03 Sky Knight (28 page)

‘We were counting on your people to even the odds,’ Citrine said.

‘I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do.’

Citrine looked down at the blade of his sword, and then out across the ruins as another wave of arrows fell. ‘Is your body here, somewhere?’

The ghost pointed to one of the soldiers. ‘I am there, in a manner of speaking.’

Citrine smiled grimly. ‘I’ve got an idea. Can you attach yourself to my sword?’

‘You mean, possess it?’

‘I don’t know what I mean. Can you do it?’

‘Yes, as long as a weapon remains within these ruins, there is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to imbue it with my spirit.’

‘Good. Do it.’

‘But why?’

‘There is some kind of magic that makes their skin impenetrable to your spirits. But that magic does not make it impenetrable to our swords and arrows.’

‘I think I understand.’

The spirit vanished, but Citrine became aware of a change in the way his blade gleamed; like there was a reflection in the metal that had not been there before. A faint aura, a glow almost imperceptible to the human eye, played along the sharp edges.

‘Right,’ Citrine said. ‘Here goes everything.’

He dashed across the ruins, ducking through cracked columns and blood–splashed flagstones, until he reached the spider–soldier that the ghost had pointed out.

The soldier saw him coming, and scurried to meet him. Its sword flashed, but Citrine was a skilled warrior, and he countered the attack, breaking through his opponent’s defences and thrusting his sword into its ribcage. There was an eruption of light and noise, and the soldier collapsed lifelessly.

‘Did it work?’ Citrine gasped, leaning over the dead body. ‘Did you get in?’

The body was motionless, even its spidery legs failing to wriggle; but there was a glimmer in its eyes, and then the corner of its mouth twitched in what was unmistakeably a smile.

‘Can you stand?’ Citrine asked. ‘Can you use the body to help us fight?’

Slowly, awkwardly, the soldier’s lips moved. ‘It’s so bright. I’ve waited so long. I cannot resist it. I have to go.’

‘No. Wait! Help us.’

‘I’m sorry. I... Can’t.’ The soldier’s head slumped to one side.

Citrine put a hand on the dead man’s shoulder, then rose. There was a new fire burning in his gut.

Another whisper of white–fletched arrows peppered the darkness, and another two soldiers staggered and fell.

‘Spirits,’ Citrine shouted. ‘Get to Hawk. To the archers. Guide their arrows.’

The air rippled as spirits rushed through the ruins.

‘Go on,’ Citrine screamed, caught in a whirlwind of ghostly figures. ‘Find your bodies. Be at peace. Go. Go.’

As he shouted, the next arrows came falling from the sky, and these glittered with a barely–seen halo of white light, finding their marks with unerring accuracy. Each spider–soldier that was hit stuttered to a halt, with jagged sparks of lightning crackling around its limbs.

‘It’s working,’ Citrine laughed. ‘It’s working.’

He held his sword aloft and screamed his defiance at Crow’s swarming army.

‘I am Lord Citrine, and these are my people,’ he howled. ‘I am Citrine, and now you have a fight on your hands.’

And that was the last thing he said before a spidery shadow appeared out of nowhere, and a sword stabbed through the left side of his body, stealing his life away, and leaving him as just one more corpse in the corpse–strewn ruins.

***

Hawk saw Citrine fall, took aim at the creature that had killed him, and loosed an arrow that slashed through his target’s throat. Where the creature collapsed, two more appeared, crawling over the jumbled stones. Occasionally, the dark surroundings were briefly illuminated by the other–worldly spark of a spirit reasserting control of its former body; but those sparks were few and far between now. Most of the spirits had already found their bodies, yet the spider–soldiers just kept coming: endless waves of mindless hate, clawing ever nearer.

‘We can’t hold this position,’ he said, taking the last arrow from his quiver. ‘There’s too many of them.’

‘You should be used to fighting these sorts of odds,’ Autumn snarled, and she rose up, firing an arrow that plunged into the heart of a spider–soldier.

Before she could drop back into cover, something sharp and metallic flashed in the dark, and then she was falling, tumbling down the escarpment behind her.

‘Autumn!’ Hawk screamed.

He slipped and slid over jagged rocks, through brambles and scratching thorns, and found her crumpled in the leaves of a wild strawberry bush. Her eyes were closed, and there was blood pouring from a wound in her head.

