Cursed (26 page)

Startled, the queen didn’t have time to react and the green energy ball hit her in the chest. Electricity coursed through her body making her hair stand up much like those static electricity experiments at science centers. The queen’s body jolted with a convulsion and then she collapsed onto the hard tile floor.

Evan ran over to Sasha before admiring his handiwork.

“Not bad,” he said smugly. He lifted the sword that burned like it was on fire. Sasha realized it wasn’t on fire and instead it was just the light reflecting off the red of the steel.

“Where did you get that?” She said in awe. Who was this guy? She liked the new Evan.

“We don’t have time,” he said grabbing her hand.

They ran from the room as if they were being chased.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The hallway was empty when they ran from the queen’s throne room. They crept to the end of the hallway, hiding behind a tapestry hanging on the wall when they heard footsteps. The woven cloth was dusty and depicted an older woman picking red apples from a tree. The image was pleasant and out of place in the queen’s castle.

She took a deep breath and pictured the map Deal drew for her. Since Deal anticipated she’d be brought to the throne room, she was fairly certain where she needed to go. She grabbed Evan’s hand and they jogged down the hallway. They made several turns, her head spun with confusion and she lost her confidence. What way to go right or left?

“Where are we going?” Evan asked pulling her into an alcove that shielded them from view.

“I have a map to the secret room,” she said scanning the hallway for anyone coming their way.

“I’ve been all over this castle,” he said oozing confidence. “There’s no secret room.”

She ignored his pessimism. “There is an ogre statue somewhere.”

“What’s an ogre?”

She shrugged. “Something big and ugly,” she said. “I think it’s 400 pounds.”

“How do you know this?”

“A little bird-thing visited me in the dungeon,” she said and told Evan about Deal’s visit.

Evan laughed. At first she thought he didn’t believe her but his grin wasn’t mocking.

“I met the same guy. He’s a Horum,” Evan said, his eyes twinkling.

“What’s a Horum?”

Evan shrugged. “A race of really small people?”

“I think that insults small people. Microscopic is more like it.”

Evan nodded, throwing up his hands. “Really, really tiny people.”

“How did you meet him? How do you know it’s a he?”

He grabbed her hand and they dashed down the hall. The small electric lights along the walls were small and dim. She wanted to ask him where they were going when he pulled her into a tiny room. It was dark, the only light coming from under the door.

“We needed a place to talk,” he said. “I’ve hidden in here before.”

She ran her hand over the bruise on his face.

“I’m so glad you’re alright, I was so afraid,” she said. Evan picked up her hand and kissed the underside of her wrist. She loved it when he did that. Her pulse raced with the feel of his lips.

“I’m fine,” he said.

She shook her head at his relaxed attitude.

“Nothing can happen to you Evan,” she said her voice getting tense. “You aren’t supposed to be here. If anything happens to you, it will be my fault. I don’t think I could forgive myself. I keep putting you in danger. No more risks Evan, please.”

Evan leaned over and softly kissed her lips. She wanted more but pulled back.

“We’ll talk about that when we get back home.”

She frowned. They didn’t have time to argue and she needed his help to find the talisman.

Evan recounted his story of meeting Deal. He was hiding in a storage closet. He could hear guards running up and down the halls searching for him. They were shouting out a description of him. He found a pile of wooden stakes. For a minute he wondered if the stakes were carved to kill vampires.

“Are there vampires in this world?” He asked Sasha.

“No idea but don’t rule it out,” she said.

He nodded and continued. He was peering out the door, trying to find a moment to get out when Deal appeared in the dark.

“He’s quite spectacular, growing from a speck of light to the size of my finger. I was impressed,” he said.

“Ok, ok, you can ask him how he engineered it later. Did he say he was a he?”

Evan paused and closed his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe I just assumed. He looked like a he didn’t he?”

She shrugged.

He shook his head and continued. Deal told him he needed to get this special sword for an upcoming battle. It was in a special room where the queen stores magical objects.

“You know,” he said scratching his head. “I didn’t really ask Deal a lot of questions. I assumed I needed the sword to fight the queen. Do you think that’s why he wanted me to have it?”

Sasha gaped for a moment. He didn’t know about the ogre. Deal didn’t tell Sasha how to fight the ogre or even how to wake it up. He just said she had to get past the creature, and in order to do that she had to kill it. She felt really uncomfortable. Did this mean Deal expected Evan to fight the ogre? She had assumed she had to do it.

“Uh,” she stammered. “Didn’t Deal tell you about the ogre?”

He gawked at her with a blank look on his face.

“Again ogre?”

She swallowed nervously. “Finish your story first,” she said.

Deal told him about a stash of magical objects but it was protected by spells. It was in a tower and only accessible through this one door. The room had no windows. He snuck into the room and Deal took down the magical wards without a problem.

“The sword was in his cherry wood case. Deal never said why he wanted me to have that exact sword. There were others around along with really strange looking things. I wish you could have seen them.”

She smiled. She wished she could have seen them too.

“Tell me later,” she said. “Did Deal tell you what the sword was for?”

He shook his head negative. Deal disappeared after he took the sword out of the box. He was leaving the room when a guard came in.

“I had to fight him Sash or I would have ended up in the dungeons like you,” he said softly. Sasha rubbed his arm sympathetically.

“It’s ok. You had to do what you had to do.”

The room they were in was dim so she couldn’t see if Evan’s eyes were filled with tears. His voice broke as he described the fight which answered her question.

“I was just trying to knock him out,” he said. “He was a little guy. More like your height. I knocked off his helmet thinking he’d go out but he kept fighting.”

Evan stopped for a minute. Sasha sat waiting for him to finish his story.

