02 Unicorn Rider (31 page)

Nimbus looked around at the crowd of villagers. They were all watching him: All looking to him for leadership, for protection, for hope. He was all they had.

‘Do I really have to choose between my people and my family?’ he asked.

‘Think what your father would have done.’

Nimbus let his head sink. He knew his father would sacrifice one life to protect many.

But Nimbus wasn’t his father.

‘I will wait until Cumulo wakes up,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘But as soon as that happens, I’m going after my dad.’ He snatched the spirit sword out of its sheath and waved it in front of Obsidian. ‘In the mean time, can you teach me how to use this?’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A week had passed since Nimbus returned to the village of Landmark, and rumours about the attack on Flint Lock Fort had spread far and wide. Now there was a new rumour – that the port city of High Tide had also fallen to the invaders – and the old men in the taverns were whispering of spider–soldiers that had been spotted scuttling through the streets of Crystal Shine itself.

As the rumours continued to come in, Nimbus was forced to remain at Landmark. Every morning he would get up and go to the garrison, where he would undergo a tiring regime of sword fighting and combat skills organised by Captain Obsidian and Private Silver; then every evening he would sit and have dinner with his mother before heading out to Captain Spectre’s ruins, to sit beside the sleeping Cumulo, hoping and praying for the dragon to wake.

It was a painfully lonely week. He missed his father, and he missed Glass even more. He had not spoken to Tidal since their argument, and Sky seemed to be busy all the time. Even Captain Spectre had little to say since he had seen his body being used as a puppet in Crow’s evil schemes.

So Nimbus would sit by Cumulo, stroking the snoring dragon’s snout, telling the funny stories that his father had told him when he was younger, and feeling more alone, and more frightened, than he had ever felt before in his whole life.

On the evening of the seventh day after his triumphant return to Landmark, Nimbus was pacing around the ruins, staring at the stars as they blinked on one by one, and wondering if Glass was watching them too.

He thought that if he kept one eye on the moon then he might see something up there that would give him new hope, something to let him know she was okay. He thought that if he was vigilant enough then he might catch the glimmer of a message transmitted in the moonlight, just as he had seen the vision of the unicorn in his mirror. But the night wore on, and no message came.

‘What are you looking for?’ Cumulo asked. ‘Have the wyverns come back?’

‘No,’ Nimbus said. ‘I was just watching the stars. I thought Glass might have tried to...’ He stopped speaking, and glanced over his shoulder.

Cumulo was on his feet, shaking his head groggily and shivering his gigantic wings. The starlight glittered on his green scales. ‘I feel like I’ve been asleep forever.’

‘Cumulo!’ Nimbus whooped, rushing over and throwing his arms around the dragon’s neck. ‘Cumulo, you’re back.’

‘Have I been away?’

‘Sort of.’

‘I hope I didn’t miss anything.’

‘Oh, nothing serious.’

In the broken doorway of the watchtower, Captain Spectre made a special effort to materialise and watch the reunion. The visible part of his face, beneath his visor, was smiling.

***

In his dirty stable at Flint Lock Fort, Onyx trotted in a circle, flicking his head and snorting in frustration. He had been locked up for over a week now by those horrible spider things, and he really wanted to get out for a run. He could only hope that Cloud’s accommodation was a bit roomier than his.

Of course, Cloud’s accommodation was not roomy in the slightest. Cloud’s accommodation was cramped, and stinking, and cold; and the longer he spent there, shivering in the dank straw, the more he became certain that never again would he see the world beyond those four walls.

‘I’ve totally failed my family,’ he muttered, as Sulphur clattered and clunked around inside the door lock, desperately attempting to make the mechanism move. ‘I’m trapped in this filthy hole, and my only chance of escape is a ghost who’s gone so crazy from loneliness he thinks he’s Lord Citrine.’

‘I am Lord Citrine,’ Sulphur said. ‘I’ve already explained all this.’

‘Well, you’ll just have to excuse me if I find it all a little bit hard to believe.’

Sulphur came out of the lock, taking on the form the man he had once been in life. ‘You can believe what you want to believe. But if I were you, I’d believe I was telling the truth. Can’t be nice to think you’re locked up with someone who’s gone loopy. You should think on the positive side.’

