Escape from Celestial

by Tony Johnson

  Kari looked unnerved, so Steve put his arm across her chest to hold her back. He feared she might jump out and begin shooting arrows at their enemy.

  “He’ll destroy this whole orchard searching for us. He’s already located our general vicinity. What should we do?” the Halfling proposed the question as both she and Ty looked to Steve for the answer.

  If we run, he’ll catch us. If we fight, he’ll kill us. With countless trees around them destroyed, Steve began to formulate a plan. Not all three of us can survive this. Our best option is for each of us to run in different directions. Nightstrike will be forced to pick one.

  As soon as the warrior was about to announce his plan, he began coughing, a loud, raspy cough that came from deep within his chest. He muffled his mouth with his hand as tightly as he could, trying to keep quiet. Blood splatter covered his fingers, but he was more worried he had given their location away to Nightstrike.

  “I don’t think he heard you. You managed to stifle it enough,” Ty whispered after they had all held their breaths, believing it would make them invisible.

  “The dragon’s not our only worry anymore. Something is coming from the south,” Kari said as she pointed to torchlight growing closer and brighter by the second.

  Soon, the growls of direwolves, grunts of direboars, neighing of horses, and clicking of large spiders could be heard in addition to shouts of the monsters that rode them.

  “It’s part of the horde I saw from the catapult. They’ve been altered to our position by Nightstrike. Thankfully, it’s only some of the ones riding beasts. The monsters on foot could not have caught up with us by now.”

  With Nightstrike north of the heroes and the monsters coming from the south, the heroes were trapped between them.

  “Up this tree!” Steve decided. “It’s our only option.”

  “With the dragon chopping them down left and right? No way!” Ty argued.

  “There’s no other choice!” Without waiting for a rebuttal, Steve cupped his hands for Kari to put her foot into. Ty offered his hands as well. Kari used them like a stirrup and was lifted to the lowest branch of the tree.

  “You next, Steve. You’re heavier than me,” offered the slender Elf. “It will be easier for you two to pull me up than vice versa.”

  Between the pushing from Ty on the ground and the pulling from Kari above, the two managed to hoist Steve up into the tree. Quickly, they pulled up Ty and together they climbed the tree’s thick branches. The exact moment the dozens of riding monsters came into their section of the orchard, they disappeared into cover behind the leaves.

  The horde was incredibly loud with many of the monsters acknowledging they had picked up the scent of their prey. “Spread out! Search everywhere! Find them!” yelled the deep voice of a minotaur riding a ferocious-looking direwolf.

  Through a gap in the tree, Steve saw the horned leader waving his arms as he barked the commands so the monsters that could not communicate through language could still follow the instructions.

  Ironmaul! he recognized. The minotaur that tortured me. He could still feel the pain in his bruised ribs from the elementally-powered punches he had endured from the gauntleted hands of the monster. Those, in addition to the lashes on his chest and back from the minotaur’s whip, were so painful they had caused him to go unconscious in the dungeons of the castle.

  He is powerful and in high command in the Hooded Phantom’s army. To kill him now would be a major blow to their cause. More than anything, Steve wanted to jump down and fight the violent minotaur, but he knew now was not the time. I doubt I am even fit for a battle like that. It’s a struggle to lift my arm, let alone my sword. And I probably have internal damage from all the injuries I’ve suffered. That’s why I’m having trouble breathing and have started coughing up blood.

  It didn’t take long before a direwolf ridden by an orc stopped and sniffed around right below the three heroes. When the direwolf began scratching the bark of the tree, they knew they were in trouble. The orc peered up, its green eyes searching every branch. Steve, Ty, and Kari stayed as still as possible as the wind picked up around them.

  Before they were spotted, Nightstrike’s deep voice shouted at Ironmaul three lanes away. “I’VE LOST THE SCENT BECAUSE OF YOUR BEASTS, AND THEIR GROWLING AND BARKING IS MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO HEAR. I WAS CLOSE TO FINDING THE PREY. LEAVE THIS AREA NOW.”

