Joshua and the Lightning Road (23 page)

“You got him killed,” I whispered as exhaustion filled my empty insides. Leandro didn’t answer, but for a brief second his hand touched my shoulder. Then he snapped his reins to attention and dug his boots into the horse. Hooves beat into my head as the gray world of the Lost Realm threatened to lose me forever.

Leandro was a traitor.

My friends may not have made it out alive.

The lightning orb was gone.

Bo Chez was really dead.

My awful words to my grandfather stung my thoughts.
You let my mother die.

I watched the ground fly by as we headed to the gate that would steal me away to yet another land. Then a silver speck caught my eye. It shone from the top of Leandro’s boots. A hidden knife tucked inside.

And then Bo Chez’s words came to me.
You must use the talents you were born with for all the good, no matter the cost.

My friends might still need me. I couldn’t abandon them.

I tried to lean down, but Leandro gripped me tighter.

“Just let me rest,” I said. He hesitated, then freed me to lie on the back of the horse as we bounced up and down. Its wet mane chilled my cheek. My right arm hung down and my fingers grazed the top of Leandro’s boot. We jerked left, avoiding a boulder in the path. Up we flew. Down we came, and in that second I gripped the knife’s handle and pulled it out. It fit in my palm, tiny and deadly, and my only weapon now that the orb had a new owner. My heart thumped in rhythm with the horse hooves.

Two questions loomed. Who would I use it on, and could I?

We reached the meadow. I sat up, tightening my fist around the tiny dagger. Its sharp edge cut painfully into my palm.

Hekate’s army galloped along single file. She led the way, her green robe soaring in and out of the fog like an evil magic carpet, and her brother rode just behind her, his fat body obscuring most of the view. Our horse leapt forward, its feet not seeming to touch the ground, and I held on to the saddle horn in terror as my hidden knife slit my skin.
Don’t cry out!

Then Hekate whipped her horse in a furious frenzy. “Get them! They can’t get through!”

The Child Collector’s horse turned left, freeing our view. A meadow opened up before us, and a tall structure unlike anything I’d ever seen before rose from the ground through the blowing mist. The army barreled toward it, leaving me and Leandro behind.

The Lightning Gate.

And at the foot of it, my friends were fighting for their lives.

The massive portal engulfed an area almost as wide as the field and gleamed like a bronze coin, tarnished green in spots. It stood on round stone blocks, an awesome giant with the power to take me home. Its two standing columns were like the Greek Coliseum, and the column linked between them overhead appeared twice as thick around. Strange symbols and animals were etched in its metal like the ones from the cave: curly cues, scrolls, horned animals, monsters, figures with arms outstretched. They seemed to move along the columns as if trapped in a machine they couldn’t leave, and the smell of scorched metal blew off the gate.

Across the top column in giant letters marched the words:
Honor
the fire of Zeus that sparks your journey. Adversity breeds true power. Bow to the gods!

This Lightning Gate had stood here for thousands of years, created from old magic. It held technology that didn’t belong on this world. Its golden doorway pulsed with ancient power that had transported mortals and gods for centuries. It had stolen me away on a ribbon of cold fire and was the most amazing and beautiful thing I’d ever seen, but it didn’t belong here. It belonged in a museum where it couldn’t steal people.

Leandro rode off to the right, away from Hekate’s army, and headed toward the woods.

I sat up straighter. “Where are you going?”

Light flashed at the gate, and it looked like the gate itself shot bolts of lightning. Soldiers on foot fired at a mass of kids under the giant structure. A tall boy blasted back with a vape. Charlie! And there stood King Apollo. And Sam herded the kids to safety behind the columns on either side. Could Finn be one of them?

We had come so far. Bo Chez was dead, but Hekate couldn’t win. It wasn’t fair.

I grabbed the reins, trying to lead the horse back to the battle but Leandro jerked them back. “My friends!”

“I’m trying to save them,” Leandro said as he took us deeper into the woods.

“Where are you going?” I yelled. “Go back!”

Behind us the trees closed in, and the meadow and Lightning Gate vanished.

Leandro pulled us to a stop and leapt off the horse, holding onto the reins with one hand. Behind a boulder he lifted up his satchel and bow and arrows. He threw his satchel across his shoulder, swung his bow onto his back, and stuffed his arrows into his leg holder.

