This time both boys were against the idea, though for different reasons. Fergus got in first. ‘Impossible. Gadfly won’t let just anyone fly on her back.’
‘That’s a pity,’ said Finn in the same languid tone. ‘This is a vital mission, after all. Whoever reaches Noam and brings back Lord Tironel will have done more than any of us for Cadell, and for Elster when you think about it. All the Mortal Kingdoms, in fact.’
‘He’ll be a hero, whoever he is,’ said Nicola.
Finn had taken up a spot by the window and Nicola near the bed where Fergus lay. Marcel began to suspect this was a deliberate choice, one that hunters would make to surround their quarry. They were up to something.
‘You’re right, Nicola. A hero,’ Finn agreed, drawing out the word. ‘Minstrels will make up songs about him most likely.’
‘Yes, ballads to sing around taverns and campfires. Songs like that last for hundreds of years, don’t they?’ Nicola asked innocently.
Fergus sat up on the bed and leaned his back against the wall. ‘Hundreds of years,’ he echoed.
‘I suppose so,’ Finn answered, seeming to give the matter considerable thought. ‘Maybe it would become a great poem that every child learns on his mother’s knee, the kind that makes little boys go out into the barnyard and pretend to be the same hero in their games.’
It was obvious what they were up to by now. Marcel could have hugged them both for the clever ploy and searched frantically for some way to join in. ‘Yes, being the famous hero — I used to do that!’
In fact, if any young man in that room had pretended to be a hero in his childhood games it was Fergus, as his face clearly showed.
‘It will be more than songs too, won’t it?’ said Finn, warming to the task. ‘There’s that tapestry in the Great Hall.’
‘Of course,’ Nicola agreed. ‘They’ll sew pictures of the hero into Elster’s history. He’ll be more famous than Marcel after he drove Mortregis down into his own flames.’
‘Stop it, all of you,’ said Fergus, sitting up on the bed with a scowl. ‘I’m not the boy you knew in Fallside any more. Do you really think I’m going to fall for this trick? Flattery, the chance to be remembered for a hundred years. There are more important things.’
He didn’t just silence them, he shamed them and Nicola spoke for all three when she said, ‘I’m sorry, Fergus. It’s true, you’ve changed and it’s time we saw that.’ She looked towards Marcel with the regret of a sister who can see her brothers growing towards a manhood where the simple love of children must give way to a different kind of bond. And Fergus was still her brother, no matter what Gammer Bodie had revealed.
They still needed Fergus to make the vital journey, however, so where trickery had failed, Marcel tried an artless honesty. ‘What you said about great fame and heroes is true, Fergus. There are more important things.’
He stepped out into the centre of the room where it was easier to speak plainly. ‘We must win this battle, not just for us, not just for the people of Cadell and Tamerlane. For everyone in Elster too, even Bea isn’t safe, up there with her grandfather and the other elves. Ismar is a greater monster than Mortregis. He won’t stop until every living soul throughout the Mortal Kingdoms lives under his yoke. You’ve seen more of the world than we have, Fergus — the Outer Kingdoms, Grenvey. Every man you met, every woman, every child will be a victim of this battle — if we lose. We need Rhys Tironel. You must bring him back here to help us.’
Fergus swung his legs over the side of the bed and began to pace the room. ‘Everyone? You’re sure that’s Ismar’s aim? Even the simple farmers and their families?’ he asked.
‘Evil like his never stops of its own accord, Fergus. It goes on eating up all that it can, until a greater force tears it down,’ said Marcel.
‘If I brought back the great wizard, it could decide the battle, couldn’t it, much more than a single soldier with a sword.’
‘Much more,’ said Finn.
Fergus joined Finn at the window to look down into the courtyard where Gadfly was tethered in the open, with all the other horses, while the stables were being repaired. ‘Nicola, you’ve still got the pouch, haven’t you?’
It appeared quickly in her hand, where she’d held it ready for this moment ever since they’d arrived in the room. Fergus still hadn’t actually said he would do it, though. That changed with his next words.
