Chapter 1: The Forest

A Brief Explanation

The Grymcat Conspiracy may appear to be a strange and fantastical tale, but there is a surprising amount of truth behind it. I have tried to protect the people involved. Samti, Dawi, Molly and Ben have other names in real life. My editors, and their lawyers, insisted that I should disguise them. And no one dared to tell me Ratona’s true name. But she is a different being from an utterly different world. She does not fight her battles with legal arguments. She is more of a fire and brimstone type.

I have also kept secret the locations of this story. I can tell you that Samti and Dawi live somewhere in Eastern Africa, and Ben and Molly somewhere in Western Europe. You may think you recognise some places I mention – but that may just be a good disguise working. I cannot, however, even hint at the name of Ratona’s world. It must be hidden forever. Fire and brimstone are deadly.

With my informants’ permission, I have not written this record as a set of mere facts and dates. These events are myth come true, legend re-enacted, and I have tried to capture some of the excitement, joy, grief and fear that its characters knew. This means that the different worlds readers encounter may seem odd at first. Samti and the others also had to piece together their joins and ruptures. It is all part of the mystery. But if Ratona’s world puzzles you, worry not; its place will soon become clear.

Prologue: Toffee

At the end of the dry season, when roasted grasses dissolved into powder, and dust devils danced with dead maize husks, an alien cluster of clouds boiled above Samti’s head.

They had to be alien. The Sun had declared war on Earth. The ground baked. It cracked and groaned. Heat smothered everything. No earthly clouds dared break the Sun’s tyranny. Shade was forbidden. So, therefore, these strange, pulsating beings had to be unearthly invaders.

Samti lay in the shadows of a giant ti’ita, a strangling fig tree, near a cool mountain stream. Red maamáy lilies erupted from the ground around her, hoping for the rains to come. She pondered the sky. In one small patch above her head, the clouds beat and pummelled each other. And, miraculously, they freshened the heavy, stifling air soaking the land.

Like most girls in her village, Samti hid in the shade that scorching afternoon, avoiding heat and errands. She was resting in the forest reserve. She had a bottle of water, a mound of guavas, and a large supply of toffee candies. The guavas, soft and aromatic, were mostly gone. The toffees, unwrapped, were heaped together. Samti was melting them into one enormous sweet, the biggest she’d ever eaten. Soon she would be in heaven.

Samti rolled over to admire the sticky pile and started in shock. Her candy was gone.

She was furious. She had stolen those sweets herself. They were hers. How dare anyone take her bounty! She jumped to her feet, looking up and down the mountain slopes. But she could see nothing.

A blanket of heat rolled across her. She glanced upwards. The cooling clouds had dissolved away. And then, in the distance, she heard the clang of beaten metal. Her aunt was calling her back. Reluctantly, she turned down the mountain path.

As she rounded the corner, there was a dull, wet splat on the ground. A large mound of dissolving toffee slapped onto dry leaves and lay glistening, coated in dribble and spit. It had fallen out of nothing, out of bare, thin air.

A faint, satisfied, rustling sound surrounded the toffee, a whisper on the leaves. The sweet mass began to jerk and dance, pushed one side, then the other. Small chunks of it snapped off and disappeared. Drool pooled around it. There was a smack of sloppy licks – and a contented growl.

Around the corner, Samti stopped. She was still furious. She should look for her sweets. But the impatient clanging resumed. She dare not be late.

Samti headed homeward again, indignant. She would not allow this loss to go unpunished. She would be back. And when she found the culprit, they would be sorry.

Chapter 1: The One True Story

Benedict Rawlins, wiry, freckled and messy haired, knew that surviving the first months of secondary school was hard. He was alive because of three things: his wits, his speed and . . . Ben looked around. No. The third thing wasn’t here. He must cope with the other two.

A thin rain darkened the coarse asphalt of the school yard. The air tasted of metal and concrete and stank of the rubbish overflowing from industrial bins. Ben cursed himself. He was backed into a corner. He’d run out of running options.

“Rawlins.” Gary glowered at him. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Ben said nothing. Blue veins traced faint lines on his shivering hands and a deadening nausea grew in his stomach. Gary was massive.

