Freeglader (4 page)

Even as he spoke, a heavy gust of wind snatched his words and carried them off. Rook looked about him. He must find the librarians and make his report. Unlike Felix, he was a librarian knight, and under orders from the Most High Academe, Cowlquape Pentephraxis.

As he started to make his way through the bustling throng of Undertowners, pitching tents and overturning carts, and even digging shallow holes in the mire mud,
Rook felt a wave of exhaustion break over him. He was about to join a cloddertrog family under a hammelhorn cart when a familiar voice called out.

‘Master Rook. I trust you have done the library a good service.’ Fenbrus Lodd strode towards him, his bushy beard bristling in the growing wind. ‘The sky pirates have agreed to guide our Great Library across this desolate wasteland?’

Rook nodded. ‘Yes, High Librarian,’ he replied.

‘Captain Vulpoon …’

‘And that son of mine, why is he not with you?’ interrupted Fenbrus, irritatedly.

‘He's …’ began Rook.

‘I'm here, Father,’ said Felix appearing, flanked by two of his ghosts.

‘So you are,’ said Fenbrus haughtily. ‘So you are. Now, Felix, I want you and those ghosts of yours to secure the Great Library over there.’ He pointed with his staff to a large throng of librarians who were hauling several huge carts, complete with protesting hammelhorns, into a rough circle. ‘There are still a number of library carts on the road and time is running short. We must not lose them.’

Felix smiled grimly. ‘There are still Undertowners up
on the road, father,’ he said. ‘My ghosts are helping them first…’

‘But the Great Library!’ blustered Fenbrus, growing red in the face.‘I must insist that you…’

‘I don't take orders from you!’ thundered Felix, sounding to Rook's ears not unlike his father.

A crowd was gathering round, listening in to the heated words between the father and son.

‘The library carts must be secured,’ said Fenbrus Lodd stubbornly, his eyes blazing. ‘Not a single scroll must be lost.’

‘Nor must a single Undertowner perish!’ countered Felix hotly.

‘Now, now,’ came a quavering yet authoritative voice, and Cowlquape himself stepped between them. ‘If we all work together, we shall be able to ensure the safety of both the library
and
the Undertowners,’ he said.

From behind him, there came a loud snort and everyone turned to see Deadbolt Vulpoon standing there, his hands on his hips and a scornful look on his face.

‘That's the last of the Undertowners off the road,’ he said grimly, ‘but how you expect
any
of this rabble to make it across the Mire with you lot bickering like this is beyond me.’

‘We were rather hoping,’ said Cowlquape, approaching the sky pirate and bowing his head in greeting, ‘that you might be able to help us, Captain … err…’

‘Vulpoon,’ said Deadbolt. ‘Captain Vulpoon.’

A trace of a smile flickered across Cowlquape's face. ‘Ah, yes. Captain Vulpoon. I met your father once a very long time ago – and in circumstances quite as perilous as these, if my memory serves me right.’

‘You must tell me about it sometime,’ said Deadbolt, returning his smile. ‘But right now, you all need to get everything and everyone secured if this here storm is to be weathered.’ He nodded towards the huge flat-topped cloud formation boiling up overhead. ‘After that' – he was shouting now, to be heard above the roaring wind – ‘we can talk about getting across the Mire.’ He smiled darkly. ‘That is if there's any of us left
to
get across.’

Felix stepped forward. ‘You heard the captain!’ he roared. ‘Jump to it!’

The crowd dispersed, battening everything down and hurriedly disappearing into holes and tents, and under the upturned carts.

‘Secure those hammelhorns!’ Deadbolt bellowed, striding off towards a group of slaughterers. ‘We'll have need of them soon enough!’

Fenbrus rushed after him. ‘The library carts, Captain. Don't forget the library carts!’

As the High Librarian's voice was swallowed up by the rising howl of the wind, Cowlquape turned back to Felix and Rook. ‘You've done very well,’ he said. ‘Both of you. I was unsure whether you'd be successful. After all,
I've come across enough sky pirates in my time to know how stubborn and wilful they can be…’

‘Sounds like someone I know,’ said Felix with a sigh.

Cowlquape nodded understandingly. ‘You must try and understand your father,’ he said. ‘His dream is to recreate the Great Library in the Free Glades…’

‘I know that,’ said Felix, and again Rook heard the mixture of emotions in his voice. ‘Him and his accursed barkscrolls! And what are they anyway? Bits of paper and parchment. It is the Undertowners – the
Freegladers
– who are important.’

‘Of course, Felix,’ said Rook, the wind almost drowning out his voice. ‘But we are librarians. The barkscrolls are like living things to us.’

Felix didn't seem to hear him. ‘I must see to the ghosts,’ he said, turning on his heels and striding away.

