by Paul Stewart
Just then, from the top of the broad trunk, there was a deep belching noise, followed by an eruption of bleached white bones which flew up into the air, then cascaded down, clattering around the base of the tree on the top of the others. The pungent stench grew more intense and Cade covered his nose and mouth with his hand. He looked round at Celestia, to see that she was pointing. He followed the line of her outstretched finger and his gaze fell on a plant that sprouted from the midst of the bone mound at the base of the bloodoak.
It was tall and bushy, with a thick central stem and a mass of spiked leaves which were shiny and crimson and stark against the whiteness of the bleached bones.
It was the shriekroot.
Celestia unshouldered her longbow, then slipped her rucksack from her back and opened it.
Cade sat back on his heels and watched her in silence.
First she pulled a length of rope from the rucksack and uncoiled it, then carefully tied a noose at one end. Next, she pulled an arrow from her quiver and attached it to that end with a piece of twine. She worked methodically, her fingers quick and dextrous. When the noose was securely attached, she picked up the bow, climbed to her feet and placed the arrow in position. She raised the bow and pulled back the drawstring.
Cade saw the tight muscles in her arms knotting up both above and below her crooked elbow; saw her close one eye . . .
With a low twang, the arrow leaped from the bow and flew through the air across the clearing, taking the rope with it. It grazed the top of the spade-shaped leaves and plunged down into the bone-strewn mound on the other side. As it did so, the looped noose dropped over the plant, snagging on a couple of the lower leaves as it fell.
Celestia jiggled the end of the rope, sending ripples running down its length. The noose wavered for a moment at the spiked ends of the leaves, then fell to the earth. She tugged gently. The noose closed around the plant’s stem. Then, with a swift movement, she jerked the rope hard towards her. Around the stem, the bones began to shift.
All at once, in a shower of dark red earth and white bone, the shriekroot burst from the ground. It was a mass of tubers, all of them plump and taut. For a moment, the root remained suspended in the air just above the bone mound, a thin, fibrous tendril anchoring it to the ground. Then, with a crack, the tendril snapped. The root leaped free, and at the same time, the air filled with a bloodcurdling shriek, like the enraged, pain-filled cry of some newborn creature.
As Celestia hauled the root across the clearing towards them, Cade saw it deflate, like a bladderball with a puncture. Celestia gave a final tug, and the shriekroot came to rest at their feet. Fascinated, Cade bent down to inspect it. Close up, the mass of soft, hairless protuberances were like the appendages of something half-formed, with a misshapen head, a distended stomach and numerous weird, mutant limbs.
‘The sound,’ he murmured, examining the snapped tendril, from which a wisp of water vapour was rising. ‘It seems to be caused by air escaping.’
But Celestia was paying him no attention. Instead, she was staring back into the clearing, her brow furrowed.
‘I don’t understand it,’ she said. ‘The tarry-vine should have reacted to the shriek of the root, lashing down from the branches to grab it. I’ve lost several that way,’ she added as she untied the rope and placed the shriekroot in her backpack. ‘But it didn’t even seem to notice—’
Her words were abruptly drowned out by an agonized scream.
The next moment Cade saw the tarry-vine for the first time, and gasped. It was a broad, green, muscular-looking plant which was indeed rooted somewhere in the darkness at the top of the trunk, and hung down from the branches to the forest floor. As Cade scanned the length of the vine, he could see that it had been lying across the clearing behind the tree the whole time, still and dormant, concealed from their sight by the bloodoak’s trunk. Now, as it flexed and bucked, Cade saw that the other end of the vine disappeared into the forest beyond the clearing.
As Cade watched, the bloodoak became more and more animated. Viscous red liquid oozed from the nubs on its pulsating trunk and a strange click-clacking sound came from the top of the tree where its branches met. The sound rose to a crescendo as, in a flash of green, the tip of the tarry-vine snaked into the clearing.
Cade trembled. The vine was coiled tightly around a terrified hammerhead goblin. A wild hammerhead goblin, judging by the black tattooed bands and spirals on his torso and the gleaming metal rings through his ears and around his neck. He looked no older than Cade himself.
Cade shrank back, his stomach churning as the goblin let out another agonized scream. It made the sounds from high up in the tree grow even louder.
The bloodoak was hungry and the tarry-vine was about to feed it.
· CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ·
CELESTIA WAS RUNNING. Cade saw the glint of the knife gripped in her hand. And he too was running, swinging his phraxmusket from his shoulder and pointing it at the vine as the hapless goblin was dragged over the bone-strewn ground towards the flesh-eating tree.
