Mist & Whispers (22 page)

They ducked for cover as the revenant giant’s blow took out another pillar of books and most of the upper floors to the north of the building. Dust and debris rained down on top of them, the girls still screaming for Tim and the lost Straggler.

‘Quick, everyone! This storm is getting worse, in to the boat, all of you!’ Wilburh called out from the collapsed staircase, and began beckoning them aboard.

Michael hesitated, trying to usher the girls down through the trap door but looking over to Wilburh, who was an inch away from the giant’s next swing.

‘Leave him!’ Gavriel cried, still trying to get to Wolfond and Tim.

‘NO,’ the girls screamed in unison. ‘Let us help – ’

‘It’s too dangerous,’ Michael said, trying to drag them away.

Anya tried to fight against him, but the danger had bestowed a strength to him she was not used to battling. The giant let out a wild roar, and the library took another hit, just before the trap door closed behind them.

Steph collapsed in a heap on the ground, crying uncontrollably. Anya was still fighting Michael.

‘Let me go, we have to go back, I don’t care what he said, I’d rather die than not help Tim!’ she cried, pounding the sides of her fists against his chest.

‘Anya, Anya, calm down! We need to make sure you are safe, the prophecy – ’

‘SCREW THE PROPHECY! THAT’S TIM UP THERE!’

Tears came flooding out of her icy blue eyes, her burning chest heaving in panic and terror.

‘Then I’ll go back, but you must stay here, you must stay out of harm’s way. Promise me you’ll stay if I go back?’

‘But I – ’

‘PROMISE ME?’

‘Fine, I promise, but you have to help him, you have to help them both, you have to get them out of there!’ Now her sobbing was uncontrollable too.

‘I promise.’ And he turned, and climbed back out of the trap door.

Anya ran to Steph, and Steph flung her arms around her, her words lost in floods of tears and heart break.

CRASSSSSHHH.

The ground shook, harder than it had before, and the trap door caved in.

‘MICHAEL!’ Anya screamed, and once again she threw herself at a pile of rubble, smashing at it with her vambrace. Chunks of the tunnel began to crumble, falling as the ground shook again.

‘ANYA, MOVE!’ Steph screamed, but she did not listen.

‘ANYA! WE HAVE TO GO, IT’S CAVING IN!’ This time Steph had hold of Anya, shaking her and dragging her from the rubble, until eventually they were both running for their lives. Behind them and gaining speed, the tunnel was collapsing.

The rubble was almost on top of them when they neared a cross section, and as they leapt into it, Anya glanced back to see the tunnel completely blocked. They hit the ground hard but at least they were safe. The walls had stopped falling. 

For a brief moment they both stared at each other, Anya trying desperately to think of a plan. ‘This tunnel, it must lead out somewhere else in the city. I can’t stay hidden all the time I know they need help,’ she said, wiping the tears from her face.

‘I’m with you, I just need to get to Tim,’ Steph said, standing but still shaking.

‘He’ll be ok, Steph.’ She tried not to think about what could have already happened to him. The odds of surviving such a thing... ‘Come on, this way.’

They ran straight through the unlit tunnels, their hands dragging the walls as their only guide. Anya led the way, making all the decisions as to which way they turned.

Eventually, they came to a ladder and found another trap door at its end.

‘I’ll go first,’ Anya told Steph. She lifted the door slightly and waited for her eyes to adjust. It was only slightly lighter than in the tunnel, but the sounds of destruction were so muffled, she knew they must be a safe enough distance away.

Opening the door further, there was still no sign of immediate danger, so she climbed out, giving herself a few more seconds to scope the place out before helping Steph up. Through the shadows, Anya realised they were behind the bar of a public house, surrounded by beer barrels and shelves full of glasses. It was hard to believe these glasses were still in one piece, considering the city’s latest inhabitants.

Anya led the way through a maze of scattered tables and chairs, out of the pub and around the corner, creeping through the city towards the sounds of terror. They couldn’t see a thing, and every road they turned down lead them back to the place they’d just come from. Then Anya had an idea.

