“Luca,” she said calmly. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you, but there was no way that you could have understood. And I wanted my remaining time to be with people who were happy. I wanted things to be normal. Can you understand that?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice shaking. Then Anna hugged him. It was a long time before they released each other.
“You won’t tell them?” she asked and Luca frowned. “The others.”
Finally, after a long silence, he said, “If that is what you want.”
“Thank you, Luca.” And then she felt she needed to say something more. “Everyone dies.”
Oh, but not now, thought Luca. No one dies now, when they are young, when they are my friend.
“Yes.”
There were more ways of feeling sorrow than he could ever imagine. And he had only just begun to feel them. The sky was grey and cloudy, and it had begun to drizzle.
“To a more pressing matter,” she said pointedly, “where do you think the others are?”
He shrugged.
“Do you think they crossed through?”
“If they did, they aren’t here. They could be anywhere.”
“Do we start looking?”
“I’m fairly certain the prince already has ideas about that.”
“What do you mean?”
Luca looked sideways at her. “He has this weird idea that we’re somehow ... important.”
She stared blankly at him.
“I don’t know. He was saying he needed all six of us together, in any case. The king didn’t seem to agree.”
“What are you talking about, Luca?”
“I wish I knew,” he sighed. He shrugged once more. “All I know is they’ve already sent messages to every city in the three treaty countries telling people to look out for Strangers. I’m sure if they’re here they’ll turn up sooner or later.”
“Let’s just hope they didn’t wake up in that tyrant’s bedroom,” she said uneasily.
Luca snorted. “Jack would give him a run for his money!”
“I’m famished. Is there a place we can eat?” Anna said suddenly.
“We have to wait until it’s ready and they call us in.” No sooner had he spoken than a loud bell rang out across the palace, so Luca led Anna inside to the dining hall.
What Anna saw made her eyes widen. All who lived in the castle had come to join the king for dinner. They sat at the largest table she had ever seen. Anna doubted that, had she sat at one end and Luca at the other, they would have heard each other, even if shouting. She had never seen so many people all in the one room. They looked to be noblemen and women, for they were dressed very well in elaborate dresses and suits, and she wished she had something to wear other than her shabby t-shirt and jeans. There were two seats left empty on either side of the king. As Anna and Luca entered, the people stood and cheered, raising their glasses to the newcomers.
When they were seated, Anna was finally introduced to everyone—King Gaddemar; his wife, Queen Columba; Samshon, once more; the Captain of Horse, Ambrosius; the commander of the army, Kha~dim; the High Chancellor, Tomasso; the chancellor’s first informant, Vezzet; a great row of the King’s gentlemen and ladies in waiting, and the king’s son, Prince Accolon. It was difficult remembering all the names.
Accolon could not have been called handsome—his features were too blunt—but Anna had not met a more arresting man. He was young and strong, with huge brown eyes. She liked the way he listened intently when she spoke of Earth, and although each word she said only highlighted the incredible distance she was from home, she couldn’t help but feel a little excited about being in another world!
Tomasso, on the other hand was middle-aged, with an unsettling demeanour about him. His eyes stared at her, and she got a slightly uneasy feeling from him. By contrast, his assistant, Vezzet, sitting next to him had an open friendly face, with eyes so kind that, when they stared into her own, she didn’t want to look away. Only courtesy stopped her from staring at him any longer. She did not, however, refrain from looking at him at constant intervals throughout the night. He seemed to be just as interested in her, but when their eyes met, he smiled shyly and looked away.
“An occasion for happiness!” the king declared, and wine was poured.
Anna turned to Luca and muttered in an undertone, “Are you finding this as freaky as I am?”
“I feel like we’re in a movie,” he replied, raising his eyebrows and Anna smiled.
“Think maybe we’re dreaming?”
“There’d be more naked women if I was dreaming.”
Anna laughed.
Everyone there seemed to have stories about Paragor to tell the newcomers, and the two were inundated with facts of their new world. They ate a small roasted bird that was a bit like a quail, but tasted like licorice, and washed it down with something called Torrean ice wine, apparently a rare delicacy fit only for the richest in Paragor. It steamed like dry ice, and burnt the throat it was so cold.
Finally when it was nearing time to retire, the heavy wooden doors which led outside flew open, and two shapes were silhouetted in the doorway. Behind them was a pair of strange, beautiful horses glittering even in the darkness. The wind howled past the doorway and as the two figures entered, it blew over all the cups on the table. Nobody moved.
“Who are you?” cried Gaddemar.
The strangers pulled back their hoods and Anna could not help but let out a cry.
Chapter 7
King Cornelius rode fast. He needed to get home to Sitadel at once. Fortunately the terrain of Cynis Witron was flat, and the riding easy. He hoped with all his heart that his son would be waiting at home. He had decided against taking anyone with him on his ride—a decision he now sorely regretted.
He had seen a huge pack of sabre-tooths heading his way, fast. They usually only travelled in groups of about ten or twenty, an easy number for a few good fighters to take care of. But tonight, he had seen a pack of a thousand, enough to scare any man to the core. Cornelius had taken them in at a glance before he turned and galloped as fast as he could.
