by Jeff Gunhus
“I’ll say something,” Eva said. “Die, die a thousand deaths, you monster.”
Eva kicked the minotaur holding her between the legs, grabbed her sword and swung as hard as she could at Ren Lucre.
Without taking his eyes off me, he raised his own sword and easily blocked her blow. The Creach screamed at her from every direction as she swung her sword again.
“You let your friends fight for you, Templar? Could it be that the devil-werewolf was right after all? Maybe you are not who I thought you were. Maybe you are not the One,” Ren Lucre said. “Or are you simply the end of a bloodline that has been marked by cowardice all along? Your friends have courage, even though you do not. Now, watch them die for you.”
Ren Lucre turned his attention to Eva and easily parried a series of blows from her. There was no form to her attack. She was fighting with pure rage, as if she could strike him down by somehow cutting through his sword.
“Back up to the river,” she yelled at me.
As if waking from a dream state, I pulled my sword and herded Will and Cindy back to the water’s edge. We climbed onto a large, flat rock that extended out into the fastflowing rapids.
Ren Lucre was now on the offensive, clearly playing with Eva who could barely keep up with his powerful thrusts. Finally, she turned and jumped up onto the rock next to us.
Eva, Will and I stood next to each other, swords in hand. Ren Lucre turned to the Creach horde, arms raised, basking in their cheers.
Eva looked behind us into the raging, black waters and down at the edge of Swallow Falls. She looked me in the eyes. “You have to believe in yourself. You’re our greatest hope. There’s more riding on your shoulders than you know. More than you’ve been told.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I‘m so sorry.”
“There’s no time for that now,” Eva said. “Next time you will find the strength to fight him. I know you will.”
“Next time?” I said.
“Can you swim?” Eva asked.
”Yeah, of course.”
“Good luck, Jack,” Eva said. She thumped her fist to her chest. “Do your duty, come what may.”
With that, Eva shoved me hard in the chest, pushing me off the rock and into the icy cold, black waters of the river rushing below us.
I tumbled under the water for several long seconds before I was able to claw my way to the surface. The ice-cold water took my breath away and I was moving so fast through the rapids that it was hard to get my bearings.
I looked back toward the light of the torches and saw the shadowed outline of Eva and Will fighting a wall of creatures. I saw the unmistakable figure of Ren Lucre swinging a sword over his head.
Then, the current sucked me back under. I curled up with my arms around my head, trying to protect myself as I bounced off the rocks. I still had my sword and the thought crossed my mind that I might accidentally stab myself with it unless I was careful.
Somehow, I grabbed hold of a rock for a few seconds and slid my sword back into its sheath at my side. The water ripped me from the rock and I went tumbling again.
The water carried me faster and faster. Even though I was half-drowned, I remembered that Swallow Falls was just ahead of me. I knew that if I went over the falls, I was dead.
I clawed at the rocks as the current dragged me downriver. It was impossible. There was no way to stop.
I felt the water calm for just a second and I knew that I was at the edge. I kicked and raised my head out of the water and took a giant gulp of air. The last thought as I spilled over was shame that I had been too scared to help my friends when they needed me most. Now it was something that I would never be able to fix.
Down, down, down I fell. Then I hit the water. Every nerve in my body screamed from the shock. I felt my head smack against a rock and there was an explosion of light from the pain. My body went slack. Everything stopped working. I couldn’t move. My mouth opened and water slowly filled my lungs.
And then I died.
Chapter Eleven
I f you’ve ever died before, you know it’s a pretty weird experience. If you haven’t died, I suggest you wait a long as you can before you try it. (I hope your decision to read this book doesn’t make that too hard!)
The strange thing about my death was that I really didn’t know I was dying. At first, I felt myself go numb. Then slowly warmth crept in, like I had just cozied up to a roaring fire. Next, I felt like I was drifting upward into the air.
I looked down and that’s when I saw my body lying face-down in the river, bobbing along in the current. The sight of my body didn’t shock me. I felt more curious about it than anything else. It seems strange now, but I found myself wondering where my body would eventually end up. It wasn’t that I was worried; it was just a mild curiosity.
In fact, I wasn’t worried about anything. I was warm now. There was no danger. I was free to fly around the forest and go wherever I wanted.
In the back of my mind, I knew that there was something important I was supposed to remember about Will and Cindy. And another person. A girl. I could picture her face. Tall and beautiful. I just couldn’t think of her name or what was so important about her. I couldn’t remember what was so important about any of them.
The only thing I knew was the deep, glowing warmth I felt and the elation at my new power of flight.
I moved my head and shoulders to the side and I flew that direction, away from the river. I saw a body in the river, floating face-first, and wondered who it was. Too bad for that guy, I thought. But I didn’t have time for that. This flying thing was awesome.
I spread my arms and soared away from the river. I dove down low over the treetops, yelling from the rush. I twisted up into the sky and aimed toward the moon. In seconds, I was hundreds of feet in the air, laughing from the fun of it.
