A voice suddenly echoed out of nowhere, making them all jump. ‘Who goes there?’ They looked around the darkening woods, trying to spot its owner, but couldn’t see anything. Surely it hadn’t come from the stone pillar itself?
‘Erm … hello?’ Podkin called.
‘I said, who goes there?’ The voice repeated. This time it clearly came from somewhere near the ground. They peered at the roots of the bramble bush and were surprised to see a hole hidden there. A pair of eyes peeked out, staring at them suspiciously.
‘Just some children,’ said Podkin, remembering what Brigid had told them to say. ‘We’ve come to buy herbs for our master. He gave us a map to follow.’ He demonstrated this by waving the piece of bark in the air.
‘You won’t find many herbs left at this time of year,’ said the voice. ‘And this is no place for children.’
‘Please,’ said Paz. ‘If you don’t let us in, we’ll freeze. And if we don’t come back with herbs, we’ll get beaten.’
‘Hmpf,’ said the voice. ‘Let me see your eyes then.’
At first Podkin thought this was a strange request, but then he realised what the guard was checking for: signs of the red rust of the Gorm. Proof that the evil iron poison hadn’t possessed them.
One by one they knelt and stared at the guard-rabbit, pulling their eyelids down so he could see them better. He must have been satisfied, as there was a grunt and the sound of a door being unbolted. All of a sudden, the ground around the hole fell away to reveal a tunnel, lit inside by flickering candles. The owner of the eyes was standing there: a scarred old warrior rabbit with a long braided beard and patched leather armour. He looked like the veteran of several fierce battles, ones in which his enemies ended up with several missing body parts. Podkin wouldn’t want to be someone trying to sneak past him into Boneroot.
He beckoned them in, all the while keeping one hand on his sword hilt and a frown on his face. ‘You can go down, but if you want my advice, buy your herbs and get out quick. There’s rabbits down there that’ll eat you lot for breakfast. While you’re still squeaking too.’
They walked past the guard very quickly, careful to nod him a polite thank you, and emerged into a long tunnel, which sloped steeply downwards. Every warren that Podkin had ever been in had had a grand entrance burrow, paved or tiled, hung with tapestries or plastered and painted. This was just a muddy tunnel, roots poking out the sides, lit by a few smoky candles. What had they just walked into?
Behind them, they heard the door thumping closed, shutting them inside Boneroot. There was nothing else to do but keep going on down the tunnel and into whatever lay beyond.
*
The first thing Podkin noticed was the smell.
He had grown up in a warren, and no matter how clean and hygienic the rabbits, a large amount of furry bodies in a small enclosed space always gave a certain spice to the air. Especially if there had been turnips for dinner. Or, Goddess have mercy, beetroot curry.
This smell was something completely different. It was more than just an aroma; it was a solid, living wall, and walking down the tunnel was like doing a running leap headfirst into it. It nearly knocked the little rabbits over. Every smell in the world was there, all blended into one musty, meaty, fruity, furry pong.
‘Takes yer breath away, don’t it?’ came the voice of the guard-rabbit behind them, who must have heard their disgusted gasps. They couldn’t even reply. Squinting against the stench, they carried on down the tunnel to find just what it was that smelt so bad.
It was rabbits. Hundreds of rabbits.
There were hordes of them, in every shade and colour of fur. Brown rabbits, white rabbits; piebald, skewbald, spotted and brindled. Giant rabbits, towering over the crowds; tiny Elfin dwarves, smaller than children; fluffy-maned Lionheads, spotted Harlequins, velvety Rexs, woolly Angoras. And then many more breeds and tribes that Podkin had never seen or heard of. All these creatures, scared out of their homes by the Gorm. How many of these rabbits felt as lost and alone as he did?
The noise was almost as loud as the smell: a babbling surge of chatter, music and shouting that washed over them as soon as they stepped out of the tunnel and into a huge chamber, in which the swarms of rabbits rattled like beans in a jar.
The stone archway was nothing compared to what Podkin saw now. More pillars of carved and fluted stone stretched down from the chamber ceiling to the floor, holding everything together and allowing this enormous space to exist. It was a colossal cavern: big enough to fit ten longburrows with room to spare.
