Warriors of Ethandun (5 page)

‘Of course not. Anyway, I don't hit girls.'

‘Oh go on, Josh. She's asking for it!'

It was impossible to read Ursula's expression. She was impassive as stone. Dan had to stop this now.

He stepped out from behind the bookshelves.

‘Hey!' he said.

‘I think Josh just challenged me,' Ursula said flatly, without looking at Dan.

‘Don't be silly, Ursula. Josh wouldn't fight you,' Dan said.

‘He's too scared,' Lucy chipped in.

Josh coloured. ‘Of course I'm not.'

‘Go on then, hit her. I dare you.'

‘Don't, Josh!'

‘Or what, Dan? Will you stop me?' Josh was squaring up to Dan now and the last thing Dan ever wanted to do
was fight another human being. He had seen where it led.

‘I don't have to stop you, Josh. Ursula can look after herself.' As soon as he'd said those words he knew he'd made a mistake. Couldn't they see what Ursula was? She was six foot one or more, lean and muscled, and her eyes were two hard blue stones, bright as sapphires. There was no mercy in her eyes – no fear and no mercy. She could have killed every one of them and not broken into a sweat.

‘Are you saying Ursula would beat me in a fight?'

Dan didn't know what to say. He could sense Ursula listening with keen interest. He should lie and say that Josh would win – maybe that would defuse the situation. What did Ursula want him to say? He shrugged. Let them make of that what they wanted. He thought it was over. He knew Josh didn't want to take on Ursula; he'd seen it in his eyes.

The library as a body seemed to let out a quiet sigh of relief. Ursula sat down and Dan turned away to get his backpack. Then, without warning, Lucy launched herself at Ursula like some kind of demented wildcat.

In one fluid moment Ursula was on her feet and had lifted Lucy off hers. Ursula's strong right hand had Lucy's throat and Lucy's eyes were beginning to bulge. Her legs dangled helplessly in mid-air. Ursula remained expressionless.

Josh, seeing Lucy's danger, tried to punch Ursula, which was a mistake. She deflected the blow easily and with a casual backhand sent him reeling across the floor, where he collided with the bookshelves. The girls Lucy was with started screaming and one of the librarians was
shouting. Ursula still didn't say anything, but Lucy was turning blue.

‘Stop it, Ursula! She's a kid! Put her down!' Ursula relaxed her hand and Lucy fell to the floor, gasping for air and sobbing. Before anyone else could move, Dan grabbed Ursula's arm and dragged her out of the library.

‘For God's sake, Ursula, what are you doing? You could have killed her! You nearly killed a young girl. She's not a bloody warrior. Are you out of your mind?'

‘Maybe, Dan. I can't stand this any more. Please get me out of here.'

How could he not respond?

‘Run to the end of the playing fields and I'll meet you there in a minute. The librarian may call an ambulance – maybe even the police! Stay out of sight. I won't be long.' As Dan sprinted away Ursula started to run. She could not believe how easy it would have been to kill Lucy – it took barely any strength and worse, at that moment, as she had grabbed Lucy by her thin neck, she had not even thought about what she was doing. Instinct alone had directed her – instinct and experience and her terrible strength – a strength that she had not fully appreciated until back in her own world. She did not see how she could stay in a place where she posed such a risk. She knew that Dan was a killer – if a reluctant one when not overwhelmed by his berserker madness – but she had always felt that she was in control. She had only ever fought men, warriors, people who wanted to kill her. The idea that she was herself a killer – a danger to ordinary people – was a new one. It shook her. It had not occurred to her before.

She reached the cluster of trees and rested her back
against one of them. What were the limits of her strength? She stood up and wrapped her arms around the trunk of a horse chestnut tree. Her arms did not quite encircle it. She started to squeeze, to hug it as hard as she could – and she felt the trunk weaken, threaten to collapse. She tightened her grip and there was a terrible cracking sound; the wood shattered, the trunk split and the topmost branches leaned towards the neighbouring tree. It would fall if she continued. She stopped. She was panting with her effort and tears were running down her face. She had hoped that now, when she looked more like everyone else, things might be easier, but she was more of a freak than ever.

‘Ursula? What are you doing?' Dan was suddenly beside her; in her distress she had not heard him coming.

