by Kate O'Hearn
Reaching down, he carefully removed the messenger’s winged sandals and put them on his feet, hoping at least that Mercury had been right about them working for him.
Paelen heard roaring and grunting behind him. His eyes flew wide in terror as countless Nirad warriors approached. He’d never seen a Nirad up close before. They were massive. Their skin was grey marble and looked as hard as stone. Each of their four arms waved a weapon in the air and their eyes blazed with murderous hatred. These creatures had no intention of negotiating. No plans for taking prisoners. All Paelen could see in their bead-black eyes was the desire to kill. Seeing the invaders up close, he understood what everyone was up against. They didn’t stand a chance. Olympus was doomed.
He quickly looked back down at the sandals.
‘Fly, for Jupiter’s sake, fly!’ he shouted.
The tiny wings started flapping. He was lifted into the air just as the first Nirad warriors arrived. Panic-stricken, Paelen yelled, ‘Sandals, go! I do not care where. Just go!’
Mercury’s sandals obeyed, and Paelen was carried away from the rampaging Nirads. He heard their angry roars at losing their prey.
With the immediate danger now well behind him, Paelen looked ahead. ‘Stop!’ he ordered.
The sandals obeyed his command and he hovered in mid-air. He looked in stunned disbelief at the devastation beneath him. He was sick to see that there wasn’t one building left untouched, nor one statue unbroken. The Nirads were destroying everything.
‘Go,’ he finally said. ‘Take me to the Temple of the Flame. I need to find Pegasus.’
As the sandals carried him towards the temple, the sounds of Jupiter’s thunderbolts grew more intense and bright flashes lit the area. The battle was still raging, but it had now reached the base of the Temple of the Flame.
Paelen saw more fallen Olympians. Yet amongst the dead and dying, he saw no dead or wounded Nirads. Not one. It was as though the invaders couldn’t be killed, even by the most powerful amongst them.
He glanced forward and saw smoke rising in the distance. The Flame at the temple was still lit. But as he approached the heart of the battle, Paelen saw Apollo and Diana crouching back to back. They were surrounded by Nirads. Diana was using her bow, but every arrow she fired glanced off the grey invaders without causing any damage at all. Apollo was using his spear, but was having as little luck as his sister.
A Nirad warrior lunged forward and knocked Apollo’s legs out from under him. More followed as Diana fought bravely to save her twin brother. But she was driven away quickly. As Paelen passed silently overhead, he heard her anguished cries filling the air as Apollo was killed by the invaders.
Pegasus. He had to find Pegasus.
The sandals drew him away from the horrible scene. Closer to the Temple of the Flame, he saw Jupiter fighting at its base. Roaring in rage, the leader of Olympus was shooting lightning bolts and thunder at the Nirads, to no effect. The invaders were steadily advancing up the tall marble steps.
Paelen finally saw Pegasus. The stallion was rearing on his hind legs and kicking out at the invaders. He was covered in blood from countless stab wounds as the Nirads used their vicious weapons to bring down the powerful stallion. A Nirad pounced and stabbed his spear deep into the flanks of the rearing stallion. Pegasus shrieked in pain and dropped back down to all fours, viciously kicking the Nirad with his golden hoof. But even as the wounded warrior crawled away, others moved in for the kill. They caught hold of the stallion’s wings and were trying to tear them off.
Pegasus continued to fight but was quickly overpowered. As more and more Nirads attacked, the stallion was knocked to the ground. As he fell, the spear in his side broke and was driven deeper into his flanks.
Paelen watched in horror as Pegasus was swamped with Nirad warriors. There was no way the stallion would survive the attack.
Diana arrived. Shouting her battle cry, she attacked the Nirads tying to kill Pegasus. Stabbing at them with her brother’s spear, her grief transformed to rage as she used all her strength against them.
One Nirad shoved past her and made for the stallion’s head. But when its four hands made contact with the golden bridle, it howled in agony. Diana turned on the attacker and lunged forward with her brother’s spear. Unlike all the other attempts to stop the Nirads, this time the spear worked and she managed to kill her first invader. With Diana’s help, Pegasus got back on his feet. But that was one small victory in a losing battle.