‘The page from the Book of Lies will get me into the air, but how will I find the Grand Master? He might still be at sea. It would be impossible to find a single ship in the middle of the ocean.’
‘You found your way here without any trouble,’ Marcel pointed out.
‘I had a magic charm to help me then, a diviner made of brass that Tilwith gave me. That gaoler stole it from me, the thief.’
‘We’ll get it back then,’ said Finn, and he hurried off immediately towards the cells.
‘Call him back,’ said Fergus with a sigh. ‘The diviner won’t work on its own. It needs something that belongs to the person I’m looking for, like the piece of Damon’s ear that guided me to Cadell. Did Lord Tironel leave anything behind?’
Nicola thought for a moment but could only shake her head. ‘Lady Liana packed up everything pretty well, and they didn’t bring much up from the ship in the first place.’
‘Then I’ve got nothing to guide me. You’re sure he didn’t give you anything — a farewell gift maybe?’
At this, Nicola turned immediately towards Marcel. Seeing their silent stares Fergus guessed the answer to his own question. ‘He did leave you something. A book of spells, was it?’
‘No, it was this,’ said Marcel, taking the stone from his pocket.
Nicola looked horrified. ‘You can’t give him that, Marcel, it helped you conjure those spells, the strongest you’ve ever done. We’ll need your magic in case the battle starts before Fergus can bring Rhys back.’
He couldn’t tell Nicola that the tooth was nothing but a stone given to Rhys Tironel by their own mother. He hadn’t quite worked out what this discovery meant to him yet. ‘It will take more than my magic to stop Ismar, whether I have this in my hand or not,’ he said instead, and hoped he wouldn’t have to find out if it was true.
Before he could change his mind, he passed the stone to Fergus, who took it eagerly. All three of them set off for the ruined stables, where Finn rejoined them soon afterwards.
‘Here, the gaoler was only too pleased to let you have your diviner back,’ he said to Fergus, passing him the device. ‘He even volunteered to spend some time inside his own cell, just because I suggested it.’ He gave a wicked wink and touched the hilt of his sword.
WORD BEGAN TO SPREAD that the ugly grey mare was going to fly. Faces appeared in the barracks windows, and by the time Fergus had scrambled awkwardly onto Gadfly’s back an inquisitive crowd had gathered.
‘Make room,’ Fergus called to them. ‘It’s hard for her to take off from a standing start.’
Too late — there were so many people they couldn’t get out of each other’s way. Nicola tied the leather thong around Gadfly’s untidy mane and, while the onlookers gaped at the emerging wings, Fergus twisted and turned on her back. ‘Up there,’ he said into Gadfly’s ear and immediately she set off towards the stairs.
‘What are you doing?’ Marcel shouted, but if he wanted to be heard, he would have to run after them.
Fergus guided the horse up one set of stairs and then another. He’s heading for the battlements, Marcel realised, and doubled his pace, trying to keep up. He reached the top of the last staircase just in time to see Gadfly leap into the air. He had ridden on her back himself when she had done this and it was the greatest thrill he had ever experienced, and the greatest fear.
He pressed himself against the outer edge of the battlements and watched those magical wings do their work. Out from the wall horse and rider glided and then with three, four, five graceful strokes of her wings, Gadfly began to climb towards the clouds, heading eastwa
rd to Noam.
CHAPTER 25
On Battle’s Eve
THERE WAS STILL PLENTY of light left in the day as Marcel watched Fergus fade towards the horizon. Through the rest of that afternoon and all of the day that followed, the men of Cadell turned themselves from bakers, carpenters and bootmakers into a fighting force that would defend the city walls with its last drop of blood. And while they drilled with their makeshift weapons, the women prepared to douse fires and bandage the wounded. When Marcel saw kitchen knives stuck into the belts of their aprons, he realised they would join in the fight too, if they had to.
Evening of that second day found brother and sister on the battlements. Finn joined them there. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been able to see you all day,’ he told them, although his words were meant mostly for Nicola. ‘General Kendally has made me a captain and put me in charge of the southern wall.’
