Every lurch down the rutted road was not quite agony for Corriwen Redthorn, but it came close. It was painful and uncomfortable and every step the great
hog took heaved her back and forth on the smelly flank between its hams.
</p>
<p>
They had tied her up with hide thongs and slung her across one of the beasts. It stank and grunted and farted and its belly rumbled and the spiky ridge
across its back cut into her with every thud of its horny hooves.<em></em>They had hitched her to a leather girth so she wouldn't slip off. She just hoped
the hog was steady on its feet. If it fell she'd be crushed under it for sure.
</p>
<p>
Every now and again, it would swing its snout around and fix her with a beady, hungry little eye and drool sticky skeins from between its curved tusks. The
hog stank, more so than the Scree who lumbered alongside, hobnails grinding on the cobbles, big, thick shapes that smelt of goat and something flat and dry
and somehow oily as if it leaked through the pores in their thick hides.
</p>
<p>
They spoke amongst themselves in their rockslide grunts and she could understand the words, even if they did sound crude and grating in her ears.
</p>
<p>
She closed her eyes and tried to make the best of it. It was hard going to make anything of it at all. She was caught.
</p>
<p>
Down in the alleyway the big Scree had lifted her up by the neck, a massive hand clamped under her jaw, and he had shaken her like a rag doll, more
irritated than angry. If he'd been really angry, that great first might have closed with a crunch and that would have been that, no doubt about it..
</p>
<p>
The Captain slapped him on the side of the head and the Scree had dropped her to the cobbles where she hit with a thud that knocked the breath out of her.
</p>
<p>
In the dark, despite the pain in her ribs she had rolled as if trying to escape, even though she knew there was no escape from this, but quick as a flash,
quicker than they could see in the gloom, she had snatched her blades and put them up the sleeve of her cloak before the lumbering Scree could reach for
her. This time a horny hand caught her round the ankle and hoisted her high like a suckling pig at the sticking tree. The Captain reached and gripped her
hair, held her up so she dangled by one foot and her hair. She screwed her eyes against the pain, refusing to let him see tears and let her body go limp.
</p>
<p>
"None of that, rag-a-bones" he growled. "You know what's good for you."
</p>
<p>
He turned to the Scree. "Don't you drop this again, or you be so sorry, you. Not a good thing, drop her, you. Mandrake take your eyes."
</p>
<p>
"No Surr. I got it now. Fast wee beastie, her, give her that much."
</p>
<p>
She swung in the air between them, fixed the Captain with her green eyes.
</p>
<p>
"Mandrake is my uncle," she said. "He'll have your ears for this."
</p>
<p>
"Mandrake up north," the Scree said. "No luck, you."
</p>
<p>
The big Captain slugged him again. His knuckles connected like a hammer on a door. The other Scree merely staggered a bit, his face expressionless.
</p>
<p>
"Tie this up. She runs, you lose legs."
</p>
<p>
The Scree nodded, taking the threat. He tied her hands tight, then the rest of them gathered round, curious about all the fuss and urgency over this little
scrawny scrap. The wolfhounds, more wolf than hound, each almost as tall as the great boars, panted and eyed her hungrily. Their ribs showed under shaggy
pelts and they looked mean and starving, mouths full of teeth and tongues lolling to the ground. She lay still, rocking with every step, staying alert.
</p>
<p>
She had found one thing. Mandrake was up north. He would have to come to her, or they would take her to him. One way or another, she had time to think, and
there would always be opportunity. <em>Maybe</em>. She had heard that Mandrake never moved out of Northern Keep, not now that the damn was almost built.
And he never moved by day. She could be in for a long trip, and anything could happen between here and there.
</p>
<p>
Corriwen closed her eyes, tried to ignore the discomfort and the anger at being caught on the first day out from the bard's haven. Anger would do her no
good at all. It was a luxury she couldn't afford.
</p>
<p>
She bit down on the futile anger. She had survived these months alone, months on the run with the Scree troops hunting her under every root and in every
covert, a lone girl living off the forest with no company but fond memories of her father and brother and awful memories of their passing.
