Blaze (The High-Born Epic) (17 page)

             
“I swear I won’t say anything,” Harold whispered as he dropped another seed.

             
“He was out playin’ in the woods one day and he stepped in a hole.  And he found this really old staircase,” Cooper said.

             
“Are you serious, Coop?” Harold asked as he stood up and put his hands on his hips.

             
“Uh, huh,” Cooper nodded with wide eyes.

             
“Y’all haven’t told anybody, have you?” Harold asked.

             
“Nahh, uhh,” Cooper shook his head.  “We know better than that.  ‘Cause if the High-Born saw this place, we could get in trouble.”

             
“You’re gonna’ have to show me this secret base,” Harold said as he dropped a seed.

             
“Okay,” Cooper said.  “We always hide it real good before we leave.  We pull a piece of wood over it, and cover it up with leaves.  But, that ain’t all, Harold.  Scott’s got books there too.”

             
“Really?” Harold asked.  “What kind of books does he have?”

             
Cooper looked around secretively, “There are some books with no pictures and then there are some picture books, but they have writing in them too.  I don’t look much at the books that don’t have pictures.  I think the ones with pictures are called comic books, but anyways, my favorite one is about the Golden Samurai and the Emerald Knight.”

             
“That sounds good,” Harold answered as a seed fell from his hand.  “What’s it about?”

             
“One of them is from a place called Japan and the other one is from somewhere called England,” he said.  “You see, there’s this evil dragon flying around burnin’ up everything.  But he don’t know that the Golden Samurai left Japan and has been huntin’ him down ‘cause he burned up his house and kilt his family.  Anyways, the Golden Samurai finds the Emerald Knight when he finds the dragon in England.  The Emerald Knight’s village has been destroyed, and him and the Golden Samurai team up ‘cause they both can do magic.  But you wanna’ know the best thing?”

             
Harold looked at Cooper’s wide eyes, and said, “What’s that?”

             
“They can both set their swords on fire,” Cooper looked intently at Harold.  “Then, they say that they’re gonna’ fight fire with fire.  They find the dragon and fight him together.”

             
“That sounds like a neat picture book,” Harold said, shaking his head and laughing.  “Reckon I can read it?”

             
“You gotta’ be part of the secret-base club to do that,” Cooper smiled as he covered another seed.

             
“Okay,” Harold said.  “Well, how many people are in this club?”

             
“Well,” Cooper looked around, “Right now, there’s two of us.”

             
“Okay,” Harold smiled.  “Well, how can I get in the club?”

             
“Well,” Cooper looked at Harold seriously.  “Me and Scott will have to vote on it.  So I think you’ll be okay, but they ain’t no girls allowed.  ‘Cause we already decided that Sarah and Ollie can’t be in it.”

             
Harold began laughing and managed to say, “Alrighty, then.”

             
As Harold laughed, he and Cooper dropped several more seeds.  In a few minutes, Cooper suddenly looked up at Harold.

             
“Can you do it, Harold?” Cooper asked.

             
“Do what?” Harold asked as he dropped another seed.

             
“Make some fire?” Cooper replied.

             
Harold snapped his fingers and flames blinked into existence above his fingertips.  He held it there for several seconds and then let it extinguish.  Cooper smiled excitedly.

             
“Are you gonna’ do it, Harold?” Cooper asked as he covered a seed.

             
“Do what?” Harold replied.

             
“Stop the High-Born?” Cooper said.

             
“Cooper,” Harold grimaced.  “There are millions of High-Born, and who knows how many tanks and gunships they have?  And I bet they have other kinds of weapons too.  And we don’t have any.  They made sure of that years ago.”

             
“Everyone told the Golden Samurai and the Emerald Knight that they couldn’t win either,” Cooper said, eyes wide and full of belief.  “And you’re a Knight.  If you can’t do it, nobody else can.”

             
“But there was only one dragon, Coop,” Harold said.  “And there were two of them.”

             
Cooper looked down as he pushed dirt over another seed.  Then, he smiled and looked at Harold, “I think you need to read it.”

             
Harold shot a quick glance at Cooper’s sly grin as he covered another seed. 

             
As they continued planting, the morning became noon and they went inside for lunch.  They ate beans, rice, and cheese biscuits and some canned ham that the High-Born had given them, while they talked about nothing in particular.

             
After lunch was over, Harold and Cooper returned to the field.  They were a good team and Harold pushed a fast pace, and soon they were finished.  They were both thirsty and tired.  After they drank some water, they went in the house, and Harold checked the clock.  It was just after 2:30 and he decided to lie down for a little while before he went to see Sarah.

Chapter 15

              Harold managed to sleep for a little over two hours.  After he used the outhouse, he went to the well and pumped himself some water and bathed himself as best as he could.  He got his bag of shorts and then headed toward town.  He was so excited about seeing Sarah that he barely noticed anyone as he made his way down the road.  When he rounded the corner, he could see her waiting on the porch.  As he walked across the circle full of townsfolk, he saw someone waving out of the corner of his eye.  Passing just beneath the Kristall and Colonel Foxx’s visage was Phil and Maggie.  He returned their wave as he walked to Sarah.

