The Golden Saphire Chapter Three, & Four

Chapter Three

Shane’s Journal Volume One



         Shane. A feared name at school. Also, a highly laughed at name. Shane. Shane did badly in school, (except gym) has been to Juvie, (Twice) and has never had a girlfriend. (Without forcing them) He never gets it right in school, or with friends, or even with family. He spends his free time paintballing neighbor’s houses, and egging cars. He has no true friends. And he loves it.





         That stupid Tony kid got kicked out of school today. Hopefully he will be gone for good. He won’t be. I’m never that lucky.

         “Hey, Willard!” I shout at a passing ninth grader. “Where’s that money you owe me?” He looks like he just wet his pants. I walk over to him, and he looks up at me.

         “W-w-what money-y?’ he asks me weakly. I roll my eyes.

         “How much money do ya’ got on you?” I ask him, punching my hand with my fist. Classic.

         “S-s-seventeen d-dollars.” He replies. I smile.

         “That’s enough” I say, and grab him by the ear and push him up against a locker. I hold out my hand and say. “You better give me the damned money, or Ill pound you so hard; you’ll have to reach up to tie your shoes!” He obediently, reaches his hand into his pocket, and pulls out a wad of cash.

         “Thanks!” I say with a friendly smile, as I give him a friendly pat on the back. He just waddles away, with a confused look on his face. Wuss. My Stomach grumbled then, and I went for the cafeteria. I don’t care what the other kids think about the cafeteria food, I for one, think it tastes pretty good. But hey, that’s just me. I rounded the corner, and was just about to go beat my way to the front of the food line, when I heard a voice behind me.

“Shane! Hey dude! Come here!” I turned around, and my stomach gave another grumble. It was one of my friends- probably the best of them- Travis. He’s hella’ tall, I mean like, six-four. Give or a take a inch or two. I aint’ exactly short neither or nothing’ (I’m like five-nine) he just hella’ fricken’ tall dude!

“Sup’, man!” I reply casually, despite the gnawing hunger in my stomach. I wish I didn’t have to eat. Jeesh! “What’s happenin’? I ask.

“Well, uh… me and the boys are going to go ‘skating’ later, and we wanted to know if you wanted to come?”

‘Skating’. It’s the best. It’s the reason I can even cope with my life currently. ‘Skating’ is basically what me and my friends call anything illegal that we want to, are about to, or have done. It’s awesome. It keeps you alive. It acts like a drug that gets you high. Whether you’re smoking marijuana, or stealing a purse, it just doesn’t get any better. One of the drawers in my room is full of stuff that I ‘Skated’ with my friends, or alone. I have everything from jewelry I don’t wear, to video games I don’t play. I don’t do it for the stuff. none of us really do. We do it for the rush.

“What do you have in mind?” I asked.

He smiled broadly.

“Something better than we have ever tried before!” He says enthusiastically. “But if you want in on it, you gotta’ come now. Which means you gotta’ miss school.” He paused for a moment, waiting for my reaction.

“Of course I want to! The hell with school!”

“I thought so!” he said with a big grin. We high fived, and ran down the hall, and out of the school, even though my stomach grumbled in protest.

“Where are we meeting?” I ask him on the way out. He gave me a look that said ‘you gotta’ be kiddin’ me!’ and said,

“Where the hell do ya’ think smart one? At Brant’s house!” Oh right. Duh. It’s where we organize most of our skates. Though, of course sometimes we don’t even organize them.

“So,” I said “What’s so special about this new skate?” He nods his head toward where his car is parked, and I alter my direction toward where he indicated.

“I told you” he said unlocking his car and opening the drivers door, as he motions for me to get into the passengers side. “You will find out when we get there. But trust me” He adds starting up the engine with a roar. “you are going to love it!”

I saw the twinkle in his eye that indicated that I probably would too. I gave him a small smile in response.

