Firestone Key

by Caroline Noe

  Gwyneth scraped skin from the length of both thighs as she hauled herself out of the hole. Grasping the nearest beam, she levered herself on to the rafters and crawled along the crossbeam until she was directly over Myrrdinus. Covered in dust and cobwebs, she was squatting in position, preparing herself to perform a death-defying leap into the room, below, when Myrrdinus looked up and their gaze locked.

  His eyes grew wide with absolute shock and horror, particularly as it looked as though she was about to sneeze. “Please. Mercy. Please,” Myrrdinus began to plead, loudly, trying to distract the Torturer from Gwyneth’s unexpected presence. Awaiting the sneeze was almost as excruciating as awaiting the torture.

  “Oh, noooo, not even started yet,” the disappointed Torturer grumbled. “Be more bravely than that.” Grasping the red-hot poker in his gloved hand, the Torturer approached the table. The heat from the implement was so fierce that Myrrdinus tried to pull his head away from it. “Nowhere to go, boy,” the Torturer crowed.

  At that precise moment, Gwyneth dropped on his head, simultaneously delivering the sneeze. Although he was a hardened man of height and muscle, Gwyneth’s bulk packed a hefty punch. He fell, dropping the poker onto the table, where it ominously rocked back and forth. Willing his flesh to shrink away from the superheated metal, Myrrdinus strained to avoid being branded, whilst keeping a terrified watch on the fight to the death, taking place around him.

  Recovering his feet and nursing his sore back, the livid Torturer availed himself of a large knife and slashed at Gwyneth. For a little, fat woman, she was light on her feet, managing to duck and dive, avoiding serious injury; however, even Myrrdinus, with his limited vision of the bout, could tell that the attacks were getting closer and closer as she tired. Gashes appeared in the white robe and bits of severed material dropped away, littering the floor. Drops of blood were soon joining them as the knife’s edge left traces across Gwyneth’s plump skin. Passing close to the fire, she tried to grasp the sword, but dropped it when the heat seared her hand.

  Rage swept through the Torturer and the frenzy of his attack increased, backing Gwyneth into the table holding the horrified Myrrdinus. Receiving a slash to her arm, Gwyneth howled in pain and fell back against the table, which rocked under the onslaught. The red-hot poker wobbled next to Myrrdinus’s leg. He cringed with the burn, but Gwyneth’s predicament was a far worse torture for the young man.

  The Torturer came in for the kill. Expecting to witness her death, Myrrdinus watched as she thrust her hand beneath the tattered sleeve of her robe to shield her hand from the heat. Grasping the handle of the poker, lying beside his leg, Gwyneth swung the weapon up and over in a wide arc, utilising every ounce of strength she had left in the blow. The poker plunged through the top of the Torturer’s head, shattering the cranium and embedding itself half way down his surprised face. The knife fell from lifeless fingers as he plunged forward, landing sprawled across Myrrdinus, with the searing hot poker pointing towards the rafters. Gwyneth had disappeared from view.

  “Gwynie? Gwynie?” a frantic Myrrdinus called out. “Where ye be? Gwynie?”

  “Not calling me that,” came a tearful little voice from beneath the table. “I hate ye.”

  She began to sob.

  * * *

  “Why we not waiting for nightfall?” whispered a disgruntled Bert whilst peering through the undergrowth at the castle. An array of nervous villagers formed a line beside him. With his wooden leg, it had taken a great deal of effort to lie flat on the earth and would take even more to get up again.

  “We been over this ‘fore,” Harlin replied from his vantage point, five people further down the line. “We must be striking ‘fore soldiers returning.”

  “Be dawn already,” Melith pointed out, gesturing with a nod towards the glowing horizon. “We be seen by priests ‘fore we get to Baal.”

  “Not if coming from here,” Asher told her. Her expression was a clear indication that she had no idea what he was talking about. “Where be sun rising?” he asked her.

  “Eastly,” she replied.

  “Be there clearly sky this morn?” he continued.

  “Aye. So?”

  “So, we approaching from here, sun be in their eyes,” Asher announced, triumphantly.

  “Rightly,” Harlin confirmed.

