That will soon change, Harold thought.
He looked at the balcony on the third floor. He didn’t know why, but he had always thought that Colonel Foxx lived and slept on the third floor. If there were guards inside, they probably wouldn’t expect anyone to come in there. He squatted on the branch, and concentrated on the balcony.
He appeared on it. He drew his sword and reached for the doorknob, only there wasn’t one. There was something with a blinking light where it should’ve been, and a grid of square lines. He tried to push the door, but it wouldn’t open, and he realized it was locked. He thought about kicking it in, but instead he decided to air-burn to just the other side of it. He focused his thoughts on the other side of the door, and he vanished. It was dark inside, and he called to his night vision. He slowly moved his eyes from side to side.
He was in a large room. In front of him there was a very large table lined with large chairs that had obviously been made to accommodate the size of the High-Born. He could see shelves full of books all around him, and various pieces of artwork. A huge chandelier hung from the ceiling, and there was a large, lit archway at the far end of the room. He was still squatting and then he moved his head to the right.
The lights all came on and a terrible racket filled the room. The blaring noise startled him to his feet, but he quickly regained his composure and began jogging to the open archway at the other end of the room. When he reached the corner, he looked outside of the room. A walkway with red carpet went in both directions, and he thought he could see stairs at both ends. In front of him was an open guardrail of some sort, and below it was a large open area. He thought he could hear metallic footsteps running up the stairs towards him.
He ran to the edge of the rail and looked below him. He could see a single High-Born soldier looking up at him. He was not dressed in battle gear, but he did have a pistol that he was drawing. Harold stepped back slightly to use the underside of the walkway to cover himself. Coming up both flights of stairs were two things made completely of metal that resembled people. They seemed to have some sort of gun attached to the upper side of their forearms. Their heads were too small for them to be people, so he immediately realized that they had to be a robot of some sort.
Flames rose above the surface of his armor and twirled down his sword. He brought the flaming blade up to his shoulder and concentrated. He air-burned towards the first robot and shouted as he appeared out of nothingness right in front of it, and it fell in two pieces with a loud explosion. Before it had even hit the ground, he emerged from the air behind the second one. It too exploded as he slashed it. Then he looked toward the High-Born at the bottom of the floor. The soldier turned his head just as Harold flared into existence behind him.
Harold stood there, glaring at his back. The High-Born didn’t even know that Harold was behind him. He was easily more than a foot taller than Harold and his pistol was trained on the archway far above.
“I’m behind you,” Harold said.
The High-Born whirled around but Harold’s sword sliced through his pistol and Harold spun, kicking him in the gut. A loud gasp of air came out of him as he flew backwards, and he smashed into the wall several meters away. Harold air-burned and seized him by the throat as he slammed him into the wall. Harold burned him for a moment, and then doused his flames, but drove the High-Born to his knees by choking him.
“Where are the children?” Harold shouted.
The High-Born could do nothing but make a gurgling sound. Harold noticed that his face was turning red, and he released his grip, and the High-Born fell to his all-fours. He took two deep breaths, and looked up at the glowing-eyed monstrosity. Harold could see what was coming, and as the High-Born swung at him, Harold flashed from sight... …And caught his throat in the crook of his elbow from behind. Harold held nothing in reserve and stopped just short of breaking the High-Born’s neck. Harold held him like that until he stopped struggling.
Harold let him fall to the floor, and in just a few seconds he was conscious again. Harold picked him up and flung him across the room. Then flashed to land right in front of him. The High-Born was on his knees, holding his arms up in front of his face.
“Tell me where the children are,” Harold’s flames rippled above his armor, and his eyes flashed orange, “Right now!”
“They’re not here!” he shouted in near-hysterical fear as he scurried backwards.
“Where is Colonel Foxx?” Harold shouted.
“He’s with the children,” the terrified High-Born said as he backed into a wall. “And they’re not here. Please don’t kill me.”
Harold walked towards him, sword raised. The High-Born screamed as he put his hands up.
“Take me to them, or I’ll burn you to death,” Harold held his blazing sword in one hand and formed a crackling fireball in his other palm.
The High-Born nodded his head rapidly, “We’ll have to take my air-taxi, they’re probably a hundred kilometers from here by now, if not farther.”
“Then we’d better get started,” Harold doused the fireball and his flames. “Get up!”
The High-Born nodded as he rose to his feet and began walking. After several rooms filled with lavish artwork and ornate furniture, they walked into another room full of vehicles of various kinds.
Harold air-burned in front of the High-Born and he stepped back in stark terror, “If you try to run, you will not get far.”
Harold flashed and was standing behind him. The High-Born turned and nodded his head. Then he pointed toward an air-taxi. It was shaped like most of the cars in the room and had a very sleek design and was painted red with black stripes. Harold decided that he like the way it looked. The High-Born opened his door with the click of a device in his hand, and Harold’s door also opened for him. The High-Born got in first and then Harold.
“Let’s go,” Harold said.