“These foreigners visiting you, they shouldn’t be here.”

Foreigners – Ben’s aunts. Fury mixed with his fear and Ben’s surroundings blurred away. There was just Gary, his spiteful face and his slow, deliberate advance.

“But d’you train enough to take me on, Gaz?” Ben retorted. “Can you punch walls?”

Gary did not hesitate. He struck the blistered concrete beside them, grazing his knuckles. No pain flickered on his face.

“And you can?” he asked.

“What, hit a wall? Of course not. That was an intelligence test. You failed it.”

Gary snarled and lunged forward, striking Ben in the stomach. Ben stumbled back. And then Molly Rawlins rounded the corner. The third thing had arrived.

There was a blur of movement and Gary was gasping, winded, holding onto the wall for balance. The heel of Molly’s palm had smashed into his breastbone. She danced back, choosing her next move.

Wits, speed and Molly the kick boxing champion. On average, Ben and Molly could take on anyone in the school. Without Molly, on average, everyone in the school could take Ben out.

“This about Jacki and Meera again?” she asked. Ben pushed himself off the ground, wet grit sticking to his palms. He nodded. Molly grunted her displeasure and circled right. Gary tracked her, his breath laboured. Molly feinted left and then span the other way, kicking the bully hard on his knee. Gary gasped and buckled. Only then did Molly address him.

“Listen scumbag,” she spat, “you’re boring to fight. Never touch my brother.”

Gary’s eyes lit with hatred, but he stayed down. Steam from the kitchens wafted over, belching the fumes of overcooked dinners at them. Molly dropped her guard. “Ben, we’re going.” Silently she escorted him past grimy school gates. Only when they were safely away, did Ben speak.

“I was wondering,” he ventured, “how’re your classes in non-violent resistance going?”

“Shut up, Ben,” Molly sighed. “I’m going to teach you self-defence. I’ll not be at school forever. But you’re always going to be scrawny and annoying.”

“I’m nearly thirteen. I was about to finish that one.”

Molly glanced at her brother, her face stern, her eyes hard and tender at the same time.

“Stop it.”

“No. Accept your retirement. I’m going to save myself from now on. I don’t need you worrying about me. In fact, I will have everyone feeling sorry for you. I’m going to start a charity for you, because of your spots. No. I’ve got it.” Ben danced around his sister, edging away. “I’ll start a charity for your spots, because they’re on your face.”

And then he was running, with Molly a breath behind him, laughing despite herself.

* * *

Professors Meera Kothari and Jaqueline Ngqola were not Ben and Molly’s true aunts. They were zoologists and knew the children’s parents from work on joint conservation projects. Meera and Jacki helped with homework, with outfits for parties, and set the world right over long evenings with their friends.

“Where is my son?” Jacki demanded, bursting through the front door that evening, “and where is my amazing daughter? Ewe, you!” she marvelled at Molly in isiXhosa. “Ukasemhle! Yes. You are flawless.”

Behind her, Meera shuffled in. She was short and slight with pale brown skin. Her hair was black and lustrous, her eyes sleepy, but full. A thick dressing gown warded off the cold. Beneath it, she wore a simple tunic and leggings of Indian origin.

“Auntie Meera,” Ben complained, “I think Jacki’s going blind again. Did she just say Molly was beautiful?”

Meera ignored him. “To think we’ve had a hand in raising you two,” she murmured, kissing Molly and Ben on the forehead. “Now Ben tell me how your amazing artwork is getting on, I want another portrait.”

Jacki ploughed on into the kitchen. “Mary!” she stooped to embrace Ben’s mother. “How did someone as stylish as you end up with Richard?”

Ben followed Jacki to find his mother dressed in an executive suit, her expresso poised next to her iPad. His father was wearing tired jeans, and his shirt, like his hair, was disordered and dishevelled. He was enjoying a smoothie and a trail of orange peel and banana skins surrounded the blender behind him.

“Jacki, Meera,” Mary welcomed them. “I’m so glad you’ve come. Richard is being unromantic.”

“Romance? Eeeuw!” Ben recoiled. “You’re too old for romance.”