‘No,’ Hawk said, crouching beside her, shaking her. ‘Please.’ Then louder, ‘Please!’

No matter how dark the night had seemed before, it seemed darker now, as he held Autumn’s dead body close, weeping hopelessly over her pale and beautiful face.

He could barely hear the screams of his fellow archers high up on the embankment, as they were finally over–run, and he didn’t even see the spider–soldiers closing in.

He barely even felt the blow that killed him.

***

Cougar and Falcon, the two palace guards standing on the beer cellar trapdoor, looked around nervously at the ring of approaching spider–soldiers. They were all alone now: the last defence between those creatures and all of the people hiding beneath their feet.

‘Don’t die easy,’ Cougar said.

‘Make them pay for every drop of blood they’ve spilled,’ Falcon said.

The first spider–soldier that got too close received a spear to the face, and stumbled back with a squeal, its legs frantically flailing about; the second soldier fared little better, throwing itself onto the end of Falcon’s sword, where it wriggled and kicked, gnashing its black teeth at him before going limp.

Then the soldiers attacked in a massed group, dragging the last two defenders down into the dust, stabbing at them until they stopped moving.

The battle was over.

Spider–soldiers scurried all over the ruins, prodding at bodies, making sure there were no survivors; and one soldier took the large ring of the trapdoor, heaving on it. The door swung open, revealing the cellar, and the terrified upturned faces of those who had been hiding there.

But the trapdoor had been concealing more than frightened villagers.

The spider–soldier had enough time to make a squawk of alarm before its head was chopped off. Several other soldiers were attracted by the dull thud of the head hitting the floor, and then there was a mighty clattering of armour and swords as they reorganised themselves for an unexpected fight.

Captain Obsidian limped into the open, his left arm hanging uselessly, his left leg dragging. He slammed the trapdoor shut behind him.

‘Right,’ he slurred, through the right side of his mouth. ‘Here’s the deal. This is my area.’ He scratched the point of his sword in a circle around him. ‘Anyone who steps into my area, dies. You may notice that I am not up to my usual standards, but I appear to have been paralysed down the left side of my body. So, I’m going to ask you to attack in groups of twenty or thirty, just to keep things fair.’

He laughed sloppily, and the spider–soldiers hesitated, perhaps trying to figure out if he was serious; perhaps wondering what new trap the captain had arranged.

‘Come on,’ Obsidian said. ‘Don’t be shy. There’s only one of me.’

The spider–soldiers began frantically forming into rows. There was still a lot of them. Maybe a hundred.

Maybe more.

‘Oh, this is really going to hurt,’ Obsidian sighed.

But although the soldiers formed up to advance on the solitary captain, they never had a chance to make their attack, for suddenly the ruins were alive with motion; and this was not the loathsome, scurrying motion of spider–soldiers. This was something entirely different.

Out of the darkness they came, like phantoms: Dozens of wolves. And at their head was a mighty stag, gracefully darting between the ruins to crush the enemy soldiers with its gigantic antlers. Screeches rent the night air, as falcons, eagles, and owls dived from the dark to peck and claw the spider–soldiers.

With terrible howls, the wolves set about their bloody work, biting and tearing. And then the whole ground seemed to come alive, as thousands of tiny animals emerged from the undergrowth. Squirrels, foxes, rats, and badgers: they all surged together in one gigantic mass, enveloping their enemies in a seething wave.

The spider–soldiers tried to recover from the ambush, but there was no hope for them, and within a few short minutes the fighting came to an abrupt end.

The huge stag approached Obsidian, fixing him with a stern look before tipping his head in what the captain took to be a greeting.

‘You must be the great stag of the woods,’ Obsidian said. ‘I don’t understand. Why are you here? This isn’t your fight.’

A horse emerged from the gloom, ridden by a soldier wearing the uniform of the Landmark garrison. ‘You’re wrong, Captain,’ the rider said. ‘This is their fight. Crow is a blight on our lands, and they don’t like him any more than we do.’

‘Meadow,’ Obsidian said, with tears in his eyes. ‘I thought... I don’t know. I thought you’d be long gone by now.’

‘And miss out on all this?’ the private said, dismounting and handing the reins to Sky’s father, who was walking beside him. ‘I’m just sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. Are you okay? What’s wrong with your arm?’

