Battle of the Heroes

by Kate Forsyth

  Sebastian froze. The weapons in the sack clanked. At once, the hideous, sunken faces of the bog-men snapped towards him. They leapt forward, spears at the ready.

  Sebastian took to his heels, the bog-men close behind. He knocked over a barrel with one foot and it broke, spilling foul-smelling liquid in the bog-men’s path. Sebastian recognised the stench of saltpetre. It was the flammable liquid into which Lord Mortlake’s knights dipped their arrows. Sebastian knew that the bog-men were terrified of fire. He could create a wall of fire between him and the bog-men.

  But how was he to light the fire?

  ‘Oh, Bel, if only you were here to breathe sparks on it!’ he cried.

  The bog-men advanced on him, spears held high. He had only a few seconds. Sebastian ran, slashing at barrels every step of the way, then scrambled atop the bales of straw. He threw down the sack of weapons, dropped his sword and rummaged in his pack for the tinder box. Urgently, he struck his steel against his flint. His hands were shaking so badly, he could not strike a spark. Sebastian took a deep breath, steadied his nerves and struck again. A spray of sparks shot out and landed in the straw. Red filaments writhed out. Sebastian puffed till tiny flames flickered up. He gathered up the burning handful of straw and threw it with all his strength into the courtyard. Then he grabbed the sack and his sword and jumped as far as he could in the opposite direction.

  WHUMP! A giant fireball ignited in the courtyard. Burning bog-men were flung in all directions. Sebastian felt the blast of heat at his back, but did not look back. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him through the door and into the stable.

  Horses were rearing in terror in their stalls. Smoke billowed through the door as Sebastian slammed it shut and dropped the bolt in place, then ran down the centre aisle opening all the stalls and letting the horses flee in panic.

  To his joy, he found Quickthorn confined within the stall closest to the stable doors. The unicorn was hobbled and bound in chains. Sebastian struggled to set the horned beast free. He could hear the roar of the fire getting closer. Smoke stung his eyes. At last he undid the final buckle and the unicorn reared. Sebastian fell back as Quickthorn galloped out of the stall and into the melee.

  Sebastian hauled up the sack of weapons again, grabbed his sword and ran. His legs felt like lead, his eyes swam, his throat burned. He saw the doorway like an oblong of brightness against the black smoke. Summoning all his strength, he lurched out the door, then fell to his knees, coughing violently.

  Only when his coughing at last subsided did he realise that he had fallen before the steel boots of Lord Mortlake.

  Quinn ran through the streets of the town, shouting till her voice was hoarse. ‘The castle is under attack! Beware! Enemies in the castle!’

  People hurried from every house. They all looked pale and sick. Quinn could not imagine what it must have been like living in the mist for almost a month, breathing its poisonous fumes.

  ‘Are you sure?’ a man asked.

  ‘The bells have not rung out,’ a woman protested.

  Tom, where are you? Quinn thought. Why haven’t you rung the bells?

  ‘Lord Mortlake has seized control of the castle. Please help!’ Shouting all the way, Quinn ran on.

  She reached the harbour front. The prow of the broken warship pointed up at the noon sun. She hoped desperately that Tom had not been captured. Her heart constricted as if squeezed between giant hands. Perhaps all her friends had been caught. Perhaps the awakened warriors had been defeated. Perhaps she was all alone in her quest to save the castle.

  Tears flooded down her face and her voice grew so desperate that people stopped arguing with her and went to grab what weapons they could—frying pans, rolling pins, hayforks and fire-shovels. It gladdened Quinn’s heart to see burly butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers taking up arms and marching on the castle.

  But still there was no sign of Sabre. Quinn could only hope that her sea-serpent had fled to the safety of the open sea. Yet she felt sure that the great beast would not go till she had bid it farewell. She had saved Sabre’s life and the sea-serpent was somehow bound to her. Please do not let him have been killed, she prayed.

  Quinn stood on the wharf and looked out across the harbour. Most of the boats had been broken and destroyed, and the shipping yard had been laid to waste. She shivered, thinking of the terror the sailors must have felt with a sea-serpent on the rampage within the harbour.

  The moon was low in the sky, no thicker than a thread of spun sugar. Tonight there would be no moon at all. The night of the dark moon was the best time for casting spells of black magic. She had to stop Lady Mortlake and Mistress Mauldred before they cast any more death curses.

