Aurelius and I (17 page)

As we emerged from behind the rock though, I saw something which served to change my mind. There, on the waterfront, talking to Blackheart as though they were old friends, stood Aurelius.

“I don’t believe it!” I said finally, having stood open-mouthed for several moments.

“I told you,” Grahndel said smugly. “Although, I don’t understand why you find it so shocking, I mean, everything else I’ve told you has been true, why is it so difficult for you to believe that Aurelius is a traitor?”

“I
don’t
believe it!” I repeated firmly. “I won’t believe it! Aurelius is no traitor – you didn’t see the wreck that had been made of his cottage, he’s obviously been kidnapped.”

“Alright, alright keep your voice down will you. Traitor, kidnapped, what’s the difference? Either way you look at it, I told the truth. Now, I think it’s about time we were leaving before we’re the ones who are kidnapped.”

“Leave? Are you joking? We need to get closer so that we can find out what they’re saying.”

“He’s right,” Ophelia agreed. “We need to find out what on earth is going on here.”

“Have you two gone absolutely, fantastically, eat-your-own-eyeballs-and-see-through-your-bumhole crazy? We’ll be eaten alive. I for one, plan to remain breathing at least until the sun rises and so I’m afraid I will be unable to accompany you on...Hey!”

Ignoring Grahndel’s whispered cries, I began to sneak nearer to the caves, taking the cowardly dragnor, who was still contained within my rucksack, along with me. After a couple of minutes of nervous, careful shuffling and several potentially fatal slips on the wet rocks, the three of us crouched in the long grass just yards from where Aurelius and Blackheart were continuing their conversation.

“...The Professor wants this rotten refuge for hopeless embarrassments to the alundri name to be destroyed as soon as possible.” The Gravlier’s voice was deep and threatening.

“Yes, you have already made the good Professor’s desires more than clear to me on several previous occasions, my dear chap. Nevertheless, I am afraid that the ancient law of magic dictates that the immense power of this ‘rotten refuge’ cannot be harnessed until this evening,” replied Aurelius.

“But why?”

“Because, my good friend, as I have already made clear to you on many previous occasions, a full moon is required before the power of the tablet can be unleashed.”

“And you are certain that we will have our full moon tonight?”

“Quite certain, yes. I can assure you that, provided everything goes to plan, as of midnight tonight, Hanselwood Forest will be no more.”

As I listened on I felt a burning in my left wrist. I looked down to discover my grandfather’s watch glowing vibrantly in what I wrongly assumed to be an attempt to warn me of the danger I was in.
No kidding
I thought to myself.

“I told you they were evil,” whispered the dragnor.

“I can’t believe it!” I said. “Destroy the forest! Why would Aurelius do such a thing?”

“You understood that?” Ophelia asked incredulously.

“Well of course I understood that, I mean, I’m not deaf you know, and I do have a pretty adequate grasp of the English language.”

“I’m sure you do, Charles,” said Grahndel, “But they are not speaking in English!”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Of course they were speaking in English. Ophelia’s right, you are a liar.”

“Not this time he isn’t,” the little fairy piped up. “They’re not speaking in English, Charlie, why would they? They’re both highly powerful alundri after all. They’re speaking Mafalo, an ancient snow-goblin language that is a widely accepted means of neutral communication between the higher alundri species.”

“How come you two don’t speak it then? Or perhaps you do, seeing as it resembles English so strongly I was unable to tell the difference.”

“No Charlie, we’ve been speaking in English. Most creatures around here do – it’s the chosen common language for the forest. You see, there are more than seventy-thousand varying alundri languages- far too many for any creature to learn each of, and so, when communicating across different species there have to be certain designated common tongues so that we can all understand what one another. In order that the languages of certain species of alundri are not seen to be given priority, common, neutral languages are picked for the purposes of communication. These languages are either those of extinct magical races, like the snow-goblins, or those of non-magical beings such as humans.

“But if they’re speaking not speaking English, how is I am able to understand what they’re saying?”

“It must be because you’re a protector!” interrupted Grahndel excitedly, and a little too loudly. “I knew you had to have better powers than just the ability to heal!”

“What was that?” said Blackheart, looking in our direction.

“I didn’t hear anything,” said Aurelius.

“Will you please shut up?” hissed the princess. “Do you want them to know we’re here?”

“Sorry,” said Grahndel.

“Perhaps he’s right though?” I pondered. “I mean, we have to do something. We can’t just sit here waiting to die.”

“Are you crazy?” asked the dragnor.

“Your intentions are admirable, Charlie,” said Ophelia. “But I don’t feel that going in gung-ho is the answer, I mean, what are the three of us going to do against so many tundrala of such power? Besides, you heard them, they can’t do anything until tonight, it is better that we return later when we have a plan.”

“
We?
” repeated Grahndel. “
We?
I hope you’re not including me in that
we
. I’m no fool, I want to live. I’ve done my bit, the only plan I need to make is a plan of where to hide.”

“Oh, that’s just like you isn’t it? Running away when things get scary. Didn’t you hear what they said? By tonight the whole forest will be destroyed, there won’t be anywhere left to hide.”

“Nowhere in the forest,” he corrected.

“Oh, and where else are you going to hide, the supermarket? Going to make yourself a nice new cave underneath the oranges?”

“Maybe. At least there I’ll be able to get away from annoying little oversized blue-bottles like you.”

“Guys, do you think you could save this argument until later, it’s just that I can’t help but feel that a key factor in our eventual plan to save the forest will come in the form of surviving the next ten minutes.”

