The Book of Beasts (31 page)

Sandie ran over to Matt, ignoring the host of slithering serpents and flying beasts around them, and pulled him into a fierce mother's hug. Then she turned and tearfully embraced Jeannie.

‘Thank you,' she said.

‘Ach, lass,' said Jeannie. ‘It was nothing.'

‘I hate to break up the reunion,' said Vaughn, ‘but we have a problem.'

Zach and Em were cut off from the others, staring down a drake: a two-legged, horned dragon with a crocodile's tail. The beast was spitting green fireballs at them which exploded into toxic slime at their feet.

Zach touched Em, pulling her gaze from Matt.
When I give the signal, Em.

He thrust his sword at the beast's head, jabbing its wide nose. The drake roared with rage. A ball of green flame landed at Zach's feet; another seared the shoulder of his jacket, but he kept jabbing.

Now!

Em pictured her mother killing the basilisk. She jumped into the air, flashing her sword, driving the shining blade through the monster's thick scales and into its back. As it turned its horned head in agony to spit fire at her, Zach thrust his sword deep into its leathery neck, earning a spray of green, smelly blood that gushed all over him. He choked, covering his nose.

Whoa… this stuff stinks like pee.

Em animated a lavender-scented towel. Hardly pausing to thrust it into Zach's gunky hands, she threw herself into Matt's arms again.

‘Ow!' Matt mumbled, squeezing her weakly. ‘Injured man here, OK?'

Em jumped back as she remembered his wound. To her horror, her brother wobbled and fell to the ground.

‘He'll be all right, lass,' said Jeannie, looking at Sandie and embracing Em and Zach together as Sandie and Vaughn gently lifted Matt back on to his feet. ‘But we need to get him out of here. He's lost a fair amount of blood.'

Vaughn was on guard at the entrance to the tunnel, staring out into the pit where things were not looking good for them.

Sandie studied the snarling, snapping beasts surrounding them. ‘Guys, we really need to leave.'

Vaughn looked at Jeannie and squeezed her arm. ‘Any ideas?' he said.

Jeannie smiled.

Setting her hands flat on the wall while the others watched, Jeannie closed her eyes to summon their salvation.

At first, only the area of rock directly under her palms pulsed, outlining her hands with a pale green light. But then the pulsing rhythm spread out across the wall, shooting light in every direction, illuminating the colossal cavern with veins of brilliance that throbbed to the steady cadence of a heartbeat.

‘We need more than twinkling lights,' Vaughn said. ‘Are you sure this will work?'

‘You never did really listen to my stories, did you, son?' Jeannie sighed. ‘He'll come. Have a wee bit of faith.'

‘We need to get Matt on a stretcher,' said Em, holding her semi-conscious brother's hand. ‘Mum, can you draw one?'

Sandie animated a simple length of canvas with two poles through loops on each side. Once Matt was settled, they waited, huddled together for warmth and comfort, keeping their eyes half on the prowling beasts and half on Jeannie's light show as it made the great, gloomy cavern shine as brightly as a fairground ride.

A golden glow shimmered in the air above them, right in the centre of the cavernous space. Silent now, the beasts began to part like the Red Sea. Not one creature bayed, howled, lunged or growled. Even the Grendel fell silent.

Albion walked among them, dressed from head to toe in a fur cloak and white gown, the familiar silver helix spinning on his breastplate. His crown of antlers was gold and shone as bright as a hundred torches.

Gripping his carved wooden sceptre, he stopped in front of Jeannie and bowed. He turned to Em and did the same. Em bobbed an awkward curtsey in return.

‘Thank you,' Albion said, in a voice that sounded as if it hadn't been used in centuries. ‘For listening to your imagination. For seeing beyond the real to the eternal.'

Then with his heavy fur cloak brushing the ground, Albion held his sceptre aloft. The golden light from his antler crown expanded, filling the space with even more brightness. And a beam shone from the peryton set in the top of the sceptre to a dark cave mouth far up on the gorge walls, further even than the ledge where they had first entered Hollow Earth.

‘There's our way home,' said Em.

And she pointed to where the white peryton was waiting for them at the mouth of the cave.

The Bay
Present Day

When Simon spotted a rolled blue tarp dropping from nowhere into the choppy bay, he knew they had found Henrietta de Court.

With Renard using all his abilities to cloak their presence, they had successfully sneaked up on the sleek cruiser. It had been almost impossible to see. If it hadn't been for the splash, they would never have found it.

Henrietta stood on the deck, her hair tied back in a scarf and her binoculars trained on Era Mina. While Renard held the small Abbey boat steady, well out of Henrietta's sightline, Simon climbed stealthily over the side, slipping the syringe from its leather wrap. Henrietta didn't look round.

Tanan was piloting the craft from the top deck, wind in his dark hair and aviators on his nose. Simon climbed up the side of the boat and dropped lightly behind him.

