Beyond the Shroud (15 page)

We stared down into the valley in silence, trying to make sense of what we were seeing.

The village was way smaller than Arakesh. It had the ramshackle look of a frontier town, like in an old Western movie. There was no wall, and the buildings seemed to be made of wood. There were a number of what looked like corrals, some with animals, some empty. On the main street I could make out a kind of hitching post, with a dozen or so horses — at least I assumed that's what they were — tethered to it. Tiny people scampered about like ants, scurrying in and out of buildings and fussing round a straggle of wagons and carts parked up at the far end of the street. Every now and again I caught the flash of watery sunlight reflecting off polished metal. King Karazeel's soldiers. Instinctively, my eyes searched for the hunched figures of the Faceless, a chill crawling spider-like down the back of my neck … but if they were there, they were invisible.

On the outskirts of the town were scattered several clusters of low buildings surrounded by tidy post-and-rail fences. Farms. In some of the paddocks animals grazed peacefully. Other fields were planted with crops. Over on our left I could see the main mountain range curving away to the west, its peaks lost in cloud.

A typical country scene, reassuringly — deceptively — familiar. It was what lay beyond the town of Marshall that chilled my blood.

‘Just as well we got down off the mountain before that hit us,' muttered Rich. ‘Talk about a storm …'

‘I don't think it
is
clouds.' There was a tremble in Jamie's voice. ‘I think … I think it's the edge of the world.'

It began a couple of hundred yards beyond the northern limits of Marshall, and stretched away on both sides as far as we could see. Rich was right — it looked like a bar of pitch-black cloud, dense and impenetrable. It lay over the land like a vast, billowing eiderdown, reaching far higher than the tallest tree or building ever could … but from our perch on the side of the mountain we were looking down on it, and could see that it extended unbroken as far as the distant horizon.

‘I live up in the hills overlooking the city,' said Kenta quietly. ‘Sometimes there's fog, and we're up above it. Do you think …'

‘It reminds me of flying over cloud in an aeroplane,' said Gen, ‘only no cloud in the world — in any world — was ever as black as that.'

But I knew what it was. I could hear Hob's voice as clearly as if he was standing beside me:
Beyond the shroud … to Shakesh.
‘It isn't a storm, or the edge of the world. It isn't cloud or smog.' I hadn't realised I was speaking my thoughts aloud till I turned to the others and saw they were all staring at me, eyes wide. ‘It's shroud. Real shroud. Not a black stain on a map. Real blackness. We're going to have
to go through it to get to Shakesh. We don't have a choice.'

‘Well, let's hope it'll retreat ahead of us, like in the game,' said Richard. ‘If it does — no problem, huh?'

But if it doesn't …

‘Yeah,' I said grimly. ‘Let's hope so.'

Our perch on the mountainside was the perfect vantage point, but being able to see also meant being able to be seen. There wasn't much shelter at this height — only a few low, grey-green thorn bushes clinging stubbornly to the sparse soil. Lower down, though, the slippery scree slope gave way to groves of gangly trees and denser pockets of scrub. We could make out glimpses of the track zigzagging its way through them, eventually joining up with the main street of Marshall.

We followed the track down to where the vegetation was thicker, and then branched off cross-country till we were almost directly above the town, well hidden by a tangle of prickly shrubs.

With sighs of relief, we shrugged off our backpacks and flopped down onto the ground. ‘What wouldn't I give for a ham sandwich, with lots of mustard!' said Jamie mournfully.

‘An apple for me — a bright red one, crisp and juicy — and a big chunk of cheese!'

‘Don't, Rich,' groaned Gen. ‘I'd settle for a crust of stale bread … but if I could choose anything, it would have to be chocolate. Milk chocolate, crammed full of hazelnuts.'

Jamie dug in his bag, producing a small, rectangular package. ‘Chewing gum, anyone?'

Weevil had settled down on his skinny haunches on a flat stone in the sun, and was watching us with bright button eyes. ‘He's listening to every word we're saying,
aren't you, Weevil?' asked Kenta. Weevil chittered back at her. She tilted her head to one side, smiling at him. ‘I wish we could understand you! What would you choose? You're trying to tell us, aren't you? Let's guess what it would be …'

‘A banana — or maybe a crunchy beetle, huh, Blue-bum?' Kenta glared at me.

‘Hey, guys — look! Something's going on down there. Come check this out!' Richard was lying on the ground, half-hidden by a thorn bush. An undercurrent of excitement in his voice made me wriggle in beside him, my heart thumping.