“You’re a liar!” He would kill my friends and had to be stopped.

The horse snorted and jigged, and I tried to grab the reins again, punching the air at Leandro with his own knife, but he wouldn’t let go. I kicked the horse hard. It shook its head and with a great roar sped off back to the meadow with me hanging on for my life. I had to finish this mission—even though the sorrow of losing Bo Chez weighed me down. Clutching the horse’s mane, terror raced through my very veins as we streaked toward the gate. Leandro dragged along the ground beside me.

“Let go!” I kicked at him with my right foot, but he held on to the reins, shouting at me to stop.

We broke through the woods. I strained my eyes through the thickening mist to find Hekate’s green robe. She had reached the Lightning Gate and raced back and forth, shooting with deadly fingers, her blue sparks flying against the glimmering bronze gate. In the midst of new events, it seemed she had forgotten about me and Leandro.

The Child Collector trotted off to the side, giving orders. The two dozen remaining soldiers formed a battlefront and, like a row of cannons, fired their vapes down the line. But the gate fired back. Arrows of light exploded from its metal, and soldiers fell, one by one.

Lather foamed at my horse’s mouth, spattering on me as we raced toward the bloodshed. I focused on that green robe and headed for it. Leandro tried to hoist himself up on the horse, but I gave him another good kick and he fell back to the ground with a loud groan. Mud spit up from dragging him along.

“By the gods, boy, stop!” Leandro pleaded with me.

But I couldn’t stop.

Closer. Closer.

Hekate’s robe flew behind her, a flag I was determined to take down.

Leandro still clung to my horse as we raced toward the witch. Hekate toggled her head around, her mouth a surprised ‘O’ at seeing us. She yelled something to her men, bent over her horse, and cantered our way.

I faced her head on. Her fingers fired at me. I tugged my horse’s reins to the left, then the right, the muscles in my arms screaming for relief. Leandro kept yelling at me to stop the horse, and then he was gone, rolling away behind me.

Closer
.
Closer.

She smiled at me, those blue teeth shining through malicious red lips and her bruise dark upon her face, marring her beauty that I’d so feared.

Hate drove me on.

I bashed into her, grabbed her robe, and we fell together.

Hooves threatened to trample me.

I slammed on top of her—a moment of doubt coursed through me—and shoved the knife deep within her flesh. She shrieked, her rose stench overpowering, and I pulled the dagger out.
No blood!
She grabbed my hand. Her icy fingers shocked me into loosening my hand on the dagger, and she tore it away, thrusting it in my face. “It will be fun to kill you like this, boy.”

I knocked it out of her hands before she got the chance, and two arrows struck her shoulder. She fell backward, clutching at the arrows, and convulsed on the ground. With that opportunity, I scrambled through her robe pockets, ripping the gold-threaded quilt, and pulled out the lightning orb. Then her hand clenched my wrist.

“Let go!” As I struggled against her, my pencil poked into my leg. I ripped it out with my free hand and stabbed her in the chest with all my force
. Draw that!

She flopped on the ground, aiming a shaky finger at me. It crackled with blue sparks.

I jerked left, just missing her lightning bullets, and drew back the orb. “Your turn to die!”

But Leandro snatched me up onto his horse, swinging himself up behind me. He grabbed the reins of Hekate’s horse, towing it behind us, and we flew toward the army that abandoned their fight at the Lightning Gate and now charged us.

I beat at Leandro with my fists, and headed toward my death.

“Get down.” Leandro pushed me down hard onto the horse’s back.

I finally gave in and held on tight. He drew back his bow and shot at the oncoming army. Arrows spun out in a blur. Men fell. Again and again.

“What are you doing?” I tried to sit up, but he shoved me down again.

“Trying to not get us killed.”

What?

Before I could argue, he said, “Use the lightning orb!”

I couldn’t argue with that.

We rocketed toward the soldiers, firing on them.

The roar of the fight pounded in my ears: the cries of men struck by the gate’s power, the screams of horses slamming into the ground, the blasts of lightning exploding like fireworks in the smoldering air.

