He glanced back once or twice to make sure Levi and Brianna were following him. He shouted encouragements to them, straining to be heard over the constant roar of the Olethron.
“Almost there!” Xavier called out. An Olethron came crashing toward him. He shouted and dove out of the way, landing on his face, feeling rocks and dirt from the blast rain down on him. He raised his head—only a few more feet to go. He low-crawled the rest of the way, shouting for Levi and Brianna to follow his lead and stay low. He hoped they were near.
When finally he got to the top of the hill, he waited for the other two to join him. They crawled up on their bellies, coated in dirt and ash, hardly recognizable. They stayed still a moment, covering their ears in anticipation of another cacophony of noise.
It never came.
Levi cautiously removed his hands from his ears. He lifted his head and looked around.
“I think they stopped shooting,” he whispered.
Xavier rose to his knees, poised in case the attack should start up again. He got slowly to his feet. Levi joined him. Brianna rose as well, gazing around in shock.
There was no beautiful view anymore. The world around them was ringed in smoke, patches of scarred and burned ground showing through here and there. The once grassy hill under their feet had been eviscerated, torn open, nothing but dirt and bare rock. Trees that were once fully in leaf had become crooked, blackened sticks. It looked like a war zone. Nothing moved but smoke and flame as far as he could see. Xavier felt nauseated as he thought of Evan. He wondered if his baby brother was okay.
“Did we do it?” Brianna said. “Is it . . . over?”
“I guess so,” Xavier said in a soft voice, although even he couldn’t quite believe it.
“Guess all we had to do was get to the top of the hill. That really wasn’t bad at all,” Levi said, a laugh bursting out of him that was really more of a gasp. “Well, it was kind of bad, I guess, but we survived, right? We should tell the other two it’s safe to come out now.”
Brianna turned back toward the grove of trees where Evan and Manuel were hiding. Nothing much was visible through the haze and flames. She hesitated, fearing the worst, and looked to Xavier in hopes that he’d call out to them. But his expression told her that he couldn’t. So, she stepped forward, cupped her hands to her mouth, and shouted, her voice scratchy from all the smoke: “Hey guys! All clear!” She hoped the others couldn’t tell how worried she was.
For a long, scary moment she saw nothing move at all. Then Evan and Manuel emerged cautiously from the smoke-rimmed trees and looked up at the three kids at the top of the hill. Brianna screeched with joy. Xavier let out a breath and bent over, closing his eyes in relief.
“Come on!” shouted Levi.
Evan and Manuel scrambled up to the top of the hill, skirting the large, smoking craters where the Olethrons had landed. As soon as they arrived, Manuel spotted blackened metal fragments that had been part of the shield he’d left on top of the hill.
“My shield!” he exclaimed. He bent over to pick up one of the mangled shards, but his sleeve caught on the sharpened edge. As he tugged it away he felt a stabbing pain. “Ow!” he gasped. He raised up his forearm to reveal a small gash that had already started to bleed.
“Oh, be careful!” Brianna said.
“It’s destroyed.” Manuel tossed the hunk of metal away and slumped in despair, nursing his wounded arm.
“Don’t worry, Manuel, you were going to make another one anyway,” said Evan, trying to make him feel better. “It will be even better, right?”
Manuel nodded mutely.
Evan turned to his brother. “No more Oreos?”
“Olethrons,” said Xavier, trying to act as if none of it was any big deal.
“Awesome,” said Evan. “So all you had to do was walk up to the top of the hill and the bad guys just went away? Guess we didn’t need those seeds after all.”
“Guess not,” said Levi.
“So—what now?” Brianna asked. “Don’t we go back to the Cave now?”
“Or to the castle, for some ice cream,” said Levi, remembering the last time they’d successfully completed a mission. They were able to celebrate with a huge feast in the castle in the clouds.
“How do we get there?” Evan asked.
“Usually it just happens,” said Brianna, glancing around. “Ru shows up, and then everything changes and we’re just—there.”
