In the Lair of the Mountain Beast

by James Moloney

  They joined the girls again. Nothing more was said, but Jasper rode in Berrin’s pack after that. ‘Gives a whole new meaning to the word ratpack,’ he joked when they set out again that evening and Aden managed a smile along with the girls.

  They made their way down the other side of the ridge, but before long the strong scent of charred grass and leaves drifted into their nostrils.

  ‘Can’t see any smoke ahead,’ said Dorian.

  ‘It smells like an old fire, don’t you think?’ was Olanda’s opinion.

  She was soon proved right. They walked for another half-hour then suddenly entered a burnt-out landscape. All the leaves had been stripped from the trees and there wasn’t a flower or a blade of grass that wasn’t blackened and shrivelled.

  Dorian summed up the desolate landscape: ‘Dead, everything is dead.’

  Without any orders from their leader, the others quickened their pace. After less than a kilometre, the lifeless ground came to an end and they found themselves back in overgrown countryside.

  ‘What was that place? How could everything be burned like that, in just an isolated patch?’ Olanda asked, but no-one had an answer for her.

  The four Rats made their way steadily across the fields. Occasionally, they had to climb over a fence and in the distance they would see a farmhouse.

  ‘At least we know human beings lived here once,’ Berrin said.

  ‘Yeah, once,’ said Aden, ‘but everything’s been abandoned. Are you sure there are still people living out here?’

  Aden received an answer soon enough.

  ‘Look at this,’ Olanda called from ahead, careful to keep her voice low.

  Aden held back, worried by the warning in her voice. She waited deliberately until he had joined the others then pulled back a curtain of reeds.

  ‘Ugh,’ cried Aden, putting a hand to his mouth as though he was going to be sick.

  Berrin looked down at the human skeleton — a man, by the look of the shredded clothing. ‘How long has he been dead?’

  ‘Not long,’ said Olanda. ‘See, there’s still a bit of flesh on the bones.’

  Not all of the bones were there, however. One arm was missing from the shoulder and so was the bottom half of one leg.

  ‘Gadges,’ said Berrin. ‘They must know that grown-ups roam around this countryside. Looks like they come out here to hunt them.’

  ‘Humans used to go hunting,’ said Aden. ‘I learned about it in the menagerie. They’d hunt foxes and deer and wild pigs. They did it for fun.’

  ‘Fun!’ said Olanda. ‘How can they kill just for fun?’

  ‘It’s more than that with the Gadges,’ said Berrin, staring down at the bones. ‘Looks like they hunted this man down to eat him.’

  FIVE

  A Poor and Hopeless Herd

  THEY MOVED ON QUICKLY, each of them struggling to block out Berrin’s chilling words.

  ‘I’m so hungry,’ Aden complained only an hour after their midnight rations. ‘There could be food in that old farmhouse,’ he said, pointing at a distant building visible in the moonlight. ‘Tinned food can last for a long time.’

  ‘If you know about it, then so do the Gadges,’ said Dorian, showing the insight of a leader. ‘They probably set traps at the places humans are most likely to go. You want to eat food, not be food, right, Aden?’

  Aden nodded sullenly and trudged on behind the others. Looking back, Berrin tried to fight off a growing fear. He had brought Aden out here to join the grown-ups but he worried now that his plan might be a cruel death sentence.

  The four Rats continued through an orchard and along tree-lined creeks. Dorian did her best to avoid open fields, for even travelling at night was dangerous. They crossed a road that traced the line of a low ridge and plunged on into more abandoned farmland until the first hint of dawn.

  ‘Time to rest. Here, Aden, you can eat at last,’ Dorian announced.

  Aden accepted his share of the food and went to sit under a tree beside Berrin. The scene around them was brightening quickly. A small clearing surrounded the tree and beyond it were long stalks of corn and sunflowers that created a curtain higher than their heads.

  ‘What was that noise?’ Aden said suddenly.

  Berrin hadn’t heard anything. Dorian and Olanda listened, but when only the sounds of bees and crickets broke the morning silence they shrugged and went back to eating.

  Moments later, they all heard it.