Mary ruffled Ben’s hair. “Not gooey-romance you muppet; adventure-and-excitement romance.”

Richard rolled his eyes, and then his head for good measure. He slumped onto the table and groaned.

“It’s not exciting,” he objected. “It’s insane.”

“Dad are you important enough to disagree with Mum?” Ben asked innocently.

Richard grinned across the table. “Your mother may be my boss’s boss, but here, in this kitchen, she’s only my mad wife.”

Meera and Jacki both spluttered. Molly cracked her knuckles. Mary merely leaned over, her blue eyes twinkling at his, and kissed Richard on the forehead. “I’m firing you darling. You’re under-performing.”

“Did you hear that, you messy man?” Jacki exclaimed. “You’re fired! Now what is this about?”

Richard sighed. “It’s a new crypto-zoology case. Someone’s come back from a field trip with stories of a mythical beast and wants us to conserve it.”

Ben started – these stories were the best thing about his parent’s work. “Dad! That stuff makes you interesting.”

“My life is too interesting,” objected Richard, “I want boring.”

“Richard, my dear, do not worry,” Jacki soothed, “you are already so, so boring. Now tell us the story.”

Ben smiled. Jacki reminded him of a bulldozer. A beautiful bulldozer, elegantly dressed, with glowing dark skin, a perfect headdress and large, round earrings – and a bulldozer, nonetheless.

Come on Dad,” he pleaded, “we’ve been through this. Whenever you or Mum, or Jacki or Meera, whenever anyone of you hears about a new species, no matter how crazy, then you share the news. It’s in our contracts.”

“Young man, you sabotaged those contracts,” Richard protested. “I began them to make sure you did your homework, and Molly wouldn’t stay out late. But you’ve made them ridiculous.”

“Actually Dad, I think the family walk contract was necessary. We were going on too many outings. The joke contract is vital. Your jokes aren’t funny. And the contract contract - it’s only fair that you think up new contracts. I was doing all the work.”

His father smouldered at him, trying not to laugh. “I still didn’t sign any crypto-zoology contract,” he insisted.

“You did Dad,” Ben corrected. “But we’ll make this easier for you. It’ll be a game. Jacki and Meera are both experts. You’re going to tell them more about this animal. They will predict the rest of it scientifically.”

Jacki laughed, her body shaking. Ben was sure he heard the glasses rattling on the shelves. “Oh I love our son! He is so clever. Yes. But Ben and Molly shall make the predictions. We’ve taught them well enough.”

“Alright. Alright.” Richard gave up. “You win. This story is about a cat.”

“How big?” asked Ben.

“Quite small, but still a threat to goats and sheep. It’s an impossible colour-shifter. It mimics its background perfectly, even, get this, when it’s moving. That makes it invisible. It’s like you’re seeing through it, as if it has stealth abilities.”

Ben pondered this information. “They’re nocturnal,” he said. “Cats usually are.”

“You’re right,” his father observed, “although that’s rather obvious.”

“And we know about this beast,” suggested Molly, “from night-time attacks on goat kraals by predators no one could see. The only signs were their footprints.”

“You’re beginning to sound like the person who told me this,” Richard complained. “Meera, Jacki, have you nothing to suggest?”

But there was no answer. Ben glanced at his aunts. Their faces hooded. Jacki was silent, breathing deeply. Then she nodded at Meera.

“I,” Meera announced, with a tremor of excitement, “shall also make some predictions.”

“Please do,” said Richard. He was gouging out the last of his smoothie with a straw.

“I predict this cat has a sweet tooth. Locals protect their livestock by leaving honey or candy outside the goat kraals. And it’s dangerous, it has venomous claws. It can attack people without warning, and when it does so it is fatal. I also predict that when it’s not mimicking its background, then it is natural colours are iridescently bright – and striped.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of prediction,” Ben gasped.

His father chuckled to himself and tried to stare Meera down over his glasses. “What’s going on please?” he asked. “Who told you all that?”

“What do you mean, Dad?” Molly queried.

“Meera’s repeated everything I was told,” Richard replied. “They’re playing one of their tricks on me.”

