The Dead by Charlie Higson

Author:Charlie Higson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780141965567
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Published: 2010-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

38

Matt and Archie had found their banner. An old Austrian military standard with a two-headed black eagle on a gold background. They were sitting round a table in the café adapting it. One of Jordan’s boys had directed them to a store cupboard full of paint and brushes and various tools. They’d found some sheeting as well and cut out pieces that they’d glued on to cover the bits they didn’t like. They would have preferred to sew the patches on but didn’t know how. The banner would look pretty scrappy but it would do for now. When they had more time and resources they’d make a new one.

Matt had done some sketches for the design they were painting on to the bits of sheet. It had taken him a while to get the picture right, but he’d finally drawn one he was happy with. The image was based on his vision. When you looked at it one way, it was a picture of two different boys, one behind the other. Looked at another way it appeared to be a boy and his shadow. The main figure, the boy at the front, was fair-haired and dressed in white. The second boy, his shadow, was dark-haired and wore dark clothing. He was less detailed and looked sort of half-formed. Matt wasn’t the greatest artist in the world, but there was something about his last drawing, a strange, haunting quality.

Transferring the image to the banner was like a school art project. Matt and Archie and their ten acolytes crowded round the banner, which was draped over the table, the edges dangling down. Matt had sketched in the outline with a big marker pen he’d found in a box in the museum shop and the others were filling in the shapes. They happily chatted away as they mixed the colours and daubed them on, utterly engrossed in their work.

‘Red for the eyes!’ said Phil, the youngest of the acolytes. ‘The Shadow Boy should have red eyes.’

‘It’s not a poster for a horror film,’ said Matt.

‘What colour then?’

‘Just leave them dark. And he’s not called the Shadow Boy. He’s the Goat. The shining one is the Lamb; the dark one is the Goat.’

‘Should he have horns?’

‘No. They’re not a real lamb and a real goat. Just paint him as I’ve drawn him.’

‘If we put on yellow rays it’ll look like the Lamb is glowing,’ said Harry, another of the acolytes.

‘All right. But do it carefully.’

‘What’s it going to say?’ Phil asked.

‘What do you mean, “say”?’

‘It has to have words on it.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Something in Latin,’ Harry suggested. ‘Like Death to the enemy.What would that be in Latin? Did anyone here do Latin?’

‘I did,’ said Archie. ‘I think Death to the enemy would be something like nex ut hostes hostium, or mors ut hostes hostium, something like that. I’m not really sure.’

‘We can’t put something on we’re not sure of,’ said Harry.

‘We should put the name of our Lord on it,’ said Matt. ‘The name of the Lamb.

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