‘Fire! We could light a fire over here, in one of these buildings. It would attract those things away from the library and we could go back into the tunnels until we find another way back.’

‘How are we going to light a fire?’

‘Don’t worry, my care home manager was obsessed with Bear Grylls. He used to make us watch his shows all the time. All I need is my mobile phone, a knife or something sharp, and something for kindling.’

Steph just stared back at her with her usual confused expression.

Anya rummaged in her bag and found her mobile phone. Then, she took one of Steph’s arrows and looked around for the final piece of the puzzle.

Hanging above a shop a few doors down from where they were standing, she saw a sign that read
“Hixon Elm’s Carpentry”
. Inside the girls found a ton of wood work; jobs abandoned half way through construction, covered in wood chips and shavings that spread the length of the work surfaces. Anya grabbed a few handfuls and piled them up high. Next, she flipped her phone over, took out the battery and discarded the rest across the room. Using the tip of the arrow, she jimmied off the terminal end and placed it on the ground, next to the pile of wood she’d gathered.  

‘Stand back,’ she warned Steph, and drove the arrow straight into the battery. Grey smoke seeped out in every direction. Anya took a handful of the shavings and threw them on top. The smoke grew thicker, billowing uncontrollably through the kindling, and then – BANG – the battery popped, and sparks caught on the wood chips.

‘YES!’ Anya hissed. The flames grew quick as she piled on more and more wood chips, as well as some parchment that Steph had found lying around on the work tables.

Coughing hard on the smoke didn’t stop them. They just covered their mouths and noses best they could and continued to throw on chunks of wood, half-finished pieces of furniture, and little wooden toys; anything that would burn. Then, they took to the windows, opening them as wide as they could go to send the smoke signals into the air and over to the nostrils of the undead giants.

When they were confident the fire was in full swing, they left the shop and headed back for the tunnel, but before they had chance to remember the direction they came, a giant, rotting foot came over the building, crashing down into the ground and cracking the cobble stones in front of them.

Anya stifled her scream with her hand, but Steph’s fired right into the giant’s ears, as piercing as the arrows she followed with. One arrow she shot at his knee; another higher toward his stomach, but the creature was so big, it was like hurling toothpicks at an oak tree.

The giant raised his club and smashed it down toward them, hitting the burning shop and missing them by a hair.

Anya tried charging at him, hoping her vambrace would take him down, but its effects were also limited against such a mass. Still, she managed to throw the undead goliath off course, and when he tried to smash his club down at them for a second time, he tripped, missing them and sending the club high into the air and right over the row of little octagonal shops.

The giant steadied himself and the girls tried to run, but it was no use. They were barely ten meters away before his hands slammed to the ground and began closing around them, trapping them against the side of a building.

Anya looked to the sky, silently praying, for if the Gods of Virtfirth had not abandoned their world, maybe, just maybe they would hear her.

It was then that she saw something descend through the mist. Something huge and majestic, but before she could tell exactly what it was, a rush of animals filled the street around them, swarming the giant. Real, live animals, complete with feathers, fur and skin, were everywhere, attacking as if the beast was a threat to Mother Nature herself. Birds flapped around his head, pecking at his putrefied skin. Monkeys leapt from the roof tops and used the giant’s torn clothes like swinging vines to circle his upper body, gouging chunks of flesh with their nails as they went, and sinking their fangs in between his ribs. Huge bears clawed at him from the ground whilst buffalo and wildebeest rammed into his skyscraper-legs, and while all of this was happening at once, two graceful servals prowled protectively at Anya and Steph’s feet, their bodies sleek and long and their spots dancing hypnotically in front of them.

