Freiyon Fables: The Rochester Runes
Chapter Four: Charles' Battle

Charles realized that they had two dangers now: The soldiers behind them, and an enormous tree walking towards them.

Charles ran onto the bridge and huddled in there with Robert, hoping the tree hadn’t seen him. The tree took one step over the river and then continued on to the mirror-door. The soldiers weren’t expecting this new foe and so they started firing at the tree.

“Come on! They’re distracted! Let’s find Sarah!”

Nathaniel, the young meerkat, appeared nearby and tugged on Charles’ shirt. “I know where the trees took them, Charles! If you follow me, I can take you to her. She’s still alive, and I was going to release her but I never got my chance. Perhaps now we will have our chance?” Robert gaped at the talking meerkat in astonishment.

“T-that meerkat can talk, Charley!” He whispered to Charles. Charles smirked.

“I’ll tell you all about it later. We need to save Sarah!”

Sarah, in the meantime in her current situation, was certain that she had betrayed the family. Her head hung in shame; she didn’t notice Charles and Robert rustling along the pathway, being led by young Nathaniel.

The thundering of Eucalita in the distance, as he slowly returned after battling the soldiers, brought her to her senses and she turned around, spotting her brothers and crying in delight.

“Charles, Robert! Oh, thank goodness! Quick! Untie me! The tree is coming back!”

“We can’t, Sarah.” Charles disappeared into the hollow dead tree along with Robert and Nathaniel while Sarah tried to make sense of what they were doing.

“But Charles! I need to escape; you’ve got to get me out ...”

Sarah was interrupted by Eucalita’s angry cry.

“You back-stabbing, foolish girl! You TRICKED me! There are no stones through that tunnel! All there was were an army of knights with strange insides, but I disposed of them easily enough. Had to destroy the door to do it, as well. Now, answer me TRUTHFULLY this time! I saw two human boys heading this way. Where ARE they?”

Sarah tried to sound surprised and confused. “Boys? What boys? Just you and me here, Mister Eucalita.”

The tree smashed at the log that Sarah was sitting on, only centimetres from her.

Sarah stared in shock, praying her brothers hadn’t been squished.

“LIAR!! I SAW them, girl! I KNOW they were looking for you,”

Eucalita leant forward, five inches from Sarah’s face. “So I’ll ask you again. Where ARE THEY??”

Thankfully, Charles, Nathaniel and Robert had been on the OTHER side of the dead log when Eucalita smashed it, so they had gotten out of the way at the right time. Now Charles was looking at the tip of the axe, trying to figure a plan out.

“They probably ARE looking for me, but they would be here now, wouldn’t they? And they’re not. So they must have gotten lost.”

Eucalita humphed, not satisfied with this answer. “Or they could be out looking for the stones whilst I’m here yakking to you, but they won’t get far. Almost all the trees are from my clan,” Charles took his chance and grabbed the axe, pulling it back in quickly. Eucalita turned back around only a split second after Charles had retracted. “And my clan listen to anything I say. If I die, they will rebel and come after whoever killed me. Of course, it depends on who the killer is. For instance, if it was another tree, the clan would make that tree their leader. Clan rules, you might say.”

“What about a human?”

Eucalita chuckled. “A human? Hah! No human would even have the CHANCE to fight against me! And if they were even REMOTELY lucky to defeat me, they wouldn’t be able to defeat a whole FOREST! Stupid thing to say, girl, but I understand why you asked. You are hoping for the glimmer of hope to come galloping along. Well, let me unburden you by saying there IS no glimmer of hope. Only death.”

Before Robert could stop him, Charles jumped out of the log and chopped at one of Eucalita’s harder branches, slicing it off straight away.

Eucalita screamed in agony and turned to Charles.

“Where did ...? Betrayed again! I should have known! Where’s that other boy, the one with the strange walk? Hiding too, I’ll warrant. Is he going to come out and attack or is he too cowardly? HAH!”

Robert WANTED to charge out with an axe too, but he wouldn’t be a match to the tree and he knew it, and he didn’t have a weapon to help either.

Eucalita picked up the remains of the dead log, with Sarah tied on and Robert and Nathaniel holding on inside it, and then placed it out of the way before he felt another chop at his body.

He spun around, shooting a root out at Charles, which Charles avoided just in time by rolling along the ground.

Grabbing onto a non-living tree, Charles swung up and slid down the root that Eucalita had shot at him, chopping behind him as he went.

