Rees Glass Town Wars

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78269-164-8
Verlag: Pushkin Children's Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 320 Seiten

A new novel by the bestselling author of Witch Child: an adventure story drawing on the early writings of the Brontë children All these Glass Town intrigues. No matter how long you'd been absent, how far you'd travelled, once you were back, it was as though you had never been away. Tom and Augusta are from different places and different times, but they meet in a virtual world to combine forces in battle, to save a kingdom, escape a web of deceit and find love. In a place where fictions can be truths and truths fictions, learning who to trust is about more than friendship, it is about survival. Glass Town Wars, inspired by the early writing of the Brontës, is a captivating, magical novel by the renowned Celia Rees. Celia Rees lives in Warwickshire with her husband. She is the author of the bestselling Witch Child, Sorceress and Pirates.

Celia Rees lives and works in Warwickshire where she writes her wonderful books for teen readers. Her bestselling novel Witch Child is 20 years old this year and has been translated into more than 30 languages. Celia is married and has one daughter.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rees, Celia

Leseproben

SHE WAS STANDING HIGH UP, under a wide sky just turning towards evening, rain blowing into her face. Fir trees grew around her, their dark needles feathered with fingers of bright new leaf. The full force of the Glass Town Federation, a mustering of the Founding Twelve, was sweeping across the plain towards her like a summer storm. Her own men, Parry and Ross, were far away in the distant North, exploring the frozen regions, their ships bearded with ice as they voyaged to ultima Thule in search of the fabled North-west Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Many had died in the attempt to find it, but she was sure they would succeed and enable her to escape for ever. She should have gone with them and braved the frozen ocean, the mountains of ice. Staying here, even this long, was a mistake.

A high ridge in a desolate landscape. Drear and drab, all browns and greys, and it was sluicing with rain. The narrow path was stony, fast turning into a stream as it wound between gorse bushes, low wiry clumps of heather, thin spiky rushes and tufts of coarse grass. He looked up through the water dripping in front of his eyes. Not far to go by the looks of it. He slowed. The ground was slippery and he didn’t know what might be waiting over the other side. His head felt heavy, strange. He was used to his body giving him weird sensations: of being too big, or too small, or not there at all, but this was different. He put up a hand and found that he was wearing some kind of furry helmet, like a bearskin, but smaller, square, and on the side was something that felt like feathers. A sodden cockade. He looked down at himself. He was wearing a uniform with frogging across the front of it, the wire threads tarnished and rusty from the rain and dampness; under his cloak, the green wool jacket was dark and soaking, the wet seeping through, meeting the sweat from his body. He pulled his collar closer to stop cold water from trickling down his neck and to keep the moisture inside, heated by his body, so that his uniform acted like a kind of woollen wetsuit. How do I know to do that?

If this was a game, like Milo said, he’d have expected to be in combats—light and comfortable, breathing with the body, water repellent—sitting in an armoured car maybe, or a hummer, riding across the desert somewhere, sorting out jihadi warriors; or in an urban landscape, some kind of futuristic scene, full of dereliction, with burnt-out buildings, broken-down bridges, smashed-up carriageways strewn with corpses, bodies in ditches on either side of the road. That kind of thing.

He wasn’t expecting this. He was on a horse, for Chrissakes, with boots up to his thighs, a rifle at his knee and a sabre hanging down by his side. He couldn’t even ride but he was managing fine and his horse, a big bay gelding, didn’t seem to mind. The horse plodded along, picking his way carefully, ears pinned back, mane streaming, enjoying the rain about as much as his rider.

Tom shook his head, attempting to get the water out of his eyes without dislodging his hat. He rode on, trying to figure out exactly who, or what, he was. Some kind of avatar, although you didn’t get cold and wet in any game he knew. He’d have to tell Milo about that. Telling would not be that easy, of course. Telling would be problematic. Telling would be the difficult thing. Which was why this was happening…

The big horse shifted under him, snorting and lifting his head, his ears flicking as if sensing his rider’s sudden fear.

“Woah, boy.” He leant forward, patting the horse’s neck, speaking into his ear. “Steady now.”

The horse’s name was Hector. How do I know that?

