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  She looked around at the walls and high ceiling. “This place has seen better days.”

  “Been here before?”

  “Many years ago.”

  Darren noticed sadness in her eyes. “You knew the man that owned this place?”

  She smiled. “Arnold? Yeah, he was a good man. Also knew his son.” Her eyes flickered across to Kat then back to her food.

  Across the room Sparrow stopped the communication with Miss Toper and looked at those around her. “She says proceed.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Justin peered into the empty corridor. Burning torches made the area look like permanent night. He had spent the last hour listening for noises at his door while trying to build up the courage to open it. On his back was his pack containing everything he could salvage when he was allowed a brief time outside his room.

  Looking at the far end of the long hallway he felt he had a reasonably good grasp of the layout of the castle and the route in his mind was risk free.

  He closed the door behind him, and ran forward trying to mask the noise of his shoes best he could, by keeping to the rugs.

  First door on my right, down the stairs, then out onto the lower ramparts. Run across them and—

  A noise behind him interrupted his escape plan.

  Shit, someone’s coming.

  For over an hour nobody had walked the hallway, he sighed in frustration while wondering if he could make it back to his room. Instead he ran the rest of the distance to his planned exit and opened and closed the door to the stairs just as two men entered the hallway at the other end.

  Not pausing to know if the men had heard the door close he quickly peered over the banister to make sure there was nobody coming up, and then ran down. A small window allowed the pale grey light from the winter scene outside to seep into the small space and gave him some small hope of his plan working.

  He quickly made it to the bottom, but winced when he stepped off the last step. His stiff joints and bruised midriff were a reminder of what had happened some hours earlier.

  Two doors presented themselves, one he knew led to the fresh cold air outside while the other led further in. He had a quick listen at the internal door, then the other, then pulled the external one open. The rush of cold air made him take a breath, but he moved swiftly though the opening, closing the door quietly behind.

  Small flakes were fluttering down, and the entire path across the almost thousand-year-old battlements was covered in a layer of ice and snow. He noticed a number of footprints going in both directions.

  Walking forward with the occasional slip, he approached the door at the far end and placed his hand on the iron handle when he heard a voice he recognized. It was Goran’s.

  “The wards have been increased in strength, sire. The girl will not be able to teleport in or anyone out, should she gain access to a ring again,” said the old magi.

  Justin realised the voice was coming from below him. One of the windows just a few yards away must have been open to the elements. He moved closer to the wall, anxiously looking both ways at the doors.

  “Good, and how are things coming along with the—” Arthurs words got lost amongst the wind that was blowing past Justin’s winter scarf. “—Have the dragons and . . . come through?”

  “We now have three . . .”

  “ . . . And are there any signs that the forces of this land have started to mobilise?”

  “None sir, they are too preoccupied with helping the peasants.”

  “And have we started to . . . people to us?”

  “We are building encampments for those we find.”

  “ . . . Sure some of them die from hunger and disease . . . show the others . . . will follow gratefully.”

  “Yes. sire.”

  Justin shivered as white flakes landed on his face.

  “How do you think the boy performed?” said Arthur.

  There was a pause before Goran replied. “I’m sure he will make a great knight, sire.”

  Even from this distance Justin could taste the bitterness in the old man’s voice.

  “Good. Fetch him for me, I want to—”

  A noise came from the door Justin was headed towards. He scrambled over the frosted slabs back towards the tower door, pulling it open and closing it behind him. Men were coming along the path he’d just run over.

  Not bothering to look up, he scampered up the stairs and only briefly waited at the top door before pulling it open and running along the familiar corridor outside his room.

  Steps echoed down the hall towards him as he pulled his room’s door open, jumped inside and pushed it closed.

  As he lay panting on the ground with the sound of footsteps reverberating from the hallway, he realised something. He had to stay.

  CHAPTER 30

  Mills looked through the tiny gap in the curtains down upon the winter postcard that was the town of Glastonbury. The sun was on its last legs and snow-covered spires and roofs were all merging into a grey mist. She clicked on her radio. “Nothing so far. The daylight’s almost gone. Over.”

  Darren was in the other bedroom at the back of the house looking over the fields in the opposite direction. It was decided on his behalf that he would be safer away from the sanctuary. Two weeks ago he would have agreed with that, but now as he glanced at the assault rifle leaning up against a bed he felt a tinge of guilt not being in the middle of where the action would be. She’ll be OK.

  He tapped the plastic bottle in his jacket pocket. Plenty.

  Next to the rifle on the bed was his backpack with his laptop poking out. Just a month before the one pound of plastic and circuit boards was his whole life, now it was just dead weight. There was no way he would leave it behind anywhere though. It was his computer, his life. He sighed and wondered what the other hackers in his online group were up to. If they were even still alive.

  On the wall above the bed a large poster of skyscraper-high alien robots were laying waste to a city. He laughed to himself. He always imagined the end of the world would involve shiny things that flittered across the skies not creatures with battle axes and magical spells.

  He looked back out to the encroaching darkness and waited.