The animals brought the giant to his knees in no time. Then the huge, majestic creature that seemed in command of the wild flurry flew over the girls’ heads and finally Anya could see what the creature was: a Golden Eagle, though brown and not gold at all. It swooped down at the giant with its talons stretched wide and ready, and the girls looked on in horror as its lower claws pierced the brute’s eyes. In one fluid motion, its upper claws closed around the back of his head, sinking deep into the back of his skull, and dragged the giant down to his demise.

The eagle circled back and landed on the tip of the dead giant’s heel. Then, as if the eagle was a magnet to all the other animals, they came to the bird, but they did not stop at its side. Instead, they leapt at it in waves and both Anya and Steph were left stunned as they watched them merge together, until almost the entire congregation stood before them, not as a lone eagle, but as a woman.

The servals remained by the girls as the woman made her way swiftly down the sole of the giant’s foot. ‘We must leave here. Come, I shall return you to the forest. Your destiny is waiting.’ Her skin was an exotic coconut brown and her accent was deep and rich, unintentionally seductive. She wore a headdress and tribal beads around her neck, wrists and waist, which, along with her muscular frame, gave her the appearance of a warrior. A very strong and slightly frightening warrior.

‘Thank you,’ Anya said, dusting herself down. ‘But we can’t go back to the forest, not yet. Our friends are in danger! I’ve no idea how you know about my destiny, but the prophecy will have to wait – ’

The woman did not wait to hear the rest. She cut in, her voice calm but her eyes fierce. ‘The prophecy is not real.’

‘
W
HAT DO YOU
mean
the prophecy is not real
?’ She had the mark on her hand; if the prophecy wasn’t real, why else would it be there? And how else would the man who foretold of her arrival have known that a person bearing such a mark, with
flaming hair
just like hers, would come to Virtfirth at all?

The sounds of havoc in the distance grew louder, and the ground rumbled once more. Smoke still bellowed from the burning buildings and by the sounds of it, more giants were on their way.

‘Your friends will be ok; their fates are one with yours. I can tell you more but you must come with me if you want to see them again.’ A breath later, the woman had transformed, standing before them as a kind of antelope, with great, twisting black horns and bold white streaks of hair across its face. The antelope knelt at their feet as another giant zombified foot took out a little nook of shops mere yards away. The girls did not hesitate further and climbed on, Anya taking hold of the animal’s horns and Steph taking hold of Anya.

THE ANTELOPE WAS
fast. Incorporeally fast. With the servals racing at its flanks, it galloped through the streets and beneath the feet of the giants so quickly, their wasted brains didn’t even register its movement.

A breach in the wall, created by the same creatures they were fleeing from, provided their escape from the city. The antelope cantered straight through the crumbled brick and the girls held their breaths as, together, they leapt over the foreboding canyon surrounding the wall, into the forest.

They stopped when they reached a small stream, subtly snaking through the land. The girls got down from the antelope’s back and took a moment to drink. By the time they’d finished coughing and spluttering, and washed the taste of smoke from their mouths, the antelope had returned to her womanly form.

‘I do not have much time. Interfering with destiny is a delicate matter. I must do as the spirits instruct, no more and no less,’ she said to the girls.

‘Are you sure Tim is alright? That’s all I need to know,’ Steph pleaded, still a mess of tears and sniffles.

‘The one you know as
Tim
has far to go yet, and you will be with him again, that much I
can
tell you.’

Steph broke down in a heap on the ground next to the woman, this time crying tears of joy and relief, but Anya remained sceptical. She couldn’t just take this woman’s word for it. Crossing her arms, she could hear the agitation in her own voice. ‘I hope you can tell us a lot more than just that, like who you are and how you know who we are, and what makes you think the prophecy isn’t real?’ The last few weeks had been turbulent, and between the tears, the fights, the bloodshed and the pain, everything around her was pulling focus, only in the wrong direction. Nothing was clear anymore, and – saved from the giants or not – she just couldn’t help feeling hostile to this sudden new addition to their already tangled web.

