Ragged Heroes Page 7

  Propp hesitated for a moment. Then, with a faint nod of the head, he said, “Probably, lad.”

  “And you can help?”

  “Um, no. I told you. I don’t know the slightest thing about magic.”

  “You knew this book was bad.”

  “Yes, but that’s about it. I’m not this great mentor everyone thinks I am. In fact, most old men don’t have a clue around here. Contrary to popular belief, magic is primarily a woman’s domain… a young woman’s.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, something to do with fertility apparently. Light magic is stronger in women in most cases. Go to any big town and you’ll find academies run by ladies in their twenties on every corner. Plus, they make magic fun for the little ones. Old men don’t bother with such activities. There’s no money in it unless you join an army, and long-term careers are few and far between. You have to have connections to get anywhere in battle magic.”

  “Okay…” Jack spun the book in his hands. “So, what do you suggest?”

  “I suggest you try using your head for once.”

  “Hey!”

  “I’m serious. Magic has the power to kill in practiced hands but that doesn’t mean the magician has power. Not real power. No more than a lone fox has power over a farmer. I mean, what’s the use in killing a few chickens if you’ve got nothing to show at the end of it. The farmer still dominates the land. He’s the one with the means to get more chickens and breed them and house their eggs. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  “Not really.”

  Propp sighed. “How can I make this simpler? Magic in and of itself has power but nothing compared to ordinary words and objects. Without the farmer’s chicken runs, the fox will die. He has no power of his own. No practical means of survival.”

  “So what you’re saying is I need to solve this mess by using… words and objects we’ve already got?”

  Propp’s face brightened. “For the love of Osi, I think you’ve got it.”

  “I do… You’re wise, you know that?”

  Propp chuckled. “Not bad for a chef, I suppose.”

  “A wise old man helping a young boy save a village. Sounds a lot like a mentor, doesn’t it?”

  Propp’s face dropped. “Don’t push it,” he warned. “Damn stereotypes.”

  Jack smirked. “But how do we use what we’ve got?” His vision became unfocused for a second has he pondered his problem. Then he gasped: “Of course! The village relics!” He beamed, remembering the ancient objects of power the Wilderfolk kept locked in Mayor Tusk’s armoury. They were supposedly powerful artefacts from a primitive time, steeped in the iconography of dead religions, meant to be used only during a world-altering emergency. “They’ve got more firepower than those elves could possibly imagine!”

  “Um… that’s not exactly what I had in mind,” Propp tried again. “I meant you should use what we’ve got to bargain with this Overlord’s men and negotiate a way out of–”

  “Thanks, Mr Propp!” Jack was already on his feet, stuffing the book into his belt. Adjusting his leather breastplate with his free hand, he headed for the door.

  “Jack! That’s not what I meant at all, lad. You’ve no idea what–”

  The echoing thud of a blunt strike rattled the front door almost off its hinges. Whatever struck the wood sounded heavy. The pair remained silent for what seemed like an eternity, holding their breaths in anticipation.

  Eventually, Propp let out a deep sigh.

  “I think they’re gone,” he whispered.

  Then another almighty slam thundered against the front door and it blistered. Fragments of wood fired in every direction. Jack yelped and pressed himself against the wall as a colossal, pink hand reached into the cottage.

  Chapter Five

  “This one of those monsters you were talking about?” asked Propp.

  “Either that, or old Mrs Crook from Wheatgrass Cottage has let herself go.”

  Not wasting any time, the old man dragged Jack through the wreckage to a room at the rear of the house. There, he opened a door and shoved him outside into a walled garden. Jack hurdled a rosebush on his way to the back gate. He didn’t notice the elf spring from cover until it was already too late.

  “Oof!” he wheezed as a fist was forced into his ribs.

  His lungs screamed and, collapsing, he fell to his knees. His attacker circled closer, pushing down on his shoulders, causing him to sprawl. The elf raised his visor, a scowl stretching from his mouth to his eyes.

