LITMIR.BIZ

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a frontal attack from here. The one of us that comes from the rear should be able to take them out before the one who attacks from here gets sliced up too much.’

      ‘As much as I don’t fancy the idea of getting “sliced up too much,” you have to go around the back–my feet are killing me.’

      ‘OK, take a quick look and you’ll see the gap in the back. I’ll be coming from there.’

      I was nervous until I stuck my nose over the ledge. They looked like a couple of teenage street urchins. They had black matted hair and wore tight dark green clothes stretched over bodies so skinny they would have made a supermodel look chunky. Between them was a campfire that had a dome of gold wire over it. The smoke rising from the fire seemed to disappear when it hit the wire. The two swords and Fergal’s pack were lying behind them on the ground. When the larger guy got up to tend the fire I saw that the smaller one had my shoes on the ground between his legs. He had removed the laces from one of them and then to my horror I realised he was about to cut the tongue out of the sneaker. That’s when I kind of forgot where I was. I stood up and yelled, ‘Hey!’ vaulted over the ledge and slid down to two very surprised Brownies.

      ‘What is the matter with you?’ I shouted.

      The little guy just froze. The bigger one grabbed the Sword of Duir and pointed it at me. What confused him was that I just ignored him. I walked over to the little guy and grabbed the shoe–I was mad.

      ‘What’s the matter with you? If you are going to steal my Nikes the least you could do is give them a little respect. What the hell are you cutting them for?’

      The bigger guy poked me in the back with my sword. I turned to him and said, ‘I’ll deal with you in a second.’ I looked around–Fergal was nowhere to be seen.

      I turned back to junior. ‘I’m talking to you. Why the hell were you cutting up my sneakers?’ He seemed too terrified to speak. I towered over him. ‘Well?’

      ‘My, my feet got sweaty in them,’ he stammered.

      ‘Oh, so after sweating in my shoes you decided to cut them up.’ I think I would have slapped him if the big guy hadn’t just then given me a good jab in the ribs that demanded my attention.

      ‘If you take one more step towards my brother,’ the bigger one said, ‘I’m going to run you through.’

      I turned. He had striking pale blue eyes that, unlike his brother, had no fear in them. He was holding my sword to my chest but I remained calm.

      ‘That is my sword,’ I pointed out, ‘and in about three seconds I’m going to take it back.’

      ‘And how are you going to do that?’ His voice betrayed a tiny loss of confidence.

      ‘I’m going to pick it off the ground after my friend Fergal clocks you in the head with a tree branch.’

      He went down like a house of cards. I quickly turned to little brother, who was still frozen like a rabbit in headlights. I picked up my sword and pointed to the soles of my feet.

      ‘Look at my tootsies! Do you see how dirty they are? I should make you lick them clean.’

      I took a step towards him and he started to shake. I instantly felt sorry for him–this kid was way out of his league. I crouched down.

      ‘Hey, little guy, relax, we’re not going to hurt you.’ I turned to Fergal. ‘We’re not going to hurt them–right?’

      ‘Well, I’m not going to hurt anybody,’ Fergal said as he began to tie up big brother, ‘but you seem a bit worked up about your footwear.’

      ‘Well, I like these shoes.’

      ‘I’ve noticed.’

      I turned back to the boy. ‘OK, it’s decided, no one is going to hurt you. What’s your name?’

      ‘My brother said I’m not supposed to tell you my name even if you torture me.’

      ‘Wow, you guys are a real bunch of desperados. Mind if I call you Jesse?’

      ‘I, I guess.’

      Fergal finished hogtying the brother and came over.

      ‘Fergal, meet Jesse.’

      Fergal leaned over the boy. ‘What kind of a name is Jesse?’

      I tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘I made it up but I think he likes it–just go with it.’

      ‘OK, hi, Jesse. What are you two doing so far from the Fearnlands?’

      ‘My brother said there would be easy pickings out here but we haven’t seen anybody for ages. I wanted to go home–only he made me keep going. He said Father would let him take his scrúdú early if we came back with quality acquisitions. I, I didn’t mean to hurt your shoes, honest. What are you going to do to us?’

      ‘ scrúdú?’

      ‘It’s the manhood test,’ he said, then the poor kid turned ghastly white. ‘Oh gods, I shouldn’t have told you that.’

      So that was it–a story as old as time, big brother with delusions of manhood, roped little bro into doing something incredibly stupid.

      I picked up a canteen from the ground, walked over to big bro and poured some water on his head. He spluttered awake and tried to get up. When he realised he was hogtied he looked at Fergal and me. His bravado from earlier had vanished.

      ‘Good morning, Frank,’ I said.

      ‘What is Frank?’ he said.

      ‘You are. Since your little brother over there has informed me that we won’t know your real names until after we torture you, I decided to call you Frank and him Jesse until then.’

      ‘My name is Demne and my brother is Codna.’

      I turned to Jesse/Codna, who now had his mouth wide open in amazement. ‘Well, Jesse, it looks like your brother isn’t much for torture.’

      I turned back to the big bro. ‘You know, Demne, I like Frank better. You don’t mind if I call you Frank, do you?’

      ‘No, sir.’

      ‘Good. OK, Frank, here’s what we are going to do. First, we are going to take our acquisitions back. You don’t have any problems with that, do you, Frank?’

      ‘No, sir.’

      ‘You know, I really am starting to like your attitude, Frank. Next I’m going to borrow your shoes and let you have the opportunity, like I had, to climb barefoot over those rocks.’ I crouched down and took Frank’s sandals off his feet, picked up Jesse’s from the ground and threw them over the stone ridge as far as I could. ‘We are going to leave you now, but before we do, you are going to promise me that the next time you have a harebrained idea, you are not going to drag your brother into it. Right?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘Good. Fergal, do you have anything to add?’

      Fergal had reattached his Banshee blade and was now examining the gold wire dome he had taken from its position over the fire. Smoke was now floating freely in the air. ‘Now that you mention it, Conor, I was thinking of taking this interesting thing as payment for our troubles.’

      Frank tried to stand when Fergal said this, and fell on his side. ‘Please don’t take our father’s smokescreen. He’ll kill us if we lose it.’

      I grabbed Frank by the arm and pulled him back up into a sitting position. ‘So let me guess, Dad doesn’t know you took it?’

      He shook his head–a pathetic no. I took the smokescreen from Fergal and placed it on Frank’s head like a skullcap.

      ‘Jesse, can I give you a little piece of information that will help you for the rest of your life?’

      Jesse just stared at me and then slowly

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