Date Published: June 11th 2021
Publisher: Burton and Mayers
Thomas Trelawney thinks he will never get over the death of his sister Grace. When he is plunged into the parallel world of eighteenth century Yngerlande and tasked with saving their tolerant, diverse world from a brutal takeover, using powers he never knew he possessed, he can start to forget and move on. But who is the secretive, hooded girl who arrives to help him, leaving a trail of stars and mystery in her wake?
Fans of Harry Potter, His Dark Materials and Orphans of the Tide will love this exciting, fast-paced adventure story with its echoes of Narnia and a passage to another, strangely familiar, world.
They crossed over the road opposite Mary’s
cottage and plunged into the woodland. Clara led the way, deeper and deeper
into the shadows. They crossed the stream and retraced their steps from two
days earlier until they reached the road where the Redcoats had first spotted
them. On the road they stopped, breath steaming into the air.
“Where
now?” Della asked Clara.
Dan
asked Clara directly, “Are you sure about this? It sounds a bit, well, you
know...”
He
trailed off.
Clara
stared at him. “No, I don’t know actually. A bit what?”
“Well,
a bit far-fetched.”
Clara
burst out laughing.
“Far-fetched?
What, like going through a Grandfather Clock? Or you walking through walls?”
Tom
looked at Clara, her determined expression set firm as always, short dark hair,
brown skin and glittering black eyes. Dan and Tom both remembered her with a
knife at Tom’s throat and the fight she gave Oliver and Jacob when she was
discovered in The Crab.
“No,
fair enough. Sorry, You’re in charge.”
“Good,”
Clara said simply. She pointed to the other side of the road, her finger
pointing upwards. The land rose sharply, climbing upwards to the moors. In what
was left of the grey December light, they could make out rocky outcrops and
snow-covered tussocky grass.
“That’s
where we’ve gotta go. Come on.”
On
the other side of the woods, where they had entered twenty minutes earlier,
three horse men stopped. Cartwright dismounted and examined some tracks in the
snow.
He
got back on his horse. “Yes, they came this way alright. Three of them by the
looks of it. Come on. There’s nowhere for them to go.”
The
three horses slowly picked their way through the snow.
*
They had been climbing for about half an hour,
sometimes on all fours, sometimes where the ground was a little easier,
standing up right. Now the sun was very low in the sky and the temperature
began to plummet. Up high, they could see down to the coast and could just
about make out the lights of Runswick Bay. The wind was a little stronger up
here, and it knifed through them, numbing their cheeks and feet and fingers.
Strong gusts blew the snow into flurries, like a blizzard.
They
came to a natural hollow, scattered with boulders and surrounded on the lower
slopes by woodland. On the far side, the land rose to a peak that was topped by
a flat stone plateau. Since ancient times this spot had been used to light
warning fires at times of great danger, such as invasion or war, and the marks
of some of those fires could still be seen, as the gusts of wind stopped the
snow from settling on the top.
Clara
raised her hand.
“This
is the place,” she said.
They
all stopped behind her and looked around in expectation.
“Now
what?” asked Tom.
Clara
opened up her frock coat. Attached to her belt was a small silver horn, about
four inches long, covered in intricate engravings and decoration. She
unfastened it and turned to the others.
“Cover
your ears.”
“What
for?” asked Della.
“Do
as you’re told. Cover your ears.”
They
all put their hands over their ears and Clara put the silver horn to her lips.
She blew.
A
deafening sound filled the air, quite out of keeping with the size of the horn.
It was a deep note and the hillside and trees around seemed to shake in tune
with the vibration. The note seemed to go on for ever, again quite out of
keeping for someone of Clara’s small frame.
As
the note swirled around the frosty air, it felt as if the whole world had
stopped turning. The rocks, the trees, the snow flakes, the clouds, the birds,
the animals, the plants all stopped to listen intently. The note died away in
the air and the gap was filled with the most perfect silence. And then, slowly
at first, but with a growing intensity, there came the sound of rustling from
the trees that surrounded them, and then a stomping and a snorting. Out from
between the surrounding trees came a horse. Tom looked more closely: it was a
steedhorn! Its shaggy brown coat standing out against the back drop of the snow
and the sky, its horn pointed skywards from the middle of its forehead and it
had a long luxuriant mane that bounced as it trotted.
Dan
whispered, “Is that a... um, a unicorn?”
“They
call ‘em steedhorns here, but yeah.”
“That
is awesome, man. A real steedhorn.”
They
stared open-mouthed at the beast as it walked slowly out from the trees towards
Clara. And then, from out of the woods, more of them came, all brown or black.