Up above, the roof was a mass of roots and vines that twisted down the ancient stone and ran across the chamber floor. The pillars, the roots, the walls – every spare inch of them were draped with lanterns or studded with thick candles that had spilt rivers of melted wax over everything.
In between the stone columns, the rabbits had created the craziest, most bustling market Podkin had ever seen. The place was blurred with stalls and kiosks selling all sorts of goods. There were grand painted booths, tables draped with cloth, and in some places just tatty blankets spread on the floor.
Trader rabbits stood amongst them, behind them, on top of them – haggling and arguing with customers, shouting out their wares and filling the chamber with so much noise it made Podkin’s head spin. There was mead for sale; roasted, stewed, fried and boiled vegetables of every description; clay pots, candles, lamps, weapons, clothes, armour, musical instruments, potions, charms, books and scrolls, wooden toys and dolls … too much to even begin to take in.
Who was in charge here? Who was keeping the order in this crazy mess? He could see no guards or soldiers anywhere. The whole place was free to do just what it liked, and yet somehow it was working.
The little rabbits stood for several minutes, blinking with wide eyes and trying to take it all in. They suddenly realised that Munbury warren – the place they had thought of as the centre of the world – had actually been a tiny scrap of a home compared to this.
‘Wow,’ Podkin finally managed to say.
‘Yes,’ agreed Paz. ‘Wow.’
‘Soop,’ added Pook.
The whole thing reminded Podkin of the Tinker Fair that used to come to Munbury just after Summertide each year. A mismatched collection of wagons and tents, with goods from all over the Five Realms spread out for sale. There were always jugglers too, and acrobats, fire-breathers, stilt-walkers.
‘Looks like the Fair, doesn’t it?’ Paz said, thinking the same thing.
‘Do you remember the year Father tried to swallow fire?’
‘And he singed his beard right off?’
Podkin started to chuckle, but then he remembered that his father was gone. Instead of laughing, he felt like something was broken. His eyes met Paz’s. He knew she felt it too. The world itself was wrong now: incomplete. How could it go on like it always had, with people buying and selling knick-knacks and trinkets, when his father was no longer a part of it?
These rabbits hadn’t even known Lopkin of Munbury had existed. The three children stood in silence, letting the sounds and smells of the market wash over them.
‘Well,’ said Paz, a few moments later. ‘Where d’you think we should start looking? For the mercenaries?’
It took Podkin a moment to remember that was why they were here. He forced himself to return to the present and its problems. A mercenary. A guardian. But how were you supposed to find anything in such a nameless jumble of rabbits?
‘We could try asking someone?’
‘What an amazing idea. You must be some kind of genius.’
‘You don’t have to be so sarcastic,’ said Podkin, scowling. ‘Have you got any better ideas?’
‘Ideas? What would I have ideas for? I’m not the chieftain, am I? Girls aren’t allowed to be chiefs, remember?’ Paz tucked Pook under her shoulder and trotted over to speak to the nearest stallholder, a black-furred rabbit selling jars of pickled beetroot, forcing Podkin to scurry after her. ‘Excuse me – do you know where
we can hire soldiers? Is there a shop or a booth or something?’
‘Soldiers? You mean sellswords?’ The rabbit looked the children up and down, suspicious. Her eyes seemed to linger on Paz’s silver bracelet and Podkin’s belt buckle. ‘What do you little ’uns need hired thugs for?’
‘We’re just curious, that’s all.’ Podkin couldn’t think of a convincing lie quickly enough. The rabbit raised an eyebrow and pointed across the hall to a fenced-off area next to one of the pillars.
‘Over there. But you won’t find much worth hiring. All the fighters I know have been scared off by the Gorm. Fled, they have – less dangerous over the mountains. Can I interest you in a jar of beetroot?’
After politely declining, they edged their way through the crush of bodies until they reached the sellsword stall. They could see a few ragged rabbits lounging around inside the fenced-off area: a broad, muscular buck with long snow-white fur that he wore spiked into porcupine points all over his head, whose left arm and leg were splinted and bandaged. A black-furred giant with torn ears and a missing arm. A brown, spotted Harlequin rabbit with a wooden leg and a crutch.
