Seven Sorcerers (13 page)

He chuckled. This whole chasing his target across the Drift thing was turning out to be quite an entertainment!

Watching Right Madam bewitched into risking her neck for the amulet had given him some nervous moments, though. After all, she’d be no use to Mr Strood in pieces. But sorcerer magic liked to belong to the kind of person who wanted something badly and Right Madam had got the amulet’s attention all right! As it was, the kid probably thought
she
had found
it
instead of the other way around. The Quick just didn’t appreciate the nature of spells.

Skerridge yawned, stretched and settled down again, but sleep was a long time in coming and he lay awake for hours, watching the stars grow brighter and a half-moon rise slowly in the sky.

Pictures paraded through his head, old Thunderfoot in his last days as the plague devoured him, his eyes haunted by the knowledge that he would soon die and, with him, his entire species. The city of Beorht Eardgeard just before it fell to the Raw, its streets layered with dead and the great Hall of Galig towering against a sky the colour of old iron, the lights in its spires finally extinguished.

And even when he finally dropped off, Skerridge only dozed fitfully, his dreams laced with images of the Final Gathering, when the Seven Sorcerers had come together
to weave a spell big enough to cheat death. Skerridge had been there, had seen it all and it was an event that was bound to live on in the nightmares of every witness. An event that had marked the last chapter in the story of Celidon and the first beginnings of the Drift.

Because soon after the Final Gathering, the Sorcerers had gone forever, Mr Strood had taken over and, for the BMs at least, everything changed.

kerridge snuffled irritably. It was early morning and the mudman was standing, propped up against old Scardoom’s rib, staring at him.

Skerridge stared back.

Fabulous couldn’t make mudmen, it took a spark of Quick life to do that, but Skerridge knew all about them. And what he knew was that they were not insolent things that stared back at you. He didn’t know what Right Madam had done to it, but the thing was getting on his nerves. It was an unknown quantity and it made him feel uncertain. Skerridge didn’t like uncertain.

Through the gaping hole left in the woodland, a tinge of gold was burning a line across the horizon, and the air buzzed with the electric feel of raw magic. The tinge grew to a flicker as flames licked the rim of the Drift. Then the sky ignited.

Skerridge turned his gaze to watch. As much as he hated the sun he had to admit (grudgingly) that its rise over the Drift was dramatic. Raging across the heavens from the east horizon to the west, the boiling flames lit
Scardoom’s broken ribs to pillars of gold.

Unknown Quantity tilted its head back, now staring at the sky instead of Skerridge. It was an improvement.

Curled up among the giant’s remains, Obstacle and Right Madam stirred, awakened by the dawn. Right Madam had slept badly, Skerridge knew, her night filled with dreams of pursuit by something that never gave up, never grew tired and never forgot. But then, if any Quick was stupid enough to go messing with the Gabriel Hounds, let alone Ava Vispilio, they weren’t going to get any sympathy from Skerridge.

When the sun was finally up, Obstacle got to his feet and stretched.

‘Come on, Ninevah Redstone,’ he said, and another day began.

Jonas, helped by Jik and Nin, spent ages raking over the forest floor looking for Vispilio’s ring, but in the end he had to give up. It was lost somewhere amid the chaos of leaves, ferns and shrubs. Hopefully it would stay that way. But he did find Boneman’s pack hidden behind a clump of trees, and while they ate their breakfast of cold roast rabbit he went through it looking for anything useful. His best find was a net, woven from the same stalks as the rope that had killed Dandy Boneman.

‘Fantastic! A crowsmorte web. That’s the flower, see,’ he added, nodding at the purple patch of ex-Dandy. ‘Crowsmorte. Named after the sorcerer who made it,
Morgan Crow. The web will hide us from the Hounds.’

Jik ikked doubtfully and Nin raised an eyebrow.

‘Just so long as it won’t turn us into flower beds!’

There was something for Nin too. A small rucksack. Pink. With a fairy embroidered on the side. She stared gloomily at the fairy. Once she wouldn’t have been caught dead with it, but she needed something to carry stuff in and the world of choosing what to own had long gone. The pack had probably belonged to the last kid Boneman used to gain the trust of innocent people and Nin just hoped that whoever she was her fate hadn’t been too nasty.

Peering suspiciously inside she found a pink hairband, a small bottle of clear liquid and a yellowish candle with flecks of purple in it. According to Jonas, the liquid was bee venom, a good painkiller, and the candle was mixed with crowsmorte to bring peace of mind. She added Monkey and her PJs to the contents and they were ready to go.

They left the ruins of the giant’s rib behind and were quickly out of the wood and into the hills and open fields beyond. The morning sun was warm and the air fresh, blowing from a sky of clouds like skeletal horses with manes and tails that flew behind them in threads of twisted white. And on the skyline ahead was a familiar cloudy wall.

‘I thought we’d left that behind?’

‘We did, this is more. There are patches of Raw everywhere, remember. And if you think that’s big just wait
till you see the Heart!’

At around midday, they saw the only other person, apart from Dandy Boneman, that they had met on their journey so far. He came striding towards them, clutching a sack that hung over one shoulder.

