‘That was the river that boy, Mason, came in on,’ Lovett shouted as they burst out of the clouds in a wash of mist. ‘The one who brought back the body of the goblin. He’s a brave soul – I wouldn’t have the guts to do what he’s doing.’
They were gliding above a great stretch of white mantle of cloud that extended as far as the eye could see. Now that they were above them, the sun blazed brightly in the sky, reflecting off the bank of clouds to give them a fierce glare. It was strange, for the sky had been overcast and grey before they flew through them.
‘What do you mean, about Mason? Why is he brave?’ Sylva asked, her voice breathy with excitement, hands clasped tightly around Fletcher’s midriff.
‘Why would he want to guide Malik’s team?’ Lovett replied. ‘Remember the state he was in when he came back over the front lines? He’s either mad or fearless to go back. I can’t tell if it’s out of loyalty to his friends who are still captives, or if he’s after the money that comes with it.’
The formation of flying demons began to glide south, many just above the cloud line, their feet brushing along the tops. Fletcher stretched out his toes, hoping to feel something, but all he felt was the gradual soaking of his moccasins.
‘I have something for you,’ Lovett said, reaching into her saddle panniers. She withdrew a scroll, tightly bound with a red ribbon.
‘If something happens to me while you’re out there,’ she said, pressing it into Fletcher’s hands, ‘this is Lysander’s summoning scroll. I don’t want him fading back into the ether in the middle of your mission if the worst happens.’
‘Thank you,’ Fletcher said, touched by the gesture. ‘You will have it back when we return.’
He tucked it into the side pocket of his satchel, careful not to disturb the gremlin. If Lovett found out about the fugitive he was harbouring he wasn’t sure how he would explain himself.
On they flew, the sun baking their skin, the wind watering their eyes with each gust. But it was not long before the exhilaration of flying wore off and the reality of where they were going sunk in.
‘Why don’t you let Athena stretch her wings?’ Lovett suggested, sensing the tension.
Fletcher smiled and pointed his palm into the sky. Athena erupted into existence with a flash of blue light, spiralling in an elegant pirouette until she was gliding just ahead of Lysander’s beak.
‘You might want to move her,’ Lovett chuckled, though Fletcher didn’t understand the joke. He wracked his brains, confused, then Sylva whispered:
‘Most of Hominum is watching this through Lysander’s eyes. I don’t think they’d appreciate a view of Athena’s backside.’
‘Oh!’ Fletcher laughed, nudging Athena downwards with a swift thought. ‘I forgot!’
‘I won’t be forgetting in a hurry,’ Lovett grumbled, rubbing Lysander’s tufted ears. ‘Lysander spent most of yesterday being poked and prodded by crystals to be distributed around the Empire. We had to stand beside Hannibal, Zacharias’s Wendigo, the entire time. That thing smelled riper than a gremlin’s loincloth.’
Within Fletcher’s backpack, Blue shifted, as if he recognised the word. Fletcher didn’t even know if gremlins were capable of speech, but he changed the subject quickly.
‘Why are we flying above the clouds?’ Fletcher asked. ‘Don’t we need to see the lay of the land?’
‘Actually, we’re lucky the day is so overcast,’ Lovett said, shaking her head at him. ‘There are thousands of orcs, gremlins, maybe even goblins, going about their day-to-day business below us. This is their territory now. If even one of them happened to see us flying above them, this mission would be over before it has even begun. No, we’ll be staying in cloud-cover until we reach the drop zone. You’ll be pretty safe there – the Celestial Corps scouts tell us it’s relatively uninhabited.’
Fletcher swallowed, the thick bank of clouds suddenly seeming an insubstantial barrier between him and the land below. Indeed, on occasion the mist thinned, giving him tantalising glimpses of mountainous terrain, all of it covered in an overgrown mass of greenery. He dreaded to think how long it would take them to make their way back, should the Celestial Corps fail to extract them. If they could even make it back at all.
For the first time, he noticed a short lance attached beneath the side of the saddle. It appeared rather like a jousting pole of the knights of old, but a little shorter and more robust. This one was painted with stripes of white and blue, with a fearsome metallic tip that glinted in the sunlight.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing at it.