‘That’s this wall, isn’t it?’ said Marcel.
Finn nodded. ‘These are my men on watch. The rest are bedding down in the barracks, ready for tomorrow. I can’t stay away from them for long.’
‘You think it will be tomorrow?’ asked Nicola.
Finn sighed and turned to look out over the walls towards the forest. ‘Those things they’re building, do you see how they are taller than the trees now?’
Marcel had hardly taken his eyes from the ominous silhouettes all day. Barely visible in the darkness now, they stood like square-headed monsters, staring across the tree-tops towards the city they planned to devour.
‘What are they?’
‘Siege towers. Ismar’s men will use them to climb over the walls.’
‘Can we stop them?’
‘Two days ago they would have broken through easily. Damon had placed so many men in some places that they couldn’t swing a sword without hurting one another. In other positions, he’d left one man where we needed ten. That was the plan he and Ismar had devised — to run the siege towers into places where we were weakest and at the same time send his fighters up through the tunnels beneath the keep. Cadell wouldn’t have lasted an hour.’
‘What about now?’
‘The opening in the tunnels is sealed and guarded. Here on the battlements General Kendally will make them fight for every inch. We’ll hold out. We have to,’ Finn said with a grim smile. He took Nicola’s hand firmly in his own. ‘I have to go, but listen to me. When the bell rings in the square, you must lock yourself inside your room. Do you understand?’
‘The bell?’
‘That’s the signal that the battle has started. Promise me, Nicola, you must stay in your room until I come for you.’
‘I promise,’ she said in a daze.
Then Finn was gone.
‘The fighting will be fierce on the southern wall, won’t it?’ Nicola asked when he was out of sight.
‘It will be tough everywhere.’
Marcel’s answer seemed to settle around Nicola like a chilly fog. ‘I don’t know what to feel,’ she said. ‘One minute I’m so proud that he’s leading those men; the next I wish he was a hundred miles away and safe from the fighting. I couldn’t bear it if he was wounded. Do you think Demiter will surrender if the rebels are too strong? I mean, what’s the use of fighting on when you can’t win? More and more people die, that’s all. Their lives should be spared, don’t you think?’
Marcel took hold of his sister’s hand as Finn had done but without quite the same affection. His touch seemed to comfort her all the same while he said, as gently as he could, ‘Men will die, Nicola, hundreds, maybe thousands, but to surrender will make us all slaves. Ismar wants to work the women on farms and in the mines until they drop, and the men will become his soldiers. They’ll join the attack on Elster, and if they survive that, another battle, and another until every one of them is dead. We have to fight on, every one of us.’
‘But Finn …’ Nicola wailed miserably.
Simply holding his sister’s hand was no longer enough. Marcel opened his arms and let her fall against him with her face buried in his shoulder. They were brother and sister, a long way from their father and robbed of their mother by a heartless murder. At least they had a memory of her now.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked when Nicola’s sobbing subsided.
She pulled herself away, looking down at her feet. ‘Well, look who’s up and about.’
Marcel didn’t know what she was talking about at first. Black cats are difficult to see in the dark, after all. ‘Termagant,’ he said at last, when he felt warm fur pressing against his legs. From the way she walked so gingerly it was clear the injured paw still gave her trouble, so he picked her up to save her from further discomfort. Feline words were quickly loose in the air and, muttering the simple spell under his breath, Marcel deciphered them.
‘I hear it round the city, everywhere I go,’ said Termagant. ‘The battle will come any day now. When it does, you have to let me fight as my true self.’
‘I can’t, Gadfly has the pouch. She’s taken Fergus to find Rhys Tironel.’
‘You didn’t need the pouch when I fought the taurine.’
No, he hadn’t needed the pouch, nor even the dragon’s tooth as it turned out, since the talisman was no more than a stone. But he didn’t want to make any promises he couldn’t keep.
Termagant sniffed in disgust and jumped from his arms, landing lightly on three legs before sauntering away with her tail pointing up to the night sky.