Podkin’s gaze was caught by one grey-furred rabbit with blank white eyes who sat silent and still in a corner. Was that all Boneroot had to offer? Some ragged, worn-out scrappers, one of whom was blind? They would be better off facing the Gorm on their own.
‘I don’t think much of that lot,’ said Podkin.
Paz nodded. ‘Me neither. Although I suppose they won’t cost much to hire. My bracelet will pay for the lot of them twice over.’
Podkin was about to walk into the enclosure to find out, but he never got the chance. A strong-fingered hand gripped his arm so tightly that it hurt, and he felt the sharp sting of a knife tip pressed against his ribs.
He saw Paz’s eyes go wide with fear, and looked up to see an evil-faced rabbit with patchy brown fur and mean orange eyes. He leant over them and whispered with breath that stank of rotten vegetables and stale mead.
‘You three little nippers are mine now. And your pretty jewellery too. Come along with me, nice and quiet, or I’ll chop this one’s other ear off. Snickety snip.’
He grinned, showing yellow broken teeth, and pushed his knife harder into Podkin’s chest so that Podkin yelped. There was nothing Paz could do but follow as her brother was dragged off, out of the hall and into the maze of endless side tunnels.
CHAPTER NINE
Shape and Quince
Podkin was dragged deeper and deeper into the Boneroot tunnels, the stinking rabbit’s hand tight around his arm, his knife jabbing in his ribs. He could hear Paz following behind, and Pook quietly crying. Every now and then the rabbit looked over his shoulder and made a comment. ‘That’s it, little girl. You just keep following nicely and I won’t have to slice up your brother.’
The further they got from the marketplace, the quieter it was. The noise of the market was still there, but muffled and distant, as if the whole thing had been a dream.
At first there had been some signs of life and light – shop fronts and houses – along the tunnel sides: a pickled-radish vendor; a line of washing hung up to dry; a tavern. But now there was just the odd empty burrow-mouth – dark lonely voids in the tunnel, which was already being slowly choked and filled up with spidery roots. Podkin wondered, in between sharp prickles of the knife in his side, whether the whole world would one day look like that, once rabbitkind had crumbled into dust. The roots, moss and earth would slowly crawl over everything, hiding it away like they had never existed at all.
Every so often they came across a piece of rib, or a jawbone, jutting down from the roof or sticking up out of the floor. People had propped candles on top of some, and they were now decorated with stalactites of dribbled wax. Who did they once belong to? Who buried them? If he wasn’t in fear for his life, Podkin might have stopped to ponder it all.
It was damp here: mildewy and rotten. There were piles of mouldering rubbish all over the floor, adding to the stink of decay. Mushrooms grew out of the tunnel sides, glowing pale in the murk, like strange little ghosts or the eyes of lurking monsters. Every now and then, something wriggled on the floor. Fat, pale earthworms or grubs of some kind. Podkin heard Paz step on one. There was a soft pop, followed by a muffled squeal. She always had hated creepy crawlies. That’s what made it so much fun to hide them in her bed, back in Munbury.
Oh, if only they were back in Munbury.
Podkin thought about trying to draw the dagger and fight the big rabbit off, but it was too tricky to get to. By the time he’d untangled it from its cloth scabbard, the smelly oaf would probably have chopped him into pieces. Then the rabbit would have Starclaw as well. There was absolutely nothing Podkin could do.
Finally they came to a burrow entrance, out at the furthest reaches of the tunnel. There were mounds of rotting scraps piled outside. Half-chewed radishes, shards of broken pottery, sticky pools of mush that might once have been food. The entire floor of the tunnel was heaving and pulsing with maggots.
A dim glow seeped out from the doorway. Podkin had a few seconds to wonder what terrors might lie within, and then the smelly rabbit pulled back the tattered blanket that covered the entrance and shoved him through. Paz and Pook were pushed after, crashing into his back and knocking them both to the floor.
