Sacred Mountain

Chapter 9: The Thief

Jemima heard the thief before she saw it: a whole pack of giant wolves barking ferociously, the cracking of a whip and a wild, barely human voice screaming, 'Yar! Yar!'

Fear rose in her throat. Her pulse raced. She knew who it was even before the towering black-cloaked figure with his unkempt flame-coloured hair came into view on the road up ahead.

Morwain! Sworn enemy of the Wise Women, ruthless dark wizard, the twisted mind behind the plot to kill her father and brother three years earlier. And, though it pained her to think it, her uncle.

He stood at the front of an open sled, long matted hair blown back in the wind, cloak swirling behind him, whip raised above his head. The wolves he was driving were running so fast their legs were a blur. One look at them told Jemima they had been enchanted, no ordinary animal could run at such speed. As she flew closer, one of them crumpled, its legs giving way beneath it, and fell to the ground. In one seamless movement, Morwain drew his sword, sliced through the reins that attached it to the sled and left it behind to die on the road just like the one they'd healed earlier.

In spite of her terror, Jemima's curiosity compelled her to get a closer look. She flew over his head until she was level with the leading wolves, then circled round and looked down at his face. The sight chilled her to the bone. That face, so familiar, so like her own dear father's but how different! Gaunt and sallow-skinned, yellow teeth bared, features contorted with rage and hatred. Unblinking bloodshot green eyes stared wildly out of dark hollows. His long dirty beard was flecked with spit.

Goddess protect us!

Jemima swooped back over him and perched on the open sled's wooden side. Its cargo had been covered loosely with a tarpaulin but Jemima knew what must be underneath. She hesitated, Daisy had warned her about the gorgon. She knew its gaze was lethal, did she dare risk pulling the tarpaulin aside? Just then the sled hit a bump in the road which sent her flying into the air. As she landed again, a glass phial rolled out from under the tarpaulin, a small amount of a dark red liquid sloshing inside. She recognized it straight away. After Morwain fled when his plot to usurp her father's throne had been exposed, they had found hundreds of such phials in his tower. They had contained the Long Sleep Draft which Morwain had used to keep his enemies in a comatose state. If he'd given it to the gorgon, nothing would wake her until she received the antidote.

Jemima flew down onto the tarpaulin, grasped the material in her beak and hopped backwards pulling it with her. It slipped back and there was a flash as the sun glinted on the surface of the crystal. Jemima's heart contracted painfully. The Wise Women's crystal, so precious and sacred to their tribe had been thrown unceremoniously into the back of the sled.

She hopped back again, uncovering what looked at first sight like a pile of ropes. A closer look revealed lithe scaled bodies, flat heads with bulbous closed eyes — sleeping snakes. A shiver shook her feathered body. One more hop revealed a pair of green scaled hands with yellow taloned fingers that had been tied together at the wrist.

Jemima didn't need to see any more. She dropped the tarp, spread her wings and took off in the direction she had come, flying as fast as her trembling wings would allow her.

*****

'Morwain's planning to use the gorgon to kill the dragon.' Cressida's voice was low and serious, her white hair pale in the moonlight.

When the eagles weren't back by nightfall, Cressida and Gerda had saddled up and ridden out into the Forest to look for them. They'd met Daisy and Jemima who had shifted back into their human forms at dusk, trudging towards them, hunched with exhaustion, Karin perched on Daisy's shoulder. Now they were riding back to the Wise Women's Village, the full moon casting shadows across their path. Jemima was mounted behind Cressida and Daisy and Karin behind Gerda.