“I think there has been some misunderstanding between you,” he said with his characteristic simplicity. Julia’s eyes flashed angrily.
“I think it is rather more than a misunderstanding, Gaius. I would call it a betrayal.”
Gaius nodded. “Ah,” he said. “And so it might seem to one who did not fully understand what he had seen. Come. Let us sit together and talk awhile.” He turned and gestured them toward the pond that still shone silver. Peter and Julia sat down beside him at the bank, trying very hard not to look at each other.
“Peter, why don’t you begin?” Gaius asked gently. “Tell us what has happened these past two days.”
Peter took a deep breath and then found that he didn’t really know where to begin. But, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Julia, he knew that he had to begin with her.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I thought they were men of reason. I thought they were”—he gulped—“scientific. And they told me I could be a prince.” He glanced at Julia shyly. “The lords had told us we were condemned to death—something about treason, I think. I decided to make a deal with them. I told…I had already told them how to make gunpowder, and all they needed was something to fire it in.” He paused and again glanced sideways at Julia, who was trying her very best to look as though she were ignoring him.
“I told them I would show them how to make a cannon if Julia was set free.”
Julia’s eyes flashed open. So she had misheard…
“They agreed. I was put under house arrest while I designed the cannon, but I designed it so that it would fail. I would be there at the testing, and hoped that I might be able to get away in the confusion of the explosion that I knew would occur. I knew I might not have been able to, but I was happy to take that risk.”
Gaius nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“The captain of the guard insisted on firing the cannon. It was then that I realized I would be able to escape. I walked towards the horses and took my chance. I had left a bag of gunpowder open near the cannon. The sparks from the explosion would have made that explode as well. Nobody could see anything because of the smoke and I was able to get away on a horse.” Peter shrugged and started picking absentmindedly at the blades of grass around his knees.
“And now, Julia,” said Gaius, ever so gently, “perhaps you might tell your brother how you experienced things.”
Julia was not sure what to say. What she had learned in the last few moments had made her deeply ashamed. She ought to have trusted Peter. He got things wrong, but he had not let her down. There was a world of difference between failure and betrayal.
“We were in that Great Hall and we had just been condemned to die. Then I caught snatches of a conversation…I thought Peter was making a deal to save his own life. I had no idea that he was trying to save mine instead.”
“What happened next?” the monk prompted.
“I was taken to a prison cell. They called it the Death Cage.” She fell quiet for a moment, and then spoke quickly, staring her brother hard in the eye. “I was about to lose my life and I believed I had already lost my brother. I don’t know which would have been worse. And then I remembered the Lord of Hosts. I called to him and he sent me rescue.”
Tears pricked at Julia’s eyes, and she too developed a sudden interest in the grass. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, and then she picked up her head and looked at Peter. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Come now,” said Gaius. “The time for tears and distrust is passed, and we have more important work ahead of us. Lukas!” He called over, and Lukas detached himself from his band of men and made his way over to the pond. He knelt beside Gaius, nodding his head in a brief greeting to Peter.
“The time to fight is upon us,” said the monk. “But first there is the matter of the children.”
“As soon as we fight, they’ll die,” said Lukas simply. Gaius nodded, agreeing.
“So we’ll have to free them first!” said Peter, and Julia raised her head and smiled at him. “Which leaves us with just the small matter of finding where they’re being held.”
“Ah,” said Lukas. “Now in that, I believe, I can be of some assistance. Geoffrey!” He called out, and one of his men hurried over. “We need information on the children. Tell Gaius of your scouting mission.”
Geoffrey was a sturdy man, not yet forty, and his arms rippled with muscles. His face was stoic as he spoke.
“There is a building that nestles against the hillside below the castle. We had always assumed it to be a storehouse for grain—for all we know, it was a storehouse until we escaped and they took the children—but on our last patrol outside the forest we noticed that the guards outside it had been trebled. It is surrounded by high walls, so high that two grown men could not see over them if one stood on the other’s shoulders. The only entrance is a gate set into the walls. We could never hope to break it,” he said.
