The Girl and the Guardian

  The peephole slid shut, grating on dry dusty sand. The wagon still bumped along, hot, smelly and dark, towards its unthinkable destination.

  Nothing in Shelley’s former life had prepared her for this. She was aware, for the second time that morning, of being totally alone. When she had just arrived the feeling had been one of exhilaration, breathing the fresh air, looking out over a new world. Now she was a prisoner in that world, a stranger in a strange land, without friends or any hope of rescue, without even glasses to see with. She began to cry, trying to block out everything, burying her face in her hands.

  After a while her sobs subsided. She felt a little nudge. A small boy was holding out a rag to her. He was close enough for her to make out his features. He had a head that was big for his body, a small pointed chin and large eyes with a sad but inquiring expression. A wave of pity engulfed her, and gratitude for the little urchin’s act of kindness in that horrible place. She sniffed heavily, took the rag, wiped her face a little, and said with heartfelt gratitude, ‘Thank you, little guy! Hey, can you people understand English?’ But the boy put his finger to his delicate mouth, alarmed to hear her speak.

  At that moment there was a lurch, then stillness for a few seconds. There came a low rumble outside, like thunder. It was the sound of galloping hooves, a lot of them, getting louder and louder. There were clanging impacts against the iron walls, making Shelley’s ears ring, then muffled shouts and a horn being blown, then silence. They were all huddled in the centre of the wagon by this time. There was a slight rocking and the sound of someone clambering up the outside of the wagon. Shelley heard the peephole in the front wall slide open again. A beam of sunlight pierced her eyes, and through the dazzle she saw a pair of eyes. She shrank back. But the eyes did not belong to the leering creature which had tormented her. They were those of a boy, wide and innocent. The boy shouted out in a foreign language, in a shrill excited voice, talking fast. Her fellow-prisoners began to call out in the same language, and laugh and let out triumphant whoops. She heard one word joyfully repeated over and over. It sounded like Emragga. Later she would know the name well: Émragir, otherwise known as Quickblade, brave leader of the Boy Raiders. The word, repeated so joyfully, lifted her own heart. She felt a quiver of anticipation. Now there was a thudding and scraping – someone was climbing onto the roof. The hatch swung open, flooding the dark wagon with blinding golden sunlight and fresh air.

  A lithe figure dressed in brown dropped down into the welcoming crowd of prisoners. ‘Emragga! Emragga!’ the boys cried, jumping around him like puppies.

  ‘He’s just a boy himself!’ thought Shelley. He spread his arms wide, grinning at his admirers, laughing with (Shelley thought) excessive self-satisfaction. He wore a silver helmet or skullcap with green camouflage netting stretched over it, in which was stuck a row of feathers which reminded Shelley oddly of the thorn creatures. It occurred to her that they could actually be from the creatures. This had a mixed effect on her. She thought he must be a brave but also a dangerous boy, to have actually hunted such fearful beings.

  With a swift heave the dangerous boy hoisted the smallest child up and shoved him (none too gently, Shelley thought) out onto the roof. One by one he swung them all up, until only Shelley (the biggest of the prisoners) was left. The boy smiled gallantly at her, the perfect white teeth flashing in his handsome dark-tanned face, and she smiled back, more weakly than she would have liked. She felt quite shaky and self-conscious. She was afraid he was going to grab her by the waist. But he bent down and motioned to her to get up on his back. She hesitated, but he said something impatient-sounding, so she clambered awkwardly onto his back, thinking how strong he was for his size – he was not much taller than her, and (she thought) much skinnier. She reached for the edge of the hatch and bravely tried to pull herself up, but was not strong enough, and was relieved to feel the boy’s strong hands catching her flailing feet, powerfully pushing her up. She was very glad she wasn’t wearing a skirt. Still, she was sure she felt his eyes on her as she kneeled on the hot steel of the wagon-top. She held out a hand tentatively to help him up, but he impatiently waved her aside, leapt out onto the roof and looked around calmly as if it was nothing. They climbed down off the wagon, the boy going first, helping her down after him. She had no time to be awkward, as the boys in the silver skullcaps were moving urgently to get everyone onto their horses. They also cut loose the horses that had been yoked to the wagon. These were now whinnying and looking very happy at their sudden change of fortune.

