Keeper of the Realms: Crow's Revenge (Book 1) (24 page)

Melita silently wished Charlie good luck as she watched the furious Delightful Brother leave.
If anyone deserves a break
, she thought,
it’s Charlie Keeper
.

31

Nowhere to Run

Charlie snorted in disgust. Three times she’d managed to take the wrong direction. Three times! Narcissa’s tower was like a maze with its winding corridors, spiralling stairs and corridors that seemed to go in circles. It was only by heading in what Charlie was certain was the wrong direction that she was at last able to find herself in the vicinity of the tower’s entrance.

Sneaking down the hallway, Charlie peered around the corner. ‘I can’t believe it!’ she whispered furiously to herself. ‘Will my luck never change?’

Not only was the drawbridge heavily guarded by the Alavisian Watchmen but the brutal-looking portcullis was down as well. Her exit was well and truly blocked. She would have to find another way out … but how?

Charlie was mulling over her possible options when she became aware of an eerie hissing and shrieking that echoed down the hallway. After her past adventures she recognized the noise immediately.

Shades!

They tumbled around the corner like a black fog. Catching sight of her, their screams rose to a fevered crescendo.
Bounding and leaping, they tore towards her. The Watchmen, hearing all the commotion, joined the chase. Charlie immediately turned and ran.

She pumped her arms like crazy and sprinted for all she was worth. Practically flying from the hallway, she scurried up the nearest flight of stairs, through a door and onward. The terrible shrieks of the hunting Shades spurred her on, up more and more stairs and along narrow corridors.

Sliding around a corner, Charlie felt the hot whizz of something flash past her face. It was an arrow! Stones stood facing her at the far end of the hall. Feet planted widely apart, he plucked another cruel arrow from his quiver, drew back the string and took aim. Smiling evilly, he released the bowstring.

With a thick twang, the arrow spat towards her. Charlie threw herself out of the way, feeling the hot swish of its feathering as it narrowly missed her. Unchecked, the arrow hummed onward, slicing into an unfortunate Shade that had slipped around the corner. Both Shade and arrow slammed into the far wall with a thud and a wretched scream.

Stones cursed and, bellowing his frustration, plucked another arrow from his quiver. Charlie didn’t hang around. Pulling open the nearest doorway, she ducked through as yet more Shades gave chase. Huffing and puffing, she sprinted from room to room until she found she could run no more. She had reached the summit of the tower. The staircase that she was on petered out and opened up on to a wide, sweeping roof. There was no other obvious way down.

Charlie spun around to race back the way she had come,
but a hissing and spitting Shade blocked her path. More of the foul Shadows joined it, as too did a group of Watchmen who looked enraged that they had had to chase her so far. She slowly backed away until her feet rested right on the cornerstones of the rooftop. Behind her lay a fearsome drop. Wild winds tugged at her hair and blew against her clothing. Spreading her arms wide, Charlie fought for balance as she wobbled unsteadily on the edge.

‘Make way! Make way, I said!’ Stones forced his way to the front of the baying crowd. He grinned in delight as he saw Charlie, cornered and helpless. ‘Well, well, little girlie. I see you can’t run any further. How sad.’ Slowly, with loving devotion, he pulled another arrow from his quiver. Unravelling a long length of wire from his pocket, he knotted one end to the arrow’s shaft and the other he tied around his waist.

‘Wait! What are you doing? You must not harm her!’ snarled the lead Shade.

‘You want her alive, don’t you?’

‘Of course!’

‘Then think things through. Look at where she’s standing. If you rush her, she might fall, and if she falls from this height you might never recover her body, or the pendant. But if we do things my way, which is to harpoon her like a wayward fish, she might fall but she’ll just dangle from my line. All we will have to do is reel her in! At the worst she might lose a limb or two, but at least she’ll live to reach the Western Mountains. I get my revenge, you get your pound of Human flesh and your precious pendant, my mother has her deal and everybody goes home happy.’

‘Apart from me, you useless idiot!’ interjected Charlie. Terrified that she might fall and equally petrified that Stones would actually harpoon her, she did the only thing she could. Removing the necklace, she held it over the roof’s edge. ‘Back off or I drop the pendant! I mean it, you chumps, just you believe it! I’ve had a rotten day and I’m really, really stressed, so don’t push me!’

‘I don’t care, girlie,’ growled Stones, his yellow eyes flashing dangerously. ‘Drop your trinket for all I care. It, unlike you, can survive the fall. All we have to do is send the Watchmen out to find it – job done, end of story. So pucker up and say hello to my arrow!’

Stones released his bowstring.

Time seemed to slow. Moonlight glinted off the Watchmen’s armour, small clouds of dust hung suspended around Stones’s feet and the sound of the Shades’ screams sounded long and drawn out.

Charlie blinked at the phenomenon. The rooftop had taken on the quality of a film in slow motion. Everyone appeared to be moving ever so slowly through thick jelly. She could feel the soft pendulum beating of her heart, the brush of the cool night air on her flushed skin and the gentle drip of sweat down her neck. And beneath it all the volcanic pulse of her anger, drumming slowly within the confines of her chest.

