Blaze (The High-Born Epic) (45 page)

             
Gabby thought for a moment, and then picked a tree a little bigger around than her torso.  She walked over to it, and squatted slightly, and wrapped her arms around it.  She grunted and strained for several seconds...

             
...And the tree popped up out of the ground, and then she let it fall to the forest floor.

             
“Gabby,” Harold said.  “That’s very impressive, especially for a girl.”

             
Gabby just bowed to him and gestured to a tree of about the same size.

             
Harold walked to it and shook his head.  Gabby grinned as Harold walked the other way, but her face grew concerned when he walked to an even larger tree.  Its girth was so large that Harold’s hands didn’t even touch on the backside of it.  He squatted and began pulling upward.  There was much more resistance than he had expected, but he could feel the tree slowly moving, and he began rocking back and forth.  The ground where the roots were began popping and groaning, and with a massive crack, Harold uprooted the tree.  He held it for a moment, and then let it drop to the ground.

             
Gabby quickly found a tree of roughly equal size.  She walked up to it and rubbed her hands together, and squatted.  She grunted as she began lifting, and the tree slightly shook, but did not uproot.  She began shaking violently, and rocking back and forth.  The tree did shake furiously, but she still could not pull it up.

             
“Give it up, Gabby,” Harold said.  “I win this round too.”

             
Gabby’s eyes flashed with white light, and a rush of wind pulsed from all around her, and a barely visible shimmer seemed to bond with her.  The tree’s roots cracked and it suddenly popped from the ground, held taut in place.  Gabby glanced at Harold who had a grin on his face, and then she let it crash to the ground.

             
“Fine!  Boys are supposed to be stronger than girls anyways,” Gabby said.  “You have two points and I have one.”

             
“What next?” Harold asked.

             
“We race,” she answered.  “No air-burning though.”

             
“Hey,” Harold said as he raised his hands.  “I’m not the one who used my powers
twice
.”

             
Gabby shot him a dirty look, but it was tinged with a coy grin, “I bet you don’t know any girls who can do what I can though.”

             
Harold nodded in agreement, “I don’t know any boys who can either.”

             
“Kinda’ like we’re made for each other, huh?” Gabby asked as she pointed at something in the distance.

             
Harold’s eyes opened wide as he looked at Gabby, and though she was not looking at him, he could see a knowing smile on her lips.

             
“Ummm...” Harold stuttered.  “Where do you want to race to?”

             
“You see that tallest tree on the shoreline?” she pointed.

             
“Yeah,” Harold answered.  “That big oak?”

             
“Yep,” she said.  “That’s the one.  First one there and back is the winner.”

             
“That’s got to be close to a half-mile, there and back,” Harold said.

             
“Are you scared?” Gabby asked.  “You can just quit now.  If you want to, that is.”

             
“I’m gonna’ dust you so bad,” Harold grinned.

             
“We’ll see about that, my little hottie,” Gabby said as she staggered her feet into a sprinting stance.

             
Harold readied himself to run as well, “Three... two... one... go!”

             
Dirt kicked up behind them as they lowered their heads and rapidly drove their legs.  Harold pulled out to slight lead, and settled into a rapid pace.  They covered the ground quickly and lightly, and after about two hundred yards, Harold risked a glance... only to find Gabby nipping at his very heels.  She was less than two steps behind him, and he turned his attention back to the race. 

             
The scenery blurred in his vision, and the trees dashed by him so quickly that he could scarcely even recognize what type of tree they were.  Their breaths were deep and even and their eyes intense and nearly wild with excitement.  Harold leapt over a fallen tree and slightly stumbled on the landing.

             
And Gabby took the leap in stride, but Harold recovered quickly and she was unable to pass him.  However, they ended up side by side, arms and legs pumping frenziedly.  Their strength and flexibility made their strides of impossible lengths, and they covered the distance to the tree in about thirty seconds.  As the large oak neared, Harold began preparing himself for the return trip.  Gabby was right by his side, brow wrinkled in effort and concentration.

             
When the tree was about thirty feet away, Harold leapt towards it, while Gabby kept running full speed at it.  Harold flipped and hit the tree squarely with both feet, absorbing all of his speed and sprang back towards camp.  Gabby ran just by the oak, snagging a young tree about the size of her leg.  She was running so fast that both of her feet came off the ground as she spun around the tree, slingshotting herself back the way she had come.

             
While Harold came to a complete stop when he hit the tree, Gabby redirected her momentum and she sped by Harold who was still accelerating.  Harold let out a surprised yelp as Gabby’s beautiful, blonde hair trailed behind her, just about three steps ahead of him.  They darted left and right, cutting back and forth to avoid trees and small bushes as they sped like two bullets through the forest.

             
The downed tree came up fast, and Gabby made a skillful leap over it, never losing a stride.  Harold leapt before he got to it, and sprang forward off it.  His legs ran in mid-air and he kicked off another tree, hitting it just perfectly to give him a boost.  He sailed through the air, surging by Gabby, and his feet hit the ground running.  However, he did not hit the ground perfectly and had to stutter step to reign in his momentum.  Though he was able to keep her from leaving him behind, he was also unable to maintain the momentary lead that kicking off the tree had given him.

