Then he slapped at his own neck. Something had fallen onto the skin there, and was clinging.
Lief felt a tickling on his hand. He looked down and saw a winged, slug-like creature squirming there. He shook his hand, but the creature did not fall away. With a start, he realised that it was biting him—burrowing its head into his flesh.
And it was growing. Its body was swelling as he watched. Filling with his blood.
‘Leeches!’ he shouted, shaking his hand again, filled with disgust.
He saw Kree fluttering from Jasmine’s shoulder as she scrabbled at the collar of her jacket, trying to pull off two leeches that were hanging from her neck. He saw with horror that more of the loathsome creatures had already landed on her hands.
‘Beware! Above!’ shouted Barda.
Lief looked, and his stomach heaved. The air high above them was teeming with flying leeches, streaming in thick, whirring clouds down from the darkness.
Wildly he waved the torch above his head. Dozens of slimy, winged bodies sizzled in the flames. But still many of the leeches swerved around the fiery barrier to settle on his hands and arms, to feed and swell.
And these were only the forerunners. Thousands upon thousands were following, spiralling downward.
‘Jasmine, Barda! Get down!’ Lief shouted. Recklessly he cast his torch into the water, then tore off his cloak and threw it across the boat to make a canopy.
In moments the companions were lying face down beneath the cloak, holding it awkwardly in place. A pattering sound began as the first cloud of leeches rained down on their shelter, sensing the warm bodies beneath it. The pattering increased, became a relentless pounding. The cloak began to sag.
Lief’s arms and hands were trembling with the effort of holding the cloak in place. The leeches that had been clinging to him before he took shelter, and the few which had found a way to creep under the cloak since then, were hanging like bloated sausages from his wrists and the backs of his hands. He gritted his teeth, forcing down the wild, urgent need to pluck them off.
The loaded cloak began pulling away from the boat’s edge. Panic-stricken, Lief heaved at the fabric, trying to tug it back into place. But already leeches were pouring through the tiny gap, fastening onto his hands, slithering into his sleeve.
The cloak bulged and slipped again. The gap at the side of the boat opened further. Leeches poured through in a whirring mass.
We are finished, Lief thought suddenly. After all we have been through, we are lost—defeated by the smallest creatures we have ever faced.
It would have been almost funny, if it had not been so vile.
Even as his hands struggled hopelessly to close the gap, his mind flew to Del. He would never return. Marilen’s worst fears had come to pass.
Yet I regret nothing, Lief thought. I did what I had to do.
A strange peace flowed through him. And with that peace came the music of the Pirran Pipe, piercing him with its exquisite sweetness.
At last, Lief surrendered himself to it. He let himself drift in the tides of sound. His eyes closed.
And so it was that he did not notice that emerald light was suddenly shining through the fabric above his head. He did not notice that the drumming, pounding sound had ceased. He did not hear the soft splash of water as the boat skimmed lightly across a rippling green sea, drawn safely and surely to land.
2 – Keras
When Lief came to himself, the voice of the Pipe had faded and a great weight was pressing down on him. He pushed violently, and at last struggled into dazzling emerald light. Then Barda and Jasmine stirred beside him. As they sat up, the boat tilted under the shifting weight of millions of dead leeches.
The boat was rocking gently in shallow, pale green water that lapped on a sandy shore. Beyond the shore was a forest of fungus trees in soft greens and browns.
‘We are on Keras!’ Barda said slowly. ‘We must have reached the end of the Forbidden Way. We came out into the light, and all the leeches died.’
Suddenly shuddering, he scrambled out of the loaded boat, Jasmine and Lief close behind him. They plunged their arms and faces into the shining green water over and over again, as if to wash even the memory of the leeches away.
When they felt clean again, they waded to shore, heaving the boat after them. They pulled the craft onto the gently sloping sand and upturned it, emptying it of its vile cargo. Then Lief reclaimed his cloak and they moved on, into the green shade of the forest.
A sandy path wound through the trees. They began to follow it. Now and then there was the sound of a creature scuttling in the sand, but there was no other sign of life. The silence was eerie.
‘So, we are in the territory of the emerald,’ Barda said, in a casual but very loud voice. ‘Above us is Dread Mountain, where our friends the Dread Gnomes live.’
Lief realised that Barda was telling any unseen watchers to be wary of attacking them. Barda sensed, as he did, that the forest was not as deserted as it seemed.
They reached a clearing closely hemmed in by trees. Here the silence seemed thicker. The back of Lief’s neck prickled. He looked rapidly around, but nothing stirred.
Jasmine’s eyes flicked down to the great gems that studded the belt at Lief’s waist. The ruby and the emerald were undimmed.
‘The gems cannot be relied upon to give warning down here,’ Barda muttered.
‘So you have told me,’ said Jasmine. ‘But why is it so? The gems first came from deep within Deltora. Surely they should be more powerful here, not less.’
‘Who are you? Why are you here?’
The companions jumped back, drawing their weapons. The whispering voices seemed to have come from all around them. But the clearing was empty.
‘Answer!’
Jasmine drew a sharp breath and nudged Lief. Following her eyes, he looked up. A fiery sword hung above his head, point down. Two more swords hung over Jasmine and Barda. Sweat broke out on Lief’s brow. Clearly, the questions had to be answered, quickly and carefully.
‘I am Lief, king of Deltora, the land above,’ he said clearly. ‘My companions are Jasmine and Barda. Many of our people are enslaved in the Shadowlands, and only the magic of the Pirran Pipe will save them. The Plumes and the Aurons have each lent us their part of the Pipe. We have come to beg the people of Keras to do the same.’
There was a moment of great stillness. Then, abruptly, the swords vanished, and a large group of people appeared out of thin air.
Like the Plumes and the Aurons, the people were small, with pale eyes, long noses and large, pointed ears. Their garments were shimmering green, and a few, strangely, had yellow hair on their heads.
One of these, a woman wearing a Piper’s tall head-dress, moved towards the visitors. Green moths with glittering wings fluttered about the head-dress like a moving crown. A boy with a bony, eager face and a mass of spiky fair hair crowded close behind her.
‘Greetings, cousins!’ the woman said in a low, musical voice which held a hint of amusement. ‘I am Tirral, Piper of Keras. Please lay down your weapons.’
As Lief hesitated, there was a soft, rushing sound. The next moment his sword, Barda’s sword and Jasmine’s dagger were all lying at Tirral’s feet.
Jasmine and Barda lunged forward, but Lief flung out an arm to hold them back. He had seen what they had not. At the moment they moved, the green moths fluttering around Tirral’s head had changed to shimmering arrows, pointed at their hearts.
Tirral, who had remained utterly motionless, smiled.
‘Forgive our caution, cousins,’ she said. ‘You claim that the parts of the Pirran Pipe you carry were given to you, but it is far more likely that you took them by force.’
‘It may be more likely, but it is not true,’ said Lief, slowly dropping his arm. ‘Keep our weapons, however, if it makes you feel safer.’