  A flutter of dark draperies caught her eye. An old hunchbacked woman was hobbling away from the harbour, leaning on a tall staff. Giant rats ran before her and after her. Goosebumps rose on Quinn’s skin.

  It was Wilda of the Witchwood, who had betrayed Quinn and her friends.

  Quinn gripped her own staff tightly, wondering what she should do. Wilda was a powerful sorceress and Quinn was afraid to confront her on her own. For a moment, she found it impossible to move.

  Then she saw that Wilda carried a jar with a wire handle. As she shuffled along, water sloshed out of the jar. Something small was wriggling inside, something small and silvery-black. Quinn frowned. A dreadful certainty came over her. She began to run towards the old witch. The closer Quinn came to her, the more certain she became.

  Wilda had shrunk Sabre to the size of a sardine.

  Furious, Quinn broke into a run. The giant rats saw her racing towards them and began to squeak loudly. Wilda looked up, recognition flashing across her face. She turned and hurried inside the gateway to the cemetery. It had not been tended in months, and thistles and weeds grew high. Brambles clambered over the tombstones.

  Wilda turned to face Quinn, her staff set firmly on the bare earth.

  ‘That’s my sea-serpent,’ Quinn cried. ‘You’ve shrunk him!’

  ‘He was making a nuisance of himself,’ Wilda said.

  ‘Let him go,’ Quinn demanded, barely able to contain herself. ‘Restore him to his normal size.’

  ‘And just how will you make me do that?’ Wilda sneered. ‘A mere witch-apprentice like you?’

  Quinn bit her lip, tears stinging her eyes. As she hesitated, Wilda brought up her own witch’s staff and rapped Quinn sharply across the forehead.

  ‘Quick as a wink, make her shrink,’ she said.

  And Quinn did.

  Elanor crept along the shadowy corridor.

  She had hidden the key in one of the cellars and then waited as long as she dared for Sophie to do as she’d promised. Elanor had hoped that Tom or Sebastian would come to find her as they’d planned. But neither had turned up and Elanor had still not heard the warning bells ring. This troubled her greatly. Eventually, she could not bear the suspense any longer.

  She was just about to tiptoe towards the dungeons when a heavy hand fell upon her shoulder. A huge ring flashed sullen red fire. Elanor jumped and gave a little scream.

  ‘Lady Elanor, what on earth are you doing skulking around down here?’ Mistress Mauldred said. ‘Ladies do not skulk.’

  Sebastian was hauled to his feet by a steel gauntlet.

  ‘Got you!’ Lord Mortlake said.

  He was so strong that Sebastian hung in the air like a kitten being carried by its mother.

  Despair washed over him. He had been so close!

  Instead, he dangled in the air like a fool.

  ‘And you thought you could be a knight,’ Lord Mortlake jeered. ‘A clumsy idiot like you! No wonder your father sent you away. He couldn’t bear to see his only son tripping over his own feet all the time.’

  Sebastian struggled to get free.

  ‘Where are the rest of you?’ Lord Mortlake demanded.

  Sebastian shrugged. Lord Mortlake hit him across the ear with his other hand, making Sebastian’s head ring. ‘I honestly don’t kn
ow. We got separated.’

  Lord Mortlake dropped him, and Sebastian sprawled at his feet again. He got up, glancing about him quickly.

  Black smoke billowed from the burning stable. Men ran back and forth from the kitchen well, carrying buckets of water to try and put it out. Sebastian smiled grimly. At least he had caused a grand kerfuffle.

  Meanwhile, the inner ward was a scene of utter chaos. Runaway horses reared and bucked, trampling the knights trying to catch them. Bog-men lay in smoking piles. Sir Geraint was shooting swift golden-fletched arrows from the shelter of the crypt, while Quickthorn fought side-by-side with Lady Rhianwyn upon the bony back of the skeleton horse. Lady Rhianwyn’s black-tipped lance plunged and twirled and struck again and again. Lord Vaughn and Mistress Ifanna stood back-to-back, guarding each other as they fought. His sword flashed golden through the smoke, her shield was like a spinning wheel of light. The skeleton army fought on tirelessly, rusty swords clanging, beating the bog-men back.

