by Holly Race
We wait for a long time. The horses start to shift. Phoebe jiggles her leg nervously. Only Lord Allenby sits still and upright on his charger, like a man who has waited a very long time for this moment.
At last, when the sun is setting, casting a silken glow over London’s rooftops, the main door of Madame Tussaud’s opens, and treitres pour out. They lope and prowl and march up the street towards our hiding place.
‘Hold it,’ Lord Allenby’s voice growls through the helmets. ‘On my signal.’
The treitres are close enough that I’m able to hear the sickening crunching, drooling sounds those of them with mouths are making. Something’s wrong, though. I just can’t work out what it is.
‘Wait until they’re right in the belly of the trap,’ Lord Allenby says. ‘Dagonet, Palomides, take up your second positions. Let’s close in tight.’
What am I missing?
I realise what it is at the exact moment Lord Allenby says, ‘Now!’ and we urge the horses forward to attack. The golden treitre, the leader of the army, is not there. And if it’s not there – where is it?
As we wheel into the pincer movement, the other regiments emerging from their positions to surround the treitres, I call into my helmet. ‘Stop! Stop! They know we’re here!’
But I’m too late. With a sound like an earthquake, the buildings behind us unfold. Brick and marble join hands, around and above us. So much for our nets. These treitres never intended to fly away. We are all trapped together, inside a giant hangar.
My stomach churns, my organs curl up. I fall from Lamb’s back. A figure emerges from between his soldiers. Medraut is amongst us.
50
He does not look like the man who spoke from the stage in Trafalgar Square all those months ago. In Annwn, Sebastien Medraut is even more impressive. His features are sharper here, his eyes brighter, and he is followed wherever he goes by a lightning storm of inspyre. It crackles around him like electricity, and I realise that all my talk of matching him was just bravado. Neither Ollie nor I have ever commanded inspyre in such a way.
He’s wearing the armour I saw in his stronghold. The one that seemed to be made of iron and silk, the one that made me vomit when I came close to it. It makes him look like a dark god.
‘Now!’ Lord Allenby says, removing his morrigan’s hood and launching it into the air. The veneurs behind us follow suit and the birds form a raincloud that pelts Medraut with deadly hailstones. But no sooner have the morrigans landed on him than they take off again, screeching in pain.
‘That won’t work, Lionel,’ Medraut tells Lord Allenby.
The veneurs soothe their distressed morrigans. So this is what the armour was for – to protect him from his only weakness. I should have realised when I first saw a morrigan flee from one of the kalends, for the armour is made of the same stuff. An armour made from something that leaches inspyre and turns it inside out. For a morrigan, which feeds off the blue light, that void would be poisonous. What I can’t understand is how Medraut is wearing it at all. I can’t go near it without it draining my power. How powerful does Medraut have to be to wear something like that and still have the ability to wield his Immral?
Medraut’s eyes rove over his captives, until they come to rest on me. When he speaks, his voice is just as soft as it was in Ithr, but the effect is even more disarming. I want to do what he asks.
‘I am offering you a choice,’ he says, and even though he now looks at Lord Allenby, it feels as though his offer extends to all of us. ‘Outside your castle, my treitres are holding two groups of people.’
He holds up a hand and inspyre radiates from his palm, forming like puppets into a scene and dancing to his command. Tintagel is held siege, surrounded by hundreds of treitres.
‘You know that Tintagel is protected against those who wish its inhabitants harm,’ Lord Allenby says. ‘Your army will never be able to enter without my permission.’
‘I do not wish you harm,’ Medraut replies. ‘I only wish for a favour.’
He alters the perspective on the scenario he’s created. Before Tintagel’s gates the golden treitre paces between two frightened flocks of dreamers. On the left side the dreamers are elderly, or wan and thin. ‘These people are close to death already,’ Medraut says. On the right side the dreamers are young. Some of them are babies, barely crawling. ‘These have their whole lives ahead of them,’ Medraut continues. ‘If your people lower the drawbridge, surrender to my army and hand us the keys to Tintagel, I shall tell them to only kill the first group in their travels across Annwn. If you fight us or try to stop us in any way, I will tell them to kill the second group.’