The kids waited a moment longer.
“Nothing’s happening,” said Levi.
“Wait,” said Xavier, putting up a hand to stop their chatter. “Do you hear that?”
From somewhere far away there came a long, low rumble, like thunder gathering in the corner of the world. But it didn’t come and go like thunder usually did. It kept on rumbling, growing louder. The smoke that lay over the landscape started to shiver, as if whatever was making the sound was sending shock waves through the air.
“Maybe the Forgers are coming now,” Brianna said.
“We should go back down the hill,” said Levi nervously. “Ru will probably be coming to get us. . . .”
“Look!” said Xavier.
They turned their eyes to the sky as the entire horizon seemed to burst into flame—a brilliant light shooting up from the veil of smoke, turning the red sky above Skot’os nearly white.
“What is it?” Brianna gasped.
“A nuclear bomb?” said Levi.
“I think it’s the Olethrons,” Xavier said softly. “Like—a lot of them.”
The five kids inched closer together, frozen in fear, as hundreds of the huge flaming arrows—more like rockets, brighter than the sun—burst into the air and began to speed toward them, the ghoulish faces with gaping red mouths laughing at the Warriors’ terror.
“There’s too many—there’s no escape this time,” Levi muttered. The Olethrons filled their whole vision. They cowered low, shielding their eyes from the blinding light.
Xavier tried to think. What had Ruwach told them?
The seed is your shield.
The seed. He’d almost forgotten about it. He opened his fist and looked down at the tiny seed. It glowed brightly, as if it were asking to be put to good use. It seemed to be burning with an energy deep inside itself. Xavier raised his gaze to the awful faces of the Olethrons advancing on them. Their progress seemed to have slowed, as if time itself was dragging its heels, prolonging this terrible moment. Giving him time. To think.
What sort of shield could stop these things? No shield ever made would be able to do that. So how could this little seed . . .
The seed is your shield.
If the seed was a shield, maybe he had to use it like one. Xavier’s fingers closed around the seed, making a fist. Then he thrust his arm straight in front of him, just like he would with a real shield. As soon as he did, a sudden jolt shot down his arm. He thought for a moment that the Olethrons had already hit him, but then he realized something else was happening. Streams of infinitesimal red seeds, like electric sparks, burst out from between his tightly closed fingers, spewing out into the air around him. Xavier gasped, struggling to keep his arm steady as the streams of sparks formed a shell around him, a sparkling dome of tiny red lights that flared brightly against the white light of the approaching fireballs.
Something had definitely happened; Xavier knew that for sure. He wasn’t imagining it. He was completely covered, enclosed in this ethereal, protective shelter that emanated from the seed in his fist. The air felt quieter suddenly, the roar of the approaching Olethrons muted. Xavier glanced at the others and saw them staring at him openmouthed. Even he wasn’t positive of what had transpired, but he knew it was something amazing.
“What is that?” Brianna cried. Xavier could hear her, although her voice was muffled by the dome of seed-lights around him.
“Your seeds!” Xavier
shouted. His voice sounded weird to him, like he was inside a tin can. He hoped they could hear him. He yelled even louder: “Raise up your seeds! Like this!”
Levi and Brianna immediately took out their seeds and followed his lead, raising their seeds in their fists. They too felt the jolt in their arms and saw their seeds open, shooting out fountains of tiny red seed-lights that covered them in a protective shell. They could still see the fireballs and hear the approaching whine of the Olethrons, but the sound seemed duller, less terrifying than it had a moment before.
“This must be the shield Ru was talking about!” Levi cried. Although it didn’t look anything like a shield, nor did it look solid enough to stop the momentum of the Olethrons.
“I . . . I don’t have one. . . .” said Evan in a shaking voice.
“Me neither!” Manuel said.
“Just stay close to us,” said Xavier, pulling Evan to his side so that the two of them were covered by his dome. Levi did the same thing for Manuel. “Don’t move. Just—stand!”