Eucalita sent some poisoned spikes at Charles, which Charles avoided by swinging underneath the root and dropping safely to the ground.

He wasn’t on the ground long, because Eucalita sent more roots out to twist around him.

Charles remembered his fight training with fencing as he twirled the axe around above his head, chopping at the on-coming roots.

Some that weren’t going above him came for his legs, but he just jumped away and ran along one of the roots.

He was surprised to see a branch hurtle at him, coming within seconds of smashing him completely. The only thing that stopped him from this was the axe, which embedded into the branch before he could hit it.

He shook his head, dazed for a moment, then pulled the axe out without any effort.

Robert, Nathaniel and Sarah were watching in horror.

“Have you ever seen him like THAT before?” Robert asked Sarah.

Sarah shook her head, still marvelling at Charles’ attacks.

Eucalita stopped and stared at Charles properly.

“Improper form, attacking when your enemy isn’t looking. Some-one could get hurt,” Eucalita retracted his roots and walked towards Charles calmly.

Charles panted slightly, relieved that he had always been a good fighter when it came to fencing, and always quick on the mark.

“What say we stop this foolishness and I let you go home with your sister? What do you say about that?” Eucalita reached out with his hand to Charles to make the deal.

Charles looked at the tree with mixed feeling. One minute it had been trying to kill him and his sister, now it was trying to make a deal which would make them safe again. But Charles realized this was manipulation. Manipulation that Charles would NOT have!

“I say you can go and burn!” He shouted angrily, jumping back into battle.

Charles jumped up and chopped Eucalita’s hand clear off, without so much as even a sweat.

Eucalita screamed again, looking at his cut-off hand and then at Charles.

“Who ARE you?!?”

Charles spun his axe like a sword and then slammed it into the ground, leaning on it slightly.

“Just a boy who wants to protect his family!” Charles announced before he picked up his axe again and jumped up onto Eucalita’s ‘legs’ and started chopping everywhere he could.

Every time Eucalita tried to swat at him with roots or his remaining hand, Charles jumped, ducked or swung out of the way, causing Eucalita to stab himself in the process.

Charles seemed to be everywhere at once as Robert, Sarah and Nathaniel cheered him on, and Eucalita struggled to swat at the fast moving boy. Quite suddenly, Charles popped up right in front of Eucalita’s eyes.

“Open wide and say ‘defeated’!” He mocked with a laugh.

With a quick twist down Eucalita’s nose, Charles swung straight to his intended target ... Eucalita’s mouth.

To Robert, Nathaniel and Sarah, watching in utter shock from their safety place, it looked as if Charles had just committed suicide. Eucalita didn’t even seem to notice he had gulped Charles up, because he started looking around in desperation for Charles.

“Where’s he gone? Where’d that bloody mongrel go? I’m not finished with him yet!”

Robert hopped forward angrily, shaking his hand at Eucalita.

“You ATE him, you ugly eucalyptus tree! Isn’t that satisfying enough? You’ll pay for that!”

Eucalita took no notice of the rest of Robert’s sentence. All he heard was ‘You ate him’.

“Hah! That you go, I defeated you lot after all! What can you do to me now?! Hahahaha ... hurk!”

Eucalita’s eyes shot open in bright horror.

Robert, Nathaniel and Sarah looked at each other, surprised and confused.

Eucalita jerked back suddenly, flailing his arm, legs and roots around wildly.

Quite to the kids’ surprise, Eucalita fell over and screamed in pain and fear. When Eucalita fell, there was a large crack that appeared in the ground that became noticeable only to Nathaniel, as he was focused on that area at the time.

Stock still with shock and surprise, Sarah could see Eucalita was slowly stopping his wild movements. In fact, he was stopping everything.

What Sarah and Robert could hear now was the faint noise of ... hacking?

They turned to each other and then looked back at the dying tree. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the FɪndNovᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“Charles?” They both called in disbelief.

It couldn’t be. They had seen him go into the tree’s stomach with their own eyes.

The tree’s stomach...

Sarah knew instantly what was happening.

“He’s killing the tree from INSIDE! He’s chopping his way out, AND killing the tree at the same time!”

Finally, once Eucalita was dead, a sore, dirty and splintered hand appeared out of Eucalita’s mouth, followed by Charles’ whole exhausted body.

“CHARLES!”

Sarah and Robert ran over and pulled Charles out, happy that he was alive.