  Olanda sprang to her feet. ‘Here, give me the crossbow,’ she ordered and, like magic, a bolt appeared in her hand. She fitted it in place, ready to fire.

  Dorian was on her feet too, her sword reflecting the orange sun that climbed steadily in the east. ‘Can you see anything?’ she whispered.

  A rustle of bushes behind them made Berrin spin around. There it was — a flash of something dull and grey among the stalks and leaves. Olanda had seen it too and raised the crossbow to her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ Berrin shouted.

  It was too late for the hot-fingered Olanda but his warning upset her aim and the bolt sailed wide of the target. Just as well, because moments later the overgrown curtain parted and there before them stood a human being.

  ‘Who are you?’ the figure asked in a deep voice that reminded Berrin of Ferdinand. The man seemed little more than a walking skeleton. Two haunted eyes peered out from deep sockets, darting from the bushes to the sky and back again. Filthy rags hung from his wasted frame. Not that the Rats’ clothes were much better — crawling inside concrete pipes did not help shirts and pants to last.

  ‘Look at his bow,’ Olanda whispered to Berrin. ‘Those arrows are bent and don’t have any feathers to keep them on course. He couldn’t hit a tree trunk at ten paces with a weapon like that.’

  Dorian stepped forward to greet him, though she kept a wary distance. ‘We’ve come from the city.’

  ‘You’re those children who live underground, call yourselves the Rats.’

  ‘You’ve met some of us before then?’

  ‘Only one at a time, never four. We thought you were all dead.’

  Dorian glanced towards Berrin. Neither had missed the word we.

  ‘Who are you then?’ Berrin asked.

  ‘My name is Nathan.’

  As he spoke, a breeze stirred the wild growth around them. Nathan flinched and spun nervously with his bow and arrow at the ready. A sheen of perspiration broke across his skin, making him glisten in the sunlight. There was something else too — a smell that caused Berrin’s nose to wrinkle.

  ‘It’s just the wind,’ Berrin assured him but the man found it difficult to relax.

  ‘Do you have anything to eat?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘Only enough for our own needs,’ said Dorian. ‘There are other humans out here in the countryside, aren’t there? Can you take us to them tonight, when it’s dark and safer to move?’

  Nathan’s eyes were fixed on the ratpacks that lay on the ground. ‘No, I’ll take you now,’ he said, suddenly impatient. ‘Come on, let’s get going.’

  There was an air of command in his words, as though he expected the children to obey without question. They followed him eagerly enough, though Dorian did whisper one concern. ‘I hope the rest of the grown-ups are more promising than this one.’

  ‘I just hope they don’t smell as bad,’ Berrin replied.

  As so often happened, Olanda was the one who delivered the most withering assessment: ‘He’s a fool. We’d better keep a lookout ourselves or he’ll get us all killed.’

  Two hours of careful progress through farmland which gave way to forests brought them to a narrow creek. ‘This way,’ Nathan called softly and, splashing through the water, he led them upstream. Minutes later, they emerged into a clearing amid the trees and found seven more grown-ups staring at them in amazement.

  ‘Children!’ came the cry, but if Berrin and the others had been hoping for a band of humans who would renew their confidence, they were disappointed.

  ‘They
’re all the same as Nathan,’ Dorian said, before stepping forward to be greeted by a man who announced his name was Eamon.

  ‘Are you the leader?’ she asked.

  ‘I suppose. We don’t think about that sort of thing much. It’s such a struggle just to stay alive.’

  He signalled for Nathan to join him. ‘Bad news,’ he told the man when he arrived at his side. ‘Amelia was taken by the Gadges. She couldn’t keep up and we had to leave her.’

  Nathan let out a deep groan and closed his eyes, but when he opened them again, they were filled more with a frightened acceptance than anger or grief. ‘The Gadges are too strong,’ he muttered and went to kneel by the stream. Berrin was dismayed to see him gulp the water like a dog.

  Talk of Gadges and a grisly death unsettled the others. One of them, a woman with wild, dishevelled hair, began to screech and babble.

  ‘They’ll get us all in the end,’ she wailed as she flopped down where she stood and began to cry. As quickly as it had begun the pathetic sobbing ceased and in its place the woman began to sing: ‘Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel.’

