“We will kill them all!” the lead High-Born shouted as he looked down the hallway back into the open area. “Stay where you are!”
The muzzle of a rail gun was now right in the blonde boy’s face, and all of the boys in the cell were now standing.
The little blonde boy looked through his blackened eye at the monstrous giant pointing the gun at his head, and continued grinning as tears streamed down his face. And he grabbed the bars, leaping and shouting at the High-Born, just as a powerful gust of wind stirred up dust and whipped his hair across his face.
“That’s ‘cause with all of his heart and soul, he fights the battles that others cannot ‘cause that is the destiny of his power!”
All of the High-Born rose from the ground, seized by an invisible force, and The Blazing Knight thundered in the center of the soldiers, spinning and slashing so quickly that his movements were impossible to track, and their guns fell in pieces as their lifeless bodies dropped all around him. As they crumpled to the floor, the knight looked back and forth, blue and red flames racing over him, orange eyes glowing from within his darkened helmet, and flaming sword held up to his shoulder. The little boy turned to the other little boys who all had silent tears in their eyes.
He threw up his arms and said, “I told y’all couldn’t nothin’ stop him! That’s ‘cause he’s, Sir Harold, The Fiery Fire-Man!”
The knight spun, swung his sword through the lock and the door rattled open. Then he walked down the hall, boots clanking against the concrete. Cage after cage fell before his flaming blade. Down the hall from him was Aireon and she just gave a light flick of her finger at each of the cages, and the doors seemed to open by themselves.
The knight doused his flames and slid his sword into his scabbard. He watched as a little girl and boy ran out to Aireon and she knelt down to them, and picked them up. They hugged her tightly. He took off his helmet and looked at Ollie who was holding Maggie’s little hand. He watched her for a moment, and then she saw him. Ollie stopped and stared at him, her eyes wide and full of belief. Then, she let go of Maggie’s hand and sprinted towards him. Harold knelt and scooped her up.
“I knew you would come for me,” she said as she hugged him. “Cooper and Scott said you would and told everyone that you were comin’ for us. I told everybody how nobody was strong as you and I told them how you caught that snake and burned him up.”
Harold walked to Maggie who was looking around at all of the wandering children. As his boots clanked against the floor, she turned her head. When she saw him, she ran towards him with her arms reaching for him. He squatted and caught her with his other arm and he lifted her up.
“I’m so gwad ‘dat eww are hewe, Hawold,” she said as she hugged him. “I was ‘cared.”
Cooper and Scott were standing by each other, both proudly sticking out their chests. They were telling the other little boys about how Harold was in their secret club, and how they could get in it if they wanted. Harold smiled and shook his head, because the other little boys were all lining up to become members. Harold walked up to Aireon, who was smiling and talking to a group of boys and girls that had gathered around her. Harold realized that he didn’t know any of those children.
“There are way more young ‘uns here than I thought there would be,” he said. “I heard the High-Born talking, and there are going to be more of them here in less than an hour. There may still be some around, because I never saw Colonel Foxx. We need to get the kids somewhere other than here. And we need to do it fast.”
She nodded in agreement, “But where are we going to take them?”
“I don’t know yet,” Harold put down Maggie and Ollie. “Cooper, Scott, help me get everyone into two lines.”
Scott wasted no time, and began pointing out people, “You, you, you, and you get right here.”
Cooper began pulling on people to line them up where Scott said to stand.
“Deanna and Christie,” Gabby shouted to a dark-haired girl and a black girl with puffy pig tails. “You two bring up the rear of the lines. Make sure to keep the little ones in front of you.”
The two girls nodded their heads and quickly began doing as she said.
“I’ll go ahead and make sure it’s clear,” Harold said to Gabby. “Bring them up to the big room on the second basement level.”
“Right behind you,” she grinned and winked.
Harold raised his eyebrows and put on his helmet, drew his sword and quickly walked toward the large open area. He looked around at the wrecked machinery and nearly a hundred dead High-Born littered across the room. He turned and walked back into the hall.
“Get the bigger kids to cover the little ones’ eyes so they don’t see all of the bodies out there”
“Already on it,” Gabby said. “But where are we going to take them?”
“I saw a big lake on my way here,” he replied. “It’ll give us a water source.”
“It’ll have to do,” she answered.
Harold nodded and then air-burned to the door that Gabby had blown down with a blast of air when they had stormed the holding area. He looked at the damaged elevator inside. Harold wasn’t an expert on elevators, but he doubted that it was fit to carry anything up to the next level. He stepped inside, and looked at the top, and found something that looked like a small door. He could tell that it was made for a High-Born to fit through.
After a moment, he figured out how to open it, and he crawled into the shaft above it. To his relief, he saw a ladder. He climbed up it just to test it and it was firmly anchored to the wall. He then air-burned into the large room where he had fought Aireon. He scouted the room for a few moments and everything seemed to be clear of threats. Then he flashed back down the basement level below him.
