Renegades Of Wolfenvald, Book Two of The Adventures of Sarah Coppernick

by SJB Gilmour

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ Angela stated firmly. ‘I need to know what sort of mess those two are heading into.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The jungle was hot and steamy. Melanie, dressed as she was in black jeans and boots, found the climate very oppressive. She and her werewolf companion were standing in the jungle several metres from the bank of the Congo River. The sounds of the jungle filled their ears. Insects creaked and buzzed. Birds and monkeys chattered and screeched, and thick heavy clouds hung low in the air.

  ‘You know,’ Sarah grumbled to Mel, ‘I think we’ve learned just about as much as we can from Cromwell. I don’t care if this place is awful, I’m just glad I’m not on that bloody island any more.’

  ‘Same,’ Mel agreed. Then she clenched her jaws with distaste. ‘For a while, anyway. How can anyone live in this place? It’s awful!’ She slapped at a mosquito that had attacked her arm with bloodthirsty ferocity.

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ Sarah replied. ‘But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stay wolf.’

  ‘Go right ahead.’ Melanie grimaced as she peeled disgustingly fat-looking leech off her arm. She swore again and muttered a quick cantrip in Magaeic. The air immediately around her suddenly became devoid of all insects.

  ‘Neat trick,’ Sarah complimented.

  ‘First spell Dad ever taught me,’ Melanie said, looking around. ‘Where’s this stupid temple? You’re aim’s off.’

  ‘I followed the Equator,’ Sarah replied. ‘It stays still but the river probably moved.’

  ‘What?’ Melanie demanded.

  Sarah sighed. ‘Rivers move over time, same as magnetic north does each year.’

  ‘I know that! I can feel north better than you can, fleabag!’

  ‘The Princess’ memory was about seven hundred years old, Mel. The river’s moved. Just take my word for it, okay? You should pay more attention in class. Now shut up and let me concentrate.’

  Mel thought about this and shrugged. ‘Okay,’ she said finally. ‘Just don’t get us lost.’

  Sarah sniffed deeply. All manner of scents were there. She licked her nose and snuffled a few times. She could smell a vast array of different creatures. Snakes and bats, large cats, rodents and wild boar had all been present recently.

  ‘I don’t know where it is,’ Sarah said darkly. ‘It can’t be far from here though.’

  ‘You could ask the trees,’ Melanie suggested, looking around. ‘All I can see is jungle.’ She peered down at her boots which were now covered with fresh mud and twigs. ‘I just want to get out of this muck.’

  Sarah looked up at the sky. Thick grey clouds threatened to burst any minute.

  ‘It’s going to rain,’ she said brightly. ‘That’s only going to make it worse. You better just get used to it.’

  ‘Ugh,’ Melanie complained. ‘Five minutes ago, I was clean. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.’

  Sarah glanced around at the forest. I seek a place. She cast the thought out into the jungle.

  ‘Describe the place you seek,’ the jungle replied.

  I seek the den of the snake worshippers.

  The jungle did not answer. Instead, the cacophony that seemed to come from everywhere suddenly seemed less noisy from one direction. Sarah’s ears pricked up sharply. Yes, there was definitely a trail of silence leading deep into the jungle away from the riverbank.

  ‘This way,’ she said to Melanie. She began trotting through the thick scrub.

  ‘Damn it!’ Melanie swore as she jogged to keep up with the Golden Mane. ‘Slow down!’

  Sarah paused and looked back, panting in the heat. She wagged her tail and grinned wolfishly.

  ‘C’mon, monkey!’ she teased. ‘Or would you like to be a wolf for a few days?’

  ‘Go lick your bum, fleabag,’ Melanie retorted as cheerily as she could. The rolling thunder was getting louder.

  ‘Jealous, face-painter?’ Sarah replied just as cheerfully.

  As the rain fell down through the jungle, the werewolf and the girl pushed through the dense foliage. In moments, they were both sopping wet as the rain pounded relentlessly from above. Instead of cooling them down, it only seemed to make things hotter. They pressed on for nearly an hour, deep into the jungle until finally they noticed that all the sounds had died out.

  Melanie swore again. ‘Stop!’ she panted, doubled up and breathing hard. Her black hair was plastered to her face and her clothes clung uncomfortably. Mud had splashed up all over her.

  ‘You’ve looked better,’ Sarah remarked.

