“But for now, you must run from the city and hide deep in the forest. Take the hidden path leading out from the northern wall, you know which one I speak of.” Erin nodded urgently, as the Elder continued.
“Seek refuge in the village of West Post just past the ancient ruins of Abington. There you will find an old friend of ours; he goes by the name of Orin. He will be able to tell you more of this orb and what you must do. Now go, and hurry! There’s no time to waste!” the elder finished hastily and looked quickly around at the others. They each nodded at once, all seeming to know just what the other was thinking, interconnected in a way that left David wondering just how much he really didn’t understand of the world he now found himself in.
The Elders stood all at once and vanished without a trace, leaving David and Erin alone and trembling with fear. “What in the world could have upset the Elders that badly?” said Erin.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think we should stay to find out. We should go.” David replied, grabbing her hand, and starting for the door.
They ran out of the room and down the hallway, bursting through the front door and into the dimly lit streets. The sky overhead was dark with strange swirling storm clouds, sending violent winds and lightning streaking across the skies. The townspeople were standing around pointing and staring upward, apparently wondering what was causing the sudden change of weather.
Some had already gathered their wits and started shouting for others to run for shelter as children began wandering aimlessly about, crying for their parents. David and Erin used the distraction to their advantage and took off down the streets before the panic started setting in, making it impossible to navigate through the chaos that would ensue.
“Where are we going, this isn’t the way to the gate is it?” David shouted over the howling winds.
“No, we must get some supplies from my house. We need to be prepared when we leave the city, it’s a long journey through the woods to West Post taking the northern path.” she screamed through labored breaths as she ran.
They ran through the streets, trying to avoid being knocked over by the panicked citizens and struggling to keep up their swift pace. Two times they nearly got ran over by crazed mobs running and screaming for safety from the increasingly violent storm, but they narrowly managed to duck and weave around them, escaping the danger.
When they finally reached Erin’s house, they noticed the door was kicked in and the place was trashed. Someone had been here recently looking for something and nearly destroyed the place trying to find it. They cautiously walked in being careful to remain alert for any signs of danger.
“Mother! Mother are you in here?” Erin called as she carefully stepped over a fallen chair. The place was a mess and panic was starting to set in when she heard no reply from her mother.
“I wonder what happened here?” whispered David, as he walked over the remains of a knocked over bookshelf. The books were strewn across the floor, leaving the bookshelf empty.
Someone was looking for something, he thought, but it doesn’t look like they’ve found what they were looking for…everything is torn apart.
Erin ran up the stairs to the hallway leading to the bedrooms and disappeared into a room at the end of the hall before letting out a horrid scream.
“Mother! No! No, no, no…”
David ran into the room after her and saw a middle-aged woman, lying on the floor covered in blood. She had a hand over a large wound on her stomach and was barely conscious.
“Mother, what happened, who did this to you?” cried Erin, tears flowing freely down her face.
“Erin… is that you, dear?” said her mother, faintly, reaching up with her blood-soaked hand.
Erin grabbed her hand and placed it gently on her face. “Yes, mother, it’s me. I’m here now, it will be okay…” whispered Erin, consolingly. She knew it was a lie, it would not be okay…her mother was going to die.
“Oh, Erin, dear…I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you better. They found it, dear…they know the truth...you…must go….” She started to cough up blood as she closed her eyes, wincing from the pain.
“What do you mean, mother? What did they find? Who did this to you?” cried Erin, confused and horrified by the scene unfolding before her. It was like living in a nightmare, but one she knew she wouldn’t wake from.
“You’re father…. he….” Her mother let out a final, labored breath and closed her eyes. Her hand dropped from Erin’s face, falling lifelessly to the ground. She was dead.
“Mother…no…please don’t leave me….” Erin let out a heartfelt cry and wept on her mother’s chest. She was gone, leaving Erin alone in the world. Her mother was the only family she had ever known, apart from Tyrius, who was not her family, but had been there for most of her life, taking her in as an apprentice of sorts.
David walked slowly up to Erin and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Erin…I’m so sorry. Whoever did this to her, we will find them. We will make sure they pay, somehow…whatever it takes. I swear” his words sounded strong and convincing, but David secretly wondered what he could do to avenge her mother’s death.
Despite what everyone had been telling him about this orb and its incredible powers, he still felt like just a weak nobody, like he had always been.
“Yes…we will avenge her…” whispered Erin, a fierce anger growing inside. “I will find out who did this to you, Mother, and I will avenge you if it’s the last thing I do”
She slowly took her mother’s hands and rested them across her chest, closing each of her eyes before gently kissing her forehead. “May you rest in peace and bask in the Creator God’s glory forever” she whispered.
Erin slowly stood and took one last look at her mother before turning and quickly exiting the room, a look of determination on her face. David followed quickly behind, sorrow building deep within his chest. He never knew what it felt like to lose a loved one, but he could see his friend was hurting and wished nothing more than to console her. But now was not the time for consoling, he thought, there would be time for that later.
