03 Sky Knight (32 page)

The vampyr was leaning against a tree trunk. Lady Citrine was on her knees beside him, and he was gripping her hair with one hand. Close by, the two ugly ghouls loitered restlessly, their mouths gaping, their skin glistening. They were both watching Moon nervously, as if she represented some great doom they had heard about in a story once but had never expected to see.

‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to go through with it,’ the vampyr said.

‘It’s over. He’s beaten,’ Nimbus said.

‘It’s not over yet. We had a deal. You need to kill him with my sword.’

‘Why? So you can eat his spirit?’

‘Pretty much, yes.’

‘Like you ate his spirit?’ Nimbus jabbed a condemning finger at the body of Sky’s father. Glass had stopped crying now, and she was standing beside her unicorn, stroking the legend’s mane. Nimbus could have been wrong, but he thought that the unicorn looked angry. Glass didn’t look best pleased either.

‘I see your sister is doing well,’ the vampyr said. ‘Do I have to remind you why that is? Technically, I saved her life. I returned the unicorn. You owe me for that.’

‘You ate that man’s spirit,’ Nimbus said. ‘We can’t get it back, can we? Not like Cumulo got mine back. It’s gone forever. You took Sky’s dad away forever.’

The vampyr shrugged nonchalantly enough, but his fingers clenched in Lady Citrine’s hair; a subtle reminder that he had the advantage here, and should he so wish, he could pull her head clean off. Nimbus saw it all in the reflection of the spirit blade.

‘Nothing has changed,’ the vampyr said. ‘I gave you the unicorn and the sword. You need to uphold your end of the bargain.’

‘The deal’s off.’ The muscles in Nimbus’s sword arm tensed. ‘You can have your damned sword back.’

He turned suddenly. Venom flashed out of existence. Lady Citrine screamed. Then there was a wooden thud as the tip of the spirit blade drove straight through the vampyr’s chest and punched into the bark of the tree he was leaning against.

The vampyr looked down, and there was genuine shock on his face. He released Lady Citrine, who immediately fled to a safe distance.

‘I didn’t expect that,’ he said. Then he smiled, and his teeth glinted. ‘Of course, you can’t kill me this way, you understand? This is my own spirit sword.’

Nimbus came closer. ‘I wasn’t trying to kill you.’ He patted the vampyr’s shoulder. ‘But why don’t you stick around. How long is it until dawn, anyway?’

The vampyr’s expression changed again, and now there was fear in his eyes as he tried to pull himself away from the tree. The blade had not simply stuck in the wood, it had momentarily phased out of this world completely, and then reappeared inside the wood, far deeper than Nimbus would have had the strength to push it. It was so deep, there was no way the vampyr could pull it back out by himself.

Nimbus turned to the ghouls. ‘And don’t even think about helping him,’ he said.

The ghouls pawed at their heads and made gibbering noises. Eventually, they seemed to come to some kind of decision, and they ran off into the woods, ignoring the vampyr’s furious screams.

At the same time, Nimbus felt a blast of cool air, and the pegasus dropped out of the space between the twinkling stars to land beside Glass and Reflection. The tears were already welling up in Nimbus's eyes, as first Sky, and then his mother, dismounted.

Sky looked at him, and then at the still body of her father; and she hesitated, torn between a lifelong obligation to look after her father and an overpowering desire to hug Nimbus. It seemed to take forever, but the decision actually took her less than a second.

She crouched beside her father.

Nimbus understood. Of course he did.

It was her father.

‘Nimbus!’ the vampyr screamed, an edge to his voice that was not anger, but something else entirely. ‘Look out!’

Nimbus started to turn, but in that one instant everything was moving in slow motion.

Moon, wide–eyed, full of despair, was reaching out, but there was already some terrible energy at work against her, driving her down to the ground, choking the life from her.

Glass and Reflection were obscured from view by a black cloud, a rush of grim nightmares that completely enveloped them, and threatened to snuff out their light completely.

The whole world crackled with dark magic. And there, rising up, eyes blazing, a sword of magical energy clutched in his hand, was Crow.

The necromancer’s sword came slashing down: a violent punctuation to an all–too–short life.

But the blow never landed.

At the last moment, something turned the sword away, and Crow was lifted into the air, as if he had been jerked up on strings. He screamed, kicking his legs frantically, struggling against an invisible enemy.