He backed out of the stall and sped out of the parking lot, honking hi shorn and whistling as we sped by a group of girls. He gave them the thumbs up symbol and a big smile, acting like a dork.

They responded with a symbol of their own, but with no smile. Not even a hint of one.

We cracked up laughing, and sped off down the road at a reckless pace, heading for Brant’s garage, and what ever was going down, I wanted to know in a bad way.





When we finally pulled up into his driveway, and honked our horn to let them know to open up the door, I was met with an unusual sight; the entire pack was here. Brant, Travis, Alex, Other Alex, Jessica, and Jamie. Jamie was pretty much our leader. We all depended on him to get the job done. With-out him, we would probably all be in Juvie right now, listening to some boring counselor tell us, no, Brainwash us that we what we were doing was wrong and that we needed to stop.

Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t think we were angels, or even that what we were doing was right. We weren’t stupid. We just didn’t care. And besides, most of what we do is pretty trivial or minor. None of has ever been caught yet, and as far as I knew, we weren’t going to.

I had no Idea I could be so wrong.

“Hey!” Jamie shouted happily at us. “Now we are all here! Let’s get started.” He said as he motioned for us to take a seat in a semi-circle around him. Travis spoke up saying,

“Hey, um… Shane doesn’t know what were going to be doing yet, and I figured you should be the one to tell him.” He said. As he sat down in the place of honor next to Jamie. Jamie shoed him away, and motioned for me and Travis to switch positions. He wanted me to sit in the place of honor! Travis gave me a look as I passed him, and I involuntarily shivered. There would be blood over this new change in power. I didn’t think I could hold my own against Travis. Jamie just smiled obliviously at me.

I took the seat next to him, and he turned to me and said,

“We are going to do something the ‘Skaters’ (Our official gang name) have never tried before. Ever. What is it?” He asked us as a whole.

“What?” we all asked as a chorus. All of us that is other than Travis. What a loser. Jamie just looked around and smiled, apparently oblivious to anything Travis had or hadn’t said.

“We are going to get into the red dragon night club on Tuesday.” We all let out a collective cheer. When it died down, Jessica asked the one question on all our minds;

“But… How? Fake ID’s? None of us have enough money for those.” Jamie smiled triumphantly as if that was the exact question he had been hoping for.

“We are going to rob the 7-Eleven on Oak Street. It never has any customers, and we have plenty of people for the job.”

A thousand questions flew at him at ounce, and he just calmly raised his hand for quite. Eventually, he got it.

“One at a time please.” He nodded toward Alex1 and he took it as the indication to speak.

“Okay,” He said “I’m going to voice the problems that we have probably all seen.” He looked toward Jamie. Jamie nodded his head. Alex could continue.

“Well, first, we don’t have anything to use for robbing anything but an old lady, or a little kid. We got knifes, and all but, hey, this is a 7-fricking-eleven! You need guns, or really big muscles, or at the very least, ya’ need a really, really big knife.” He looked over at Jamie again, waiting for an answer. Well, actually, we were all looking for an answer. Every one of us. Jamie took a deep breath and said,

“Honestly, do you really think I’m that dumb?” He asked addressing us all. “Do ya’ really think that I would look over something as dumb as that?” He looked at each one of us in turn, (Other than me. I was second in command now, and way above scrutiny.) Stopping slightly longer on the Alex that spoke the questions we were all about to ask anyway. “Well, do you?” he asked again, now looking directly at Alex1. This was no a rhetorical question. No, this was for Alex1 to answer and him only. I hoped for his sake, that he didn’t say something stupid like,

‘Well, Yes actually, I did’ Jamie would have him ejected for sure, which would pretty much be like starting up open season on him, for the other gangs. We weren’t too popular with most of them.