‘Paelen!’
Jupiter was surrounded by Nirad fighters but he was pointing at the temple. ‘Quickly,’ he shouted. ‘Stop them!’
Paelen turned to the temple and saw other Nirads cutting through the defenders and advancing further up the marble steps.
‘Stop them, Paelen!’ Jupiter ordered again. ‘They must not extinguish the Flame!’
Paelen knew the moment the Flame of Olympus went out, the war would be over and Olympus would fall. But if Jupiter himself couldn’t stop the invaders, what could a thief possibly do?
In the time it took for him to decide whether or not to join the fight the battle was lost.
Nirad warriors tore down the entrance gates to the temple and tossed them down the steps. They poured into the temple, howling in rage. Moments later, there was the sickening sound of the plinth that held the Flame being knocked over. Guttural roars of triumph filled the air as the invaders went to work extinguishing the Flame.
Soon more and more Nirads abandoned the battleground and rushed up the steps to join in the destruction. The survivors of Olympus could do little more than watch in terror as their world ended.
Paelen saw Jupiter run over to Pegasus. Catching hold of the wounded stallion, Jupiter pointed in the air and shouted something. Pegasus snorted and nodded his head.
Moments later, the few survivors parted to give Pegasus room to spread his wings. With a shriek, the stallion launched himself into the air.
Paelen’s heart leaped with excitement. This was his moment! Finally, an opportunity to seize the bridle and control the fleeing stallion.
‘Go after Pegasus!’ Paelen ordered his sandals. ‘Get me to the stallion!’
3
Emily made her way back to her bedroom having finished collecting water. Without electricity, there would be no TV, no radio and no lights. With nothing more to do, she got into bed.
Emily knew she wouldn’t sleep. Even if the storm hadn’t been so noisy, she was on edge. She just wished she weren’t alone. Her mother would have known what to do. But her mother was dead and nothing Emily could do would ever change that. She was alone. She started to regret not asking her Aunt Maureen to come over.
Outside the window there was another blinding flash of lightning and terrible explosion of thunder. Emily felt the whole building shake. But as she listened, she heard more than thunder. Directly above her head was the sound of something very big, very heavy hitting the roof.
Living in the top-floor apartment, the only thing above them was the flat roof. Emily’s family paid extra to have access to it, and her mother had planted a large flower and vegetable garden. But no one had been up there since her mother got sick and died. Emily worried that maybe a piece of the Empire’s antenna might have just hit her building. Or maybe lightning had struck her mother’s garden shed and knocked it over.
She considered calling her father to ask him what to do. Would lightning start a fire? Was her building about to burn down? The rain outside was coming down in heavy sheets, but would it put out a fire if it had started? As more and more questions and fears built up within her, Emily’s heart practically stopped.
There were more sounds from above.
It was almost as though someone or something was kicking the roof.
Raising the flashlight, Emily sucked in her breath when the beam of light revealed a huge crack in the ceiling plaster. The overhead light was swinging on its cord. Small chips of paint and plaster were starting to fall.
Emily reached for her cell. But
even before she used the speed dial, she closed it again. What was she going to tell her father? That something big had hit the roof and cracked her bedroom ceiling? Maybe he’d tell her to get out of the building. But that would mean going out in the dark hallway and finding her way to the stairwell. Then she’d have to walk down twenty flights of stairs, just to arrive on the street where it was pouring with rain.
‘No, Em,’ she told herself. ‘There’s nothing up there. It’s just the garden shed fallen over and the door banging in the wind.’
Long before Emily could convince herself it was nothing serious, the thumping from above started again.
‘This is crazy!’ she said. Even as she spoke, she was climbing out of bed. ‘You’re not going up there …’
But it was as though her body and mind weren’t speaking to each other. The more Emily’s mind tried to stop herself, the more determined her body was to investigate the strange sounds coming from the roof.
