The Winter Knights

by Paul Stewart

  ‘And there was me saying it was too cold to snow,’ a young under-professor from the Institute of Ice and Snow commented to his older colleague as the pair of them hurried past.

  ‘Never known anything like this in all my born days,’ the older academic, his hair as white as the snow itself, replied solemnly. ‘It's so cold, the quicksilver in the cloudmeters has set hard.’

  As Quint and his father turned the corner of the Academy of Wind, the west wall of the Knights Academy came into full view. Its polished surface, made of rock hewn from the cliff-face of the Edge itself, shone and shimmered, as if countless million glisters were trapped beneath its surface. At its very centre was a small entrance in front of which a line of shivering squires-to-be had formed.

  Wind Jackal laid a hand on his son's shoulder. ‘This is where I must leave you,’ he said gravely. ‘If it gets any colder, it will be impossible to keep the flight-rocks warm enough for safe flight, and I've got business to take care of at Wilderness Lair.’

  Just then a shadow fell across the snow-covered square and, looking up, Quint saw the huge hull of a sky ship looming over the tops of the towers.

  ‘The Galerider,’ he breathed. ‘Wilderness Lair … I almost wish I was going with you, Father.’

  ‘No, Quint. Your future lies over there,’ said Wind Jackal with a wave of his arm. ‘Through that gateway.’

  Quint looked across and nodded. The squires were clearly freezing, stamping their feet and hugging their arms tightly about them. There were twenty-one others in all, waiting patiently for the hefty gatekeeper in the white tunic with its red logworm badge emblazoned on the front to motion them forward to enter. Quint was the last of them. They wouldn't be going anywhere until he joined them, he knew that – and yet he was finding it so hard to leave his father.

  From above his head, a rope-ladder dropped down. Wind Jackal grasped it and put a foot on the first rung.

  ‘I must bid you farewell,’ he said, ‘but before I go …’ He paused, reached inside his greatcoat and pulled out a small open-fronted box, with a lufwood perch inside and a large ring at the top. ‘This is in case you need me, my son,’ he said.

  Quint took the cage and peered in. A small creature tethered to the perch peered back at him. ‘A ratbird,’ he said.

  Wind Jackal nodded. ‘From the Galerider,’ he said. ‘If you need me, tie a message to its foot and release it. A ratbird always finds its way back to its roost ship, wherever it may be.’

  Quint smiled and nodded.

  ‘Make me proud of you, son!’ called Wind Jackal as he climbed the rope-ladder towards the hull-rigging of the mighty skycraft.

  An icy blast of wind made the Galerider lurch upwards as its flight-rock was cooled to the core. There was a bright burst of flame from the rock cage as the stone pilot battled to keep the sky ship steady The Galerider's sails billowed, and it soared off into the slate grey sky.

  ‘I'll do my best,’ Quint shouted after it.

  ‘“I'll do my best,”’ came a mocking voice behind him, and Quint turned to see Vilnix Pompolnius at the back of the line of squires, an unpleasant sneer on his lips. ‘Well, you could start by doing your best not to keep the rest of us waiting. It's freezing out here,’ he added, ‘or hadn't you noticed?’

  The other squires had turned and were staring at him. Quint felt the blood rush to his cheeks as he joined the back of the line. The squire next to Vilnix winked at Quint.

  ‘Sky pirate for a father,’ he said, whistling through his teeth and smiling. ‘I envy you. My father's a fusty old raintasting professor. Not nearly as much fun!’

  He stepped aside as Vilnix pushed past him, and joined Quint at the back of the line. A shock of brown, curly hair fell over his wide forehead and across one of his smiling grey-blue eyes.

  ‘Belphinius Mendellix,’ he grinned, holding out a hand. ‘But you can call me Phin. Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Quint,’ said Quint, taking his hand and shaking it.

  ‘You there at the back!’ came the gruff voice of the keeper. ‘The Gates of Humility await.’

  Quint and Phin turned to find the other squires had already entered, and that they were alone at the entrance.

  ‘Here goes!’ said Phin, with a smile, and bowed almost double as he disappeared through the low opening in the West Wall.

  ‘You next,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘And hurry up about it. I haven't got all day.’

