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<title>Spellbinder - Chapter 6</title>
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<h1>6</h1><p>"We look like a pair of garden gnomes," Kerry said. "I'm like something out of the seven dwarfs."</p>
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<p>"Which one are you? Dopey?"</p>
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<p>"Yeah, well you must be Grumpy," Kerry shot back. "As usual."</p>
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<p>Jack chuckled, for the first time since they had stepped from their world into this one.</p>
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<p>"Hi-ho, hi-<em>ho</em>!" Jack pulled the hood over his head, and got another laugh from Kerry. </p>
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<p>They walked on in fine morning sunlight, food in their bellies and more rested now after the strange night in Rune's drumlin.</p>
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<p>Rune had placed Jack's bare foot on the wooden last and both boys had watched again as the carved foot had buckled and rippled, stretching out magically until it mirrored Jack's own, just a little bit larger than Kerry's.</p>
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<p>"Measure twice, cut once," the little man had said, holding Jack's instep tight to the last. "My, the pair of you must leave big tracks in the mud."</p>
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<p>He bent to his bottomless bag and began to remove strips of what looked like leather of different textures and colours.</p>
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<p>"The trick is, you use thirteen hides. Coney, wolf, all the fast ones. And shoe horn from the four-horn goat. Best climber ever there was."</p>
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<p>"If you make it fit, we won't need a shoe horn," Kerry said. Rune winked up at him.</p>
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<p>"Oh, they'll fit," he said. "Don't you worry about that. And the four-horn won't let you fall, unless you're really daft and careless."</p>
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<p>With that he bent to the task, tip-tapping, hunched over the last, and after a while the soft and steady beat of the little hammer on leather lulled them into sleep in the warmth of the cavern.</p>
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<p>Until Jack awoke suddenly in the darkness, all his senses alert.</p>
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<p>The tapping sound had changed tone. Beside him, in the wan light of the fire at the cave's mouth, Kerry was curled up on a bed of dry leaves, snoring softly, both hands around the hilt of his sword. The little lamp had snuffed out.</p>
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<p>At his throat, the stone heart was vibrating, fast as a tuning fork. The sound its crystal made was like a single note, so high it was almost inaudible. Jack clamped his hand over it and the vibration surged through his hand, through his bones, and then it stopped.</p>
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<p>Jack heard the other sound again, a steady pulse, not a tapping sound, but a far-off beat that seemed to shiver the stones under him. He sat up, straining to see, straining to hear. There was no sign of the Cluricaun.</p>
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<p>The beat grew louder. It sounded like distant footsteps, heavy and solid. He stood up in the gloom, swinging his head left and right, trying to work out the direction, and as he did, he felt his feet move him past Kerry towards the deeper darkness at the back of the cave.</p>
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<p>Doom-<em>doom. </em>It <em>did</em> sound like footsteps, getting louder as they approached. He remembered what Rune had said about the drumlin.</p>
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<p>"<em>Where they buried one of the old kings, an awful long time ago</em>," he'd said. "<em>You might see a thing or two in the dark, but there's nothing to worry about. Wraiths never harmed a soul that didn't deserve it</em>."</p>
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<p>Jack felt no fear, only curiosity, and that was fine with him, because it meant he was dreaming. He moved forward, one hand touching the dry stone walls, breathing in the fine dust of centuries past, while the footsteps grew louder, echoing now from wall to wall.</p>
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<p>In the distance something moved. He saw a shimmer of pale blue light, hardly visible at all, but as he approached it, the glimmer grew stronger, expanded. It seemed to be coming from a far distance although in the confines of the cave, he knew that could not be true, but still he walked on as the approaching steps swelled ever louder.</p>
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<p>He stood in a round cavern. He sensed the walls around him, but kept his eyes firmly on the blue glimmer that grew larger, as if it was approaching him <em>through</em> the stone.</p>
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<p>"What do you want?" he asked. "Who are you?"</p>
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<p>A low, shuddery sigh was the only response, like an autumn wind through brown leaves.</p>
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<p>The heavy footfalls came on and now Jack stood still, waiting.</p>
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<p>The blue glimmer began to take shape as it came on, walking slowly as if exhausted in travel from somewhere far away. It was a man-shape. Head bent low. Jack heard the clink of armour and the cold rasp of breathing, but still, in this dream he was not afraid. He took a step forward and the light coalesced, became a figure that stood tall and broad, head still bowed.</p>