             
As the end neared, they glanced at each other, and noticed that they were exactly in sync, stride for stride.  And they both jetted across the finish line at practically the same moment.  They ran many more steps just slowing themselves to the point that they could stop.  Harold put his hands on top of his head and Gabby put her hands on her hips and held her head to the sky.  Then they both just breathed.

             
After about five or six long breaths, they were refreshed and they looked at each other.

             
“Tie?” Harold asked.

             
Gabby nodded.

             
“You had enough?” Harold asked.

             
“I found out what I wanted to know,” Gabby smiled.

             
“Think it’ll be enough to face down the High-Born?” Harold asked.

             
“When we add our powers to that,” she shrugged her shoulders.  “I don’t see how we can lose.”

             
Harold nodded as he walked to the water to fill his canteen.

Chapter 39

              Gabby and Harold looked out across the horizon at the distant city of Cyrene.  He was still too far away, even with his enhanced vision, to see if any patrols surrounded it.  Harold looked off to his right at a wheel-shaped community, and everything seemed to be normal.  At the moment, there were no High-Born anywhere to be found around it.

             
“They haven’t started moving in the villages yet,” Harold said.

             
“They’re too busy fortifying important positions for that right now,” Gabby answered.  “We probably have a week or so before they start doing that, if they do that at all.”

             
“I have a nagging feeling that they will,” Harold replied.  “They may try to root us out that way.”

             
“Hopefully, they’ll mistake us for some sort of advanced A.I.,” Gabby said.  “And not take it out on the villages.”

             
“Maybe so,” Harold answered.  “They thought I was one before.”

             
In a few more minutes, Harold pulled his fire into his eyes, and studied the air surrounding Cyrene.  There were about a dozen ripples of gunships spinning around the city.  The High-Born would not be caught off guard so easily again.

             
It did not take them long to reach the ruins surrounding the city and Gabby began flying them around it so they could get a better idea of what they might find there.  Cyrene was almost identical to New Pylos in size and shape.  Even the billboards that flashed advertisements were in roughly the same spots throughout the city.  After the end of the second pass, Gabby found them a safe spot in which to camp.  She lowered the gunship into a gap in the canopy and she pulled on the controls at just the right moment.  Harold did not even feel a shudder as they touched down.

             
“You’re getting better at that,” he said.

             
“Yeah,” she replied.  “Now, let’s go scout our next target.”

             
He smiled at her and touched her on the shoulder and flames whirled...

             
...then they were standing atop one of the ruined buildings.

             
“I wonder why there is a ring of these old ruins around every city we’ve seen?” Gabby asked.

             
“I don’t know,” Harold pondered while Gabby pulled her air-camouflage around them. “I guess they like looking at what they did.”

             
“Let’s go down here,” she said as she walked towards and pointed at a staircase.  “It’ll be easier to hide in the daylight.”

             
They walked down the grime-covered stairs through a myriad of spider webs to the level below.  As they rounded the corner to the level below, mold permeated the air.  Harold pushed another spider web out of his way and looked across the wreckage before him.  Large wooden desks littered the floor.  Some of them were still mostly intact, but many of them had been shot to pieces.  Harold and Gabby scanned the floor and could see many human skeletons strewn throughout the complex.  Some were laid across the desks, and others littered the floor in a variety of positions.

             
“A fine mess those people way back when made, huh?” Harold asked.

             
“It’s very impressive,” Gabby replied.

             
Harold walked to the left and Gabby to the right, looking over various items.  They both stopped and looked at one another when a loud clicked popped from the outside.  They gingerly walked to one of the windows, and gazed out of it.  Far in the distance, they saw the billboards throughout the city all showing advertisements suddenly go black.  The number 10 appeared followed by 9... 8... 7... and all the way down to 0.

             
Harold and Gabby both pulled on their powers to enhance their vision and hearing and they watched as all the billboards played in unison the same clip.  In the top left of the screen were the letters HBNN.

             
The images of Blaze and Aireon tearing down the billboard flashed over and over against the backdrop of dark music.  Then, it showed them raising their hands in defiance, and you could hear Blaze’s voice thundering all over the city.  Harold had to admit that his voice was incredibly intimidating.  The angle of the images rapidly changed and Harold realized that it was showing the various angles from which the High-Born crowd had filmed them.  There were words scrolling across the bottom of the screens and they said:

The time has come once again for all High-Born to remember the power of our birthright! 

              Against the backdrop of armed High-Born soldiers marching in formation, powerful music blared.  It showed various soldiers in battle gear with tinted visors loading and cocking their rifles.  After a moment, a fully-armed High-Born squad was rushing a target, each grunt firing and covering each other as they advanced.  The screen suddenly flickered to that of a hover tank lifting slightly off the ground.  It spun quickly and fired a large rail cannon on a distant target that erupted into flames.  Gunships with rail cannons blazing and rockets flaring zoomed across the billboards flying in circles around targets that were being decimated.