  Quint stooped low and entered what he discovered was a low-ceilinged tunnel. Behind him, a metal door clanged shut, while in front, Phin and the other squires shuffled forward. As the ceiling came lower still, Quint was forced down onto all fours. He emerged a moment later through an opening little bigger than a fromp hole, head bent and on his knees.

  Looking round, he found himself in a great open courtyard covered, like everything else, in a thick layer of snow. At one side, running parallel to the West Wall, was a long avenue of poles, with horizontal branches that criss-crossed each other to create a sort of aerial maze. These were the tilt trees, where the knights academic-in-waiting and squires practised riding skills with their prowlgrins.

  Ahead rose the white walls of the Lower Halls, and behind them, rising higher still, the ancient façade of the Upper Halls, with its ornately carved timber beams and lintels. At the western end of the Upper Halls, looming above the whole academy, was the magnificent Gantry Tower, now just a misty outline against the snowy sky. It was here that the young knights academic practised lowering themselves on their prowlgrin mounts, in preparation for their storm-chasing voyages.

  Around Quint, his fellow squires – all still down on their knees – had formed themselves into a line. In front of them, despite the early hour and the bitter cold, the entire Knights Academy had turned out to greet the new arrivals.

  On one side stood the squires of the Upper Halls, in short cloaks and white tunics. And how confident and self-assured they looked, thought Quint. Next to them, their teachers – the high professors – regarded the new squires benevolently. These were the finest scholars in the academy, destined some day, each and every one of them, for high office in the other academies of Sanctaphrax. Linius Pallitax himself, Quint knew, had once been a high professor in the Knights Academy, before joining the School of Mist.

  On the other side of the snowy courtyard, in a great untidy throng, stood the academics-at-arms. Dressed in helmets, breast-plates and long black robes – and carrying a bewildering array of weapons – these were the members of the Knights Academy charged with the duty of protecting the sacred rock. Highly trained and well-equipped, the academics-at-arms were rugged individualists who took their orders directly from the Most High Academe.

  Beside them, standing to attention in rigid ranks, were the gatekeepers, keys hanging from their thick, studded belts. Ignoring the scornful looks they were getting from the academics-at-arms, they stared sullenly ahead, the logworm badges on their tunics startlingly red against the snowy backdrop. Recruited from Undertown, and under the direct control of the Hall Master of High Cloud, the gatekeepers were well aware how much all the other academics despised them. Their captain, Daxiel Xaxis, stood stiffly to attention at their head, his hard, chiselled features betraying no emotion.

  Directly in front of the kneeling squires, and completing the hierarchy of academics, stood the thirteen knights academic-in-waiting. They were all in the full armour – complete with glinting array of pipes, valves and dials – that Quint recognized from Linius's funeral ship. Each one of them had the visor to his helmet firmly shut.

  Thronging the courtyard, at a respectful distance from the squires, high professors, academics-at-arms, gatekeepers and knights academic-in-waiting, were the massed ranks of hall servants, hushed and expectant. Ostlers, stable-hands and byre-gillies from the Hall of Grey Cloud rubbed shoulders with forge-hands, timber-workers and lectern-turners from the other halls. Servants from the barracks which housed the academics-at-arms mingled with stew-cart tenders from the Eightways re
fectory. All – no matter what their status – had their eyes fixed firmly on the kneeling squires in front of the Gates of Humility.

  A hush fell, as four figures made their way across the courtyard. They came to a halt immediately in front of Quint and his companions. And as the academy looked on, they introduced themselves to the squires, one after the other.

  ‘I am Arboretum Sicklebough,’ snapped the first, an aged, mottle-skinned tree goblin, dressed in deep green robes and clutching a gnarled walking stick in both hands. ‘Hall Master of Storm Cloud.’

  ‘I … I … er … I am … Philius …’ mumbled an aged figure in full knight academic armour, his startlingly blue eyes testifying to time spent in the Twilight Woods on stormchasing voyages. ‘Philius Embertine. Hall Master of … of …’

  ‘White Cloud,’ said the figure next to him, a sharp-featured professor in a short grey cloak, who was carrying a tilderleather whip. ‘Whilst I,’ he continued, ‘am Fenviel Vendix, Hall Master of Grey Cloud.’