“Well,” Alex1 said slowly, evidently aware of the danger he was in. unless he was a total, and complete, blundering idiot, he wasn’t going to get kicked out. At least, not today. Or right now. Whatever. “I figured that, with your wisdom, you would never forget something like that, so I opened up the opportunity to express your vast wisdom by asking such a question that would, at any other time seem obvious. Basically, I set you up to express your wisdom.” He finished, looking over Jamie’s shoulder slightly to look at me. He gave me a look that said,

‘Did I totally screw up?’ I just shrugged. It was hard to judge what Jamie was thinking on the best of times, and add that to the fact I had totally no idea about what he just said, and look out!

Everyone looked over at either Jamie or me, looking for a reaction. I didn’t know what to look at, so I just stared stupidly at my shoes. Jamie nodded his head slowly for a moment, and then,

“Okay, truthfully, that didn’t make much sense to me, but look” He pulled a gun from underneath his jacket that was on the floor, next to him. “This,” he continued “Is the answer. I Skated it from my parents.” He finished. His Dad ironically was a cop, and he a criminal. I hoped there wouldn’t have to be a showdown of any kind between them.

The gun was a 44. Glock with a scope, and it looked dangerous. I felt myself shiver. I hated guns. Guns are what took my little sister away from me. She was so young when it happened too. She was only seven. And I got her killed…





“Mommy! Guess what?” Shanna asked her mother excitedly. Her mother looked down at her and smiled.

“What honey?” the little girl’s mom asked, obviously humoring her. The little girls smile brightened as her mom picked her up and turned to face her.

“Shane is coming home for dinner! He said so himself!” Shanna continued. Her Moms face gave away a surprised smile.

“Really?” the mom asked the little girl. The little girl rolled her eyes jokingly

“Of course! I already told you that!” Shanna said with mock exasperation. A teenager ran frantically up the sidewalk toward them.

“Mom! Shanna! Get in side! Quick!” He was already breathless from his break-neck pace, and the exertion of shouting almost fifty yards seemed to be enough to make him almost fall over right then and there, but something seemed to be keeping him going, something seemed to be driving him on.

“What is it Shane?”

“Get inside. Now! I really screwed up this time mom. We gotta go!” The look on Shane’s face was one of absolute fear.

“What did you do now?” His Mom scolded him, her face a mixture of concern, fear, and worry. Throw a little anger in for good measure.

“I-“

Shane never got to finish his sentence. A black Sedan flew around the corner, its passenger door flying open, to reveal a shadowy figure, armed with a sub-machine, its barrel blaring.

Shane hit the floor, before any of the bullets had a chance to rip into his house behind him. And his little sister. She didn’t even get a chance to realize what was happening. The bullets tore through her little body with such force; she flew backward a couple of feet before she hit the pavement.              Hard.  She didn’t even get the chance to scream. She was dead before she hit the sidewalk.

Shane let out a gasp, and he scrambled to his feet, as the Sedan flew around the other corner, its door swinging closed. He and his mother, who barely avoided injury herself, didn’t leave her body until the police and the ambulance showed up an hour later.

Shane never told his mom, (or anyone else either for that matter) why he had brought a drive-by, into his house. That night, Shane grabbed the handgun his father used to own before he died, from his secret hiding place, that he wasn’t supposed to know about, behind his bowling trophy, and went out into the night. His mom wouldn’t see him again until morning, the next day. He never told her what he did, and she never asked. But she knew. And if you had lived in downtown Harrington, on October eleventh, 2006, you would have probably heard thirteen shots, ring out in rapid succession.

That was two years ago.





I shook my head roughly, to try to shake the images, and the painful memories from my mind. I wiped my eyes too, but I didn’t want to let anyone see that.

“Ah.” Alex1 said appreciatively. “That might just work.” He was nodding his head appreciatively. I could tell he was sucking up after his near-ejection, but it was also the truth. That would work. I know. It was similar to the gun my dad had that I… I shook my head again, as if to shake the memories from my head forever. But I knew that would never happen. I could still see Josh’s face, (The name of the gunner) as Andrew, (The driver) fell down in front of him, (With a few extra holes, courtesy of me. And as I turned toward him, and rose my dads gun…

“Yes. Yes it will work.” Jamie replied. I pulled myself back into existence. I needed to concentrate.

