Firestone Key

by Caroline Noe

  “Elaine. She read books,” she shot back, struggling to control the balloon.

  On the battlements, priests were beginning to assemble, ready to defend the castle. Harlin and Drevel had very little margin for error, for the hot air within the balloon had begun to dissipate. Their rate of ascension was clearly slowing.

  “Let go!” Asher shouted.

  Bert duly complied and the balloon, devoid of its counter-weight, began to rise again. Unfortunately, Melith had managed to stand on a loop of rope which promptly tightened around her foot. She found herself swiftly heading skyward, dangling from that rope, upside down, the distance between her and the ground rapidly increasing.

  “Jump!” a frantic Asher hollered at her, holding out his arms in illustration, but it was already too late.

  Peering over the side of their makeshift basket, Harlin and Drevel saw Melith dangling beneath, flailing in the wind. Exchanging a long-suffering look, Drevel flung himself over the side of the basket, swinging on the free guide rope like a pendulum. The balloon was within a few feet of the battlements and already above it in height. Launching himself towards the stone wall, Drevel landed on the battlements with a sickening crunch, knocking all the air from his lungs. He had not, however, survived years as a dog for nothing. Gathering every ounce of strength, he yanked on his rope, pulling the balloon closer to the wall, whilst keeping one eye on the approaching, heavily-armed priests.

  Melith swung closer to the recovering Drevel, but she was still stranded on the other side of the balloon. Looking down, she saw Asher’s tiny face staring up at her. Even at this distance she could sense the terror and anger emanating from him.

  “Hold on!” Harlin shouted to her, climbing over the side of the basket and slithering down her rope. As he reached Melith’s trapped foot, it became apparent that there was no way to lift her weight in order to release her. “Need cut her free!” he hollered down to Drevel.

  Swinging on his guide rope, half flying, half scampering across the battlements, Drevel took out the first arriving priest whilst simultaneously making the balloon rotate, bringing Melith and Harlin directly above him. “Now!”

  Holding the rope with one hand, Harlin drew a knife and sawed through it with the other, just above Melith’s foot. He watched as the upside down Melith’s eyes grew wide in terror.

  “Pillllt!” Hollering all the way, Melith dropped like a cushion wrapped rock. Drevel held out his arms, but her arrival completely flattened him.

  Harlin, meanwhile, clung to the shortened rope as the lightened balloon floated serenely away in the breeze. Swinging wildly, he flung himself towards the battlements, smashing into the top of the wall with a bone shattering thud and almost bouncing clean off again. Only one hand managed to retain a grip on the stone, preventing a fatal fall. Using every newly healed muscle in his body, he levered his flapping free arm back up and grasped the wall with both hands. Bending his knees and using his feet to climb, Harlin struggled up and over the top and heaved himself on the battlements.

  By the time all three stunned rebels had recovered their senses, the rest of the priests were almost on them. Harlin and Drevel had hoped to assault the drawbridge before having to face this much opposition, but matters had been taken out of their hands. Drawing their swords, they tried to position themselves in front of Melith.

  The feisty little woman had other ideas. Darting out from behind the taller men, she barrelled into the first priest to reach them, knocking him down and smacking his head into the stone wall. Helping herself to his sword, she stood shoulder to shoulder with her two comrades - in spirit, if not in stature. Still, they were vastly outnumbered and looked to have failed in their attempt to gain control of the drawbridge.

  A sudden series of cries, sounding much like ‘ooph’ and ‘argh’, floated over the heads of the priests and reached the keen ears of Drevel. Being taller than his friends, he peered over the heads of the attacking group. Oddly, at the rear of their number, men seemed to be disappearing. The arrival of a familiar face made the stunned Drevel’s heart skip a beat, whilst providing the explanation: Serena had miraculously resurrected, bringing with her a multitude of new friends.

  Outnumbered, the dwindling group of priests acted true to their nature and promptly surrendered. Swords and knives clattered on to the battlements, abandoned by their former owners in their haste to raise their hands. The band of rebels was too busy enjoying reunions to pay them much attention.

