Sun Thief. Jamie Buxton

      The moon is down when the Quiet Gentleman wakes me. I feel alert, but not fully. The sky is very black and the stars are blurred behind a river mist. It’s cold, but I don’t feel it.

      The Quiet Gentleman’s plan worked perfectly. I let Jatty see the wineskin and, as soon as he did, he snatched it from me. I pretended to protest and he just smiled his weak man’s smile. I meant to stay up and see what happened, but I couldn’t. I was suddenly too tired to do anything but curl up next to Imi and sleep.

      ‘We’ve been moving all night and we’re close to Horizon City,’ the Quiet Gentleman whispers. ‘It’s worked out perfectly. We’ve dropped anchor in just the right place.’

      The boat is rocking gently, creaking on its ropes.

      ‘Feel that? A little river joins the Great River here. Makes for turbulence. The little river runs past the city of Taaud. Know who their god was?’

      I shake my head.

      ‘Sobek the crocodile. The priests honoured him by building his children a sacred lagoon. Biggest crocodiles I’ve ever seen. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. So many and so well fed you could walk across the lagoon on their backs. Can you guess what happened when the old gods were banned?’

      I shake my head.

      ‘The king’s soldiers broke the dam between the lagoon and the river and let the crocodiles out. A lot of them died, but a lot of them didn’t. This whole stretch of river is full of monsters. Very hungry monsters.’

      ‘I don’t want to know,’ I say.

      ‘You don’t need to know. All you have to do is keep watch, boy, while I do the deed.’

      ‘But . . .’

      ‘Remember what he was going to do to you and your sister.’

      Too many big thoughts to turn into words. They just rush around in a panic, going nowhere. I should do something. I can’t do anything. But is not doing anything really all right?

      Jatty’s a huddled shape lying against the side of the boat, close to us all in the bows. He’s snoring quietly.

      The Quiet Gentleman takes something out of his pocket and there’s the sound of string snapping. I tell myself that Jatty was going to kill us and this is our last chance to stop him and this is to protect Imi, it’s all to protect Imi, and only a coward would do nothing when there was a chance to stop it.

      It’s only when the Quiet Gentleman slips the thin string around Jatty’s neck that I look away and clamp my hands over my ears. Next thing I know, the Quiet Gentleman’s leaning over the side of the boat, dropping Jatty’s body into the water so gently he never makes a sound. Then he’s just a shape, floating, bobbing and swirling away as the current takes him.

      It’s not long before I hear a splash and see the flash of white in the river as the first crocodile finds him.

      Then another.

      And another.

      I turn and my heart nearly stops beating. Imi’s standing there. She’s looking at me with eyes so wide I can see the stars in them.

      ‘He’s gone,’ she says.

      ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Jatty’s gone.’

      ‘Where?’ she asks.

      ‘I think the old gods have found him,’ I say. ‘It’s all right. We’re arriving at the City soon. It’s going to be exciting, Imi. It’s going to be a new start.’

      I can see her mouth about to form another word, so I add: ‘He was going to do bad things to us, Imi. Now he can’t. Just remember that. Now we’ve got a chance of surviving.’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘In Horizon City.’

      Why do those words fill me with such dread?