by Sam Austin
The thirty seconds and a flat surface would cost them, but she can’t argue against the results. Even her father could take twice as long to light a fire, and there’s no way it would be roaring hot enough to light torches without oil in less than twenty minutes. “We keep walking. We have to put as much distance between us and them as we can. Timon, help Neven gather what we need as we go. If we’re forced to stop then I’ll buy you your thirty seconds.”
How, she doesn’t know. Thirty seconds is a long time facing an enemy you have no defence against.
Five minutes later Neven freezes, his hands gripping her arm painfully tight. “I hear Ness.”
“Where?”
“Up ahead. Close. I see his shape.”
Timon, who had aged a couple of years, promptly drops back down to five years old. His dark eyes are wide with fear. She’s starting to think the moving between ages is involuntary. “Timon. Can you take us another way?”
“Yeah.” He gives a shaky nod. “This way.”
They make it only ten steps before Alice’s arms jump up, constricting Bonnie’s neck. “My Papa. He’s - he’s not my Papa, is he?”
Bonnie catches a glimpse of purple through the trees. A flash of gold. The figure passes behind a tree, stepping into view and stopping, as if it knows she’s watching and wants her to get a good look. King Robin wears the crown forged for him after he built the circle. It holds one hundred ruby stones, each one representing a guardian stone that makes up the circle. Each one is tiny, but together they make a gleaming whole.
His face is young and beautiful with a shock of black hair as dark as Alice’s own, and a beard the same colour. They stand out stark against his bright purple tunic and red cloak trimmed with gold. He’s tall, nearly six and a half feet, though at less than five feet herself every inch over six is a giant to her. His muscles are prominent but not bulging. Strong as a bear some say, stronger say others. Yet his green eyes are warm, and even now his mouth twitches into a friendly smile.
“No,” Bonnie says, hoping the girl can’t feel how hard her heart is beating in her chest. “It’s not him.”
It isn’t, she reminds herself. It really isn’t. Her time for meeting King Robin again will come later, and she’ll smile and be polite. She won’t mention what he did.
They’re surrounded on three sides. It’s too late to hope there’s not a fourth. “Neven, now.”
She slips Alice from her back. The relief is euphoric. She stretches the kinks out of her shoulders, wishing she had time to sit down and give her legs the same relief. She doesn’t though. There is no time left.
“Stay together,” Bonnie says. “Don’t run. Last time they hesitated when me and Neven were together. With all of us, we might buy some time before the torches are lit.”
Neven works quickly, dumping his supplies onto cloth pulled from his bag. Remembering last time, Bonnie can guess why. The ground had steamed cold when their torches fell on it. She can feel that same cold seeping through the thin material of her shoes.
The King drifts closer, becoming more indistinct as he does. For a moment he shudders, and his features warp into her father's, then they turn back. "Your father was a knight of mine, was he not? Yes, you have his hair. What of you boy? Do you want to be a knight? Do you want to wear one of my red cloaks?"
For the first time the question doesn't bring images of battle and glory. A red cloak. In all her day dreams she had never pictured herself wearing one. For a moment she sees clearly in her mind herself kneeling to make her oath, her blood seeping into her cloak, only to seep out again seconds later.
She swallows heavy and raises her sword. "Whoever you were once, you are no King."
He stops as suddenly as if the words are a physical blow. His legs disappear into white vapour. He frowns, only for that expression to disappear too as his features dissolve into formless white.
"Right. You are right. Not a King - but," the voice is as faceless as the rest of it. An empty, toneless voice sounding like it's coming from very far away. The face flickers between the witch, her father, Ness, and the King, voice changing with each one. "I am a mother, a father, a friend. I am yours. Won't you be mine?"
Whispers crowd the air behind them. Dozens of them like predators surrounding prey. A chill not related to the frozen air slips down her spine. "How many?"
"Twenty," comes Alice's small voice. "Thirty maybe. They're coming from everywhere."