When he appeared, he could see that the children were already making their way across the room. Apparently, Aireon had somehow cleared a large trail through the smoking wreckage and the kids were walking down it in two lines. Cooper and Scott were at the front of the lines, and Harold could see Gabby bringing up the rear. Harold noticed that the kids behind Cooper and Scott had wrapped their hands around their faces and were covering their eyes. Every child in the line had their hands covering the eyes of the child in front of them, and Gabby covered Deanna and Christie’s eyes herself while calling out directions to Cooper and Scott.
After about a minute, they made it to Harold. Then he showed Cooper and Scott the ladder, and had them stand at the bottom of the elevator and help the others up into the shaft. After the first two people went up the ladder, Harold realized that it was going to take far too long. He walked to Gabby.
“I’m going to start taking some of the bigger kids up with my air-burns,” he said.
“Air-burns?” she asked.
“That thing I do when I disappear and reappear,” he answered. “I can carry a few things with me when I go.”
She raised her eyebrows, “Fine with me. The quicker, the better. Go ahead and take these two. They help me all the time back home.”
Harold looked at the two girls. They were probably a little older than Cooper and Scott, and though they were not sickly looking, a few more meals would have done them some good.
“Okay, ladies,” Harold smiled as he knelt down to them. “This is gonna’ feel weird, but I’m not going to hurt you.”
They both looked at Gabby. She smiled and tenderly rubbed their heads.
“He’s like me,” she said. “But different. He’s good. He won’t hurt you.”
They turned back to Harold and smiled nervously. He touched their shoulders and disappeared. All three of them emerged from the air just in front of the elevator shaft that the first of the children were now coming through.
“You girls keep everyone in lines and help the little ones, okay?” he said.
“When can we do that again?” Christie asked, her puffy pig tails bouncing.
“Pretty soon,” he said and winked his eye and then flashed from sight.
He broug
ht the kids up in pairs as quickly as he thought was safe, and in just a few minutes, he was able to bring up Scott and Cooper. Gabby climbed up the ladder while he led the children to the large door. He looked around and found what he thought to be the controls. He fumbled with them for a moment and then he felt a gentle, but strong hand push him out of the way. Gabby quickly fidgeted with it, and soon the massive door began opening. As it slowly opened from the sides, an area easily large enough for two gunships came into view. It was plain to see that it was a gigantic elevator with a control box on either side.
“You better check it out before we take them up,” she said.
Harold air-burned to the center of the pad and looked up. About twenty or twenty-five feet above him he could see another gigantic door. Some of the children pointed at him as he called to the flames. The knight then aimed for the upper side of the door, and flashed out of their sight.
When he appeared, he was outside of the compound. The sun was bright in the mid-morning sky and he looked around. Behind him was the flaming and smoking wreckage of the gunship and that he had crashed into the building. He could only see the eastern side of the building, but he could tell that the other side had been devastated by something.
He could only assume that Aireon had completely wrecked it.
He was nearly in the center of the eastern landing pad, and he found it strange, but it seemed very empty. Everything was almost a little too quiet. He enhanced his hearing and searched the sky for signs of cloaked High-Born gunships. He couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, but the sound of the fires on the other side of the building could’ve been covering anything that would’ve alerted him. Then, he scanned the area on the landing pad for nearly another minute, and nothing roused his suspicion.
He flashed from sight.
And reappeared at the far end of the repair room where he knew no one would be standing. Gabby saw him nearly immediately and he gave her a thumb’s up. She motioned for the children to moving onto the large elevator. The kids quickly followed her orders, as he made his way to Gabby.
“How does it look?” she asked as she continued waving the children into the elevator.
“It looks clear,” he replied. “But looks can be deceiving.”
“That’s true,” she said. “After I activate the elevator, you take us both up to the top and we’ll set up a guard.”
Then they walked to the control in the center of the elevator. Gabby began fidgeting with it, and the door above them began sliding back to reveal an ever-increasing ray of light as it opened.
“We’ll see all of you in just a minute,” Gabby shouted to the onlooking children.
Then, Harold and Gabby flamed out of sight.
Chapter 28
Harold and Gabby appeared on the landing pad, and they both looked around.
“How many people can you take at the time,” Gabby asked. “And how far can you go when you do that air-burn thing?”
“I shouldn’t have any trouble getting two or three people at the time from here to the woodline,” he said and pointed at the surrounding trees about 500 yards away. “I would be afraid to try any more than that at that distance.”
“If we could find a gunship or something,” she said. “We could put some of them in it and I could take them into the wilderness.”
“You can fly one of those things?” Harold asked.
“How do you think I got here?” she replied.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“I can’t fly it perfectly,” she admitted. “But I can do very good when I use my powers.”
“I’ll start taking them to the woods as soon as they get up here,” Harold said.
“I’ll stand guard while you get them there,” she replied. “If I have to I can protect them with my air-shield.”
“Air-shield?” he asked.
“I can make the air around me hard,” she said. “It’s difficult to explain, and I have to say that, until you hit me, nothing had ever broken through.”