‘A lance, what else?’ Lovett replied, tugging it from its holder and demonstrating by couching it under her arm. ‘When you’re fighting a Wyvern, the lance is the only thing that will pierce its hide, and even then, you’ll need some speed behind the blow.’
Fletcher shuddered at the thought of fighting so high up, riding on demons that clashed together in a flailing mess of wings and claws.
‘Sometimes you’ll get an unwelcome passenger drop in,’ Lovett continued, replacing the lance and removing a blade from a scabbard at her side. ‘Shrikes, Strixs or Vesps are the most common, smaller orc-flying demons, and if they get too close, you have to take them out with this.’
Fletcher recognised it to be a rondel dagger – a needlelike blade with disk-shaped guards on the top and bottom of the hilt to protect the wielder’s hands.
‘Of course, that’s forgetting all the battle-spells flying around,’ Lovett said, twirling the dagger with practised ease and returning it to her scabbard. ‘If you thought spellcraft was difficult before, just wait until you have to do it in a dogfight.’
Fletcher shuddered, and for the first time resented how quickly he had been put through Vocans. One year was not nearly enough time to learn all that summoning had to offer, nor to perfect the techniques that he had managed to learn.
He had been told that orc shamans had weaker demons in general, but he wondered if that was truth, or propaganda. After all, Wyverns were some of the most powerful demons in existence. Perhaps it was the demons that were sent against the front line that were weaker, and the more powerful demons were being held back. For now.
‘We’re following the river,’ Lovett shouted as the wind picked up and snatched at her words. ‘You’ll be dropped in a swamp that feeds into one of its sources. Won’t be long now!’
As if she had heard, Ophelia came to a halt at the head of the squadron. For a moment she hovered there, peering at the ground below, then she shot three wyrdlights into the sky in quick succession.
At the signal, Lysander folded back his wings and they dropped through the clouds like a falling arrow, hurtling through the air so fast that the wind tore at Fletcher’s eyes and face. He took in a brief blur of green landscape, then leaves were slapping across his legs and arms.
Lysander seemed to leap from branch to branch, each one springing down like a bent sapling, slowing their descent to the point of breaking, only to be released as he moved on to the next. Finally, when Fletcher thought it would never end, there was a soft thud as the Griffin’s claws tore into the soil, skidding along the top and leaving four furrows behind them. They came to a halt moments before hitting a tangled patch of thorny briars.
‘Now that’s what I call a quick descent,’ Lovett whooped, punching the air with her fist. Fletcher felt Sylva slowly roll off Lysander’s back, collapsing on the ground with her legs akimbo, still conformed to the shape of the saddle.
‘That was awful,’ she gasped, digging her fingers into the ground.
‘I thought you’d be used to heights, what with the Great Forest and all,’ Fletcher said, though his own heart was pounding so hard he could almost hear his pulse in his ears. He jumped to the ground and promptly collapsed beside her, his legs numb from gripping Lysander’s sides for so long.
‘It’s not so much the height as the descent,’ Sylva replied, slapping him playfully on the chest. They lay there, watching, as other riders glided more slowly th
rough the canopy.
‘Idiots,’ Lovett grumbled, watching as one of the crates was lowered through the treetops by a pair of hovering Griffins. ‘The longer we take to land, the more likely the orcs might spot us.’
Athena fluttered down and perched on Fletcher’s chest, blinking as she examined him. She paddled with her paws at his stomach and legs, making sure he was still in one piece. He grinned and stroked her, revelling in the strange way her downy plumage blended with the soft fur of her chest and back.
He sat up and took in his surroundings. The woods were thicker and more abundant than the elven lands, which had consisted of massive trunks surrounded by a flat blanket of moss. In contrast, the jungle’s ground was covered in a bed of mulched leaves, with thorny branches, broad-leafed plant-life and hanging vines filling the gaps between the gnarled, interlocking trees. The soil was dark and fragrant, fuelled by the constant fall of dead leaves to leave a rich, soft loam underfoot. Just beyond the clearing he and the others had landed in, pools of stinking liquid cratered the earth – brackish black water covered by a scum of moulding, rotting foliage.
