Freeglader (22 page)

The next instant, the vortex enfolded them and Rook felt himself falling, no longer a bird, but a librarian knight once more, his arms flapping uselessly in the rushing air. Down, down he fell; down into inky darkness…

Flames flickered around him. Lamps gleamed. He was sitting at a long table, spiky, red-haired slaughterers jostling him from either side, and a huge brazier of burning leadwood in front of him. The table groaned with tilder sausages, hammelhorn steaks, latticed tarts and huge, dripping pies. Tankards of woodale were raised and toasts loudly proposed. The warm air was full of delicious smells and hearty laughter. A sky pirate was getting married to a pretty slaughterer lass, and this was their wedding feast.

Rook slapped the table delightedly and joined in the singing. The woodale was delicious and the brazier fire wonderfully warm, and Rook felt his head begin to swim…

The sounds of merry-making faded. It was quiet in the slaughterer village, the hammocks overhead bulging with sleeping bodies. On the other side of the clearing, Rook could see the sky pirate captain pacing outside one of the leadwood cabins.

All at once, the thick hammelhornskin which hung across the doorway was swept apart, and a slaughterer matron emerged, her shock of red hair damp and sticking to her forehead. In her arms, she held a small baby, which she handed gently to the waiting captain.

‘Your daughter, Captain,’ she said, smiling.

And as the sky pirate captain raised the child high up in the air, waves of joy flooded Rook's heart.

He wanted to shout and dance and jump in the air! But the village was so quiet, he was afraid he'd wake the sleepers overhead. He was about to get up to run over to the captain – but the trees abruptly faded and the light turned from the crisp blue of dawn to the golden glow of dusk…

Rook was back in the Free Glades, on the edge of New Undertown, the Lufwood Tower dark against the glowing sky. A young couple with a young'un beside them were seated at the front of a prowlgrin-drawn cart, their belongings at the back, secured beneath a bulging tarpaulin.

A sky pirate stood beside them; a tall, heavily-built individual with a thick beard and dark, doleful eyes. Clearly agitated, the pirate was waving his arms around, remonstrating with the young couple, trying to stop them from leaving the Free Glades and setting out on their journey. He seemed desperate.

‘It isn't safe,’ he kept saying. ‘The slavers are out.’

But they wouldn't listen. Instead, the young couple smiled indulgently, bounced the young'un on their knees and told him to ‘kiss goodbye to Great Uncle Tem'.

As they rode away into the sunset, the sky pirate stared after them, tears streaming down his face – a face Rook was sure he'd seen somewhere before.

The sun set and the moon rose, and Rook felt his stomach give a sickening lurch…

It was the old dream, the nightmare that had recurred all through his childhood from as long ago as he could remember. Now, it was back again – and with all its familiar horror.

First came the wolves – always the wolves. White-collared, bristling and baying, their terrible yellow eyes flashing in the dark forest.

His father was shouting for him to hide; his mother was screaming. Rook didn't know what to do. He was running this way, that way. Everywhere were flashing yellow eyes and the sharp, barked commands of the slave-takers.

Rook whimpered. He knew what came next, and it was worse – far worse.

He was alone in the dark woods. The howling of the
slavers' wolf-packs was receding into the distance. Alone in the vastness of the Deepwoods – and something was coming towards him. Something huge…

Suddenly Rook felt the panic and terror leave him, to be replaced by a feeling of peace. He was in the huge, soft, moss-scented arms of a great banderbear, who hugged him to herself and yodelled gently in his ear…

Rook opened his eyes, the warm, safe feeling of the banderbear's enfolding arms lingering. He was inside the caterbird cocoon, the soft woven fibres holding him as securely as the rescuing creature of his dreams.

Sitting up, he felt wonderful. His head was clear and, for the first time in weeks, he felt fully rested; charged with a strength and energy he could feel coursing through his body. As he crawled towards the opening in the cocoon and stuck his head out, the images were already fading away, like water slipping between his fingers. He struggled to make sense of them as he looked around.

An early morning mist hung over the grove as Rook climbed down the gnarled trunk of the lullabee tree. On the ground, he stretched luxuriantly.

‘I trust you slept well, Rook Barkwater,’ Grailsooth's voice sounded beside him.

‘Better,’ said Rook, smiling back at the oakelf, his eyes no longer glowing unnaturally blue, ‘than I have ever slept before!’

• CHAPTER TWELEVE •
PASSWORDS

i
The Foundry Glades

A
s the sun sank low in the sky, a ragged band of sky pirates struggled to the crest of yet another densely forested ridge. Their leader, a weasel-faced quartermaster in a torn and muddied greatcoat, unhooked a telescope from his belt and put it to his eye. In front of him, the endless Deepwoods stretched away to the golden, cloud-flecked horizon.

You might as well put your telescope away, Quillet Pleeme
, a quiet, sibilant voice sounded in the quartermaster's head.
It might have served you well in the Mire, but it is almost useless here in the Deepwoods.

The quartermaster turned, anger plain on his thin, sharp features. Beside him, gasping for breath, stood a huge matron – a cloddertrog – with a small, frail-looking ghost-waif strapped to her back. The waif's barbels quivered as he fixed the quartermaster with an unblinking stare.

