Freeglader (15 page)

It was quiet, empty and hushed like the moment of tranquillity at the end of a storm, or that instance of stillness just before dawn. The air was motionless. Nothing stirred…

The next moment everything changed, as a single shryke exploded from the vegetation, the sunlight in the clearing flashing down on her tawny feathers and glinting on her bone-flail. Then another. And another. Then thousands as, like a great wall of fire driven on by hurricane winds, the vast shryke battle-flock sped past on powerful legs.

Some were brown, some were grey, some were a drab mixture of the two; some were striped, some were spotted, some mottled, some flecked; some had neck-ruffs, some had crests. All of them had razor-sharp beaks and rapier claws – and, as if these were not enough to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies, the shrykes also carried fearsome weapons: lances, maces, pikes and flails, curved scythes, serrated swords…

‘Kaaar-kaaar! Kut-kut-kut!’ a piercing call sounded from the treetops as a shryke-sister with red and purple plumage appeared, leaping from branch to branch on the back of a prowlgrin.

‘Keer-keer-keer!’ Her call was answered by her sisters in the treetops all round.

Like a swarm of snickets, the battle-flock veered off in answer to the treetop calls, never easing up for a moment as they thundered on through the forest. High above, clinging on tightly to the prowlgrin-reins, the noble Shryke Sisterhood – several hundred strong, with gaudy plumage and flamboyant battledress – guided the battle-flock towards their distant goal.

At their head, resplendent in tooled gold armour, the young roost-mother – Mother Muleclaw III – threw back her fearsome head and gave a piercing shriek.

‘Kut-kut-kut-kaaaar!’

Red and yellow, purple and blue, her luxuriant plumage gleamed in the early morning sun, her neck-ruff and tail-feathers flapping as the grey prowlgrin she sat astride leaped on through the forest. Below her, the battle-flock increased its pace.

Some way behind her, also on prowlgrinback, Sister Drab, Matron Featherhorn and the shryke elders trotted across the clearing, pulling a large group of tethered shryke-mates behind them.

‘It's good to be on the move again,’ squawked Matron Featherhorn.

‘Indeed, sister,’ agreed Sister Drab, giving a vicious tug on the leashes in her clawed hand. ‘See how the Deepwoods tremble before us! Nothing can stand in the way of a battle-flock with its blood up!’

‘The little darlings!’ clucked Matron Featherhorn. ‘Hard to believe they were hatchlings such a short while ago. Oh, and look at Mother Muleclaw!’ She cooed with pride.

Sister Drab nodded. ‘A natural roost-mother,’ she said. ‘I knew it the moment she hatched. Why, she'd killed and eaten the others in her clutch before her shell was even cold. Magnificent!’

‘I can't wait to see her in battle,’ said Matron Featherhorn.

‘Patience, sister,’ replied Sister Drab. ‘We shall be there soon enough and, if the librarian knight spoke correctly, the Undertowners will be at our mercy!’ She closed her eyes and smiled with pleasure.

Oh, how that captured librarian knight had screamed and shouted and begged for death, writhing beneath her probing talons as she'd extracted every last bit of information. Then, when she'd got everything she wanted, how the hapless creature had turned tack, begging for mercy instead.

And she
had
been merciful, she remembered. Rather than linger over the flayed, tortured body longer than she'd needed, she had torn out the heart with a single stab of her beak and swallowed it while it was still beating. Delicious! The librarian had lived just long enough to see it.

Sister Drab looked up ahead as she cantered on and, as the forest thinned for a moment, she glimpsed the unmistakable shape of the mighty Ironwood Stands, rising up out of the forest canopy and silhouetted – dark and imposing – against the pinky-yellow sky in the distance.

‘Not far now,’ Sister Drab clucked contentedly. ‘Not far. I can almost taste the blood on my tongue!’

Preparations had been made and now an eerie silence hung in the air. High up at the very top of the tallest ironwood pine, Felix Lodd and Deadbolt Vulpoon were deep in conversation.

‘Do you think it'll work?’ said Felix.

‘It's
got
to work,’ said Deadbolt, ‘or we're dead meat, the lot of us, and that's a fact!’

‘Dead, or slaves,’ said Felix bitterly.

‘Oh, if the shrykes triumph, there'll be very few slaves, believe me,’ said Deadbolt, ruefully stroking his beard.

Felix raised an eyebrow.

‘It's a young battle-flock, according to your Professor of Light,’ the sky pirate said.

‘He's not
my
Professor of Light,’ said Felix.

‘Maybe not, lad,’ he said, ‘but that doesn't alter the
fact that these shrykes are newly hatched. They're ill-disciplined and inexperienced. Once they go into battle, they'll get the blood frenzy, and the only way to stop them will be to kill them. You mark my words.’

Deadbolt raised his telescope and looked back across the Deepwoods for any trace of the approaching shryke battalions.

‘See anything?’ Felix asked.

The sky pirate captain shook his head and snapped his telescope shut. ‘Not yet,’ he said darkly, ‘but they're on their way.’ His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils twitched. ‘I can
smell
the scurvy creatures…’

Far below, on the forest floor, Xanth felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and turned to see a cloddertrog sky pirate looming over him. The pirate wore a
muglumpskin coat and carried a heavy poleaxe.

