Andrew Hawks

by John Booth

  I’ve just had to order Kylie out of my room because she keeps telling me what to write. But this is my journal, and I’ll write it exactly the way I want. She only gave up and went downstairs when I told her there were iced cakes in the kitchen cupboard. (It’s all down to a fast metabolism? She seriously expects me to believe that???)

  I couldn’t accept that Shep was dead, even though I could see the truth of it. I stroked his head and hoped he would turn it towards me and give me one of his little woofs.

  There was a lot of shouting and strange energies flying around the hall, but everyone had moved away from me and it was like I was in a bubble that stopped reality from touching as I sat on the floor and mourned my dog.

  It was the women chanting that brought me back. It was in some strange language, but I could feel its meaning in my bones. The Sisterhood were calling for help, though where they expected to find it in a village cut off from the world I had no idea. I could tell only a fraction of their power was being used to defend themselves against Lady Suttor and Bron.

  In fact, they were spending far too much energy on the call they were making. I knew, because I could sense their defensive shield was about to shatter. I remember wondering how I could know these things with such certainty, but I was sure I was right. I got to my feet and took one last look at my most noble friend before I turned to join the fray.

  It was at that moment the women’s shield shattered and the Sisterhood were flung to the back of the hall.

  Kylie stood alone, just in front of the stage. I looked to see if Mum and Jen were all right, but there were bodies everywhere and I couldn’t see them. Some of the women piled up at the back of the hall were dead. There are angles you can’t put a human head relative to its body and the person still be alive.

  That did it as far as I was concerned. A red mist clouded my vision as I strode over to where Kylie stood. These creatures had killed my dog and now they’d killed a load of innocent women and they were going to have to face me for it. I stood next to Kylie and took her right hand in my left. He hand felt slack so I gave it a good squeeze.

  Kylie told me later that energy flowed through that link between us and she suddenly felt ready to fight again. From my point of view, her hand went rigid and then she squeezed me back, hard enough to hurt. We stood united and I believed at that second that no force on Earth was capable of defeating us. That thought alone shows how naïve and stupid I was.

  “Not waiting for hubby-hound to come back before you take on the snake-holders?” I asked Lady Suttor, with a smile on my face that was only skin deep. I wanted this woman dead and I wanted her dead right now.

  “The Goddess was always duplicitous,” Lady Suttor said calmly and without a trace of rancor. “It’s clear she found a trollop and a virgin to do her dirty work for her. It won’t help you, I’m afraid. I was always stronger in power than my husband. Even with his snakes you are but amateurs, with no understanding of the forces you wield.”

  “I can see now why the Goddess locked you away,” Kylie said, “You’re so boring.”

  Lady Suttor raised her arms and we raised ours in response. I raised my right arm and Kylie her left. We were no longer two people, but one, operating in harmony. We did something strange in our minds and I felt power course through us.

  It was as if we were two poles of a battery with the energy flowing backwards and forwards between us, building ever higher on each pass until it became so great it had to shoot out into the room. Every hair on my head stood up and our hands were almost too hot to hold. We were burning each other, but we knew that if we let go our power would be so much less.

  The energy streamed across the gap between us and Lady Suttor before spilling over and past her as it was turned away and dissipated by some kind of shield. Even as she defended herself, I could feel she was readying a strike of her own. We barely managed to imagine a shield into place before we were battered and buffeted by her counterattack.

  It is difficult to explain how we used the magic. To me, it was like a set of simultaneous equations to be solved. X was attack and Y was defense, and it all added up to the constant which was the sum of our combined power. Our will was the weak point in the equation. If we ceased to believe we could win we would be destroyed.

  The forces wreaked havoc on the Hall. The wall behind the stage collapsed and bits of the roof fell around us. Bron wasn’t taking part in the fight, which to be honest, I found a bit insulting. Roof tiles and beams fell down toward him, but they swerved away before they reached him and fell to one side.

  I gave Kylie’s hand another squeeze and we tried to raise our game. A pulse of white light shot at Lady Suttor and it was so strong she couldn’t dissipate it. She turned it away as she was knocked back. Our energies spewed to the side and a whole wall of the Hall fell outwards. Then the wall on the other side fell in sympathy and the roof collapsed on us.

  How the roof beams missed us, I don’t know. Perhaps it was luck or maybe the Goddess chose to influence them as they fell. Knocked to the ground by smaller pieces of rubble, our grip broke and roof tiles and slats knocked us to the floor. The roof fell down to the side of Lady Suttor and Bron, who stood atop the stage, which was now open to the sky.

  Kylie and I brushed and pushed debris from our bodies and tried to get to our feet. Lady Suttor looked down on us and smiled as though we were animals who had performed a clever trick. That was even more insulting than her son declining to join the fight.

  Instead of striking at us, she stood and laughed as we dragged ourselves to our feet. Again, my hand closed around Kylie’s and I pulled her close to me and kissed her on the lips.

  “Why did you do that?” Kylie asked, though she sounded quite pleased about it.

  “If I’m about to die, I want to go with the taste of your lips on mine,” I said and turned once again to face Lady Suttor.

