Legend of the Three Moons (19 page)

They ripped off their shirts and plunged back out into the stream just as a large tree landed crossways over the bridge, and the bridge crashed down exactly where they'd been.

Swift raised his singed eyebrows. `That was
no
accident. I think the High Enchanter knows exactly where we are.'

The boys crossed the stream madly whirling their wet shirts around their heads. They were about to climb the bank and take the fight to the flame warriors when they heard a soft whimpering. To their left they found Nutty trying to dig into the mud to escape the fire. He was missing a lot of fur and one eye was closed, but he still wagged his tail when Chad picked him up and Swift patted him. Chad tucked the wounded pup inside his bag, on top of the casket and parchment, and turned to face their fiery enemy.

Chad was so angry now he wasn't afraid of anything. He clambered up the bank, swinging his drenched shirt back and forth.

`This is for Nutty,' he shouted, and sliced the closest flame warrior in half. It disintegrated.

Slap!
went Swift's shirt through an attacking warrior.

Slosh!
went Chad's shirt through the middle of another.

Slosh! Splash! Slish! Slush!
and out went more and more warriors and their flaming swords.

The cousins fought back to back extingishing or warding off the flame warriors. And each step took them closer to the row of signs that hopefully marked the end of their ordeal.

`My shirt is almost dry,' Swift said.`Let's run for it.'

They raced towards the skull-and-cross-bones sign. Chad glanced back and saw that the flame warriors, although still advancing, were growing smaller.

`They're not here,' Swift said, staring at the empty place behind the sign where they'd left Lem and the girls. There was nothing but a huge pile of pine needles.

Chad lifted Nutty from his bag. `Find them Nutty. Find Lem.'

Expecting Nutty to pick up a scent and lead them away, the boys were surprised when the pup began to dig. So Swift helped Nutty while Chad fended off three flame warriors with his damp shirt, and kept an eye on five or six others that were edging closer.

Nutty found Lyla and dug her out, then dug for Lem who still held Rosie. Swift found Celeste but couldn't wake her. Lyla and Lem could barely open their eyes either, so Swift slapped them both hard on their legs.

`Ouch! That hurt,' grumbled Lyla, opening one eye. `What's wrong? Where's the smoke coming from?'

`The forest is on fire. Celeste won't wake up and Chad can't keep the flame warriors away much longer. We have to go. Now!' cried Swift.

Swift rejoined Chad to battle the flame warriors, while Lem and Lyla dragged Celeste into a ditch on the Wind Horse Rider's side of Belem Road.

Once Swift and Chad saw they were safe, they dropped their burnt shirts, raced back and slid down into the ditch beside them.

As the fire ran out of trees to burn, the flame warriors shrank to nothing.

Chad handed the wounded Nutty to Lem and the sapphire talisman, jewel box and parchment to Lyla. Then both boys revealed who the poisoned tree was, and told how they'd met Hanging Hannah and Jeg the slave trader, and how they'd found the stolen casket and parchment. And also why Swift smelt so revolting.

`Did Hanging Hannah really look like me?' asked Lem, while cradling the unconscious Nutty.

Swift nodded. `Until she turned into Jeg the slave-trader and shape-thief.'

Chad yawned and stroked Celeste's flushed cheek. `Do you think she'll wake up soon, Lyla?'

Lyla made her voice sound as positive as possible. `Definitely. It's only her cold that's making her sleep so heavily.'

She didn't add,
and the pine needles from the High Enchanter's trees
.

`Good,' sighed Chad, closing his red-rimmed eyes and holding Rosie under his chin to keep her warm. `Because I want to tell her that the poisoned tree is our mother.'

Chad woke up hungry and wincing from the pain of his blistered back. He joined Swift on the road's edge to look at Babylon Forest again but was astounded to see there wasn't a charred branch in sight. It was as if there hadn't been a fire at all, as if flying fireballs and flame warriors hadn't burnt it all to nothing.

`I don't believe it!'

`Me neither,' agreed Swift. `But my socks and sandals are damp, my arms are covered in cactus scratches and burns, and I've hardly any hair left.'

Chad rubbed his own burnt hair. `Me neither.'

`You two neither what?' demanded a croaky voice from the ditch.

`Celeste, you're awake,' Chad slid into the ditch to join her.

