Midnight trotted up next to General Woodward’s pure white pegasus, Harvey atop his back.

  ‘It’s four, General,’ Harvey said, trying to keep his voice steady.

  The General straightened his back and took a deep breath in. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He trotted his pegasus forward a few steps before turning to face the crowd of three hundred soldiers atop their pegasi. Immediately, their voices fell silent.

  ‘Tonight, we begin our search for Prime Minister Albert Santrrer!’ General Woodward bellowed, his voice ringing out across the military compound. ‘It is vital that he return to this city as he is our best hope moving forward! And for that reason, I ask that each and every one of you give this operation your all! This is the most vital operation of the war so far, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for offering yourselves to this cause!’

  The huge gates behind General Woodward opened.

  ‘Onward we march!’ he bellowed with all of his might, performing the RoCity salute. ‘Dedicate your hearts!’

  A cheer rose from the crowd as General Woodward turned his pegasus around. He gave a mighty jolt of the reins and galloped away.

  Here we go.

  And Midnight followed. The sudden acceleration of the pegasus made Harvey jolt backwards slightly, and for a second, he wished that he had reins to hold on to. But Midnight must have known what he was doing because Harvey didn’t fall off.

  As General Woodward turned to head north, Midnight followed, sticking close to the General’s rear. Glancing to his right, Harvey saw Ethan and Jay galloping close, and when he glanced to his left, he saw Natasha. All were atop a brown pegasus.

  The wind felt marvellous in Harvey’s hair. He wondered if this was what it felt like for Albert when he flew. Yes, he had jumped from a plane before, but he imagined that actually flying was completely different. Falling from a plane certainly felt different to charging across a sunny field.

  Harvey thought back to when Albert had carried him through the sky to Aunt Emma’s house. It felt a bit similar, but Harvey was a lot less scared. Maybe because he was on the ground.

  That day had started all of this, and it was only four days ago. It felt like it had been a lot longer than that.

  Harvey leant close to Midnight’s ear and whispered, ‘You remember our deal, right?’

  I remember our deal. Albert will come home, whether he likes it or not.

  Harvey smirked.

  Ethan pulled his pegasus over slightly so that it was running a little closer to Harvey.

  ‘You two seem to have gotten closer!’ he remarked loudly as to be heard over the thunderous sounds of pegasus hooves.

  ‘He’s not as bad as I thought!’ Harvey shouted back. ‘And riding a pegasus is way more fun than I expected!’

  Ethan grinned at him. ‘Just imagine how much fun Joseph and Tom are having!’

  Harvey quickly looked up at the sky behind him. It was a marvellous sight. Striking a marvellous contrast against the cloudless blue sky was a group of nine pegasi, and two of them were the ones belonging to Joseph and Tom.

  He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it felt like to be up there. Harvey was having the time of his life charging across the sunny field. Actually floating above it through the warmth of the sun must have felt better than a seat on Olympus.

  After a while, Harvey got rather used to the feeling of Midnight’s hooves colliding with the ground, and it actually began to feel rather comfortable. He kept to about two feet behind the General, who was powerfully riding ahead of the three-hundred-strong group.

  'Charlotte!' the General called. Charlotte was riding at the very back of the squad, but she responded.

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Report to Front Left and Front Right that we’ll reach Humberston in no more than eight minutes and tell them to relay that information to the Mid Line!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  Harvey had either underestimated the speed at which pegasi could gallop or overestimated how far away Humberston was from RoCity. He found it rather astonishing that the closest city north of RoCity was less than ten minutes away on a pegasus. They were apparently a lot less secluded than Harvey had thought.

  ‘What did you think of the volcano?’ Natasha called to Harvey from his left.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Didn’t you see it? We passed it a minute or two ago!’

  Truth be told, Harvey had been so absorbed in his glee at riding under the warm sun one and two minutes ago that he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings.

  He had never even considered RoCity’s volcano before. Sure, he’d heard of it, and he had wanted to see it since arriving at the city, but it had slipped his mind when the opportunity presented itself.

  ‘Make sure you catch it on our way back in!’ she shouted, smiling. ‘It’s huge!’

  Harvey stared at her for a few seconds, his mind blank.

  ‘Oi, dipshit!’ Ethan’s voice bellowed. A strong gust of wind forced Harvey’s head to turn to face him. ‘You’re staring!’

  Harvey felt his face grow hot. He tried to think of the task at hand.

  Well, he focused on his surroundings. Over Jay’s head, he could see the sea. It glistened under the summer sun and Harvey was certain he could feel the heat bouncing off it.

  Harvey had never given it any proper thought before. The sea. Its power. Its expanse. It was rather marvellous, he thought, as he gazed at it under the summer sun. It looked…like freedom.

  If he weren’t going to find his possibly dead cousin, Harvey would’ve been on top of the world.

  He wondered about what Albert was thinking at that moment. Was he hoping that someone would come to save him? Was he wondering which direction was home? Was he wondering how best to kill whoever was in front of him?

  ‘Mr Bèstia!’ General Woodward barked, beckoning Harvey forward.