  But it was not nearly enough. They were surrounded on all sides by the relentless advance of bog-men. Thousands of them. And they were hard to kill. If Lord Vaughn chopped off their stick-like arms and legs, they simply crawled on, like spiders whose limbs had been torn off. If Sir Geraint shot them full of arrows, they simply plucked them out and kept on scuttling. The four heroes were tiring, and still the ranks of bog-men pressed on.

  ‘We have only to fight till sunset, then those heroes of yours will turn to dust and be no more trouble to us,’ Lord Mortlake said with satisfaction. ‘It is already past noon. We need only hold them off a half a dozen more hours, then they’ll be gone.’

  Sebastian could see the sun, an orange disc burning through the smoke. Lord Mortlake was right. It was already sliding down towards the Bell Tower, which stood on the western wall facing the sea. He had been running and fighting for hours.

  ‘And once the sun is gone, it will be the night of the dark moon and the best time for dark magic,’ Lord Mortlake said. ‘You think you have thwarted us. Trust me, all you have done is slow us for a few hours.’

  ‘Your warship is smashed to smithereens,’ Sebastian pointed out.

  Lord Mortlake scowled. ‘I can build another.’

  ‘Your magical mist is all blown away and Quinn is down there now, rousing the townsfolk against you.’

  Lord Mortlake’s frown deepened, but he shrugged. ‘The time for subterfuge may be over, anyway. Tonight my wife and her sister shall cast a curse on the king and he shall die. I’ll be king by tomorrow, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to stop me.’

  Elanor could not speak nor hardly breathe. Terror paralysed her.

  ‘I’m very glad to have you in hand again.’ Mistress Mauldred dug her fingers into Elanor’s shoulder. ‘You have been unforgivably meddlesome. What would your mother think?’

  Elanor gritted her teeth.

  ‘No doubt you think to rescue your fool of a father. I’m sure you were looking forward to weeping all over each other. Well, it does not suit me to have your father blundering around and getting in my way. That is, if he had the strength to blunder.’ She laughed. ‘A month in a dungeon has an admirable way of weakening a man.’

  ‘I want to see him,’ Elanor cried.

  ‘Of course you do. But I’m afraid it’ll be a while before you see anyone. A few solitary days without food or water and we’ll see how your manners improve.’

  She marched forward, pushing Elanor along before her. The doorway at the far end of the room was locked and barred, with a big ring of keys hanging on a hook nearby. As she unlocked the door, Mistress Mauldred gripped Elanor’s shoulder tightly like an iron vice. Then, carrying the ring of keys in her other hand, she shoved Elanor hard through the door.

  Elanor stumbled, but regained her balance quickly. She lifted her head high and said, ‘Mistress Mauldred, don’t you know? Ladies do not shove.’

  Her governess was taken aback. For a moment, she did not speak, then colour rose on her cheekbones.

  Mistress Mauldred sailed on down a narrow corridor, lined on either side by heavy iron doors. She unlocked one, which swung open, revealing a cramped stone room filled with foul-smelling straw. There was no chair or table or bed or chamber-pot.

  ‘In you go,’ Mistress Mauldred ordered.

  ‘Ladies first,’ Elanor said with a demure curtsey and a sweeping gesture of one hand.

  Mistress Mauldred gave a pinched, superior smile and swept into the cell.

  At once, Elanor slammed the door and turned the key in the lock. Her governess at once began to shriek and hammer her fists on the iron door.

  Elanor tutted. ‘Now, now, Mistress Mauldred. Ladies do not have temper tantrums.’

  Quinn reeled back, dizzy and sick, her skin prickling all over with pins-and-needles as she shrunk at an incredible rate. The world rushed up past her eyes, everything growing bigger and bigger. Wilda looked like a gnarled and ancient oak tree, towering over her. The rats swarming towards her were as big as oxen, their sharp yellow teeth like swinging scythes. In a second, they would be upon her.

  Quinn jammed her staff through her sash, then caught hold of Wilda’s hem and swung out of the way of the lunging rats. Hand-over-hand, she hauled herself up. Two enormous pincer fingers tried to seize her, but Quinn was too quick and nimble.

  She found the end of the witch’s dangling sash and swung back and forth, gaining height before somersaulting up to catch hold of one of the witch’s necklaces. Up Quinn climbed, then leapt to catch hold of one of the long grey locks of hair which hung over the witch’s shoulders.

