Uki and the Swamp Spirit

by Kieran Larwood

Uki looked out over the dark fen, imagining Necripha and Balto splashing their way back to dry land. He thought he could feel her again … that spiky purple squiggle of hatefulness. She would soon find more of her Endwatch and be after him once again. Or racing him to find Mortix. Either way, it was a fresh worry, spoiling the sweet feeling of victory he had been enjoying.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have helped her after all, he thought. But it was done now. He would just have to face what happened.

  ‘Are the others safe?’ Coal asked. He was looking out at the marshes too, his deep frown back again. Uki wondered what his thoughts were, why he had really come here, to this empty hole in the ground.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They’re waiting for us. We should go down and see what’s happened to the Gurdles.’

  *

  There was a strange scene awaiting them at the bottom of Gollop’s Mound. All the lanterns the Maggitches had been carrying were now hung from trees and bushes, bathing everything in overlapping pools of orange light.

  The Gurdle warriors were standing around, chatting and twirling their weapons, while every single Maggitch lay motionless on the floor.

  ‘Have they killed them all?’ Kree asked, as they walked the last few steps down the hill.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Uki could pick up faint traces of life from the Maggitches, but just like their leader they were now very sick. Charice’s plague was racing through their bodies, unchecked.

  ‘Did you break the curse?’ Ma Gurdle called out to them as they arrived. She was leaning on a spear for support but still looked fierce in her heron-feather cloak and suit of frogskin armour.

  ‘We did,’ said Jori. ‘There will be no more sickness in the Fenlands, thanks to Uki.’

  There was a cheer from all the Gurdles, cut short by Ma pointing at Granny Maggitch, who was still draped over Mooka’s saddle.

  ‘What do she be doing there?’

  ‘She’s very sick,’ said Uki. ‘I need to heal her. I need to heal all of these rabbits.’

  ‘Heal?’ Ma Gurdle almost screamed the word. ‘But they’s Maggitches! They’s the ones that brought this whole curse down on us!’

  ‘It wasn’t them,’ said Uki. He pointed to the green-glowing crystal on his chest. ‘It was the evil spirit, Charice. She’s the thing I told you about – the one who was making all the sickness. She took over these rabbits. She made them do her will, but that’s finished now. I’ve trapped her inside this gem. But without her control, the plague she gave to the Maggitches will kill them.’

  ‘So? They’s Maggitches. Let them die.’ Ma Gurdle spat on the ground and one or two of her warriors copied her.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ said Uki, his voice quiet but stern. ‘And I don’t think you can either. I know you have a feud with them, but would you really leave them to die like this? Don’t you remember when you were sick? No rabbit should have to feel that way. No matter what they’ve done. And whatever happened between your families – you need to put it aside. Set it down. That’s what I did, when I felt hatred for what was done to me. It was like giving up a terrible burden. Like being set free.’

  Ma Gurdle’s icy glare seemed to falter a little. She looked again at the stricken rabbits, lying curled in pain all over the ground.

  ‘This quarrel you have,’ Uki continued. ‘Can any of you even remember what it was all about?’

  There was a lot of mumbling from the Gurdles, most of whom suddenly became very interested in the grass and shrubs at their feet.

  ‘So, why don’t you help me bring these sick rabbits back to your village?’ Uki said. ‘Why don’t you let me cure them and help me feed them? Then, when they’re better, I bet they won’t even want to fight you any more. Maybe then you can all be friends.’

  It was the longest speech he’d ever made in front of a group. He was amazed that they seemed to be listening, but also very relieved when Jori stepped in to help him.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘if you give them a chance, you’ll find you have more in common than you think. Aren’t you all enemies of the Shrikes?’

  ‘Glommating redshells,’ said Rawnie.

  ‘Gurt wazzock Spikers,’ added Yurdle.

  ‘And you have things like adders and floods and everything else to worry about,’ said Uki. ‘At the very least you should try to help your neighbours.’

  Maybe it was the sudden good feeling caused by the disappearance of Charice. Perhaps it was sympathy after having suffered a dose of the plague themselves. Or it might have been because Uki was the one asking. Lord Maggety-Pie. The rabbit who had brought them back from death.

