by Scott Beith
“You got this,” I said.
Left staring into two scared eyes as he battled his own fear of what it would mean to fail. “Are you really sure about this?” he asked timidly, giving me one last chance to be smart and change my mind. “You could faint under the pressure alone…” he added disconcertingly.
A point I wished he hadn’t warned me about, enough to make me shake a little while I tried to rebuild my own resolve. “I’ll be fine,” I lied reassuringly to him.
I was terrified, but it was the only way I was going to be able to convince him to follow through with my plan.
“I think you’re putting a little too much faith in me here,” he surprisingly then cowered, letting go of my waist, scared to commit and dare risk throwing me head first into a tree or the cliff rocks.
“No, I’m putting in just the right amount,” I said in encouragement.
“And what if I miss?”
“Then I’ll be mad,” I joked, coming close to him again, dazzling him with the shadows of the forest critters coming together and swirling into one big dark bubble around us. Each tree and its fork branches swimming across the floor and climbing up my legs, weaving and threading against each other like knotted layers of silk, creating the stuffing needed for the puffy compressing armour that I would need. While the huge bug wings I had come to love began expanding out from the dark mist behind me, due to that one bright crescent moon pendant I still wore in order to help protect my back.
My wings hardened like thin sheeted scales as they coiled and wrapped around me in conjoining layers. Then as something new, they spit and splintered like feathers as I prepared as much light weight cushion to bubble myself under before I was to be vaulted forcefully into the sky.
I smiled to him as if I were truly ready, I waited to feel the air all around us lighten with a hovering float, an umbrella of gust covering our heads as raindrops ceased to drizzle down our wet hair. As for one small blissful moment, I hovered above him, trapped but free, peering down at him as if we were both in a snow globe sphere that had been frozen perfectly in time.
I felt tiny butterflies in my stomach. Perhaps that was something I even conjured to fit the moment, followed by Arlo who brought me closer toward him as we kissed each other – our hearts and minds connecting. “Just don’t die, ok” he said to me afterwards, seconds before the pressure of air begun getting fiercely stronger – whilst gravity itself weightless and lighter. My wings covering my body in complete protective coil as I chose to compress myself and curl up before Arlo’s concentrically faster discus spins sent me soaring off and out into the black unknown distance above.
39
Collision Course
I was hurled through clouds of light black forest smoke, thrown upwards faster than any arrow could be fired, straight over high-rising tree tops that began to burn like huge candles. Their flames merging and getting brighter with every field of distance I drew closer to the castle while soaring towards the southern cliff face and gorge amidst its ongoing siege.
For some reason, I could still feel the earth rumbling beneath my feet. There was an insane backdraft sensation that made me feel like I was actually standing on the air. My legs felt strained and weak though, much like the aftermath of running a marathon rather than the sailing ballista bolt I had become.
I had surpassed mountains of trees toppled over by rampant winds and explosions caused by rum barrels being flung over the castle’s high walls via huge mounted wall catapults that rained intense red surface flames all across the low mainland forest beneath my feet.
All while my body remained both tense and blind to all things ahead of me. For under the pressure looking upwards was impossible. It was hard enough to combat the thick resistive layer of gusty wind and rain that felt as solid as cement against my head, let alone being able to deal with dizzying corkscrew spins that were necessary to keep me moving upwards in that same straight line without deviation. Motion sickness felt severe enough for me to fear my wings would crack open like an egg as I battled to keep them coiled up and composed around the spine of my body.
My wings were light and fluffy this time around, but they weren’t even remotely see-through. In fact, they were as black as coal, and, under the guise of night, were probably very helpful at making me near invisible to the naked eye. Although under the intense pressure of Arlo’s darting throw, they were beginning to fray and break off from the core just like those leaves in the burning trees below. Instead leaving this one long noticeable trail of black feathers, like the tail of a comet, while they dissipated in the air shortly after me.
Just like the fireworks being shot down from the castle wall nearby, bit by bit the natural gust and artificial lights in the sky were chipping and flaking away at my personal defences, leaving me more and more vulnerable the higher and brighter into the sky I safely spiralled up towards. All while tucked inside a tight bed blanket made of my own cushy wings, meaning I could do nothing but pray that enough material would be left to glide downwards on, once I slowed down enough to be able to expand them out and soar over the castle siege safely unbeknownst to my enemies or my brethren.
It was scary not knowing exactly what lay directly ahead of me, the fact that I was unable to wriggle my arms and legs or alter direction even if I could see out towards the sky I was heading towards. In fact, all I could really do was trust in my prince and hope his arm and aim held steady throughout his discus-like whirlwind throw.
My trust and patience eventually paying off the moment when I could begin to feel my speed decelerate into a weakening float, where I could finally open and freely flex my light feathered wings out upon a world cascading into ruin. Free in the sky to find myself drifting alongside a full battalion of slow and shiny green carrion beetles that buzzed out from the ashes of the tree tops to join me in the sky, commanded by the whipping lassos of liberated gnoll riders who fearlessly clung with one hand to the thick emerald shells of those curious wild jungle creatures. They were balancing themselves just above the dividing crest of the middle abdomen flesh that divided out so that the wings could protrude from underneath.