“I’m glad I made such an impression,” he grinned.
“Don’t flatter yourself, hottie,” she smiled. “You didn’t get all the way through.”
“I broke your helmet,” he said.
“You have no idea how hard that thing was to come by,” she said. “I’m still mad at you about that. It was a helmet from the Old World, and I could actually wear it, unlike the buckets that these High-Born put on their heads. I think it was made for Low-Born.”
They continued looking around as they heard the elevator nearing the top.
“I’m going to go ahead and get started,” Harold said. “There’s close to 700 kids down there.”
“I know,” she sighed. “I have absolutely no idea what we’re going to with them.”
“The lake was in that direction,” Harold pointed to the southwest. “We’ll have to get them there before we can do anything else.”
“Agreed,” she said.
“When they get up here,” he said. “Get them to the trees as fast as you can. I’ll take a couple of the older ones first, and then I’ll get the smallest ones while you bring the others.”
She nodded and watched Harold flash out of sight. He quickly reappeared with Deanna and Christie. He glanced at the treeline and disappeared again. After a few seconds, he reappeared, and jumped down into the elevator which was just about twelve feet from the top. He quickly found two of the little ones and was gone. By the time he returned, Gabby was already making the children jog towards the woods.
As the children ran, many of them shot glances back behind them. Gabby was there motioning them on, keeping them herded as best as she could. The knight began banging in and out of sight, snatching running children here and there like a hungry hawk. After about ten quick trips, he could almost sense something was wrong. As he put down a little boy and girl about Maggie’s age, he turned just in time to see a pair of High-Born missiles coming from behind Gabby and the running children. Just beyond them, he could see the ripples of about four or five High-Born gunships from above the treeline. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but flames covered the knight as he thundered towards the danger.
He expected to be pulverized by missiles when he appeared, but instead he found Aireon standing defiantly with her outstretched hands pointing at the missiles. He looked back at them, and saw that their direction had changed. Their contrails were headed back towards the outline of the cloaked gunships.
He looked back at Aireon and her hands seemed to dance to some unheard music.
He could see that the gunships were beginning to maneuver to get away from the missiles, but Aireon shouted and snatched her hands. The missiles moved faster and both exploded as something that looked like sparks shot out of the gunships. However, the missiles’ ensuing explosion was close enough to send both gunships lurching out of control.
Then, three more gunships opened up with their rail cannons.
Aireon stepped toward the gunships, and lowered her head while flinging her palms forward and a strange shimmer appeared in the air in front of her. The knight watched in amazement as rail spikes ricocheted in every direction from the odd ripple in the air. Then, he saw six more missiles flying towards them.
“Take them out,” Aireon shouted as she grunted with effort.
Flames crackled and popped in the knight’s palms and he stepped forward. Two, billowing clouds of raging fire joined into one and roared towards the missiles. They detonated nearly simultaneously and pieces of shrapnel struck Aireon’s air-shield as a wall of fire surged towards them. It moved so fast that the knight reacted with pure instinct, but he pulled on the fire, and then pushed on it.
The flames swirled around and leaped back towards the gunships. He focused on the fire, and formed it into a narrow cylinder of incinerating power that struck another gunship, and cut through it as easily as his sword could cut cloth. The rail spikes were still slamming into her air-shield, and he could see that she was under signi
ficant strain.
“Save one of the gunships,” she shouted. “Destroy the other one.”
As the knight drew his sword, flames rolled down it, and he blinked out of sight. He appeared in the cockpit of one of the gunships, and began hacking and slashing through the High-Born pilots who did not even have a chance to defend themselves. He quickly air-burned to the other one, and slew the co-pilot. Then, he put his sword up the throat of a shocked High-Born pilot.
“Stop shooting,” he said.
The knight saw the rail spikes flying from beneath him suddenly stop. He looked beyond Aireon, and could see that she had saved the children from death, because they were in the direct path of the High-Born barrage. Most of them were still running toward the woodline.
“Fly us to them, and land,” the knight half-growled at the High-Born. The pilot nodded and pushed on the control stick. The gunship began moving towards Aireon and the children. As they flew towards them, she motioned for the children to continue running towards the woods. After a few moments, it touched down just a few steps from her. He looked beyond her and could see the first of the running children begin to enter the forest.
When the forest had swallowed last of them, Aireon turned and walked towards the cockpit. She glared at the pilot as her blonde hair danced around, and soon she stepped into the vehicle.
“Show me how to disable the tracking device,” she said to the pilot.
He regarded her from underneath his tinted visor and nodded. She sat in the co-pilot’s seat while the knight held his sword toward the High-Born. He began pressing symbols on the glowing green control panel in front of him while she watched. He went through several screens of information and text before he finally stopped.
“Here it is,” he said.
With a few quick touches, she backed herself out of the screens to the original screen. Then she went forward through all of the screens that he did, and she disabled the gunship’s tracking device.
As she asked the pilot questions, the knight walked outside.
Blaze (The High-Born Epic) Page 21