Vega Jane and the Rebels’ Revolt
Page 28
He sat on the bed and scratched Harry Two’s ear.
‘You never really told me about Wormwood,’ he said abruptly.
This was not the first time he had said this. It might as well have been the hundredth.
‘I told you all you needed to know, Delph. It’s gone. They’re all gone. They killed everyone, including your father. I saw their graves.’
‘That’s not exactly so,’ he countered. ‘They killed everyone except your brother.’
‘At least there was no grave for my brother. But, in truth, I have no idea if he’s alive or dead.’
These words suddenly caught at my heart, and I had to look away from Delph. I had lost many friends in the war with the Maladons and that had hardened me. Yet John was my brother. John was my family.
Delph stood. ‘But why would they take John, if that is what happened?’
I rose from my bed and faced him. ‘You’ve asked me that before. And I’ve asked myself the same thing a thousand times, Delph. I keep coming up with a thousand different answers.’
Delph said, ‘It would make sense in one way.’
‘What way?’ I said bluntly.
‘Well, at first I thought they might be using John to hold over your head, you know. If you don’t surrender, they’d hurt John. But they haven’t done that, Vega Jane, though they’ve had ample time. So there must be another reason.’
‘Such as?’
‘Morrigone was teaching John back in Wormwood. She’d taken him under her wing, because he was so smart and all with books and such.’
‘I told you that. But it was terrible stuff that she . . .’
My voice trailed off, and I looked in horror at Delph.
‘Are you saying that they took my brother to . . . to . . .’
I couldn’t say it. Not for the life of me.
‘To maybe make him into a Maladon?’ said Delph. ‘A right powerful one. Judging by what a sorceress you are, I ’spect that John might make an equally powerful sorcerer.’
‘But why just John? Why not take all in Wormwood?’
‘John was so smart, Vega Jane. And . . . he seemed to like . . . you know . . .’
‘You mean he liked all those horrible things that Morrigone was teaching him?’ I said stiffly.
‘Well, you told me that yourself.’
‘But, Delph, he was just a little boy. He didn’t know any better. He liked to fill his head up with . . . stuff,’ I finished quite lamely. In my mind’s eye, all I could see was a little boy with feet too large for him shuffling along while holding my hand.
Delph interrupted my thoughts. ‘Well, he’s not a little boy now. He’s very nearly fifteen. The same age you were when you ran away from Wormwood with me.’
This was absolutely correct. John was far closer to being a man now than he was to being a boy.
If they’d captured him from Wormwood, my brother would have been with the Maladons for quite some time.
‘You’re right, Delph,’ I said contritely. ‘He is almost a man. I just don’t know what sort of man he is becoming.’ I began to tremble and turned away from him.
‘It’s okay, Vega Jane,’ Delph whispered. ‘We’re going to find him. And . . . and regardless of what sort of shape he’s in, we’re going to bring him back to what he was.’
‘You . . . can’t know that,’ I said haltingly.
‘But I can promise to do all I can to make it happen.’
I turned and looked at him. ‘You’re my best friend, Delph. You always have been.’
He smiled. ‘You were the only friend I had, Vega Jane. And a great one.’
I could smell food downstairs. ‘You had better go,’ I said, smiling. ‘You must be hungry.’
‘I am, Vega Jane,’ he said.
Later, I had just finished my breakfast down in the kitchen when Petra walked in. The shirt she wore had no sleeves and I could see marks and scars up and down both arms.
‘I heard that you had returned from the raid.’
She nodded. ‘The Elite Guard lost their muskets. They’ll make others. But it will take time. However, they are far from our biggest problem.’
’I know that,’ I said. For whatever reason, I was constantly on my guard with Petra, though I knew she would die in order to save me.
’I heard your journey was also a successful one,’ she said, sitting down across from me.
’If five dead Maladons are any measure, then yes, it was.’
’That makes four hundred of them dead, then,’ said Petra, eyeing me.
’I can do the mathematics,’ I replied coolly.
’But you know we’ve discovered that there are thirty times more Maladons than there are of us. That only leads to one outcome, Vega. We can’t win this way.’
‘We’re still trying to find magicals among the countryside,’ I said.
‘We’ve found none in all this time. None since we rescued that lot from Greater True.’
We were at war with the Maladons, but there had been no great battles on broad fields. No titanic clashes of sorcery. We simply hadn’t the numbers for such a style of combat. So, our war was a series of small skirmishes. Ambushes, tactical missions, two-on-two, four-on-four. Small encounters, almost all of which we had won, but as Petra had pointed out, the eventual outcome with such a strategy was inevitable. A war of attrition was always won by those with superior numbers.
‘We can’t attack them outright,’ I said. ‘We can’t try and invade Maladon Castle. We would be slaughtered.’
‘I know that.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’
‘I’m not sure I have anything to suggest. But I would say that until we work out our eventual goals, we need to do everything we can to keep what army we do have left safe and intact. If we lose even a few more, it won’t matter what we do in the future. We’ll still have lost.’
What she said was undoubtedly true. And yet if we stopped fighting?
‘I’ll think about it, Petra,’ I said.
She started to say something, a sharp retort I could tell from the look on her face. But she bit back tthe words, simply nodded, rose and left.
A minute passed while I closed my eyes and tried to push the fatigue from my bones.
‘Vega! Vega!’
I opened my eyes. Miranda Weeks was rushing towards me. She and her group must have returned from their scouting expedition.
Miranda was the youngest of us, but she had grown taller and stronger with the passage of time, and now she was one of the best warriors we had.
‘Yes, Miranda?’
‘You must come.’
‘Come? Come where?’
‘To the village where we just were.’
I half rose from my chair. ‘Why? What happened?’ ‘The villagers saw her.’
‘Who did they see?’
‘Your mother.’
Other books by David Baldacci
Vega Jane and the Secrets of Sorcery
Vega Jane and the Maze of Monsters
Coming soon
Vega Jane and the End of Time
First published as The Width of the World in the US 2017 by Scholastic Press
First published as The Width of the World in the UK 2017 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published as Vega Jane and the Rebels’ Revolt
by Macmillan Children’s Books 2021
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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ISBN 978-1-5290-3797-5
Text copyright © Columbus Rose, Ltd 2015 and 2021
Illustrations copyright © Tomislav Tomić 2021
Cover illustration by Steve Stone.
Text illustrations
by Tomislav Tomic
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