Still, there was something nagging at me in the back of my mind. Like I was forgetting to do something. But nothing came to me. I dive-bombed the forest again, whipping in and out of the trees.
“Jack,” a woman’s voice whispered in my ear. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
I pulled myself up, hovering in mid-air.
“Who was that?” I asked.
The voice came again, barely audible. “I said, aren’t you forgetting something?”
I knew the voice was right. I was forgetting something. Something important. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t think of it. Finally, I pushed it from my mind and soared into the sky.
“Jack,” the voice boomed, shaking the air around me like a clap of thunder. The power of it made me tumble out of the sky, down, down, down until I hit the forest floor.
I looked up and a woman, surrounded by a blue light, walked toward me. She wore a robe with the hood pulled down so I couldn’t see her face. I scrambled to my feet and drew my sword. But as the woman got closer, she pulled back the hood. I dropped my sword and fell to my knees.
The kind eyes. The fine features of her face. The hair falling to her shoulders. She was exactly how I had always imagined she would look.
“Mom,” I whispered.
She looked into my eyes and smiled. She placed her hand over her heart and slowly closed her hand so that it became the salute of the Black Guard. Then she reached down, picked up my sword and handed it to me.
I reached out and touched her hand. The second I did, images of the last twenty-four hours came flashing back to me with perfect clarity. I saw all of it in a matter of seconds. And at the end of it, I saw myself being a coward who was too scared to stand up for my friends. I felt terrible and looked down at the ground, embarrassed by my actions.
A hand bathed in blue energy reached out and lifted my face.
“No time for regret. We cannot change the past,” my mother said. “You must only learn from it, and then leave it behind you.”
I shook my head. Tears streamed down my face. “But I failed them. They’re dead because of me. Because I was too afraid.”
�
��They live still. I can feel their life force. Close your eyes and search for them.”
I closed my eyes and focused. I felt something distant, like a sound you can barely hear but you’re sure is there. It was a feeling, a certainty that I couldn’t explain. Yes, my friends were still alive. My heart leapt at the possibility.
I opened my eyes and the blue light glowed brightly around me. My mother’s eyes brimmed with tears. “You must face him, my son. It is the only way to save them.”
“But how?” I asked. “It will be the same as before. I can’t do it.”
“You already know the answer. Your words to your friend, T-Rex. You said we believe something only because we choose to,” she said. “Believe you can. Believe you cannot. Either way, you will be correct. It is your choice to make.”
“I was just trying to get him to jump. It’s not that simple. It can’t be,” I said. “I can’t become something just because I believe it.”
“No, but only if you truly believe in yourself will you give everything you have to accomplishing your goal. Belief is the source of courage and true belief is the hardest of all things to have,” she said. “But it is also the most powerful.”
“Am I the last Templar? Am I the One they keep talking about?”
My mother looked at me kindly as if searching for the answer herself. “Does it matter whether I said you were or you were not? It would change nothing.”
“It would change everything,” I said. “If I knew for certain, then I could believe.”
My mother smiled. “You have your father’s spirit in you, Jack. You have the blood of a thousand heroes coursing through your veins. But the courage to do this will not come because of your birthright or because of something I tell you. It will only come from a decision deep inside of you.” She placed a hand in the center of my chest and warmth spread through me. “All that matters is what you know to be true here, in your heart.”
“I don’t know if I can face him again,” I said.
“Do your duty, come what may,” she said. “It is the defining idea of the Black Guard. I’m so sorry the burden has fallen on your shoulders, my son, but it has.”
“But what if I fail?” I whispered.
“What if you don’t try?” she replied softly. “Believe in yourself, Jack. There’s so much good inside of you to believe in.”
A loud thump echoed through the forest. The earth moved like there was a small earthquake. My mother didn’t seem to feel it.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Listen to me carefully. If all else fails, you must challenge him, man to monster. It is the only way,” she said.
It happened again. Thump. And the ground shook so hard that I staggered to catch my balance.
“I don’t understand? What do you mean, challenge him?”
Another thump.
My mother took a step back away from me.
“Goodbye, Jack,” she said. “I will not have the power to come to you again. No matter what you find out about me, please know that I love you more than anything. Forgive me. What I did, I did only to protect you. Please believe me, no matter how it seems.”
“Forgive you? Forgive you for what?” I called out. “I have so many questions. What happened to you? What happened to Dad?”
But she only took another step backward, sadness filling her beautiful face.
“What I did, I did for you,” she whispered.
A massive thump, and this time, the earth shook so violently that I did fall to the ground.
Only the ground wasn’t there. I fell once again, waving my arms as I dropped through darkness, until I finally hit the ground.
I felt cold. Really cold. Chilled to the bone and wet. I rolled over and coughed up a bunch of water. I felt someone patting me on the back.
Squinting, I rolled over and was completely shocked to find myself staring at a wideeyed T-Rex. There was a pause when we both just stared at each other, then he locked me up in a bear hug.
“Boy, you really scared me,” T-Rex said. “I thought you were a goner, for sure.”
