Justin Fisher - The Darkening King

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018

Published in this ebook edition in 2018

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Justin Fisher 2018

Cover illustrations copyright © Marcus Šumberac 2018

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Justin Fisher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008124588

Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008124595

Version: 2018-06-29

For C Thank you again, and again and again. For always and for everything X

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018 Published in this ebook edition in 2018 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk Text copyright © Justin Fisher 2018 Cover illustrations copyright © Marcus Šumberac 2018 Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2018 Justin Fisher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008124588 Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008124595 Version: 2018-06-29

Dedication For C Thank you again, and again and again. For always and for everything X

Prologue

1. Godshill

2. Afternoon Tea

3. The Door

4. Boiling

5. The Demon in the Tea Room

6. Grey-suits

7. Old Faces

8. The Butcher and the Hammer

9. The Nest

10. Tinks

11. Who? What? Why?

12. Little to Do about Nothing

13. Not Entirely Ideal

14. Not Entirely Alone

15. The Forest

16. We Have Company

17. Brother

18. The King in the Cave

19. Older than Old

20. The Stone Dragon

21. Trapped

22. Alliance

23. Brothers-in-arms

24. Headquarters

25. Mr Bear

26. A Brief Debrief

27. Father and Son

28. Clockwork Museum

29. Mr Cogsworth

30. A Decent Pub in Dublin

31. Tick-tock, the Mouse and the Clock

32. Trouble and Strife

33. Sharp Exit

34. No Exit

35. Dearly Departed

36. Best-made Plans

37. The Fey

38. The Liffey

39. Lemnus Gemfeather

40. The Glade Awakens

41. St Albertsburg

42. A Ball of Vines

43. Breaking and Entering

44. Magic Wakes

45. The Fallen

46. Boffins

47. Whiskers?

48. Mr Bear’s Insurance

49. Dad

50. Dinner for Two

51. Things That Go “Bump” in the Night

52. The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend

53. Bananas

54. Past and Present

55. Ready?

56. The Forest Darkens

57. Really Real

58. Artificial Intelligence

59. Time’s Up

60. The Un-Hidden

61. Wild Horses

62. The Night Before the Darkness

63. Barbarossa

64. “Good Luck”

65. Mr Rook

66. The Wall of Wood

67. The Central Intelligence

68. Charging into Darkness

69. Tick, Tock

70. Into the Fray

71. Mr Spider and Mr Fox

72. Tricks and Traps

73. Whiskers and the Scientist

74. The Eastern Tower

75. Together

76. Barba and the King

77. The End of Everything

78. Light and Dark

79. Presents

80. Mr Fox

81. George and the Jungle

82. Toys

83. Everywhere

Acknowledgements

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About the Author

Books by Justin Fisher

About the Publisher

he vast forests of the East Siberian taiga cover more than a million square miles, from impenetrable marshlands to unending carpets of ancient woodland teeming with bears, reindeer and other more secretive creatures not often seen by man. Of all of its villages, few are more forgotten or remote than Kazimir.

Captain Nikolai Volkov and his men had travelled all the way from Irkutsk. The city was home to the 24th Spetsnaz Brigade and the young captain had long been counted in their ranks as the man to “get things done”. He was not in a good mood. The stories he’d heard were not untypical for such remote parts of the region. Superstitions and old wives’ tales about “magic and monsters”, silly stories to keep their children from straying into the woods and a complete waste of Volkov and his specialist task force’s time. The cramped cabin of his DT-30 mobile base was at least warm, though its powerful diesel engine was interminably loud and smelt even worse than it sounded. Outside, the twenty-five-strong squad of men travelled on sledges behind harnessed reindeer. Each one carried GPRS tracking devices, night-vision goggles, grenade launchers, specialist automatic rifles and every other gadget and technological advancement that the mighty Russian Army provided. But their most valuable asset was the Siberian reindeer. Reindeer did not break down and a reindeer could travel through a forest’s thickest region where a twenty-tonne troop carrier could not.

The villagers of Kazimir had greeted them with teary eyes. Salvation had finally come after months of begging. It was only when officials from the local district had ventured into the woods and subsequently disappeared that the high-ups from Irkutsk had ordered Volkov to the area.

“Go, Nikolai, put these poor villagers’ minds at rest,” they had said. “We know it’s a bear, you know it’s a bear, but the denizens of Kazimir need proof.”