"Really?"
quizzed Maureen.
"Our planes will work in your skies.
Will your magic work in ours?"
Psyninius said nothing.
There were shouts coming from the stables, although Maureen couldn't make out what.
"You know what to do," Psyninius told Xenig as he made his way back toward the source of the noise.
"Shoot the old crone first."
The centaur laughed.
Even from here, Maureen could smell the alcohol on his breath.
His drunken cackle annoyed Maureen.
It was one thing to kill someone, it was another thing to take joy in it.
For the first time that day, anger burned inside her.
Oh how she wished, George could break free, could cast some spell to save them.
She turned, staring at the centaur down the barrel of the gun, her eyes so full of fire that Xenig stopped laughed.
He grunted and shifted his shoulder for comfort.
Maureen stared off to the stables, looking, hoping that at any moment, there would be a flash of magic and George would come running out.
Despite the shotgun being pointed at her, she felt no fear.
For some reason, a reason she couldn't put her finger on, she knew it would be all right.
The centaur hesitated, as if the seriousness of his actions were only now dawning on him.
Maureen looked at him, and whispered something under her breath.
"Boom," she said, and one of the casks outside the stables burst into flames and exploded.
Maureen ducked as bits of wood and masonry flew over her head, landing in the wheat field behind her.
Xenig turned, shocked by the explosion.
Joseph wasted no time, with a single bound and a face like thunder, he punched the centaur so hard in the side of the head that Xenig fell to the floor.
"Come on," he said grabbing Maureen's hand.
"Let's get out of here."
Maureen looked back to the stable, one wall entirely missing, fires burning inside.
"What about George?"
she said.
"If he's still alive, he's best placed to save himself."
Maureen hesitated for a second, but knew that Joseph was right.
He hadn't saved them just so they could put themselves back in danger.
She let the troll lead her into the wheat field.
As if in answer, elves ran from the remains of the stables.
They were coughing but desperately trying to put as much distance between themselves and the building as possible, darting behind the house across the yard.
Xenig hooves were scrabbling to get up.
He rose on all four hooves, shotgun aimed at the fleeing captives.
Maureen heard a shot and instinctively dived down into the corn.
Joseph did likewise.
"Don't worry," said Joseph, turning to her with a smile, "he's so drunk, I'm surprised he can even shoot in the right general direction."
Maureen just nodded.
She was shaking and her heart was beating at a hundred miles an hour.
They got up to run, and almost immediately another shotgun shot rang out, this one sounding more on aim.
A split second later, there was a second explosion, one that felt ten times more powerful than the first.
Maureen glanced behind her to see flaming rocks and masonry explode outwards, up into the sky, throwing long smoky arcs over their heads.
Others pelted the half of the farmhouse that still stood; Xenig himself was engulfed in a ball of fire.
Then the projectiles started to land. Maureen covered her head and closed her eyes as she heard them fall all around her.
"Come on," Joseph urged with a tug of her hand.
She opened her eyes to notice a small hole in Joseph's back, and from it a small trail of blood.
"Joseph," she shrieked.
"You've been shot!"
Behind them, thick black clouds engulfed the farm, illuminated to a throbbing orange by random fires.
Out of this emerged the elves.
They each had their bows poised and were advancing toward the field.
"It's just a shotgun pellet, nothing serious."
Joseph brushed off his wound, glancing back at the elves himself.
"But if they catch us, the wounds will be a bit more serious."
What a change, Maureen thought as Joseph lead her deeper into the field.
When they were captured, he'd sat and whimpered on that chair like a schoolboy.
Now... he was trying to lead her to safety.
The elves weren't the only thing they had to contend with, the debris from the explosions had started numerous fires in the wheat field which were spreading rapidly.
Joseph took them close to them, so close that Maureen could feel the heat against her skin, the smoke sting her eyes.
Joseph would use them, the thick grey smoke they kicked up the perfect cover.
Every so often there would be a whistling in the air as an elf would let loose an arrow, but to be honest these concerned Maureen little.
As the fires spread and joined, the real danger was in getting trapped, especially as they skirted them so closely.
She noticed as they progressed across the field that rather than just pass close to the edge of one fire, they were squeezing through gaps between two.
The sky filled with the grey smoke from the field together mixed the black smoke blowing across from the farm, making the way forward increasingly difficult to see.
"Here," said Joseph pointing to a hedge.
Maureen's immediate reaction was that fire or no fire, elves or no elves, she wasn't about to go scrambling through some hedge.
That probably wasn't strictly true, but then the smoke parted a little and she saw a stile over into the next field.
"Hurry," Joseph said.
She felt quite sprightly crossing the stile, Joseph half jumping, half tumbling over it.
This new field had been harvested, the crop reduced to ankle high stalks.
Joseph shot Maureen a worried look.
Maureen could see another stile on the far side of the field but it looked like some half mile off - half a mile with no cover.
Well, at least the fire wouldn’t spread so easily here.
There's no time to waste then
, she told herself and started walking as fast as she could directly across the field.
Joseph followed, his breathing seeming a little laboured.
At times she almost broke into a run, as the stalks slapped and poked at her ankles.
They heard what sounded like a wave crashing onto a shore.
Ah
, thought Maureen, knowing the exact spell they were casting.
It would bring water to dowse the flames.
