by Lian Tanner
Lord Rump waved his arm in a grand manner, as if he was about to make a speech. Duckling whispered, ‘Not now, Grandpa.’
They crept back onto the road.
This time, not a single eye turned towards them. The drivers of the carts stared ahead in a bored fashion, or chatted quietly to each other. The horses flicked their tails.
Pummel crept around the last corner, with Duckling, Lord Rump and the cat in front of him, Sooli beside him, and Arms-mistress Krieg and Otte behind.
The Strong-hold looked even more impressive than last time he had seen it. The dark clouds of the curse boiled and heaved. The chicken flinched. Sooli whispered something that sounded like a swearword.
No more than a hundred paces ahead of them, dozens of guards milled in front of the main gate, searching the slow-moving carts. They wore long grey coats and brass helmets with spikes on top, and carried grenado pistols. The winds that always blustered around the castle whipped their coats this way and that.
Behind the guards stood a different line of people. They carried iron-tipped staffs, and although Pummel couldn’t see them clearly, he was quite sure that they had snouted masks dangling from their belts.
He had known they were there, but still the sight of them made his stomach tighten.
‘It’s the Snuffigators,’ he whispered. His breath stuck in his throat. ‘And Captain Rabid!’
‘Shh!’ hissed Duckling, over her shoulder.
Pummel wanted to walk away, right there and then. When he had first come to Berren, fresh from the farm, he’d been taken on as a cadet Snuffigator. He’d done the training and been issued with an iron-tipped staff; he’d learned to break up Snares so that no one would walk into them and be lost. He’d even found and plugged his first poisonous vapour. And through it all, Captain Rabid had been his hero.
But after three false complaints about Pummel’s behaviour, the captain had thrown him out of the Snuffigators in disgrace – had expelled him onto the street with his dreams in tatters and a sense of unfairness so great that he could hardly speak.
A lot of astonishing things had happened since then, and perhaps Pummel should have forgotten it. But he hadn’t. The hurt still lingered, like a splinter that wouldn’t come out.
So although he fell silent, and although he was hidden by the do-not-see, he huddled in on himself, half afraid that Captain Rabid would spot him.
But no one saw them, not even when they crept to within a stone’s throw of the guards.
The wind here was stronger, and it buffeted them from side to side, until they had to cling to each other so they wouldn’t be separated. The boiling cloud of the curse was as thick as soup.
‘I never thought I would willingly walk into such a place,’ breathed Sooli. ‘Tell me you can get us out again, or I will not take another step.’
‘I can get us past the curse,’ whispered Pummel. ‘Duckling, can you get us past the guards? Going in and out?’
Duckling nodded. The chicken trembled in Pummel’s arms. The castle loomed above them like a small mountain.
When they were only a few paces away from the guards, Duckling waved them to a stop, with her finger to her lips. The guards stared right through them, which made Pummel feel as if he had become a ghost.
Beside him, Duckling took a small reed windmill from under her jacket. She blew on it until the reeds turned. She began to hum. Then, in the quietest of voices, she said, ‘Lodosh!’
In front of that tight, hidden group, flames sprang up as hot and bright as a forest fire.
The guards leaped back in shock. They fell over each other, trying to get away from the flames, and they fell over the Snuffigators, too, and knocked them out of the way.
‘Now!’ whispered Duckling, and she tiptoed towards the gap, with Lord Rump, the cat, Pummel and the chicken, Sooli, Arms-mistress Krieg and Otte right behind her.
They had to stop several times to avoid being knocked over by the guards and Snuffigators, who were running in all directions. Some of them were trying to get away from the fire; others were trying to put it out, while shouting explanations to each other.
‘Lightning strike!’
‘Spontaneous combustion!’
‘Sabotage!’
‘They see only what they wish to see,’ breathed Sooli. ‘It is part of the curse.’
Pummel wished she hadn’t mentioned the curse. He’d been trying to put it out of his mind, but now it came back stronger than ever.
Duckling could feel it too, and so could Sooli. They were gritting their teeth, and Sooli was frantically reinforcing those barely visible silver threads, as if she was afraid the do-not-see might fail.