‘Librarian, is it?’ he asked, scrutinizing Xanth. ‘You lot are with the Undertowners at the lufwood mount. The shrykes are on their way – or hadn't you heard?’ he added sarcastically.

‘I was looking for my friend, Rook Barkwater …’ said Xanth, nodding towards the empty banderbear nests in front of them. ‘But he seems to have left.’

‘Rook Barkwater?’ said the cloddertrog. ‘Isn't he that librarian knight who got caught in the sepia storm?’

‘Yes,’ said Xanth. ‘The banderbears were tending to him in this nest…’

‘If he's with banderbears then he'll be safe enough,’ said the cloddertrog. ‘It's yourself you ought to be worried about, out here in the open with a shryke battle-flock due at any moment. You should be with your librarian friends.’

Xanth shook his head sadly. ‘The librarians aren't my friends,’ he said. ‘In fact, I don't seem to
have
any friends.’ With a sigh, he slumped down on the forest floor.

‘Well, you can't sit round here feeling sorry for yourself,’ said the cloddertrog. ‘Here, you can join me if you like,’ he added, and held out a massive hand. ‘Henkel's the name. Captain Henkel of the
Fogscythe
– currently without a crew, on account of them having run off to seek their fortunes in the Foundry Glades with a scurvy cur by the name of Quillet Pleeme.
Pah!
But that's another story … Come on, if you're coming.’

Xanth smiled, and was about to reach up and take
Henkel's hand, when he noticed an oil-cloth bundle resting against the moss-covered side of the abandoned nest. He reached over and picked it up.

‘What have you got there?’ asked Henkel, peering down as Xanth carefully unwrapped the package.

‘It's … it's a sword,’ said Xanth.

‘And a mighty fine one at that. Can't leave it lying around here,’ said Henkel, as Xanth got to his feet. ‘Best hold on to it for now, lad. You can look for its owner later. Anyway, if you stick with me, you'll have need of it …’ he stuck out his massive hand again ‘… friend.’

This time Xanth clasped it and shook it warmly. ‘Friend!’ he replied.

‘Keer-keer-kaaaaarrr!’ screamed Mother Muleclaw, spurring her prowlgrin on through the branches.

Below her, the shryke battle-flock surged forwards, shrieking and screeching in reply. Ahead of them stood the Ironwood Stands, their branches heavy with the hunched figures of Undertowners huddled round burning stoves. It was almost too good to be true. They were at her mercy, and she, Muleclaw – beautiful, strong, hungry Muleclaw – would show them none!

Foam flecked her long, curved black beak. She opened
it, threw back her head and spat a trailing arc of bile high into the air. Her bright yellow eyes flashed, their dark pupils fully dilated. A mist was descending in front of them; a red mist.

She must taste blood! She must taste it now, and gorge! And gorge! And gorge…

From below her, a volley of flaming arrows flew up from the bows of the jostling flock and into the tops of the massive ironwood pines. One by one, the resinous tips of the huge trees caught fire and blazed like gigantic torches. Below, on the branches, the Undertowners remained motionless, as if rooted to the spot, their hanging-stoves twinkling in the fading afternoon light.

With a grunt, the roost-mother's prowlgrin launched itself from the topmost bough of a copperwood and onto the end of one of the massive branches of an ironwood pine. She was followed by her roost-sisters, shrieking with savage glee.

‘Kut-kut-kut-kaaaaar!’

‘Keer-keer!’

‘Kut-kut-kut-kaaaaarrr!’

Below, the main body of the battle-flock flowed round the massive trunks of the Ironwood Stands in a screeching feathered flood. Thousands of piercing yellow eyes turned upwards in eager anticipation.

They didn't have long to wait. Mother Muleclaw and the shryke-sisters were spreading out through the branches, slashing and swiping with their claws and bone-flails from astride their leaping prowlgrins. The bodies of the Undertowners fell like ripe fruit,
down into the seething mass below.

‘Kaaar! Kaaaar! K-k-k… Ki? Ki? Ki-i-i-i-i!’

The expectant shrieks of the battle-flock changed abruptly to indignant, high-pitched whistles. What was this? Not flesh and blood, entrails and guts, but … Wood … Cloth … Bundles of moss and sacking!

The shrykes tore at the stuffed effigies in frustration. Mother Muleclaw pulled up her prowlgrin with a vicious tug on its reins and seized a figure slumped beside a hanging-stove.

‘Kiii-kiii-i-ai-ai!’ she screamed as she recognized it for what it was; a stuffed dummy in a woollen shawl, its hastily carved wooden head grinning back at her mockingly.

Suddenly, on the branch above, a shryke-sister gave a strangled scream and plunged past Muleclaw, her throat skewered by a crossbow bolt. The roost-mother's eyes swivelled round. They were under attack!

‘KAAAAAR!’ shrieked Mother Muleclaw in a frenzy of rage and frustration as, the next moment, the sky around the Ironwood Stands filled with librarian skycraft.

They swooped in close, firing blazing arrows and heavy bolts, before swerving away. The shryke-sisters were easy targets and fell in twos and threes, then fours and fives, and then dozens, as the skycraft swarmed about the ironwoods like angry woodhornets. Down on the forest floor, the battle-flock erupted into a frenzy as the bodies rained down and they began gorging themselves on their fallen sisters.

And still the librarian knights swooped in, loading, firing and reloading, until not a single prowlgrin-mounted shryke-sister remained in the blazing Ironwood Stands.