  Unable to utter a single word under the weight of powerful emotion, Serena disappeared into the ursine embrace of Drevel, who had already succumbed to wailing. Explanations would come later, should they be granted a future. For now, the embrace was enough.

  Gwyneth and her mother were locked in their own bear hug, but this reunion was far from silent with both women trying to deliver their individual story at top speed. Towering over both, a relieved Myrrdinus wrapped his arms around the women.

  “Be shame for ye,” quipped Gwyneth, a trifle sourly, “seeing Serena have Drevel back. Ye need be choosing some other beautily now.”

  Melith looked from her sneering daughter to the enraged Myrrdinus and back again, instantly understanding the root of the current problem, having once lived it. Give up, she thought, ye needing be together.

  Harlin had seen enough hugging. “Hello! We have work to do here,” he growled, desperately trying to drag his mind from a vision of Elaine.

  Eyes turned to him, many opening wide with the shock of recognition.

  “Harlin! Ye here, leading?” Gwyneth exclaimed, adding an erotic edge to her tone. “And looking goodly.”

  Myrrdinus’s expression darkened, even as Melith sighed.

  “We need get drawbridge downly,” Harlin advised, trying to bring everyone up to speed. “Villagers waiting in trees.”

  “How many?” Myrrdinus asked, not able to keep surprise out of his voice.

  “All of ‘em,” Harlin replied, not trying to keep the pride out of his. “Must go. More priests coming, soonly.” He glanced at the surrendered priests, hands still lifted high. “Be taking their swords and tying ‘em.”

  The band of rebels gathered the discarded weaponry and followed Harlin into the castle. Drevel and Serena were still engaged in the locking of lips, between his sobbing gasps.

  “Stop that, please,” Harlin miserated as he passed by.

  They surfaced, eventually.

  Myrrdinus brought up the rear. Before leaving the battlements, he glanced down at the struggling Baal, far below, and the means of his entrapment. “Gwyneth!” he shouted. “Be looking! My idea been rightly, after all! Gwyneth. Gwyneth?”

  * * *

  It didn’t take long for the newly enlarged group of rebels to realise that they were not going to be able to move around the castle stealthily, principally because there were priests lurking in every crevice. Thankfully, the priesthood had not yet managed to group itself into an army of attack, having decided, instead, to wait for orders from the Queen, Gergan or, worse case scenario, Sworder. Currently, none of the trio had yet to appear and indecision reigned.

  Thus, the rebels had managed to smash, thump and kick their way right up to the gatehouse before any opposition awoke to the danger. Frankly staggered by his success, Harlin peeped around the corner. The oak wood door had been heavily reinforced with metal armour, making it extremely difficult and time consuming to break down. Time was one thing the rebellion had very little of. Baal could not be held for much longer, even if he was yet to free himself.

  “Not able break through easy,” whispered Myrrdinus, stating the bleeding obvious.

  “Arnus,” muttered Gwyneth.

  “Mouth,” scolded her mother.

  For some thoroughly inappropriate reason, Harlin desperately wanted to guffaw. He was amazed at the feeling. It was, however, time to make a leadership decision, not rediscover merriment. “Serena.”

  “Aye.”

  “Can ye get them to open door?”

  “How?” a
sked Gwyneth, naively.

  “I be opening door to her, anytime,” offered Myrrdinus, beaming at the amused Serena.

  Gwyneth’s mood darkened even further with the resulting surge of jealousy, which was exactly why Myrrdinus had said it. Drevel just growled.

  Still dressed in her priestly robes, Serena sauntered up to the great door and rapped her knuckles on the armoured wood. Behind her, the rebels ducked and dived into whatever cover they could find. A small shutter slid open, revealing the eyes of a teenage guardsman; eyes which grew huge and wide at the sight of the lone blond siren before him.

  “Please helping me,” Serena purred softly, batting her eyelashes. “Rebels in castle and be fearly.”

  “Come inside,” said the hormonally challenged young man, unbolting the door without a single thought to the contrary. “Safely with us.”

  “What ye doing?” asked his older and more security conscious colleague as the door creaked open. It was already too late.

