by Tim O'Rourke
‘I don’t think we’re out of trouble yet,’ he warned, seeing the apparitions of the Knights coil up from beneath the ground again. Without thinking, he reached down for his crossbows. Sliding them from their holsters, Zach gripped them in his fists.
Neanna noticed this fluid movement and grinning she said, ‘Whoa, check-out the peacekeeper.’
Glancing at the crossbows, then back at Neanna, he whispered, ‘how did they get there?’ Trying to mask his surprise, Zach winked at her as if he were ready for anything.
Soaring towards them again, the Knights faces were engraved with looks of anger and mistrust. Getting to his feet, Zach thrust both arms out, his elbows locking as he pointed his crossbows at the Knights. He reasoned that as they had been so scared by the explosion, then perhaps they could be destroyed after all. He could still feel his throat stinging from the sword that had been held to it. Although Zach was new to this world and this was his first encounter with a ghost, even he could work out that however transparent they looked, if they could harm him, then they could be harmed too.
‘Stay where you are!’ he ordered the Knights, and the firmness of his voice surprised even him.
Hearing the boldness in their friend’s voice, William and Neanna both looked at one another and shrugged.
Eyeing Zach, the Cathedral Knights circled the three of them from a short distance away, wary now and not wanting to come too close.
‘Sorcerer!’ the bearded Knight spat.
‘I’m no sorcerer Cathedral Knight, but I am a teenager on the edge. So keep back!’ Zach ordered.
‘You lie,’ one of the other Knights groaned, ‘we know the name Black. One of you came before.’
‘Fandel was his name,’ added another. ‘He came with the Throat and cursed us. They cursed all of us!’
‘That wasn’t me!’ Zach insisted, his crossbows trained on them as the Knights continued to circle him and his friends. ‘That was my uncle and I am nothing like him.’
‘I knew it!’ the bearded Knight wailed, his beard flapping like tissue on the wind, ‘they’re sorcerers and come with magic to finish us.’
‘Listen to my friend!’ Neanna shouted. ‘He can save us all! He will be able to lift your curse!’
The Knights swooped around and around their heads and Zach followed them, not taking his eyes off them for one moment.
‘You lie!’ the Knight roared. ‘How can this mere boy save us?’
‘Zach Black’s sister is our Queen’s replica – she is her reflection!’ William howled, the hair covering his cheeks whipping about his head in the wind and the rain. ‘We are looking for the Heart of Endra…’
Hearing this, the bearded Knight raced towards William and thrust the tip of his sword against his throat.
‘And that’s how I know you lie, Noxas. No one knows what the heart looks like. No one has seen inside the box. How could you search for something that no one has ever seen?’
Spinning round, Zach placed the tip of one of the crossbows against the Knights head. ‘Put the sword down,’ he commanded.
The Knight didn’t move, so Zach cocked the crossbow by rolling the hammer back with his thumb. ‘Put it down,’ he whispered.
Feeling a dull pain in his side, Zach looked to his left to see that one of the Knights had crept up on him and was now digging at him with his sword. Blinking, Neanna appeared behind this Knight and aimed her loaded catapult at him.
‘We have a stand-off,’ she smiled.
Hearing this, the remaining five Knights whooshed down and circled them.
‘You can’t win,’ the bearded Knight chuckled. ‘Now put down your weapons.’
‘You first,’ Zach whispered in his ear.
The Knight pushed his sword against William’s throat.
‘I know what the Heart of Endra looks like!’ William said.
‘Impossible!’ The Knight jeered. ‘You lie to save your scrawny neck.’
Tearing the peculiar-looking spectacles from his face, William barked, ‘I’ve seen inside the box. I’ve seen the heart of Endra!’
Chapter 15
Staring at William, Zach knew it would be the first time he would’ve seen into his friend’s eyes without looking through those bulbous lenses.
Keeping his eyes shut, William tilted his head back and then released a gut-wrenching howl. He sounded as if he were in absolute agony. Flinging his eyes open, tendrils of light oozed like serpents up into the night.
