Haunted Warriors: The Rogues 3

by Lian Tanner

  Beside him, Duckling’s teeth were chattering. ‘What about the g-g-ghosts?’ she said.

  ‘They m-might b-be able to – find the b-book,’ whispered Sooli, shivering. She looked around. ‘Are you c-cold? I am s-s-so cold!’

  ‘Ssstone,’ hissed the cat, glaring at the wall of the rathole. ‘Coooold.’

  Pummel put his hand on the stone wall – and immediately snatched it away again. ‘It’s freezing! And it feels – wrong. Frightful and strange. Don’t lean against it, especially you, Otte.’

  They shrank away from the edges of the rathole, and leaned against each other instead. To Pummel’s relief, the cold lessened a little, though he still shivered.

  For a moment, no one spoke. Then Duckling said, ‘How can we ask the ghosts about the book? I can’t even see them. Can you see them, Pummel?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not without the raashk. I can feel them, though. They’re terrified of the Harshman.’

  ‘He eats them,’ whispered Sooli. ‘He eats their memories and their souls.’

  ‘Will they help us?’ asked Otte, stroking the head of one of his white mice. ‘Will they search for the book?’

  Sooli’s eyes grew a little more focused, and she gazed at someone to Pummel’s right. Pummel couldn’t see who it was, but if he concentrated he got the impression of someone young and important. A young graf? A young grafine?

  Sooli whispered something that none of them could hear. And then something else. And something else – like a one-sided argument. The chicken added a few clucks and ruffled her feathers. The cat’s bright eyes stared at that same spot.

  Pummel knew the answer even before Sooli spoke. He could feel the terror that gripped the ghost, could feel the ‘No no no no no no no!’ that echoed silently through their hiding place. He realised he had been holding his breath, and let it out with a sigh.

  ‘Well?’ said Duckling, and Otte leaned forward hopefully.

  ‘No,’ said Sooli and Pummel together.

  Sooli added, ‘They are too scared. They are hiding in the cracks of the walls and under the floors. They will not go out, in case the Harshman catches them.’

  ‘I know how they feel,’ said Duckling.

  But Otte said, ‘I think there might be one ghost who would help us. When my mother the Margravine was alive, she was not afraid of anything or anyone. Her death would not change that, I am sure of it.’

  Sooli pulled a face. ‘The Margravine?’

  ‘I know you believe the salt mine was her fault,’ Otte said earnestly. ‘But I promise you she did not know about it. She was very hard, but fair. She would never have allowed slavery.’ Then he pulled a face and said, ‘But perhaps her ghost is not here. Perhaps she does not have a ghost.’

  ‘And even if she does, how would we find her?’ asked Pummel.

  The cat raised her head from her paw and said, ‘Messssage.’

  Sooli focused on the ghost again, and whispered what sounded like a question. ‘He will not go himself,’ she said. ‘None of them will. But he will pass a message through the cracks in the walls and floors, and perhaps it will get to her.’

  ‘Good,’ said Otte. ‘Tell her that her son – her true son – is hiding in—’

  ‘No,’ interrupted Sooli. ‘Most of them are not even speaking to each other for fear of being overheard by the Harshman. He means a written message. A note. He will pass it through the cracks.’

  That stopped them dead. From one moment to the next, they went from possibility to impossibility. How could you give a written message to a ghost? How could the ghost hand it to another ghost?

  Pummel slumped in dismay. Otte chewed his fingernails. Sooli shook her head over and over.

  Only Duckling seemed unbothered. She was thinking – Pummel could recognise it by the way her fingers moved, as if she was trying out one idea after another.

  Otte made to speak. Pummel hushed him and pointed at Duckling. The cat watched them, yellow-eyed and expectant.

  Duckling looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve got an idea,’ said Pummel.

  She nodded. ‘Ghost ink.’

  The other children stared at her. ‘What’s ghost ink?’ asked Pummel.

  ‘I’ll show you. I’ll need something to write on, Otte.’

  The younger boy picked out one of the ninth Margrave’s scraps of paper. ‘Will this do? It is the one with least writing on it.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t suppose there’s a quill there, too?’ said Duckling.

