Walton Chaos Gate

1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-936750-55-9
Verlag: Yorkshire Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 158 Seiten

Claire walked away from her family's camp near 17th Century Strasbourg into world-changing struggles. The horror of the Thirty Years War engulfed her life when raiders from a marauding army attacked her family and the group with whom they were traveling. Though Claire escaped capture, the shock and horror of the attack froze her voice. Mere Rowan, an elderly wanderer, took Claire in, comforted her and slowly discovered what had happened to her. She discovered, too, that the girl's troubles signaled the beginning of an invasion from other worlds. Joined by a giant bear, a hummingbird and a boy orphaned and persecuted because he is Jewish, Mere Rowan and Claire take the perilous road to Chaos Gate in hopes of healing her grief, finding her parents and preventing the invasion.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Walton, Robert

Leseproben

A sword, slender and silver, disappeared slowly down Otho the juggler’s throat. Delicately, precisely, he allowed the crosspiece of the hilt to rest upon his lips. He raised his hands. Shouts of praise rose from around the fire. The older boys whistled. Otho, head tilted toward the night sky and hands upraised, turned in a slow circle so all could see. At last, his right hand rose and gently gripped the sword’s hilt. He drew it from his throat in one swift, smooth motion. The calls and whistles redoubled.

“Claire, what did you think of that?”

Claire took her mother’s hand, leaned against her shoulder.

“You’re a tired one. I’ll call your papa to walk you to the caravan.”

Claire rubbed her cheek against the fur collar of her mother’s cloak. She felt warm and drowsy here close to the campfire. She did not want to be alone in their wagon. There had been wolves on the hills last night, their howls like spikes of black iron.

“Claude,” her mother said, “your daughter is falling asleep.”

Claude leaned close, “Are you, Claire? Otho is going to eat fire in a moment. You want to see that, don’t you?”

Claire nodded.

Jeanne shook her head. “We go into Strasbourg tomorrow. Twenty men will eat fire at the market fair tomorrow night. What will she do then when she’s too tired to stand?”

“Oh, Jeanne,” said Claude, “a few moments more. Paul is still by the fire. Claire won’t want to be alone in the wagon without her little brother.”

Jeanne conceded, “A few moments, then.”

Claire smiled and squeezed her mother’s hand.

Jeanne murmured, “A few moments only.”

Flames leaped up. Big wheels on the caravans glowed like orange moons. All the traders had drawn their wagons close together, all most into a big box. At one end of the box, oxen and horses swayed in their sleep. Their big-muscled rumps and backs looked like distant hills. Claire yawned.

Flames leaped up. Otho strode into the center of the circle of watchers. He flourished three torches. The traders, their wives, their children called out to him, urged him on.

Claire heard her little brother shout, “Have a care, Otho, your beard will make a fine torch, too!”

Otho grinned at him and tossed the torches into the air. He juggled them, faster, faster. The torches became a wheel of fire inside a larger wheel of shining eyes. A drum began to beat. Clapping hands joined in. A pipe played sweetly, madly from the other side of the fire and the flight of torches became a dance. Claire yawned again, more deeply.

Flames leaped up.

Dawn was close when Claire awoke. She moved warm robes aside and shivered. The October cold was sharp. Still, she needed to visit the edge of camp and drink from the stream. She crawled past Paul. He was sleeping heavily and did not move as she brushed past him. She pushed open a canvas flap and climbed down from the rear of the caravan.

The earth was hard and white beneath her feet. Claire grinned—frost! She loved frost and did not think of it at all as a herald of winter, bringer of ice and hunger. Fairy lace, burning diamonds in early sunlight: frost.

Her footsteps crunched away from the wagon. She clucked a greeting to the oxen as she passed them, but they did not stir. She loved the great beasts—Tug, Melina, Big Rump and Fawn—who pulled their caravan. They were gentle and their dark eyes widened with such appreciation whenever she gave them a bit of turnip or apple. Part of her work was to help her father with their care. It was work that made her feel important, for she knew that the beasts were a great part of her family’s wealth.

She stepped beneath dark trees and paused for a moment. Blue light flowed through the forest. She turned toward the stream. Its clear waters tumbled over stair-steps of stone. Its sound - ringing bells, chiming crystals, faraway laughter - enchanted her. She listened and the music she heard seemed to come from hidden worlds. She wanted to follow the trilling notes to their homes.

Abruptly, she decided that she would follow them. It would be hours before the wagons would be ready to move. She knew that Strasbourg was not far, no more than half a day’s journey away, and that no one would be in a hurry to get up after last night’s campfire. She would not be missed if she returned in time for breakfast.

