The Six Crowns: Trundle's Quest

by Allan Jones

  “I suppose we are,” Trundle admitted. “Sort of.”

  “Sort of!” exploded Esmeralda. “Did we mira-culously escape the pirates in Shiverstones, or not? Did the windship bring us here, or didn’t it? Do we have the Lamplighter’s sword, or don’t we?”

  “We did, it did, and we have,” agreed Trundle. “But I’m not entirely comfortable with a quest that involves cheating and stealing and chucking people off ladders, that’s all.”

  Esmeralda smiled indulgently at him. “Would you rather we didn’t have the sword and those ruffians had caught us?” she asked.

  “Well, no . . .”

  “Attaboy!” she said. “Come on, we’ve got what we came here for. Let’s find our way back to the docks and jump a windship off this devilish lump of rock!”

  They walked along the streets of Rathanger, Esmeralda’s arm tucked into Trundle’s as they made their way back to the jetties and wharves. It was nice not to be chased, and to be on the safe side, they were keeping as much as possible to the less crowded thoroughfares, just in case Honesty Skank was on the prowl, wanting his sword back.

  Trundle sauntered along with one paw resting on the hilt of his newfound weapon. He had no idea how to use the thing, but it felt rather impressive to have it tucked into his belt.

  Esmeralda seemed in high spirits. “That was quite the adventure, wasn’t it?” she said. “And now that we have the Lamplighter’s sword, nothing in all the Sundered Lands can stop us!”

  “Is that so, my pretty?” growled a deep, throaty voice from the shadow of an archway that stood just ahead of them. “I beg to differ, little ones! I beg to differ!”

  A harsh, shrill voice croaked. “Beg to differ! Beg to differ!”

  From the deep shade stepped a huge scarred hog with a long purple feather in his hat and a wicked-looking raven perched on his shoulder.

  “Razorback!” groaned Esmeralda. “Of all the rotten luck!”

  Unwittingly they had stumbled right into the path of Captain Grizzletusk’s dreadful bosun. From the evil look in his eye, he wasn’t about to let them escape his clutches!

  Chapter 7

  Razorback and the Raven

  “There’s a nice fat bounty on your head, little girl,” growled Razorback, grinning hideously. “The mine rats give a hundred sunders for every captured runaway.”

  “Is that dead or alive?” Esmeralda asked. In the circumstances, Trundle was impressed by the steadiness of her voice.

  “Either works for me,” said Razorback.

  “Dead or alive!” croaked Captain Slaughter. “Dead or alive!”

  A kind of reckless courage overtook Trundle. He was so certain he would be spending the rest of his life chained up in a mine, he found he didn’t really care about anything anymore.

  “Oh, shut up, bugle beak!” he shouted at the raven. “I’ve never seen anyone so ugly in my entire life! Is that your own face, or are you wearing it for a bet?”

  The raven ruffled its feathers and leaned down toward him, fixing him with a penetrating eye. “Watch it, matey!”

  “Way to go, Trundle!” breathed Esmeralda, her eyes shining with a new admiration. She looked up at Razorback. “I’ve got fifty paper sunders here,” she said, showing him the wedge of money. “You get it if you let the kid go. I hardly even know him, and he’s not worth a bean to you.”

  “Hey!” cried Trundle. “I’m not a kid! And I’m not abandoning you, either!”

  “Shhh!” hissed Esmeralda. “It’s for your own good.”

  Razorback laughed. “I get the money either way, girlie,” he said. “And your pal there will sell for a few sunders in the slave market, I don’t doubt. Now then, are you going to come quietly, or do I need to get the iron muzzles out?”

  Trundle leaped in front of Esmeralda. “Touch one prickle on her head, and you’ll have me to answer to!” he shouted, trying desperately to pull the sword out of his belt. But its hilt had somehow become caught up in his clothes, and it wouldn’t budge. As he struggled, he had the feeling that the delay had rather taken the edge off his courageous act. That, and the fact that Razorback and Captain Slaughter were rocking with laughter.

