Moriarty- The Road

by Jack Spain

  With no time to lose, Nemed barged roughly past Balor only to find himself tripped up by Betty Black, but before even she could do anything, she had her feet kicked out from under her. Nemed sprang back up onto his feet just in time to see a hundred or so people running towards him from all directions, led by Balor and Moriarty.

  Nemed didn’t waste a second and immediately bolted for the exit, expertly dodging the crowd. Balor and Moriarty were very close behind him and, fearing that the whole hill would follow him out, Nemed pulled a canister of Comither concentrate and shoved it into a burning lamp by the exit.

  All of a sudden, the entire population of the hill was running in the opposite direction, away from the exit. Everyone except for Moriarty, Balor, and a bit further behind, Betty Black. The top burst off the bottle and it began to pour out sparks as Nemed ran through the exit. Balor wanted to turn and run back but Moriarty grabbed his arm.

  ‘It’s going to blow,’ Balor protested.

  ‘We’re too close. The tunnel is our only chance,’ Moriarty yelled and the two men continued to run towards the tunnel. Betty Black, who was brave but, being a girl, not stupid, decided to duck for cover. By now, the constant flow of sparks had illuminated the entire cavern and the last thing she saw was Balor and Moriarty running into the exit tunnel a moment before the bottle exploded.

  It was the most deafening sound, with lumps of rocks blasted right across the cavern, demolishing several houses. Everything had been shaken by the blast shock wave and nearly every window was broken. Betty could hear rocks and stones falling everywhere for about twenty seconds, and then everything died down. There was a short silence that was followed by several loud slipping noises and a crashing of rocks before everything went silent again.

  When the dust had begun to settle, Betty pulled herself up off the ground and began to walk towards the exit to follow Moriarty and Balor out, but as she approached it, it became clear that the tunnel was blocked. They were trapped in the hill by nearly a tonne of loose rock. The astonishment that she felt at the sight of the damage was quickly replaced by concern. Moriarty and Balor could be under all of that. Betty began to dig frantically, pulling rocks aside with her bare hands. Chopper, who had just arrived on the scene, joined in, but even his great strength couldn’t shift some of the larger boulders. They were well and truly trapped.

  The Battle of Grogan’s Lair

  Nemed had been blown almost thirty feet from the entrance of the hill. He flipped over onto his back and sat up as quickly as he could, brushing bits of burning Comither off his habit. He pulled himself to his feet and turned around. His ears were ringing, and he was shocked by what he saw. There was a huge depression in the hill above the entrance. He figured that as nobody had followed him out, they must all be trapped inside. Looking down to his feet, he realised that he was standing on an orange cross that had been painted into the grass the previous day. He looked at it for a moment and then down the hill towards Grogan’s house, before turning to look at the roadworks in the distance. He then held the bag up and looked inside. It was full of canisters of Comither concentrate. He looked towards the mountains in the distance momentarily and then removed a canister and slid it into a pocket in his clothes under the habit.

  With that he ran as fast as he could, down the hill towards Old Man Grogan’s house. He stopped by the bushes that separated the hill from the house, to catch his breath. The battle in the hill and the escape had been exhausting. With his hood pulled down, all that you could see were his eyes sparkling. He was also panting heavily. He looked over to Old Man Grogan’s house.

  Meanwhile, Moriarty and Balor, muddy and bruised, emerged from the entrance to the tunnel, still holding their swords. They had narrowly escaped the collapse, but everyone else, including Chopper was stuck inside. Balor scanned the countryside as quickly as he could.

  ‘There’s no time,’ said Balor. ‘We’ll have to look for him later. It’s nearly eleven. We’ll need to get Grogan to dig into the entrance of the hill. He hates digging. Do you have any Comither left?’

  ‘I have a full magazine,’ Moriarty replied, and he pulled it out of his pocket to hand to Balor. Balor snatched it from him and began to run down the hill, with Moriarty in hot pursuit.

  Nemed looked back at the hill and saw them coming. He turned to peer through the bushes just as Old Man Grogan opened the door and came outside. Quick as a flash, he hopped up and barged through the bushes in the direction of Old Man Grogan. Grogan heard him coming and looked up, to see what he thought was Balor running towards him with a hood over his head.