  ‘You can talk!’ Melanie scoffed at the mud-soaked werewolf. ‘You look like an overgrown drowned rat!’

  Sarah sniffed. ‘I’ll go for a swim later,’ she promised. Then she looked around. The jungle looked the same, but ahead she could see a large black shape through the trees. ‘I think we’re getting somewhere.’

  ‘Can you smell anything?’ Melanie asked her voice scarcely audible over the rain.

  I think we’d better not speak out loud from now on unless we really need to. Sarah projected her thoughts directly to Melanie.

  Ok, Melanie agreed silently.

  Sarah then led the way silently through the dense scrub towards the dark shape ahead. Soon they could make out a huge stone structure in the shape of a giant coiled snake. The front door was its open mouth. Once it may have looked ominous, but time and the elements had eroded the structure to the point that it was merely a comical remnant of its former self. The fangs at the door had long since eroded away and the scales carved into the stone had been worn down by rain and were now covered with thick dark moss.

  Place looks deserted. Melanie thought to Sarah. Let’s go inside.

  ‘Wait,’ Sarah growled softly. Then silently, The Medici mentioned enchantments. We don’t know what’s there.

  Melanie paused and nodded at Sarah. Good point.

  Normally Marzdane took his breakfast outside on his balcony overlooking the beautiful Parisian street below. There he could enjoy his coffee, a pastry and read a mortal newspaper and relax before he went to work. His job, as Chairman of The Sorcerer’s Guild was usually fairly low-stress. Lately, it had been much more stressful than he had ever imagined.

  That morning as he unrolled the newspaper, the usual collection of inserted advertising material fell out. These he was about to discard when a small newsletter caught his eye. Unlike the rest of the advertising, which was written in French, the writing on this leaflet was Magaeic. It most definitely did not belong in a mortal publication. Marzdane swore vehemently. It meant that now he was on some sort of enchanted mailing list. Slowly and surely, his life was being exposed. He picked up the leaflet and looked at it.

  The Rebel Rouser!

  Welcome to the first issue of the new voice of truth and freedom! Stand up and fight for a free, unbiased Guild. Fight Mautallius and his crony Marzdane! Send the demon-loving miscreants to the hell they deserve!

  Marzdane has tried to use his position as Chairman of The Sorcerers’ Guild to close down the former publication of The Rebel Rouser’s founders. Marzdane claims reports of his allegiance to Mautallius were false and malicious. Ironically, Marzdane’s actions against several werewolves and their allies have been malicious and heavy-handed. In the last six months, sixteen more werewolves and four sorcerers have been declared renegade by The Guild - four times more than have been declared renegade in the last four years.

  Marzdane is clearly attempting to dilute the voting power of any of Mautallius’ opponents within The Guild. Sources have also revealed that Mautallius is plotting to kill the juvenile Golden Mane — already a renegade according to Marzdane, before she grows strong enough to be a potential threat to his puppet Marzdane. This is a clear violation of Guild Law. Golden Manes are a protected species.

  Marzdane stared at the rebel publication, shaking in fury. He swore again and tore the newspaper into shreds then hurled it away. The shredded pieces put themselves back together and fluttered up to hover, just out of his re
ach.

  ‘Boo!’ the enchanted newspaper cried. ‘Nya! Nya! Spoilsport! What’s the matter? Truth hurts?’

  Marzdane blasted the offending newspaper into dust and stormed back inside, leaving his breakfast on the porch to go cold.

  Half an hour later, he arrived at The Nonagon in a foul mood. His breakfast had been ruined and he knew, he just knew that somehow the Hazelwoods were connected to that damned newspaper.

  Instead of meeting in the main hall as they had done for aeons, The Sorcerers’ Guild Council now met in Cexil’s old dungeon. The old dragon sulked in a corner, jealously guarding a small hoard of jewels and gold with his wings. He glared at Marzdane and the others balefully but said nothing.

  Marzdane kicked a gnawed skull out of his way as he paced back and forth in the dungeon. Who else had read this new Rebel Rouser he wondered? Everything was going from bad to worse. He felt trapped by Mautallius and now those mongrel reporters were trying to oust him from his position. He knew that eventually, there would be some accounting to do for his allegiance to Mautallius. An idea came to him as he paced, barely listening to the droning of his fellows. If he could somehow prevent the sacrifice Mautallius was planning, then he wouldn’t be in such hot water when the crunch time came.