  There were dozens of the wild boy-warriors. Some were going around giving drinks to the prisoners from dirty-looking leather waterskins. Shelley noticed how thirsty she was, and gratefully accepted the waterskin which one of the boys offered her. ‘Ugh! What is that?’ she expclaimed. ‘It tastes like fermented passionfruit juice.’ The boy seemed surprised, and took the waterskin back. (Later she would find out that she had been right; the Boy Raiders favourite drink was passionfruit juice - fresh or fermented, and always full of seeds - and their villages always have plenty of passionfruit vines growing up the trees.)

  ‘Wait a minute,’ thought Shelley, ‘those two don’t look like boys!’ She stared at them, squinting to try and see more clearly. A very wild-looking girl of about thirteen, and another even younger, were sitting on enormous horses (for the girls’ size), with two little ex-prisoners clinging on behind them. But looking around, she guessed most of the rescuers were boys, from maybe ten up to fourteen or fifteen by the look of them – though none of them looked like the kind of children Shelley was used to. She wondered who they were, and why there were no adults. It frightened her to realise they were completely unsupervised. She thought uneasily of the book she had just read, Lord of the Flies, and did not feel at all safe. But of course she felt excited, and it was very good to be free.

  Some of the ambushers were dragging off the bodies of two of the dark hooded creatures – their chameleon-like skin now a ghastly pale shade – into the thorn bushes by the roadside. Shelley didn’t want to look, but saw that arrows were sticking out of them. Shocked, part of her thought, ‘Should they have shot these creatures?’ but another part of her thought, ‘Good! So they aren’t invincible, after all.’ Then she noticed several of the boys gathering around one of their number, a boy of about fourteen. There appeared to be something wrong with him, though he was not injured outwardly. Unlike the others, who had silver helmets or skullcaps on, his head was bare, and his hair stood out from his scalp as if electrified. His eyes were staring and vacant, and he was making gurgling noises as if he was not aware of the sound of his own voice. The others led him to a horse, and bundled him onto it, like a sack of potatoes, held upright with difficulty by the horse’s rider, a boy of about thirteen. Shelley wished she could ask what had happened to him, but felt sure it was the creatures’ doing, and her skin crawled at the thought. It was as if the boy’s mind had simply been wiped out.

  As she was noticing all this, squinting so that her eyes stung, the wagon, its pincer arm swinging useless now, was being ransacked for removable parts by some of the boys who carried sacks and tools. As soon as they had finished their frenetic demolition, some of the biggest boys pushing the wagon towards a thorn-lined gorge near the road. Shelley could just make out the sinister logo on the side: a spidery hexagon made up of six white scythes, red-edged, on a black background, spinning around a black centre in which a white snake made a circle by biting its own tail, as if to devour itself. Then the wagon teetered over the edge and plunged into the gorge, ripping through the dry thorn-thickets which heaved and crackled as it disappeared into their impenetrable depths. The boys, panting with the exertion, saw it off with whoops of joy and broke into a strident chanting song, surprisingly guttural but more tenor than baritone, with soprano accompaniment from the smaller boys. She didn’t understand the words, but it sounded very warlike. It was in fact their favourite raiding-song, as recorded in the Ennead of Aeden, ‘Of the Boy Raiders’:

&n
bsp; We are the Children of the Wind

  We come from the east, we ride to the west

  We came from the stars, we fight for Aeden

  Our mothers are lost, our fathers are blind.

  We have no fear, we laugh at Death.

  We ride like the Wind, we strike like the Snake,

  The Caller will come, the Jewel will return

  The Rainbow will rise, The Sword will awake.

  As they sang, they made a tall pile of thorns and dead branches and, carrying the two Thornmen, four boys to a body, they tossed the bodies onto the pile. Shelley was surprised how light they seemed for their size. ‘Like birds, I suppose,’ she thought. And she saw that some of the boys had taken long feather-like objects from the bodies and were sticking them into the leather bands of their silver skullcaps.

  The fierce chant ended. The boys gathered around the pile while one of them cracked two stones together and soon had a fire crackling at the base. After a few seconds the thorns blazed up, sending billows of smoke and sparks into the still, clear air, and the boys cheered wildly. The figures of the Thornmen could be seen writhing horribly in the flames, as if still alive. She remembered she had once seen a freshly-killed eel cut into pieces for cooking and, horribly, each piece still moved. She had a phobia about eels. ‘It’s only reflexes,’ she told herself, but still she felt sickened, and turned away from the sight. The blaze increased until she could feel the fierce heat of it on her back. ‘I hope they know what they’re doing,’ she thought. ‘That smoke will be visible for miles.’