“And you’re sure the children are being held there?” asked Julia.
“So much as we can be, my lady,” said Geoffrey. “What other reason could they have to guard it with so many men?”
“And how do we get the children if we can’t get through the door? Do we climb the walls?”
“I think not, fair one,” said Lukas. “The children would never be able to follow us out—not silently. And we could not risk the notice of the guards.”
“This would be a perfect time for a bit of your gunpowder,” said Julia, and Peter gave a sound that was almost a laugh.
“Would you take us there?” he asked Lukas. “Maybe we’ll see something…maybe we’ll find a way.”
Lukas glanced at Gaius, who nodded his approval. He stood, holding out a hand to help Julia to her feet. “You’ll have to keep up,” he said. “You must move silently. And you must move swiftly.”
They stood just below the brow of a wooded hill, looking at a building in the near distance. Peter shaded his eyes, so that he could see better in the late morning sun. They had been walking all night, but far from being exhausted Peter was eager—perhaps a little too eager, in Julia’s mind—to storm the prison.
“How far is it from here?” he asked, his eye keen on the building.
“It is a half hour’s walk, Lord Peter,” replied Lukas. “And we would not be seen for the first twenty minutes, as we would be passing through the wood. But once we are beyond the trees, the guards will be able to see us. We would not be in danger, as there are too many of us. But the guards inside the building would be forewarned. The whole building would be tightly locked down by the time we got there.”
“And there is no way of approaching it without being seen?” asked Julia.
“No, my lady. We would have to walk there by night if we were to avoid being detected.” He paused, sensing their disappointment. “There are twelve of us. There could be as many as twenty guards, and they all have swords. We have nothing but wooden staffs. They will have the advantage over us, and it is only a fool who goes into battle without the advantage. Even if we did manage to take them by surprise, they would soon recover. I’m not sure that we can win this one. And remember, they may have orders to kill the children if the building is attacked.”
Peter peered hard into the distance.
“There seems to be a stream leading from the wood to the compound. Do you think someone could crawl along its banks without being seen?”
Lukas took a few steps forward, examining the stream and its steep banks with the trained eye of a master woodsman. He nodded.
“The banks seem high enough—enough to hide someone if they stayed flat as they worked their way round. They could make it to the outside wall and report back on what they found.”
Peter considered his options. It might work. They would have to find the source of that stream inside the wood, and see whether its banks were high enough to act as a cover. He sighed. His first major military operation was not going to be easy.
Julia heaved a massive sigh—a sigh that in
dicated she was done playing and ready to go to work. “Come on,” she said. “We can’t waste any more time considering this; we’ve got to act. We need to get those children back to their parents.” She looked at Peter and he looked back at her, and both children broke into enormous grins as they thought the same thing at exactly the same time. “Come on,” she said again, and held out her hand to him. He took it in his and they began walking out from between the trees, leaving Lukas and his men behind.
They heard them spluttering—heard their protestations and the hissed orders to stop, to come back into the safety of the trees, not to throw their lives away just to play at being heroes. And then, as they walked out of the woods and into the full sunlight, the orders stopped as Lukas and his band of men melted back into the safety of the forest.
Peter and Julia walked on together, hand in hand, until they were close upon the gate. So close they could have run to it…but now the guards had seen them, and had drawn their swords. They looked at each other, their fair hair tousled by the breeze, clenched each other’s hands, and screamed.
The guards sank to their knees, hands clamped tight over their ears as the screams reverberated through the air. And then, above the noise of the screams, one could hear a cracking—faint at first, and then louder. If the guards had been looking they would have seen a fissure in the wall, and they would have seen that fissure grow until the walls fell down in a great cloud of dust.
And when the dust cleared, the walls were gone and the children were free.