‘There’s a positive side?’

‘Nothing is ever as bad as it seems. At least you know your son is safe.’

‘Maybe,’ Cloud said, picking up a piece of straw, and breaking it into equal sections.

‘Maybe? Why only maybe?’

‘The night I was captured, my son heard a banshee’s scream. Only the dead, and the soon to be dead, can hear the scream of a banshee.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Sulphur sat down. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance he might have been dead already?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘In that case, I best get back to this lock. I think I’m making some progress, you know?’

Suddenly there was a metallic clunk from the other side of the door, the sound of a bolt being pulled back, and then the jangle of keys.

‘I didn’t do it,’ Sulphur said.

‘I know,’ Cloud whispered. ‘Get out of sight. They’ve come for me. Go on. Go.’

‘Good luck,’ Sulphur said, vanishing into the gaping mouth of the skeleton that was slumped on the other side of the prison cell.

As the ghost disappeared from sight, the door was thrown open, and a cloaked figure swirled inside, bringing with him an air of menace and the smell of death. Behind him was a silver–armoured soldier with the broken shaft of an arrow sticking out of his forehead. There was also something else in the corridor: Something too large to be clearly seen. Something with darting, snapping heads that hissed and spat through rows of needle–sharp teeth.

A hydra.

‘Crow,’ Cloud sighed, not even bothering to get to his feet. ‘I wondered how long it would be before you decided to pay me a visit. It’s been a long time.’

‘It certainly has. How have you been enjoying your stay?’

‘Room service hasn’t been great, but at least I got a room with a view.’

Beneath the hood of his cloak, Crow’s mouth curled into a mocking smile. ‘Humour? I’m glad you can still find something to laugh about.’

‘The world’s a funny place. You may have me holed up in here, but my son is still out there. And I can bet he’s causing you all kinds of trouble.’

‘Ah yes, the Wing Wimp. He recently had a bit of run in with the general of my armies.’ Crow gestured towards the soldier with the arrow in his head. ‘As you can see, there was a bit of a scuffle.’

Cloud’s veins were filled with icy dread, but he masked his fears expertly. ‘Looks like your man came off quite badly. Why don’t you take that out of his head?’

‘I tried, but he seems to like it. I suppose in his line of work it pays to be scary, and nothing says scary quite like walking around with the shaft of an arrow stuck between your eyes, does it?’

Crow crept farther into the room, like an evil–spirited shadow creeping into the bedroom of a sleeping child. He knelt beside Cloud, and rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘Did you know a lot of people get very confused about what a necromancer can and can’t do?’ he asked, conversationally. ‘They start thinking crazy things like I can make a dead body get up and do a jig, that sort of nonsense. But a body is just useless flesh. I can’t make it do anything. It needs something inside to make it work. Normally, there’s a spirit to do that, but if the body is dead, the spirit is usually already gone.

‘That’s the biggest problem a necromancer has to face. He can’t make somebody do what he wants them to unless they’re spirit is dead, but dead spirits have a tendency to run off and all the necromancer is left with is the corpse. That’s no good to anybody.’

‘Fascinating,’ Cloud said, putting as much sarcasm in his tone as possible.

‘The obvious solution is to call the spirit back into the body,’ the necromancer said. ‘I have the power to do that. But it takes so much energy, and the spirits tend to retain the personalities they had when they were alive. It just isn’t a good way to go about things.

‘What I needed was something that could be put inside the bodies. Something that would replace the missing spirit and be easier for me to control. So I created these little things.’ The necromancer reached into the folds of his cloak, and removed a small, black wriggling thing with four spidery legs. ‘Cute, aren’t they?’

‘Delightful.’

‘I’m particularly proud of the legs. Of course, this is just a baby one. But they grow fast. A few hours and this one will be big enough to control you.’

‘So why are you showing me this? I know you don’t intend putting one of those in me, that’s not your style.’

Crow shrugged. ‘No real reason. I just thought you’d like to know what’s going to happen to your son.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, my general may have got an arrow accidentally put somewhere where it shouldn’t be, but our plans for your son involve doing something much worse. After all, you took someone I loved away from me. It’s only fair I return the favour.’

