Free Old Kingdom 04: Across the Wall by Garth Nix Page B

me after it drank just a little of my blood. Dorrance was yelling something about getting it other blood to dilute mine. It could easily have killed me then, but it didn’t.’
    ‘You can’t go out,’ said Ripton. ‘Think about it! It’s drunk enough in the last hour to dilute your blood a hundred times over! It could easily be ready for more. And it’s your blood that revved it up in the first place. It’ll kill you and get more powerful, and then it’ll kill us!’
    ‘We can’t just let it kill the firemen,’ Nick said stubbornly. He started to walk to the other side of the circle, closer to the drive. Ripton hurried along beside him. ‘I might be able to hurt … even kill … the creature with this.’
    He pulled out Sam’s dagger and held it up. Fire and moonlight reflected from the blade, but there was green and blue and gold there, too, as Charter Marks swam slowly across the metal. Not fully active, but still strange and wonderful under the Ancelstierran moon.
    Ripton did not seem overly impressed.
    ‘You’d never get close enough to use that little pigsticker. Llew! Llew!’
    ‘You’re not catching me like that again,’ said Nick, without slowing down. He stowed the dagger away and picked up a rake, ready to make a gap in the burning barrier. A glance over his shoulder showed him the huge-shouldered Llew getting up from where he was braiding flowers. ‘If I want to go, you’re going to let me this time.’
    ‘Too late,’ said Ripton. ‘There’s the fire engine.’
    He pointed through the smoke. An ancient horse-drawn tanker, of a kind obsolete everywhere save the most rural counties, was coming up the drive, with at least fourteen volunteer firemen crammed on or hanging off it. They were in various states of uniform, but all wore gleaming brass helmets. Several firemen on horseback came behind the engine, followed by a farm truck loaded with more irregular volunteers, who were armed with fire beaters and buckets. Two small cars brought up the rear, transporting another four brass-helmeted volunteers.
    ‘How did they—’
    ‘There’s another entrance to the estate from the village by the gamekeeper’s cottage. Cuts half a mile off the front drive.’
    Nick plunged at the fire with the rake, and dragged some of the burning hay aside before he had to fall back from the smoke and heat. After a few seconds to recover, he pushed forward again, widening the gap. But it was going to take a few minutes to get through, and the firemen would be at the meadow before he could get out.
    After his third attempt he reeled back into the grasp of Llew, who held Nick as he tried to swipe his legs with the rake, till Ripton grabbed it and twisted it out of his hands.
    ‘Hold hard, Master!’ said Llew.
    ‘It’s not attacking them!’ cried Ripton. ‘Just keep still and take a look.’
    Nick stopped struggling. The fire engine had come to a halt as close as the men and horses could stand the heat, some fifty yards from the house. Firemen leapt off onto the lawn and began to bustle about with hoses as the truck and cars screeched to a halt behind them, throwing up gravel. The two mounted firemen continued on toward the meadow, their horses’ hooves clattering on the narrow bridge over the ha-ha.
    ‘It’ll take the horsemen,’ said Nick. ‘It must be hiding in the ditch.’
    But the riders passed unmolested over the bridge and across the meadow, finally wheeling about close enough to the ring of fire for one of them to shout, ‘What on earth is happening here?’
    Nick didn’t bother to answer. He was still looking for the creature. Why hadn’t it attacked?
    Then he saw it through the swirling smoke. Not attacking anyone, but slinking up from the ha-ha and across the meadow toward the drive. Dorrance was riding on its back, like a child on a bizarre mobile toy, his arms clasped around the creature’s long neck. He pointed toward the gatehouse, and the creature began to run.
    ‘It’s running