Freeglader (3 page)

Felix smiled. ‘Spoken like a true sky pirate,’ he said impudently.

Deadbolt Vulpoon felt himself redden with sudden anger. ‘What's left for you here?’ the youth continued. ‘Without Undertown and the Mire Road trade, you'll rot away here like these precious ships of yours. Join us, and you can build a new life in the Free Glades…’

‘And what's to stop us simply raiding you?’ Vulpoon interrupted gruffly.

‘Try that,’ said Felix hotly, ‘and the Ghosts of Screetown will cut you down, and the mire mud will run thick with treacherous sky pirate blood.’

‘You march in here, insulting sky pirates and our sky ships,’ said Vulpoon, his eyes blazing and fists clenching. ‘
And you expect us to help you!
’

The librarian stepped forward and lowered his hood for the first time. The others fell still and looked at him.

‘Once, Deadbolt Vulpoon,
you
needed help,’ he said, his voice low, the words quick. ‘You were locked up in one of the roadside shryke cages. I gave you food to eat
and water to drink. Do you not remember? You
said
you would never forget,’ he added softly.

The sky pirate captain looked stunned for a moment before breaking into a huge grin that made his face wrinkle up and his eyes disappear.

‘You!’ he boomed, striding across the cabin. ‘That was
you
!’ Roaring with laughter, he clapped Rook on the back warmly. ‘Barkwater, isn't it?’

‘Yes, sir. Rook Barkwater,’ he said. ‘And now it is my turn to ask for help from you.’

‘Rook Barkwater,’ Vulpoon repeated, shaking his head in amazement. ‘Of all people!’ He turned to the other sky pirates. ‘This lad saved my life,’ he said. ‘I cannot refuse him what he asks. We shall help the Undertowners.’

‘He didn't save
my
life,’ snorted the thin quartermaster.

Deadbolt's face darkened. He reached out and grasped the quartermaster by the collar with a huge hand, and twisted. ‘You were ready enough to quit the Armada before,’ he roared. ‘This way, you get to enjoy the Free Glades rather than the filth of the Foundry Glades. Say “no”, and I'll snap your scrawny neck, Quillet Pleeme, by Sky I will!’

‘There'll be no need for that, will there, Quillet?’ said the cloddertrog in the bleached muglumpskin coat, loosening Deadbolt's grip.

The quartermaster shook his head weakly.

‘The ghost is right,’ the cloddertrog said. ‘The Armada is finished. There's nothing for us here. We're with you, Captain.’

‘To the Free Glades!’ roared Deadbolt, releasing the quartermaster and clapping Rook on the shoulder once more.

Rook smiled. ‘To the Free Glades!’ he replied.

• CHAPTER TWO •
EXODUS

B
y Sky, lad,’ gasped Deadbolt Vulpoon, pausing at the top of the mud dune to catch his breath, ‘that's a dark maelstrom all right. The darkest, blackest, most accursed I've ever seen, and no mistake.’

Rook scrambled up beside him, the claggy white mud pulling at his mud-shoes and mire-poles like hungry oozefish. ‘And it seems …’ he panted, ‘to be spreading.’

Deadbolt hawked and spat with disgust. ‘This is what you get when you tamper with nature,’ he growled. ‘Cursed, meddlesome academics! They can't leave anything alone!’

In front of them, a thick, dense line of low mesanumbic cloud – flat at the top and with great billowing forms beneath – was advancing from the direction of Undertown and steadily engulfing the Great Mire Road, like a huge logworm swallowing its prey.

Felix appeared at Rook's shoulder, his pale face stained purple by the lufwood light of the brazier he was carrying. ‘We can rest later,’ he said tersely. ‘Time is
running out.’ He shook his head. ‘I only hope they'll have the sense to get off the Mire Road before the storm catches them.’

There were purple braziers all around them now as the sky pirates of the Armada breasted the ridge and gazed down at the white plains below. Far ahead, the Great Mire Road loomed out of the boiling cloudbank and wound its way across the wilderness on spindly legs like a half-swallowed thousandfoot.

‘Allowing for heavy carts and young'uns,’ said Deadbolt Vulpoon, scanning the horizon, ‘these Undertowners of yours should be approaching the Twilight Woods tally-huts, give or take a span or two. That's half a day's hard mud-marching from here. Judging by the speed of that storm we should reach them just before it does!’

‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ said Felix, clapping Deadbolt on the back and smiling for what, to Rook, seemed the first time in days. ‘I'll take a mud-march over a stroll in Screetown any time.’

Deadbolt's eyes twinkled. ‘We'll see, my lad,’ he chuckled, ‘we'll see.’ He turned to the sky pirates. ‘Armada, advance!’ he bellowed, his voice booming across the tops of the dunes. ‘And look lively about it!’

Each crew raised its brazier-cage in assent, and the great mass of sky pirates slipped and slithered down the far side of the dunes and strode out across the sucking mud towards the imperilled Mire Road.

Rook would never forget that march across the vast Mire plain. Each crew tramped on in single file, following

the brazier-carrier at its head, chanting in unison, a dirge-like marching song.

‘One 'n two 'n three 'n four; mud in the eye to old Muleclaw!’

The slap of mud-shoes on mire mud beat out the rhythm.

‘Five 'n six 'n seven 'n eight; chase her back to the Mire Gate!’