“I realized he wasn’t going to stop fighting. I had to end it.”

Evan slipped his hand over hers and squeezed it lightly.

“When he fell on his back, I stabbed him with the sword.”

Evan’s head drooped and he wiped away tears with his free hand.

“I didn’t want to do it,” he said. “He didn’t leave me a choice.”

“I understand. It was your survival or his Evan,” she said almost in a whisper. “Don’t feel bad. He would have killed you if he could.”

He nodded. “I know. It still doesn’t feel right.”

Sasha felt some anger burn in her belly. “We shouldn’t have been put in this situation Evan.”

Evan slipped his arms around her. They sat hugging each other for a minute. His arms were warm around her. After the drama of the last few days, she felt secure in his embrace. She didn’t want to leave his arms. She pulled away dreading the task ahead. She ran her hands through her hair. How does she tell him about the ogre? He was already tortured about having killed a guard earlier today. Could he kill again?

“Anyway I’ve been roaming around the castle since. Hardly anyone noticed me. I kept the sword in a satchel. I heard your voice while scoping out the hallway behind the ballroom. I think it was just luck that I found you.”

She gave him a moment. “I need your sword.”

Evan pulled away. “Why?”

She opened the door to the storage room slowly and peered out. Nobody was there.

“I have to kill an ogre.”

“How?”

“I have no idea but that’s what Deal told me I had to do to get at the secret room. It’s somewhere near the ogre.”

“I think I know where it is.”

“You do?”

“Does it look like a fat, ugly Buddha?”

“Maybe.”

Does the ogre resemble a Buddha? She didn’t know but it was worth finding out.

“Take me to it,” She said slipping her hand in his. They eased out of the storage room. The hallways were dimly lit with artifacts hanging on walls. There was a beautiful stained glass window at the end of one hallway backlit with small lights. The image showed wolves in a forest following a woman with long black hair. Her face was hidden but Sasha had a feeling it was a portrait of the queen in her younger days. The woman seemed innocent, unaware of the danger following her. Was the queen ever innocent? It seemed hard to believe.

They came upon the ogre unexpectedly. The stone statue was set back from the wall in a deep recess. It wasn’t visible from the hallway until they came upon it. It was as tall as the eight-foot hallway and five-feet wide. The head was round with pointed ears and bulging eyes. The legs were as wide as tree trunks. While Deal said it was 400 pounds, it was hard to tell its weight. It was big and bulky. It was also stone. How was she going to kill a stone statue?

The ogre was an inanimate object. It wasn’t alive so there wasn’t anything to kill. She analyzed around the statue, inspecting it from chest to toe. Even on tippy toe she couldn’t feel above its shoulder.

“I don’t get it,” she said after studying it. “I don’t know how to kill stone.”

“You think it’s a trick?”

“I don’t know why Deal would fool us. He seemed quite humorless.”

“We don’t know anything about Horums.”

“True, but I don’t think that’s it.”

Evan, being taller, ran his hands along the statue’s shoulders and back.

“I think I found something,” he said. “There’s a lever on the back of his neck,”

“Don’t do anything,” she hissed panicked. She wasn’t ready to fight the ogre yet. “Give me the sword.”

Evan ignored her. He flipped the switch, jumped off the ogre and pushed her down the hall. She fell to the ground hitting her head on the stone wall. Her vision blurred. She saw Evan withdraw the sword from its bag and stand ready.

Nothing happened at first. Then the ogre shimmered and shape shifted. The skin went from stone to grey flesh. Sasha yelped when the statue’s eyes popped open revealing grey eyes. The ogre grunted and twitched as if coming awake from a long sleep.

It was then when Sasha realized the ogre wasn’t a statue. It was an ogre frozen as a statue maybe as a punishment or pay back for misbehavior. For a second she felt pity for the creature clutching a spiked club.

The ogre lumbered slowly to his feet.

“What do I do?” Evan said.

“Deal said I had to kill him,” she said analyzing the ogre’s body for weaknesses. “My guess is a beheading.”

Evan darted around the ogre, stabbing it frequently. The sword seemed to go in easily and came out covered in black blood. The fluid dripped on the ground and burnt holes like acid in the wood floors.

The ogre growled each time he was stabbed and swung his club in Evan’s direction. He was slow moving and Evan was able to jump out of the way. Despite all the wounds, the Ogre didn’t slow or seem affected.

Evan stabbed the ogre in the ribs, bent low and barely rolled out of the way as the Ogre raised the club, almost snagging Evan with a stud. He spun out of the way, seemed to twist his ankle and went down hard. Sasha heard his sword clang and hit the wall as it slid away.

She had to help Evan. She wasn’t going to let him get hurt because of her. She leaped on the ogre’s back, clutched its ears and twisted. The ogre turned away from Evan and swung around hard as if it could get her to fly off its back with momentum. It roared in irritation. Sasha squeezed her knees, digging them into the ogre’s sides. She yanked the ear trying to tear it off. She’d probably be able to bite one off but that was so unappealing. She’d do it if she had no choice. She was hoping to create enough of a distraction to let Evan get his sword back and into a better position.

She knew she was in trouble when the ogre swung his club over his head and Sasha felt a stud sink into her back.

“Ahh,” she yelled out in pain. The ogre pulled his club free and made to swing it again when Evan stabbed it in the chest. It went in up to the hilt. Evan twisted it and angled it up then pulled it out.

That stopped the ogre for a second. It paused as if it were adjusting for the pain or injury. Sasha shuddered and slid off its back. When she hit the floor she rolled toward a wall. The Ogre roared in irritation and swung its club with more quickness and force.