As for the chicken, she had stopped trembling. But now her eyes were glazed and she was panting, which struck Pummel as a very bad sign indeed. ‘I think we’d better hurry,’ he whispered.
The words had hardly left his lips when, one by one, the silver threads began to snap.
The Bayam chicken had felt the ancient curse trying to creep over her as soon as the Grandfather Wind brought them to the city.
It was her own curse, and at first she had been able to resist it. But as she drew closer and closer to the Stronghold, it seeped into her mind like funeral smoke, and all the bright parts of her, all the powerful parts, began to grow dim.
No, she thought, it must not happen. The children need my power and my knowledge. Without it, they will not have enough magic to defeat the Harshman.
And she fought back, as hard as she could.
For a little while, she prevailed. But now she was almost at the gates, and the curse was no longer a subtle thing. Now it was a battering ram, pounding at the doors of her mind. First it broke the name of the Fire Wind, and the flames behind her died. Then, one by one, it broke everything else that made her who she really was.
The bright power. The learning. The steadfast loyalty to her country and her people.
The magic. The songs. The words.
All it left were chicken things. A love of worms and sunshine. An even greater love of earwigs. An overwhelming fear of dogs and—
Eek! she thought, as a crowd of humans ran past her, shouting. Badmen!
And with a sudden desperate wriggle, she escaped the arms that held her, fluttered to the ground, and dashed towards the only familiar place she could see.
The Strong-hold.
She tore through the gate, through the dark tunnel and out into the sunshine – where she was just in time to be scooped up and shoved into a large wicker basket, along with half a dozen other chickens.
Somewhere above her head, a voice said, ‘Take them to the kitchen and chop their heads off. We’ll cook them for the Margrave’s supper.’
Duckling felt the power of the old Bayam flicker and go out, like watergas lamps at dawn. The cat yowled a warning. The chicken flew from Pummel’s arms, dived between the legs of one of the guards, and disappeared into the Strong-hold.
The guard hardly noticed. He was too busy staring at the sudden astonishing appearance of four children, Lord Rump and Arms-mistress Krieg.
The do-not-see had failed.
Duckling swung around in dismay. The Snuffigators were staring too. So were the rest of the guards. Their hands were on their pistols. Expressions of amazement, horror and fury chased each other across their faces.
‘Lodosh,’ cried Duckling. She blew frantically on the windmill. ‘Lodosh!’ But the Fire Wind did not come.
Grandpa swore in three different languages. Arms-mistress Krieg shouted, ‘Through the gate! Quickly!’
But a different voice bellowed, ‘Stay where you are, or I will shoot!’
The gate was so close; no more than a couple of steps away. But with a pistol aimed at them, even that was too far. Duckling froze. Krieg spun around so that Otte was behind her once again, protected by her body. The cat slunk away, unnoticed by anyone but Duckling.
One of the Snuffigators strode towards them, with his staff in one hand and a grenado pistol in the ot
her. He was a severe-looking man, with a chest full of medals and a back as unbending as an iron rail. ‘You are all under arrest,’ he snapped.
Pummel groaned under his breath. ‘Captain Rabid.’
The captain must have recognised Pummel at the same time, because his mouth twisted in disgust, and he cried, ‘You! I should have known. I never trusted you, boy, and I was right.’
Pummel flushed bright red, and it was clear that he wished he was miles away. But he managed to say, ‘We’re not doing anything wrong, Principal Captain. We just need to see the Margrave. It’s more important than you can imagine.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, boy,’ snapped the captain. ‘What are you doing here? How did you get past us?’
At that, Grandpa stepped forward, saying in his most persuasive voice, ‘An excellent question, Principal Captain. I can see you are a man of intelligence and action. Such men are rare nowadays, alas, so we are doubly blessed to have you here. Now, if we could just—’
‘Be quiet,’ snapped Captain Rabid, and he glared at them one by one. When he came to Sooli, his eyebrows pulled together in suspicion. ‘Who is under that hood, eh? Why are you hiding? I don’t trust people who hide.’
