by Ruth Eastham
There was a sound from above Aidan as he stood to go. A snort.
Centurion!
Somehow he’d got loose from where he’d been tethered; the rope dangling from the horse’s bridle; his head tossing so that his mane moved in tangles.
A wild hope stirred through Aidan.
In his mind he saw Robbie’s face with its mischievous smile. ‘Miracles happen.’
But the leg – it still wasn’t properly healed. What if they fell again? What if …
Centurion nuzzled Aidan with force, nearly knocking him backwards.
Aidan thought of Jon lying injured. Emmi bravely waiting with him; the final blast …
He gave Centurion a heavy pat then swung himself up on to the horse’s back.
He felt the animal stagger a little under his weight, Aidan swaying clumsily as he struggled to get his balance with the sword. Then Centurion stood steady, straightening without complaint; ears pointed and alert.
Aidan gripped the mane as the horse gave a few lurching steps.
His eyes flicked to his watch. Four minutes twenty-nine seconds …
‘I’m riding Centurion!’ he shouted in the direction of the hole. ‘I’ll get there in time!’ He tried to make his promise sound sure, muffling his thick panic.
And the two of them set off at a skittish trot, out of the clearing and into the dense hem of trees.
A hoof caught on a stone, making Centurion stumble. But the horse righted himself and continued on, picking up speed as they weaved between the trees.
– CHAPTER 27 –
INTO BATTLE
Three minutes … Aidan felt Centurion build speed towards a gallop.
At every twist and turn of the path, Aidan tensed and held his breath, the horse’s leg jarring slightly on the swerving corners.
But now that Centurion was in motion, the horse seemed to be relishing the run, sensing the urgency, finding his rhythm – instinct taking over.
All the same, Aidan pressed himself tight against the animal’s back.
Jon. Emmi.
Branches whipped his face. Leaves blocked his view. The sword swung awkwardly at his hip, threatening to destabilise him.
Aidan gripped with his knees, and urged the animal on with a shout. He felt a rumble, deep in Centurion’s throat, and they picked up more speed, the horse taking lunging strides, sods of moss torn up by his hooves as he went.
They broke out from the woods and veered along the steel mesh of the perimeter fence. The sign, RESTRICTED AREA, flashed past. There was the blur of the Enershale eagle on its flagpole, wings outstretched. The drilling tower loomed up; the tall chimney with its ghostly blue flare. The raised drilling platform with its box-like cabins.
Two minutes …
They reached the entrance and Centurion drew to a snorting halt at the neck-high gate, barbed wire coiled along its top.
Ninety seconds …
‘Stop the fracking!’ Aidan yelled as a security guard ambled out from the hut.
The man regarded him in surprise, then folded his arms across his chest. ‘Don’t think so, sonny. My orders are to let nobody through. Especially not today.’
‘My friends are trapped!’ Aidan cried. ‘You have to let me in! Open the gate!’
But the man just stared at him blankly.
‘We found Queen Boudicca’s tomb!’ cried Aidan, desperate to make the man understand. ‘It’s about to collapse with my friends inside!’
The guard raised his eyebrows. Rolled his eyes.
‘I have her sword!’ Aidan struggled to take it from the belt of his jeans to show him, but the guard had already turned away, was speaking into his walkie-talkie; asking to be put through to the police …
One minute …
Aidan needed to get to the platform, to the control room. Talk to the people who really mattered. He urged Centurion away from the gate, appearing to be leaving.
But when they were a few dozen metres away, he turned the two of them sharply to again face the entrance.
He kicked the horse’s sides with a cry.
Centurion broke into a run. They careered forward, Aidan bracing himself low as the wind rushed past the sides of his head and the horse’s mane streamed into his face.
Forty-five seconds …
His pulse raced.
Come on!
Aidan heard Centurion’s rasping breaths; felt the frenzy of hooves under him.
The gate loomed up but there was no stopping now.
He grasped Centurion’s neck and braced.
He felt the horse’s body lift; the heavy weightlessness as they left the ground.
Time seemed to slow down, stretching into slow motion the terror of the jump.
Then the prickle of elation as he realised …
They’d cleared the gate!
Centurion slammed down the other side of the barrier. Aidan was thrown forward. He tucked and rolled, hitting the ground hard, right on his arm.
There was the sound of snapping bone, a shock of agony.
He saw the sword flung away from him, sliding across the gravel surface of the compound; Centurion stamping and tossing his head.
Aidan struggled up to a sitting position. ‘Stop!’ His left arm hung at a strange angle at the elbow. It dangled uselessly by his side as he pulled himself to his feet and staggered towards the largest of the work cabins. He made for its metal steps, for the sword that had come to rest at the bottom.
Thirty seconds …
‘Stop the fracking!’ he yelled.
He was almost passing out from the pain, but he forced himself on. His friends’ faces loomed in his mind. Jon. Emmi. Jon. Emmi. His promise to get them out.
He reached the sword but it was suddenly so heavy, he could hardly lift it. Instead he dragged it by the hilt.
A face appeared at a window of the cabin, then another.
The door at the top of the steps flew open. A man in a hard hat stood there, staring down at him.