  ‘No,’ said Otte, ‘but—’ He gave a barely audible whistle, and when his mice stuck their heads out of his tunic, he whispered a few words to them. All four of them dashed down his arm and disappeared through the tiny hole they’d discovered earlier.

  ‘Where are they going?’ asked Pummel.

  ‘To find a quill,’ replied Otte.

  The mice came back in no time at all, dragging a long, sharpened feather between them. It got stuck in the hole, and Pummel had to break it in half to free it, but Duckling didn’t seem bothered.

  ‘That’ll do,’ she said, and she spread the scrap of paper on the floor. ‘So what’s the message?’

  ‘But you haven’t got ink,’ said Pummel.

  ‘Course I have,’ said Duckling. ‘So’ve you.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  Duckling squished up her cheeks and spat into the palm of her hand. ‘You can use lemon juice or vinegar, but spit’s just as good.’

  Pummel’s head was spinning. ‘How do you know this stuff?’

  Duckling didn’t answer. She dipped the end of the broken quill in the pool of spit, and looked at Otte.

  ‘Write that her true son needs her urgently,’ whispered Otte. ‘That he is hiding inside the north wall on the third floor of the Keep.’

  Duckling scratched away at the paper, dipping the quill in and out of the spit. By the time she got to the end, the beginning had dried and disappeared.

  ‘See?’ she said. ‘When the rest of it dries, it’ll look just like blank paper. No one’ll guess there’s writing on it.’

  ‘Then how do you read it?’ asked Pummel.

  ‘Heat it over something. Like a lamp, or a candle. But I’m guessing the ghosts won’t need to heat it. I’m guessing they’ll be able to see it just like it is.’

  Sooli looked at the paper. ‘They might be able to see it, but I do not know how they will take it.’ She pointed with her elbow. ‘Try it and see. He is over there.’

  Duckling held the paper in the direction Sooli was pointing. But when she let go, it fell to the floor.

  She tried it again. The same thing happened. Sooli hissed with frustration. ‘He is trying to take it but he cannot.’

  ‘We have ghost ink,’ whispered Otte. ‘Now we need ghost paper. Duckling, do you know how to make such a thing?’

  But this time, Duckling shook her head.

  Pummel leaned against her, trying to work out how they could make ghost paper. But he couldn’t concentrate; his mind kept drifting back to the farm. If he closed his eyes, he could almost smell the grass, and taste the warm milk, fresh from the cows.

  They’d be asleep now, the cows, and the old bull too. Not that he ever slept for long. He was a brave old fellow, and he took his job of guarding the herd seriously. It had been his outraged bellows that had warned Pummel and Ma when thieves had tried to steal their best milking cows. And he had warned them again when lightning set a dead tree ablaze in the middle of the ni—

  Pummel’s eyes snapped open. He stared at the candle. ‘Ghost paper,’ he whispered.

  He was so sure it would work that he didn’t even ask the others. All he said was, ‘Sooli, is the ghost still here?’

  She nodded.

  Pummel said, ‘Tell him to be ready to grab the paper.’ And he picked it up and held it to the candle flame.

  It caught fire immediately, and as it burned, the words Duckling had written reappeared in light brown writing.

  Sooli caught her breath. ‘He is
watching. He is reaching towards it. He is—’

  As the flame burned towards his fingers, Pummel let go of the paper. A second later, there was nothing left but ash.

  ‘He has it,’ breathed Sooli. ‘He has the paper! And the writing on it is as clear as clear.’

  Sooli did not want to talk to the ghost of the Margravine. She did not trust anyone who had once ruled the Stronghold. And she particularly did not trust someone whose name had been a curse word among the Saaf people for as long as she could remember.

  What’s more, talking to the boy ghost who had taken the message had felt dangerous. It had felt as if the Grafine’s soot-black path was wrapping itself more tightly around Sooli’s hands, and pulling her down.

  She whispered to the chicken, in her own language, ‘O great Bayam of Long Ago, do not let death take me, not like this. I am not afraid of dying,’ which was almost true, ‘but I do not want my ghost to be tied to the Grafine’s path for eternity. I do not want to stay inside these walls, like a slave. Please, o great Bayam.’

