PathFinder (24 page)

“Oskie,
eat
,” Ferdie instructed. “We have to keep strong.”

They had lapsed into silence, picking at the raisins, when Ferdie said, “I wonder what Tod is doing right now?”

“Who cares?” Oskar said crossly. He picked up a small stone and hurled it into the stream. “But you can bet she won’t be thinking about us, that’s for sure.”

But right then, thinking about Ferdie and Oskar was precisely what Tod was doing. She was in a stuffy conference room in the Wizard Tower, listening to long and complex discussions about Ancient Ways. The meeting was slow, technical and full of words she did not understand. Tod gazed out of the hazy, purple window and longed to be outside in the sun. She ached for the smell of the sea and the feel of sand beneath her bare feet once again. And she wanted to see Ferdie and Oskar so much that it hurt. As the meeting droned on and the hands on the clock hardly seemed to move, Tod made a decision. She would go to see Nicko and Snorri on the
Adventurer
as soon as she could. And then she would beg them to take her home. She could not bear being parted from Ferdie and Oskar a moment longer.

“Argh!” A sudden yell from Ferdie put an end to Oskar’s angry thoughts. She leaped to her feet, kicking out at the dead leaves, shouting, “Get off!
Get off
!”

Ferdie hopped around clutching her ankle, and Oskar caught sight of a small and very furry rodent scurrying for cover. “It’s a wood vole!” he exclaimed. “Oh, wow, I’ve never seen one before. Wasn’t it sweet?”

“Sweet? It bit me!” Ferdie said, rubbing her ankle. “You have a funny idea of
sweet
, Oskar Sarn.”

Ten minutes later, having put both wood voles and Tod firmly out of their thoughts, Ferdie and Oskar set off from the clearing and took the path that the PathFinder villagers had been driven along. They were now in new territory. Soon they noticed that the trees were getting closer together and the light was growing dimmer; by midday the air felt cold. They pressed on through the afternoon, following the trail.

“It’s such a long way,” said Ferdie. “Torr must have been so tired. So scared …”

Oskar didn’t reply. He didn’t want to think about it.

The Far was getting very dense now and Oskar could tell that people had been split up into smaller groups in order to move through the trees. He imagined the Lady with her lamp striding up ahead, the terrified villagers staggering after her, herded by the Garmin, their yellow eyes flashing in the dark. Maybe some people had tried to make a break for it. Maybe a few villagers had got free and were now wandering, adrift in the depths of the Far. Maybe little Torr was one of them and now he was lost and alone and … Oskar shook the thoughts away. He must concentrate. He must follow the trail.

By late afternoon Ferdie and Oskar were very tired. The light was so dim that Oskar was using a light stick to follow the tracks. The trees felt oppressive and uncomfortably close, as though they were leaning over and watching them, and as Oskar and Ferdie pressed on, they began to hear strange howls and whoops from creatures that sounded a lot larger than wood voles.

“Oskie, we’d better stop before it gets really dark,” Ferdie said in a half-whisper.

They had planned, if they were still in the Far by sundown, to spend the night up a tree. Oskar had prepared for this. He’d brought a weighted rope to throw over a branch and get them up a tree, a hammock for them to share, plus a thick blanket. But what Oskar hadn’t prepared for were the sounds of large creatures moving through the treetops. A sudden
crack
, then the crash of something heavy falling through the trees made them both freeze.

“What was
that
?” whispered Ferdie.

“Big,” said Oskar. He stared up, trying to see into the dark green canopy above, but all he could see was a swaying branch and a drift of leaves falling to the ground. The trees no longer felt so safe.

“Perhaps we should keep going,” said Ferdie.

“Yeah,” said Oskar. “Perhaps we should.”

The trail had the look of chaos about it now. It wound drunkenly through the trees and Oskar could see places where people had sat down, where they had stumbled and signs of a struggle where it looked like someone had put up a fight. He wondered what had happened to them. Some ten minutes later, Oskar stopped. “I can’t see the trail any more, Ferd. It’s too dark.”

Ferdie did not reply.

“Ferd?” asked Oskar.

Ferdie was staring intently ahead. “Shh,” she hissed.

“What?”
whispered Oskar.

“Look, Oskie.” Ferdie pointed through the trees. “Lights. I can see lights up ahead.”

Oskar waited a few seconds to allow his eyes to adjust from the glow of the light stick, and then looked. He saw them too: small white lights in the distance, unmoving, forming a regular pattern, with the occasional flash of a small, very bright, red light, which
did
move.

“I think it’s some kind of building,” Ferdie whispered.

“Yeah,” said Oskar. “It’s
massive
.”

Ferdie looked at Oskar excitedly, her skin and long red hair shimmering in the dark, her eyes shining with excitement. “That’s where they are, Oskie. I’m sure of it.
That’s where they are!
”

“But I can’t see the trail, Ferd,” said Oskar. “We don’t know for sure.”

“
I
know for sure,” Ferdie declared. “Come on, Oskie, we’re going to find them!”

The Far Fortress

Oskar led the way
. “Try to tread and move
exactly
as I do,” he whispered to Ferdie. “Then no one will see us coming. OK?”

They put on their night gloves and pulled up their hoods, then Oskar moved forward, as silently and sinuously as a snake. Ferdie followed, not quite as silently but doing the best she could. The lights grew closer and very soon they reached the last of the trees. In front of them was an open patch of grass, in the middle of which squatted a short, round tower topped with battlements from which a brilliant red pinpoint of light could be seen moving slowly along. The tower stood out dark against a bright background of floodlights shining down from the battlements, illuminating the clearing in which it sat. Below the battlements was a single line of brightly lit slit windows. On either side of the tower stretching out like pale arms were two single-storey stone buildings with no visible windows at all.

