by R. A Humphry
The girl and the family followed his lead as he hurried them through the empty streets. The crackle of Watkins' gunfire echoed out into the night. As Sean ran he saw two of the apprentices standing on the rooftops arms outstretched with amber tendrils dancing into the night. Swarms of creatures crowded around them in relentless assault. That was why the streets were empty. He hurried his group back to where some of the other Darkwells pupils remained, despite the danger.
“Thank you, lad. Thank you. You should be an officer in the army son, I tell you,” the taxi driver said as he was hurried down the path by one of the prefects.
Sean caught his breath. This was the craziest night. He had thought he was going to die. Join the army? Why not? The idea had never even occurred to him, but why not? When he read the We regret to Inform you, in the letter from Cambridge in the morning, maybe he would go and talk to the recruiting officer. He took a deep breath and was ready to set out again when he heard a cry.
“They’ve got him! Help! They have him!”
Sean ran and peered out to what the frantic girl was pointing at. It was Fawad. He was being dragged by a pair of faeries while the old woman he had been helping screamed and ran. Sean vaulted over the railing and sprinted. He knelt a few yards away and took aim with the SA80. He missed then missed again but the faeries let go of Fawad and came for him. He fired again and one of them dropped. The old lady reached the railing and the girl got hold of her, ushering her away. Sean took careful aim again as the faerie closed on him with unnatural speed. As it loomed up large in his scope he depressed the trigger. The gun jammed. Sean’s eyes widened in shock as the faerie’s claws cut across his throat. He dropped the rifle and stumbled back. Somewhere a man was shouting, “No!” and holes appeared in the faeries head.
Sean put his hands up to his throat and they came away sticky and red. He dropped to his knees and the realisation came over him. This was it. All those tomorrows would never happen. This was it. And he felt sorry and sad - not for him and all the things that would never be, but for the hurt that this would cause to the others.
“Hang on, boy, hang on,” a voice was saying as strong hands took hold of his head and wrapping was applied to his throat. “Oh no, no, no.”
At least I did this, Sean thought. At least I did something.
Chapter Thirty Three: Battle
The rain stopped and the howling started as Manu and Henry crawled out of the well in the ruins at the heart of Darkwells. The howls were high and haunting and full of triumph. Manu pulled the hood of his cloak back and helped Henry get back to his feet.
“Shit. She has released the jackals. Be ready.” They rushed across the slick grass and through the trees. The paths were glowing bright now and the courtyard was lit up as if it were the first moments of the morning. They reached the gate-house and Henry thrust out his staff, first towards Princes then towards Dukes and finally Queens. The wail of fire-alarms started. Henry waved his hands and fire-trucks appeared with red and reflective yellow fire-men all gesturing the bleary-eyed students to hurry towards the inner courtyard. Manu nodded in approval then turned to look at the coat of arms.
“It hangs by the raven-wings on hooks. I can’t believe it is just here. Every bloody day I walk past it. Every day,” Henry shook his head. “I even carried it about during the parade. The Seal of bloody Solomon. I carried it up to the Tor. Jesus.”
Manu started climbing the arch, struggling for secure footholds on the slick stone. Once he was up he unhooked the plaque and lowered it to Henry who waited below. Henry received it and fell to one knee and scraped at the corner of the school motto with his pocket-knife. “It’s underneath,” he breathed. “Arthur was right.” He mounted the seal on his staff and stood.
Streams of confused and sleepy students were making their way from Princes and Dukes down the Main Drive towards the gate-house, following the illusionary firemen’s advice and ignoring the practice of all of the drills they had done. Manu picked up his taiaha and followed Henry, who moved through the crowds unseen by any of their shambling classmates.
“They only see fire and smoke,” Henry explained as he walked, his voice devoid of emotion. “As ever, they walk blind to the horrors that wait just behind the thinnest of veils.”
#
The guardian statues had shed their cloaks of stone. In their place stood a mountainous knight in armour that was mossy green. He carried a long handled war-axe of darkest obsidian. Next to him stood a long haired knight wearing a green sash and a cloak of purest blue. He had flowing gold locks and carried sword and shield with feline grace and danger.
