The following extracts are from Book 4 Chilmea’s Sword to whet your appetite for the rest of the series. The book has been published on Kindle for some time and is now available in print from Amazon.
Chilmea’s Sword
Earth Life
Chari gazed out of her bedroom window up into the night sky. Soft moonlight kissed her silvered curls and illuminated her troubled face. She sighed. What was it Justin had called the heavens? Then she remembered: “The Unencompassed Vaults of Being” was how he had described the universe to her, where unimaginable worlds existed, totally alien yet so familiar. Such was his world of Legendia. Somewhere out there, amongst the billions of stars-it existed. He existed. But both he and his world seemed so remote and their adventures together were like a distant mirage, flickering and shimmering in the past.
Chari had been home now for almost as long as she was away in Legendia and her Earth past had nearly caught up with Legendia’s present.
What was Justin doing now, she wondered? She was utterly miserable, but at least she had her family and friends around to help her. Justin had no-one. How would he cope? Who would help him?
Her thoughts floated back and forth. She, her younger sister Fi, Justin and a great golden wolf known as Ismowd, had become mysteriously involved in a quest across Thym, a magical isle on the distant world of Legendia. Their task had been to restore the kidnapped eight year old, Princess Gloria, to her mother Queen Superbia of Fayerling. Things had gone disasterously wrong.
They had overcome terrifying perils and battled overwhelming evil, only to fall victim to Superbia’s cunning. Tricked into drinking poison, Chari’s last memory of Legendia had been Justin’s anquished face peering down at her as she lay in his arms. Then… nothing until they were reunited briefly by the mighty Gelan Lord, Chilmea, in the Hall of the Heavens, before being torn from away from each other as her life span in that distant world ran out. She had promised to return some day. But how? When? And what possible meaning could her life have until then? She sniffed.
“Chari, Chari- Are you still up?” Fi’s voice penetrated the dark. “Guess what? I’ve got an idea!” Fi tumbled into the room and switched on the light. She was dressed in tiger striped pyjamas and clutching a large, pink flowered bag.
Chari frowned. “Where did you get that? It doesn’t belong to you!” she muttered. “It’s mine,” she added, petulantly. “Whatever!” replied her sister with a shrug, “Once I’ve told you my master plan, it won’t matter.” She paused and beamed at Chari. “What we need to do is to fill the bag with stuff to give to Justin when we see him again. It’ll be great. And I bet you won’t be so impossible once you start finding bits for him. It’ll be awesome, besides giving you something to do instead of feeling sorry for yourself and making everyone else in the house gloomy.” Before Chari could reply, Fi said cheekily, “I’ve started with these.” She held up a strong comb and a toothbrush. “For Justin’s seriously uncool curls and his even more seriously scary film star teeth!” she announced. Chari giggled. It was the first time she had laughed since their return home. A moment later, Fi held up a much greater treasure, a sketch of Ismowd which she had spent some time perfecting. Both girls stared at the picture in silence as they remembered the many times the wolf had helped them during their adventures.
“What if we never see Justin… or Ismowd again?” whispered Chari.
“No worries! We definitely will see them again!” replied Fi emphatically. Dropping the treasures she gave her sister a big hug. “After all, it would be totally pits if they had any more adventures without us. Besides… you need to get real, Chari; even with Ismowd to look after him, Justin will still need help very, very soon. So, I’m absolutely positive that’s where we will come in. All we have to do is to wait for the action to get mega incredible again and then be ready for…anything! It’s going to be epic!”
Justin’s shoulders shook as sobs racked his frame. Everything he had done over the past few weeks was wasted. He was alone. He’d always been alone, only this time there was no reason to carry on. Chari had gone and no-one else would care whether he lived or died.
For several moments he looked at the sword and ancient measuring scales lying in front of him. Then he hauled himself up, snatched up the scales and flung them ferociously across the empty void where only five minutes before the magnificent Hall of the Heavens had stood. They vanished into the emptiness. As far as he was concerned anyone who found the scales was welcome to them. If they wanted to deal out justice, good luck to them. He no longer cared what happened to anyone. He glared down at the sword. The letters on the hilt and the message on the floor had faded now, just like his dreams, he thought bitterly.
What had the Great Dragon Nolies said, “Fear despair more than anything!” He had been right.
Justin brushed a stray tear away and a strange smile flickered across his lips. What would the dragons or even the Mighty Gelan, Chilmea, make of his next action he wondered. He bent and grasped the sword hilt firmly. His eyes travelled along the deadly silver blade. No sword made by any creature on any world was sharper than the one he held. It would do its next task more effectively than anything else. He knelt down and turned the sword point towards his stomach.