“Who gets to hold the gun?” Travis asked with a touch of desperation in his voice. If Jamie let Travis hold the gun, then that would mean that he wasn’t completely booting him out of the way, so I could take his place. Too bad for him, Jamie gave him a look that said ‘what an idiot!’ and said,

“Shane of course. The second in command always gets the best job. Aside from me of course.”

He bolted out of his seat so fast, that no-one knew what had happened.

Before anyone else could do anything, he was on me. Hard. I rolled into his tackle, and he rolled off of me. I rolled to my feet before he had the chance to stop his roll, and kicked him hard in the back. He yelled out in pain, and swung his leg out, taking me down by the ankles. I crashed to the floor with a grunt.

He was bigger than me, but I was faster. I had done this kind of thing before. Quite often in fact.

He stomped on my chest before I could get back up, once, twice, three times, four times. I felt something crack, and I screamed out of pain, and rolled off to the side, just barely missing a kick aimed at my head, and scrambled up onto my feet.

He went at me with a clumsy punch that I easily side-stepped and followed up with a counter punch to the kidneys. He barely grunted, and turned around, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, and jammed me up against the wall. I would have yelled for help, but I got the wind knocked out me. I stole a quick look around, and saw that no-one else was worried about the fight, but instead was watching it with mild interest and curiosity. Oh well. So much for them coming to the rescue. I decided it was time to cheat. Kind of.

I reached into my pocket, and pulled out a brass knuckleduster. I took a frantic swing at him, and got him on the side of the head hard enough to peel the skin off his scalp. He screamed out, and took a step back, letting go of me, and reaching toward his bleeding head.

In my frantic swing, my Brass flew off my hand and into a planter on the far side of the room. I went to get it, but found my way blocked by a recovering, incredibly pissed, and incredibly determined, Travis.

I cussed to myself under my breath. He was a tougher nut to crack than I had anticipated. He swung angrily at my head, and I dogged it easily. To easily in fact. It was a set up. The side-step left me exposed to his right arm, which came up quickly to meet painfully to my side. Ouch. I fell to the floor, waiting to get finished. I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer, and stole a peek up at Travis.

He just stood there looking down on me, swaying slightly like a tree in a heavy wind. He bent over quickly and puked. The knuckle-duster hit, had got him more than I thought. He swayed even more uncertainly now.

I quickly realized that it would be an incredibly bad move to stay there and wait to be crushed by his toppling body, so I scrambled up to my feet. He took an uncertain step toward me, and flung his arm out. I took a step back and he missed.

“So, you still wanna’ fight huh?” I asked him. He just gurgled, and spit out some of his own blood. I walked over to the plant, and grabbed my Brass. Thus armed, I walked slowly over to him and waited for him to surrender. He didn’t. He flung his arm out at me again, and I blocked it with my left arm while following up with a counter strike with my right fist that held the knuckle-duster. I cracked him in the jaw, breaking it, and sending a spray of blood everywhere, and he collapsed into a heap on the floor.

I stepped casually over him, and addressed the group, with my new authority.

“When are we leaving?” I looked around until my eyes fell on Jamie. I smiled. He smiled back.

“Now.” Was his simple reply. Okay. I can work with that. We tied Travis up, and took away all of his stuff, except his boxers, (Including a large and scary looking knife he had in his back pocket. I was glad he didn’t get it out) and tied him to the lamppost outside. Jessica decided he didn’t deserve his boxers either, and she took them off of him, and placed them just out of his reach, on the sidewalk. We didn’t object, only because it was past midnight in one of the most boring neighborhoods in town and there wasn’t a good chance anyone would see him. Don’t mess with Jessica.





It took us a half hour to get to the seven eleven of choice. It was now past one in the morning, and hardly any cars were driving by. There were two cars other than alex2’s in the parking lot. Jamie went in to see if one of the cars was a customer’s.