The gates of the city were quickly opened for him, and Cornelius raced up through the curving streets of Sitadel to the castle. The capital city, where the royal family lived, was a geographical and architectural phenomenon. Like the Cliffs of Amara, Sitadel was set upon a hill that protruded out of the earth, and every building was either perched on such a steep angle that it seemed like it should fall at any moment, or carved into the contours of the mountain. Cobbled streets turned at sharp angles, and there didn’t seem to be any design as to how the town was set out—there would often be a pond or water-fountain set in the middle of a road. It was functional despite the bizarre layout. Those who visited called it breathtaking.
The palace was perched right at the peak of the hill. Dismounting from his tired horse and flinging the doors open, the king yelled, “Where is Fern?”
“My Lord, he has not yet returned from his trip.”
“The gods curse it!” Cornelius cried. “Tell my men there is to be a council of war.”
Once the king’s informants and noblemen were gathered around the council table he told them about the sabre-tooths he had seen.
“Over a thousand, you say?” whispered one man. “What are we going to do?”
“Where did they all come from?” cried a voice.
“And why such large numbers?” cried another.
“It does not matter why.”
“If only Fern were here—we cannot fight without our captain!”
“Silence!” Cornelius raised his voice above the din. “Do not forget that I am your king. I have fought many battles—I’ve led you to many victories. Raise the troops, we’ll go out on horseback and meet them before they come too close. Send a messenger to Fern, and tell him what is happening. I suspect he will be over near the Elf country. We must pray for good fortune. Go!”
“Father?” Cornelius looked up at the door to see Elixia, his youn
g daughter, looking at him.
“What is it, dear?”
“I want to fight with you. I have a sword and Fern has been training me. I can fight, Father.”
“Elixia,” he sighed impatiently. “I don’t have time for this. You cannot come. You are a maiden!”
She stared calmly at her father. “I am sixteen years old. If I were a man, I would have been fighting in your army for a year by now,” she said.
“You are not a man,” he said bluntly. “I won’t discuss this further. You will stay here and look after the women and children as your mother would have done.” And with that, he strode away.
All he could think about, as his daughter stared at his retreating back, was that something very strange indeed was going on for such a large number of beasts to travel together. He marched briskly back down to the stables and remounted his horse. He was armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows, and his favourite sword—the one he had used since he was a youth.
The men rode out at sunset. A sabre-tooth’s sight was not sharp in dim light. Cornelius had just over two hundred men at his back. He remembered the days when he’d had a thousand eager young men fighting at his side, but there had been peace in the land for a long time and the army was diminished. Most of them had gone off to seek adventure elsewhere.
It was already night by the time they spotted the first of the sabre-tooths. They were in the distance, but it would have been hard for them to miss such a huge mass of black, howling beasts.
“All right men, this is it. We charge when I give the call. We ride hard and show no mercy—we will not receive any from them. Use your arrows when we get in range, and then your swords—you know what to do. Do not leave your horses—they are our advantage. Ready men? Charge!”
And thus charging forward, Cornelius cried the name of the one God he had ever believed in. The war God who would decide whether he lived or died in this fight.
“Odin! Guide me!”
Chapter 8
Fern stood atop a ridge and looked below to the valley floor where a full-scale battle was raging. A small army of men were fighting hard against hundreds of sabre-tooths. His eyes grew wide as he realised that they were his own men. He watched as his father faced three beasts at once, and a wave of panic swept over him—Cornelius was too old to be fighting. He could go down and join the fight, but one man would hardly do any good against hundreds of beasts. So Fern turned and, against all his instincts, galloped as hard and as fast as he could back the way he had come. When he reached the bottom of the hill, he pulled his horse up hard and looked down at the young woman waiting for him.
“Jane, there is a battle in the valley. It is my father’s men, and they are going to lose. It looks as though they have been fighting through the night, and are outnumbered six to one. I need to call the Elves—they will come and help me if I ask them. You need to stay here and take cover.” Fern didn’t wait for Jane to reply but raced back towards the forest.
Jane and Fern had been travelling for several days now when they had come across the valley. Fern had gone up onto the hill to check if the way forward was clear. It was not.
Jane had never seen Fern so worried. His calm, jovial manner was replaced with an air of determination. There was a ferocity in him now that told her he was not without depth after all.
She would obey him by not going with him, but she would not sit and hide like a helpless child. Jane climbed up the hill, and when she had nearly reached the top, she crawled on her stomach the rest of the way. Peering over the top, she saw a sight that made her sick.
There were hundreds of bodies lying all over the ground. The grass was red with blood. The hooves and feet of the living were trampling hundreds of dead men and animals. Shocked tears spilt down her cheek, as she viewed the violence below her. Screams and shouts of pain and triumph were mingled together with the shrieks of the dying. There was slaughter and death everywhere. She slid down the hill, back the way she had come. Jane, always cool and controlled, curled up into a ball and clenched her eyes tight.
