Bookweird (23 page)

Norman actually gulped with shock. With that motion, the compressed ball of paper squeezed past his tonsils and into his throat. It might have caught there, or else this is where the expression “having your heart in your mouth” came from. It certainly felt like that as his throat burned and throbbed. It was amazing the things that went through your head when you were running for your life, for he had abandoned his shoe now and was churning across the muddy gorge. If he survived this, his mother would be furious. She hadn't been happy about the jacket, and these were new sneakers.

Norman could hear the Viking close behind him now, laughing and taunting him. Suddenly everything seemed hopeless. What was he thinking, eating the page from the bike pamphlet? It wasn't like he could fall asleep here. He was going to be murdered by a bloodthirsty Viking in a muddy English poem, bludgeoned or skewered with only one sneaker on. His legs were weak underneath him now and he was trudging, rather than running, up the other side of the gully. He barely noticed that his eyes were watering and his nose running. He had lost this battle for the English. If
his dad ever found out, he would be furious. His poem was wrecked. This wasn't a day that English poets would be celebrating at all. And suddenly Norman knew that he wouldn't be seeing his father or mother. It really was over this time. He lost his footing again and lurched forward. There was a sharp pain like fire in his temple, and then everything went black.

 

The Castle by the Lake

I
t might not have been the cold that woke him, but it was certainly the first thing he noticed. Norman was lying in a ditch again. If he ever tracked down that Reynard dude, he was going to ask him why the bookweird always left you in ditches. Why couldn't it be nice warm beds or sleeping bags every now and then?

Norman remembered then that he was supposed to be dead. How had he survived the Viking attack? Had he been taken prisoner? Had they just knocked him unconscious in an English ditch and carted him off to be held in some Viking ditch for ransom? This certainly wasn't the same ditch he'd fallen in. The ground wasn't muddy, and he couldn't hear the sea. The air was also much colder. He sat up to get a better look, and a bright pain flashed above his right eye, making his stomach nauseous. Somebody had hit him with something again.

Now that he was sitting up, it was obvious that he was no longer at Maldon. The sea was nowhere in sight, and he was much higher up. The trees were all pines here, and above them he could see the tips of snow-covered mountains. Maybe he
had
been knocked unconscious and being knocked out was as good as falling asleep for the bookweird. But if this had done the trick, shouldn't he be home now, hearing his mother scold him for losing a shoe
and listening to his father complain in Danish? Shouldn't he at the very least have woken up in a bicycle safety pamphlet? Some day he'd really like to learn how this actually worked.

Norman rose to his feet shakily, gathering up his longbow and the quiver of arrows from the ground beside him. He should have dropped them when he was running, he thought belatedly. Slinging them over his shoulder, he felt reassured that he had a weapon of some sort and that he'd had at least a morning's training in how to use it. He'd yet to wake up in any book where he didn't have to defend himself.

It wasn't long, though, before Norman was wishing he could trade his bow and arrow for the sneaker he'd abandoned in the mud at Maldon. The ground was rocky here, and cold. He hobbled along the ridge of a hill for an hour before he found a clear path. He saw no one and heard nothing. It was strangely quiet.

The path presented him with a dilemma. Should he go up or down? He hadn't thought of it while he was trudging along the ridge, but the path clearly travelled up and down the mountain. Though an hour's walk had warmed him up a little, he was still reluctant to climb higher, into even colder, less protected regions. Norman actually did turn around at one point, but something stopped him after the first step. Later he would think that it was because he had been running uphill away from the sea at Maldon and that in a way he was still running away from the pursuing Vikings.

Another half hour's walk made him regret his decision. The pathway narrowed considerably as it ascended and veered into the forest. The headroom continually grew lower and lower, and soon Norman found himself crouching and ducking beneath the boughs of pine trees. He scrambled though the narrowest and lowest passage yet and muttered to himself aloud, “Jeez, it's as bad as Under—”

He unbent himself and looked up as he spoke. What he saw on the mountainside in front of him had interrupted his thoughts: a tall, grey castle well placed behind thick battlements. Surrounded by snow-capped fir trees, its three towers loomed over the silver surface of the lake it commanded. The view was exactly like the cover…

“Lochwarren,” he whispered, amazed.

He broke into a run. The prospect of seeing his friend Malcolm again chased every chill from his body. Even his sore head felt better. If he wasn't home, then this was the next best place. Reaching open ground, he began to jog across the uneven heath toward the castle.