  Vic looked through the slats in the church spire at the road which ran up towards the old bookshop. The street was four feet higher than it should have been due to the snow drifts and only the top half of the various shop windows that lined it were visible.

  Hunt was kneeling just a few feet away looking through another set of slats. “Almost time for the NVGs.”

  “Yup . . .”

  “We sure this is the right move?”

  Vic continued watching the outside. “What do you mean.”

  “Helping the girl. Chapman made it pretty clear—”

  “I know what Chapman said, and we’ll take the girl when the time is right, but if we can capture this Goran guy as well, then that has to be worth us sticking around. We just got to hope what you got in those darts will do the job.”

  “They can knock out a horse, so yeah they’ll work. How we stop her from teleporting when she wakes that’s another thing altogether.”

  “That’s the lab guys’ problem, not ours. For now we just—”

  Vic noticed a shadow move across the gloom-ridden snow, two storeys below him. As he looked up a huge winged beast silently glided over the church and then over the old shop. He leaned back from the slats not knowing how well the creature could see in the dark, he presumed well.

  “Looks like the enemy is doing some recon of their own. A bus sized lizard just flew over us.” He switched on his night-vision goggles, pulling them down over his eyes, then clicked on his radio. “Kat, something large and nasty just flew over you, might be time to take a walk in the garden. Over.”

  “OK,” said Kat.

  The roaring fire couldn’t dispel how alone she felt in her grandfather’s sanctuary. She looked around at the piles of broken wood and paper that lay scattered, paying par
ticular attention to the heap in the middle of the room. She sighed and wondered about what memories the place must hold. Getting to her feet she clipped her radio to her trousers under her jacket, carefully walked past the mess on the floor and quietly opened the main sanctuary door to the shop upstairs without closing it behind her.

  Straining her ears for anything out of place in the darkness she walked up the stairs and then out into the hallway. Turning on her torch she opened the door to the yard and braced herself for the cold before walking out into the snow. This had been her routine every thirty minutes for the past few hours, and she was almost relieved when she heard that this time she was being watched. It would mean that maybe their plan would work.

  A crackling came from her radio, followed by Mills’s voice. She scrambled to turn the volume down and dropped her torch in doing so. As she bent down to pick it back up, noises echoed out in the distance. She quickly turned and walked back to the hallway, then trotted down the stone steps.

  “Repeat, I didn’t hear—” she said into her radio.

  “They’re coming!”

  “Where? Who’s this? Over.” she said, running into the main room of the sanctuary and pushing the door closed behind her.

  “Mills! I’m seeing a large group maybe fifty strong moving towards the town. Some of the shadows are definitely not human sized! Over.”

  Back in the sanctuary Kat went over the steps of the plan in her mind. I got this.

  Vic took in a breath as he watched an even bigger flying creature than before descend from the gray clouds and land somewhere near the back of the shop.

  “What is it?” said Hunt.

  Vic clicked on his radio. “Kat, I think one of those dragons just arrived, it’s a big as a passenger plane and it touched down behind your building. Over.”

  “OK . . .”

  “Hey you got this. Stick to the plan and you’ll be sleeping a lot better tonight. Over.”

  “OK . . .”

  “If this all goes sideways what’s our back up plan?” said Hunt.

  “Get out alive. We’ve got a lot of intel already,” said Vic.

  In the sanctuary Sparrow’s voice suddenly came from the very air around Kat. “Kat, I see him! Goran, he’s here! The dragon brought him.”

  “OK . . .” Panic was starting to swell in Kat’s mind. I can just teleport out of here, grab Darren, then teleport again. I don’t need to do this . . . I can’t, everyone’s depending on me. This is crazy, I’m just a computer hacker!

  “Are you sure he won’t detect the others?” said Kat into the air.

  “It’s unlikely . . .”

  “Unlikely! You said—”

  A noise almost unnoticeable came from the house above her. She froze in her chair and looked towards the large arched wooden door to the upstairs. Rustling came from that direction, followed by steps, each one accompanied with a scraping noise.

  It’s him.

  Almost as soon as she had the thought, her ring finger started to ache. Slow pulses of pain that spread up and down her hand.

  She swallowed what little saliva she had in her mouth and waited, sat in her grandfather’s armchair.

  A rhythmic knock came from the door.

  “Katrina Ambrose. I know you’re in there. I’m sure you’re aware by now that your grandfather’s sanctuary is umm . . . no longer effective.”

  Each word from the elderly man on the other side of the door made Kat increasingly nauseous.

  “Come now girl, there is no need for this to get complicated. I am here to take you back to meet the cyning. He has been waiting to meet you for a good while, but his—”

  “The doors unlocked!” shouted Kat, quickly placing her winter hat back on her head.

  The large door slowly swung back, and a man that looked like he had risen from his own grave stepped up and into the main room. He stopped a few yards inside and rested on his stick, the end of which was emitting a dim red light through his bony fingers.

  “Please accept my apologies for what happened here. Unfortunately Jax had some feelings of resentment towards your grandfather which he needed to express.”

