The 13th Horseman - By Barry Hutchison Page 0,25

about the cape thing. “No clues.”

“But,” said Pestilence, pointing towards a distant ridge of box files and ring binders. He gave Drake a wink. “It’s probably somewhere over that way.”

Drake clambered up a steep incline, using a string of Christmas tree lights to heave himself along. The boxes he was walking on were cardboard, but packed full enough that they didn’t crumple or give way beneath his weight. A few of the boxes tinkled like breaking glass when he stepped on them. He ignored those, and quickly pushed on.

He had been walking, and occasionally scrambling, for fifteen minutes, but had not yet reached the crest of the first hill. He had tried to make his way round the side of the mountain, but the path had been blocked by an outcrop of Beano annuals, leaving him no choice but to make for the summit.

When he eventually made it to the top, his heart sank. Twenty football pitches, he realised, was nowhere near big enough.

The room was so large, it had its own horizon. From up there, Drake could see seventeen or eighteen more junk mountains, and too many valleys and glens to count. They were spread out beyond the limits of his vision, and Drake realised that finding the Deathblade might well be an impossible task.

The ridge Pest had pointed him towards was down on his left, near the foot of the mountain. He should go there, he thought. He should definitely go there. And yet, something nagged at the base of his skull. Something made him turn his head and look towards a cliff face half a mile or so away on his right. Something whispered directly into his brain. Come, it said, or was he imagining it?

He looked down at the ridge, set his jaw decisively, and went left. A moment later, he changed his mind, about-turned, and set off down the hillside towards the distant cliff.

Drake stood at the bottom of the cliff face, looking up. It had looked high from the mountaintop. Down here, ankle-deep in old knitting patterns and gardening magazines, it looked infinitely higher.

It was made up mostly of plastic storage boxes, the type designed to be stacked, one on top of the other. Clearly someone had begun stacking, and then forgotten to stop.

The feeling that had drawn Drake to that spot now drew him upwards. The bottom of each box was slightly narrower than the top, creating a ladder-like series of handholds all the way up the side of the cliff.

Still, it was a long way to the top. He thought about looking for another route up, but the whispering in his brain was louder now, and he wasn’t sure he could resist it, even if he wanted to.

Climb, the voice hissed as he reached up and found the first handhold. Climb!

Drake pulled himself up another few storage tubs. His arms should have been aching. His shoulders should have burned with the effort. But they didn’t. He wasn’t tired and he wasn’t sore.

He was terrified, though, having made the mistake of looking down a few minutes after he’d started to climb. Even then, the ground had looked to be a dizzyingly long way away. He’d been moving steadily upwards for ten minutes or more since then, and had no plans to look down again.

Had he thought about it, Drake would’ve realised it all felt too easy, as if someone else had taken control of his limbs. His fingers did not slip. His feet did not falter. He scaled the vertical face with ease.

At the top of the cliff was another cliff. It was set five or six metres back from the edge of the first one, and stretched almost as high as it had. Drake did not realise how high this second cliff was, though, because he didn’t look up.

Instead, he looked into the dark, rectangular hole situated almost directly in front of him. It was about five metres high by three wide, and seemed to lead directly into the storage-box mountain.

Cautiously, Drake approached the opening. A cool breeze tickled his skin, sending goosebumps along the length of his arm. It was the first time he had felt the air move since entering Limbo and, although he couldn’t explain why, it made him nervous.

“Hello?” he called into the void. “Anyone there?”

A voice called to him. Was it still in his head, or had he heard it out loud this time? He couldn’t say, but it didn’t matter. The words had meant the same