He came back five minutes later, saying there was only one customer in the store. A cop. Jamie’s Dad.

We decided we would wait until he left, and then go in. ten minutes later, Jamie’s Dad left and we started forward. Jamie handed me the Glock. It felt as cold as death in my hands. I shuddered, and almost dropped it, but I kept going. We needed the money.

We walked in the door, and the others immediately walked to the back, and blended into the background. They would be there if I needed them I knew that, but it still made me feel very-much alone.

I walked up to the counter and the shopkeeper, wearing a turban, a beard and a smile, having no idea about what was about to happen.

“How may I help you?” He asked me in a funny accent. I just walked up to him, and placed gun’s pommel on the counter, the barrel facing him.

He froze.

I froze.

We probably have gone on like that forever, if Jamie’s Dad hadn’t walked at that moment. I wouldn’t learn until later, that he had just come back because he forgot to get a Coke to go with his jelly doughnut. It didn’t matter. He didn’t hesitate. He flung himself at me, line backer style. Some one shot a gun. Some-one screamed. I think it was me. My ‘Friends’ ran out the back door. I blacked out.





         Twelve hours later, I was sitting in a hallway at the police station, hand-cuffed to a bench, being ‘watched’ by a sleeping officer Hermit. Occasionally, an officer Waddle, would literally ‘Waddle’ by, and wake him up, where he would stay awake for about two minutes.

Talk about high security.

The place was really boring. White wall, white floors, white ceiling, white light, no windows, a couple of doors (White) and a single (white) metal bench (Which I was Cuffed to at the ankle) and a single, (White) metal chair, holding a temporarily awake officer Hermit.

I glared at him. He glared back. Then he fell asleep. I sighed, and flung myself sideways, so I could lie sideways on the hard bench and get some sleep.

I hit my head on something. Hard. I jolted back upright, and looked down at my assailant.

It was a large, old fashioned telephone. I was surprised I never noticed it before. I was surprised I was allowed to have such a ‘dangerous’ object.

I was all set to just pick up the receiver, and call up Jamie, to demand what the hell was going on, when it rang. It made a loud, metallic sound. I winced, and glanced over at Officer Hermit. He snored loudly. Good. He wasn’t going to wake up. Now my fear was that Officer Waddle would come by to see what the noise was all about.

He didn’t. I let out a sigh of relief. For some reason, I decided to answer the phone.

I reached down and hesitated. I felt a sense of dread. I winced, but picked it up any way.

To this day, I wish I hadn’t.

I Blacked out, and went on the journey of a lifetime.

I Wish I didn’t.









End of Chapter Three

Shane





Chapter Four

Tony’s Journal Volume One

Awake



The first sign that told me that I was awake was a gnawing hunger like none I have ever experienced before. The second, Was a splitting headache that seemed to come straight from the farthest recess of my brain.

         I groaned, and rolled over onto my side. “What the?” I mumbled groggily to myself. I noticed some movement off over to my right. I tried to move my head to its direction, but found it to painful, and had to settle with stretching my eyes as far as I could.

I saw a pair of mud-crusted boots.

“Thutak! Thutak! Oros vun brotey?” Came a gruff voice from above me. I tried to answer, but my throat was as dry as sandpaper. I coughed once, and then tried again, but with only limited success.

“Hui! Muh num ish tunie. Ei dud speck yur langue. Sry.” So much for talking. I heard a deep, throaty sound from above me, I took for laughing. At least somebody thought this was funny. Good for him. Or her.

“Buttak!” the voice continued. “Ulak turo butok!” He finished. Or she finished. Whatever. I’ll call it a him. I then felt rough hands grab the back of my shirt, and pull me to my feet. He (For it was a he) let go of me and expected me to stand on my own. I didn’t. I crumpled to the floor and hit my head on the stone floor. From my new vantage point, I realized I was in a cave of some sort.