  “Best praying for no cloud,” moaned Bert, “and badly eyes for priests, goodly luck for us, that Baal be sleeping, that…”

  “Not sayed be easy,” Harlin interrupted. “Not making anybone go.”

  The latter statement was for the benefit of Elaine, lying beside Melith. She said nothing in response, refusing to be baited, but her stubborn expression spoke volumes.

  The edge of sunlight’s disk arose over the mountain top, the glare compelling all to look away, eyes watering.

  “Villagers, be ready for drawbridge coming downly,” Harlin announced. Heads nodded in agreement. “Second group, wait for me sign. First group, move!”

  Harlin rose from his hiding place, his clothes covered with camouflaging dirt and leaves. Darting towards the moat, he sprinted and then laid flat for a moment. Repeating the exercise, he gradually worked his way nearer and nearer to his goal. The manoeuvre was copied by the other members of his strike team.

  The villagers watched their progress from the safety of the trees, astonished that they seemed to be getting away with it. Granted, Harlin was lithe and fleet of foot, but Elaine was weak, skinny and innocent of such danger, Asher and Drevel were far too large, Melith too fat and Bert, with his one leg, was unable to get up and down at all. It was as though Harlin had hand picked every liability he could find to accompany him. Young Clipper had wanted to go with him, but the new leader had drawn the line at small children. The boy had been sent, with his father, to watch over the other children and the elderly, who were hiding nearby. To Harlin’s great pride, every able bodied man and woman had joined the line, sensing a changing of the times, even if the plan to achieve it was madness. Grain had also been ordered to go with Clipper, but the conversation had gone along the lines of,

  “Be joining tothers,”

  “No.”

  “Be too dangerly for…”

  “No.”

  and that was that.

  A silent wave of mirthful disbelief swept through the villagers as they watched each member of the first team drop into the moat, undetected by the few priests patrolling the battlements. Those, so called, guards even missed the spectacle of Bert being manhandled over the edge. It was a miracle… assuming that Baal hadn’t already eaten them.

  The second team, led by the hardly effusive Grain, clutched their patchwork of leather and a large wicker basket, waiting for a signal that they never truly believed would come.

  * * *

  “Gwynie, dearly, be not crying,” Myrrdinus purred. He was trying to be comforting, but the dead Torturer, lying across his chest, made it difficult to speak. Gwyneth had continued to sob, beneath the table, for the last five minutes and he was growing nervous of discovery. It was time to try a new tactic. “Gwyneth,” he said, forcing a harshness into his tone. “That be nough! Ye behaving like childlin. Get up here and let me loose, now!” His words had the desired effect.

  “Ye…ye…fyker!” stormed Gwyneth, popping into his eyeline. “I hate ye! Be worth three of ye! Not for me, ye died, burned or…limply!”

  “Truly,” Myrrdinus admitted. “Now, get him off, so I be able to fight.”

  Gwyneth muttered and swore, using a string of words that would not have gained her parents’ approval, but she also grasped the torturer’s tunic and pulled. The body slumped to the floor, allowing Myrrdinus to breathe freely again.

  “Thinking be leaving ye here,” Gwyneth told him, her foot tapping against the table leg.

  “Finely,” Myrrdinus replied, amusement filling his large eyes. “Ye getted in here, but be ye getting out again, Gwynie?”

  Refusing to meet his gaze, no matter how hard he tried to make her, Gwyneth cut his bounds an
d turned her back on him.

  “Ye bravely woman,” he told her, getting off the table and standing close behind her. Very close, in fact. “Ye saving me life, truly.”

  Gwyneth sniffed, but didn’t shrug off his arms as they threatened to snake around her. She cringed when his fingers found the slash across her arm. When he dropped to his knees beside her, she felt a thrill pass through her heart. To her disappointment, he tore a strip of material from the bottom of her robe and proceeded to bandage the wound. She snatched her arm from his gentle grasp and tried to tie the ends herself, annoyed at having entertained the silly notion that he might be proposing to her.

  Myrrdinus grasped her firmly around her ample waist and pulled her back towards him. She came to rest tucked neatly beneath his chin, allowing him to complete the bandage.

  “Ye comed here all lone?” Myrrdinus asked.