‘Why, if you mean my people no harm?’
‘It was your own doing,’ Medraut says, ‘when you closed off the portals in the rest of London.’
Medraut has outplayed us, I realise. There’s only one portal left in London big enough to allow the treitre army loose on the rest of Annwn: the portal in Tintagel. By trying to protect the dreamers outside London, we have doomed our own people.
‘And,’ Medraut says, ‘I want what you stole returned.’
He must mean the puzzle box. So it does have a use beyond holding his vision for the future. But what could that be?
Maisie’s voice comes over the helmets. ‘Lord Allenby? Tintagel, it’s surrounded …’
‘I know, Maisie,’ Lord Allenby says, and I can tell that he is trying to keep the panic from his voice.
‘What should we do?’
Lord Allenby doesn’t reply to her. Instead, he addresses Medraut. ‘For someone who rabbits on about One Voice, Sebastien, you certainly enjoy dividing people, don’t you? You know I won’t make that decision.’
‘You’re going to die soon,’ Medraut says, ‘and then it will be up to your captains.’
‘I’m curious,’ Lord Allenby says. ‘Did you only plan this –’ he gestures to the walls that lock us in, ‘after you discovered that Fern had read Lottie’s mind? Or did you plant that memory in Lottie’s mind in order to trap us?’
‘Do you really think my daughter would ever go against my orders? Of course it was planted.’
But I’m not listening to Medraut any more. Something about the way Allenby spoke – the way he pointed at the walls, the way he looked so significantly at me … Oh God. He wants me to move the walls, doesn’t he? Imperceptibly, Samson nudges his horse over to cover me. Phoebe’s lion moves to his other side, so that Medraut can’t see what I’m up to. I try not to think about the fact that all these people are going to die if I can’t find a way out. There may be more of us than the treitres, but we’re trapped between them and the walls. They could pick us off easily.
I reach out, trying to sense the corners of the building. It’s so, so heavy. Medraut’s command to knit the buildings together is too strong. There are raw spots, though, where the joins used to be. Medraut has created a Frankenstein’s monster of buildings, and the sutured skin might still be torn. I test those fault lines, pressing against them with my mind.
Medraut is talking again. ‘So many people think that free will is something to be treasured, but the truth is, very few truly want it. They like the illusion of it, but the reality is exhausting. It is difficult, working out the right path in a sea of facts. So people look to their leaders to tell them what to think. They want to simply agree, to not have to constantly question everything when there is so much else to get done. If free will is so precious, then why do people throw it away so easily?’
I push harder against the weak spots in the walls, but they hold. It doesn’t matter that they’re newly formed, because the force holding them there is far stronger than I am. The same rancid taste seeps into my saliva as it did when I tortured Lottie: Medraut.
‘And you think that you know what’s best for everyone?’ Lord Allenby growls.
‘Does it matter, as long as they believe it’s best for them?’
I press with all my mind against the fault lines in the walls. Medraut’s willpowe
r pushes back against mine until my head is thumping with the effort.
‘Do you truly believe,’ Medraut suddenly raises his voice, ‘that a little girl with half my power – less than half if what I’ve seen is anything to go by – can break through my creation?’
I meet his eyes. He’s right, of course. This is impossible, but I have to try.
‘She may have half your power when she’s on her own,’ a voice calls from the crowd. Ollie pushes through to stand by my side. I slip off Lamb’s back. ‘But I have the other half. What’s the betting that together we can wipe that patronising smile off your smug face?’
He holds out his hand. Our eyes meet, and already I can feel the inspyre crackling towards us, resisting the pull of Medraut and his armour.
‘Try again,’ Ollie says. I nod, and take his proffered hand.
The electric shock is instant, but I’m ready for it. I harness it, throw it at the fault lines, and I can feel Ollie’s mind channelling into mine, pushing his will through me. Medraut reaches out a hand to steady his creation, but he’s too late. My inspyre – our inspyre – is at work already. The fault lines crack. They tear. Something rumbles beneath our feet, to match the earthquake in my head. The ground moves. It rolls like a sheet tossed over a bed. Then the wall explodes.
