Read Online Wild Boy and the Black Terror by Rob Lloyd Jones - Free Book Online Page B

and then shaking his whole body.
    “Oi! Oi, wake up. What did you say about Marcus? What danger?”
    “Hey. Hey, you!”
    A Black Hat marched from the drawing room. He saw Wild Boy crouched over Lucien, saw the blood in the snow. His face creased in horror. “Alarm!” he hollered. “Sound the alarm!”
    Wild Boy turned to flee back into the library, but he knew he’d be trapped. Instead, he dived over the cloister wall and into the brambles that filled the courtyard garden. Thorns tore at his hair and scratched his face as he wriggled through the thicket. He heard a bell clang inside the palace – the Gentlemen’s alarm. The cloister filled with bobbing lights, frightened questions and frantic commands.
    “What happened?”
    “It’s Wild Boy. He attacked Lucien.”
    “He’s still here somewhere, in the brambles.”
    “Surround the garden. Find him.”
    The Gentlemen were too wary of the thorns to come after him. Instead, they grabbed antique lances from the drawing room wall, and guarded the garden on all sides. They began to jab the weapons into the thick bushes.
    “Give up, boy!” one of the men called. “You can’t stay in there forever.”
    Snow sprinkled from the brambles, soaking the hair on Wild Boy’s face. His heart was going berserk with fear; for himself, and for Marcus. He’d seen Lucien’s eyes, heard the urgency in his voice. Marcus
was
in trouble, which meant Clarissa might be too.
    He had to get to them. Somehow he
had
to.
    Tearing his coat from the thorns, he crawled to the edge of the brambles. He was yards from the drawing room door, but one of the Gentlemen stalked closer. The man rammed his spear into the brambles. The blade shot past Wild Boy’s face, so close it sliced the hair on his cheek and dug into the ground.
    The Gentleman yanked the weapon from the bush. “Anyone see him?” he said. “He’s here somewhere.”
    Wild Boy burst from the brambles. He barged into the man, knocking him over, and charged for the door.
    “There!” one of the other men cried. “He’s there.”
    Wild Boy darted back into the palace, through the Drawing Room and along a hallway. Several Gentlemen charged towards him, rushing to investigate the alarm. Wild Boy screamed at them, waving his arms.
    “Outside! A monster! It’s eating your pals.”
    The men ran faster, right past him. Wild Boy kept going, past the Tapestry Room and down corridors, until he reached the Guard Chamber that led to the entrance courtyard and out of the palace.
    He had to get to Marcus and Clarissa.
    Through a window, he saw Dr Carew laying Prendergast’s corpse in a cart and covering it with a tarpaulin. Wild Boy turned, considering the antique rifles and flintlock pistols hanging in diamond patterns on the Guard Chamber wall.
    He made a decision.

9
    “ W e have spoken before about controlling your emotions.”
    Marcus’s fingers locked tighter over the top of his cane. The carriage jolted as it rode over cracks in the road, but somehow the Gentleman remained still, not one silver hair slipping out of place. “You must learn to think less with your fists and more with your head.”
    “Can’t think with nothing at the moment,” Clarissa replied. She curled up more tightly on the seat, exaggerating a shiver. “Brain’s frozen solid.”
    Marcus laid his coat over her, and she sank beneath its thick fur trim.
    “Anyway,” she said. “All that stuff at the palace was Wild Boy’s fault.”
    She bit her lip, fighting a smile. Although she had lived on the same fairground as Wild Boy for three years, she’d only really known him for four months. Even so, she’d never felt closer to anyone else. It was a strange relationship. She would stand beside Wild Boy in any fight – through anything – and yet they delighted in landing each other in trouble. She would never snitch on him for something he’d actually
done
, but she was quite happy to make up stories about things he hadn’t.
    “It was all Wild Boy,”