  Myrrdinus and Drevel, being the largest of the company, barrelled through the gap, smashing the door into the face of the unfortunate teen and knocking him out cold. His friend immediately dropped to his knees and shot his hands above his head in subjugation. Life was miserable in this racking castle and he wasn’t getting hurt for a dying Queen.

  Myrrdinus and Drevel left the surrendered guardsman to the arriving rebel band and headed for the gate mechanism. Outside, an army of their friends were waiting to storm the castle. With the grinding of the rising portcullis and lowering drawbridge making music for his ears, Harlin peered out of the gatehouse, straining to catch a glimpse of Elaine in the moat, below. She was already out of view. He did, however, witness the magnificent sight of his people, pouring out of the trees. He would have been overcome with pride, had he not also seen Grain and another small group of the suicidally brave, struggling to hold onto a furious Baal, and losing.

  * * *

  Gergan had been resting comfortably in his favourite chair on the battlements when chaos erupted around him. He had always loved the dawn, ever since he was a child, it being the time when he would rise and join his father in tending their livestock. Tribal warfare had taken his family and their land, but the sweet dream of home would briefly return at the beginning of a new day. Unfortunately, this day, as every day, soon degenerated into fear and disappointment.

  The unexpected arrival of suicidal villagers, intent on enraging Baal, was a mystery, until Gergan caught sight of the makeshift balloon and realised that the castle was under attack. He also recognised the man leading it. Although the building was crawling with priests, the absence of soldiers and renders convinced Gergan to err on the side of caution. Fleeing inside the castle and leaping down stone steps, he disappeared into an upper corridor, just as Serena, Myrrdinus, Gwyneth and friends came up the staircase on their way to the battlements. They missed meeting him by a hair’s-breadth. Ignorant of how close he had come to capture, the nervous Gergan made straight for his ailing Queen.

  “Majesty!” he hollered, thundering into her quarters with a crash. “We be under attack!”

  “What? Don’t be an idiot,” Leila spat, though her voice was weak. “Nobody dare face Baal.”

  “Well, they doing it!” Gergan shrieked, his nerves getting the better of him.

  A slap across the face brought him to his senses.

  “Calm down and gather the priesthood,” Leila snapped, shuffling painfully towards the door. “I’ll deal with this.”

  “Majesty?” Gergan ventured, rubbing his sore cheek.

  “What?”

  “Yer son leading attack.”

  A flood of anger strengthened Leila’s weakened, haggard form. She was about to let rip with a stream of curses, when a priest, fear written across his face, staggered into the room.

  “Majesty!” he panted. “Rebels taked drawbridge. Hundreds of people coming out trees!”

  This snippet of information was enough for Gergan. He made for the exit, with no intention of waiting for the crippled Queen. His loyalty to her had just run out, along with his courage.

  “Where are you going?” Leila shrieked down the corridor after his retreating form. “Give me back the Key of Old or I’ll kill you!”

  Gergan kept running.

  * * *

  Asher had been cursing broadly ever since Melith floated out of his life. “Annoying, fool arnus woman,” he muttered. “Never doing ought I telling ye. Putting yeself dangerly. Leaving me behind. What I doing when ye goed? Ye thinking on that?”

  The stream of ire increased, the closer the little band came to disaster. Elaine and Bert were currently engaged in ladling copious amounts of water down Baal’s nostrils in an attempt to forestall any blasts of flame, whilst simultaneously avoiding steam burns. Villagers fought to keep the monster subdued, but his greater physical strength was finally paying dividends: the ropes were loosening. Soon, Baal would regain the use of his jaws and, with them, control over the flames. Time was running out for the rebels in the moat and the drawbridge remained resolutely in place.

  Having run out of water to ladle, Bert and Elaine slid down the monster’s bucking belly, landing with a ‘plop’ in the mud, below. Whilst adding what little muscle they possessed to the ropes, they began to realise that the situation was hopeless.

  “Women climb out moat!” Asher cried.

  The men would try to hold on to Baal until they had escaped. The women were vigorously refusing this sacrifice, when the glorious sound of grinding cut them off.