‘Stop!’ Aidan yelled. He felt a terrible panic that they’d make no sense of his tumbling words … ‘We found Queen Boudicca’s tomb … in a clearing in Carrus Woods … going to collapse … my friends are trapped … right above the last blast …’
The man’s face clouded, unreadable. The other faces at the windows continued to stare.
Fifteen seconds …
With a last, desperate effort, Aidan lifted the sword.
With a grunt he heaved it upright.
Held its point straight.
Higher.
Higher still.
Where the light came from, afterwards no one could exactly say.
Some said it was a rogue beam of sunlight; others, a reflection from a site flood lamp.
But in that strange instant, light hit the sword and the ancient blade glowed.
The leaping hare along its hilt stood out in startling definition. The blood-like dazzle of the ruby sparked like fire.
An energy rippled along Aidan’s raised arm, a stinging intensity, but still he gripped the sword.
He saw the stunned face of the man at the door. Heard him shout something to a colleague and sprint back inside.
Aidan crumpled to his knees, and the sword fell.
‘You have to stop the last blast!’ It came out in almost a whisper now. Black dots fizzled across his vision.
He saw the gas flare, soaring blue flame blurring as it speared the sky; saw three birds skim across it.
And then he couldn’t make it out any more; couldn’t make out anything.
Time seemed to merge; the past and present became one dark swirl.
He was being lifted, carried …
Laid to rest.
And later – how much later, he could not tell – as he shifted in and out of shadows, he heard snatches of voices. Shocked words.
‘Emergency services rushed to the clearing.’
‘They’ve pulled someone out …
‘But they died on the way to hospital.’
– CHAPTER 28 –
WARRIORS
Aidan looked out from his vantage point on the small hill, over the lush-looking fields towards Carrus Woods. The morning light illuminated the treetops, highlighting the vivid green mosaic of its canopy.
He flexed the fingers of his left hand. The arm still felt tender from the hospital removing the plaster, but his break had healed OK.
Jon rolled over on to his back, a blade of grass in the corner of his mouth. ‘It was great news about Robbie. You got to see him this morning, right Emmi?’
She clasped her hands together. ‘He opened his eyes and the first thing he said …’ she giggled a bit. ‘He asked where his shrew’s skull was!’
Aidan gave a laugh. ‘He’s definitely getting better then!’
He watched a bird fly across the patch of sky where the Enershale gas flare chimney used to be. The whole site had been dismantled, and all that was left were shapes on the ground like some kind of archaeological site; a square where the drilling platform had been, and a few smaller rectangles marking out the removed work cabins.
In a few months, Aidan mused, it would all be overgrown. In a few years, it would be as if the entire plant had never existed at all.
There was the distant sound of an engine, and he watched a van pulling up by scaffolding; the moving specks of people already at work.
‘It’s going to be amazing,’ said Emmi. ‘The new museum they’re building in place of the old one. I can’t wait for it to be finished!’
‘Yeah,’ said Jon. ‘Mr Williams was practically crying tears of joy when they showed him the plans.’
‘And what about Lord Berryman?’ Emmi rolled her eyes. ‘What a turnaround that was!’
‘Fracking Warrior to Proud Historian in a matter of minutes!’ Jon sniggered. ‘Once Berryman realised the money he can make from tourism, there was no contest!’
Aidan smiled. He looked towards Berryman’s mansion, surrounded by its gardens, the horse paddock, the meadow, the stables.
His and Dad’s house in the grounds.
His and Dad’s house.
‘You should have heard Berryman boasting to a news team in the village!’ said Emmi. ‘Telling them how it’s his land at the very centre of Boudicca’s last great battle, now a major World Heritage Site. From the way he was talking, you’d think it was him who single-handedly found her tomb!’
‘You’ll never guess what his new idea is,’ smirked Aidan. ‘Horse-drawn chariot rides!’
All three of them erupted into laughing fits.
‘No joke!’ said Aidan. ‘He’s already bought six new horses. He practically begged Dad to stay on and manage the stables.’
‘I was never really going to get rid of Centurion you know, Aidan!’ recited Jon, doing a perfect impression of Lord Berryman’s slightly whiney voice. ‘You got the wrong end of the stick completely!’
Emmi wagged a finger with a frown, continuing the impersonation. ‘I was of course not happy about being left in the dark, I grant you, Aidan, but when I phoned the vet, it was simply to come and check the horse’s condition and decide on further treatment.’
Aidan smiled. He remembered those other things James Berryman had said as well; later, when it had just been the two of them. ‘Struck a chord with me, Aidan, I have to tell you; the way you talked about Centurion being your mum’s favourite horse … and it was a brave thing you did for your friends. Very brave … And as a gesture, to show there’re no hard feelings between us, I’d like to give you and your dad a gift …’
Aidan shielded the sun from his eyes and squinted at the shapes down below in the distant paddock. The horses grazing there.
The new horses. Firefly, Fenland Queen. Centurion.
Emotion swelled through him.
Centurion is my horse now!
He could still barely believe it.
Emmi lay back on the grass, her arms tucked behind her head. ‘How’s Centurion’s leg now, Aidan?’