“You DID IT, Charles! You saved our lives! The tree’s dead!” Sarah congratulated Charles.

But poor Charles had completely lost all energy and collapsed into Sarah’s arms as he lost consciousness.

Meanwhile, in the human world, Mary was still shivering as she was helped into a hospitable. The man that had picked her up from the high-way found that Mary was so shocked by her time-bomb experience that she hadn’t moved or talked for the whole trip. She was still in the position that she was in when she had been blown into the privy: Eyes wide with fright; hair straightened back and so stiff it felt like plastic; hands behind her; widely spread fingers; and legs half-way up in the air.

A doctor examined her eyes and asked the man what he thought could have happened. The man replied that he had found her in a privy, car blown up, a shard in the privy door, and her stock still on top of the privy.

The doctor called up the police to investigate the car-bomb and then took Mary into a ward to calm down and wake up comfortably later on.

Mary’s moving day was definitely NOT turning out the way she expected.

Not far away from her, still in the Human world, Chief Jay Witt, the investigating police chief charged with solving the case for Mary Rochester, was about to arrive at the place where the explosion occurred. Now Chief Jay Witt was a patient, caring man in reality. But when it came to policing, he had to put on the mean face, get straight down to business and teach any vermin their lessons. When he got the call about the car-bomb case, he took it upon himself to take a team of high professionals to find out exactly WHO would want to try and kill this sweet sounding Mary Rochester.

But when he arrived at the sight with his men, he told them to organise themselves with the crime-scene and then disappeared to find the hospital where Mary was. If anyone could help him more with the case, it was her.

Well, that’s what he thought anyway.

Arriving at the hospital, he found out that Mary had gotten out of her shocked state, but was now sleeping in comfort with her mother and father by her side.

‘They will have to do.’ He told himself as he entered the ward.

He had no idea that, by the end of the day, he would stumble across a case that would lead to one of two ways.

To another, magical, almost unbelievable world where there was a fight for survival still happening.

Or to death.

And if he knew he had to choose, he would definitely choose the one that DIDN’T lead to death.

Wouldn’t you?

“Wow, that was quite some fighting Charles pulled off against that tree, Sarah! His lessons in fencing were definitely not for nothing!” Robert said as they tried to get Charles onto the soft ground to rest and get his energy back.

“That’s indeed true! But we still need to look for those stones and none of us know where the first one is!”

Nathaniel tugged on Sarah’s shirt. “Um pardon me, miss Sarah was it? I think perhaps I see something that might help you out. When the tree collapsed, there appeared a huge crack in the ground and, well, I see a strange light coming from within the crack.” Robert and Sarah looked at the meerkat with expectation.

Robert hobbled over to the place that Nathaniel had indicated and pulled something from the ground in triumph.

“IT’S THE FIRST RUNE STONE!” Robert and Sarah exclaimed cheerfully.

Nathaniel’s tail wiggled in anticipation. “Oh my! You found one! Marvelous! But is there no clues to where the second one might be?” Nathaniel asked.

“Well first I think we should figure out what to do about your leg, Robert, and Charles needs a better place to get his energy back.” Sarah realized.

Nathaniel patted Sarah’s arm gently. “Well aren’t you just fortunate enough that my darling mother is a wonderful healer? Come on! I’ll take you to her. Although… she might not be happy to keep you around and she certainly won’t be happy to know I was fighting a tree. But when she learns of how your brother defeated that tree, she will definitely help you lot out I am certain of it! So come on and follow me!” Nathaniel pointed out, trying to lead the kids to his bush home quickly.

When they arrived at Nathaniel’s home, Nathaniel’s mother was extremely worried about Nathaniel’s wounds and appearance, and her worry didn’t get much better when she saw the human children there with him, however all fears and concerns were quickly thrown away when Nathaniel whispered something into his mother’s ears eagerly. She looked at Charles with studying eyes and held onto his hand.

“You really fought that Eucalyptus tree? By yourself?” She asked, quite concerned.

“Yes, although I am still unsure how I had so much energy for it but I am glad that I was able to do it.” Charles said wearily, still trying to get his energy back.

Robert was placed gently onto the ground and Nathaniel’s mother, who introduced herself to the kids as Nicole, started to try and heal Robert’s leg with some medical herbs and leaves, and while she did that, Robert looked at his siblings in the hopes they would explain what was happening. “Ok, you two. You know more about this then me, do you mind telling me what just happened?”

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