Seven Sorcerers (22 page)

He stretched carefully, expecting a familiar stab of pain at any moment. It didn’t happen. A grin spread over his face.

‘Well, darn me,’ he muttered. Then climbed back on to his cart and drove away.

Hunched in his boat, Stig Lattle watched the Storm retreat. Suddenly a girl appeared, running down the track towards the river. Stig got ready.

She clambered straight into the boat and looked at Stig expectantly. He was about to tell her the price, but changed his mind and pushed off, rowing out towards the middle of the river. Slowly.

Or at least he tried to row slowly, though the boat seemed to have developed a mind of its own. Frowning, he fought against the pull. He had no intention of losing
a golden opportunity.

‘Please can’t you go faster,’ she wailed. Her eyes were fixed on the storm clouds, watching desperately as they slipped into the distance.

Stig let out a long breath. ‘It’ll cost extra,’ he said. ‘More effort, more cash.’ He increased his backwards rowing, forcing the annoyingly self-willed boat to slow almost to a standstill.

The girl gave him an agonised look.

‘No money eh? What you got in that pack? That’ll do.’

‘But …’

‘Along with the bag itself, of course. And – oh, lemme see – your jacket. And them boots look good and sturdy.’

The girl frowned. ‘Git!’ she muttered and jumped over the side.

‘Hey!’ Stig grabbed at the pack as she went, determined not to let all the booty get away. He caught the strap and pulled hard, nearly yanking her over in the water. She let go and he hauled it into the boat, which had suddenly stopped trying to race to the other side and was now content to bob about on the river like a boat ought to.

He watched her struggle away, the water up to her armpits. She made it to the far side and dragged herself out then half-fell up the bank. By now the storm was well into the distance, just a long bank of purple on the horizon. The sun had come out and overhead the sky was blue.

Stig was about to rummage inside the pack when the
air sizzled with hot steam and his boat was suddenly very full of a bundle of angry bones in a fancy waistcoat. Stig screamed.

‘Gimme that, goatgob!’ The Thing snatched the pack from his hands and shoved Stig hard into the water.

When he finally bobbed to the surface again, the Thing had gone and all he could see was his fiercely burning boat.

Tolley Pinn had been walking all night and was running out of energy. She had stopped in a sheltered dip almost completely hidden by some bushes and what she wanted right now was to cook her lunch. She was gazing miserably at a useless heap of soaked wood, when someone fell on her.

Fortunately, it was a small Quick girl and so didn’t land on Tolley too heavily.

‘I have to get to the Storm!’ wailed the girl, looking wildly around, trying to find a way out of the hollow. Her face showed that she knew it was hopeless. By now the clouds were just a memory on the edge of the sky.

Tolley took in the dripping, filthy clothes and the tearstained face and then spotted the rope of twisted leather dangling around the girl’s neck.

‘Wait,’ said Tolley calmly, catching hold of the girl’s arm.

The girl looked at her and blinked, startled by Tolley’s knotty look and yellow eyes. She probably hadn’t met
many Grimm. But she stopped trying to run and watched Tolley anxiously.

‘Trying to get someone back from the Hounds, right?’ Tolley frowned. ‘Know how impossible it is? Gonna do it anyway?’

‘Yes!’

‘Then you won’t get him out from down here. It’s said that the only way is to go in after him and PULL him out with you, got that?

‘Yes!’ said the girl eagerly, her blue eyes fixed on Tolley’s face.

‘When you are in there it will be worse than you can imagine. But never despair, always remember who you are. Look for dry land. It’s said there is a moment when you can leave them, just before the rain starts, but you have to be FAST. If you can break away then you will be free of them. They will never take you back. Never, do you understand?’

‘Thank you. But it’s no use if I can’t …’

‘Get to the Storm? Why chase it when you have that?’ She took hold of the leather rope and pulled out the amulet. ‘It’s a wish amulet, only not wishes as in things you want, but things you
need
. See, it’s doing what it can, but it’s struggling because you’ve smothered it. So, set it free and let it do its job.’

