‘The honour is all mine, High Master,’ said Zaphix proudly.
Imbix Hoth raised a metal-spiked finger to the barrow-pushers - then paused for a moment.
‘Just one last thing,’ he said to the stone marshal, with a thin smile. ‘If you’re thinking of celebrating with a bottle of sapwine in one of our fine Undertown taverns, take my advice…’ Imbix clicked his fingers, and the barrow jolted into movement. ‘Avoid the Tarry Vine tavern tonight!’
ii
The Knights Academy
Raffix Emilius pushed his small round spectacles up over the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. He was standing in his chamber at the top of one of the thirteen towers, staring out of the open window. Ever since he’d been made a knight academic-in-waiting, he had spent most of his time in his quarters, reading, meditating, studying - awaiting the day when he would be called upon to embark on a stormchasing voyage to the Twilight Woods in search of sacred stormphrax.
Such a voyage would test him to the very limit, calling upon all the skills and knowledge he had gained in his time in the Lower and Upper Halls of the Knights Academy. Now those carefree days of model sky ships,prowlgrin rearing and tilt-tree practice were behind him. The knight academic-in-waiting’s mission now was to do just that -wait. And while he waited, to prepare himself for the greatest test any Sanctaphrax academic could face: the quest for stormphrax.
Yet, Raffix thought grimly, this waiting was hard. He was meant to be clearing his mind, focusing on the quest to come -yet he couldn’t stop thoughts from the past from flooding back. There was that extraordinary voyage into Open Sky, the cloudeater, the battle in the inner courtyard, the winter knights and …
‘Quintinius Verginix,’ he whispered, the words lost to the icy air outside.
Perhaps it was this biting wind, whistling through Sanctaphrax with its promise of snow, that was bringing the events of that terrible winter back to him. Raffix peered out of his window, past the tilt trees and the West Wall of the Academy, over the domed roofs of the Hall of Wind, past Undertown and the bleached Mire beyond, and on towards the horizon, far, far away above the distant Deepwoods.
‘Oh, Quint,’ he whispered. ‘I wonder where you are now?’ Stope, the grey goblin forge-hand, raised the visor of his furnace hood and held the honed tip of the harpoon up to the light. It was magnificent, with long razor-sharp jags glinting in the golden light. Furnace-fired fifty times and hammered out on the armoury anvil, the massive harpoon’s smooth surface was patterned with flowing swirls of exquisite beauty.
Since he’d first found a home in the foundry of the Hall of Grey Cloud, young Stope had built a reputation for fine craftsmanship and an eye for detail. The two furnace masters - hulking Clud Mudskut and diminutive Spedius Heepe - didn’t know what they’d do without him. Now, instead of a bed of rags behind the main furnace, Stope had his own sleeping-closet in the hall’s upper chambers and the furnace masters had even presented him with three cloddertrog stokers to fire up the furnaces -a job Stope had previously had to struggle with single-handed.
Of course, the furnace masters had ulterior motives for making their talented young forge-hand’s life more comfortable. Freed from menial tasks around the armoury, Stope could devote his energies to forging the finest weapons and armour in the whole of Sanctaphrax or Undertown.
As his reputation grew, so both Spedius Heepe’s order-book and Clud Mudskut’s great chest filled, one with scrawled ink entries, the other with gold. As for Stope, so long as he was fed and watered, he seemed happy to spend long hours in the heat of the armoury, forging weapons for his furnace masters to sell.
Stope placed the completed section of the great harpoon in the rack beside the cooling-trough and hung up his furnace-hood and gauntlets. He’d forgotten all about the time, and now, through the high narrow windows of the armoury, he could see a full moon.
Working on the harpoon - one of a whole flurry of commissions from Imbix Hoth, High Master of the League of Rock Merchants - Stope’s head had been filled with thoughts of sky ships. A weapon as large and powerful as this one, he realized, could be destined only for the most magnificent of vessels. Oh, how Stope wished he could sail in such a ship! After his extraordinary adventure on board the old sky ship Cloudslayer in the terrible winter of the previous year, Stope’s imagination had been filled with thoughts of sky-flight - and of his friend, Quintinius Verginix.
‘I wonder, Master Quint,’ he whispered to himself, ‘exactly where you are now?’