Obsidian threw his good arm around Meadow, dragging the private into an embrace. His body trembled as feelings of terrible loss and gratitude surged within him. ‘They’re all dead,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘All the men. Even Citrine. I couldn’t save them.’

Meadow had never seen his captain this way before, and he was at a loss for words. It didn't matter anyway; there was no time for words. Wolves at the edge of the ruins had begun to howl, and all the animals were rushing to heed the call.

Obsidian recovered in an instant, pushing aside his self–doubt and distress to focus on the situation at hand. He hobbled over to the perimeter. At the edge of the woods, hundreds of spidery shadows were teeming restlessly.

‘More?’ he said. ‘I thought we’d finished them.’

‘It appears not,’ Meadow said. ‘Crow had a mighty army marching down from the mountains of the West. They will just keep on coming now. More and more, until there is nothing but death in the world.’

Obsidian looked around at his army: Wolves, birds, a stag, some deer, pigs, dogs, badgers, and rodents. Animals that had surely saved his life. But only animals.

‘We can’t hold them off,’ he said.

‘You may be right,’ Meadow said, straining to see. ‘It looks like the woods have come to life.’

Obsidian drew himself up to his full height. ‘I never expected to live out the night anyway. Better get ready. They’ll be here in a minute.’

His last words were drowned out by a thunderous flapping as a massive shadow moved low over the ruins, blasting the scrubby patches of grass flat with the downbeat of monstrous wings.

Cumulo, last and greatest of all dragons, had arrived.

‘About time,’ Obsidian shouted.

Cumulo circled above, blotting out the twinkling starlight like a nightmare swallowing dreams; then he came back in to land, perching on the edge of the ruined watchtower. Cracks zig–zagged across the stone where his claws gripped, and dust trickled onto the rabbits and mice standing directly below. His leathery wings cracked, retracting into peaks on either side of his spine. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the rows of advancing spider–soldiers. ‘Is there a problem here, Captain?’ he asked.

‘What does it look like to you?’ Obsidian said. ‘Where’s Nimbus?’

Cumulo showed his teeth. He was either grinning or grimacing; it was hard to tell which.

‘Nimbus is closing a deal,’ he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Prior to his arrival at the watchtower, Cumulo had found a quiet clearing in the Forbidden Woods, where he had landed so that Nimbus and Lady Citrine could dismount.

There, in that moonlit place, Nimbus had hugged the dragon’s neck, and Cumulo had licked the Wing Warrior’s cheek, and neither of them had said a single word about what they were about to do. There just didn’t seem to be the right words to say.

‘Fly true,’ Lady Citrine had said to Cumulo, touching his snout. ‘Protect our people.’

Then the dragon had flown away, leaving a whirlwind of leaves in his wake; and Nimbus had watched him disappear from sight with a lump in his throat, and fire in his stomach.

‘This way,’ Lady Citrine said, pulling him towards a deep hollow among the roots of a tree, where they hid and watched as a troop of spider–soldiers marched past.

‘They’re everywhere,’ Nimbus whispered. ‘It’s like the whole world is against us.’

Lady Citrine smiled. ‘Sometimes it feels that way.’

Nimbus swallowed, licking his dry lips as the last soldier moved on. The clearing was empty once more. ‘I think that’s it for now,’ he said. ‘I’m going.’

Lady Citrine gripped his arm. There was a serious look in her eye that reminded Nimbus of the kind of looks his father used to give him, and he felt a thorn of pain working at his heart. He ignored it. Pain meant nothing to him now.

‘Remember what you have to do,’ she said.

His hand went to the hilt of the spirit blade. ‘I know what I have to do.’

‘Just... Be careful. We’re relying on you now. If you get this wrong...’

‘Thanks for the motivational chat. The extra pressure is sure to bring out the best in me.’

‘Nimbus.’

‘I know, I know. I want you to stay here for now. Try not to get seen. I’ll send someone for you when it’s over.’

‘You mean when we’ve won?’

Nimbus shook his head. ‘Even if I do this, even if Crow is defeated, I think we’re past the point where we can win.’

Without another word, he was gone.

Lady Citrine came out of the hollow. Her breathing was the only sound.

So this is what it all came down to. The fate of everyone, resting on the shoulders of a single boy.