As he let me go, my head was still swimming. I looked up into the night sky and searched for that blue light. I felt a sense of profound loss as I realized that meeting my mother must have been a hallucination.
I looked around and saw that the river had carried me pretty close to town. I clutched my throbbing head and looked at T-Rex, who was still beaming ear to ear. “How did you…how did I…” I stammered, trying to get my bearings.
“You mean, how did I escape the house and end up here just in time to save your life? I’ll tell you,” T-Rex said, “but you’re not going to believe it.”
After all the strange stuff I’d been through over the last day, I found it funny that TRex would think there was anything I wouldn’t believe right now. “Try me,” I said. I sat there and listened as T-Rex told me what had happened to him.
Apparently, right after he had crawled into the attic, T-Rex immediately regretted the decision. But faced with harpies flying all over the place and a house full of monsters, he figured that he was stuck. But to make matters worse, minutes after I had left, the monsters decided to search the attic.
T-Rex heard the pull-down stairs that led into the attic creak as someone (or something) extended them down. Then heavy footsteps came up the stairs.
With little time, T-Rex jumped into the nearest hiding spot he could find: an old suitcase. He pulled the top over him and zipped it up as much as he could. Through a hole, he could see a single rock troll walk up into the attic.
It wasn’t much taller than T-Rex, but it looked ferocious in its leather-padded battle armor and full helmet. It held a spear in one hand topped with a nasty-looking barb. TRex shuddered at the thought of being skewered by it.
The troll pulled his helmet off. Even in the dim light, T-Rex could see the troll’s flat, chiseled face marked by a mouthful of jagged teeth.
He closed his eyes and listened as the heavy steps crossed back and forth across the creaking wooden floor. Then the footsteps stopped and a new sound started.
The troll was taking a pee. Right there on the floor, no more than a few feet from TRex’s suitcase. And it smelled awful. If you’ve ever smelled troll pee, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It makes a skunk seem like perfume.
T-Rex carefully raised his hand and squeezed his nose to block the smell.
The troll finished his pee and T-Rex heard the footsteps walk back down the stairs. Or so he thought.
When T-Rex unzipped the suitcase and climbed out, the troll stepped from the shadows behind him and grabbed his shoulders.
“Gots you, you itty bitty worm,” the troll grunted.
T-Rex cried out as the troll’s fingernails dug into his skin and he struggled to get free.
“Yous not be goin’ nowheres,” the troll said.
But as he dragged T-Rex forward, he stepped in his own puddle of pee, slipped and fell down hard. There was a dull thud as the troll’s head smacked into the corner of a heavy marble table.
T-Rex rolled to the side, ready for the troll to get up and run after him. But the troll didn’t move. He just lay there, flat on his back. And he wasn’t breathing.
T-Rex crawled over and waved his hand in front of the troll’s face. Then he noticed black blood oozing from the back of the troll’s head.
“So that’s why Grandma always makes me wear a helmet ,” T-Rex said. There was a commotion downstairs. T-Rex knew that with the stairs open, it was only a matter of time before another monster came up to see what was going on.
Then he had an idea.
He rolled the troll over and peeled his armor off and put it on. Then he found the helmet and pulled it over his head. It was way too large for him and rolled around uncomfortably unless he held it in place. It wasn’t perfect, but he decided that it would have to do.
He picked up the spear and cautiously walked down the stairs.
Immediately, he found himself surroun
ded by Creach monsters. Werewolves, hobgoblins, bat-creatures that hung from the ceiling, you name it. They were turning the house inside out, searching every inch for something. T-Rex kept to the side as he walked through the hallway, down the stairs, through the living room and out the front door. Every time a Creach grunted at him, T-Rex shook his head, pointed forward with his spear, and just kept walking. And it worked.
Before long, he had walked the length of my long driveway and reached the paved road. With a quick look around, he took off the helmet and ran as fast as he could to get away from the monsters.
“OK, so that explains the outfit, and the smell,” I said after T-Rex was done telling me about his escape, “but how the heck did you get here?”
“I thought you brought me here,” T-Rex said.
“What are you talking about?”
“I was running home to get help, when this glowing blue ball came out of nowhere and bobbed up and down in front of me, then took off into the woods,” T-Rex said. “I can’t explain it, but somehow, I just knew it was you. And that you needed my help.”
“Well, the needed-help part was right,” I said. “You saved my life.”
T-Rex smiled at the acknowledgement. “If you didn’t send that glowing ball to get me, then who did?”
I remembered the image of my mother, glowing with blue light. And I remembered the words she had said to me.
“It was my mother,” I said.
“But I thought your mother is dead,” T-Rex said.
I nodded. “She died when I was born. Then my father was killed only a couple years later.”
T-Rex sat there with his mouth open. “Did she say anything to you?” he whispered.
“Yeah,” I said, standing up with my sword in hand. “She said it wasn’t too late to go save my friends and beat up that old, ratty vampire, Ren Lucre.”
T-Rex scrambled to his feet and grabbed the troll spear and his helmet. “You mean, it’s not too late for us to save our friends.”
