by Mark Bowsher
But Boona’s narrowing eyes were still on Halfa. She pulled a curved dagger from her belt, seized Halfa and held the knife to her throat.
‘What deal?! What ’e say about Black Palace?!’ screamed Boona. ‘Yer be talkin’ true now!’
‘I ain’t made no deal wid no boy!’ cried Halfa.
Boona pulled Halfa close, their faces almost touching, Boona spitting out words from gritted teeth; her foul breath must be going straight into Halfa’s quivering mouth.
‘Yer ’tray us!’
‘I no traitor!’ said Halfa.
‘Yer traitor for sure! And yer ’tray one Goonmallinn, yer ’tray ull Goonmallinn! I cut yer so small worms no be chokin’ on yer, I assure yer dat!’
‘I made no deal! I kill ’e now if dat yer wish!’
‘Yer not our tribe! Mebbe I spill ’e blood,’ Boona pulled out Halfa’s arm and tore the sleeve to reveal bare flesh and held her knife over it. ‘Mebbe I spill your blood as well! Put boy and you in stew!’
The others clucked and whooped and cheered as they lusted for blood to be spilt.
‘Yer waste Goonmallinn… or feed boy to FireHawk…?’ said Halfa desperately. ‘Your choice…’
Krish watched intently as Boona and Halfa confronted one another. Boona looked into Halfa’s eyes; they were steady. She didn’t blink. Boona’s eyes were locked onto Halfa’s. Boona playfully prodded the skin on the tender underside of Halfa’s forearm with the tip of her dagger a few times, so lightly that it simply bounced off again. In one brief movement she cut a short line across Halfa’s skin. Boona brought the end of the blade to meet the tip of her tongue, her eyes still fixed on Halfa’s, and tasted her blood. The two stared into each other a while longer.
‘Yer blood no good anyhow,’ said Boona. ‘We not feast on yer. Yer take fedder but not a scrap o’ meat from our FireHawk. Boy be it first meal. Eez best plan.’
Boona released Halfa. There was an awkward silence for some moments before Halfa dared to speak again.
‘I blood taste bad… ’cause there am no tea in it!’
Cries of excitement. In seconds tea was being brewed and in minutes dancing and chaos returned to the tent. Krish could barely think over the noise.
‘Stones wake us, tree hours!’ Boona shouted at Marl, who placed the stones in a small circle by the egg. ‘No! Make two and half!’ Marl rearranged some of the stones, moving them anticlockwise around the clock-face formation. It wasn’t long before the Goonmallinns wore themselves out and were fast asleep. Now Krish’s mind could concentrate on the insanity of the situation he was in. But having time to think was not helping in the slightest.
Some twisted, desperate part of him had wanted Halfa to be a replacement for Balthrir. He found himself using her name in his head again. He wanted so badly for her to be here. Maybe she was coming back. Maybe she was just outside. Or hidden in the room. He clung to this thought for dear life, but if she was going to appear she would have done so by now. Surely.
But Krish knew that even if she was close by she might as well be a hundred miles away in this desert. The Goonmallinns’ tent was hidden in between the ridges, that much he’d deduced when they’d returned from the molten valley. And although brightly coloured on the inside, the outer tent was the same colour as the sand. You could walk right past it and have no idea how close you were.
He had only one hope. The distress stone that Balthrir had created. The rock that sent up a flare. It was ‘pure light’, she’d said, so he hoped it would travel through the canvas of the tent. Surely she’d be able to see that. Right now it was just out of reach. Krish extended his right leg but the pack was still too far away. He tried to shuffle forward but the bonds were too tight. He stretched and stretched and just managed to touch the backpack with the end of his big toe. He extended his leg some more and the bag wobbled. He could see it! The little red rock tucked just inside the bag, which wasn’t even properly fastened at the top. He’d just about managed to grip the canvas of the bag between his big and second toes when it started to topple…
The bag fell towards him and the tiny red stone fell out and rolled across the floor right past him, while the rest of the contents of the bag crashed onto the ground. Krish let out an exasperated sigh. His plan had failed. The distress stone was now all the way on the other side of the tent; there was no way he could reach it now.
Then his ears pricked up. There was a disturbance in the silence. The commotion hadn’t stirred the Goonmallinns, who made not a sound aside from the occasional snore, but he became aware of two other noises. One was a light clanging, like someone holding up a baking tray and tapping it softly with a wooden spoon. The other sounded like pebbles being dropped from knee-height onto a shingle beach.
He looked over and saw, just in front of the open pack, a green sphere no bigger than a football, covered in removable numbered tiles. Balthrir’s clock-confuser. Several of the tiles flipped over with a clang to reveal new numbers. After a few seconds this stopped and Krish turned his attention to the source of the second sound. He looked to his left and noticed Marl’s stones rearranging themselves, moving clockwise to their original positions. It took Krish a few seconds and then it dawned on him. The clock-confuser was indeed working. It was changing the time of the alarm call Marl had set.
A few moments more and there was silence again.
