03 Sky Knight (13 page)

‘But how?’

‘The Grey Mountains are beyond our reach, but the ruins of the old watchtower aren’t. If we could get there, we could dig in. If we can get Crow caught up in a siege, then we might be able to hold out long enough for Nimbus to come back.’

‘That might work,’ Hawk said.

‘It will work,’ Obsidian said. ‘But I’m going to need your help. Go back to the caravan. Get them moving double–time. Tell them whatever you have to, but make sure that they all get to those ruins by dawn.’

‘What are you going to do?’

Obsidian tried on the best carefree smile he could manage. ‘I’m going to make sure those ruins aren’t holding any unpleasant surprises.’

‘Alone?’

Obsidian was already dashing back towards the edge of the woods. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m fresh out of troops,’ he said, and with that he disappeared from sight, becoming nothing more than muffled footsteps on fallen leaves.

Hawk took Autumn’s hand.

‘If we ever get the chance, would you like to go somewhere?’ she asked, suddenly.

‘Huh?’

‘You know? Somewhere. With me. I thought it might be nice to watch the sunrise.’

‘Together?’

‘If things ever get back to normal.’

‘Well, yes. Of course. If they ever get back to normal.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I think I would probably like that.’

They continued holding hands, staring into the mysterious shadows of the woods where all manner of evils might be waiting to tear them away from each other; and for just that one moment, they were strong enough to face any danger. They were strong enough to look beyond the immediate horror, to the possible good beyond.

They were strong enough to hope that there might be a better future for everyone.

‘Let’s get back to the caravan,’ Hawk said.

***

‘There!’ Sky shouted, but her voice was snatched away by the screaming wind, and she had to resort to pointing before the pegasus realised where she wanted to go. ‘Over there!’

With a vaguely unpleasant snort, the pegasus went into a steep dive that made Sky feel dizzy.

‘Too fast,’ she squealed, digging her knees into the flanks of the pegasus and gripping its mane so hard she thought she might rip the legend’s head clean off. ‘Not so fast.’

The pegasus ignored her completely, but whether this was because it had chosen not to listen to her commands, or whether it had interpreted her digging in her knees as an order to go faster, was uncertain. It certainly felt to Sky like she was being ignored, and she had already decided she didn’t really like the pegasus very much at all, even if it had saved her from Crystal Shine palace.

‘Horrible brute,’ she muttered, as they descended on Landmark’s village square.

The pegasus landed neatly, cantered round the square, and then came to a stop. It folded up its magnificent night–sky wings, and then made a peculiar bowing motion, lowering its head and stretching out one leg so that Sky could dismount easily.

‘Oh,’ Sky said, as she hopped down. ‘Thank you.’

The pegasus flashed her a look that could have meant pretty much anything.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ Private Meadow asked excitedly, as he came running up. ‘A real life pegasus? An honest to goodness winged horse like in the old stories?’

‘It’s a monster,’ Sky said, noting with some satisfaction that the pegasus’s nostrils flared at the insult. ‘It doesn’t do a thing I ask.’

Meadow went to stroke the pegasus’s neck, but thought better of it when the pegasus turned its unnatural silvery gaze upon him. ‘Where did it come from?’

‘No time to explain,’ Sky said. ‘Have you seen Nim?’

‘He hasn’t been back. I was holding on as long as possible, but I was actually about to leave. Why don’t you come with me?’

‘I can’t. I need to go out to the island. I’ve got a bad feeling Nim may have got into some trouble.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

Sky climbed back onto the pegasus. ‘The only kind there is,’ she said. ‘Big trouble.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

In the very heart of the Forbidden Woods, in a part where few humans ever trod, was the delving. Even back when the woods had been nothing more than a cluster of unhappy–looking trees shivering in the cold wind, the delving had existed; and as long as something green grew in the realms of humankind, then the delving would continue to exist. It was a place of terrible power, and eternal life.

‘I hate it here,’ Crow said, emerging from the trees into the clearing where even starlight feared to go. ‘That little witch burned this place up, but look!’

The three spider–soldiers who were escorting the necromancer fanned out behind him, and then stood to attention, dutifully awaiting new orders.

