by Oisin McGann
5 THE NATIVES OF GUTHOQUE
Lorkrin ran as he had never run before, weaving between tree trunks and springing over brambles and ferns. He knew that this time, he and Taya had got themselves into a predicament that might well be the end of them. For the first time in his life, Lorkrin wondered if he was going to die. He did not know where his sister was, and he was terrified that she might already have been caught. His legs pumped hard and his heart pumped harder. His breath was coming in gasps, and he could just hear sounds of pursuit over the beat of his pulse in his ears. There were high screeches coming from the things that were chasing him, things he knew were not soldiers. At least, not normal ones. He had heard of skacks, but had never seen one. They were the kind of thing that boys talked excitedly about – like any other monster. The thought of them did not excite him now.
He had some idea where he was going. He and Taya had come this way when they had sneaked up on the camp. The young shape-shifter began slunching to soften up his arms, kneading flesh down towards his hands. There was no time for proper amorphing, but he would need every advantage he could get. Massaging his now plump hands flat, he squeezed the extra meat into each of his fingers and pulled on them to lengthen them. He now had fingers nearly twice as long as his natural ones; it was the best he could do. It had slowed down his running and was making him tire faster.
He broke out into a clearing, lit by a bright moon in a suddenly cloudless sky. Off to his right, a powerful, hunchbacked animal emerged from the tree-line. It scanned the clearing, picked him out, and bolted after him. Lorkrin whimpered despite himself. The thing was unbelievably fast. It would be on him in no time.
Ahead of him, he could see where the ground came to an end and, beyond it, the tops of trees. With his short legs lifting high to clear the long grass, he made for the cliff edge. He was breathing in sobs, and his heart felt like it was going to burst from his chest. Behind him, he could hear the pounding feet closing in on him. He was not going to make it. It was right at his heels. He was not going to make it …
Lorkrin hurled himself off the edge, his arms and legs flailing in empty space. He fell, grabbed at a tree branch, missed it, grabbed at another, caught it, slipped and then held on to the very end of it with his long, strong fingers. His weight swung him in and the thin trunk curved but did not break. Above him, the skack launched itself off the brink, but its cruel claws were badly suited to clinging to the light limbs of treetops. It scrabbled at the foliage of a neighbouring tree, grasped nothing and tumbled down through the branches, hitting the ground below with a crunch. Lorkrin worked his way in to the trunk of his tree and clung to it, trembling.
Taya knew her brother had escaped. She could hear him somewhere ahead of her. She could also hear the commotion in the woods behind her. There was no chance she would outrun them. These were not soldiers giving chase; they were something else and they were very, very fast. Inhuman screeches pierced the night air, and snarls and panting were growing louder all the time. If she could have caught her own breath, she would have been crying. They were in terrible trouble. She risked a glance behind, but could see nothing in the darkness cast under the trees in the moonlight. This frightened her even more. Whatever was back there was not having any difficulty tracking her in this gloom. If she was going to escape, she needed a faster form than that of a little girl.
Up ahead, she saw the bright glow of a clearing and she turned away from it. She would never make it across that open space. Her only chance was to keep dodging through the shadows of the trees. She took another look back and tripped, falling headlong into the undergrowth. Instinctively, she squinted back to see what she had fallen over. It was a large burrow. A badger or something even bigger lived down there. She was getting to her feet when she changed her mind and dived down it. Whatever was down here could not be worse than those things that were closing in on her. The tunnel was a tight fit, but she was in no position to complain.
The three skacks slowed their pace when their quarry suddenly disappeared. With their noses to the ground, they followed the scent. It was a slightly different smell from the one they had been given by their master, but it was close enough. They found a hole where the spoor was still strong. None of them could fit down it, but that would not be a problem for long. They started digging, tearing up chunks of earth with their claws. They could sense the prey beneath. They would have it soon, very soon.
Taya dragged herself further down the burrow and found it widened out as she got deeper. Soon, she was able to sit up. There was even soft grass on the floor. This was a molebear’s tunnel. The smell was unmistakable. She knew a bit about these animals. Their burrows were labyrinths. Gardeners hated them because they could dig out one part of the tunnel system, and find that it stretched for hundreds of strides in any direction. If you had a mole-bear beneath your garden, you would find it hard to get rid of and they could eat huge amounts of vegetables. Above and behind her, she could hear the sound of digging. Beyond where she sat, the tunnel grew too narrow for her. She could dig at it, make it wider, but not fast enough. She snuffled, feeling panic rise. With a determined sniff, she wiped her nose with her sleeve and smoothed her hair back. Taya Archisan was not the panicking type. She tried to ignore the way the burrow seemed to be crushing in on her, robbing her of air. Opening her backpack by feel, she took out her tools and began to reshape her legs, fingers working nimbly even without light to see by. When she had done her legs, she started her head and shoulders. The digging drew closer.
The skacks were getting feverish in their excitement. They were almost upon their prey. They had uncovered a long length of tunnel and had discovered a wider section. The tree roots were slowing them down, but they could sense their prey moving under them, and their mouths were watering at the prospect.
