‘He didn’t need much persuading,’ Zach said.

‘If you stay, I stay!’ Neanna said.

‘These are my people. It is my job to protect them. I’m staying!’ Goth insisted.

‘And I!’ hollered Henry the Cathedral Knight.

Zach looked at them gathered at the foot of the stairwell. He then bellowed above the sound of the approaching Guardians, ‘ready?’

‘READY!’ the others roared, drawing their weapons.

Dec Tanner opened his eyes and shut them again. The pain that seeped from his right shoulder was excruciating. It felt as if someone had hacked out his shoulder blade and replaced it with a series of timed explosives that were going off every few seconds.

Gritting his teeth, he forced his eyes open again to find himself slumped against the bar. His hands were bound in his lap with rope, and his blue shirt was smothered black with his own blood. He glanced to his right and could see the girl and Fandel slumped next to him. Two of the bandits were wrapping rope about their wrists as Van Demon stood to one side and watched.

‘Please don’t hurt me,’ Fandel said as Julio pulled on the rope.

‘Stop snivelling you worm!’ Van Demon snapped, his tongue sneaking from the hole in his cheek.

‘You’re not going to kill me are you?’ Fandel said.

Striding towards him, Van Demon pulled his pistol from his belt. He held it above Fandel’s head and began to squeeze the trigger.

‘And why not? Especially when I enjoy it so much,’ Van Demon grinned.

‘You can keep the girl, but just let me go!’ Fandel cried.

‘What a wonderful uncle you’ve turned out to be!’ Anna said. ‘If my father were here he would…’

‘Silencio!’ Van Demon roared, crouching down so his decaying face was nose-to-nose with Fandel’s. ‘And people say we outlaws are mercenary scum!’

Standing, Van Demon holstered his pistol and said to his team, ‘take the girl onto the coach and then feed these two to the sharks!’

‘Get your rotting hands off me!’ Anna screamed as two of the zombie-bandits dragged her from behind the bar. Kicking out with her legs, she caught one of them in the groin.

Scooping her up in his arms and throwing her over his back, the bandit turned to Van Demon and laughed, ‘we’ve got a wild little pony here!’

‘Remind me of that when I come to sell her. We’ll fetch a better price!’ grinned Van Demon. Then, turning to Julio, he said, ‘now, throw Senor Peacekeeper and the doting uncle into the sea.’ He then strode away from the bar.

Hearing this, Fandel began to squirm on the floor like a snake as Julio tried to take hold of him.

‘Please I beg you,’ he wailed.

Tanner observed him with a disgusted look on his face and snapped, ‘what’s got into you man? Die with some dignity can’t you!’

Ignoring him, Fandel screeched, ‘let me live and I’ll lead you to the box!’

Hearing this, Van Demon stopped in his tracks and turned to look down at Fandel. With his one bad eye swivelling in its exposed socket, he said, ‘box? What box?’

‘Treasure!’ Fandel whimpered like a snivelling child.

Strolling back to where Fandel lay blubbering, Van Demon said, ‘treasure?’

Without looking up, Fandel nodded and sniffed snot back into his nostrils.

‘You lie!’ Van Demon barked.

‘I’m not lying. I know where this box of treasure is.’

‘What kind of treasure are we talking about amigo?’

Raising his head, and looking straight into Van Demon’s decomposing face, Fandel said, ‘it contains the Heart of Endra.’

Hearing this, the bandits looked at one another wide-eyed and the Inn fell quiet.

Turning on Fandel, Tanner said, ‘keep your mouth shut you poisonous weasel! Don’t you dare tell them where to find…’ And then everything went black again for Dec Tanner, as Julio slammed the butt of his rifle into the back of the peacekeepers skull.

‘You were saying Senor Uncle?’ Van Demon continued, crouching beside Fandel.

‘I know where the box is.’

‘Where?’

‘If I tell you now, I become worthless to you,’ Fandel said, feeling a little more confident knowing that he had Van Demon’s full attention.

‘But Senor Uncle, you could be lying just to stay alive. I want proof!’ Van Demon demanded.

‘You need to head for the Rusty Volcano. That’s all I’ll tell you for now.’

Pulling a dagger from his waistband, Julio held it against Fandel’s throat. ‘Tell us!’ he snarled.

‘And then you’ll kill me!’ Fandel said.

Pushing the blade away from Fandel’s throat, Van Demon said, ‘Julio, take him to the coaches.’ He then stood and loomed over Fandel. ‘Senor Uncle, remember this; if you are wasting my time, I will personally cut you into tiny pieces and feed you to the sharks. And, please Senor Uncle, believe me when I say, it isn’t nice. Me and my bandidos have been there’

‘What about the peacekeeper?’ Julio asked.

