The Moon Stealers Box Set. Books 1-4 (Fantasy Dystopian Books for Teenagers)

by Tim Flanagan

  Edgar was silent, waiting to see if this lady was friend or foe. Indeed she had the power to order the wolves to attack, but at present she hadn’t instructed them to do so. She turned to her wolf that sat obediently at her feet. There seemed to be some sort of conversation going on between them, but no sound could be heard.

  ‘My name is Ralphina, daughter of King Ulfric. I apologise for our attack on you and your small friends. We thought you were barbarians from the north coming to steal what is left of our kingdom. As it is, I see that you have taken some of our cloaks and swords, but I am willing to overlook your thieving as thanks for helping save my wolf brother from the griffin.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Edgar with a courteous bow of his head.

  ‘What is your purpose in this world?’ Ralphina asked sharply, still wary and distrustful.

  ‘We are here to find someone from our world and take him safely back. We come in peace and pose no threat to anyone.’

  Ralphina turned to the old wolf that was marked with the symbol on its back and exchanging silent conversation once again.

  ‘On one of his scouts of the forest five nights ago, Raelyn, my wolf, remembers seeing an unusual looking small person in the forest on his own. His pack didn’t attack; there were too many spies of the faerie queen patrolling the woods that night. They seemed to be searching for something.’

  ‘Do you know where he went?' Scarlet asked quietly.

  The old wolf turned and studied Scarlet carefully. Behind the powerful exterior there was a kindness and wisdom that seemed to radiate from his eyes.

  ‘He was collected by the donestre, bounty hunters working for the queen. He would have been taken back to the tower for questioning.’ From where they were at the top of the hill they could see for some distance. To their right the volcano continued to emit ash high into the sky, but directly ahead of them in the distance the top of a black Twisted Tower could be seen poking up out of the landscape. Scarlet felt an uncontrollable shiver go down her spine as she stared at the tower, its sharp point tearing into the clouds. She realised that this was where they would have to go if they were to save Peter.

  ‘What’s happened here?' asked Edgar.

  ‘Our Kingdom was attacked by the faerie queen as have many other ancient Kingdoms across the land. Not only did she want our wealth but also our ability to foresee the future. Seven seasons ago there was a drought and no rain fell and our crops failed to grow. We survived on what stores of food and water we had in storage, but they soon ran out and we had nothing to trade with that year. With a lack of clean water some of our community became seriously ill. The faerie queen took full advantage and her army attacked us when we were at our most vulnerable. We fought hard but were outnumbered by the foul and dark creatures in her command. By the fourth night the Great Hall was broken; its walls lay ruined around the body of my father, the king. Those that survived fled into the forest to live with the wolves until such a time that we could rebuild our community once again. However, we are constantly hunted by those who support the faerie queen, whether through desire or fear, and we have leaned to attack strangers in the forest before we become attacked ourselves. The griffins circle in flocks from their nests on the outer rim of the volcano and regularly make attacks on our kind. The queen pays handsomely for wolf skin.’

  'That’s awful,' said Scarlet with genuine sadness and distaste.

  'Thank you, small one. My sister Lupa is being held captive by the queen together with Lochan, her wolf. I have heard stories that they are kept in the darkest of rooms and separated from each other. All Caniards have strong connections with their wolves and the separation would be torture in itself for Lupa. The only time they spend time together is when the queen wants to know what the future holds. But there may be some hope coming. The queen is preparing for war and amassing those loyal to her in an army. Lupa would have foreseen it, as have I. If the queen is overturned, this land can return to peace once again and we can live without an overshadowing threat hanging over us. You have visited us at a dangerous time, knight. You and your small friends may find yourselves getting caught up in a war.'

  5. On the Path to War

  They moved out of the open and into the shelter of the forest to avoid any further attacks from the griffin. They had taken the wolf skins, swords and cloaks with them. The children lay in the dappled sunlight, resting their bodies and limbs from the excitement of the day. Although they were still a bit nervous that there were wolves around them, they knew that unless Ralphina instructed them they would not be attacked.