It was then that I panicked. I realized I wasn’t at home. I wasn’t even in my city. And I had no idea of how I got there. I cried. Hey, come on. In a matter of a day, (at least I think it was a day, but for all I knew, I had just gotten out of a twenty year coma. Scary.) I had gotten, suspended from school, disoriented, whacked on the head, disoriented, whacked on the head, and then I was reduced to crying in front of some stranger I knew nothing about. I didn’t even know what language he spoke.

He sighed, as he looked down on me. I looked up at him too. He looked like a Viking midget. Seriously. He did.

The word Dwarf popped into my head, for some reason, but I ignored the thought. Dwarfs aren’t real. They are just a made up race of rock people created for the sake of stories. Still the word persisted, so I decided to just go ahead and call him one.

“Urlun, buluk. Ulak turo butok!” he repeated. Staring down at me. I wanted to get away from this crazy Dwarf-man. The large battle axe belted at his hip, and nasty looking dagger, changed my mind.

The dwarf followed my gaze and gave another short throaty laugh, and unbelted his axe.

My breath caught. He was going to kill me. When he saw my reaction, he laughed even harder.

‘Very funny’ I thought.

He chucked the axe over to the corner of the cave. His dagger soon followed. He held his hands up as if to say,

‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ Good. He stopped talking. He realized by now that I don’t understand his strange language.

I stood shakily to my feet, and made a drinking motion with my hand. I gave up talking too, until I got some water. He nodded quickly. He got it. He ran off to the corner of the cave, and I got shakily to my feet. I let myself look around. I first realized that it was surprisingly light considering we were in a cave. Or a tunnel I thought. I quickly found the reason. There were little bluish-green toadstools all over the place, on the walls, ceiling, and floor, that gave off a weak light. Together, they let off enough light to see by, and left only a few places in shadow. Other than that, the place was surprisingly empty.

It looked like the tunnel/cave, was man made. Or Dwarf made. Whatever. It also looked well used, with deep ruts in the ground from what I could only assume was from carts, or carriages. Strange.

I looked over to where Dwarf-man had gone and saw a Small pack horse. I also say a bow gripped in the dwarf-mans hands…aiming at me. I closed my eyes, to tired to be scared, too sore to do anything about it. I heard a snapping sound, and the sick sound of an arrow plunging into flesh. But I didn’t feel anything.

I heard a muffled grunt and a thump behind me. I turned around and looked down. There, on the floor in front of me, was a goblin.

I’m not kidding. A goblin. An actually, real live goblin. Minus the live part I guess. And in his cold, lifeless hand was the nastiest looking dagger I have ever seen. My knees went weak, and I was about to collapse, when the Dwarf, (Definitely a Dwarf. If there was a goblin, there might as well be a Dwarf to go along with it.) Caught me, and slowly lowered me to the floor, his face grim.

Gone was the bow, and instead, he held in his hand a flask of water. I took it gratefully, not even stopping to think that it might be poison.

It wasn’t.

Rejuvenated by the water, I felt as if I should try ounce again to verbally communicate.

With a quick glance at our goblin friend on the ground, I swallowed hard and said,

“Do you speak English?” I saw his face light up in recognition. He coughed to clear his throat and shakily replied,

“Yes. Very Little. I was learned by Dad. Are you fine? Pain?” His voice sounded like gravel, and his English was patchy at best, but I was thankful anyway. His face was that of a concerned parent.

“Oh, thank god! I’m fine… I think, I hurt a lot, but nothings broken I think. Where are we? Did you save my life? What’s your name?” He held his hand up, stopping my flow of questions. He looked rather amused at the whole situation. I wasn’t.

“My name Oris.” He looked at me with kind eyes, and I realized that he was probably pretty old. He said, “Yes, I save you.” He finished modestly. I smiled up at him. Then I frowned.

“You didn’t tell me where we are…Oris.” I said sitting up slowly, and rubbing my eyes, keeping my distance from the goblin-thing. Dead or not, I wasn’t taking any chances.