‘I had to see how strong I was. I didn't know. I think Taliesin must have made it worse.' She was still crying, though she herself didn't know if it was because of what she had so nearly done to Lucy or what she had actually done to the tree.

‘Dan, I don't want to be a freak – not here. How can I fit in when I can do this?'

Dan looked at the damaged tree impassively. The upper part of the trunk was leaning at an improbable angle against the oak tree next to it. The stresses Ursula had placed it under had fractured it and caused a fissure in the trunk that would probably kill it. She watched his face for a reaction, but he kept it very still. He remained calm, as he often did in a crisis. He did not answer her directly.

‘Taliesin gave me this,' he said. He opened his backpack and Ursula saw that he had Bright Killer with him, wrapped in oiled linen. The unmistakable shape of the sword's hilt stuck out of the partially zipped bag. Ursula felt her stomach grow cold at the sight of it. She knew all too well that such a sword had not been made for peace. They had both wielded it and killing invariably followed. Did she really want to go back to a world where killing was ordinary, normal? Did she want to go to a world which her parents would never see, a place where she would be without family, without any prospect but endless battles, endless grim encounters, endless death? She hesitated. But she knew that there would also be magic.

Dan had dumped his rucksack by the damaged tree and was holding a round clear ball of some semi-translucent material. It looked like a paperweight or an object from the school's prop department.

‘What's that – a crystal ball?' She almost laughed. Taliesin was having them on. ‘What are we supposed to do – call to him through it? As if he hasn't caused us enough trouble already.'

‘Taliesin has his faults, Ursula, but it's thanks to him that I could bring you home.'

‘It was thanks to him we were involved in the battle that nearly killed me in the first place,' she answered shortly. She knew that the object in Dan's hands had power. It had set her tongue tingling and she could feel the buzz of it all the way up her spine. The base of her skull itched, as if the magic held some irritant. It certainly took hold of her mind. Its presence made it very hard for
her to think, let alone speak. She felt dizzy with the need to touch the object that was so full of it, but she used all her willpower and held back. Magic waited for her beyond the Veil.

‘What are you going to do with that thing?' Her voice trembled a little although she tried to sound normal. Dan probably thought she was still shaken because of Lucy and the tree, which she was, but the thought of the magic shook her more.

‘What do you think? Should I just rub it?' Dan said. There was the distant sound of an ambulance arriving. ‘I hope Lucy is OK.'

‘Of course she is. I didn't snap anything and she was still breathing.' Ursula's reply, she knew, could have been more sympathetic. She couldn't think of anything but the smell and taste of magic thrumming in the air. She tried to sound casual, as if Dan's answer was not the most important thing in the world. ‘So, what are you going to do about the Veil?'

‘You really want me to raise it? Even after all we've been through?'

‘For God's sake, Dan, just
do
it. Yes. I want you to raise the Veil – how clear do I have to be? I nearly killed someone, probably would have done if you hadn't stopped me. What do you want? Us to be joined at the hip for the rest of our lives so you can keep me out of trouble?'

The truth was she didn't think she could live without magic. Since Taliesin had shown her that it still lurked in her own world she kept detecting its elusive scent, carried in the wind, rustling through the grass – fragments only,
stray filaments of power. It set her whole body on edge, made her desperate for more.

Dan looked hurt. ‘You want to go back to Macsen's land? To King Macsen?'

Yes, yes, she wanted to scream but she managed to hold herself back. Dan was being unusually slow – she had said so, hadn't she? Did he want her to spell it out?

He paused. ‘Do you want to do the honours?'

She shook her head. Of course she did! But Taliesin might have given the crystal ball to Dan for a reason. Perhaps it would only work for him.

‘OK then.' Dan did not look happy. He was risking a lot, she knew; in Arturus's land his magical gift for empathy, for mind-reading, had almost driven him mad. In Macsen's land he'd been mad too, when he'd been a berserker. He must have been worried about what another trip through the Veil would do to him. But he was all right; they'd got through. They'd manage. She knew that he would not deny her what she wanted. She saw it in his face, briefly unguarded. He'd take any risk to give her what she wanted, and what she wanted was magic.

He held the orb in his left hand and rubbed it with his right. Nothing happened. Distantly Ursula heard more sirens and she could see that a panda car had arrived in the car park.