  “You’ve caused us a great deal of work, boy,” said the elf. Jack recognised him as the one standing beside Tamos in the square. Sticking out under his helmet, his forehead was slick with a mop of sweaty, white hair. “A psychosis charm? Unorthodox but effective, I must admit. Good to see you don’t mind throwing your own people under the waggon, too. Were you not about to die, you might have had a promising career.”

  “It’s wasn’t meant to make them crazy,” Jack argued. “It was meant to make them brave.”

  “Whatever.” The elf shunted him in the face with the hilt of his sword, causing pain to explode in his cheek. “Make all the excuses you want. You’re the one who’s going to have to deal with causing the deaths of so many people. Someone has to be hung out to dry and made an example of for this whole thing to go away. And that person is going to be you.”

  Jack glanced at the back door of the cottage. Over the elf’s shoulder, a movement caught his eye. Propp was tiptoeing towards them, a poker in hand. The elf hadn’t noticed. He was too busy gloating.

  “It didn’t have to go this way, you know,” he continued. “It could have all been avoided. If you’d have just let that kid they called the Chosen One attack us, this would have been over quickly. He would have been arrested and the village would have been taxed and left alone. You would never have been caught using illegal magic. But you didn’t… did you?”

  Jack kept his defiant gaze focused on his attacker, not wanting to give away the ambush. Upon hearing about Angelo, he sensed Propp pause.

  “You didn’t let that kid attack, though, did you?” the elf repeated. He dragged Jack by the collar, pulling their faces closer until Jack staggered on his knees. “Answer me.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “No, you didn’t. You let him die. You killed the halfwit!”

  The attack came faster than Jack’s eyes could follow. One moment, the elf’s face was sneering, triumphant, the next, his helmet had been wrenched from his head and the side of his skull imploded.

  “You lied!” Propp didn’t even wait for the elf’s body to drop. “Angelo’s dead! You knew and you never told me. You caused these invaders to murder him… and then you sought me out for help?” Propp saw the guilty expression on Jack’s face and his eyes widened. For a moment, his face fell slack, giving the impression that all the nerves had been removed. His lower lip wobbled. Then his eyes narrowed again. “You didn’t cause it?” Jack could see the old man’s brain working, clawing its way to the truth. “You… you killed him… with magic!”

  There it was. The ugly head of reality unmasked. Propp’s face bore a mix of emotions – somewhere between anger and horror. Not horror at hearing of the death, but a more primal horror as he suddenly realised that a killer had been in his company the whole time.

  The rhythmic thudding of his pulse throbbed between Jack’s ears. Still on his knees, he was powerless to resist the old chef with his poker.

  “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” Propp demanded. “Go on! Try to weasel out of it. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You’re not wrong,” were the only words Jack could muster. Might as well come clean, he thought.

  “I’m not wrong…? That’s it?” Propp pushed his free hand over his bald crown, smoothing down the feathery tufts at the sides. His rage was building. “I’m not wrong! Is that all you’ve got? Where’s the remorse, boy? The regret?”

  “It was an accident.” Tears brimmed in Jack’s eyes. “You have t
o understand–”

  “Oh, I understand. I understand perfectly well. You are cursed, but not by that book. You were probably a monster long before you found that thing in the woods. I understand… and I know exactly what to do about it.” He weighed the iron poker in his fist, fingers clenched white against the metal.

  “No! Not you, too! I didn’t mean it. I swear. I’m sorry.”

  A huge, naked creature took them both by surprise, pouring over the garden fence. Propp’s mouth shot open and be swung his weapon but was too slow. Unable to make contact, he screamed as the monster descended on him. The pelicanesque sack of skin webbed between its three jaws ballooned for a moment before impact. Then its toothed mandibles engulfed the old man completely. He screamed but it was cut short by the sound of something snapping.

  Jack hoped the crunch was of something vital, something that would end Propp’s pain quickly. He didn’t wait to find out, and he certainly didn’t try to fight to free him. Instead, he just ran.