Horror coursed through Krish’s veins. Marl had set the stones to wake them in two and half hours instead of three. When she’d changed the wake-up time she’d moved them a few places anticlockwise. Now they had been moved the other way by the clock-confuser, and a lot further back than Marl had repositioned them. It could be days before the Goonmallinns awoke and by then the whole place would be burned to ground.
Krish looked about, almost hyperventilating with panic. After several minutes of hysteria he got his brain back into gear and began to assess his options. The red rock was all the way across the other side of the room, behind him. Even if he managed to find something long enough to reach it (and there really was nothing anywhere near him), he wouldn’t have much luck trying to locate a tiny stone without being able to see it. The clock-confuser… he might be able to get hold of it from here but he’d never figure out how to work the stupid thing. He’d probably make things worse.
The egg was glowing brighter and brighter.
After at least an hour Krish was in a state of absolute despair. Every option was a dead end and in another hour… or how long had it been…? Maybe they’d been asleep for longer than an hour. Maybe it was two. Maybe it was almost time. He could feel the warmth of the egg. He swore he could sense it moving, ready to burst through the shell and engulf them all in flames.
He had no choice. He cried out. He screamed until his voice was hoarse and his throat trembled with pain. None of them stirred and he could do no more than croak helplessly into the silence. Krish had nothing left. He would die here in the middle of the desert, countless miles and billions of worlds away from home. He would never see Dawson or Jess or Dad or Uncle Ravi or Mum, who he’d set out so, so foolishly to try and save, ever again.
He screwed up his eyes in pain.
*
… muzzles to the ground … pawing impatiently
at sand … staring … fierce red eyes …
heads up … the scent of their prey on the wind …
*
How much did he fear them now? He could never fully stifle his fear of them but it was certainly waning. The Vulrein had no idea where he was and even if he kept his eyes shut from now on he’d probably be dead before—
Krish thought for a moment. He closed his eyes again. The sand… they were nuzzling the sand… They weren’t far…
A shadow crept across Krish’s mind. One as filled with darkness as it was with hope.
He closed his eyes again. He kept them shut.
*
… their heads rose … his scent on the air …
close … their prey was close … those eyes …
those eyes of deep red smouldering under
coal-like blackness … their heads turning slowly
… looking to him … looking into him …
*
They were looking straight at him and they could feel where he was. He screwed his eyes up tight.
*
… one cruel-eyed creature barking … the others
answering … their paws beating the sand …
a blur of dark shapes …
*
They were coming. He was calling the Vulrein towards him. They had kept him awake for days, weeks, maybe months, until his body was weak and the very act of blinking had tormented him to insanity. He’d felt as if he had great gashes in his eyeballs from trying to keep his eyes open and now at last he could keep them firmly shut as he ushered the creatures forth; they were the only hope he had left in all the worlds.
If the Vulrein arrived and created chaos this would wake the Goonmallinns. Maybe he could beg them to release him, convince them amid the uproar that he was controlling the Vulrein. It was a desperate plan that would probably make them flee and leave him to the Vulrein, but it was his only chance.
The heat. The air was thick and clammy. The baking atmosphere in the tent was suffocating him, but still not the slightest of movements from the Goonmallinns. He kept his mind on the Vulrein…
*
… paws dashing across boiling sand …
… hunger in their eyes …
*
A noise… a tapping sound at centre of the tent…
*
… sand caught in saliva … hungry … so hungry …
*
The tapping grew louder… louder… The heat was a blanket of fire around his face…
*
… so close … so close … their prey seconds away …
*
A crack…
*
… sand running thin … a shape on the plain
… the smell of his blood …
*
The roar of the growing heat smothered the sound…
the slightest crack in the boiling air…
*
… hearts pounding … skin tight over bones …
… his blood … his blood … so close …
*
Krish’s heart was ready to burst, his lungs
aching… Balthrir! Balthrir, please…
*
… rip and tear and kill, kill, KILL—
*
The sound of tearing canvas ripped through the air. He opened his eyes in surprise and saw a gaping hole appear in the tent. The hole opened wide as unseen shapes advanced into the room. He blinked and they pounced, the first knocking a table onto Metta. Metta cried out and stood up immediately. The Vulrein turned their attentions to her and ripped into her flesh as she screamed.
The others awoke at once. All they could see of the Vulrein was the blood on their invisible muzzles tearing into Metta. Molran ran, tripped and sat cowering in a corner, her eyes darting about in confusion. Halfa scurried about on the ground, trying to gather her things to flee. Marl froze. Halfa looked from Metta, whose cries grew faint, to Krish and back again. A Vulrein brushed past Marl and in panic she lashed at the air with her knife and soon they descended upon her.
Boona looked furiously at Krish, drew her knife, sped over to him and straddled him, shouting at him at the top of her voice.
‘What yer do, boy?! What yer do?! Yer kill us! YER KILL GOONMALLINN!’
Krish couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t cry out, couldn’t beg to be released. His head shook, his heart pounded, every millimetre of his body was infected with hysteria as barely a breath, let alone a coherent word, trickled out of his gasping mouth.
Boona’s eyes popped with fury, foul breath stuttering through rotten bared teeth. ‘I spiker you!’ She grasped him by the throat, held her dagger aloft, murderous rage in her eyes. ‘I SPIKER YOU GOOD!’