Tanan's reactions weren't fast enough. Simon plunged the tranquillizer deep into his thigh, catching him as he slumped to the ground.

Simon set the cruiser to autopilot, after tying Tanan's hands firmly behind his back. He wouldn't wake up for a while, but there was no point in taking chances.

Then he climbed back down to the deck.

Henrietta was still watching the small island, crooning softly to herself as she adjusted the binoculars. At the sharp prick of Simon's needle, she fell into his arms. In a matter of moments, she was trussed up like a turkey and left on the deck to wake up in her own good time.

‘I have them both,' Simon said, returning to the cabin. ‘Renard?'

Renard was gazing at the tapestry which he had unfurled inside the cabin.

‘Look at this, Simon,' he said.

The great tapestry showed Malcolm as a knight with wings on his shoulder plates and a swirling helix on his breastplate, leading an army of skeletal black knights. Even as they watched, the threads brightened, burned and restitched themselves into a fresh design, a different pattern: a new story.

Renard turned at last to the open laptop lying on the table. ‘Clever,' he said, pointing at the cloaked image on the screen. ‘Let's add a little contrast, shall we?'

At the press of a button, the cruiser emerged in fully defined detail.

‘Let's sail this little beauty over to Monk's Cove,' said Simon, stroking the gleaming interior. ‘It would be a shame to get rid of it too soon.'

‘A fine idea,' Renard agreed, settling himself in the comfortable chairs below deck. ‘You can take the helm.'

Simon was already ascending the polished wooden steps two at a time to the wheel above. Across on the island, he could see a bright flash of light from deep within the hillside.

Swiping the aviators from the unconscious Tanan, Simon set them on his own nose.

It was time to bring the family home in style.

They took Matt and Jeannie directly to the hospital in Largs. The cruiser made short work of the crossing, and as Largs came into view, Matt started stirring and making lame jokes. He was so glad to be home, he thought he might burst with joy.

When he'd crawled from the cave opening at the edge of Era Mina, he'd watched Jeannie embrace the peryton, running her hand across its mighty tines. The beast had tilted its head towards them, and then in two long strides it had lifted off the hillside and soared into the clouds, leaving a trail of silver light in the sky.

Simon had been waiting on the beach. They all filled Matt in on what had been happening since he left as they helped him and Jeannie on to the boat.

‘The first thing I want is an Irn Bru and fat chips slathered in sauce,' Matt exclaimed, after Renard propped him up on the galley bench.

Jeannie grinned. ‘I could use a wee dram myself.'

‘I'm happy to oblige on all counts,' said Renard, the colour back in his cheeks now that everyone was home safely.

‘You took a terrible risk coming to rescue me,' Matt said to Em and Zach, as the boat bounced over the choppy bay towards Largs.

‘Maybe you were worth it,' said Em, squeezing her brother in a tight hug.

‘Ow!' Matt yelped.
Injured, remember!

Em grinned.
It's lovely to have your voice in my head again.

‘What will happen to
…
her?' asked Matt with disgust, nodding towards a bunk where Simon and Vaughn had unceremoniously dumped the still unconscious Henrietta.

‘She will be delivered to Sir Charles and the Council to face the consequences of her actions,' said Renard. His voice was cold.

‘But how do we know Hollow Earth is sealed forever?' signed Zach, shifting closer to Em.

Matt pulled himself up against the cushions. ‘Because the moment I got the Grendel through the cave wall and into Hollow Earth, Jeannie left
The Book of Beasts
in the cave behind us.'

‘It will be safer in the Middle Ages than the present,' Jeannie said.

‘What about the Bone Quill?' asked Em.

Matt lifted the blanket Simon had draped around him. The quill, caked in dried blood, was tucked inside the waistband of Matt's filthy jeans. ‘I'm keeping it.'

That's disgusting!

‘Is that the tapestry that Henrietta stole from the Council?' Zach signed, staring at the great carpet of fabric on the floor.

‘Stunning, isn't it?' said Renard. Matt strained to get a better look. ‘What do you think?'

What Matt saw made him very happy. Instead of Malcolm riding on the black peryton with a crush of bodies at his feet, the tapestry that would be returned to the Council Chamber at the Royal Academy now depicted a spiky-haired girl in Viking armour standing on a jagged rock, firing arrows at a line of skeletal half-faced knights on a beach. In the foreground, a tall leather-clad knight looking a lot like Solon was riding on a majestic white peryton, its mighty wings folded against its haunches, a line of villagers behind him in triumphant procession, making their way towards the monastery of Era Mina.

We hope you enjoyed this book.

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Acknowledgements

Glossary

John & Carole E. Barrowman

An invitation from the publisher

The Abbey

The Abbey on Auchinmurn Isle starts its life as a fortress, then a monastery housing a community of monks in the early Middle Ages, developing into a modern home and a place of learning in the twenty-first century. Through time, wars and strife, the buildings and their continuous line of owners have held the islands of Auchinmurn and Era Mina together and kept their secrets safe.