The animal-woman brought her long-fingered hand up to her chest and said, ‘
Emi ti Egan
.’ Lowering her hand, she continued. ‘My name is Lysippe, and I am one of the eleven Knights of Aegis. I have a special connection to the Totem, the animal spirit guides, and they have guided me to this place on this day to help you. Your quest, as insignificant as you believe it to be, has far greater consequence than you know.’

‘So, if the prophecy isn’t real, are you saying Theone has been lying to us all along?’

‘King Theone believes in the prophecy. A man did come to him, and did foretell of your coming, but he was no prophet. That man is how you came to be here.’

‘So... I’m confused. You’re saying we were lured here?’ Anya just stared, not sure whether to believe her or not. She’d seen what the Darkness had done to Wilburh back in the library. What was to say this woman’s state-of-mind was any different to that of the librarian?

‘I know this is hard for you to believe. Your father would have questioned me too, with exactly that expression.’

All defences dropped at the mention of her father. Throughout her whole life, not one person had mentioned the words
mother
or
father
to her. No one had ever known who they were, and she was well known in her town for being the “little girl abandoned”. Her chaos of crimson curls made her unmistakable in a crowd and the sight of her often incited whispers from the other residents. The words
had
been exchanged between care workers and school teachers, but always when they thought she was out of ear shot, as if she might combust at the mere mention of her parents.

‘You can’t have known my father. No one knew my father. No one knows anything about me.’

‘Anya, I know you better than you know yourself. But who you are is not important now. It is what you need to do that is key. A moment is coming soon when you need to go against your instincts. I need you to remember that sometimes you must leave things behind in order to move forward.’

‘What are you talking about? You can’t just say you know who I am and who my father is and then not tell me! I want to know, and I want to know now! Was it him that brought me here?’ Every muscle in her body shook. Fear, anxiety, excitement – whatever the concoction, it was brutal, and it was pulling at her threads much harder than anyone or anything ever had.

‘I cannot betray the Totem, and even if I could, the answer to that would bring consequences that neither you, nor the worlds are ready for.’

The worlds
? She thought she’d been talking about her quest to save Scott’s, but how could the fate of one bookshop mean anything to an entire world, let alone worlds – plural? No. She must have meant her quest to free Virtfirth. Perhaps the Darkness hadn’t just taken this land?

‘Can you at least tell me what this means?’ she said, holding her palm outstretched to reveal the curious mark.

Lysippe’s eyes didn’t fall to her hand. Instead, they remained transfixed on hers. ‘It means many things.’ She looked up to the starless sky, as if seeing something that Anya could not. ‘The day it appeared marked your seventeenth year.’

‘But I’m not seventeen for another two weeks...’ And then she thought about it again. She’d never known her real date of birth. The home had registered her date of birth as the day they found her. ‘I was born on the solstice?’

Lysippe gave her a small smile and nodded. ‘With the rising of the sun. Now, I must go.’

‘Wait, you’re just going to leave us here? This forest isn’t safe!’

The servals, who had been waiting patiently at Lysippe’s feet, began to circle her, just as they had Anya and Steph in the city. Lysippe knelt and stroked them lovingly. ‘Danger is a path you must cross if salvation is the place you seek.’ She touched her forehead on the smallest serval, and again, right before the girls’ eyes, Lysippe became an animal once more; a serval, just like her feline friends. Together, all three cats slunk into the darkness of the trees, leaving the girls alone.

‘What was all that about?’ Steph said, getting up from the ground and wiping the tears from her face.

Anya’s eyes remained on the spot where the cats disappeared from view. ‘She said she knew who my father was.’

‘Do you believe her?’

‘I don’t know why, but yeah, I think I do.’

‘You don’t think your dad was an animal spirit, do you?’

Anya turned to Steph, her eyebrow pointing toward the sky, her usual sarcasm released from the shackles of shock. ‘Do I look like my dad could have been an animal spirit?’

‘I guess not.’

The crackling sound of footsteps broke the silence and when the girls turned to see what was coming towards them, they were faced by two cloaked figures.