“So much for the speech about self reliance,” Henry muttered as the guardians bowed.
“Who are they?” Manu asked, gripping his taiaha.
“Arthur’s idea of the cavalry. He is…” Henry got no further as the jackals arrived. They were as large as the police horses Manu had seen, so long ago. They were lean and sleek and silent with luminous eyes and twitching noses. They spread out in a long line and watched the students file past, unseeing. All unseeing but one.
Max Bolton cried out as he turned his head and saw the beasts wrought of flame and shadow, fur and bone and fang. Quick as greyhounds the jackals were after him. Max scrambled and fled, drawing strange looks from his classmates. The guardians were unmoving but Manu flared golden as the jackals pounced, dragging Max screaming down into the grass. He whirled his taiaha and started after them, only to find Henry’s arm on his. “Henry?” Manu asked trying to shrug free. “What are you doing?”
“He will lead us to her,” Henry replied in the same monotone. “We will never find her otherwise. She is too good at illusions.”
Manu looked on in horror as Max screamed. A jackal was worrying at one of his legs. “Henry,” Manu said, his chest twisting in worry. “We can’t allow this. We can’t let revenge…”
“Oh this isn’t revenge, Manu,” Henry said savagely. “My revenge on him would be one talked of through the ages. No. This is our only plan. Against Heather we need every advantage. She has hidden the Tor in s labyrinth. We could spend weeks walking in circles.”
The pack was now dragging Max away at a prodigious speed. “Henry?”
“Run, Manu. Chase them. Take the guardians with you. I shall follow.” Henry began to change. His eyes flared and turned deep amber and then he was a hunting hawk soaring up into the sky. Manu ran.
#
The chase was long. He tracked them through fields and forests. He leapt over fences and across rivers. Several times he lost them only to hear the piercing call of the hawk above that spoke with clarity in his mind saying: this way. He was ambushed more than once. The knights were beyond anything Manu had ever imagined in terms of martial prowess. Jackals poured out from behind bushes and trees and he was then wheeling and striking with the taiaha. Manu felt fast and strong as he fought, but when he caught sight of the graceful fluidity of Gawain, he felt clumsy and leaden. When he saw the power and ferocity of the Green Knight, he felt weak and childlike. The three of them cut through all resistance in silent contempt. Henry would dive from the sky and claw at eyes with talons. They were not slowed.
Lesser fey started to attack them as they chased. They came shrieking out of the mists that had gathered around the retreating jackals. They carried clubs and stone axes. They slashed at Manu with claws and teeth. They slung spells at him but to no avail. His golden mantel deflected their curses. The greenstone tip of his taiaha, which blazed with emerald light, put an end to their wails. The flat blade deflected their weapons and Manu’s natural agility weaved and swayed out of the way of their attacks. The graceful faeries seemed clumsy to Manu now, with his battle-blood up. They were slow and thick and it was the easiest thing in the world to find the exact moment where they over-stretched and to strike with elbow and boot and honed edge. It was like a dance. It was like a game. He found the perfect moment each time and found a rhythm in it.
And always the two guardians surpassed him in th
eir slaughter. Shield and sword and axe were one. It was awe inspiring, watching the two ancient masters at work. These were Wardens who had been born and bred to the blade. They had evolved in a world of battle and ruin and had prospered. Manu was nothing but a talented amateur in comparison. The fey were like corn stalks cut down by children at play.
Now and again Henry would fall from the skies and take up his wizard form. His mouth would spew purple smoke like satin and the faeries would shatter where struck like broken porcelain and Henry would take to the skies once more. Before long, however, he found himself under assault from other winged horrors. Manu watched them wheel and shriek in the sky, which was turning magenta with streaking clouds of green. It reminded him of a picture he had seen once, back in the rift, curled up on his woolly carpet, of the aurora. It swirled and turned around a centre point which he assumed was the Tor. He rolled his shoulders and set off again, his guardians keeping pace like wolf-hounds.