‘If you have something to say, Amberfuce,’ said Quillet Pleeme, ‘then say it out loud, instead of sneaking into my head.’ Ever since he and his sky pirates had hooked up with the sickly waif and his huge nurse back in the throng of Undertowners in the Mire, the odious creature had been listening in to his thoughts.

‘Apologies,’ whispered Amberfuce meekly. ‘But I simply wanted to point out that sight is less important than the other senses here in the Deepwoods.’

The other sky pirates joined them on the ridge, sweating profusely and blowing hard from the long climb. There was a heavily tattooed flat-head goblin, three thin, ill-looking gnokgoblins, a long-haired goblin and a couple of mobgnomes, all of them wearing heavy sky pirate coats festooned with weapons, canteens and grappling-irons. Together they had formed the crew of the
Fogscythe
before they had deserted their captain – a cloddertrog in a muglumpskin coat – and followed Quillet Pleeme.

Amberfuce, the waif, had promised them all riches beyond their wildest dreams, for they – every last one of
them – were going to be Furnace Masters in the Foundry Glades. Amberfuce had promised them, and he would deliver on his promise because he knew someone; a very important someone.

That someone was Hemuel Spume, the head of the whole Foundry Glades. All they had to do, Amberfuce had explained, his eyes twinkling, was to escort him and his nurse to the Foundry Glades and then sit back and reap the rewards from a grateful Hemuel Spume.

How difficult could that be?

The sky pirates had soon found out. Sneaking away from the multitude of Undertowners as they trudged through the Mire had been easy. Even with Flambusia Flodfox, Amberfuce's nurse, carrying the ghostwaif on her back, complaining loudly and slowing them down, they'd made good progress. They were used to the Mire and mud-marching, and once they'd crossed back over the shattered Mire Road, they'd arrived at the southern Edgelands in less than a day.

The Edgelands had been unpleasant, and all of them were plagued with visions and nightmarish apparitions – especially the ghostwaif, before Flambusia had given him some of her special medicine. But again they'd made good progress, and the journey really did seem to be as straightforward as Amberfuce had said it would be. And then they had entered the Deepwoods.

They'd lost Brazerigg to a logworm almost at once, and the gnokgoblins had come down with pond-fever soon after, forcing them to pitch camp for a week. Now their provisions were running out, and the way ahead
lay over endless forest ridges which stretched off as far as the eye could see.

‘There must be an easier route,’ Myzewell the flat-head had moaned on the third day of hard climbing and bone-jolting descents.

The way to riches is never easy, my friend
, Amberfuce's sibilant whisper had sounded in his head.

Now, on the fourth day, here they all stood, tired and hungry, at the top of yet another ridge with the Foundry Glades still nowhere in sight.

‘Where now?’ Quillet Pleeme snarled, snapping his telescope shut.

The ghostwaif closed his eyes and sniffed the air, his huge, paper-thin ears quivering. ‘I can hear clinking and clanking,’ he whispered. ‘Grinding and hissing, hammering and howling. I smell molten metal and furnace smoke.’ He stretched out a long thin finger. ‘Over there, just beyond the next ridge, my friends…’ His hand trembled, and a harsh cough racked his tiny body.

‘That's what you said two days ago,’ snarled Myzewell the flat-head.

‘There, there, Amby, dear,’ fussed Flambusia, throwing a blanket over her shoulder. ‘You wrap up warm, and don't go getting into a bother.’

Quillet shrugged and turned to the other sky pirates. ‘We've come this far. What's another hill or two, between friends? Come on, you scurvy curs! Look lively!’

Cursing beneath their breath, the sky pirates began the long descent into the growing dusk. As Myzewell started after them, Quillet pulled him back and, glancing
up ahead at the figure of Flambusia disappearing down the slope, whispered in his ear.

‘I've had enough of this. I, for one, think the waif's lost. One more ridge. If we get to the top and we don't see furnace chimneys, then we cut our losses and return to the Mire.’

‘But what about the waif and his nurse?’ growled Myzewell.

‘We ditch them. We'll travel more quickly, and there'll be two less mouths to feed.’ The quartermaster drew a hand across his throat in a cutting motion. ‘Wait for me to give the word,’ he whispered. ‘And mind you keep your thoughts clear, or the waif'll suspect something.’

‘And the word?’ said Myzewell, giving a sharp-toothed grin.

‘“Goodbye”,’ said Quillet quietly.

Five, hard, scrambling, bone-jarring hours later, the sky pirates wearily approached the crest of the next ridge. The slope had been heavily forested, with sharp thickets of razorthorns amid dense stands of greyoaks and flametrees. Several times, as the thorns ripped their coats and the branches scratched their faces, Quillet and Myzewell exchanged dark looks. At last they reached the top, and Quillet's mouth dropped open.

It was the smell that hit them first. Thick, acrid and choking smoke, mixed with a sulphurous metallic stench. Then the low insistent roar of the furnaces and the sound of thousands of hammers on metal. Looking down, Quillet could see the glowing fires of the Foundry Glades twinkling through the drifting wreaths of smoke.