</p>
<p>
When she had stumbled across the slaughterfield and found Cerwin, battle-helm split and his red hair plastered to his broken face, one hand still clutching
the sword in a death-grip, she had wept bitter, heartrending tears, but she had also vowed then, even at her lowest ebb, to somehow survive and repay
Mandrake for what he had done.
</p>
<p>
It had seemed a forlorn hope, when she was all alone, but she held on to it, nursing the anguish and loss and the bright spark of righteous fury through
the darkest nights and the most dismal grey dawns, reminding herself that she was not lying rotting in some dank battlefield, but alive and breathing. She
was the last of the Redthorns and she <em>had</em> to stay alive for the sake of her dead father and brother and for the people of Temair.
</p>
<p>
<em>Now she was </em>
not<em> alone</em>.
</p>
<p>
Even lashed across the back of the stinking boar, captured and helpless, she knew she was not alone. She had felt it the first night she had met them in
the forest, after the fright of being snagged in the snares, believing herself caught by the Scree. When she had looked into Jack Flint's blue eyes and
held his hands, she had sensed deep inside herself that somehow this strange meeting was meant to be.
</p>
<p>
He had survived the fight with the Scree. <em>Had to have survived.</em> They had been trapped and there had been two many of the lumbering brutes and
their beasts. Jack wasn't stupid and he was braver than he himself knew, so he would have run, he'd have escaped. It was the only reasonable thing to do -
to live and try again another day.
</p>
<p>
If the Scree hadn't caught Jack and Kerry, they would be hiding somewhere. They'd be on the trail of this little bandwagon, thinking of some way of getting
her out of this.
</p>
<p>
As the big hog jolted its way along the rough road, she ignored the pressure of its spine-ridge on her belly and the awesome stench of the beast and
imagined the pair of them coming after them, strangers from a strange land who had become her friends.
</p>
<p>
She recalled her last conversation with Jack, while Kerry was still asleep on the boat as it sped through the mist across the silent waters.
"He talked to you too?" Jack had asked, keeping his voice low.
</p>
<p>
"When you were asleep. Finbar says Mandrake took the Redthorn sword to break the <em>geas</em> in the Black Barrow. He says she might still be held, but
she is awake and aware. She can send out her essence to the night creatures, and to those Scree."
</p>
<p>
Her eyes were bright in the morning mist. "But if he breaks all the <em>geas</em>, then she will be free, and Finbar says that will be a terrible thing for
Temair. And your world too."
</p>
<p>
"That's the impression he gave me," Jack agreed.
</p>
<p>
"Did he tell you about the sword?"
</p>
<p>
"Beyond what I saw in the flames, no." Jack closed his eyes against the reflection on the surface, recalling the image of the tall man and the sword of
light. Kerry had said he looked like a <em>Jedi</em> knight.
</p>
<p>
"It was the Cullian sword," Corriwen said, "that caught the Morrigan and let the bards trap her in the Fireglass stone. It was given to my family and it
became the Redthorn sword. My father and his people could summon all the chiefs under it."
</p>
<p>
"So who was this Cullian guy?"
</p>
<p>
"He was the hero that brought down the Morrigan and saved Temair. He was like you, Finbar said. He came from the east and then he went west and was never
seen again. But he rallied the people of Temair against the <em>ravener </em>and he brought her down. Finbar said we must make the wheel turn full circle."
</p>
<p>
"Easy said," Jack shrugged. He still had a hard time taking any of this in. It sounded too much like the stories he'd read in the Major's library. But
unless it really was a dream - and it was the longest, scariest dream he'd ever had in his life - he and Kerry were here, Kerry snoring in the boat
thwarts, and Corriwen Redthorn holding his eyes with hers. "What can three teenagers do?"
</p>
<p>
"We <em>were </em>three children," Corriwen said. Her jaw was set, her expression determined, and that made Jack a little bit ashamed of how scared he
felt.
</p>
<p>
"Now we have to be something else," she said, peering ahead into the mist. "We have killed Scree and killed their beasts and we are still walking free."
</p>
<p>
"And for how long?" he wondered aloud.