“You say many questions.” He replied with humor, “We are in the tunnel of Trendgein” he said Trendgein like trend-jean. “On way to capital town… no, city, of, how say it… you speakage odd… Raithren.” He said Raithren like Wraith-Reen. Odd.

I nodded thoughtfully, and stood up. He followed suit, and went over to the corner where his axe and dagger lay. I bent over and took the dagger from the dead (I hope) Goblin and tucked it into my belt. It felt oddly hot in my hands.

I shook my head, and walked over to where Oris was tucking his own weapons into his belt.

He looked up at me, and nodded appreciatively toward the dagger. Apparently, I did the right thing in taking it.

“Now,” Oris said with a gleam in his eye, “It mine questions now. What is you called… you name?”

I looked at him, and he started off toward the pack horse, motioning for me to follow.

“My Name is Tony. Tony Goodman.” I replied. As we neared the horse, I realized that it was accompanied by two more, these ones, with saddles, and blankets.

“Goodman?” Oris questioned me, as he motioned for me to get onto the nearest horse. I normally wouldn’t have gotten onto a horse, with any body I didn’t know, especially a midget, who didn’t think twice about killing. Or at least killing a goblin.

“Yeah, Goodman. My last name. You know. Like smith.” I replied, as I hoisted myself up into the saddle, and Oris did the same behind me. I motioned for him to take the lead, because I had no Idea where we were going. He shook his head no, and motioned for me to go first.

I shrugged, and tapped my heels into my horse’s side to get going. It didn’t.

“Smith? What that?” asked Oris. “By way, horse go forward when you speak, Tulak! he stop when you Speak Tuluk!” he demonstrated, for me, and then motioned for me to try.

“Tulak!” I shouted. The horse bounded forward, and I hit my head on a stalagmite. Or a stalactite. I always get the two confused. Mite, or Tite, It hurts just the same. And It Hurt. I groaned out “Tuluk!” and the horse immediately stopped, so abruptly, that I almost got thrown of my horse. That would have really hurt.

I heard Oris laughing gruffly behind me again.

“Never mind on the smith thing,” I said annoyed, as I rubbed my throbbing head. Apparently they don’t have last names where Oris comes from.

This time, when I spurred my horse on, I said Tulak much softer, and, to my relief, the horse set off at a gentle pace.





We rode on like this for quite some time, Oris occasionally giving directions whenever we got to a turn, fork or crossroads. I was really lost by now.

The strange thing was though, that even though we had traveled for about three hours, and gone for what must have been fifty plus miles, we never encountered another human. Or Dwarf. Or Goblin. Or magical mushroom fairy.

“Oris,” I asked him at one point. “Why haven’t we seen anyone else?” He looked up at me and said,

“This is not a well traveled route, and besides, the festival will have started by now in Raithren. Nobody would want to leave that early.” I nodded my head and asked,

“And what is this festival? And are you a Dwarf?” He looked at me as if I had just sprouted two heads. Or like I just asked if the sky was blue. Or the world was round. Oh well.

“Well course I’m bloody Dwarf!” He said sounding shocked. He also sounded a bit British. I felt pretty stupid for asking him that. I also wondered if I had insulted him.

“Sorry.” I said. And I was. “But what about the festival?” I asked, stooping my horse with a soft, “Tuluk!” when my horse stopped moving, I looked back at Oris. He looked at me like I had just sprouted wings to go with my two heads.

“Well, it for you!” He replied incredibly. My breath caught in my throat. I looked back at him like he not only had two heads and a pair of wings, but that he also just said he was the princes of dinotopia.