They were hopelessly bedraggled—all of them dirty and too thin, but they were safe. They walked slowly, as if in a daze, the younger ones clenching the hands of their older brothers and sisters. They didn’t recognize the fair-haired strangers standing before them, but then Lukas and his men came out of the forest and the children broke into a run, laughing as they ran into their waiting arms.
CHAPTER
17
The Lords of Aedyn had gathered for a crisis meeting in the Great Hall. Only Solon, the new captain of the guards, stood before them. Anaximander was rotting in a cell, awaiting execution for his treasonous acts.
“We face a catastrophe unless we act decisively,” the Leopard was saying, pacing the smooth tiled floors. His hands were clasped tightly behind his back as he spoke. “Both the fair strangers have escaped. Our Lord Chamberlain has proved…untrustworthy. And the hostage children have been set free by those wretched outlaws!”
“Yes,” said the Wolf slowly. “Please, Captain, tell us how that sad event came to pass.”
Solon, who had told himself he had nothing to fear from the lords in his new position, began to tremble.
“It…it was something not of this world, my lords,” he said. “My men saw the fair strangers approach and called to them to halt, but they would not. They drew their swords, ready to kill, and then the strangers…” He paused, coughed, and looked around. “They screamed.”
“Screamed,” the Wolf repeated. Solon nodded, swallowing hard.
“Screamed, my lord. Screamed so that it might have shaken the sun in the sky. The sound of it knocked in the door and burst all the windows, and…and it shook the chains from the captives. My men were paralyzed, my lord—their ears still ring with the pain of it.”
“And the children?” asked the Jackal. “What happened to the children?”
“They ran out the door,” said Solon miserably. “They ran out of the door and into the forest with the fair strangers.”
“Ah,” said the Wolf, and Solon began to tremble all the more.
“We are most displeased,” the Wolf continued. “And had we not heard a similar tale about such a terrible scream from a patrol a few days ago, your life would not be worth the breath it takes to speak your name. Do you understand?”
Solon nodded. He understood.
“You will ensure that the guards are fully mobilized and ready to repel any attack from these bandits. It may come at any time. And you will make sure that the slaves never hear this news of the children.”
The Wolf waved his hand. The audience was clearly over. Solon bowed and left the Great Hall as quickly as decency allowed, thankful to still be alive.
The Wolf paced the room after his new captain had departed, admitting to himself that, for the first time in centuries, he was worried. He fingered the ebony amulet at his neck as he pondered the situation. His grip on power was slipping, and there was now a real threat of revolt from the slaves.
The Leopard, seeming to read his thoughts, spoke up in the silence. “Everything is falling to pieces around us,” he said. “There is no one left to trust—and no one who can stand against this new power. We are doomed!”
The Wolf turned angrily on his heel and spat his reply. “We have triumphed in the past and we will triumph again! Let me hear no more of that talk!” The Leopard, who had lived five hundred years without fear, began to be afraid.
The Wolf turned away from the Leopard as he continued. “We must now turn our attention to preventing a revolt within the castle. We shall institute a policy of terror. By the time we have finished with them, any thought of rebellion will die in their hearts. Guards!”
Two armoured men entered the Great Hall, silently awaiting their orders. “Fetch Anaximander from his cell. Tell him that he will be restored to our favor if he will show the slaves the meaning of fear.”
By suppertime the children had been delivered to the safety of the garden, to shouts and tears of joy. After an evening of feasting and a good night of rest, Gaius, Peter, Julia, and Lukas gathered over breakfast to make plans for the liberation of Aedyn. They sat at a large wooden table, a series of maps laid out before them, while not far away in the garden Alyce and Helen sat mobbed in a crowd of children, all shrieking with laughter.
Gaius was deep in conversation with Lukas about military strategy, discussing how best to assault the castle. They now had twenty swords, captured from the guards the previous day. For the first time, they would be able to meet the forces of the Lords of Aedyn in combat.