The way upstream was easy at first but became steeper. Tangled roots clutched at her feet. Low branches snagged her gray woolen cloak. She came at last to a wide, quiet pool spread beneath overhanging branches. She circled the pool, staring into its dark and rather frightening depths. A hollow tree stood on the pool’s far side. Water trickled over its roots. She stopped when she came to the tree. She listened to deep silence.

A distant shout suddenly broke the silence. It pierced the still dawn air like a thorn and ended on a rising note. Claire stiffened. Something cold and wild in that shout froze her blood.

Other shouts sounded. There were crashes and oxen began to low. Then there were screams. Claire moved back until the hollow of the tree enfolded her. Dread of those confused sounds filled her. She did not know what they meant, but they made her crouch down and fold herself into the tree’s soft shadow. She hid and her dread became fear.

The sounds died away. Time passed and Claire dozed. Two jays squawked rudely in the branches above her. She raised her head, rubbed her eyes. Sunbeams now poked between the leaves. She rose.

It was silent now, but a shadow of her former fear lay on her heart. Surely those ugly sounds had been a dream. She turned downstream and began working her way back to the caravans. A path led away from the stream. She took it.

At last, she parted screening branches and stepped into the meadow beside the highroad. Though sunshine turned the grass to gold, a night-shadow still lingered beneath the trees. Its gray fingers held the birds silent, kept the bees from buzzing.

She looked left, right. Nothing seemed amiss. A morning breeze rippled through the grass as she stepped forward. Ahead, almost at the end of the meadow, she saw a bundle of rags, brown and white. She took several more steps. Shapes took form beneath the bundle of rags—a slender arm, a shoeless foot. She raised her hand, shaded her eyes. It was her brother.

It was Paul. A scream rose in her mind but never reached her throat. She was silent as she moved to him, knelt beside him. His eyes – death’s cloudy ice already veiling them—stared up at her. A great red stain soaked the breast of his shirt. Cold fingers of horror tightened around her throat. She reached out, touched the soft hair above Paul’s brow.

A stick snapped behind her. Claire whirled.

A man stood beside an old oak. He wore a helmet and was clothed in the leather and iron of a raider. His bare arms were wound with twisted ropes of muscle. His right hand held a long-bladed knife. The blade was notched and stained.

Staring at the blade, Claire rose. Then she looked at the man’s face—flat nose, red skin, a scar where one eye should be.

The man smiled, “I always wait a bit. Someone usually comes.” He took a step forward.

Claire stepped backward. The man’s teeth, broken and yellow, caught her eyes on their jagged crowns. His words, though, were smooth and quiet.

“Come here. I won’t hurt you. That fool there, he tried to run. I had to kill him. But you’re a good girl, aren’t you?”

He took another step.

“I won’t have to hurt you like I did him, will I?”

Claire listened to the drone of his words, watched the broken saw of his smile.

“Come here. There’s a place for you in our camp with the others. We took all of the others, you know.”

He continued to advance.

“We only killed the ones who fought or ran. There’s food. Be a good girl. Come to me.” He took another step.

Claire ran. She ran toward the forest. The man cursed and threw his knife. It hissed through the air and Claire ducked at the sound. The point flew wide of her neck, but the ugly edge bit muscle in her shoulder. She did not slow. She plunged into undergrowth, burrowed beneath matted branches.

Luck was with her. She struck an animal path. Deer or pigs had made a tunnel through the brush. Turning, diving, wriggling, she crawled, her elbows gouging up cool earth, until she came into an open space beneath tall trees. The raider, still cursing, smashed at the brush behind her.

Claire stood. Fear and the stinging in her shoulder urged her to fly, to run blindly anywhere. Behind her was the road, the caravan, her parents. And the raider. Before her was deep forest. Crashing and cursing, her brother’s killer came closer. Her eyes darted from shadow to shadow, but she saw no path. Her feet trembled with urgency, but she took no steps.

A spark of color flashed before her eyes. Claire took a step back, blinked, and saw a ball of throbbing yellow floating before her on blurred wings. It was a hummingbird.

The bird darted at her, moved several feet to her right, paused, its head tilted toward her. Puzzled, Claire stared at it. The bird flashed up to her again and again swooped to the side. Branches snapped. The raider’s red face splashed like blood between the last of the screening branches.

The tiny bird hummed beneath Claire’s ear. Suddenly, she understood. The bird...