  Several of his cronies had tried erecting tables and chairs for them to sit at, but every time they had left, Cexil had burned them to cinders. Now the counsellors were reduced to sitting on rocks. Marzdane pounded one such rock with his fist. Where in hell were they? He swore and hammered the rock again.

  ‘Maybe Coppernick went Wolfenvald,’ suggested the witch, Moira Cromwell.

  Marzdane scowled at her venomously. He had obeyed Mautallius and allowed Moira to spend more time in the Guild headquarters, and regretted every minute. The woman was a constant thorn in his side, and she seemed particularly adept at reading minds. He doubled his efforts to keep his thoughts blocked.

  Moira Cromwell was not a pretty woman. Her nose was long and adorned with an unsightly looking mole. Her long blonde hair was lank and refused to shine and her blue eyes might have been attractive, if they weren’t so attracted to each other.

  ‘Impossible,’ he retorted. ‘That would mean leaving the Hazelwood brat behind. The two are inseparable.’ Marzdane spat at the cross-eyed witch. ‘She’s gone into hiding. She and her damned fool necromancer buddies. It’s all that blasted McConnell’s fault! He stole my wife and now he’s raising a renegade army!’

  ‘Army?’ another witch asked sarcastically. ‘I’d hardly call a couple of Browns, that crazy plant lover Isaacs, McConnell and your ex-wife an army.’

  Marzdane took a deep breath and slowly walked over to the witch and looked her up and down insultingly. This witch, by the name of Kate O’Brien, stood her ground and glared back at the Chairman of The Sorcerers’ Guild. O’Brien was everything that Cromwell was not. She was young and beautiful, almost as stunningly so as Angela. Her eyes were blue and quite wide apart and she had long, blonde hair that shone magnificently. Even though he had never seen her without a long black robe that covered her almost completely from head to toe, it was obvious that underneath it was a very attractive woman indeed. Why she was so attached to such modest clothing, Marzdane had no idea. Much of what women wore and why was a mystery to him and so although he was puzzled that a woman of such obvious fitness and youth should hide her body that way, he shrugged it off as just another of those strange things that women did.

  Marzdane often found himself talking to O’Brien simply because she was much easier to look at without grimacing than Cromwell – even with the robe. She was also quite the opposite of his wife. Angela had dark hair and a pale, olive complexion. O’Brien was blonde with fair skin and eyes that could start a war. Right now, however, Marzdane wasn’t that interested in her beauty.

  ‘It might be small now, but it’s a rebellion alright,’ he told her as if talking to a child. ‘With Angelina’s and Isaacs’ connections and McConnell’s and Coppernick’s brawn, they’ll have an army before we know it.’ He began to wave his hands about in frustration. ‘Add Hazelwood and the rest of the werewolves to the mix and it most definitely is an army.’ He went to poke Kate on the breastbone with one long, elaborately manicured finger. ‘You watch. They’ll attack Conundrum sooner or later.’

  Kate grabbed his finger and snapped it sideways, breaking it. ‘Try to poke me again, Master Hardingleflass, and Chairman or not, all that will be left will be a stain on the floor.’ Her beautiful blue eyes flashed dangerously.

  Marzdane winced at the pain of his broken finger and backed away, furious. ‘You’re supposed to be a beastmaster, not a beast,’ he snapped angrily.

  ‘How will they attack?’ Moira Cromwell demanded. ‘They can’t get here without homing amulets. It’s impossible.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as impossible,’ an oily looking wizard called Devlin drawled.

  ‘At least one of you has the brains to see that,’ Marzdane snapped. He whirled back to glare at Moira. ‘If I ever meet your blasted uncle again Cromwell, I’ll take a great deal of pleasure in watching him die.’

  Moira scoffed. ‘He built this place, Marzdane. You’ll find my uncle is harder to kill than you think. I should know. I’ve tried it. You might be Chairman, but you’re still no match for Uncle Ollie. Everyone knows the only reason we’re in this wretched hole is because Mautallius has you on a string! You’re jealous of anyone who’s got the slightest bit more power than you.’

  Moira’s taunt tipped Marzdane’s already foul temper over the edge.

  ‘Get out!’ he roared. He levelled his staff at the witch and shot a massive bolt of pure lightning at her.

