Free Erebos by Ursula Poznanski

its wings.
    However the bird is evidently not the only creature he has startled. Something’s rustling in the thick bushes only a few paces away. And sparkling.
    Sarius still has his sword in his hand. He runs to the thicket and strikes at it blindly. There’s a scream and a tinkling sound. The next minute a goblin-like being jumps out, with skin as yellow and creased as parchment. It’s a grave robber, for sure. He’s bleeding heavily from his shoulder, but still won’t let go of the sparkling things clutched tightly in his arms. Sarius runs after him, lunges at him with the sword, but misses. The goblin loses something that looks like a silver bowl, and runs on. With the next thrust of his sword Sarius inflicts a deep wound in the grave robber’s leg. He cries out and falls, without letting go of his loot. Sarius doesn’t hesitate. Twice he thrusts at the goblin, until he’s not . . .
    â€˜Nick?’
    . . . moving any more. His arms slide to his side, a helmet rolls to the ground, a short dagger, an . . .
    â€˜Nick? What’s that you’re playing?’
    â€˜Tell you later.’
    . . . an amulet, and something that looks like leg armour. Hurriedly Sarius gathers up everything, but there was something else too, there was . . .
    â€˜Is it new? Where did you get it?’
    â€˜Hang on, okay? Give me another minute!’
    Exactly. The bowl that the robber lost. Where’s it gone? Rolled away. Blast it. It has to be somewhere. He pokes around in the bushes.
    â€˜Have you eaten already?’
    â€˜Can’t you leave me in peace for just one minute, for God’s sake?’
    There’s the bowl. It had rolled against a tree trunk. A sudden noise behind him is shockingly loud. He spins around.
    It was his mother slamming the door.

CHAPTER 6
    Out in the kitchen water was bubbling away in a big saucepan. Mum had her elbows propped on the workbench and was leafing through a magazine. She’d almost drained her glass of red wine.
    â€˜I’m sorry about before.’ Nick inspected his mother from behind. She’d had two orange streaks put in her black hair. They were new, and he didn’t like them.
    â€˜There’s pasta with packet sauce,’ she said, without looking up. ‘That’s all I can manage today.’ She yawned. ‘What was it that I interrupted so terribly?’
    â€˜Oh, nothing. Sorry, I behaved like an idiot.’
    â€˜Yes you did.’ Mum turned to him and smiled. ‘I guess it was getting exciting?’
    â€˜Yeah.’ He felt obliged to explain more. ‘I got it today. It’s an adventure game. Not bad at all.’
    His mother tipped the pasta into the boiling water. ‘I hope you’ve done some school work as well.’
    â€˜Of course,’ said Nick, and hid his bad conscience behind a smile.
    Eleven p.m. The buzzing of the light globe over the desk. A car parking in a nearby street. And exhausted quiet in a flat that smelled of tomato sauce with garlic powder.
    After dinner Nick had managed to quickly scrawl his English essay. Now he switched the computer on and started up Erebos. For several minutes he waited tensely for the black of the screen to vanish and the red writing to appear. He only noticed that he’d been holding his breath when the game started up and he breathed a sigh of relief.

    The night-time landscape is unfamiliar to him. This isn’t the forest where he slayed the grave robber, nor the place where he battled the troll. It’s heathland, and slightly hilly. There are trees here and there.
    The grave robber! It occurs to Sarius that he hasn’t yet checked whether he’s retained all his captured treasure. He takes a look in his inventory and breathes a sigh of relief. The bowl is there, the helmet, the dagger, the amulet. He wants to put on the helmet straightaway, but annoyingly it doesn’t work.
    He walks further through the rustling heath grasses,