Stormchaser (21 page)

All round him, the air crackled and hummed. Something was happening. Something new; something bizarre. The lightning which, up until that moment, had been confined to the surrounding wall of cloud, suddenly began darting forwards to the centre of the storm in long, wispy threads. They danced and spiralled and began weaving themselves together in a ball of electric light.

Twig gazed in wonder. ‘This is it,’ he whispered excitedly. ‘The Great Storm must be about to discharge its single mighty lightning bolt.’ His hair stood on end; his head thrilled with anticipation. ‘This is what it has all been building up to. This is what we came to see – the creation of stormphrax.’

The ball of light grew larger and larger, and larger still. Twig winced. He couldn’t tear his eyes away – yet neither could he look without blinking. And when he did blink, he noticed something small and dark at the centre of the pinky-green afterglow.

‘The
Stormchaser
,’ he gasped.

He blinked again. There was no doubt. The sky ship was in the middle of the lightning ball which was, itself, in the middle of the Great Storm. And there at the very centre of it all, was his father, Cloud Wolf: Quintinius Verginix – the finest scholar ever to have passed out from the Knights’ Academy – still valiantly holding his beloved
Stormchaser
on course. Twig's heart swelled with pride.

The humming noise grew louder and higher. The light grew more intense. The charged air itself seemed to tremble with foreboding.

What was going to happen?

Behind him, Twig felt sudden turbulence that heralded the rear of the Great Storm. It buffeted at his back and set him dipping and diving. His parawings creaked and strained, and Twig could do nothing but hold on and pray that they would not be torn from his shoulders.

Above him, the dazzling streaks of lightning were gradually fading as the electrical force was drained from the clouds. Twig's hair abruptly lay flat. All the energy of the storm was now encapsulated in that single ball of lightning. It hovered in mid-air, throbbing with energy, pulsing with light, roaring with life.

Twig held his breath as he continued to glide slowly downwards. His heart was pounding, his palms were wet. ‘Sky protect me,’ he murmured anxiously.

Then, all at once and without any warning at all –
BOOM!!! – the lightning ball exploded with an almighty crash and a flash of blinding light.

Shock waves rippled outwards across the sky. Twig quaked with terror. The next instant he was thrown backwards by the ferocious blast, and tossed into the oncoming bank of cloud.

‘Aaaaggh!’ he screamed, as the roaring, swirling wind tossed him around. He kicked out desperately and tried to flap his arms – but in vain. The wind was too powerful. It was trying – or so it seemed to Twig – to rip him limb from limb. All he could do was abandon himself to the overwhelming force of the turbulent air.

Over and over he tumbled. The silken pockets of the parawings were blown inside out, and he cried out in alarm as he found himself spinning round and down
through the rolling purple clouds.

‘
NOOO
!’ he screamed.

Further and further he dropped, arms limp and legs akimbo, too frightened to try realigning the parawings in case the wind caught them awkwardly and snapped them in half. His neck was twisted. His back was bent double.

‘No more!’ Twig whimpered. ‘Let it be over.’

And, at that moment, it
was
over. Finally reaching the back of the cloud, Twig was spat out of the wild and thrashing frenzy of the Great Storm like a woodsap pip. In all, the entire terrifying ordeal couldn’t have lasted for more than a few seconds. To Twig, it might have been a hundred years.

‘Thank Sky,’ he whispered gratefully.

An eerie stillness fell. It was as if the very air had been exhausted by the passing maelstrom. Twig shifted round and, as his parawings righted themselves once more, he continued his slow gliding descent. Ahead of him, he saw the Great Storm retreating. It slipped across the clear blue sky, beautiful and majestic, and glowing like a massive purple paper-lantern.

‘Is that it?’ Twig murmured. ‘Have I missed the bolt of stormphrax itself?’

He hung his head in disappointment and was looking down at the Twilight Woods when all at once he heard another noise. It sounded like paper tearing, like hands clapping. Twig raised his head sharply and stared ahead. Protruding from the base of the purple storm was a point of brightness.

‘Here it is!’ he exclaimed. ‘The bolt of lightning. The stormphrax itself!’

