The Hero's Tomb (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

The stench of griffin bile filled Tabitha’s nostrils, making her head swim. She pulled her neckerchief up to cover her nose.

The shapeshifters were striding so fast she had to hurry to keep up. If their injuries were still bothering them, they weren’t showing it. People scrambled to get out of the way, casting nervous glances at those strange eyes and torn whitecoat uniforms, coat tails flapping like the wings of avenging seraphs.

The cat breathed in deep and nodded. ‘The air smells foul. Just like Hoake’s boots. Very good, little girl – let us hope your theory is correct.’

‘For your sake,’ added the spider, her voice a whisper.

‘I’m right,’ said Tabitha. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’

At the end of the road they came to a large whitewashed wall with a set of heavy wooden gates, where the smell was so strong you could practically taste it. Tabitha drew a pair of knives from her bandolier, flicked them around her thumbs and caught them again. She was ready.

‘Here it is,’ said the big man. ‘I’ll knock.’

The double doors were made out of thick wood, but not thick enough. There was a scraping, sucking sound as the big man became a horse. It seemed so natural Tabitha almost forgot to be surprised. His clothing ripped apart and fell in pieces to the cobbles, and he spun, smashing at the doors with his back hooves.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

At the last blow, the doors gave way in a shower of splinters.

‘Shall we?’ said the cat.

But Tabitha was already leaping through. Three goblins looked up, startled, from a game of triominoes. They wore leather suits head to toe, covered in metal plates. As if that could protect them. Tabitha was on them in an instant, and her fury surged into her
arms and legs. She landed a hefty kick on the nearest goblin’s chest, sending him sprawling back in his chair. The next had a cutlass half-drawn, but she slammed her elbow hard into his chin, and his jaw clamped shut with a click of teeth as he fell too, scattering triominoes to the ground.

The spider had the third, her long pale fingers around the goblin’s throat, lifting him off the ground. ‘Where is Jeb the Snitch?’ she hissed.

The goblin fought for breath. His nose was made out of wood and held on with a piece of twine. He was the ugliest of the three, which was no mean feat.

‘He’th gone,’ the goblin lisped. ‘With a filthy mongrel boy.’

Joseph.

‘Where did they go?’

‘How in the bleeding blue thea thould I know?’ snapped the goblin. He squirmed in the spider’s grip. ‘They went off into the thity.’

Tabitha felt panic surging up inside her.
Too late.
If they’d just got here a little sooner, maybe—

‘Don’t lie to me,’ said the spider.

The goblin’s eyes went wide as the fingers pressed harder into his throat. ‘Gaaaaah! Not lying! I thwear!’ The fingers released. ‘Well, maybe a bit,’ said the goblin. ‘They did go off, but then … then they came back.’

Past the griffin cages, past beady eyes glinting. Up a flight of steps to a stone corridor lined with leather suits that hung from pegs. Joseph followed his father in a daze.

‘Put this on.’ A leather suit was thrust at him. He shook his head. ‘Please yerself.’ Jeb pulled on a suit of his own, swept off his silver tricorne and pulled up a leather hood in its place. For a moment, that face reminded Joseph of Arabella Wyrmwood, the shrivelled old witch who had tried to destroy Port Fayt. But no – Jeb was even worse than her. At least she’d believed in something, and died for it. Jeb believed in nothing but himself.

Six years. Six years he’d had to find Joseph, to tell him the truth and claim his son. And instead he’d left Eleanor to die, left Joseph to be adopted by Mr Lightly, who hated all goblins and Joseph most of all. Not even through malice – just because he didn’t care.

Elijah’s gentle voice came back to him.
There’s a little bit of demon and a little bit of seraph in everyone, Joseph. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

Was it Joseph he’d been thinking of, when he’d spoken those words?

His mother, a seraph if ever there was one. And his
father, Jeb the Snitch. The most hateful creature in all the world. Joseph’s chest tightened all over again at the thought of the goblin who had cared for him, when even his own father wouldn’t.

‘The men who killed my uncle …’ he said. His voice sounded strange and distant, like someone else’s.

