Royal Institute of Magic: Elizabeth's Legacy (30 page)

Natalie.

“I see her too,”
Charlie said, seeing Ben tense.

They began their ascent up the
large hill. The sun was fast approaching the horizon and every time
he looked at it his stomach churned. Were his parents here on the
island? If they weren’t, he was in deep trouble.

“Any plan?” Charlie
whispered, managing a small, nervous smile. “I’d take
anything right now.”

“My parents,” Ben
said, putting as much certainty into his voice as possible, but the
tremor made it rather unconvincing. “They are here, I know it.
They will rescue us.”

“I hope you’re
right.”

The last few steps before they
crested the giant hill were surreal. Ben was walking to his
execution, yet deep down there was a well of hope that staved off
despair. In moments he could be seeing his parents again. But right
now it wasn’t his parents he was thinking of; it was Natalie.
She stood underneath the giant, horizontal stone, her hands and legs
magically bound. She had a cut on her forehead and looked exhausted.

She looked at Ben and then
Charlie as they reached the hilltop, her green eyes full of anguish.

“Oh why did you come? It’s
a trap.”

“We hadn’t noticed,”
Ben said, glancing at Charlie. But Charlie wasn’t listening. He
was staring at a lady slumped to the side, her back resting against
one of the vertical stones.

It was Wren.

She looked beaten, her dress was
torn and her normally pinned up hair was a mess. Her eyes were closed
and her breathing faint. Ben stared at her in despair. Deep down he
had hoped Wren might somehow learn of Alex’s deception and come
to their aid. Maybe she had, but she had failed.

The sword at Ben’s back
poked him and he and Charlie were directed under the large stone next
to Natalie.

“Alex, tie him,”
Elessar ordered.

Ben looked up just as Alex fired
a spell into his chest. Ropes magically appeared, binding his hands
and feet. So Elessar knew Ben’s spell only worked against dark
elf magic.

“We are ready, Your
Highness,” Elessar said with a bow, his eyes fixed firmly on
the grass by his feet.

“Now we wait.”

The new voice almost knocked Ben
over. It was soft like Elessar’s but spoken with ten times the
power, making Ben’s hair stand on end. He turned to the
speaker, but his eyes started to burn the moment he looked at him. He
was taller and broader than any other dark elf he’d seen. He
wore a small crown and draped over his shoulders was a magnificent
purple cloak adorned with gold hieroglyphs. If the crown hadn’t
given away the elf’s authority, there were four huge bodyguards
with swords that could slice a tree in two.

Ben had always pictured King
Suktar older – after all, he was alive during Elizabeth I’s
reign. But if anything, his face had a hint of youth in it.

There were at least a dozen other
dark elves around the edge of the plateau, searching the surrounding
hills for his parents. He spotted Alex standing a little distance
away, next to Elessar.

Ben had restrained himself until
now, but seeing Alex with Elessar talking amongst themselves was too
much.

“Oi!” he shouted.
“You treacherous lowlife, I trusted you. You’re going to
pay. My parents will bring you down!”

Alex didn’t have the guts
to look his way and Ben spat at him, though it fell well short. He
got a thump on the back of his head for his trouble.

“Are you okay, Ben?”
Natalie asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”
His head was spinning, but he shook it off.

“If I were you, I’d
stop chatting and start praying,” Elessar said, his eyes
staring at the sun. “Your parents have less than ten minutes to
show their faces.”

It was now noticeably darker and
Ben was having to squint to see the hill below, though the dark elves
seemed untroubled by the lack of light. Ben could have sworn the sun
started to accelerate as if suddenly drawn to the horizon.

“This is it,” Charlie
said, speaking softly so that only Ben and Natalie could hear. “If
they don’t come now, we’re done for.”

“They’ll come.”

Charlie’s pale face looked
on the verge of panic. “What if they don’t? I’m
only fourteen. I don’t want to die. God, I’ve wasted my
life. I haven’t done anything with myself.”

Ben wasn’t listening. His
eyes were glued to the surroundings. Where were his parents?

“Your fate is starting to
look rather bleak,” Elessar said, interrupting his thoughts.
Ben stared at the disappearing sun with growing frustration.