  “You two are so brave, noble, and in love, it makes me sick to my stomach,” Lady Suttor spat at us. I saw Bron frown as though he disagreed.

  “Die and be done with it,” she said and a wave of overwhelming force built up in front of us like a surfing wave. It stood fifty feet tall and I knew we had nothing left that could stand against it.

  But the wave never hit because Bron waved his hand and it was driven sideways, ripping several ancient trees out of the ground and throwing them more than a hundred yards down the road.

  “How dare you interfere?” Lady Suttor hissed at her son, who seemed unbothered by the venom she directed at him.

  “Let them be. Destroying two noble souls does you no honor, Mother. He has lost his dog to Father and that is punishment enough.”

  Lady Suttor snarled at her son, disgust written on her face.

  “Our time in exile has made you soft, Bron. The people must learn to serve and these two must die, as they have far too much spirit to be broken to the yoke.”

  “Not soft, mother, I have become strong.” Bron told her, still unmoved by his mother’s distain. “I was soft when I went along with your crimes all those years ago. I thought family must always come first and it has taken ten thousand years for me to realize I was wrong.”

  “Defy me and I will send you back to the exile, never again to breathe the fresh air of Earth.”

  “You can try to do that, Mother. But you will not hurt those two young people while I still stand.”

  They took stock of each other. Like warriors resigned to the inevitable battle to come. Then they fought. It didn’t look particularly spectacular, though I saw waves of virtually invisible force pass back and forth between them. But our battle with Lady Suttor was as nothing compared with the battle they fought. They were so professional about it that nothing leaked out to destroy things around them as our fight had done.

  I’m pretty sure Bron would have won, but his mother tricked him. She fell to one knee holding an arm as though he had hurt it and cried out. Bron ceased his attack and dropped his guard, and then she struck his defenseless body with t
he same forces she used on Mrs. Kelly.

  Once again, I saw a body disintegrate onto the floor, a gleaming white skull sticking out incongruously from the steaming flesh beneath it.

  “Enjoy your exile, Bron. You are not worthy to join us as a ruler of this world,” Lady Suttor told the pile of flesh without the slightest tone of regret. She walked to his remains and kicked his skull across the stage.

  She turned her attention back to us. “I wish she’d get this over with,” Kylie said loudly, “I think I’ve almost been killed about a dozen times in the last hour and I’m getting heartily sick of it.”

  “Your wish is my…” Lady Suttor said, but she never finished the sentence.

  The sky went dark. But it wasn’t the sky that caused Lady Suttor to stop. It was the drumbeat, slow and steady, like the sort they play at executions in films. More than just drums, there came the sounds of studded boots marching down the road.

  They came at her from all sides. The walls had fallen and the debris must have been difficult to walk over, let alone to march across. But they marched anyway, and they didn’t miss a beat.

  The marches had the desiccated bodies of warriors, still distinctly female despite their state of decay, though the shape of the breastplates did help in identification. The corpses wore light armor like ancient Romans, with clothes beneath and black cloaks billowing behind them. Without a doubt, they’d all been dead for a very long time.

  They were armed with swords and tall intricately carved white staffs. They gathered in a circle around Lady Suttor. Kylie and I scrambled back as best we could over the rubble to get well out of their way. Now was not the time to become collateral damage.

  They never said a word and Lady Suttor stared at them in silence. There was fear in her eyes, as though she recognized them. I can’t say who broke the impasse with the first strike, for it might have been either side, but when it happened, the world shuddered around us as though it was being torn asunder.

  Lady Suttor didn’t lose easily. Many of the warriors crumbled to dust as she struck at them with forces beyond imagination. Those that survived came at her relentlessly, like waves breaking on a beach in the height of a storm.

  Lady Suttor was bounced and buffeted as their individual blows started to get through. She weakened in strength even as their numbers diminished.

  I held Kylie close to me and we huddled together trying to withstand the forces around us and not understanding why we were still alive or who our rescuers were. We kissed each other with a fierce passion, because what else was there for us to do? In any case, we needed the comfort. I have never been more frightened of dying than then and if it hadn’t been for Kylie’s presence, I know my heart would have given out. She tells me she felt exactly the same way. We bonded for life during that fight, bonded as we waited to die.

  The outcome of the battle only became certain at the very end. Lady Suttor rallied and struck a blow that wiped five of the ten remaining warriors from the face of the Earth. That made her vulnerable for a second and I saw warrior snap her wrists before dislocating her arms at the elbows. Lady Suttor stood like a rag doll, her arms flapping uselessly as invisible forces tore at them.

  The five warrior women descended upon her and prepared to destroy her. Somehow, I knew this would not be the return to exile she had visited on her son, but the one true death that descends on all human beings when their time has ended.

  She didn’t plead or beg, she stood there impassively while her eyes dared them to do their worst.

  Whatever magic they used to end her existence, it wasn’t without pain. Starting from her feet, her body blackened like it was being burnt in a furnace. She screamed and screamed until the burning reached her lungs when her voice was silenced and smoke shot from her mouth. I could still see infinite pain in her eyes until they exploded from her head as the burning moved higher. Kylie buried her head in my shoulder, unable to watch.

