Tom Harper - The Book of Secrets

‘Watch out for the horse!’ Urthred shouted.

Nick sprang to his left and rolled away, just in time. A curtain of fire pursued him along the ground, so vivid he could almost feel the heat on his cheek. It raced up behind him; in a second he would be swallowed.

With a flash of blue light, he rolled inside the umbrella of Urthred’s shield. The flames beat against it like waves but could not get through.

‘You need to get him away from here,’ said Randall. ‘I can’t hold the shield much longer. It’s draining my power.’

‘I can’t get to him while he’s on that horse.’

‘Remember the dragonsteed at the Tower of Charn?’

‘Uh, kind of.’ With all that was happening, Nick found he could still feel embarrassed at having this sort of conversation in front of Emily. It was almost impossible to reconcile the stark room, the strip lighting and metal chairs, with the desperate fantasy battle on screen. But each was real enough in its way.

The Wanderer scrambled to his feet. He reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out an iron shield almost as large as he was. He raised it and crouched to spring. Urthred staggered and swayed behind him, jerked like a puppet on the end of the beam of light flowing from his staff. He was losing control, exhausted by the effort. The black knight saw his weakness and wheeled around to charge again. Smoke flared from the horse’s nostrils; sparks drooled from its mouth.

Urthred spun around, lost control and fell. His staff clattered to the ground beside him. The knight charged. All that stood in his way was Nick. Dust flew up under the horse’s iron-clad hooves. The earth seemed to shake. In seconds he’d be trampled, or impaled on the end of the knight’s black lance.

He raised his sword towards the onrushing horse. The knight saw him; Nick could have sworn he heard him laugh. Against the bulk of the horse and the length of the lance, his blade was little better than a needle.

Tingling, Nick’s fingers danced over the keyboard, tapping out an intricate pattern. The sword in the Wanderer’s hand began to glow molten red, then white hot. A shaft of light sprang from the tip of the blade; it pulsed, then hardened to steel in an instant. The sword had become a spear. The Wanderer dug the butt into the ground and angled it up.

It impaled the onrushing horse, sinking deep in its chest. The constraints of the game made it an incongruously bloodless wound. The horse’s momentum carried it into the Wanderer’s shield and bowled him over; he flew back across the ground.

With a ghastly scream, the horse sank to its knees. The black knight leaped down from the saddle. He’d dropped his lance in the collision; in its place he now wielded an enormous mace.

The Wanderer had been thrown so far back he was now beyond Urthred, who still lay in a heap. The black knight advanced; the mace made eerie noises as he whirled it over his head. Nick reached for his spear, but it was still embedded in the horse.

And suddenly Urthred was on his feet, lightning crackling from his fingertips. The knight leaped back, but too slow. Urthred’s spell caught him clean on the chest and blasted him away, almost to the edge of the clearing.

Urthred took a step after him as Nick got up and ran to retrieve his sword-spear. ‘He’s not so tough.’

The bar in the corner of Nick’s screen had dropped by about half, and now showed orange. The black knight had taken a hit, but he wasn’t beaten.

‘How much more time do you need?’ Randall asked.

Nick didn’t answer. A sound was rising out of the forest, like a swarm of insects accelerated to a blood-curdling scream. The woods quivered with movement within.

The Wanderer picked up his sword and rolled it in his wrists. He knew that sound. He dropped into a crouch, as the vanguard of a goblin army poured out of the trees.

The Armagnaken rushed out of the forest like a battlefield giving up its dead. Half naked, streaked with mud, clad in an outlandish array of mismatched armour and carrying stolen swords, spears, bows and rusting farm implements. They fell upon the pilgrims with howls of glee. The fat priest died pinned to a barn wall with a spear through his belly. One of his companions tried to defend himself with his staff but was beaten down. The Armagnak chopped of his head like a chicken’s, held it aloft by the hair, then kicked it down the street after a group of fleeing women. It struck one on the back of the leg. She stumbled, tripped and fell. Before she could get up the Armagnaken were ripping into her.

It had happened so fast. The second rider, who a moment ago had been beside me, had vanished. All I saw was a flash of armour disappearing into the forest, pursued by half a dozen Armagnaken hurling curses and stones. Near my feet the first guard’s horse flailed in a froth of blood and mud. The dying hooves still had enough power that there could be no thought of rescuing the rider trapped under the mount. We probably could not save ourselves.

With a final whimper, the horse rolled over and lay still. I darted forward. Ignoring the guard’s pleas, I grabbed the sword he had dropped and ran back. I had never wielded one before: I had no idea it could be so heavy. I dragged it along the ground like a plough and offered it to Kaspar.

‘Don’t waste your time.’ He pulled a dagger from a fold of his cloak and threw the scabbard away. ‘Have you got a knife?’

‘Only a penknife.’ In all the hours patiently trimming reeds and quills with that knife, I had never imagined my life might depend on it.

Many of the pilgrims already lay dead, but a few had managed to form a line across a narrow gap between two houses. They jabbed the Armagnaken back with their staffs: one had managed to find a billhook, which he swung with lethal effect. It only served to draw more of the wild men onto him.

‘The mill,’ I said. ‘It’s stone: they can’t burn it. Maybe we can find a storeroom to hide in.’

‘We’ll be trapped against the river.’

I remembered Kaspar’s fear of water. But we would not get far in the dark forest. Before Kaspar could argue, I started across the square.

The fighting was desperate. Nick sat hunched over the keyboard, firing off sequences of buttons that launched the Wanderer in a blizzard of dizzying lunges and parries. He hadn’t played the game in months, but somehow the commands had written themselves into his subconscious. Hordes of goblins pressed all around him, while the black knight paced in the background, directing the battle.

The Wanderer tripped one goblin and stabbed him through the back, blocked an incoming sword and leapfrogged his next opponent’s spear thrust. He landed behind, spun round and sliced off the goblin’s head with a single cut. To his right, he saw Urthred wheeling and leaping like a dancer as he fended off the enemies who pressed around him. The tip of his staff smouldered with magic fire: any goblin who touched it reeled back with a burning scar seared into him.

‘Keep close to the tree.’ Randall’s voice was calm and concentrated. On screen, he somersaulted into the air and swept his staff around full circle. A shock wave of green fire rippled out around him, throwing back a whole cohort of the goblins who ringed him. The bodies lay there for a second, then faded away. But more rushed in to take their places almost immediately, pressing hard to drive him back from the oak tree.

Nick tried to advance. Goblins hemmed him in, jabbing and stabbing from all sides. Their computer-generated attacks never tired, while fatigue was beginning to take its toll on Nick. A goblin charged; Nick moved to duck and come up under his guard but nothing happened. The Wanderer just stood there, unnaturally still, utterly vulnerable.

He must have pressed the wrong key. He stabbed at the keyboard to get it right, but too late. The goblin’s spear struck the Wanderer clean in the stomach. He staggered back, arms flailing; Nick tried to bring up his sword in defence but the game wouldn’t respond to his desperate commands. His health status flashed red. The goblin raised the spear over his shoulder for the killing blow.