Forger of the Runeblade, Page 3

  Hal and his friends had to wait about half an hour for the train, during which time they quietened their grumbling stomachs with over-priced sandwiches from the station shop. Once he had placated his belly, Hal found his conscience grew equally troublesome. He phoned home, but he got no reply.

  ‘Were they out?’ Eric asked, as Hal put his mobile back in his pocket. Hal gave him a perturbed look.

  ‘No dialling tone,’ he replied.

  The Knutsford train pulled into the station, and they hurried over to Platform Six to board it. Hal dismissed the mystery as the train left Chester and chugged happily through the suburbs. Children waved at them from a playground as the train passed; the embankment grew thick with trees on either hand, and suddenly they came out into farmland and open countryside.

  The Cheshire Plain rolled before them, verdant and beautiful beneath the blue summer skies. The smell of grass drifted in through the windows.

  ‘How far is it to Alderley Edge?’ Gwen asked.

  ‘A fair way,’ Eric replied. ‘We pass through Delamere Forest first, then get off at Knutsford and go the rest of the way by bus. Alderley Edge is right on the far side of the Cheshire Plain, near the foothills of the Pennines.’

  Hills were visible in the distance to the north as they passed fields of cattle and small villages, riding stables and muddy paddocks. More hills appeared in the south, but Eric told them that Alderley Edge was still a long way off.

  The train chugged on across the plain. Rolled up bales of hay dotted the fields, resembling enormous cheeses. A church spire was visible in a nearby valley. The terrain became steeper and hillier before they pulled into Mouldsworth Station. Sheep dotted the hillsides. The forest loomed up on the horizon.

  Soon ranks of trees were on either hand like dark green walls. Bracken swathed the embankment. Eddisbury hillfort was briefly visible through the trees; the pylons that topped it resembled the towers of some science fiction city. Then the trees swallowed it up.

  Hal had been sitting on the seat across from Eric and Gwen. Suddenly he gasped, and his eyes widened, as he looked over their shoulders.

  ‘What is it?’ Eric asked sharply, turning and staring down the train. He gulped. Gwen turned.

  ‘Oh, no…’ she murmured. ‘When did they get on?’

  Making their way down the coach behind them were six or seven dark-clad figures with white-painted faces and dark sunglasses. Arrogance was visible in their every movement.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Hal said, sweating freely.

  Gwen shook her head. ‘I don’t know…’ she admitted.

  ‘Here!’ Eric cried suddenly. He leaned out and operated the emergency cord.

  With a screeching of tortured machinery, the train halted in a cutting deep in the forest. Passengers glared angrily at Eric. The ticket inspector strode down the gangway towards them, his face set with anger.

  The door at the other end of the coach swung open, and the swart-elves burst in. Prince Helgrim strode at their head. The ticket inspector came to a startled halt as Prince Helgrim drew a glittering sword from beneath his cloak.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’ Gwen cried.

  ‘Quick,’ Eric said. He smashed the glass that covered the emergency opening device. The doors swished open.

  The three teenagers tumbled down onto the track. In the coach, the swart-elves were forcing their way through a milling throng of passengers.

  ‘Up here!’ Eric grunted, leading them at a stumbling sprint up the overgrown embankment. As they reached the top, where a wire fence marked the edge of the trees, Hal looked back.

  The train still stood in the cutting. The swart-elves had leapt down onto the track, their cloaks swirling around them, their swords and axes glittering in the sunlight. Their leader, Prince Helgrim, pointed up at the fugitives.

  ‘After them!’ he shouted harshly. Hal, Gwen, and Eric vanished into the resin-scented depths of the trees. Deep into the murky woods they halted, and peered back in the direction of the railway line. ‘Are they still following?’ Gwen gasped.

  Eric shook his head. ‘Maybe we shook them off.’

  Hal snorted. ‘Unlikely,’ he said. ‘I think we should get going. How far is it to Alderley Edge now?’

  ‘On foot? A long way,’ Eric said bitterly. ‘Get moving.’

  Although there was no visible sign of pursuit for the rest of that day, Hal felt eyes watching him from beneath the trees as they followed the winding forest paths. Maybe they had shaken off their pursuers, but Hal could not believe that he and his friends had escaped so easily. After all, the swart-elves had trailed them from Wirral to Delamere without revealing themselves.