  As her hair frizzled, her body turned to fine ash, which was blown away by a breeze. The five dead warriors turned towards us and lifted their swords and staffs in salute. Then they walked away without a backward glance, back to wherever they came from.

  Kylie wept and I think I did too. It had started to rain really hard and lightning flashed around us. Then the Goddess appeared on the stage and we found ourselves compelled to look at her. The rain didn’t touch her and it was as if a spotlight illuminated her perfect naked body. She smiled at us and spoke. Though she spoke quietly and a storm raged around us, we could hear her as clearly as if she was talking in a silent room.

  “Well done, my children. I am well pleased with you. The breach between the worlds has been sealed. You have the choice to free Lord Bron if it is your desire to do so. The first time you honor the gods by mating, the snakes will leave you, never to return. You must free Lord Bron before that time, if you choose to, as it will require a power only the snakes possess.”

  The Goddess vanished and the storm intensified. The rains fell even harder, lightning flashed and we huddled together, unable to move until a fleet of ambulances arrived. A couple of paramedics had to pull us apart before they could carry us to the waiting ambulances.

  21. Counting the Cost

  A lot has happened since the night the Village Hall collapsed. There have been a number of revelations, an immense amount of sorrow, and perhaps a couple of moments of pure joy along the way. As I come to the end of writing this journal, I’ll try and write it all down for you, though I may get the order of things muddled.

  Kylie and I were discharged from hospital the following morning and my Dad drove us home while we sat in the back of his car in silence. Ten of the fifty women of the Sisterhood died that night and twenty more sustained serious injuries, though thankfully my Mum and Jen were not among their number. Those not so badly injured had escaped carrying their wounded beyond the hall while Kylie and I faced off Lady Suttor. Neither of us had noticed at the time.

  As far as the outside world was concerned, the village had been hit by a thunderstorm while a tornado ripped the hall apart. I was surprised to find out tornados are fairly common in England, but they rarely possess the power to do much damage. In any case, that was the villagers’ explanation and we were sticking to it.

  There was also the matter of the bare bones and dissolved flesh of Mrs. Kelly and Bron to explain, but you should never underestimate the power of the scientific mind to find an implausible explanation for any evidence it can’t cope with.

  The pathologists put the condition of their remains down to the effects of lightning strike, which is the daftest explanation I can imagine anyone coming up with. How can lightning dissolve flesh?

  The survivors told the police and press that Bron was a backpacker who took shelter with the rest of us when the storm started. In the interests of simplicity, we said his name was Bron and a nationwide hunt for his relatives was undertaken by police and press. Not surprisingly, they had no success.

  The village was once again a three day wonder, well actually quite a bit longer than three days, as it took over two weeks for us to get around to burying all our dead. There were television cameras and press photographers present at the funerals.

  The other thing causing a stir was that one end of the Long Barrow had collapsed, revealing the entrance to an ancient chamber that was remarkably intact. Teams of archaeologists flooded onto the site and announced they had found the desiccated bodies of five female warriors, who were carbon dated to three thousand years ago.

  They wore beautifully preserved bronze armor and leather clothing and were armed with bronze swords and hardwood staffs. Again, the scientists came up with an explanation for their remarkable state of preservation, as according to them, the local clay lining the tomb had stopped oxygen from getting in and rotting their bodies and turning their clothes to dust.

  Apparently, the level of sophistication demonstrated in the manufacture of their clothing and weapons was far greater than expected for something do old. Their
bodies and artefacts were removed to the British Museum for long term study and a National Trust bulldozer resealed the barrow from the inevitable treasure hunters and metal detector types that had turned up.

  I suppose the village should be grateful that the other forty five warriors and armor were vaporized by Lady Suttor’s powers, because it would have been difficult explaining their presence in the rubble of the Village Hall.

  I cornered my Mum and managed to get an explanation of sorts out of her, but I take everything she told me with a pinch of salt. I no longer trust Mum, because I know she will lie, plot, and scheme for whatever she thinks is the greater good. I’m the living proof of that.

  She told me that a long time ago, in a time of great peril, a King asked the Sisterhood to fight with him to save his kingdom. In those days, the Sisterhood were open about their powers and trained as warriors to defend the Fell valley, paying lip service to whoever was king.

  The Sisterhood looked into the future and saw they had to fight for the king or their children would be raped and killed by the invading army. However, if they fought, though they would win the day, they would all be killed.

  To preserve the Sisterhood and to protect their children, they cast two great spells. The first spell transferred membership of the Sisterhood to their eldest daughters as soon as a Sister died on the battlefield. The second spell prevented their spirits leaving their bodies, so when needed; they could rise to fight again. They thought this would protect their children from harm, but instead they became a long term asset of the Sisterhood.

  The victorious King ordered the construction of the barrow to serve as their tomb and that eventually became known as the Long Barrow. It had to be longer than most barrows to fit all of their bodies in. Because they were near to the Fell, their spirits accumulated power as the years passed.

  I asked Mum why it was the spell book the kids used contained nothing about the warriors. She got flustered and muttered that the book we saw had a different purpose. I believe that what she means is the book was written for Peter to take, having only one spell in it of interest to the usual suspects.