“Richard, we’re not, not this time,” Meera stated. “You’ve just confirmed what we expected. We’ve heard of this cat too. I’m telling you what I heard. Your report is an independent sighting. We need to take it seriously.”

“Oh Dad,” Ben cried, “is this thing really real?”

“Of course not,” Richard retorted. He was getting excited, his face blotching red. “Look, I know I say this a lot, but words matter to me. Truth matters. This, this can only be a fable.”

Jacki rounded on him, clicking at him in isiXhosa. “Wena kwedini! Une ngqondo yenja!” (This was not entirely fair, Richard was short, but he was not that stupid). “Fable, Richard?” she retorted. “No! I’ve collected mythical stories for many, many years. Yes. And this is the best. How do you know this is not the one: the true story amongst hundreds of falsehoods? I, too, have heard about these cats. Yes. When I was a child up near the Drakensberg mountains, in South Africa. That is an entire continent away!”

Richard retreated before the fire in his friend’s face. “OK, OK, you may be onto something. But remember, false rumours can spread across the world over these days.”

“Meera and Jacki should discover these cats officially,” Ben decreed. “And when you do, I shall let you call it the ‘Bencat’.”

“It already has name, you young coloniser,” Jacki warned. “They are called ‘grymcats’. That translates from isiXhosa, and Nepali and Lepcha. So much for your rumour theory, Richard.”

“But could you find it?” enquired Molly.

Meera smiled at her. “On our next field visit we might, my dear. Maybe we’ll have some exciting news to share when we return.

“Make sure you do,” Ben burst out. “My life needs some excitement.”

The adults laughed. Ben took no notice. He looked out onto a tedious suburban landscape that slept on green hillsides. It was raining, and the view dimmed into a fug of thick, low clouds. Nothing ever happened here. But now he could ignore the tedium. He was filling the land with imaginary grymcats.

Chapter 2: The Forest

A faint cry of ancient trouble seeped out of the night. Samti’s thumbs paused over her phone. For the ghosts of this land, that warning had sounded despair. But they were long dead. Now nobody worried about what, or who, had been taken.

Only . . . had it just been a distress call? Samti pushed open the small wooden shutter that covered her window. Cold air and thin moonlight streamed in. Outside, the forest pressed against weeded fields. She looked to the ranks of trees looming above her. What had she heard?

She quietened her breath. Around her, the night murmured. Crickets busied themselves, bats chipped hard echoes into the shadows, an owl called. Far in the distance, hyenas were yowling. Through earthen walls she could hear the usual farmstead sounds. Hens stirring, cattle breathing. The night wind rustling banana fronds behind her home.

And then the cry sounded again, ringing across the ages. HAYYYOOOORDAT! HAYYYOOOORDAT! The call rolled, yodelling over the land, binding all hearers to come to its aid.

Samti sighed. It was rarely anything serious. Most likely some lost drunk frightened of his shadow. But she heard her aunt, Mama Leo, beat on the wall of cousin Dawi’s room. He had to go. Samti, only thirteen, was excused. In nearby houses neighbours alerted each other, summoning their youth to answer the call.

Samti heard Dawi bumping in the darkness, searching for his clothes and stick. His torch was out of battery again and he could not find his shoes. Likely Ambrosi, his youngest brother, had hidden them. Finally she heard him stumbling from the house to join his fellows.

Samti leant back onto her hard, thin mattress and curled up against the chill night air. Her sleeping blankets were coarse and stiff, they wanted replacing. But she was cosier than her cousin. Dawi was walking into nettles or else treading on siafu, the army ant trails, and getting bitten.

She listened to the scratching of insects in the thatch. Something hungry scuttled after something edible. She could hear Mama Leo asleep again, cuddling her children. Snuffling and deep breathing came from her bedroom.

Samti wondered when Dawi would return. Phone reception was poor in the forest. They would get no messages.

Haayyyooooordat! Haayyyooooordat!

The call came again, quieter, filtered through moon-silvered clouds. Samti’s skin still prickled for what it used to mean. Her mother had recounted the stories of the old times over and again as she braided Samti’s hair. Head nestled against thigh. The safest place, for the worst of tales.

