Salamander

Chapter Thirty: Fireworks

Chapter Thirty

We had made it back to the square room that sat just outside the audience hall before the ground shook yet again, this time stronger than before. The bombs were coming closer. My eyes widened when I understood what was happening. “They’re going to bomb the castle!” I said.

            “Of course they are.”

            I froze. That voice was unmistakable. I turned and saw King Plarsky himself, a pair of guards standing at his sides. “I had a feeling my daughter had one for you when she disappeared.” He glared at the young girl, but she met his gaze evenly. His eyes wandered down to the knife in her hands. “Did you kill one of my guards?”

            She shook her head. “He’s unconscious.”

            The room shook again, the blasts still getting stronger. The king didn’t lose his balance or even blink. He just continued to stare at his daughter as she regained her balance. “What am I to do?” he said, more to himself than to his daughter.

            “What?” she asked.

            He pointed upwards. “Those blimps have passed the canons stationed outside the city, and now that they’re inside . . .” He grabbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “I don’t know how to stop them.”

            “We need to go,” Byron hissed.        

            “Then go!” the king boomed.

            “Let’s go,” Byron said.

            I, however, stayed in my place.

            “Alan, come on.”

            I didn’t react. I just stood there, watching him with knitted eyebrows. “I’m not going with you,” I whispered.

            “Huh?”

            “I’m not going with you,” I said in a louder tone, still unsure if I was even telling the truth.

            Byron looked torn as to what to do – either to leave me behind or to stay. Eventually he gripped my hand and yanked me toward the door at the other side of the room, probably the exit to the castle. “Come on!”

            I yanked my hand back. “I’m going to help them.”

            “And how can you do that?” Byron said in a mocking tone.

            I looked at King Plarsky, my reverence for him no longer present and my need to protect the city coming forward. I can’t let more people die, I thought. I can’t . . .

            “How do you plan to help?” the king asked optimistically.

            I honestly had no idea. But there had to be some way to shoot down those blimps. “Do the city’s guards have guns on them?”

            “Small pistols,” the king said. “Not powerful enough to even hit one of those blimps from down here.

            “Face it, Alan,” Byron said discouragingly. “The kingdom wasn’t prepared for an attack on the Imperial City.”

            “We weren’t prepared for the war to even take place in the kingdom at all,” King Plarsky admitted.

            “You’re not helping, Byron,” I said with clenched fists. I turned back to the king, wondering how a fleet of blimps could be shot down.