by Conrad Mason
Up on his feet, rounding the back of the carriage and flying down a side street.
The strange, musty smell was stronger here. He skidded through a black puddle and reached instinctively to check that the wooden spoon and his father’s silver watch were still safe in his pockets.
Wait. A black puddle …
He looked again. It was sludgy as wet mud and glistened like a beetle’s shell. He bent down and sniffed. Yes – that smell – that musty, sickly, familiar smell. He knew what it was. Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?
We’re nearly there, for Corin’s sake.
‘Mongrel? I’m coming for you, mongrel!’
Joseph turned and ran through the streets, his heart leaping. He had done it. He had actually controlled Hoake’s mind with the wooden spoon, and he’d got out of it alive.
No more being pushed around. No more being told what to do.
It was time to put his plan into action.
Chapter Nineteen
‘That’s him,’ said the cat.
Tabitha leaned forward, watching the whitecoat stumble out onto the street. It was almost dawn, but the tavern was still lit up and bustling with activity. A second figure, big and burly, appeared in the doorframe.
‘And don’t come back till you’re sober, understand?’ The door slammed shut.
The whitecoat paused for a moment, swaying, and threw an obscene gesture back at the tavern.
Tabitha shifted position, uncomfortably aware of the big man with the horse’s eyes who gripped her collar, forestalling any attempt to escape. They were crouched in an alleyway, sticking to the shadows where they couldn’t be seen. Tabitha was exhausted and her whole body felt bruised and tender. They’d been walking all night, ever since the elf in the stocks had given her up. First to get away from the Demon’s Watch. Then hunting. Hunting for this whitecoat.
Trying not to think about what the cat had said.
I’ve already dealt with the mongrel boy.
At first she’d demanded that they let her go.
‘I’m afraid not,’ the pale woman with the bald head had replied. Something about her gave Tabitha the creeps. No – everything about her. ‘If your friends come looking for us, we’ll need a hostage.’
‘So you’re not going to kill me? Then what are we doing?’
The cat had grabbed her jaw, squeezing tight and making her flinch. ‘You are a nosy little girl, aren’t you? Don’t be so sure we’ll let you live. Perhaps we’ll throw you to the sharks. Or perhaps we’ll lock you in a lobster pot and ship you off across the ocean. Does that sound familiar?’
She’d kept quiet after that.
Until now.
‘Who is he?’ she whispered.
The hand on her collar tightened, and another came round to clamp over her mouth. It was hot and sweaty and stank of horses. She wrinkled her nose, uselessly.
The cat turned to the others, his face half lit by the glow from the tavern. ‘With me.’ He stepped out into the street. The others followed, Tabitha dangling like a marionette from the big man’s grip, stumbling, her feet only just touching the ground.
The drunk man might have been a whitecoat, but in truth his jacket was mostly brown and yellow now, stained with spilt grog and worse. He was large, soft and podgy with sandy-coloured hair – but even through the haze of grog, something about him suggested a fighter. And it wasn’t just the hefty curved sword that swung from his belt.
As the shapeshifters padded towards him, the man turned, red-rimmed eyes struggling to focus, and Tabitha drew in a sharp breath at the sight of a horrible scar on his forehead.
‘Whatareyer … Whassgoin … ?’ he said, the words slurring into each other.
‘You know what we want, my friend,’ said the pale woman.
‘Aye,’ said the big man holding Tabitha. ‘Where is he?’
The whitecoat lurched away. But the pale woman was beside him in an instant, and delivered a gentle push to the side of his head with one long white finger, as though tipping over a row of triominoes. The man overbalanced, sank to his knees and sprawled on the cobblestones, panting heavily. A slick of vomit bubbled down his chin. Tabitha’s own stomach heaved, and she squirmed in the big man’s grip.
There was some strange smell in the air, she realized, something beyond the stench of grog and sick. Something that she recognized.
The cat knelt and took the whitecoat’s collar in both hands, bringing his face close. ‘You disgust me, Hoake. What are you? You wear the League’s brand on your head. You work for a filthy crook. And you drink yourself half to death every night.’