Once, Mama would say, the forest had been dangerous. Journeys into the higher reaches had required escorts of heavily armed men, guarded by charms and prayer. People missing late in the evening were abandoned. Cattle enclosures were built of tall timbers and ringed with layers of thorns to keep out the hungry threats that prowled in the darkness.

She would push Samti’s hair to one side, scratching her own itching nose in a brief respite, and then continue. Nimble fingers tugging, weaving, scalp-tingling.

And then, Mama said, they thought it had tamed. People crept in, marvelling at the dappled shade, at the rough lowing and red flashes of the lourie birds. But it was not safe. Young ones tempted by sweet berries could venture too far. They only realised when it was too late, with the dusk rushing in, the sky darkening with storm clouds, and shadows deepening, brooding and growing. Then the creatures that the night hid grew bold and came scenting, hunting, relentlessly coursing the thrashing undergrowth as panicked youngsters ran for their lives.

But that, Mama assured her, pulling and tightening, was long ago. Now there were no deadly predators left. The leopards were cautious, keeping to the highlands, preferring goats to people. Hyenas were only dangerous if you slept in the open. And the real problems, the elephants and the buffalo, were gone. It was many years since Bibi Anna had nearly been trodden on by a charging rhino when she was collecting firewood.

You see my sweetness? Deftly Mama had squeezed her braids into bright bands. There is nothing dangerous. Not any more.

Samti lay still in the peace of the night, trying again to feel her mother’s touch in her hair. Her braids were loose. Despite all Mama Leo’s enfolding protection, she still did not have the patience to get Samti’s hair right. She turned to the wall, trying to blot out the memories. Would that all the wild dangers returned, baying outside the compound, if that could bring her mother back.

* * *

It was too quiet when Samti woke. She lay puzzled by the stillness. Then she realised: no Ambrosi. Normally he would be jumping and shrieking in Dawi’s room, goading the brother he idolised into a raucous chase. The noise of his squeals woke her each day.

So, no Dawi yet either. Still, this happened. Sometimes the alarm meant a real problem, such as someone disappearing. Samti sifted through their neighbours. Who was in trouble with the money lenders?

Her aunt roused her, calling from the cooking hut. “Samti, my sweetness, I need water.”

Samti groaned. Now she had to do Dawi’s chores. “But . . .”

Mama Leo ignored her protest. “And firewood. My parents will arrive soon. It’s sinful not to welcome them.”

Then Samti remembered. Babu was taking the youngest grandchildren to his hives in the forest, and she was to help him. She would eat honeycomb today.

Babu was soon holding court over his morning tea, his hat on his knee, perched on a low stool in the kitchen hut. A graceful halo of white hair rimmed his bald head.

“They’re probably going to die in there, I shouldn’t take them,” he said, trying to frown at his younger grandchildren. “They’re too young, they’ll get left behind. What if the beast eating the search party right now wants some pudding?”

Pretending it was dangerous was part of the ritual of the trip. But it was all pretence. The forest now was protected from people. Squat concrete blocks guarded the corners of a reserve that kept the valuable trees, the duku and mininga, from the timber barons. An imaginary line, unfenced, ran between the blocks marking the forest’s territory on one side, and the village lands on the other.

There was even a peaceful dependency between forest and people. Wildlife used the villagers’ farms. Monkeys stole melons. Pigs, deer and porcupines slipped across the fenceless boundaries to eat maize. Birds gorged themselves in the wheat fields, despite the rocks that the child guards threw. And the people needed the forest. It was a reserve, but they could still gather from it. It provided firewood, and forage for the herds. Children made swings from forest vines.

But Ambrosi and his cousins were still scared and excited. They crowded on a short bench near the cooking fire, rustling uncertainly. Samti saw them timidly desperate to go, and half-hoping not to. She could remember that feeling herself.

Mama Leo sighed at Babu. Her squat form leant over the fire as she fried mandazi for their trip, her hands and kanga dusted with flour, her forehead beading sweat. She looked up and rolled her eyes behind her father’s back, making the children giggle.

