by Kit Peel
“You don’t have to do this,” she said.
“These are our dales, and I’ll not have outsiders coming and thinking they can do as they like here,” said Old Mal.
Both Thwaite and Hackfall were nodding.
“Where will we face them, Thwaite?” asked Hackfall.
“The reservoir would give the ice spirit too much to work with, likewise the woods for the fire spirit. Our best chance is open ground. The wind spirit will be of most use there.” Thwaite pointed his axe uphill. “We’ll face them on the tops, on Fountain’s Earth Moor.”
Thwaite led the way at a ferocious pace up the side of the dale, through the ever-strengthening storm. Pip wasn’t with them. Before their climb, Thwaite had told the collie to gather the other animals from his house and lead them to the cavern.
Thwaite was struggling in the deep snow, constantly driving his axe into the ground and pulling himself on. Hackfall, too, was relying on her staff. Old Mal plowed on, hands in his pockets, as if he were treading the short grass of spring. Just like him, Wyn barely noticed the snow. As they climbed, the lights of all the villages of Nidderdale were coming into view: Wath, Pateley, Bewerley, Glasshouses and all the others, strung at intervals on the road to the distant glow of Harrogate. Her eyes cut through distance and the storm, picking out Mrs. March’s old house, Highdale, and John’s house, on to Harrogate where Kate still lay in a hospital bed.
They were all the people in the world that she cared about. Could she rediscover the power to save them? Even as she swore that she would, the old, wild voice rose up inside her, telling her to leave them to their fate. Confused and angry, Wyn snapped her gaze skyward. Tawhir was up there, somewhere. She sensed him watching her.
When they reached the moor, the earth spirits huddled together, discussing how best to defend against the rebel spirits.
“Not a cavern. We’d risk getting trapped,” said Thwaite.
“It has to be an enclosure,” said Hackfall, “with walls to keep out fire and ice.”
“Denali will do his best to break them. At least two of us will have to be renewing them constantly,” said Thwaite.
“That’ll be you and Wyn. Now, let’s be on with it,” said Old Mal, bending to the ground and pushing his hands under the snow. Wyn watched Thwaite and Hackfall copy him. The ground began to shake, and in a large ring around them, black stalks of heather were rising up from the whiteness. After them, with a great creaking and rumbling, came earth and rock, yards thick. First ankle height, then waist height. By the time the walls of the enclosure were above Wyn’s shoulders, blood had started to weep from Thwaite’s wound, staining his tweed coat. Thwaite took no notice of it.
“Stop it,” Wyn told him. The earth spirit ignored her. “Just stop!” she insisted, kneeling down next to him and dragging his hands from the ground. The wall trembled and slowed fractionally.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” she demanded, drawing back Thwaite’s coat and pressing her hand against the wound. As the blood seeped through her fingers, Wyn pressed harder, feeling a strange new energy build in her body and surge down her arms, into her hands. Now, instead of blood, there was a golden glow between her fingers and the earth spirit gave a deep sigh. Glancing up, she saw that his eyes had grown greener. When she removed her hands, the wound was healed and a trace of gold clung to his skin.
“Thank you,” said Thwaite, and there was a little wonder in his expression. Old Mal and Hackfall were both watching her.
“Maybe you’d like to give us some help?” said Old Mal, and as Wyn knelt beside the other earth spirits and pressed her hands to the ground, she was filled with the same new energy. She felt the rocks immediately respond to her, rising from the ground at twice the speed as before. The enclosure rose up, tall as a house.
“Without touch,” Thwaite told her, lifting her hands from the ground.
And now, as she stood up and concentrated on the enclosure, her thought reached out for the rocks and they reacted to her, just as before. She had fashioned steps up the inside of the enclosure, and was forging a broad platform to ring the top of it, when in her mind’s eye she saw three spirits stepping onto the northern edge of the moor. A dark woman, a pale man, but above all the huge figure with hair falling below his shoulders. Even from a mile distant, she felt his immense power. Beside her, Thwaite was looking in the same direction, hands tightening around his axe.