             
“Daddy let me off early today,” she said as he walked up.

             
“Good, let’s go,” he said as he reached for her hand.

             
She grabbed it and then they walked down road number nine talking until they exited the town and headed for the woods.  Just before they went into the trees, they walked across an open patch of ground.  Sarah let out a squeal as she ran to a rock sticking up out of the dirt.  She picked it up.

             
“Look,” she said.  “It’s an arrowhead.”

             
“It sure is,” he replied as he looked at it.  “That’s a good one, it’s almost perfect.”

             
“Yeah, it’s only missing part of the bottom,” she said as she held it up.  “The point is in really good shape.”

             
Sarah slid it into her pocket as they moved into the forest.

             
“Sarah,” Harold said as he looked at her.  “I’ve been practicing this fire stuff, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but I keep missing something.”

             
“What is it?” she asked.

             
“Well, I don’t know,” he replied.  “That’s what I need your help with.”

             
“How should I know?” she asked.

             
“Well,” he rubbed his chin.  “I reckon that you being a blacksmith and all.  I figure you know something about fire, since you work with it all the time.”

             
Sarah’s eyebrows raised in thoughtful regard.  They walked for another few minutes and came to a secluded spot that seemed safe enough.

             
“Wait right here,” he said and smiled.  “Now don’t be peeking.”

             
She raised her eyebrows as he walked behind a tree.  He stayed out of sight for several moments.  Sarah thought she heard a light pop, and then she noticed movement some distance to her right.  Harold was walking out from behind another tree in a pair of burlap shorts.  Sarah was slightly startled and her eyes nervously flitted up and down Harold.

             
“You look different,” she said, clearly having difficulty focusing on anything but him.  “You’ve always had muscle, but you look a lot stronger.”

             
“I am,” he said.  “I’m stronger than the High-Born.”

             
“How do you know?” she asked.

             
Harold found a tree a little thicker than his arm, and about three times as tall as him, and walked to it.  He put his hands around it and with a quick tug, he uprooted it.  After another pull, all of the clinging roots came loose.  Harold lifted it above his head with only one arm as if it were a small stick.  He grabbed it with his other hand, and whisked it down to his knee where it snapped with a loud pop.

             
Sarah’s eyes got very big.

             
“That wasn’t even hard to do,” he said as he walked to her.

             
She took a step away from him, but then stopped herself.

             
“Sarah,” he said.  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

             
“I know,” she said.  “This is just completely crazy.”

             
“But it’s very neat,” he smiled.

             
After a moment, she smiled too.

             
“Watch this,” he said.

             
He took off running, and began tumbling head over heels and flung himself high into the air, flipping and twisting so many times that Sarah lost count.  He landed with near perfect results.

             
“Ever seen a High-Born do that?” he asked with smile.

             
“I’ve seen them jump before, and they can jump really high.  But I’ve never seen anything like that before,” she said.

             
Harold then took a couple of quick steps and leaped into a tree branch nearly thirty feet high.  He waved at her and then air-burned to stand a few steps in front of her.

             
“That is so awesome,” she smiled.

             
Harold could see in her eyes that she actually meant it, and he saw her fear being replaced with excitement.

             
“What else can you do?” she asked.

             
He stepped back and began twisting and twirling his arms, and fire began popping and crackling in between the palms of his hands.  The fireball began growing as he concentrated.  Then he stepped forward, flinging his hands outward.  A runnel of billowing fire shot out from him, consuming several trees as it continued outward for about fifty or so yards.  Many of the trees were on fire now, and Sarah looked at him in a panic.  But he just smiled, and reached for them.  The individual jets of fire twisted and wound their way back to his palm in a beautiful and intricate pattern.  He held the fire there in the palm of his hand for a moment, then he let it extinguish.

             
It had all happened so quickly that the smoke probably wouldn’t have even been visible to someone in town.

             
“I could’ve made it go a lot farther, but I didn’t want to make a big mess,” he said.  “I’ve made a few messes already.”

             
“It looks to me like you’ve got it figured out,” Sarah couldn’t keep herself from looking at his physique.

             
“Not hardly,” he said.  “I can cover myself with fire, but I always burn my clothes off.”

             
“I’d like to see that,” she said as she regarded him more closely.

             
“Sarah Smithee,” Harold blushed.

             
“The fire all over you is what I meant,” she said with a wry gasp.

             
“I’ve been practicing on a stick,” he said with a wry smile.  “You know, trying to keep it from burning up.”

             
“Show me,” she replied.

             
He found a stick on the ground and picked it up.  The flames sputtered around it.  He held the flames above it as he showed it to her.