Five Days: an adventure (A Fantasy Adventure) Page 10

  She obliged with a look of “insane!” and advanced her arm towards him.

  Grabbing her in mid-air and stocking her to himself, he inclined backwards to fall in the direction of Castle’s inclined top.

  Anna was so scared that she didn’t say anything to him but he knew she was thinking that he wanted to die in style.

  His backside touched the castle top, he was glad it was raining and he wasn’t feeling anything more than a wood-cutter slicing his spine. He was careful about Anna, too, she was away from friction, holding him so tight that he felt his head trying to pop out of his neck. They were sliding down the castle, just what they did in their trips to waterparks; but the only difference was – this water-slide was five hundred meters high.

  A thud told him they had reached to the hem of the rocky umbrella and shot wheezily up into a projectile. But this time he knew he had made it, they were not going to die, at least.

  Something hit his right shoulder and the impact broke them away. Next moment, he was rolling and toppling and finally, stopped, alive.

  Derek took a second to realise that he wasn’t in amusement parks ride and the spinning world was his imagination.

  They were somewhere in an ocean of boxes.

  Throwing some boxes aside, he pushed himself up and found Anna at a distance with a face, whiter than chalk. Her feet were too weak to carry on.

  ‘You okay?’ he said tripling over a bunch of boxes, weather reports - stormy. The rain had washed every bit of them.

  She closed her eyes hard, still breathing furiously. ‘I am not going to do that again.’

  ‘Me too, but I am going to kill that red betraying bustard for this.’

  ‘Yes, kill him with pleasure after we’re done with you,’ came a cunning voice.

  They looked up to see a thousand soldiers of Dark City, pointing arrows at them.

  A soldier kicked Derek as he slowed in the drive to the main gates of the castle. ‘Keep up! Thought you’re some hero, eh?’

  Derek looked at Anna, her head was hanging in depression; she had trusted him, urged to come on this suicide mission and he, a fool, allowed her. He may not live longer than a day but he had no right to snatch her life away.

  He destroyed her pet, her job, her residence and now her life; what a stupid fool he was. He didn’t succeed in saving Alicia but committed his friend’s life, his family’s happiness, everything.

  The drive ended, he had hardly noticed any of the thousand soldiers, peering at the prisoners being taken to the castle.

  The castle gates swung open and they were pushed inside. It was a big hall, they had entered, which could take a village inside without any complaints. The walls were diamond black and chandeliers overhead blazed Halloween blue. He didn’t know when he had felt so cold before, but it didn’t matter to him because he could guess what soldiers were going to do.

  They continued to march until they encountered a gigantic iron gate and a pair of guards dressed up very much better than the others.

  They were so tough and tall that Derek had to look at a certain inclination to meet their eyes.

  ‘Who are they?’ one of them said, staring at Derek as though he owed his money for more than a year.

  ‘They were trying to sneak into the city, surely King Aurisca will find it considerable,’ said the soldier holding Derek.

  ‘No he won’t, instead I’ll advise you to throw them into the prison. Aurisca will kill you if he knows you want to waste his time on these children – and what makes you do that, huh?!’

  Derek kept staring at him, not offering any explanation.

  ‘Rude? What’s your city? If you’re from Timple-Town we can hand you over to Gwarllow.’

  A pulse of strange happiness raced through his body. Gwarllow? He was another hater but he wasn’t as bad as Aurisca and in fact, he could save Anna that way. But Alicia? He didn’t know the way because Fury was flying above the clouds and he wasn’t going to trust any dragon with anything.

  ‘But they were riding a dragon and Gwarllow hates dragons more than anyone so it’s very unlikely for any of his people to party with the dragon.’

  ‘H-hey, we didn’t know much about their war. Gwarllow keeps it within his inner circle. And this dragon kidnapped and threw us here. I hope you saw that, he really dropped us to death.’

  The soldier eyed him suspiciously. ‘Okay, so you’re saying you’re from Timple-Town, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s really hot there, which drink they offer to their guests?’

  ‘Firstly, it’s always covered in snow and secondly, Gwarllow would offer nothing more than poison to his guests.’