‘That weren’t my fault,’ snapped Jeb, hustling Joseph along the corridor towards a heavy, round iron door. ‘Weren’t nothing to do with him being a goblin, neither. I owed ’em money, that’s all, and I couldn’t pay. Those idiots reckoned they could hurt me by killing Elijah. They didn’t know we hadn’t spoken in years.’

So it
was
Jeb’s fault. Everything was his fault.

Jeb set a key in the lock, turned it and pushed the door open. Then he grabbed Joseph by the collar and shoved him through.

If the stench was bad before, here it was a hundred times worse. It smelled not just of bile, and blood and dung. It smelled of death. Jeb locked the door, made a big show of breathing it in, and let out a sigh of satisfaction.

‘Know what I smell?’ he said. His pointed teeth flashed in a grin. ‘Ducats.’

They were on a raised wooden walkway that ran all the way around an enormous room filled with gigantic
metal vats. Jeb pushed Joseph forwards with the end of his pistol.

‘Welcome to the dragon’s lair,’ said Jeb. ‘Just a little joke o’ mine. Dragons love treasure, see? And there’s treasure here, I can tell yer.’ He pointed to a set of metal doors below. ‘The milking rooms are through there. That’s our main trade, see. But it ain’t just bile a griffin’s good for. When they die, there’s rich pickings to be had. Griffin feathers, for instance.’ He pointed to a pile of greasy black feathers beside one of the vats, each over a foot long, being picked at and cleaned by a pair of suited goblins. ‘Plenty of idiots’ll pay good money for ’em. Griffin talons too.’ He pointed at a goblin trundling a cart full of rattling ebony claws. ‘And o’ course, last but not least, griffin blood.’

They stopped above the largest of the vats, which was covered with a lid like a saucepan. Jeb pulled at a lever beside the walkway, and the lid lifted with a creak. Underneath it a red liquid shimmered like oil, coursing with magic.

‘Deadly,’ said Jeb. ‘Most lethal poison known to man or troll. It’ll strip the flesh from yer bones in seconds. Worth a pretty penny to the right folk, I can tell yer. And soon, I won’t need any of it.’ He turned to Joseph, holding up the spoon. His pale eyes shone
with greed. ‘Them Grey Brothers told me about your visit to the Whale, how you was waving this thing around like you knew what to do with it. Got me to thinkin’. The wand might be worth a fair few ducats if I sold it, but if I was to
keep
it, use it myself, see, I can have anything I want, whenever I want it.
Anything
. I can get shot o’ this dunghole of a city. No more griffin bile. No more Grey Brothers scrounging off me, always asking for a hand-out. Just me and a giant heap o’ ducats.’ He leaned in close. ‘And now I know you can work it. So yer goin’ to teach me how. Right here, right now. Reckon if a pesky little mongrel like you can do it, anyone can.’

Joseph felt sick. He shook his head.

‘This ain’t a friendly request,’ snapped Jeb. He grabbed Joseph’s collar again, forced him out over the railing until his face hovered above the pool of blood. ‘Get talking.’

Joseph could see himself reflected in it, a mongrel boy who had lost all hope. Still, this one last thing he could do. He would never tell his father how to use the wand.

Past the griffin cages, past beady eyes glinting. Up a flight of steps. Along a corridor. Tabitha raced ahead of the shapeshifters, knives drawn.

Come
on. Faster.
Whatever the Snitch wanted from Joseph, he wasn’t going to get it.

Ahead was a round iron door. Tabitha skidded to a halt, stopping just short of it. ‘Break it down,’ she yelled. ‘Quickly!’

The cat and the spider were hot on her heels. The horse came last, still in animal form, hooves clattering on the stairs. He whinnied, head bent to fit under the low ceiling, then turned and kicked.

CLANG!

The hooves just bounced off. Hopeless.

‘Joseph!’ Tabitha called. ‘Joseph, are you in there?’

‘Hush now,’ said the cat. ‘We are not beaten yet. My lady?’

The spider nodded, and the next moment she had disappeared, her black clothes rustling to a heap on the floor.

‘Stand back.’

Tabitha did so, as a scuttling dark creature shot out from the empty clothes, crawled over the iron door and in through the keyhole. A moment later there was a heavy
clunk
and the door swung open.

