Tripwire
It didn’t need a miracle. It needed, it turned out, Anya Argen.
Anya had been watching from among the trees in the run up to the finish line, the fingers of both hands crossed and gripped between her teeth.
She had watched in mounting rage the behaviour of the karkadann and kludde.
But she had pushed the fury down: there was nobody here she could fight with her swords or fists. It would need another kind of fight.
‘If they play dirty,’ said the former Princess of Dousha, ‘then we play dirty.’
She moved faster than breathing. From her pocket she snatched the long, thin skein of joro spider thread taken from Great Caruta: strong as iron, light as air.
One end she gave to Jacques. The dragon flew to the far side of the road and looped it around a tree, round and round.
Anya tied her end around a tree on her side, fast, fumbling, scowling.
The karkadann met the tripwire at full tilt. It went head over heels, its horn impaled in the soft turf. Christopher saw it; he saw too the telltale faintest glow of the thread – and at the last moment, he pulled the reins back and cried out, ‘Jump! Cervusia, jump!’
The hind cleared the unseen tripwire, stumbled, righted herself, and ran.
Now the road was clear, and the sky was bright, and Christopher and Cervusia charged towards the bridge. His vision blurred, and an animal clarity drenched him. They were together: they were miraculous, a melding of human and creature, a stroke of living magic.
The karkadann had thrashed to its feet and it was gaining, whinnying in rage, but he kept low to Cervusia’s back, and now they were flashing towards the finish line.
The crowd was raucous. As the two of them charged past, they threw things – roses, stones – but none touched them, and they galloped across the finish line inches ahead of the karkadann.
There was a fanfare, and screaming in joy and fury and crowds running towards him, a committee bearing a sack of gold and the apple on a velvet pillow. He saw Anya take the apple and hold it aloft, and Cervusia’s owners snatch at the gold.
He ignored them all. He leaped down from the hind, and pressed his head against her long, exquisite face. He unhooked the reins. She was burned and bitten, but her eyes were radiant.
‘Go,’ Christopher told her. He thought of the Cerberus, which had so longed to be free. He had failed there. He would not fail again.
He turned the hind so that her face pointed back the way they had come, back over the bridge at the open spaces beyond. ‘While they’re all too busy to stop you. Run!’
The hind pressed her wild face to his. She breathed on him.
For one moment, his mind blazed with pure golden light.
And then she was gone. The connection snapped, and the dizziness rose up in him again.
Anya, watching like a hawk, was suddenly at his side.
She slung her arm around him and caught him as his legs gave way.
‘Sit,’ she ordered.
‘That,’ said Jacques, ‘was superb. I had bet three dragon scales with the man over there on whether you would die. I have to pay him, but then I’ll be ready to go.’
They reached the boat triumphant, the apple in Christopher’s hand. There was a note already waiting for them, in the distinctive folded parchment.
‘How did they get here so quickly?’ Christopher turned to the boy by the boats. ‘Did you see who left this? Was it a bird – a stymphalian?’
The boy shook his head. ‘Not my job, is it? I’m not your secretary.’
‘We paid you to watch the boat!’ said Anya, but the boy only shrugged.
‘I don’t remember you paying me.’
Christopher unfolded the note.
You won the apple. Put it in the prow, and it will be collected in the night.
Irian Guinne will be released. But not to you.
She waits on the Island of Paraspara, in the northern cove.
Fidens Nighthand must come for her.
If he does not come, alone and unarmed, Irian Guinne’s body will be thrown into the sea.