  The last of the four professors of the Knights Academy stepped forward. He was tall, with a thick white beard and stern, unsmiling features. His long cloak was of finest woodweave, edged in quarm fur, and he held an ornately carved staff with intricate markings and calibrations inlaid in blackwood and Edgewater pearl.

  ‘I am Hax Vostillix,’ he announced in a deep and sonorous voice, stroking his beard with a jewelled hand as he spoke. ‘Hall Master of High Cloud.’

  He strode along the line of kneeling squires, their shoulders and heads covered in a thin layer of snow.

  ‘You have entered the Knights Academy through the Gates of Humility on your knees, young squires,’ he said. ‘In the Lower Halls, you shall learn woodcraft, forgecraft, prowlgrin husbandry and navigation. Some of you are destined for the Upper Halls to become high professors and perhaps even, Sky willing, Knights Academic. The rest of you shall become academics-at-arms and dedicate yourselves to the protection of this great floating city of ours. Whatever your destiny, young squires, I promise you one thing …’

  The Hall Master of High Cloud raised his staff high above his head.

  ‘None of you shall ever go on bended knees before anyone again. Squires of the Knights Academy, arise!’

  •CHAPTER FIVE•

  THE HALL OF STORM

  CLOUD

  The deep, resonating sound of the dawn gong rippled through the Hall of Storm Cloud. It was four hours in the morning. Quint groaned and rolled over in the small sleeping closet. In the closet directly beneath him, he could hear Phin still softly snoring.

  They, together with the other young squires, had been studying woodcraft in the Hall of Storm Cloud for three months now, under the short-tempered tutelage of Arboretum Sicklebough, the irascible tree-goblin hall master. Some said that it was his aching joints born of barkfever that made Sicklebough so crabby and stern. Others, that it was staying up most nights betting – and losing – on fromp fights at the Viaduct Steps which gave him such a foul temper. Whatever it was, Quint had never seen the mottled-skinned tree goblin in a good mood.

  ‘You there! Squire Splinter-Finger!’ he would snap in the woodworking theatres below the Central Staircase. ‘Call that a ship frame? A sick fromp could do better! Do it again!’

  ‘Squire Blunt-Saw! I've seen ironwood stumps with a better finish than that. This isn't a mast, it's an eyesore! Do it again!’

  Even in Quint's sleep, he heard Arboretum Sicklebough's rasping voice. Do it again! Do it again! And for what? To make a scaled-down model of a sky ship – perfect in every detail.

  ‘I wouldn't mind,’ Phin had joked as he fiddled to fit tiny deck planks to his model, ‘if I was half a stride tall and could actually sail in the thing!’

  Unfortunately, the sharp-eared hall master had overheard him.

  ‘One fine day!’ he'd barked, rapping Quint's friend over the knuckles with his gnarled cane, ‘you'll find yourself turning turvey over the Twilight Woods in a half-wrecked stormchaser, and the only thing between you and a living death in the forest below will be your intimate knowledge of sky-ship construction. Now, remove that decking, and do it again!’

  The ratbird gave a sleepy squeak as it stretched its leathery wings and settled back down on the perch of its small cage in the corner of the sleeping closet. Quint sat up and pushed open the doors. Above him, below and on either side, other doors were opening, and the sleepy faces of his fellow squires were appearing. Tonsor Wexis, his fat face puffy with sleep, yawned and knocked on his neighbour's doors. Quiltis Wistelweb's head appeared, his black hair sticking up like an enraged fromp's.

  ‘What do you want?’ he demanded.

  ‘Dawn gong!’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘Yes, pass it on.’

  Soon, the dormitory closet ladders were full of squires in various states of undress climbing down to the floor below, capes, barkscrolls and satchels clasped in their arms. Quint reached the floor and pulled on his cape, before realizing that someone was missing. He called up to one of the closets, high above his head.

  ‘Phin! Phin! You'll be late!’

  Phin's curly-haired head appeared. ‘Late?’ he yawned. ‘Late for what?’

  ‘For the storm test, stupid!’ yelled Quint.

  ‘Earth and Sky!’ Phin exclaimed, disappearing inside his closet, and reappearing half-dressed moments later. ‘Of course! It's today, isn't it?’

  Phin shinned down the dormitory closet ladder to Quint's side.