"Neven?" Bonnie swipes her sword at the faceless King, hoping the action might scare it. It keeps on coming with a slow dreamy quality. Its white fingers strain toward her.
"Almost."
"Stay together," Bonnie says, hoping she's not signing their death warrants. "Protect Neven."
She slashes at her sword down the creature's middle. It passes through him with nothing but a slight ripple in the mist to show it was there. Behind her Alice's voice rises and falls in pleading and tones. Out of the corner of her eye, Timon throws stones, his dark face grey with fear.
"Done," Neven says, and at once there's a bright warmth at her side.
She grabs the torch with her free hand, marvelling at how cool the branch is in her fingers, while the other end blazes tall and hot. The lost one jerks away from the flame, words spilling out of its unseen mouth too fast to understand. His voice has an accent to it she doesn't recognise. The mist solidifies for a fraction of a second into a young man with skin so dark it almost looks indistinguishable from the night around it, and every inch is covered in scars. Then it's nothing but mist again, fleeing backward through the trees.
"It worked," Timon yells, jumping up and now. His tiny flame flickers weakly, the branch spider-webbed with frost around his fingers. "We did it!"
As one, all their torches go out, like a giant leaned down and puffed them out in one breath.
The darkness is suffocating, but it doesn't last long. The witch strolls toward them through the trees, lit up by a pale blue light from her stub of a staff. It gives her toothless face an eerie glow.
Behind her, misty forms of the lost ones follow at a distance.
"Give me the princess," the witch says. "And I won't let the lost ones make you their new friend."
Chapter 13
"Mama?" Timon sounds no older than a toddler. "What are you doing?"
"I could ask you the same thing," the witch says. "I told you never to leave your room. It's not safe. Come over here and I promise I'll bring back the princess for you. She'll be yours forever and always. To hug so you can feel warm."
"I don't want to keep her." Timon stamps his foot, scowling. "I want them to be my friends. And I want to go with them, have adventures, live. Not stay here."
Live. The dead boy wants to live. It might be funny if it weren't so sad.
"Timon. Listen to me and come here now." She gestures over her shoulder at the dozens of white misty figures. "I can't control who they feed on, and if these children don't hand over the princess, I'll be forced to send them in."
Timon crosses his arms over his chest, every inch of him the stubborn child. "Forced means you don't have a choice. You do. You can do the right thing like you're always telling me. She's just a girl. A nice girl, and I won't let you hurt her."
"Nice?" Claudia shakes her head. Her anger makes her look older. "You've been switching down too long. She's the daughter of the butcher king. I gave you your memories. I know you remember what he did."
The butcher king. Bonnie's only heard him described as the good King, the fair King. The one who ended slavery, protects us from dark magic in and out of the circle, and provides a chance for every man to prove his worth.
"What did he do?" Neven shouts. It's such a change from the timid Neven she remembers that she glances around. He's standing protectively in front of Alice. "What could he possibly do that would make you want to hurt an innocent girl!"
Pride runs through her. She may not rate Alice as much of anything. She's a little girl bred on stories about white knights rushing in a
nd saving her. But the fierceness she's bringing out in Neven is unexpected and welcome.
"Because her father isn't innocent," The witch says, her lips drawn back from her bare gums in a snarl. "Because he deserves to be punished. To suffer as I've suffered. Everyone in our town loved me and my boy. Then one day while I was selling my herbs, a lass went into labour early. The only way to help her and her babe was to use magic, and there's nothing my sweet boy liked to do more than help. They may have loved him, but they still reported him, because the king's blasted rules told them to do so. And they burned him. My little boy died screaming. Fifteen years old. Full of life, and they killed him. They killed him!"
Timon shrinks until he's three years old. "I'm still here Mama. I'm OK."
"I had not practised my spells for years. Only simple ones to help and heal, but I knew healing wouldn't be enough," Claudia says, the words cracking apart on her tongue. "I ran home to get my book. I was running back when I smelt the smoke, heard him pleading for me to save him. They said they'd wait, but they didn't. By the time I got there it was over. The soldier at the execution - a man I'd called friend - told me it had been done in the name of the king. That it was the king's orders he'd followed. Nothing more. I say that if the king takes my child, it's only right to take his."