  Jack wished he could attribute his next few moves to some ingenious plan. He couldn’t, of course. His mind, drowning in panic, was moving without coherent thought. Fortunately for his tingling fingers, the bolt on the garden gate slid across with unexpected ease. In less than three seconds, he was free, blundering through overgrown thickets of leaves and branches, blinded by fear and rushing vegetation, but still running.

  His feet skidded as a carpet of fallen leaves came loose under him and he fell, landed awkwardly, and rolled. Thorns pressed into his flesh and snagged on his armour. Still, he sprung up without complaint and rushed out of the trees. He emerged on a dirt path hunting trail, close enough to the village for children to practice but not so far that they could get lost or eaten by wild animals.

  That way, he decided, using a familiar tree as a landmark. He remembered his earlier idea of reaching Mayor Tusk’s armoury – a stock room attached to the meeting hall, where most of the community’s decisions were made. The weapons he sought were on display in a cabinet in the hall, near the armoury door. They had been there so long the villagers barely noticed them anymore. Most never bothered to learn their secrets, and Jack was with them. All he knew was they were old and powerful, some stolen from other villages during a more barbaric time, others created by long-dead warlocks who once protected their community.

  Despite a hundred little cuts and a stain of orange earth smeared down his left thigh, he limped onward, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the beast hadn’t followed him from the garden. No doubt it had picked up his scent. He just hoped his sprint through the leaves was enough to throw it off his trail.

  A short jog led him back to the centre of the village, where he discovered that a lot had changed in the half-hour he had been gone. While the crowd was still rioting, dozens had been captured and shackled in the centre of the plaza with their hands and feet bound. A handful were either unconscious or dead. They lay sprawled under thatched eaves, eerily still, face down in the blood-blasted earth.

  A gang had formed a barricade in one of the village’s alleys but the Scarlet Overlord’s soldiers appeared unconcerned. One of their beasts protected them as they tore through the crowd, battering civilians and tossing their bodies aside. The unruliest of rebels were plucked clean off the paths and hurled, spinning, into stone walls. Their voices fell silent before the dust of their impact had even settled.

  Jack avoided most of the carnage by darting from one hiding spot to another and giving rioters a wide birth. He stuck close to a ridge of small storage sheds that provided cover on his way to the Mayor’s armoury. It was just ahead. A squat building – one of the few that boasted a second storey – it dominated the low skyline with its upturned-hull shaped roof.

  Jack approached its heavy, mahogany doors with trepidation. The chain that usually held the handles together had been cleaved apart. He hoped for his sake that whoever’s handiwork it was had been taken down before they managed to get between the doors.

  Taking one deep breath, he glanced over his shoulder to ensure nobody was making a beeline for him and then pushed open one of the doors and slipped into the building.

  Chapter Six

  The meeting hall contrasted the pandemonium of the main square by its complete silence. With its stone floor, candelabras, and main stage, it gave the impression of a place of worship. A pious sanctuary, untouched by violence. No part of it suggested it housed some of the community’s most dangerous magical weapons collected as the spoils of war. Then again, they had been stored there for so long they were now regarded as no more than dusty ornaments.

  Jack crouched, lowering his centre of gravity, and entered the cavernous room. He moved slowly, probing the alcoves for signs of movement. His boots made hollow clopping noises on the flagstones, amplified by the room’s acoustics. His fingers twitched, unsure what to do without a weapon to entertain them.

  “Anyone here?” he whispered. It was the kind of whisper people use when struggling to find an acceptable balance between speaking loudly enough to grab a friend’s attention, while at the same time not being noticed by adversaries. To his relief, nobody answered. He was alone.

  He broke the silence, dashing to the altar on the side of the main stage. There, he found the cabinet. The artefacts were stored behind glass. Flinging open the cabinet door, he peered inside and licked his unusually dry lips. The relics exuded power. He could feel their throbbing, imaginary hearts. Their coiled potential made his skin tingle just thinking about it.