‘Idonwanna … I duneven …’ mumbled Hoake.
The cat motioned to the pale woman. She nodded, and suddenly was no longer there. Only her clothes remained, and they fell to the ground with a rustle. Something crawled out of the empty collar, midnight black, many-limbed. A spider. It scuttled across the cobblestones onto the butcher’s jacket and began to move steadily closer to his face. Hoake’s eyes grew even wider, and he began to cry.
Tabitha felt an unexpected surge of pity.
‘Tell us,’ said the cat. ‘Tell us now, or you’ll have taken your last swig of firewater.’
At the mention of firewater the whitecoat groaned, rolled over and threw up noisily onto the cobbles, sending the spider scuttling away before he slumped face first into his own sick.
‘Wake up,’ snapped the cat. He stood and shoved the man’s limp body with his shoe, but Hoake was utterly still.
‘We’ll get nothing from him till he comes round,’ said the man with the horse’s eyes. ‘If he does come round.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ said the cat irritably. ‘It could take hours. The Snitch could have left Azurmouth by then.’
‘Wait, what?’ said Tabitha. She twisted hard, finally freeing herself. ‘Did you say the Snitch? As in Jeb the Snitch? This whitecoat works for him?’
They all looked at her. The cat. The man with the horse’s eyes. Even the spider paused, motionless.
‘Indeed,’ said cat. ‘We handed your little friend over to him.’
Joseph. So he’s still alive …
Tabitha sniffed the air again. That smell. So familiar. And at the mention of Jeb the Snitch, she realized what it was. She’d been right. She’d been right all along.
‘Look at his boots,’ she said. ‘Look, there.’
Thick black gunk clung to the underside of the whitecoat’s boots, like treacle. She knelt, and no one made any attempt to stop her. She sniffed once again. Yes – musty, sickly, somewhere between fresh vomit and rotten fish.
Griffin bile.
‘You know what that is?’ she asked.
The man with the horse’s eyes shook his head. The cat watched her warily. The spider crept closer, stepping carefully around Hoake’s unconscious body.
‘Don’t you know what Jeb does, when he’s not lying and cheating and stabbing folk in the back?’
Silence again.
‘I know,’ said Tabitha. ‘I can help you find him.’
‘How?’ said the cat.
‘I’ll tell you,’ said Tabitha. ‘On one condition.’
‘We’re not letting you go,’ said the big man. ‘So don’t even ask.’
Tabitha licked her lips. Jeb the Snitch. We handed your little friend over to him.
‘I don’t want you to let me go,’ she said. ‘I want you to take me with you.’
They flinch as he enters the room, and he feels their gaze linger on his cheek. The bruise has turned a dark purple, swollen with blood, throbbing with pain.
No matter. The mongrel Captain Newton will pay for it.
He sits at the head of the table, as a servant pours hot velvetbean into a cup and sets it before him. The lords have barely touched their breakfast, plates of egg and toast gently cooling in front of them. They watch him, on edge. Light shines through the great windows of the state room in solid square beams. It is a beautiful morning. He picks up a knife an
d begins to spread butter, the only sound the rasping of the knife across the toast.
It is the Earl of Brindenheim who speaks first, of course.
‘So, what of the contest? Corin’s Day has passed, and we have no victor.’
The man has both fists on the table, tightly clenched, and his jaw wobbles with the effort of keeping his temper. Lucky Leo sits beside him, meek and silent as a mouse as his father speaks for him.
‘The contest is of no importance.’
He savours the widening of eyes and the muttering that follows that.
‘I disagree.’
‘Of course you do.’
Brindenheim’s face turns feral for a moment, but he holds himself in check.
‘We cannot leave matters thus. Five fights are yet to be fought until a champion can be named. Think of the citizens of Azurmouth! They will not be content with this.’
‘They will be, or my butchers will see to it.’ The Duke sets his knife down beside his plate, and looks Brindenheim in the eye. He is pleased to see the old walrus blink, just like the weak younger lords. ‘I have had quite enough of you and your son. Thieves, the pair of you.’