The girl looked at the amulet in surprise, as if she had forgotten it. Now it was uncovered, Tolley could see the symbol on the front, a ragged slash like a zag of lightning. It was already glowing, but as soon as the air
touched it, the glow became a blaze.

Far in the distance, the Storm wheeled, changing direction.

The girl gave Tolley a brilliant smile and ran to scramble up the narrow path out of the dip, heading to meet the purple flood spreading rapidly over the sky, tearing in from the north with frightening speed. The sun vanished and a vast cold shadow swallowed the land.

Tolley watched as the clouds boiled overhead and the thunder roared loud enough to shake the ground. Now, lightning glimmered above her and rain fell like knives. Even though the Hounds wouldn’t be interested in a half Quick with no soul, Tolley couldn’t stop herself cowering. When she looked up again, the Storm had gone and so had the girl.

And then something jumped on her, forcing her to leap nimbly out of the way. She swung around to face it. It was horrible.

She took in the bones barely held together by anything at all, the longer than normal arms and clawed fingers, and the fact that it was clutching a battered-looking pink bag.

‘Bogeyman,’ she said.

‘Goin’ so fast I missed the blimmin’ dip,’ it snarled, as if it were her fault. ‘Where’s the dumb kid gone now?’

Tolley pointed up.

‘WHAT!’ it howled, its red eyes blazing at her. It was so angry it was dancing with rage. Fascinated, Tolley saw coils of smoke escaping from its ears and mouth.
The grass under its feet blackened. It let rip.

Tolley dropped to the ground as streams of red-hot flame shot out around and over her. The bogeyman gave one last horrible screech and disappeared, tearing up the bank so fast he caused a minor landslide.

When everything was quiet again, Tolley finally got up the courage to unravel. Around her, a bush, a fallen chunk of tree and her own pile of sticks were flaming merrily.

A smile spread over Tolley’s face. Then she set about cooking her lunch.

y the time she got to the top of the hill, Nin was at the end of her energy. She held the amulet up high in one shaking hand and a bolt of lightning cracked from the darkening sky right to its shining tip. The cold wind whipped her hair as she watched the Gabriel Hounds racing towards her, faster now.

And then they were all around her. Their baying filled her ears and she felt herself pulled up, off the ground and away into the Storm.

It was the most wonderful feeling. She was flying, only not flying. She was in the air running on all fours with the clouds at her feet and all around her were the Gabriel Hounds.

For a moment the sky above was clear and blue, but then the clouds rose and wrapped her in their misty gloom and lightning crackled in the air.

Running was easy. She didn’t have to worry about getting out of breath because the air filled her lungs and
sent the blood pounding round her head without stopping. She knew she would be able to run as far and as fast as she needed to. She would be able to run forever.

Then the dark veil of the clouds fell again and she could see the sky. But this time it was full of stars. It shocked her. Minutes ago it had been daylight. She felt a lurch inside.

‘What’s my name?’ she thought. ‘I can’t remember my name!’

The idea was terrifying, but just as a small part of her brain was telling her that it didn’t matter after all because she was one of the Hounds now, an image arrived in her head. A boy wearing a long black coat and lounging against the wall of the underpass, somewhere in the Widdern, way back before she had lost her life.

‘Jonas?’

For a moment she thought that Jonas was her name. Then she remembered. She was Nin. Ninevah Redstone. Jonas was the one she had come to find. Relief flooded over her.

She opened her mouth to shout his name, but the wind whipped her voice away. So she began to look for him. And wished she hadn’t.

Because when she started to look for Jonas she saw what the Hounds really were.

Skerridge had a problem.

It could be easily solved if he just wrote the girl off as
his first loss ever. The only kid he, Skerridge, Chief Bogeyman and Champion Kid-Catcher, had ever failed to deliver to Mr Strood.
EVER
.

Skerridge groaned. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t. It was his reputation at stake here. In a way it didn’t matter because he would still have the lowest score for non-delivery out of all the bogeymen. Only Pigar was anywhere close and Pigar had managed to lose a whole three kids. But in another way it mattered more than anything.

Simply having the lowest number of losses was nothing like having NO LOSSES AT ALL. Nothing like.