Silverstone Part One: Through Dark Waters (5 page)

This was very realistic, Ben
thought. The man continued to scream loudly. He was a very good
actor.

The other oarsmen began
shouting at each other wildly as they rowed, and scrambling to
raise shields over the sides of the boat as more arrows whistled
past overhead. The man who had pulled Ben into the boat, who Ben
thought must be the leader yelled some commands.

“Get the shields up men, that’s
it. Ivor pull up your oar quickly, you can’t row no longer. Help
draw up shields for the others now!”

Ivor pulled his oar out of the
water with the help of the man behind him, and lowered it beside
Ben. He edged sideways out of his bench, still holding the arrow
tightly, and slumped down on the deck just in front of Ben. Ben
looked keenly at his arm, and saw thick streams of blood dripping
down his leather wrist guard and hand.

He felt very sick.

This was not a re-enactment.
Something very bad was happening, and he didn’t understand any of
it. He just wanted that hot chocolate and to warm up and go
home.

The storm raged violently above
him, and the men screamed ever louder as they drew closer to the
bank.

Ben could see people fighting
on the land now, with swords, spears and shields. People lay
motionless on the ground in awkward positions. He began to shiver
violently again, and ached all over.

Some of the men drew their
swords, letting the boat cruise in. They were only a few metres
from the clashes of the battle. On the bank other men, their faces
covered in hooded capes, stood waiting for them, swords drawn.

Ben knew in a moment he would
either have to hide in the boat, or jump ashore and fight. He could
try to swim away in the lake, but they were too close to shore now
and he might easily be struck by an arrow.

He looked around. There was
nothing for him to fight with. Suddenly he felt something on his
head. A helmet. He turned, and an oarsman nodded at him. Another to
his left lifted a small sword from his belt, and passed it to him.
It felt heavy, but at least it was sure to be lighter than the long
sword the man lifted in his other hand. Ben gripped it tightly.
Finally Ivor thrust a small shield at him wordlessly, and helped
set it on his left wrist. He was armed.

That was it then. He was going
to fight.

But he had never been in a
fight in his life. Not unless you counted a bit of pushing and
shoving on the football pitch over a tough tackle. And now he was
going into a battle with swords. He felt very ill, but suddenly
stronger. He didn’t want to die, not here, not anywhere right now
if he could help it. He wanted to get home to see his parents
again, and Toby and Paddy. He didn’t have the slightest idea what
was going on, but he was sure of that, and that was enough for him
to fight.

The boat shuddered aground, and
Ben and his comrades sheltered behind their shields from the latest
barrage of arrows. The thunder crackled, and lightning illuminated
the darkened sky. Their leader yelled and they all leapt from the
boat, and trampled ashore into the fray.

Ben kept his head down, and his
shield and sword up, as he trailed behind the other men as best he
could and tried to make sense of the scene beside the lake.

To his left, further along the
lake bank, Ben saw fighting near a cluster of tent-like buildings
beside the shore. The fires there must have been the lights he had
seen from the water. To his right not far away a thick forest
rolled down a hillside and met the lake. In front of him, in a
clearing of the forest, they clashed with the hooded men.

Their enemies fought using long
bows, which they had now swung onto their backs or cast aside, and
long, thin swords much like those Ben had seen used in the sport of
fencing. They were light-footed and graceful, and were proving
difficult for the heavier boatmen to pin down and overpower.

The boatmen ahead of Ben peeled
off to the left to engage with a group of the attackers trying to
break towards the camp, and suddenly Ben was standing alone. He
looked around, not knowing what to do next.

Suddenly a loud shout came from
towards the forest. It was their leader. He had been hurt, and his
attackers had already dispatched two of the other boatmen, and now
outnumbered their leader three to one.

He had to do something
quickly.

He ran towards them, trying to
decide whether he should shout something.

“Die!” he screamed as loud as
he could, as he launched toward the nearest attacker.

The man reeled back. For a
moment he simply looked Ben up and down. He was obviously
bemused.