Strata was standing just a short distance away, with one arm outstretched and her fingers positioned as if she was holding something. ‘Leave my son alone,’ she hissed.

‘It’s not possible,’ Crow wailed. ‘You’re not that strong. You’re not a trained magic user.’

‘No,’ Strata said. ‘I’m not. But I am a mother.’

She closed her fingers.

There was a sickening crunch, and a series of snapping noises. Crow’s body went limp, falling out of the sky in a jumbled heap of bent limbs.

Nimbus approached the tragic human remains cautiously, crouching beside the necromancer and feeling for a pulse.

No pulse.

‘You won’t find it there,’ the necromancer chuckled, his voice rising up through a broken neck, past lacerated vocal chords. ‘All this time fighting me, you forgot to ask yourself a few simple questions. Why is it that I have been able to hide from death for so long? And why is it you have never seen my familiar?’

There was a cawing from above Nimbus’s head, where a crow was hopping along the bough of the nearest tree. Nimbus remembered being told the legends of crows. They were known as birds of death. They sometimes guided lost spirits, or carried them to and from the world of the dead; but most of the time they just pecked at the spirits, tormenting them, tearing them into fluttering pieces that blew away in the wind to become wraiths.

The crow shivered its wings before closing them up so that they looked like a black cloak. Nimbus drew a sharp breath as he made the terrible connection.

‘I’m a necromancer,’ wheezed the broken body at Nimbus’s feet. ‘I am a master of spirits. This isn’t my body. My real body died many years ago. I control this flesh in the same way I can control any soldier in my army, but I do not inhabit it.’ The crow cawed again, as if it was mocking the Wing Warrior for failing to see the obvious. ‘Death can’t track down a spirit that keeps moving, and I can transfer a spirit into anything. A stone, a flower, another body. Anything. Even my own familiar.’

Nimbus jumped up. ‘The bird,’ he screamed, pointing frantically. ‘Kill the bird.’

The crow flapped its wings, then darted off through the trees before anyone could react. And the dead body at Nimbus’s feet was simply that: A dead body, and nothing more.

The crow – Crow – had escaped.

CHAPTER THIRTY

For a long time Nimbus was only able to stand and stare at the patch of purple sky where he had last seen the crow. He did not notice when Cumulo came to stand beside him, or Glass and Reflection, or even his mother, who touched his face and hands as if to test that he was really there. All he could think about was how he had failed.

After all this, after so much death and suffering, he had failed. Crow was still alive, and he would continue to live throughout the countless decades. Maybe he would not come back for thousands of years. Maybe it would be sooner. But there was no doubt in Nimbus’s mind, sooner or later the necromancer would return.

He clenched his hands so tight his nails left white, half–circles in his palms.

‘Got away, huh?’ Cumulo said. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get him next time.’

‘Next time?’ Nimbus looked up at his mighty dragon friend.

‘Crow isn’t the only one who has mastered the knack of living forever, is he? When he comes back, if he comes back, we will be waiting for him.’

Nimbus smiled, and put his hand on Cumulo’s foreleg. ‘I guess I thought that it would end now, one way or another.’

‘Why would you think that? These are stories that were started long before we were ever born. Even ageless as we are, these stories will go on long after we are nothing more than dust.’

‘I suppose so. It’s just... If we can’t stop these things. If nothing ever ends. Why do we do it?’

Cumulo brushed his snout against Nimbus’s arm. ‘Because we must.’

‘It’s not much of a reason.’

‘It’s the only one I have. Come on. You’re needed.’

Sky was kneeling over her father’s body, but she was not crying. Her lips trembled, and there was a look of intense concern on her face, but there were no tears.

The pegasus was nearby, visible as a faint glistening outline in the darkness, with its wings folded elegantly into points of white–flecked midnight. Sparkling lines of silver came trickling out of the swirling pools that were the legend’s unfathomable eyes, and at first Nimbus could not figure out what was happening. Then it came to him in a flash, and he realised there was much in the world he would never truly understand.

The pegasus was crying.

‘Nimbus?’ Cumulo said. ‘Did you hear me? You are needed.’

‘We need to sort through the bodies,’ Glass said. ‘I’m going to talk to them.’

‘To see if they want to come back,’ Cumulo added.