  Midnight sped up slowly until he was neck and neck with the General’s pegasus.

  General Woodward pointed forward. ‘That’s Humberston.’

  Harvey followed the General’s point. They were marching straight towards what seemed to be an ordinary town. Albeit small, there was nothing out of the ordinary about Humberston. Its skyline was merely small suburbs and a few wind turbines.

  ‘Notice anything off about it?’ the General asked.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  ‘No, sir,’ Harvey replied cautiously, worried that he should notice something.

  ‘First rule of heading into potential enemy territory,’ the General said, adopting a teaching tone, ‘never let your guard down. Just because it looks ordinary doesn’t mean it is.’

  Harvey nodded, although he wasn’t sure that the General saw him. ‘Got it, sir.’

  Harvey stayed level with the General until a thought popped into his head.

  ‘Midnight,’ he said softly, ‘slow down until we’re next to Cecilia’s horse, please.’

  Midnight immediately followed the order. He eased backwards between Ethan and Natasha’s pegasi until Harvey found himself close enough to talk to Cecilia.

  ‘This might be a good time to test if you and Maltor really do have a link,’ Harvey told her. ‘If you do, he should know that you’re coming here and he might be here ready to catch you off-guard.’

  ‘That’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said,’ Peter called from Harvey’s right.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Harvey retorted with a grin.

  Cecilia seemed a little uneasy. ‘Maybe…I hope he isn’t…’

  ‘You and me both, but we’ll just have to live with it if he is.’

  Harvey took his original position between Ethan and Natasha for the remainder of the journey. As they neared Humberston, it really did look like an ordinary town. Regardless of the General’s warning, Harvey couldn’t see a world where that small innocent town housed anything dangerous. It looked too feeble. Too kind.

  Then he thought about the possibility that Maltor was there. Part of Harvey hoped he was. Just so that they could fight again. And this time, Harvey promised himself, he would kill Maltor.

  Gods, Maltor was essentially a curse on Harvey’s mind. Every time the name was mentioned verbally or in his thoughts, Harvey felt anger creep into every cell of his body. Paris had been a mistake. A fluke on Maltor’s part. Harvey would return victorious if Maltor were hiding in Humberston.

  Even with this newfound determination to kill Maltor, Harvey still found that he was quite taken aback when General Woodward disappeared into the air.

  That was a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s what it looked like at first. It was as though he galloped through an invisible veil. The air rippled like water as he disappeared, and he didn’t disappear at once. It was what Harvey imagined it would look like if someone went through an invisible curtain.

  He, Natasha, Ethan, and Jay went next as they hadn’t had time to react.

  The strangest part was that Harvey felt nothing at all. But the scene around him changed drastically. The grass went from a luscious green to a slightly less colourful shade. Most of the small suburban houses disappeared and became replaced with either a proportionately sized pile of rubble or a completely new building.

  Midnight reared on his hind legs and gave a mighty neigh, stopping completely in his tracks and nearly throwing Harvey off as he did so. General Woodward’s pegasus did the same, prompting him to turn around. The look on his face caused Harvey to do the same out of fear.

  Nobody else was behind them. It was just a blank field.

  ‘Well, I think it’s safe to say we found Maltor’s closest base,’ Charlotte said quietly.

  Wordlessly, General Woodward shook the reins of his pegasus and charged back in the direction they had all come from. When he disappeared, the same ripple effect was seen as he went through the barrier. As he had not given a command, everybody dutifully stayed put.

  Harvey’s head was pounding. So much had just happened in one fell swoop that he suddenly wished for just a moment to collect his thoughts.

  This was it. Surely, right? They had just stumbled into what could have only been a base. Even if Albert weren’t here, and Harvey dreaded the thought of such, they were all about to have to fight for their lives.

  ‘Do you think Albert’s here?’ Cecilia asked tentatively.

  ‘I think it depends,’ Ethan said slowly. ‘If they don’t have any other bases, then yes. But if they’ve got control of Cleethorpes or Grimsby, then maybe not. It’d be risky to hold him at the closest base to RoCity.’

  ‘They could have bases in the south, too,’ Charlotte added, much to Harvey’s distaste. ‘The towns to the south are further than this.’

  Ethan shrugged. ‘At the very least, we have a lead. And we should take it.’

  General Woodward re-emerged from the other side of the barrier. ‘I’ve told everyone to come on through. We’ll go over the plan of action in front of that building.’

  He had gestured over to a dark grey building that was a little bit smaller than a standard house. It looked rather like a grey box with windows.

  The group slowly trotted over to the building and watched as the rest of the squads came through the barrier. Nearly every single soldier wore the same expression, and it was not one of joy nor familiarity.

  Once everybody was gathered in a large crowd, General Woodward’s pegasus jumped up into the air with a flap of its wings and hovered above everybody else.

  The General gave his orders loud enough to be heard, but he made an effort to be quieter than usual. ‘We will now split into our squads and search the city from top to bottom. Every single building. If anyone finds anything of interest or concern, they are to alert their squad leader, who will be equipped with a flare. The squad leader will then use that flare to alert everybody else to come to that position. Good luck. And dedicate your hearts.’