</p>
<p>
She turned and looked at him, the waxing sun in her green eyes
</p>
<p>
"I'm the last of the Redthorns. And I'm tired of running and hiding. It's time to turn the tide.
</p>
<p>
"I have to find the Redthorn Sword. Finn says it's a road beset with peril, and worse at the end, for the Black Barrow has been soaked in her evil for so
long, it's a place of madness."
</p>
<p>
That resolute expression chiselled her face. "But somebody has to do it. For Temair and Caledon both.
Now here she was, a prisoner, jolting eastwards on the back of a boar-hog, moving ever eastwards through a blasted country of burned farms and weedy fields
and the occasional bloated body of a grazing animal. This place had been scoured And soured. Now it lay empty and desolate.
</p>
<p>
<em>She will devastate Temair…and the worlds</em>
"Come on," Jack had urged. Without a pause they spun away, scuttled down the nearest alley, found the edge of the village and kept going in the darkness
while behind them the hamlet was beginning to burn, sending flames leaping high to the low clouds.
</p>
<p>
After a while they came to a thick coppice of trees and ran for the shadows.
</p>
<p>
When they stopped, heaving for breath in a clearing Kerry turned to Jack.
</p>
<p>
"You rat," he said. "You left her."
</p>
<p>
And without any warning Kerry swung a cocked fist and punched Jack as hard as he could. His best friend went sprawling and Kerry blinked back sudden hot
tears of anger and shame and frustration<em>.</em>
</p>
<p>
Jack had rolled, jaw numb from the big roundhouse blow, crashing through the dry leaves and fetching up under a juniper bush, startled, surprised and hurt,
though the hurt was all inside him. Kerry hadn't hesitated. He'd wiped his eyes on a sleeve and dived forward just as Jack was hauling to his feet.
</p>
<p>
A second blow took Jack on the cheek, the same cheek that Billy Robbins had thumped and for a second little stars spun in crazy orbits. He staggered back,
arms flailing for balance, trying to ward Kerry off. He snatched at Kerry's wrists, holding them away, and despite Kerry's strength, the two of them stood
locked together. Jack saw tears tracing paths down the grime on his friend's face and he felt a sharp twist of grief inside him.
</p>
<p>
Kerry Malone never cried.
</p>
<p>
"You left her," Kerry sobbed. "We could have fought."
</p>
<p>
"No," Jack said, swallowing hard. "We couldn't.
</p>
<p>
Kerry was struggling to get his hands free, but Jack forced him back, snatched his arms around him and dragged him down to the ground and used his own
weight to pin him down. Kerry kicked and wriggled, but Jack knew he had to hold him, keep him still. He got his thighs around him and held on in a
scissor-lock. Hating this, hating the sudden anger and despair, the desperation of losing a friend in this strange and frightening place.
</p>
<p>
"She would have fought for you!"
</p>
<p>
"I know she would." Jack said, keeping his voice low. "I know. <em>I know</em>." He held tight, felt Kerry strain against him and then all the strength
went out of his arms and Jack could feel him convulse as sobs racked him. Jack couldn't help it. He began to cry too.
</p>
<p>
"All those heroes you told me about," Kerry stopped crying and now his breath hitched between the words. "they're just in books. You'll never <em>be</em>
one. She would have fought for you. Now she's gone."
</p>
<p>
"And so would we be if we had stayed. There was nothing we could do. There were too many of them."
</p>
<p>
"What's that got to do with it?"
</p>
<p>
"We can't help her if we are dead," Jack said slowly. He meant what he said, but the import of his words surprised and shocked him. <em>Dead.</em> He
hadn't considered that possibility before, not really, not while he was still trying to comprehend all of this strangeness.
</p>
<p>
But they could have been killed. In the forest, in the ring of standing stones. In the river, or in the plummet from the vast waterfall.
</p>
<p>
"All you want to do is get home, " Kerry said, voice beginning to falter as he too considered what Jack had just said. "After she saved your life."
</p>
<p>
This was the first fight they had had since they were six years old, their first fight ever, and Jack was stunned with guilt over Kerry's accusation. Right
then he felt the emotions twist him this way and that. Kerry was right. He <em>did </em>want to get home, more than anything; needed to find the way to the
Homeward Gate described in the strange old book.