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<p>He could see through it, as if it was smoke, see the cracks in the stones beyond it.</p>
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<p>"Who disturbs my rest?" The dry voice was a whisper, barely heard. "Who calls me awake?"</p>
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<p>The shape wavered in the air, somehow solid, yet insubstantial. The shield it carried was round and scarred from many a battle. It bore a sign that Jack Flint had seen before; five bright stars in a perfect semi-circle. They glistened like precious stones.</p>
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<p>"The Corona," he whispered.</p>
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<p>The free arm raised up silently and Jack saw the great sword, blue as a gas flame, wavering in the dark as if disturbed by an eddy of air, the blade pitted and chipped from hard and desperate use. The hand that held it up was just dry bone.</p>
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<p>Jack took a step back. On his chest the stone heart pulsed slowly, but he still felt no fear . This was a dream, of course, and even if not, nothing so insubstantial could be any danger.</p>
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<p>The spectre's helmet began to rise and Jack tensed, not knowing what to expect.</p>
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<p>The skull underneath leered at him. Dark sockets empty of everything except that faint blue glow, but he sensed those empty eye-holes regard him, measure him.</p>
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<p>"No peace," the spectre sighed. "No harmony."</p>
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<p>Jack said nothing at all.</p>
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<p>The skeleton held him with its empty gaze.</p>
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<p>"There is no music now," it said in a shuddery voice, so deep it made Jack's own bones quiver.</p>
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<p>"The fight was good and long and hard, and we saved the world for peace. Was it all for nought?"</p>
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<p>"I don't know what you mean?"</p>
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<p>"Heroes, long gone to rest. We fight no more."</p>
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<p>The bony hand swung the sword down and there was a scraping sound as it slid into a scabbard as long as Jack was tall.</p>
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<p>Then, very slowly, the skeleton fingers reached towards him and Jack could not move. He watched the bones open wide, long and thin and dry. They touched him on the neck, and still he could not move.</p>
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<p>Then it had the heart-stone grasped in its dry fingers. Jack tried to protest, to pull away, but in the dream his feet were welded to the ground, all his muscles frozen.</p>
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<p>The spectre raised it up in front of Jack's eyes. The dark stone gleamed in the blue light.</p>
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<p>Suddenly he <em>saw.</em></p>
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<p>Through the stone, the spectre's skeletal face was no longer bone, no longer skeleton at all.</p>
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<p>Blue eyes held his in a steady gaze. Fair hair hung in braids beneath the gleaming helmet. Scars ran in deep clefts across a cheek.</p>
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<p>"You come to reclaim harmony. Our fight is long over. Your battle just begun."</p>
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<p>The voice was no longer dry as dead leaves. It echoed from distant walls with strength and eerie power.</p>
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<p>The hand that had been long white bone raised towards him. Something gleamed in the corner of Jack's vision, a flash of gold.</p>
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<p>The warrior hand held a torc, almost a complete ring of gold.</p>
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<p>"Talisman for a king," the dream-spectre said. "For peace and harmony and an end to wicked ways."</p>
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<p>The torc touched Jack's forehead. He felt it cold and smooth.</p>
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<p>Then it was gone, and the heart swung down and settled against his chest.</p>
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<p>Seen in the dark, the spectre was bone again, gaunt and laboured. It turned slowly and walked away with heavy treads. Doom-<em>doom-doom.</em></p>
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<p>In his dream, Jack stood as the glimmering blue shape walked through the dry stone walls, and kept walking, still visible, though fading, until at last he was gone and Jack was left alone in the dark.</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>The dream had come back to him as they walked in sunlight, long after they had left the drumlin, and that was after Rune had disappeared into the foliage in the blink of an eye, silent as a cat, as if he had never been there at all.</p>
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<p>But he <em>had</em> been, for where the shoe-last had stood, with the little man hunched over it tap-tapping in the night, two pairs of leather boots sat side by side on the flattened grass beside the ring of stones where the embers still softly smouldered.</p>
