Nightrise

by Anthony Horowitz

  Jamie had no idea what time it was. His watch had been taken from him when he went into Silent Creek and it was unlikely that he would ever see it again. He looked up. The sky was getting darker but it would be difficult to tell when day became night: not when there had been no sign of the sun to begin with. He was still cold. The older of the two brothers – Corian – had seen him shivering and given him a jacket to wear. It was the same as theirs – reaching down to his knees. There were no pockets and no buttons. Jamie nodded his thanks and pulled the heavy fabric around him. He couldn’t say it made a great difference.

  They had been riding for about two hours and, apart from some of the trees bowing in the wind, Jamie had seen no movement at all. They had left the dead bodies behind but it seemed that there was nothing actually alive: no cows grazing in the fields, no birds even in the sky. There were a thousand questions that he wanted to ask but he knew this wasn’t the time. Scar was still leading, with Finn next to her. Jamie wondered if he had disappointed her. She had come expecting to find someone who called himself Sapling and instead she had found him. And yet, at the same time, she had accepted him and taken him with her. She had said they were going to bring him to Scott, even if she knew him as Flint. Sapling and Flint. What did it all mean? He wished she had told him a little more before they set off.

  The track dipped down. Now they were passing through a natural basin with a stream flowing sluggishly alongside. The water looked dirty and uninviting, but Jamie was suddenly thirsty.

  “Scar…” he called out.

  She twisted round on her horse. “What is it?” She didn’t sound pleased.

  “Can we stop for a drink?”

  “The water’s poisoned.” She said it as if it was obvious and Jamie realized that Sapling would never have asked such a stupid question. Sapling would have known.

  But next to her, Finn took pity on him. The big man had a water bottle attached to his belt and, glancing sourly at Scar, he unhooked it. “Take some of this,” he said, holding it out. Jamie rode forward and took it. It was made out of animal skin.

  He was just about to raise it to his lips when Finn froze. He had heard something, but his senses must have been tuned to the finest degree because as far as Jamie was concerned there were no sounds in any direction apart from the bubbling water and the faint whisper of the breeze. “Down!” he hissed. Then, to Jamie, “Don’t say anything!”

  Scar was already sliding down the side of her horse. She had begun moving even before Finn had spoken, showing that she was as alert as him. Finn and the two brothers followed her, pulling the horses down with them. Jamie was astonished to see that the animals had been trained to lie flat on their sides. He did the same, rolling off the horse and then tugging at the bridle to bring it down with him. The horse crumpled as if it had died. Finn stretched out and rested his hand on its flank, steadying it. All of them lay still.

  Very slowly, Jamie turned his head, trying to see why all this was necessary. In front of him he saw Finn’s eyes widen, warning him not to move, not to make any reaction. Nothing seemed to be moving. He could see no danger. He wondered what it was that had made them so afraid.

  And then he saw it.

  At first he thought he was looking at a column of smoke that might have been rising from a particularly dense bonfire, except that there was no fire and the cloud wasn’t moving up but down, twisting from the sky to the surface of the earth. Then he realized what it was. A swarm. Insects of some sort … beetles or flies. They were black and there must have been a million of them, pouring down as if tipped out of some giant glass container. At the same time he heard them buzzing as their tiny wings vibrated so fast that they were almost invisible.

  What was it they wanted? What had attracted them here? A minute later, with a sense of utter horror and disbelief, he understood why Scar had needed to hide.

  As the insects hit the ground, the column broke apart. For a few moments it was just a black fog. Then it re-formed and solidified. Now Jamie saw that it had taken a shape. Standing in front of him was a group of ten warriors on horseback – but the warriors and the horses were made up entirely of flies. He wondered what would happen if he took a sword to them. The blade would presumably pass right through. But what if they attacked him? Would a sword made up of flies be able to cut or would they separate again and sting him to death? He didn’t want to know.

  The leader of the fly-soldiers held up a hand, signalling the others to wait. He must have sensed something was wrong, that the enemy was near. His head turned slowly in their direction, his black eyes scanning the area. The other soldiers stayed where they were, shimmering a little but keeping their shape. Jamie felt his horse trembling and wondered if it was about to whinny. If so, it would kill them all. Finn stretched out his hand, stroking it, willing it to stay calm. The leader seemed to be staring right at them. Jamie wasn’t even breathing. His nerves were screaming at him to get up and run away but he wouldn’t have been able to move even if he had tried. Scar was lying on her stomach, her hand resting on her sword. She didn’t look scared. She looked angry.

  What was this place? First the man-scorpion, now this. What sort of nightmare had he landed himself in?

  And then it was as if a decision had been made. The leader kicked at his horse – a horse that was in fact a part of him, part of the swarm from which he had come – and they jolted forward. The rest of the troop followed. Jamie saw them ride for about ten paces before – at the same instant – they all came apart again, separating into their million tiny pieces and dissolving into the air. Once again they were nothing more than flies, a huge cloud of them hanging over the ground. Then they were swept away as if by the wind, and a moment later they were gone.

