Page 64 of The Neverfear

‘Just a low bar,’ Christopher whispered: he could almost jump over it alone. But as the grey mare came up to it, the bar suddenly writhed, and spat. Snakes. The horse caught her foot on the top snake, and it sank its teeth into her leg.

Her rider dismounted, and beat back the snakes, which immediately snapped back into shape. Slowly he led the limping grey mare off the course.

‘If you touch it, it bites you,’ Christopher said. ‘Fast and high, Cervusia!’

The hind sped up, faster than any galloping horse, and as she leaped the snake bar she gave a high deer’s shriek – and then it was behind them.

He twisted to look back. The twrch tryth was closing in. It barrelled straight through the first jump, sending bricks flying, trampled through the flames and now was stamping the snakes underfoot. So that was how it planned to get through: brute force.

The karkadann was coming up fast behind. As it came abreast of the twrch tryth it twisted and drove the point of its black horn straight into the neck of the boar. Its rider bellowed with rage, and turned to crack her whip at the karkadann’s rider, but the twrch tryth fell to the ground. Christopher dug his heels into the hind’s sides and pressed her onwards. It was brutal, this race.

They were coming now to the edge of the city, up against the walls, where the streets were so narrow that the racers ran single file, people leaning out of windows to cheer. There was a shrieking from high above and from a window came a sudden cloud of bats, flocking towards them. Christopher groaned, but the first prey they met was the white qianlima, who stumbled, shrieking, as she disappeared in a cloud of black wings. Her rider screamed. ‘What are they? Get them off!’

Christopher recognised them from the Bestiary – miniature ahool bats. Once locked on, they would stay there, feeding, until dislodged by … oh, what had it been? Water! Ahools hated water.

Christopher seized the leather flask of water from his pocket and as he thundered by he hurled it over the bats that swarmed around the poor qianlima and her rider. The hind reared up, stamping and shrieking as the bats turned in screaming dudgeon and flew back up to the sky.

The karkadann streaked by in a cloud of dust, and the woman led the limping qianlima away. Christopher regained control of his mount just as the one last ahool came darting out of the window and sank its teeth into the neck of the golden hind, clinging with its claws to her side.

The hind screamed. Her fear flooded over him. Christopher doused the bat in the last of the water, snatched it from her skin and hurled it against the pavement. He could feel his hold on himself slipping – like falling over a cliff edge in a dream. No, he thought. No! But it was too late. He was naked animal terror. His arms were pain and his chest was fear and all four of his legs stamped at the ground, desperate to be out of this city with its terrible roaring crowds. His antlers were heavy on his head, a weight of gold.

No. He sought out words that were becoming swiftly foreign and strange. Remember what it is that anchors you. What makes you a person.

But what made him a person? As if swimming against a tide, he tried to imagine his own face, but it would not come. Then before his eyes there darted an image: his father, waving him off at the train station. His father, who would be so broken if he was hurt. It worked on him like an electric shock. He summoned up another face – his mother’s, beloved. And his grandfather, and the look of joy in his eyes the day Christopher had discovered the Archipelago. Yes! He thought of Mal Arvorian, flying into the sky, and his breath caught in his lungs: his own breath, in his own lungs. And he thought of Anya. He thought of the speed and size of her smile and her whistle and her flaming swords and her keen, eager intensity. She had run at their mission full tilt. She laughed when she could.

It is the people you love who anchor you. The same golden thread, invisible, unbreakable, connected him to them. He sat up straighter astride the hind. He was Christopher Forrester, and he had not yet lost the Race of Thieves.

‘Onward, Cervusia! Go!’

They swept through a twisting run of streets and suddenly the huge river was in sight, wide as a lake, weaving around the city’s outskirts. There were only three runners remaining now, and the kludde and karkadann were ahead, two dark blurs in the distance, plunging down the bank towards the water.

As Christopher watched, the rider of the kludde took from his pocket a ball of cloth. He dipped it into the kludde’s fiery ears, and it exploded into flames. Lifting himself almost to a standing position on the kludde’s back, he threw the fireball at the karkadann ahead of him. It reared, and dodged the ball by inches.

‘Cheat!’ roared Christopher. He urged the hind on. The boy on the kludde turned to Christopher, making another fireball, and this time his aim was true.

‘Left!’ screamed Christopher, but the fireball struck him on the shoulder, a glancing blow that seared his flesh. ‘Into the river!’ He thought it with every inch of his being. Cervusia charged towards it and plunged in, swimming hard against the current, and the blessed relief of the water closed on his arm. The girl on the karkadann was just ahead of them, whipping at her steed.

Suddenly in the water there was something snatching at the hind’s legs. Christopher leaned back and stared into the murky depths of the river.

‘It’s a kappa! Don’t panic,’ he said to the hind. He tried to remember what he had read of kappas in the Bestiary. Nothing good. They hated salt. He had no salt … but – and he gave a burst of sudden wild laughter – he had the peanuts! Fumbling in his pocket, he emptied the packet on the kappa’s head and its grip broke.

They came struggling out through the weeds and mud. It was still the three of them – the kludde, the karkadann and Christopher – but the other two were far ahead, streaking down the tree-lined avenue that ran along the river. In the far distance he could see the finish line, a tape across the middle of the bridge. The crowd there was immense, and the dim roar was audible, but the spectators would not be able to see them yet.

Christopher urged Cervusia onwards. ‘We can win!’ he told her. ‘You can win your freedom!’ But inside, his stomach was sinking: they were too far behind.

The girl on the karkadann laughed. She pulled a knife from her belt – Christopher shouted in furious warning to the kludde’s rider, but it was too late: the knife went straight into the wolf-dog’s side.

The karkadann charged on. Christopher couldn’t catch up. It would need a miracle.

Tripwire

It didn’t need a miracle. It needed, it turned out, Anya Argen.

Anya had been watching from among the trees in the run up to the finish line, the fingers of both hands crossed and gripped between her teeth. She had watched in mounting rage the behaviour of the karkadann and kludde. But she had pushed the fury down: there was nobody here she could fight with her swords or fists. It would need another kind of fight.

‘If they play dirty,’ said the former Princess of Dousha, ‘then we play dirty.’

She moved faster than breathing. From her pocket she snatched the long, thin skein of joro spider thread taken from Great Caruta: strong as iron, light as air. One end she gave to Jacques. The dragon flew to the far side of the road and looped it around a tree, round and round. Anya tied her end around a tree on her side, fast, fumbling, scowling.