David followed Erin down the hall and into another room, which from the bed in the corner and the style of clothing sprawled out on the floor, David realized must be Erin’s. He watched as she grabbed a bag and began stuffing in items of clothing and other essentials for their journey. Then, much to his surprise, she began taking off her robe.
Underneath her robe she was dressed in a loose-fitting white shirt, and tight, brown slacks. He quickly realized he had been holding his breath and let it out slowly, so not to attract her attention. When Erin realized he was just standing there, she threw David another pack and told to him to go downstairs and start packing a small cooking set, along with flint and steel, and to grab some dry food items for their trip.
When he went downstairs, he was able to quickly find the items Erin had mentioned, along with a fresh loaf of bread, half a wheel of yellow cheese, a few sticks of what looked like dried beef, and a small bag of dried fruit. By the time he was finished gathering what goods he could find, Erin was already downstairs and rummaging through the mess of books on the floor, looking for something.
“Whatever it was it must have been important; they tore through everything. They must have been in a hurry.” replied David, looking around wide-eyed at the mess that lay before him.
They looked around at all the papers and books lying carelessly on the floor trying to determine the source of the intruder’s intent but could find nothing apart from old scribes and parchment all seemingly disconnected from one another. None of them seemed to be important.
“What do you think your mother meant when she said that they found ‘it’” asked David.
“I’m not sure…” replied Erin, still looking through the stacks of books and papers, “I never knew my father, and my mother never spoke of him much. She just told me he was a traveling merchant. He stopped visiting after I was born. He would send us money and gifts every so often, to
take care of us, but that was it…Ah, here it is!”
She grabbed a stack of papers bound in a leather strap and quickly stuffed it into her pack. Seeing David’s confused look, she explained that it was a collection of maps for the Northern Kingdom.
She continued explaining to David as she looked through the wreckage that her mother was a maidservant at the Royal Palace and had been her whole life. That, according to her mother, she had met her father on a night out after a long day and one thing had led to another and the rest was history. A pretty common story for a lot of people in the city, from what she had said.
Erin walked into the kitchen and started opening cabinets, one after another, before slamming them closed in frustration. She finally found what she was looking for and quickly pulled out a small purse of what David could only assume was money. It was a brown leather pouch, tied off at the top, that had been hidden in a small ceramic pot in one of the cupboards. Erin quickly stuffed it in her pack, knowing she would need it to purchase more supplies when they reached West Post.
She also threw David a new set of clothes to better suit the outdoors. It was a brown leather vest and white cloth tunic, along with a pair of dark brown pants and boots to match the vest.
“Here, change into these. They are better for traveling in. They were left here by one of my mother’s late-night suitors. She chased him off with a kitchen knife while he was still in his underpants” She said, lightly smiling. “He apparently got too rough for her liking and never found the courage to return for his clothes!”
After sizing up the clothes and deciding they should fit, David went into the next room and quickly changed into his new outfit before joining Erin in the common room. They were a close fit, much to his satisfaction. “They aren’t perfect, but they will do for now I suppose.” David said, unsure of how he felt about his new choice of garments.
“Right, now we just need to find you a weapon. In case we run into any trouble.” she said.
Erin led David into a connecting room and opened a long wooden chest that was filled with blankets. She took a couple of them out and stuffed them into her pack before throwing the others on the floor behind her. When she reached the bottom, she lifted the wooden planks to reveal a hidden chamber. She pulled out a couple of short blades roughly the size of her arm that were each concealed in a leather scabbard on a belt, handing one to David and keeping the other for herself. She then fastened the belt and scabbard to her waist and, after seeing how it was supposed to be fastened, David quickly followed suit.
I hope I’m not expected to use this! thought David, as he felt the heavy blade hanging at his side.
Erin quickly inspected everything in each of their packs, making sure they had everything they would need and enough food to last them a couple of days in the woods on their journey to West Post. She grabbed two more thick blankets and rolled them up before tying them to the top of their packs. She explained to David they would be used as bedrolls. The thought of having to sleep in the woods at night left David a little spooked, but he would never have admitted that to Erin. Instead, he smiled bravely and nodded, hoping it was enough to convince Erin that he wasn’t completely terrified by everything that had happened, and would be happening, as they fled the city as fugitives.
At last satisfied they had everything they needed the pair left what remained of Erin’s house.
As they ran through the now empty streets, they noticed the sky had become almost completely smothered by the darkening clouds. The winds had mostly died down, but along with the calm came an eerie silence that caused an uneasy feeling at the pit of their stomachs. Suddenly, cries of terror erupted from the direction of the palace, accompanied by the sound of clashing steel and the screams of men in the heat of battle. They could see what looked like flames licking the night sky and the smell of burning wood reached their nostrils with a sudden gust of wind.
