Guardian: Protectors of Light (13 page)

“
Before you
leave, would you mind helping a lost, old man find his way home?”
an unfamiliar voice suddenly spoke, causing five heads to turn in
the direction wherefrom it’d come.

A man stepped forward,
looking frail and old. He was wearing a long, dark cloak, which
covered most of his body, revealing nothing but his
face.

“
Uh- of
course,” James said, while standing up; he quickly walked over to
the man. “What’s your name, sir?”

The man looked at James.
“Mordred,” he said. “I am lost, and am having trouble getting
around in this forest. Would you youngsters care to help me
out?”

Samira rubbed her chin
and squinted at the old man. “Mordred...” she whispered. “I’ve
heard that name before somewhere.”

Bella looked at her,
pulling her friend’s hand down from her chin. “Stop being so
judgmental of everyone you meet,” she said. “Come on, the guy’s
just an old man! How can a knight’s name-” She stopped
mid-sentence. “Huh.”

Meanwhile, Mordred had
continued his conversation with James. “Tell me, boy,” he said,
“which one of you boys is the strongest?”

James chuckled. “Well,
you could say that Bella is stronger than any of us, but I’d say
Antonio and Thomas come pretty close,” he said, with an honest
smile on his face.

“
Is that so?”
Mordred said, squinting his eyes. “Not you, my son?”

“
Oh,” James
said, and chuckled again. “No. Certainly not. I’m more... mentally
strong, I guess.” He smiled again.

“
You know that being mentally strong is just as
important as being physically strong, right?” Mordred said. “King
Arthur wasn’t necessarily the
strongest
young man
just because he could pull Excalibur out of that stone. It was the
strength of his heart that made him a true king.”

Thomas leaned a little
closer over to Samira. “I don’t like where this is going,” he
whispered, careful not to let Mordred hear what he was
saying.

“
You’re not
the only one,” Samira replied silently. “Certainly not since he
started talking about Arthur...”

“
But tell me,
what can we do to help you?” James said, trying to speed up the
conversation. His friends weren’t the only one getting nervous due
to the way Mordred spoke. There was something about his voice,
which was just so... strangely eerie. As if you were speaking to a
ghost.

“
The matter’s not how you can help me, boy,”
Mordred said, suddenly getting awfully close to James, who
instinctively backed away a bit. “It’s about how I can
help
you
.”

Mordred reached out for
James’s arm with a gloved hand, but James pulled away his arm as
soon as he felt the leather trying to curl itself a way around
it.

“
Come on, boy, don’t be afraid,” Mordred said,
sounding almost threatening. “Let me...
help
you.”

“
Okay, that’s it, creepy man! You’ve overstepped
the line; step away from the boy!” Bella yelled, pulling out her
war sickle. When Mordred refused to move, she growled at him,
“I
said
,
step away
.”

Mordred looked at her; something in his expression changed.
He was grinning at Bella; an evil, mischievous grin. And
then...
he
changed. His bones started to grow
rapidly as his robe fell off, revealing a skeleton body wearing
armour; his “face” had disappeared in the process as well. His
bones grew longer and longer, until there was a skeleton of two and
a half a metre standing in front of them, with eerily glowing
eyes.

The teenagers let out
horrified yells as they watched the scene unfold. “What is THAT!?”
Antonio yelled.

“
Let’s not
take the time to figure out what it is, shall we?” Bella said, and
lunged out at the skeleton-like creature with a loud
cry.

Mordred, however, was
surprisingly agile and easily avoided her attack, causing Bella to
nearly end up getting impaled by her own weapon. She quickly got on
all fours and turned around, ready to attack again.

Meanwhile, the others had
prepared for battle and drawn their weapons; Mordred however,
didn’t seem to be willing to fight.

“
You’re
wasting a great chance,” he said, speaking with a lower, yet still
scarily eerie voice. “If you would’ve joined the Master, you
would’ve been spared all the pain and suffering that awaits you
here. But, with this... ah, action, here...” He took a short moment
to look behind him, where Bella was still standing, breathing
heavily. “... It seems you have sealed your destiny.”

“
Tell your
master we are willing to fight him, and whatever he puts in our
way,” James said confidently. The look in his eyes showed that he
meant it. “We’ll be ready for him.”

Mordred’s eyes narrowed.
“Then so be it, Guardian.

Your arrival will be
notified to the Master. And trust me; he’ll be coming for you. And
you won’t stand a chance against him.”

Thomas glared at Mordred
as he stepped forward. “Let’s see about that.”

Without saying anything
more, Mordred dissolved into thick, black smoke that eventually
disappeared between the trees.

Meanwhile, the sun had
started to set; the Guardians needed some time to process all what
had just happened.

“
Was that...
thing... trying to... transform me, or what?” James said, looking
at his arm as if the hand’s touch had left a mark on it.

“
It appears
so,” Samira said. “Mordred was the name of one of the Knights of
the Round Table. He was the one to ultimately betray King Arthur.
That probably should’ve said enough.”

“
Yeah,
maybe,” Bella said. “Hey, ‘Tonio? You’ve been awfully quiet! What’s
up?”

Antonio had walked a few
metres away from the group, and was staring at a bright, orange
light that was coming from between the trees. The others quickly
joined him; James was the first to realise what was going
on.

“
He set the
forest on fire on his way out,” the teenager gasped, while he could
feel his mouth and throat drying up. “Everyone: grab your stuff and
RUN!”

He didn’t have to tell them twice; they turned around and
started to run as if their lives depended on it – which they
actually
did
. Thomas quickly
grabbed the leather bag he’d left on the forest ground while
running, making sure nothing would fall out of it.