“I know that Babu of yours,” she said. “He just wants that delicious honey for himself. But I, my beautifuls, I want you to eat more honey than him. You run along now. And look out for Dawi. He’s probably waiting for you by the honey tree. But don’t let him have any.”

When they set off, Babu started quickly, his patch-worked trousers and worn jacket flitting through the shade of the trees. The children jostled behind their grandfather, fearful of being left behind. Samti smiled at the tumble of bodies bumping in front of her. They would exhaust themselves. She would have to carry the smallest.

And then Babu stopped. “What was that? Did you hear it?”

Ambrosi crowded close to his grandfather, staring around with fright at the quiet trees basking in morning sunshine. But Babu was not trying to scare his grandchildren. He was teaching them the forest lore he knew.

“Listen again,” he commanded. “It’s friendly.” A rough cough sounded, the bark of a buck. “That deer has spotted us, and it’s warning its friends. That means there’s nothing more dangerous than us around.”

Now they moved more slowly as Babu pointed out the plants and how to use them, naming the birds. He showed them distant high ridges, where the duku groves grew with their precious timber.

The explanations, questions and detours for berry-picking, made arriving at the hives a surprise. These were lodged high in the branches of a vast tumat’mo tree, thick with pink flowers and buzzing insects. This was the biggest treat.

Babu scaled his ancient ladders to smoke out the bees. The children’s necks craned, their mouths watering. When he finally brought the honey down, Justini, the youngest of them, ate so much that he was sick. Babu made him stick his head in the cold mountain stream until he was clean.

Afterwards they rested in the shade. Far above them, vultures circled on peaceful thermals. Samti watched over the children, cuddling a sleepy Justini. When she was an mkubwa, she resolved, when she had completed school as she had promised her mother, when she had a proper job and a big brick house in town, then her children would make this trip. Dawi would take them.

The lazy afternoon slumbered on. Just as she decided to rouse them, Ambrosi sat up; then he spotted his dozing grandfather. He crept up to the sleeping elder and growled in his ear.

Babu’s reaction saved Samti the trouble of waking the other children. She assembled their belongings as Babu chased a squealing Ambrosi over the rocks.

“Come on,” he instructed the youngsters, “we must get back. You’ve just eaten honey and made yourselves tastier. And even Ambrosi shouldn’t be eaten by a monster. It would be unhealthy for the poor creature.”

The return journey was downhill. But they went at a gentle pace, easing tired young legs home. Samti, as usual, picked up the rear of the party. So she heard it first. A murmur she had not known before. She called ahead to her grandfather.

“Babu, what’s that noise?”

They both paused, heads cocked at the sound chasing down from slopes above them. A running. A panting. Something was coming. Something was out of place.

Babu’s manner changed in a moment. He dropped his precious honey buckets and looked at his grandchildren clustered around him, his smile erased. Then he swept up Justini, and with a horrible quiet whisper commanded: “RUN!”

And suddenly the noise surrounded them. Dawi’s search party was back, silent, crouching, scratched, sweating, exhausted and afraid. They had dropped their weapons. Some had lost their shoes. But they ran headlong down the hill. The foremost picked up any child they overtook, hoisting them squirming to their shoulders.

Down they fled. Bushes clung at them; rocks barked their shins. Vines and brambles snapped at their ankles. The path invented new turns and detours. The forest clung to them.

They fought on, ripping themselves from the forest’s entanglement, pushing for the safety of the invisible boundary. Samti half-dragged, half-carried Ambrosi as she ran, but always looked to the shadows growing behind her. Dawi was missing.

And then he was there, surging after his companions, calling for them to run faster, hurdling the bushes, throwing himself down the mountain. But when he caught up, Samti smelt the smoke and soot on him. His face was burnt. Blood and ash mingled with the sweat and dust on his skin.

Even as he reached them he lifted Ambrosi scrabbling from the ground. Together they pulled each other to the forest edge.

Only when they were near did Babu sound the alarm, breathless, desperate. “HAYYOOORDAT! HAAAYYOOOOORDAT! Ni’ii i hi’iitiya.” The Children Are Coming! And then their friends and neighbours were running towards them, pulling them into their houses, dragging thorn branches to compound gates and barricading doors. Locking themselves away from the coming night.

