03 Sky Knight (22 page)

‘I guess you do,’ she went on. ‘Well you better stay right there or I’ll throw it right off this cliff.’

‘You have no idea what you’re holding. Let me have it.’

Tidal took a single step nearer, and Sky held the coral out over the cliff. ‘Don’t test me, Tide.’ She could see the rage in his face, but she could see something else too; something that made him more dangerous than ever.

Fear.

‘Give it to me.’

‘Why are you so scared? What does this coral do?’

‘It doesn’t do anything.’

‘Then it doesn’t matter if I let it go.’

‘No! Wait!’

Sky backed away as far as she could. The sensation of having nothing behind her except for a terrible plunge onto sharp rocks started her trembling, and for a second her courage faltered. It would be so easy to give up. So easy to let Tidal have the coral.

‘Sky?’

He moved closer still.

‘Stay back,’ she hissed. ‘What are you, stupid? Stay back!’ Her voice rose to an angry shriek that echoed around the cliff tops. ‘I said, stay back! We’re playing by my rules now. I want you to go back to the beach and get Cumulo out of those chains.’

Tidal raised his hands in a gesture of resigned defeat. ‘I can’t do that. I can’t go anywhere near those chains. Cumulo is going to die, and there isn’t anything any of us can do. It would take great strength, the strength of a nation, to sever the links.’

‘There must be some way. You must know.’

A malicious grin spread across Tidal’s face, and he slowly lowered his hands. ‘It’s too late. Now, be a good girl and give me the coral.’

‘Never.’

‘Then I’ll just take it.’

Tidal grabbed the coral, and wrestled with Sky on the very brink of the cliff, causing a shower of loose pebbles to cascade down the mountainside.

Sky tried her hardest, but Tidal was so much stronger than she was; and he had a firm grip on the coral. She couldn’t stop him from taking it, so she let go. He had not been expecting her to give up so easily, and he was suddenly off balance, teetering precariously on the cliff top. Sky took the opportunity to grab the coral back, and then she put her shoulder into his chest, adding just enough leverage to make sure he could not regain his footing.

He cried out in horror as the forces of gravity pulled at him, and then he was gone.

Falling.

Disappearing from sight.

Gone.

Sky dropped to her knees, hugging the coral to her chest. ‘Tide,’ she screamed.

Hatred, anger, fear, sadness, and a hundred other gigantic emotions came crashing together within her, and it felt as though she would simply break apart under the strain. But then the tears came, and she knew that if she was to cry until Serpent’s Coil was worn away completely by the wind and rain, and all the realms of humankind had become nothing more than a lovely dream, she would still have tears to shed for what she had been forced to do.

Such was her grief that she barely even heard the small, strained voice coming from just below the ridge of the cliff.

‘Sky!’

Carefully, she crawled to the edge. Tidal was clinging to the side of the rock by his fingertips, his legs kicking uselessly as they tried to find some purchase on stone that was just beyond their reach. ‘You pushed me,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe you pushed me.’

Quickly, Sky tucked the coral back into her pouch, and then reached for Tidal with both hands. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Take my hands and I’ll pull you back up.’

Tidal’s face was contorted with the effort of holding on. ‘Do you really think I want to be saved by you?’ he snarled.

‘Come on, I can reach you.’

He almost laughed, but the strain on his chest prevented it. ‘You are so stupid, Sky. If you saved me, I’d wring your neck and take that coral off you. I’d have no choice.’

‘Everybody has a choice, Tide.’

‘Not me. I made a deal with a devil fish. If I live, he will make me kill you. I didn’t mean for it to be this way.’ His fingers slipped, and his whole body jerked as though he was going to be dislodged from his handhold. ‘You shouldn’t have come here.’

‘I’m not going to let you fall.’

‘I already have.’ Another slip. ‘But I want you to know. All this. Everything I’ve done. I did it for you.’

He swung his legs forward, finally making contact with the side of the cliff; and then he pushed out with all his might as he let go. A scream caught in Sky’s throat as he dropped away from her, turning his fall into an elegant back flip. She reached out, but her grasping fingers caught nothing but air.

Tidal was already too far gone.

There was nothing she could do.