Ollie and I are thrown to the ground in a hailstorm of rubble. I can see nothing through the cloud of inspyre that billows around us. I can hear nothing but a high-pitched ringing, and while my body is bruised from the explosion, that’s nothing to the pummelling going on in my brain. There’s blood on my face, but I can’t tell if it’s from a nosebleed or the buildings’ collapse. I reach out, frightened for Lamb’s safety, but she’s on her feet still, and she responds to my touch by nibbling my fingers.
‘Everyone out!’ Lord Allenby roars. He’s already mounted his charger.
I look around for my friends.
Phoebe gets up stiffly. She clambers onto Donald, coughing violently. Rafe follows a little distance away. And then … yes, there’s Samson. Lord Allenby is shouting commands through our helmets. ‘Everyone directly to Tintagel, as fast as you can.’
Beside me, Ollie stirs.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask him.
‘Cracking.’
I pull him onto unsteady feet and swing myself into Lamb’s saddle. As I settle there, Lord Allenby’s voice comes through my helmet.
‘Fern? Ollie? I wonder if I might ask you a favour.’
I know what he is about to say. There’s unfinished business here.
‘Yes, sir. We’ll stay behind. Keep him off your tail for as long as we can.’
‘Thank you.’
It feels like a goodbye. I watch my friends ride off. Samson reins his charger in as he passes, uncertainty playing across his face.
‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘Go.’
He reaches across to clasp my hand. ‘You can do this, Fern,’ he says, his gaze as warm and steady as his grip. ‘I know you can.’
And then he’s gone, dust billowing in his wake.
Ollie hauls himself onto Balius’s back just as Medraut’s figure emerges through the dust. As he walks, the dust transforms in little eddies back into inspyre, so that he remains pristine, his armour as soul-suckingly dark as it ever was. He says nothing, but as his eyes meet mine I can see that he is furious. Suddenly my theoretical fear at facing down this man two on one becomes very real. Because even though we managed to break those walls, I have felt the amount of power he can wield, and there’s no way Ollie and I together can match it for long. Any small test of our Immral has us bleeding and aching for days. Medraut seems to be wholly unaffected by using his. The best – the only – chance we have is to surprise him, and to do it quickly, before we are totally spent.
Ollie is clearly thinking the same as me because he wheels off to one side and aims his chakrams at Medraut as he goes. I reach out and create four more Ollies, hundreds more chakrams, each one heading in a slightly different direction. Medraut isn’t fooled. With a sweep of one hand he dissipates my illusions. With his other hand, he throws a handful of inspyre at my brother. There’s an almighty crash, and Ollie and Balius go down.
‘Ollie!’ I urge Lamb towards the figure of my fallen brother. But as we canter towards him I feel the inspyre around me flocking to Medraut. I glance back – he is gathering another handful. This one’s for me. I throw myself from Lamb’s back and push her in the other direction, so that the ball of inspyre barrels between us. So. He’s not going to let me get to my brother. I suppose that means it’s just him and me then.
I manage to slow the next ball of inspyre, but it still leaves me winded. Medraut follows that with a third ball. I try to scramble out of the way but it crashes into my shoulder. Bones crunch against each other inside my arm, every one an agony. I pour what energy I can into stopping the next ball, but I’m too weak against Medraut’s onslaught. I only manage to slow it. It rolls into me, toppling me so that I land on my injured shoulder. The ball moves onto my chest and stays there. I can do nothing but lie in pain.
Medraut walks into my vision. He reaches out a hand, and in my delirium I think at first that he means to help me up. It’s only when the ball of inspyre flattens and presses down on me that I understand his true intention. Breathing becomes almost impossible.
‘Please don’t,’ I wheeze. He doesn’t reply. I stare into his eyes, trying to understand how he can do this to anyone. To someone his daughter’s age. There’s no particular pleasure in his expression. He’s not being vindictive. But he’s not bored either. It’s as though he’s simply extinguishing an upstart rival.
I can feel my chest beginning to collapse. My lungs are burning. I close my eyes and try to reach a level of calm. I’m not accepting what’s about to happen, but it’s the only way I stand a chance of thinking clearly. I channel inspyre into my bones, strengthening them as much as I can. I open my eyes briefly, and catch Medraut smiling in acknowledgement at what I’ve done. He twists his hand and the weight increases tenfold. My ribcage cracks and I scream out the last of my breath.