Phin climbed out of the hanging-basket and followed the rest of the academics-at-arms across the West Landing, back towards the Knights Academy. It had been a long night and the muscles in his arms and legs were aching. But they’d managed to get the great flight-rock safely to the sky-shipyard without attracting attention - and had ten gold pieces each to show for it.
Although urged to celebrate their night’s work, Phin declined - bidding goodnight to his comrades outside the Academy Barracks, golden light streaming through its great oval window - and crossed to the Lower Halls. Climbing the great Central Staircase of the Knights Academy, he reached the Upper Halls. Then, at the western end, he went up a second set of steps to the top of the tall gantry tower and - despite the lateness of the hour and his own fatigue - walked out onto the gantry platform. The old sky ship, the Cloudslayer, creaked and swayed from the tether-ring above as, with aching muscles, Phin climbed the ladder and boarded her.
‘Phin!’ came a voice as his foot landed on the fore-deck. ‘Not you as well!’
Raffix Emilius, knight academic-in-waiting, strode across the deck and embraced his friend.
‘What do you mean, not me as well?’ Phin asked.
‘This cold weather, of course!’ grinned Raffix. ‘The snow in the air … Don’t tell me your thoughts aren’t full of last winter and our incredible voyage …’
Phin smiled. ‘Well, now you mention it, Raff, I was thinking about the old times. That’s why I came up to visit the old girl…’
‘Me, too,’ came a third voice from the prow and, emerging from the shadows, Stope stepped forward.
‘Well, well, well,’ laughed Raffix. ‘If it isn’t Sanctaphrax’s most celebrated forge-hand! I’m surprised you had time to leave that armoury of yours, what with all the weapons you’ve been producing …’
Stope and Raffix shook hands warmly.
‘It’s true,’ said Stope. ‘I have been busy. Just finished a prow harpoon for a league ship - and if the size of it is anything to go by, then the league ship itself must be an absolute giant…’
‘That’s funny,’ said Phin thoughtfully as the three friends stood at the prow of the old sky ship and looked out across the dark wintry sky. ‘I’ve just helped harvest the largest flight-rock I’ve ever seen and delivered it to a sky-shipyard in Undertown this very night.’
Raffix took his spectacles off and polished them with a spider-silk handerchief. ‘Rumour has it the leagues are up to something,’ he said slowly. ‘Been refitting and repairing their league ships for months now - buying up all the timber they can lay their hands on. But this is the first I’ve heard of a giant sky ship …’
‘The leagues, pah!’ snorted Phin. ‘Probably just fighting amongst themselves as usual. We all know what they’re like.’
‘Maybe so,’ said Raffix, ‘but if the leagues ever did manage to act together, then one thing’s for certain …’
‘What’s that?’ asked Stope.
‘I wouldn’t want to be a sky pirate,’ said Raffix. ‘Talking of which …’
‘I know,’ said Phin, with a faraway look in his eyes. ‘Quint…’ He sighed. ‘I wonder where he is right now?’
iii
The Tarry Vine Tavern
Perched upon his high stool, Patricule the tavern-waif slowly rotated his wing-like ears. Fine as parchment and lined with a network of pale-blue veins that pulsed as they swivelled and fluttered, his ears listened to the thoughts in the great drinking hall of the Tarry Vine tavern, just as h
e did every night.
Although tonight was different…
The tables and drinking-benches were crowded as usual. Sky pirates of every description, from mire-pearlers to Deepwoods traders, Undertown sewer-skimmers to Edgeland pavement-poachers, sat slumped over tankards or troughs of foaming woodale. Their greatcoats were done up, their polished tricorne hats set at jaunty angles, with their swords, cutlasses and bludgeons at the ready. Though none of them moved so much as a muscle, they all sat in a curious expectant-looking silence, as if listening for something …
Patricule’s great wing-like ears twitched. Up above the hall, beside the huge vats of woodale, he could hear the thoughts of the tavern keeper, Glaviel Glynte. Sharp, clear, cool thoughts, they were, full of calculation and cunning. High above him on the gantry, Patricule could hear Sister Horsefeather’s clucking thoughts - agitated and fierce; barely suppressed excitement in her strange shryke head. But in front of him, in the crowded drinking hall, there was an eerie silence …
Crash!