  Moira scampered out of the way, her robe singed by the blast. Before the angry sorcerer could fire another blast, she clicked her fingers and vanished. Only Marzdane, O’Brien and Devlin remained in the dark dungeon.

  Devlin chuckled maliciously. ‘What if she joins them now?’

  Marzdane shook his head angrily. ‘She won’t. She hasn’t gone far. She’s probably just close enough to keep her ear to the ground. Besides, McConnell’s had it in for her even longer than he’s had for me. If he finds her without our protection, he’ll bite her in two.’

  ‘You should have killed her,’ O’Brien told him flatly. ‘You couldn’t even do that. Perhaps I should have broken more than your finger.’

  Before the three could argue even further, another sorcerer appeared. This sorcerer, a huge African man named N’butu, wore a black robe and caftan. ‘There’s something happening with the werewolves,’ he rumbled in a deep, low voice. His ebony face showed no emotion though his black eyes were flat and menacing.

  Marzdane looked up. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Werewolves from all over Africa, Europe and the Americas are disappearing. They can only be going to one place.’

  Marzdane made to pound his fist on a rock but winced as his broken finger refused to co-operate. He glared at O’Brien and Devlin.

  ‘I told you,’ he grated. ‘It’s McConnell and that damned Golden Mane, Coppernick. They’re raising an army.’ He muttered something at his finger. It glowed slightly and then seemed to be back to normal. He flexed it a few times with a smug look of satisfaction on his arrogant face. ‘If only getting rid of McConnell was so easy,’ he murmured. Inside, he was seething. He dared not speak aloud about his oath to Mautallius.

  O’Brien shook her head. ‘Coppernick’s not at Wolfenvald,’ she argued with N’butu. ‘If she’s not there, then whatever the werewolves are doing is probably unrelated,’ she declared.

  Marzdane glared at her. ‘How come you automatically gainsay everything I say?’ he demanded pettily.

  ‘If she’s managed to remain hidden, then that seems to me like she’s smarter than we’re giving her credit for,’ suggested Devlin.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Marzdane grated. ‘More likely she’s getting some very good advice from some real brains. I know McConnell and unlike most werewolves, he’s not stupid.�
�� He pounded his fist on the rock again. ‘McConnell,’ he grated sourly. He ignored the arguing sorcerers now. His only thoughts were of exacting revenge upon the Silver Shroud and Angelina. ‘Damned McConnell.’

  At that moment, the Grand Marshall of the Guild Guards, Guntex marched into the dungeon, flanked by two soldiers. He saluted Marzdane smartly. Marzdane sighed and nodded. He had ordered Guntex to have three platoons of soldiers at the ready. The goblin had not liked the idea, but he had obeyed.

  ‘My Lord,’ Guntex said in typical, emotionless soldier talk, ‘my troops are growing restless. Do you still need them…?’

  Marzdane waved him to be silent. Seeking spells he had cast to detect any presence or movement of the Star of Planes set his skin to tingling. His eyes went wide and he sat bolt upright. N’butu, Devlin and O’Brien did the same.

  ‘It’s Coppernick!’ Marzdane blurted and rushed to the centre of the dungeon. He shut his eyes and concentrated for a moment then re-opened his eyes in triumph. He pointed his newly-healed finger at the floor. The litter of soot and bones was swept clear and a large shimmering image appeared. The image blurred at first and solidified into the image of a jungle canopy.

  ‘’Don’t you go yourself yet Guntex,’ he warned the brutal goblin quietly. ‘You don’t know how powerful those two are yet. Send only those soldiers you afford to lose.’

  Guntex took one look at the jungle and a look of recognition grew on his face. Grinning wickedly, he saluted Marzdane. ‘Aye, My Lord!’ he barked. He waved one claw at his two soldiers. They nodded and bolted for the door to summon their comrades.

  I see it. Sarah thought to Melanie. There’s an enchantment all over this place.

  Melanie nodded. I see it too. Can you break it, or do we try to get past it?

  Sarah concentrated hard. The voices of Wolfenvald came to her. The ancient forest told her exactly what to do. She could see hundreds of spells written over and over each other. She pushed her consciousness through them until she came to the base spell. It was the support for the spells written on top of it. If she could break that spell, the whole enchantment would unravel.