Chapter Twenty-four

‘You?’ snarled Jeb.

Joseph twisted his head from the griffin blood. There, at the end of the walkway, was a girl his own age, with blue hair and blades in her hands. His heart leaped in spite of everything.

She came.

And then he was tugged away from the vat of blood as one of Tabitha’s knives went whistling past, burying itself in a wooden rafter.

‘You privy roach!’ howled Jeb. ‘Throwing stinking
knives
at me? Are you trying to
kill
me?’

‘Don’t tempt me,’ said Tabitha.

The slim figure of the cat stepped through the
doorway, followed by the horse, hooves clopping, and the small dark shape of the spider, scuttling on the wooden walkway.

‘Get out, all of yer,’ spat Jeb. ‘No animals allowed. And no kids neither.’

‘So, the great Snitch is a bile trader,’ sneered the cat. ‘A repulsive industry. How fitting.’ The shapeshifter prowled forward, tracking Jeb’s every movement as though the goblin were a mouse. ‘You tricked us, Jeb. You offered us the Sword of Corin in exchange for the boy and the spoon. But the sword wasn’t there, and your drunkard Hoake locked us in and left us for dead.’

‘Tricked yer, did I?’ Jeb snarled. ‘Look who’s talking! You cheated me out o’ my wooden spoon back in Port Fayt, didn’t yer? Way I see it, we’re square.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said the cat. ‘We’ve come for our revenge.’

‘Well, you ain’t getting nothing.’

Joseph was shoved face down on the walkway, and before he could wriggle free, Jeb’s foot was on his back, pinning him.

‘Let him go!’ Tabitha yelled, but Jeb ignored her.

Joseph craned his neck to see the goblin looming above, aiming the wooden spoon like a pistol at the newcomers. ‘You best scarper, you and your hairy
friends, and that mouldy-headed little girl too, or else I’ll use this wand on yer. I ain’t a magician, but I know how to use it.’

Another lie.

The cat hesitated.

Tabitha was gaping at the spoon, open-mouthed. ‘What the— How did—?’

‘Oi!’ Jeb shook the wand fiercely. ‘Get lost, I said, before I magic you all inside a cage of angry griffins.’

Joseph looked deep into Tabitha’s grey eyes, which were full of questions he couldn’t bear to answer:
Surely you didn’t take the spoon? Surely you didn’t bring it here, to Azurmouth? Surely you didn’t give it to Jeb the Snitch?

He lowered his head.

Tabitha couldn’t believe it.

The tavern boy who had taken on a witch to save her life – who had stolen the wooden spoon and crossed the Ebony Ocean in search of his father – he had given up.

It filled her with sadness, and with anger.

Where was the boy who’d tried to cheer her up with fried octopus when she’d been sad about her parents? The boy whose tongue stuck out in concentration when he practised cutlass strokes on the old
wooden figurehead outside Bootles’ – even though he was the worst swordsman she’d ever met? The boy who drove her mad with his stupid song about scrubbing dishes, but whose voice she’d missed the moment it was gone?

What had happened to him?

‘Joseph,’ she pleaded. ‘Do something.’

Do something.

How many times had he asked himself the same question, since he’d joined the Watch?

What would Thalin do?

What would Newton do?

What would his father do?

That last one sent a jolt through his body. Every time he’d asked it, he’d been thinking of Elijah.

An image came to him – something he’d seen inside Jeb’s mind. Elijah as a boy, running down the alley to scare off the trolls who were threatening his little brother. Standing up to the bullies, even though they were bigger than him. Now Jeb had become the bully himself.

For you, Uncle.

He twisted his body hard to one side. Jeb’s foot lost its purchase, and the goblin stumbled as Joseph rolled and sprang up. He grabbed two fistfuls of Jeb’s leather
suit and shoved him back against the wall. His father must have seen the fury in his eyes because he crumpled at once, cringing, as though expecting to be hit at any moment. The wooden spoon went clattering onto the walkway.

Coward. My father is a coward.

And the rage burned out in an instant. Joseph didn’t hit him. What good would that do? Instead he stepped back, let go of the suit.

‘Go,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘Just go away. Please.’

‘Joseph!’ yelled Tabitha.