The High-Born nodded and turned on the engine. Harold felt the air-taxi slightly rise from the ground and the driver pressed another button on the dash of the vehicle. Harold then saw a large door rising in front of them. It quickly reached the top of the garage and the High-Born pushed on the controls of the air-taxi. Harold felt his stomach turn slightly as the driver urged them into the sky, flying above the pond. The High-Born turned the air-taxi toward Foxx Hole, and they began accelerating. In just a few moments, they passed almost directly above Aunt Nean’s house, and Harold even managed to catch a glimpse of Sarah walking down the road back toward the town circle. He watched her stop and look up at them, and though he knew she couldn’t see him, he nodded to her. After one last glance at her, he turned his attention to the direction the High-Born was taking them. In another few moments, they passed above the town circle, and turned slightly to the right, almost directly above Phil’s house.
Then, they left Foxx Hole behind.
Chapter 24
They had been flying for more than a half-hour, and Harold noticed that the sun was coming up over the horizon to his right. As they flew, the High-Born would occasionally look at Harold, only to quickly look back at the sky ahead of them. In a few more minutes, the sun was illuminating everything below them. As Harold looked around, he noticed that they were flying a comfortable distance above the trees.
He could also see a seemingly never-ending strip of gravel below them. After a few more moments, Harold couldn’t help noticing that they seemed to be loosely following the path that it laid out. Every so often, he would lose sight of it as they passed over a large section of trees, but the winding path of asphalt and gravel would eventually come back into view. Harold could see things that somewhat resembled the air-taxi scattered here and there along it. He eventually realized that it was an old road, and the metallic things he was seeing were actually old, and abandoned vehicles.
Dispersed among the trees, he could see overgrown ruins of some kind. He saw a few more and after the seventh one, he finally realized that the relics were very old houses. The shrubbery and trees surrounding them
was so overgrown that he had to look very close to even tell they were there.
In the distance, he could see a large circle carved out of the trees. It almost looked like the spokes of a wheel. He realized that it was a settlement that was nearly identical to Foxx Hole. It even had a large mansion overseeing it. He squinted, and looked all around. He could see a large expanse of treetops, and several rivers and lakes, and more of the old asphalt and gravel roads. Spread out near and far, he could make out many more communities just like Foxx Hole, all of which had their own mansion. In the confines of his helmet, Harold scowled.
Then he began to notice other formations, near and far, that confused him. He and his High-Born pilot were a fair distance above the ground, so he wasn’t sure at first what the massive green squares were, but he pulled on his fire. One of the large patches grew in his vision as he focused on it. It was a huge field of corn, and there was a large metal cylinder circling around the field from a central point. He could see water coming out of it. He looked around, and found several more fields as well. Some had corn, turnips, and others had plants he had never seen before.
Many of the fields were as large as the entirety of Foxx Hole. Some were larger. Harold realized in that moment that the High-Born farmed their own food in addition to taking their food. It didn’t make any sense: they could’ve fed not only themselves, but also all of Foxx Hole without any problem, yet they preferred to let Low-Born squeak by on nearly nothing. Apparently, taking food had become too tame for them because now they wanted children too.
Harold’s fire began to burn within him. He no longer felt fear when he thought of the High-Born and their strength, speed, and weapons. All that he now felt was a desire for battle. And a war is what the High-Born were going to get until he was dead or until he found the children. Though he seemed to be by himself in the coming fight, he knew that he wasn’t alone.
Fire itself was coming with him in all of its dreadful glory.
As they continued flying, Harold noticed that the High-Born would occasionally press a button on his controls. Though he was succeeding in being subtle, Harold knew that he was up to something. That was fine as far as he was concerned because Harold’s want for battle had been replaced by something else. It had become more than a want, it was beyond that. It was now a need for battle, and Harold nearly felt outside of himself as if something that had been with him all along was beginning to surface from deep within.
On the horizon, far in the distance, he could glimpse a large city. It had two skyscrapers that had to be massive because he could tell that it was quite some distance away, and he could see them easily. They completely dwarfed the buildings around them.
“Do you really think that you’re going to be able to free the children?” the High-Born asked, almost condescendingly. “What are you going to do if you do free them?”
“How much longer until we get there?” Harold asked.
“When we get to that city,” the High-Born smirked. “You’ll get what you want. But what do you really expect to accomplish with that sword?”
“It’s a good sword,” Harold replied.
The High-Born rolled his eyes and said, “I don’t think you have any idea of what you’re going to be up against.”
Harold laughed, “I think it’s you and the soldiers you have waiting on me who don’t know what they’re up against,” his eyes glowed from within the darkness of his helmet. “Don’t worry though, I’ll make sure you’re around to see it. Now, shut your mouth and fly.”
The High-Born gave Harold a nervous glance and looked back ahead of them.
Then they just flew in silence for another half-hour as the buildings in the distance got ever closer. The scenery never really changed that much as they traveled: a seemingly endless floor of treetops around the ancient road, and abandoned houses up and down it with villages and farms interspersed here and there.