‘I’m never doing that again,’ Cress declared, and Fletcher turned his head to see her face-down on the ground, hugging the earth for all she was worth. Othello seemed to be faring only slightly better, kneeling beside Arcturus’s Alicorn with a relieved look upon his face.
‘I’d rather walk,’ Cress continued blithely. ‘You can sod off with your flying malarkey, Arcturus. You and Buck can sleep in when it’s time to rescue us.’
Arcturus laughed, removing his leather cap and shaking out a thick, untamed mane of black hair. Fletcher was sure he saw Lovett blush, glancing quickly up at Arcturus and then looking away. Fletcher caught her eye and grinned, but the stern look she returned him swiftly wiped it from his face.
‘On your feet, all of you,’ Ophelia’s voice cracked out from the milling demons around them. ‘We’re leaving.’
The teams assembled and the crates unloaded, leaving Sacharissa, Hannibal and Caliban to stumble out and join the others. Arcturus lifted Lovett from Lysander’s back and carried her to Bucephalus, cradling her like a sleeping child. For a while Fletcher had forgotten her loss of movement and he felt a surge of guilt for taking Lysander away from her.
Ophelia strode back and forth impatiently, eager to return to the safety of Hominum’s front lines.
‘I want you all to remember that the world is watching you through your sponsors’ demons’ eyes,’ she snapped, her eyes roving across their faces. ‘Comport yourselves in a way that would befit graduates of Vocans. Do not shirk your duty.’
Her granddaughter, Verity, raised a tentative hand, but after a glare from Ophelia, returned it to her side. It took a few more moments for Arcturus to remove Lysander’s saddle and strap it to Bucephalus’s side, then the Celestial Corps were mounted once again.
‘Look after Lysander, would you?’ Lovett called, raising her voice to be heard over the well-wishes of the other riders.
‘Sacha too,’ Arcturus echoed.
Then, just like that, they were in the air again, leaving the graduates to their fate. The teams stood and watched in silence for a while, until the corps had disappeared from sight.
‘So,’ Seraph said cheerfully. ‘What do we do now?’
25
The four team leaders gathered in a rough circle, squatting on their haunches to avoid the wet ground. Seraph had spread his map on his backpack, with his planned route marked out along it.
The river followed a meandering path, the only real feature in an ocean of green. On one of the river’s more curved bends, a red X marked the spot where the orc caves were, as well as a crude drawing of a pyramid. In the corner of the map was a more detailed diagram that delineated the orc encampment, made from Mason’s memories of his time as a slave there. The square-based pyramid featured heavily, with a network of cave tunnels running beneath it – that was the location of the goblin eggs.
‘We’re going to follow the river on the west side, so we don’t need to cross it to get to the camp,’ Malik said, tracing his path with a finger. ‘With Mason as our guide, we’ll be able to avoid any patrols easily enough.’
‘We’re going on the east of the river and will cross in the darkness,’ Seraph said, shaking his head and pointing to the dotted line his team had already drawn along the river bank. ‘The west side is nearer to the orc camps. I’d rather get wet than get killed.’
He nodded at his guide, a grizzled veteran who was armed with a heavy crossbow.
‘Sergeant Musher was left for dead after a battle in the jungles last year. Evaded capture for twenty days, living off the land and navigating by the stars. He’ll see we m—’
‘You’re both wrong,’ Isadora interrupted, slapping Malik’s hand aside and outlining a wider arc, further to the west. ‘We will cross like Malik, but curve around the west bank of the river. The river is a source of fish and water, that’s where the orcs will congregate. It’s more ground to cover but it will be safer.’
Fletcher felt strange, being so close to Isadora. Her father had worked hard to have him and Othello executed, not to mention the fact that she and Tarquin had planned Sylva’s murder. Yet here they were, working together against the orcs.
‘Fletcher,’ Seraph said, nudging him. Fletcher glanced up and saw the other team leaders looking at him expectantly.
‘I agree the banks of the river will be more populated,’ he said, remembering the route he and the others had decided on. ‘We’ll do the same but on this side. We’ll cross at night like Seraph but before that we will stay away from the river’s edge.’
‘Nobles on one side, commoners on the other,’ Isadora smirked, nodding to herself with satisfaction. ‘We’ll see who gets there first.’
