Freeglader (23 page)

Amberfuce turned to the open-mouthed quartermaster, a slyly knowing look on his face.
You have something to say, perhaps?
he asked, his sibilant voice hissing in Quillet's head.
No? Well then, let us make our way to my good friend Hemuel Spume's palace without delay.

As they made their way down the hill towards the glades below, the noise and smell and choking smoke grew more and more intense. Ahead of them, the trees thinned until they found themselves picking their way through a forest of tree-stumps. The air grew hot and sooty, and instead of tall forest trees, the glowing metal foundry chimneys towered over them, belching out smoke.

Amberfuce pulled his scarf up over his mouth. His breath was coming fast and wheezy. Flambusia fussed with him anxiously, reaching up every few steps to pop a cough-lozenge into his mouth.

They approached the first furnace they came to, and Quillet's beady eyes narrowed. A long line of workers snaked from the huge timber stacks on one side of the furnace to its open fiery mouth on the other. With heavy groans of exertion, they fed the flames with an endless supply of logs passed by hand down the line, while overseers patrolled, cracking heavy tilderleather whips. The sky pirates looked at one another.

‘Poor creatures,’ muttered Stegrewl, the long-haired goblin.

‘Oi! You, there!’ came a rough voice. ‘Stop right there!’

They turned to see a phalanx of burly flat-head goblin guards bearing down on them, a large, battle-scarred captain at their head.

Amberfuce tapped Flambusia on the shoulder, motioning her forward, but before he could speak, Quillet Pleeme had pushed past her and addressed the captain face to face.

‘Greetings!’ he said, bowing his head in salute. ‘We are sky pirates who have risked our lives to escort Chancellor Amberfuce of old Undertown safely to the Foundry Glades…’

The captain delivered a swift blow to the quartermaster's midriff that sent him tumbling to the ground, doubled up and gasping for breath. ‘Silence, scum!’ he roared, raising his sword.

My dear captain … er … Hegghuft, is it?
Amberfuce's honeyed tones sounded inside the guard's head.
I can tell you are a warrior of great distinction. One of my great friend Hemuel Spume's most trusted captains. He will be pleased when I tell him of your … er … diligence.

The waif pulled his scarf down to reveal a sickly, ingratiating smile.

The goblin stared back at him and slowly lowered his sword.

‘Now if you would be so kind as to take me to your master …’ Amberfuce said out loud, fighting to stifle the cough rising in his throat.

The captain nodded slowly, then turned to his guards. ‘Take their weapons,’ he ordered, indicating the sky pirates before turning back to the waif. ‘This way, Chancellor,’ he growled.

They made their way through the Foundry Glades, past furnaces bigger and more terrible than the first, barging through scurrying workers and their bullying guards, until at last ahead of them, the palace loomed into view. They hurried across the front courtyard, in through the gates and – still accompanied by the goblin guards – up a broad staircase to the third floor. In front of them, a huge metal-plated door swung slowly open and a stooped individual with steel-rimmed glasses and long side-whiskers appeared, flanked on either side by palace guards.

‘Amberfuce! Amberfuce!’ he cried, peering up at the ghostwaif slumped on Flambusia's back. Can it really be you? After all these years!’

‘Hemuel, my dear friend,’ said Amberfuce, looking down. He pursed his lips with irritation. ‘Get me down, Flambusia,’ he said. ‘Now!’

The nurse reached up, lifted her charge out of the sling on her back and plonked him down with just a touch more vigour than was absolutely necessary. ‘There,’ she said, smiling sweetly.

Amberfuce collected himself. ‘It's been far too long, Hemuel,’ he said, breathlessly.

‘Indeed,’ said Spume. ‘But I've made great progress here in the Foundry Glades while you've been holed up in Undertown.’ He smiled, revealing a row of jagged yellow teeth, and rubbed a forefinger and thumb together. ‘Your investments have done very well. We're expanding, Amberfuce, expanding beyond our wildest dreams. I've got the goblins just where I want them, and the Free Glades in my sights. And now you're here, Amberfuce, old friend, to share in this great venture.’