She did not look up again until she heard the sound of hooves nearby. Fern dismounted Nuitdor. “Jane! I told you not to come up here.” He slid down onto the grass next to her.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
Fern hesitated a moment, then gently reached out to pull her into a hug. The unexpected gesture hit her like a punch to the stomach, and tears began to fall.
“It’s just so awful,” she muttered. “Why are they doing that?”
“I don’t know,” he replied softly into her hair.
“But the killing...”
“It is the way of life here. You come to accept it after you’ve seen enough of it. I must help my father. Go back down to the bottom of the hill. I’ll find you as soon as I can.”
“Fern, you’ll be killed!” she gasped.
“Of course I won’t.”
“How can you say that?”
He grinned then, recklessly, and he was the man she’d known all these past days. “It hasn’t happened yet.”
And then he was back on his horse and charging down into the valley. She wondered how he could smile like that in the face of such horror. She wondered, too, if he’d managed to contact the Elves. Wiping away her tears she climbed back down the hill.
***
As the remaining soldiers saw Fern coming down the slope, a ragged cheer escaped their lips. Upon reaching the fight, he screamed out orders.
“Fall back and form a line!” Killing two sabre-tooths with one sweep of his sword, he raced around to the front of the line now in the process of being formed. There was a lapse in the fight as they sat facing the beasts.
“Help is on the way, men. We just have to hold out until they get here. Form two groups and come at them from either side. Form an attack from all angles, surrounding them. Don’t let any of them get behind you, and stay on your horses!” He gave his father a quick nod and hurled himself into the fray.
There was a reason these were his men. A reason he was the captain of the king’s army. At fighting, Fern was brilliant. His sword was an extension of his arm. It moved perfectly to his will, and before long, he had killed twenty beasts on his own, all with a fluid elegance that could not be matched by anyone around him. But the men were tiring—they had been fighting all night—and were paying dearly for it.
Fern could not beat so many on his own. The reinforcements he had called for were not going to make it. It was just too far. He had hoped that, as the Elves were known to be the swiftest riders in Paragor, perhaps they might have made it in time. He had hoped for too much.
Well, he was just going to have to take a few of them down with him then. He had a fleeting image of Jane curled up on top of the hill, and something constricted inside him.
Distracted, Fern was pulled roughly from his horse and onto the ground. Three beasts were on top of him now. Whilst running one through with his sword, he pulled out a smaller knife and stabbed another. There was blood all over him, all over his eyes, and he couldn’t see. He felt more of them on top of him, and he struggled to wipe his eyes clean.
There were other men trying to fight the beasts off, but the sabre-tooths were determined to get to Fern. They knew he was the leader, that if they killed him the group would be in disarray once more. Nuitdor was above him, also trying to block the passage to her master, but to no avail. Fern felt a slash of claws across his chest and silently endured the pain of teeth sinking in his shoulder. Hacking around blindly, he managed to wound a few. With his uninjured arm, Fern raised the knife over his heart. He would not let these beasts kill him—he would end it on his own terms.
But then he felt the weight lifted off him, and was able to wipe his eyes clean. Standing above him was his half-brother, fellow prince of the Elves, Eben.
“Come, brother. It’s not your time,” the Elf said, heaving Fern off the ground. Fern looked around, and the sight gladdened his heart. There were a hundred Elves on the back of horses, shooting
arrows into the throng. They looked a vision, dressed in silver armour shaped to fit the contours of their bodies. Small metal wings on their backs made them seem almost like angels. The metal had seams of gold running through it, and the helmets they wore also had small wings at the back. A piece of metal connected to the helmets ran between their eyes, and ended on the tips of their noses. Unlike Eben and Silven on the day of their return to the ice castle, the Elves were dressed in proper war garb. They held tall shields of the same astonishing metal as their armour, and long curved swords that they had not needed to remove from the scabbards on their backs.
Elves were an ancient race. They knew the ancient arts of warfare. The remaining sabre-tooths did not stand a chance, and were slaughtered in a matter of minutes. The Elves did not even have to leave their line around the outside of the fray.
A hoarse victory cry went up from the last surviving men, but as they looked around at the suffering and anguish, the cry died on their lips. Hundreds were killed, and every survivor injured. There was more than one thousand dead sabre-tooths, and many dead horses scattered on the ground.
One of Fern’s arms hung limply at his side. A deep slash across his chest was seeping blood, and his body was covered in small cuts and bruises. A cut on his forehead trickled blood into his eyes, so that he was constantly forced to wipe them clear.
He turned to greet his father, who was sporting a broken arm and a gash on his cheek.
“Father. Nice day for a reunion,” he said grimly.
“My son. It has been too long. You saved us, and you have my gratitude.”
“It’s not me you need to thank, but the Elves.”
The Elves had formed a line in front of the men, and they stood quietly awaiting orders. Fern greeted Eben with a warm embrace, and then did the same to his cousin, Silven.
“How did you reach us in time?” Fern asked the two princes.
Silven smiled sadly. “Still underestimating us, are you cousin?”
Fern smiled in return and then said formally, “I would like to show my gratitude properly, by doing something for you in return. What would you ask of me?”
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