  She swung away from Wilda’s head. As she swayed past the witch’s huge face, each wrinkle etched like a deep canyon, Quinn reached out with her staff and knocked the witch hard between the eyes.

  ‘Quick as a wink, make her shrink!’ Quinn cried, then let go.

  She tumbled down helplessly, head over heels, but gripped tightly to her staff so she would not drop it. As she fell, the witch shrank beside her.

  Quinn landed in the thick black fur of a rat, then rolled off. As soon as her bare feet touched the ground, she banged the staff as hard as she could, shouting, ‘I’m too small, make me tall!’

  Up she shot, growing a foot a second. Soon, the houses and shops of Wolfhaven Town only reached her knee. Clouds whirled about her head.

  ‘I’m scraping the skies,’ she boomed in panic. ‘Make me the right size.’

  Down she shrank, till she was the perfect Quinn size. The giant rats rushed at her, but she knocked her staff on the ground and said wearily, ‘Begone rats, else I’ll conjure cats.’

  The giant rats turned and raced away. Quinn was left sitting on the ground, with a tiny witch jumping up and down at her knee and trying to hit her with a staff no bigger than a thistledown.

  Wilda had dropped the jar when she had begun to shrink, and it now lay on its side in the mud. Quinn carefully tipped the jar so the tiny sea-serpent could slither out into the puddle. Quinn leant forward and very gently touched the tiny snake with the head of her staff. ‘Nice and slow, make Sabre grow,’ she said.

  And he did.

  Quinn shook out the last few drops of water, then picked up the tiny witch by the neck of her robe and gently dropped her into the jar.

  ‘That should keep you out of trouble for a while!’

  Sebastian tensed, balancing on the balls of his feet. He was so angry, it was like a red mist hung before his eyes.

  ‘Where’s my dragon?’ he demanded.

  Lord Mortlake laughed. ‘Quite a bad-tempered little thing, isn’t it? It tried to bite my hand so I had it locked in the hanging cage.’

  He waved his hand towards the Bell Tower. Sebastian squinted through the smoke. He could just see a small cage, hanging by a chain from the tower’s battlements. Beltaine was cramped within, the iron bars pressing cruelly into her body. Her wings were all bent flat, and her tail was squashed around her neck. She was crying piteously.

  ‘You … you fiend!’ Sebas
tian burst into a run and tackled Lord Mortlake, knocking him backwards. Lord Mortlake hit the ground with a smack.

  Then Sebastian ran straight through the skirmish. Bog-men tried to catch him, but he ducked, weaved and side-stepped straight through their outstretched hands and towards the Bell Tower. ‘You leathery things should learn to play mob-ball!’ he shouted.

  Elanor rushed to the door of the main dungeon and unlocked it with shaking hands. As the door swung open, the prisoners all cringed away from the light, shielding their eyes. Elanor saw many faces she recognised, but she kept looking frantically for her father. At last she found him, pale and hollow-cheeked.

  He rose to his feet, holding out trembling hands.

  ‘Ela?’

  ‘Father!’

  She embraced him lovingly, shocked at the feel of his ribs through his robe.

  ‘You’re safe,’ he murmured, stroking her hair. ‘I’ve been so afraid for you.’

  ‘And I for you.’

  ‘Where have you been? What’s happening?’

  ‘We’ve awakened the sleeping heroes of legend, Father, just like Arwen told us to!’ She heard a cry of gladness and turned to see the old witch clasping her hands together in joy.

  ‘I knew you could do it,’ Arwen said. ‘Brave of heart, sharp of wit, strong of spirit and steadfast of purpose, as you all are!’

  ‘I have so much to tell you, but not here, not now,’ Elanor said. ‘There’ll be knights back very soon and we must be gone by then. Here, drink a mouthful of this, Father, then pass it along. It will give you strength.’

  He drank, then passed the leather bottle along to Arwen. As she drank, the old witch straightened her bent back and the lines of sorrow and fear faded from her face. Everyone in the cell drank, then passed the bottle back to Elanor. There was still some water left inside, so she stoppered it carefully and hung it at her belt, knowing it would be useful at the end of the battle.

  ‘Let’s get you to safety,’ she said. ‘Those who are too sick or old can hide in the secret passage. The rest must come and help us fight for the castle.’