Chapter 3: A Breach in the Walls

Ratona had trained for the elite guard squadron for seven centuries. She had served in it for fourteen more. Over two thousand years of practice should make everything routine, especially the alarms.

For the pyre-angel guards, alarms were part of everyday life. There were alarms for flood or fights, calls to attention for visiting elders, or cave-bear incursions. There were alarms for test runs to keep watch over the lava pools where the fledglings hatched and practice flights when they patrolled over the mountains and plains of their desolate world, or kept the peace at crowded food refineries. Time bells rang as they moulded new pods and colonies on lonely, rocky outcrops. Alarms were part of the rhythm of this service. They measured out days and duties. They signalled normality.

And in all this routine, their greatest task was to patrol the Walls. The danger behind the Walls was terrible, and the guards’ vigilance never slackened. The centuries ticked by. No alarm for a Wall-breach had ever rung.

Except that it was sounding now.

It was thundering through the guard tower. A huge bass drum sent tremors through the building. Every curve was lit by arc-lights. Brightness and noise filled the air.

There was a moment of black silence. Then the drum struck again. Flares exploded, piercing scrunched eyelids. Fierce electric currents shivered into the sleeping platforms. Flashes of light revealed layers of ledges spiralling up and down the tower. On each a guard lay tensed, crouched for flight, wings half unfurled; every one a dark menace of power and spite. Anger and horror lit their eyes, fire smoked from their nostrils.

The drum quickened, beating like a pulse. Then, in the distance, horns sounded from the watchers on the Walls. Deep, terrible, blaring a collective cry of grief. This alarm was never meant to sound.

Faster still went the deep base rhythm. Arcs of lightning crackled through the tower, an eerie blue light that snapped to the beat of the drums. The electric shocks sharpened, sending sparks skittering along the perches, adorning the gobbets of fire and smoke that dripped from the jaws of Ratona’s comrades.

Ratona fixed her eyes on Raoul, her flight commander. He ignored the sparks and fire flying around him. In the maelstrom he was still. Even his tail was motionless. His hide mottled in the black-grey of combat. His eyes fed on the launch pad lights while his mind pulsated commands to his squadron.

Large circular doors rotated in front of them, their gears grinding, opening the evacuation portals. Misty grey holes opened before the guards, revealing dark views of the landscape beyond, hazy in the half-light.

Ratona strained her eyes to the horizon. Far in the gloaming, the warning beacons twinkled with red flame. There was a breach, an abomination unfolding on their borders.

Ratona’s training took control of her body. Her breath slowed, back legs braced, tail coiled to spring. Her wings tensed and arched. The central column and sleeping perches shook with the final countdown. And then the launch lights blazed around the evacuation doors. Instantly the air filled with glistening black scales and thrusting wings. Tongues of fire slathered from gritted jaws.

Leaping forward, Ratona pressed her legs to her body, flattened her wings along her back and arched into a dive. Her sleek form streaked through the air, trailing sparks. She plummeted downwards. The ground reared to embrace her. This was against all flight protocols.

But Ratona plunged onwards. A breach required sacrifice. It demanded skill only she possessed. With inches to spare, she flattened out of the dive, an arrow of fire, scorching the trees with the violence of her passing.

Already her bulkier comrades were falling back. They could not slip through the air like she. Ratona knew Raoul and others of the heaviest, largest guards were spiralling upwards, beating at the sky, gaining height for one continuous dive to the Walls. She heard them willing her onwards.

Beneath the guard towers a fissured land belched flames. Cracked trenches boiled with lava. Ratona flashed through the fire. This was their most precious place. In the streams of molten rock their youngsters grew wings. Nothing must reach this spot.

She sped on through early morning mists, angling her wing tips to follow the terrain. Currents of cool air pushed downwards behind her as she twisted down valleys. Then she gained altitude behind mountains, where back winds drove her upwards. She burst over cols so close to the ground that her heat melted their frost.