He was well within shouting distance of the castle walls when he pulled himself up short. That was not the red flag of the Stoat Kingdom flying from each of Lochwarren's three towers. Instead Norman spied the ragged yellow pennant of the forest wolves. Lochwarren was still a wolf stronghold.

Norman realized that there was no way of knowing where in the story he had arrived. Had he arrived during the Princes' exile? Were Duncan and Cuilean still growing up somewhere, or had the war begun? Either way, wolves would be everywhere now. The forest would be full of them. Feeling suddenly exposed, Norman crouched and surveyed the battlements for a sign of its defenders. No movement could be seen in the notches of the parapets. Nothing obvious stuck out from the arrow loops, but the drawbridge was up and the portcullis down. The wolves were on the defensive. They had withdrawn to the castle and were prepared for an attack. Had Lochwarren only just fallen to the wolves, or had Duncan and Cuilean's rebellion reached this far?

Try as he might, Norman could see no evidence of a stoat army anywhere around him. This was no proof of anything, of course. If the stoats didn't want to be seen, it would take sharper eyes than Norman's to pick them out. But perhaps this was just wishful thinking.

As Norman crouched in the shrubs, a wolf appeared at the top of the lowest tower. He was a haggard creature who must have seen many battles. Norman shuddered and remembered his flight from Scalded Rock.

“Come out of your holes, vermin!” the wolf howled. “Come take your puny castle back if you dare!” There was a hint of desperation to his voice. This was a last stand of some sort.

There was no reaction to the wolf's taunt. Norman scanned the forest line around the castle for any movement, any glint of steel in the shadows of the pines. Nothing—only the trees swaying in the breeze, the forest creaking with their motion. No other sound was to be heard. That clinched it: the stoats had to be out there. The whole forest was hushed in anticipation. No birdcalls, no chattering from field mice or voles—all the woodland animals of Lochwarren knew that a battle loomed.

Up on the battlement more wolves appeared. They whistled and jeered and rattled their spears against the stone encastlations.

“You coward weasels, come out and fight. Come out and take your worthless little hovel. It's not fit for wolf kings,” the shaggy predator on the tower called.

It was easy for them to be brave. Up there on the battlements, they knew that they were out of archer range. They could heckle all they wanted. Norman wanted to shout back. He wanted to tell the wolf to come down and fight if he was so brave, but he wasn't about to reveal his position.

The grey wolf snarled in frustration and disappeared again into the tower.

What was the stoat battle plan? Norman wondered. How did they intend to take back their castle? Surely they would need siege engines. Archers and swordsmen alone would be useless against the thick fortifications of Lochwarren castle. He scanned the forest again for any sign. Still nothing.

A shout from the castle caught his attention. Norman caught his breath as he saw the scruffy wolf emerge once again. He stood high on the wall now so that he could be seen. His sword was drawn in his right paw. He turned it menacingly so it glinted in the sunlight. In his left paw he held something else up high. Norman squinted to try to identify it. It was brown, too small to be a shield. Suddenly it moved, and Norman knew exactly what it was.

“Such cowards you are,” taunted the wolf. “Cower in the woods, you vermin. Don't bother trying to save your little friend.”

The young stoat struggled vainly in his captor's vicious paw.

The squirming captive was too far away to recognize, but a sickening feeling gripped Norman's stomach. It could be Malcolm up there twisting in the wolf's grip. The more he thought about it, the more he felt it must be true. They had taken Malcolm hostage. It was his own friend up there with the sword at his throat.

A deep rage welled up in Norman. So much had gone wrong since he'd first fallen into this book. He had screwed up so much. But one thing had gone right. One thing was worth it all: the friendship of the little stoat prince, Malcolm. If he was up on that parapet right now, Norman wouldn't hesitate to confront that wolf. It wouldn't matter that the beast had been raised to kill, and that he could do it equally well with his claws and teeth as with the sword. Norman would stand up for his friend.

Only then did Norman recall the bow at his side. The castle was farther and higher than any shot he'd made back at Maldon, but he didn't care. He had to do
something.
He could give that filthy wolf something to think about. Gripping the bow just as Wulfmaer had shown him, he notched the straightest of his remaining arrows. He could feel a snarl growing on his own face as he drew the string back. The anger surging through his body lent strength to his arm, but his hand didn't shake. It was steadier than ever as he pulled back and raised his aim. The fingers released just right. The flight didn't snag on his fingers. The string didn't snap on his arm. The arrow flew high and straight. Even as he heard it whistling in the air, Norman was shouting.

