But that’s no good now, thought Salt anxiously. The Corporation is on to the fact that someone is using the sewers. They’re not safe.
He would have to stop the young Armouron trying to get back that way. As the rendezvous was on his way back to Nu-Topia, he could fly the Sieger there. If he managed to intercept Rake and the others, he could transport them to the Academy in the shuttle. It would be simple enough for them to then sneak back into the Old School via the secret passage from the garage. They could resume their ‘punishment’ duties without anyone being any the wiser.
The key was to catch them in time.
Salt pulled the Sieger round in a tight curve, until she was pointing east. He fired up the main thrusters and opened their throttles out to full.
Chapter 16
Regrets and Reconciliations
‘I WOULD HAVE liked to have seen him again,’ said Tea-Leaf quietly.
Through one of the Sieger’s side windows, she watched the dark speck retreating into the blue sky. The Inimitable was rapidly leaving Nu-Topia’s airspace, heading east.
She turned away, a wistful look in her eyes, and began removing her breastplate. Her four cadet friends were a little ahead of her. They were already stowing their armour in the shuttle’s secret storage hold.
‘He would have stuck around if he could,’ said Oddball. ‘But by the time I’d managed to get that rust-bucket’s manual controls working again, and Tock and I had talked Griffin through how to fly her so that he could drop us off, they couldn’t hang about.’
Hoax stashed his last piece of yellow armour, then turned and nodded his agreement.
‘It won’t take long for Decimal to organize a pursuit,’ he said. ‘Griffin wanted to get well clear before there are Kettle fighters all over his tail.’
Tea-Leaf knew they were right, but she was still bitterly disappointed. She, Snow and Rake had arrived at the rendezvous only minutes after Hoax and Oddball, to see the Inimitable heading off into the distance. She had been amazed to hear that her much-loved former guardian was on board the fleeing vessel. Salt had arrived in the Sieger moments later, just in time to pick up his team before they set off down into the sewer tunnels.
Tea-Leaf removed her remaining armour in silence. Once it was safely hidden, she moved to the window once more. The Skirters’ ramshackle ship had now completely disappeared from view.
‘Where do you think he’ll go?’
‘Dunno for sure,’ said Hoax. ‘Somewhere he and the other Skirters can set up without the Corporation breathing down their necks, I guess. They’ll lie low for a while, regroup, then – who knows? I seriously doubt we’ve seen the last of him . . .’
Rake approached Salt, who sat silently at the shuttle’s flight controls. The old armourer had said little since picking them up.
‘Master?’
‘Yes, Templer?’
‘I’ve been thinking. Griffin has an obvious gift for leadership. He’s a superb warrior – your top student, you said. And he clearly hates the Corporation. So why didn’t you ever enrol him as an Armouron knight?’
Salt gave an indignant grunt.
‘Don’t think I never thought of doing so!’ he rumbled. ‘But back in the days when Griffin was at the Academy, I was in no position to recruit anyone. I had the five medallions in my possession, yes. But I lacked the means or materials to craft such suits as you now possess.’
He turned to look at Rake gravely.
‘Besides, not all great champions are destined to bear a medallion. An Armouron Knight must serve as one member of a unified team. Griffin was – and still is – a courageous and noble-minded individual. But he is just that – an individual, a lone operator. There was always something a little . . . reckless about the boy.’
His steely gaze shifted from Rake to Tea-Leaf.
‘In that respect, he is not unlike another of my pupils . . .’
Tea-Leaf braced herself. She was only too aware that having stormed off from the mission briefing, then followed her own plan of action, she was bound to be in big trouble.
But before Salt could launch into the lecture he clearly had planned, Rake cut in.
‘Master . . .’ He hesitated, a little red in the face, as though what he was about to say didn’t come easily. ‘Before you give Tea-Leaf a hard time, you should know that if it wasn’t for her, the mission would have been a disaster.’
Tea-Leaf was gobsmacked. Her number one critic was coming to her defence.
‘I was all set to blow the containment field sky-high until she showed up,’ Rake continued. ‘That would have done for everyone. It was only because she cracked the generator’s control systems that we got the field down at all. She saved my skin too. And Snow’s.’
Salt frowned.
‘That may be so, but it does not excuse her earlier actions. Going off on her own like that put us all at risk.’
Rake wasn’t finished.
‘But that was only because I objected to having her on the team.’ He looked down awkwardly. ‘I shouldn’t have. We need her, just as much as anyone else.’
It was Tea-Leaf’s turn to blush a little. Snow gave her a warm grin.
Salt studied Rake silently, still scowling. But he said nothing further and a small smile crept across his lips. The young Armouron were beginning to stand together as a real team and he was quietly pleased. He gave another grunt, turned back to the Sieger’s controls and dipped the shuttle’s nose towards the Academy, the Old School and home.
Rake turned. ‘Stand Together . . .’ he said softly.
‘Battle as One,’ Tea-Leaf whispered back.
They grinned at each other.
Chapter 17
In the Rubble
BACK IN THE control room of the West One Peace Keep, the Chairman and his Chief of Peace were still watching the main display. It now showed the image from the helmet-cam of one of the first wave of White Knights to reach the reactor.
There was almost nothing of the power station left standing. The Inimitable’s earth-shaking engines had brought most of its remaining walls crashing down during her lift-off. The whole area was a sea of rubble. And so far there had been no sign of a single Skirter.
As the White Knight wearing the helmet-cam picked its way through the ruins, the Chairman suddenly caught sight of something sticking out of a pile of collapsed masonry.
‘What’s that?’
General Decimal ordered the android camera man to zoom in.
It was a hand.
Within minutes, the White Knights had cleared away enough rubble to reveal the dust-covered body of a woman. As they removed yet more debris, she began to stir. Her eyes suddenly opened, flashing with anger. She lashed out with one leg and began yelling a steady stream of colourful curses.
The Chairman turned slowly to his military commander, who was staring in disbelief at the video display.
‘General.’ There was a trace of menace behind the Corporation leader’s soft tone. ‘What is my sister doing at the centre of your battle-zone?’
Decimal didn’t reply. Despite his exceptional intelligence and all the computer chips implanted in his brain, he really couldn’t come up with an answer.
The Armouron
Don’t miss any of the titles in this awesome series:
The Armoured Ghost
Lying Eyes
The Caged Griffin
Prisoner on Kasteesh
ARMOURON: THE CAGED GRIFFIN
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 409 09685 6
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2014
Copyright © RDF Media Ltd/Armouron Ltd, 2013
First Published in Great Britain
Bantam Children 9780553821963 2013
The right of Richard Dungworth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copy
right, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
RANDOM HOUSE CHILDREN’S PUBLISHERS UK
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.randomhousechildrens.co.uk
www.totallyrandombooks.co.uk
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The Caged Griffin Page 8