Her hostile land fought against her. Gusts of wind tried to smash her into cliffs. The taller trees reared to snag her hide. And cave-bear packs hurled boulders at her as she sped beneath them. But Ratona never thought of slowing down or flying higher.

Steep valleys fell beneath her, cascading down in cliffs and crags. The Walls were close now, red beacons blazing on their rim. What could have breached them? She dived again, smoothing every limb and horn out of the rushing wind, and closed on the nearest beacon, a ring of red flame. She scanned the paths for movement. Nothing. She flew closer, rising, losing speed and turning her senses to infra-red, looking for heat signals in the frosty landscape beneath her. All was still.

Twisting downwards, Ratona braked hard and landed on the rim of the Walls, looking back towards the guard towers. She held her breath again and listened. In the distance she could hear the other guards streaming towards her. She focussed on their shared thought-waves, adding her own to the stream. But she heard nothing amiss.

Ratona concentrated again on her surroundings. She heard pyre-angels in the nests nearby – the click of claws braced against rock as elders and younger warriors awaited their launch signal. She could hear fledglings squeaking in their sleep, the scrabble of bodies turning on beds of crystals, gems and gold nuggets.

Ratona paced along the highest tier of the Walls. Close up she could see the beacon ring awash with flame, summoning help. But there was nothing to fight. Nothing had invaded their lands. Nothing threatened their sanctity.

Except – Ratona turned her head. Except for the soft, padding footfall in the distance. But that noise came from behind her, beyond and outside the Walls. That was ridiculous. The Walls kept intruders out. The alarm meant a breach, that something was invading their lands, coming in from the outside. Nothing would cross the Walls to go the other way, leaving their secure embrace. It was forbidden. Beyond the Walls there was nothing except the shifting zones.

But the quickening patter of feet came from beyond the Walls. The noise was running from her. Something had crossed the Walls, but had crossed to leave, not invade. Something was going towards the shifting zones.

Ratona did not hesitate. Her orders were to find what had breached the Walls. Subdue it. Eliminate any threat. The threat was beyond the Walls, in the forbidden lands. She must go there. Ratona launched herself after the retreating sound. And as she crossed she triggered the alarm, the unmentionable alarm, for only the second time in her land’s history.

Ratona dived again, heading to the deadly shimmering in the distance where the shifting zones lay brooding. She scanned the paths, but the craggy land, blasted by continuous target practice from the Wall gunners, hid the fugitive well. She closed her eyes, homing in on the pattering feet by sound alone. The fugitive was small and limping. But it was also a steady footfall. There was no panic.

She looked – there was still nothing. She switched to infra-red and saw a blur of movement in front of the shifting zones. But that was impossible! Ratona threw out her wings to brake and tumbled out of the sky. Before her, the sheen of the zones rippled like moonlight on oily water. They quivered, shaken by her landing. The fugitive poised before Ratona and turned its head. It seemed to smile at her.

The sight of it set Ratona’s scales prickling in disbelief. The terrible fugitive which had triggered the alarm was a small, drab foelorn. Foelorn were no threat to the nesting grounds anymore than the rodents and deer they hunted.

But a foelorn now approached the shifting zones. And so it was harmless no longer. Entering the zones risked opening them. And that risked being seen, being seen by them, the terrible foe against whom they had first built the Walls. That was too horrible to imagine.

And yet the foelorn’s intentions were horribly clear. With practised ease it turned its back on Ratona and walked haltingly forward to the shifting zones’ forbidden boundary. It twisted on its feet, and then, somehow, the zones parted. Ratona froze, horrified. The bright wall of slippery light dropped aside welcoming its diminutive new arrival. Slowly, surely, the foelorn was dragged out, beyond catching, beyond redemption.

With sick dread, Ratona looked into the zones. She could feel the tug of minds, the minds of her mortal enemies. They were present on the other side. And then she caught the briefest, most terrifying glimpse of them. A small hunting party on a high mountain, and one of them, one human, turning towards her.

Ratona leapt to make one last attempt to stop the interloper, roaring fire in her anguish. But as she aimed, the foelorn shimmered before her. It seemed to blink out of sight. Ratona’s blast missed the beast and smashed on, unhindered, towards her defenceless enemies.