The Revenant- Chapter 14

Chapter 14

“Draw them away. Keep them away from Vadir.”
Raphael was reluctant to try and keep the attention of such vile beings, but he knew Professor Dalton was right. Though he was a skilled warrior, Vadir would never be able to fend off three more foes while already grappling with Wendigo. Picking their way carefully backwards, the three travellers managed to lead the zombies away through the streets of the trading post.

Slowly, Vadir gained an advantage in the fight with the Wendigo, gradually inching over towards his sword. Finally close enough, he picked up the weapon and swung it into position above Wendigo’s heart. Realising what Vadir was about to do, Wendigo tried to scramble away. Trapped at the wall of the hut, its loathsome face flickered through the likenesses of a thousand people. Vadir stopped. “No... Anyone but her.” His hand hovered in midair. It was impossible to complete the action. Standing up, he ran in the direction that Lisa, Raphael and Dalton had taken. From behind him a terrible, croaking laugh resounded through the area.

After a short time, the three travellers came to a pier, with a small boat tethered there. Lisa had an idea. “Get in the boat and paddle out a little way.” They did, and clumsily the three zombies followed. The first came to the edge of the pier and stepped out blindly after the boat, falling into the freezing sea. The second was dragged with it, but the third remained standing dumbly at the edge. It would not move any further. Dalton retrieved the signal-gun from the pocket of his high-altitude coat and fired. The green flare caught the last zombie square in the chest, and it toppled backwards, its eye-sockets dark and empty once again. Somebody ran out of the buildings, and Lisa recognised the figure. “We have to go back for Vadir.”
Dalton knew it would be pointless to take the risk “We’ve got no way of knowing if it’s really him. If it is, he’s killed Wendigo and can return to the village safely, if not...” a second figure emerged, also Vadir.
“Oh no...”

The boat sat frozen in the water at the pier, slowly twirling around. It was certain that one of the figures was Wendigo. There was no way of knowing which, and nobody was willing to leave the real Vadir to his doom at its hands.
“Just go. Leave.” Vadir’s voice broke the silence. Thinking quickly, Lisa snatched the signal-gun from Dalton and fired at the Vadir that hadn’t spoken. The Wendigo’s scream echoed throughout the encampment as it struggled to put out the flames. Vadir got in the boat and helped to paddle away.

Safely out to sea, Raphael checked the compass again. “It’s starting to work! Look! North is...” he pointed out in the direction they had come from, realising that his finger was directed at a thin, shadowy figure wreathed in mist, walking out across the sea on water that froze under its icy footsteps.

**

“Amok’s awake for the first time in a while—and talking.”
The warrior had mysteriously appeared inside the castle on the same night that Khyrus had been summoned, and had barely spoken since. Ham hadn’t been expecting this news, and was glad that Imam had told him right away. “What does he say?”
“He claims something terrible is about to happen, though doesn’t know what. He seems distressed. We tried to take his weapon away, but it’s chained to the gauntlet of his armour.”
Ham sighed. It had been too much to expect Amok’s words to be anything more than the ravings of a madman. “Have someone...” a loud, terrible noise resounded from overhead. He looked up to see Eldred’s tower buckle before some unseen force. A scream cut through the air before a small part of the wall exploded violently outwards. Then everything stopped. Imam sprinted inside, heading towards the stairs to the tower. “Sipho’s been in there all morning!” Dreading what he would find, Ham followed.

The interior of the small room was chaos. Bottles, vials and jars had been smashed to pieces where they stood. From one side wall the tower, stone had been drawn into the tower like liquid, a malformed window showing a clear path through a small, scorched cupboard placed in the centre of the room. Like the stone wall, the cupboard doors had been stretched inwards, though the exit was far less neat. Splinters were scattered across the floor where something had been pushed through the wood with extreme force. On the other side, a hole had been blown in the tower wall, age-old bricks demolished in an instant. A hundred carefully measured lines, marked out in blue chalk, surrounded the bizarre spectacle. Magic—though there was no sign of its caster. Nephele, who always accompanied him, was gone too. There was no way anybody inside could have survived.