  With a certain trepidation they camped near the edge of the dark forest. Eric argued that since Alderley Edge was still a fair way off on foot, and Gangrel would not be there for two more days, they might as well remain in cover for the night. They had eaten nothing since leaving the station, and it was with empty bellies as well as anxious minds that they fell asleep.

  Morning broke with a light mist over the forest, through which they picked their way, still cold and hungry and aching from their second night out in the open. By lunchtime, they had left the forest far behind them, hitchhiking across the Cheshire Plain to Knutsford, an old-fashioned town where every other place was a wine bar or an antique shop. Gwen gave it as her footsore opinion that the place could safely be described as ‘quaint’.

  Halting at the ‘White Lion’ - by local standards a relatively inexpensive establishment - they rested their weary feet and ordered sandwiches.

  ‘We could have planned this expedition more carefully,’ Eric said, checking his change. ‘I’m running out of cash.’

  ‘How far to Alderley Edge?’ Hal asked. Food put a different perspective on things, and he was beginning to feel optimistic. In the corner of the bar, the television was chuntering away to itself. The local news came on.

  ‘Only seven miles,’ Eric was saying. ‘We can get the bu…’

  He broke off, staring up at the TV screen. Hal followed his gaze.

  It showed footage of a blazing building. A farm. Hal’s parents’ farm.

  Urgently, he rose and turned up the volume.

  ‘… fire-crews were called to the scene but too late,’ the commentator was saying in tones of professional solemnity. ‘No survivors were found at Dawson Farm. However, nothing has been found of the son of the couple killed in the fire, and two teenagers from the nearby village, known to be friends of the boy, are also missing. A police spokesman described events as “extremely suspicious”, and urged the three teenagers to give themselves up for questioning.’ School photos of Hal, Eric, and Gwen flashed up on the screen. ‘Police advise members of the public to avoid them at all costs, since they may still be dangerous.

  ‘In other news today…’

  Horrified, Eric turned the sound down. He turned to Hal, who was staring numbly into space.

  ‘Mum… and dad…’ he choked. He had not spoken to them since the row last night! Now they were dead. Dead. The word seemed meaningless. He put his head in his hands. His shoulders shook.

  ‘Hal!’ Eric said urgently. ‘Snap out of it!’

  Hal raised a miserable, tear-streaked face. ‘Don’t you understand?’ he mumbled. ‘They’re dead. They’re both dead...’

  Eric’s eyes were compassionate, but his words were hard. ‘Did you hear the rest?’ he demanded. ‘The police reckon we did it. They want us for questioning.’

  ‘But we didn’t do it…’ Hal mumbled. ‘We’ve got to tell them…It must have been Prince Helgrim! He attacked the farm while we were gone.’ He remembered the smoke-trail he had seen when they went to catch the bus.

  Gwen’s eyes were wide. ‘Hal, we don’t have an alibi,’ she said shakily. ‘If we go to the police and say “Swart-elves did it, officer,” they’ll lock us up for sure! Probably in a secure unit!’

  ‘Come on,’ Eric said decisively. Hal looked up to see the barman wa
tching them. He was reaching towards the telephone.

  ‘Hurry!’ Eric added. He bustled them from the bar.

  They headed out across the plain. The dim, blue-grey shapes of the mountains began to march across the eastern horizon as they forced their way, with growing misgivings, down a path overgrown with nettles, thistles, brambles and every other plant designed to impede human progress. The great white dish of Jodrell Bank radio telescope glittered in the sun. In the middle distance, they glimpsed the humped shape of the Edge.

  The Edge - the hill for which the village was named - was famed in tale and legend for its connections with magic. An ancient king slept beneath it, surrounded by his loyal knights and guarded by a wizard, awaiting the day when they would rise to do battle once more against the powers of evil. Other tales whispered of strange creatures dwelling in the ancient copper mines that honeycombed the rock.

  Hal walked with the rest, but his mind was elsewhere. He felt strangely numb, anaesthetised. The deaths of his mum and dad seemed unreal. They couldn’t be dead! He would sooner give credence to Gangrel’s crazy tales than believe that his mother and father were… dead.