  “We will not leave,” Ironmaul called upwards to the black as night dragon. Steve smiled at the quivering in the voice of one of the world’s fiercest minotaurs as he stood under the gigantic beast. “By order of King Silas, we’re commanded to track down the escapees and kill them. Let us aid you in the search.”

  “I NEED NO HELP!” Nightstrike bellowed even louder. Not taking his eyes off the conversation, Steve watched the dragon reach down and attempt to grab and crush the party leader. Somehow, Ironmaul reared and moved his menacing direwolf out of the way before they were both crushed.

  The minotaur speedily abandoned his group of monsters and rode full-speed back to Celestial, away from the angry dragon. The annoyed Nightstrike decided to take out his wrath on the remaining monsters that had stalled his attempt to find the heroes. With a deafening roar of anger, he rose into the air and began shooting elements at them.

  Flapping his giant wings to stay afloat, his heavy body hung down while wind, water, lightning, and earth elements fired away, killing one or two monsters at a time. Every time he used one, his eyes, the skin of his throat, and the seams between his scales would glow the color of the element. Flashes of green, blue, yellow, and brown illuminated the dark night sky. The only elemental color missing was red, since he couldn’t control fire.

  The Dark Dragon’s attacks varied. In addition to raining down elements, he lashed out at the monsters with his giant, spiked tail. He swooped down and cleaved them into pieces with his razor-sharp teeth. He picked up monsters with his clawed hands and feet, flew into the sky, and dropped them to their deaths. One carcass he angrily threw across the orchard.

  There was chaos everywhere. Some monsters were foolishly trying to attack while others were trying to escape, only to find themselves trapped by the fallen trunks of trees Nightstrike had destroyed with his tail earlier.

  Knowing he couldn’t be heard over the commotion, Steve yelled, “This is our chance! I can see the outer wall. The end of the farmlands is not far away! We can make it into the woods!”

  “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Kari agreed as the three quickly disembarked the tree and took off sprinting the moment their feet hit the ground.

  With most of the monsters dead and the remaining ones caring more about their own survival than the heroes’, Steve, Ty, and Kari were not given a second look. Steve swung Brightflame as best he could through a couple of skeletons in their way. Kari had been about to shoot them with an arrow, but one look from Ty let her she should conserve her arrows in case they encountered any monsters while traveling in the woods.

  It didn’t take long for them to reach the outer wall, a ten-foot-high circular wall around the farmlands of Celestial which prevented monsters and animals from getting in. Because part of the barrier in front of them was crumbled, they didn’t have to go out of their way to pass through one of the wall’s gates.

  Beyond the outer wall there was a mile of flatlands they would need to run through before reaching the woods. Running as fast as they could in the pouring rain, the lightning continued to dance across the sky, briefly illuminating the emptiness of the fields around them. About three quarters of the way to Whitebark, they heard Nightstrike loudly roar behind them and the huge beating of wings against air.

  “He’s seen us! As fast as you can now!” Steve yelled to Ty and Kari who were running at his side.

  Suddenly Steve, unable to maintain a high speed because of his injuries, tripped and fell stomach-first into the grass. Without hesitation, both Ty and Kari turned back for their friend. The sight they saw when they turn
ed back was ominous. The giant dragon, with huge, hideous spikes all over his back, took up almost their whole field of vision as it flew at them. The moonlight and flashes of lightning gleamed off his obsidian-black scales as the deep booming of the thunder matched the growls that came from his open mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and snakelike tongue.

  Together they lifted the red-armored warrior and once again set off sprinting. The moment they hit the first line of trees, they heard the familiar sucking in of air signaling the flying monster’s attack.

  Looking behind her, Kari saw the grooves between Nightstrike’s scales glow brown. A second later, a deafening loud blast rumbled through the ground behind them and the Celestial escapees felt the earth tremor beneath their feet. They were knocked off balance and sent tumbling down the hill they were on.