“For Tista Kirk!” he yelled, bellowing it from the bottom of his stomach, packing all his anger and his love for the little stoat into his breath. The volume of his voice startling him. The echo resounded through the valley. Shocked wolves on the parapets of Lochwarren castle turned toward him, their long snouts agape in amazement. Then a gurgling cry from the parapet snapped their heads the other way. The grey wolf was on his knees, clutching his chest. His captive had scampered away and was nowhere to be seen.

The echo of Norman's shout was just dying out when he realized what he'd done. He'd actually hit the wolf. He almost couldn't
believe it. You could give him this shot a hundred more times and he'd never make it again.

There was a moment of shock before he could speak again. There was still anger in his voice, but also a strange bewildered awe at what he'd done. He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “For Duncan and Cuilean! For the sons of Malcolm!”

Bewildered wolves on the castle wall looked around for the source of the battle cry. Most cowered behind battlements. A few fired back, their arrows falling harmlessly in the field in front of him. Norman sent another arrow back. It whistled past harmlessly this time, rattling off an inner wall, but the wolves had been warned and ducked hurriedly behind the parapet.

Norman was reaching for his third arrow when he heard a swelling roar of voices from the woods. Those stoats were small, but they could make an oversized racket when they wanted to. Norman unleashed another arrow toward the castle. The wolves, shocked by his range, ducked behind merlons on the castle battlements and did not reappear.

The stoat army poured from the forest now. Norman could see the red cloaks and gold banners of the old stoat kings along with the buccaneer flags of Duncan's Rivernesters. At the centre there was even a small body of hares marching under the banner of the Five Cities. So Duncan's and Cuilean's forces had united. The brothers were marching together to free their ancestral home. A desperate hope filled Norman's chest—maybe that hadn't been Malcolm there in the clutches of the grey wolf in the tower after all.

From within the castle a horn blast sounded. Norman had heard that call before. It was no wolf clarion. That was a river raider horn. A new banner thrust now from one of the drawbridge towers, Duncan's black battle ensign. There were stoats inside the castle already! The mechanical clank of the drawbridge cogs could be heard now too, and sure enough the portcullis was creaking upward and the moat bridge was descending.

“Of course,” Norman whispered to himself, “the tunnels.” Years ago, the stoat princes had fled Lochwarren through hidden passages
that led out to the lake. They would return the same way. A small party of Rivernesters had slipped in through the tunnels, silently securing the gate towers while the garrison focused on the drama up on the high parapets. The bridge fell into place with a thud, its timing perfect. Stoat troops streamed into Lochwarren castle. Norman could hear the panicked howls of the wolves within. They were trying to defend again now from the castle towers, aiming crossbow bolts directly down at the drawbridge, but Norman harried them with his longbow. It no longer mattered if he hit them or not. Just the sound of arrows rattling off the stones sent them scurrying. With each arrow, fewer and fewer wolves dared to show their snouts.

It could not be going well for the defenders inside either, because another door had opened at the side of the castle, from which wolves were now fleeing in twos and threes. Norman hurried them along in their flight by sending a few arrows their way. There were no returning shots now from the castle. The defence was crumbling. Undone by the shocking fall of its commander and the surprise attack from below, the wolves were in disarray. One by one the wolf banners had been replaced by the red and gold flag of the stoat kings.

As the clamour of fighting died down, Norman edged closer to the castle. His quiver was empty now and there was nothing more he could do from the forest edge. Perhaps it would have been wiser to wait there until the battle was over and the castle fully secure, but he could not wait. He needed to know if that was Malcolm up there. He needed to know that his friend was okay. Soon he made no more pretence at caution. As he jogged across the heath, he glanced up occasionally to appreciate how much bigger the castle was when you got close to it. It no longer looked like a plaything or a model. And the carcass of a slain wolf that lay across the castle gate was no toy either—it was as long as he was high. A chill of fear went through him finally. He had forgotten how big these predators were. Norman just stood there staring at the fallen wolf. If any defenders had remained on the high tower, his bare head would have been an easy target.