‘Yes. A very long way.’
‘I’m glad.’ She looked round, and saw Bowman. She made a slight fleeting gesture towards her disfigured cheeks. ‘You don’t have to love me any more. You don’t even have to talk to me. But I would like sometimes to talk to you.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Bowman.
Sisi tried to smile for him, but the smile hurt her wounded cheeks, and she had to stop.
‘I can’t even smile any more.’ She spoke without self-pity, as if her new state was an inconvenience that had very little to do with her. ‘How different everything is going to be.’
24
Departure
The travellers were now ready, the wagon hitched, the firewood for the coming night gathered and stowed. A white sun was appearing over the hills to the east, and there were flurries of snow in the air. Hanno Hath called them all together, and asked his wife to speak to them before they set out on their journey.
‘What can I say to you that I’ve not already said?’
She looked over the crowd of familiar faces, and saw there their hope, their fear.
‘We have very little time. The journey will be hard. But the homeland waits for us. We will be safe there.’
She stopped, because she had remembered her dream. She herself would not enter the homeland: these good people, her people, would go on without her. She did not tell them how her strength was slowly but surely draining away. My gift is my disease. I shall die of prophecy.
‘This is all that matters,’ she said, reaching out her arms as if to embrace them all. ‘That we hold together, and love each other. We are the Manth people. Let us make our own Manth vow.’
Hanno Hath, understanding what she meant to do, took her left hand, and held out a hand to Bowman. Kestrel took her mother’s other hand. Pinto held Bowman’s hand, and called to Mumpo to join her. Kestrel reached out for Sisi’s hand, and so Sisi joined the ever-growing chain. Sisi brought Lunki with her, and beside Lunki stood Creoth. Beside Mumpo was Mrs Chirish, and next to her, little Scooch, and the Mimilith family, and Principal Pillish. And so they all joined hands, all thirty-two of them, and Ira Hath led them in the old familiar vow. Sisi, who had never heard the words before, felt tears fill her eyes. She wasn’t crying for the wounds on her soft skin, or for the loss of her beauty. She was crying because the words seemed to come out of her own longing, and to tell of a love she had never had.
‘Today begins my walk with you.’ They spoke together, their voices sounding softly in the cold air. ‘Where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay. When you sleep, I will sleep. When you rise, I will rise. I will pass my days within the sound of your voice, and my nights within the reach of your hand. And none shall come between us.’
So bound together, they pulled their coats close around them, and began their journey. They marched north, by the light of the rising sun. Snow was falling, lightly but steadily, small hard flakes that stung the face and blew in swirling eddies over the stony ground. It was the first snowfall of the coming winter.
Volume III of
THE WIND ON FIRE
They must seek shelter, they must reach the safety of the homeland, before the storm breaks; or the coming wind will carry them away.
In the time of cruelty, the Manth people march back to their homeland. They grow weak with starvation. Ira Hath is the only one who knows the way, but she is dying. Bowman eagerly awaits his calling to join the Singer people, but when his sister Kestrel is taken by bandits, he must use his powers to find her. Together they fight . . . until their destinies lead them apart. And all the while they wait for the wind to rise . . . Only one will sing the firesong.
About the Author
WILLIAM NICHOLSON
Smarties Gold Award Winner
William Nicholson is one of the greatest and most imaginative writers of today and has won countless awards for his work in television, plays and films. The Wind Singer, the first title in the Wind on Fire trilogy, won the Smarties Prize Gold Award and the Blue Peter Book Award. His latest novel, Rich and Mad – his first for teenage readers – received much praise, and he has written several successful adult novels. He is an acclaimed Hollywood screenwriter; his work includes Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the Bafta award-winning Shadowlands, and Gladiator, for which he received his second Oscar nomination. William Nicholson lives in Sussex with his wife, Virginia, and their three children.
William Nicholson, Slaves of the Mastery
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