The path took another turn, bringing him closer to the top of the ridge. Thin streamers of mist had detached from the low-hanging cloud, wrapping themselves around a line of dark, ragged pines. It was colder up here; steam puffed from Hector’s nostrils as he took the steepness of the slope. The terrain flattened near the top and the thin path broadened out into a wider track. Smooth stones shone, slick with rain. The way was marked with rounded boulders, crusted with moss and lichen and carved with strange patterns.

Hector came to a halt, whinnying and whickering and taking dainty sideways steps, as a figure came out from under the dripping branches of the trees. A young officer, slenderly built, long hair tied back with a black silk ribbon, in highly polished boots splashed to the knee guards, buff breeches spattered with mud as though he had been riding hard. He wore a tight-fitting blue jacket, the thick epaulettes fringed and crusted with silver. A sabre hung down by his side. He was holding a long brass spyglass. As Tom rode closer, something about the slight build and the stance made him think that this handsome young chap was a girl.

“You took yer time.” A girl’s voice with a bit of an accent, like he was in the North somewhere. It seemed that he was expected and he was late, or something. She sounded annoyed, impatience masking her anxiety. “How many men have you brought?”

Her gaze went behind him.

Tom turned in the saddle. He’d been riding at the head of a troop of men, as sodden and miserable as him. They were already dismounting, unsaddling their horses, getting ready to set up camp.

Her hawk-sharp, clear grey eyes narrowed.

“Who are you?” Her look was appraising, accusing. “Get down from the horse. Take off your headgear.”

He dismounted and removed his sodden shako, tucking it under his arm. How do I know it’s called that?

One of her men took his horse’s bridle. Two more stepped forward: one big, thickset with a thatch of wheat-coloured hair; the other nearly as tall but thinner, dark and wiry. Each held a long musket armed with a bayonet edged as thin as a razor blade. They thrust their bayonets towards his belly. He put up his hands in surrender, but to whom and for what, he didn’t know.

“What’s yer name?” She stood back, arms folded. The point of a bayonet flicked a button from his jacket. “Did Parry or Ross send you? Are they back?”

He shrugged at questions he could not answer.

“You’re not one of mine.” Her eyes darkened with suspicion. “So you must be one of theirs. Can you not speak? What’s your name?” she asked again, sharp and imperious. “Answer me!”

He shook his head. There was an empty space where a name should have been…

The rain was still streaming down, wet hair falling into his eyes. The strands he pushed back were black. His hand encountered thick curls. They’d shaved his head, he knew that; the stubble growing back had itched his scalp. But his hair had been fair, not black.

Brain damage—memory loss one of the symptoms—but that wasn’t the reason his real name was gone.

As she stared, a name came to him.

“Tom. My name is Tom. Who are you?”

“Lady Augusta Geraldine Almeida,” she said with a certain pride and flourish, like he was supposed to be impressed. “I’m in command here. You are a captain?”

“How do you know?”

“By yer epaulette.”

Tom peered sideways at his shoulder. “Oh, yes. I guess.”

Augusta frowned. “You don’t know much, do you? You don’t know your name, your rank. Who are you?”

Tom shrugged. He had no answer.

“Are you one of theirs?” she questioned. “Come to deceive? Come to spy?”

“Who are they?” he asked.

Augusta stared at him a long moment, then her eyes changed colour, as if she’d made her mind up about something, turning from storm-cloud dark to a lighter grey.

“Come wi’ me.”

She led him into a small campaign tent pitched under the trees. It smelt of damp canvas and wet grass. A huge dog lay under a folding wooden table, his smooth fur yellow and brown. He lifted his massive head from his paws at their approach and came loping from under the table, his muzzle drawn back in a snickering snarl.

“Keeper, down.”

The dog subsided back on to the ground but kept an amber eye fixed on Tom and continued a low, rumbling growl.

The girl unrolled a map, smoothing it across rough wooden slats, and beckoned Tom forward.

He bent his head to look closer, sweeping back his hair to stop it dripping on to the parchment. The map was beautifully hand-drawn and coloured to show seas, countries, rivers, mountains, plains and forests, towns and villages, each place marked in small, neat black lettering. He frowned down at a country he didn’t recognize, at names he’d never seen.

“We are here, see?” She pointed at a ridge marked by little, spiky dark-green fir trees. Her thin finger moved to the plain below. “They are there.”

She took the long brass telescope from the table and left the tent. He followed her up through tall, dripping pines, their trunks bare and rough. Shed needles, like a silver carpet, deadened their footsteps.

When they neared the top of...