The ground fell away steeply, giving a perfect, unobstructed view of Marshall, clear as a photograph, framed by prickly branches. Rich was right — something was happening. Whatever preparations had been underway before were complete. A caravan of laden carts straggled slowly away from us down the street, each drawn by a brace of harnessed … horses? Oxen? Glonks — or those funny llama-type things we'd seen before, in Arakesh? From this distance, it didn't look like any of them — but it was hard to be sure. Whatever they were, they moved with a strange, swaying gait. I rubbed my eyes and squinted down, straining to see every detail. Were they tied together — or chained in some way? And each one seemed to have something dangling in front of it, almost like a long nosebag …

‘Wish I had a pair of binoculars,' whispered Rich.

At the head of the column was what looked like a leader of some sort — a single animal with a rider. Behind it, the line of vehicles trundled slowly forward, some driven by figures that looked like soldiers, some led, some lurching forward in response to the cracking of whips that echoed into the foothills like gunshots. Behind the wagons, a rearguard of tall figures with pikes and gleaming helmets
marched in tight formation. ‘Headed for Shakesh, I'll bet,' breathed Rich.

Breathlessly, we watched the caravan approach the edge of the shroud. I stared, unblinking, my eyes watering, willing a magical tunnel of light to open up in front of the leader. The entry point to the shroud was marked by standing stones, half a dozen or so on each side like sentinels flanking the track. Five metres … two metres … one … and then the animal and its rider disappeared into the blackness. Close on its heels followed the next, and then the next … until the entire column had been swallowed by the shroud as completely as if it had never existed, leaving Marshall as empty and deserted as a ghost town.

I was turning away when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. My heart flip-flopped; my skin was instantly slick with cold sweat. The standing stones were moving, drifting, floating away into the shadows of the buildings like ghosts.

They weren't markers at all. They were the Faceless, guarding the entrance to the shroud.

Cautiously, under cover of the deepening dusk, we scrambled down to level ground, staying well away from the outskirts of the town. It had seemed unthreatening before, but now it crawled with menace, filling us all with sickening dread. There was no way we dared take the same route as Karazeel's men. We'd just have to find our own way through. ‘Maybe it's not as bad as it looks from above,' Rich said cheerfully. ‘If they can do it, so can we.' But I could see the worry in his eyes.

With every wary step the shroud loomed closer, taller than a skyscraper, blacker than the blackest night. It seemed
to lean over us as we approached, threatening and claustrophobic. Soon — too soon — we reached it, and stood in silence, face to face with the black wall. Far over to our right the buildings of Marshall crouched in the dusk like animals waiting to pounce.

Tentatively, Richard reached out one hand, palm outwards. For a moment his hand was resting flat against the solid wall of shroud; then, with an effort of will I could almost see, he thrust his hand elbow-deep into the darkness. It was as if his forearm had been amputated. Behind me, someone gave the tiniest whimper.

There was a gleam in Richard's eyes I was starting to recognise. ‘I'm going in, to see what it's like.'

‘Richard — no!' Gen's eyes were huge and scared.

‘I'll come with you, Rich. I agree — we have to know.' I rummaged in my backpack and found my torch. Dug in my pack again, and pulled out a coil of nylon rope. ‘Jamie.' I handed it to him, twisting one end in a tight double loop round my hand. ‘Whatever you do,
don't let go.
Rich —' I held out my other hand, fingers spread. Rich gripped it with his warm paw, our fingers tightly intertwined, solid as a rock. Our eyes locked. Together, we stepped forward into the shroud.

It was worse than I'd imagined. Much worse. The shroud wasn't like normal darkness: it had a cloying weight that caught in my throat like steam, but cold as ice. It pushed in on my eyeballs with the suffocating pressure of a black pillow, making me want to kick and struggle free. I felt trapped — couldn't breathe. Taking a breath of shroud would be like taking a lungful of water — it would swamp me in darkness.

A sick wave of panic surged through me — and then Richard's hand tightened on mine. His voice came faintly out of the blackness beside me, muffled, but cheerful as ever. ‘Pretty murky, huh? Can you hear something?' I could — the faintest undulating rise and fall of sound, the sort of white noise air conditioning makes, or waves breaking on a beach very far away.

I fumbled for the switch and clicked on the torch. Off; on again. But there was nothing — not the faintest glimmer of light, even when I held it right up to my face. It was
impossible to believe the others were only a couple of paces away. I couldn't hear them at all; they could have been on another planet.

