Suddenly, Scar shouted and stretched out a hand. “There!” She had spotted something. Finn, too, was looking in the same direction.
At first Jamie couldn’t see anything. Scar was pointing towards the very edge of the field, beyond the fighting, where the river of grass dipped down and disappeared. But there was something. The light seemed to be darkening. It was impossible, but the very clouds were being drawn together as if they had somehow become magnetized. Jamie felt a sudden heaviness, a thudding in his head that told him there was about to be a storm.
“It’s them,” Scar said and the next moment there was a great flash of lightning and a downpour so heavy that it was as if a screen had been drawn across the edge of the battlefield. The rain lashed down on the fighters. Thunder exploded above their heads. Jamie felt the water soaking through his clothes and running in rivulets down his skin. The change in the weather had been instantaneous – as if one of them had somehow controlled it.
“What’s happening?” he demanded.
Scar didn’t answer. She was gazing into the distance. Jamie followed her eyes and saw that a line of figures on horseback had appeared, riding at full gallop towards the edge of the battle. So far, nobody else had seen them. The rain had taken care of that. There were just six of them. Five men and a boy. It was difficult to make them out in the darkness and the confusion of the storm, but Jamie could just see the figure riding in the centre. Long dark hair. Dark skin. He too was carrying a shield. His was decorated with a blazing sun.
Inti had arrived.
And he wasn’t alone. Behind him, more soldiers – perhaps fifty of them – appeared, rising up over the edge of the field. They looked nothing like any of the other fighters, wearing tunics with headdresses made out of feathers and beaten gold. They carried outlandish weapons – slingshots, bolas and very small curved bows that they fired while still galloping, taking out some of the man-creatures that had strayed too close. They carried a banner with the blue star.
One of the fire riders turned, sensing them for the first time. Jamie saw Inti lean forward in his saddle. He had unsheathed a sword with a blade shaped like a crescent moon. Now he swung it. The rider’s head flew clear of its shoulders. The rest of the body fell to its knees and then toppled forward. Inti hadn’t so much as hesitated. If anything, his horse had sped up, carrying him straight to the very heart of the battle.
“It’s time!” Scar exclaimed. She turned to Finn. “Are you ready?”
“I’ve waited too long,” Finn growled.
“Then let’s finish it.” She steadied her horse. For a moment she was very close to Jamie. “Use your power,” she said. “Find Matt. That’s all we have to do.”
And at last Jamie understood Matt’s strategy. Chaos had joined the battle in the belief that only three of the Gatekeepers – Matt, Flint and Scar – would take part. Inti was supposed to be pinned down somewhere far away, unable to reach them. Sapling was dead. At least, that was what the king had thought when he had tried to get his enemies to surrender. He was confident that the fight was already over, that this was nothing more than a last encounter before humanity was made extinct. But he had been tricked. Inti had managed to fight his way through. And though Sapling had gone, he – Jamie – was here.
Jamie felt a rush of excitement. More than that. It was as if there were an electric current surging through him. He knew what had to happen next.
The Five had to meet.
Scar also knew. She smiled briefly at Jamie, then drew her sword. Jamie did the same.
Scar called out. A single word. “Forward!”
And then, at once, they were chasing down the hill, heading right into the face of the enemy but completely unafraid, eager to join the fray. Jamie felt his horse almost flying beneath him but there was no chance of his falling – he and the horse were one. He had his shield in one hand and his sword in the other. Frost. When he had first taken hold of it, he had known that it had been made for him, forged to the very shape of his hand. Frost was more than a piece of inanimate metal. It was a friend.
The hillside was steep and his horse almost stumbled, but Jamie steadied it and raced on, round the tents, past the physicians with their bloody saws and bandages, between the archers, who parted to allow him through, cheering him as he went. The moment he had passed, they fired another volley to distract the enemy. Jamie saw the swarm of arrows take off, darkening the sky above his head, and gave his horse free rein as if he could leave the ground and fly with them. He felt the hooves hit soft earth. Seconds later, the battle had swallowed him.
On the hill he had been able to see the field in its entirety, to understand the lie of the land and the direction of the fighting. Now he became part of it. He couldn’t see Scar or Inti. If he stopped even for a few seconds to look or to take his bearings, he knew he would be killed. Some instinct told him that the only way to survive was to keep moving. But ahead of him the way was blocked. He reined in his horse and almost at once one of the creatures lunged at him. Jamie saw a cobra’s head, black eyes burning, a yellow fork spitting at him from a twisted mouth. At the same time, there was a crack and something flailed past, inches from his neck. The snake had a human body with human arms and legs – and it was holding a whip. It had attempted to knock him off his horse but Jamie had been lucky. It had missed. He swung his sword and severed the creature’s neck, feeling no resistance as the blade cut through. Blood sprayed out. The whip fell aside. The body crumpled.
The noise here was deafening. Very little of the sound of warfare had carried up to the hill but now it was all around him. There were the screams of men and horses and it was hard to say which were the more heart-rending. Sword clanged against sword and there was the terrible ripping sound of metal entering flesh. A body, one of his own men, pitched into the ground and lay still. Another man, blinded, with blood streaking his face, cried out for help and was only silenced when one of the fire riders touched him and he was instantly vaporized.
Down!
The warning wasn’t spoken. It was sent as a thought that slammed into Jamie, making him duck almost instinctively. A second spear, thrown by one of the knights, flew over his shoulder, missing him by inches. Somehow Flint had seen him. Flint was still alive and had been looking out for him in just the same way that Scott would have done. There was no sign of the other boy but now Jamie remembered what Scar had told him a few moments before. His power had returned to him. He had to use it.
The knight who had just tried to kill him had taken out a twin-bladed sword. He was already galloping forward, the horse aiming directly for him with its deadly spike slanting out of its head. Jamie didn’t move. He simply sent out an instruction.
You cannot move. You cannot hurt me.
The knight was almost on top of him but didn’t even try to swing his sword. Nor did he flinch when Jamie lifted Frost and drove it straight into his chest. He was helpless. Jamie felt the sword cut through and recoiled in horror as the entire body fell apart, becoming in an instant a buzzing cloud of flies. The hesitation almost cost him his life. He saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye and turned just as another man-scorpion began its strike. Its tail and stinger were already slashing down and he thought he was finished. But they never completed their journey. In front of his eyes they seemed to separate themselves from the man-scorpion’s body. The creature howled and died and Jamie saw Corian saluting him with his sword and realized that his life had just been saved for a second time.