The numbers of attackers increased as he started to sense that he was heading up an incline. The tactics had changed and they were swarming them in numbers. The knights kept them at bay. Henry summoned twisting vines and thorny brambles to trap the attacking masses. A flock of bats then harried Henry who soared and swooped to avoid the black cloud. Manu, lungs burning despite his Warden glow, forced himself on and up after the jackals and the still screaming Max.
The pack headed for a stream that was coursing over the hill and cascading down as a waterfall. Manu killed a ram-horned fey warrior with a leaping strike and then watched as the pack disappeared through the water. The deadly guardians were nowhere to be seen but Manu heard the clash of steel and the unearthly shrieks of the dying fey from further up the Tor. He hesitated for a second. Should he follow the pack or the knights?
“Henry!” he cried as he plunged after the pack through the waterfall, the icy water soaking him through. He sensed Henry behind him and turned to see him stride through the cascading waters. He was tattered and bleeding but still gripping his staff with the Darkwells crest, the seal of Solomon, like a standard bearer from a forgotten battlefield.
“I have no memory of a waterfall like this,” Henry said in warning as they made their way into the cavern. A few feet in and it widened out to a large open chamber. It was as airy as a cathedral and was lit in soft white light from thousands of glowing rocks embedded in the ceiling. They shone like an alien firmament, twinkling softly. At the centre of the chamber, on a small raised dais of rock, was the pack of jackals on their bellies with their eyes on Henry and Manu. Warden and Wizard had eyes only for Heather.
She was dressed in loose robes of deep forest green and wore a rich purple cape that hung from a jade circlet by her throat. Henry’s bracelet, Manu realised. She had suspended Max in the air before her and she was watching him, her green eyes impassive. He was sobbing to himself as he hung, bleeding and stretched-wide. Her eyes flicked over to Manu and Henry and she gave them a formal nod. With a flick of her wrist she flung Max to the far wall of the chamber. He started to seep into the rock with gurgling screams.
“Henry!” Manu exclaimed, stepping forward. Henry did not so much as move. “Henry! We have to stop this!”
“Do we, Manu?” he asked. “Doesn’t he deserve this?” Henry was looking straight at Heather who silently stared back. “I won’t raise my hand to hurt him Manu, I won’t do that. I have no right. But do I have to save him?”
“Is there a difference?” Manu said stepping forward. Henry’s staff crossed his path. “We have a responsibility.”
“Yes, Manu. Yes we do. I failed in mine. This should never have happened. This should never have been. I’ll tell you a little about evil Manu. Something that I know you don’t understand, pure as you are. Evil spreads and stains. It seeps across everything and nothing stays untouched. A little darkness is due to me, Manu. A little evil is the bill I have to pay for failing to be strong enough, for being too weak.”
“I won’t allow…” Manu never finished as Henry bound him in bonds of air with an arcane word.
“This is not on you, my friend. This is all me,” Henry said as Max’s screams petered out into silence as the wall swallowed him.
Heather cocked her head and looked at Henry. “We cannot forgive each other, Lord Grenville, for the sins that we have done.” Her voice seeped in sadness.
“Maybe I’ve already forgiven you,” he replied stepping forward. “Will you forgive me?”
“No,” she replied simply. “I cannot forgive. Too much was lost on your hesitancy. Think of the future we might have had. Think of what you could have prevented if you had been a little braver.”
The words struck Henry like physical blows. “If I had asked, would you have agreed
“We will never know.”
“What will you do to him?” Henry asked, looking at the spot where Max had vanished.
“Oh, not much. The faeries have specialists at this sort of thing. They assure me that he will spend his allotted span of years reliving the rape, but as the victim. I am not sure about after that. I suppose they will think of something appropriate.”
“Come back with me, Heather. It’s done. Come back and let’s have that life. I’ve no more cowardice left. I’ve nothing more I can possibly fear, that I care to lose.” Henry said it softly but Manu felt the power of the words. They quivered with hope and desperate longing. “This doesn’t have to end this way.”