Before long, Rook found himself joining in, his eyes fixed on Deadbolt's brazier-cage in front of him. Soon his breathing was harsh and heavy, and sweat was running down his face. But the steady beat of the mud-shoes and unwavering rhythmic chant drove him on.

He was dimly aware of the cawing of white ravens swirling in angry flocks overhead, and occasionally the shuddering thud of a nearby blow-hole exploding, sending a tall, glistening column high into the air and spattering the entire party in hot, clinging mud. After the third such shower, Rook, like the sky pirates in front of him, didn't even flinch, but trudged mechanically on. The mud clung to his boots, weighing them down and making every step he took more difficult than the one before. Up ahead, he heard Deadbolt's booming commands.

‘Bear west, you mudlubbers! Close up the line,
Windjammer
! Hold steady,
Fogscythe
!’

As he closed his eyes and willed himself on, Rook began to imagine that he was part of a real armada, up there in the wide open sky, high above the cloying mire mud, and that Deadbolt Vulpoon was back on the
quarterdeck of his sky ship, marshalling his sky pirate fleet.

It wasn't long though before this daydream was drowned out by the sound of his own rasping breath and the blood hammering in his temples. His legs felt like hull weights, his head seemed lighter than air and, as he stared ahead, Deadbolt's brazier light swam before his eyes as if under water. On and on they marched, the pace never flagging.

‘One 'n two 'n three 'n four; Tytugg's goblins at the door…’

Rook stumbled and felt the rope secured round his middle jerk him upright.

‘Five 'n six 'n seven 'n eight; leave that hammerhead to his fate…’

Rook stumbled again, this time falling to the ground and sprawling in the soft mud.

‘
Halt!
' came Deadbolt's command. ‘Loose the ropes!’

Rook felt hands untying the rope. He tried to get to his feet. How long had they been marching? Hours? Days?

‘I'm … sorry …’ he gasped. ‘I … can't…’

‘Sorry, lad?’ Deadbolt's voice boomed at his ear. ‘There's no need to be sorry. Look.’ Rook raised his head and wiped the caked mud from his eyes.

There, in front of them, towering above the mire mists, was the Great Mire Road, beyond it the jagged treeline of the Twilight Woods. Gathered at the balustrades above the sky pirates, the Mire Road teemed with a vast multitude of Undertowners, cheering and brandishing flaming torches.

It was getting dark – and not only because night was approaching, Rook realized with a jolt. The vast billowing form of the dark maelstrom was on the far horizon to the east, and looming ever closer.

The Undertowners must have noticed it too, for as Rook gazed back, too exhausted to move, he saw them climbing over the balustrades and clambering down the ironwood-pine struts of the Mire Road onto the mud below. All around, the bustle of feverish activity became more desperate, and the air grew thick with urgent cries and screeched demands. He scanned the balustrades for any sign of his friends, the banderbears, but it was impossible to pick them out in the milling throng.

The librarians were busy manhandling great crates, stuffed with barkscrolls and treatises, off the precarious walkway and down onto the mud below. The Undertowners, too, were hurriedly evacuating the Mire Road, with those still up on the wooden structure lowering bundles of belongings and livestock and cradles bearing mewling young'uns carefully down into the upstretched arms of those far below. And all the while, the Ghosts of Screetown – distinctive in their white muglumpskins and bone-armour – hurried between them all, marshalling, corralling, shouting commands and offering help wherever it was needed.

Groups of lugtrolls and woodtrolls were working together on makeshift shelters and tents. A band of clod-dertrogs were securing their bundles of belongings to long stakes, driven into the mire mud, whilst beside them, librarian knights expertly tethered their bobbing
skycraft to heavy mooring-poles. Directly ahead, a large family of gnokgoblins was helping one another down from the road, their meagre possessions strapped to their backs.

Rook felt a hand under his arm lifting him to his feet, and found himself looking into Felix's smiling face.

‘Not bad mud-marching for a librarian!’ he laughed, though from the way he looked – mud-spattered and red-faced – Felix was just as exhausted as Rook himself. ‘Looks like we got here just in time,’ he added, pointing to the storm that was coming closer with each passing minute. ‘But if they don't get down off the road in double-quick time, we might as well not have bothered.’

‘So those are your Ghosts of Screetown,’ said Deadbolt, standing hands
on hips and whistling through his teeth. ‘Mighty fine bunch, and that's the truth. Handy with those ropes as well.’

‘They could do with some help,’ said Felix, turning to the sky pirate captain, ‘if your crews are up for it after our little stroll.’

‘By Sky, you're an impudent young pup!’ laughed Deadbolt, and flourished his brazier-cage. ‘Armada!’ he barked. ‘To the Mire Road! Let's get this rabble out into the Mire and hunkered down. There's a storm abrewing, or hadn't you mudlubbers noticed?’

The sky pirates instantly sprang forwards and began clambering up the struts of the Mire Road, slinging ropes and grappling-hooks up to those above, and attaching pulleys and slings to their tether-ropes. Soon, a steady flow of Undertowners was descending safely to the mud, and a vast encampment began to form all round Rook.

‘Get clear of the road!’ came Felix's clear voice. ‘You don't want to be under it when the storm strikes!’

‘Secure those prowlgrins!’ Deadbolt's voice thundered. ‘And overturn those carts for shelter!’