</p>
<p>
But Kerry was right about something else. Corriwen had surely saved his life when the Scree had come at him with their clubs. She had pushed herself in
front of him, knives flashing fast and deadly. He owed Corriwen his life. That was a fact.
</p>
<p>
"You're right," he finally said. "She did save my life. And I <em>do </em>want to get home again, more than anything. But, honest, Kerry, we couldn't have
saved her, not then. We did the right thing, and that gives us another chance."
</p>
<p>
"What do you mean?"
</p>
<p>
"I mean, they won't hurt her. Mandrake wants her, so they'll take her to him. We can find her, and this time we'll be more prepared. I promise you."
</p>
<p>
"What do you promise?" Kerry's eyes were fixed and demanding. Jack remembered what the Major had said about the old heroes and their blood oaths. Now was
time to be a hero.
</p>
<p>
"I promise you, I won't try to get home until we find her and help her do what she has to do."
They moved at first light. Which way. Jack closed his eyes. Since he had come here, come with the sickening, poisonous touch on his skin, the shee-bane, he
had been lost without his sense of direction. But today, as the sun began to sparkle through the side boughs of the coppice, he could feel it again. He
kept his eyes closed, back to the rising sun, then stuck out his right hand. "That's north. So that's south. He pointed ahead. The village is that way. You
can pick up their trail there. But first, let's try something."
</p>
<p>
Jack Flint had his bearings now, the feel of this world.
</p>
<p>
He opened his pack and drew out the book, handed it to Kerry and they watched, fascinated and expectant as the words evolved on the blank old page.
</p>
<p>
<em>Ever westward, never tarry</em>
</p>
<p>
<em>Perils wait and hunters harry</em>
</p>
<p>
<em>Ware the skies and soaring eyes</em>
</p>
<p>
<em>Find the keep where danger lies.</em>
</p>
<p>
The instructions were unmistakeable.
</p>
<p>
Kerry found the trail beyond the village, and at first it wasn't so hard to follow on the road beyond the ruined hamlet where the hob-nails of the Scree
boots had scuffed and scarred the cobbles, but a mile or so beyond the last of the scattered houses, the road petered out to a track and then vanished
altogether where the captors turned across a churned field, marched through a thin stand of trees and into open country.
</p>
<p>
The pair travelled fast, travelled light, keeping to the lee of old stone walls and ragged thorn-hedges, huddling in sheep pens at night. Jack sensed the
rough direction, as the book had said - <em>ever eastwards -</em> but it was Kerry who kept to the trail, skilfully reading the signs the way he had
followed rabbit tracks back home.
</p>
<p>
Sometimes they would spot groups of marching Scree troops and they would have to fight down the instinct to run and hide, and instead use whatever cover
they could find to get close enough to find out if this was the band that had taken Corriwen. Just what they would do, they hadn't quite worked out, but in
any case, all they came across were random patrols out scouring this wasted land.
</p>
<p>
All the time, they were aware of the roaks flying high, specks against a dismal sky, aware, from what Finn the Bard had told them and from the script in
the old book, that they would be spotted every time they broke cover. For as much as they could, they kept to the trees. Kerry's skill in tracking was
amazing, even to Jack who had always admired the way he could find the game trails and the hidden, camouflaged nests of shelduck and eider.
</p>
<p>
He would find a scuff-mark on stone, a boot-print on hard turf and he even got down on his hands and knees a couple of times, sniffing at the ground like a
bloodhound. He told Jack the smell of the hogs was hard to miss.
</p>
<p>
There was one place where the Scree had waded through thick mud where the trail dipped. The imprints of their hob-nail boots showed clearly along with the
pug marks of the big hounds and the tethered hogs. At one point, on the drying clay, there was a clear hand print. A small <em>human </em>hand print and
they knew for sure they were on the right track. Ten miles further on they came to a toll-post where two tracks crossed and they found a couple of strands
of red-hair caught in a knot-hole.
</p>
<p>
It was three days and three nights, travelling as fast as they could, without any sign of the Scree and their captive, that they reached the keep, and Jack
knew they had found the right place.