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<p>"Now you won't get better for the journey you're on," the little fellow had said. "The best shoes a Cluricaun can make, and remember what I said about the four-horn. There's nothing so steady on its toes."</p>
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<p>Lying near the boots, Kerry's tattered trainers looked sad and tired, as if they had walked too far and then some more, and there was more than a hint of truth in that, Jack knew.</p>
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<p>Beside the shoes, two pairs of leggings in greenish leather, and tunics with hoods attached. And with each, a belt in braided hide that gleamed as if burnished with spit and polish. Kerry's sword was now held in a sturdy sheath.</p>
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<p>The boys needed no spurring to cast off their own dirty clothes, the ones they had stitched together, quite inexpertly, for the Halloween party. Hard choices and harder trails through mountain and forest had ripped and torn them beyond recognition. They were no longer fancy dress.</p>
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<p>"Look," Kerry said when he had pulled the tunic on. He looked like an extra from a Robin Hood film. "He's used the Velcro from my trainers."</p>
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<p>"Waste not, want nought," Rune said brightly. "I'll figure the making of that, mark my words. I'll earn my fortune with it."</p>
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<p>Jack laughed. The tunic fitted like a skin, but the boots, they seemed to mould around his feet like welcome winter stockings, as if he'd already worn them for miles and broken them in for comfort.</p>
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<p>"They fit," he finally said.</p>
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<p>"What did you expect?" Rune shot back. "From a Cluricaun craftsman?"</p>
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<p>Kerry bounced up and down. "I never had a pair of shoes that fit first time. Never had a new pair in my life."</p>
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<p>He grinned to Jack. "All my life I've been kitted out by Oxfam, and I have to come here to get in style."</p>
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<p>Kerry did a spin, as if he was on a catwalk. "Look at me, Dad. Who's the raggedy arsed bogtrotter now?"</p>
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<p>"Well, ye look just the part for sure," Rune said, "And you won't stick out like a boil on the backside neither."</p>
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<p>"That's really kind," Jack said.</p>
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<p>"Well, you wouldn't take the gold, as you've a right to ask."</p>
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<p>"We never believed you anyway," Kerry chuckled.</p>
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<p>"Well believe this. You've some travellin' to do, to find this red-headed slip of a girl. So you can't get distracted."</p>
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<p>At that he flicked his hand up and they heard a thin metallic jangle. Something gold whirled up above their heads, caught the light. It was a coin. It made a small whirring sound as it reached the apex of its travel, then started to fall towards them.</p>
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<p>Jack raised his hand to catch it, but when his fingers closed around it, there was nothing there. The coin, whatever it was, winked out of existence, leaving his hand empty.</p>
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<p>"Neat trick," he said. But when he turned to Rune, the little Cluricaun had vanished without a sound. His bag, his shoe-last and his whiskery beard were gone, as if they had never been.</p>
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<p>Somewhere, far distant, an impossible mile or more, Jack thought he heard the little fellow's musical laugh. But it could have been the tinkle of a stream over stones. Someone that size couldn't move that fast, he told himself.</p>
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<p>Or could he?</p>
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<p>"He was right," Jack said. "We got distracted."</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>"Hi-ho, <em>hi-ho</em>." Jack quickened his steps to match the beat. He had cut a sapling for a walking stick and swiped a thistle-head, sending it tumbling in the fresh air.</p>
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<p>"You're Dopey now," Kerry giggled. "Definitely loony."</p>
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<p>He stopped and fumbled in his bag.</p>
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<p>"Found this last night," he said, holding up a little harmonica. "I forgot I packed it."</p>
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<p>"I didn't know you played the mouthorgan."</p>
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<p>"I don't, but I thought I'd give it a bash. Maybe become a busker. Or a rock star."</p>
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<p>"Yeah, right," Jack retorted. Kerry ran the harmonica from side to side and managed to get a riffle of notes. It sounded quite tuneful in this lonely place and as they walked along, he continued blowing and sucking quite merrily.</p>
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<p>And that's why they didn't hear the horsemen bearing down on them.</p>
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<p>Jack just felt an odd vibration through the soles of his new boots. He grabbed Kerry's wrist and pulled the harmonica away. It gave a faint squeal. </p>
