Shades of Errol Flynn - Chapter Fourteen

A new chapter of this draft serial will be posted every Wednesday. Your comments are always welcome!

Prologue~Ch. 1~Ch. 2~Ch. 3~Ch. 4~Ch. 5~Ch. 6~Ch. 7~Ch. 8~Ch. 9~Ch. 10~
Ch. 11~Ch. 12~Ch. 13~

Jessica inched her way upwards, afraid to look either up or down, concentrating on the next finger and toe hold. Why was it taking so long? How much further could it be? She risked a quick glance downwards and swallowed hard. The beach had all but disappeared. She shut her eyes against a wave of dizziness and took several long, deep breaths.

It was so far down. She ventured a quick look upwards and was dismayed to realize she was only about halfway there. Every fingernail was broken and a couple of her toes felt like they were bleeding. She refused to look to confirm it.

Her muscles ached, especially the ones she didn’t know she had. About two thirds of the way up she got a break in the form of a small ledge. If she was careful, she could sit and rest for a bit.

She closed her eyes and leaned back so she wouldn’t be tempted to look down. Just staying on the ledge seemed like a reasonable option to her at that moment. She was hot and sweaty. Everything hurt and even if she got to the top of the cliff, what then?

“Jessica, you’ve got to stop this negative thinking,” she told herself. “You’re more than halfway there. You can do this.”

Carefully, she got to her feet and started upwards again. Her progress was even slower than before; doubts of her abilities began crowding her thoughts. The wind picked up, forcing her to pull the brim of her hat down.

Her arms and legs were quivering with the strain. Twice she slipped. Her heart pounded with fear as she hung on. A pattern to her climbing emerged. An inch or two of progress, then rest and breathe – another inch, another breath. The sweat soaked shirt clung to her back, although the voluminous sleeves flapped distractingly in the breeze.

As she neared the top, Jessica was certain she heard voices.

“That’s it,” she said. “I’m hallucinating. I’m a goner.”

“There is someone below!” a voice wafted downwards.

“Do not be a fool,” a second voice answered.

“I tell thee,” the first voice insisted, closer, “I heard a voice.”

Jessica clung to the cliff, dazed, as two shadowy figures appeared above her.

“Who art thee and what do ye there?” the second voice called down to her.

“Stupid damn question,” Jessica muttered under her breath. “You’ll never find out if you don’t lend a hand,” she yelled back.

There was a momentary consultation before one of the figures ducked out of view and quickly returned. A coarse rope snaked down to meet her. Jessica caught it and with the last of her strength wrapped it around herself and hung on. Someone at the other end began hauling and in no time at all she reached the cliff top and rolled over the edge in an ungraceful heap.

“Thanks,” she said, content for the moment to just sit there and catch her breath. “It’s lucky for me you guys were up here,” she continued, starting to feel better. She pulled the hat off her head and wiped the sweat off her brow. “For awhile there I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.”

She untied the bundle from her belt and unwrapped her boots.

“But, but . . .” voice number one stuttered. “Thee art a woman!”

Jessica glanced up at the voice. The sun was behind the two figures rendering them indistinct shadows. “Nothing gets by you, does it?”

Now that she could see the damage she’d done to her toes they began to hurt like fury. She eased her socks over them and carefully pulled her boots back on. “Look, I’m grateful for your help and all, and I’d be more than happy to thank you properly later, but I’ve had a truly horrendous day and I just want to get home and climb into a nice hot tub. Could you tell me where the nearest phone is?”

“We . . . ah . . . phone? What is a phone?”

Jessica pushed her hair out of her eyes and squinted up at the two shadows in front of her. “Cut the kidding. Which coast am I on, east or west?”

“We be on the northern coast,” voice number two answered.

“North?” Jessica ignored the pain in her toes as she scrambled to her feet. “What do you mean, north?”

The two men in front of her glanced at each other. “We stand upon Death’s Head, northern most point of the kingdom of Ghren.” The taller of the two men spoke slowly, as though to a particularly dense child.

“Now look, I’m sure you both find this very funny, but I –” Jessica stopped abruptly and stared. She pivoted slowly, eyes widening.

The landscape in front of her was wilder and greener, more breath-takingly beautiful than anything she’d ever seen outside of a National Geographic magazine. Out on the water a three masted sailing ship was coming around another point of the bay. Beyond the two men, in the distance, were the tents of a camp and beyond that the barely discernable outline of a castle.

“Are you guys filming a movie, or what?”

Before either man could answer a shadow passed overhead. Jessica glanced upwards and screamed as a huge raptor dove towards her. Its talons raked her upraised arm, cutting the billowing sleeve to ribbons and leaving a trail of bloody furrows.

Jessica sank to her knees, pain lancing through her arm. She watched, dazed, as the two men beat off the bird’s attack with swords. Swords?

With a final scream of defiance the bird soared off into the sky.

“How severe is thy hurt?” the elder of the two men asked, kneeling beside her.

“What . . . was. . . that?” she gasped out as he examined her arm.

“A gerishawk. Thy wound is not deep, but the fowl’s talons carry poison. Can ye walk?”

With his help Jessica got to her feet. She swayed as her vision blurred. He made a worried sound and scooped her up effortlessly in his arms. Jessica’s eyes closed.

“Ewan, who is she?” asked the first, younger voice.

“She is one of Power, that is enough. Perhaps the gods sent her to us in our time of need,” Ewan replied. “And the gods help our healers if she dies.”

That doesn’t sound very reassuring, Jessica thought, and passed out with Ewan’s words echoing through her mind.