So they’d sat there, at the carved table, for hours. Maris had dozed off, while he, Quint, had been left to brood … He looked up at his friend.
‘No, not yet,’ he said, in a tired, listless voice.
‘I just don’t get it…’ Maris began.
‘Don’t get what?’ said Quint, stroking Nibblick miserably.
‘This message …’ Maris said with a frown.
‘It’s a trap, just like the others,’ Quint said darkly. ‘Think about it, Maris. First the slave market, then the cliff quarries, and now the Sluice Tower. Don’t you see? They’re all convenient, out-of-the-way places to set traps. Turbot Smeal is a fugitive. All Undertown - not just those who lost loved ones in the great fire of the Western Quays - would cheerfully kill him as soon as look at him, so he has to hide. In his evil, twisted way, he blames my father for his fate, so what does he do? He lures Wind Jackal to him …’
‘You mean …’ said Maris, staring at him.
‘Yes,’ said Quint. ‘Turbot Smeal himself is sending these messages.’
He looked down at the little ratbird in his lap. ‘I don’t know quite how, but he is, I’m sure of it. And he’s lying in wait, like a fat woodspider at the centre of a spider-silk web.’
The crew started returning to the tavern as late afternoon was slipping into early evening, and the sun was sliding down behind the rooftops. Ratbit and Spillins were first back. They’d not only managed to find the spider-silk sails that Wind Jackal had requested, but had had them delivered to Thelvis Hollrig’s shipyard, where they were to be rigged ready for the following morning’s departure.
‘Drove a real hard bargain, we did,’ Ratbit was saying, his swivel-eyes wandering round the gathered company as he sat down at the large lufwood table. ‘Eight sails for the price of four.’
‘And there’s enough material over to re-line my cater-nest,’ Spillins added, a broad smile across his wrinkly old face. ‘Fair chilled to the bone I was, up there. It’ll stop those draughts whistling through …’
‘No more than you deserve, old timer,’ said Ratbit, slapping his companion on the shoulders.
Quint was about to ask whether either of them had seen Wind Jackal, when Spillins turned and peered at the main entrance to the tavern. His rubbery smile grew wider.
‘Evening, shipmates!’ Steg Jambles announced jovially, as he strode across the floor.
The others looked up at him in surprise - before bursting out laughing.
‘Steg, you old rogue!’ Ratbit exclaimed, looking him up and down. ‘I thought you were meant to be buying new ropes and rigging…’
‘And so I did,’ said Steg. ‘And delivered them to the shipyards …’
‘So, the chandlery sheds are selling fine jackets as well now, are they?’ said Spillins.
‘You look as elegant as a leaguesmaster in all that finery!’ Ratbit teased him.
Steg looked down and plucked at the new jacket he was wearing. It was a deep red, tapered at the waist and high-buttoned, with clam-pearl fastenings and a dark fromp-fur trim at the collar and cuffs.
‘If you think I look good,’ he said, turning and raising a hand towards Tem Barkwater behind him, ‘then take a look at the lad here,’ he said.
Blushing furiously, Tem shambled forward and stood there, stooped and awkward, shuffling his feet.
‘Wonderful!’ cried Maris, clapping her hands together. Tem, you look magnificent!’
Tem lowered his head bashfully. He was wearing a thick jerkin and a tilder skin jacket, heavy canvas leggings and stout boots which, unlike Steg’s foppish jacket, looked practical and hardwearing. But it wasn’t these that caught the eye. Instead, it was the broad hammelhorn felt cap with the upturned brim which the youth wore at a selfconsciously jaunty angle that drew attention to itself. It was bright, flaming crimson and several sizes too big, and Tem was clearly in need of his very own hat-tipper to stop it slipping down over his reddening face. Gazing at the floor, he pulled the extraordinary headgear off and held it behind his back.
‘And you’ve had a haircut!’ said Maris.
‘No he hasn’t,’ said Steg. ‘He had his ears lowered!’
The crew burst out laughing - and Tem, blushing all the more furiously, rubbed his hands over his unruly mop of thick, freshly cropped hair.
‘Having fun, I see,’ came a soft, insidious voice behind them, and everyone turned to see Filbus Queep the quartermaster standing there; the great flat-head goblin, Sagbutt, standing at his shoulder.
