Free Dragon Seeker by Anne Forbes Page B

as he realized that she’d disappeared.
    He looked up and saw two of the wind witches hovering helplessly above the stalls. They didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t their fault, he thought. It was his! How could he have been so careless! Hands shaking, he got out his mobile phone. His mum and dad had to know about this and, he thought, Sir James as well. He’d tell him to go straight to the hill to tell the MacArthur what had happened.
    He’d barely started scrolling down, however, when someone bumped into him and knocked the phone from his hands. As he bent to grab it, a foot kicked it hard and sent it spinning across the ground. He looked up to see two heavily built, rather swarthy men beside him and one gave him another shove.
    “Hey! What did you do that for?” a young man shouted at them. He’d seen what had happened and, understandably, thought that they were trying to steal Neil’s phone. Glowering furiously at them, he bent and picked it up. Built like a rugby player, he was quite willing to take them on and at his ferocious glare, the two men backed off quickly and melted away. Heads had turned and a bit of a crowd had started to gather — the last thing that Lord Jezail wanted.
    “Wait until the fuss has died down,” Lord Jezail said quietly, speaking through the mouth of the man he’d merged with.“Then we’ll get him!”
    Vassili nodded wearily. He hadn’t been keen on the idea of kidnapping Neil; especially when he found out that Jezail intended to use him to force Clara to write down the spells! When they did eventually return to Stara Zargana, he thought, he was most definitely going to leave the magician and return to his father’s castle at Trollsberg. He was fairly sure that the book he’d been looking for in Jezail’s library wasn’t there … if the magician had ever had it in the first place, which he now doubted. Yet his father had been so sure that Jezail had stolen it …
     
    Thinking that the two men were nothing more than petty thieves, Neil looked at the man gratefully as he gave him back his mobile. “Thanks a lot,” he said.
    “No problem,” came the answer. “Just watch out, mate!”
    Neil nodded but once the man had gone and he started to dial again, he saw the same twomen in the crowd and knew they were still after him. Were they really just thieves, he wondered , or were they out to kidnap him, too?
    Stuffing his phone into his pocket, he darted round the side of some stalls and then realized it had been a stupid move. There was hardly anyone around and he could hear the sound of running feet behind him. Fear lent him wings and, jumping over guy ropes and dodging among the stacks of empty cartons that lay behind the stalls, he swerved towards the rear of the circus tent where rows of animal cages were lined up.
    Tigers growled, a lion roared and just as he thought he might make it through the row of cages to the safety of the crowds, he found he was in a dead end.
    Neil paled. He was trapped! There was no escape! The menknew it, too, for they paused and then, smiling triumphantly, moved forward to grab him.
    The witches, however, hadn’t forgotten their promise to keep an eye on Neil and Clara and had been watching the chase. Clara’s disappearance had freaked them out but they’d kept their heads. Although they hadn’t been able to do anything against such powerful magic, they were more than capable of rescuing Neil. So it was that, grey robes flapping, the wind witches swooped in on a gust of wind, grabbed him by the arms and soared exultantly skywards. The Lords of the North were going to be more than pleased with them!

11. Prisoner in the Tower
    The sword looked down from its place above the mantelpiece and frowned at the still figure of the girl. “She’s very young, isn’t she,” it said suspiciously, “and she doesn’t seem to have much magic in her …”
    Lord Jezail sensed its disapproval. “Don’t worry, she won’t be here for long,” he said