  There was a humanoid skull with a ridge of bony plates that ran from its forehead to the back of its cranium. Next to that was a black pot, bumpy and crudely formed, complete with thumbprints. Then there was a stone orb. Radiating strength, it was the colour of obsidian and shone faintly beneath a layer of dust. Five identical orbs sat on a lower shelf. He could sense their power.

  Jack reached in and plucked the top ball from the shelf. He tested its weight, smoothing the dust off with both hands. It was surprisingly light for a stone object the size of two fists. As he turned it over, a subtle shift in weight told him there was something inside the hollow shell.

  An egg? he wondered.

  They were ubiquitous in the Old Sagas. Dragons, griffins, giant spiders – all left an egg with a hero at some point. Was this relic an unhatched example, preserved into the modern world? Was it hexed? Cursed? Infused with magic by a god? Or just dead? He shook it. Whatever was inside didn’t rattle.

  Luckily, it came with a label. A small tag lay on the shelf, having fallen off when he picked up the orb. Reaching in, he lifted the paper and squinted at it. A single, faded word – “darkness” – was faintly visible. The rest had been lost to time.

  A low, throaty growl reminded Jack of the danger all around him. In the silence, he had forgotten about it.

  “Huh?” He glanced around the room. “Is someone there?”

  All the doors were closed. Nobody had entered since he’d arrived. He was sure nobody was there when he came in, either. With only a handful of pews and a few alcoves in the hall, good hiding spots were limited.

  Must have been outside¸ he reasoned.

  Another growl put that theory to bed in an instant.

  Hairs prickling on his neck, Jack peered upwards and gasped. Directly above him, clinging to the rafters was one of the enormous pink animals. Its skin dangled away from its body so much that a person seeing it from far away might have mistaken it for rotten fruit. Its head was twisted, milky eyes trained on him.

  “Um…”

  He looked at the hall’s main double doors. Could he make it in time? The creature had seen him but that didn’t necessarily mean it would attack. It stayed completely still. Perhaps it had gorged itself on villagers and was full. Maybe it only attacked when instructed by one of its elf masters. There could be any number of reasons why it wasn’t already sliding Jack’s mulched corpse down its gullet. If only he could move slowly enough…

  He took a slow step towards the door. In response, the mo
nster grumbled in a crocodilian way without opening its mouth. A clear warning: Don’t move. He stopped short of taking another step and, for a long while, both boy and monster watched each other. He was pinned. That meant he had only one option: move fast.

  Three…

  Two…

  One…

  He bolted across the flagstones, pumping his arms to propel himself forward while the monster swung overhead. The rafters above Jack groaned as it sprang into the open air. He felt its cold shadow cross over him. It suddenly became apparent that he wasn’t going to get the door open in time. He’d be crushed long before he managed to yank the handle.

  Moving too fast to fight his own momentum and change direction, he tried a different tack. He leaped, hit the doors feet first, and kicked off. Pain twinged in his knees but, fortunately, he didn’t break anything. Instead, he slammed into the hard mahogany and rebounded. His back struck the ground first, winding him, but he managed to keep his head from hitting the stone floor. Then he was suddenly sliding on his back in the opposite direction, having sprung off the door.

  The monster, however, wasn’t so nimble. Turning its war horn scream into one of unbridled shock, it shrieked, narrowly missing Jack’s body. It hit the wood with all the force of a landslide. The doors buckled on impact and the hall rang with a clatter so loud bystanders might have assumed the whole structure was collapsing. Indeed, for a moment, Jack thought it might, too. As the doors cracked and splintered, the monster sent fault lines snaking up the walls, and it tumbled into the village square.

  Behind him Jack heard a bang and realised the disruption had caused the cabinet holding the relics to fall on its face. The shelves had split and artefacts spilled in all directions. Their pottery components shattered on impact, skimming fine pieces across the flagstones.

  Jack’s eyes shot wide but, to his relief, the roof didn’t cave in on top of him. Seeing that the monster had nearly knocked itself unconscious, he rolled onto his feet and scampered out into the daylight.