And before Duckling realised what was happening, he reached out with his staff and pushed Sooli’s hood away from her face.
His eyes widened with shock. His own face turned ashen. He roared at the top of his voice, ‘Treachery! Sabotage! Assassins! A Saffy, right at the gates of the Strong-hold! Snuffigators, to me! Guards, to me!’
The Snuffigators and guards raced towards him, raising their pistols and staffs.
Sooli was frozen to the spot. But Duckling wasn’t. She mightn’t be able to summon a Fire Wind anymore, but she still had her breeze. At least, she hoped she did.
She blew on the windmill and hummed the shiny little tune, and to her relief, the breeze sprang up and danced around her ears.
‘Stop him!’ she hissed, pointing towards Captain Rabid. ‘Dust! Anything!’
The breeze did its best, but it was so windy in that spot that any dust had been blown away centuries before. All the breeze could do was toss the captain’s hair across his eyes, which only distracted him for a second or two.
But in that second, Pummel leaped forward. His face was pale now, and his knuckles, where they gripped his staff, were dead white. He gulped, ‘Sorry, Principal Captain.’ And he knocked the grenado pistol out of Rabid’s hand.
At the same time, a feline yowl came from ground level. ‘Ruuuuun!’ And the cat dashed in front of Captain Rabid, so that when he tried to seize hold of Pummel, he tripped and almost fell.
Duckling and Pummel grabbed Sooli’s hands and dragged her those last few steps through the castle gate and into the stone tunnel, with Lord Rump flailing his cane at anyone who tried to stop them. Arms-mistress Krieg was a few paces ahead, bent on her first duty, which was to protect Otte.
Behind them, the captain bellowed, ‘You shall not escape me! Traitors! Villains! Spies!’
Pummel glanced over his shoulder and gasped, ‘He’s got his pistol back already. He’s coming after us.’
‘Halt!’ roared the captain. ‘Halt, or I shoot!’
There was such certainty in his voice, and he sounded so close, that Duckling, Sooli and Pummel stopped and swung around. Captain Rabid had followed them into the tunnel, and his pistol was aimed at Sooli’s heart.
‘I will not hear your excuses,’ he said, glancing at Pummel. ‘I do not want to know why you would betray your own country like this. But I will not let you escape me. And I will not let another assassin reach the Faithful Throne.’
No one moved. Arms-mistress Krieg and Otte were further down the tunnel somewhere, and so was Grandpa. As for the cat, she was nowhere to be seen. All around them, torches burned in their iron brackets.
Duckling tried to hum, but her mouth was too dry.
Sooli whispered, ‘Please. No.’
‘She’s done nothing wrong,’ croaked Pummel.
But Captain Rabid did not listen. His finger tightened on the trigger. Sooli began to shake uncontrollably, and so did Duckling. She wanted to shut her eyes, but Sooli’s eyes were wide open, so she didn’t.
She held her breath.
Captain Rabid fired his pistol.
Or rather, he tried.
There was no explosion. No fatal shot. Just the captain standing in the stone tunnel, pulling the trigger over and over again. But no matter what he did, his pistol would not fire. It had fallen under the curse.
Duckling could no longer see or feel that boiling cloud, which was a relief. But she knew it was still there, affecting everything that happened within the walls of the Strong-hold. Nothing modern worked here. Pocket watches stopped ticking as soon as they entered the tunnel. Watergas lamps blinked out, street-rig engines died with a sigh of regret.
A blunderbuss of the sort used five hundred years ago might have worked. But a grenado pistol did not.
As soon as he realised what had happened, Captain Rabid shouted, ‘Sabotage!’ and backed out of the tunnel, ready to try again as soon as he was outside the walls.
But by then, the children had reached the far end of the tunnel and dived out into the third bailey. Where they found themselves immediately surrounded by the soldiers of the Strong-hold.
The faces that glared down at Duckling were not friendly. The hands that gripped her wrists were not gentle.