‘Wild prowlgrins couldn't have kept me away,’ said Amberfuce excitedly, his barbels quivering. ‘We must speak in private, right away.’ He tapped the box clutched to his chest. His voice dropped. ‘I think you'll find what I have here of interest.’

‘Oh, but of course,’ said Hemuel Spume. ‘Follow me.’

He turned away. Amberfuce followed, Flambusia stooping over him, mopping his sweaty brow with her handkerchief as she went.

‘What about us?’ said Quillet Pleeme, peevishly. ‘Aren't you forgetting something? You promised that
your friend here would make us Furnace Masters…’

Hemuel Spume stopped and spun round on his heel. ‘Furnace Masters?’ he said, a ghost of a smile playing on his thin lips. He looked at the ghostwaif, who smiled back at him. ‘Oh, Amberfuce, you naughty old thing! Sky pirates as Furnace Masters? Whatever next! You knew I'd never agree.’

Amberfuce nodded. ‘Yes,’ he whispered, ‘but
they
didn't know that.’

‘You said you'd have a word!’ Quillet Pleeme pleaded, his voice a thin whine. ‘A word, you said. A word …’

‘Oh, I have a word,’ said Amberfuce nastily. ‘Perhaps you recognize it?’

Quillet, Myzewell and the sky pirates stared back at the ghostwaif as the guards seized them by the arms.

‘Goodbye!’

Hemuel Spume smiled. ‘Some do very well here,’ he said, ‘if they work hard. Guards, take them away!’

As the cursing and moaning faded behind them, Hemuel Spume led Amberfuce and Flambusia to the back of the great hall. He paused by a small door, and waved Flambusia away.

‘If you'd be kind enough to leave us, my dear,’ he said.

‘But … But …’ cried Flambusia outraged. ‘His medicines! His embrocations! His…’

‘Flambusia
never
leaves my side,’ said Amberfuce, his barbels quivering with agitation.

Hemuel flashed the same thin-lipped, yellow-toothed smile as he turned the handle, pushed Amberfuce inside the ante-chamber and slammed the door in Flambusia
Flodfox's pink, indignant face. Locking it, he turned to Amberfuce.

‘First things first,’ he said. ‘You wanted to speak to me in private…’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Amberfuce. ‘But I didn't mean without Flambusia…’

Hemuel steered the ghostwaif over to a small table. ‘Forget the nurse for a moment,’ he said, ‘and show me what's in that box!’

Amberfuce laid the box down, pulled a key from around his neck and opened it. Inside, there were wads of folded paper. He pulled one out at random, opened it up and spread it out on the table. He cleared his throat.

‘As the right-hand waif to Vox Verlix, the most brilliant mind in old Undertown, I had access to his private chambers. When I sent word to you that I was coming, I promised I'd bring something special with me.’

‘Indeed you did. But just
how
special?’ said Hemuel Spume, his eyes glinting.

‘This,’ said Amberfuce with a little chuckle, ‘is one of Vox Verlix's blueprints. Everyone knows the Sanctaphrax Forest, the Tower of Night, the Great Mire Road…’ He shrugged. ‘Yet they were but a few of his ideas. He worked on others, too. Many others.’ He removed a second blueprint and spread it out over the first; then a third … ‘Catapults, log-launchers, flaming slings … His mind was never still. And this …’ He took a fourth blueprint from the box and spread it out carefully on top of the others. ‘This is the finest of the lot.’

‘So I can see,’ said Hemuel, his eyes glinting wildly as he pawed over the detailed design. ‘Wonderful! Wonderful!’ he breathed.

‘I knew you'd be pleased,’ said Amberfuce.

‘I couldn't be more pleased,’ said Hemuel. ‘And now, in return, I have a little surprise for you.’

‘A surprise?’ said Amberfuce, coughing with excitement. ‘What … sort of … sur …’ The coughing grew worse. ‘Oh, Flambusia!’ he gasped. ‘I need Flambusia!’