“Forgive me Chari, but I don’t believe you will ever be able to come back and, without you, I don’t have a reason to live.” He shut his eyes and prepared to push the blade home. “I will always love you, Chari,” he whispered.
Inferno
Everything calmed down for a few minutes. Then, whether it was the boring drone below, the stuffiness, or something else; he couldn’t be sure; Justin began to feel really sick and giddy. He wondered what would happen if he fainted. Probably nothing he thought in a detached manner. Someone could die in the gallery and no-one would know. There wasn’t even room to fall down. He was wrong! Seconds later the whole balcony was lit by a blazing white light followed almost instantaneously by the sound of splintering; a searing knife-like pain in his right arm and then a thunderous crash as if the world was ending! Everything seemed to tip upside down!
He couldn’t see anything but a muggy, white haze and he was hearing things as if he was under water. Distantly, he distinguished the muffled sound of someone shouting, “The window!” He knew he’d been hit by something, yet didn’t understand what. Suddenly he was slipping and sliding. At that moment he found he could see again, though black rings danced before his gaze and it took him a few seconds to interpret what he was seeing amid the billowing, choking dust and debris. He coughed and spluttered. Everywhere there were writhing bodies covered in blood and shattered glass. He couldn’t think; everything was at such weird angles. He had to get out. He clambered over something that had once been human and was now a mass of bloody pulp; it made him gag. He had lost a shoe. He kicked off the other one. He didn’t need it. His disordered vision was clearing, yet what he was seeing still didn’t make any sense. His breath came in gasps and he still couldn’t hear properly, but he could smell something. Smoke!
Then he felt something, more than stuffiness. Heat! Flames! He looked down to his left. Where the cushion covered seats he and his father had been meant to occupy – there was nothing. He crawled a little further and drew back. Before him was a vast hole. Far beneath it he had glimpsed flames breaching the settling debris. He could feel the warmth and hear the crackling and spitting of fire. Smoke plumes were drifting inexorably upwards. He scrambled back, coughing. There was a sickening creak; a crunching, juddering cracking and then an ear splitting splintering as his hearing returned. Pain ricocheted down from his ears to his throat. The bodies of the dead and injured in front of him slipped forward towards the abyss below as the remains of the balcony heaved and lurched downwards. Screams and moans were being obliterated by the noise of splitting woodwork and falling beams.
Justin slid forward. Somehow he managed to grab at a piece of balcony rail still precariously attached to the gallery and came to a juddering halt. Someone tried to grab his arm then could not hold on and slithered over the edge. Glancing down, he glimpsed the carnage below. A seething mass of injured were trying to fight their way over jagged pieces of balcony, shattered glass, furniture and bodies, trying to escape the smoke and flames that were gaining a hold of the ground floor.
Justin hung on, desperately trying to regain a foothold on the balcony above as the smoke filled his lungs. He was choking, his brain was reeling and his arms were aching from holding on to the rail. He was sure his right arm was bleeding and the heat from beneath was intensifying. He couldn’t hold on for much longer!
The Day of The Dragons
Justin drove Luminess downwards and as the dragoness plummeted earthwards, a jet of acrid smoke and blue flame devoured a group of goblies below. In seconds the air was a streaming mass of lightning shafts of flame as the dragons launched themselves into the battle below, targeting the enemy with deadly precision. Billowing, scalding steam and searing flame enveloped goblie after goblie and centaur after centaur as the vanguard swooped in. To either side Flamentia and Scimitara skimmed the skies with their cohorts, picking off the fleeing enemy like kingfishers skewering their prey. Vecengean, spying his brother in difficulty plunged downwards towards the sea of gigantic snakes and worms, a shaft of lightning bright fire incinerating a row of heaving worms in searing heat, as he plummeted earthwards.
Elsewhere, Chari scoured the skies looking for Fi and the griffins dived in and out of the melee plucking Thomas’ remaining soldiers from the mouths of the burning snakes. Centaurs evaporated before the blasts of dragon fire. Justin, searching the smoke for his father, spied him surrounded by dead and dying centaurs desperately trying to parry a blow from Coldheart’s axe. It crashed down upon the prince’s sword shattering into a dozen shards of steel.
Luminess stooped. Her wings folded back; she fell through the air like a gigantic silver dart. Coldheart raised his axe again. Luminess braked, thrust her wings open and skimmed the air above the centaur’s head. Justin’s sword sliced through the air and Coldheart’s head bounced over Thomas’ shoulder. The centaur’s body toppled to the earth. Seconds later, Thomas was plucked from the debris by his old friend Clawgold and swept away to relative safety. Securitas, too, had reason to be grateful to a griffin, as Blackheart felled two centaurs to rescue the duke from almost certain death.