In the Lair of the Mountain Beast

by James Moloney

  She hadn’t noticed Nathan approaching silently behind her. While she was speaking, he reached down and picked up the crossbow she had laid beside her and began to examine it.

  ‘That’s ours!’ she snapped and, jumping to her feet, quickly retrieved the crossbow from the man’s hands. He didn’t stop her taking it back but his face betrayed his anger. Another time he might not be so ready to let a girl boss him about.

  ‘I’ll need to practise on that thing because I’m coming with you as well,’ he said. He called to Eamon over the heads of the children. ‘We’ll set out tomorrow morning. There are other humans like us roaming the countryside. One of them will know about this place Wimdencheck.’

  ‘Windenbeck,’ Berrin said through gritted teeth. He was seething at the way the grown-ups were taking over. Yet Dorian didn’t argue with the men or make a fuss.

  ‘All right then, in the morning,’ was all she said.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Berrin complained after the men had walked away together.

  Dorian held up her hands to deflect the anger that came not just from Berrin. Olanda was almost crimson with rage and even Aden looked ready to tell her off. Dorian smiled as she spoke. ‘Don’t worry, those two won’t be coming with us. By the time they wake in the morning, we’ll be long gone.’

  With nothing to eat, the children wished only that the day would end quickly. Finally, the sun disappeared and both grown-ups and children settled to sleep as best they could. Neither Eamon nor Nathan noticed that the Rats kept their packs and weapons close at hand and chose a place to sleep well away from the rest.

  With the moon directly over their heads, Dorian passed the word. Less than a minute later, four dark shadows slipped silently into the trees. They had escaped, or so they thought.

  SEVEN

  A Nursery Rhyme From Long Ago

  DORIAN LED THE WAY as the four companions pushed on through the bracken and scrub beneath the trees. They were almost a kilometre from the camp by now, but Olanda kept stopping to check behind them, a troubled scowl on her face.

  ‘Listen,’ she said finally, unable to hide her suspicions any longer.

  They stopped dead in their tracks while she fitted a bolt to her crossbow. The cracking of twigs underfoot could be easily heard.

  ‘There, through the trees,’ Olanda whispered, at the same time taking aim with the crossbow.

  ‘Wait, it’s one of the grown-ups,’ said Dorian. ‘It’s that crazy woman, the one they called Mad Lizzie.’

  The crossbow was lowered while the woman stumbled through the bush to join them.

  ‘What do you want?’ Dorian asked. ‘You can’t come with us. You grown-ups only want to tell us what to do.’

  Mad Lizzie didn’t offer an answer. She stared around the menacing forest as though she wasn’t sure why she’d come. When she did speak, her words made no sense at all.

  ‘Children children roaming free

  See my slopes once rivers red.’

  ‘What’s she talking about?’ snapped Dorian, who was in no mood for delays.

  Berrin recognised the rhythm of the words. ‘It sounds like one of those nursery rhymes she was chanting back at the stream.’

  Mad Lizzie started over again, though this time she sang the words in a soft and childish voice.

  ‘Children children roaming free

  See my slopes once rivers red

  And my peak is missing too

  To and fro.’

  Dorian’s patience with the sad woman quickly dried up. ‘We haven’t got time for this,’ she whispered to the others. ‘She’s crazy and she doesn’t look very strong. We can outrun her.’

  ‘No, wait,’ said Berrin. ‘Did you hear her last words? My peak is missing. Her song is about that mountain in the distance.’

  ‘The volcano,’ Aden reminded them.

  ‘Yes, but a mountain that size would have had a name for hundreds of years. If it was called Mount Windenbeck, the grown-ups would have told us,’ said Dorian.

  Berrin ignored her. He stepped forward and grasped Mad Lizzie gently by the arm. ‘This song, it has something to tell us, doesn’t it?’

  The woman had become agitated when Dorian spoke so harshly, but Berrin’s tender touch seemed to soothe her. He spoke calmly to her again. ‘Sing the whole song for us, Lizzie.’

