Page 71 of The Neverfear

‘We let them help.’

He explained what he wanted them to do. He did it twice at once: aloud and in pictures that he summoned up in the strange, still depths of his imagination. He imagined them into being and sent the images coursing down the golden threads. He felt the excitement of dozens of minds rising around him, within him, burning through his blood. For one moment it was too much; it threatened to rise over his head. Anchor yourself, he thought, and he fixed his eyes on Teren, on Anya.

‘They’re coming, Christopher!’ Anya cried. ‘The boat is nearly here!’

Christopher nodded. ‘The creatures understand.’

‘What do they say?’

‘They say a lot. In different voices. But they all mean the same thing.’

‘What?’

‘Let them come.’

Christopher sprinted up to the tower and set his eye to the telescope. The boat was very close now, white spray flying up behind its keel as it sped over the water.

Christopher looked to the sky, and whistled. The phoenix flew down and landed on his wrist. Christopher felt the now-familiar pulse of Light pass through him. The bird bent its neck and pecked at his fingers.

‘We need a lookout,’ said Christopher, and the bird gave a low cry. ‘I need you to call out when they reach the dock. And I need you to call as each one falls: loud enough that every creature can hear. I’ve told them: no killing. But apart from that, it’s up to them.’

And his arm went up, and the phoenix took off in a blaze of gold and yellow into the sky to keep watch.

The Battle Of Glimt

The fendthorn’s flowers lifted and fell in the breeze as the bandits’ boat came storming towards the dock.

Christopher watched from a window inside the Great Hall, a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes.

Darius leaned out over the boat’s sleek prow and scattered a golden-brown powder on the fendthorn’s red petals. Instantly the flowers blackened. The bandits roared in triumph as the air filled with a terrible scent of rot. The thorns turned to ash and the plants disintegrated.

Darius Alkov, captain of the Astorians, nodded. He barked, ‘We’re in! Haul left!’ He guided the boat past the black ashes of the defence, coming to rest next to the Neverfear. The phoenix gave a scream, sweeping around their heads.

Christopher watched the figures, all masked, all armed, step on to the island. He counted them under his breath: seven men, three women. Each, he saw, had a snake wrapped around the wrist, its tail in its mouth. They were laughing and joking as they stepped ashore. They expected it to be easy.

Christopher felt fury and disgust rise in him. They would regret this, he thought. He would make sure they would regret it more than any choice they had ever made.

Darius turned back to the boat and saluted. Christopher realised suddenly that the eleventh figure had remained on board the ship. He wore fine clothing, and his tongue flickered over his lips. There was something strange about that tongue, though Christopher was not close enough to see what. As he watched, the man and the ship began to sail away.

Christopher turned to the roc, perched next to him by the window. He stroked the feathered head. ‘Are you ready, Toro?’ he whispered. ‘Now!’

A roc can grow large enough to carry off an elephant. Toro was still a baby, and had never yet flown any distance, but from the depths of his bird soul he longed to do what Christopher asked of him.

‘What’s that noise?’ said Darius, halting on the dock.

It was the sound of vengeance. Ten faces looked upwards: ten voices bellowed out. Instinct pulled them to the ground, ducking low as the roc swooped. Toro’s talons closed around the waist of a man in armour and lifted him from the ground. The man swung at the roc with his sword, but Toro gave a shake, a wiggle in mid-air, and the sword flew from the man’s hands and landed in a tree as they soared, man and bird together, out over Glimt and towards Lithia.

There was a faint splash as the man hit the water.

The phoenix gave a scream. One down.

It had happened so quickly that the other nine bandits barely had time to gasp. But they were professionals, not easily cowed. They stood together now, in a circle, facing outwards, swords drawn, crossbows lifted. Then Darius gestured at one of them – a woman, the rangiest and toughest – and they moved towards the great oak doors of the Palace of Glimt.

The woman put her hand on the vast door latch – then she screamed in pain.

Jacques had done his work well. The snapdragon flower sank its teeth into the bandit’s hand. The woman shrieked as the skin began to blister, to turn red and thick. She turned round to sprint back to the water, to douse her hand in the ocean. But as she ran, she grew dizzy; she was only halfway to the water when she fell forward, unconscious. Three al-mirajes darted out of the bushes, hooked their horns through her clothes and dragged her away into the forest.

The phoenix gave a scream.