or whatever his name is. I’m not paying more doctors to tell me it’s all my fault because I took drugs when I was pregnant. If not for all those bills, we wouldn’t be living in this tin can.”
“It’s never your fault,” Calandra mumbled.
“What? And I don’t care what all those school counselors say; Dave wasn’t my fault, either! How was I supposed to know?”
“Because I told you!” Cal yelled.
“How was I supposed to know you were telling the truth?” her mom screamed back. “Who would believe an eleven-year-old over the best boyfriend she ever had?”
“Any—”
“I’m not having this argument again!” her mom interrupted, as she always did at that point. “We’ve been arguing about this for almost seven years, and I’m sick of it! I’m going to be late for work now, too! Are you happy?”
The whole trailer shook when the door slammed, her mom off to wait tables that age had robbed her of the ability to dance for.
Cal made her way to the old couch and sat next to her brother. Running a hand along his long blond hair, she asked, “And who would believe a seventeen-year-old over her new boyfriend, right, Drako?”
She hated their names, both homages to members of late-eighties hair bands her mom still worshiped. Drako adored them; they reminded him of characters from the books he loved.
Of course, Drako didn’t answer her question. He traveled his own world, a world where fourteen-year-old boys could fly safely astride the armored shoulders of their dragon protectors. It sometimes happened when he read his beloved novels. He could blink out for a few minutes or several hours, and nothing could breach his wall to reality. Then he would return as suddenly as he left, with absolutely no memories of what had happened.
Cal put her arm around his shoulders, trying to shake off the horrors of her own reality, asking, “And what journey are we taking today?” She lifted the book from his lap. The cover art boasted the typical scene of the lightly armored and heavily muscled hero brandishing a large sword while some evil-looking creatures menaced a stunningly beautiful, flaxen-haired damsel. They’d picked it up the day before when she’d taken him to his favorite hobby shop. She studied the artwork more closely, since the hero had hair a lot like Drako’s. Her brother wore his hair long because most of the heroes in these fantasy quests did—though the style proved just one more reason for his peers to tease and ostracize him, most boys these days sporting shaved heads or the short, spiked hair Cal found so silly. In fact, the hero of this book looked a lot like Drako would if her brother abused steroids.
“The Honor of Axl,” she read aloud. In a soft mumble, she asked, “How can you enjoy reading this crap?” She liked to think her brother could still hear her when he was gone, and none of the doctors could say, for sure, he couldn’t; so, as she always did, she opened the book and started reading.
“Axl sat high astride Thunder’s back. He’d been traveling The Dark Forest for three days now, tracking the band of Night Wraiths that had taken Esmerelda. He felt so tired his sword seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, pulling at his side until it nearly tugged him from his powerful steed.
“Oh come on, Drako,” she mumbled, not wanting to hurt her little brother’s feelings. “This is so corny.” As she resumed reading, she stifled laughter.
“Do you think the Night Wraiths cast a spell on my sword, Thunder? He scanned the area, saying, They sure named these woods right, didn’t they? Night Wraiths don’t even have to go underground during daylight in here.”
Of course, Thunder didn’t answer me, but his high step and constant head motion showed he felt as nervous as I. The muscles along his back rippled beneath me. His energy after three days with little rest amazed me, though his worry probably helped fuel those muscles, too.
I reached down and patted his neck. “I was only joking about the sword, boy,” I said, though I hadn’t been. Since my immunity to magic frustrated the Night Wraiths’ main form of attack, they had most likely got around it by making my sword too heavy for me to wield with any effectiveness. I’d just have to think of another way to claim victory, if we ever caught them. But Thunder had no experience with our current quarry, so he had no way of knowing that.
The darkness started to thicken, making it almost impossible to see anything. “Another day is ending, Thunder,” I said, somehow finding the sound of my own voice reassuring, or maybe it was the illusion of having someone to talk to.
Night held the most danger; that’s when we risked a full attack by the Night Wraiths. Many denizens of The Dark Forest could attack us during daylight—we’d already had to fight off attacks by Wraiths several times—but not even The Dark Forest offered enough shield from light for Night Wraiths to conjure their full strength. Korvil’s sorcerously mutated minions, the Night Wraiths, needed only darkness to survive, but they needed absolute darkness to summon their full power. They had too much intelligence to attack me without access to their full strength.
The forest’s protective magic denied fire the right to exist; not so much as a spark could ignite within its borders, so even lighting a torch was out of the question, much less building a fire. Fortunately, absolute darkness lasted only a few hours, and so far the Night Wraiths had contented themselves with using that time to increase the distance between us.
I reined in Thunder. “Time for a little rest, boy.”
I climbed to the ground. The thick loam making up the forest floor gave beneath my weight. I left deep impressions wherever I stepped, quite possibly the only boot prints this part of the forest had seen since Korvil locked it in darkness more than a hundred years before. I stretched to free muscles made stiff by hours on horseback, then wandered in circles to stretch my legs. Just as I started to touch my toes to loosen my back muscles, Thunder snorted softly and flipped loam at me.
I stood quickly, trying to unsheathe my too-heavy sword.
It hit me in the back of the head with such ferocity that I almost fell to my face.