From behind them, there came a muffled hammering on the door and the sound of Flambusia's outraged voice, demanding to be let in.

‘You don't need her, believe me,’ said Spume with a smile, as he led the frail ghostwaif over to the far side of the ante-chamber, and opened a second door.

Amberfuce looked through into the room on the other side. His eyes widened, his cheeks coloured – and his cough magically melted away. ‘Hemuel,’ he gasped.
‘Have I died and gone to the Eternal Glen?’

The Foundry Master chuckled as he ushered the waif inside the room, where a score of gabtroll apothecaresses immediately surrounded him, each one bearing kneading-rods, birchwood-twigs, rough flannels and spicy, aromatic massage-oils.

‘I'm putting my own personal attendants at your disposal. Enjoy!’

‘Amby?’ Flambusia wailed bleakly.

The ghostwaif was gently laid out on a raised table.

‘Amby?’

But Amberfuce didn't reply. Doused in oils and ointments, unguents and salves; rubbed, kneaded and stroked, a radiant smile spread across his face. His eyelids fluttered for a moment, then closed.

‘AMBY!’

‘Not now, Flambusia,’ he purred happily, as he submitted to the wonderfully rough, firm hands. ‘Not now.’

ii The Goblin Nations

‘But why must the lop-ear clan always bear the heaviest burden?’ Meegmewl cried out indignantly.

The old grey goblin had heard some things in his life, but to demand a consignment of a thousand goblins a month was outrageous, even for Hemuel Spume. With the harvest not yet in, it would mean hunger in the clan's villages at the very least.

‘Because, old goblin, my flat-heads and hammerheads are warriors,’ said Lytugg fiercely. ‘They're willing to act as guards, but as for operating the foundries and furnaces…’

‘And that goes for my lot, too,’ snarled Rootrott Underbiter. ‘We tusked goblins are prepared to make sacrifices, don't get me wrong.’ He drained his tankard and slammed it heavily down on the table. ‘We're ready to fight, of course we are, but as for those accursed Foundry Glades, enough is enough!’

Hemtuft Battleaxe shifted forward in his chair, adjusted his feathered cloak and cleared his throat. ‘We need those “accursed Foundry Glades”, as you put it,’ he said, fixing the tusked clan chief with a cold stare. ‘I don't believe we have any choice in the matter.’ His eyes darkened. ‘Now, more than ever before, it is vital to keep them well supplied with labour.’ He looked round. ‘I take it we're all agreed on that, at least.’

The other clan chiefs nodded cautiously.

Sensing that his hastily convened closed-meeting was shifting in his direction at last, Hemtuft seized the advantage. He looked sternly at the clan chiefs, one after the other: Lytugg the hammerhead, her red eyes blazing; Rootrott Underbiter the tusked goblin, scowling; Grossmother Nectarsweet the symbite, her huge chins glistening with drops of woodale, and Meegmewl the Grey, shrunken and frail, yet defiant even now…

‘There are great plans afoot in the Foundry Glades,’ Hemtuft said. ‘Plans that will bring the clans untold wealth and prosperity in the future – if only we are

prepared to make a sacrifice now…’

As he spoke, a dumpy black-eared goblin matron went round the table, topping up the goblets. Knowing how challenging the meeting would be, Hemtuft had got in extra woodale specially. The five of them present were already on their second barrel.

‘What are these plans you speak of?’ Meegmewl asked. ‘Plans that demand so much of my clan brothers.’

Hemtuft Battleaxe looked grave. ‘You must trust me, Meegmewl the Grey,’ he said. He looked askance at the black-eared goblin matron retreating from the chamber. ‘There are Free Glade spies everywhere! We must be careful. All I can say is that Hemuel Spume is working on something big; something that will take a huge workforce to bring to fruition, but something that will guarantee us victory! He calls it “the glade-eater”.’

For a while, no one spoke. The only sounds were those of sipping and slurping, and the hammering down of pewter tankards on the ironwood tabletop. It was Rootrott Underbiter who first broke the silence.