  Now the leader of the raiders – of course it was the handsome boy who had hoisted Shelley out of the wagon – called the others urgently back to the waiting horses. Smiling with grim satisfaction, and wearing several more feathers in his cap, he came to Shelley, and held out to her a strange yet familiar object: her new cellphone. The screen was broken. The boy looked inquiringly at her and asked her a question in his alien yet musical language, and pointed at the cellphone. ‘Yes, thanks, it is mine,’ she said, guessing his meaning. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen my glasses?’ He smiled and bowed as he handed the cellphone over. She blushed at his gallantry, and pocketed Anna’s broken present. She couldn’t bear to throw it away.

  ‘Émragir,’ said the boy, and pointed at his chest. Then he looked enquiringly at Shelley.

  ‘My name’s Shelley Arkle.’

  ‘Shelliarkol,’ he repeated.

  Just then another boy ran up excitedly. Bowing to Shelley, he handed Emragir an even more familiar object, one she had missed terribly: her glasses. Smiling and bowing again, he handed them to her. ‘Thanks,’ she said. But her heart sank and tears came to her eyes; her glasses were broken. She tried putting them on, and squinted, but it was no use; both lenses were too cracked to see anything through but shards of coloured light. And now the children were all laughing at her and pointing. She took the glasses off, and threw them on the ground, trying not to cry. The little boy who had brought them darted in and picked them up, putting them on and prancing around until he ran into one of the horses and almost caused a stampede. All the children roared with laughter, until Emragir yelled something at them. Then he swung effortlessly up onto his great chestnut stallion (which towered over her), and reached down his left hand. The veins of his lean, suntanned arm stood out with the heat of the fire and his recent exertions, but he was cool and calm, as if he did this sort of thing all the time.

  She hesitated. ‘Where exactly are we going?’ she asked, trying to regain her dignity after the glasses joke at her expense. She was scared of being taken even further away from the portal, or on some mad gallop into enemy territory – after seeing their horrible stronghold, the thought filled her with dread, though she wanted to appear brave. ‘After all,’ she rationalised, ‘this isn’t my war. It’s not even my planet!’

  But Émragir was talking fast, impatiently. She tried to ask him in sign language where he planned to go next, but he just pointed at the fire, then made a popping sound and flung his arms wide. Just as Shelley was getting ready to try again, a small excited boy ran up to her and held out a book he had been drawing in. Emragir sighed, and went to grab the book away, but then seemed to think better of it. Shelley peered at the book. There was a picture of two huge comet-like things streaking out of a fire towards some stick figures on horses. Shelley did not understand completely, but the picture made her uneasy. Then the boy showed her the next page. He had drawn a girl and boy riding on a big horse (she wondered if it was herself and Émragir) coming into a little village consisting mainly of treehuts. There was a beach nearby, and canoes on it. The boy pointed to her, then Émragir, then the road and finally the picture of the village. He put his hands together and rested his head on them as if going to sleep. Shelley felt much better now. She liked the look of the village, and the direction the boy had pointed was the way they had come, so it was closer to the portal. ‘I could stay with the boys just one night,’ she thought, ‘then look for the way back home in the morning.’ She gave the boy his book back and offered Émragir her hand.

  He sighed with impatience, said something that sounded sarcastic, and pulled her up powerfully as she jumped, and there she was, seated high up behind him, riding his great horse bareback, thrilling with an irresistible sense of adventure and romance. She noticed the short sword (or long knife) at his right side. ‘So he would draw it with his left hand,’ she thought, and her stomach did a flip. ‘So, he’s left-handed like me!’ She had always felt a kinship with other left-handers; now she felt even closer to him. Everything was moving so fast. Already she felt a huge admiration for this reckless band, and (to be truthful) especially for their leader, this mysterious young warrior who had just defeated a terrible foe and yet looked so calm. He sounded his horn, and they were off like the wind. She had to grip his waist as they spun around and galloped off with a thunder of hooves, back up the road toward the hills where the wagon had first captured her.

  Suddenly there was a sound like a cannon going off, then another. Two things like great cannonballs hurtled through the air, one high above the galloping boys, the other lower, right past them, narrowly missing one of the horses. They left ghostly vapour trails behind them. The boys yelled and whooped, but carried on galloping. Craning her neck Shelley saw the higher projectile soaring like a comet high overhead, leaving a white vapour trail against the deep blue of the sky before vanishing. She understood the boy’s first picture now. He was trying to warn her that something dangerous – two somethings – were going to explode out of the fire. ‘What on earth were they?’ she asked Émragir, yelling into his ear, and he yelled back, ‘Zarkim!’ and grinned. She was unsure whether this was just some exclamation, or the name of the things that had exploded. Either way, she was none the wiser. ‘Well, if he’s not too worried, I guess I won’t be either,’ she decided.

