ed sat on the deck of the Gabriella, watching the world go by beneath him. Despite the gravity of their mission, it was always exciting to be flying through the sky in Benissimo and the Circus of Marvels’ great flagship. This high up it was hard to imagine the troubles of the world below – or the battle to come.
They had been flying all day and the sun was now low in the sky. It was bitterly cold and they sped across the Siberian countryside, cresting the forest, with great looming trees ahead and behind them. Their staging ground was to be one of the taiga’s largest natural clearings and the closest spot they could land on next to the fortress.
Flying with them were some of the Circus of Marvels’ most loyal and bravest troops. Scraggs the cook had come with his gnomes, and Monsieur Couteau had accompanied Grandpa Tortellini along with his rabble of grandsons. Rocky and Abi the Beard were cooped up in their own cabin, enjoying what might be a last supper and going through their preferred list of weapons. Even the Glimmerman had gone with them, though what the portly gentleman would do in the coming fight was anyone’s guess.
On a normal voyage and on a normal mission, there would have been excitement, a rousing speech from their Ringmaster to muster what was left of the troupe, but Benissimo had barely spoken a word in days and neither had Mr Fox. Their call to arms had been answered by no more than a few aged fighters still loyal to Benissimo. The Hidden, battered and bruised as they were, limped across the sky in a flotilla of airships. Not a man or woman aboard the Gabriella really believed they would or could win the fight, but they had climbed aboard nonetheless. That was the way with Benissimo’s troupe, and that was the way with the Armstrongs.
“They still might come,” said Ned, as his parents came out to join him on the deck. But he didn’t say it with much hope.
Ned’s mum put an arm round her son. She had barely smiled once since Oak Tree Lane, and the certainty of what lay ahead was weighing down on them all.
“The Hidden are hiding, like always.”
“Livvy, we used to hide ourselves, remember?” sighed Terry. “Don’t judge them too harshly.”
Ned’s mum winced at the memory of it, but then managed a smile for her son.
“Well, we’re not hiding any more, are we, boys?”
Ned felt in his pocket for the Tinker’s perometer. It had been vibrating solidly since they’d left the Nest. He pulled at its clasp and opened it. Its single needle was pointing in perfect alignment with the Gabriella’s course, as it had been since Dover.
“Useful thing, Tinks’s perometer,” said Ned. “Did you know the name comes from ‘periculum’, which is Latin for ‘danger’?”
“Yes, darling,” said his mum distractedly.
“When George gave it to me, he said that if it pointed solidly I was to go the other way. There is no other way now, is there?”
His parents didn’t answer, because they didn’t need to. There would be no hiding from the Darkening King for any of them.
Ned closed the clasp again and was putting the device away, when there was a mighty boom from one of the Gabriella’s cannons. A second later and her engines slowed dramatically, as the great flagship prepared to come in for landing.
Just then, George came bounding up to them from the Gabriella’s bow.
“George, what is it?” yelped Ned.
Lucy’s beaming face appeared a moment after. “Come and see – quickly, come on!” she screeched.
Breathlessly, Ned and his parents followed them round to the front of the ship as the Gabriella came in to land. They touched down at a vast and rocky clearing, the taiga’s limitless dark trees stretching for miles in all directions.
But they were not alone.
A very confused Ned stepped out on to the airship’s walkway to the single most glorious gathering of the Hidden he had ever seen.
“Just look at them all!” said George, with a ridiculous, beaming grin that ran from ear to ear.
Ned watched in awe as the sun started to set over the forest. They had come in their tens of thousands. Giants, gnomes, dryads and dwarves. Witches from the far north, with their flowing black locks, stood deep in conversation with a group of elderly Farseers. There were feathered swan-men from Eastern Europe and hundreds of trolls from Norway, Russia and beyond. Each of the burly trolls was more ugly than the next, and Ned spotted Rocky rushing towards them, half laughing and half fighting with one of his reunited cousins.
Ned’s parents and George were immediately swamped by Mr Fox and the BBB’s higher-ups, who were desperately trying to make sense of it all, while Ned and Lucy, brimming with excitement, walked into the bustling crowds.
They came across a great contingent of blue-skinned Apsaras water nymphs. Ned had never seen one before and marvelled at their blue-green skin and peacock-feathered hair. So far from the ocean, they had to constantly douse themselves in salt water and with them, along with their sea spray, they had brought the Jala-Turga from India – powerful, jaguar-like men and seasoned fighters to the last. As Ned stared, he saw countless others that he had no name for. Some were slender and covered in a layer of unmelting frost; others looked as though they were made of glass, their bodies almost completely transparent. There were at least a hundred Kirin. The rare creatures had the bodies of tigers though they were covered in tiny pearlescent scales with small, dragon-like faces and antlers at the tops of their heads. Further along there was an almighty scream as a series of quickly erected tents was crushed by an unwitting colossus.
“Arooora!”
Ned looked up to see, towering above them all, not one but six colossi – great monolithic creatures that dwarfed even giants with their size, their heads barely visible silhouettes against the sky. And that’s when Ned noticed – the sky itself was full to bursting with every imaginable form of transport. Airships in their hundreds were flying in and out, either dropping off allies for the fight, or going back to their homelands for more. Ned could see the Viceroy’s owls and their experienced riders marshalling them all amidst a soaring blur of wild griffins, a herd of flying Pegasus and a pair of giant eagles that were even larger than the owls. It was only when he heard the unmistakable cry that he was able to pick out an old friend.
“Aark!”
High above them, Finn’s two-headed hawk was surveying the forest.
“Lucy, look! Finn must be up there somewhere.”
There were heavy freighters with vast balloons, sleeker single-masted sloops with powerful propellers and other steel-plated airships that bristled with harpoons and cannon. No two from region to region were the same other than their obvious intent – they had all come to stand with Benissimo’s alliance and face Barbarossa and his Darkening King.
“Isn’t it brilliant, Ned? Just look at them – the great un-Hidden! Abigail reckons this is the biggest gathering they’ve ever had!”
Ned’s skin tightened when he saw an entire platoon of heavily armed tin-skins. The last time he’d seen one had been on Atticus Fife’s command, and he’d barely escaped with his life.
Ned and Lucy circled round and headed back for the Gabriella. The air was heavy with woodsmoke and the constant barking of orders as the Hidden’s army, in all its splendour, set up camp. Amidst the chaos and wonder, Ned saw Benissimo. The Ringmaster was deep in conversation with Mr Fox by a red and white striped tent.
Ned looked at the Ringmaster, more than ever the anchor in their storm, and for maybe the first time since stepping into Mavis’s Ye Olde Tea Shoppe, Ned felt hope.
But like all things behind the Veil, it was not to last for long.