Rook shrugged sheepishly at Cowlquape, and was about to run after Felix when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned, to see two of his best friends, Xanth and Magda, standing there, huge grins spread across their faces.

‘It
is
you, Rook!’ Magda exclaimed. ‘We hardly recognized you under all that mud!’

Rook smiled back. ‘Am I glad to see you two!’ he said.

The heavy rain started as darkness fell, whipped into lashing sheets by the driving wind. Huge hailstones followed, and heart-stopping crashes of thunder. The Mire Road writhed, creaking and groaning like a dying monster as its timbers gave way, one by one. From inside
their makeshift shelter, Rook huddled between Xanth and Magda.

‘Do you think it's ever going to stop?’ he said miserably.

Magda sighed. ‘I wonder if the weather's ever going to be the same again.’

The shelter had been fashioned from an upturned cart and heavy bales of straw, covered with a tarpaulin staked down in place. So far it had kept the worst of the storm out, but at any moment Rook expected the terrible wind to rip the cart from over their heads and scatter the bales.

‘So you're to fly with the Professor of Light,’ said Rook, trying to keep his mind on something else. The librarian knights were masters of flying their delicate, wooden skycraft, made of buoyant sumpwood and powered by huge spidersilk sails. Since stone-sickness
had put paid to the great sky ships, these tiny craft were the sole means of flight in the Edge.

‘Yes,’ said Magda, managing to smile. A crack of thunder broke overhead. The ground trembled. ‘The plan is for Varis Lodd and her flight to head directly to the Free Glades to summon help, while the Professor of Darkness leads a flight high over the Twilight Woods section of the Mire Road in case shrykes are massing there to attack.’

‘And you?’

Magda tried to sound brave. ‘The Professor of Light is to lead us to the Eastern Roost to check on the shrykes there,’ she said. ‘There are rumours of a Hatching.’

Rook shivered. The words ‘Eastern Roost' brought back such terrible memories. ‘Aren't you afraid of going back to … that place?’ he asked.

‘We've got no choice,’ said Magda simply. ‘But at least this time I'll have
Woodmoth
with me – and the Professor of Light. He's one of the best librarian knights we have.’

‘I wish I had
Stormhornet
,’ said Rook with a sigh, remembering his lost skycraft, wrecked in a crash in Screetown. ‘Then I could go with you, instead of having to stay with the footsloggers.’

‘If it's good enough for Felix Lodd, it's good enough for you and that's a fact,’ said Magda, trying to make light of it, but Rook could tell she, too, was upset by the fact that they wouldn't be flying together.

‘
I'm
not even welcome amongst the footsloggers,’ said Xanth darkly.

‘What do you mean?’ said Rook.

‘I'm a traitor, Rook,’ said Xanth, ‘or had you forgotten? I served the Guardians of Night. I plotted and spied. Because of me, brave librarian knights were murdered. Because of me,
you
almost perished in the Foundry Glades.’

‘All that's behind us now. The Guardians of Night are no more,’ said Rook, ‘destroyed by the dark maelstrom back in Undertown. And besides, you've changed, Xanth.
I
know. And I'll tell anyone else who wants to know as much.’

‘And so will I,’ said Magda. ‘You rescued me from the Guardians, Xanth. I'll never forget that.’ She tried to smile encouragingly.

Far above their heads, the storm seemed to be reaching a new intensity.

‘You don't see the look in the librarians' eyes,’ said Xanth bitterly. ‘The look of distrust, the look of hatred. They look at me and see a traitor and a spy.’

Magda put an arm round Xanth. ‘But inside, Xanth, your friends can see plainly …’ she said softly, ‘you have a good heart.’

Outside, a huge thunderclap broke and the little cart shook until its wheels rattled.

• CHAPTER THREE •
MUD-MARCH

S
hortly before dawn, with feathers of light dancing on the horizon, the wind died down, the torrential rain eased off at last and an eerie silence descended over the mudflats of the Mire. Rook rubbed his eyes and looked round blearily, as disturbed by the unearthly stillness as he had been by the tumultuous storm that had raged through the night.

He rolled over and, leaving Xanth and Magda to sleep on, crawled to the edge of the shelter and attempted to push the tarpaulin back. But it was stuck fast, held in place by something pressing against it from outside. Grunting with effort, Rook pushed hard. There was a soft
flummp!
and the tarpaulin abruptly flapped free. Rook poked his head out of the gap he had created.

‘Earth and Sky,’ he murmured.

The vast encampment, with its upturned carts, battened-down tents and hastily constructed shelters, was now just a series of gently undulating mud-dunes stretching off into the distance as far as the eye could see.
Here and there, one of these dunes would erupt into life as its occupants dug their way out – just as Rook had – only to pause and look around with the same bemused expression on their faces.