“What do you mean it’s for me?” I shouted back at him. “What the fricken’ hell do you mean?” I was pissed and confused. Not a healthy combination. He just shook his head and said,

“When arrive in Raithren,” He said. “You will know.” I noticed briefly that his English was getting better. I let out a huff, and shouted,

“Tulak!” the horse bounded forward again, and I had a near-miss with a stalagmite. Or Tite. I heard Oris spurring his horse and the pack horse along as well. I had just rounded a bend and left Oris’s site for a second when it happened. I was jumped from behind. Me and my attacker fell of the horse in a jumble of arms and legs. I heard two more sets of legs land on the floor next to us.

I shouted out, and pulled the dagger from my belt, stabbing franticly at my attacker. I got him in the upper thigh of his left leg, and he screamed out with an inhuman shriek. I caught a glimpse of my horse, laying on the ground in a pool of blood, an arrow through its neck, whining franticly.

I also noticed the other two forms feasting (Goblins, one with a Bow and arrow, another with a large sword, both temporarily discarded in their feasting) upon its writhing body. I then realized that I was still fighting (another Goblin, this one with a short club in his hand and a dagger in his thigh.) I punched him in the nose, and he reared back. A second later, I heard Oris’s horses charging into the fray, followed by a whap! sound and the goblin above me flew off of me, with an arrow in his eye, dead before he hit the floor. I quickly scrambled up, and retrieved both, the club, and the dagger. The dagger came out with a sickening suction sound.

I looked up in time to see the remaining goblins rushing towards their weapons, and Oris shot his bow twice more in rapid succession, just as they got to their weapons. The one with the bow went down with a screech, where it remained squirming.

The second, the one with the broadsword, was too quick for Oris’s arrow, and he easily dodged it, and then quickly closed the gap between the two, tackling Oris. He heard Oris grunt, then the Goblin flew off of him, and landed on his back.

Oris threw down his bow (It was broken when the gobbling tackled him.) and drew his battle axe. The goblin was more cautious now, and he didn’t attack immediately.

He took a tentative stab at Oris, who easily parried, and returned with a slash of his axe, that left the goblins sword arm on the ground, lifeless.

The Goblin wailed in pain, and drew its dagger, turning instead to run at me. I screamed with rage I didn’t know I had for my horse’s death, and struck the goblin on the side of the head, as hard as I could with the club, a blow that sent it spinning into the wall, and crumpling to the ground. It would never move again.

“Are you alright?” Oris immediately asked me, moving toward the archer-Goblin who was still alive. He reached down, and picked up its bow, and decapitated it with his Axe, which he then twirled expertly into the air, and tuck back into his belt. He pulled out a cloth and wiped the bloody blade, before tossing it to me and indicating for me to do the same.

“I’m fine” I replied wiping my dagger clean before returning it to my belt along with the club. “My horse is dead.” I finished, stating the obvious.

“Aye” replied Oris glancing at it with limited interest. “Next time, don’t leave my sight. There are goblins everywhere in the tunnels not used as often, and they always look out for lone travelers. You would be surprised at how many of them we have already passed by.” He returned to the other horses, picking up the broadsword along the way.

“Really?” I asked, suddenly uneasy. I didn’t like the idea that we were walking right through dozens, if not hundreds of those evil creatures. Oris gave a gruff nod and said,

“We will walk the rest of the way there. It is only about a hours walk on foot to Raithren. Come.” I obliged. Very quickly.

For most of the remainder of the trip, we were silent, Oris speaking only once.

“Watch your step.” He had said a second to late, as I tripped on the severed arm of the goblin, and sprawled onto the floor sprawled onto the floor, feeling stupid. I had to fight back the tears from my misfortune and embarrassment, and the nausea of tripping over a severed limb. Not five minutes ago, that would have sent me running. Now, I just accepted it as it were, and hoped it didn’t happen again. I kept imagining that we were about to walk into an ambush, and hearing noises, and jumping at shadows, Etc. Etc.

After a time, Oris announced with grandeur,

         “And now Tony, you will see Raithren. You will see your festival, and you will see your future!” he looked back at me with a smile.

         We turned the corner and saw… chaos.









End of chapter four

Tony

Awake