The kids stood frozen, watching the flaming rockets with the horrible faces plummet toward them. But as they watched, the faces of the Olethrons changed. They were no longer laughing. Instead, the empty eyes widened, and the mouths yawned open in what looked like fear. Horror.
The Warriors braced themselves for impact.
And in the next moment, the Olethrons crashed into them.
Chapter 17
Faith Like a Shield
No one dared to open their eyes. Except Levi.
And he almost didn’t believe what he saw.
The screaming faces of the Olethrons seemed to have hit a wall, an invisible yet wholly impenetrable wall. The shield of tiny red seeds had repelled the flaming weapons as if they were no more dangerous than flickering birthday candles. When they hit, it seemed as though the whole world burst into flames.
But Levi felt nothing. The fire, the smoke, the ash, none of it touched him. He couldn’t even smell anything burning.
“Look!” he shouted.
The kids watched as hundreds of massive fireballs ricocheted off their shield domes and sailed back toward the fortress, leaving trails of thick black smoke in their wake.
Levi saw that Xavier had his eyes open now too, his arm still tightly wrapped around his little brother. The Warriors watched, stunned, as the Olethrons converged on the jagged girders of the Fortress of Chaós. For a moment there was complete silence. And then a great fire rose up from the entire horizon, obliterating the fortress from view and engulfing the giant skypod above it in a belching cloud of black smoke. Several deep booms resounded before the fire dispersed, leaving nothing but empty, smoking ruin.
And just like that, it was over.
* * *
“Is that for real?” said Brianna, hiding her eyes with one hand while still holding the seed out before her.
“Gotta be,” said Levi. “The fortress is like . . . smoked!”
“I don’t mean that. I’m talking about this!” She gazed around herself at the protective shield that had repelled the Olethrons and kept them secure.
“It’s real all right.” Xavier lowered his fist; as he did, the sparkling seed-lights of the dome retracted. Levi’s and Brianna’s did the same thing. When they opened their hands, they saw that the seeds no longer glowed—they looked like ordinary red Skittles again.
Before their eyes, the huge craters nearby that had been created by the Olethrons began to close up and disappear. The blackened trees regained their green leaves, the grass regrew, filling in the black holes. Ahoratos looked as it had the first time they had come to this hilltop. All signs of the enemy were gone, except for that giant skypod that still floated in the red sky, above where the Fortress of Chaós had stood only moments before.
“Awesome,” said Levi, smiling for the first time.
“Way awesome,” said Xavier.
“The seed is your shield,” said Brianna, repeating Ruwach’s words. “I get it now. Stellar.” She pulled out her little case and put her seed carefully inside. A few of the jewels came unstuck from the lid and fell off. She picked them up to stick them back on but then changed her mind and stuffed the case and the jewels in her hoodie instead. She didn’t really need it after all.
“So that’s what my mother meant about the seed having power—I never would have thought a tiny seed could do that.” Manuel scratched his head. “I tested the seed. . . . It couldn’t have . . .” He stopped, then hung his head sadly. He wished he’d never flushed that seed down the toilet.
The group wasn’t surprised when the world around them began to spin.
“Hang on everyone. I think we’re leaving!” Xavier said, pulling the others together in a huddle. It felt like a ride at an amusement park, the kind that spins around and around so the riders are plastered to the edge by centrifugal force. But it was over nearly as quickly as it began, and the kids found themselves back in the Garden of Red, surrounded by all the weird plants and vines, which leaned in toward them as if still terribly interested in the seeds they carried.
Ruwach greeted them, spreading his long arms in welcome. “Well done, Warriors!” he said in a nearly jovial voice. “I see you have learned how to use your shields.”
“Why didn’t you tell us they did that?” Levi asked.
“But I did,” said Ruwach with a small shrug. “I told you the seed was your shield. You just had to believe that. To use it like a shield.”