Emily drew on her long raincoat, reached for the apartment keys and made for the door. As a quick afterthought, she grabbed the baseball bat they kept for security beside the door.
With only the single beam from the flashlight to show her the way, Emily climbed the stairs. She heard hushed sounds of footsteps and chattering voices as more of the building’s occupants used the stairwell to get to their homes.
‘This isn’t smart, Em. There’s lightning up there,’ she warned herself. Once again, part of her wasn’t listening.
She made it to the top of the access stairs and faced the locked door that led directly out to the roof. Clutching the bat in one hand and the flashlight in the other, Emily struggled to get the key in the lock. When she managed to turn it, the door opened a fraction. Suddenly the wind caught hold and wrenched the door from her hand. It flew open wildly and made a terrible crashing sound as it was nearly torn off its hinges.
‘So much for being quiet,’ she chastised herself.
Emily stepped into the blowing rain, and started passing the beam of light over the rooftop, searching for fire. It was almost a year since she’d been up there. The whole area was badly overgrown. Strange vines had taken hold, covering the once lovingly tended flower beds.
The vegetable patch was unrecognizable. In the dark, with the storm at its peak, this was no longer the garden Emily knew. Instead it was a dark and frightening place filled with mystery and danger.
Through the noise of the pounding rain, Emily heard other sounds. It was the thumping again. Only this time, there was more. As she strained to listen above the terrible weather, she was sure she could hear whining, or the sound of someone or something crying out in pain.
Creeping forward, she passed the beam of light over the wild garden. To Emily’s right was the large rose patch. This had been her mother’s pride and joy. Every summer without fail, their apartment had been filled with the fragrance of the fresh cut flowers her mother had grown here. Now the rose bushes had run wild and were spilling out over the roof.
A sudden movement in the roses caught Emily’s attention. Directing the light back, she thought she saw the glint of gold. She inched closer and kept the light trained on the bushes. There! The flash of gold again. Taking another nervous step, Emily held up the bat.
‘Whoever you are, come out of there!’
As she took another tentative step, a blinding bolt of lightning cracked in the sky. The entire roof was bathed in light. And what Emily saw in the rose garden was impossible.
She stumbled backwards, lost her footing and fell hard to the ground.
‘It’s not real!’ she told herself. Rising to her hands and knees, she reached for the flashlight. ‘You didn’t see what you just saw. It’s just the storm playing tricks on you. That’s all!’
Shining the light once again in the direction of the rose bushes, her heart was pounding so badly she thought she might pass out. Climbing unsteadily to her feet, she crept forward.
‘It’s not real, Em, it’s not real,’ she repeated over and over again as she drew near. ‘You didn’t see anything!’
But when the light found its mark, she couldn’t deny the truth.
It was very real.
A huge white horse was lying on its side in the middle of the rose garden. What had glinted in the beam of the flashlight was one of the horse’s hooves. As Emily looked, she sucked in her breath. It was gold. Raising the flashlight, she received an even greater shock. A wing! Massive in size, it was covered in mud, leaves and rose petals, but unmistakable with its long white feathers.
‘No!’ Emily cried. ‘This is impossible!’
More lightning lit the rooftop, confirming what Emily was trying so hard to deny.
A white horse with golden hooves and a vast white wing was lying on its side in the middle of her dead mother’s rose garden.
Unable to move, barely breathing, Emily stared at the animal in disbelief.
As she watched, the wing on the horse’s side stirred, followed by a terrible shriek of pain. The sound tore at Emily’s heart. The animal was in agony. Racing forward and heedless of the sharp thorns that tore into her flesh, Emily entered the bushes and started to shove them away from the stricken horse.
She worked her way along the animal’s side, towards its head. Lying flat on the ground, it was completely trapped within the rose bushes as the vicious thorns tore into its tender skin.
Emily cried out in her own pain as the thorns dug into her flesh as she tried to free the horse’s head from the cruel bushes. It was awake, and looking at her with a huge dark eye.