When they had dug further and still had not found her, they began to get agitated. The tunnel had narrowed again and its roof was thick with roots. The quarry had gone further in, even though they knew she was too big for this part of the burrow. They stopped digging and argued in a crude, guttural language. One stayed by the mouth of the hole. The other two split up and searched the ground for the spoor. Few animals were capable of tracking a creature once it went underground, but the skack was one of those exceptions.
If Taya had been standing up, she would have been taller than any adult she knew. Her arms were much shorter than usual and her legs had become a flexible part of her snake-like body, with her feet doing all the work at the back. Her neck was now holding her head up from the back of her skull so that she did not have to keep lifting it up to see where she was going. Thin strands of muscle crefted into whiskers told her what her eyes did not. In this long, thin, short-legged shape, she was able to move quite fast through the tunnels. She had left the digging sounds behind and was, she thought, putting as much distance between herself and her hunters as possible. It was hard to tell in the absolute darkness underground and in the cave-like hollows that twisted and turned with no obvious direction. She still had not met the creature that had dug this maze. She was not sure what she would do if she ran into it.
Footsteps overhead caused her to freeze. Could that be the Noranian creatures (she was still not sure she believed in skacks)? Surely they could not still be following her? How could they track her? Taya stayed quite still. This part of the burrow might be shallow enough for someone to hear her moving about, if they were close enough. The footsteps were very close. She could feel the vibrations through her feet and in her side where she was pressed against the wall. Suddenly she felt trapped again. The walls were too close; she was being smothered in this blackness. The footsteps were moving away. Shutting her eyes, Taya imagined herself in a wide open field. She pretended she could feel the breeze on her face and grass underfoot. Wondering where Lorkrin had got to, if he had made it away, she felt tears welling up in her eyes. Her whiskers twitched. Air moved in the tunnel; something was coming towards her. It was the burrow’s owner. But her thoughts of tha
t were quickly quashed as the footsteps came thumping back. The skacks too had heard the animal moving. There was an impact, then another and blue moonlight broke through the earth between her and the mole-bear. She backed off, but the mole-bear did not. Taya saw it in the shower of light, a stocky, silk-furred animal with powerful forepaws lined with thick curled claws. The skack – she was sure now what it was – drove both claws into the ground and pulled a sod of earth away. It dug in again, tearing open a hole big enough to get its head and shoulders in. And there it made a mistake.
As soon as it stuck its head in, the mole-bear took hold with its large forepaws and pulled hard. It was on its own territory down here; it knew how to take advantage of it. The skack, unable to get its head out, was being dragged into a space with no room to fight. The smaller creature was not nearly as strong, but it was firmly wedged in and had a tight grip. The skack screeched at a pitch high enough to hurt Taya’s ears. She crouched, transfixed by the struggle. The mole-bear growled, backed further in, and the skack was now halfway into the burrow. The light was almost completely blocked out. From what she could hear, the tunnelling creature had started using its teeth and claws on the bigger beast. She worked her way backwards until she came to a junction and took another route.
Some time later, she saw a patch of light ahead and made carefully for it. It was a hole that came out under a slab of rock; a shallow stream ran nearby. Taya looked carefully around, then slid slowly out and into the stream. She waded down through the cold water until she thought she had hidden her scent enough, then grabbed an overhanging branch and hauled herself up into the foliage. There, she slunched back to her normal shape, and climbed as high as she could while still hidden from view. By jamming herself into a fork in the trunk, she made herself secure. Drained by her ordeal, she shivered, wishing she and Lorkrin could be safe at home in their warm lodge with their folks. The thought that Lorkrin might have been caught by those beasts was unbearable and she turned her face into the tree trunk and closed her eyes, trying not to think of what could have befallen her brother. Uncle Emos would still be hunting them, and she fell asleep hoping he would find them.
Groach woke to the noise of the soldiers breaking camp. They were packing equipment and weapons away, and falling into marching formation. Everything smelled of smoke and soot and oil from the fire of the night before. The driver had cranked up his engine and was waiting for his turn to pull into the column of vehicles. Groach yawned and stretched, shifting uncomfortably on the hard board floor of the cage. He was cold and damp from dew. They had not been given blankets for the night. He shivered in the chill morning air. Hilspeth, still drowsy, rolled against his side and snuggled up for warmth. He was about to point out that he wanted to stand up and move around, but he did not. Let her get a bit warmer first, he decided.
The day was dry and fresh. He felt awake and ready for whatever was going to happen. They were headed for Hortenz, he knew. There, he would be put back to work on the project. He would regret not spending more time out in this outside world. He might even resent being locked away having seen it for himself. But the other men in this gaol wagon did not deserve to be here. He was certain they had been captured because of their resemblance to him. They would be released at the town – he would see to it.