Oh if only George was here
, she thought, as her lungs began to burn and her legs became heavy.
He'd know the perfect counter-spell.
They were over half-way across the field before the elves reached the stile and whilst they seemed to be out of arrow range - at least that was what Maureen assumed when they didn't string their bows to fire
- surely it wouldn't be long before they were.
Maureen's lungs felt ready to burst, fear driving her on past the pain barrier.
What they needed now was some diversion, Maureen whispered to herself: something to hinder the elves and slow them down.
As if in response, the wind started to pick up, swirling round and round, picking up the dust and sucking in the smoke blowing across until the centre of the field was one big swirling brown tornado.
"Stop," Maureen instructed Joseph.
He turned round grabbed her hand and dragged her on.
"We've got to keep on going," he said.
"I think George is alive."
Joseph scoffed.
"You saw what happened to the stables, I doubt very much survived that."
"The elves did.
And if he caused it he could protect himself."
Joseph looked back at the tornado that sat in the field, blocking the elves’ progress.
"Hmm, I'm not sure, Maureen.
If he is, he's on his own."
They reached the far stile, Maureen absolutely exhausted.
She pointed to the tornado as she made her way over and onto the track that lead back into town.
"Who else could do something like that?" she asked.
Joseph shrugged as he flagged down a passing tuk-tuk.
The driver, a Tikbalang with human body and horse's head, seemed reluctant to offer them a lift until Joseph explained that he had just rescued Maureen from her drunken centaur husband.
He showed the Tikbalang the rope burns Maureen had suffered from being tied up as evidence, told him that he was wandering round the farm with a shotgun, setting fire to everything.
"Fucking centaurs," the Tikbalang said, indicating for them to jump in the trailer section at the back.
"I ain't racist but I've yet to find a good one."
Maureen couldn't get over her amusement at seeing a horseman driving what was little more than a motorised cart, but hid it for fear of causing offense.
The back was laden with goods the Tikbalang was taking to market and it proved difficult with someone as large as Joseph to ensure they could both fit in without causing damage the goods.
As he got in, Maureen saw the front wheel lift off the ground and for a second was worried the tuk-tuk might topple backward under his weight.
But Joseph positioned himself as near to the centre of the vehicle as the cramped space would allow, causing the front wheel to once again lower to the ground.
Maureen jumped in - surprisingly agile she thought for someone her age who had run half a mile - just as the elves crossed the stile.
"Drive," Joseph shouted, and the tuk-tuk shot away, the elves firing arrows after it, its little engine straining to pull away down the track.
For a while it looked like the elves running after them might catch up but slowly, the tuk-tuk built up enough speed to cause them to lag behind.
Eventually, they stopped running, and watched as Maureen and Joseph drove off down the track, back to the relative safety of New Salisbury.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - Vampires
Cassidy pulled the Minibus up close to a retail park.
It was a recent development and something must have occupied the site previously as Cassidy was able to find a secluded no-through road close by.
"We don't want the police coming across us if we can help it," she said as she parked the vehicle, the handbrake taking a monumental effort of strength.
Darwin said nothing.
In fact, he had said nothing the entire journey.
"Are you alright, Darwin? I'm sure..."
"I'm fine."
Not quite a snap but he didn't want her to finish that sentence.
He needed to focus on one thing, and one thing only, getting the vampires to safety.
If he could do that, go meet them at the rendezvous and get them across to Venefasia, then he could have all the time he wanted to be sad or mourn.
He didn't have time to mourn now.
Cassidy sent him off with the last of their money and a list of items.
He returned with paint, a paintbrush and a set of screwdrivers.
Whilst she set to work painting over the scouts’ logo down the side of the minibus, she instructed Darwin to remove the number plates and paint the insides of the majority of windows black.
He didn't argue, if anything he was glad that she was the one with the plans for a change.
"Right," she said, accidently smearing white paint over her forehead with the back of her hand.
"I need you to go out into the car park and swap those for the number plates of a similar vehicle."
"Similar?"
"Yes bozo.
Another white minibus, or something like it."
"How much like it?"
"I dunno, use your intuition."
"Just, I'm not exactly sure what you're after.
I'd rather you go."
"I'm painting."
"I could paint."
"You could go and find some other number plates."
Darwin hesitated, much to Cassidy's annoyance.
"It's not difficult, Darwin."
"Still, I'd rather you do it.
Just so I don't get it wrong."
"You're not gonna get it wrong."
"Even so..."
"Darwin, we just need some different plates so if the police plug us into their computer thingy-ma-jiggy, it's not going to flash 'Stolen, please apprehend' at them."
Darwin sighed.
It made sense.
He just didn't want to be trusted with anything right now, even something as simple as swapping some number plates.
All his decisions had seemed to have ended in disaster so far, and for that reason he didn't trust himself.
Far easier to have Cassidy make the decisions.
But he reluctantly agreed and trundled off to the retail park car park in search of some white van.
This took a lot longer than he thought given not only the absence of any likely candidates but also the number of people ebbing and flowing between their cars and the shops.
Whilst he initially welcomed the solitude, he soon found himself bad company, the events of the last few days playing on his mind with no-one to distract him from his thoughts.
It was funny, he thought, ever since he'd run away, he'd not missed people. He always thought they'd be there if he went back.
Now he'd come back and they'd ... gone, he wished he'd spent more time with them.