The table has fallen utterly silent. He spreads damson jam onto his toast. A twinge of pain as he opens his mouth to eat. But nothing compared to what the mongrel captain will suffer.
Brindenheim stands. ‘How dare you?’ He speaks under his breath, quivering with fury. ‘No man speaks to me like that.’
‘You took my sword.’
‘The sword was never yours. Our fleet won it at the Battle of Illon. Our men. Our guns. In an expedition which you had no right to lead in the first place!’ He slams a fist on the table, making the cutlery rattle. ‘For too long you have taken liberties. You should never have sailed against Port Fayt. You lost half our ships and returned with nothing to show for it but an ancient relic.’ Brindenheim’s eyes narrow, and a grim smile spreads across his face. ‘And I know why you need that sword. You thought you could hide the truth from us, didn’t you? But last night I had my men go through your magicians’ quarters. It took them till dawn, but they found it. All your research. All your plans.’
‘Very well. Perhaps you’d care to share this with our friends?’
‘He already has,’ Lucky Leo pipes up.
‘Indeed,’ growls Brindenheim. ‘And we cannot allow you to proceed. Even if your magicians are correct, the ritual is far too dangerous. You have no idea what forces you might unleash. We must bring this to an end.’
The Duke sets the toast down on his plate, wipes his hands on a thick white napkin and examines the Earl of Brindenheim. ‘What are you saying?’
Brindenheim draws himself up. ‘I am saying that you are no longer fit to sit among us, and must be cast out from the League of the Light. We are all agreed. Who stands with me?’
Lucky Leo rises, his piggy eyes darting nervously around the room. The other lords look startled, uncomfortable.
‘I said, who stands with me?’ barks the Earl, a note of anger in his voice.
Cowards. They had hoped to keep their heads down and enjoy the show. But then Garvill clambers to his feet. Tallis follows soon enough, although neither will look at him. Next the Flatland lords, Juddmouth first. The least despicable, though that is no great achievement. Chairs scrape on the floor as the League rises.
Only the Duke remains seated, his breakfast barely touched.
‘I’m sorry that you feel this way. All of you.’ He catches the eye of Major Turnbull, stationed by the door. She nods and slips out of it.
‘But I am not surprised. It is said that Corin the Bold once rode a hundred leagues in one week to the lair of the mountain dragon Sigrild. Then he fought the beast, two days straight, till he could barely lift his blade. Yet still Corin found strength to strangle the monster and set his head on a spike.’
‘A story for children,’ spits Brindenheim. He rests one hand on the hilt of his sword.
‘And you … all of you …’ The Duke stands suddenly, and the nearest lords cower away. There is doubt in their faces now, as they see the fury in his. ‘The best of you can hardly ride as far as the nearest alehouse, and the most dread foe any one of you has ever faced is a roast suckling pig. You are weak. Pathetic. And you have forgotten our calling, to bring light into the darkness. To rid the world of demonspawn.’
‘I’m the finest swordsman in Azurmouth,’ says Lucky Leo, his voice little more than a squeak. Strange, how some men find courage at the worst possible moments.
‘Indeed? Then it is to be hoped you are as handy with a butter knife.’
They realize now – something terrible is about to happen. The Earl of Brindenheim lets out a roar, draws his sword and lunges forward. But Major Turnbull has returned and trips him, sending the walrus crashing to the floor and dragging half the tablecloth with him. She sets her boot on his back, pinning him down as his son looks on in horror.
‘I think we are ready now, Major,’ says the Duke.
She turns, beckons, and the doors to the breakfast room are flung open wide.
He savours their faces, silent, twisted in horror. Can it really be? Oh yes. Yes it can.
‘Count yourselves lucky,’ he says. ‘Corin fought a mountain dragon, big as a galleon. Next to that feat, this should be no challenge at all.’
They stalk into the room, moving slow, muscles tense. The morning sunlight makes their green scales glitter, and their bat-like wings unfurl like leather fans in the open space. The nearest opens its mouth to reveal teeth as long as fingers, and hisses.