  It was the most beautiful sight Elaine had ever seen: the great iron drawbridge was slowly lowering into place. This was followed by another mighty wave of sound; the noise of hundreds of feet advancing on the castle, voices hollering the anger carried through years of oppression. Villagers thundered across the drawbridge, carrying swords, knives, wooden clubs and rocks; anything they could find as a weapon.

  Clambering into the moat, some of the villagers slopped through the mud, arriving to take the place of their beleaguered friends. Asher was the first one up a ladder and out of the moat; his wife and daughter were inside that castle and they needed him. Despite Bert’s pleas for them to wait for him, Elaine followed Asher into the castle without a moment’s hesitation.

  * * *

  Having followed Harlin into a successful battle for the drawbridge, Gwyneth and Myrrdinus had been unleashing their mutual ire on a convenient line of priests. When hundreds of villagers began to pour into the castle, intent on working out their own anger issues, the pair deteriorated into another exchange of insults, ended only by the sudden appearance of her father.

  “Gwynie!” Asher shouted, through the crowd. They fought their way towards one another and briefly hugged. “Ye seen yer mam?”

  “Behind ye!” Melith yelled, flinging her arms around him and squeezing.

  Asher turned, in time to smash his fist into the face of a priest, looming behind her.

  “Be hitting him too,” Gwyneth snapped, pointing at Myrrdinus.

  That young man released his own rage by thumping his fist on the top of another priest’s head. The unfortunate recipient dropped like a rock.

  “Asher! Myrrdinus!”

  The pair located the speaker in the midst of the raging battle. He wasn’t hard to find. He was flinging a sword around as though it were a toy, his face flushed, spirit reborn.

  “We need find me mother!” Harlin shouted. “Not let her escape!”

  “Be helping!” cried Gwyneth.

  “For once,” Myrrdinus shouted at her, “leave me in peace and be going away.”

  “Not following ye,” Gwyneth retorted.

  “Ohhh, surely ye not,” sniped Myrrdinus. “Like ye not be fatling.”

  Gwyneth’s ire unleashed on the nearest object, which happened to be a white-robed priest. He also happened to be the fleeing Gergan. The High Priest of Magikers dropped to the floor, felled by the weight of a single punch. Armfuls of golden trinkets, which he had spent a lifetime stealin
g, clattered onto the stones around him. Amongst them was a rather less golden treasure. The great Key of Old slipped from limp fingers, emitting a tiny jingle as it landed on the cobblestones.

  A shocked Harlin could scarcely believe his good luck. He was retrieving the precious artefact when Elaine arrived on the scene. Before she could manage to formulate a single word, Harlin thrust the Key into her hands.

  “Come with me,” he insisted, dragging her in the direction of the stables.

  “Ohhh no,” she whined, realising what he intended. “I’m not getting back on a horse.”

  Once inside, he saddled and bridled the nearest horse, whilst Elaine twitched, nearby.

  “I’m not going,” she insisted, when he led the horse over to her. “I’m not leaving you again.”

  “Find Firestone,” he told her. “Use Key to destroy it, forever.”

  “How?” Elaine cried. “I don’t know how it works.”

  “Just be putting two together,” Harlin said, encouragingly. “Working, I promise.”

  Elaine had so many things that she wanted to say to him, but she didn’t know where to start. He looked into her eyes and read her thoughts as though reading a letter.

  “Be knowing,” he told her, placing a palm against her cheek. “Destroy Firestone and we talking after.”

  Placing his hands beneath her knee, he launched her into the saddle, handed her the reins and slapped the horse on the rear. “Now, go!”

  Elaine rode. She rode through the crowd of evenly matched villagers and priests. She galloped through the gatehouse and across the drawbridge, trying not to notice the desperate plight of those who were failing to subdue Baal.

  Once in the forest, only a distant howl could force her to divert from her headlong flight to reach the Firestone. She recognised the sound of renders. The army of soldiers was returning to the castle. With all her heart, she wanted to turn back, to gallop to the castle and be with Harlin, but her friends were relying on her. If she destroyed the Firestone, Baal and the renders should disappear; that’s what they had told her and that’s what she would do.