  The day had become hot, and the wind on her face felt delightfully cool. Her long hair streamed out behind her as they ate up the miles. Their horse was at the head, and looking back through the reddish dust Shelley saw the others close behind, galloping madly, bows and long knives at their sides, quivers on their backs, long hair flowing, brown-and-green tunics and capes flapping.

  ‘Just like Robin Hood and his merry men,’ thought Shelley. ‘Only much younger. Maybe more like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. I wonder where they live? Is there a forest somewhere that isn’t made of those horrible thorns?’

  She began to get thirsty again. It had only been an hour or two since she stood on the ledge where she had entered that world, but it seemed much longer. She found herself thinking about the tall robed man who had appeared on the hillside and driven her into the arms of the creatures from the Deathwagon. Who was he, and why did he call to her like that? ‘As if he was expecting me,’ she thought uneasily.

  The hill where he had stood approached on their left. Shelley had a sudden thought: ‘Probably that man was a friend, trying to warn me about the wagon. Why did I run away? Beca
use I don’t like to be told what to do, I guess… I’m going to have to recognise friends a lot quicker in future. I suppose I should ask to get off here, and try and get back home somehow. Mum and dad must be getting frantic by now!’ A wave of nostalgia swept over her, replaced unexpectedly by a strong desire to stay – she had already found so much excitement (along with the terror) in this other world. ‘And, after all, I had intended to run away!’ she smiled to herself. This world was mysterious and held the promise of a life more real than anything she had ever experienced on Earth. And this boy she was riding with, Émragir… She admitted to herself she could fall in love with someone like him – if she hadn’t already… ‘Although he’s probably old-fashioned, ignorant as anything and a real male chauvinist. And I haven’t even got glasses any more,’ she mused. ‘Oh well, I’ll just have to see what happens. One night at the treehut village can’t do any harm… This is too exciting not to enjoy, even if I can’t see much!’

  Just then a tall robed figure came out of nowhere, strode out onto the road and held up its arms. She couldn’t be sure now she had no glasses, but it looked like the man who had yelled out to her before the wagon took her away.

  The Boy Raiders’ horses slowed to a walk. Émragir held up his hand, and they stopped. He kicked his own horse forward and approached the stranger. Shelley saw it was the same man. He held the same long staff. The knob at its end, she now saw, was actually a small carved tree with interlaced branches, and inside the branches was a clear, flashing crystal with three points. This reassured her, somehow; it didn’t look warlike. Then she noticed the great sword at his side.

  Bows were held at the ready, covering Emragir, and there was some murmuring among the riders. He dismounted, leaving Shelley clinging to the mane of the great horse. He went forward boldly and defiantly, but stopped when the stranger spoke.

  Shelley’s heart gave a great leap as the stranger pointed straight at her, and her eyes met his. He was a stern-looking man with a greying beard but long dark hair, tall and gaunt, dressed in something like monk’s robes. Yet he looked like a warrior, broad-shouldered and strong. She felt sure he was telling Émragir (in few but firm words) to hand her over. She began to tremble, but gazed back defiantly. She was sure Émragir wouldn’t betray her. But the big man took something out of his robes and gave it to him, and the boy returned reluctantly to his horse and extended a hand to Shelley. She was mortified, and mad with anger. Kicking the horse’s flanks with all her strength, she tried to ride off. The great stallion turned once and reared, and she slipped straight off its back onto the hard road. Some of the boys laughed, but Émragir spoke sternly to them and helped her to her feet. Then he led her gently but firmly to the big man. She was being unceremoniously exchanged, and there was no escape. ‘I think I’ve just been sold! He’s a slave trader!’ she thought with a sinking feeling of shame, betrayal and helplessness. Aloud, all she managed to say was, ‘What’s happening? Who is this man?’

  Émragir gave her an odd look, shrugged his shoulders and leaped back onto the horse which he had been sharing with her a moment before. He smiled briefly, kicked the horse and galloped off like the wind, his band following close behind. She was left standing by the towering stranger who was strong enough to break her like a twig. There would be no one there to stop him – the boys had already disappeared round the bend and their hoofbeats had faded into silence.

  A fresh pang of loss and betrayal stabbed at her heart – and fear, as she turned to look at her new captor.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Guardian