Rampage!

by Wills, Julia; Hartas, Leo ;

  ‘Oh no you don’t!’ squealed Señor Granddad, snapping off his rotted sash and quickly tying it across Aries’ eyes as a blindfold.

  ‘Let him go!’ demanded Alex.

  He stepped towards Aries, only to be abruptly stopped by the stinging tip of Carlos’s sword against his chest. Alex looked back at the man, who smiled icily and with a deft flick of his wrist sliced open the fabric of Alex’s T-shirt.

  ‘Fight!’ he demanded.

  Aries snorted furiously. Blinded and disoriented, he drummed his hooves against the ground and out of the corner of his eye Alex saw a flash of metal in the gloom as Señor Granddad slid a dagger from his boot.

  ‘Quiet, stupid animal!’ he hissed, holding the cold blade against the ram’s throat.

  ‘Do as he says!’ shouted Alex desperately.

  Sensing danger, Aries spun his ears round to find Alex’s voice and immediately stopped struggling.

  ‘Stay still,’ added Alex, trying to sound calmer than he felt. Then, swallowing hard, he turned back to his opponents.

  ‘En garde!’55 announced Carlos.

  Feeling dread, Alex pulled the heavy sword of Achilles from his belt with his right hand, trying to control the trembling in his arm, and, hearing a low hiss from inside the shield, lifted it high against his shoulder.

  His heart hammered against his ribs as he looked at the men’s faces, their smiles as cold and sharp as their swords. His own sword suddenly felt massive and unwieldy, horribly clumsy in his hand. Being Ancient Greek, it was cast from iron and, looking out from behind its broad leaf-shaped blade, he saw a look of amusement pass between the soldiers’ faces. He swallowed hard, his mind racing. Before this quest he’d never even held a sword in his hands, never mind tried to fight with one.

  Suddenly Carlos and Enrique lunged forward, their front legs bent, their arms holding out their swords gracefully.

  ‘Ready?’ sniggered Enrique.

  ‘Ready,’ whispered Alex.

  There was a metallic whoosh from the front of the shield.

  ‘Ready!’ agreed Gorgon, her voice low and menacing.

  ‘Willing!’ hissed Viper, unfurling to lurch out at the men.

  ‘And able!’ spat Adder.

  Alex felt his heart soar as the snakes fanned out, hissing furiously, baring their fangs. He took a step forward.

  Now the men’s confident smiles were all gone and, stepping backwards, their eyes glittered, round with fear.

  ‘More devilry,’ hissed Carlos.

  ‘Then it’s lucky our blades are so sharp,’ sneered Enrique.

  Exchanging a dark look with Carlos, he sprang forward, the whistle of his sword sending a muddle of macaws flapping into the treetops. Beside him, Carlos matched his move, lunging forward, bringing his sword down like a guillotine.

  The snakes spun backwards, away from the swish of silver, as Alex leaped at the men, reflexively swinging the sword left and right in front of him. The snakes ducked and curled, criss-crossing in front of the men, confusing them as Alex sprang to the side and slammed his sword against Carlos’s blade.

  The men pounded forward. Alex leaped back as the slices and jabs rained down like hail. Fleetingly, his mind flashed back to how flamboyantly Jason had wielded the weapon and saw clearly how easy that was when you happened to be six-feet tall with muscles like an ox and the only thing you chose to spar with were jungle thickets. Rather than, say, a gang of fight-hungry ghost soldiers who were completely bananas.

  Freshly incensed at the unfairness of it all, Alex ran at the men, holding the shield high and throwing his full weight behind the sword, swinging it like a scythe. Alarmed, they scuttled away, momentarily framing Alex like a pair of brackets. Yet a split second later they were behind him, stabbing and lunging. Furious now, Alex spun back. Left, right, he swung the sword, deflecting the frenzy of blows, looking for a chance to charge at their undefended chests before all his strength was gone.

  Never had he seen combat like this. In all the army tales his father had told him, the enemy had never danced about like crickets. Like the men’s strange weapons, their fighting was light and fast too, all flair and flounce, with enough fancy footwork thrown in to rival an Athenian temple dancer. Full of parrying, voltes56 and glides. Greek battles were all about brute strength, about cutting and stabbing and rushing towards your enemy as one. They were about fighting as a unit.

