Rocking Horse War (16 page)

Over the noise of the battle, Pearl spoke clearly and slowly. “No, Thomas, this is
your
choice.”

Thomas’s eyes widened, and the pressure on her wrist relaxed.

In that moment, Pearl ripped her wrist out of his grasp and yelled, “EMMIE!” Using all her hunter’s skill at hitting a moving target, she flung the flint to Emmie, who let Ruby fall as she caught it, then swooped under her sister to hold her again.

Emmie swerved in the air to avoid another horn blast and dived over to Pearl, dropping a limp Ruby into her arms.

Then she flew to the rafters and held the flint, her lorefast, in both hands. And she began to sing, creating a fearful and furious music, but with no time to form words.

First she dropped a jangling rockfall of sharp notes onto Thomas’s head. He collapsed to the floor, letting go of his staff. Pearl kicked it aside, so when he sat up groaning he couldn’t reach it.

The Earl screamed as he saw his grandson fall, and gulped deep breath after deep breath to blow notes like storm-winds at Emmie.

She was battered by the air, her hair coiling round her head, her petticoats billowing round her 
legs. Pearl, standing guard between Thomas and his lorefast, found herself thinking that Emmie should wear boys’ trousers to fly in public.

Emmie’s flying was so fast and precise, she was able to ride the Earl’s blasts of sound or dive under them.

The Earl’s face was turning purple as he strained to get enough breath to match Emmie’s speed.

His thumping notes stopped for a second while he took a deep screeching chestful of air. Emmie swooped down and flung a cascade of noise at him that buried him under invisible power. His horn was torn from his lips and clattered to the floor, leaving him empty-handed as Emmie stood on the air in front of him.

Emmie pointed the flint at the Earl and began at last to sing words again. She sang a song brimming with anger: anger at being hunted and caught and compelled; anger at the bruised bodies of her brother and sisters; anger at being dragged from the schoolroom into someone else’s war.

The Earl shook in the waves of power, unable to get away, his head lolling back on a slack neck.

Pearl couldn’t move towards Emmie because of the drooping weight of Ruby in her arms, so she opened her mouth to yell, “
No!
”

But Emmie had made her choice.

She turned her back suddenly on the Earl, letting him fall to the ground, and flew straight at the stone throne, blasting the pillar off the oubliette and shattering it into a thousand pieces of gravel.

She screamed the trapdoor open, and sang a 
rising staircase of song until the Laird limped out, struggling free of the green reed rope.

Emmie hovered above the wreck of the feasting hall.

The air stopped shaking.

Pearl, arms trembling, placed Ruby on the floor beside Jasper. Both of them were breathing and Ruby was already moving weakly.

The Earl, Thomas and the Laird were all slumped on the ground.

“Now who will rule the mountains?” asked the Laird hoarsely.

Emmie floated down to perch on the remains of the stone throne.

“I will.”

“I will look after the mountains,” Emmie said in her high clear voice.

“You!” spluttered the Earl.

“Me. You both created me, you both gave me your powers, but then you put me in a family where I could learn
my
way of using power, not yours.

“So I will listen to the mountains, Ruby and Jasper will listen to the Chayne lands, and the Swanns and Horsburghs will listen to your own lands. I will watch over both of you from the summits, and if you use bloodlore, or conspire to get more power than you need, then I will see and I will come down …”

She slashed the flint through the air, and the fires in the bowls flared into roaring fingers, reaching out for the Earl and the Laird, who scrambled away against the wall.

Emmie cut the fires back down, then smiled sweetly.

The Laird took out a silver flask, drank a large mouthful and offered it to the Earl, who accepted.

Pearl wiped Ruby and Jasper’s faces with a hanky she’d dropped on the floor when she was hunting through her pockets. Ruby was bashed 
and bruised, but not crying. Jasper groaned himself awake and asked, “Is everyone else alright?” Pearl nodded, hoping it was true.

Emmie jumped down from the cairn of rubble and trotted over to her family. Pearl stood up, amazed to see that Emmie was still shorter than her.

“Thank you,” Emmie hugged her. “Thank you for staying with us.”

“But why didn’t you tell me the flint had so much power in it?”