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<p>As soon as the noise stopped Jack saw Kerry's head cock to the side, the way he always did when they stalked rabbits down in the glen at home.</p>
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<p>"I hear something."</p>
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<p>Jack held his breath, listening.</p>
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<p>Somewhere in the distance, what direction he couldn't say, came a sound like the shudder of heavy footsteps they had felt in the cold night beside the standing stones.</p>
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<p>Something big and heavy was moving, but some way off and still out of sight.</p>
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<p>"Come on," Jack said. "Whatever it is, we don't want to meet it out in the open."</p>
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<p>He took a step forward on the southern road when a shout cut the air from behind them. Both Jack and Kerry turned simultaneously at the sound.</p>
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<p>Over the rise, where the road disappeared between two hillocks in the distance, a troop of horsemen came galloping towards them, all bunched together as though they meant business.</p>
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<p>"Oh-oh." Kerry's hand instinctively went for the hilt of the sword. Jack stopped him.</p>
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<p>"There's too many of them," he said. "We can't get caught until we find Corriwen." He turned quickly. Broken ground swooped away to the west, all tussock grass and rough heather, towards a narrow ravine where a stream had cut through the land. Beyond that, maybe a mile or so away, the edge of a forest cast a dark shadow.</p>
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<p>Jack pulled Kerry to the side, behind a straggly thorn bush.</p>
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<p>"You think they saw us yet?"</p>
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<p>Kerry shrugged. "Hard to tell."</p>
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<p>"Come on then!" He swung Kerry with him as they left the hardpack track and down the lee towards the ravine. Here they were hidden from the road and as soon as they hit the flat ground, they were off and running, dodging between the tussocks and brambles, keeping low. Behind them the pounding of hooves waxed louder but they made the shelter of ravine faster than Jack would have though possible and, like young foxes hunted by hounds, they skittered downstream along the banks, crossing on boulders, In minutes the forest swallowed them and the stream into its depths.</p>
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<p>"That was <em>fast." </em>Kerry said. "We must have done a three minute mile."</p>
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<p>"Good running boots," Jack said, and he was hardly out of breath. Way behind them the sounds of pursuit was faint in the distance. Jack risked a pause and peered between shaggy trunks out in the direction they had come. The riders had paused by the roadway. One of them pointed across the flats, almost as if he could see them both, though they were hidden by drooping branches. Three of them peeled off and urged their horses down the slope. The rest of them kicked flanks and the men, maybe twenty in all, went southwards in a tight bunch, while the three outriders spurred their horses towards the ravine, towards the forest.</p>
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<p>"We'll lose them here," Jack said confidently. Kerry pulled up his hood then drew out his sword, and he didn't look like Dopey at all. He looked like a young warrior from a medieval tale.</p>
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<p>"Cool duds, dude," Jack knuckled him on the shoulder.</p>
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<p>"Made to measure. Sure beats hand-me-downs."</p>
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<p>With that, they turned and sprinted between the hoary trunks and the forest darkened around them as they made their way into its depths, crushing the dead leaves under their feet. Very soon they were well away from the edge of the forest and the sounds of pursuit faded.</p>
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<p>"Will they come in after us?"</p>
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<p>"Not with the horses," Jack said. "They'd never get through here."</p>
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<p>That was true enough. Little tracks and runnels criss-crossed between the trees which crowded closer together the further they walked. Underfoot the ground was carpeted in moss which covered the tree-trunks like green fur. Pale foxglove struggled up to catch what little light came down through the spreading branches overhead. With almost every step the forest grew denser and darker. And it grew quieter, as if the thick moss sucked in the sound of their footfalls and held them tight.</p>
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<p>"It's a bit like Sappeling Wood," Kerry said, brushing a gauzy spiderweb from his face. He pulled his hood up.</p>
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<p>"But there's no sign of the little people," Jack replied. "And the trees don't move."</p>
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<p>"Good. I don't like surprises."</p>
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<p>Somewhere in the distance behind them, faint sounds told them the horsemen had paused, but there was no crackling of branches that would show they were being followed. The pair of them slowed down, but kept walking in the direction Jack's internal compass told them was south.</p>