  ‘To the woodworking theatres!’ he proclaimed, hurrying off towards the spiralling Central Staircase, with Quint at his heels. ‘And let's just hope old Barkface is in a good mood for once!’

  They raced down the staircase, jostling and being jostled by the other squires as they went, and through the high doorless archway below into the woodworking theatres.

  There, amongst the aromatic piles of wood shavings, were high workbenches and tall backless stools, tool-chests and lug-barrels and long, extendable racks. Heavy vices attached to the sides of the tables clamped the squires’ skycraft models firmly, while suspended on hooks from ropes and chains there hung great logs in various stages of carving.

  Over by the walls was the wood itself, in towering stacks and of every shape, size and variety, as well as the great, exotic machines especially designed to fashion it. There were stipple-ridgers, plank-benders, turning-lathes and corrugated buzz-saws; eyelet-piercers and balk-strimmers, rivet-ties and adjustable planes … and the whole lot was illuminated with large, spherical lamps that bathed everything in pools of creamy light.

  Most of the other squires were already at their workbenches by the time Quint and Phin arrived, and the atmosphere was tense. Everyone knew that the time for theory and calculations was over. Their rigour was about to be put to the test. After weeks spent shaping the bows, erecting the masts, working on the deck/hull-weight ratio, hand-stitching the miniature spider-silk sails and securing the rigging, the day had come at last for the young squires to see how well their model sky ships would fly.

  For today was the day of the storm test.

  Wishing Phin good luck as he made for his workbench, Quint crossed the woodworking theatre to his own bench, where his model craft was clamped rigidly, yet delicately, in a heavy vice.

  It was a classic stormchaser, just like the one that had taken Linius's body down to the Stone Gardens. It had a single mast, a high bow and a sleek, pointed prow. The rudder was polished lufwood and the hull and decking, bloodoak planks no thicker than Quint's finger. The rock-cage in the centre of the vessel contained a polished ball of buoyant sumpwood to simulate a flight-rock, and the flight-weights which dangled beneath the hull-rigging were made of leadwood, meticulously fashioned through many a long night.

  Quint stroked the blood -oak hull and traced a finger lovingly over the gossamer-thin spider-silk sails. You had to hand it to the irritable old tree goblin, he thought. Under his tutelage, every single squire had learned all about how a sky-craft worked and fitted together.
Today, at last, they were going to find out whether that knowledge had been put to good use.

  ‘Not bad,’ came a sneering voice to Quint's left. ‘If you want a skycraft for hauling ironwood to Undertown, that is. Still, what can you expect from the son of a sky pirate?’

  Vilnix stood at his own workbench, smiling maliciously at Quint. Perhaps because he felt inferior to the Sanctaphrax-born and bred squires and wanted to deflect attention away from himself, Vilnix never missed an opportunity to needle Quint as another outsider. What was more, he had heard Vilnix boasting to Quiltis Wistelweb that his father was a powerful leaguesman who lived in a sumptuous palace in the Western Quays. Quint had said nothing because he actually felt sorry for Vilnix who, despite his boasting and attempts to suck up to his fellow squires, was liked by nobody.

  ‘This, on the other hand,’ said Vilnix pompously, tightening a hull-weight on his own model, ‘is a real stormchaser.’

  Quint looked across at Vilnix's bench. He had to admit that when it came to model-making, Vilnix was far better than anyone else in the class. The ship he had designed and fashioned had subtle innovations, like a retractable nether-mast and double hull-weights which not only added to its capabilities, but also enhanced its beauty. Even Arboretum Sicklebough had seemed impressed.

  ‘Not bad, Pompolnius. Not bad,’ he had snapped. ‘But let's see how she sails before congratulating ourselves, shall we?’

  And now at last that time had come.

  ‘Good morning, squires!’ A thin, peevish voice cut through the theatre. The frail-looking tree goblin made his way to the centre of the hall, his gnarled walking stick tap-tap-tapping as he went. He looked round at the squires, his dark, hooded eyes betraying nothing of what he was thinking – although if the latest gossip was to be believed, the number of gold pieces he'd lost on a fromp fight the previous night must have been high on his list of concerns.

  ‘Take your models and follow me to the Storm Chamber!’ he barked.