‘So.' Richard's voice was grim. ‘We're going to have to go in blind. Follow our noses, and hope we don't go in circles and get hopelessly lost.'

He was right: there was no other way. Or was there? I wished I could have got a closer look at the strange procession that had headed so purposefully into the darkness.

‘Had enough?' I nodded, then remembered there was no way Rich could see me.

‘Yeah,' I croaked. ‘More than.' I could taste the shroud in my mouth, thick as treacle, tinny and metallic as blood.

There was a sharp tug on the rope. If it hadn't been for the double loop, it would have jerked loose for sure. Jamie, getting impatient — or worried. Then the rope went totally slack, and my heart stopped. What was he playing at? But then the pressure was there again, steady and strong, pulling me backwards out of the shroud like a fish on a line. I grinned, dizzy with relief. Good old Jamie! I was more than ready to breathe fresh air again.

We turned and took the few shuffling steps back to where the others were waiting for us. In moments the shroud gave way to the greyness of dusk … and with a numbing surge of terror I saw what had been reeling us in.

Not Jamie.

A hooded figure lurched out of the gloom, its cloak flapping like broken wings as it clutched for me. My mind took a split-second snapshot of the motionless bodies of the others on the ground, faces white as death, dark shapes hunched over them like vultures at the kill. I gasped out one strangled cry of warning — too late.

The rope jerked and I stumbled helplessly forward into
the suffocating embrace of the Faceless. The empty cowl of the hood bore down on me; a gust of fetid breath and the stench of carrion engulfed me. Something soft and smothering clamped over my face … and I was falling into a darkness deeper than the darkness of the shroud.

Awareness floated towards the surface of my mind, then drifted down again, rocking gently like a coin sinking into a deep pond. With the rocking came a hollow, pea-green queasiness that was part memory, part dread. I lay still, breathing shallowly, my heart thudding like a hammer in my chest. Where was I? Where were the others? And where were …
they
?

I opened my eyelids a chink. Utter blackness. My ears strained for a sound, but it was as if I'd gone deaf — they had a weird, tightly-packed feeling as if they were stuffed with cotton wool, and I could taste shroud on my tongue.

I was sprawled half on my front, half on my side, with one arm bent painfully under me. Warily, I shifted my weight … felt metal grate on metal, and a sharp edge of cold steel dig into my wrist. Rough, splintery wood was bumping under my cheek with a familiar, regular vibration. I was moving. Being driven, in a cart, or a wagon … travelling through the shroud.
Towards Shakesh.
The Faceless were gone. I could feel it — knew it as surely as if it was broad daylight. The weight of another body was pressed against my back. It felt loose, floppy, boneless — either unconscious, or asleep.
Let it be one of the others — please. Let them be OK.

Something brushed my face — the faintest breath. I breathed it in.
Peppermint chewing gum.
My hand groped over rough wood; felt the softness of wool, and the smooth warmth of skin. I felt my chains shift and clank; then
slender fingers tightened on mine, and the peppermint breath gusted out again in a soft sigh. I lay holding Kenta's hand, waiting.

Gradually the feel of the darkness began to change. The metallic stink of the shroud gave way to a heavier, dank reek. The vibrations changed from the jarring trundle of wheels over hard ground to a soggier, squishing resistance, as if we were travelling through sticky mud.

The dead weight lying against my back stiffened and shifted. Wriggled and squirmed, chains dragging. Suddenly it gave a convulsive heave, and a bullet-hard head smacked me on the nose, making my eyes water. Rich had woken up.

I closed my eyes against the darkness, shifted away from Rich's bony elbow, and waited. There was nothing else I could do — for the moment at least.

I opened my eyes to the faintest grey beginning of light. Kenta's face was pale as a ghost beside me; twisting my head, I could see other dark shapes huddled above me and at my feet. Up ahead, the broad back of a driver was silhouetted against the lifting darkness.

With every second it was lighter. Now I could see Kenta's brave attempt at a smile and the tear-tracks on her cheeks; the path winding away into blackness behind us; a vast, broken expanse of water stretching away like puddles of ink on either side, smudged with paler patches of reed.

Then the last remnants of shroud were behind us. It was early morning, just before dawn. The sky boiled with clouds, red-rimmed and shot with purple and gold. Ahead it was blotted out by the brooding silhouette of a massive, blunt-topped mountain, rearing out of the surrounding swamp.