Bonnie moves closer to Neven's side, raises her sword high in both hands. "We won't let you."
The witch laughs. It's a bitter sound, more a sob than anything like laughter. "What will you stop me with? I assure you child, I won't be caught off guard like before. I've memorised my book from cover to cover, and steel is no match for magic."
It's then that she heaves something dark and heavy from behind her. The blue glow at the end of her staff increases just enough to see it's a sack. She upends it, and what looks like every carving in her house pours out onto the ground. They lie there, the animals sprawled like dead things, staring into the dark with sightless wooden eyes.
Bonnie feels a tug at her waist as Neven wordlessly pulls the knife from her belt. He's right of course. They can't run from this. The lost ones are all around them, bright against the darkness. They have to fight. Even though they have nothing to fight with.
The witch chants something in that same musical language Neven used for the locating spell. One by one the carvings sink into the cold ground. The lost ones shudder, before they transform in rapid succession, spreading outward from the witch like a wave. Each one takes on a leather vest, thick dark hair, tanned skin, generic features, and a red cloak flowing down to their ankles.
Alice gasps as she's surrounded by dozens of imitations of her father's loyal knights.
"Go," the witch says. "Capture the princess and drain the life from her. Do the same to the others if they get in your way. Just leave my boy unharmed."
They click their heels neatly together, then advance, marching like tin soldiers. They move with an ease that isn't human, over branches and rough ground, even through trees as if they aren't there. Their footsteps rise and fall as one, and each one makes not a sound.
"Stay back!" Bonnie shouts, grabbing her shield to hold in front of her, sword ready in her other hand. None of them slow. Every face has the same features, and the same blank expression. They're puppets.
"If we can get to Claudia..." Neven starts, before trailing off.
Bonnie catches his meaning and nods. The witch is the puppeteer. If they stop her, it might be enough to cut the strings. Yet the only way to her is through the lines of the lost ones. It's a good plan, but not one that will work unless they find some way to fight back against the lost ones.
"We need help," Alice wails behind them. "We need Sir Dragon. He could help."
"Stand firm Alice," Bonnie says, not able to say what she really wants. Which would either be for the girl to shut up, or to admit how much she really wants Gelert here too. They're up against an enemy they can't fight, yet she has to stay strong. If she breaks, they'll break too. "Pick up a stick and fight."
The lost ones close in from every angle like a giant wave smashing over them. They're no longer the hesitant curious things they once were. They're soldiers, in looks and action.
She swings her sword at one and it steps back, raises its own sword to meet hers. There's a moment of resistance, then her sword passes through its, turning it into a cloud of white. It turns to look at the reforming sword, a flicker of dumb surprise on its face, before the blank look reinserts itself.
Shock shoots through her, sharp, and exhilarating. They look like soldiers, they act like soldiers, and part of them believes they are soldiers. Human soldiers, with human frailties.
She slashes again with more confidence. Her sword takes off the dead man's hand at the wrist, her second blow slices across his stomach in a way that would kill him were he not already dead. The man staggers back, clutching at his wounds, mist trailing from beneath his fingers. His mouth opens in soundless agony.
She doesn't have the luxury of believing it'll last. So she moves quick, slashing left and right. Her father's sword is light and sharp enough to use as a stabbing sword if she wished, but hacking and slicing are invaluable for speed. The sword passes through them as if they were made of parchment, but there are so many of them.
A scream splits the air, turning her blood colder than being surrounded by lost ones can make it. Neven. The noise grows weaker in the time it takes her to turn her head, until it fades to nothing.
She can't see anything. She's surrounded by soldiers in all directions, some with red cloaks, and others trailing white. She's alone out here.
"Sir Dragon!" Alice shouts in the voice of a little girl crying out for a hero to save her.