  ‘Balor. What can I do—’ he began, but Nemed kept going, running between Grogan’s legs and in the door. Grogan was very surprised and he turned around, only to see the door slammed in his face. Grogan was very perplexed. He began to bang on the door, yelling to Balor to open up. As he did this, Balor and Moriarty broke through the fence and into the courtyard. They were very surprised to see Grogan banging on his own door and calling Balor a list of unprintable names.

  ‘I’m over here, man,’ Balor yelled. ‘What’s going on?’

  Grogan spun around, ‘What are you doing over there? You just ran inside!’

  ‘It must be the spy!’ Moriarty exclaimed, ‘Quick, get that door open!’

  Grogan was confused but he quickly rummaged in his pockets and found the house keys. He fumbled with the lock as Moriarty and Balor ran over. When he pushed open the door, they rushed inside. Nemed was standing by the range cooker with the knapsack. Grogan slammed the door behind them.

  There was a long silent pause as the three little creatures looked at each other. Nemed’s face was still not visible. Moriarty began to walk to the left, holding his sword up on his right shoulder. Balor slowly moved to the right, dragging the tip of his sword lightly along the ground, a tactic he used to sharpen the tip. Old Man Grogan was just confused and wished that he wasn’t there. He didn’t recognise the third little man at all.

  ‘Who are you?’ Balor asked as they tracked either side of Nemed. He didn’t reply, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘War is coming,’ said Nemed. ‘The old war.’

  It was an unusual thing to say and nobody else in the room knew what he was on about.

  ‘What war? We are always in a cold war,’ Balor replied.

  ‘Old war, not cold. It’s going to get hot,’ replied Nemed.

  Nemed reached up and quickly pulled back the hot handle on the cooking-range door, swinging it open to reveal a roaring fire. At the same time, Balor and Moriarty lunged forward to attack. Once again, Nemed was quick. He drew out two swords and adopted a defensive stance. All three clashed, with Moriarty and Balor swinging their swords quickly but precisely at the mystery man. They didn’t know why they were attacking other than that they must. Nemed expertly parried every blow of the sword, fighting both Balor and Moriarty at the same time. He confidently ducked and weaved, lunged and parried and held his ground.

  Then Nemed upped the pace ferociously, and both Balor and Moriarty struggled to keep up, swinging and lunging at incredible speed, moving some distance across the floor towards Grogan.

  ‘STOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP!’ screamed Balor. Moriarty froze to find his sword resting against Balor’s. In the heat of the battle, Nemed had ducked and slipped to one side, to leave Moriarty and Balor fighting each other. Moriarty turned to see him running back towards the cooking range. He lunged after him, grabbing him from behind. Balor followed. Nemed effortlessly threw Moriarty over his shoulder and spun around to engage Balor in a ferocious parry of sword fighting, the like of which Old Man Grogan had never seen before. When Balor was winning, Grogan would cheer him on but when Nemed struck back, Grogan would just grimace and cover his eyes.

  Moriarty jumped up and looked for his sword. The knapsack with the Comither was closer so he dived forward and grabbed that, before rolling over to grab the handle of his sword. Nemed was now well and truly getting the better of Balor as he drove him under the kitchen table. Balor duc
ked behind the leg of the kitchen table for cover. Moriarty slung the heavy knapsack over his shoulder and ran to Balor’s aid but Nemed was far too quick and he spun around to engage Moriarty in a sword fight, with his back pressed against the leg of the table. At the same time, he was parrying blows with his sword from Balor who was darting around from each side of the table leg and lunging wildly.

  The fight began to drift into the middle of the kitchen floor. Grogan joined in, trying to hit Nemed with a straw floor brush. Nemed managed to avoid the blows, but Balor and Moriarty had a few close calls. The battle in the kitchen became very confused. Nemed was expertly fighting on three fronts, avoiding Balor, Moriarty and Grogan, but at the same time attacking all three and trying to grab the knapsack of Comither concentrate.

  Meanwhile, Michael McManus was at the gate. It was eleven and he was keen to discuss the best way to widen Grogan’s driveway and start work on the hill. None of his machines were working, and he had spent the morning having the environmentalists rounded up. He didn’t think that they were involved but it made him feel better. He blew the horn a few times to get Old Man Grogan to come out and unlock the gate. Impatient, he got out of the car and looked at the padlock and chain.