Seraph scowled at her words but rolled up the map.
‘It’s good we’re splitting up,’ Malik said, ignoring Isadora. ‘If one team is caught, there will be three others to complete the mission. But there’s a disadvantage too.’
‘What’s that?’ Fletcher asked.
‘It will be hard to arrive at the pyramid at the same time, like Rook said. If we don’t, the first team to arrive will have to go in all alone and the other teams will be vulnerable when the alarm is raised. Then the Celestial Corps will have a hell of a time locating all four teams in the window before the Wyvern riders arrive.’
‘He’s right,’ Isadora agreed, though begrudgingly. ‘We’ll just have to do our best. If one team arrives early, wait inside the pyramid. Mason tells me it’s sacred ground that’s used only for ceremonies, so we’ll be safe inside. If you’re late … you make your own way home.’
‘That works for me,’ Fletcher said, as Malik and Seraph nodded.
‘We’ll head through the swamp to where it joins the mouth of the river,’ Malik said, standing up. ‘Then we go our separate ways and reunite at the pyramid.’
As the team leaders returned to their respective groups, Fletcher was increasingly aware of the rustling gremlin in his rucksack. The little creature could obviously smell that he was back in the jungle and was making an attempt to break free. Fletcher needed a distraction.
‘I have an idea,’ he announced to the four groups, wary of raising his voice too much, in case it carried through the jungle. ‘Each of our guides has expertise that the others don’t. For example, Jeffrey has access to a new set of spells that have only recently been discovered and a knowledge of the local plant-life, all of which I am willing to share with you. Seraph’s guide, Sergeant Musher, will know about avoiding detection and navigating in the forest. Yours …’
He looked over at Malik’s guide, Mason, who was busy eating his way through a pile of jungle fruit.
‘Well, we’ll all have something to contribute I’m sure.’
‘What about me?’ growled a voice from among Isadora’s team. ‘Will I be of use?’
With all the excitement and the milling around, Fletcher had not had a chance to see
who Tarquin’s guide was. Yet, when the bulky frame revealed itself, Fletcher’s breath caught in his throat. Grindle.
He was an ugly man, with the squashed face of a bulldog and a thick padding of fat all over his body, more even than Atlas, who stood beside him. He wore the black uniform of the Forsyth Furies, as did all of Isadora’s team.
‘I served as Lord Forsyth’s man for many years,’ he said, lumbering towards Fletcher. ‘You know, getting my hands bloody, so Zacharias wouldn’t have to. Couldn’t let his kids go into the jungle without my watchful eye over them.’
Grindle winked at Sylva, whose face had gone ashen white. Almost two years ago, this man had put her head on a block and had raised the very same knobbled club that he now wore on his back, intending to kill her. Had it not been for Othello and Fletcher’s intervention, she would now be dead, and Hominum would be in the midst of war with the elves.
Sylva nocked an arrow to her bow, but Othello tugged it from the bowstring before she could raise it.
‘The world is watching,’ he hissed, pointing at the Wendigo, whose black eyes were fixed on them with keen interest.
‘You want to help them?’ Sylva snapped, turning her anger on Fletcher.
‘Maybe we’ll just share with Seraph’s team,’ Fletcher said, his voice taut with the same fury. ‘You seem like you have all the help you need.’
‘What help would a filthy servant boy with ideas above his station and a soldier stupid enough to get himself lost in the jungle give us?’ Tarquin said, inspecting his nails. ‘Run along and share all you like. We’ll be on our way now.’
Isadora grinned nastily at them, then hissed an order at the Wendigo. It knuckled its way through the underbrush, its claws spreading wide to tear a path ahead.
‘Catch you later, Fletcher,’ Didric called, tapping the rapier at his side. ‘We’ll be seeing you very soon.’
Then the Forsyth team walked nonchalantly into the jungle, their backs receding until all that remained was the distant snap of branches.
‘Well, I don’t want to know what that was about,’ Verity said brightly, stepping forward. ‘But we would be very willing to share. Mason can show you how to read the ground and leave no trail, a lesson that those idiots could have benefited from.’ She pointed a thumb over her shoulder at the path of broken stems and disturbed ground the Forsyths had left behind. ‘What do you say?’