  She could feel the deep vibration of his words within his chest. “Aye,” she whispered, sure that she was about to receive some words of love, at last.

  “Where be Serena?”

  It was an innocent question, carrying no actual insult, nor import of favour to the other woman, but Myrrdinus may just as well have lit a match in a room full of gunpowder. Despite the burn, throbbing in the palm of her hand, Gwyneth pounded on his head and body until her fists turned red. Her language, however, was decidedly blue.

  * * *

  Outside the Torturer’s domain, two guarding priests heard muffled thumps and cries, but assumed that it was all part of the torture process. Besides, they were more concerned with the group of fellow priests making their way down the steps towards them.

  “Be High Priest with ye?” one of the visitors asked, nonchalantly.

  The guards laughed. “Gergan? Here?”

  “He only like blood when be animal,” one observed. “Torturer have guest in there.”

  “Gergan like seeing dawn rise,” the other guard advised. “So likely be above.”

  “Thank ye,” the visitor politely replied and smacked him over the head with a club.

  The other remaining guard was so surprised that it took a moment for him to react; a moment too long. The large group of visiting priests easily overpowered him, leaving the two of them in a neat pile.

  “Why we doing that?” an elderly female voice ventured. “We could have leaved quietly.”

  “Not leaving anybone to Torturer,” Serena firmly stated.

  Holding tightly to the wooden club, she flung open the door and boldly strode into the Torturer’s domain. The opening of a second door brought her face to face with a terrible sight.

  “Gwyneth!” Serena exclaimed. “What ye doing?”

  Surprised at her rival’s entrance, Gwyneth ceased to assault Myrrdinus.

  “Thank ye, God,” he muttered.

  * * *

  Elaine landed in the mud with a gelatinous ‘plop’. She still couldn’t believe that she had talked herself into going with the first group, or that she had arrived in the moat in one piece. Scuttling up to the edge, glancing nervously at the battlements above, she had flung herself over the edge of the moat, unprepared for the twenty foot drop, below. Thankfully, the layer of mud had cushioned her fall, if not enhancing her aesthetic appearance. Not that it mattered much. During the preceding night, Harlin had scarcely glanced at her, except to exchange a few words on the nature of leather patchwork or wicker baskets. She had come to the sad conclusion that the newly handsome Harlin had decided that he could do so much better than a scarred, mousey and plain woman.

  Wading through the glop, she joined the others, just in time to assist in catching Bert as he was manhandled over the edge. What he muttered, on arrival, would not bear repeating. Over his shoulder, a puffing Elaine caught sight of a thing from hell.

  “Baal,” she squeaked, her throat constricting with fear.

  Harlin muttered, “That be why ye comed, remember?”

  Fortunately, the beast was slumbering the sleep of the over-fed, its massive jaws hanging open, wide nostrils flapping with every breath. It lay on its back, powerful legs in the air, kicking occasionally, as though chasing prey in its dreams. Small leathery wings lay, neatly folded, either side of its huge, grey-skinned body. Wrapped across its belly lay a thick, muscular tail, the end of which twitched in time with its steamy outbreath.

  Elaine had, of course, seen Baal before, but not the whole of him in daylight. Almost standing on her head, Elaine viewed the beast.

  “It is a T-Rex,” she whispered.

  “What?” replied Melith, mud coating her features.

  “It’s got wings and it looks a bit strange. Longer front legs,” Elaine continued. “But it’s a T-Rex. It must have been on Leila’s mind when she…”

  “Nough talking,” Harlin hissed, his tone hard. “Rope. Watch where ye walking.”

  The small band of rebels unwound the rope from around their waists and crept towards the slumbering nightmare, sliding their feet through the mud to avoid stepping on the array of gnawed human bones that must be littering the moat. As they edged closer, the stinking breath of the beast grew ever more pungent.

  Drevel - the tall, hairy, fearless one - turned pale and began to retch. Reaching up, Melith slapped her hand over his mouth, her eyes pleading with him to stay silent. Just then, Bert’s wooden stump managed to land on a bone. To the ears of the nervous group, the resulting snap sounded like an explosion.

  They froze.

  Baal spluttered and snorted, his jaws instinctively closing on prey. All four legs kicked, his tail twitched and a tiny puff of hot air emerged from one nostril…but he didn’t wake.