  Whatever the reason, Ma Gurdle’s face began to soften. That steely gaze of unbreakable hatred melted – just a fraction at first – and she began to nod her head.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Let us show these Maggitches that Gurdles have true hearts. Fix up some stretchers from these here saplings and let’s take them all home.’

  Uki clapped his paws together and beamed at the heron-cloaked elder, but she flashed him a glare with the last embers of her age-old bitterness.

  ‘Mark you this, though,’ she said. ‘If just one of them Maggitches wakes up and puts a paw out of place …’

  ‘There’ll be a muckle gurt reckoning?’ Uki suggested.

  ‘Aye, there will,’ said Ma Gurdle, the corner of her mouth twitching into a smile. ‘Muckle gurt.’

  *

  It took almost a week for the Maggitches to recover, and there were several that never woke up from the plague.

  As soon as they returned to the village, Uki gave them all a dose of his blood, and then spent every moment he could using Charice’s power to try and fix their bodies. The Gurdles helped by making them all comfortable in Ma’s longhouse, and by feeding everyone with a constant stream of broth.

  Finally, one or two began to stir, to sit, to speak. At first, they were horrified to be in the lair of their hated enemies, but once they realised how they had been saved, their attitudes began to change. Nods came first, then smiles and thanks. By the end, Maggitches and Gurdles were freely chatting with each other. Forming friendships, even. Uki overheard several saying how they didn’t know what they had been fighting about in the first place.

  Granny Maggitch, against all expectations, recovered quicker than the rest. The wound in her shoulder knitted itself back together without even leaving a scar. She turned out to be a tough old coot, as stubborn as she was wiry. But she, more than all the rest, understood what Uki had done for them. Mainly because she had been aware of all that Charice was plotting, right from the start.

  ‘I was still in there,’ she told Uki one morning, as he fed her broth and worked his healing. ‘Tucked away, I was, like a minkle hoppet ’neath a puckstole. I could see all ’twere going on, but I couldn’t do one single thing to stop her.’

  ‘It must have been horrible,’ said Uki.

  ‘Oh, ’twere.’ Granny wiped a tear from her eye. ‘’Speshully when she brought us to this here village. When she sent out all them poison zimzimmers everywhere and tried to kill all the Gurdles. Gollop knows we’ve had our differences in the past, but I would never have wished any of ’em dead. Not never.’

  Uki gently patted one of her wrinkled paws. It must have been a terrible experience, to be held prisoner in your own mind. And it could easily have happened to him as well – if Iffrit had decided to take control of him, rather than letting himself melt away, giving Uki all his powers. A choice that meant Iffrit could never come back, not according to Necripha. He had literally given up his life for Uki’s.

  ‘I promise,’ said Granny, breaking Uki’s train of thought. ‘I promise never to quarrel with them Gurdles again. Life’s too short and spiky for that kind of wazzockry.’

  ‘It certainly is,’ said Uki, thinking of his mother, of Iffrit, of Nurg. Of all the rabbits who had gone so that he could be here. So that he could stop the ancient spirits before they worked their evil on the world.

  *

&nb
sp; Not only was she as good as her word, Granny Maggitch even began to form a friendship with Ma Gurdle. Often, when Uki came to check on his patient, he would find her sitting up in bed, chatting away with Ma like old neighbours.

  On the day that the healed Maggitches were set to leave, Uki walked into the longhouse to find them both there, waiting for him. Ma’s giant frog had returned and it sat between them, its pink tongue licking at its gold-flecked eyes again.

  ‘Good morning, Lord Maggety-Pie,’ said Ma with a twinkling smile.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that,’ said Uki. ‘I’m not a lord of anything.’

  ‘You are to us,’ said Granny.

  ‘We’ve told you many times how muckle grateful we are,’ said Ma.

  ‘I know. You don’t have to keep saying it.’ Uki found himself blushing again.

  ‘Well,’ said Ma. ‘We figured you and your friends would be wanting to move on, now that the Maggitches is all better.’ Uki nodded. He had been talking about it just that morning with Jori.

  ‘We’ll be sad to see you go,’ said Granny. ‘And we wanted to give you something to remember us by.’