“
Why’d he set
the forest on fire!?” Antonio yelled. “That’s nuts!”

“
He promised
we’d be sorry for trying to attack him,” James replied, while
gasping for air. “I guess that this is what he meant!”

“
The fire
will destroy the forest if we don’t do something about it,” Bella
said, and suddenly stopped running. “We have to stop
this!”

“
BELLA! ARE
YOU NUTS!?” Samira cried and ran back to her friend. She started to
tug on Bella’s arm to get her walking again, but Bella stood firm.
“No,” she said. “James! Use your Magic!”

James, who’d gone after
his sister after he saw her running back, stared uncomprehendingly
at Bella. “What?”

“
GUYS!”
Thomas and Antonio had stopped running too, but only because we’re
hoping to get their friends running again; Thomas had started to
yell at them to get their attention. “THERE’S NO TIME FOR THIS!
COME ON!”

“
Bella!”
James demanded, his eyes flashing between the raging fire ahead,
Bella’s eyes and their two friends yelling their names behind him.
“If you’ve got a plan, explain it now. And quick.”

“
Use your
Magic, James,” Bella said. “You can extinguish the
fire.”

James blinked. “But I
haven’t had any training!”

“
According to
Akilah, you don’t have to,” Bella urged. “Just think with your
heart, James!”

“
How?” James
yelled back; Samira ran towards him, grabbing her brother’s hands.
“Have faith in yourself,” she said. “You can do this. I know you
can.”

James made an insecure
nod. Samira stood beside him, and Bella joined them on James’s
other side.

“
All right,”
James whispered underneath his breath. “Let’s do this.”

Aiming all his
concentration and energy on the fire, James began to order the
flames to stop. To stop moving, to stop burning
everything.

“
Stop,” he
thought. “Stop. I order you to stop.” He saw that the fire didn’t
respond to his demands, and decided to close his eyes to
concentrate harder.

“
Stop,” James
said underneath his breath. He could feel the heat of the fire
tingling on his skin; the fire was spreading fast and coming
awfully close.

James heard worried
sounds coming from Samira, and Thomas and Antonio yelling at them
to run in the distance.

“
Stop,” James
said. “Stop!” He breathed in deeply.

“
I, THE
GUARDIAN OF INNOCENCE, ORDER YOU TO STOP!”

The fire extinguished as
James yelled out the last word. James had opened his eyes, only to
see the fire extinguish barely ten centimetres away; his lips
trilled as he allowed himself to fall to the ash-black forest
ground.

He’d done it.

Hurried footsteps were
coming from behind; Thomas and Antonio were coming back.

“
That was
totally wicked, man!” Antonio shouted. “Whoa, man!”

Samira had knelt beside
her brother, who was now sitting on his knees. “You should be
careful for a while when it comes to using your Magic, James,” she
said. “Your gems have paled out quite a bit.”

She wasn’t wrong; the
strong, blue glow of the three topazes had faded to a faint, baby
blue glow.

Samira and Bella helped
James get up, whose clothes were now covered with ash. It didn’t
seem to bother him that much, however.

“
See, James?”
Bella said. “I knew you could do it. All you had to do was
believe.”

All of a sudden, the
orange sapphire gemstone on her brooch started to glow brightly,
and Bella herself was lifted off the ground a few centimetres. Her
friends watched in awe.

“
Bella
,” Akilah’s
voice echoed from between the trees, without having any locatable
source. “
You showed great
courage and leadership, which lead to James succeeding in
connecting with his magical abilities. For this achievement, you
have earned your Guardian’s Totem: Leadership
.”

As the gem on Bella’s chest started to glow even brighter,
an orb of light was subtracted from its glow, floating right in
front of Bella’s head. When Bella reached out for it, the light
extinguished, revealing a golden coloured compass; the word
Leadership
had been engraved into the back in curly
letters.

“
This is the Leading
Compass
,” Akilah’s voice
said. “
It will also warn you
when dark forces are near and help you find us, and, of course, the
other way around
.
Keep it safe, and it will do the
same for you.
”

Bella made a soft landing
on her feet, as her friends gathered around her to have a look at
the Leading Compass.

“
So that’s
what those Totems are like?” Antonio said. “Just- magical objects
that help us get around and are useful for us?”

“
That’s
basically what Akilah told us three days ago,” Samira said. “If you
would’ve listened, you would’ve known that.” She then shifted her
attention and took a closer look at the compass. “It’s
beautiful.”

“
It is
indeed,” Bella said. “I should secure it somewhere on my clothes,
so we won’t lose it and always have it close.”

She attached the compass
to a silver ring on her belt.

“
All right,
guys, let’s go,” Thomas said. “We can make it to the edge of the
forest before dawn if we try.”

“
You think?”
James sighed. And the others knew exactly what he meant.

It’d been a long day –
night, even – and they were tired. The fire had helped them one
way, by having them move twice as fast, but at the same time, it’d
got them off-course. Thomas had decided to pull out the map and,
after a while, had managed to use the compass to calculate their
location more precisely.

The direction they’d gone
when fleeing from the fire had lead them more to the east, yet not
too far from their destination. It was indeed possible for them to
go the distance before sunrise, if they hurried.

Anything to get out of
that forest.

The teenagers went on
their way. They’d decided to do the last few kilometres as fast as
they could, so they could sleep somewhere in the Silver Valley
during the day.

If they could reach the
Silver Valley before sunrise, they’d have all day to sleep. They
were going to need as many hours as they could get in order to get
their energy levels back up.