“It’s like a fortress,” Oskar whispered.

“It’s horrible,” said Ferdie.

“There are guards,” Oskar whispered. “Look. On the battle­ments.” He pointed to a figure, tall and bristling with spikes, holding a long lance that sent a needle-thin beam of red light up into the sky.

“We have to get in there, Oskie.” Ferdie sounded desperate. “They are there, I can feel it.”

Oskar frowned. “How can you possibly
feel
that, Ferd? You can wish they were there. You can think that it’s very likely they are there, but you can’t
feel
that they are there.”

Ferdie returned Oskar’s frown with an added scowl. “Well, I can.
So there.
”

“Huh,” muttered Oskar, unimpressed. Ferdie stood up. “They’ll see you. Sit
down
,” Oskar hissed.

“No,” Ferdie told him crossly. She stared intently across the open ground to the long, low arm of the fortress that stretched towards them. “Oskie,” she said excitedly. “I can see a door at the end. That’s where we can get in!”

Oskar cast a knowledgeable eye across the open space. The wide, undulating patch of turf was lit by floodlights on the top of the towers and was frighteningly exposed. But Oskar could see that the lights were not well aligned and there were some deep shadows between the beams. The dips in the ground could, he thought, also lend cover. But it was a huge risk and Oskar didn’t give much for their chances of getting across unobserved. “Ferd,” he said, “you’re crazy. Suppose the trail doesn’t stop here? Maybe it carries on through the Far – and what happens then? We get into this place, they catch us and that’s it. We’ll never find Mum and Dad and Torr, will we?”

“Don’t be silly, Oskie,” said Ferdie. “Mum and Dad and Torr are in there. Everyone from the village is in there. I
told
you. I can
feel
it.”

Oskar was struggling to keep his temper. “Look, Ferd,” he said. “
Feeling
is no more than wishful thinking. But we will know for sure tomorrow as soon as it gets light and I can see the trail.”

“And then it will be light enough for those guards up there to see us, won’t it? And a fat lot of use that will be.”

Oskar and Ferdie were dangerously close to having a serious row. Oskar did what he usually did at that point: he stopped talking. Ferdie also did what she usually did: she pushed things too far.

“Oskar Sarn, you are a
wuss
,” she hissed.

“And you are an
idiot
. Hey, Ferd.
Come back
.” But Ferdie was up and running. Horrified, Oskar watched her heading towards the fortress, zigzagging through the shadows like a rabbit escaping a fox. Oskar broke cover. Dodging into the shadows, he raced across the exposed turf, following Ferdie’s dark shape.

Craaaack!

A shot from the tower echoed across the clearing. A flock of large birds fluttered up from the trees and a warning
whoop-whoop
came from a creature somewhere deep in the Far. Ferdie threw herself into a dip in the ground and in a moment Oskar had landed beside her feet.

Craaack!
Craaack!

There was a crashing through the branches, the thud of a heavy body falling from a tree and then a triumphant boom of a voice from the top of the tower. “Got ’im!”

“They’ve shot something,” Ferdie whispered, a little unnecessarily.

The booming voice continued. “Go and pick ’im up, pie-face. There’s some good meat on that one.”

“You shot him; you pick him up,” was the response.

There was a loud thump from the battlements and then, “Ouch! That hurt!”

“Good. So do as yer told.”

“All right, all right. I’m going.”

There was silence while, Oskar and Ferdie guessed, one of the guards was coming down from his post.

“Hurry,” whispered Oskar. “Before he gets down here.”

Crawling like snakes, they made their way across the grass as fast and efficient as any python. At the precise moment the thud of boots hit what sounded like hollow ground, they reached the door safely. Crouching in the shadows, they watched the guard tramp off towards the trees where so recently they had been hiding.

“See?” whispered Ferdie. “It’s a good thing we didn’t stay there.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Oskar, still annoyed.

“Can you open it?” Ferdie pointed up at the door.

Close up it looked formidable – a thick slab of iron peppered with rivets – but Oskar knew that the metal of the door would make it easy to listen to the telltale click of levers inside the lock.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “I think I can.” Oskar pushed up the rusty plate covering the lock to reveal a small keyhole. He selected a large pin with a bend in it from his lock-pick kit and set to work, while Ferdie kept watch.

Suddenly from the trees there was a yell. “Hey!”

Oskar froze –
they’d been seen
.

“Hey you, fatso!” the yell continued. “Yes, you up there. If you want tree-leopard steak tonight, you can come down and give me a hand. I’m not doing my back in, thank you very much.”

From the top of the tower came a very rude word.

Oskar put his ear to the door once more. He gave the pick a sharp twist and as the second set of heavy boots hit the ground, he felt the lock move. As the guard’s heavy footsteps headed towards them, Oskar pushed against the door. It moved silently open and in a moment they were inside the fortress.

They knew at once that they were in a cellblock. A wide, straight corridor lit by a line of white, hissing lanterns hanging from the ceiling ran to another iron door at the far, misty end. On both sides of the corridor were cell doors with tiny barred windows set in them at eye level.

“They were in those cells,” Ferdie whispered.

“But they’re not there now,” said Oskar.

Ferdie concentrated hard. “No. But they are here somewhere.”

“OK. We’ll keep looking.” The sight of the cells had shocked Oskar. He was beginning to take Ferdie seriously.

They moved stealthily along the passageway. Oskar checked a few cells, but he saw nothing but bare sleeping shelves. At the iron door at the far end of the corridor he carefully pushed the plate covering the lock to one side. Something moved – it was the door. “It’s open!” he whispered.

They slipped through the gap and walked straight into something pink and squashy.

My Lady's Chamber