Ben decided to push his
advantage, and screamed again, lifting his sword and shield.

This time the man countered,
pushing Ben aside skilfully and slicing at his left arm.

Ben felt a sharp pain in the
arm, but tried to hide it. He felt a trickle of blood on sleeve,
and knew it would be difficult for him to hold up his shield with
the injury. He fixed his gaze at his enemy, trying to keep his
concentration.

The sky thundered above
them.

Ben edged to one side, but the
man mirrored his moves. Ben could not see his face beneath the
hood, but he knew the attacker was watching for an opening.

The hooded man launched at Ben
again with his long blade, and it was all Ben could do to parry it
with his weakened shield arm, and stumble back. He rebalanced again
and tried to focus quickly.

Ben’s mind raced. This is a
sport, he thought. Like football, tennis, and the other sports he
was pretty good at. That’s all this is. Just with some serious
consequences for second place. Balance, coordination, speed,
fitness. He had all of those things.

He sharpened his senses, taking
a breath. The storm seemed to subside for a moment.

The man came at Ben again, but
this time Ben adjusted. Just as he had done so many times before
playing football with his friends, he dummied to his right, and
then spun back to his left and around, out of the man’s attack. The
attacker was left exposed as he lunged forward to Ben’s right side,
and Ben brought his sword around and down onto the man’s back,
slicing through the hooded cape and into the man’s flesh.

The man screamed and fell,
dropping his sword.

This was very strange, Ben
thought, to see another person at his feet like this, beaten,
bloodied, maybe even fatally injured. He felt a pang of worry. What
had he just done? What would his parents think of him?

The man stumbled to his feet,
and ran towards the forest, shouting something Ben couldn’t
understand.

Ben looked back towards their
leader. He was still outnumbered two to one. His movements were
tired and awkward, and soon the attackers would overcome him.

He took a breath, and ran back
towards the fight, screaming again.

One of the hooded men glanced
at the screaming boy in Hulstead College swimming shorts coming to
attack him, and then looked towards the wounded attacker running
towards the woods. He shouted something to his friend, and the two
men darted off back to the forest.

Ben looked around. The other
attackers had fallen, or were retreating back to the trees. He drew
a deep breath of relief. He seemed to have just survived his first,
and hopefully last battle. He examined his bloodied left arm
carefully. It hurt, and would probably need some stitches, but he
would survive.

“I’m Liam,” the leader of the
boatmen said, removing his helmet as he approached. There was a
scar across his forehead, reaching almost to his left eye.

Ben noticed he had sustained a
serious wound to his left shoulder, and seemed to be limping
slightly.

“Thank you greatly for your
help, friend of King Elmer, and now a friend of the ploughmen and
herdsmen of Peregrine too.” He patted Ben on the left arm softly
where he had been injured, and smiled, catching his breath.

The other men slowly rallied
around them, removing their helmets. They stared at Ben, and he
became anxious.

He wondered whether to tell
them everything that had happened to him. He was obviously way out
of his depth. But it would probably be safer to find out where he
was and who these people were first, before revealing too much.
Besides, his swimming pool incident was probably not worth
troubling them with yet, considering they had just been in a battle
and were busy tending to their wounded and putting out fires.

“So young warrior, what do we
call you?” Liam asked.

“I’m Ben. Ben Silverstone,” Ben
answered.

Ivor appeared beside Liam.
“Benbensilverstone is a hefty chew of a name lad!” He laughed.
“With a name like that you belong in the court of The King
gossiping, not here with us lowly clodhoppers!”

The men roared their approval,
and then looked expectantly back to Ben for a reply.

“Call me Ben then.”

“No no. You’re no Ben,” one of
the other men chimed in. “You don’t look nearly as wisecrinkled as
ol’ Ben did last time I saw him just a few months back over at the
Penny Orchard market. So unless one of those nasty mages has cast
some spell of forgetting on you, you just can’t be Ben.”