***

‘I said, stay back!’

Sky’s voice echoed around the cliffs, and Nimbus was already on his feet, sword drawn.

‘Up there,’ Spectre said, extending one shimmering finger to point out the girl on the edge of the rocks.

‘I’ll never reach her in time,’ Nimbus said, helplessly. ‘I don’t even know how to get up there.’

Cumulo languidly got to his feet, and made a feeble effort to strain against his chain. ‘I can reach her,’ he muttered. His wings made a half–hearted flap, and his claws dug into the sand, as he twisted this way and that, like a fish on a hook. The chain groaned, and dust came away from the point where it was embedded in the stone.

‘He’s too weak,’ Spectre said.

Sky was on the very edge of the cliff. One step back and she would drop to her death.

Cumulo yanked his neck forwards. The chain clattered. ‘I can reach her,’ he repeated, and his claws dug in deeper still as he attempted to drag himself along the beach.

‘Nimbus?’ Spectre said.

On the cliff top, Tidal and Sky were wrestling frantically. Tidal lost his footing and fell, but he managed to catch hold. Sky moved out of sight.

‘Nimbus!’ Spectre shouted.

Nimbus hesitated for just a moment longer, and then he threw himself on the chain around Cumulo’s neck, heaving on it with all his might.

‘No,’ Cumulo said. ‘It will kill you.’

But it was too late. Nimbus had hold of the chain, and he could already feel its dark magic draining his energy away. He pulled and pulled, but the chain was too strong. Shadows crowded in on him.

‘Let go,’ Cumulo snarled.

Nimbus tried, but his hands were locked around the cold, unforgiving metal. He couldn’t release his grip.

‘Cumulo,’ he gasped, dropping to his knees.

The chain throbbed with hidden power, sucking the life out of them; and neither the dragon nor the Wing Warrior could do anything about it.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Glass gasped in alarm, and her eyes sprang open. ‘He’s in trouble,’ she said.

‘What did you see?’ Moon asked.

‘There was an island. Cumulo was bound in a magical chain, and Nimbus was trying to free him. But the chain... There was something wrong with it, something evil. It was stealing his strength away.’

Moon nodded understandingly. ‘It is the leviathan chain. Very old magic. Very powerful.’

‘What can I do?’

Moon came closer, motioning for Reflection and Light to join her. ‘The water is more than a mirror now,’ she said. ‘You can lend him your strength.’

‘But he’s so far away.’

‘Belief is without boundaries. Reach out to him. He will hear you.’

Glass wiped her palms on her dress, licked her lips, closed her eyes, and then hesitantly held her hand out over the water. She could sense Reflection moving up beside her in support, and could hear Light’s low, panting breath; but slowly those things began to fade away, and she was once more enveloped in the cloying darkness that resides between memory and truth.

She tried to concentrate, and slowly the darkness started to ripple like silk in the wind. Through the ripples, images began to form: at first, nothing more than vague shadows; but gaining in clarity all the time, until it was as though Glass was standing on the beach beside the struggling Wing Warrior and his dying dragon.

‘I did it,’ she whispered. ‘Am I really here?’

There was no response, and the Wing Warrior did not seem to notice her; but the spectral knight who stood by, anxiously and helplessly watching, did raise his head slightly, as though he had caught the murmur of her voice above the sounds of the ocean.

Glass drew closer, uncertain now whether she was seeing things that had happened, or might happen, or never would; uncertain even if she was here, or still in the Forbidden Woods, or somewhere else entirely. It was a terrifying sensation, a feeling of being completely out of time and place; able to be anywhere and everywhere, all and nothing. The sense of dislocation was terrifying, but she knew her fear wasn’t important. Only one thing was important.

Helping the Wing Warrior.

‘Take my strength,’ she said, and she touched his shoulder.

A terrible pain twisted up her arm, enveloping her heart and almost crushing the life out of her.

In desperation, she reached out with her free hand, delving back into the black space between worlds, back through the ripples of the watery mirror that had brought her here, vainly grasping for something, anything. And in the emptiness of the void her fingers brushed Reflection’s mane, and she knew that she was not alone.