The general chuckled, deep in a throat that sounded like it was full of water.

‘But don’t worry,’ Crow went on. ‘After we’re done, we’ll keep the lad around, with one of my little pets inside him. He’s going to make a fine addition to my army.’

‘You filth,’ Cloud shouted, grabbing at the necromancer’s cloak. ‘If you hurt my son I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands.’

The necromancer backed away, making room for the hydra to squeeze into the prison cell. ‘Sorry, Cloud,’ he said. ‘I do so hate to bring bad news, but you had to hear it from someone. Anyway, it’s time to go. This fort has exhausted its usefulness so we’re leaving, and we’re taking you up to Crystal Shine. Unfortunately, I can’t trust you to come peacefully, so I’m going to have to poison you. I’ve never found a better way to introduce poison into a body than the way a hydra does it, so I’ll leave you two to play.’

With a swish of his cloak, the necromancer turned to leave the room. For a moment, in the gloom, he looked like a massive flapping bird; then he was gone.

The hydra propelled itself at Cloud.

Cloud punched the nearest head with all the strength he could muster. The head recoiled with a hiss, champing its fangs and blinking stupidly. The other heads hesitated for a moment.

‘Come on then,’ Cloud said. ‘If you want to bite me, come on and bite me.’

The many tongues of the hydra flickered in the many teeth–fringed mouths, and its many eyes narrowed angrily.

‘Come on,’ Cloud shouted, putting his back to the far wall of the cell. ‘What are you waiting for? Dinner’s served. You gigantic, puss–filled, maggot.’

The hydra hesitated for just a moment longer, as if taking the time to fully appreciate the insult, and then it sprang forward in a venomous rage.

What happened next was horrible even by Crow’s evil standards. With no weapon, no room to move, and nobody to help him, Cloud didn’t stand a chance. One of the heads slammed him up against the wall, and a second sunk its fangs into his upper arm. Instantly he could feel the poison rushing into his blood stream, and the dark pressed close around him.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to rise, but it was no use. With a gurgle, he pitched forward; his head hit the ground, and everything went black.

Hissing gleefully, the hydra wriggled out of the cell, leaving the general to drag Cloud away.

Silence crept into the dungeon as the hiss of the hydra and the clump of the general’s footsteps receded. The prison cell was once again empty, apart from the crumbling skeleton.

With a dry creak, the skeleton lifted its head and looked at the open door.

Skulls always look like they’re grinning, but if anybody had been in the prison cell to see it, they would have been certain that this particular skeleton’s grin widened.

‘Free at last,’ it croaked. ‘Let’s see if getting this heap of bones to move has some use after all.’

***

Lord and Lady Citrine stood on the balcony of the palace’s tallest tower, looking out at a city in flames. The invasion had only started an hour ago, and already the city was completely under the control of the spider–soldiers. Most of the people had managed to escape, but even now there were the screams of those who had not been able to get away, rising up from the teeming streets of armoured soldiers.

The invaders had not yet forced their way into the palace, but now there were soldiers scaling the side of the tower with their horrible scuttling legs. It was only a matter of moments before they finally made it inside.

‘The city is lost,’ Lord Citrine said, hopelessly. ‘How could this have happened?’

‘We knew it would happen eventually. Come on, we must leave while we still can,’ Lady Citrine said.

Lord Citrine took his wife by the hand and led her back into the tower and down the stairs to the throne room. The sound of scuttling spider–legs followed them.

‘They’re in the tower,’ Lord Citrine said, shutting the door behind him, and throwing the bar across.

The guards in the throne room gathered round. ‘We must get you into the secret tunnels,’ one of them said.

Lady Citrine nodded at her husband. ‘It is the only way. We must get out of here.’

With a terrible clatter, two spider soldiers dropped from the ceiling, cutting down the palace guards as easily as a farmer cuts down wheat.

‘Look out!’ Lord Citrine shouted, as one of the soldiers grabbed his wife.

There was a bash on the other side of the tower door. Wood splintered, and the door hinges groaned. In just a few seconds, the whole room would be filled with the enemy.