  The terrain of the decline got steeper and steeper, making it impossible for any of them to slow their progress. They tumbled head over heels. Ty and Kari finally made it to the bottom, but Steve was unlucky and smashed his back into a large tree trunk, nearly breaking his spine in half.

  After Steve finally made it down to where Ty and Kari were, they dizzily ran again, only to hear the dragon prepare another element to shoot out of its mouth.

  “Split up!” Ty yelled. The three put space between themselves so Nightstrike couldn’t kill them in one hit. Between Ty and Kari, a small tornado ripped down an alley of trees, shredding bark and branches to pieces. The dragon’s speed sent him past the heroes below, so he turned around and continued attacking. A tree right in front of Ty was struck by a blast of elemental lightning, saving him from death.

  Again, Nightstrike relentlessly wheeled around in the air to continue his attack.

  “Over here!” Ty yelled and waved his arms to Steve and Kari who had joined together when the dragon had been focusing his attack on the Elf.

  Vaulting over fallen trees and sprinting to their friend, they saw why he wanted them at his location. One of the larger trees had uprooted. Hiding under it would serve as the best protection they could find. The huge whitebark had left a six-foot divot in the ground. The heroes were able to climb under the tree’s roots for safety.

  Steve, Ty, and Kari sat huddled together with the worms and insects in the dirt, listening to the deep impacts as Nightstrike’s elements drilled into the earth. The snaps of the trees breaking nearby matched the cracks of thunder overhead.

  To make matters worse, the pit beneath the tree they were taking refuge under was quickly filling with water from the continuous rain. They would drown if they stayed where they were or be killed by Nightstrike if they left the whitebark’s protection.

  Thankfully, the rain let up in its veracity soon after they had taken cover. Still, they had to make themselves content with sitting in a deep puddle of water and mud until the attack was over.

  Finally, it ended. After an agonizing hour of sitting and fearing for their lives, the elemental attacks stopped. The group was unsure when Nightstrike left the vicinity and stopped searching because they quickly passed out in the puddle of water underneath the uprooted tree once the loud impacts stopped.

  Although Steve was the one most injured, he was surprisingly the first to awake. The pain he felt was excruciating. His whole body ached and throbbed from the vicious beatings it had taken in the previous day.

  At first, he was disoriented by his surroundings and questioned why he was sitting in a cold, muddy puddle in a hole in the ground. He didn’t want to believe what he had lived through had actually happened. This can’t be real. It doesn’t seem real at all. All that death and destruction! Everything changed in just one day.

  He tried in vain to get up and move. Every part of his body was sorer than any previous point in his life. Despite trying to remain quiet, his muffled groans and cries of pain were enough to stir his sleeping companions.

  The same blank look of recognition showed on the faces of Ty and Kari as they woke up and remembered the siege. They sat emotionless and shocked, also wishing they could wake up again and find that this was all some horrible dream.

  Ty climbed out of the divot first and turned back to help pull out Kari. It took both the strength of the Elf and the Halfling to pull Steve, who struggled to get out from under the uprooted tree on his own.

  The sun had already risen and was casting bright rays of light across the cloudless sky.

  “Look at all this,” Ty’s words crawled out slowly in awe. The heroes glanced around and saw how much destruction Nightstrike’s caused in his wrath. If trees weren’t scorched by lightning, they were knocked down completely. There were trenches and pools of water everywhere. It looked like a huge elemental explosion had gone off.

  “I’m glad he doesn’t have the element of flame,” Ty said. “With all this kindling from the destruction he could have started a massive fire.”

  Kari chimed in, “We wouldn’t have even made it this far if he controlled fire. He would’ve burned down the orchard as soon as he first knew of our general location. We would’ve been smoked out if we weren’t burned alive. Do you think anymore monsters will be searching for us?”

  “I don’t know. I assume Nightstrike firmly believes we are dead. Who could survive this kind of wreckage?” Ty gestured with his hands. “I doubt they will send monsters after people who are believed to be dead. What do you think, Steve?”