‘Just keep walking,’ said Jonas in a low voice. ‘No reason to suppose he’s gonna be trouble.’

As the man went by, he nodded at them in a friendly way, so Nin risked a quick glance up. Her first impression was of a brown man with a heavily lined face. Then, with a flip-flop of her stomach, she saw that his eyes were red and that the hands clutching the sack were oddly hairy, with thick fingers and sharp claw-like nails. He caught her glance and grinned, showing the pointed teeth of a wild animal. She whipped her head around, eyes dead ahead, and bunched up against Jonas. Jik scuttled closer, bumping into the back of her legs.

‘Grimm,’ said Jonas, when the man was a reasonable distance behind them.

‘Yeah, it was a bit unnerving.’

Jonas laughed. ‘No, I mean he was one of the Grimm. Half Fabulous, half Quick. It happens, but only with those Fabulous that are born the same way as Quick. You’ll always know them by their eyes, even the ones that look quite human otherwise.’

In the afternoon they found the river again, though it was too far away for them to hear it whispering. Now, their path ran along higher ground and the water stayed in view below them for the rest of the day. There was no
sign of the storm, and Nin began to hope that maybe the Hounds had forgotten about Jonas after all.

Although they stopped for a break once or twice, it was never for long and as the day began to fade they reached the next stage of their journey.

o, that’s the Savage Forest, is it?’ asked Nin nervously.

They were standing on the crest of the hill, looking down at a swathe of woodland that cut across the landscape. To the left, it ended in the banks of the river they had been following all afternoon, here grown larger and more rapid. To the right, dark trees marched on to the horizon. Nin shivered, as if she could feel its shadow closing about her already.

‘It’s huge! I mean, even if we’re just going across it the thin way, it’s still huge.’

‘For tonight, we’ll camp at the bottom of the hill. Tomorrow, we’ll have an easy morning hanging about here, plus I’ll catch a rabbit or two. Then we’ll head into the Forest after lunch in nice time to get to the oak for night fall.’

‘So it’s too late to start now?’

‘Far too late. It’s nearly sunset and Sturdy’s Oak is at least three hours’ walk into the wood. You can’t cross the Savage Forest comfortably in one day. It’s best to do
it in two parts, spending the night at the Oak.’

‘And we’ll be safe there will we?’

‘Uh-huh. The Oak is a protected place. It’s magic,’ he added, seeing the question on her face, ‘you’ll find out when we get there. Next morning, we start off early and it’s about four or five hours’ walk out of the Forest. We’ll keep going until we reach the Quickmare into the Widdern, then we catch a train, and then back to the Drift on the other side of the Heart. After that, we’re on the last stretch to the House. Got that?’

‘Yep.’

‘Got a plan yet?’

‘Same one I always had. Trust to luck.’

Jonas laughed and glanced at the sky where the sun was beginning to sink in earnest, its molten light dusting the shadowy woods with gold. They stood, taking a moment to watch. Sunset in the Drift wasn’t the inferno of sunrise, but it had a strange, liquid beauty. Jik shuffled at Nin’s side and she glanced down at him. The glow in the sky made the fiery points of his eyes look brighter.

‘Nice, isn’t it? Like …’ she smiled, ‘like the sun is drowning in its own light. Anyway, I won’t be sorry to wait until tomorrow, I’m pretty tired as it is. Are you OK, Jik? What are you staring at?’

The mudman had turned around and was looking back the way they had come, away from the setting sun and towards the darker horizon. Nin followed his gaze. There was something odd about the skyline. It was wavering in the way that air wavers in the heat. Ripples
ran through the deep turquoise, like a fine veil floating on the edge of twilight. As she watched, the ripple effect changed direction and began flowing towards them.

‘Hey, Jonas,’ she said, ‘there’s a funny kind of see-through cloud thing.’

Jonas went white. ‘It can’t be! It’s too early, they come out as the sun starts to go down, so they can’t have had time to find us yet!’ He stared at the sky for a moment and groaned. ‘It is. Oh hell, we must be close to a nest.’

Nin could see the thoughts flicking through his head, reflecting like shadows in his grey eyes. He came to a decision.

‘Too late for the crowsmorte net, they’re headed this way, they’ve probably got our scent already. So, no choice. Night-time or not, we’ll head into the Forest and hope for the best. Maybe we’ll lose them in there.’

‘It’s not the Hounds …’ Nin looked bewildered

‘Tombfolk,’ said Jonas grimly.

Nin threw a glance at the horizon. The tombfolk were moving fast, drawing a soft veil over the sky as they flew through the dusk, the evening light shining through their bodies. They looked so beautiful that she almost wanted to stay and watch.

Instead, she followed Jonas, rattling down the hill, her rucksack bouncing on her back and her hair flapping about her eyes as she leapt over tussocks and prayed that neither of them fell. And then they were at the foot of the hill and the Savage Forest lay before them, a great wedge of darkness with a pale ribbon of track leading
into the shadows. They hurtled down it, plunging into the wood, the tall trees closing around them.