There
were seventy three seeds; Hardacre had counted them out carefully. As far as
they could see there were sixty sky monsters.
‘A close call, but just enough’ said John. He turned to Hardacre, calculating quickly.
‘Give five to Celia, twenty-two to Kathleen
and me, fourteen to yourself and ten to the girl. We can swap them round as
necessary… Celia, you might need one or
two, but we can’t afford to let you have very many. It may be that once you’ve
neutralised Kratos then all the huge insecty things will go anyway…’
No-one looked very convinced by this argument,
not even John, but they all nodded politely.
Celia took her seeds, and stuffed them in her
pocket. She swallowed hard. Then without looking back, she ran down the hill
and back into the woods.
Hardacre
paired with Kathleen and Lily paired with John. John’s idea was that the less
powerful witch would protect the stronger one from unexpected attacks and then
be prepared to share the seeds when necessary.
‘We’ll have to split up’ said John, ‘Kathleen
and Laurence’ – you deal with the ones up here first, and protect Miss Jenkins
and the Orbiverdi. This young lady…’
‘Princess Lily of Amansk…’ said Hardacre
‘No, that’s far too much of a mouthful, for
me’ said John, glancing at Lily, ‘I’m going to call you Lil’
‘Sir!’ said Hardacre, shocked to the core.
John glared at him, but only very briefly.
‘Anyway… Lil and I will go down and see how
many of those stupid knights we can save. ’
He checked once more that everyone was ready
and then he and Lily made their way down the hill and towards where the
massacre was taking place. Once again they had the cover of the woods almost
immediately. That wouldn’t last long though.
Kathleen
was still unsteady on her feet but she knew what she was doing. She looked up
at the three monsters above them. They were still struggling to get through the
Orbiverdi’s magical shield.
‘Sitting ducks’ she said.
‘Let’s see, madam…’ murmured Hardacre
Kathleen picked her target: the closest
monster and the one that looked mostly likely to break through. She pulled a seed
out of her pocket and threw it into the air. One at a time she voiced the three
trigger words.
‘Gylch’-
the bulb covered the seed as if in a translucent bubble. It hovered briefly, held up by the energy of
the spell. The end of the bulb narrowed to an impossibly thin point
‘Brifio’
– the seed inside the bulb stirred into life.
‘Eheda’
– Kathleen pointed towards the monster and the bulb raced through the air,
leaving a smoky white contrail.
The spell hit the sky monster. For a moment nothing
changed, the creature continued to struggle downwards against the Orbiverdi
spell. Then there was a flurry of colour inside it, like a green tide lapping
against a grey shore. The monster tipped upwards and flew almost straight
vertically, and then, without warning, it fell down. Its wings flapped three or
four times and then they withered away. It hit the ground jaws first, about a
hundred yards ahead of them. They could see now see that about half of the
thing was now full of the sticky bedstraw plant, where the blue clouds had
been. The green rapidly faded to brown
and then the plant disappeared.
Kathleen watched it carefully. She held her
breath and waited. After it hadn’t moved for about a minute she turned to tackle
the next one. It was higher up and a far
smaller target. This would be quite a lot harder.
She heard Hardacre shout by her side.
‘Gylch,
brifio, eheda’
She turned in horror. The felled insectoid
had pulled itself out of the trench that its impact had made and was now
crawling towards them. Hardacre’s spell had hit it directly in the head. This
time the plant grew extravagantly in the remaining area of blue clouds. Within
a second the monster had involuntarily sloughed off its dull skin and simply
blown away. The smell of rotting apples was almost overbearing, but then the
wind changed direction, and the stink went with it.
‘It seems to take two shots, Dr Mannings …’ whispered
Hardacre, very calmly, ‘...unfortunately’
Kathleen looked at Hardacre and grimaced. She had been lightheaded for so long that she
had been able to avoid reality for all of that time, but now she had to face
the truth: a lot of people were going to die, and at the moment it looked like
she might well be one of them.