  “Shut your beak, you mangy sparrow!” Trundle yelled at the cackling raven. “Just you wait! I’ll trim your tail feathers for you! I’ll pluck you raw and truss you up and pop you in the oven to roast, you puffed-up piece of paltry, pop-eyed poultry!” Trundle couldn’t imagine where all these words were coming from. It wasn’t like him at all.

  Trundle’s abuse was too much for Captain Slaughter. With a wrathful croak that sounded like fingernails scraping down a blackboard, he launched himself off the bosun’s shoulder, his wings outstretched, his wicked sharp beak aiming for Trundle’s face.

  “Watch out!” screamed Esmeralda.

  Trundle made a half turn, intending to dive out of the way, but at that moment, the sword came free and his arm jerked back and his elbow accidentally went smack, right into the raven’s eye.

  “Arrghawkkkk!” With a croak of shock and pain, the raven crashed to the cobbles in a wild tangle of beak and claws and feathers.

  “Hah!” yelled Trundle, waving his sword in the air. “Take that!”

  “I’ll take it, all right,” thundered Razorback. “I’ll take it and chop you into collops with it!”

  He loomed over Trundle, claws poised to snatch. But then from behind Trundle, a cobblestone came whizzing through the air, launched by Esmeralda. It hit Razorback right on the snout. The bosun went cross-eyed with agony and staggered about, clutching his wounded nose with both paws and howling while Trundle danced with joy, swiping at him with the sword.

  There was a fearful squawk as Razorback accident-ally trod on Captain Slaughter, followed by a yowl of pain from the bosun as the squashed bird reverted to instinct and stabbed him in the foot with its beak.

  “Escaping now would be good,” said Esmeralda, snatching at Trundle’s jacket.

  They sped away.

  “We beat them!” gasped Trundle. “Did you hear me? Did you hear the things I was saying?”

  “Yes,” panted Esmeralda. “I was impressed.”

  “We beat the worst pirate in the world!” yelled Trundle, swinging his sword as he ran.

  “The second worst pirate in the world,” Esmeralda corrected him. “You haven’t met Captain Grizzletusk yet.”

  “All the same!” Trundle was almost dizzy with triumph. “I’ve never had so much fun in my life. We should go back and finish them off!”

  “Get a grip!” said Esmeralda. “We were lucky. Don’t count on it happening again. We need to get far, far away from here! If they catch us, they’ll kill us in a very special and very slow piratey way. Trust me!”

  There was an angry roar from behind them. Trundle glanced over his shoulder, and his brief joy evaporated. Razorback was pounding along the alley in high rage, and at the speed he was moving, he’d be within claw’s reach in no time.

  The two hedgehogs skedaddled down the alley at top speed, all thoughts of returning to finish off the evil bosun quite forgotten by Trundle in his panic to escape.

  Trundle and Esmeralda fled deeper into the vast dark chasm of Drune. They had left the flickering lights of Rathanger behind and were running hand in hand up a steep black slope of slippery, slithery, shiny rock. Below them, a road wound on into the chasm, lit by the bloodred flames of iron braziers. At the far end of this road, Trundle could dimly see a cluster of similar ruddy lights.

  “Those are the mines,” Esmeralda explained as they sat for a moment on a flat chunk of rock perched above the road, catching their breath.

  “We don’t want to go there, surely?” panted Trundle.

  “Of course not,” said Esmeralda. “The plan is to sit tight up here till Razorback goes past, then double back and make for the docks.” She peered along the road as it wound into Rathanger. “He was right behind us all the way,” she said in a puzzled voice. “Where’s he gone? He won’t have given up. What’s he playing
at?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Trundle, leaning back against a shard of rock. “But I’ll tell you something for nothing: I’m getting really tired of being chased all the time.”

  “A few minutes ago you were telling me how much fun you were having,” Esmeralda pointed out. “Some people are very fickle.”

  Trundle gave her a long-suffering look but said nothing.

  Esmeralda sat staring back down the road. “Odd,” she murmured to herself. “Very odd.”

  “I think he’s given up,” Trundle said after a little while.

  “I wouldn’t bet on it. Look!”