Patricule stifled a howl of pain as the sound of the tavern doors slamming back on their hinges exploded in his ears. And there, standing in the doorway, was the portly gnokgoblin with the high-collared jerkin - the doorkeeper, Jaggs. He stared into the tavern, his eyes bulging and a bemused half-smile on his face.
Pity, but it can’t be helped, Patricule heard Glaviel Glynte’s thoughts above.
You’ll pay! You’ll pay for this! Sister Horsefeather’s thoughts rose to a shriek that made the waif wince.
He stared across the tavern from his high stool. All at once, Glynte’s and Horsefeather’s thoughts made sense. The gnokgoblin doorkeeper’s feet were hovering inches above the floor, and protruding from the centre of his chest were three glinting talons, each one dripping with blood. The next instant, the hapless creature was tossed aside like a discarded rag, and replaced in the doorway by a massive black-feathered shryke, dressed in a dark cloak, a gleaming spiked helmet and breastplate. A spiked ball and chain dangled from her left hand.
With a shriek of rage, the bird-creature launched herself at the nearest table, scattering the sky pirates with her flailing claws. Behind her, seven identical black-feathered shrykes -screaming with fury, green bile dripping from their beaks - came bursting into the tavern. They slashed and stabbed with their vicious claws, slicing through the heavy leather greatcoats and staving in the bicorne and tricorne hats with axe, cosh and cudgel-blow.
At each swinging blow or dagger-like claw-thrust, blood sprayed into the air, splattering table-top and tavern floor alike. From his high stool, Patricule stared with horrified fascination, the hideous chorus of murderous shryke-thoughts clamouring inside his head …
Die! Pirate scum! Die!
Blood! Blood! Blood!
Rip and slash! That’s it, pirate! Spill your guts!
Then, a moment later …
But wait! What’s this? Tilder guts? Hammelhorn blood!
Looking up from the bloody mess of bodies around her, the black-feathered shryke leader’s yellow eyes narrowed.
‘Waaaaach! Waaaaach! Waaaaach!’ she screeched, as she raced around the tavern, lashing out at the lifeless dummies at the tables.
Around her, her shryke-sisters let out similar shrieks of outrage.
A trick, sisters! A trick! their identical thoughts sounded in Patricule’s head.
All at once, they stopped stock still, and eight pairs of yellow eyes turned on the tiny waif perched on the high stool in the corner of the drinking hall.
Time, sweet ladies! the waif’s voice sounded in each bird-like creature’s head. Time…
The waif’s large pale eyes turned towards the gantry, high up above the massive woodale vats where Glaviel Glynte and Sister Horsefeather stood. The eight pairs of eyes followed his gaze as Sister Horsefeather reached down and, with both hands, grasped a thick, grooved lever attached to the gantry and yanked it as hard as she could.
As she did so, there was a series of creaks and cracks, followed by a loud whooshing sound, as the fronts of the huge woodale vats swung open and their contents gushed out into the drinking hall below in a tremendous roar. Gurgling with fear, shock and horror, the eight shrykes had their legs pulled away from beneath them and, along with the bloody sky-pirate dummies, the tables, the chairs, the stools and drinking-troughs, were washed across the tavern floor in the frothing torrent.
With a satisfied smirk, Patricule jumped from his high stool and pulled the draining chain. At the end of the hall, metal trapdoors in the floor slid open as the foaming tide of woodale reached the waif, then thundered down into the sewers beneath the tavern. Spinning round in the heady swirl, the shrykes tried desperately to hold their ground - lashing out with their glinting clawsand savage beaks - to escape the great rushing flood. But all to no avail.
Save me!
I’m drowning!
A-aa-aaa-aiih…
The shrykes’ thoughts receded in the tavern-waif’s head, to be replaced a moment later by Glaviel Glynte’s ice-cool musings.
First blood to the sky pirates. Imbix Hoth will be in need of a new bodyguard …
iv
Palace in the Western Quays
Imbix Hoth stood on the balcony of his palace, staring out across the Undertown rooftops. On the other side of the Edgewater, far from the opulent palaces of the leagues, was that nest of sky piracy, the Tarry Vine tavern. For too long had that impudent sky vermin defied the power of the leagues. Now their time was up.