‘Yes, very unfortunately…’ she said
‘Can I ask, madam – do we have any plan for
when the seeds run out?’
Kathleen had already targeted the next sky
monster. She thought it most prudent to
let that question hang in the air, unanswered, for the time being.
***
It
took John and Lily a little longer to encounter exactly the same problem. They had made their way through the wooded
valley on to the main road. There was a small stream of fleeing knights, but
they were not being pursued by the insects. The knights were terrified but they
were able to report that the Baron had ordered them into a suicide attack, and
that was why they had deserted. John was surprised how few of them there were. They
seemed impressively disciplined; but sometimes such discipline could easily
spill over into folly.
John turned to Lily. He realised that he’d
been all too eager to drag this girl down into extreme danger.
‘Lil’ he said, ‘just keep close – I’m hoping
that you won’t need to do anything’
Lily stared at him as if he were about to
stop her going to the summer ball. Her hands were shaking but she was determined.
‘I want to do something!’ she said, ‘Dom says
that we should use our skills to help people…’
‘Does he? Well, good for Dom. Did he say
anything about using them to make sure that you don’t get yourself killed?’
‘Yes, of course’
‘…and who is Dom?’
‘He’s my... friend… um… boyfriend, maybe…’
‘…and he’s a mage?’
‘He’s training to be one – and he’s teaching
me at the same time’
John smiled, remembering her eager skill
while learning Kathleen’s spell.
‘Well, either he’s a really good teacher or
you’re a really good student’
‘Thanks…
I think’
‘Anyway, keep close!’
They ran on towards the advancing Crimson
Flame army. The sky above the knights was filled with the monsters. The first
would be in range very soon.
‘Why haven’t you asked me who I am?’ asked
Lily
‘Because I don’t want to add to my many
problems just yet, thank you’
‘Can I be your apprentice, then?’ she asked
eagerly, ‘if I’m not allowed to be myself’
John laughed despite himself.
‘I don’t think guild rules permit me to have
a mage apprentice, but no-one need ever know…’
Lily
was using her entire reserves of courage. Although this was terrifying in every
respect it was also where she wanted to be: finally doing something that seemed
important. Despite what Victoria had said to her she felt justified in
everything she had done. Why shouldn’t a
poor princess have a great adventure, however awful it might become?
They
had reached the edge of the advancing army. All around them were the bodies of
knights, all crushed and nearly all cut in half. The only consolation was that
all of their deaths must have been very quick. The ground was covered in rats and corpse
beetles, and the air was full of flies, but, unsurprisingly, there were no
carrion birds overhead. There was enough
blood here now, John thought grimly, for the most devoted of Whitecloak’s
priests, if any were still alive.
‘Are you ready?’ asked John. Lily looked up
at him briefly for reassurance and then nodded.
John cast the spell, and that was when they
discovered, just as Kathleen and Hardacre had just a little earlier, that it
took two shots to kill a sky monster. John
cursed himself – why hadn’t he thought of that possibility. All of his
calculations were now askew.
‘We won’t have enough seeds now, will we? ’
asked Lily
‘No we won’t,’ he replied
John had hoped that his charge wouldn’t
notice this annoying fact just yet. Sadly she was clearly far too smart to miss
something so obvious. Part of him, however, was rather delighted by her
quickness of mind. ‘She’s no bloody mage’ he thought to himself. Lily interrupted his thoughts.
‘So,
what are we going to do when the seeds run out?’
‘Well, they haven’t yet – so let’s get on –
I’m sure something will turn up’
John took another seed out of his pocket and
threw it up in the air. A phalanx of five more sky creatures broke off from the
mass above the army in order to swoop down towards them. The seed streaked off
across the sky, hit the closest creature a glancing blow, and then flourished
into a riot of green.
‘One thing I do know, though, Lil is – it
definitely looks as if I’m going to need your help…’
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