‘Take him onboard. He seemed to know what this coward was snivelling about, so he might prove useful if he turns out to be a liar.’ Then, lacing his hands in the small of his back, Van Demon walked to his coach, The Devil’s Steed.

Following Van Demon’s orders, Julio bent forward to take hold of the prisoners, but again his intestines plopped from the gaping wound in his midriff and slopped into Fandel’s lap. Seeing and smelling the entrails, Fandel fainted.

From the safety of the cliff tops, The Delf watched the bandits manhandle the girl, the peacekeeper and Fandel Black onto a series of stagecoaches that were linked together like a train. Each coach was as big as a bus. At the front of the lead coach stood eight giant creatures. In the dark it was impossible for the Delf to see what these creatures were. The stagecoaches floated on their huge wheels next to the quay that stretched like a finger out onto the Onyx Sea. Then, unlike any other stagecoach the Delf had ever seen, a series of torn and ragged sails were raised, and the coaches pulled away from the quay and set out across the black water.

Straddled across Max’s back, The Delf watched as the bandit’s stagecoaches followed the light of the moon that sparkled on the thick black waves. Once the stagecoaches had sailed far out to sea, their sails folded back like giant fins. Then, even by her own magical standards, The Delf was amazed by what she saw. The eight creatures that pulled the stagecoaches, unravelled in the moonlight and revealed themselves to be giant seahorses. Their skin was translucent and stretched over their skeletal frames. They had long snouts that slithered and oozed, crashing into the black water as they searched for food. Long black manes, knotted like seaweed, were yanked backwards by an army of bandits standing atop the lead stagecoach.

The seahorses reared their enormous heads out of the water, their neighing shrill and angry. The bandits whipped them, and the seahorses pulled the mighty stagecoaches forward as they raced away across the surface of the sea, faster than any wind could have carried them.

Yanking back on Max’s reigns, The Delf screeched, ‘take me to the Splinter. Take me to my brother!’

With his tongue drooling from his foaming snout, the beast bounded into the darkness of the wastelands.

Chapter 40

Zach edged backwards down the tunnel as the Demonic Guardians appeared at the foot of the spiral stairs. His friends were behind him, their weapons poised over his shoulder.

‘Hold!’ he whispered to them. ‘Just a second more!’

When several of the guards had crammed themselves into the narrow tunnel, restricting their ability to launch their fireballs and swordsticks, Zach roared at the top of his voice: ‘FIRE!’

On his word, a flurry of arrows screamed overhead and sliced through the approaching guardians. They fell to the ground and the others that rushed forward from behind tripped and stumbled over their dead comrades. As they flayed around in the dirt, Zach and his friends rushed forward. Neanna went ahead of the others, blinking in and out of the shadows as she lunged at the enemy. Marshal Goth released a constant rain of arrows and Zach lit up the tunnel like a disco, the ends of his crossbows flashing with light as stakes exploded from them.

William had been told to hang back and Zach would call upon him when the time was right. The timing had to be just right or they could all end up dead.

The tunnel started to block-up with the dead bodies of the Demonic Guardians, preventing others rushing forward. Putting space between them, Zach raced down the tunnel followed by his friends.

‘Get ready!’ he yelled at William, as they rounded a bend and headed for the mouth of the tunnel. William slowed and got onto one knee. The sounds of bodies being dragged and moved by the Guardians echoed back to them.

‘Are you ready?’ Zach called to William.

Grinning back at his friend, William pulled the catapult from his back trouser pocket and popped an inferno berry into the sling. Turning, William faced the Demonic Guardians who had managed to break through the blockade of dead bodies.

Closing one of his burning eyes, he squinted with the other through his weird spectacles and took aim. Through the ‘V’ of the catapult, William could see them racing towards him. Pulling his arm back as far as it would go, he waited for Zach to make the call.

Zach and Marshal Goth raced to the tunnel exit, while Henry soared above them and Neanna blinked.

‘I can’t hold on for much longer!’ William howled.

‘We’re nearly there!’ Zach bellowed back over his shoulder, running as fast as he could towards the tunnel exit. If the firework display that William was about to unleash was going to work, Zach and the others had to be as near to the exit as possible or they would be entombed forever beneath the prison.

William squinted through the catapult at the Guardians who were now feet away.

‘I’m gonna have to…’ he started.

‘FIRE!’ Zach roared. He had made the call too soon and he knew it, but left any later and William would have been slain by the Demonic Guardians.