  But they were. And the clearest thought in his mind was that he had left them in anger. He had run away, abandoning them to be slaughtered by the swart-elves; thinking that they would be safe if he fled, that he would draw off pursuit. But the swart-elves must have attacked regardless, only discovering his absence too late.

  Why did they want to kill him, anyway? Why could Gangrel not have warned him that they would attack the farm? And why had the old hippie gone off like that, leaving them to fend for themselves?

  Near evening, the three teenagers reached Alderley Edge, and they hurried down the wide main street despite their aching legs, eager to find cover. Two or three times during their journey, they had been forced to hide in hedgerows or undergrowth while police cars passed on the main road, and once when a helicopter thundered overhead. They had seen no one else during their journey, and kept as much as possible to remote field-paths, though these always seemed to end abruptly whenever they started leading the fugitives in the right direction.

  ‘We’ve got a day to wait,’ Eric said, as they sat resting in a field off the Macclesfield road, on the far side of the small but severely gentrified village. The slopes of the Edge itself were behind them. ‘Gangrel will turn up tomorrow.’

  ‘Why didn’t he give us better directions?’ Gwen complained. ‘Bit vague, isn’t it, “Alderley Edge”? And we can’t stay in the village because…’ She broke off, looking at Hal, who remained quiet.

  ‘We should find somewhere to sleep,’ Eric said, breaking the silence. Hal looked out over the plain. Far in the west, the sun was setting. Home lay in that direction, but could they ever return?

  ‘We could go up onto the hill,’ Gwen suggested. ‘Then we’d have a better view of the area, and be able to see anyone coming; Gangrel or the swart-elves.’

  ‘Okay,’ Eric replied, rising wearily to his feet.

  He led them up along a path that led through woods and fields before crossing the Macclesfield Road. A signpost by a lay-by read “To the Edge”. This led them along the side of another field before it opened out at the edge of a cliff.

  From here, they could see the tree-swathed slope below, and in the distance the plain misting off into the haze, and the mountains beyond.

  ‘We just need somewhere to spend the night,’ Eric said absently. ‘There’s meant to be caves all over this place. We’ll try and find one before it gets dark, and spend the night in there.’

  ‘Spend the night in a cave? Ill counsel, in these parts and days.’

  The voice came from behind them. The three teenagers whirled round.

  3 ON THE EDGE

  Standing before them was a small, stout man, no more than three feet in height. He had a large, bushy, black beard, long black hair, an ample belly, sallow skin and a huge, ruddy nose. From one hip hung a sword, from the other a dagger, and he held a battered horned helmet under one arm. A blood-crusted bandage swathed his left shoulder, and he wore another round his head.

  ‘Who are you?’ Hal asked, in amazement.

  ‘Careful,’ Eric said anxiously. ‘He may have something to do with the swart-elves.’

  ‘Thor’s Beard!’ the little man said. ‘You know of the swart-elves? I had thought to warn you. I understood that few in your world were aware of them.’

  ‘In our world?’ Gwen echoed. ‘So where are you from?’

  ‘And if you’re not in league with the swart-elves,’ Hal asked slowly, ‘whose side are you on?’

  ‘Perhaps introductions would be in order,’ the little man replied courteously. ‘I am Tanngrisnir, a dwarf of the Sons of Lofar. My people have fought a long feud with the swart-elves. It was in battle with them - struggling to stem their advance into this world of Midgard - that I gained these wounds. Yet many of them fell to my blade Helbrand.’ He brandished his sword. ‘And my dagger Catfang drank her fill, also.’

  ‘I’m Hal,’ Hal said, shaking hands with the dwarf, ‘and this is Eric Litefoot and Gwen Ramsey.’

  ‘Light-foot, eh? A speedy runner, then...’ said the dwarf. He bowed low. ‘But my manners desert me.’ Much to her embarrassment, he insisted on kissing Gwen’s hand. ‘At your service, my lady.’

  ‘You’ve been fighting swart-elves?’ Hal asked. He regaled the dwarf with their own experiences, and Tanngrisnir’s eyes widened when he spoke of Gangrel.

  ‘This comrade of whom you speak,’ the dwarf said. ‘Would he be a tall, bearded man with a single eye?’

  ‘You know him?’ Gwen said.