‘It’s all right. I won’t hurt you,’ she soothed. ‘I’ll get you free in a moment. Then maybe you can stand up if you’re not too hurt.’
When most of the horse’s head was free, it tried to rise. It screamed in agony as the wing on its side moved.
‘Wait, stop!’ Emily reached out and stroked the horse’s quivering neck. ‘Don’t move. Let me see what’s wrong.’
Emily continued to stroke the strong, warm neck as she raised the flashlight and trailed the beam down along its body. She could see one wing resting on the side, but she couldn’t see the other.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve only got the one wing?’
The animal raised its head and looked at her with imploring eyes that begged for help.
‘No,’ she sighed. ‘I guess not.’
Emily soon freed the horse from the bushes. As she held up the flashlight, she glimpsed the upper edge of the other wing. Only it was at an odd angle, pinned beneath the weight of the horse’s body.
‘Your other wing is trapped beneath you,’ she explained. ‘But I guess you already know that.’
With the last of the bushes gone, she moved back to its head.
‘I’ve done all I can, but we have to get you off that wing. If I go around to your back and push, will you try to get up?’
As if in answer to her question, the horse seemed to nod its head.
‘You really are going crazy, Em,’ she muttered. ‘He’s a horse. He can’t understand you.’
She knelt down in the slippery mud and stroked the horse’s side. ‘OK, I’m sorry but this is probably going to hurt. When I start pushing, I want you to try to get up.’
Placing her hands firmly on its back, Emily leaned forward and started to push with all her strength. ‘Now!’ she grunted. ‘Get up now!’
Emily could feel the horse’s back muscles tensing beneath her hands as it struggled to rise.
‘That’s it!’ Pushing and straining, Emily felt her knees starting to slip beneath her. ‘Keep going, you can do it!’
Putting all her weight against the horse, Emily felt it move. But as it rolled forward, the trapped wing sprang free and hit her squarely in the face. Emily cried out as she was knocked backwards into the rose bushes. Lying in the centre of the patch, the vicious thorns tore large holes in her jeans and raincoat and pierced right through to her skin.
But the fresh pain from the thorns was quickly forgotten when lightn
ing flashes revealed the horse now standing on its feet and facing her. Despite the filth from the mud and leaves that covered its body and matted its mane, and ignoring the countless cuts and gashes from the thorns, Emily was awestruck. She’d never seen anything so amazing in her whole life.
From the moment she’d discovered the horse on the roof and seen its wing, a name had sprung to mind. A name long forgotten from an old book of myths her mother used to read to her. But worry for the animal had distracted her from those thoughts. Now it came flooding back. Stepping clear of the bushes, Emily approached. As she did, the stallion stepped up to her.
‘It’s really you, isn’t it?’ she whispered softly as she fearlessly stroked the soft muzzle. ‘You’re Pegasus, aren’t you? I mean the really real Pegasus.’
The stallion seemed to pause for a moment. Then he nudged her hand, inviting another stroke. In that one rain-drenched instant, Emily felt her world changing.
For ever.
4
Paelen awoke, stiff and in a lot of pain. His back felt like it was on fire and every muscle in his body cried out in protest.
Around him he could hear the soft sound of voices. Keeping his eyes shut, he took a moment to remember what had happened to him. The last thing he recalled was finally catching up with Pegasus and reaching for the golden bridle. He remembered tearing it away from the stallion and feeling its weight in his hand. Then there had been a blinding flash …
After that, everything went blank.
Opening his eyes, Paelen discovered he was in bed in a very strange room. The walls were white with no decorations and it smelled very odd. Over to his right was another bed, but it was empty. Outside the large window, the storm was still raging. It shocked Paelen to see the flashes of lightning and hear the roaring thunder. The way the battle had been going, he thought it would all be over by now.
Paelen turned away from the window. He saw a strange assortment of devices with beeping sounds and blinking lights. Above him, he was alarmed to see clear bags of fluid dripping down tubes that actually entered his left arm.