  Edgar thought long and hard about what they should do next. He had many long conversations with Ralphina, patrolling out of earshot of the children around the outer ruins of the Great Hall. He did not like the idea of getting mixed up in a war that was not his to fight. However, from what Ralphina had said, there seemed to be very little hope of gaining any help from the faerie queen to fight against the Moon Stealers. She had become so twisted and warped by power and greed that the only draw for her to enter the human world would be to rule over the humans. However, he had to try and get Peter away from her before she realised that he possessed The Sight and used him to enter the human world. There was part of him that wished he had not brought the children to the faerie world, but he knew they each had an important part to play, and besides, without Joe and the Silver Bough they would still be standing on the top of the hill fighting the Moon Stealers and all hope for humans would be lost.

  Later in the afternoon, all of the wolves, except for Raelyn who always stayed by the side of Ralphina, went off hunting and returned with an ibex, an animal that looked similar to a brown goat with two long curved and twisted antlers that stretched over to sit above the top of the front shoulders. Skilfully Ralphina stripped the skin from the animal then removed some of the best meat for herself, Edgar and the children, then tossed the rest for the wolves to share. She lit a small fire and pushed strong twigs through the centre of the meat to make a spit over the flames.

  Edgar had been standing at the edge of the forest looking out over the darkening landscape to where the Twisted Tower stood together with the queen’s growing army.

  Eventually he closed his eyes, certain that his decision was made and returned to the children. As he approached, they sat up and looked at him as if they had been waiting for a judge to convict or condemn them. He stood in front of them and looked down at their expectant faces.

  'We must continue,' he said clearly to the children.

  'But we will be killed,' said Max instantly, 'she said we would be going into a war!'

  'That is true, but if we don’t find Peter that war will enter into our world too.'

  Joe and Scarlet knew that Edgar would have thought long and hard about their options. They trusted him to do the right thing.

  'If we need help to rid the Moon Stealers from our world we must join forces with what is right and honourable in this world too. Only then will help come to assist us. We have to join the Caniards to overthrow the queen. There are many small bands of other societies, broken kingdoms and endangered creatures that are secretly gathering past the other side of the water. We need to make our way there and join them in the Council of War.'

  'How far will we need to go?' asked Scarlet.

  'Maybe two days of travelling. If we set off this evening for the cove we can cross the water under the cover of darkness. It will be a tiring journey but you will have chance to rest in the safety of the Rocks of Goran, an ancient underground city that is safe from attack. The eyes of the queen cannot penetrate the rock walls. This will be where the Council of War will take place.'

  'But what can we do? We're just children.'

  'There is something special about each and every one of you. I may be able to use a sword, but you have the gifts of purity and honesty. Work together and the three of you are mightier than any warrior.'

  'What if I want to go back?' asked Max.

  Edgar thought about this for a while before
giving an answer. 'If you all wish to go back, then I will take you back, but you leave Peter to his own fate. But if only one of you wishes to return home, I won’t be able to take you. We must all continue together or return together.'

  'We must go on, Max,' said Joe. 'We can't leave Peter here.'

  By now it was nearly nightfall. Ralphina came over with some of the cooked meat resting on a simple tin plate and passed it round. The children followed Edgar’s lead and picked a chunk of meat from the plate with their fingers and began eating it. She then passed a flask round which they all took a swig from. The liquid inside was sweet and sticky like honey with a fiery aftertaste. The sweet fluid tasted wonderful with the smoky barbeque flavour of the meat, a definite improvement to the small berries they had been eating all day. With a warm meal inside their stomachs and the buzz of the honey flowing through their veins, it felt like they had been injected with energy and were ready for the night trek through the forest towards Pollwiddon Cove.