Heather hesitated, her hand hovering by her face and Manu dared to hope. Then she dropped it and shook her head. “I see you brought the Seal, wizard. She was right, as usual. You come to stop me. You and the Warden. Your Aegis. You don’t understand, do you? It’s not just about Max. It’s not just about me. It is everything. It is this whole world. Don’t you feel it? Things fall apart. Nothing is how it should be. We have truly lost our way. Look at all of us. My world full of the ugliness of the poor. We are the people left behind. Where is our place in this new world? Look at him,” Heather said pointing at Manu. “So proud and noble. And for what? He rejects his own heritage. He knows why. He knows about the bitterness of a displaced people. He knows what it is to be part of a culture, of a history that has no place. The drinking, the drugs. The abuse, the desperate void in our hearts – they are all the same, aren’t they Manu?
“And you, Lord Grenville. What of your world? You yourself told me about how it rots. Self pleasing and without purpose. Don’t you see? She is right. It needs to all go. It needs to be torn down. People need to remember what it is to be truly alive. To truly live and struggle and marvel.”
“Heather, who is this other woman you talk about?” Henry’s hand tightened on the Seal.
“Her? Oh, well, she is right behind you.”
Henry swivelled and a black shape rushed him. His staff was knocked from his hand and fell with a clatter to the cavern floor. Manu felt the bonds of air loosen and he rolled for his taiaha. The Dread-Witch cackled and Manu was again unable to move any of his limbs. Panic rolled over him as he furiously attempted to move an arm, then a wrist, then a finger, only to fail on all counts.
The cackling echoed around the cave. “Oh, well done girl! Well done! Well done! They brought the Seal right to us!” Heather curtsied to the swirling mass of smoke and darkness. “And what’s this?” the Dread-witch whispered in Manu’s ear. “Is this the King’s spear? Oh how delicious. How appropriate. Arthur you fool. ” She took the taiaha out of his lifeless hand and whirled it. She then tossed to Heather. “Do it, girl, as I told you.”
Heather walked up to the Seal, which was lying on the dank floor. She was gathering energy to her. Manu could feel it like the rush of wind as traffic passed on a busy road. Sparks flared out from the cavern walls and into the taiaha as Heather chanted, faster and faster. The Dread-witch added her own leathery voice and the jackals fled. Heather plunged the greenstone into the heart of the Seal. It cracked and splintered with an echoing boom that rolled out and around the cavern like the last peal of thunder at the end-times.
Henry whimpered, unable to move on the cavern floor. Manu struggled with his betraying body once more. The Dread-Witch cooed. “Now unleash my Warden,” she said to her apprentice. Heather looked at Manu then rolled her eyes to the back of her head.
The earth began to shudder and then the roof of the cavern fell away. They were in the heart of St Michael’s tower. Above them a huge figure squirmed and writhed against burning chains that were anchored to the stone. Heather made a snapping gesture with her hands and the chains broke, one by one. Out of one of the narrow windows Manu could see what looked like a volcanic eruption from the side of the Tor as the trapped horde were loosed. The baying of the hunting hounds filled the air. The huge warrior fell to the earth and arose, towering over Heather, who backed away, and the Dread-Witch. His face was a burnt mass of charred flesh and he was twice the size of a normal man. The Dread-Witch pulled a blade from stone and placed it in the warrior’s vast hand.
“Go to battle and conflict, Gwyn. Indulge yourself.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when the baying of the hounds was drowned out by the cawing of ravens. The Dread-Witch whirled in an instant and started blasting at the birds who congealed and resolved into Killynghall.
He ducked and dodged the Dread-Witch and freed Manu from the immobilising spell with a rapid gesture while not breaking his stride. Without so much as a word he took off into the night again and the Dread-Witch followed, the detonations of their duel ringing out across the empty land.
Manu wasted no time and leapt at Heather the moment he was free. He caught her unawares and recovered the taiaha before she yelped and rolled. Manu had no time to think as he was immediately under attack by Gwyn and his heavy blade. He was over-matched. Even with his Warden advantages and the miracle of Arthur’s taiaha, he knew that Gwyn’s huge reach and sheer speed would win out in the end. He was a spirit born of battlefields. As Warden battled Warden out of the hollowed tower Manu had a bare second to notice Henry roll over and summon his staff with an outreaching hand. Heather whirled on him and the two friends duelled, power and rage versus skill and sorrow.