It would be good to get back to work again, in the peace and quiet. No mad children or skacks or cages on wheels. Having slept on it, he decided he missed his research; it was time to return to it. He realised he had left his notes back at the Moffets’, but it did not matter. He had an excellent memory, and he knew his tank back at the manor house contained all he needed to finish the project. That was what he had kept from everyone else – that he knew how to trigger the blossoming of the esh-bound bubule. He had finally cracked the oily esh-plant’s secrets. Groach had little idea what the future would be now that their years of work had come to fruition. What was going to be done with the knowledge? It was exciting to contemplate; it could affect the whole world.
The gaol wagon shuddered and rolled into its position in the convoy. Hilspeth sat up, brushed the hair out of her face and stared through puffy eyes at the forest as it passed beyond the bars of their prison.
‘What’s going to happen to us, Panch?’ she wondered aloud.
Groach was about to admit who he really was, when it occurred to him that it would not help her. They were both under arrest for a different reason. One he might die for. The other men would surely be released when they were not identified as him. He might still be held, especially if they found out he had defied them twice. And he could not answer her question. He did not know what was going to happen to either of them. Suddenly, the morning seemed much colder.
‘What happened last night?’ he asked in order to hide his despair. ‘I fell asleep in the end, I think.’
‘They all climbed into the wagons after they put out the fire, and waited for the skacks to come back. No one wanted to be outside when those things came into camp.’ Her voice was dull and flat, drained after a sleepless night of worrying about the two young shape-changers. ‘You should have seen them all, crammed into vans and even the cages. The skacks did come back, eventually. I don’t know if they caught the children. They were dragging the remains of … a mole-bear, I think. It was hard to tell. One of them had wounds on its face and neck; one was being carried by the other two. It had a broken leg.’
‘Perhaps they didn’t catch them.’ Groach put his hand on her shoulder. ‘What little I know of them is that they are not normal. I don’t think they’d be easy prey.’
‘They’re Myunans,’ murmured Hilspeth. ‘Shape-changers – you can tell by the skin markings. But they’re just children and skacks are savages that know nothing but hunting.’
It hurt him to see her upset. He didn’t often think of other people and their feelings, but this argumentative, opinionated woman was not like the women on the project. She had aroused a strange, disturbing emotion in him, stronger than he had ever felt for plants, and seeing her despairing for those little rogues reminded him that they were only children after all. He found himself suddenly anxious for the two Myunans.
‘They might have escaped,’ he tried again.
‘Even the soldiers are scared of these things.’ She regarded him with an expression of grief. ‘What chance did two children have?’
Part of the way up a crumbly moss and shale slope, a lichen-covered stone stuck out an arm and brushed off some of its feathery growth. Lorkrin had hidden since late the night before, having worked his way clear of the injured skack by creeping through the treetops. He stirred now, because he had heard his sister calling his name. Shedding the last of the covering and letting his back take its natural shape again, he put his backpack on. He yelled out an answer. She shouted again, and he turned to peer into the tree-line at the bottom of the steep slope.
‘Where are you?’ she cried.
‘Here, out past the trees. I’m coming down. Hang on.’
He worked his way down the loose hillside. Taya appeared at the bottom. She was covered in clay from head to foot. Under normal circumstances he would have laughed, but he was too happy to see her to tease her with any conviction. They each wanted to hug the other when he reached her, but neither wanted to be the first one to do it. They looked each other up and down instead.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ she answered. ‘They were horrible, those things. Absolutely horrible. They were like something you’d turn into, but real … and ten times nastier.’
Lorkrin grinned sheepishly in agreement. He knew that some day soon, he’d try amorphing into a skack. Just to see if he could do it. Not to scare anyone, or anything like that.
It took a while for them to tell their stories. They had started a fire and were making nettle soup by the time they had finished. Taya had seen the convoy leave. They were going north, continuing towards Hortenz. Pondering on this, the two children sipped the hot soup in silence, savouring the much ne
eded warmth and strength it gave their weary bodies.
‘What do you want to do?’ Lorkrin enquired of his sister, when he had finished.
‘I don’t know. What do you want to do?’ she said in return.
‘Well, I don’t think making Uncle Emos mad would be as bad as getting torn up by skacks, do you?’
‘Do you want to go back? I don’t mind if you want to. It’s okay to be scared. Everyone’s scared of skacks. And soldiers.’
‘I didn’t say I was scared.’ Lorkrin drew himself up. ‘When did I say I was scared? Are you?’
‘No, but if you want to go home, it’s fine. I don’t mind.’ Taya sighed graciously.
‘I don’t want to go home. Do you?’
‘Not if you don’t want to. Don’t you want to? Uncle Emos will understand. He must have done stuff when he was our age. We could go back if you want. I think it’d be all right.’ She eyed her brother.
He eyed her back, a noncommittal expression on his face.
‘It would be a shame to let that man get locked up by the army. It’s sort of our fault he’s in this mess. He’d still be in Hortenz if we’d left him alone.’
Taya had not thought of this. She doubted Lorkrin would have thought of it either if he was not in danger of looking more frightened than her.
‘You’re right. It would be wrong to leave him there. We could rescue him and get the quill back. Uncle Emos would probably forgive us if we made up for stealing the quill by helping someone.’