A second later, her heart raced as Tawhir hurtled down into the enclosure, his flowing hair matted with snow and ice.
“They’re here,” he gasped.
21
—
Wyn stood on the stone battlements, flanked by Thwaite and Tawhir. Hackfall and Old Mal waited outside the enclosure, Hackfall poised with her staff, Old Mal motionless as rock, hands in his pockets.
“If we can’t stop them, you’re to fly her out of here. Take her to Etna or one of the other great fire spirits,” Thwaite told Tawhir.
“She will find her strength,” said Tawhir. “Won’t you, Mugasa?” He was standing very close to her now, his clothes and hair covered almost completely in snow. There was a wildness to his voice that she hadn’t heard before. He looked older and far more dangerous than she remembered him.
He rose into the air, wind billowing around him.
Denali and the others were walking towards them. They stopped a hundred yards from the enclosure. The huge earth spirit looked directly at Wyn and she would have fallen backwards if Thwaite hadn’t gripped her arm.
“You’re stronger than him,” said Thwaite.
“I’m not. He’s …”
“Just a spirit. You were born to rule the spirit world.”
The pale man was walking forward, eyes gleaming white, and Wyn watched with wonder as the snow froze in the sky overhead. The heavy flakes bonded together, growing into long shards of ice. With a cry, the pale man thrust his arms towards the enclosure and the shards were raining down around them. Just in time, Thwaite tore a huge slab of rock from the wall of the enclosure, holding it over them. The shards dashed against the rock. As they did, Wyn caught sight of Tawhir dodging this way and that. Below them Hackfall was dashing the ice with her staff, while Mal was holding two stone clubs and beating the shards away.
Now the fighting began in earnest, and all around her Wyn saw fire and ice and felt the earth shaking. The dark-skinned woman was running forward, her robes wreathed in flame, and Tawhir was coming at her head-on, driving the middle winds into her. Hackfall was on her knees, one hand on the ground, fending off the ice spirit. As ice washed over her staff, the ground opened up around the pale man, dragging him down, but slowly, too slowly. Ice was fastening onto Hackfall’s hands, rising up her shoulders.
Casting aside his clubs, Old Mal pounded towards the ice spirit, tearing him from Hackfall. The two spirits gripped each other like wrestlers and Wyn saw for the first time the immense strength of the old earth spirit and heard the ice spirit’s cry, before he slumped to the ground.
But even as Old Mal was helping Hackfall to her feet, the fire spirit had risen into the sky and was swirling around and around, flames streaking out from her like the rays of the sun. She saw Tawhir dodge and weave, still driving the middle winds at her, refusing to draw back even as the fire spirit was advancing on him. A bolt of fire just missed his face. Wyn saw another catch his jacket. She threw her will into the sky, desperately trying to summon stronger winds to help him, but before she could, the boy was struck by a firebolt in the chest. As he was flung backwards, another bolt hit him on the arm, sending him spinning to the ground.
Wyn screamed and would have jumped down from the enclosure if Thwaite hadn’t held her back.
“No,” he rasped. “Mal will help him. Bring down the winds. Stop the fire spirit.”
Wyn pushed Thwaite away and leapt down onto the snow. She reached Tawhir just as Old Mal did. The boy was an ashen col
or, but awake.
From the corner of her eye, Wyn saw the fire spirit still whirling overhead. Hackfall, her face still frosted with ice, was tracking Oya’s every move with her staff. Thwaite hurried up and stood over Wyn, his axe at the ready.
“Keep back,” he told her. But Wyn was in no temper for hiding. All her thoughts were bent on the fire spirit. Rising to her feet, she threw her will into the sky. The day before, on Eagle Rock, she’d only just been able to call down the middle winds. Now they came to her command without hesitation. Wyn yelled up at the skies, summoning the middle winds by name in a voice that she barely recognized as her own.
And they heard her. Down they came. Down into the dale. With all the fury within her, she drove them at the fire spirit. They tore into Oya and carried her away with them, back into the heavens.