They walked calmly towards them, breath steaming, heads tossing, until they
were all surrounded by a circle of these magnificent beasts.
Further
down the moor, back towards the road, the soldiers on horseback stopped in
their tracks when they heard the unearthly sound of the silver horn. Their
horses whinnied in a mixture of fright and recognition of an ancient bond.
“What
was that Sir? I’ve never ‘eard nowt like that ‘afore.”
The
Captain was as afraid as the rest of his men, but unlike them, he could not
show it.
“Come
on, lads. There’s nowt to be afeared of. Have yer muskets loaded, we’ve nearly
got ‘em.”
They
carried on up the rocky ascent to the moor top, muskets loaded, and eyes
nervously scanning to the left and the right.
Meanwhile
the first steedhorn paced slowly up to Clara who reached out her hand and
stroked the horse’s head. She bent her head to the nostrils and began to
whisper, a hypnotic sounding chant that none of them could understand. The
steedhorn took a pace back and then reared up on to its hind legs and snorted
and whinnied in exultation. All of the others stood in the circle took up the
sound, also rising up on to their hind legs and producing a cacophonous chorus
of neighing. It was an extraordinary sound, that down below caused panic and
pandemonium amongst the soldiers on horseback. They dismounted and immediately
their horses ran away in fright.
“On
foot now, lads,” shouted Captain Cartwright, trying to maintain order. They’re
very close and there’s no escape.”
Up
above, only minutes away, the circle of horses stopped their chorus and stamped
and pounded at the ground in front of them. The sudden ceasing of the neighing
was replaced by an intense, pure silence and an increase of pressure in the
air.
“Now
what?” whispered Dan.
“Ssh,”
the others hissed at him.
Up
above them from the snow clouds came a rustling sound, as if a gust of wind had
picked up piles of fallen leaves. They all looked into to clouds directly above
them, straining their eyes against the milky whiteness. As the rustling sound
increased, and they peered into the heavens, they began to say, “Is that a…?”
“No,
it’s just part of the cloud. No wait, it’s…”
“It
can’t be, it must be a flurry of snow.”
And
then there was no doubt. Out of the low-lying, snow-heavy clouds, with a rush
of moving wind that blew all around them, sending their hair across their faces
and snowflakes into their eyes, came two brilliant white horses with huge,
gracefully flapping wings. They landed on the stone plateau above them and
stamped their hooves and snorted steaming breath into the darkening sky. As
they settled, they neatly folded their wings by their sides.
They
all dragged their eyes away from this spectacular sight and looked at Clara.
“Who
are you?” asked Della, a mixture of wonder and respect and fear in her voice.
“How
did you do that?” Tom asked.
“Come on, climb on, I’ll explain everything
later.”
“You
keep saying that, but then you never do,” said Della.
“Later,
Della, I promise, but now we’ve got to go. Even these beasts cannot work
miracles. Dan, you come with me. Thomas, you go with Della. I’ll take the
lead.”
The
gleaming white horses lowered themselves onto their front legs and patiently
allowed the four of them to climb on board.
“Hold
tight to their manes. It might be a rocky ride,” advised Clara.
The
white beasts stood on all four legs. They all felt as if they were miles off
the ground. They hadn’t noticed at first but they were about half as tall again
as a shire horse.
Just
at that moment Cartwright and his men burst through the edge of the woodland
into the clearing. They stopped in amazement when they saw the white horses
stretching and extending their wings.
“What
the hell are those?” exclaimed the first man behind Cartwright.
“Easy
men,” said the Captain, “They’re nothing that won’t be stopped by a musket
ball.”
They
aimed their muskets at the bodies of the horses who presented a very large
target. They would be hard to miss.
Clara
whispered into the ear of the flying horse she was on and it reared into the
air. With a leap and mighty flap of its wings sending a hurricane of wind
across the clearing, it soared into the air, almost invisible against the grey
sky. The second horse did the same.
As it rose into the air, Cartwright shouted,
“Shoot you rogues, for God’s sake. They’re getting away, damn them. Shoot!”
A
volley of shots from the raised muskets rent the air with their gunpowder
explosions. Tom instinctively ducked and felt a musket ball whizz past his ear.
He looked past Della, her chestnut hair streaming behind her in the wind, down
to the ground, and saw the circle of steedhorns charge at the soldiers and
trample them underfoot. They soared into the air, their mighty wings beating
and sending them up and up through the wispy clouds. He looked over Della’s
shoulder and there was the first horse, Clara at the front, making a course
South West for York.
They
were free.
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