  The guard smirked at the soldier and he, in turn, flushed pink in embarrassment. ‘Okay – okay … I will take you to your town I am sure Gwarllow would be pleased.’

  Yeah very pleased!

  Derek blinked at Anna while turning back to the way they had entered. But he failed to save Alicia and if he came back … he had no more than one and a half day. What the hell he’d do? What if he fooled the soldier and tried to sneak into the city by another means?

  Yeah, it looked sensible.

  ‘Hey, girl!’ called the soldier behind them. ‘You’re forgetting your ID. Gwarllow wouldn’t let you—’

  Derek’s beats stopped abruptly. When he turned around, dying to see the soldier getting dumb by any means of sorcery, but his expression had already announced –

  ‘STOP! THIS GIRL IS FROM SANA!’

  Just beside the ID was enraged faces of the towering guards and a bunch of soldiers.

  Shit!

  He tried to jerk his hand but the soldiers were quick and they were in their firm grip again.

  ‘Leave us, you Ginny pigs!’

  ‘I told you, Aurisca will be interested in him!’ said the soldier, struggling to hold Derek. ‘Stop it, you squirrel!’

  ‘Yes,’ said the guard. ‘We’ll take them in!’

  Derek felt the medium-sized hands replaced by heavy enormous ones and they were literally more powerful as the moment they pulled Derek, he was launched into the air for a second.

  ‘Get off!’

  ‘Being smart, are we?’ said the guard. ‘Now prepare yourselves to meet our king!’

  Derek, in his ultra-busy-cum-tired mind, was walking, turning absent-mindedly. He didn’t know how many turns they’d taken by now and how the hell guards were looking at him.

  He looked up at the ceiling – they were in a tunnel now, which had a thin spine like rod in the middle of the ceiling and white pipes were branching at every interval. It was some sort of rib cage of a gigantic beast used to support the walls of darkened tunnel.

  His gaze fell over the hard stone floor again – he wanted to curse himself before Aurisca, yell at himself, they were so close to escape …

  Splash!

  His foot accidently fell into a pool of red liquid.

  ‘Watch yourself!’ roared the guard, his voice echoing through the tunnel.

  ‘Oh yes! I am dying to bath in this red liquid, ain’t I?’ he spat.

  ‘This is not any other liquid,’ smirked the guard. ‘This is blood.’

  ‘Blood?’ said Derek, checking his foot.

  ‘Look at that,’ he said pointing at a dark bag like thing at a distance.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said after looking at the bag.

  ‘A dragon.’

  ‘Dragon?’

  ‘Dragon’s baby’s skin, Aurisca loves soft meat,’ he turned to Anna. ‘No matter who’s it.’

  Derek’s stomach dropped.

  The guard pushed him and he was back in the company of his beating heart.

  The tunnel came to an end and a big hall consisting almost fifty white chars built of dragon skulls, long table, which was completely unoccupied besides a muscly and short figure, who had his back turned to them. Derek could see he was wildly eating something.

  ‘Your highness,’ said the guard, stopping the prisoners at a respec
table distance.

  Aurisca didn’t reply.

  ‘We have two intruders, they were riding a dragon to get here.’

  ‘Hmm … Did you get the dragon?’ said Aurisca, still not facing them.

  ‘No, but we’ve come to know these intruders are from Sana,’ said the guard as though he was telling his parents he had won a race.

  Aurisca straightened up in his seat and finally, rounded to face them.

  He was as scary as before – blood was dropping from his French beard and his ultra-ugly face was pushing the food up Derek’s throat – with his sword resting beside him. Peering hungrily at them, he shifted in his seat and curved his blood-covered lips into a grin.

  Derek was feeling a strange mixture of anger and guilt, he didn’t know if he was afraid of him anymore. But he could never forgive himself for failing his friend, love and parents.

  He took a deep breath and looked fearlessly at Aurisca.

  Aurisca, in turn, smiled and said in a cold but roaring voice. ‘Welcome back, son. I thought you were sensible enough to run away.’

  Derek didn’t say anything.

