Dear Readers, Thank you for sticking with this little story of mine. It means a lot that people enjoy my writing and follow/favorite it. Please forgive the lengthy hiatus as I got married this summer and did not have time to write while planning my wedding.
I hope to have more regular time going forward to finish this story.
Warning: Graphic violence.
Chapter 6: Fire
Aurora came to as sharp raps on the wooden door sounded from above. She had passed out with her head thrown back and now groaned as she pulled her head forward. Blinking, she tried to wipe her eyes, but the immediate weight of the chains that still bound her wrists prevented it. She scowled, and sought Creighton.
There he was, still in his silly little chair in the doorway, apparently asleep. Or also passed out, Aurora couldn't tell. His pride, evidently, or some other foolishness, had prevented him from properly taking care of his wound, which was still slowly bleeding. The revolting, steady drip-drip-drip of blood into the scarlet puddle beneath the chair was beginning to drive Aurora mad.
She opened her mouth to protest again that he must let her tend to it when the hard knock sounded again at the door above.
"That's not the password," she heard Anvil say at the top of the stairs, apparently to himself. "Hey boss," he yelled down. "There's people here but they don't know the password."
"Hngh?" was the reply Creighton managed, frowning and lifting his head. "What?"
"I said, there's people here-"
"Well let them in, you dumbass," Creighton growled. Aurora didn't think he understood what Anvil was trying to say, but it was too late now because the lackey had opened the door.
Two sets of footsteps walked in, men, by the sounds of their boots.
"'Ey now, you can't just waltz in here, this is private property-"
"I'm the doctor that was sent for," said a young man's voice. Prince Philip's voice! Aurora startled, but managed not to cry out. Philip had come, her call for help had worked!
"Didn't send for no doctor," Anvil grumbled doubtfully.
"One of you did," retorted Diaval's voice. So he was here too, and in man form! How blessed Aurora felt to hear his voice after such worry! Relief washed over her like a cool waterfall on a scorching day. He was alive, as she had always believed. He was unhurt, and he was here! And if he were in human form, that meant that he and Maleficent had found each other, and the Protector of the Moors couldn't be very far away.
"Take us to the injured," Philip ordered the man.
"Boss," Anvil called again, but Creighton just grunted, not opening his eyes. Anvil must have pointed or something because a few seconds later, the prince's boots came into view on the stairs, followed by Diaval's.
"Goodness, he really does need a doctor," Philip observed just as his eyes came into Aurora's view. Then he stopped on the stairs as he caught sight of her in the iron cell, their eyes meeting. The queen shook her head slightly, eyes wide, shooting a meaningful glance at her captor, who seemed to be stirring again.
Her two rescuers rushed forward without another word and Philip came all the way into the cell, stooping at Aurora's feet. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly. Diaval was searching Creighton's pockets.
"Yes, I'm well as can be," Aurora answered as Diaval approached with the keyring. Philip took it and began trying the keys on the manacles one by one. The innkeeper had at least ten on that ring.
Diaval swooped over her, kissed her briefly on the top of her head, then turned and punched Creighton in the forehead. The fat man fell off the chair, his feet landed in the blood puddle, and he stirred no more. Aurora felt sick that he might die right here and now, but Philip was rushing through the keys and she really wanted to get out of there too. Diaval practically flew up the stairs and she heard him say, "He's worse than we thought. Take us to your kitchen," and then he and Anvil could be heard walking on the floorboards above.
"Hey, who's this punk?" Jeremy's voice, the older one who was guarding Beatrice, was muffled through the ceiling. Aurora couldn't hear Beatrice at all.
"He's the doctor you sent for," said Anvil.
"You blockhead, I didn't send for no doctor!"
"Well then, who sent for me?" asked Diaval to prolong the confusion. "That woman seems to need my services. And my apprentice is taking care of your boss downstairs. He's in a bad way. Might not make it to morning. This fellow here was just showing me to your kitchen. You both need to gather some supplies for me. We'll need boiling water, plenty of rags, a needle and thread, the sharpest knives you have-"
"Shut up!" Jeremy finally cut the chatty raven off. "Anvil, get this asshole out of here!"