Longer and longer the jagged shaft grew, yet impossibly slowly – as if the clouds themselves were holding it back. Twig was starting to wonder whether it would ever be released when, all of a sudden, a resounding
CRACK
! echoed through the air. The bolt of lightning had broken free.

Like an arrow, it sped down through the sky, scorching the air as it passed. It crackled. It sparked. It wailed and whistled. A smell like toasted almonds filled Twig's nostrils, setting them quivering.

‘It's … it's wonderful,’ he sighed.

Down, down the lightning bolt hurtled.
Zigger-zagger, zigger-zagger
. Through the upper canopy of leaves – hissing and splintering as it passed – and on to the ground below. Then, with a crackle, a thud and a cloud of steam, it plunged into the soft earth. Twig stared at the shaft of lightning standing tall amongst the trees below him, and trembled with awe and wonder.

‘Stormphrax,’ he whispered. ‘And
I
saw it being formed.’

The Great Storm was by now nothing more than a distant blur of purple, low on the horizon and speeding out of sight. Now it was gone, Twig could hardly recall what it had been like trapped inside, tossed and thrown by the violent winds.

The air was sluggish, moist, heavy. It clung like damp cloth.

For
Twig, still so high up, this was not good.

With a little breeze behind them, the parawings were wonderfully manoeuvrable. When the air was as still as it now was, however, parawinging was perilous. Steering was quite impossible. It took every ounce of skill to ensure that the silken wing-pockets remained filled with air. One awkward movement, and the wings would collapse and he would plummet to the ground below.

‘It's like sailing a sky ship,’ he recalled his father once saying. ‘You have to maintain an even keel at all times.’

‘Father!’ he gasped. How could he have forgotten? he asked himself guiltily. Surely the
Stormchaser
could never have survived so great a blast. ‘And yet, perhaps…’ he murmured, hoping against hope. ‘After all, I saw no sign of wreckage, no falling debris…’

Lower and lower Twig drifted; closer and closer came the stormphrax. Unable to dive down, he’d hoped that good fortune might bring him in to land near the precious substance. But it was not to be. Twig was still high up in the sky when he glided over the glistening bolt of solid lightning. He sighed with disappointment as it slipped back between his feet and disappeared behind him.

Too frightened to swoop, or even to look, round, Twig could do nothing but hang on, hold tight and remain as still as he possibly could. The patchwork of treetops, drenched in golden half-light, was coming nearer with every passing second. Sooner or later, he would have to land. He fingered the various talismans and amulets around his neck.

‘Into the Twilight Woods,’ he whispered, scarcely daring to guess what he might find there.

The further he descended, the more sluggish the air became. It grew warmer, heavier – almost suffocating. Droplets of water sparkled from every inch of his body. Faster and faster he dropped. The parawings fluttered ominously. Suddenly, and to his horror, Twig realized that he was no longer gliding at all … He was falling.

‘No,’ he cried out. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not after everything he’d been through. ‘
NO
!’

His voice echoed forlornly as down, down, down, he went. Tumbling round in the golden light. Crashing through the upper canopy. Bouncing against the branches and …
THUD
!

He landed heavily, awkwardly, and cracked the side of his head against the roots of a tree. The soft twilight glow instantly went out. Twig found himself in absolute darkness.

How long he remained unconscious, Twig never discovered. Time has no meaning in the Twilight Woods.

‘Hold steady,’ he heard. ‘Nearly there.’

Twig opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground beside a tall, angular tree, gnarled with age. He looked round, and everything seemed to swim before him. Rubbing his eyes made no difference. It was the air itself – thick and treacly – that was distorting his vision.

He climbed groggily to his feet, and gasped. There in front of him was a knight on a prowlgrin charger, caught up in a tangle of leather harness straps, dangling a few feet from the forest floor.

Twig's eyes travelled from the rusting figure, up the snarl of twisted ropes, to the great skeletal hulk of a wrecked sky ship, speared on a jagged treetop. Ancient winding gear poked out from the ship's side like an angry metal fist. The knight swayed in the torpid air.

‘Wh … who are you?’ asked Twig tentatively.