Nicola watched the cat disappear. She had dried her eyes and, with a toss of her head, cleared the dishevelled hair from her face. ‘I’m sorry about those things I said, Marcel. Demiter’s people have been so brave in the last few days — I can feel their determination everywhere, as strong as these walls.’ She pressed her hand against the solid stone. ‘Finn’s right, we can hold out.’
‘If it was just a matter of courage, yes, but it will take more than that. Magic will decide this battle.’ Marcel was looking to his left along the battlements as he spoke, towards the horizon, which was visible only because the stars picked out the sky above the solid blackness of the ocean beneath.
‘You won’t see Gadfly now, even if she’s there among those stars,’ said Nicola when she saw where his eyes had wandered.
‘Not tonight, but if Fergus bring Rhys back with him, if they get here in time …’
‘You think he’s the only one who can save us, don’t you? I could tell that from the way you spoke to Termagant. You don’t have the pouch or the talisman Rhys gave you, Marcel, but you didn’t have them when you faced Mortregis. Do you really need them?’
He looked at her in alarm, wondering how she could have guessed. ‘I can’t do it, I don’t know how to —’
‘Listen to me,’ Nicola snapped, cutting off his feeble excuse and taking a grip on his elbow. ‘I didn’t want to face the truth about Finn, not until you made me. Now there are things I have to say to you. You’re right about tomorrow’s battle: no matter how bravely our soldiers fight, they can’t win unless they have a sorcerer to protect them. Lord Menidae is dead and Rhys isn’t here. There’s no one else, Marcel, you are the only Master of the Books we have.’
‘No, I can’t do it without the stone,’ he said, knowing it was a lie even as he spoke. He pushed Nicola’s hand away and ran down into the keep. Where could he go? He was looking for somewhere to hide, from Nicola, from his own lie. He needed to go where no one knew him and he could sink into a darkened doorway undisturbed, forever if he could manage such a thing.
He made his way into the courtyard, past the damaged stables to the huge gates, now open after so many years, as a reminder of Cadell’s unity and determination. He hurried through, taunted, it seemed, by accusations that couldn’t be framed in words and into the city’s streets that had felt so wretched with fear and suspicion when he’d first walked them. Now they bustled with folk going about the final preparations before the fighting tomorrow, and if there was fear in their movements, they kept it well hidden beneath a show of r
eal purpose.
He found the chicken coop where Demiter’s secret door opened into the city and, finding its darkest corner, wrapped his arms around his knees until he became a tight ball. How long he stayed like that among the noisy birds he couldn’t be sure, but there was no uncertainty about what roused him. Something magical was loose in the city.
As first he suspected the street-corner tricksters were making a final appeal for customers, because he sensed weak and imperfect sorcery in the air. No, that wasn’t the presence that disturbed him. This was more powerful and much more sinister. It could only be Ismar.
Before he could jump to his feet and flee — anywhere, to the citadel, to the docks perhaps — the dark magic swirled around him. ‘There you are, I’ve found you,’ a voice said.
Where had it come from? There was no one standing in front of him. Marcel was petrified.
‘No need to look around,’ the voice said. ‘You can’t see me. I’m still in camp with my followers, although they are puzzled at the way I am sitting so quietly just now. They wouldn’t understand, even if they knew that my mind is exploring Cadell, seeking out your kind, those with a glimmer of sorcery who might use it against me. All I’ve found is fairground magicians who barely understand their simple powers and use them only to cheat their neighbours in any case. They won’t trouble me. But there was something stronger, I was sure of it, and now I’ve found you. Menidae had begun to train another apprentice, is that it? Tell me boy, was he your master?’
‘No, I … my powers don’t come from him. I’m not from Cadell at all.’
‘I didn’t think so. Your magic is not like his at all. He learned his spells from books. Yours is different. What have you got to say for yourself, boy? Will you do battle with me tomorrow?’
The voice laughed unpleasantly, goading Marcel, taunting him.
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