  “Drink!” Finn nodded at Jamie, who was still holding the water bottle. He was squeezing it so hard, he was surprised it hadn’t burst. He thought for a moment, then shook his head and handed it back. He was still thirsty but he doubted his ability to swallow anything. His entire body felt stretched. His heart was pounding and he had to concentrate to stop himself trembling in front of the others. Part of him knew that Sapling wouldn’t have been afraid.

  “The enemy is gathering for the last fight,” Finn said. “The end of the war.”

  Scar nodded. “Will they attack tonight?”

  “Who can say?” Finn thought for a moment as he clipped the water bottle back onto his belt. “They believe they have already won. They will be too busy congratulating themselves. They’ll wait for the morning light.”

  “If we don’t hurry it’ll be morning before we even get home.” Scar pulled her horse up onto its feet. “Let’s move.”

  The others allowed their own horses to stand up, then they mounted and set off once again, moving – much to Jamie’s dismay – in the direction that the fly-soldiers had just taken. But by the time they reached the brow of the hill, there was no sign of them. If they were still flying over the vast landscape, there wasn’t enough light left to see them.

  But now there were buildings. Looking down into a valley, Jamie saw that they had come to a small town, hexagonal in shape, surrounded by walls with oddly shaped towers at the corners. It was impossible to say when the town had been built. It looked new. Most of the buildings were low-rise and there were no modern roads, no evidence of traffic or urban life. Everything seemed to have been constructed around an interlocking system of waterways with narrow footbridges leading from one side to another.

  The City of Canals. But it was no city and the water had been drained out of the canals. As they rode down the hillside, Jamie realized that the place had been almost completely destroyed. The surrounding walls were breached. In places it had collapsed. There were scorch marks suggesting a recent fire. Perhaps this was the source of the smoke that had spread out across the sky, swallowing the sun.

  They rode through the remains of an entrance shaped like a giant keyhole, and at once Jamie saw the scale of the devastation. Broken doorways, shattered walls, bur
nt grass and trees that had been reduced to stumps. The canals were full of rubble. He tried to picture what this city might once have been like but it was simply beyond him. Most of the buildings had been made of red brick with roofs of terracotta tiles. The pathways had been brightly coloured, finished with mosaic. But the simple truth was that no city like this had ever existed in America and even at school, looking in picture books, he had never seen anything like it. It wasn’t modern. It wasn’t medieval. For the first time Jamie began to wonder if he was even on the planet Earth.

  They followed a street between the remains of two matching pagodas and entered a wide empty area. Ahead of them stood a circular temple – it could surely be nothing else – with white columns placed evenly around it, supporting a dome-shaped roof. A series of arches stood at the left and the right in the square, part of a system of aqueducts. These had once brought water into the city, but now there was none left to bring. There were two fountains, one on either side of the temple, and a series of flower-beds that would have made this a pleasant place to walk. But everything had been destroyed. Some of the columns had been smashed, there were great holes in the temple roof, the fountains were dry and there were craters everywhere, suggesting that the whole place had been bombed from the air.

  Scar lifted a hand, reining in her horse. The other four stopped. She turned to Jamie.

  “Don’t do anything,” she warned him. “Don’t say anything. Just play your part. It’s important.”

  Jamie wanted to snap at her. He was worn out after the long journey. His throat was parched and he stank of his own sweat and the man-scorpion’s blood. He was fed up with being pushed around. But he nodded, forcing himself to stay in control.

  People had begun to appear, moving slowly towards them. At first there were just a handful of them – four or five here, another few on the other side. But as Jamie watched, more and more of them came forward, closing in from all sides. They were all dressed in the same manner with long jackets, headdresses and leather belts, although some of the women wore wide-sleeved, embroidered gowns that came down to their feet. Many of them carried curving swords and round, pointed shields. They were every age, some as young as eleven and twelve. Soon there were more than a hundred of them, filing into the square, nobody making any sound. None of them looked even slightly welcoming. Their movements were heavy, their faces tired. It occurred to Jamie that they didn’t need to prepare for battle. These people were already defeated.

  But as they drew closer, an extraordinary change came over them. It was almost as if a magic wand had been waved. They had seen something and they couldn’t believe it. A sense of excitement rippled through them. Jamie saw it in their faces. With every step they seemed to find new strength. They were gazing at something with a sense of shock and wonder, and now they were smiling. Some of them were raising their hands in salute. And then Jamie realized what they had seen.

  Him.

  Scar pulled herself up to her full height. “Do you believe me now?” she called out. “We told you the truth. He’s here. We found him.”

  “Sapling!” someone shouted.

  And at that, the entire crowd began to cheer. Swords were raised and banners appeared as if out of nowhere, the blue five-pointed stars fluttering as they were waved above their heads. All of the people were hurrying forward, wanting to be the first to reach him, the children at the front, the adults looking up at him with new hope alive in their eyes. At that moment, Jamie was grateful to Scar. He had no idea what was going on but she had warned him what he had to do. Play the part. Explanations would come later. He raised a hand, acknowledging the crowd, and the cheers grew louder, bouncing off the remaining walls so that it almost seemed as if the city had come alive once again, as if some of its old joy had returned to the streets.