  She looked from face to face, though in the darkness she could not have seen more than shadows and outlines. It was Berrin’s voice she responded to.

  ‘Children children roaming free

  See my slopes once rivers red

  And my peak is missing too

  To and fro

  To and fro

  Frozen now my fire is dead.’

  ‘It’s definitely about the volcano,’ said Aden, growing excited by what he had worked out. ‘When the melted rock escapes from a volcano, it forms red-hot rivers, just as the song said. And the bit about the fire being dead — that means the volcano is extinct.’

  ‘Extinct?’

  ‘Dead. It’s another way of saying it will never erupt again.’

  ‘That’s all great to know, Aden, but what does it matter?’ Dorian said. ‘We’re still too close to the grown-ups’ camp. If we don’t hurry, we’ll have Eamon or Nathan with us as well.’

  But Berrin wasn’t ready to give up. He still held Lizzie by the arm and could feel her growing anxiety. ‘There’s more to the song, isn’t there? Something we should hear. Sing it for us, Lizzie.’

  The mad woman took a breath and started again, the same words to begin with. Berrin feared she would simply repeat what they had already heard, but he needn’t have worried.

  ‘Children children roaming free

  Do not fear my snow and ice

  In my heart I tame the wind

  Wind and beck

  Wind and beck

  Beckon you to paradise.’

  Berrin heard his friends gasp behind him. They had picked out the vital words as clearly as he had. Wind and beck — Windenbeck.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Dorian said. All thoughts of running from Mad Lizzie had left her now. ‘What is she telling us?’

  ‘It must be an old nursery song,’ said Berrin, ‘from long before the time Malig Tumora took control. That strange line, wind and beck, it’s part of a song about that volcano.’

  ‘It can’t be a coincidence,’ said Aden.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Berrin said. He was reliving in his mind those horrible minutes in the menagerie when the Gadges and DfX had dragged a man away to his fate.

  ‘He was desperate,’ Berrin muttered to himself.

  ‘Who was desperate?’

  ‘Malig Tumora — the real one, the human Malig Tumora. He knew his only hope was the moth; that Aden and I would escape and find it somehow and use it to destroy the purple flowers.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Dorian. ‘What has this got to do with Lizzie’s song and Mount Windenbeck?’

  ‘Don’t you see? He couldn’t tell me where the moth might still be living because the observation ball would have heard him and then Malig Tumora the computer would have sent its own expedition to find it. He had to use a code of some kind. Something the computer wouldn’t understand but that human beings might. He remembered this old nursery song about the volcano. There is no Mount Windenbeck. If the moth is still alive, it’s living on that volcano.’

  EIGHT

  The Road

  THEY THANKED MAD LIZZIE and persuaded her to return to her people. Then Dorian began leading the others through the trees as fast as the darkness would let her. After three hours, she ordered a halt and told them to sleep until dawn. When the sun rose, they moved on again.

  ‘We’re a long way from the city now,’ she said. ‘We can risk moving around in daylight, and the best thing is that now we know where we’re going.’

  Berrin wasn’t quite as comfortable as his leader with walking in the daylight. He kept an eye out for the observation ball but all he could see were
birds. One in particular, with white feathers and long graceful wings for gliding, stayed above them for hours, enjoying an easy ride on the thermal currents that rose from the warm ground. Watching it brought Berrin a kind of peace he was not used to.

  The mountain loomed ahead of them, the snow on its curved summit shimmering in early-morning gold. Though it must have a different name, to the Rats it was Mount Windenbeck.

  ‘What do you think Mad Lizzie’s song was all about?’ Berrin asked Aden.

  It came as no surprise that Aden knew the words by heart even though he had heard them only once.

  ‘The parts about the volcano are clear enough,’ he said. ‘Red rivers, a missing peak. It’s an extinct volcano, so we won’t run into any boiling lava. It’s the last line that I don’t understand. Beckon you to paradise.’

  To Berrin, paradise was a day without fear, or a home he could share with the parents he had met only briefly.