I staggered to regain my balance and tried to scan the area, but absolute darkness had consumed my surroundings. I couldn’t see a thing. I managed to unsheathe my sword, but it felt so heavy I could wield it only ineffectively.
It hit me again, squarely in the middle of my back, but with much less force.
I shook my head. Dropping my sword, I pulled my dagger from my belt. I lay down on my belly and angled my dagger upward over the middle of my back, an obelisk of impending death.
Within minutes, the Wraith impaled itself on my blade.
“I can always depend on a Wraith’s predictability, Thunder,” I said as I stood and shook the body from my dagger.
I hated killing a Wraith. They were beautiful creatures, no bigger than Thunder’s head, with gossamer wings that shimmered in the sunlight. They only tried to protect their home. Their single magical attack had more than enough power to prove deadly to almost anyone senseless enough to cross the borders of The Dark Forest, but I experienced no more than a blunt impact, albeit a powerful one. After its initial attack failed, the confused Wraith simply flung itself bodily against me, and always against my back. I could easily endure such a trifling nuisance, and would happily allow the Wraith to continue until it tired and went away, to avoid killing the lovely creature, but I’d made that mistake once. Before long, it had sent back dozens of friends. The nuisance of one Wraith multiplied by dozens meant I faced a formidable enemy. I barely made it out of The Dark Forest alive.
I crawled on all fours until I found my sword. I managed to lift it and get it sheathed, then brushed off the clingy loam.
“Thanks for the warning, boy,” I said, patting Thunder’s nose. I retrieved an apple from the saddlebag, which he gobbled gleefully. The Dark Forest offered nothing in the way of fodder and forage, so we both suffered from hunger. “Hopefully, we don’t have to wait much longer, boy.”
A woman’s cry ripped through the darkness.
“He can’t help you,” a man’s voice said. “He’s lost in the dark.”
The man had spoken correctly. Absolute darkness had rendered me blind.
“Drako!” the woman cried.
“Drako Drako,” the man mocked her.
“Axl!” Cal yelled, reaching for any hope that could stop this.
Her mom’s boyfriend was even more drunk than usual, but not so drunk as to drown his predatory ways. His breath stank of whiskey. His day-old beard felt like sandpaper. His hands burned wherever they touched.
“Axl,” she whimpered, losing the ability to fight.
He laughed. “I don’t know who Axl is, but he can’t help you, either.”
She closed her eyes, trying to find her own ability to build a wall to reality. She lost herself in the recent memory of reading to her brother, the hero’s search for the damsel’s kidnappers. She had found a Night Wraith. Where’s my Axl?
The weight of her mom’s boyfriend suddenly disappeared.
“You shall not harm this maiden!” she heard.
Cal opened her eyes, stared in disbelief, then closed them tightly. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind, then opened her eyes. He was still there.
“And just what do you think you’re going to do with that?” her mom’s boyfriend asked, too drunk or too stupid to fear this steroid-pumped version of her brother, this dagger-wielding hero.
“I am Axl of Broad Marche, and you are dead if you do not flee.”
Cal watched in disbelief as her mom’s boyfriend laughed, lurched to his feet, and staggered toward her rescuer. In one fluid move, Axl of Broad Marche sliced open the man’s cheek. Her mom’s boyfriend yelped and brought his hand to his face, screaming, “You bastard!”
“This is your last warning, knave. Leave this home.”
“I’ll teach you!” her mom’s boyfriend yelled, then lunged toward the hero.
Cal had never seen an arm move so quickly as Axl used his dagger to slice her attacker from groin to throat, spilling blood all over the trailer floor.
She covered her eyes and screamed until she ran out of breath; then she screamed again.
Many minutes passed. Sobbing from deep within her chest, she opened her eyes. Drako lay curled in the floor, lost in the sleep of the oblivious, just out of reach of the gory pool of human blood.
She crawled to her brother and gently shook him by the shoulder. Drako opened his eyes, then smiled warmly at her. “Hi, Cal.”
“Are you okay?” she asked through her sobs.
“Why, did I blink out again? And why are you crying?”
She hugged him close, wanting to protect him from the nightmare behind him. She had protected him all his life, and, she decided, she would continue to protect him.
She clutched his shoulders, looked him in the eyes, and said, “Pack a few things and grab all the money you’ve hidden from Mom. I’ll do the same.”
“Why, Cal? What’s wrong?”
She could only release his shoulders and point.
Drako turned, then scrambled backwards, screaming until his sister again held him tightly. “W-what happened?” he finally managed to ask.
Cal swallowed her welling emotion, then said, “He tried again. Before I knew what I was doing, I grabbed a knife and killed him.”
Drako turned and held his crying sister close. “It’ll be okay, Cal,” he said, rubbing her back. “The police will understand, even if Mom won’t.”
“But they’ll arrest me, and I’ll be in jail,” Cal sobbed. “Who will take care of you? Mom? They’ll put you in a home. I’m sorry, Drako. I’m so sorry.”
“You’re right. We have to run. I have almost three-hundred dollars.”
Within minutes, they stood at the open front door, determined to escape their nightmare existence. Suddenly, Cal stopped, then ran to the thread-bare couch and grabbed The Honor of Axl.
* END *
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