  Trundle joined Esmeralda at the lip of black rock. A bunch of piratical shapes were moving along the road from Rathanger. At their head was the disturbingly familiar bulk of Razorback. The only comfort Trundle took was that there was no sign of Captain Slaughter. It was too much to hope that the horrible bird had been squashed to death back in Rathanger, but at least the bosun’s homicidal sidekick seemed to be too poorly to join in the hunt.

  Trundle saw a long leash extending from Razorback’s fist. A small scuttling creature was attached to its far end. The little animal ran on ahead of him, skipping back and forth across the width of the road, its long thin snout to the ground.

  “What is that?” Trundle asked.

  “A sniffer shrew,” Esmeralda said unhappily. “I hadn’t counted on that. Those animals can track a mayfly over moving water!” She dodged out of sight and stood up. “Come on, we’re not safe here. That shrew will lead them right to us. We have to move.”

  They scrambled along the precarious rock face, keeping close together, using both paws and both feet to save themselves from missing their footing on the glassy hillside. The last thing they needed was to go tobogganing down onto the road, right in the path of the hunting pirates and their long-nosed sniffer shrew.

  As they made their way forward, Trundle looked back. The shrew had led Razorback and several of the pirates up onto the hillside. The rest were following along the road, cutlasses and long knives at the ready.

  He could hear the sniffer shrew’s high-pitched, whiny voice in the distance. “This way, boss—they went this way for sure. Follow me, boss. Follow me.”

  “I’d like to tie that animal’s snout in a knot,” Trundle growled.

  “The only way we’re going to get out of this is to hide our scent,” said Esmeralda. “If we stay up here, we’re pretty much done for.” She looked grimly at Trundle. “We have to go into the mines.”

  He blinked at her. “So, to save ourselves from being caught and forced to go into the mines, we’re going into the mines. Is that your plan?”

  “It is,” Esmeralda said. “Remember, I escaped once. I can certainly do it again. Trust me. This is the only way to throw that sniffer shrew off our scent. He won’t be able to find us in the crowd.”

  “Go on, then,” sighed Trundle. “I’m right behind you.”

  They scurried as quickly as possible across the hillside. Now Trundle could hear the screaking sounds of winches and the whirring of flywheels. The pounding of jackhammers made the ground tremble under his feet. Right below them, he could see a cluster of dirty shacks and sheds, and a narrow jetty that thrust out into the darkness of the chasm, lit all along its length by braziers on iron tripods.

  Moored at the far end of the jetty was the same windship that had brought them to Drune in the first place. Creatures were moving to and fro, unloading the cargo and hefting it into the sheds. There were also a lot of much smaller skyboats moored higgledy-piggledy along the sides of the jetty, dozens of them—scores of them, in fact—looking to Trundle like almond-shaped leaves growing from a big black tree branch.

  “The mine guards use the skyboats to ferry stuff to and fro from Rathanger,” Esmeralda explained.

  Trundle thought for a moment how nice it would be to jump into one of those leaf-shaped skyboats and sail away home in it. Dismissing his daydream, he followed Esmeralda down from the hillside and in behind the sheds. New sounds came to his ears: the steady rhythm of picks and shovels and club hammers, and the noise of shouting voices and cracking whips and clanking chains.

  With Esmeralda in the lead, the two hedgehogs slipped into the mines through a wide cave mouth. The air was foul and full of choking dust. Lanterns were hooked to the walls, but the light they gave off was weak and smoky.

  “Move, you filthy maggots!” roared a voice. A dismal metallic grinding noise sounded from deeper in the cave. Esmeralda and Trundle ducked for cover as a wagon came into view, loaded with coal, hauled along iron rails by woeful and suffering animals in leather harnesses, with chains hanging from their wrists and ankles. A warthog cracked a long whip above their heads.

  The two of them waited till the wagon had gone past, then crept deeper down the tunnel into the cave—deeper into the dreadful and dangerous mines of Drune.

  Chapter 8

  The Mines of Drune

  The tunnel opened out into a huge cavern lit by flickering torches and glowing iron braziers. Trundle was appalled by the abominable sight that met his eyes. The great walls of the cavern stepped up into terrace after miserable terrace; on every level, scores of slaves were hacking at the coal face. More slaves were gathering the coal in baskets and climbing up and down rickety ladders to deposit the foul stuff in iron wagons. The heat was oppressive, and the air was thick with the stench of sweat and coal dust and cruelty and despair.