‘Look,’ Crow went on, pointing out ugly shrubs that were like brown fingers thrusting up through the dirt. ‘Just a few days, and already the things grow again.’ He kicked one of the shrubs, grinning as it retreated back into the mulch. ‘Dryads. No concept of death. Too stupid to know when they’re beaten. Always growing. Always coming back.’

The spider–soldiers were deadly quiet, their faces concealed behind silver visors, their extra legs temporarily hidden beneath their cloaks.

‘There’s too much life here. You kill something, it comes back just the same.’ The necromancer sneered, stamping vindictively on another brown shrub. ‘And tell me, tell me! Why am I even talking to you three?’

He shook his head when the soldiers failed to respond.

‘Oh for a bit of decent conversation.’

He sat on a charred stone. Momentarily, his gaze fell on the gemstone ring he was wearing on his left hand.

He smiled, but thanks to the hood he always wore, nobody saw it.

A minute passed quietly, just like the hundreds of thousands of minutes the necromancer had endured in silent meditation down through the years; and then suddenly the soldiers burst into motion, drawing their swords.

Two vaguely human shapes appeared at the edge of the clearing, running on all fours. Muscles bunched and stretched beneath their warty, glistening skin; and as they ran they made a guttural war cry that could not possibly have involved the use of any human words.

‘Ghouls,’ Crow muttered. ‘I hate ghouls.’

He took a firm grip on his gnarled staff, and was about to stand, when a hand rested on his shoulder.

‘Just wait there a minute,’ the vampyr said.

‘Ah, I knew you would come out of the woodwork sooner or later. You are here to kill me, I assume?’

‘Now that wouldn’t be very friendly, would it?’

‘You are not known for your... friendliness.’

‘Just sit down. You might as well enjoy the show.’

Crow remained where he was, and the vampyr sat beside him. Together, they watched with a calculated coldness as the vampyr’s ghouls tore into Crow’s spider–soldiers. The fighting was terribly brief, and when the snapping and squealing was over there were three sets of broken armour piled up in the clearing.

The ghouls – who may have resembled humans in shape but had little else in common with them – approached with a horrible, loping gait. They grovelled before the vampyr, pawing at their lumpy heads. ‘May we eat the fleshy bits, Master?’ one of them croaked.

The vampyr looked at Crow. Crow shrugged.

‘Go ahead,’ the vampyr said. ‘But not too much. I don’t want you so fat that you aren’t fit to protect me. Dawn is only a few hours away, and you will need to be vigilant while I sleep.’

The two ghouls backed away until they felt they had reached a safe distance, then they turned and scampered over to the pile of armour. The vampyr grimaced as he heard the slobbering noises they made as they began to feed.

‘You keep poor company,’ Crow said.

‘I keep the company I must keep. I don’t know why you detest the poor things so much. Are they really that different to what you have become?’

Crow’s fingers tightened around his walking stick. ‘You dare to compare me with those things? Those things who are so low and worthless that death forgot to come for them when their time was due?’

‘It seems to me that death has forgotten you, just the same.’

‘Death wants me more than it ever wanted you, and it dragged you screaming into the other place. Death hunts me, I’m just too clever to be caught.’

The vampyr dipped his head respectfully. ‘Of course. I didn’t mean to cause offence.’

Crow watched the ghouls glugging down their horrible supper. ‘I am not like them,’ he said. ‘But when even death cannot find you, how can you hope that anyone else will?’

‘Is something bothering you, Birdy?’

‘Life is full of bothers. Silly nicknames included.’

‘You should be on top of the world, shouldn’t you? Cloud and Lady Citrine are imprisoned, your army is marching across the land destroying everything in its path, there’s no sign of the Wing Warrior. These are good times.’

‘And what about the witch?’

‘Oh, her.’

‘Yes, her. You gave her the unicorn.’

‘I didn’t exactly give it to her.’

‘It was not a wise move.’ Crow drew his walking stick towards him, twisting it through his hands.

‘I appreciate your point of view, but I did what I thought was right. The witch is new. You are old. Even with a unicorn, she shouldn’t cause you too much of a problem.’ A sneer spread across his face. ‘Or are you scared of a little girl?’