  Making it lucky then that Alex and the snakes were one.

  Now, as Carlos and Enrique lunged, close enough for Alex to feel their breath on his face, he heard the Gorgon’s voice.

  ‘Attack!’ she roared, her voice raw with fury.

  In a single flash of movement, like nothing the Spaniards would have read about in any of their lofty books about sword fighting, all five serpents catapulted from the front of the shield and sped through the air like rubbery spears, sending Carlos and Enrique stumbling backwards in horror. Krait flung himself around Carlos’s neck, hissing viciously. Viper and Adder each flew around one of his wrists and, quickly looping together, tightened into a pair of scaly handcuffs. Grass Snake lassoed his ankles, sending him tripping backwards over his own headstone to crash into a thicket of prickly figs.

  And Cobra? Remembering his youthful military days, he curled into a tight ball and cannoned into Enrique’s stomach, toppling him on to the ground in a fury of splutters. Then, as the man tried to stand up again, he slithered on to his chest and wrapped himself tighter and tighter.

  Infuriated, Matias let go of Aries’ horn and unsheathed his sword to leap at Alex.

  Behind him, Señor Granddad leered and drew the knife to one side of Aries’ throat, ready to kill him. Alex felt a sickening swell of terror. Aries snorted, aware of the danger beyond the blindfold. Ducking as Matias’s blade now swished passed him a hair’s-breadth from his neck, Alex thought furiously, swinging his sword in the air to deflect another furious lunge.

  Then he had it.

  ‘Aries!’ he yelled, summoning up every ounce of strength to shout over the clatter of steel against iron. ‘Remember to shut in the fire-breathing bulls!’

  Aries whinnied in confusion. Then, suddenly understanding, he hurled his head up roughly, away from the knife, and rose on to his back legs. Spinning round, he dropped down, bringing his rump round, and gave an almighty kick with his back hoofs.

  ‘What the?’ spluttered the old man as Aries twisted up and away from his grasp.

  The gate back at the Zoo had always stuck horribly, you see, jamming into the dried earth before it could close the creatures in safely and it had always been one of Aries’ special jobs to shut it with a ferocious back kick, slamming it into the catch. Now, instead of an iron gate, his powerful hooves caught Señor Granddad squarely in the back and sent him sprawling forwards.

  His cries chimed with the chorus of wails and moans from Carlos and Enrique. Which would have been a truly triumphant moment, except that Matias was back.

  Red-faced and furious, he bounced towards Alex over the ground as if it were a springboard. Up, down, left, right, he danced, his sword tracing gleaming curves in the air as Alex held up his sword like a lance. The Spaniard’s blade chinked and jangled against the iron, angry as a hornet. Then, dipping down, he clipped Alex’s face. Alex felt the trickle of blood, hot over his cheek, and saw the conquistador’s face, smiling as he sensed triumph, and stepped closer, sweeping his sword up from below. Galvanised by shock and fury, Alex brought his sword down, letting it fall under its own thundering weight, and caught the silver sword close to its hilt. The conquistador yelped, feeling the blow jar his hand as a sudden snapping noise, like ice cracking on a frozen pond, rang through the clearing and the blade, sheared clean from its handle, toppled into the dirt.

  Yay!

  Alex!

  And touché, as they say in snooty sword-fighting circles.

  ‘Villain!’ roared Matias, just as Grass Snake slithered down into his boot.

  Whoo-hoo!

  Grass Snake!

>   Scaly star!

  No longer the most timid of the snakes but the only one brave enough to share air with a five-hundred-year-old soldier’s sock. Two seconds after the tip of his tail vanished, Matias’s eyes grew wild and, shrieking, he hopped into the trees, waving his hands wildly over his head.

  ‘What a team!’ cheered Alex, running over and snatching the blindfold from Aries’ eyes.

  Rearing up lopsidedly to spare his injuries, Aries paddled the air with his front hooves and landed with a soft whump. Alex threw his arms around the ram’s neck as Matias’s shouts rang from the trees, squealing at the squirming around his toes. Groaning and mumbling, the other soldiers lay dazed, barely stirring as the jungle slowly returned to its jangle of shrieks and chatters.

  ‘Victory!’ trilled the Gorgon, rolling her amber eyes as Krait and Viper zigzagged back into place.