Only Denali remained. As he strode towards Wyn, the moor shook as if it was being torn apart by an earthquake. Behind her, the enclosure was reduced to rubble.
Thwaite, Old Mal and Hackfall had dropped to the ground, trying to calm the earthquake. The shaking lessened fractionally, but now the earth was opening up around them. Snow and earth tumbled into the darkness of fissures. The ground split under Hackfall. As she fell, her staff suddenly became a young tree, its branches reaching skyward. Old Mal threw himself to one side, managing to catch the uppermost branches.
Another fissure was opening up right under Thwaite.
“Don’t you dare!” rasped the earth spirit, slamming one hand onto the ground. But even as the fissure reluctantly closed, another was opening up beside him. Again Thwaite silenced it.
“They can’t stop Denali,” shouted Tawhir, getting unsteadily to his feet.
As he spoke, Denali was raising his hands. Columns of rock rose up from the ground. Jagged edges grew from them and it took Wyn a moment to see what they were — brambles made of rock. They reached toward her like snakes.
“Mugasa!” yelled Tawhir.
Wyn stepped forward to meet the twisting rock. Power, strength, heat grew in her, wave after wave, multiplying over and over, until Wyn was shaking from the force of it.
A golden light was growing around her.
Wyn saw the huge earth spirit frown. The rocky brambles were almost upon her.
“Now, Mugasa!” yelled Tawhir.
Throwing her hands wide, Wyn released the power inside her. The rocks burned gold, then shattered.
They lay, smoldering, on the ground.
Tawhir was yelling at her, telling her to make the smoldering rocks jump into flames, but try as she might, she couldn’t create fire. She felt as though she was being torn in half.
And then the dale vanished around her and she was in the skies above the mountains, face to face with a glittering dragon. She fell to her knees on the snow of the moor, oblivious to new rock thorns emerging from the ground around her. This time they were smaller and moved far more quickly.
She was oblivious to Thwaite’s warning shout.
The thorns coiled around her body, biting into her.
Now everything was a blur of pain. Denali was advancing. Hackfall and Old Mal were standing between her and the rebel spirit. Thwaite was trying to tear the thorns from Wyn. Only Tawhir was motionless, a single tear running down his angular face as he watched her.
When Denali was just a few paces away, Hackfall and Old Mal grappled with him. Hackfall was sent tumbling across the snow almost immediately, but Old Mal held his ground against his huge adversary, beating away the rock thorns that rose up to bind him, stamping bare feet to silence the earth when it began opening up around him. For a brief moment Wyn thought Old Mal might be strong enough to hold Denali off. To her dismay, the mountain lord drove forward, pulling one of Old Mal’s clubs free, and with a shocking force, he smashed it against Old Mal’s head.
The old earth spirit collapsed.
Now only Thwaite stood between Denali and her, holding out his axe in front of him.
“Move away from her, Brother,” said Denali, still breathing hard from his fight with Mal.
“Never,” said Thwaite.
“The time of the dragons is over. You know this.”
Thwaite glanced back at Wyn. His face was a mask of sweat and exhaustion. He gave her the faintest of nods, then he was spinning around, sweeping his axe at the huge earth spirit.
As if he were swatting away a fly, Denali smashed the axe with one of Old Mal’s clubs. Thwaite was dragged away by thorns of rocks.
Denali towered over Wyn, raising the clubs to strike her.
“Forgive me, Mugasa,” he said. “You believed in our cause. But only your death can make it a reality.”
The clubs swept down towards her, but when they were only inches from her neck, Tawhir was suddenly beside her, catching the clubs in his bare hands.
The clubs shattered. A circle of fire formed around Denali, burning with a silver flame.
Wyn saw the shock in the earth spirit’s face.
“You,” he gasped.
The silver fire wrapped around Denali. Tawhir raised his hands and the earth spirit was raised up above the moor.
“It’s too late,” said Denali. “She won’t return for you.”