  Late in the afternoon, rain began to fall. The weather wasn’t cold but with nothing to eat their small bodies shivered. The rain produced another effect they hadn’t counted on. In the distance they heard a noise. Each knew they had heard it before but couldn’t quite name it, until Olanda cried, ‘Tyres! It’s the sound of car tyres on a wet road.’

  She was right. After another kilometre of careful movement across overgrown fields and low fences, they could see a road. While they were still some distance away, the sound of tyres grew again and they ducked out of sight as a large truck drove by.

  ‘Mount Windenbeck is on the other side of this road. We’ll have to cross it,’ Dorian said.

  This should have been an easy task. Although it was wider than roads in the city, the bitumen surface was still only twenty metres across. However, the road was bordered by a stout fence. And it was no farmer’s fence either. The wire made an interlocking mesh that reached five metres into the air. This mesh was attached to the steel posts by small white plates that glistened in the rain. Berrin had seen them somewhere before but he couldn’t recall what they were.

  ‘Who’s got the wire cutters?’ asked Dorian.

  ‘They’re in my ratpack,’ said Berrin. He had them out in a second and, while the other four watched for more trucks, he stepped towards the fence with the cutters open and ready.

  Before he could take the last step, a figure charged out of the scrub that grew to within a few metres of the fence. Whatever it was dived onto Berrin, who gave a frightened cry and found himself in a tangled heap on the muddy ground along with his attacker.

  ‘Get off him!’ roared Dorian, her deadly sword already drawn.

  It was a human being, a man, and at first they feared that Eamon or Nathan had followed them after all, but then they saw this man wasn’t as thin and his clothing was in better shape. Once he had tackled Berrin, he didn’t seem intent on doing any more harm. He rolled away as ordered, but the wire cutters lay close to his hand and he snatched them up.

  Olanda aimed the crossbow at his heart. ‘Drop the cutters and put your hands on your head!’

  He obeyed, and now that some calm was returning they took a good look at his face. What a horror it was! Parallel scars disfigured his left cheek and extended all the way down over his jaw and became even deeper on his neck.

  A Gadge’s claws did that, thought Berrin, who was back on his feet. He shuddered just looking at the poor man.

  ‘Who are you?’ Dorian demanded.

  The man appeared to speak but no words came out, only a strangled gasping. He began to take his left hand from the top of his head but instantly Olanda tightened her finger on the crossbow trigger and he changed his mind.

  ‘Speak up! Why did you attack Berrin like that?’

  Again, the only answer was garbled nonsense that seemed to come as much from his neck as his lips. Looking more closely at those terrible scars, Berrin saw a deep hole in the man’s neck. Yet, despite the confusion, Berrin had made out a word. It sounded like current. Another glance at the fence helped him remember where he had seen those little white plates before. His mouth went dry. He had been so close.

  ‘What are you doing, Berrin?’ Dorian asked when he drew his sword. But he had no intention of harming his attacker. Instead, he tossed his sword against the wire. Immediately the air crackled and fizzed and the sword fell back in a shower of sparks.

  ‘Electrified,’ he explained to his open-mouthed companions. ‘If I had touched it with those clippers, I’d be cinders right now.’

  Olanda lowered the crossbow. ‘You can take your hands down,’ she told the stranger.

  As soon as his hands dropped away from his hair, the man put his fingers to the hole in his neck. ‘I’m sorry I had to leap on you like that,’ he gasped and wheezed to Berrin. ‘You’ve already worked out why I did it.’

  Berrin had also guessed why the man hadn’t simply called out. ‘That hole opens into your windpipe, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, unless I close it off like this, I can’t speak. You’re children from the city, aren’t you? You live in the tunnels of Ferdinand. I was one of you once, until I couldn’t measure down any more. My name is Jones.’

  ‘Where do those trucks go, Jones?’ Berrin asked.

  ‘They travel back and forth between the city and the outside world. This is how Malig Tumora gets the supplies he needs to keep the city going — the coal to make electricity and the food for the people and his creatures, since no one farms this land any more.’

  ‘How does he pay for it all?’

  ‘Oh, there are plenty out there in the world willing to pay a high price for his discoveries and inventions.’

