The ground beneath Henry’s feet was rough as he ran; he couldn’t see more than a yard or two ahead. In normal circumstances, he would never have tried to run in a situation like this. In normal circumstances if he had tried he’d have stumbled. But he was encouraged by the howling behind him – and by the speed at which the white shapes were gaining. Henry ran fast.
The faster he ran, the clearer his mind became. He knew he was about to die. There was no way he could outrun the vaettirs, no way he could survive so many of them when they finally caught up. But, oddly, the realisation caused no fear. In fact, the dread he’d felt earlier had been replaced by calm. He found himself thinking about his mother and Charlie and school and his exams. He found himself thinking of Blue and what a mess he’d made of their relationship. He found himself wondering how he’d gone through so much of his life not knowing what he really wanted, let alone how to get it. It seemed he’d been pushed around by his mother for years and pushed around by circumstances when he wasn’t being pushed around by his mother. He’d spent so much time trying to do the right thing, but mostly what he thought of as the right thing was just the thing that other people wanted him to do. He’d never liked upsetting people, so usually he just went along. He wished Mr Fogarty were still alive. Mr Fogarty had somehow managed to do the right thing without giving a toss about how much that upset other people. Mr Fogarty robbed banks for cripe’s sake, when he thought it was the right thing to do.
Now he was about to die, Henry suspected he might have wasted his entire life.
Except maybe he wasn’t about to die after all. He wasn’t quite sure, but the pursuing vaettirs seemed to be dropping back a little. Maybe they were like cheetahs very fast in short bursts, but not much stamina. If he could just keep up his pace he might outrun them.
With his new-found clarity, he realised this made sense. Lorquin might be weird, but he was a decent kid. He’d hardly ask Henry – his Companion – to commit virtual suicide just so he could become a man. There might be risk – people who lived in the desert were used to that – but it probably wasn’t much of a risk, however dangerous it looked. After all, it was Lorquin who had to prove himself a man. For Henry there was probably hardly any risk at all. All he had to do was keep up a steady pace and wait for the vaettirs to get tired and…
The earth convulsed.
Henry lost his stride, then his footing, then his balance. He hurled forward and struck the ground, hard. He was on a mix of rock and desert that hurt his injured leg and filled his mouth with sand, but he hardly noticed either. The ground itself was shaking underneath him and his head resonated to a low, subsonic rumble that was somehow more terrifying than the horde of vaettirs racing after him.
For a moment he remained bewildered, then realised he’d been caught up in an earthquake. He clung to the ground as if in danger of falling and felt it convulse again. He’d never been in an earthquake before, never even known anybody who had, but he remembered reading somewhere that they never lasted very long… fifteen seconds, thirty seconds, something like that. He also thought he’d read that earthquakes weren’t too dangerous if you were outside. It was falling buildings that killed you. All he had to do was lie here and wait. Everything was going to be fine.
Then a vaettir landed on his back, howling.
Henry twisted to try to throw it off when another one arrived, then another and another. He jerked sideways in sudden panic, but the vaettirs were pinning him. He could smell their musty stench, feel their breath on his face and neck. For some reason they hadn’t started to bite or scratch him yet, but it was only a matter of time. More and more kept arriving, more and more fell on top of him. There was no possibility of escape. In a moment they’d begin to tear him limb from limb. Meanwhile it was as much as he could do to catch his breath.
There was a high, blood-chilling scream from somewhere behind him. The weight on his body eased at once; then suddenly he could breathe again. He felt something else roll off him and turned painfully. To his astonishment, the vaettirs were gone, every one. He pushed slowly to his feet. The ground had stopped shaking. The earthquake was over. He was alone in the desert. Distantly he could hear the soft pad-pad of vaettir footsteps, but they were receding, fading into nothing as he listened. Nothing was making sense any more, but he was still alive.
Then he realised it was too good to be true. He’d no idea what had panicked the vaettirs, but there was one of them returning now. He could hear its running steps quite clearly and now he could see a shape looming out of the darkness. Something inside Henry snapped and he felt a rising fury. His hands curled into fists. He’d survived a single vaettir attack before. This time he was ready for the brute.
‘En Ri!’ hissed the vaettir.
Henry blinked. ‘Lorquin! Is that you?’
‘We did it!’ Lorquin called excitedly. He was beside Henry now, grinning.
‘The draugr is dead?’ Henry frowned. He didn’t believe it.
‘I killed him!’ Lorquin said.
Her, Henry thought. The draugr was the vaettir queen. But he stopped himself correcting the boy.
‘You were great, En Ri,’ Lorquin told him. ‘They will sing of you as a wonderful Companion. You lured away the vaettirs more skilfully than any Companion in the history of the world.’
It was probably an exaggeration, but all Henry could think of saying was, ‘The vaettirs are gone.’ Which was true, but he still had no idea why.
‘They must return when the draugr screams,’ Lorquin said, ‘It is always so.’ He grinned at Henry again, ‘I made him scream big, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, you did,’ Henry said. For the first time he noticed Lorquin was carrying a stone dagger. The blade showed a dark stain. The kid must have used it to kill the draugr. And he thought Henry would be sung about!
‘Now I am a man!’ exclaimed Lorquin proudly. ‘The gods celebrated my victory – did you feel the earth move?’ He seized Henry’s hand and squeezed it in a curious gesture of affection. Then he sobered. ‘We must go now, En Ri. The vaettirs will create a new draugr, but sometimes they wish to seek us out and take revenge.’
‘Where are we going?’ Henry asked.
‘To join my people,’ Lorquin told him happily.