  Scar kicked her horse and they jolted slowly forward, the crowd parting – but only reluctantly – to let them pass. They dismounted at the circular temple and went in. The cheering crowd followed them as far as the columns but stopped here as if this was a line they were not allowed to cross. Jamie and his four companions were on their own once again, but he could still hear the people out in the square, calling out one name – his name – Sapling, their voices rising into the rapidly darkening sky.

  * * *

  “All I’ve ever known is war,” Scar said.

  They had lit a fire. There was plenty of wood to salvage in the ruined city and Finn, Erin and Corian had piled it up so that it looked almost like a funeral pyre. Jamie was afraid that it might attract the enemy. Perhaps the fly-soldiers might return. But Scar had assured him that they were safe. The outer walls would hide most of the light and the sky was dark enough to hide the smoke as it trickled out through a hole in the roof.

  There was nothing inside the temple. They were in a round space – it reminded Jamie of a circus – protected by brick walls that rose up about fifteen metres all around them. There had been frescoes once: strange symbols and pictures of animals and birds. But they had worn away. Or perhaps they had been purposely erased.

  Jamie had at last been able to wash – using water drawn from a well. Nobody had offered him any privacy and he had been reluctant to undress, especially with Scar around. Fortunately, she had disappeared for a time and none of the men had so much as glanced in his direction. The water was muddy before he even got in it, but even so he had been grateful for it, washing away the grime and the blood that covered him. There were no towels. He had pulled on his trousers and dried himself in front of the flames.

  After that, he had been fed. Corian had cooked some sort of meat over the fire. It tasted like chicken but it was tougher, harder to chew. Jamie had no idea what it was and decided it might be better not to ask. It had been served with beans and solid slabs of bread. He had been given a bowl of steaming liquid to drink. It tasted bitter and sweet at the same time and Scar – who had returned in time for the meal – had told him that it was made with acorns and honey. Jamie was glad to have it. Just holding something warm between his hands made him feel better.

  And now they were talking. The two brothers were resting against a wall, leaning against each other, shoulder to shoulder, with their legs stretched out in front of them. Finn was squatting on a broken piece of column, gnawing at a bone, his fingers covered in grease. Scar and Jamie were sitting cross-legged in front of the fire. As Scar spoke, Jamie could see the fire’s reflection dancing in her eyes.

  “Finn has often told me that the world wasn’t always like this,” she said. “A long time ago there were no shape-changers and death squads and overlords and fire riders and all the rest of them. But this is all I’ve ever known, so don’t ask me for a history lesson. I never met my mother or my father. By the time I was born, most people never knew their parents. All I can remember is being carried around by different people. Someone would take me with them and just when I was getting to know them and think that they were kind, they’d be killed and someone else would take their place. And everything was always ruined, like this city. I don’t think I ever spent more than a few days in a house before it was broken to pieces or burned down.” She raised her bowl in mockery of a toast. “Welcome to the end of the world, Jamie. Because that’s where you are.”

  “You called me Jamie.” Jamie wasn’t sure where to begin. It was all too much to take in. “But before you said I was Sapling.” He glanced in the direction of the main square. “They called me Sapling.”

  “There is no point calling you Sapling,” Scar replied. “Because you’re not him, even if you do look exactly like him and all those people think you are him.” She gestured in the direction of the square. “I imagine you’re confused.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Well, so am I. I just hope Matt will explain it all eventually, although he can be very annoying at times and never gives you a straight answer to anything.”

  “You mentioned Matt before,” Jamie said. “Who is he?”

  “Matt’s the one in charg
e. He’s our leader. The first of the Five. He’s the one who’s supposed to understand what’s going on.”

  The Five. When he was at the prison, Joe Feather had said he was one of the Five. Had Joe known something about this world and the events that had taken place here?

  “Tell me about Matt,” Jamie said. He pictured someone like Finn; grey-haired and battle-scarred. “Is he old?”

  Scar laughed. “No. He’s the same age as us. Do you really not know who we are? You and Flint and me and Inti and Matt?”

  “Flint is my twin.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he’s Scott. I was looking for him when I was shot. That’s how I ended up here.” It still made no sense to Jamie, even as he tried to explain it. Then he remembered. “I have seen you before,” he said. “But it wasn’t real. It was in a dream.”

  He thought Scar would laugh at him, but she nodded, perfectly serious. “People used to think that dreams didn’t mean anything,” she said. “That they were just things that happened when you went to sleep. But we use them all the time. There’s a dream world that we visit sometimes and that’s how we found out who we were. That’s how we found each other in the first place.”

  “You should start at the beginning,” Finn called out. He had finished his food. He threw the bone onto the fire. The flames devoured it as if they were as hungry as he had been. “You’re a rotten storyteller.”

  “There was no beginning for me,” Scar retorted. “Or if there was, I don’t remember it. Matt’s the only one who knows the whole truth and he never tells us anything.”

  “Start with the Five!” Finn insisted.

  “All right. All right.” Scar sighed. “But don’t interrupt me, Finn. You only make it more difficult.”

  “Adults taking second place to children!” Finn shook his head in despair. “That’s what I really call the end of the world.” He fell silent.