"I beg your pardon," said Diaval in his most offended tone. Aurora could just imagine him putting his hands on his hips. "We have come here out of the goodness of our hearts to help you in your time of need, and this is the reception we get! Likely, my dear, very likely indeed-"
"Got it," hissed Philip as the manacle on Aurora's right wrist fell away. Her hand gradually raised up almost to her ear, as if on its own, with the residual effort she'd been using just to hold her hand in place for him. He used the same key to free her left wrist and then stood, pulling her urgently up with him. She was stiff from a half day of sitting just in one spot and clung to him for balance. He looked at her face to gauge her state.
"Let's go," she said, and was palpably relieved when they walked the three steps out of the cell. The conversation upstairs had progressed into a full-blown argument. Once Aurora and Philip had passed the unconscious Creighton and began, clutching each other, to ascend the stairs, Philip took a very deep breath and suddenly bellowed, "NOW!"
Hot green light exploded above them, a rush of woodsmoke tangy with malicious magic buffeted them in the face, almost pushing them back down the stairs. The building was alight in green fire, quickly filling with black, acrid smoke. As Philip and Aurora gained the top of the staircase, a bolt of acid-colored lightning struck completely horizontally through the open front door, from an unseen source into the back room of the inn.
Aurora and Philip scrambled for the unattended front door only four meters away, just putting their hands on the doorframe to propel themselves out, when a screech, deepening by the second into a roar, shook the burning building's compromised frame.
Massive ink-black wingtips elongated out of the back room and shot past the flaming rafters, and as Aurora and Philip leapt from the front porch onto the inn's lawn, they looked over their shoulders to see a huge black eagle's head burst through the crumbling roof. The green light of the flames danced in crazy patterns across Diaval's glossy feathers as he used his new giant eagle form to rip the attackers apart. The two who had been in the room with him were dismembered summarily. Aurora choked at the sight of heads leaving bodies and ducked her own head to run for the treeline. At least Diaval didn't seem to be eating them.
"Look there!" Philip cried, and pulled Aurora from her hunch to run upright, the alignment of his shoulders and face pointing, as he ran, to the sky above the trees. Aurora looked up.
Maleficent was circling the burning building from the air as Diaval ripped it apart. The fluorescent flames licked the undersides of his enormous spread wings, belly, and legs, but left not so much as a smokestain to dull his feathers' sheen. He found Beatrice's unconscious form, picked her up with the scythe-like talons of one foot, and carefully placed her on the lawn away from the fire.
The Protector of the Moors spotted Aurora and Philip as they raced for the treeline, and began a diagonal dive for the clearing where they had held their first meeting. The sight of her swooping down on them as they turned and watched her approach was of the outline of the most powerful faerie in the Moors, silhouetted by her acid green flames consuming the building of her enemy as her shapeshifting companion tore it and its inhabitants to shreds.
Maleficent landed in front of the two young people with a smooth folding of her wings, her face intense, and took one step toward them before Diaval let out a shattering bass screech behind her. The three under tree cover turned to the great bird, who had the open iron box cell in his beak. He took one massive hop over the flames and thundered down in front of them. They looked up as Diaval turned the box over and dumped Creighton out of it to fall from a serious height and whump facedown on the forest floor.
The bloody enemy did not stir.
The four looked at him for a moment while the flames crackled viciously in the background.
Maleficent softly approached the fat man on foot, stopping just before her hem touched his face. Incredibly, a breath stirred the fabric. She kicked him into his back with her foot. He coughed.
A wild outrage transformed Maleficent's face and her multicolored eyes blazed. Magical lighting sparked from the tips of her horns, forking in the air, her feathers all stood on end, her voice gained dimensions.
"How dare you assault Aurora," she hissed, hoisting Creighton by his throat with telekinesis, his toes pointing to the ground a meter below them.
His eyes bugged but the chokehold cut off his speech. One leg kicked wearily and his one working hand rose to clutch at the force holding him.
"She is mine," Maleficent growled, "You will not touch her. None of you will!" She boomed, her voice amplifying to address the whole of the Moors. "Any who touch her, or those here with me now, will suffer his fate."
She magically threw Creighton up in the sky with a fling of her arm, then launched straight up from the forest floor to follow him into the air.
As her prisoner reached the peak of the throw, at the moment of zero gravity when he was about to start to fall, Maleficent thrust her hand through his face, grabbed his brain with her hand and squeezed. Blood poured from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The body went limp, its bowels released, and Maleficent withdrew her hand and let the body fall through the air, crash through branches and to the ground with a thump. She hovered, revolving in a circle, staring down the world as she burned away the blood on her hand and wrist with green flame.
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