  Which was when Rose’s voice rang out behind them.

  ‘I command you spirits! Be at peace!’

  Astonished, Alex and Aries spun round to see her striding across the clearing towards them.

  ‘Rose!’ they cried together in delight.

  Throwing down the sword, Alex ran towards her. Aries whinnied and galloped behind him, snorting in delight. She was safe! She was all right! They’d made it to her in time after all!

  Except that she didn’t reply or smile. Instead, with her face a mask of fierce concentration, she uncorked a small flask and began dribbling purple liquid on to the first grave in the row.

  Alex and Aries exchanged confused glances, hearing her murmuring, her voice low and stern.

  ‘Return to your rest!’

  Instantly, a loud sucking noise echoed around the clearing and, behind him, Alex realised that Señor Granddad was struggling to his feet. Turning, he gaped as the old man’s face lost its ruddiness and faded away to white. The colours drained from his striped pants. His helmet dimmed to grey, its feathers paled from red to misty pink. There was a shudder of movement at the old man’s feet and Alex glanced down to see a silvered stream of air wrapping about the conquistador’s disappearing boots. Slowly, like a cyclone in slow motion, the twisting air enveloped the soldier, higher and higher, rising like a magically spinning cocoon until he was wholly engulfed. Next, it lifted clear of the ground and began moving, floating over the earth and pausing above what Alex assumed must be the man’s grave. Then, like a wisp of smoke, it was gone.

  ‘Rose? What are you doing?’ cried Alex, feeling bewildered and frightened as Rose turned to dribble liquid on the two neighbouring graves.

  With a whistle, a second spiral of sparkling air swirled out of the trees, spitting out Grass Snake with a bump, before hovering over the next grave and disappearing. A third, smelling of onions, twisted furiously, sped past and vanished.

  About to walk to the last Spanish grave, Rose smiled up at Alex, but her expression instantly flipped to one of horror.

  ‘Behind you!’ she shrieked.

  Alex whirled round.

  Matias filled his view, lurching towards him out of the bushes, bringing the strange wooden weapon up to his shoulder in one fluid move. Catching the tang of something acrid and bitter wafting from its tip, Alex stepped reflexively backwards, feeling shock course through his veins, shock that stretched everything into a terrible slow motion so that he could see the gleam in Matias’s bloodshot eyes, the dirty brown stains on his teeth and hear the icy-cold click of something metallic halfway down the weapon’s length. The small black hole at the end of the weapon jutted towards his nose as he heard Rose’s feet pound past, sprinting headlong towards the man’s grave. But she was too far away to use whatever was in the flask; she’d never make it in time. Beside him, Aries snorted in horror. Just as what appeared to be a large wooden hammer swung into view above Matias’s head and struck him neatly on the head. There was a dull clonk as Matias’s legs crumpled beneath him and the weapon tumbled from his grasp. Breathless with relief, Alex looked up to see a neatly bearded man standing where Matias had been. Wearing a ruffled lace collar, not to mention the maddest ballooning trousers he’d ever seen, the man beamed, twirling the mallet as he fell into a flamboyant bow.

  ‘I see a kindred soldier also ill-met by Spaniards,’ he said, his eyebrows shooting into his hair as the shield snakes stretched out for a better look. ‘Wat Raleigh. At your service!’

  54 Actually a harquebus, or shotgun, not that Alex knew that, which was probably just as well, what with the way things were going.

  55 Swordsmen, including Spanish ones, use fancy French lingo when they’re sparring. This particular term means, ‘Get ready, matey! I’m about to prong you!’

  56 No, no idea either. And despite sounding like cakes, little ones, iced pink and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, I couldn’t see those being much use in a fight.

  ALL THAT GLISTENS

  Well, hooray for croquet!

  And for trick shots like the one Wat had just performed, taught to him by the long-dead Duchess of Formby,57 which had proved as useful on conquistadors’ heads as it had been to thwack balls lying far from the next hoop and half-hidden under his mother’s rhododendrons.

  And hooray for Rose, too! For sending the conquistadors back to where they came from with an equally splendid flourish.

  Oh, hang on a minute.