Celeste sniffed loudly. She looked terrible. Her spiked hair was full of pine needles, her nose was red and blocked, and her red-rimmed eyes were a bit scary. But none of this stopped her from asking, `And why shouldn't I be?'

Then she realised she was lying in a ditch. `Hey!

What am I doing here? I'm sure I went to sleep under the pines.'

`Yes. Pines that hid you under their needles so that we almost couldn't save you from the fire,' he said.

`What fire? And what happened to your hair?'

The boys helped Celeste up on to Belem Road, away from the others so they wouldn't wake them, then they took turns in telling her everything. They finished with their dramatic dragging of her to safety, then Chad unlinked the chain from his neck and handed it to her.

Celeste held the sapphire stone tightly against her chest and stared into Babylon Forest in search of a burnt tree, branch or twig. There were none. `So if the forest didn't really burn perhaps the cacti maze and our mother didn't burn either. Perhaps she is still alive.'

`I'm hoping that too,' whispered Chad.

Lyla climbed up beside them and gave Celeste a hug. `Your mother is fine. We have her talisman and now we have to get to Belem and San Jaagiin to find out how to get the next one.'

Last to wake was Lem who rolled over to check on Nutty and found four parcels and five bottles lying beside the wounded pup.

`Where did these come from?'

The others hadn't seen the parcels so they said they didn't know.

`Why don't you open one and find out?' said Lyla.

`Because it might be a trick sent by the High Enchanter, or Hanging Hannah, or Jeg the slave trading shape-thief.'

They all peered at the innocent-looking parcels.

`We could just leave them there,' whispered Swift, as if the parcels could hear him.

`Then we'd never know.'

Lyla rolled her eyes. `Then open one, but wait until we are up on the road.'

Lem carefully opened the closest parcel inside which was a jar with a cork stopper, and the words, `Balm for Burns,' written on the label.

The second parcel contained a similar jar, labelled `Cacti Spine Ointment' and the third a bottle of `Syrup For Coughs'. The fourth parcel had five slices of bread, five boiled eggs and a piece of meat labelled `Dog'.

Lem eyed the lot with suspicion. After having a glacier shatter under him, a volcano erupt in front of him, and his shape stolen, he was determined to be extra careful. `Who would leave us this? Who knew we were here? he asked himself. `Only the High Enchanter and Jeg the shape changer. The parcels still might be a trick or contain a spell. We could be turned into-'

`Wouldn't the High Enchanter have just put a spell on us while we were sleeping?' Celeste interrupted.

`Celeste is right!' exclaimed Chad, sticking his finger in the Balm for Burns and smearing it over his face and arms. `This feels great. And if no-one else is hungry I'll eat the lot. I'm starving!'

`Me too,' said Lyla, handing everyone their share of the bread and eggs. `Let's eat and walk. The quicker we get away from here the better.'

By midday they had stood aside for five wagons being driven in the direction of Belem. Four of the drivers were Belemites wearing pointed, wide-brimmed hats and long coats. The fifth wagon had a tall skinny man in a floral waistcoat and an even skinnier woman, wearing a floral dress similar to the purpleberry drink woman.

Each time, Lyla offered to pay for a ride to Belem but none of the drivers even glanced up.

`They haven't any space anyway,' said Lem, as they resumed walking after the driver with the floral waistcoat had ignored them. `Their wagons are packed so high that a mouse couldn't squeeze in. It's a wonder their horses don't fall down dead from overwork.'

`Here comes another,' called Swift.

Wobbling towards them was a brightly-painted wagon with flags fluttering at each corner. Its shafts and hooped roof were painted sky blue and three of its wheels were painted sunflower yellow. The fourth was unpainted and smaller, which was why the wagon was lop-sided. Pulling this vehicle were two large grey horses with manes and tails braided with purple and pink ribbons, and harnesses decorated with green and orange pom-poms.

High on the driver's seat sat three identical women, all with red-rouged cheeks and red-painted lips, and dressed in sequinned skirts and jackets. They also wore jaunty hats, each with a different-coloured feather. Best of all they had wide welcoming smiles.

The driver reined-in the horses so the wagon stopped beside the children. She nodded her head and her red-feather bobbed at them. `Through all the lands I've travelled I've never seen a sorrier sight. Did bandits attack you, you poor darlings?'

Lyla smiled. `We were in Babylon Forest when it caught fire.'