Despite the shock of their sudden appearance, as I soared through the air, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of freedom and safety among being near that flock. I was hard to see, but they were unmissable to the archers along the walls, letting those huge buzzing creatures take the attention of those along the south wall. As with great pride I veered my wings into the wind like a ship rising up as it caught heavy sail, quickly diverting away from the whole upcoming cluster of beasts and their riders who stared in a battling hover to me along the sidelines, most of them merely watching my dark flight blankly and wondering exactly whose side I was supposed to be on.
Of course, if that were indeed the case, and they were questioning what side I was on, I couldn’t exactly blame them. Had they even been capable of proper speech in my world, it would have been very hard and controversial of a subject for me to consider answering. For I had no idea what I was intending to do. I was without intentions or plans and leaving everything to a moment by moment impulse.
I knew in my heart all I wanted to do was what was right for all who never got a say with what was to happen next in their daily lives. But how I was to execute such a deed without betraying at least someone I knew and cared about, the irony was that I felt like I had enemies and friends on either side, and what was I alone to do when both worlds were already halfway through tearing each other to shreds? It was a real dilemma to face, and all I knew about it was that the Sunspire crystal was at the very centre of it all.
So regardless of ambition, I had put my thoughts briefly aside and persisted to glide discretely over the castle’s high ocean cliff face and sway with the wind in order to quietly move towards our tallest tower top peak. I was keeping away from all fire occurring at the top of the breached south wall, watching in pity the poor archers snatched up by the lassos of those bug-riders as many were dragged carelessly into the sky ab
ove, only to be shot down by fireworks fired point blank into their thickened craniums.
Wild beasts were falling down from the sky as prominent as the rain, these were feral creatures captured from our very own world. I knew this because they didn’t vanish at first sight of blinding light; they fell into free fall down towards the river and gorge greatly below, their riders nowhere to be seen.
Not all soldiers were strangers, though. I found Zephyr standing against the rain on top of the eastern bell tower, perched on top of his own humongous land-hopping mantis. His arrows were pre-lit and held in his left hand, while others were stored in multiple quivers found on each of his trained mantis’s six giant legs. He grouped those arrows into clusters along the holster stalk of his long leafy forest bow, loading them four and five at a time as he fired them at the southern wall and its invading occupants.
Before I realised he could see me, he launched a full cluster of them towards me. He shot them faster than I could see him load them. I fell from the sky for a moment, trying to dodge them as I used my wings to block any impact. At first I thought I had been hit square in the chest, but quickly learned through a lack of feeling or pain that it was my left wing that had been clipped – a small fiery pocket hole pierced through the very middle as I began to drop from the sky, unable to fly until I could mend the damage.
I held my glowing pendant tightly as I fell, spreading my fingers out as I tried to re-forge shady vines like sowing needles to cloth as I attempted to graft the hole before it all melted away… I failed, instead I had no choice but to recreate a new set of wings with what little I had to work with. I wrapped myself up like a phoenix in its egg of ashes, falling towards a beam of light Helios had been focusing from the northern lighthouse as it remained fixated on the sewer line entrance holes greatly below. Preoccupied as he was using it to halt all ongoing advances of the gnolls that seemed to be spawning and spewing out from the spider bunker caverns straight down from where I fell.
But with little recoil, other than to risk starting all over again, I had continued dropping like a stone within the centre of all four spire corners, knowing I had missed the one south balcony spire window I wanted to land upon.
My wings were thinning and stretched out as far as they could while they wrapped and connected with my hands and legs, catching the wind with an immediate burst of life, just like a miniature bat that used its own falling speed to glide. I spiralled and circled around the deathly beam of light before rising back up along the eastern cliff’s edge, trying, but once again failing, to regain the altitude needed as I realised through such defeat that all I could really do was attempt a safe and controlled landing along the ground in order to run up the spiral staircase to the top of the tower.
And so, I glided down the low side street alleys near the battlefront, attempting to find a calm spot along the main street to land at, witnessing, much to my own personal horror, glimpses of Ebony and Adria together in the storm-drain tunnels below, and the onslaught those two were bringing to all invaders down in the corner wall irrigation tunnels. They had planted spike traps everywhere! Swinging axes tied to ropes and sharp serrated snares of all varieties just from what I could glimpse at through the gates at a distance.
Those gnolls in gold who survived the spider labyrinth and made it near the streets and under the fierce light of Helios’s beaming shine were still fodder to the one feline predator that herded them like cattle into unsuspecting traps while knighted infantry waited above to catch those stragglers who attempted to flee in fear. Their gold engraved hoods popping off their heads in order to painfully disperse themselves within the light and get away from such savagery and madness they had been forced by Midas to fight under.
Upon a surface inspection, it seemed that very little of Midas’s forces had spilled out onto the deserted side streets of the town’s corner. However, some holes in some of the rusty irrigation gates, much like the one Ode made when he helped with our escape, meant there was a still a fighting chance for Midas’s army to prevail, and they did not seem to be as fleeting in battle as we had originally hoped them to be.