“You’re right there Frummer.
That’s surely no Ben,” another joined in.

Ben didn’t know quite what to
say. It seemed the name Ben was taken, and so he would just have to
choose another one. He decided just to play along rather than
persist with the strange discussion. “Well what about Silverstone
then? Has anyone taken that one?” He looked around at the
group.

“No one I know by that name,”
Liam answered. “Silverstone it is then.” He turned to gather up his
things, and the men began to move in the direction of the camp
along the shore.

Ben sighed in relief.

“Come on young Silverstone.”
Ivor walked beside him. “We’ll find you some food and plenty of
good warming vol to drink and soften those injuries! And fetch you
some trousers and shoes to wear as well!”

“Excellent. Thank you.” Ben
hoped that vol was the same as hot chocolate.

“So my strange friend, how did
you come to be in the lake? And what people do you belong to?”

“Wait till the old man Alder
speaks with him first, Ivor!” Liam shouted, “Before you drown him
worse than Lake Kaidesh with your inquiries!”

“Very well,” Ivor said with a
chuckle. “I’m sure Alder will like you, Silverstone.”

The camp had been relatively
undamaged in the attack. As they approached, Ben saw a collection
of rugged looking tents forming a haphazard circle around a large,
partly covered shelter. Underneath it a large fire burned, and
there stood a few stools built from chopped tree trunks. At the far
side of the camp Ben spotted a row of fences, and thought he saw a
few animals milling around, seemingly un-alarmed by the recent
fighting.

As the fighters approached the
camp, women, children and older men came and greeted them. Some
seemed to be injured. They must have defended the settlement when
it had been attacked while the warriors were away.

Everyone stared intently at the
newcomer.

As they walked through toward
the centre of the camp, Ivor told Ben more of their tribe. Ben
tried to listen, but found all the attention rather offputting.

“Welcome to our present home
then, Silverstone. We are peaceful farmers, loyal to King Elmer of
Norchand up in the north, and look to his laws. But we abandoned
his lands long ago, during the time of his great grandfather, in
search of better pastures and to escape the nasty plague that swept
across the realm then, and struck hardest at those in the
cities.

“Since then we have been
wandering, seeking a new home.

“’Course in recent times the
pastures just about everywhere have worsened and that’s the likely
reason for the attacking by these roaming packs of bandits.” He
waved back toward the forest. “I’ve got no doubt they were forced
towards the pastures just here for the same reason as we.

“More and more attacks we face
these days – that’s why we’ve taken to arming ourselves with
weaponry bartered from Beniford – and more cunning the attacks as
well. The decoy over the far side of the lake this time, drawing us
over there but all the while they waited like sneaking squirlers in
the forest.

“It seems the lands themselves
are hostile to their peoples, forcing us against one another.
‘Course some say it is a great spell by a powerful mage to show off
his power and perhaps unbalance the odds in his favour. Then again
perhaps it’s a kind of message from our lands, rejecting those
damned… outsiders.”

Ben listened quietly. He didn’t
know what to make of it all, but the mention of outsiders was of
particular interest. He remembered the other children thought
drowned in the Hulstead College swimming pool. Perhaps they had
somehow ended up here as ‘outsiders’ as well. And if so, maybe they
could help him find a way home.

He thought of his parents. Tim
would have sounded the alarm already, and he imagined the hell
breaking loose at the school as Mr Taylor and the others tried
desperately to find him. Maybe they’d send rescue divers down after
him, or try to drain the pool. His mother would be worried sick. He
wanted desperately to let his family know he was safe. He would
definitely leave out some of the details about the blood, swords
and battle he had just survived though, or he might never be let
out of their sight again.

By the time Ben reached the
central sheltered area, fifty or more people had assembled. They
stared at Ben and muttered quietly to each other. He tried to judge
the mood, but suspected they were whispering distrust of the latest
outsider. For the most part though, he was concerned he might be
told to explain himself at a great assembly and judgement of the
people, and would be shouted at. His chest began to ache.