The girls paused, two deer in headlights. Then, the instinct to run kicked in.

Anya grabbed Steph’s hand and started running as fast as she could, however, they didn’t get far before they were lifted from the ground and held, suspended in the air by nothing other than a resounding force.

‘Oh, don’t leave. It’s not often you find a woman in the forest in these times, let alone two beautiful young things like yourselves.’

The voice was perversely silver; the kind of voice that made you want to punch the owner square in the face.

As Anya turned, one of the figures removed their hood. At first she thought it was Theone; he looked just like him, only his skin was grey and his bloodshot eyes were heavy with years of unrest.

The other man, his face remaining hidden by the hood of his cloak, instructed Theone’s doppelganger to tie the girls up, which he did with a look of twisted pleasure. He raised his hand and from beneath the mud spouted roots that grew quickly around each of the girls, securing a strong hold on them both.

All Anya could think about was how to get Steph out of there. What could she do to distract the men whilst Steph ran for cover? Somewhere in the city, Tim needed her.

The roots were so tight around her that she couldn’t move her arm, meaning her vambrace was out of action. She tried to bide some time by asking questions. The tactic worked so well in the books she’d read, she might as well give it a try now.

‘Who are you?’

‘You fail to recognise me? I am the King.’ His voice was just like Theone’s too, only he spoke with asperity.

‘The King? But Theone is the King!’

The man’s face contorted, bitterness bubbling beneath the pores on his forehead. ‘No, I am the King.
I
have rule of the castle,
I
am the King!’

‘Now, now Eleazar. Play nice. An education is all these little fledglings need. I’m sure they’ll be bowing to your greatness in a matter of hours,’ the other man said from beneath his hood before turning to the girls. ‘Gets awfully touchy about people bowing and such.’ 

‘It’s
Sire
to you, Morcades. I shouldn’t have to keep reminding you. You got the girl and I got the throne – that was always the arrangement. Eighteen years, you should be able to address me correctly in your sleep!’

‘Hmm. How absent of me,
Sire
.’ The corner of Morcades mouth flicked up into a rebellious half-smile.

Eleazar
? Why did that name sound so familiar? ‘Wait,’ she said, her face a mixture of shock and confusion. ‘You’re Theone’s brother! But... you’re dead? He found your medallion on your body in Silver Forest – you were burned alive!’

Eleazar looked at her, his eyes full of menace and his smile full of audacity. ‘It’s easy to make someone believe a lie when they don’t want to see the truth.’

Her mind wrestled with his words, trying to put them into place so that everything made sense. Why could he possibly have wanted his brother to think that he was dead? And who was this hooded man standing beside him, and how did he fit in to all of this? 

‘And you,’ she said, turning to Eleazar’s companion. ‘I know I’ve heard that name before, Morcades?’ She began combing through the tangled strands of her memory for an answer, but so much had happened in such a short time that she still hadn’t quite processed it all, and once again she was left with a blank.

‘I should hope so, little birdy, my reputation usually precedes me.’

Anya glowered at the hooded man. She hated being called names, especially when sour intent was poorly masked with artificial sweetness.

‘Allow me to introduce myself properly,’ he held out his hand to her but retracted it after a glance down at the roots that bound her. ‘Ah, yes. Anyway. Morcades, God of the Damned.’

She tilted her head trying to get a better look at his face.

‘A God? I didn’t think Gods really existed,’ Steph spat, uncharacteristically defiant.

‘Neither did I once. Quite a humbling experience, being wrong, isn’t it?’

‘You weren’t always a God then?’

‘Oh souls, no! I was once a mere mortal, merrily going about my business, pursuing the woman of my dreams when I was ruthlessly deceived. The previous God, a God known by many names but who I knew as Sarras, convinced me if I accepted the celestial title as a gift, I’d have the power to win my lady. What the bastard neglected to mention was that I’d be locked in Damnare and left to rot along with all the other miserable corpses. Never trust a God, that’s the lesson in all of this.’