Sebastian Darke: Prince of Pirates (37 page)

He lifted his gaze to stare at the far end of the trunk, and that was when he saw a figure emerge from the narrow opening in the rocks up ahead. It was a woman dressed in a long hooded cloak. She came to a halt a short distance from the edge of the crevasse and lifted her hands to pull the hood back from her face. She stood there, smiling, her eerie tawny eyes burning into his.

'Hello, Sebastian,' she said. And he froze in his tracks, staring back at her, unable for the moment to move a muscle.

Sebastian was frozen to the spot, staring at Leonora in dull surprise. He couldn't believe she had managed to find them again, but he also knew that he wasn't imagining things. She was studying him intently, her full lips curved into a wicked smile.

'Well, well,' she said quietly. 'I was beginning to think I'd never catch up with you. But here you are at last.'

He looked beyond her, fully expecting to see Captain Trencherman and his crew massing for an attack, but for the moment at least, Leonora seemed to be alone. Sebastian just stood there, not knowing what to do.

'Did you find what you were looking for?' she purred.

'I don't know what you're talking about,' said Sebastian, aware as he did so that big beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

She laughed at that, throwing back her head and cackling, sounding more like an old hag than a beautiful young woman.

'Oh come now,' she said. 'You know you can't lie to me.' Her expression changed suddenly and her voice became hard and commanding. 'Bring me that pack you're carrying.'

Sebastian shook his head, but already he was aware of his feet moving to obey her. He took a step forward, but then Jenna's voice made him stop again.

'No, Sebastian! Turn round and come back!'

He paused and looked over his shoulder, but the action nearly made him lose his balance. His legs wobbled and he threw out his arms, flailing wildly before he recovered himself. He was horribly aware of the terrible distance below him, and once again his heart was pounding in his chest.

'Sebastian!' Leonora's voice again. He looked back at her and her eyes seemed to be shining with an eerie malevolence. 'You cannot disobey me. I order you to cross over to me.'

Sebastian's head seemed to fill with a dull red glow and there was a whining noise in his ears. He licked his dry lips and told himself that he
could
deny her, but again he felt his feet shuffling forward as though they no longer belonged to him. Then the tree trunk dipped alarmingly beneath his feet, and he thought it was going to break and drop him into the empty air that waited below.

A few seconds later he was shocked to feel a hand grasping his arm from behind. He realized that Jenna had walked out onto the trunk and was now standing right behind him. Her mouth brushed against his ear.

'Sebastian,' she whispered. 'Listen to me. We're going to cross back to the other side. Just move with me—'

'No!' Leonora's face contorted into an expression of dark rage and she pointed an accusing finger at Sebastian. 'He's mine; he does as I say!'

'Not this time,' Jenna told her. And she began to ease Sebastian backwards along the trunk, keeping one hand on his arm.

Leonora gave another shriek – or rather, it began as a shriek but suddenly turned into a long, thunderous growl. Sebastian looked back at her in terror and saw that she was changing, shifting her shape within the loose-fitting cloak, her body melting like hot wax. In an instant, it was no longer Leonora he saw, but the long, lithe body of a cat, shrugging itself free of the cloak and advancing towards the tree trunk, eyes glittering, teeth bared.

'Jenna,' whispered Sebastian. He didn't need to say anything else because he heard her gasp, felt her body stiffen beside him. 'Run,' he advised her with a calmness that amazed him. 'I'll be right behind you . . .'

She took him at his word, turning on the narrow trunk and moving back the way she had come, the movement making the tree trunk judder. Sebastian would have followed, but he had underestimated the speed at which the new Leonora could move. She had leaped up onto the end of the trunk and was racing towards him. Caught between trying to turn away and facing up to her attack, Sebastian chose the latter, and took the full force of the leap against his chest. He fell backwards and his backpack slammed against the tree trunk. Leonora carried on, clearly focusing on Jenna, but Sebastian desperately twisted round on the trunk: hanging on with one arm and reaching out with the other, he grabbed the big cat's tail.

Leonora gave a screech of anger, turned round and lunged at Sebastian, her claws raking at his head. He let go of her tail and lifted the arm to cover his face as the needle-like claws shredded the fabric of his tunic and bit deep into the flesh beneath. The pain almost made him relinquish his grip on the tree trunk; but then he felt it dip alarmingly again and he realized that Jenna was coming back to help him. At the far end of the log he could see Cornelius, watching grimly but unable for the moment to do anything to help.