“If I’d told you, you’d have guarded it closely and kept checking your pockets. Then Thomas would have noticed. Anyway, I knew you would get it here safely; you never lose anything out of those pockets. And Thomas never guessed.”

They both looked over at Thomas. He was sitting on the floor, far away from his grandfather, head tipped back against the wall. His lorefast lay abandoned by a smouldering bowl.

Pearl crossed the hall, picked up the staff and walked over to Thomas. As she carried it, she heard the pearl jumping lightly inside the shell. She offered the staff to Thomas. He ignored her.

She sat down near him. She didn’t say anything.

Eventually, he spoke. “I was weak. I made a sentimental choice. I should have been strong. I should have remembered my ambition and my mission, and not let anyone get in my way. I should have held on.”

He looked over at Emmie, talking quietly to Jasper and Ruby.

“But I think the mountains are in better hands, aren’t they?” 

“I hope so,” said Pearl. Then she laughed, briefly. “Maybe this was everyone’s destiny after all.”

Thomas stared at her. “Do you believe that?”

“No. We all had to make choices, and it could have gone wrong so many times on the journey, couldn’t it?”

“It has gone wrong for me.”

Pearl shook her head and tapped the shell on his staff very gently. She heard the pearl shift and roll inside. “You have the ancient lorefast now. You did earn it. You can go and save the world, if you still think you’re the right person to do it.”

Thomas stood up and brushed dust off his trousers. “I should go home. The horses will be reaching the stables soon, and the grooms won’t like unsaddling rocking horses.”

Pearl nodded. “We should go home too. Mother will have sent out our groom and gardener to hunt for us when we didn’t turn up for supper.”

She held out the staff to him again. He took it, and looking at the lorefast rather than Pearl, he said, “Perhaps we could go hunting together again? You could teach me how to read the land as well as listen to it.”

“What would we hunt?”

“Deer or pheasant.” He looked straight at her. “Not swans or rocking horses.”

“Nor children?”

He glanced over at Emmie, Ruby and Jasper.

“Never again, no matter who tells me it’s my destiny.” Thomas almost smiled. Then he turned and walked away, carrying his staff.

“Let’s go home,” Pearl called to the triplets as 
she stood up and stretched. “The stars will give us enough light to hike through the Grey Men’s Grave, and we’ll get home before the sun comes up. I’ve worked out a quicker route than the one marked on Peter’s maps.”

“Couldn’t we use Emmie’s power to fly home?” asked Ruby.

“No.” Emmie curled her fingers round the flint. “The power isn’t really mine. It belongs to the land, and I don’t want to waste it. Not on a shortcut home. I’ll keep it for more important things.”

“Like what?” asked Jasper, helping Ruby to her feet and keeping an arm round her shoulders.

Emmie watched Thomas as he unlocked the door and left the feasting hall. “I don’t know yet. Let’s follow Thomas. I still have a lot to learn from him, but don’t dare tell him that.”

The Chayne children walked out of the castle together, leaving two old men behind them.

Pearl looked up at the dark spaces where the mountains hid during the night, and knew that she didn’t need her mother’s permission or her father’s company to make them her own now.

“I’m hungry,” said Jasper, as they crossed the narrow path under the arrowslits.

“We’re all hungry!” laughed Pearl. “But we won’t be for long. Mother sent me to fetch you for breakfast, and we’re only a day late.”

First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts

Helen doesn’t want to become a vet like her mother so when an injured horse turns up on her doorstep she isn’t pleased. Only this horse isn’t entirely normal … and nor are his friends.

Suddenly, Helen is thrust into an extraordinary world of magic, fantastical creatures and a dangerous beast known as the Master. Can Helen work out the riddles and help her friends find the Book of Wisdom before the Winter Solstice?

Wolf Notes and Other Musical Mishaps

In the second magical book of the
First Aid for Fairies
series, Helen and her friends, the fabled beasts, prepare to go to war against the evil Faery Queen. Helen battles with brownies and wrangles with wolves. But will it be enough to help her friends and save herself?

Storm Singing and Other Tangled Tasks

A centaur, a selkie, a fairy and a phoenix — Helen has unusual friends. And in the third book in the
First Aid for Fairies
series, they face some even stranger opponents. Helen must help Rona the selkie to win the storm singing competition, and stop the deep sea powers from going to war. But who is trying to sabotage the competition and why?