Seeing the rays of light streaming from his eyes, all of them forgot the stand-off, lowered their weapons and moved away. Their mouths hung open in shook and awe.
‘I’ve seen inside the box!’ William howled like an animal, the wispy tendrils of light licking about his face. ‘I know what the Heart of Endra looks like!’
The Cathedral Knights looked at one another in total shock and confusion. Blinking, Neanna appeared by Zach’s side. Looking at William, Zach now understood why his friend had to wear those glasses. He remembered looking into those magnified eyes and thinking how much they had glowed like burning coals. But this was something more. This looked as if William’s brain was on fire inside his skull and the flames had now been set free.
As if reading his thoughts, Neanna said, ‘that’s why he wears the glasses. It keeps the light from seeping from his eyes. It’s the only way he is able to see. Otherwise he would be blind like his…’
Before Neanna had a chance to finish, William had pulled the spectacles back over his eyes, trapping the leaking flames within his skull. The last of the thin wispy lengths of white light were snatched away on the wind and gone forever.
As the tendrils of light from William’s eyes reached up into the night sky like vines, far away in their beds, both the Queen of Endra and Anna Black sat bolt upright. They sat rigid, sweat glistening on their brows. Their hearts raced beneath their narrow chests and their heads pounded.
When William replaced his spectacles and the light vanished, both the Queen and her reflection flopped back onto their beds and sleep curled its dark fingers around them once again.
Looking at the Knights through those lenses, William’s eyes looked like massive plates once again.
‘We can find the box,’ he told them, sounding as if he needed to catch his breath. ‘And when we do, we’ll return and with it remove the curse that Throat has laid upon you.’
Eyeballing him, Henry the lead Knight said, ‘how do we know you’ll keep your promise…’
‘Shhh!’ William said, sniffing at the air.
‘What is it? What can you smell?’ Neanna asked him.
‘Trouble!’
Then the rumbling started and it sounded as if an entire army was heading straight towards them. The ground began to quake and the large granite slabs of rock started to wobble like decaying teeth in rotting gums. Sweeping into the air, the Cathedral Knights looked across the Grey-yard. The wrinkles between their eyes knotted as they peered through the rain and into the distance.
‘The Demonic Guardians!’ Henry shouted.
‘But what can they want?’ another of the knights asked. ‘They’ve already destroyed our Cathedral and cursed…’
‘It’s not us they want this time,’ Henry seethed. ‘It’s Zach Black they’ve come to destroy!’
Twisting in the air the Knights raced back towards the ground.
‘What’s happening?’ Zach demanded, his crossbows gripped in his fists.
‘Go! Go !Go!’ Henry roared, drawing his sword.
Seeing the fear in his ghostlike eyes, William and Neanna armed themselves.
The ground tilted and trembled beneath them. Then they saw what it was that had panicked the Knights so much. Over the brow of the Grey-yard an army approached. Their armor glistened like broken glass beneath the moonlight.
‘Demonic Guardians!’ William barked, aiming his catapult.
‘Demonic what?’ Zach bellowed over the sound of the marching feet.
‘Throat’s army. That’s what they are!�
� Neanna said, blinking to stand side-by-side with her friends.
The Guardians raced towards them, their eyes gleaming crimson in the dark. They approached in a solid formation and didn’t once stop to navigate the razor-like rocks before them. Instead they smashed and trampled over them as if they were made of papier-mâché.
‘Zach Black!’ They screeched as one, their many voices floating on the air like a tidal wave.
‘Go now!’ Henry ordered one last time. ‘We will fight this battle for you!’
‘But there’s hundreds of them and seven of you,’ Zach shouted over the thunder of the approaching army. ‘We will stay and fight with you!’
Swooping in so close his transparent beard fluttered just inches from Zach’s face, Henry roared, ‘Endra’s fate lies in your hands Zach Black. You’re not destined to die today. Not if I’ve got anything to do with it. Besides, I have my own score to settle with these demons. Now be gone with you!’