</p>
<p>
It was tall and dark and built of old stone that towered high above them into the glowering sky that shaded to black in the west as darkness began to fall.
Moss grew on dank walls on its north side, and on the east, scraggly ivy clung on to the crumbling face. A raised ditch had encircled it once, but now it
was worn down in places and neglected, overgrown with gorse and bracken. Beyond the ditch, there was a moat that didn't look too deep, as if it had
gradually filled in over the years, but its surface was slick with algae and water-weeds, so it could have been deep, but beneath it, the mud would
probably be even deeper and their recent experience told them you couldn't judge what was underwater. Now and again, big fat bubbles would push their way
to the surface and slowly burst with a smell like rot.
</p>
<p>
Jack and Kerry made their way round the keep, keeping close to the scrubby cover, counting the guards. There were two on the battlements, resting against
tall pikestaves, as if half asleep, and two on what looked like a drawbridge, though it could have been a gang-plank. It was hard to tell in the gathering
gloom. They were sitting together, playing a game. It looked like dice.
</p>
<p>
The boys retreated to a dell out of sight and away from the cold wind that came with the start of nightfall.
</p>
<p>
"What now?" Kerry wanted to know.
</p>
<p>
Jack shrugged. "I'm thinking."
</p>
<p>
"Yeah. We need a cunning plan."
</p>
<p>
"She's in there," Jack said.
</p>
<p>
"I know. But how do we get in?"
</p>
<p>
"We wait for dark. See if we can sneak past the guards. The place isn't that big, so we've a chance."
</p>
<p>
"Could we climb the ivy?"
</p>
<p>
"It doesn't look strong enough. If one of us fell, we'd be well scuppered. And I don't fancy landing in that water. There's things in there, I bet. Eels or
something worse. You can never tell in this place."
</p>
<p>
"What about the guards," Kerry asked. He gnawed on the last of the ham bone. "You reckon you could take them with the bow? I could maybe knock one off with
the sling."
</p>
<p>
"Maybe we could, but if we miss, they'll come after us."
</p>
<p>
"Come on Jack man. You're the brains here. I'm just the back-up."
</p>
<p>
"Finish your food first and let me think."
</p>
<p>
Just as he spoke, he heard a noise from over the lip of the hollow. A deep and harsh voice spoke. It sounded so close that Kerry froze, teeth still clamped
on the bone. Another voice replied, guttural and rough. They couldn't hear any words.
</p>
<p>
Jack put a finger to his lips, even though it was unnecessary. Kerry couldn't have spoken, with the big ham-bone between his teeth. Together, very warily,
they crawled up the slope of the hollow and belly-walked like poachers through the bushes.
</p>
<p>
On the drawbridge, one of the big guards had crossed the moat and was peering into the gloom.
</p>
<p>
"I smelled <em>meat</em>," he growled. "S'makin' me slaver."
</p>
<p>
The other guard strolled across, heavy on the solid wood planks. The drawbridge groaned under his weight.
</p>
<p>
"You'se always slavverin' " The second guard sniffed at the air, turned his broad face left and right.
</p>
<p>
"Maybe you'se right, Dob. Smell summthin', me." He sniffed again, sounding like a pig at a trough. "But no meat round here. No nothing, eatwise. I'd kill
me gran for a pickled goat."
</p>
<p>
Jack looked at Kerry, beside him in the bush. Kerry was trying not to laugh at the exchange.
</p>
<p>
"I don't think they're very bright," Jack said.
</p>
<p>
"But they can lift heavy things." Kerry whispered. "I better get rid of the bone before they come sniffin' this way."
</p>
<p>
The two guards went back over the drawbridge and hunkered down, leaning big pikestaves against the wall. They were squat and solid, almost the same colour
as the old stone, and looking every bit as hard. One of them reached for a cup and rattled it. Small white things rolled out onto the planks.
</p>
<p>
"Knucklebones," Jack said. "They're playing a game."
</p>
<p>
He peered through the gloom. There was just enough light to see what they were using for a cup. It was a skull, white in the dark, sawn off at the top.
From where Jack crouched, it looked very much like a human skull.
