The Charred Lands: Apocalypse of Fire (14 page)

“
Is that a…” Lizzie began to ask before I cut her off, already
knowing what she was about to ask.

“
Dragon egg.”

“
How on earth did you come across this?” Conrad asked, taking a
step closer to me – I took a step away. He shot me a look of
disgust for doing so, as though I didn’t trust him.

“
My entire family died for this.” I said.

“
What are your plans with it?”

“
I’m taking it to The Church of Fire. Once I get there, I can
either join them, or sell it for a very, very lucrative
price.”

“
What good is money in The Charred Lands?” Lizzie asked, as
though I was stupid.

“
I don’t want money. I could barter for something of value off
them. They would easily give enough for the three of us to pay our
way into The Legion of Light. We would still have enough left over
to live very comfortably there too, I would imagine.” I
explained.

“
It’s going to be a perilous journey, boy.” Conrad said,
scanning me with his eyes and giving his grey beard a rub as he
began to think my proposal through. I expected that it would have
taken more convincing than this, but then again I guess they had
nothing better to do with their lives. I knew exactly what he was
thinking. He didn’t think I had it in me to make it to The Church
of Fire alive. Truth be told, he was probably right – but that
didn’t mean I was going to quit and give up my dreams of living in
peace at the Legion of Light.

“
That’s why I need you.” I said.

Conrad looked
to Lizzie, who looked back at him. For a moment then stared at each
other in silence, as though communicating through thought. Finally,
Lizzie nodded her head.

“
Very well. We shall come with you to the Church of Fire.” He
smiled, reluctantly.

I couldn’t
help but let out a sigh of relief.

“
Now, do you know the way?” I asked, unable to stop myself from
nervously laughing.

“
Of course not.” Conrad replied, letting out a laugh himself,
“But I know someone who does.” He replied, his face suddenly
falling flat and emotionless, that gave me a bad
feeling.

“
Who?”

“
Her name is Lynnette Kerslake; she’s still living in
Warrington.” He sighed.

As much as it pained Conrad to say that – it was exactly what
I had been hoping. It saved me spending the time trying to convince
the pair that the best option was to head into Warrington. Now they
knew that they
had
to. That was good for me.

We spent a
good hour or so searching our immediate surroundings for any signs
of wildlife that we could hunt and use for food, but found nothing.
Conrad had explained that the journey to Warrington was a two day
one, we did have enough supplies for the trip – but they would need
to be very carefully rationed. Should we stumble off track or
encounter any unexpected delays, then our supplies may become an
issue. He told me that their trip outside of Warrington had been
relatively uneventful until he stumbled across me, and suspected
that it would be the same going back, which gave me great
confidence.

A little
demoralised from our poor hunting efforts, we set on our way down a
small dirt road in the woods. It was quite surprising just how far
away from anything Haven had actually been. I knew it was in a
secluded area, but it almost seemed as though the woods stretched
on for miles and miles, with no signs of civilization anywhere to
be found.

My feet had
become sore and blistered, I had no idea how Conrad was able to
keep going without complaining once, having all of their supplies,
and Lizzie over his shoulders. He really was a relentless, mammoth
of a man. All I had to carry was my backpack with a few supplies,
and the dragon’s egg. I couldn’t even imagine how he was feeling
having to carry Lizzie plus all their gear.

We had been
walking for less than half an hour when we stumbled across them.
Two, healthy looking deer. We stopped dead in our tracks as we
watched the animals eat something off of a bush, just to the left
of our path. They were no more one hundred feet away from us, still
oblivious to our presence. Without saying a word Conrad crouched
down and placed Lizzie besides him, along with the rest of their
supplies before turning to me.

“
You take one, I’ll get the other.” He said, pulling out his
rifle from the bag of supplies. He then grabbed the handgun from
his waist and handed that to me.