  The cat gave a warning hiss. Sooli looked up – and there was the ghost of the Margravine.

  She was as hard and straight as the sword she wore by her side. Her hair was tightly bound. A string of bear claws hung around her neck. But she was not looking at Sooli. She was watching Otte, with an unreadable expression on her face. One of her hands twitched, as if she wanted to reach out but would not.

  ‘Otte’s mother,’ whispered Sooli, in the voice that must be used when talking to ghosts.

  The Margravine swung around, drawing her sword in the same motion. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘Why are you with my son? What do you want?’

  It was even harder talking to this ghost than to the last one. If my hands were visible, they would be black, thought Sooli. Not the warm, sweet black of Saaf, but the cold black of death.

  Aloud, she said, ‘I want to destroy the Harshman.’

  The ghost’s eyes blazed. ‘He killed me,’ she snarled. ‘Now he tries to kill my son.’

  ‘We want to stop him,’ said Sooli. ‘But we do not know how. We think there is a book somewhere, hidden by the Grafine who raised him from the dead—’

  The question came hard and fast. ‘Which grafine?’

  Sooli closed her eyes for a breath, then opened them and said, in a more or less normal voice, ‘Which grafine was it?’

  ‘Grafine von Eisen,’ said Otte. He quickly added, ‘Is she here? My mother?’

  ‘I am here,’ said the ghost of the Margravine. And this time, she did reach out, and touched her son’s hair, though Otte didn’t seem to feel it.

  Then she turned back to Sooli. ‘Grafine von Eisen? She raised this monster from the dead? You are sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I will find the book,’ promised the ghost.

  And with that, she faded through the stone wall and was gone.

  The first Duckling knew of the ghost’s return was when Sooli scrambled to her feet, saying, ‘She wants us to go with her.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Otte. He scanned the cramped space, as if he might be able to see his mother’s ghost if only he tried hard enough.

  ‘Up,’ said Sooli. ‘That is all she can tell me. Up and up and up.’

  ‘Isn’t she afraid of the Harshman?’ asked Pummel.

  ‘No, she is full of rage,’ whispered Sooli. ‘It is like talking to a bonfire.’

  They crept out of their hiding place and along the passages, with the Margravine’s ghost leading the way. Duckling looked through a window and was surprised to find that the sky outside the Keep was dark. It was nighttime.

  But the Harshman’s slaves – the ones completely bound to his will – did not sleep. The children skittered from hiding place to hiding place, trying to avoid them. Their faces, glimpsed through the gaps of doors or from behind tapestries, were haggard and thin, but their eyes shone with the same mad gleam as the Harshman’s eyes, and they spoke with his voice.

  ‘Find … The … Heir. Find … The … Heir.’

  The staircases were the most dangerous part of their journey. The ghost took them up the lesser-used ones, but they still had some narrow escapes. Sooli held the chicken under her arm. The cat stalked ahead, and warned them when the ghost did not. Every passage was bone cold; their breath hung in front of them; their bare hands ached for warmth.

  At last they came to a narrow, hidden staircase, and began to climb. ‘I did not know this was here,’ whispered Otte.

  Sooli looked over her shoulder. ‘Neither did the Margravine. She says she only discovered it after her death.’

  The room at the top of the stairs was small, with a single unglazed window. There was a table in the middle of the room – and on that table was a pile of ashes.

  ‘But where’s the book?’ asked Pummel, looking around in bewilderment.

  Sooli repeated his question to the ghost. Then she shook her head and said it again, as if she didn’t like the answer.

  Something in Duckling’s chest tightened. She pointed to the ashes. ‘Is that it?’ she asked, hoping that the answer would be no.

  Sooli nodded, then spoke quickly and furiously to the ghost. The light of hope in her eyes died. Her shoulders sagged.

  ‘The Margravine does not see the ashes,’ she whispered. ‘She sees only the ghost of the book. She thinks she has found it for us. She does not understand our disappointment.’

  It was the worst thing that could have happened. The book had been their only hope of destroying the Harshman, and now it was gone.

  Duckling tried to think of how else they might kill such a monster, but her mind was blank. ‘Do you think he burned it?’ she whispered.

