

  Reno stepped out in front of the armored man but was pushed aside by an unseen force. He fell to the ground on his left side, injuring his shoulder on a rock that protruded an inch above the sand. All the while the man kept running.

  Tristan shot two arrows at the man one after the other, but they did no harm. As if they were nothing more than flies, he knocked the darts aside with the flat of his left sword. Tristan was also knocked aside by the same invisible force.

  Ryan stuck his foot out in an attempt to trip the advancing stranger but the man threw his right sword in the air and shot a thin white beam toward Ryan’s outstretched leg. The beam bent around Ryan’s ankle and tossed him aside. With incredible coordination, the man caught the sword and kept the same pace with his running.

  The only people left standing were the stranger, Michael, and Kai. Despite the pain that it caused to her ribs and leg, Kai jumped into the air and threw a knife at the man. The small silver blade sank into the man’s armored chest. The soldier fumbled with the grip until he got a good hold on the knife. He pulled it out and tossed it into the soft ground, where it shimmered red for three seconds before it exploded, leaving a smoldering crater two feet in diameter.

  The man continued to run toward his enemies. Michael noticed that the armor repaired itself, the same as the soldiers in their first brawl. The man was stopped short when Kai delivered a powerful kick with her good leg to the side of his head.

  Michael sprinted forward with his sword held in a firm, but not tight grip, for he was equipped with his spiked gauntlets as well as his blade. He bolted toward the stranger, prepared for any possible attack from the enemy. The prince quickly planned his first strike.

  Michael leaped over the man’s head, which was about six feet off the ground. When he collided with the fine red sand, he crouched and jumped, performing a one hundred and eighty degree turn in mid-air. He sliced the amour on the man’s back in a diagonal line from the left shoulder all the way to the right hip.

  The man stumbled, for the cut sank into his flesh a centimeter deep. Although the wound should have reached the spine, the blade of Michael’s sword jumped less than the width of a thumbnail away from where the vertebrae ran down his back and plunged back into the flesh once again the same distance after the spine. The red material produced thin threads, which wound together and fused the metal-like armor back to the original shape.

  The man stood and said in a tone that Michael found oddly familiar, “Oh. I should have known it was you. I have no time for this fight that you insist on winning; I only want to please the king,” The man crossed the two swords toward Michael’s neck as he lunged forward.

  Michael had barely gotten out of the way and the man hit the ground and rolled forward. The soldier jumped to his feet and grabbed Kai by the arm and held a sword to her neck, “you make one move, and I kill him!”

  What to do, what to do? Michael swallowed hard. If I can project a thought to Kai we can strategize and I can save her! He thought of how he could reach her mind, I might be able to think of my thought being in her head.

  Michael attempted to send the message to her. Kaitala! Can you hear me? There was no reply.

  His plan was useless, the belt never even warmed around his waist. His defeat was at hand, he would never see light again, and he would be lost in a dark eternity of death forever.

  He remembered his parents, how they would always help him when he was in any kind of trouble. He remembered his loyal servant and friend, Fredric, the same one who had helped him escape from the castle in the first place. Michael remembered the peace and love that he was too selfish to see when it was right in front of him, and he wanted it back.

  The armored man looked up with hatred in his bright blue eyes and said, “Now, you can turn around and make this quicker and less painful for yourself, or you can stand there like a fool trying to prove a courage that we both know is not there.”

  Tristan, Ryan, Reno, Bastian and Sphergol all remained out of the way, not wanting to get between these three powerful people. Sphergol could not, however, sit out on the action this time and she faded into nothing as she entered Michael’s mind.

  Michael felt a strange tingle in his body and a cruel smirk crossed his face, but it did not last long. He spoke to the magical being, who was swirling around every corner of his mind. What are you doing? I thought you were going to sit this one out.

  She said in a heartless tone, I can’t just sit by while you sacrifice your life for this girl. You are too important for the future of this world to be killed when you are so young.

  She is a friend! I will not stand by and watch her die! He replied.

  You are a fool! Don’t you realize that a bounty hunter who works for the king does not just join forces with the people who have the biggest bounty of all? This whole thing was planned; if you charge in at him I can guarantee that he won’t kill her.

  The idea of Kai still working for Malumous disturbed Michael. He had never even thought of her as being the reason for the appearance of this man. He was about to charge at the two of them when h
e thought, the sand! I can use it to hurt him!

  Michael raised a stream of sand behind the soldier. He willed it to float above his head like a cloud. Michael held it there until the man looked up. As soon as the eye holes angled up to the dust, Michael propelled two jets of sand down into the eye slit. The man released Kai and groped at the hole full of sand.

  Kai elbowed the soldier in the chest, leaving a dent in the red breastplate. The armor repaired itself, but it left enough time for her to stab a knife into his leg and limp over to Michael.

  “Stay away from me!” Michael stepped back and held up his sword. “I mean it!” his expression suddenly shifted to a panicked and worried face. “No, no. I didn’t mean it!” He lowered his sword.

  The soldier in red had cleaned out most of the sand from his eyes without taking his helmet off, and he stood with his eyes watering and red from the irritation. “This is not over! I will be back, and you shall suffer!” The man pulled the knife from his leg and slowly backed toward to the Heavyfang. The beast took flight and fell over the horizon within minutes.