Time was almost up, he realised.
He continued to search for any sign of his mum or dad. Other than the
occasional sprawling tree and the mighty boulders, the landscape was
bare and unsuited to hiding or launching a surprise attack. The grass
was thick, but would they really crawl all the way up the hill to
avoid being seen?

Everyone now had their attention
on the hillside, even the king. As the sun dipped below the horizon,
Ben began to believe for the first time that his parents might not
turn up. The thought made his legs unsteady and he almost lost his
footing. They would never let him die without putting up a fight, so
that meant his parents weren’t on the island. Had they been
unable to find it? Maybe they didn’t get the dark elves’
message about the execution. It didn’t matter now. What
mattered was they weren’t here.

The sun dipped out of view
without the faintest sight of his parents. Elessar kept searching
with a look of desperation, unable to accept defeat. Finally, he
turned towards his king.

“You failed, Elessar,”
the king said. Ben risked the burning sensation in his eyes. A subtle
lowering of Suktar’s eyebrows was the only sign of his
disapproval.

“I am sorry, Your
Highness.” Ben had never heard Elessar flustered before, but
his discomfort was scant consolation now. “I assumed they cared
for their son’s life.”

“You assumed wrong. The
king will not be pleased. Get rid of them all except the Greenwood
boy and meet me back at the palace where we will decide a punishment
suitable to your failure.”

So this elf wasn’t the
king. Who then? The answer came to him immediately: King Suktar’s
son. The prince his parents were accused of killing. If only Colin or
Draven had been around! Not that it mattered anymore.

Elessar kept his eyes focused on
the grass. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“Are you certain you have
Wren Walker under control or should I stay to make sure there are no
further foul-ups?”

“I cast the spell on her
myself, Your Highness. Not even Wren can break free on her own.”

“I hope not, for your
sake.”

A small whirlwind appeared around
the prince and his four guards. It intensified until they were lost
in the vortex, the wind nearly sweeping Ben from his feet. As quickly
as it had come, it disappeared, and the prince and his guards had
gone.

“I really thought I
understood humans, but your parents proved me wrong,” Elessar
said, clicking his tongue. “Not everyone seems to care about
their offspring. A pity for me and a pity for you, as your life is
now at an end.”

Shock hit Ben like a blow to the
face and real fear flowed through him for the first time. He tried to
keep it from showing, but as Elessar drew his sword, testing its
edge, Ben started shaking.

“I am eager to get home, so
let’s not draw this out. Who’s first?”

Elessar spoke so casually it felt
like a dream. Was this really happening? Ben wanted to pinch himself,
but his hand was shaking too much.

“I am,” Ben said. Was
that really his voice? He shuffled forward and knelt down, unsure who
was controlling his body.

“How noble,” Elessar
said, almost bored. ”Unfortunately, I need you alive.”

He grabbed Natalie and made her
kneel. She struggled until Elessar’s purple gaze rendered her
motionless.

Ben’s blood was pumping
painfully in his ears. He leapt forward, but a steely hand from
behind yanked him back. He screamed, but Elessar could have been deaf
for all the response he showed.

Time seemed to slow. The sword
swung forward, swiping towards Natalie’s neck.

A small silver sledgehammer
cannoned into Elessar’s face, sending him flying ten feet into
the air. There was a stunned silence and it took Ben a second to
realise the hammer had been a spell. Ben turned, expecting to find
his parents.

But it was Alex, his Spellshooter still pointing at Elessar’s fallen body.

Ben was just as stunned as the surrounding dark elves. Conflicting
emotions threatened to overload him. For a second he could have heard
a pin drop.

The dark elves’
astonishment turned to fury and they turned as one to Alex. The cries
came from every corner of the plateau and they charged. Alex was
suddenly facing a dozen dark elves coming at him from all sides,
swords drawn, hands pulsing with magic.

Alex fired another spell. This
one arced over the oncoming elves and hit Wren, casting her in a halo
of light.

“Get up, Wren!” Alex
shouted, his voice containing only a fraction of the panic it should
have.