Krish closed his eyes. He saw a Vulrein behind Boona. It leapt through the air towards him as the enraged Goonmallinn lunged at him. The beast tore into her, blood poured into his lap, but her scream was muffled by the explosion.
White light filled the air and a shockwave of heat shot through the tent. Fragments of smoking shell were hurled in every direction. A shrill cry, even more terrible in close quarters than those on the Pale Hunting Grounds. To Krish it felt like someone was pressing pins into his eardrums. As the light dimmed a shape shot up into the air and a flaming bird cried out as it hit the roof and flailed about. A sleek, white form flapped its majestic wings about the comparatively tiny space in pure frustration. It found no route to escape by. Its head lowered and it examined Krish and his captors below. A crest of flame sat upon its head. Its eyes were small but enraged. Its talons of gold ready to kill. In a fit of anger it whirled about the tent and set the place ablaze.
All was chaos. Marl fought off the Vulrein with her dagger while the bloodied Boona bashed at them desperately with her bare hands. Molran was a crumpled, tearful mess in the corner while Halfa was jabbing at a Vulrein with a pole of some sort, one eye on the FireHawk.
Krish regained focus. He saw Boona’s dagger on the ground, just by his knee. He managed to nudge it backwards towards his thigh. The FireHawk was swooping at Boona, who was fighting off a Vulrein with a wooden stool as the beast tore at her legs. Just in time she saw the FireHawk and hit it square between the eyes with the stool. The bird recoiled, shook itself, its fiery crest shaking about like a blur of fire upon its head. It shrieked and came in to attack Boona but this time it pulled up at the last moment and Boona was smothered in flame. The Vulrein jumped to one side and let her burn. A gurgling scream. Flesh, blood and bone melted away and silenced Boona’s excruciating scream. Then she was no more than foul-smelling vapour hanging in the air above the boiling ground.
Krish could just about reach the dagger now. He caught it with the tip of his finger and pulled it towards him. Then a Vulrein jumped at him and bit into his leg. The sharp pain barely registered. He tried to kick the beast away. The FireHawk came in low and made straight for him. He ducked out of the way, heat ripping through the air above him. The Vulrein clawed at the bird and started barking at it, giving Krish enough time to start cutting through the bonds. There was a final cry from Marl as the Vulrein sank their teeth into her neck.
The FireHawk circled and came in to attack Krish once more but the Vulrein at his heel went for the bird again and a fight broke out between the two. Pitch-black claws tore at flaming feathers, while talons ripped at the air, trying to find the invisible attacker. Halfa’s eyes were on the feathers that had fallen to the ground between Krish and herself. They were quickly going out.
Then the Vulrein was on fire, yelping in agony. Its position given away, an unseen beast ablaze, the FireHawk attacked, ripped and tore taut, black-as-night flesh from bone and left the creature to die in a thin pool of shadow-like blood. With one furious snarl, the Vulrein lashed out and cut a shining gold gash into the fearsome bird’s side. The FireHawk wheeled about in the air in fury as the flames ripped the tent apart.
Molran fled into the desert while Halfa rushed towards Krish, her eyes flying from him to a flaming feather. Krish was almost through the last of the rope when the tent collapsed. He dodged being hit by the pole he was tied to as it fell but then the flaming canvas was on top of him. The last of the bonds burned away and he flailed about, pure unbridled panic taking control of him. He could see nothing. He was completely lost, stumbling about under the weight of the canvas.
A tear in the fabric! He was choking on fumes as he fumbled for this exit. A blast of cool air brushed past him as the tent billowed in the breeze. He fumbled about to find his pack beneath the fabric, located it, pulled it towards him and headed through the tear which was opening wide above him. He ran forward as the canvas came down again and knocked him to the ground, but his head was through the rip in the tent. The air was for a moment cool and refreshing. He burs
t out of the flaming remnants of the tent and hurled himself onto the cold ground, rolling about to extinguish the flames that had latched onto his top.
He jumped to his feet, his clothes still smoking, and looked about. Halfa had also escaped, her clothes smouldering just like his. Molran was some distance from them but then the FireHawk swooped down in front of her and set the ground aflame. That most beautiful and terrible of birds skimmed the ground, slashing the land with flames metres tall, encircling them.
Krish stood to one side, waiting, considering the wall of flame all around them. Halfa stood there, still holding the pole in her hand, staring directly at the bird. Molran looked about in utter despair.
The FireHawk flew in circles, waiting for its prey to make itself known.
Molran’s eyes were wide with panic. Moments later she made her final mistake. She ran. She had nowhere to go but still she ran. The FireHawk had found its quarry. It swooped, its talons hitting Molran’s chest with such force that she fell to the ground. The bird began to peck and rip and tear at her flesh.
Then Krish had a terrible thought. Where were the Vulrein? He shut his eyes and looked about but he couldn’t see them anywhere. Had they burnt with the tent? Could they really burn to death?
The answer came in a terrible a scream. A bloodcurdling primal cry that cut through the very fabric of his being.