Tabitha started forward, but the cat caught her by the wrists, twisting them up behind her back. Her knife fell, thudding into the wood point first. And now it was her turn to be forced down on the walkway, until she felt its rough surface against her cheek.

‘What are you doing?’ she yelped. ‘I thought we were helping each other!’

‘We
were
, my dear,’ purred the cat. ‘And you’ve been most useful. But now that you’ve led us to the Snitch, I’m growing a little tired of you.’

A door banged open below, and out of the corner of her eye, Tabitha saw a goblin lead a griffin into the hall. A familiar griffin, half-starved, with thinning
feathers and a blunted beak.
Could it really be her?

‘We’ve wasted enough time already,’ hissed the voice of the spider. ‘Let’s take our revenge on the goblin.’

‘What about the children?’ asked the horse.

‘An excellent question.’ The cat stroked Tabitha’s cheek with one finger. ‘I believe a quick death will suffice.’

Tabitha squirmed in the shapeshifter’s grip. ‘Nell!’ she shrieked. Her throat was raw, but she drew in breath and bellowed it again. ‘Neeeell!’

On the floor below, Nell blinked and looked around, confused.

‘Neeeeeeell!’

‘Enough,’ the cat murmured in her ear. ‘Your game is lost.’

Tabitha barely heard him. The griffin had turned to look at her. Its beak twitched, and something shifted in those small black eyes.

‘Fly for me!’ Tabitha burst out. ‘Like last time.
Neeeeeeeell!’

‘Oi!’ said the goblin, tugging at the halter. ‘Stay still, you useless—’

Nell took a step forward. Then another. The griffin’s wings spread like sails, and began to flap. The hapless goblin swung from the halter, then sprawled back onto the flagstones.

Across the floor, workers panicked and scurried to escape.

‘Griffin loose!’

‘Everybody out!’

There was a rush of air as the creature swooped up to the walkway, landed and began stalking towards them.

Tabitha felt a sudden thrill of fear, but there was no going back now. ‘Help me!’ she yelled.

‘What in Corin’s name—?’ began the cat.

And then Nell let out a screech so loud it turned Tabitha’s insides to water. The cat let go and Tabitha rolled aside, escaping the storm of flapping wings, raking talons and snapping beak. The cat was on one knee, the spider scuttling out through the iron door. The horse whinnied and reared up, but was beaten backwards by a flurry of attacks. All the while, Nell kept screeching over and over again. Hideous, unearthly noises that made Tabitha want to curl up into a ball and stuff her ears with seaweed.

Footsteps pounded on the walkway, and Tabitha saw that the cat had broken free and was charging full tilt towards Jeb the Snitch.

Joseph’s father shoved him aside, sending him staggering to the edge of the walkway. He regained his
balance just in time to see Jeb lunge for the wooden spoon again.
I don’t think so
. Joseph leaped forward, bringing his foot down hard on the spoon.

The goblin turned on him. ‘Let go, you stinking little rat!’ he howled. ‘Call yerself my son? Let go or I’ll—’

‘Joseph!’ yelled Tabitha’s voice. ‘Look out!’

The cat was bearing down on them, his face twisted with feral fury. He fell on Jeb, kicking, punching and scratching, spittle flying from his lips.

Joseph ducked aside and snatched up the wooden spoon. Looking round, he saw that the griffin was prowling along the walkway, talons clicking on wood, wings arched like a prize-fighter’s fists at the start of the big fight. It spread them wide.

‘No!’ yelled Joseph.

Too late. The griffin took off, thundering down the walkway and lifting into space with one great flap of its wings.

Jeb looked up from his struggle with the cat, and his pale eyes widened. He fought to escape, but the cat held him tight, oblivious to the danger.

‘No,’ said Joseph again.

The beast crashed into them in a blur of feathers, scrabbling with its talons, heaving them against the railings, up and over.

Jeb and the cat seemed to hang in the air, clutching each other in a tight embrace, and for an instant Joseph saw the terror on his father’s face. Then they dropped like an anchor. The griffin blood surged up around them, sloshing out of the vat, splattering red droplets all around.

There was a fizzing and a hissing.

Then nothing.

Not even a scream.