  ‘Sometimes, you should know, bravery – kills,’ he said clenching his sword. Derek closed his eyes and grabbed Anna’s hand … he didn’t want to know her expressions … he didn’t want to know if she was thinking of him as a fool or someone brave … but he wanted to feel the touch who remained with him every-single-second.

  ‘But sometimes it spares you,’ Derek frowned and open his eyes to see Aurisca standing right before him. ‘I shall kill you,’ he whispered in his ears. ‘But after this little girl – THROW HIM INTO THE PRISON!’

  ‘NOOOOOO! SHE KNOWS NOTHING!’

  ‘I will decide th …’

  ‘LEAVE HER!’

  ‘TAKE HIM!’

  Next moment, he felt many hands on his back and shoulder but he wasn’t caring about them.

  ‘YOU SCUM!’

  He was no match for the strength of soldiers, he was slipping away from a teary Anna, who wasn’t saying anything, even not protesting.

  He was steered into dark passageways and Aurisca and Anna were out of sight, he was turned into intersection corridors and then into a prison.

  ‘GET AWAY, YOU SCUM!’

  He was thrown in and his back hit something hard but that was at the bottom of his list of consideration because the gates, his last hope, were closed with a bang.

  ‘COME BACK HERE!’ he yelled, scrambling to his feet.

  Footsteps were dissolving into silence – and the soldiers were out of sight.

  ‘DON’T DO THIS!’ he kept yelling, knowing no one was there for him.

  He looked into the cell, there must be something to cut the bars … he scanned the stony floor … the small window on the top … nothing.

  His heart was burning as though it was dipped in gasoline and lighted. She would die just because of him.

  The floor, to his sudden realisation, was covered with millions of broken glass pieces which he thought were a mirror he slammed into.

  He raced his hand to touch his back because for some reason it was burning in pain – it was moist and when he looked at his palm, it was blood red.

  He really deserved it … he deserved the most painful death …

  ‘Argh …’ a voice echoed through the corridor – then, sounds like someone had been beaten.

  Next moment, a couple of soldiers with a weak man crossed him. ‘Don’t ever steal again!’

  The weak man’s eyes sulked into sockets and a face nothing better than a skull was hanging in hopelessness.

  They were gone after a second.

  He would have recalled his furious attempts and yelled at the soldiers but his problem was far bigger than getting beaten.

  He found a broken stone in the corner and hit the rods with it. It was a little more effective than his screams – enough to scratch the bars.

  The corridor had only his screams and snaps of ineffective efforts … until –

  ‘ARGH!’ another scream echoed. But it didn’t appear to have belonged to the weak man who would surely have died after screaming so much.

  There were more screams, thuds. There was something going on in the other end of the corridor.

  But before he could marshal any ideas about the situation, the dark corridor blazed with light and he saw soldiers flying (rather fling) out of the darkness and stopping dead in his front.

  ‘What the—’

  The earth was trembling and then what appeared in the dark was a pair of yellow eyes, belonged to none other than Fury.

  He frowned but didn’t forget to scream. ‘YOU CHEATING BUST—’

  ‘Shush!’ whispered Fury.

  ‘SHUSH?! MY FRIEND WILL BE DEA—’ he yelled again and flung his hand towards the dragon’s eyes, to at least blind him but what he had wasn’t anything moist but something gluey and sticky: he had a firm grip over his nostril.

  ‘Hey don’t do it,’ said Fury in a voice belonged to someone who was trying to speak with his nose pressed close (you can try it.)

  ‘YOU STINKING OLD—’

  ‘Derek, hi there!’ said someone from the darkness.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘Hello, missed me?’

  ‘Hi,’ said Derek automatically. ‘How did you …?’

  ‘Fury saved me! He just banged the castle walls and entered with his tribe.’

  ‘Tribe?’

  ‘Yes, I brought my friends, hundreds of them, they are battling other soldiers and you can go up and rescue Alicia, my boy. But please, let go of my nostril.’

  Derek felt as though he had hit Gwarllow hard in the face and he immediately pulled his hand back into the cage. ‘Have you really …’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fury, checking his nostrils. ‘You have damn firm grip.’