We waited silently until both Aurelius and Blackheart were looking in the other direction before we began to move. We crept slowly back the way we had come and had almost reached a point where we would be able to ascend the riverbank and make our way up into the relative safety of the trees when my thoughts were interrupted by a familiar sound from behind us. It was the sound of barking.

Baskerville!
I thought to myself, and, instantly forgetting all thoughts of escape, I turned around to see my small furry friend sitting on the other side of the river, howling for my attention.

Two of the ugliest creatures I have ever seen in my emerged from the caves at the sound of the little terrier’s bark.

“
Trolls!
” exclaimed Grahndel.

As Aurelius had earlier explained, alundri creatures often refused to sit resident within their pigeon holes, and whilst I am able to assure you from experience that most trolls are amicable, shy, and passive creatures, these two in particular were not. They still didn’t eat goats though.

The two unfortunate looking creatures stood well over six feet tall, and were covered from head to toe in a pale grey/blue skin which was densely populated by puss-engorged purple warts. They had the long, crooked noses of witches and ears that looked like the wings of a bat. Each one carried a spear.

Fortunately for us, none of the assembly of evil that faced young Baskerville across the river had any clue that my four-legged friend was in fact not directing his barking at them, but at the small boy who was secretly observing their actions. Less fortunate for Baskerville, was the fact that Blackheart was decidedly displeased at the attention this little animal was bringing to his clandestine project and sort to silence him in the fastest way possible.

“KILL HIM!” he demanded. The trolls raised their spears in uniform and moved to turn my best friend in the world into an enormous kebab.

“RUN BASKERVILLE!” I screamed instinctively. This proved to be highly effective method of distracting the attention of all of the Professor’s henchman, including the trolls, whose spears veered wildly wide and fell safely short of their target and into the river.

Unfortunately, whilst my distraction had proven a success in lengthening the lifespan of my dog, who had obediently fled into the trees at my command (or, more plausibly, at the sight of two spears heading towards him), it seemed it may have had the unintended consequence of shortening my own.

There was a seemingly endless pause during which the entire forest seemed to fall silent as our less than adequate combined forces of a fairy, a cowardly, gnome-sized demon, and an eight year old boy faced some of the world’s most powerful evil beings across a narrow boundary of wet rocks. It was a silence that was broken by two words uttered from the lips of Captain Blackheart:

‘KILL THEM!’

Until that moment I had never truly appreciated the significance of the phrase ‘run for your life’; I pray, dear reader, that you that you never do. Allow me to assure you that it is a quite terrifying experience, so terrifying as to make any rollercoaster ride or trip to the dentist seem about as scary as running out of strawberry jam and having to settle for marmalade instead (something which I realise will be a more frightening prospect for some of you than for others).

At the sight of two hulking, razor-toothed trolls running toward me with murder in their eyes, I instantly forgot about everything but how to save my own skin. At that moment I didn’t care about the safety of the forest, nor that of Grahndel or Ophelia, or even of Baskerville. All I cared about was myself. I lived for nothing but the moment, my only concern was my next footstep, and I was far from cautious about where even that might land, provided it landed quickly. I ran as fast as I possibly could over any and every type of terrain. I slipped across wet rocks, I stung myself silly running through nettles, tore my clothes to shreds battling through brambles. If I fell, I got up. If I cut myself, I bled. Nothing mattered to me but putting distance between me and the trolls. Unfortunately, despite my merciless single-mindedness, I was abjectly failing in my goal.

Given that the barbaric blue beasts must each have been around seven feet tall, it should not have come as a surprise to me that their footsteps were bigger than my own, and that they would therefore always be liable to gain ground on me over flat terrain. What was surprising though, was their immense dexterity in overcoming any obstacle in their path. Despite their large, heavyset frames, the two trolls were immensely agile and made their way over the soaking wet rocks that formed a path from the riverbank to the forest’s edge with a great deal less slipping and sliding than myself.

Once in the forest, their immense size and athleticism enabled them to leap in a single bound fallen trees which I lost valuable seconds clambering over or navigating my way around, and crush underfoot thick foliage that I had been forced to fight my way through. All these factors combined against me to ensure that what had begun as a substantial lead had quickly dwindled to place me in immediate and mortal danger.

“
They’re gaining on us!
” Grahndel screamed in my ear in what was a decidedly girly voice.

“Yes, thank you for that update, but I had noticed,” I bit back sarcastically through laboured breaths.

“We’re never going to out run them,” Ophelia chimed in.

“Well if you think you could go any faster what are you still doing in my pocket?”

“I wasn’t criticising,” she snapped. “I just meant that perhaps, instead of trying to use our bodies to beat them when they’re at such a clear physical advantage, maybe instead we should play to our strengths and beat them with our minds.”

Irritatingly, the world’s smallest princess was right. Again. While the trolls were fast, they appeared to be far from smart, being unable even to control the production of their own saliva. It would seem then, that outsmarting them may indeed prove to be a better plan than outrunning them. The problem now was that, having wasted so much time and energy in conceding the majority of our sizable head-start, we had left ourselves with a very small window of opportunity in which to concoct a plan, especially given that the blood was pounding around my head at such a pace that I could barely think at all.

I stopped and leaned against a large oak tree in order to give me the chance to gather both my breath and my thoughts.

“Okay then,” I wheezed, “does anybody have any bright ideas?”

My words were met only by silence. And, whilst it could not fairly be described as a long silence, it was a silence that was nevertheless too long given that our potential killers gained frightening amounts of ground on us with each passing second. Then, as the sound of speeding trolls became ever louder, just as I was preparing myself to begin again with my futile efforts to outrun Blackheart’s henchmen, the dragnor broke the silence with three beautiful words of potential salvation;