‘But you won’t stand a chance! There are too many of them!’ Neanna cried, swinging her sword above her head in preparation for battle.
The Demonic Guardians were a football pitch length away now, and their eyes burnt red and plumes of grey smoke squirted from huge black nostrils.
‘Zach Black!’ they screamed, running forward.
‘GO!’ The Knights roared as one, ‘GO NOW!’
Turning on their heels, Zach, William and Neanna ran as fast and hard as they could away from the approaching soldiers. Zigzagging between the rocks, they tried to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the Guardians.
Tripping over a jagged stone, Neanna’s cloak snagged and she became entangled. Running back towards Neanna, Zach and William fought to free her. Glancing back to see how close the Guardians were, Zach watched the seven brave Knights hold firm against the fast approaching army.
‘Rise Cathedral Knights!’ Henry roared, raising his shield and swinging his mighty sword above his head. On his command the ground began to open as hundreds – no thousands of spectral apparitions seeped up into the night.
‘There’s a whole army of those knight’s’ Zach yelled in triumph, pulling at Neanna’s cloak.
The thousands of wispy streams of vapor swirled in the air as they opened like flowers to form the shapes of Knights. They stretched across the Grey-yard for as far as the eye could see. The Demonic Guardians charged them, their swordsticks raised like javelins.
‘Hold the line!’ Henry shouted. ‘Hold the line!’
Yanking on Neanna’s cloak one finale time, William heard the sound of tearing fabric. Freeing her from the rock, they turned their backs on the thousands of screaming Guardians and brave Knights. Racing away through the lashing rain, they could hear the sounds of swordsticks and swords clash together as battle commenced behind them.
William bounded ahead and Neanna blinked her way across the Grey-yard. Every time that Zach got close to her she was gone again, reappearing several meters away. With his heart thundering in his chest and ears, his arms working like pistons, Zach propelled himself forward. Way behind him in the distance, he could hear the shrill screams of death and the earsplitting clatter of weapons. Zach hoped those terrible cries of agony were the sound of the Guardians being slaughtered and not those of the Knights, but he couldn’t force himself to look back.
William stopped ahead and howled, ‘I can see the shore!’
Neanna blinked the last few hundred yards and reappeared beside him. ‘C’mon Zach!’ she called, urging him on.
With a stitch burning in his side as if he had been stabbed with a smoldering poker, Zach forced himself onwards. Reaching his friends, Zach slumped forwards, fighting to suck mouthfuls of icy cold air into his lungs.
‘Look! Can you see it?’ William barked, pointing into the distance.
Looking up, Zach could see they had come to rest at the edge of the Grey-yard. The razor-sharp rocks had come to such a sudden end it looked as if someone had erected an invisible wall. The rocks gave way to a cove of sandy dunes which sloped down onto a dark and deserted beach. All along the shoreline, thick black waves like tar crashed against the sand.
‘The onyx sea?’ Zach gasped, struggling to catch his breath.
‘That’s right,’ Neanna told him. ‘Now all we have to do is find a way across it.’
‘We better find a way quick,’ William growled, staring past his friends and back into the Grey-yard.
Whirling round, Zach and Neanna looked in horror at the regiment of Demonic Guardians racing towards them.
‘They must have beaten back the knights,’ William shouted over the sound of the black waves crashing against the shore.
Zach glanced down at the sea that rolled to and fro like a giant oil spillage. It was then that he saw the door shining like a star in the darkness on the beach.
‘Look! There’s a doorway!’ he shouted, sprinting down the sandy dunes towards the shore.
Blinking her way onto the beach, Neanna was there before Zach’s leather boots had even touched the sand. William came bounding after them, thick plumes of breath pouring from his mouth like clouds. The door stood white and gleaming, the gloomy waves seeping beneath it.