As the buildings got closer, Harold could see various air-taxis in the distance zipping to and fro as they made their way across the sky. Harold noticed dozens of odd structures beginning to appear below him. Interspersed among the treetops, he could see ruins. He looked to his right and left. For miles, seemingly in a circle, around the newer buildings were hundreds of structures in various states of ruin and disrepair. A variety of trees surrounded them, and from the growth and size of the trees, Harold gathered that the buildings were probably well more than a hundred years old.
Harold focused his vision on one building in particular. It had a very wide base, but there were only about three levels of windows on it. It was easy to see that it once was a very large building of some kind. He could see tons of wreckage around it scattered throughout the forest. Something had caused the building to collapse long ago. Harold looked at another set of ruins and could see large holes in it and large black marks beneath the vines that crawled up it. He looked at many of the other buildings, and they all displayed the signs of an Old World battle.
Finally, they began approaching the newer part of the city, and Harold could feel the air-taxi slowing down, and green text appeared on the windshield.
“Welcome to City-Nav-Link, and Elevation Control,” a female voice that sounded mechanical said.
The voice came from all around Harold and slightly startled him. He could see several numbers with letters beside them appear on the screen.
“Please select an available elevation from the list provided,” the voice said.
The High-Born looked at the vertical list of numbers seeming to float on his screen. Harold saw numbers as large as 2,500 m’s and as small as 8 m’s. The High-Born pressed the set of numbers on the bottom, and the air-taxi lurched forward and headed toward the ground. After several moments of rapid, but controlled descent Harold felt the air-taxi level off and they were not very far from the ground at all.
“Desired elevation level attained,” the mechanical voice said. “Elevation level is now locked, and traffic safety protocols are now engaged. There are currently forty-two travelers on your elevation level within the city limits. Do you wish to engage auto-pilot to your desired destination?”
“No,” the High-Born replied.
“Thank you,” the female sounding voice answered. “You will receive a visual notification on your windshield if another traveler comes within 100 meters of your location. In the event of an emergency, or in the event that you come within ten meters of another traveler, safety protocols will activate, and your vehicle will be momentarily commandeered. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No,” the High-Born answered.
“Thank you,” the computer system replied. “Have a good day.”
“Take me to the children,” Harold said.
“You got it,” the High-Born smirked.
It was only about another minute before they entered the seemingly massive hallways created by the buildings. Harold could see many High-Born walking below, but for such a large city, the walkways seemed relatively empty. He found it odd, but the few dozen High-Born he saw were not wearing battle gear. They wore odd-looking clothing unlike anything Harold had ever seen. The clothing looked very comfortable, and the shirts fit close to the skin. The material itself seemed to flatter their muscular figures.
As they continued down the streets, Harold noticed that the High-Born was taking him to the center of the city. He looked in the windows of the buildings and could see High-Born on the other side of the glass. Some were walking back and forth, and others were sitting at desks with data-panes in front of them. Harold could see a few talking into earpieces similar to the one that Colonel Foxx used to talk to his pilots and soldiers.
Harold looked at his High-Born driver. He had a barely-noticeable grin on his face as he looked toward the center of the city. Harold understood that there would be no way out once he was there. He would be totally surrounded, and, as far as the High-Born was concerned, entirely alone against an army of armed giants with weaponry that Harold could only imagine. But w
hat the High-Born didn’t know was that Harold was bringing more fire to this city than they could imagine.
Harold could see a building farther down the street that had a military look to it. He knew that was where the High-Born was taking him. Harold began pulling on his fire, letting it flow through his muscles, storing its powerful energy within them, strengthening them, and giving them endurance that the High-Born couldn’t understand. He pushed it into his eyes, and ears, so that he could see and hear things that others could not. He took a deep breath as he glared at the compound.
“Fly around it,” Harold said, his voice had suddenly become very deep and authoritative.
The High-Born’s eyes opened wide at the sound of it, and he nodded his head like a child that had just been scolded. Then he flew around it as Harold studied the guards posted around it. They were lackadaisical and surprisingly few. He realized that they had long ago come to the conclusion that no more threats to their power existed. Their arrogance would be their undoing. He could see several unmanned gunships sitting around the perimeter, and even a tank.
Harold had him fly around the building twice, and he was satisfied that he had learned everything he could about the outside of it. Harold tightened his hand around his sword.
Flames crackled to life around him, and he said, “I am Sir Harold, The Blazing Knight, and with all of my heart and soul, I shall fight the battles that others cannot because that is the destiny of my power.”
Fire seared down the length of his blade as he seized the High-Born, and they both disappeared in a flash of flame.
Chapter 25
The Blazing Knight thundered into sight about thirty feet above the lead guard shack with a screaming High-Born in his arms. He dropped the High-Born, and air-burned toward an empty gunship to his left, and appeared inside of it. As the High-Born crashed down onto the top of the hut, the knight appeared inside of the gunship and furiously slashed its control panels with his flaming sword. After a few deep cuts, he was sure it was incapable of being flown, and he thundered towards another one.
Blaze (The High-Born Epic) Page 18