And on its summit crouched Shakesh — not the bustling city I'd imagined, but a grim fortress surrounded by black walls, as dark and menacing as a giant tarantula about to spring.

A chill shadow fell over my face, and the rumbling vibration of the wheels changed to the jarring rattle of iron rims on rough stone. We lurched to a stop with a final bone-rattling bump. Armoured figures loomed over us. Rough hands grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and threw me to the ground. Fingers twisted cruelly into my hair, almost tearing it out by the roots. My head was turned one way and then the other and the packing that had been rammed in my ears was ripped out.

I couldn't understand it — a blindfold would have made sense, but why block our ears? What could there have been to overhear? But I was glad to be able to hear again — the grate of hooves on stone; the clank of chains; the snarling orders of the guards. And a strange whoofling sound …

Sprawled on the cobblestones, I stared at the creatures drawing the cart. They were the size of small horses, with antennae like snails, telescoping in and out … long, trunks snuffling and questing … and pleated folds of skin instead of eyes …
So this is how they find their way through the shroud.

A boot connected with my ribs. I struggled to my feet, rusty iron manacles weighing down my arms and dragging at my legs. Rich was flung out of the cart beside me onto hands and knees, glaring daggers at the guard; then Kenta. Jamie scrambled awkwardly down, red-eyed and trying hard not to cry. Gen came last, head held high and eyes blazing, yanking her arm away from the guard's hand with a furious toss of her head. There was no sign of Weevil.

We were in a gloomy, cobbled courtyard. A heavy chill
hung in the air, more than just the cold of early morning. Rough stone walls reared skywards, streaked with dark patches of greasy slime. The deep shadow of the corners was stippled with creeping black mildew, edged with early morning frost.

A rattling rumble made me lumber awkwardly round. A massive portcullis was grinding its slow way down. I stared wildly round the claustrophobic space. Every instinct screamed at me to run — but there was nowhere to run to. With a final protesting squeal the portcullis thudded to rest … and a door, deeply recessed in the wall of the curved tower behind us, slowly opened. We wheeled round to face it.

The doorway was almost blocked by a huge figure cloaked in black. For a long moment he stood staring down at us, eyes in deep shadow. At last he spoke. ‘This is Shakesh, Seat of His Eternal Excellency High King Karazeel of Karazan.' The words were cold and hard as steel. ‘Look your last on the light of day.
Take them below!
'

Two guards emerged from the dark doorway. Jamie was shoved roughly in the back, stumbling forward into the shadows. Kenta and Gen were seized and thrown after him, stumbling over their heavy iron shackles.

‘Hey — you don't have to —' Rich stepped forward with fists clenched, scowling furiously. The chief guard raised one gauntleted hand and smashed it across Rich's face in a brutal backhander that echoed across the courtyard with a sickening
thunk
. Richard dropped to the ground like a stone, the livid, mottled imprint of the steel glove on his cheek.

One of the guards hefted Richard's limp body in a fireman's lift and disappeared through the doorway. I shuffled after him onto a small, dark landing … then down a corkscrewing stairway lit by burning brands set deep into the walls. The steps were crumbling and slippery
with damp, narrowing on the inside to a hand's-width. The heavy iron chain between my feet clanked along behind me, dragging at my feet and threatening to trip me and send me headlong down the steep stairwell. I groped my way down, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the next, trying not to think about what lay ahead.

After an eternity the stairway ended and we were shoved down a narrow stone corridor, through one clanking portcullis and then another, iron keys squealing in rusty locks. The passage opened into a wide rectangular chamber dimly lit by flickering torches. It stank of smoke and human waste, overlaying damp stone and the cold tang of fear. Moisture beaded the stone walls, trickling slowly downwards like tears.

We clanked to a halt, the rattle of our chains echoing into silence. Somewhere close by, something squealed and scrabbled away.

Along one long wall a rusty railing of iron bars stretched from the floor to the low stone ceiling, which pressed down on us … we were deep in the belly of the mountain. Beyond the bars, the narrow space was divided into smaller chambers — cells.

All of them were empty. If Hob was right — if Kai and Hannah had been brought here — they weren't here now. I closed my mind to what that must mean.

A key shrieked in a lock; a barred door creaked open. The guard carrying Richard's limp body shouldered his way in and dropped him on the floor, his head connecting with the stone with a crack that made me wince. The girls hurried after the guard, flinching away and keeping their faces down. Jamie sidled through the door and backed against the wall, his chin quivering. I stepped in after him. The door clanged shut; the key turned.