The Shadowseeker - Victor Kloss Page 0,32

both hands in mock defence. “Are you threatening me?” His friends started chuckling and making baiting noises. One of the boys gave Ben a little push.

“Joshua, what are you doing?”

Natalie stepped into the fray, attempting to get between Joshua and Ben. She tried to push Joshua back. He appeared unwilling to use any force against her, but a tall spindly girl next to Joshua intervened, and shoved Natalie away.

“Get lost, Natalie,” she said.

“Oi!” Charlie stepped in, despite being several inches smaller than everyone else; his soft face was creased with anger and he raised a chubby finger at the skinny girl. “Don't push her.”

“You going to stop me, midget?” the girl said, with a cruel laugh.

There was only one way this was going to end, Ben realised. He clenched his fists into balls. If he could take Joshua out quickly, they might have a chance, but the girls – especially the tall one – looked like they could fight.

A horn blasted, so loud it made Ben's body vibrate. Everyone turned, the potential melee momentarily forgotten. From the door that cut into the glass gable came a girl – or woman to be more precise; she looked at least eighteen and had five colourless diamonds on her shoulder. In her hand was a curved horn.

“Positions, apprentices!” she shouted. “The prince is on his way up. Look lively!”

There was a murmur of surprise, which quickly turned to alarm. Joshua's friends ran, and Joshua followed, with one last calculating look at Ben.

“I've got to run,” Natalie said, looking anxiously towards the door the prince would come out of.

“What are we supposed to do?” Ben asked.

“Just look busy,” Natalie said, giving them both a smile. “I'll be back as soon as the prince has gone.”

And with that, she too darted off.

Ben looked helplessly about. Everyone seemed to start working at twice their original pace.

“Get your shovel,” Ben said, picking his up. “Let's go find William.”

The paddocks were large, and with the sloping glass roof in the middle, it was impossible to see more than one side at a time.

“Follow the smell of pooh,” Ben said, his eyes scanning the area.

“I'm covered in it. I think it's overwhelmed my senses. I can no longer smell anything,” Charlie said, sniffing. “I can't see William anywhere. Should we just stop and pretend to be working? That might look less conspicuous.”

“Good idea.”

But the moment they started genuinely wanting to shovel pooh, there was none to be had. They had obviously entered an area where their fellow Ones had already cleaned. Ben started getting anxious; the prince would be turning up any moment.

“Psst – over here!”

The call came from a couple of apprentices whose paddock they were just passing. They were standing near a gate, loading the final bits of pooh onto their cart. The animal was nowhere to be seen.

Ben and Charlie hurried over, entered the paddock and, with grateful smiles, started helping with the shovelling. They made it just in time. A quick glance up revealed three figures walking down the muddy path parallel to the glass gable. Two figures walked in front of the prince, a man and a woman, both with four green diamonds over their shoulders, but it was the man behind them who Ben was drawn to. Prince Robert was tall and well built, with dark hair and peculiar gold-flecked eyes. He wore a deep red cloak emblazoned with the Royal Institute of Magic emblem. For the first time, Ben noticed the diamonds on the prince's shoulder. He had five, one of each colour representing the departments in the Institute. This was the first time Ben had seen Robert genuinely looking like a prince, and it was an impressive sight.

“Stop staring,” one of the apprentices whispered in his ear.

Ben quickly lowered his eyes, but not before the prince turned and looked his way. There was a moment, no more than a second, where they locked gazes. Ben's heart jumped. Should he bow? The prince gave the most subtle of nods. It was all over in a heartbeat, as the prince and his two Spellswords passed them by and were soon out of sight.

“That was crazy!”

Ben turned to the apprentices who had saved them. It was Billy and Hans, the two scrawny boys William had chided for slacking off. Billy was the one who had spoken and was looking at him with something approaching awe.

“The prince looked at you! I've never seen him look at an apprentice before, let alone recognise that we exist.”

Ben