‘Well, well, what have you caught, Quince?’
Podkin looked up to find himself in a small burrow. A typical living area for most warren rabbits, but one that seemed tiny to him. The walls were bare earth, a patch of old whitewash here and there, but more patches of black mould and bubbling fungus.
There was a large wooden chest by one wall, and two cages made of crudely lashed-together hazel branches against the other. The rest of the floor space was covered with piles of empty and broken clay bottles, gnawed carrot tops and layers of dust and cobwebs. This was a neglected and half-derelict place. It smelt stale and putrid, almost as bad as the tunnel outside.
A small fireplace was hidden amongst the junk, and a few sputtering, smoky logs were burning there, giving the place a hazy orange glow. Sitting beside it, warming his belly, was another rabbit: a huge fat lop, his ears held back by a stained bandana. He had a long braided beard with a silver bell tied at the end, and was watching them with small eyes. By his side was a huge wooden club, studded at one end with rusty spikes and nails.
‘I have hit the jackpot, Mister Shape,’ said the smelly rabbit, Quince. ‘Two posh little bunnies and one little sprogling. Found them peering at the sellswords like they was at a zoo or something.’
‘Sellswords, eh? Well, if they wanted to see the best fighter in Boneroot, they only had to come here for a peek.’ The fat rabbit stood up, his stomach rolling off his lap to hang about his knees. He wore shoulder pads and leather greaves, but his great scarred belly was bare and as broad as an oak trunk. ‘Get them up so I can look at them.’
Podkin felt his good ear being pulled, bringing him to his feet. Paz was yanked up too, squealing in pain. Pook whined and tried to hide in his big sister’s tunic.
‘Hern’s whiskers! Look at that belt buckle! And that bracelet. They look awful heavy for such little kittens. Perhaps you should lighten their load, Quince.’
The smelly rabbit laughed and roughly pulled off Paz’s bracelet. He grabbed Podkin’s belt and sawed through the leather with his knife. Podkin wanted to shout about how it had been a Midwinter present from his father, but the look on Mister Shape’s face made him keep his mouth shut.
‘They got anything else, Quince?’
Podkin felt the weasely rabbit’s hand close over Starclaw’s scabbard, and the knife was yanked free. He closed his eyes in despair. The one thing you were told to keep safe, and you couldn’t even do that.
‘Just this crummy old butter knife, Mister Shape. Doesn’t look fit to trim me toenails with.’
Shape gave it a glance, but he was more interested in the buckle and bracelet that Quince had just tossed him. ‘We’ll consider that
your first night’s rent paid,’ said Shape. ‘You can keep that toy knife for now. You couldn’t do any harm with it anyway. And it might come in handy for cutting purses. After all, you’ll be earning your room and board in future.’ Both the nasty rabbits laughed hard at this joke, although Podkin had no idea what it meant. ‘Show them their room, Quince.’
The smelly rabbit went over to the wooden cages. He pulled open the door to one, and the three little rabbits were kicked inside.
‘Just in case you are thinking of sneaking out in the night,’ said Mister Shape, ‘you should know one of us is always awake, watching you very closely.’
Quince cackled and waved his knife in the candlelight so it sparkled, leaving the rabbits in no doubt as to what would happen to them if they tried to escape. As the evil rabbits laughed some more, Podkin and Paz looked at each other, wide-eyed and terrified.
*
The rest of that night felt endless, uncomfortable and frightening. Podkin and Paz sat in their little cage, staring out at the burrow where Quince and Shape sat, while Pook snuggled between them, whining for food. Once or twice they tried to whisper to each other, but the two villains always heard them. Quince had a long stick he used to poke and prod them through the bars, trying his best to crack them on the heads or shins where it really hurt. In the end they gave up trying to speak, and just sat in miserable silence.
Podkin noticed the huddled shape of two other rabbits in the second cage. Small ones. Children like him, probably. They had obviously learnt not to make any sound. Once he thought that he glimpsed an eye peeking at him before blinking shut again. He wondered how long they had been there, trapped without anyone to rescue them. The thought made him shudder.
Podkin One-Ear Page 7