Wren raised her head. The dazed
look in her eyes vanished as she took in the scene and quickly got to
her feet. She raised her hand and half a dozen tiny missiles launched
from her fingers, whizzing their way to the dark elves. Ben saw a
couple go down and a few more re-direct their charge towards Wren.

In the brief respite, Alex raised
his Spellshooter and fired a spell into the evening sky. It exploded
in a mighty shower of sparks like a firework.

To Ben’s amazement, a dozen
missiles went off in the distance. They were heading rapidly towards
the hill. Ben, Charlie and Natalie barely had time to shuffle under
the stone roof when the spells hit the ground like an air strike. The
noise was deafening. Dark elves and huge lumps of earth went flying
into the air.

Coming up the hill, screaming as
they charged, were a dozen Spellswords. The dark elves ran down to
face the new adversary and suddenly the fight was even.

The hill was now a battlefield,
with spells flying everywhere amongst cries of anger and pain. Ben
feared for the Spellswords at close quarters against the elves’
swords, but they fired spell into their palms and blades
materialised. Ben saw Alex fending off two elves with a sabre whilst
engaging another in a shooting battle.

Ben wanted to help, but he was
still bound. Even if he were free, what good could he do? He was
completely useless here. It was maddening.

A tap on his shoulder diverted
his attention from the battle and a moment later his bonds
disappeared.

“Time to get out of here,”
Wren said, her calmness in contrast with her appearance. Within
moments she had also dispelled the bonds from Charlie and Natalie.

Wren led them down the hill, but
they had barely left the plateau when a sparkling purple bolt
streaked towards Wren’s head. She raised her hand and the spell
hit an invisible shield, but Wren staggered as if remnants of the
spell had penetrated.

“Going somewhere, Wren?”
Elessar asked. He walked through the battlefield, heedless of the
carnage around him, with two dark elves following in his wake. One
side of his face was covered in blood. His normal arrogance and
composure were gone, and his mouth was curled in a snarl.

“Take Ben, kill the
others,” Elessar ordered. “I will deal with Wren.”

Wren turned to Ben, her grey eyes
betraying only a flicker of urgency. “Get out of here.”

Ben nodded as Elessar fired
another bolt at Wren. She blocked it and stepped forward to meet him.
The two other dark elves attempted to circle around Wren, but she
fired two jets of gold at them without even looking. One dark elf
went down, but the other dodged the spell.

“Oh dear,” Charlie
said, staring at the remaining dark elf bearing down on them. The elf
had his sword drawn and was walking carefully, his face grim. Ben,
Natalie and Charlie were back-peddling down the hill, watching the
dark elf get ever closer.

“Should we turn and run?”
Natalie asked.

“No good,” Ben
replied. “He will catch us.”

“What else can we do?”

Ben kept his eyes firmly on the
dark elf. “Spread out. Give him three different targets to go
for.”

They spanned out, still walking
backwards. The dark elf gave each of them an appraising look, before
altering his path to Ben.

“Now what?” Charlie
asked.

“I’m working on it.”

The dark elf was no more than a
dozen paces away and closing fast. Ben searched the hill for help,
but all the nearby Spellswords were locked in battle.

Surely the elf wasn’t going
to use that sword? Elessar wanted him alive. Ben’s only chance
was surprise. He grit his teeth and tensed himself. As he was about
to launch forward, his foot stumbled on something soft. He lost his
balance and fell to the ground.

He had stepped on a fallen
Spellsword. Ben’s horrified gaze went to the bloody, lifeless
face. His Spellshooter lay next to him in the thick grass.

The Spellshooter.

Ben picked it up, aimed it at the
dark elf and rested his hand on the trigger.

The dark elf’s eyes
widened.

The spells inside the barrel
instantly filled Ben’s mind. He could feel the power pulsing
from the coloured pellets. They made the spells in Natalie’s
Spellshooter look insignificant. While still back-peddling, Ben
focused and pressed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He tried again. Still nothing.
The dark elf was now so close, his sword was almost within striking
distance. Quelling his rising panic, Ben took a deep breath and
cleared his mind. He summoned every ounce of willpower. Sweat pouring
down his forehead, he willed the pellet to explode forth.