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<p>It took them deeper and deeper and Jack had to use the stout stick to clear thin bramble runners that snagged their angles and spindly climbing roses that looked starved and wan, but had sharp, piercing thorns.</p>
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<p>Over a rise beside a sluggish runnel clogged with rotted leaves and down the far side they found themselves descending into a dell where so little light managed to break through that it was like damp twilight. Here it smelt of decay and wet and no birds sang. They paused for a moment before moving down the slope into the shadowed basin when Kerry stopped.</p>
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<p>"Did you hear something?" He spoke in a whisper.</p>
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<p>Jack shook his head. Kerry stood stock still, listening. Finally he shrugged.</p>
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<p>"Just my imagination," he said. </p>
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<p>"I hope so. It's kind of creepy here." It was shadowed and damp, but there was a sense of hidden life here. The dripping dew from the thick moss made forest itself seem to take slow, dank breaths. The dark was becoming oppressive, somehow threatening.</p>
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<p>"How far do we have to go?"</p>
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<p>"I don't know." Jack looked around him. This forest could go on for miles, but he thought it best to keep going in the same direction – away from pursuit and bearing south.</p>
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<p>They moved on down into the basin and the air of strangeness, of heavy oppression deepened. Things fluttered on silent wings in the branches above, only seen in peripheral vision. Beside a sluggish runnel, a big warted toad eyed them balefully, expanding its wattled gullet in slow gulps.</p>
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<p>"It <em>is</em> kind of creepy here," Kerry finally agreed. He still had his hood up, but now he had drawn his sword out. They had seen nothing, but as the trees crowded closer, shadows seemed to loom at them, causing both of them to edge together until their shoulders touched. It made Jack and Kerry feel a little more comfortable, but not much. Somewhere ahead, a low wind moaned, and Jack took that as a hopeful sign that they would soon be out in the open, in sunlight.</p>
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<p>The dell continued downslope. Underfoot, years of fallen leaves had left a thick carpet of dark brown. Spiderwebs stretched from trunk to bough like silvery nets, festooned with packets of silk-bound insects. In one web, a bat fluttered helplessly until a black spider, big around and as shiny as a snooker-ball pinioned across its web and snatched the creature in a flicker of motion.</p>
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<p>"Spiders," Jack grimaced. "I hate them."</p>
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<p>"Don't be a wimp," Kerry said. "They're only bugs."</p>
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<p>"Never seen bugs that size."</p>
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<p>The spider scuttled across its rigging, carrying the cocooned bat like a prize. Jack walked carefully around it, making sure he didn't disturb the web. Behind him Kerry bent and picked up a thin frond of fern and as he followed, he lightly flicked Jack's ear with it.</p>
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<p>Jack visibly jumped and Kerry let out a whoop.</p>
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<p>"Gotcha," Kerry chuckled. "You're like a cat on hot bricks."</p>
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<p>Jack whirled and Kerry's chuckle stopped dead.</p>
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<p>"Yeah, very funny. You should be on Stars in their Eyes. Laugh a minute."</p>
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<p>Kerry's mouth shut like a trap. Then it opened again.</p>
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<p>"Stuck for words for a change?"</p>
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<p>"<em>Suh…</em>"</p>
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<p>"What?"</p>
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<p>Kerry's eyes were wide. At first, in the gloom, Jack thought he was looking straight at him. But then he realised Kerry's gaze was fixed just beyond Jack's head.</p>
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<p>"Okay, very good," he said. "I'm not falling for that again."</p>
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<p>"Suh-<em>suh….SUH!"</em></p>
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<p>"Suh <em>what?"</em></p>
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<p>"Suh…..<strong><em>SNAKE</em></strong><em>!</em>"</p>
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<p>"Oh really?" Jack was losing patience. "You can think of something better than that."</p>
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<p>He began to turn to walk on. "You don't get snakes in…</p>
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<p>A black streak launched itself at him, fast as a lightning strike.</p>
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<p>Jack was half turned, ash stave in his hand, and all he got was a glimpse of a mouth gaping open, a wide pink mouth. He got an impression of two insanely long teeth lunging for his face.</p>
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<p> </p>
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