  Kat went to respond when Goran continued.

  “I should also let you know that you will not be able to teleport away this time. I have cast a spell which will prevent such magic.”

  Act disappointed!

  Kat looked down dejected.

  He walked towards her making her lean back slightly in her chair. Her heart pounded in her ears. “Although I must say, it is a rare thing to witness the power of a magi that is an ordained. I was a child when—”

  Little further.

  “—the last ordained magi was alive, they say he was quite ruthless—”

  One more step . . .

  Goran stepped onto a pile of papers. Kat immediately covered her eyes and ears with her hands and bent over. She also kept her finger on the talk button on her radio.

  The wrinkled man looked at her bemused. “Oh, come now, it’s not all that bad. I will make sure you are trained well and put—”

  As she was doubled over Kat’s thought’s raced. Why’s it not happening?

  Goran took a step towards her and the world turned white with an explosion of noise and light.

  In the church spire a loud pop came from Vic’s radio.

  “We’re on.” Vic carefully slid his rifle’s barrel through one of the slats and looked down the scope, switching from his headset night vision to the rifle’s.

  Hunt did the same.

  “Here they come,” said Vic as shadows started moving towards the shop in the streets below.

  In the sanctuary even with her hands covering her face Kat’s ears rang with a high-pitched ringing. She looked up. Goran was staggering around with his hands out in front.

  “Didn’t expect a flash grenade did you!”

  She noticed his walking stick was on the ground a few feet from her.

  Not the plan, not the plan.

  She lunged for it, but when it was just a few inches from her fingers it started to slide across the floor, taking sheets of paper with it towards the old man who was now leaning against a wall with one hand outstretched.

  Shit, I have to do it now!

  She quickly turned and dived behind the armchair and grabbed the assault rifle which was stashed there.

  Noises of people running came from the direction of the sewer entrance.

  As she went to turn back towards Goran, the heavy chair flew through the air crashing against a nearby wall, leaving her exposed.

  She raised the gun towards Goran. “Whatever you’re doing, stop or I’ll—” The gun went the same way as the chair. Kat froze not knowing what to do, then threw her ring hand out in front of her. A burst of blue energy streamed from her hand towards the man that was now holding his stick towards her. Just before Kat’s magic hit him, an equally powerful stream of red electricity emanated from the stone at the top of the stick. The two energy streams hit head on, neither giving away.

  The door to the sewer flew open, and Sparrow immediately let fly a volley of three arrows towards Goran. The projectiles flew across the room then dropped on nearing him, seemingly crashing into an invisible wall. With a dash of his hand, Goran sent the attackers that were surging into the room flying backwards into the walls and cupboards. He then turned his attention back to Kat.

  Outside neon streaks rained down from the church spires to the snow-covered streets below.

  “There’s a whole stack of them coming from the south!” shouted Hunt, firing at the moving creatures, which glowed a light green through his scope.

  Arrows clattered across the slats then fell.

  “If they keep fighting us with bows and arrows, we might get through—” Vic saw the huge dark shape rise up from a mile off, like a giant aircraft doing a vertical ascent, but this thing had wings which then slowly flapped up and down. “I think it’s time for us to go!”

  They both scrambled down the metal rungs of
the ladder to the floor below as the building around them shook.

  Kat grabbed her ring hand with her other, to try and keep it steady as the force of Goran’s power started to push her stream of magic back.

  The others in the room staggered to their feet and a combination of blade and arrow descended upon Goran, but they all stopped a few feet away hitting up against a barrier which fizzed with energy on each new impact.

  “I can’t hold him much longer!” shouted Kat glancing to her left as Sparrow and the other fighters hacked away, trying to break through.

  Vic and Hunt ran into nave of the church, past the aisles as a huge crashing noise came from above, making them throw their arms above their heads. Masonry and wooden beams started to fall as gaps opened up revealing the night sky.

  “Run!” shouted Vic as he looked up at the scales and horns of a lizard- head looking through one of the jagged holes. As they made it to the front doors, the space behind them filled with fire. Diving forward into the snow, flames burst from the church behind them. Hunt looked up as the creature scrambled over the roof of the building, its wall’s crumbling from the weight.

  Vic grabbed him by the shoulder. “Gotta move, Corporal!”

  In the sanctuary Kat looked at the yellow red of Goran’s magic just inches from her hand and knew she was going to lose. Sparrow seeing what was about to occur ran across the room and dived at Kat just as she collapsed. The stream from Goran’s stick split the air and exploded against the back wall. He then turned his full attention to the attackers, immediately turning two to ash, while lifting the others upwards until they crashed into the ceiling, where he let them drop the twenty or so feet to the ground.

  Sparrow rolled onto her front and fired off the last of her arrows. He went to repel it, but the arrow wasn’t aimed directly at him, instead it skimmed off a nearby wall and slammed into his shoulder making him howl in pain.

  She then pulled on Kat’s arm for her to get up, but she was a dead weight. “Come on!” she shouted, but as she tugged on Kat to get up she sensed the old man behind her, then all went black.