She tried to wriggle free, and those hands tightened painfully, and dragged her halfway across the third bailey to where Arms-mistress Krieg stood weaponless, nose to nose with a tall soldier.
Krieg’s face was cold with fury; her body was like a coiled spring. But she didn’t move. Not because she was threatened, but because the tips of two swords rested against Otte’s throat, and the man and woman who held those swords looked as if they would not hesitate to use them.
Otte sat so still on Krieg’s back that he looked as if he had stopped breathing. There was no sign of his mice.
‘You dare to move against me, Sergeant Bock?’ said Krieg in a low voice. ‘Do you forget that I am arms-mistress?’
The man she faced was dressed in the tunic, hose and boiled leather armour of five hundred years ago. All of the soldiers were dressed so, and the edges of their swords gleamed, as if they had just come off the grindstone.
Around them, pigs snuffled, geese honked and stray dogs nipped at each other. A score of small children watched the newcomers. On the far side of the bailey, the blacksmith’s hammer rang against his anvil.
‘You were arms-mistress,’ said Sergeant Bock, hefting Krieg’s sword in his free hand. He grinned, but there was no humour in it. ‘I don’t know where you’ve been. I don’t know how you got out of the Strong-hold, and I don’t know why you’ve come back. But I know this: your leaving was my good fortune. I’m arms-master now, and when it comes to the safety of the new Margrave, my word is law.’
He raised his voice, so it could be heard halfway across the bailey. ‘It doesn’t matter who you used to be, ex-Arms-mistress Krieg, or how much respect you were held in. You’ve deliberately brought a Saffy into the Strong-hold, just a few weeks after the murder of the Margravine. You’ve done the unthinkable, and your next stop is the Great Chamber, to face the one you have betrayed. After that …’
He drew his finger across his throat.
Duckling tried to slow her breathing. She looked around for the chicken, but there were dozens of black chickens in the third bailey, scratching the ground in a self-important manner or sprawled in a dust bath. Their own chicken – their own Bayam – could have been any one of them.
Grandpa leaned on his cane as if he was old and frail, and could not walk without it. ‘Congratulations on your new position, Sergeant,’ he wheezed. ‘It is good to see a talented young man rise to the top. But really, you have completely misunderstood the situation. Arms-mistress Krieg and I—’
‘Shut up,’ snarled the sergeant, without even looking at Grandp
a. He jerked his head, and his soldiers began to hustle their prisoners across the third bailey.
The blades at Otte’s throat didn’t waver, not once. These men and women knew Krieg, and they weren’t taking any chances. As for those who surrounded Sooli, they were even more cautious. They behaved as if she was twice Krieg’s size and three times as dangerous. When she breathed in, their eyes narrowed. When she breathed out, their hands twitched on the hilts of their swords.
Sooli’s face was stony, and her chin was high in the air, as if the soldiers were an honour guard rather than her captors.
When they were halfway across the second bailey, Duckling’s grandpa began to speak in querulous tones, like someone who had fallen on hard times and wanted everyone to know how important he had once been.
‘You would not think it to look at me,’ he said to the soldier who gripped his arm, ‘but I have been taken into custody several times in my life. Each time was a mistake, mind you; I am the most law-abiding of citizens. But when a man sets out to do good to his fellow man, as I have done—’
The soldiers shoved their captives through the gate and into the first bailey, where the five towers loomed, and the execution block stood on its platform, awaiting its next victim.
‘When a man sets out to do good to his fellow man, he must expect some inconveniences,’ quavered Grandpa. ‘Some misunderstandings, if you like. I am quite sure, however, that the Margrave will set everything right again. I have heard that he is a very fine young man. Upright, generous, but suitably fierce, or so I have been told—’
The prisoners were dragged past the Bear Tower and the Hawk Tower, past the Wolf Tower and the Lynx Tower, until at last they stood at the base of the Keep, with the worn stone steps in front of them and the stone gargoyles sneering down from above.
Duckling peered warily up at the gargoyles, which had tried to kill her once. She looked at Pummel, but he shook his head, as if to say, I can’t hear them talking. I think they are safe enough, for today at least.