  If there was any more to the song, she didn’t seem to know it. She simply repeated the same words, over and over, until a second woman called, ‘Stop it, Lizzie.’

  ‘Don’t mind her,’ Eamon told the four children, who watched in dismay. ‘That’s Mad Lizzie. She can’t cope with the fear. Chanting those old nursery rhymes helps her forget. Look at her — it’s like she’s a girl again.’

  Berrin didn’t like the way he said this, with such contempt. Dorian was a girl, and so was Olanda, yet they faced the same dangers with courage. What had happened to these grown-ups?

  Nathan returned from the stream and whispered briefly in Eamon’s ear.

  ‘You have food in those packs,’ Eamon cried.

  At this announcement, the other grown-ups lost their listless stance. All of them came closer.

  ‘What have you got? Do you have any bread?’ asked a man every bit as thin as Nathan. ‘I haven’t tasted bread since I escaped from my dormer. Been living on whatever I can find ever since. The Gadges will get me one day, most likely, but before then I’m going to taste bread again.’

  ‘If you have food, you must share it,’ Eamon told them. ‘It’s a rule. It’s how we survive.’

  Berrin sensed Olanda shifting beside him. The string of her crossbow was already pulled back into position.

  ‘Steady,’ he cautioned. ‘Don’t do anything until Dorian gives the order.’

  He glanced the other way and caught Dorian’s eye. Her face was creased in a deep frown. It didn’t seem right to point a crossbow at another human being. Reluctantly, she swung the ratpack from her shoulder and opened it. Eamon snatched it from her hands and began to pull loaves of bread from inside.

  ‘The boy is carrying food as well,’ Nathan told Eamon and before Berrin could back away, his pack was ripped from him.

  ‘Don’t eat it all,’ Dorian cried when the grown-ups closed in around them. ‘We need this for our mission.’

  The grown-ups took no notice. They were too busy squabbling over the bread.

  ‘Won’t you keep some for tomorrow,’ Berrin pleaded as the precious supplies were torn apart and chewed by savage mouths and quickly swallowed.

  ‘Why?’ Eamon said. ‘We might all be dead by this afternoon.’

  It was then that Berrin and his companions understood who they had joined forces with. They backed away towards the stream.

  ‘That skeleton we saw — I was right,’ said Berrin. ‘The Gadges do hunt these grown-ups for sport. They’re no different from a herd of animals.’

  SIX

  You’re Only Children. After All

  WHEN THE BREAD WAS ALL GONE, Dorian led her disheartened team back among the grown-ups. ‘Where is your base?’ she asked Eamon.

  ‘Base?’

  ‘Your home, where you make your weapons, where you gather to discuss plans.’

  ‘Our only plan is to survive for another day. If we made one place our base, Malig Tumora’s beasts would quickly find it. We stay on the move, one step ahead of the Gadges when they come for us. Sometimes they send other creatures, and when they are in a particularly cruel mood they use a fuel–air bomb.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Berrin asked. ‘I thought fuel was something that went into a car. Air is something you breathe. How can you make a bomb out of such things?’

  Two of the grown-ups moved closer to hear Eamon explain. ‘Fuel has another name — petrol. It burns very fiercely, especially if it’s mixed with a lot of air, to make fumes. One spark and the mixture explodes. The Gadges have a favourite trick if we hide in brambles or thick grass where they can’t find us. They spray petrol into the air and let the breeze take it to every corner, every hiding place. Then they shoot a flaming arrow into the fumes and whoosh — every living thing dies in a fireball.’

  The surrounding grown-ups got the reaction they expected from the children. Absolute horror filled their faces.

  ‘We saw a patch where the trees and the ground had been burned,’ Dorian said.

  ‘You’ve seen what a fuel–air bomb can do then.’ Eamon swept his arm towards the woman he’d called Mad Lizzie and said bitterly, ‘Do you see now why some of us go crazy?’

  ‘You mean you don’t fight back? Don’t you set traps for the Gadges, make them think twice about hunting you down?’ Without realising it, Berrin had raised his voice almost to a shout. The grown-ups recognised his anger, but none would answer him.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Eamon asked, deflecting attention from their humiliation. ‘You spoke of a mission. Have you found a way to fight the Gadges?’

