Sprites Amulet

CHAPTER SIX: Some people can sleep anywhere.

  They headed into the shelter of the trees, the wind rustled the leaves overhead, for some reason Jude instantly felt comforted. Amongst the trees the cries of the Orcs were muffled and then died away. His rescuer led them to a clearing in the woods.

  “We’ll rest here”, he said and gently laid Ruby down in the middle. Jude went to her to see if he could wake her up. She didn’t appear to be hurt; he rubbed her hand and gently called her name. Meanwhile his companion scoured the ground all round the clearing, his coat swinging. Seemingly satisfied he took a pouch from his pocket. Proceeding to walk in a circle around the clearing he sprinkled a sparkling silver powder on to the ground. As he did so he mumbled words in a beautiful breathy language Jude hadn’t heard before. It was almost like a spoken song. When the powder hit the ground a shimmering barrier momentarily shot up into the air. Jude imagined himself inside an invisible, shimmering bubble; he hoped it would keep any more monsters out.

  When he had finished his circle he took one last look around and turned to Jude saying.

  “Be on the look out for the hairy creatures with eight legs and many eyes.” He physically shuddered on saying this and Jude wondered what other terrors could be out there worse than the monsters they’d just escaped from. He walked over to Ruby.

  “I can’t wake her up,” said Jude.

  His companion started to massage the pressure points on her ears and she started to move and awaken. Ruby opened her eyes, stretched and yawned as if she’d just woken up in bed on a lovely summer morning after a good night’s sleep. She saw Jude looking anxiously down at her and smiled.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes”, she replied. “I’m fine, how are you?”

  Jude thought back to what had recently happened and couldn’t find any word to describe how he was feeling.

  “Hmm. I’m fine.”

  Their rescuer had gone back to looking around the clearing, Jude realised he hadn’t even thanked him for saving them.

  “Erm. Thank you for saving me…er us. What you did was absolutely amazing, you saved my life.”

  “No problem,” he said in a vague way. “I was just passing.”

  “I’m Jude, this is Ruby.”

  He put a hand to his chest, and bowed slightly. “Branwell.”

  After a last glance around the clearing he proceeded to pull his swords from their scabbard on his back. Jude tensed, but Branwell gracefully sat down cross-legged and began to clean the black-blood from the blades. Jude turned back to Ruby who was looking around her with interest.

  “It’s very pretty here isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been coming to these woods ever since I was a kid,” he replied looking at her closely. “What happened to you since you left me yesterday? What were you doing among the warehouses, those Orcs could have caught you.”

  “Is that where you found me?” Ruby shrugged. “I can’t remember going into any warehouses. I remember trying to get as far away from that place as I could and then trying to find you. You’d been nice to me and I still had your coat.” She went to take it off.

  “No, you keep it,” he replied. “You’ll be cold otherwise, the sun is starting to go down.”

  “So it is, do you think they’ll be a beautiful sunset which will set the clouds on fire?”

  They’d all just escaped being killed by monsters. With Ruby enthusing about the possible sunset and Branwell calmly cleaning his swords, Jude felt bewildered. They’d both been in a mental hospital yesterday too. Perhaps the drugs hadn’t worn off yet.

  He turned to Branwell.

  “It was you I saw yesterday at Ravenscar wasn’t it?” he asked. “You were telling me not to let anyone know.”

  “It was,” he replied, not looking up.

  “How did you escape?”

  “I was just getting a bit fed-up of the same four padded walls,” he replied. “You two didn’t seem to have too many problems escaping yourselves.”

  “Well I didn’t really need to escape did I?” Jude said with a laugh.

  Branwell lifted his head and looked him straight in the eyes.

  “Are you sure?”

  Jude left slightly disconcerted. His mum would never of left him there would she? Would she? How persuasive could Doctor Anderson be?

  “I should probably be thinking about getting home,” he said. “My mum will probably start to worry if I’m too late back.” He turned to Ruby. “You can come back with me if you want too, have something to eat.”

  “Do you think you’ll be safe?” asked Branwell quietly.

  Jude was suddenly worried, he’d have to go a really long way round home to avoid the industrial estate completely. But he should make it okay, the sky still had some light left and it was not as if the monsters knew where he lived. Did they?

