Shadowcry - By Jenna Burtenshaw Page 0,3
work. Find a bag and pack whatever you will need for the next few days.”
“We’re leaving Morvane?”
“Just for a while.”
“But if the wardens are coming, we have to warn people. We have to tell them! We can’t just leave!”
“Yes, we can,” said Artemis. “Two of us might pass unnoticed on our way out of the town gates. Any more than that will certainly be seen and stopped.”
“What about Edgar? He can come with us. One more won’t—”
“No,” said Artemis. “Not even him. We can’t take that risk. You’ll just have to trust me, Kate. We’re leaving today.”
Kate had never seen Artemis as worried as he was that morning. She packed a small bag as quickly as she could and dragged it downstairs to wait for him on the bookshop floor. She looked out of the front window and across the market square. The sun had started to rise over Morvane’s frosty streets and the market traders had already set up their stalls on the cobbles, welcoming their first customers with red cheeks, hugging themselves against the cold. Two would-be book buyers tested the bookshop’s door and Kate hid behind a curtain, not wanting to explain why she couldn’t let them in.
“Good idea,” said Artemis, lugging his traveling bag down the stairs. “The last thing we need is customers trying to fight their way in. We’ll make our way out of town on foot and follow one of the old roads out to the west. No one will know us there. We’ll walk to the next town, find a good place to stay and after a few days . . . Well . . . We’ll be back before you know it.”
“This is the best trading day of the year,” said Kate, who had never known her uncle to take a day off work, never mind actually close up the shop. “Why do we have to go today?”
Artemis pulled on his coat and gloves and slid the dagger from its hiding place beneath the desk. “There are far more important things in this world than money,” he said.
Thud.
Kate turned.
Something had just struck the window.
“What was that?” Kate asked.
“Whatever it was, it’s not important,” said Artemis. “We have to go.”
Kate picked up her bag while he unlocked the door and when they stepped out into the icy square she almost trod on something small and black lying upon the cobbles.
“It’s a bird,” she said, picking up the limp body and cupping it in her hands. “It must have flown into the window.”
Artemis’s eyes went immediately to the sky.
“I thought blackbirds didn’t nest here in Albion anymore,” said Kate. “I’ve never seen one in town before.”
“Kate. Get inside.”
“What? Why?”
Before Artemis could answer, a second bird speared down past his head and struck the shop door with a sharp crack. And it was not alone.
Kate looked up and saw a huge flock of blackbirds swooping over the square. Hundreds of them, screeching to one another and thumping down at the buildings, two or three at a time. People ran for cover, huddling together in doorways as the flock shifted and dived. Artemis grabbed Kate’s arm and pulled her back into the shop.
“We’re too late,” he said.
Thud-thud.
“What’s happening?”
“It’s a hording! Get in! Don’t let them into the shop.”
“What’s a—? Ahh!”
Kate ducked away from a blackbird that speared down at the door on a collision course, its bright eyes wild and unnatural. Artemis swung the door shut, ignoring Kate’s shriek of horror as a flurry of black feathers bounced off the glass and flopped lifeless to the ground. He dragged the bolt across and pulled her away from the window.
“Go down into the cellar,” he said, throwing their bags into the darkness at the back of the shop. “Stay there and hide. It’ll be all right.”
Thud-thud.
“What are you going to do?”
“I— I don’t know. Just stay down there.”
Bang-bang-bang.
A fist pounded on the front door and Artemis jumped.
“Everyone all right in there?” A young man was outside, braving the mad birds with his nose pressed to the glass.
“Edgar!” Kate yelled. “Edgar’s out there!”
Edgar waved at her through the door. “Bloody birds! “he shouted, his voice muffled by the glass.
“We have to let him in!”
“No. Get down to the cellar. Please, Kate!”
“We can’t just leave him out there!”
Edgar squealed as one of the birds flapped down onto his head, tangling its claws in his mess of dark hair. He reached up and grabbed it, tugging it loose and pinning its wings to its sides so it couldn’t get