  I appear to be the only one cheering …

  Not that Rose had noticed because she was far too busy stuffing the cork back into the flask to stopper up the remaining potion – oh, and ducking the swirl of ghostly grey, the last spectral sparkle of Matias, whipping over her head to vanish into the soil of his grave – to notice the singular lack of applause. Exhilarated by her success, she beamed at Wat, now certain that she could help him too, and, turning, flung her arms around Alex. Tears of happiness welled up in her eyes as she hugged him tightly and, reaching down to rub Aries’ head, she could hardly believe that not only were her truest friends back up on Earth and right beside her in the jungle, but she’d actually been able to protect them with her magic.

  Her own magic!

  Which was when she noticed that Alex wasn’t hugging her back. And, that Aries was edging away behind him, his eyes clouded and nervous, fixed on the flask in her hand. Even the snakes were coiled, quiet as worm casts on a beach, silently framing the Gorgon’s face that now regarded her suspiciously through slits of glittering amber.

  Stepping out of her embrace, Alex looked at her as coolly as though she were a stranger. Confused, she watched as he slowly lifted his hand to reach into her hair, fumbling with the tangled ringlets to draw out a lone spiral. Seeing his face crumple, she slid her eyes quickly sideways and gasped, astounded to see a streak of pure silver nestling amongst her curls as vivid and stark as the violet stripe in Medea’s hair. She gaped, dumbfounded, and, seeing the revulsion on Alex’s face, felt her triumph crash-land in the dust.

  ‘Forsooth, boy,’ muttered Wat, dusting his gravestone with his handkerchief before leaning against it. ‘Art thou surprised? She’s the witch’s helper.’

  ‘The witch’s helper?’ repeated Alex flatly.

  Behind him, Aries whined in confusion and Rose caught her breath at the miserable sound. She wanted to step forward, to rub his head, to stop the terrible sound of his distress and, looking from him to Alex, at their matching expressions of confusion and horror, she felt her heartbeat start to gallop.

  ‘I can explain everything,’ she said. ‘You see, I’ve found my father!’

  A smile fluttered over Alex’s lips and vanished. ‘That’s wonderful,’ he said thinly. ‘Really,’ he added, running his hand through his hair. ‘I’m glad for you.’

  ‘But he’s ill,’ continued Rose. ‘Really sick in his mind. Medea said he stumbled into the village a few months ago, but since then he just sits under a tree, staring into space, day after day. He has no idea who I am.’ She heard her voice trembling as she thought back to his hollowed-out face. ‘He doesn’t even know who he is.’ Rose took a deep breath and carried on
. ‘Medea told me that something truly dreadful must have happened to the expedition in the jungle, something that made his mind shut down because it’s too awful to remember it. She said I’d never get him out of the village without her help.’

  ‘And you believed her?’ asked Alex, wide-eyed.

  ‘Yes.’ Rose stared back at him. ‘You should see him, Alex! He totally freaks if you even try to move him. And she proved to me how easily her magic could bring him back. Like that!’ she snapped her fingers in the air. ‘She told me things he’d shared with her, things from before he went away. Things that she couldn’t possibly have known any other way.’

  Alex looked away and Rose felt a sour nervousness curdle in her stomach. ‘Medea promised that she’d show me how to cure my father if I helped her.’

  ‘Oh, Rose!’ groaned Alex. He looked up at her, his eyes bright with alarm. ‘Please tell me you haven’t helped her.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ said Rose defiantly.

  ‘Understand?’ Alex spluttered. ‘Of course I don’t understand! Rose, when we heard that Medea was heading to the same coordinates as the Scroll gave you, we thought you were in danger! We came back to protect you from her.’ His expression grew cold. ‘Or at least the Rose we thought we knew!’

  ‘But I am still the same Rose!’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Alex shook his head. ‘Only the Rose we knew wouldn’t have listened to a word Medea said. She’d never have helped her. She’d never have used filthy sorcery on ghosts!’

  Rose gasped. ‘What was I supposed to do? Those soldiers were trying to hurt you!’ Anger seared through her, scorching her face, making her head pound. ‘And besides,’ she added, ‘I only sent them back to where they belong. I was putting things right again!’

  Alex stared at her in disbelief. ‘With sorcery, Rose? Think! When have you truly seen her magic do anything good?’

  Rose tightened her grip on the flask. Staring into Alex’s anguished face, she felt all her earlier doubts starting to trickle through the solid wall of reasons to help Medea that she’d built in her mind.