  ‘By the way, she is in—’ said Anna.

  ‘A prison on the ninth floor,’ completed Fury.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Wasn’t tough at all … a deadly stare at a soldier for a minute did everything.’

  ‘Ninth floor …’ whispered Derek. ‘B-but how’ll I get out?’

  BANG!

  Fury hit the cell with his tail and the cage was transformed into thin air.

  ‘Very good!’ she said excitedly, setting feet on the cold floor. ‘Let’s go and save her – what’s that on your back?’

  ‘W – What? Nothing (Anna rounded to have a better look at his back, while he resisted.) you are getting worried for nothing.’

  ‘Is that blood – what the hell you were doing?’ said a scandalized Anna.

  ‘I don’t know, the guards threw me inside it and I hit the glass.’

  ‘You’re losing too much blood!’ she shrieked.

  ‘No, it doesn’t matter – really, I am feeling nothing.’

  Anna kept staring at him in disbelief and outrage.

  ‘Where is the Aurisca, anyway?’ said Derek changing the topic.

  ‘He ran away,’ said Fury, looking at Derek’s bleeding back. ‘You should do something about that.’

  Derek shot a bitter “thank you” look at him and Fury, too, stole his eyes away when he realised he had spoiled Derek’s diversion.

  ‘Yes,’ tried Anna.

  ‘He won’t runaway, he’s been somewhere.’

  ‘Somewhere?’ said Anna and he was glad for it.

  ‘Yes, he won’t runaway … Perhaps he is heading towards—’

  ‘Alicia,’ she completed. ‘Oh, we got to hurry! We can’t afford to battle him!’

  ‘I think – er – I should go now,’ he said. ‘I mean circumstances have made us have disparate ways to continue our forthcoming journey.’

  ‘What?’ she said, not getting a bit of what he talked about.

  ‘Um – I should go alone, you shouldn’t—’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I can take this from here, you stay with Fury.’

  ‘Are you asking me to hit you in the face and call yo
u super-emotional?’ she said outraged.

  ‘No, please – um – try to understand … you’ve already lost everything, please – Aw!’

  She punched him in the face. ‘Rubbish!’

  ‘Please!’

  She cursed and started towards stairs. ‘Stop me!’

  Derek ran ahead and blocked her way.

  ‘Don’t be so silly.’

  ‘I am not, you almost died there. Don’t stay with me anymore –Aw! – please.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Ple—’

  ‘No!’

  He kept staring at her – she was nowhere close to say “yes!” to his idea at any price and he knew he was nowhere close to agree with her. But he really needed to do something or he would gamble his friend for his lust. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and threw his arms around and hugged her so flashily that he was sure she’d have thought he was going to attack her. ‘Please – I don’t want to lose my sister …’

  She didn’t protest, she didn’t wrap her arms around him, either; that was really uncomfortable because he couldn’t see her face and it was impossible to tell whether she was glad or furious. But he wouldn’t let go of her until she gave him his word.

  ‘Okay,’ she whispered in a very small voice.

  He broke away from her and was very glad to see her smiling.

  ‘Sister? I have no problem with that. But now you’re in trouble because your sister wants a very expensive gift from you,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Be safe.’

  He smiled, too and accepted a kiss on his cheek. ‘Good-bye … and Fury, meet me on the ninth floor, we’ll take her away.’

  The corridor at the end of the staircase was as dark as a blackboard, he didn’t have any lamp or torch and his phone was dead: he couldn’t use the flashlight. But the fear of darkness was nothing before his urge to see Alicia, who was hardly few steps away from him.

  So, he set off, without any clue, into the dark corridor on the ninth floor. He could hear his footsteps, which were worse than a horrifying background music and very much pushed him to the verge of fainting.

  He had no idea where she had been imprisoned or she was alive or Aurisca disposed of her. As he moved forward and disappeared into the darkness, most of his attention diverted to thoughts which nearly made him sick – mangled body of Alicia, if Fury didn’t arrive on time, if Aurisca was walking just beside him.