The circle of fire blazed with renewed power, and then it was gone. The great earth spirit fell to the moor.
Now the boy Wyn had known as Tawhir turned to face her. Silver light poured off him, and Wyn could see the glittering diamond scales beneath his skin.
Sh’en Shiekar, the ice dragon.
22
—
All the memories of a thousand, thousand years swept through her.
Wyn remembered her past life and the life before it and on, further and further into the past, to when the world was young and she rose up over it for the first time, with him. He was in every memory, in berry-bright autumns and beside all the torrents of spring.
And now she remembered why they had fought.
For hundreds of years, she had seen the hurt that humans were causing the natural world and had wanted to use her power to punish them. But at every turn he had blocked her, insisting that they leave humans alone. They were born of the earth, just like all other creatures, he had said. As dragons, it was their duty to guide and nurture all of the earth’s children, not wage war against them. Only the earth herself could act against them, he told her.
But as the years had passed and the destruction of the humans had grown worse, many spirits had begun to take matters into their own hands, battering towns and cities with flooding, hurricanes, snowstorms and great wildfires. To Wyn’s fury, Sh’en Shiekar had intervened on the side of humans, using all his power to beat back the spirits. Not wanting to fight Sh’en Shiekar, she had flown beside him. But with every passing year, her anger towards humans and Sh’en Shiekar had mounted.
And secretly, more and more spirits had united, with one aim in mind — to kill the dragons and then, unchallenged, to take revenge on humankind.
As the rebellion had grown, Wyn had tried to make Sh’en Shiekar realize that their time was over. For tens of thousands of years, the dragons had watched over the balance of nature and kept the peace among spirits. Now it was time for them to give up their watch and to give the spirits free rein. Finally, she and Sh’en Shiekar could lead mortal lives, grow old and have children of their own.
But Sh’en Shiekar had refused to listen to her, even when she had learned of a way for them to give up their powers. Nothing would dissuade him. They must protect all the earth’s children, humans and spirits alike, for as long as the earth needed them, he told her.
Wyn had finally resolved to take matters into her own hands. She would give up her own powers and live a mortal life. Whatever happened, whatever the consequences, she would remain mortal and wait for Sh’en Shiekar to join her.
Set on her course, she had streaked upwards into the
sky. Knowing what she was attempting, he had tried to stop her, tried to bring her back to earth. But she had flown into the sky, faster than all the winds, faster than the setting sun, faster even than him. At the highest reaches of the sky, she had crossed the shimmering border between the earth and the darkness of space.
Now, on the snows of Nidderdale, disbelief and anger were written across Sh’en Shiekar’s face.
“Have you lost your mind, Mugasa?” he demanded. “You would still sacrifice yourself and the earth rather than return to power?”
“You lied to me. You treated all of us like fools.”
“I had spent years searching for you and when at last I found you, you didn’t recognize me. We have always been together, Mugasa, from the moment the earth created us, and you acted like I was a stranger.”
Angrily, Wyn shook her head.
“You didn’t want me to know you. You wanted to trick me into returning to power, without me remembering what had passed between us, or the oath I had sworn.”
“You turned your back on the world, Mugasa.”
“You were afraid.”
“Yes, I was afraid! I was afraid of what would happen if we tried to give up our powers. Look what your absence has done to the world.”
“It’s not my fault the world has grown cold. You tried to make me think that, but it wouldn’t have happened if you’d followed me across the border.”
In her anger, Wyn didn’t notice that Thwaite and Hackfall were silently watching the argument between them. Hackfall was holding Old Mal’s head in her lap.
“Of all the forms the earth could have chosen, she brought you back as a human. She wanted you to learn to care for them, just as she does. But even now, you would see them wiped off the face of the world.”
“I don’t, I …” began Wyn, her thoughts turning to Kate, Robin, John and above all Mrs. March. But then the great, wild voice rose up in her; the voice of who she had been, of Mugasa. All the old hatred and mistrust of humans was in that voice. Wyn broke off, rubbing the tears running down her face with her sleeve.
