The Shadow Ruins
Page 27
Everything seemed to slow down. Then Eagan stepped onto the bridge.
For a moment, he was alone, standing directly in front of a vast monstrosity that was contorting itself into a towering Shadow. Then another figure joined him. Bent, staggering, his armour blackened, Culluhin had clearly been in a terrible battle.
He turned a burnt and shredded face to Sam. ‘Run! Don’t look back!’
He raised his hands skyward and light seemed to flicker from them and from the edge of Eagan’s knives.
When the attack came, it was ferocious. A giant wave of black fire came convulsing towards them, bursting down to crush the life out of them. But Culluhin’s voice rose high above the chaos and his hands appeared to catch the wave in mid-air. It shattered into a million twisting sparks, and a terrifying wail burst out of him as they tore through his flesh.
Eagan’s clothes were whipping around him; his face was contorted with pain.
The black swirling tempest came again, catching them both and throwing them down at the end of the bridge.
‘Sam!’ Emily screamed. ‘Save us!’
The words burst through him, shattering the silence of his mind. Streams of dark and light erupted across his vision and he raised his left hand and it was on fire. He held Emily in one arm, while the heavenly voices of the Magdalen choir filled the night with their light and beauty.
His voice rose again, his flaming hand shielded him from the onslaught, and he threw it back. Stepping onto the bridge, he moved against the black flow, his clothes whirling around him, his voice strong and commanding and flecked with anger. At his feet, Eagan and Culluhin lay like rags in the night, crumpled and unmoving.
But even as he stood there, the light and colour started to leave him and he knew that even the flow could not save him from such an enemy. Tears burned his eyes. He had failed them all and they would pay dearly for such failure.
As the colours dimmed and the last voices drained out of his mind, he thought he heard Emily’s voice.
‘It cannot hurt you here.’
He had heard this voice before. As he heard it now, he noticed a strange mellifluous haze moving through his mind’s eye. It seemed to envelop him in a warmth that drove the fear from his body. He saw a light flowing, drawn by a hidden current, gently pushing the long strands of darkness from his mind. Whether a form took shape in the light he couldn’t tell, but when he opened his eyes there was a figure standing beside him, a woman of sublime beauty, with colours radiating from her like a newly formed rainbow after a storm.
‘My dear Sam, I am here for you, but you need to listen.’
He felt a tender hand touch his face.
‘Who are you?’ he whispered.
‘I am the Fall.’
Talent Insight Group
Sponsorship of The Last Druid
I’ve known Glen Hall for 20 years now, during which time we’ve become great friends and very close business colleagues. He is a super guy with a heart of gold. I therefore feel honoured, as a director of the Talent Insight Group, to be sponsoring this book.
Glen has always had a thirst for literature and a burning desire to write. It is wonderful to see the result of that ambition in The Last Druid trilogy. I’m also inspired by the fact that a key motivation for Glen is to help those less fortunate in life. Every penny of profit made from this book is to be donated to Cash for Kids, a wonderful charity supporting disadvantaged young people who are suffering from abuse or neglect, who have special needs or who simply need extra care or guidance.
Well done, Glen, I’m really proud of you.
Tim Gleave
I wasn’t at all surprised when Glen told me he was going to write a book and I wasn’t at all surprised when he did and it was a big success. For the whole time that I’ve known Glen, if he wants to do something, he invariably does it, and it is always done well.
The first volume in Glen’s trilogy, The Fall, is about many things. For me, it’s primarily about ‘light’ and ‘dark’. We all have light and dark within us and, at various points in our lives, have light and dark thrust upon us when we least expect it.
Glen did a wonderful thing by giving all of the royalties from The Fall to Cash for Kids North East, effectively helping children with far too much ‘dark’ in their lives. Glen has provided plenty of ‘light’ through his incredible donation.
As a director of the Talent Insight Group, I’m very proud that our business has followed Glen’s lead by donating a percentage of our profits to the same charity. As two working-class lads from northern England ourselves, it was the very least that Tim and I could do.
Likewise I’m thrilled that we are sponsoring this book, the second volume of the trilogy. It will no doubt be every bit as successful as the first.
David Steel
About The Author
My love affair with books started with my primary school teacher, who gave me a copy of Prince Caspian when I was seven, leading thirty years later to the publication of The Last Druid and a continued love affair with fantasy. I was captivated by C.S. Lewis’s chronicles of Narnia, I devoured the whole seven books and could have cried when I came to The Last Battle and realised it was the final book. You can imagine my joy when by pure chance I came across an old copy of The Hobbit in my middle school’s rickety library. That one act of kindness from my primary school teacher led me to read English at the University of Leeds.
I have come to realise just how powerful acts of kindness can be and what effect they can have on an individual. I wanted therefore to combine my passion for business with my passion for all things literary. The Last Druid is a five year project that attempts to give something back to all those children who are at risk of never having a family or the loving childhood that every child deserves.
All royalties from The Shadow Ruins will go to Cash for Kids.