Charlie and Sam stood under the Lightning Gate, gunning their vapes at the two soldiers that remained behind. The cries of scared kids huddling behind the gate filled the air. King Apollo stood off to the side, his hands moving back and forth on a panel. Was he manning the Lightning Gate’s guns? Then the gate unleashed more storm power. White light blasted from its bronze columns and struck the two soldiers. They fell off their horses and didn’t get up.

A glance behind revealed Hekate shoving a soldier off his horse to hoist herself up on it. She slumped over the saddle horn, then joined her army and her brother. The enemy circled around us from the rear as we neared the gate. They were closing us in!

We galloped between the dead, their faces of agony stuck in their final moments. The scent of blood and mud and sweat rose from the fresh graveyard, and there was no escaping it. Hekate’s horse ran fast beside us, leaping over bodies. Charlie and Sam jumped up and down under the gate, and the group of kids screamed. Finn’s face popped up, then vanished behind the sea of kids.

Leandro whirled around and fired his bow. One. Two. Three. More soldiers disappeared behind us.

The Lightning Gate rose up fast. Leandro steered our horse left and we dashed alongside the massive metal sculpture. Sam grabbed Charlie and they ducked behind the gate as we passed it. Our eyes met briefly, and my heart clenched like a fist. My shoulders tightened and my lungs burned, ready to give up.
Not yet!

Soldiers came at us, but their horses reared up when the gate fired at them, tossing the men in the air. Lightning cracked like a whip to their chests, and they crashed onto the ground. Only a few stumbled up. Leandro aimed his vape at them and they snatched up their vapes. Too late.
Zap. Zap. Zap.
They were gone, too. Their horses trotted about and then stood still, as if waiting for their owners.

The trees swayed in and out with deep angry breaths, and then a great creaking of wood screeched around us. Our horse bolted up in terror as giant tree limbs that had grown down and burrowed in the ground came to life and ripped themselves from the earth. They swung in the air like great elephant trunks and reached up—as if the dead spell on them fell away—and tore their pointed branches off with gnarled root fingers. The tree army shot their weapons at Hekate and her men, the jagged daggers hitting their mark again and again as the soldiers dropped on the field, leaving their horses to run off.

But Hekate and her few remaining men kept coming, out of the way of the tree soldiers. The weapons of the woods fell short and tree arms, once buried in the ground, froze in the air.

And then a figure on a horse punched through the mist.

He launched through the air, a hero of giant proportions.

Bo Chez!

I’ll always come for you
, he’d said.

He tore through the fog, speeding up from behind our enemy. And hope shot through me as if I had been pierced by Leandro’s arrow.

Hekate saw him and yelled to her men, the ten or so soldiers left to fight. They turned in an arc, heading right for Bo Chez.

Leandro reined his horse in. “Quick,” he said to me. “Get off and into the gate.”

“No!”

“It’s not your day to die a hero.” And he left me no choice as he dumped me on the ground.

“Your Majesty.” Leandro held out the reins of the other horse to him, and the king mounted it in one swoop.

“Take these.” Sam ran over and handed his and Charlie’s vapes to them. They grabbed them and, together, cantered off after Hekate.

“Send the kids home,” Leandro yelled back at me. “You too.”

“Not without Bo Chez!” My words faded away as horses stampeded the meadow.

Leandro circled around to join Bo Chez, and Hekate and her men raced after him, away from us.

I ran to my friends. Fear filled Finn’s face, his freckles jumping up and down as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

“Did the other kids get through?” I said.

Sam nodded weakly, and his pinched face told me how much older and tired he’d become. By now the Moria plant’s magic had to be wearing off, and Leandro didn’t have any more leaves. Sam’s time was running out. So was all of ours.

“Hurry!” Sam directed the remaining kids under the gate. I pressed my fingers to the column next to him, wanting to soak up its legendary power as it hummed with electricity. Its carvings flowed in and out of one another as if they were gathering up the gate’s energy to zap everyone home. Time to use it for good instead of evil. The kids looked at me with wide eyes, scared and hopeful all at once.

“We’re almost at max capacity,” Sam said, peering at the Lightning Gate key he’d pushed into the gate like a puzzle piece. He studied the scroll and pressed a series of jeweled squares on the golden box that lit up and flashed. “There’s room for only two more on this trip.”