  The General finished his speech by performing the RoCity salute, which was returned by the squad leaders on the ground. Then, without missing a beat, everybody split off neatly into their squads and headed off in different directions.

  ‘Can you sense anything, Mr Bèstia?’ the General asked warmly as he landed in front of his squad.

  Harvey felt as though he was letting the team down. They all seemed to expect him to be able to pinpoint Albert’s location, but he simply couldn’t. Nothing felt different. Even when he concentrated.

  ‘No, sir,’ Harvey replied solemnly.

  ‘No bother,’ General Woodward returned immediately. ‘We’ll head off and search every building we see.’

  The General led the group slowly down a road that no other squad had been down. And then the search began.

  It was a slow process. If they weren’t searching buildings from top to bottom, they were marching along the street at a speed slower than the average walk.

  You won’t find him under there, Midnight’s voice said in Harvey’s head as he checked under a bed in a half-destroyed building half an hour after they had initially got to Humberston.

  ‘There’s no harm in-’

  ‘Oi!’ came a wail from outside.

  Harvey and Midnight hurried over to the windowless hole in the wall and stared down at the street below.

  Ethan was galloping hurriedly away from a…Death Strider? Harvey had seen them in books while learning at Apercaput, but he had never predicted that they would be so ugly in real life. It looked like a skinless moose. Its raw, baggy flesh swayed to and fro as it charged after Ethan, looking hungry.

  ‘I thought…don’t they feed on corpses?’ Harvey whispered to himself.

  From a building across from Harvey, a trident came flying and it shot straight through the head of the Death Strider. It fell to the ground unconscious immediately and the trident quickly soared back through the air and through the window which it had come from.

  ‘Hey!’ Ethan called, re-emerging from behind the street corner that he had disappeared behind while fleeing. ‘Come out here!’

  Harvey did not need to be told twice. He and Midnight awkwardly scurried down the stairs and onto the ruined street below. He nearly tripped on a small pile of charred rubble as he left the house, but he was fine.

  ‘It looks like this was a forceful takeover, huh?’ Jay said from atop his pegasus as he strode up next to Harvey.

  Harvey nodded. ‘Nobody’s in any of these houses.’

  ‘Probably dead,’ Jay replied in the most serious tone Harvey had ever heard him take on.

  ‘There’s a massive building round that corner!’ Ethan called, pointing to the corner of the road behind him. ‘Like a massive complex as well!’

  Harvey leapt onto Midnight, and they galloped to the end of the street without waiting for a command. They whizzed round the corner that Ethan had pointed to.

  He felt sick.

  If there was anywhere to hold Albert captive, this was the place. It was a giant building surrounded by a giant metal fence. Behind it, Harvey was certain he could see a smaller building, too.

  The larger building was completely pitch black, causing it to stick out like a sore thumb from the cloudless sky above. It appeared to be completely windowless, but Harvey had learned earlier that day to not take things at surface value.

  ‘Bèstia!’ General Woodward roared from behind. ‘Don’t go wandering…off…’

  The General, too, realised that they had struck gold.

  He quickly reached for his flare and fired it into the air. Harvey hoped that the other squads didn’t take their time.

  ‘Ready yourselves,’ General Woodward commanded as the rest of the squad joined the two of them. ‘This might be it. And if it’s not…taking down this thing will be a huge blow to-’

  Enveloped in flames, Ethan shot forward through the air from behind Harvey, slicing through an arrow that had been heading straight towards Harvey’s head. Harvey hadn’t seen it coming.

  ‘Fire Breathing, Third Form: Handled Fire,’ Ethan murmured to himself.

  A wave of arrows was heading straight towards the entire group, but Ethan’s blade suddenly lit up with flames and he twisted his body in ways that Harvey would not have thought possible to deflect each and every arrow that was in the air.

  ‘I’ve gotta learn that…’ Harvey breathed.

  ‘This is definitely it!’ the General roared as a new squad appeared from a street behind the complex. ‘Ready yourselves!’

  If Albert wasn’t in here, there had to have been something important. Harvey couldn’t even see who was shooting the arrows, but they were definitely coming from the building.

  Sir! Midnight roared, throwing Harvey off of his back.

  As Harvey tumbled through the air, he saw a swordsman plough a sword into the air above Midnight’s back. Right where he had been mere seconds before.

  Maybe this is why he had failed to kill Maltor. He wasn’t even aware of anything on the battlefield. How could someone like him hope to accomplish anything?

  ‘Get the fuck up!’ Jay roared, dragging Harvey to his feet. ‘We have someone to save!’

  Harvey groggily got to his feet and unsheathed his sword. First, he had to fix his attitude. The first step to great achievement was a great mindset. He would save Albert. And he would look cool doing it.

  ‘Straight through the gates!’ General Woodward bellowed, charging straight towards the fence with his sword raised. ‘Don’t look back!’

  Harvey gritted his teeth. ‘Hang in there, Albert…’