‘Riding him obviously wasn’t the best thing for it,’ he said. ‘But Ann says he’s responding really well to the treatment. She couldn’t believe how well.’
‘I think I’m going to pull through too,’ croaked Jon, gripping his ankle theatrically. ‘But only just.’
‘Hey, did you see the article in this?’ Emmi tapped Jon’s head with a rolled-up newspaper. ‘I wanted us to look at it together.’
She flattened the paper and read the headline out loud:
Aidan sniggered. ‘The P.M. couldn’t leave fast enough, could he?’
The three teenagers, who found the tomb using a remote-controlled drone, have continued to be inundated with requests for interviews.
‘Another news team wants to talk to me, by the way.’ Jon faked a yawn. ‘Oh, just some major international TV channel, you know. Some documentary they want to make about how the tomb was found.’ He examined his fingernails, eyebrows raised.
‘Me and Dronie in the starring roles, of course.’
He rolled out of range with a yelp as a laughing Emmi swiped at him.
‘OK! OK!’ he raised his arms in surrender. ‘I’ll let them interview you too, Em, I promise!’
Aidan gave a sideways grin. ‘Not sure we should mention the bit about getting help from a ghost Boudicca and her phantom daughters, though.’
‘Uh huh.’ Emmi gazed out from the hill. ‘They can stay our secret, I think, don’t you?’
‘All that ghost stuff …’ began Jon uncertainly. He pulled up a handful of grass as he tried to find the right words. ‘It was all so … well …’
He gave up trying and flicked the grass at Emmi with a shrug and a smile. ‘I guess I have to admit that there are some things that can’t be explained by science after all!’
‘It has been revealed,’ said Emmi, continuing with the article, ‘that landowner Alice Carter, set to gain substantial sums from Enershale expansion plans, stole the bones of Boudicca’s daughters and an arm bracelet in an attempt to lead archaeologists to a false site.’
Emmi’s voice went more serious.
‘Carter, who has also now been linked to arson, and a hit-and-run …’
She bit her lip and passed the paper to Aidan. ‘You read the rest,’ she said quietly.
Aidan swallowed. ‘Carter … died inside the tomb complex when the section of tunnel she was in collapsed.’
‘I really thought she’d got out,’ said Emmi. She pulled at a patch of grass. ‘There were rumours that she was horribly injured when they found her, and delirious. She kept saying how two blue flames sprang up inside the passageway and blocked her escape route.’
She gave a stiff little laugh.
‘Not that anyone believes that, of course.’
Jon hung his head and said nothing.
‘The daughters have now been reunited with their mother.’ Aidan read on quietly. ‘The three skeletons will be displayed side by side in the new museum.’
He folded the paper and put it down.
‘Do you think they’re at peace now?’ said Emmi. She looked out towards the woods. ‘Boudicca, I mean. And Valour and Truth?’
Aidan followed Emmi’s gaze across the fields; the irrigation channels along their edges, mist catching the light like silver stitching. Those tranquil fields where that gory battle had been fought all those centuries ago. The terrible suffering there had been on both sides.
His eyes were drawn to the green, mysterious woods, and the unseen places between the trees.
In a strange way he somehow knew the answer to Emmi’s question.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I think they are.’
Aidan watched clouds scud across the sky, then disappear in the bright, morning haze. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with the smells of the new day. A shaft of sunlight filtered through a gap, casting gold light on to the field that bordered Carrus Woods.
And for a fleeting moment he saw something …
Aidan sat up straight.
There was a silhouette, o
f a chariot.
Backlit by the sun’s rays. A two-horse chariot, carrying three figures; they looked towards Aidan across the fields, across time …
He saw the tallest figure – a woman – raise the reins and the horses broke into motion, and Aidan watched, the vision already beginning to vanish.
Reunited with their mother.
The chariot and its riders faded, heading across the fields and towards open fenland. Galloping free.
– ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS –
Camilla Barnard
Jon Barton
Jane Beagley
John Coefield
Matt Dickinson
Margaret Eastham
Paul Eastham
Anna Elizabeth
Elena Elizabeth
Lorna Hargreaves
Freddie Jobbins
Caroline Johnson
Gill Lewis
Sarah Mussi
Nathan Ryder
Susie Ryder
Caroline Walsh
Steve Wildman
Thank you everyone.
Ethereal beings and treasures all.
– ABOUT THE AUTHOR –
Ruth Eastham is an award-winning author from the UK. Her debut novel, The Memory Cage, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and won the Inspiration Book Award. Teachers voted it best story in the UK Literacy Association Book Award, and it won and was shortlisted for many other regional prizes. The Memory Cage was also nominated for the prestigious Carnegie Medal.
Her second book, The Messenger Bird, won and was shortlisted for many local authority book prizes and its Enigma Code themes made it a featured book at the famous Bletchley Park.
Ruth is a popular speaker in schools, in the UK and abroad, fascinating children with the real life mysteries and dramas behind these and her other books: Arrowhead, The Jaguar Trials and The Warrior in the Mist.
Ruth has lived in New Zealand, Australia and Italy and has two daughters. Find out more: www.rutheastham.com
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