The Battle of Glimt
The fendthorn’s flowers lifted and fell in the breeze as the bandits’ boat came storming towards the dock.
Christopher watched from a window inside the Great Hall, a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes.
Darius leaned out over the boat’s sleek prow and scattered a golden-brown powder on the fendthorn’s red petals. Instantly the flowers blackened. The bandits roared in triumph as the air filled with a terrible scent of rot. The thorns turned to ash and the plants disintegrated.
Darius Alkov, captain of the Astorians, nodded. He barked, ‘We’re in! Haul left!’ He guided the boat past the black ashes of the defence, coming to rest next to the Neverfear. The phoenix gave a scream, sweeping around their heads.
Christopher watched the figures, all masked, all armed, step on to the island. He counted them under his breath: seven men, three women. Each, he saw, had a snake wrapped around the wrist, its tail in its mouth. They were laughing and joking as they stepped ashore. They expected it to be easy.
Christopher felt fury and disgust rise in him. They would regret this, he thought. He would make sure they would regret it more than any choice they had ever made.
Darius turned back to the boat and saluted.
Christopher realised suddenly that the eleventh figure had remained on board the ship.
He wore fine clothing, and his tongue flickered over his lips.
There was something strange about that tongue, though Christopher was not close enough to see what.
As he watched, the man and the ship began to sail away.
Christopher turned to the roc, perched next to him by the window. He stroked the feathered head. ‘Are you ready, Toro?’ he whispered. ‘Now!’
A roc can grow large enough to carry off an elephant. Toro was still a baby, and had never yet flown any distance, but from the depths of his bird soul he longed to do what Christopher asked of him.
‘What’s that noise?’ said Darius, halting on the dock.
It was the sound of vengeance. Ten faces looked upwards: ten voices bellowed out.
Instinct pulled them to the ground, ducking low as the roc swooped.
Toro’s talons closed around the waist of a man in armour and lifted him from the ground.
The man swung at the roc with his sword, but Toro gave a shake, a wiggle in mid-air, and the sword flew from the man’s hands and landed in a tree as they soared, man and bird together, out over Glimt and towards Lithia.
There was a faint splash as the man hit the water.
The phoenix gave a scream. One down.
It had happened so quickly that the other nine bandits barely had time to gasp.
But they were professionals, not easily cowed.
They stood together now, in a circle, facing outwards, swords drawn, crossbows lifted.
Then Darius gestured at one of them – a woman, the rangiest and toughest – and they moved towards the great oak doors of the Palace of Glimt.
The woman put her hand on the vast door latch – then she screamed in pain.
Jacques had done his work well. The snapdragon flower sank its teeth into the bandit’s hand.
The woman shrieked as the skin began to blister, to turn red and thick.
She turned round to sprint back to the water, to douse her hand in the ocean.
But as she ran, she grew dizzy; she was only halfway to the water when she fell forward, unconscious.
Three al-mirajes darted out of the bushes, hooked their horns through her clothes and dragged her away into the forest.
The phoenix gave a scream.
‘Two down,’ whispered Christopher. He darted away, out of the Great Hall and along the corridor to the drawing room.
It was empty, except for the unicorn, who stood there with her foal. She whickered at the sight of him. He ducked behind the largest of the sofas, waiting. Every inch of his focus he gave to the unicorn.
‘Steady,’ he whispered.
Outside, Darius threw his jacket over the door handle and pushed open the oak door. The eight bandits stood in the Great Hall, looking from left to right. The floor was tiled in marble and garnet, but the bandits did not spare it a glance.
‘Stick together,’ said Darius. ‘This place is unnatural. You’re looking for a tiny kid – a toddler. And we take him alive, you understand? Alive, or Morax will kill us all.’
The bandits surged down the corridor. The first door was the drawing room: a dark-haired bandit flung open the door and strode in.
‘Anything?’ Darius asked.
‘No,’ he grunted. ‘There’s a unicorn, but no kid. What if the kid’s not on the island? There don’t seem to be any people.’
‘He’s here. Search the room.’
The rest of the attackers surged in, throwing open cupboard doors. Pressed against the wall, Christopher held his breath. The unicorn and her foal moved to stand in the doorway.
‘Nothing here. Come on.’
‘Out of the way,’ said the dark-haired man to the unicorn.
‘Kill it,’ said Darius. ‘Move on.’
Christopher closed his eyes in a long, hard blink. Now! he thought.
The unicorn gave a neigh of glad fury and the tip of her horn went straight through the dark-haired man’s shoulder. She whinnied and rose up on her hind legs, pawing at the air, and he was lifted off his feet, legs flailing.
There was a cawing from inside the chimney. From the fireplace poured dozens of firebirds. Their feathers were aflame, and they hurled themselves into the faces of the bandits. A masked woman screamed as her hair caught fire, and she rolled on the carpet, trying to extinguish herself.
‘Retreat!’ said Darius. Six ran from the room as the phoenix circled above them, its cry ringing out twice.
But they didn’t run far. Christopher called out, a long low whoop, and there was a clattering of wings in the wide, tapestried passageway. It was the longma, but the longma with teeth bared. Longmas are never truly tamed, and this one hadn’t even tried.
It swooped down and seized a man in its teeth, knocking him off his feet.
Another bandit twisted, aiming his crossbow bolt. As the longma beat its uneven wings down the passage towards the outdoors, Christopher looked in horror at the iron bolt pointed at its heart.
But nobody had seen the kankos. The kankos were lucky, and they would gladly die for Christopher Forrester. This was the luck they brought: that of joyful fealty.
They came in a great cascade of orange fur down the corridor, fast as lightning, fifty of them squeaking in happy rage. They coursed up the bandit’s legs, swarmed up his arms, over the crossbow, up his back, to his face, clawing at his eyes and mouth.
The shot went wide and wedged in the ceiling.
The crossbow archer bellowed, thrashing, shedding the tiny foxes as he went, hauling them from his arms and face.
He stumbled through an open door and ran blindly down the lawn, collapsing into the sea with a splash.
A silvery blue-white hand emerged from the water, its fingers long and strong, and seized hold of his shoulders.
The phoenix’s cry rang out in two long notes.
The naiad laughed, as they are wont to do. ‘We’ll take care of you,’ they said.