Something glitters in my peripheral vision. I can’t see much any more, but that catches my eye. When Medraut moved his arm, he dislodged something that was tucked into his armour. Could it be …?
He is so focused on what he’s doing to me that he does not notice the twitch in my hand that sends the inspyre out of my bones. He does not notice as the inspyre pulls the object gently from its hiding place.
A golden cylinder emerges. A bullet’s shell, burnished until it glows. A perfect, pocket-sized portal. My vision is going again. There’s another crack in my ribcage. My organs are failing. But there’s a little strength left in my mind, and that’s all I need.
‘What are you doing?’ Medraut says sharply.
‘Work it out yourself,’ I gasp, and with my final strength I force the shell into his hand and activate it with a flick of his wrist.
Medraut’s snarl is the last thing I see as he is taken by the light, back to Ithr.
51
The weight on my chest disappears instantly, but my torso is still in agony. Blood seeps through my tunic. When I try to move, the cracked ribs grate against each other. But I have to move. What was it Andraste had said about Mum’s mirror, all those months ago? If it had been broken in either world I could not have helped you. I grasp a stray rock and smash it with as much force as I can muster onto Medraut’s portal, until it is flattened. There. He won’t be able to return to Annwn until he’s managed to secure another one in Ithr, which won’t be easy, even for a man of his influence. He’s out for a day, at least. That done, I collapse.
I’m not allowed to pass out because Lamb chooses that moment to trot over and lick my face. A little way away, Balius is on his feet and nudging Ollie’s figure. Eventually, my brother stirs. When he finally sits up he spots me and crawls over.
‘You okay, sis?’
‘So bloody like you to stay out of the way when someone’s trying to kill me.�
��
Ollie’s laugh is more like a grimace. He pats me on the shoulder that was crushed, which should send pangs of agony through my body. Instead, the electric shock soothes the pain.
‘Medraut gone?’
‘For now.’
Ollie nods. ‘So it’s just the treitres left.’
‘Yeah, just the treitres.’
Shakily, I roll onto my front and make it to all fours. Ollie is trying, unsuccessfully, to get to his feet. He falls back in a cloud of rubble.
‘This is going well,’ I remark.
Casting around for something to help, I turn some inspyre into a crutch for Ollie, then I fashion a bandage and wrap it around my chest. Tightly bound, it doesn’t remove the pain but it does at least make me feel confident that my ribs aren’t about to stab my internal organs. Lamb and Balius evidently recognise how pathetic we are, because they both lie down to allow us to flop onto their backs.
Side by side, the horses trot out of the wreckage of Medraut’s prison and into the open air of a London ravaged by treitres.
Dreamers’ bodies lie scattered haphazardly across the road. Some have been seized by the flying treitres and hang from lampposts like butchers’ carcasses. Each one is now lying dead in their bed in Ithr, maybe alone, maybe next to an unsuspecting loved one. They went to sleep to dream. That’s all they wanted – a good dream.
Wordlessly, we urge the horses into a gallop.
‘We could get there quicker,’ Ollie says. I nod, pushing away the migraine that tells me I’ve already done too much. I pat Lamb on the neck, mutter, ‘See you soon,’ and leap off her back into the sky.
Ollie joins me and we fly low over the rooftops, heading as the crow flies for Tintagel.
We hear the battle first. The sound of screams and metal on metal. There’s a deep boom of something huge crashing to the ground. Winged treitres, their bodies catching the sunlight, circle the domes of the castle. From this vantage point I can see the full extent of what’s happened while I’ve been fighting Medraut. Ranged around Tintagel are hundreds and hundreds of treitres. Each one is sleek-skinned and metallic, but that’s where the similarities end. Their bodies are constructed of a delightful range of terrifying killing devices. Some of them scuttle, spider-like, along the side of buildings, delving long arms inside the windows and pulling out dreamers and knights to toss them to the ground hundreds of metres below. Some have huge jaws with rows of shark-like teeth that crunch through human and stone like they’re biscuits. And some are like the treitre that killed my mother – lithe and elegant, with long, whip-like tails.