  Once they had packed up their belongings and removed all traces of the fire, they started to leave the ruins of the Golden Hall behind them. Under the veil of darkness and beneath their magical camouflage cloaks the small band of figures moved quietly through the forest accompanied by five wolves, scouting ahead to check for danger as well as protecting from the rear. Nobody spoke they just responded to hand signals given by Ralphina who was in constant communication with Raelyn. The path continued to steadily fall away from the slopes of the forest until it reached the southern bank of a river where they turned east and followed its path, making their way along what occasionally became quite a slippery route. As smaller streams of water cascaded from the high forest above them to join the river, it began to widen further. The river carved a path between the thickened roots of trees that stood in its way. Thick damp moss clung to trunks in the damp humid air surrounding the river, the red bark hidden by the green spongy moss. After some time the silent air of the forest began to take on a salty taste and they knew that they were nearing the cove where the sea separated them from faerie territory.

  To the relief of the children, Ralphina signalled that they could stop for a rest so they lay down upon the bank of the river and looked up at the sky. Whenever the sky didn’t crackle with electricity from the volcano, they could see constellations of stars twinkling above them. They wrapped their cloaks tightly around their bodies like thick blankets, keeping the cold air out. They had not seen anything during the night, but suddenly the wolves pricked their ears up listening to a sound that as yet was inaudible to everyone else. Raelyn stood up turning his head slightly upstream, in the direction they had come from.

  ‘We must move away from the river,’ whispered Ralphina urgently to Edgar. ‘There are boats travelling down river towards us. We must move beyond the line of the trees for cover.’

  No one said anything as they wearily stood and moved towards a denser patch of tree trunks. They were hidden well by the thick ferns that grew near to the water but still had a good view of the river.

  They sat silently and waited, watching the surface of the water to see what came.

  Crackles from the volcano reflected off the gently flowing river. All they could hear was the occasional wash of water as it trickled over large stones, or the zipping of mosquitoes around their ears. After several minutes the children began to get restless, they had not seen anything or even heard anything unusual, but then a deep chill seemed to creep over their bodies as something moved slowly down the river. At first they saw a low flat boat, simply made but gliding effortlessly across the surface of the river. On top of it sat a hunched figure, squatting down on its legs. One wide clawed hand appeared to be holding onto a rope attached at the front of the boat whist the other hand held a thick pole that was thrust deeply into the water, steering the craft along the river avoiding the rough stones beneath. The creature that steered the raft had the muscular body of a human, but it was covered by thick hair which seemed to be a continuation of the long hair that also covered its head. In places the fur was twisted and matted together with small coloured beads hanging down. Although most of the features of the head were hidden, a lion-like nose and down-turned mouth stuck out together with a sad pair of eyes that peered out from behind a veil of hair. Rounded ears on the top of its head twitched as it flicked flies away or rotated to pick up the slightest sound from the forest on either side of it. A thick leather strap buckled across its chest held a sheath for the sword on its back.

  As it drew level with the clump of ferns that Edgar, Ralphina and the children were hidden in, it raised its sensitive animal nose into the air and sniffed the unusual scent that hung there. The creature’s silent progress was followed by another, almost identical creature on a similar raft. Behind that a thicker sided raft followed with a cage constructed of branches bound together by thick vine. On the floor of the cage a young unicorn lay on its side; its immature coat appeared silver by the light of the moon and a short white horn protruded from its forehead. A gentle cooing noise came from the unicorn, calling for its parents, but from the twisted horns that hung from the belt of its jailer its call was never likely to be answered.

  Another flat raft followed the cage boat and the procession passed out of view as they drifted on down the river towards the salt water of Pollwiddon Cove. Ralphina waited for some time until she gave the signal that they could move or talk.

  ‘What was that?' asked Joe.