  She reached down beside her bed and brought out a package, which Uki carefully unwrapped. It was a fine cloak, made from stitched squares of frog and snakeskin. A mixture of the styles worn by the Gurdles and Maggitches. It was lined with soft wool and had a clasp of bronze and silver, decorated with a heron and a frog.

  ‘Lord Bandylegs and Gollop,’ said Ma. ‘To watch over you in your travels.’

  ‘I … I don’t know what to say …’ Uki stroked the delicate stitching. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  He had managed to scrub the mud out of his clothes and patch their holes, but his cloak still lay in one of the mound’s chambers, ripped to shreds. As much as he missed it, it was nowhere near as fine as this one.

  ‘You’ll always find a welcome here in the Fenlands,’ said Granny.

  ‘That you will,’ agreed Ma. ‘And if there’s anything else we can do to help …’

  ‘Actually,’ said Uki, ‘there is.’

  He told them about his plan to go south, following the distant call of Mortix, the last spirit. They offered to take him and his friends as far as the edge of the fen, to a town called Enk.

  ‘We don’t go in the town itself,’ said Granny. ‘Happen it be full of Spikers. But we do have friends and customers there. We’ll get someone to sneak you out, on to the southern road.’

  The rest of that day was spent preparing to leave. The Maggitches were saying their goodbyes, and the Gurdles were getting ready to break up the village. They had stayed in one place much longer than they usually liked to and were worried about Shrikes finding them.

  Uki, Jori and Kree went about saying their farewells. Little Bo was especially sad to see them go. He gifted Kree a dagger made from an adder’s fang, and Jori a bone set of the board game the Gurdles liked to play: ‘hoppet and snapsters’.

  Just as they were getting themselves ready for Ma Gurdle’s raft to be cast off, Coal came over to them.

  ‘I hear tell you’re heading south,’ he said.

  ‘We are,’ said Uki. ‘Although I don’t know where exactly. I can just feel the last spirit is in that direction.’

  ‘Well,’ said Coal. ‘I happen to be from down that way. If you still need a guide … or maybe a friend …’

  ‘Are you trying to go with us?’ Kree asked. ‘Why don’t you just come out and say it?’

  ‘He’s trying to be tactful, Kree,’ said Jori. ‘Something you know absolutely nothing about. But I’d like to know his reasons for asking, even so.’

  Coal nodded, then scratched at his scarred chin, trying to find the right words.

  ‘I don’t really have a proper reason,’ he said finally. ‘Just that I have seen amazing things I’d never thought possible. When my accident happened, I thought my life was over. That I’d never be useful again. Now I know the quest you are all on … how important it is … and I’d like to help. So I can feel as if I have a purpose once more. Does that make sense?’

  Uki gave a little hop. ‘Of course it does! I’d love it if you came. We all would, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kree. ‘His ugly face will help scare off bandits.’ She laughed as Coal pretended to swipe at her with his hammer. Uki looked at Jori, whose ears were twitching in thought.

  ‘I suppose a guide will be useful,’ she said. ‘And he does know how to look after himself.’

  ‘Neek!’ Mooka hopped over and gave Coal’s arm a nuzzle.

  ‘Then come along I will,’ he said. ‘Truth be told, I’ll be glad to have solid earth under my paws again. I’ve been in these marshes far too long.’

  Uki agreed with him. He had taken off his horrid galoshes and was looking forward to feeling grass and daisies beneath his toes.

  They all stood at the bow of Ma Gurdle’s raft as the ropes between the vessels were untied. Gradually, one by one, the boats split off and slid out of the lake in different directions, disappearing down channels and streams amongst the reeds, charting separate, secret paths to the next location of the floating village.

  When only the huge longhouse raft and Rawnie’s dinghy were left, they sailed out from under the sweeping willow branches, catkins pattering around them like snow, and set off down the river, a fresh marsh breeze rustling the reeds beside them.

  Uki’s fingers played over the buckle on his chest, counting the crystals that held the spirits he and his friends had captured and brushing the empty hole that would contain the last.

  Mortix. The spirit of death.