‘Hurry up, Dan! They'll be looking for me. I don't want to be done for assault or, worse still, attempted murder …'

‘I can't concentrate if you talk. What do you have to think about to raise the Veil?'

‘Wanting it. Wanting it desperately,' Ursula said, but it was more than that. She thought back. Raising the Veil was a kind of prayer. It was difficult to explain, maddened as she was by the presence of the orb, by her own craving. She tried to calm herself down and to remember how to do it. She spoke more slowly. ‘You have to be still – inside. You have to want it but you also have to ask permission – from, you know, from God, I suppose …' Her voice tailed away, embarrassed. Opening the Veil wasn't like opening a door. It was hard to explain, impossible to share. It was almost too private. Thinking about it made her ashamed; she doubted her motives for opening it this time. This time her motives were wholly selfish. Would such a request be granted? She wanted power again, that was all. But she wasn't opening the Veil, Dan was, and he wanted to raise it for her; his motives were utterly selfless.

Dan wasn't listening. He'd understood. He could do still. His eyes had taken on a slightly unfocused look as he continued to rub the orb. Ursula felt the magic catch, latch on to something bigger, call to it, and suddenly the first faint tendrils of yellow smoke began to form and thicken and grow, swirling in front of Dan like the birth of a tornado. It was not quite the way it had formed for her or for Rhonwen, but then neither of them had ever raised the Veil using a theatre-prop orb.

‘I think that sometimes it needs blood – the druids thought so,' Ursula said. Her heart was beating wildly as she felt the power grow.

‘Don't worry about that,' Dan said with a grimace, and she could see that his left hand seeped blood as if the
smooth round surface of the crystal ball had somehow cut it.

‘Ursula, this feels wrong. I don't think we should go.' He did not look at her. She knew he was holding on to the Veil, that he was still not entirely with her. Even with the magic of the orb, he still had to exert his own control over the now billowing mist.

‘I have to, Dan. I need to.' She couldn't look at him, but ran straight towards the swirling mist. Magic was calling to her and she had no power to resist.

Dan had no choice but to follow Ursula, and quickly, through the Veil. He had been here before – that first time they'd encountered the seething yellow mist. He grabbed the package that was Bright Killer and, still clutching the orb against his chest, launched himself through the mist before it dispersed. He shut his eyes and held his breath. He hated the Veil – the way the oily droplets that made it clung to him, the way it tasted – but he could not leave Ursula. She was not herself. He had seen her fight before, but what she'd done to Lucy was out of character. Something was wrong with her and he did not know what; he was frightened for her.

He knew enough about the workings of the Veil to be unsurprised when he emerged from its greasy clutches alone.

There was no sign of Ursula. He had emerged from the magical yellow mist into an ordinary grey damp and stifling fog, a fog that blanketed everything in an ominous silence. He shook his head as if to unstop his ears and shivered. His school sweatshirt wasn't warm and
within one pace he found himself knee-deep in slimy mud. He lifted Bright Killer above his head to keep it dry but his left hand was slick with blood and the orb slipped from his hand to land with a decisive plop in the bog beside him. Shit. In panic he rooted around for it with his foot. That was a stupid move. All that happened was that his foot caught in some reeds. He might have called out for help, but he did not know where he was and in his experience it was not a good idea to advertise your vulnerability to strangers. His sword was valuable in any world and he had no idea if he could fight with one foot buried in a bog. There was solid ground within a stretched arm's reach and he carefully laid Bright Killer on that. There was nothing else for it but to take a deep breath and plunge under the icy water to attempt to release his foot.

It was hard to see anything in the murky darkness. His eyes stung. He found his foot and the roots that held it trapped. He pulled and wriggled and worked it free but his lungs were screaming by the time he surfaced. He spluttered and gagged. The water was foul. It was pointless to search for the orb – it would have sunk into the mud, but he knew he had to try. He put his face into the water again and opened his eyes. He could see nothing. He surfaced again and shook the slime from his hair. Within seconds of arriving in this unknown place he had lost any hope he had of getting home. He swore savagely under his breath, soldier's oaths in Latin that would have made his Latin teacher turn pale if he'd known what they meant. He hauled himself up to rest under his sword.
Fan-bloody-tastic. There was still no sign of Ursula. He hugged his knees in an effort to get warm and then did what he had wanted to do for a long time.