The Stones of Ravenglass (20 page)
Read The Stones of Ravenglass Online
Authors: Jenny Nimmo
Eri paced the snowy courtyard. The dragon had been gone for too long. Every day she patrolled the sky above the forest, watching for strangers. But winter held the country in an icy grip, and even the most intrepid hunters had been deterred from braving the forest’s hidden dangers.
Eri looked into the sky. He shook his head and, brushing the snow from a stone seat, sat down and began to mutter to himself.
‘The wizard’s worried,’ said Tumi.
‘It’s the dragon,’ Sila told him, and then she added quietly, ‘I’m glad you’re here, Tumi.’
‘Me too,’ said Tumi.
Timoken looked at Eri. It was getting dark, but he knew that the wizard wouldn’t move until Enid came back. Smiling to himself, Timoken picked up the knife he’d been using and began to etch a figure into the red stones of the wall. He had already covered three stones with words and pictures.
‘I can see you and your camel,’ said Tumi, peering at the wall. ‘And there’s Karli and Sila.’
‘And you, Tumi,’ said Sila, ‘in your seal-skin breeches.’
‘I can see Eri and his dragon, and the three leopards,’ Karli leaned closer. ‘Why are you drawing us, Timoken?’
Timoken turned from the wall. ‘So that my descendant can find me.’
‘Your descendant?’ Sila frowned. ‘What’s that?’
‘Hmm . . .’ Timoken searched for words. ‘My descendant is someone who comes after me; one of my children’s children’s children’s . . . Well, someone with my blood who will be born maybe nine hundred years from now.’
They stared at him, bewildered. How could a person who hadn’t yet been born travel back through so many hundreds of years? But, then, a boy who had one foot in the realm of enchantments probably had a purpose that none of them would fully understand.
Sila was worried for Timoken. There had been a sort of sadness about him just lately, as though, in building his castle and making it safe, something had been lost. ‘You don’t have any children, Timoken,’ she pointed out.
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Not yet.’
There was a sudden joyful shout from the courtyard. ‘She’s here!’ cried Eri.
The dragon dropped gracefully through the air and Eri stood back as her great wings swept the snow. There was someone on her back. Two people. A boy with a hare-skin cap, and a baby.
The boy slid off Enid’s back with the baby in his arms. Timoken stared at the boy, stared at the hare-skin cap with its long streamers of fur, and then he was running. Leaping over the piles of wood, he raced across the courtyard.
‘Running Hare!’ cried Timoken.
The other children crowded into the passageway and watched in surprise as Eri took the baby, and Timoken hugged and hugged the boy covered in snow.
‘I think that boy’s a girl,’ said Sila.
‘Of course it is!’ said Edern. ‘It’s Running Hare!’
For a moment, no one noticed Eri. He was holding the baby at arm’s length, gazing into its smiling face as tears streamed down his cheeks.
Timoken saw the wizard’s face. ‘What’s wrong with Eri?’ he said.
The others turned to look at the wizard.
‘My child’s child.’ Smiling through his tears, Eri held up the baby. ‘My grandchild.’
‘I knew he had wizard’s blood,’ said Beri.
The rebels’ children knew nothing of Beri’s past, or the wizard’s tragic history, but something joyful in the winter air made everybody cheer.
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Don’t miss the classic
SNOW SPIDER TRILOGY
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On his ninth birthday Gywn is given a brooch and told to cast it into the wind. High on the mountainside, Gwyn hurls the brooch into the air and waits . . . It is only later that he discovers the wind has sent something back: the snow spider.
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