They looked at each other in shock and quickly set out at once toward the back of the city, thankfully away from the terrifying sounds, in the direction the Elders had told Erin to go.
They reached the northern wall bordering the outside of the city and Erin started frantically counting the buildings behind her. She rushed down the walkway that ran parallel to the wall until she finally stopped and put her back up to the wall right behind what looked like the back door of a Pub. She took five even steps to her right before stopping in front of the wall and pushed aside a small portion of the stone revealing an opening just large enough to squeeze the two of them through. When they were each through the passage, she quickly moved the stone back into its place, leaving it hidden from the unknowing eye. From here on out they were on their own in the wilderness beyond the city.
David saw a look of sadness drawn across Erin’s face as she stared motionless at the city behind her. Pillars of smoke from countless raging fires rose up in the distance and the sound of furious battles being fought throughout the city streets rang through the night air.
“I’ve lived here all my life.” she said. “It’s just so hard to go and leave it all behind. Especially like this…” she closed her eyes for a minute to hold back the tears, but they flowed freely anyway.
“It’s okay to be afraid, Erin. I’m afraid too, but we are in this together and I promise you I won’t rest until we get to the bottom of this and avenge your mother!” said David reassuringly, hoping he could keep his promise.
She looked up and smiled at David, wiping the tears from her eyes. She turned towards the darkness before her, wondering how long it would be before she would see her home city again, or even if there would be one left to see. Together they set out through the rolling wheat fields before reaching the line of dense trees and branches of the Outer Woods, then vanished down the hidden path into the darkness beyond.
Chapter VIII
David and Erin hacked their way through the forest for hours, hoping they were going in the right direction, in an attempt to get as far away from the city as they could before setting up camp. The path was fairly old and wasn’t well kept, so the trail was extremely overgrown making it difficult to determine which direction to travel in the little light the moon provided.
The thick canopy that towered above made it even worse, preventing them from using the stars to tell which way they were going. Even if the canopy weren’t so thick, they knew it would bring no comfort; those strange storm clouds still swirled overhead like a bad omen.
Eventually they stumbled upon the rubble of an old building and soon Erin realized it was the outskirts of the ancient ruins of Abington. She smiled knowing they were on the right path to West Post.
“These are the ruins of an ancient city lost long ago to the forest” she said, turning to David, “They were home to a fierce class of warriors who had mystical powers. It is said they were part human, part animal, and were one with the forest. No one knows for sure, but one day they all just vanished, leaving their city behind. To this day no one knows what happened to them.”
“Wow, that’s pretty strange…there are ancient ruins in my world too. I’ve read about them in some of the books at school.” While they set up camp for the night, Erin listened to David tell her more about the world he came from. He told her about some of the ancient monuments, like the Pyramids and the Great Sphynx in Egypt, and the Great Wall of China built on the backs of a million slaves to keep out the Mongolian hordes. When they finished setting up camp, Erin lay awake for a while longer, wondering where it was that David came from, and how it was he got here.
The next morning, they woke early with the mist clinging to the forest floor, leaving a light dampness on their blankets and hair that left them chilled.
After breaking camp and having a fair helping of bread, cheese, and dried fruit to eat, David decided to find a good climbing tree in order to see if he could spot West Post in the distance and hopefully get an idea of how much further they would have to march.
He found a suitable tree not long after and David set about cl
imbing to the top. When he reached the highest branches that would safely support his weight, he looked around for any landmark that might indicate their new direction. He saw the ever-rising mountain to his right and the grassy fields to his left a few miles South. He couldn’t see any clearings in the canopy, so he decided that it was time to climb down and report back to Erin.
Just before David began his descent, he took one last hopeful look at the open area around him. A small plume of smoke caught his eye that appeared to be rising from the trees in the far distance to the west. Excited, he started back down the tree to tell Erin what he saw. As he neared the bottom of the tree, he heard Erin cry out in alarm. Panicked, he quickened his pace.
When he reached the ground, he found Erin surrounded by three soldiers, each with their swords drawn and slowly closing in on her. They must have tracked them through the night while they slept, David realized.
He rushed at the nearest soldier with a howling scream, trying to catch him off guard and tackle him to the ground. The soldier side-stepped, causing David to miss his mark and stumble to the ground. At least he had created a distraction, he thought, as he slowly got up and brushed himself off.
The soldier threw his head back and let out a hearty laugh.
“Come with us, and we promise you won’t be harmed” said one of the soldiers, apparently the leader.
“And you expect us to believe you with your swords drawn on us like that?” spat Erin.
“I don’t care what you believe, brat. I care about following my orders. And our orders are to take you alive and unharmed back to the castle for questioning.” he replied, smirking. “That is, at least, for the girl…the boy we’ve been told is a threat to the kingdom and is to be taken back to the castle, preferably dead” he added threateningly.
David Bishop and the Legend of the Orb Page 6