“Twenty swords,” Lukas was saying. “A help, of course, but we’ll be fighting scores—perhaps hundreds of men. We simply don’t have the numbers to meet them in full battle.”
“No, we don’t,” Gaius agreed bluntly. “But perhaps there is a way.” He turned to Julia, who had been largely silent. “Not an hour’s walk from here there is a cave—a cave guarded by a messenger of the Lord of Hosts himself. In that cave are a hundred bows and quivers of arrows.” Lukas’ eyes went wide.
“You never told me of this,” he said, his voice accusing. Gaius shook his head.
“Perhaps, my son, when you have seen five hundred years you too will find that it is sometimes best to keep secrets.” His eyes twinkled beneath his heavy brow. “These are the arrows Marcus brought with him from Khemia—the arrows that the lords did not destroy. They kept them hidden, but I have put my own protections on the hiding place. A messenger of the Lord of Hosts stands guard at the doorway. None but the Deliverer may enter and take what is hidden,” he said. “And that day is upon us.”
Lukas leaned forward, his eyes bright.
“With arrows we can attack from a distance,” he said. “Distract the lords with an assault and send a group of men around to free the slaves still trapped inside. With a hundred bows, I’ll have enough to arm all my men and more besides for those who join us from the castle.” He could see only one problem. “Gaius, can you teach us how to use these bows?”
The monk shook his head. “In my time I was a scholar, not a warrior.”
“Then they aren’t really going to be all that much use to us, are they?”
And Peter’s face broke into a grin, because even if he was rubbish at Orienteering and Wildnerness Survival there was one thing he could really do well. “I think I might be able to help you there,” he said.
It was later that afternoon when he and Julia set out to find the hidden cave. The walk was neither long nor particularly arduous, and they
passed the time in a companionable silence.
Following the eagle, who flew just ahead of them, they soon found themselves at the foot of a hill. As they looked more closely they noted that the bushes and scrub, although long overgrown, seemed too neatly ordered to have grown there naturally. At one point, a curtain of vines and creepers reached from the ground up to the top of the hill. Peter began to draw it aside, pushing his way through the thorns and barbs to reveal a cave. So well had it been concealed that nobody could have found it had he not known precisely where to look.
He was on the point of stepping into the cave, Julia close behind him, when a voice boomed into his hears. He looked wildly about but there was no one near…and yet the voice still rang in his ears.
“Who dares to enter here?” it roared. Peter looked frantically back at Julia, who came forward and laid a reassuring hand on his arm.
“We are Julia and Peter, the Chosen Ones,” she said. “We seek the treasure you guard to restore this land to the Lord of Hosts.”
A breathless pause, and then—
“Enter,” said the voice, and then fell silent.
They went inside the cave. It was dark, but that could only be expected, and saturated with an earthy smell—the sort of smell you get in a damp room that has not been aired for a long time. After only a few paces Peter found himself bumping up against some wooden boxes. They were too heavy for him to lift, but he was able to pry the top off the uppermost container. He gingerly reached inside with one hand, privately hoping that there wouldn’t be spiders, and was soon rewarded by the feel of a leather case. More confident now, he used both hands to pull out the case, his heart pounding. Even in the darkness he could see that the case had a distinctive shape—the shape of a bow. And there were quivers and arrows as well, carefully hidden beneath a protective layer of cloth. He had found the cache of weapons.
Julia, doing the same at the opposite end of the cave, gave at little cry of joy at her discovery. Only one question remained—would the weapons work? Or had they become worthless after their long disuse? There was only one way to find out. Peter extracted a bow from its case, noting with approval that the strings had been removed from the bows before they had been concealed. He carefully restrung one of the bows and fitted the nock of an arrow to the bowstring, making sure the string was properly aligned with the fletching near the base of the arrow. He carefully took the stance his archery coach had told him was the best, distributing his body weight evenly.
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