</p>
<p>
"Let me try something," He said. He wriggled backwards and Kerry followed him. The sun was far beyond the horizon now and the last light was disappearing
from the sky. Under the thick cloud, the world slipped into shades of grey and black. Jack found his pack and rummaged about inside. He drew out the little
laser key-ring he and Kerry had fooled around with on the way home from the Halloween party, on the night when this had all started. That seemed so long
ago now that it could have happened to two other people. Certainly, in that short space of time, he and Kerry had <em>become</em> two different people to
the boys who had run from Billy Robbins.
</p>
<p>
They crept back to their vantage point.
</p>
<p>
"Let's see how bright they are," Jack said. He was grinning now, more from nerves than from anything else, but even he couldn't suppress the sense of
mischief. Kerry sprawled beside him, using the backpack for cover. Jack flicked the little light on, and a small red spot appeared right in the centre of
the skull's eye socket. Kerry aimed, and a second dot winked into being in the other socket. From the distance it seemed red eyes glared from the skull.
</p>
<p>
The first guard reached for the gruesome dice-cup, and instantly jerked his hand back.
</p>
<p>
Jack and Kerry switched off.
</p>
<p>
"Whassamatter, you?"
</p>
<p>
Kerry stifled another giggle. He handed Jack the little keyring and searched about until he found a broad blade of grass. Jack understood immediately.
</p>
<p>
"Nothin'" The second guard was staring at the skull, hand still outstretched. He shook his big broad head.
</p>
<p>
"Well throw. Want to win back, me."
</p>
<p>
Jack aimed with both hands, pressing the tiny buttons at the same time just as the guard reached again. The two red eyes glared from the sockets and right
at that moment Kerry blew through the grass blade between his thumbs. A high shriek split the air.
</p>
<p>
Both guards saw the eyes in the skull and heard the shriek at the dame time. They jumped like startled rhinos, scrambling backwards on their backsides.
Jack flicked the lights off.
</p>
<p>
"You see that?"
</p>
<p>
"I saw it, me." The guards stared at the skull, their postures showing bafflement and alarm.
</p>
<p>
Kerry dropped the glass blade, cupped his hands together and blew between his thumbs, making a low, very convincing owl-hoot. The guards swivelled their
heads. At the same time, Jack flashed both beams onto the wall, just beside their heads.
</p>
<p>
"What be these Dob?" The goard grunted. "They eyes?
</p>
<p>
"Dunno. Old place be h'anted maybe."
</p>
<p>
Then Jack flicked the light off and Kerry followed. One Scree scratched his head with a horny hand. Dabbed at the wall, pictures of dumb bewilderment.
</p>
<p>
Jack aimed and pressed the little button. A single red dot appeared on the backside of the Scree who was bent over the little rail, looking down to the
water.
</p>
<p>
The other one crouched down, puzzled. He reached a hand and touched the other guard's buttocks. The big one whirled.
</p>
<p>
What you doin, you, Gubber? You touch my bum you?
</p>
<p>
"Red eye was on you, Dob. On you'se arse.
</p>
<p>
"On my arse <em>my arse. </em>You goin' funny, you?"
</p>
<p>
"Saw it, Dob. Was on you. Lookin' right at me, it was."
</p>
<p>
"Sure, like. Where's it now?"
</p>
<p>
Gubber shrugged. "S'gone now. Was there too, I swear, me."
</p>
<p>
The big Scree glared, scratched his backside. "So's you gone, next time. You bet."
</p>
<p>
Kerry stiffled another laugh. "They're thick as mince."
</p>
<p>
Jack flicked on the little light again and pinned it to Gubber's shoulder. The other one caught the motion from the corner of his eye and whirled. He
reached a big hand and pushed at his mate.
</p>
<p>
"Whassat for?"
</p>
<p>
"Eye was on you now."
</p>
<p>
The Scree tried to crane his thick neck over his shoulder. His jaw was slack.
</p>
<p>
"Gerrit offa me, you. Don't like this a bit."
</p>
<p>
Jack aimed at the wall and Kerry followed suit, making the red eyes stare out at Scree head height. Both guards hefted their spears as the boys whirled the
lights on the wall, making little dazzling circles.