‘Productive day, Queep?’ said Steg Jambles, his face becoming serious.
The quartermaster nodded as he took his place at the table. ‘I’ve secured a contract with the League of Taper and Tallow Moulders,’ he said. ‘A particularly lucrative contract, I might add, since none of our fine leaguesmen are brave enough to undertake such a task.’
‘Which is?’ asked Steg.
‘We’re to deliver a cargo of candle-wax to the Great Shryke Slave Market…’
‘But we’re meant to be picking up a consignment of bloodoak timber,’ Quint butted in.
Queep swivelled round and fixed the youth with a piercing stare. ‘Indeed?’ he said, narrowing his eyes. ‘Blookoak timber, you say?’
‘Yes, it was agreed this morning between my father and Thelvis Hollrig,’ Quint explained, ‘to cover the cost of the repairs to the Galerider.’
‘I see …’ said Filbus Queep, taking out a small notebook and a stub of ironwood charcoal. He opened the book and scribbled some calculations. ‘That should work out very nicely…’ He smiled thinly. ‘Repaired sky ship - faster journey time - more hold capacity …. Tallow to slave market. On to Timber Glades. Bloodoak to Undertown …’ He snapped the little book shut and looked round the table. ‘Equals a healthy profit!’
‘I’ll drink to that!’ roared Steg Jambles, raising a tankard of woodale.
The others raised their own tankards and drank a toast, as Maris and Quint exchanged glances. Queep wiped woodale foam from his mouth and looked at Quint.
‘Anything wrong, Master Quint?’ he asked.
Quint traced a finger over Rain Fox’s name on the table. ‘There’s been another message,’ he said quietly.
All eyes turned to him.
‘Smeal?’ said Queep bitterly.
Quint nodded.
‘Not again!’ the quartermaster muttered, removing his steel-rimmed glasses and polishing them slowly on the front of his shirt. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘If Wind Jackal were to decide to go off on his own in pursuit of Smeal, then I would be the first to give him my best wishes.’ He paused to replace his glasses and pushed them up his nose. ‘Yet if he wishes to continue as captain of the Galerider, then I think we, as crew, have the right to expect his undivided attention.’
Steg gasped. ‘ “If he wishes to continue as captain”,’ he repeated. ‘Queep, this is mutinous talk.’
‘On the contrary’ Queep responded, ‘I am merely pointing out the duties of a captain. If those duties are not fulfilled, then the individual forfeits his right to remain captain.’ He shrugged. ‘It is the way sky pirate captains have been deposed and replaced ever since sky pirate ships first took to the sky’
All round the table, the crew nodded sagely. Quint looked down at the table, angry and embarrassed. It was Maris who broke the awkward silence.
‘Wind Jackal is trying to bring a former quartermaster to account for his treachery’ she said. ‘Now, it seems, his current quartermaster is set on turning his crew against him.’ She stared furiously at Filbus Queep.
‘Is this true?’ came a sonorous voice.
Everyone looked round at the newcomer, a mixture of shock and guilt plastered across their features. Spillins blanched, while Steg Jambles turned woodbeet-red. Both of them looked away. Ratbit held the captain’s gaze, but couldn’t stop blinking.
‘Well?’ said Wind Jackal.
‘Just heard you received another message,’ said Filbus Queep silkily his voice low and eyebro
ws raised.
‘Did you now?’ said Wind Jackal.
He headed for the largest chair at the table - a wooden armchair with interlocking tarry vines carved into the upright back - and sat down. Then he looked at each of the crew-members seated round the table, one by one, his gaze lingering just long enough to make each of them uneasy.
‘Have I ever let you down?’ he asked, his eyes now darting round the circle of crew-members. ‘Have I?’
A couple of them shook their heads and looked down, unable to hold his gaze. Steg Jambles, blushing, cleared his throat.
‘All the years we’ve sailed together, haven’t I always looked out for you?’
Tem Barkwater scratched the back of his neck. Ratbit, elbows up on the table, supported his forehead on his hands.
‘Spillins,’ said Wind Jackal. ‘You’ve been in my crew longer than any of the others. ‘On all our raids and battles, have I, as captain, ever left a crew-member behind?’
‘N … no,’ the oakelf stammered.