Three heads and three feathers swung round as the women looked back at Babylon Forest where not even a spiral of smoke backed up Lyla's explanation.

`And then?' asked the woman in the blue-feathered hat.

`We escaped. Now we want to buy a wagon ride to Belem because my cousin has a bad cold and can't walk far. Only we haven't any coin so we'll have to pay with this.' Lyla handed a small diamond to the driver.

The woman bounced the diamond in the palm of her hand as if to weigh it then, eyeing Lyla curiously, she placed it in a pocket of her velvet sequinned jacket.

`We won't be able to give you any change until after the fair when we are paid. When our wheel broke Petrie Wartstoe took all our coin.' She pointed to the unpainted wheel. `Now, I ask you, one traveller to another, were we robbed?'

`Robbery and Petrie Wartstoe go together,' piped up a voice from somewhere in the wagon.

`And murder,' said Lem. `You're lucky to be alive.'

The woman in the yellow-feathered hat agreed with him. `That is what I told my sisters. So, as we will be travelling together, let me introduce our good selves. We are The Oopla Sisters Plus One.'

`Plus One is here,' came a voice from the wagon.

`We are an acrobatic, juggling and balancing troop on our way to the Belem Fair. No doubt you have heard of us.'

The children were shaking their heads when Chad recalled the acrobats and jugglers at Mussel Cove market. `Were you performing at Mussel Cove market when the Goch herded the brawlers into a corner?'

The three women spoke at once their feathers nodding in unison. `We were. Were you there? What a catastrophe! What a shemozzle! And what are your good names?'

Lyla pointed to herself and then to the others, `We are Spear, Wolf, Tree, Arrow, and Splash is the one with the cold.'

The woman in the blue-feathered hat pointed to the woman in the red-feathered hat. `That's Uno, I'm Duo, this is Tres and Plus One is in the wagon. Climb aboard. We must reach Belem Meadow before middle night.'

The children hurried to the back of the wagon and saw that it contained four yellow trunks, an assortment of cycles, ropes and ladders. A little man the same size as Chad sat on top of everything. He wrinkled his face into a smile that made him look like his three round-faced sisters, and helped them climb into the wagon.

Uno twisted round in her seat to ask Lyla if they were going to see the fair.

`Not particularly. We're looking for a bird seller. We have a rainbow parrot that has no feathers, and we want to make them grow back so he can fly.'

`Flying is difficult,' said Plus One. `We only set up the trapeze if we are paid in advance. But there's not enough space in Belem Square so we'll only be balancing and tumbling.'

The little bright-eyed man fascinated Swift. `Master Plus One, have you always been an acrobat?'

`Acrobats are brave,' answered Plus One. `If I fall off Tres' feet, Tres falls off Duo's head, Duo falls off Uno's shoulders, then we have to pretend we meant to fall so everyone will laugh.'

Swift was trying to make sense of the little man's answers, so he asked how many years had he been performing?

`Performing is what we do. We used to be four Oopla Sisters Plus One but now we are The Three Oopla sisters Plus One.'

Tres tapped Swift's shoulder. `Plus One only responds to your last word. He's been that way since the Raiders stole his twin sister, Quattro.'

`Quattro is in Ulaan with General Tulga,' explained Plus One.

Lyla's ears pricked up at the words General Tulga. `What will happen to her.'

`Eventually the General will tire of watching her turn herself into knots and he'll sell her. Hopefully to someone from whom we can buy her back,' said Uno.

`Backs must be strong if you are to hold up four people,' said Plus One.

It was night when they saw the lights covering the steep hills of Belem Island and the two strings of lanterns that lit up Belem Bridge.

`Belem Island is in the middle of the Shambala River,' explained Uno. `Once there were hundreds of barges trading up and down the Shambala, the Mickle and the Stim Rivers and Belem was the busiest city in the whole of Ifraa.'

`With the biggest fair,' added Duo.

`That stopped after the High Enchanter attacked M'dgassy,' sighed Tres and her yellow-feather drooped.

`Now the Belemites trade in all manner of illegal goods,' continued Duo. `Never trust a twelve-fingered Belemite, that's what our father always said. Will you be camping with us on the meadow or going into Belem tonight?'

`Going into Belem, thank you,' said Lyla.

`Then we will leave you at the bridge. But the guards won't let you in looking like that. They'll think you're beggars and Belem has enough of those. Don't you have any better clothes?'