The ground disappeared and they fell. She heard Martin who wasn’t Martin’s voice, the sonorous chant she recognised all too well. She should probably be panicking about the whole falling thing but all she could think about was Martin’s voice. What had he cast?
The falling stopped. Unfortunately, it stopped due to the floor appearing and the air burst from her lungs as they struck. Her knees slammed against the hard floor and she shouted as spikes lanced up both legs. What was it with falling and hitting and the whole painful impact thing?
Red scrambled to her feet, knife already in hand. Scarlet rolled over, rubbing her boobs. Was there any part of her that hadn’t hit something hard today? She did an inventory and decided her bum had been pretty safe most of the time. This at the exact same moment Red’s foot caught her square in the backside and shoved.
She tumbled forward, catching herself with her hands. The sounds of fighting erupted. Red was fighting someone. Or something. She squinted, trying to see in the semi-darkness into which they had fallen. The thing she was fighting definitely wasn’t human. It was too short and too green. Green meant goblin or orc, though she wasn’t sure they existed. Or the Hulk maybe, only he was much bigger. So goblin then. Where the hell were they?
Red’s knife flashed in the darkness, moving like a moth that danced and spun in its quest for the moon. The knife vanished, once, twice, and a third time and the fight was over. The body dropped to the floor and Red heaved a sigh. Scarlet crept over and stared down at the corpse. Definitely a goblin, definitely dead.
‘Since meeting you I have stabbed more things than I would choose to in one day.’
‘Do you have like a quota then, like – I may stab seven things this week, but only one on Monday and Tuesday?’
‘I can quite happily leave them for you if you would like.’
Red grabbed Scarlet’s hand and shoved the dagger into it, closing her fingers around the warm hilt. With a squeak Scarlet threw the knife on the floor but not before the warm blood had covered her palm. She wiped it furiously against her legs and glared at Red. Her new found friend was wearing the sort of infuriating smile a teacher wore when they knew the answer and you didn’t.
Scarlet huffed. ‘Fine, far enough. Sorry.’
Red inclined her head. ‘It’s okay. I don’t enjoy this you know?’
‘But you’re really good at it. I mean, how cool is it to be able to do that?’
‘Cool? What is that? If you mean it is a good thing, then not really. It took my father away and means I am the only one in my village who fights the wolf. Every day, I fight the wolf. You think that is cool?’
Scarlet bowed her head and looked at the floor. How could all these people be so pissed about where they lived? Red lived in this gorgeous forest and could fight and stuff and Skinny lived in a place where they did magic all the bloody time and she just lived in crappy old London with a dysfunctional mum and a smart-arse computer. And a girlfriend. And a guy who wanted to teach her magic. Hmm.
She looked up, hoping her face was suitably contrite and Red chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, Scarlet, I am not mad. Where are we?’
Darkness stretched away in every direction, like shadows cast by something too big too see. The floor was hard like concrete, but undulating like sand. There was nothing else. ‘Um, like, no idea.’
‘Can you get us out of here?’
Scarlet looked in her bag. ‘I can, but I’ve barely got any ingredients left. I’ve gotta leave enough to get us both home.’
Red nodded and turned away. Her hands were held behind her back but they were twitching and Scarlet wasn’t surprised when she turned back to face her. ‘Can I come with you?’
‘Huh?’
‘Can I come back to your world?’
What she should have thought was ‘that won’t go down well with Lara’, but what she actually thought was ‘mmmmm, leather.’ She nodded. ‘I suppose so. I mean, I can’t guarantee you can stay with us, we’d have to ask mum, but, like, how old are you?’
Red shrugged. ‘A few hundred years, something like that. I lost count.’
‘A few hundred… Aren’t you tired?’
Red rocked her head side to side. ‘A little. Mostly I am bored. I don’t think my village will miss me. I think they will find another way to kill the wolf.’
‘Poison maybe, or a big pit.’
Red nodded absently, her eyes going past Scarlet to stare at something. Which probably wasn’t good. She turned slowly, scrunching up her face. But there wasn’t anything there. Hold on, there was someone, coming toward them from a long way away.
‘Why the one goblin?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Why when we got here did one goblin attack us? Where did he come from?’
Red nodded. ‘That is a good question. Perhaps we can ask this person.’
‘Or perhaps they can try and kill us. Didn’t think of that, did you?’
Red chuckled and wiped her dagger on the body of the goblin. Scarlet tore her eyes away from it, back to the figure coming ever closer. It became a he, and he became a bad-ass, sword wielding medieval dude with armour and dreads. His nose merged with his cheeks like he’d been squished at birth and gave him the facial appearance of a cliff. He managed to be both cool and terrifying at the same time. Life seemed to be going more and more in that direction.
He stopped before them, crossing arms the size of small children over a chest she could probably have climbed inside, were it ripped open. Now where had that come from? Once she was done grossing herself out, she opened her mouth. ‘Um, hi, nice hair.’
As his head turned slowly so he could fix his eyes on her, she thought there were maybe times it was better to keep her mouth shut. This wasn’t something she’d entertained before, despite receiving it as feedback on more than one occasion. Didn’t they say you had to learn a lesson, like, a bunch of times before you got it?
His eyes were so dark brown they looked black, surrounded by the whitest of whites. She fidgeted beneath the stare. ‘Um, hi, I’m Joanna.’ She stuck out a hand. His gaze finally moved to look at it. She held it toward him before deciding he probably wasn’t interested in shaking.
‘So, we were just wondering, where are we?’
‘You are in the Shadows.’
He said it with a capital letter and enough bass to get a pretty good rave going. She felt it in her chest. ‘Okay, great. What are the Shadows please?’
She said it politely and everything but he still looked at her like she was stupid. That seemed to be happening a lot. ‘Look, you can be polite you know. Give me one reason I should know what the Shadows are?’
‘You are a magic user, are you not?’
Again with the bass. She needed to sit down. But she was couldn’t help smiling. He’d called her a magic user and he hadn’t seen her do any magic, unless you counted coming here and anyone could have done that. So that meant he could just tell, like she was giving off an aura or something. Cool.
‘Yes, but even so, I—’
‘Every magic user visits the Shadows. Your power comes from here.’
‘No it doesn’t, it comes from words and ingredients.’
‘Whoever told you that is lying. Or ignorant.’ He stared down at her, making it clear which he thought it was. Martin wouldn’t lie. So he was probably right. How could Martin be ignorant, he knew, like, everything? Actually, he didn’t know what Tumblr was, so he was missing at least one of the basics.
‘The words and ingredients are merely conduits, routes through which your power travels. It is your link,’ he thrust out a finger and stabbed her in the chest, knocking her back a step, ‘to the Shadows that brings the power through those conduits.’
‘Oh.’ She turned to Red. Her friend stood in a fighting stance, knife held high, eyes fixed on the huge man. ‘What is it?’
Red didn’t move a muscle as she replied through gritted teeth. ‘He is a champion.’
‘What’s one of those?’
‘I am one. His role in life is to fight and kill.’
Scarlet turned back to the man. ‘Is that true?’
He inclined his mountain-sized head. ‘Cool. Who do you kill? Is it like the wolf, cos Red just completely kicks a—’
‘Trespassers.’
‘Oh.’
Scarlet pushed her head forward, hopeful look on her face. ‘So, like, where do they trespass?’ Some days, she felt like a genius. She knew all the answers before they were said.
‘The Shadows.’
Red hissed behind her and the champion shifted his stance, feet moving apart and hands going to his sword. Red pushed past her, knife held out in front. Her hand, Scarlet couldn’t help noticing, shook.
Next Installment Monday 28th April