First, flush the sky pirates out of their filthy nest in Undertown! His beloved shrykes would see to that.
Imbix smiled as he looked down at the glittering moonlit waters of the Edgewater River.
Then draw them out into the skies in one stinking swarm, and …
But what was that? Imbix’s eyes narrowed as he leaned out over the balcony. It couldn’t be … One, two … four … eight shrykes floating down the Edgewater River. Black, bedraggled - and very, very dead.
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN •
THE SKY WRECK
The sky wreck hovered in the air, dark and brooding -L against a backdrop of billowing clouds. Far below lay the turbulent treetops of the Deepwoods forest, the windblown canopy moving like the swell of a mighty ocean. To the east, west and north, the forest stretched off towards the horizons, seemingly for ever. Only to the south - where the sun was already low in the sky - did the luxuriant trees thin out as they approached the rocky Edgelands, that barren strip of land, lashed by gales and wreathed in swirling mist.
It was there - now blurred by wisps of cloud; now stark against the yellow sky - that the ancient wreck of a once proud sky ship floated. The vessel had not turned turvey Upright, but only just, its great hull tilted at a sharp angle, as if caught for ever in the act of tacking into the winds of the long-forgotten storm that had wrecked her.
Somewhere along the line, both of the sky ship’s great ironwood masts had snapped off. One was now a blunted stump; the other had been left with a circle of jagged splinters of wood, like a crown worn with jaunty disrespect. Huge gaping holes lined the vessel’s fore-and aft-hulls where the lufwood decking had fallen away. From every surface, every cracked panel, every shattered plank and shard of decking, there sprouted weird plants and fungal growths.
Some stood tall and jagged in yellow and orange peaks; some hugged the timber like ruffs of thick mottled fur; while some - resembling clusters of purple parasols -swayed delicately to and fro as wild winds buffeted the bows and the wreck rolled gently from side to side. Still more grew in the places where rain collected; clumps and clusters, like lowland shrubs and forest undergrowth. And in addition to all this, the entire floating vessel was festooned in great diaphanous swathes of shimmering threads that flapped and trembled in the shifting air like tattered silken sheets. Even the hanging-weights were not spared, with the chains and pitted rocks themselves covered with sky moss and air lichen and great tongue-like fronds.
As for the flight-rock at the heart of
the vast wrecked vessel, like all other buoyant rocks whose origins lay in the Stone Gardens, it had continued to grow. Once it had been enclosed by the spherical rock cage. Now, years after the sky ship had been wrecked and without a stone pilot to trim it, the rock was bulging through the gaps between the criss-cross lattice of riveted bars, pushing the torn and twisted metal out of the way in some places; swallowing it up in others.
Yet, despite the fact that the rock had swollen to almost twice its original size, very little of its surface was visible, for the curved contours were almost entirely obscured by jutting tiers of the giant mire-clams that now encrusted it. All round the rock, at regular intervals, these huge creatures opened their mouthlike shells wide to gulp greedily at the rich spore-laden air - only to expel it moments later, in curious spiralling wisps of warm steam.
Though the ancient flight-burners on the mossy flight-rock platform had burned out long ago, the giant mire-clams that had put down roots in the rock’s porous surface, had kept the rock stable and warm for numerous years. Clinging on tightly, regulating the temperature as they did so, they had ensured that the sky ship maintained an even altitude, preventing it from either crash-landing or soaring off into the aerial graveyard of Open Sky.
Instead, as a final indignity, the hapless sky wreck had been forced to hover in mid-air, drifting this way and that across the Edge - now above the Deepwoods, now above the Edgelands or the Twilight Woods; now back above the Deepwoods - a haven to the countless seeds, spores and windblown creatures of the sky.
From an opening in the wrecked sky ship’s once magnificent aft-castle, a long rope stretched off into the middle distance. There, like an obedient young prowlgrin at the end of its master’s leash, a small vessel bobbed about. Though evidently deserted, this skycraft - a humble sky barge - was, in marked contrast to the wreck, clearly skyworthy Its single mast was intact and its rubble cage undamaged - though how long they would remain this way, it was impossible to say. Since it was untended, it was only the thin rope tethered to the ancient sky wreck which was preventing the sky barge itself from spiralling off into Open Sky.
Clash of the Sky Galleons Page 22