  Finally he decided to climb over and walk up to the house. However, when he had thrown one leg over, the gate slowly swung open, with Michael on top of it, coming to a full stop when it was fully opened. The chain had not been wound around the post. Michael immediately felt quite silly, and looked around to see if anybody was watching. He jumped down off the gate and looked up the long drive, trying to decide whether he should leave the car where it was, or drive up. Entrances were important to a cool construction magnate like Michael McManus so he decided to drive up.

  Back in Old Man Grogan’s kitchen, Nemed crouched down and kicked Moriarty’s feet from under him, making him fall forward, almost impaling Balor on his sword. When Moriarty was down, he grabbed the knapsack and, having ducked under a sword blow from Balor, ran forward. Moriarty flipped over and grabbed at one of Nemed’s feet, knocking him down and making him drop a sword which slid across the floor.

  Nemed leaped back up and ran over to Old Man Grogan, hiding behind his leg with the remaining sword wrapped around the front, as if he were going to cut Grogan’s foot off. He was panting heavily. Grogan didn’t know what to do so he froze to the spot.

  Balor lifted his sword and started to approach Nemed slowly. Moriarty stood up, lifting his sword as he did so.

  ‘What are you going to do, spy?’ Moriarty asked sarcastically. ‘Kill his foot?’

  He had a point. Nemed pulled the sword around and quickly scrambled up Old Man Grogan’s back. Then, clutching the hair on the back of Grogan’s head, he held the sword to the old man’s throat, splitting his gaze between Moriarty and the fire in the range. Grogan was afraid. He may have been six times taller than the little man but he actually believed in all the fairy tales about them. Balor calmly came forward, took a dagger from inside his cloak and handed it to Moriarty who took it by the blade and held it up behind his head to throw. He focused on Nemed’s chest. Old Man Grogan was now terrified. The last thing he wanted to see this morning was a little man with a dagger poised to throw in his direction. He dropped the brush.

  ‘Let him go,’ Balor ordered Nemed.

  Nemed didn’t reply. He just kept switching his gaze between his attackers. Balor waited a nervous few seconds before stepping back to stand behind Moriarty.

  ‘Have you got him?’ Balor asked quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ Moriarty whispered back. Grogan’s eyes opened wide with fear.

  ‘Take him!’ Balor snapped. Moriarty threw the dagger. Nemed swung back around Grogan’s head, using his hair as an anchor to avoid the dagger, and took a new footing on the opposite shoulder. The dagger slammed into the door, where it stuck.

  Moriarty bolted forward and scrambled up Grogan, grabbing the pleat in his trousers and the end of his shirt before climbing up onto the opposite shoulder. Both Nemed and Moriarty held on tight to Grogan’s hair as they began sword fighting either side of his head. Grogan screamed out to them to stop and waved his hands around his face. He was starting to get lots of tiny scratches. Balor, feeling left out of the action, ran up too, and was halfway up Grogan’s left side when Grogan fell to his knees and huddled on the floor. Balor fell sharply on his back.

  ‘I’m getting too old for this nonsense,’ he moaned.

  Moriarty and Nemed struggled to keep balance, holding on tight to Grogan’s hair, and scrambling up over his shoulders and onto his back, sword fighting the whole way. Balor climbed up too and the battle intensified. Grogan started to shoo them away with his arms, making Balor, Nemed, and Moriarty duck and jump over his arms as they fought.

  As Nemed had only one sword, the battle seemed to be turning in Moriarty and Balor’s favour. Balor missed a lunge and nicked Grogan’s back. Grogan screamed in pain and swung around onto his back. Moriarty and Nemed ran up around his side onto his chest as he rolled over. Once again, Balor was thrown to the floor.

  ‘I’m definitely getting to old for this,’ he commented as he leaped back up to re-engage Nemed. He tried to run up onto Grogan’s chest, but just as he did, Nemed grabbed Balor’s sword and kicked him down. Moriarty was now struggling as hard as he could to fend off the two swords that Nemed was expertly swinging towards him. After a particularly ferocious parry, Nemed leaped up in the air and kicked Moriarty in the chest several times, knocking him back off Grogan. He then ran the length of Grogan, over his face and onto the floor in front of the range.