She blinked and everything speeded up.

The shrieks and cries from the Shades spat across the rooftop. Stones roared triumphantly and the arrow hurtled towards her.

Roaring and crackling loudly, a jet of white flame erupted
from out of the dark night sky to shoot across the rooftop. It burned the arrow to a cinder in mid-flight. So intense was the heat that the wood instantly turned to ash and was blown across the roof and out into the night.

Everything and everyone on the tower’s roof froze.

From above something growled menacingly. Looks of complete terror and small grunts of dread rippled through the Watchmen as they pointed with trembling fingers to the thing that flew above. The Shades hissed loudly and compressed themselves into tight coils as they too withdrew in fright. Even Stones, powerful and cruel, seemed momentarily taken aback by what he saw.

Again a deep menacing growl erupted from out of the dark sky to cascade across everyone’s heads. Charlie slowly, so very, very slowly, turned to look.

32

A New Companion

Charlie inhaled sharply, partly in shock, partly in wonder.

She had always dreamed about seeing one of these creatures, always known within her heart that they were real no matter how many people had laughed and sneered at her at school. And to see one right in front of her, right here, right now, was like a wish come true. Awed and delighted, Charlie forgot all about the Shades, the Watchmen and Stones. Her eyes were fixed like glue on the magnificent beast that flew just in front of her.

A dragon!

Nothing could have spoilt this moment for her. Well, perhaps nothing apart from the small, niggling thought that blundered its way across her mind … Surely dragons were supposed to be bigger than this? The creature before her spanned a mere two metres from head to tail, and most of that was its long neck and longer tail. But in Charlie’s opinion this was only a minor hitch and couldn’t spoil the sheer delight of the image.

The beast was without doubt the most majestic thing she had ever seen. It was covered from head to toe in spectacular emerald-green scales that glinted in the soft moonlight.
Its long, muscled neck supported a powerful and handsome head and its sinuous tail writhed and lashed behind it, allowing it to maintain perfect balance in the rough winds. Its beautifully proportioned wings stretched proudly outward, flapping and beating at the air. But to Charlie’s mind the most amazing aspect of the whole creature had to be its fiercely glowing blue eyes, which blazed in awesome fury as it glared at the Shades.

‘Wow!’ Charlie whispered to herself. And without being able to explain how she knew – she just did – she was very much aware that the dragon was here for her. No matter how fierce it appeared or how dangerous it was to Stones and the others on the rooftop, she knew it meant her no harm.

A ferocious shout from Stones snapped Charlie’s attention back to the present. She was still in trouble. Dangerous, perilous trouble. She quickly slipped her pendant back round her neck and tucked it out of sight.

‘You idiots, stop standing there gawking!’ roared Stones. ‘Grab her, quick!’

The Alavisian Watchmen inched forward beneath the baleful eye of the flying dragon. Arms out, they reached for the young Keeper. The dragon snarled. Opening its fanged mouth, it spat out another wave of flame that scorched and stung the guards. Crying in pain and beating at their burning armour, they leaped back.

‘Blast you all!’ cursed Stones. He slapped and kicked the Watchmen out of the way. ‘Same as it ever was: if a job needs doing, do it yourself!’

Growling to himself and casting furious looks at the
Watchmen, he swiftly began to thread another length of wire on to one of his wickedly sharp arrows. He was determined to let neither the dragon nor the young Keeper get the better of him.

Again the dragon snarled. Banking its wings sharply and whipping its tail from side to side, it dived towards the rooftop. Immediately all the Alavisians and the Shades cowered backwards, fearful of its fiery breath, but they weren’t its target. Talons outstretched, the dragon snatched Charlie by the shoulders and pulled her off the roof.

Stones gasped in astonishment, the arrow dangling uselessly from his hand, as he stared at the empty space that Charlie had previously filled.

‘The pendant!’ hissed the lead Shade, shocked and angered.

Stones and the Shade rushed to the edge of the rooftop and anxiously peered over. All they could see before the darkness swallowed them up was a brief flapping of wings and a quick flash of Charlie’s ridiculously messy hair rapidly dwindling into the distance. Her taunting whoop of laughter echoed up towards them.

Charlie wasn’t the least bit scared. In fact, quite the opposite – she was loving every moment of her descent. While the dragon wasn’t big enough to lift her any higher, it was strong enough and had large enough wings to act as a huge parachute. Together, the two of them slowly wafted down through Sylvaris’s sleeping landscape. Graceful towers waltzed past them, beautifully arched bridges, boulevards and streets swept by and the trees of Deepforest, still far below, swayed slowly beneath her feet. The sensation of
flight mixed with the odd feeling of falling was a heady mix and Charlie soon felt giddy with excitement.

The two of them floated further and further away from Narcissa’s tower. Gliding gently downward, they sank lower and lower until at last they landed lightly on a narrow walkway. The dragon released its firm grip from her shoulders and with a final beat of its wings hopped down to stand on all four legs by Charlie’s feet.