I landed on the main street near the poorer side of town, running uphill towards our main city market square. I hadn’t seen much in the way of gnolls in the alleyways. Some had indeed got through, but these were surface dwellers who were hiding from patrols rather than looting and ransacking as was their custom. Thankfully, though, they were enough of a burden that when the city guards came across me, they all ran past me without ill-thought or persecution.
“Midas,” one of them shouted and pointed at me upon the street. I turned around to see behind me that man himself had arrived, escorted along with his most vicious generals who had blasted down the gates, riding their scorpions directly into the light, a flood of lesser crawling spiders spinning webs in pursuit as countless gnolls fought off the eight-legged mongrels trying to eat them.
For a moment I forgot those spiders were there to protect me. I was ready to attack them, thinking back to the caves in which they’d tried to kill me half a sleepless night ago.
All of our civilians were already hidden away in their house, the streets boarded up and free to the flood of soldiers entering in as they ran at the patrol guards.
Together we all scattered into separate alleyway streets, leaving the lurking spiders to fight the battle for us, running because I was worried about my own life, rather than my home. Arlo might have sounded arrogant at the time, but I was starting to believe he and his sister had been right all along. Even with the scorpions, the battle was always going to be a one-sided fight. The gnolls were safer inside the spider caverns than they were with us on the surface. We had high walls, strong weapons and a bigger army altogether, and although bold and courageous, Midas had completely underestimated his opposition, for which his kin were all about to pay the price.
Underneath burning lights, explosive flames and arrows pelting down with the rain, the streets were blasted by the howls and sounds of suffering soldiers. More than I could stomach and good enough of a reason as any to run uphill the other way.
I didn’t bother watching any longer than the few seconds of that genocide. Instead I turned my head and ran uphill, praying that Anara and any of the captives we’d freed weren’t within that cluster of gold gnolls being annihilated.
I ran down a side street of the western corner wall, and followed that wall until I could find the first city street towards the middle market square, cutting through the pristine and untouched botanical garden-side of the backyard courts and balcony. To my I own surprise, I was stopped by Anara’s pet, Puppey, sitting and barking at the lit purple arcane candle of the glowing Nyx shrine.
The hellhound was mesmerised by it, whether it wanted to chew the silver wick that the candle wick was made of, or knew that shrine in particular was made with technology built from its owner. It simply stared at me and smiled as I ran along the the flat garden, listening to it howl with the gnolls while awaiting guidance from its two absentee owners.
“Come here, Puppey, follow me,” I insisted, stopping and slapping my knee as I tried to call it over upon passing it, unsure if whether or not it physically could understand me, but simply too time pressed and preoccupied with more important matters to be able to wait on it.
However, doing so, my attention caught on a structure over the garden hedges, and I looked upwards to movement on the far eastern cliff’s edge, the sight of what looked to be one large wooden stake and pyre by the main stage arena of the training pits down by the gateway stone and conjoined beautiful ocean overlook. The shadow of both Akoni’s father and mother trying to break free of their chains while the two of them remained back to back alone against the tall wooden stake, awaiting some fiery doom that had serendipitously never arrived because of the ongoing turmoil.
Puppey did follow me. It pushed and rubbed its cold metal head against my left leg while I froze and stared out towards Akoni’s real parents. I was caught off guard by what I saw.
Puppey’s gentle nudge being the very cold prod I needed to remember where I was and hurry to start moving again.
I was tired and greatly lost for that brief lapsing moment. I think I was scared and day dreaming about how serious and conniving my current queen must have been to go to such threatening lengths just to sway Akoni into reactivating the spire, and just how alike her and Evil Midas were in the way that they used fear and trepidation to rule their kingdoms, regardless of whether their subjects came from poverty or privilege.
They couldn’t see me down in the distance as I looked up towards them. Their heads were low, feeling the dread of being both tied up and helpless while a war raged slowly towards them, merely awaiting their untimely death, regardless of who won the battle.
My immediate instincts were to run up and help them, but like Milena and the difficult choices she had to face, if I helped them it would mean abandoning my main prerogative of getting to the crystal before Evil Midas reached Evil Milena.
I had faith Akoni’s parents were far enough from the fight to be alright for the time being, as I trusted Anara, or at least someone else who was loyal, to save them before any physical danger came their way. But that was the first hard guilty choice as a leader I had ever had to make – one I would never want to relive again.
“Puppey, go to Midas,” I instructed and pointed, not knowing whether it knew enough words to be able to obey, wondering whether its impatient nudging was a reference of where it wanted to take me instead, most likely smelling the path to where Akoni was currently imprisoned.
So it seemed the options were plentiful as the fear of failing friends was even greater. But all the same, I abandoned them to do what I believed was necessary of me, leaving Puppey behind in the courtyard to join and begin outrunning gnolls that chased them outwards into the empty streets. Royal guards were defending the inhabitants of those within the court’s palace doors from stragglers as I passed them. Gnolls and nymphs who both walked on two legs as they clashed steel swords with silver claws and rolled and dived over each other in a huge clustering animalistic brawl.