  When he didn’t get an answer, both he and Kari looked around and saw that Steve was out of earshot, standing slanted, with his arm supporting his weight against a slender tree. He was staring miles and miles off into the distance, across the farmlands the three of them had spent the night crossing. He was looking back at the Celestial City.

  Ty and Kari stood on either side of Steve. Ty gingerly put his arm around his brother’s shoulders and Kari put her arm around Steve’s waist in a half hug. Together they stood and stared in silence at the home they were leaving behind.

  The capital looked like a giant, dark shadow because of the cloud of gray smoke that had engulfed the city. Last night’s heavy rain had smothered almost all the building fires, but Steve could tell some remained. Whether they were new fires or large fires the rain wasn’t strong enough to extinguish, he couldn’t tell, but many dark plumes of smoke still rose in high columns into the gray sky. He stood lost in thought at the eerily haunting sight.

  “I wish I was stronger,” he said softly as if it was to himself more than the others. “I wish I could have defeated the Phantom in the King’s Tower. If I could have saved Zoran somehow things might be different right now.” But I couldn’t because I’m just some small, insignificant, weak warrior swinging around a tiny piece of steel I call Brightflame. I’d rather have died fighting honorably than stand in this spot looking back on a defeated Celestial. This feeling is worse than death.

  “There is nothing we could have done to prevent this or change what’s happened,” Ty reasoned. “We can stand here and discuss the would’ves and could’ves, should have done this, should have done that, but there’s no point in that.” Ty turned north and started walking, but continued talking, “We need to focus on making it to Serendale and from there figure out what the next steps will be.”

  He’s walking away because it’s too hard for him to look at the city like this, Steve knew. And no amount of humor can make light of this situation.”

  Ty walked away, but Kari remained, still holding Steve. “Are you okay?” she kindly asked.

  “It’s hard seeing it like this,” he responded softly, nearly choking on emotion as he said the words.

  Kari realized this was the first time the warrior had answered her truthfully about how he felt. He’s not saying he’s fine when he isn’t and he’s not pretending like this isn’t affecting him. He was trying to act so strong before, but this is how he really feels.

  “I know it is,” Kari whispered in a voice more tender than any Steve had heard before. Somehow, being able to read the warrior’s face and tell what he w
as thinking, she said, “None of this is your fault you know.”

  “I know,” Steve admitted after taking a deep breath. Speaking the words and truly believing them was like a weight lifted off his shoulders. No longer would he have to contemplate the little things, questioning if he had made the correct choices during the siege. Nothing I did or didn’t do would’ve changed the outcome of Celestial. He sighed and turned to his half-Human friend. “I just wish I could have done more.”

  “You still can,” Kari encouraged, reaching down to squeeze his hand before walking away to follow Ty.

  Steve looked back on his hometown one last time. The sun was rising behind the dark-gray, tent-like silhouette of the city. Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed, marking the beginning of a new day.

  “I will come back,” the warrior vowed aloud to himself. Then he turned his back on Celestial and moved forward.

  Chapter 39

  Whitebark Woods had beautiful scenery. Red, orange, and yellow leaves cluttered the white tree branches. With little green to be seen anywhere in the woods, it looked like fall during every season of the year, except winter. It was only during the bitter cold months that the trees lost their fiery-colored leaves.

  “You said you know these woods,” Steve spoke to Kari. “You’re sure we’re going the right way?”

  “Yes, as long as we’re heading north, every step will be one step closer to Serendale. Sometime before the end of the day we should come across one of the paths that travels between Celestial and Serendale. Once we find it, we’ll be able to travel the rest of the way without getting lost or backtracking.”

  While walking, Kari thought it’d be interesting to learn more about the two men she was traveling with. Back in the sewers, they were both mourning the loss of a man named Thatcher. They also call each other “brother,” though it sounds like they are saying it with more meaning than simply one warrior calling another brother.