  ‘Aye, my lady,’ Tanngrisnir replied. ‘He is called Grimnir in my world, but I know him. He it was who set my kindred to guard the tunnels leading into your world. The swart-elves attacked in force, however, and slew my comrades. I barely escaped with my life.’

  ‘Then the swart-elves are from your world, too?’ Eric asked.

  ‘The swart-elves have their own kingdom,’ a familiar voice announced from behind them.

  They turned to see Gangrel striding across the rock towards them. ‘Gangrel!’ Hal said. ‘You’re early!’

  ‘I came as soon as I could,’ the old man replied sombrely. ‘Trouble is brewing in many worlds. But word reached me of your plight. I came after you, reaching the forest not long after you had left. I drove off the swart-elves…’

  ‘So that’s why they stopped following us!’ Gwen said.

  Hal looked bitterly at Gangrel. ‘Why couldn’t you come sooner?’ he shouted. ‘My mum and dad are dead!’

  Gangrel nodded sorrowfully. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I am sorry...’

  ‘Sorry!’ Hal bawled. He ran towards Gangrel, fists flailing, but Eric and Gwen caught him and held him back.

  ‘I think we deserve a few explanations,’ Eric said coldly, regarding the old man with a hostile expression.

  Gangrel sighed. ‘So little time,’ he murmured. ‘Very well. But we shall walk as we talk. Come with me. Tanngrisnir, lead us to your cave.’

  The dwarf, who had been watching these events in silence, turned and led them down the rock and along a hillside path.

  ‘All I can tell you at the moment,’ Gangrel began ‘is that you have attracted the attention of malign forces from beyond your world. Many times I have told you of the worlds beyond this, though you gave little weight to my tales…’

  For a while, the path was silent as the little group vanished into the trees. Then it echoed again to booted feet. Dark figures massed on the ridge, gazing down after them.

  ‘He is with them,’ one hissed.

  Prince Helgrim turned to his followers, those who had survived the old man’s attacks. ‘We have no choice now,’ the swart-elf prince told them. ‘He thinks he drove us off. We must attack them unawares. Perhaps then we may rid ourselves of the threat his protégés pose!’

  Silently, the swart-elves trailed their quarry through the woods.

  * * *
* *

  ‘In here,’ Tanngrisnir the Dwarf said shortly.

  A gully that resembled a great axe gash several hundred yards long, tore the rock, splitting one side of the woods from the other. A fence surrounded it, but the dwarf ducked under this and led the others up the ravine. In the cliff ahead was a fissure, hardly wide enough to allow entrance. Hal, Gwen, and Eric eyed it dubiously.

  ‘Where are we going, anyway?’ Hal asked.

  Gangrel’s explanations had left them little the wiser. He had spoken of a coming war between the forces of chaos and the forces of order, in which the three teenagers were destined to play some as yet unspecified role. But even if that was the case, Hal wondered, why were they going potholing?

  ‘Far below, in the cave system that riddles this hill,’ Gangrel replied, ‘is a portal that leads into Aurvangar, the realm of the dwarves. We must go there, to the Hall of Sindri, where the king of smiths will forge the Runeblade; the sword that you are destined to wield, Hal.’

  ‘Now hurry, by Thor!’ Tanngrisnir said, peering over his shoulder towards the darkening woods. ‘I sense enemies!’

  He led them through the fissure, and into a dark cave tunnel beyond, where he lit a horn lantern. Hal gagged at the sickening stench of corruption.

  The fitful light shone on a scene of slaughter. Bodies lay scattered across the tunnel ahead. Some were dwarves like Tanngrisnir, others they recognised as swart-elves. Dwarf corpses vastly outnumbered the bodies of their foes.

  ‘But what’s this about a rune blade?’ Hal demanded thickly.

  ‘For the moment, I must insist on silence,’ said the dwarf. ‘We have many tunnels through which we must journey, and in places the rock is unstable; your voices could set off a rock fall. Gangrel’s tale must wait.’

  He strode down the wet, sandy floor of the tunnel. The teenagers followed him tentatively, with Gangrel covering the rear, peering behind him at every sound.

  The dank tunnels wound on and on, sometimes widening out into vast caverns, at other times narrowing to mere cracks through which progress was virtually impossible. No logic seemed to dictate their path, and they went up or down vertically at times. Soon Hal lost track of time.