'Jenna, stay back!' he yelled. 'This tree's nearly gone!' But she ignored his warning. As she came forward, she pulled something from her belt. Sebastian just had time to register that it was the dagger they'd used to reach the treasure; but then all hell broke loose, and he had to concentrate on hanging on grimly as Leonora launched herself at him again, her mouth open.

At the same instant Jenna closed on the big cat, and her arm lifted and fell, sinking the blunt blade deep into Leonora's tawny flank. The cat-woman bellowed in agony, a great howl of pain and anger. She tried to twist round to face her attacker, but was now losing her grip on the tree trunk. She slipped backwards, her claws gouging great furrows in the wood. Her back legs swung out over the abyss and she hung there for a moment while Jenna aimed a kick at her face. Leonora's front paws tore into tree bark in a vain attempt to hold on, but then she began to fall backwards, past Sebastian.

For a fraction of a second he experienced a great sense of elation. He would be free of her at last! But then there was a terrible impact as something yanked on the strap of his backpack, nearly pulling him from his perch. He locked his arms desperately around the tree trunk, but a terrible weight was dragging him down. Twisting his head to peer back over his shoulder, he saw that a woman's hand was clamped around one of the straps. The hand and arm were human, but below them the body was still that of a big cat. Even as he looked, it was changing back to the shape of a naked woman. The eyes still glared up at him with a terrible malignance, and from a mouth that was not quite cat and not quite human came a voice that had elements of both creatures.

'You're coming with me,' it growled. 'Be sure of that.'

Sebastian held on grimly, his arm muscles screaming in pain as he struggled to hold Leonora's weight. He knew that he could not hope to hang on for more than a few minutes. But then Jenna was reaching down past him with the dagger, using the blunt bloodstained blade to saw at the strap of the backpack.

'No use,' he gasped. 'Can't . . . hold on . . .'

'You've got to!' gasped Jenna. 'I'm nearly there . . .'

Sebastian's muscles were stretched to breaking point. He opened his mouth to yell against the pain of it—

And suddenly the weight was gone and Sebastian cried out in relief as the half-cat, half-woman fell into the void, still clutching the backpack. He risked another glance down and saw her still-changing body turning over and over in the air as she fell into those terrible depths. And he saw something else falling beside her, something that glittered in the sunlight – an ancient weapon with an oddly-shaped handle.

'The dagger!' he whispered.

Jenna nodded but said nothing. She was starting to help Sebastian up onto the tree trunk when something seemed to shake him to the very core and he almost lost his grip a second time. A vivid brightness flared within his head, and suddenly it was as though he was seeing everything for the first time. He noticed the incredible detail of the tree bark around which his arms were clasped. He noted the gold brocade of the sleeve of Jenna's jacket as she reached down to help him up, and he saw the beauty of her brown eyes as they stared into his.

He realized at once what had happened. Leonora's body had just crashed onto the jagged rocks far below and, in dying, she had finally freed him from the enchantment that had claimed him for so long. He clambered up onto the tree trunk and flung an arm around Jenna's waist.

'I'm free, Jenna!' he cried. 'That witch has gone from my head at last!'

She was about to answer but an ominous crack from below alerted them to the fact that the tree trunk was finally losing its battle against their combined weight.

'Quickly!' she gasped, and they scrambled on their hands and knees to the far side. Sebastian was so relieved to be on solid ground again, he felt like hugging it. They both turned back to stare across the crevasse at Cornelius. He was standing there, looking doubtfully at the tree trunk.

'You can't risk it!' Jenna shouted across to him. 'It's barely holding together.'

'I
have
to risk it!' he bellowed back. 'There's no other way across that I can see. I'll just have to be fast. Make room for me!'

'Cornelius, wait!' shouted Sebastian. 'Perhaps we could—'

But it was too late. The little warrior was already running across the tree trunk, his eyes fixed on the far side. As he emerged from the spray of the waterfall and moved towards the middle, the trunk bowed again and they all heard that terrible cracking sound.

'He's not going to make it,' whispered Jenna.

But Cornelius kept going, shortening the distance with each stride. Sebastian moved to the edge of the abyss and held out a hand to his friend.

'For a moment there,' he said, 'I thought you were going to—'

And then the tree trunk gave a final crack and snapped across the middle like a rotten twig. Cornelius's expression momentarily registered surprise; then his powerful little legs launched themselves from the tree trunk, he gave a deep bellow and his body went into the familiar spinning blur that was the Golmiran death leap. He arced across the void and crashed headlong into Sebastian, knocking him backwards in an ungainly sprawl.