  ‘They were the donestre. Bounty hunters working in the name of the faerie queen. They are vicious creatures that prefer to slay their prey than capture it, and they regularly make expeditions into Firewood Forest to hunt, collect or destroy certain creatures. Donestre are also Polyglots, creatures that can speak many different languages, even the dead languages of our ancestors. They do this to trick their prey into trusting them before they strike. It looks like the sacred unicorns are also now to be sacrificed, although why the queen would want to collect the young and not the adults is interesting. They will also be making for the Cove to cross to faerie land and on towards the castle. We will head into more and more danger the nearer we get. I suggest we wait a while longer until they are further ahead of us before we continue along the river. The leader of the group smelt one of you so may stay further behind or try and pick up the scent back here. I will send my wolf brothers to patrol ahead for a while and monitor the donestre's movements.’ Ralphina turned to Raelyn and immediately the other wolves sprang to their feet and bounded off along the river bank in the direction of the rafts.

  Raelyn continued to sit obediently at the feet of his mistress. The children were glad of the rest once again and wrapped tightly in their wolf skin cloaks they began to drop off to sleep.

  It felt like they had not slept long when they were woken quietly by Edgar whispering into their ears.

  ‘We need to move again,’ he said forcefully.

  They stood up warily and automatically started to turn to follow the river before Edgar grabbed them by the arm and pulled them back.

  ‘We’re going that way,’ he whispered pointing across the river to the other side.

  ‘But we’ll get wet,’ said Max.

  ‘Better wet than dead! The wolves still haven’t returned and Raelyn picked up the scent of a donestre coming this way. We are being hunted!’

  6. Battle of the Redwash

  They moved closer to the edge of the Redwash river. Now that they were closer to it, it seemed to be running a lot quicker than it had done from the safety of the bank. Scarlet kept checking nervously behind them for any sign of the donestre but all she could hear was the rumble of the volcano in the distance. The crackle of lightening that lit up the sky also illuminated the forest but nothing seemed to be moving in the trees.

  ‘Raelyn says the donestre is moving in this direction and at a very fast pace,’ said Ralphina in a rapid but hushed voice. ‘Although he may not see us in our cloaks, his senses are so good that he will know we are here and could fight us by hearing
and smell alone. You should avoid a donestre whenever possible. They are pure fighting machines. Let’s get across the river as quickly as possible. The water will hide our scent.’

  Edgar took a step into the shallow water around the banks of the river to see if it was safe. There was shingle beneath his feet that depressed and moved under his weight but it appeared to be stable and not too deep. He took a step forward, testing gently with his foot to make sure the bottom of the river didn’t drop away too sharply then beckoned for the children to follow. Although they were reluctant to enter the water, the idea of being captured or killed by the donestre was an even worse thought.

  Joe went first. He lifted one of his tired feet and placed it in the water. Immediately he felt the icy water fill his shoe and a shiver went through his body. In some ways it was quite pleasant to cool his feet as they were hot and tired from walking so much, but the thought of the cold water washing over his body as he made his way further into the river was not one he was looking forward to. Edgar stood waiting for all three children to enter the river and walk past him before moving across with them.

  Ralphina followed next leaving Raelyn still standing on the bank. His eyes were focused downstream on something. The flashing of the lightening showed flickers of movement between the trees until the recognisable shape of a donestre could be seen running on two legs, then on four. The hairs on Raelyn’s back bristled. Max, Joe and Scarlet were now holding each other's hand in a line, water up to their chests, steadily moving across the river. They waded through the running water, carefully looking where they were going, choosing areas where they could see rocks that would enable them to keep their heads as high as possible, until they had reached the centre of the river. Even from where they were they could hear the low growling from Raelyn’s mouth, his lips pulled back in a fearsome snarl.

  Both Ralphina and Edgar drew their swords at the same time. The donestre ran straight at Raelyn with such force that it knocked him into the water and out of the way. While Raelyn paddled in the water trying to get back to the bank, the donestre stopped and pulled itself up to its full height, standing on its back legs like a man. It turned its head towards the river. The scent that it had caught when it had travelled downstream was strongest around a clump of ferns overhanging the river bank.