  “What makes you say that?” he asked cautiously.

  “No reason, you should be okay”, said Branwell. “It’s not as if you overheard any secret schemes or anything is it. They were just chasing you for sport weren’t they?”

  Jude was suddenly really worried.

  “I did overhear something,” he said. “They were talking about killing everyone in England and having the country for their own land.”

  Branwell gave a half-smile.

  “Talking about slaughtering everyone is small talk for Orcs. You’ve nothing to worry about.”

  Jude suddenly remembered something else of the conversation.

  “But they said they had a plan and a new boss. That’s normal too isn’t it?” he asked hopefully.

  “A plan?” Branwell asked sharply. “It’s not like Orcs to have a plan other than pillage, slash and burn. That doesn’t sound good. Do they know you overheard them?”

  “Oh, yes. ‘Get him he heard us. Rip him apart.’ I think was how they put it as they started chasing me.”

  “They will be on the watch for you.” Branwell said sadly. “They will have got your scent when they were chasing you. They’ll be staking out the edges of the wood waiting for you to come out. You can’t go home, even if you evade them, they are excellent trackers when they have prey. They would be able to follow you home.”

  “And get anyone who might be there?” Said Jude thinking of his mum.

  “Yes,” said Branwell quietly.

  Jude felt a comforting hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Ruby looking at him with sympathetic eyes.

  “What am I going to do?”

  “We must go to Aldea and tell Taule what you heard,” replied Branwell with firm decision. “They will be able to advise you.”

  Jude couldn’t believe he just couldn’t go home. Home was always were you felt safest, and after the day he’d had he just wanted to go home and be with his mum. But he had to keep her safe. She’d be worried sick if he didn’t come home. He slapped himself on the forehead. “Idiot.” He got out his mobile and rang home. He got the answer phone, she wasn’t home yet, she must be working late.

  “Hi Mum, it’s me. I’ve met up with some friends and we’re going to stay up all night watching DVDs with a pizza. I’m stopping over so I’ll see you later.” Jude hoped he sounded sufficiently casual not to arouse any suspicion. He’d really wanted to end the message by telling her he loved her, but that’d definitely set the alarm bells ringing.

  “So what is this Aldea place and where is it?” he asked.

  “Aldea is an Elven city,” replied Branwell with reverence. “And it is here in this wood.”

  “Impossible,” gasped Jude. “I’ve explored every inch of this wood since I first came here as a kid and I think I’d have noticed a city of Elves.”

  “Perhaps. But you didn’t have an amulet then to allow you to see past the enchantments hiding it from you,” he said reaching around Jude’s neck and pulling the silken cord with the silver coin on it out from his clothes. He let Jude’s amulet fall and reached inside his own black shirt and brought out an identical silver amulet to J
ude’s, but on a twisted leather cord. “How do you think you saw what you did and were able to get inside the Orc’s hideout?”

  Jude felt rather stupid that he’d never questioned this before or that he hadn’t really put two and two together when the amulet glowed. He had got it from the little flying creature too. It seemed so obvious now someone had pointed it out to him.

  “Shall we go then?” he said rather sulkily.

  Branwell sheathed his swords and took a last look around. He swung his hand in a circle around the clearing saying a sentence in the breathy language. A shimmering bubble appeared in the air all around them for a moment and then popped sending sparkling stars falling to the ground where they vanished.

  Branwell led the way out of the clearing.

  “Watch out for the eight legged ones, they like the woods, they like to weave their nets between the trees.”

  Ruby sided up to Jude and whispered.

  “Do don’t think he means spid…”

  Branwell spun around with a start, eyes wide.

  “Don’t even say the word,” he whispered fiercely. He whipped back around and strode ahead purposefully. Jude couldn’t help notice him taking darting glances to left and right with his shoulders slightly hunched.

  Jude and Ruby followed in silence side by side. Jude noticed she walked very close to him; her hair would occasionally brush his face. Her scent reminded him of hot cinnamon buns. He wanted to take hold of her hand but didn’t dare. This might be a romantic setting, walking through woods at sunset, but the tense, black clad figure striding ahead of them on the lookout for spiders didn’t quite fit the mood.