Wind Jackal turned to Ratbit. The mobgnome wilted under his intense stare.
‘That time we were ambushed in the lufwood glades -I came back for you on prowlgrinback, remember?’
‘I’ll never forget it, sir,’ Ratbit replied.
‘Sagbutt,’ said the captain, turning his attention on the flat-head. ‘Do you remember down in the boom-docks, when you foolishly turned your back on that leagues-man and were clubbed unconscious? Eh? We ended up losing half our cargo, didn’t we? Did I turf you off the Galerider?’
‘No, sir,’ the flat-head grunted.
Wind Jackal’s eyes scanned the table.
‘Steg, you fought with me at the Battle of Wilderness Lair. I know your heart is true.’
Steg nodded. There was a painful lump in his throat.
‘And you, Filbus.’ Wind Jackal’s penetrating gaze rested on Filbus Queep. ‘Surely you remember the oath you made to me when I rescued you from that group of murderous under-professors in Sanctaphrax?’
‘Yes, Captain,’ the quartermaster muttered. ‘I pledged to follow you wherever you led until I could repay the debt I owe you … You have my loyalty, Captain.’
Wind Jackal nodded and sat back in his chair. ‘Good,’ he said. He twisted the end of his moustache thoughtfully. ‘As you’ve heard, I have received another message, and I have engaged the services of a waif to help.’
As he spoke, a small individual dressed in a hooded cloak stepped out of the shadows and approached the table. He stood at Wind Jackal’s right side.
‘This is Menisculis,’ said Wind Jackal.
The sky pirates looked at the waif before them with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. There were many waifs living in Undertown, and of all kinds - ghostwaifs, nightwaifs, flitter-waifs; waterwaifs, with their green-tinged skin and webbed fingers; pale, mottled greywaifs, dangling barbels hanging down from the corners of their wide, fleshy mouths … The thing they all had in common was that they could read the minds of other creatures - apart, strangely, from other waifs who did not wish their minds to be read. It was their mind-reading abilities that made waifs so valuable, and yet so mistrusted. Menisculis was - as they could all tell from his large eyes and fluttering, almost transparent, ears - a night-waif; the best mind-readers of all.
‘This morning,’ Wind Jackal told them, ‘while I was at the sky-shipyard, I received a message of no return.’
Quint swallowed hard.
‘Despite what some of you may want…’ He glanced at Maris and Quint. ‘… I am not going to let the matter rest. I intend to get to the bottom of this business once and for all. And Menisculis, here, should ensure that.’
‘Indeed I shall.’ The waif’s whisper sounded in every head gathered round the table.
‘I hate it when they do that,’ grumbled Steg to Tem in a half-whisper.
‘I must check this message out,’ continued Wind Jackal, ‘and I’m going to need all of you to do it.’ He looked round. ‘Are you with me?’
The crew climbed to their feet and looked their captain steadily in the eye as the tiny waif’s ears twitched and trembled.
‘They’re with you, Captain,’ Menisculis’s voice sounded in everyone’s head.
The captain motioned for everyone to sit down, and picked up his tankard of woodale.
‘So, Steg,’ he said, his eyes sparkling. ‘What exactly is that you’re wearing?’
Maris turned to Tem as the last of the crew followed Wind Jackal out of the tavern, her eyes moist with frustration.
‘When he said he was going to need all of the crew, I thought he meant it!’ she said with a gasp of exasperation.
Tem looked at her uneasily. ‘But … but the captain said he needed us to stay here,’ he told her. ‘To send help if they didn’t return …’
Maris snorted. ‘And you believed him!’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t you see, Tem? He’s trying to protect us … Well, if he thinks we’re just going to sit here and do nothing, he’s got another think coming!’
Tem swallowed. ‘He has?’
‘Certainly’ said Maris. ‘Grab that new hat of yours, Tem. It’ll keep your ears warm! …’
Oh, Maris! Maris! Maris! Quint thought as he followed his father down the foggy street outside the Tarry Vine tavern. Please don’t do anything stupid!