  ‘You mean the kinds of things he has used to enslave all the grown-ups in the city? He’s sending them out in those trucks?’

  Jones nodded. ‘Who knows what damage they will cause if he’s not stopped.’

  ‘We’re going to stop him,’ said Berrin and, with Dorian adding bits here and there, he told Jones of their mission. The man listened with growing astonishment.

  ‘A moth. You think our fate lies with a moth and its greedy caterpillars?’ He didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘It’s the best chance we have,’ said Berrin with a sinking heart. When they told the story like this it did sound far-fetched.

  ‘I suppose any chance is better than none, isn’t it? The moth can be found on the slopes of the volcano, you say? Then you must cross this road.’

  ‘How?’ asked Dorian. ‘If we touch that fence, we’ll fry.’

  ‘The fence is there to protect the road,’ said Jones. ‘It’s not designed to stop things getting from one side to the other.’

  ‘You’ve been to the other side then?’

  ‘No, not me, but other things pass back and forth without any trouble. Come with me.’

  They followed Jones along the fence, hiding whenever another truck rumbled by, sometimes four or five in a convoy. After less than a kilometre he scrambled down among the bushes, signalling them to follow.

  ‘There, do you see what I mean?’ He pointed towards a trickle of water.

  Dorian exchanged a confused glance with Berrin and the others. ‘It’s raining. The water collects in little streams. So what?’

  ‘Ah, but this rainwater fell on the other side of the road.’

  ‘You mean there’s a drain running under the road?’

  ‘Yes, down there, hidden by the overgrown grass. You’re all Rats, like I was once. I’m sure you know what that means.’

  NINE

  Beware the Mountain Beast

  DORIAN CLIMBED DOWN into the narrow creek bed for a closer look. ‘Yes, there’s a pipe,’ she called up to the others. Crouching lower, she examined it for a few seconds then scrambled back up the bank. ‘we’ll get through it all right, but not until the water level is lower.’

  ‘That won’t happen until the rain stops,’ Olanda said.

  As one, they raised their faces to the sky where the low, grey clouds did not look promising.

  ‘Could be tomorrow
before we can try it,’ Dorian said.

  ‘No point staying out in the rain then,’ said Jones. ‘Why don’t you come with me? At least you’ll be dry.’

  Despite the breathy gasps of his speech, the Rats followed him willingly.

  ‘He’s not like those other grown-ups,’ Olanda whispered to Berrin as they moved through the scrub behind him. ‘He doesn’t boss us about.’

  ‘I wonder if he has anything to eat,’ said Aden.

  For once, Berrin didn’t roll his eyes in disgust because his own stomach was asking the same question.

  They walked for half an hour and by then the day was fading, along with their energy. ‘Through here,’ Jones told them at last, holding back the bough of a willow tree that drooped low with the weight of its thick foliage. Dorian went first and when the others joined her they discovered a small sanctuary. Nowhere in such dangerous countryside could be called safe, but this refuge offered some comfort, at least.

  Jones had chosen his hideaway carefully. Three stout bushes closed in two sides and he had cleverly woven together the supple branches of the willow to create a living roof. In the darkness, the Rats could make out very little, but the ground seemed mostly dry.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Jones asked.

  ‘Yes!’ four voices said at once.

  ‘I thought so. Sit down,’ and while each of them found a spot, he unhooked a bag from an overhanging branch and passed it around. ‘Take a piece each. It’s the best I can do.’

  Best he could do! Berrin had never tasted anything so good. Jasper had smelled the feast too. He squirmed inside Berrin’s ratpack, demanding to be let out.

  ‘Here, he can have some of mine,’ said Aden, reaching across with a titbit he had broken off his own portion. ‘What is this stuff?’ he asked Jones.

  ‘Duck. I trap them on the edge of a lake not far from here. You’re lucky — I caught one just yesterday. Finding food is difficult with Gadges and other creatures hunting human flesh. It’s too dangerous to pick fruit from the old orchards because the Gadges sometimes set traps among the trees.’