“
I can probably take one out from here with the rifle, when the
other scatters, you hunt it down. Don’t stray too far, if you’ve
not got it after five minutes, head back to us, okay?” Conrad said.
I knew what this was – it was a learning exercise. I nodded my
head, ready for his challenge. I knew even an experienced hunter
would struggle to catch the second dear after it had been startled,
but nevertheless I would give it my best.

Still
kneeling, Conrad aimed the weapon. He took but a few seconds to
line up the shot before he squeezed the trigger. His aim was true,
I saw a bullet hole explode in the side of one of the deer, but it
didn’t drop it. Letting out a scream, it began staggering away to
the left, whilst its companion took off running to the right.

“
Go, Zach.” Conrad urged, giving me a pat on the back. With
that I took off running in the direction that my deer had headed. I
left the well-trodden path and stepped into the woods. Twigs and
branches snapped under my foot – I knew that would be a problem,
did I find myself closing down on the animal. I took a second to
scan around, just up ahead, some hundred feet away, I saw my
target. I crouched down a little as I tiptoed towards
it.

I closed in on
the animal, which calmly ate from another bush, as though
forgetting about its wounded friend all together. I came to a stop
and readied my handgun. Every sound I made sounded like a tiny
explosion to me, as I flicked the safety off, I felt almost certain
that the noise would alert the animal to my presence, but
amazingly, it didn’t

I took a deep
breath and aimed – it was still quite far away, but a lucky shot
could bring the animal down, even from all this distance. I didn’t
fancy my chances of getting much closer without startling it
again.

Then a twig
snapped behind me. The deer shot its head in my direction before
scampering once more. I felt myself rill with rage.

“
You said I could have five minutes!” I spat, turning around to
face Conrad. I almost felt my bowls give way when I saw Oliver and
Phil standing over me, each with that old familiar sinister smile
splitting their face.

“
Enjoying a bit of hunting, pal?” Oliver asked, using that
same, calm, friendly voice as he always did.

I didn’t
reply, instead I swung my gun around towards them. Before I could
squeeze the trigger, Phil kicked his feet, sending a cloud of dirt
directly into my face. I fell backward with stinging eyes, hitting
the ground with a thump. I felt the back of my head strike a rock
and trickle of blood instantly pour down the back of my head.

I felt a boot
place itself on my wrist, clamping it to the ground.

“
Let go of the gun, mate.” Oliver said, pressing down harder
and harder on my wrist with each second. As much as I didn’t want
to, I knew I had to release the weapon. If I resisted he would no
doubt crush the bones in my wrist, and that would just be the start
of it.

“
It was a bit shitty what you did to me.” Phil said, limping
towards me. With my free hand I rubbed as much dirt from my eyes as
I could, still things were blurry but at least I could see a
little.

“
Fuck you.” I said, refusing to go along with their sick games.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many other people they had done this
too. I wasn’t going to lie down and beg for my life from this pair,
that’s exactly what they wanted from me – I wouldn’t be giving it
to them.

“
We were willing to teach you our superior way of life,
Zachary.” Oliver sighed, dropping down to one knee, still he kept a
foot on my wrist, pinning me to the ground. He placed his right
hand around my throat, but did not squeeze. Instead, he leaned
forward and whispered in my ear, “When Phil gets baked he gets…
well let’s just say he gets friendly.” He said, keeping his hand
around my throat.

I turned to
see Phil taking his top off. I grew cold inside when I realised
what this was.

“
No, please…. You can’t do that.” I said, knowing that my
pleading would do no good.

“
I can’t stop him, and neither can you.” Oliver said, as though
he was some kind of innocent party in all of this. Despite this, I
began to struggle a little. Every time I moved, the pressure on my
wrist increased, it felt ready to snap but that didn’t stop me. I
kicked out my legs and hit Oliver with several puny blows with my
one free hand, but it did nothing. My punches hardly even caused
him to flinch. I fell flat and silent, gasping for breath as he
began to tighten his grip around my neck.