With the wind rushing about them, they raced forward, the doorway getting nearer and nearer. Then something bright and orange soared over their heads and smashed into the sea setting the waves alight. Without stopping, Zach stole a quick look back to see hundreds of the Demonic Guardians swooping down the sand dunes after them. They seemed to move at a terrifying pace and with every bloody heartbeat they got nearer. All along the crest of the sand dunes stood a vast line of the Guardians and each of them had a seething fireball dancing between their fingers. In unison they launched the balls of flames from their fists. They rocketed through the night sky like comets, a blazing trail of burning light screaming behind them.
Racing towards the doorway, fireballs exploded in the sand around Zach, William and Neanna’s feet. Clouds of sand erupted as if they were navigating a minefield.
‘They’re almost upon us!’ William roared, leaping past Zach.
Zach didn’t need to look back to know how close the Guardians were. He could hear the sounds of their heavy footfalls right behind him and feel the hot air from their nostrils breathing down his neck. Pushing himself as hard and as fast as he could, Zach wondered if his heart would explode in his chest like an over-filled balloon.
The door was so near now, Zach refused to be caught this close to his escape. William reached the doorway moments before him. Grabbing for the door handle, Zach curled his fist around it. Blinking beside him, Neanna screamed:
‘What you waiting for?’
Looking into her eyes, Zach could see the reflection of a firebomb hurtling towards him. Yanking the door open, electricity leapt through his fingers and scampered up his arm. Without looking back, the three of them hurtled through the doorway. The door slammed shut as several fireballs exploded against it.
Zach was sitting down. The chair was comfortable, though there wasn’t very much leg-room in front of him. He felt sick and disorientated. There was a loud humming noise and it took a moment for him to realise it was the sound of engines – powerful engines. A voice cut through the fogginess shrouding Zach’s senses.
‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking,’ the voice said, and it sounded to Zach as if it were coming through an intercom of some kind.
‘Please fasten your seatbelts as we make our final approach into London Gatwick airport. Thank you for flying Atlantis Airways.’
Chapter 16
Wasp saw the dome of green light below through the snow that swept all around them. Warden smelt it and both of them shuddered under the sound of the explosion.
They stood on a jagged ledge of rock at the foot of the Snowstorm Mountains. The mountains towered above them, dark and menacing, forming a horseshoe around the eastern cove of the Onyx Sea. The mountain summits were hidden by purple-black clouds which were bloated w
ith snow. Wind howled all around them like the cries of ravenous wolves. Warden’s once copper-brown hair now shone white beneath a coating of snow. Wasp buzzed at his heel and sniffed at the air.
‘So it has started,’ Warden said, his words being eaten up by the blizzard that whipped all around them.
Wasp buzzed in response.
‘We can only hope that they make it to the prisoner before they are captured,’ Warden added.
Buzzing, Wasp shook a spray of snow from his sleek coat.
‘I know Wasp, but they have to make this part of their journey on their own. We will have plenty of battles of our own to fight. Now lead on my friend. We have work to do.’
Pulling against the tether, Wasp led his master deep into the caverns of the Snowstorm Mountains. Within moments, Warden’s enormous footprints had been filled with fresh snow, hiding any trace that either he or Wasp had ever been there.
The police officer handed Fandel Black the tissue and said, ‘Mr Black, Please don’t upset yourself. I’m sure your nephew will be just fine.’
Fandel wiped his tear-stained cheeks with the tissue and then blew his nose into it.
‘I’m sorry for making such a fool of myself,’ he sniveled. ‘I blame myself.’
‘You have nothing to blame yourself for. He’s at that age. I have one of my own and if I had a pound for every time he threatened to run away I’d be very rich indeed,’ the police officer said, completing the missing persons report.
‘I just wished I’d noticed the signs. I knew poor Zach had been unhappy because of his parents tragic death, but I never in my wildest dreams thought he would run away.’
Shuffling his paperwork into a neat pile, the police officer looked at his watch. His shift ended in five minutes and Manchester United were in a cup-tie with Chelsea tonight on the T.V. and he didn’t want to miss it – not one second.
Standing up on the other side of the table in the small interview room, the police officer opened the door.