  Trundle shivered with dismay and pity for the poor slave workers. As if their plight wasn’t grim enough, warthogs and boars and rats and pigs strode about, shouting constantly and wielding whips and cudgels, laying into them seemingly on a whim.

  “This is awful,” he breathed.

  “Tell me about it,” murmured Esmeralda. “I spent two weeks in here before I managed to escape. Come on, let’s mingle before that sniffer shrew turns up.”

  It was all too easy to creep from the shadowy tunnel and make their way in among a bunch of slaves who were carrying baskets to one of the wagons. Hopeless eyes stared at them from blackened faces.

  “Hide us, please,” said Esmeralda. “We’re in trouble with the pirates.”

  Wordlessly, the slaves gathered around the two hedgehogs, shielding them from the guards’ sight as they plodded along. Esmeralda and Trundle helped heft the coal into the wagon, keeping among the sad animals as they turned and made their way back to the coal face for another load.

  “You might be better off with the pirates than ending up here,” said an emaciated old hare, shaking his long head. “No one ever gets out of these mines alive.”

  “I did,” said Esmeralda. “And we will again.”

  “You should come with us!” said Trundle.

  The hare lifted his wrists, the rusty chains clanking as they ran from creature to creature. “How?” he asked.

  “There must be keys to unlock the chains,” Trundle said.

  “There are,” said the hare. “Overseer Grunther keeps them.”

  He gestured toward a truly massive female hog, who stood with her feet wide apart and her fists on her hips, staring balefully around the mine with a look in her eyes that made Trundle’s spine turn to water. A thick leather belt wound around her expansive waist, and hanging from iron hooks fixed to the belt were an assortment of keys.

  Trundle looked into the hare’s sorry eyes. “I promise that if we get out, we’ll find a way to release you all,” he said solemnly.

  He saw Esmeralda looking at him with knitted brows, but he didn’t care what she thought of his rash pledge. He really meant it: if there was a way to rescue these creatures, then he was determined to try.

  They plodded with the slaves up a long slope that led to the first level of the workings. Cracked and broken shards of coal were heaped beside each worker, waiting to be loaded into the baskets and taken away.

  “Get down!” hissed Esmeralda, dropping to her knees and pulling Trundle down with her.

  “Grunther!” b
ellowed a familiar voice. “Overseer Grunther, where are you, you old drab!”

  Razorback stood in the mouth of the tunnel through which Trundle and Esmeralda had just come. The sniffer shrew was straining at the leash, running back and forth, sneezing every now and then from the coal dust getting into his snout. Several pirates stood alongside Razorback, grim and mean and murderous.

  Overseer Grunther turned and trudged toward the group of pirates.

  “Well, bosun?” she asked. “Have you brought back our little runaway?”

  Razorback gestured at the sniffer shrew. “Snivel thinks she came this way, with a companion. Another hedgehog, a tubby little creature with an idiotic face and a blunt old sword. You’ve not seen them?”

  Grunther’s small eyes glittered. “I have not,” she growled. “But if they’re here, we’ll winkle ’em out, have no fear.”

  Trundle glared down at the pirate hog. He had half a mind to leap down on Razorback and teach him a lesson! Idiotic face, indeed!

  The sniffer shrew hunkered down on its haunches, its eyes and nose streaming. “I’ve lost them, boss,” it whined, wiping a skinny paw across its nose. “I can’t smell nuffin’ in here. The coal dust do get up my hooter, so.”

  A soft voice hissed in Trundle’s ear. “You need to get out of here, right now.” It was the old hare. “Overseer Grunther will organize a roll call. You’ll be found. Go quickly, before she sounds the siren.”

  Esmeralda and Trundle crawled as fast as they could along the terrace, trying always to keep behind the heaps of fresh-cut coal. They were already a fair distance from Razorback when a terrible, deafening horn blared out.

  The echoes of the siren were still bouncing from wall to wall as Overseer Grunther began to shout. “Stop work! Leave your tools where they are. Make your way off the terraces and assemble in ranks. Guards, look out for two hedgehogs without chains. Sharp, now!”