‘You cannot do this,’ whimpers the Earl of Brindenheim. His face is as white as his whiskers.
The wyverns spread out, circling the lords and sniffing like dogs.
‘But I can.’
The nearest flaps up, wings beating the air, alighting on the table and setting the crockery rattling. It whines hungrily, and a long red tongue darts from its mouth.
‘You asked if they had hunted demonspawn before,’ the Duke says quietly. ‘They have indeed. The elves last the longest, in general. Daemonium Pulchrum. They run faster than the others. The dwarves, on the other hand, are always the first to go. They are slow and heavy, and they lack the cunning of an imp or a goblin. Of course, that is in the forests. Here, there is nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.’
‘Please,’ begs Brindenheim, all trace of defiance gone, as the wyverns close in. ‘Let us talk like men. Perhaps we could—’
‘No.’ The Duke clicks his fingers, and the air fills with the rustle of wyvern wings.
As the first screams tear through the room, he closes his eyes and smiles.
PART THREE
Elijah
Chapter Twenty
Morning – and Joseph hadn’t slept a wink.
It had taken him most of the night to find what he needed for his plan. After that the boarding houses had all been closed, so he’d slid under a broken-down cart and snatched a couple of hours of rest, until he was woken by a rat snuffling at his face. Breakfast had been a half-eaten loaf of bread dropped by a clumsy seagull.
He was more tired and hungry than he’d ever been before. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the plan.
He forced his feet to keep walking.
The sky was a strip of grey above the rickety rooftops, and the streets of Azurmouth were as quiet as they ever seemed to get. Just a few early morning fishermen making their way to the quayside, a delivery boy whistling and hefting a massive sack on his back, and rats – more rats – fighting over a broken crab carcass. Joseph went quickly, with his head down, but thankfully there were no butchers to be seen.
Left here, then right.
At last his nostrils picked up the scent of the griffin bile, even more pungent in the morning air. Improbably, it made his belly rumble.
He turned the corner and saw the tavern they’d stopped at the night before. It was just as grimy as he’d imagined. The tavern sign was painted with an image of an empty treasure chest, tho
ugh it was faded and peeling. The place looked ramshackle, like it might collapse at any moment.
The scent of the bile was stronger here. Joseph followed his nose down the road to a dead end – a high white wall, with a large archway and heavy wooden gates set into it. He backed up, standing on tiptoes to get a look at the buildings beyond it, white with blackened beams and thatched roofs, just like the other houses on the street.
There was no sign above the gates, but the smell was overpowering, and Joseph’s heart skipped a beat as he saw two more black slicks on the road, smeared by cartwheel tracks that led from the archway.
This was it. This had to be it.
Joseph patted his waistcoat pocket, checking for his father’s silver pocket watch. He checked his right-hand pocket for the wooden spoon, panicked for a moment when he found it empty, until he remembered: that was the whole point.
Last chance. He could turn back now. Or he could keep walking, straight into the dragon’s jaws. He hadn’t even brought his cutlass with him.
No. The plan was a good plan. Besides, it was too late for second thoughts.
I’m coming for you, Father. I’m going to find you.
He took a deep breath, stepped forward and knocked on the wooden doors.
It was a good plan, wasn’t it?
There was a scraping and banging as someone unbarred the doors. They inched open a short way and a face peered suspiciously out.
Joseph froze in horror. The face belonged to a wiry, weather-beaten goblin, with a carved lump of wood for a nose.
‘You!’ yelped Wooden-nose. Then his face twisted into a snarl of pure rage. His grey hands shot out, clapped over Joseph’s ears and tugged him inside, hurling him face first into a deep puddle of bile.
Joseph spluttered, desperately trying not to inhale. His eyes, nose and mouth were clogged with thick black gunk. As he tried to rise he felt a weight come down on him, then a hand clamped around the back of his head, forcing his face back into the glistening black puddle.
‘Filthy little thea thlug!’ snarled Wooden-nose. ‘Got me kicked in the fathe by a horth, didn’t you? Do you have any idea how much that hurt? It thmathed my nothe to thplinterth, you maggot!’