  Moriarty had dropped the bag of Comither concentrate. Nemed picked it up and looked around. Moriarty and Balor lunged forward to tackle him again but froze when they saw that he had the bag. They looked into Nemed’s eyes.

  Without warning, he threw the bag into the roaring fire. Balor froze where he stood, looking mortified. In a few seconds, the Comither would blow up, and there was enough concentrate in that bag to blow the hill apart.

  Nemed ran towards the door, but Grogan had had enough and he kicked him, hurling him high against the opposite wall.

  ‘THE COMITHER IS IN THE FIRE. THE HOUSE IS GOING TO BLOW!’ Balor roared. Grogan wasn’t sure what was going on but the sight of Balor running to the door convinced him that it was serious. Grogan pulled the door open, and Balor and Moriarty ran out. Grogan followed them and looked back to see Nemed getting back up and running towards his swords. Grogan wasn’t having another sword fight around his head so he slammed the door shut. Balor, Moriarty and Grogan ran across the driveway.

  Nemed was trapped inside the house. The knapsack was burning in the range. The Comither had started to simmer and he could hear it crackling and sparking. A few flares like fireworks started to fly out from cracks in the range cooker. There wasn’t much time. He quickly jumped up onto a chair and then onto the table before taking a running jump at the window.

  THUD!

  He bounced off. The glass was too thick. He leaped up and desperately tried to open it but it was locked at the top. Nemed looked around to find another means of escape. There wasn’t any. His only hope was to break the glass. He caught sight of a mug on the table. He ran over to it and grabbed the handle. Then, like an Olympic shot putter, he spun the mug around, and around, and around again, before finally hurling it at the glass. CRACK! The mug bounced off, but it had cracked the glass. He took another running jump at it. THUD! He bounced off again. He looked for the mug. It had fallen off the table and to the ground. There was only one thing for it. Nemed kept running at the glass, again, and again, and again.

  THUD.

  THUD.

  THUD.

  Old Man Grogan. Moriarty and Balor ran through the bushes in the direction of the hill. Moriarty was the only one to look back, and he almost wished that he hadn’t, for when he did, he saw Michael McManus’s black Jaguar coming up the driveway. He yelled out to Old Man Grogan and Balor, who stopped and turned to look. The Jaguar pulled to a halt ri
ght in front of Old Man Grogan’s house. Old Man Grogan instinctively turned around and shouted a warning to Michael McManus, but he didn’t hear it.

  Balor was distressed. The house was about to blow. Old Man Grogan began to run back towards his home. Balor yelled to him to stop and grabbed him by the foot only to find himself dragged through the grass.

  The Comither was now nearly at boiling point. The kitchen was illuminated by the bright fireworks coming out of the range. It was about to explode. Nemed took one final, desperate run at the glass and crashed through. Michael McManus was just about to open the door of the car when...

  BADOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!

  The house exploded. Old Man Grogan was knocked back in the blast, as were Moriarty and Balor. The chimney of the house was thrown up nearly a hundred feet into the air. Rocks, bricks, tiles, glass, wood, and other projectiles went flying everywhere. Moriarty was lying on his back. When he opened his eyes, he could see a big lump of wall hurtling straight down at him. He rolled over as quickly as he could to get out of the way. The huge piece of debris punched into the ground right beside him, grazing his back in the process. Michael McManus’s car was blown right across the yard.

  A few other big lumps fell here and there, some on the car, but most in the fields around the house. Old Man Grogan was crouched over Balor, shielding him from the flying debris.

  The final few pieces fell to the ground then, and everything went quiet. All that was left was a huge cloud of dust. The house was nowhere to be seen. Old Man Grogan slowly stood up, as did Balor and Moriarty. They were all too stunned to speak. Grogan feared the worst: Michael McManus had been caught up in the explosion. Moriarty and Balor feared it too, although Balor wasn’t sure whether that was a bad thing or not. Slowly they followed the old man across the field to the bushes where he pushed his way through. There was a strange sound coming from the explosion site and a strong smell of gas. The gas probably came from a refillable gas container that had been punctured by the blast. The sound was hard to make out. It sounded like someone groaning painfully through a tiny hole. There was a loud clunk of a car door opening, and then the sound was clear. It was the Kylie Minogue song about being lucky.