</p>
<p>
"Me neither," Dob said. "Don't like ghosts, me."
</p>
<p>
Jack aimed again and planted the light on the back of Dob's head. This time Gubber saw it and he went into a crouch, unhitching the big club on his belt.
</p>
<p>
"Don't move Dob. I sees it now."
</p>
<p>
"Is it on me? Gerrit off, Gubs. Gerrit now."
</p>
<p>
Gubber swung the club. From forty yards away the blow sounded like a hammer on an old door. Dob straightened up, like a bull that's been pole-axed and
isn't quite sure if it's dead yet. His mouth opened silently, as if asking the obvious question, and then, without a sound he toppled backwards into the
moat and disappeared in an oily splash.
</p>
<p>
Gubber ran to the edge and peered down into the greasy water. Ripples hit either bank and rebounded to meet in the middle. Down below, under the surface
scum, there wasn't any sign of movement.
</p>
<p>
"Dob? <em>Dob?</em> Never meant that, me."
</p>
<p>
Kerry had to cram a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.
</p>
<p>
Gubber scratched his thick head again, swinging the club in his big hand. He looked at the water, then at the shadows of the front gate, undecided on
whether to poke the water and try to hook Dob out with his pike, or run for help.
</p>
<p>
Jack flicked the light onto the wall and the big Scree spun.
</p>
<p>
"Stay away, you," he growled, lifting his club defensively. "Don't want no red-eye."
</p>
<p>
Jack trailed the light down the wall and the Scree backed off. The little point came tracing across the planks and the guard shuffled backwards, growling
wordlessly. He backed against the low banister and stopped. Jack swung the key-ring fast now and the red light zipped forward, like an angry glow-worm,
fast enough to take the slow Scree by surprise. He jerked, raised a foot as if to kick it away, while backing further.
</p>
<p>
The motion was just enough to make him lose balance and his weight fell against the flimsy banister which cracked like matchwood. The thick club went
flying to the side as the Scree pinwheeled for balance, grabbing the pike as if it could stop him, and then, with a muted roar, he flopped backwards into
the water. There was a flurry of slime and foam and then, in moments, nothing at all.
</p>
<p>
"The Scree sink," Jack said. "She told us that."
</p>
<p>
They scrambled out of the bushes and without a pause, they darted across the bridge into the shadows of the doorway. A small hatch in the great wooden door
had a simple latch. Jack lifted it and Kerry followed him into gloom that was hardly relieved by smelly tallow torches at the end of a wide entrance.
</p>
<p>
They tiptoed to the far end, found another door which opened creakily and then were in a narrow corridor that branched left and right.
</p>
<p>
"Which way?" Kerry asked. Jack shrugged. He chose the left side and they scurried down it, keeping close to the walls. On either side, there were rooms or
cells, with small barred hatches above head-height. The place stank of tallow and pig and goat and old soot.
</p>
<p>
"We'll have to check them all out," Jack said. "She's in here somewhere."
</p>
<p>
They sneaked to the far end, nervous as mice and the passageway took a sharp turn to the right, when Jack stopped so suddenly Kerry barged into him.
</p>
<p>
A big Scree trooper was lumbering down the passageway, so broad and squat that his shoulders brushed either wall.
</p>
<p>
"Back," Jack hissed. They turned and ran together, back the way they had come, all too aware of the heavy steps of the big Scree. They reached the fork,
took the right side this time, turned a corner.
</p>
<p>
And they barged right into the belly of another guard.
</p>
<p>
It was like hitting a solid stone wall.
</p>
<p>
Something swung down from the dark and swatted Kerry to the ground. Something else came down and clamped on Jack's head. He felt himself swung up his feet,
the pressure of thick horny fingers so powerful that for a second he thought his eyes would pop out.
</p>
<p>
He gasped in paid, kicked his legs in a futile attempt to free himself.
</p>
<p>
The big Scree lifted him with one hand, right up to eye level and glared into his eyes. Jack smelt bad meet and worse breath.
</p>
<p>
"Been lookin' for you, us," the Scree captain growled. "Save us plenty time, you."