She lifts her shield just in time to stop a hand closing around her arm. It breaks into threads of white that slip through the shield as easily as if it wasn't there, stroking her skin with an icy coldness so painful it brings tears to her eyes. It starts reforming at once, but its owner has already pulled it away, unable to understand that a shield is no match for it.
She spins around, slashing. The sword feels as heavy as Gelert under her aching arm, and her shield is not much better. White trails from the point of her sword. Strange blood from a strange enemy.
Alice screams again, this time sounding angry and desperate. A cornered mouse will claw at the face of a cat, and sometimes it will win. Bonnie hopes Alice has that strength hidden inside her.
As much as she wants to go back, Neven was right; getting to the witch is the only way to win this fight. If she goes back, she'll only fall beside them.
A horrible thought punches her in the stomach. What if they're already dead? The witch said to draw the life out of the princess. How long would that take? Will they do the same to Neven? Have they already done so?
She strikes another lost one out of her way. There's no room for doubts in battle, she reminds herself. Doubt after, or before if you must, but never during.
The cold air scrapes her throat painfully, but she can't get enough of it. Sweat pours down her face and under her clothes. She's boiling, and freezing, and all her screaming muscles want to do is lie down and give up.
She fights through, until finally she sees a dim figure among the ranks of bright ones. The witch stares at her, her one eye glittering with savage hate. The carvings strewn at her feet are almost all gone.
"You can't stop this boy," the witch says. "There's nothing you can do."
"Neither can you," she says between pants. Her arm trembles under her sword, but she keeps it up, ready to meet the lost ones. "You said you can't control them. Your son is in there."
Doubt passes across her withered face. "I'm doing all this for him. This is our revenge for what the butcher king did to us."
"If that's true then why are you putting your son in danger? This is about you, not him. He doesn't want this." A lost one pushes into her right side, so close she barely gets her sword in its way to defend herself. She slams her hilt into its face, then slashes once it staggers back the few steps
she needs to use her sword. Only, her hand is empty, trembling like a broken thing.
The pain hits her a moment later. Agony that starts at the wrist and shoots up her arm like there are needles in her veins stabbing her from the inside. She can't feel her hand. The whole of it is numb, and stark white from where it touched the lost one's face,
She takes a shuddering breath, pushes the emotions down and swings her shield around to drive the lost one to its knees. "You're a coward!" she spits out, putting all the pain into the words so she won't go to her knees herself. "If you're so mad at the King, then face him yourself! Don't hide in these woods and pretend you're doing great by preying on weak girls. There's no honour in that. Only the weak and the cruel fight children."
She spins around, stumbling a little. The motion makes the ground reel under her feet. Soldiers pack so tightly around her that the witch is gone from sight. The sword is somewhere at her feet, and if she bends to get it, she's afraid they'll pounce and drown her in cold. "You're scared. That's what you are. Nothing but a scared weakling hiding from the King, too frightened to show your face. You're even hiding now, from me, a boy. That's all you do: hide. If we hadn't come along you'd still be hiding now in your little house with your -"
Pain. Sudden indescribable pain. It spreads out from her right shoulder, feeling like every muscle, vein, and tendon it runs across freezes solid and cracks open all at the same time. Slowly she turns to look, those cold fingers clawing up the side of her neck.
A sword passes through where her arm meets her body. It's mostly whole, but the edges bleed white. Slowly it withdraws.
She blinks and the world tilts. A thump jars her body, causing her teeth to click together hard. She's on her knees, the soldiers standing around her, advancing. The fingers of her left hand pry at the wound, unable to understand why they feel nothing but cold flesh beneath intact cloth. Her right arm is a dead thing, hanging limp by her side. How can there be nothing? Not even a tear in her tunic?
She breathes in frozen air. Her head reels, but she can see the trailing white legs of the lost ones approaching. She sees clearly what she should've known before she started fighting. She's one girl with a sword against an army of dead. She can't do this.