  The cat sniffed the air. ‘His ssslave,’ she growled.

  Otte stared at the pile of ashes, his brow furrowed. ‘If my mother— if the ghost can see the book, can she not read it? Can she not tell us the – the witchery?’

  ‘She cannot open it,’ said Sooli. ‘She has tried.’

  And that was that. One by one, they slumped to the floor.

  ‘So the Harshman has won,’ said Pummel. ‘We can’t destroy him. We’ll just have to get Otte as far away as we can, and—’

  ‘We can’t do that either,’ said Duckling. ‘We’ve been in the Strong-hold for three nights, and the curse has hold of us. Unless we can get the raashk back, we’re stuck here.’

  She felt stunned, as if they had all been careening down a long passage and suddenly run into a wall. There was no way out, not that she could see. None of them had the least idea of how to destroy the Harshman. Except perhaps the chicken Bayam, but she seemed to be more and more chicken and less and less Bayam every time Duckling looked at her.

  Even now she seemed unmoved by their dreadful discovery. Her bright eyes followed the spiders that crept across the ceiling, and only Sooli’s arms kept her from chasing them.

  It was the cat who moved first. Her ears twitched, as if she heard something. She stood up and stalked to the top of the hidden staircase.

  A second later, Sooli’s head jerked up. ‘There is someone coming. The ghost says we must go. Now.’

  ‘Nooow,’ agreed the cat.

  The urgency in both voices spurred them to action. Duckling took one last look at the ashes, in case she’d missed something, then hauled Otte upright.

  Pummel was already at the door, listening. ‘They’re coming up here,’ he whispered.

  ‘The ghost knows another way out, not far down the staircase,’ said Sooli. ‘Quickly!’

  Duckling and Pummel seized hold of Otte and lifted him up between them. Sooli led the way, with the cat trotting beside her.

  The hidden staircase spanned four floors, with small landings between each floor. Duckling could hear footsteps now, somewhere below them. She and Pummel leaped down the stairs after Sooli, with Otte clinging to their necks. They nearly fell once, but Pummel grabbed hold of an ancient bracket that stuck out from the wall, and saved them.

  Sooli was
already on the closest landing. ‘Hurry,’ she hissed. ‘Here is the door!’

  It was tucked away so carefully in the stonework that Duckling had passed it without noticing on the way up the stairs. She and Pummel set Otte down, and she tried to turn the doorhandle. But it was ice cold and slippery, and she couldn’t get a proper hold on it.

  ‘Pummel,’ she hissed. ‘You try it.’

  The footsteps were coming closer, and the children bumped against each other in their urgency. Otte was as white as salt, but he stood without flinching and waited for the door to open.

  Pummel seized the handle and threw his strength against it. The veins in his neck stood out, and his face was bright red – but at last the handle moved. He kicked the door open then stood back, ushering the others through one by one.

  Duckling dived past him and found herself in darkness, with the heavy weight of a tapestry in front of her. She fumbled over the back of the door and found a bolt.

  ‘Pummel, quick!’ she hissed.

  But Pummel, instead of coming after them, was staring down the staircase in amazement. ‘Ma?’ he said.

  ‘Pummel!’ screamed Duckling. ‘Come on!’

  Before he could move, there was a storm of footsteps, and a dozen hands seized him and held him tightly. Two of those hands belonged to a woman Duckling had never seen before. Her grip on Pummel’s arm was relentless.

  But her eyes – which Duckling saw in the split second before she slammed and bolted the door – were filled with agonised sorrow.

  Lord Rump was indulging in one of his favourite occupations – breaking into houses. He hummed under his breath as his knife edged past a window catch. How he loved burglary!

  Though this is not strictly burglary, he reminded himself. I am not taking anything, despite the temptation.

  With the window open, he climbed over the sill and shone the narrow beam of a dark lantern over the richly appointed room. It came to rest on the portrait of a prune-faced man with two hunting dogs and a dead boar.

  ‘Is that a Friedl?’ breathed Rump. He looked closer. ‘I believe it is, and more than two centuries old. Why, it must be worth at least five thousand silver gloats.’