‘Stop trying to provoke me, Vampyr. I’m too old for such games. And I will not underestimate a witch with the power of a unicorn behind her. Not again.’

‘You hold some serious grudges, Birdy.’

‘Grudges are all I have left.’

One of the ghouls glanced up. There was a twitching spider–leg hanging out of his mouth. The other ghoul was wearing one of the helmets, bashing himself on the head with a metal gauntlet and laughing at the dinging sound it was making.

‘I want Rose back,’ the vampyr said, flatly.

‘We all want things we can’t have.’

‘You have to release her. I took the unicorn for you. I locked her away from the Wing Warrior. I have done everything you asked me to do. Now hold up your end of the deal.’

‘You gave the unicorn to the Wing Warrior.’

‘He was in my house. I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.’

‘And did you have no choice but to give him your sword?’

The question caught the vampyr off guard, but he recovered quickly. ‘I had to sell the story.’

‘What story?’

‘I needed to make him believe I was going to help him.’

‘You did help him. You gave him a weapon with which he could destroy me.’

‘I gave him nothing. The Wing Warrior is a zombie, he can’t get anywhere near you, even with my sword. All I did was honey–glaze the pudding. He thinks I helped him. He thinks I am plotting with him against you. He’s really rather stupid.’

‘Maybe he is. But I am not. You can spin your little lies to the likes of Nimbus, but it means nothing to me. I know you wouldn’t hesitate to help in my destruction if you thought it would get you want you want.’

‘All I want is Rose.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘If I had her, I could return beyond the mountains, and all this realm of the living I could leave to you. I care not at all for the lives of the people here.’

‘You’ve spent a lot of years flapping through bedroom windows and sucking on the necks of these people. You don’t need to do that, but you do it anyway. You like doing it. You’ve got a taste for it.’

‘I need blood to survive beyond my own lands.’

‘But you have no business in these lands. There is nothing here for you, but you still keep coming back. You still keep feeding. But if I was to rule, there would be no living victims for you. There would be no cattle on which to feed. There would be more death here than there is in your little village of the damned. If I win, an eternity without blood awaits you.’

‘But I would have Rose.’

‘You had Rose. She was there with you every minute of every day, lost and wailing like all the other pathetic spirits. She was there with you and you still came here, looking for fresh meat, looking for the thrill of the hunt. I could never have taken Rose from your domain if you had actually been there to protect her.’

‘You are a twisted old buzzard, Birdy. But you can’t play these mind tricks on me any more than I can play them on you.’

‘I think you need to start being honest with yourself. You need to start asking yourself what it is you really want.’

The vampyr drew back his thin lips to reveal his teeth. ‘Maybe you should ask yourself the same question. I always believed you fought for the same reason I fought. For love. For the woman you lost. But all this... The invasion, the killing, bringing this sorry human–infested land to its knees. How does this help you get her back?’

‘It doesn’t.’

‘Then why do it?’

‘Because I can.’ Crow’s voice changed, becoming a hate–filled growl borne from years of loneliness. ‘I can’t bring her back. I’ve tried. I’ve tried for hundreds of years. Every spell, every incantation. Every wish. I have tried, and I have failed. She is lost to me now. But this... destroying all the world, and all its peoples... This, I can do.’

‘Seems a sad reason to kill everything.’

‘Yours is no better.’

‘But I don’t want to kill everything.’ The vampyr suddenly leapt up, disappearing into the treetops. His disembodied voice echoed around the clearing. ‘Not everything, Birdy.’

The two ghouls immediately stopped feeding. Seeing their master had disappeared, they let out peculiar yelping noises and dashed off into hiding.

Crow chuckled, getting to his feet. ‘How predictable.’ Slightly louder, he added, ‘What do you hope to achieve by this? You can’t kill me. You can’t even fight me. You are of the dead, whether you like it or not.’

‘I just want what’s mine,’ the vampyr hissed. ‘Give her back to me. We made a deal.’

‘The deal was, you keep the unicorn away from the girl. You haven’t done that.’

‘I did what I could.’ A smoky shadow, like a swirling cloud of darkness, flittered through the trees. It settled among the high branches over Crow’s head, and drew itself into the vampyr’s human shape. His eyes glittered hungrily.