Strength came flooding into her from the deep well of the unicorn’s magical store, but as quickly as it came to her it started seeping out again. She understood then what it would feel like to bleed to death. And she understood the absolute agony that the poor dragon had been subjected to as a prisoner in the leviathan chain.

‘Moon,’ she whispered. ‘Help me. Help us. Please.’

For what seemed an age, an eternity of terrible pain, there was no response; then suddenly, as if they had always been there, Light and Moon were beside her.

Light brushed up alongside Reflection, passing on his own power, and then Moon touched his bristling fur.

The fairie had some knowledge of the leviathan chain’s construction, but even she was quite unprepared for how draining the experience was, and she crumpled in pain as tendrils of dark, ugly magic wormed through her spirit form, seeking out every warm pocket of strength and leaching it away. There was nothing she could do to stop it.

The chain was too powerful.

Too evil.

‘Moon,’ Glass screamed.

Focussing what little power still remained within her, Moon held up her hand. Flickers of magic weaved around her upturned palm, and then sprang free as a glittering, white butterfly.

‘Fly,’ she gasped. ‘Find someone.’

With a sparkle of sun–spangled magic, the butterfly darted off into the sky, vanishing against the white streaks of clouds.

***

Captain Obsidian moved through the ruins, stopping at each group of villagers to say a few words of encouragement, or snap a smart salute at some of the smaller children who had started running about with swords made of wood.

He was exhausted, drained beyond anything he had previously experienced; and he wanted nothing more than to sit in the shadow of the watchtower and let sleep drift over him. But he was Captain Obsidian. He was responsible for these people.

‘Captain?’ Hawk said, approaching through a series of sharpened stakes that the defenders had been driving into the ground at an angle to create a defensive perimeter of spikes. ‘Captain, can I speak with you for a moment?’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘I’ve had a report from one of the girls we positioned up in the woods. She’s just retreated back within the ruins.’

‘What has she seen?’

‘They are forming up under the cover of the trees. She had to fight her way out. Killed one of the soldiers doing it. But she thinks they were making their last preparations. I should imagine they are going to wait for the cover of night.’

‘The longer they wait, the better it is for us. Help me get the villagers into the cellar.’ He turned to head back to the trapdoor, where some of the more nervous villagers had already gathered; but something made him stop. It was a sound: a tiny sound, like the whisper of a mother’s voice heard by her sleeping child through the fog of dreams.

‘Do you hear that?’ he asked.

Hawk glanced to the South, shielding his eyes as he strained to see. There was something glimmering just below the line of the clouds, moving as fast as a shooting star.

‘What is that?’ Obsidian asked.

A second later and the object came fluttering down towards them. The glittering butterfly hovered there for a moment and then, in a shower of sparks and golden sunlight, transformed into the figure of a beautiful woman. She seemed to be illuminated from within by a radiance that gave her a ghostlike and tragic appearance.

Instinctively, Obsidian’s hand went for his sword; but the way the woman reached out to him, so longingly, and so full of sadness, stayed his hand.

‘Come to me,’ she said, and Obsidian found himself obeying. ‘Take my hand. Share my suffering.’

‘What are you doing?’ Hawk said, gripping the captain’s shoulder. ‘This is some kind of evil magic.’

Obsidian broke away from Hawk. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Captain!’

‘Who are you?’ Obsidian asked the woman.

‘I am Moon.’

Her ethereal fingers wrapped around his, and he dropped to his knees, suddenly weak beyond imagination.

‘Help us,’ Moon said. ‘Be our strength. Be our strength, and we will come to your aid when you need us most.’

Hawk was already at Obsidian’s side. He grabbed the captain’s arm, and he was overcome with the same weakness. He let out a terrified scream, enough to attract the attention of several of the villagers, and there was a swarm of activity as people ran to their aid.

‘Join together,’ Moon said. ‘Do not fight for yourself. Let everybody else fight for you.’

‘Take my hand,’ Hawk cried, as one of the garrison soldiers reached him. ‘Everybody, join hands.’

More and more people: Old men, children, women, soldiers, farmers, hunters, even Lord Citrine’s palace guards. They all joined hands until everyone at the ruins had become part of a gigantic human chain, all giving freely of their strength for a cause they did not understand.