  Breathing a hefty sigh of relief, the rebels continued their perilous journey. Arriving at Baal’s side, they gently began wrapping the rope around his limbs, forming the knots that would tighten into bounds. Sliding around to the other side of the beast, Harlin caught sight of the man, still tied to the stake. He had been there all night, waiting for Baal to become peckish again. When Harlin placed a finger to his lips, the man understood the need to remain silent. Joy swept over his features when Asher quietly made his way over and cut him loose.

  “Go home,” Asher whispered to the man.

  “No,” he bravely responded, gazing at the rejuvenated Harlin. “Helping ye, whatever ye doing. Be that Harlin?”

  Having carried out all the preparations, Harlin turned to face his friends. This was the moment of no return. They all exchanged poignant smiles, of hope, of courage, of disbelief that they were about to do something so dangerously foolhardy, of love. Asher took Melith’s hand and kissed his wife gently on the lips. Harlin looked at Elaine, truly looked at her, and for a moment she thought she saw love there, as though they were back beside the river.

  Bert scanned the faces of his friends, his family, and knew a pride beyond feeling or words. He turned to his boy, his Harlin, and nodded. “We be ready, son.”

  It had been a long decade. They were ready to face their destiny. Drevel produced a stash of reeds from his tunic and began fitting them, one into another.

  The second group, crouched in the undergrowth around the castle, saw a piece of cloth, perched on top of a long reed pole, appear above the rim of the moat. This was their signal. Although fear was rife in every heart, none delayed. Carrying ladders, the patchwork quilt, a large wicker basket and some inexplicably shaped pieces of iron, they sprinted towards the moat. More accurately, they sprinted towards the moat on the heels of Grain, who was bouncing more like a Grey Squirrel than a man in his seventies.

  As Harlin had suspected, the arrival of the larger, heavily laden second group didn’t go unnoticed. On the battlements, someone finally raised the alarm.

  “Now!” Harlin yelled.

  His first group pulled with all their might. The ropes tightened around Baal’s legs, where he lay on his back, pulling all four limbs together in a form of ‘hog-tying’, whilst snapping shut the jaws and pinning his head in the mud. When a furious Baal awoke and tried to roar, he found his j
aws unable to comply.

  Meanwhile, the second group clambered into the moat and laid the leather patchwork on the ground. The newly freed man looked on their actions with confusion and not a little curiosity. The basket was being hastily tied to a set of ropes emerging from the bottom of the patchwork and the whole thing dragged closer to the struggling monster. The man shook his head. What be they doing?

  The entire second team now took over the subjugation of Baal, linking the ropes to heavier duty chains and hammering stakes into the ground in an attempt to hold him. They were currently succeeding, but, with the beast’s strength, would not be able to contain him for long.

  Asher and Bert retrieved the peculiarly shaped pieces of iron and slapped them over the beast’s flapping nostrils, forming a metal mask, while Harlin and Drevel held the edge of the curved leather patchwork as near to his head as they dare. Melith and Elaine filled their hands with mud and grime and, sliding over the bucking monster’s belly, proceeded to deliver the glop down the mask, straight into his exposed nostrils.

  Baal twitched, gurgled and let fly with an almighty sneeze. With his jaw held shut, the resulting burst of fire could only release in a blast of super-heated air. Channelled down the iron fittings, the hot air billowed into the leather patchwork and filled its curved edges. The makeshift balloon promptly began to lift.

  Harlin and Drevel launched themselves into the wicker basket, arriving just before it rose from the mud. Clambering to their feet and clinging to the side of the perilously unstable basket, they peered down at their friends as they gradually sailed away. Harlin’s gaze came to rest on Elaine’s pale, scarred face and, for a brief moment, she thought that he was about to call out to her, but he kept his silence. Elaine stared up at their retreating forms, wondering whether she would ever see either man alive again.

  “For Serena,” Drevel whispered, so quietly, that not even Harlin heard him.

  Melith, Asher and Bert pulled on the guiding ropes, edging the wavering balloon and its passengers towards the looming battlements.

  “How ye think of this?” the man once tied to the stake enquired of a rather busy Melith.