“Stellar,” Brianna said. “But Xavier actually figured it out.”
Xavier blushed as they all looked at him. But then he noticed that his brother and Manuel had taken a few steps away from the group, their shoulders slumped. They stared at the ground, as if they were ashamed. Xavier turned back to Ruwach.
“Could you possibly give them—another one?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yeah, you must have more buried in the dirt here,” said Brianna.
Ruwach shook his hooded head. “Each Warrior is given only one. But it can never be lost.”
Evan looked at Ruwach forlornly. “But I threw it in the pond!”
“I flushed mine down the toilet,” said Manuel in a miserable voice.
“Manuel, you are a fine young scientist,” Ruwach said. “There is much you can learn from your experiments. But there is much more you cannot.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Manuel answered.
“Let us go back to the Cave. We will talk more there.”
Ruwach turned and sped down the path as the portal to the Cave once again opened for him. The others followed close behind—all but Brianna. A movement caught her eye—something flashing silver, which seemed out of place in this garden. She turned to see what it was and gasped when the flashing thing flew right at her. At first she thought it was an Ent and was about to try and swat it away. But when it lighted on one of the vines, she saw it wasn’t an Ent at all. Ents usually started out looking like large, colorful butterflies, but then their wings would turn to sharp-edged metal as they revealed their long, black stingers. But this creature didn’t look like a butterfly at all; it was small, silvery, and had eight thin, delicate wings, more like blades, almost transparent. It was magically beautiful, like nothing Brianna had ever seen before. She approached it cautiously.
“Don’t fly away,” she whispered to the creature. “What are you, anyway?”
She got so close she could look into the silvery thing’s eyes. They weren’t red, like the Ents. The eyes of this creature were clear blue, like tiny pools of water. Brianna was thoroughly delighted.
She reached out a hand toward the creature, which stepped nimbly onto her finger on slender silver legs. Its eight wings fluttered and flashed brilliantly. It was a rare and wonderful jewel that Brianna was sure no one else had ever seen before.
It settled on Brianna’s finger, folding its wings as if completely content there.
And right then Brianna knew she had to keep it. She was certain that a creature this beautiful and unique couldn’t be dangerous. And since it came from the same place as the seed, which she was allowed to take back to earth, she couldn’t imagine there’d be any reason why she couldn’t take this creature as well.
She smiled. This little thing, whatever it was, would be all hers. Something no one, not her friends, and especially not her sisters, would ever have.
“I’ll call you—Stella,” Brianna whispered. “It means ‘star.’” For this creature looked like a tiny, twinkling star. “Here, ride in my pocket. I’ll keep you safe.” She drew her hand slowly down toward her pocket. Stella didn’t fly away. Even when it went all the way into the pocket. It was as if it wanted to go home with her.
“Our little secret,” Brianna said as she headed for the portal back to the Cave. “Don’t make a sound!”
The creature stayed very quiet.
* * *
Evan lagged behind the rest of the kids as they followed Ruwach back through the Corridor of Keys. Ruwach was still talking, telling them more about the wonders of the shield and affirming them for their courage. The guide lauded how well they had been able to destroy the mighty Olethron and the Fortress of Chaós in Skot’os. Evan didn’t think it was wonderful. He felt miserable. He’d thrown away his shield.
Then he remembered the key.
He stopped in the middle of the Corridor of Keys and looked around quickly until he found it—the plain wooden box he’d seen before. He darted over to it and opened the lid. There was that peculiar key with the four crosspieces, lying on the purple satin lining. The key to the rooms! The locked rooms that Ruwach still hadn’t shown them. He felt certain that this had to be the right one. He reached out and carefully picked it up. He lifted it closer to his eyes, wondering if maybe there were more seeds in those rooms. Or other weapons that would be just as useful. He’d just borrow the key, go check out his room, and then replace it before anyone knew it was missing. That sounded like a great plan.
The Prince Warriors and the Unseen Invasion Page 10