  Every bone in his body, every memory Iffrit had shared with him, told him she would be the most dangerous, the hardest yet. But if you had said a few days ago, when everything seemed lost, that he would save his companions and heal the swamp, he wouldn’t have believed it.

  We’ll do it, he thought to himself. Somehow. As long as we’re together. Nothing can stop us.

  Jori, standing next to him, caught his eye and twitched an ear at the hopeful expression on his face. Without knowing why, Uki found himself beaming back at her, then at Kree, who gave a giggle. Soon, all three were chuckling out loud, holding their sides, eyes full of happy tears and the joy of being safe and free.

  Look at you, said his dark voice. Laughing in the face of Death.

  I am, Uki agreed. I quite literally am.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Rescue

  The bard stops and bows his head slightly. A signal that the story is finished. Rue jumps to his feet and applauds, while Jori is silent. She turns her head to look out through the hole in the rubble, trying to hide the tears in her eyes.

  ‘I knew they would beat Charice!’ Rue says, hopping from leg to leg. ‘And Necripha, too!’

  ‘I’m glad you’re enjoying this story as much as Podkin’s,’ says the bard, reaching for the water flask to wet his dry lips.

  ‘And what about the Maggitches and the Gurdles? Did they stay friends? Did Uki go back and visit them again?’

  The bard rolls his eyes. ‘One story at a time,’ he says. ‘Let’s save that one for the next time we’re trapped in a tower by evil cultists.’

  Rue nods, then takes his place by the fire again. He casts a few glances over at Jori, as if working up the nerve to say something.

  ‘Is that it?’ asks the bard. ‘Nothing more to ask? You normally give me earache with all your jabbering, once a story is finished.’

  There is something Rue would like to ask, but it’s a question for Jori, not the bard. A personal question he has a feeling she might not like. He wants to know what happened to Uki and Kree. Why she is here in the tower and they are not. Did they die during the tale? Are they still around somewhere in Hulstland? Will one of them appear in real life at any minute?

  But something about the fierce warrior stops the questions before they bubble out of his mouth. She is not like the bard, whose grumpiness is mostly pretend (at least, Rue hopes it is). No, he ha
s a feeling that – as kind as Jori has been to him – she is someone who needs to be treated carefully. Someone who, if you ever got on the wrong side of them, might never speak to you again. And besides, it’s not a good idea to offend a rabbit with a very sharp sword. Especially one who could shred your ears into ribbons in the space of a blink.

  ‘What did you think, Jori?’ the bard says, his voice gentle. ‘Did I do it justice?’

  Jori is silent for a moment more, then she wipes her eyes and turns back to them. ‘You did,’ she says. ‘I never knew some parts of the story. How scared Uki was when we were all sick. How alone he must have felt. And there was much I had forgotten. Like our stay with Father Klepper. Those were happy days. Our little family …’

  She drifts off again and Rue decides that it’s now or never. If he asks really, really nicely, she might tell him what happened to Uki.

  He is just clearing his throat to speak, when there is a noise from outside. A shout that echoes about the old ruins.

  ‘Nyath n’kaaaaa!’

  Jori and the bard both leap to their feet and rush to the hole in the rubble, staring out.

  ‘That was an Arukh war cry!’ says the bard. ‘Is it a raiding party from the mountains?’

  ‘No.’ Jori points. ‘It’s just a single rabbit. He’s got a sword and leather armour. He doesn’t look like an Arukh brave. Could it be … ?’

  ‘Jaxom!’ shouts the bard. ‘They’re here! They got the message!’

  Rue cranes his neck to see and gets a glimpse of Jaxom charging through the ruins, yelling. A cloaked Endwatch rabbit is perched on top of an old wall, firing black-feathered arrows at him. He dodges one, knocks a second aside with his sword, and then another arrow – bright red – flies in return to hit the Endwatcher, toppling him from his perch.

  ‘Nikku is there as well!’ says the bard. ‘I recognise her scarlet fletchings.’

  ‘I’d better help them,’ says Jori. ‘While the Endwatch are distracted. You two stay here, where it’s safe.’

  She unclips her flask and takes a sip of dusk potion, then scrambles out of the rubble-hole and charges into the fray, her sword swishing circles through the air.