Chapter Ten
Matthew now felt himself squashed against the wall. He could feel Hannah next to him, which gave him a little comfort in the chaotic atmosphere of the battle - or massacre, Matthew corrected himself. He tried to turn himself around to see how near the soldiers were but could not.
He could still hear the loud voices of Curt and Tobias in the horrible noise of killing. But they sounded like they were in trouble themselves and gave Matthew no hope. He felt it was only a matter of time before he, Hannah, and her grandfather would soon be butchered. But then the noise of swords and arrows seemed to stop and Matthew felt himself become even more squashed.
With an effort he turned his head in the direction of Curt and Tobias and could just about make out their backs in the torch-lit corridor. But he could see they and some of Curt’s men still had their swords ready for action.
Then he heard a voice in front of them, commanding but nervous. ‘Put down your weapons! You have no hope of escape! You are surrounded.’ Matthew then saw Curt and Tobias look at each other and around them, then obey, putting their swords carefully down on the stone floor. Curt’s remaining men did the same.
The soldiers then began to roughly drag Tobias and Curt, his men, and prisoners away, in the direction of the voice, back towards the dungeon. Matthew felt himself become able to move and then he too was grabbed by a couple of soldiers. Hannah and her grandfather were then treated the same as well as the others behind them.
Matthew noticed several bodies on the floor as he went, some soldiers, prisoners, and a few of Curt’s men. He remembered having previously thought in his own world from films and books that war was glamorous; he no longer felt this way. It was horrible with lots of blood, nasty wounds everywhere, and awful screams and groans.
Ahead, Matthew could see at the meeting of corridors the same evil-looking horseman in black whom he had seen when he had first come into the Land when he was hiding with Hannah. He seemed to be in charge and was probably the one with the “commanding voice.” As Matthew got nearer to him, he could see that “the voice” was looking at each of the passing prisoners carefully and when Matthew reached him himself, he discovered the reason why.
‘Ah, at last we find the young stranger! We were expecting you a day and a half ago and were wondering where you were ever since.
My name is Eustace. I am the captain of the guard.’ He then gestured for the two soldiers to release Matthew and took him by the arm himself. Matthew could see that he looked very happy. ‘Come, I will take you to a place of comfort, where you can have some food and drink,’ Eustace said as he took Matthew away from Hannah and the others down the corridor where the soldiers who first discovered them had come from.
Matthew turned his head around to see if Hannah was all right and managed to see her staring at him as a soldier manhandled her away. He could be wrong but he felt some hostility in her look.
Matthew did not like being treated differently from the others. This always seemed to happen to him in his own world and he could never understand why. But he knew in this instance that he had no choice other than to go with Eustace, who was accompanied by four of his soldiers.
Eustace himself looked the part as a soldier but Matthew felt that he was more of an administrator. At the end of the corridor there were some more stairs, which Eustace took Matthew up. They went down another corridor. Eustace then stopped before a large wooden door, briefly hesitated, opened it, and gestured for Matthew to enter it.
It was big and dark and Matthew could hardly see anything but there was a fire in a fireplace on his left which gave him something to focus on. Eustace took Matthew to one of two big chairs by it and motioned for him to sit down. He then disappeared in the shadows before Matthew heard the door he had just come through close.
He looked around him and thought about what time it was: 11, 12 p.m.? It was certainly very late. But he could see nothing in the dark room as he wondered where the promised water and food were. He was, however, happy to be seated. He was physically and emotionally exhausted after the day’s events.
Firstly, there was the trip to Martha and her surprising him with her character analysis, which now seemed so long ago. Then there was the journey back to the farm and the possible danger there to Hannah and him. Finally came the tiring and stressful experience of the attempted escape and the fighting, killing, and capture.
Matthew felt like crying after what he had experienced: something that rarely happened to him. The memory of his parents came into his head and he realised he missed them very much. They would now be very worried about him and had probably called the police. He vowed to himself that he would stop being a worry to them if he saw them again. He yearned for the “normality” of his own world and wanted to return to it. He did not have the most exciting life there but it was comfortable and at least safe, unlike the killing he had just witnessed.
In any event, just like his own world most of the people here did not seem to think much of him, including the so-called Wise woman, Martha. Here he was just the “boy” to them all. The only one who seemed to like him, Hannah, he was no longer sure about, with the apparently hostile look she had just given him. What had he done to deserve that?
There was nothing he could do to help her or the others anyway. He could not fight and his apparent intelligence that Martha said he had did not have any answers for him at the moment. He just wanted the whole experience to end.
He then wondered what was going to happen to him next and became a little scared as he remembered what he had heard about the Baron and his magic. He nearly got up to see if there was any water around but he felt a little shiver as the room seemed to get colder suddenly and the fire almost die.
The Baron had not been happy. He had used his magic to get the boy into the land. It had required much energy and blood - not his though. He needed a weak-minded but intelligent person to perform a task for him and he set the necessary snaring spell at the Clearing. He would have to use a little more magic to bend the will of this person, who would suffer some mental damage. But he felt no moral qualms about his; all that mattered was achieving his goal of total power.
But a day and a half ago, Eustace, his clever Captain of the Guard, had informed him again that the boy he had lured to the Land was not at the Clearing and was nowhere to be found near it, even though he, the Baron, knew he was in the Land somewhere: he could feel it. But for some reason the boy had entered earlier than the Baron had felt he would. This was unlike the time before when he knew the boy had briefly entered the Land but for some reason returned to his own world.
Then, this morning Eustace returned to the Castle saying that they had found the boy’s jacket but not the boy. But later the Baron could no longer feel the presence of the boy in the Land: he must have returned to his own world. Why was it all going wrong? he had asked himself. Fate did not seem to be on his side anymore, after his successful return to the Castle after being banished by his stupid father, who knew nothing about true power and what it could achieve.
Then a short while ago, after hearing some noises in the Castle, he was happy to see Eustace come to see him to tell him they had the boy. He was unhappy about the incursion into his Castle and the laxness of his men – they would pay for this – but the result was the important thing, he thought as he made his way into the room next door. It seemed fate was on his side after all, as he looked over at the boy sitting in the chair opposite him.