He’d noticed that look in her eyes when he’d turned at the tavern door to wave her goodbye - a look he’d seen so many times before. In the Palace of Shadows when her father, Linius Pallitax, had made her promise not to go down inside the Sanctaphrax rock … On board the Cloudslayer when he himself had suggested Maris be dropped off before the vessel journeyed out into Open Sky … It was a look - not of defiance exactly but of absolute determination. A look that appeared compliant, but which Quint knew was saying, ‘You may think I’ve heard and understood and will do as I am told, but sadly you are wrong.’
Still, there was nothing Quint could do about it now. They made their way down to the riverside, through the thickening fog and crossed the Edgewater in one of the huge, nameless river-coracles that plied their trade both day and night. Wind Jackal, Quint and the waif, Menisculis, sat at the front; Steg Jambles, Spillins and Ratbit in the middle; while Filbus Queep and Sagbutt sat at the back, either side of the ferry-pilot. Stout and surly, and with a large growth on the side of his pointed chin, the lugtroll pilot spoke not a single word as he slowly but steadily winched his passengers across.
At the far side, Wind Jackal settled up, then led his crew away from the riverbank and into the filthy sprawl that was East Undertown. Once, the area had been relatively thriving, with tenement-towers and back-to-back shacks shooting up to offer cheap housing for those who worked in the factories and foundries nearby. Now, decades later, those same buildings had fallen into disrepair, and as the thick air squeezed its way down the narrow street, there was a neverending succession of curious noises - creaking timbers, slipping roof-tiles and groaning foundations - as though the fog itself was eating away at the buildings and hastening their decay.
For the fogs that rolled in from the Mire on the westerly winds were notoriously dense. What was more, as they passed over the foundry district, they gathered up the smoke and soot and noxious fumes belching out from the chimneys, and churned the whole lot into a foul-smelling miasma that dirtied every window, stained every stone a poisonous shade of yellow and filled the eyes and lungs of everyone unfortunate enough to live there. As Quint strode after his father, over ground that turned from cobblestones to mud - his eyes streaming and jacket pulled up over his mouth in an attempt to filter out the foul air - he became aware that all around them, the foggy night was filled with the sound of coughing.
‘It’s this way.’ The nightwaif’s voice, clear as a bell, sounded in the crew’s heads. ‘We turn left at the end of this alley, just after the building with the broken windows.’
Behind Quint, Filbus Queep and Ratbit shuddered and muttered under their breath about ‘nasty, creepy little wai
fs’, while ahead, Wind Jackal strode on.
From far off at the top of a distant tower - maybe in the Western Quays, or possibly even up in Sanctaphrax -there came the muted sound of a heavy bell chiming quarter off the hour.
‘Fifteen minutes till midnight,’ said Wind Jackal, a hint of anxiety in his voice.
‘It’s all right,’ the waif’s voice sounded in Quint’s head. ‘We’re here.’
‘Thank Sky for that,’ Quint heard Wind Jackal mutter, while behind him, the rest of the crew were whispering, outraged by the intrusion in their heads.
‘Turn left.’
They did as they were told. A moment later, as they rounded the corner, the air abruptly cleared as the currents swirling up from beneath the jutting rock caused the fog to fray and peel away from the Edge itself. Here the city of Undertown met the edge of the cliff and disgorged the filth and foul waters of its industry from sewer pipes, down into the void below. Just ahead, stark against the night sky, was the dark silhouette of the building that housed the biggest sewer pipe of all: the Sluice Tower.
The broad, squat tower was divided into three main floors - the upper two, studded with numerous windows.
The topmost rooms were set inside the steep, tiled roof; the lower ones were behind plastered walls which had chipped and peeled so many times they looked like badly blistered skin. The third and lowest part of the building consisted of the foundations that hugged the edge of the jutting rock, and out of which the vast sewer pipe emerged. Normally, a mere trickle of water and waste ran from this ancient sewerage conduit, but on occasions, when storms had threatened to flood Undertown, the gates inside the Sluice Tower were opened and a mighty torrent would gush from the pipe until the waters had subsided and the danger of flooding passed.
The Sluice Tower and the great pipe it was built over stood at the entrance to the dark, verminous world of the sewers of Undertown. Here, desperate denizens - the lowest of the low - eked out a filthy existence alongside muglumps and Mire vermin of every description. In such a world, the impoverished Undertowners who inhabited the dank, fetid rooms of the Sluice Tower were considered fortunate.
Clash of the Sky Galleons Page 7