‘Come back?’ This finally got the Wing Warrior’s attention. ‘You mean back from the dead?’

‘It won’t be easy,’ Cumulo said. ‘A lot of the bodies are no longer... They are not, exactly, complete. I can bring a dead spirit back into its body, and I can heal flesh wounds, but I can’t reattach arms and legs... Or heads. We will help the ones we can, but I think we must accept that some of our friends are gone.’

‘But...’ Nimbus tried to think through what he was hearing, but so much had happened it was just a fuzzy noise between his ears, and he couldn’t focus on all the repercussions of what Cumulo was saying. ‘They’d be like me. Zombies.’

‘It doesn’t seem to have done you too much harm. Besides, little Glass here is going to speak with them first. We are going to give them the choice.’

‘But...’ Nimbus’s mouth was dry, and his heart had started to beat a little faster. ‘There would be more like me. I wouldn’t be alone any more.’

Glass held his hand. He felt the magic coursing through her fingers: A dull warmth that passed from her skin to his. ‘You were never alone,’ she said.

Nimbus squeezed her hand tighter. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.

‘I know you have.’

‘Do you really think you will be able to talk to the dead?’

‘I’m going to try.’

‘But it won’t work for him, will it?’ He gestured at Sky and her father with his free hand.

‘I don’t think so,’ Cumulo said. ‘His spirit has gone. It is simply no more. I cannot create him a new one.’

Nimbus’s expression turned stony, and he let go of Glass’s hand. He approached the vampyr, who had given up struggling against the spirit blade and was now standing quietly, watching the horizon, counting the minutes until the first rays of sunlight appeared.

‘You didn’t have to do that to him,’ Nimbus said.

‘Does it really matter now?’ the vampyr said. ‘You have already killed me. Your anger is meaningless.’

‘Your entire life is meaningless.’

The vampyr looked around, and there was genuine sadness in his once–hungry gaze as it came to rest on Crow’s dead body. ‘Not totally meaningless,’ he said. There was a pause, as if he was working up the courage to do something.

‘Something on your mind?’ Nimbus said.

The vampyr smiled. It was a defeated grin, with none of the malice and strength that had once made Nimbus so afraid. ‘There was just one thing. A last request, so to speak. On the finger of the necromancer, there is a ring. I would very much like to hold it, before I die.’

Nimbus hesitated. Was this some new trick? Some way the vampyr could break free? He had already lost Crow tonight; he didn’t want the vampyr escaping too. ‘Why?’ he asked, watching the vampyr closely for tell–tale signs of deceit.

‘The necromancer was keeping it from me. It’s all I wanted. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.’

‘What is it, some kind of magic weapon? I’m not some stupid child, you know? I thought you would have figured that much out by now.’

‘And I thought you would have figured out that I never wanted to hurt you, Nimbus. Crow is my enemy, but now he’s gone. What reason have I to fight you?’

‘The sword in your chest, for one thing.’

‘Fair point. I suppose that once I might have been a tad upset about it. But not now.’

‘I don’t think it will hurt to do as he asks,’ Lady Citrine said, remaining at what she evidently considered to be a safe distance.

‘Is that an order, My Lady?’ Nimbus asked.

‘You are the Wing Warrior. I can no more command you than I can command the ocean. This is your decision, but I think everyone deserves to get their last wish granted, don’t you?’

Nimbus walked over to Crow’s inanimate body, kicking it with the toe of his boot. When he was sure it was safe, he took a look at the necromancer’s hands. On one finger, he was wearing a large ring, crafted from rose quartz.

‘That’s it,’ the vampyr said.

Nimbus removed the ring, turning it over and over in his fingers, looking at it from every angle for signs of some trap or cunning device that the vampyr could use against him.

Sometimes the ring seemed such an ordinary little trinket, but other times it shone brilliantly, even in the darkness, and thin swirls of something like cloud or mist moved within it.

‘Why did you call out to me?’ Nimbus asked, while looking at a shadowy reflection in the quartz that he mistakenly took to be his own. ‘When Crow was attacking. You tried to warn me. Why?’

The vampyr shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess I quite like you really. I think that’s probably why I didn’t take your spirit when I had the chance. Maybe the creatures like me, and Crow... Maybe the world does not need us any more. But perhaps the world needs you.’