“
Don’t fucking move.” I heard a deep, husky voice bellow out. I
turned my head to see the kind of thing miracles are made out of.
Behind Phil, stood Conrad. He pressed his rifle against the back of
Phil’s head.

“
Put your hands up, fucker.” He said. Phil did so without
hesitation, raising his hands in the air and standing like a
statue.

“
And you, get off the boy.” He instructed, turning his eyes to
Oliver.

“
No fucking chance.” He said, pulling out his gun and placing
it against my temple. I felt the cold steel press against my head.
It was honestly one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
A single squeeze of the trigger and I would be dead. I felt my
insides turn into one giant knot. Then the feeling disappeared. The
fear was replaced by something else. Anger.

Without
thinking about my own safety I drove a knee hard into Oliver’s
groin, he let out a yelp and loosened the weight on my wrist a
little. I saw my chance and I took it. I pulled my hand from under
his boot and quickly knocked the gun away from my temple, only a
moment before he squeezed the trigger. The handgun fired a shot off
into the air, sending several birds scattering – better birds than
my brains. The sound of the gun was deafening, for a few moments I
could hear nothing but white noise as the sound of the gun shot
seemed to echo around my skull.

I turned my
head, as though looking for advice on what to do next from Conrad,
just in time to see him fire his own weapon. Blood exploded out of
Phil’s left eye socket before he dropped to the ground, like a
stinking sack of shit.

By now Oliver
had recovered from the shock of the knee to his groin, he tightened
his grip around my neck to the point where I began to struggle to
breath, but before he could place the gun against my temple, I sent
two fingers flying into his eyes. I felt them sink into the sockets
before he pulled back in pain, clutching at his face. I heard the
gun drop to the ground besides us. I reached out for it, but before
I could grasp the weapon, Conrad swing his rifle through the air
like a baseball bat, striking Oliver on the side of his skull.
Finally he fell from atop of me and collapsed to the ground, blood
already purring down his face from a large gash above his eye.

“
No, wait…” He managed, before Conrad brought the weapon down
once more, this time striking him in the mouth. Blood erupted from
his mouth as he coughed up shards of broken teeth, but Conrad
wasn’t done there. I looked away as Conrad continued to bring the
weapon down, over and over again onto Oliver’s skull. Eventually
the sounds changed from a crack and a crunch to what could only be
described as a wet smack. Finally, after a good minute of intensive
pounding, Conrad stopped. I slowly turned my head to face the
horrors, wanting to take it all in in its gory detail. I didn’t
know why, but I
knew
I had to look. Oliver’s head looked like a smashed pumpkin.
Hardly anything remained of his skull, only broken bones, bits of
squashed brains and a few remaining ginger hairs. This time I
wasn’t sick. I almost fucking smiled.

Chapter
Seventeen

We walked in
silence for the next few hours. I couldn’t help but relive what had
happened a thousand times over in my head. Each time I thought
about what I could have done differently, or how things could have
gone wrong. But at the end of the day, I was quite proud of myself.
I was alive. I think despite everything, I handled myself well.
Once again I found myself eternally grateful to Conrad. I couldn’t
find the words to adequately describe how thankful I was for what
he had done for me. It made me feel psychically sick to even think
about what could have happened had he not shown up.

“
So, what happened to your home?” Lizzie finally asked,
destroying the silence of our walk. I didn’t know if she was
genuinely interested in me and my back story, or if she was just
looking for something to break the silence.

“
We were living in a place called Haven, there was just over
twenty of us there. Half of them were my family. But then a dragon
attacked. It was an Elder.” I sighed. Lizzie didn’t say anything,
instead she remained strapped over Conrad’s shoulder, waiting for
me to continue.

“
I didn’t see everyone die. I got knocked unconscious, and when
I woke up everyone was either dead, or missing. I think my mother
and little brother and sister got out of there, but they’re gone
now.”