Snake on Fire
Christopher approached the snake, tethered in its coils of cloth and rope. Anya stood close beside him, Ratwin at her feet, Jacques hovering above.
‘Ready,’ she said.
He hooked the point of his sword under the knot in the rope and jerked it upwards. The rope fell away and the cloth writhed as the snake’s head surged into the light.
‘Now!’ cried Anya.
All four scattered in separate directions. Christopher sprinted left, Anya right, Ratwin galloped straight ahead and Jacques flew towards the wall. Weaving in between trees, ducking branches, Christopher risked a look backwards.
The snake slid at a monstrous rate over the grass. For a terrible moment Christopher thought it was chasing him, but as he watched it hurled itself at a tree in the north corner of the garden. Hissing furiously, spitting, it curled itself round and round the trunk.
‘Attack!’ called Anya.
Christopher, Anya, Ratwin and Jacques converged on the tree and began to run around it in a wide circle, keeping far enough apart that the snake could never see all four at once.
‘Keep going!’ shouted Anya. ‘Faster!’
As Christopher passed in front of the snake he hurled an apple. He still expected it to launch itself at him, but its mouth opened and it swallowed the apple whole. It was a red one, the Appsolutus. The snake seemed to relish it; it gaped its mouth for more.
They darted around the tree, never ceasing to move, causing the snake to twist and writhe and blink and hiss. Anya threw an apple, then Jacques hurled one from his claws. Christopher pulled a feu apple from his pocket.
This was Anya’s plan. They were wagering everything that the snake wouldn’t realise until too late.
Anya twisted to look at him, her eyes bright. ‘Ready?’
But in the split-second moment she turned her back, the snake took its chance. Its head struck out and its teeth sank into the back of her hand.
Anya screamed, a long high note of pain. She fell to her knees. Her voice was suddenly choked as she called out to Christopher, who had frozen in place: ‘Throw it! Now!’
Christopher hurled the apple. The snake caught it and swallowed it whole. There was a beat, in which its eyes opened in shock.
Then the snake exploded into flames.
It burned hard and furious, and instantly the trunk of the tree caught fire. The blaze went roaring up the branches, consuming the leaves.
‘Get the apples!’ Anya said. Foam was coming from her mouth. Her eyes rolled backwards, and she slumped over.
‘Anya!’
The whole world crashed down. Christopher ran to her and dragged her away from the burning tree. He shook her, slapped her.
‘Anya! Wake up!’ He would not live in a world in which she did not exist. ‘Jacques! Ratwin! Help me save her!’
‘Finds an antidotes!’ said Ratwin.
‘There must be an apple here that can help!’ said Jacques.
‘Of course! Look for a viburn tree!’ Argus had said the viburn tree was an anti-venom. It had to be here – every apple in Glimouria was here – but where? ‘You remember: the apples are tiny and they smell of antiseptic!’
Jacques darted overhead, zigzagging desperately through the orchard. Then he cried out, ‘Here! Christopher!’
Jacques tore at the branch with his tiny jaws. Ratwin came skittering up the tree alongside, and together they shook the branch until dozens of apples rained down on Christopher. He snatched one and ran back to Anya’s side.
Her eyes were closed and her lips were blue. He chewed the apple, as he had seen her do for Koo. He took her face in his hands and forced the pulp between her teeth.
‘It’s pretty disgusting,’ he said, trying to keep his voice light. ‘Your dad did warn us.’ He held her upright and spoke to her as he had to the unicorn foal, a whole world ago. ‘That’s good. You just keep breathing.’
She suddenly began to shake, to vibrate and convulse.
‘No!’ He knelt over her, his eyes fixed on her face. ‘Please, Anya.’ He put his mouth on hers and tried to force breath into her lungs.
She took a sudden heaving gasp. ‘The apple!’ she croaked. ‘Get the golden apple!’
He turned, and his heart gave a terrible lurch. The tree was a fireball.
‘Go, Christopher!’
He ran to it, but six feet away he had to halt: it was a furnace, like trying to touch the sun.
‘No,’ said Anya. ‘No, no.’ She struggled to her feet. Together they stared.
It took some time for the fire to burn down. The trunk was a charred stump. All that was left of the apples was a puddle of molten gold singeing the grass.
Christopher dropped down to search feverishly, hands sweeping half blindly at the ground, but there was nothing to find: every apple had been destroyed.
‘We failed,’ said Jacques. His voice was small and harsh.
Anya put her head in her hands and cried out, a cry so passionate that it shook the air between them. ‘Irian,’ she said.
It was Ratwin who led them back to the boat. It was Ratwin whose small voice guided them through the dusk and up the gangplank, murmuring, coaxing. ‘We wills find a way. Just get backs to the ship.’
On the boat a note awaited them, weighted with a stone.
Christopher bent to read it. He couldn’t hold it still; the paper shook in his hand.
You failed. Now Irian Guinne dies.