  ‘Many ways,’ Berrin said. ‘But we have a special task. We’re looking for Mount Windenbeck.’

  Eamon shook his head. He called to the others who had dispersed into the surrounding forest to digest their gobbled meal. ‘Do any of you know a Mount Windenbeck?’

  As soon as the name echoed around the trees, Mad Lizzie jumped to her feet. ‘Windenbeck, Windenbeck,’ she repeated.

  Berrin and Dorian ran to the wide-eyed woman. ‘Where is it, where is Mount Windenbeck?’ they asked, but she had retreated inside her terrified mind and wouldn’t answer.

  ‘Why is it so important?’ Eamon asked.

  ‘It’s just a slim hope really,’ Berrin said, and, together with Dorian and Olanda, he told of the moth and its ability to destroy the purple flowers.

  Eamon became excited by the story. ‘You mean to say this moth could ruin Malig Tumora’s plans?’ He went off to think about this, like a man who had been shown a precious stone but couldn’t quite measure its value.

  This gave Berrin a chance to raise a new worry that niggled at his mind. He waited until Aden had wandered down to the creek for a drink and to wash his face. Then he said, ‘We can’t leave Aden here with these people.’

  ‘That’s been our plan since the start,’ Dorian reminded him, once again the hard-headed leader. ‘To take him with us will make it harder to find the moth, especially now, with all our food gone.’

  ‘But these people won’t take care of him.’

  ‘It’s time he learned to take care of himself. That’s what Aden is, you told me — a learning machine.’

  ‘Yes, but he must have someone to learn from. These grown-ups can’t teach him anything. Look at the way they stole our food and then ate it all at once. If we leave him here, he’ll be dead in a week.’

  Dorian’s silence showed that she knew Berrin was right. The dilemma tore at her insides and she wasn’t able to hide it. She hated what she had to say, but she forced the words out. ‘This mission is too important, Berrin. It was risky enough to bring him this far. Now he has to fend for himself.’

  ‘But has it really been such a risk?’ Berrin said. He was arguing for his friend’s life and he wouldn’t give in any more than Dorian would. ‘Aden knew about that volcano, he knows all sort of things. The best team — t
hat’s what you said we had to take with us. Well, you don’t have to be a fearless warrior to be useful.’

  Dorian fell silent in the face of Berrin’s pleas, but she hadn’t given in. They were once again at an impasse. And once again, Olanda was called on to side with one or the other. She didn’t hesitate.

  ‘It’s too cruel, Dorian. Berrin’s right — Aden knows all sorts of stuff. Even if he does slow us down, even if he eats more than his share, he should still come with us.’

  ‘Well, Dorian?’ Berrin said.

  As Aden made his way back from the stream, Dorian called him over. ‘We’ve changed our minds,’ she told him solemnly. ‘You can stay with us and help find the moth.’

  The smile that broke across Aden’s lips almost split his face in two. He knew who to thank for his reprieve. ‘You saved me again, Berrin,’ he said later when they were alone.

  But for all that Berrin was pleased to keep Aden with them for now, he knew that his friend could not return to the city. He was growing too quickly to live any longer in the tunnels. What was to become of him?

  While the children discussed Aden, Eamon had circulated among the sorry band of grown-ups telling them of the moth. The story did not yield any clues about the mysterious Mount Windenbeck, but it did light the flame of hope that seemed to have died long ago among the group.

  He came to where the four Rats were sitting in a loose circle. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he informed them. ‘You’re only children, after all, and this mission must succeed if there’s to be any chance of defeating Malig Tumora.’

  ‘We’ve come this far without any help,’ said Dorian, echoing the thoughts of the others.

  ‘But you don’t know the country as well as I do. You need someone to lead you.’

  ‘Dorian is our leader,’ Berrin interrupted. ‘And besides, you don’t know where Mount Windenbeck is any more than we do.’

  ‘And our weapons are better than yours too,’ said Olanda, whose tone left no doubt about what she thought of Eamon and his companions.