Emily Rodda: The Shadowlands

Then, suddenly, a white flash of pain exploded behind his eyes as something slammed against his brow with shocking force. He staggered backwards, arms spinning wildly, fighting to keep his balance. Through the ringing in his ears he heard muffled cries of alarm, then, with relief, he felt a firm hand on his back. Barda was supporting him, pushing him back on his feet.

Trembling, he sank to his knees. Barda, Jasmine and Emlis crouched beside him, pressing closely together so that the great boulder hid them from the plain.

‘Lief, what happened?’ he heard Jasmine whisper.

‘Did you not see?’ he mumbled, pressing his hands to his aching head. ‘Something hit me.’

‘No!’ she whispered back. ‘There was nothing there. You just jerked backwards, suddenly, for no reason. One minute you were running, the next—’

Barda drew breath sharply. He picked up some pebbles and threw them at the empty air in front of them. Astounded, Lief saw the pebbles stop short in mid air, bounce slightly back, then fall to the ground.

‘An invisible wall!’ Jasmine breathed.

‘Yes,’ Barda said grimly. ‘I thought it strange that the mountains were unprotected. The Shadow Lord has sealed the border in his own way, it seems.’

As he spoke, they saw movement near where one of the pebbles had fallen. A small, brown striped lizard with bright eyes had scuttled into view.

‘But it came from uphill!’ whispered Jasmine excitedly. ‘From behind the magic wall. I saw it! Is it only humans who are stopped by the shutting spell?’

Lief felt ill. He had thought of another explanation, and he could see by Barda’s grim face that Barda had thought of it too.

The lizard’s tiny forked tongue flickered in and out for a few moments. Then, abruptly, it turned and scuttled back uphill. When it reached the invisible wall it stopped dead and fell back.

‘Yes,’ Barda said slowly. ‘That is what I feared. The spell does not stop people or creatures coming in. It only prevents them getting out.’

He, Lief and Jasmine looked at one another, the words hanging heavily between them. Then Lief began struggling to rise.

‘Stay still,’ Jasmine hissed, catching hold of his arm to hold him down. ‘You must rest. You hit your head—’

‘No!’ Lief gritted his teeth and pulled against her restraining hand.

Jasmine’s grip tightened and he fell back with a groan, his head swimming. ‘You said—you said something was coming!’ he mumbled. ‘We must—’

‘Do as you are told for once, Lief!’ said Barda grimly, drawing his sword. ‘We are as safe behind this rock as anywhere, at present. And whatever Jasmine can hear, I can still see nothing.’

The little lizard was scrabbling frantically at the invisible wall now, running along it for a short distance, then turning and running the other way. Every now and then it would raise itself and push with its front legs at the empty air, its tail thrashing frantically.

‘But—but why does the Shadow Lord not protect his border?’ asked Emlis in a high, trembling voice. ‘He has many of your people! Does he not fear that an army—or a small group such as yours—might cross the mountains and invade his territory?’

‘That is what he hopes for, I would say,’ muttered Barda. ‘He has left the way open, after all.’

‘But why?’ asked Emlis, his voice rising to a squeak.

The lizard fell back, exhausted. Instantly, an orange, spiny beetle-like creature sprang from a crack in the clay just behind it. In the blink of an eye the orange creature had seized the lizard, bitten off its head, and dragged the still twitching carcase back under the earth.

‘Does that answer your question?’ asked Barda dryly.

Emlis stared at him, open-mouthed.

Lief turned his face to the rock, his stomach churning. Then he saw it. A mark had been scratched laboriously into the rock’s hard surface. He stared, hardly able to believe his eyes.

‘The sign of the Resistance!’ he breathed, tracing the mark with his fingers. His heart was pounding.

Another Deltoran had sheltered here. A Deltoran who had somehow escaped from captivity and made for the mountains, only to find the way to freedom barred. A Deltoran who had used, perhaps, his or her last strength not to weep and curse fate, but to scratch a message of defiance on the rock.

The despairing confusion that had clouded Lief’s mind ever since arriving in this dread place seemed suddenly to lift. Suddenly he was able to think again.

Barda was touching the sign now. ‘It is not fresh, but it is not very old, either,’ he said slowly. ‘A year or two at most, I think.’

Lief was remembering another Resistance sign he had seen marked on rock. It had ended a message written in blood on a cave wall in Dread Mountain.

Doom had written that message: Doom, the only Deltoran captive ever known to have escaped from the Shadowlands. And he had escaped from…

Kree gave a low, warning squawk. ‘The light is changing,’ Jasmine whispered, reaching for her dagger.

Lief and Barda looked up quickly. The low, tumbling clouds were stained with faint, sullen scarlet, and the whiteness of the plain was dimming.

‘Surely something as small as a lizard would not have sounded a border alert,’ Barda muttered. ‘Such things must happen often.’

‘It is the setting sun,’ said Lief, looking to the west, where the clouds glowed more deeply. ‘Night is falling.’

They were silent for a moment. They had been in the caverns so long that they had almost forgotten that the days in the world above were ruled by the movement of the sun.

‘Doran said sunsets were glorious to see,’ said Emlis, gazing with disappointment at the clouds. ‘Doran said they were like red and orange fire blazing in the sky.’

‘Not here, it seems,’ Barda growled.

Jasmine was peering not at the sky, but at the plain. ‘Look,’ she breathed, pointing.

The plain was coming to life. Legs scrabbling, long feelers waving, spiny orange beetles were emerging in their thousands from the cracks in the clay.

6 – The Wild Ones

Lief looked down. The cracks in the earth near his feet were full of movement, though so far nothing had ventured to the surface.

‘I do not like this,’ Barda said. ‘We had better move on. Those insects are small, but there are many of them, and they are meat-eaters. If they are hungry enough—’

He did not complete his sentence, but he had said enough to make everyone stand hastily.

‘Which way?’ Jasmine looked desperately left and right.

‘West,’ Lief said instantly, turning to face the dark red glow that was the setting sun.

‘Why west?’ Jasmine demanded. ‘If we are to find the Shadow Lord’s headquarters in time—’

‘What?’ Barda interrupted, staring at her in disbelief. ‘What madness is this? The Shadow Lord’s headquarters ? Why, that is the very place that we must avoid at all costs!’

‘But—but the slaves!’ Jasmine stammered, flushing hotly. She had betrayed herself. She had forgotten that her companions knew nothing of her plans.

She was sure that Faith was somewhere in or near the Shadow Lord’s headquarters. The little girl had been secretly using something she called ‘the crystal’ to call for help. And where could such a magical object be, except in the Shadow Lord’s main stronghold? Somehow, Jasmine had to convince her companions to seek it.

Should she admit her secret at last? Tell Lief and Barda what Faith had said?

Almost immediately she decided she could not risk it. Not here, on this windswept plain, where every gust of wind brought the scent of danger. She had kept the secret too long for that. This was no place for argument, for loss of trust, for the angry words that she knew would burst forth from her as soon as they questioned her.