But it was no good. He couldn’t fire – not without the risk of hitting the hammerhead. And Celestia, who had leaped down onto the vine just beyond the goblin, wrestled it flat to the ground, and was hacking at it savagely with her knife. Cade dropped the phraxmusket and drew his own knife.
The vine was writhing. A thick foul-smelling liquid oozed from the lacerations that Celestia had inflicted with her blade.
Cade dropped down onto the vine, his back to the hammerhead, facing Celestia. The tarry-vine bucked, but Cade held on tight. Behind him, the vine must have tightened around the hammerhead’s neck because Cade heard him gurgle and splutter, and when he glanced behind him he saw the goblin’s face turning from red to purple, his eyes bulging and his swollen tongue gagging.
Celestia was still desperately hacking at the vine. There was thick slimy juice up her arms, splattered on her leather jerkin, her face, her hair. A long jagged rip in the green skin gaped, but the tough sinews beneath seemed resistant to the knife blows. Writhing and pulsating with a horrible energy, the tarry-vine pulled all three of them towards the bloodoak, which was clacking and slurping and spitting out gobs of bloodflecked saliva.
They were being dragged over the bone mound at the base of the tree now. With immense strength, the tarry-vine reared up into the air.
Cade’s feet left the ground. He clung onto the vine with one hand while stabbing down with the other. Celestia lost her grip and was thrown clear, tumbling back and slamming down on the bone mound. The rank smell of decay intensified and, looking down, Cade saw that he and the hammerhead were being pulled towards the bloodoak’s gaping mouth.
Gleaming ridges of woody gum flexed and gurned. Like the iris of a monstrous eye, the mouth slammed shut then opened up again to reveal row upon circular row of triangular yellow teeth that glinted and clacked and slavered. And below the mandibles, deep inside the trunk itself, a dark, convulsing tunnel opened that led down into the bowels of the bloodoak.
Cade gagged emptily as the stench billowing from that black pit wrapped itself around him. He turned away. Below, Celestia had her phraxpistols in her hands. She aimed and fired.
The leadwood bullets sliced through the vine’s tendons and bloodsap-vessels, which exploded in red spray, and with a wet, splintering crack the vine finally snapped, sending Cade and the hammerhead tumbling back down to the ground.
‘Quick!’ Celestia cried urgently. ‘We’ve got to get him out of here!’
Cade frowned. The vine was severed. Surely there was time to catch their breath . . .
But Celestia, already tugging fiercely at the truncated length of vine that encircled the hammerhead’s motionless body, was insistent.
‘Come on!’ she shouted.
Cade joined her and between them they managed to loosen the hold of the tarry-vine and pull the hammerhead free. The heavy coils slumped to one side. The young hammerhead was pale now, his black tattoos stark against the waxen skin. Pa
le and still. Cade couldn’t tell if he was even breathing – and Celestia was in too much of a hurry to check.
Instead, she took hold of him under the arms, shouting at Cade to take him by the legs. Together they carried him back across the clearing, away from the bloodoak. They were halfway to the lufwood tree when Cade became aware of something moving behind him.
There was a slithering noise. There were soft, slurpy popping sounds, coming one after the other . . .
Cade turned.
From the oozing end of the severed vine, five new vines had burst out, emerald green and whip-thin. They rose up, swaying, lurching, and growing thicker with every passing second. Their bright green tips quivered. There was another pop, then another, and two more vines burst out from the congealed stump; then two more . . .
Suddenly the new vines hurtled towards them, flailing like a cat o’ nine tails.
Cade let go of the hammerhead’s legs, picked up the phraxmusket he’d dropped earlier and cocked the trigger. Closing his eyes, he blasted the writhing mass of vines. Foul-smelling sap flew in all directions, covering him in warm, fetid wetness. Opening his eyes, he saw the shattered vines twitching at his feet. In a few moments, he realized now, they would regenerate into dozens of new shoots.
He turned and, together with Celestia, picked the hammerhead up and fled full pelt into the depths of the forest.
· CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE ·
CELESTIA AND CADE plunged deeper into the trees, supporting the hammerhead goblin between them. Weaving in and out of the gnarled trunks, skirting thickets and undergrowth and ducking beneath low branches, they half ran, half stumbled through the Western Woods and away from the bloodoak glade.
Finally they stopped, and as Cade fought to catch his breath, Celestia looked up at the treetops and whistled. In answer, moments later, the prowlgrins came bounding down through the branches and landed, one after the other, on the forest floor before them.
Calix and Burrlix observed the hammerhead goblin, their flared nostrils twitching suspiciously, but Rumblix was less restrained. With a high-pitched yelp, he launched himself at the goblin who, still weak and dazed, lost his balance and landed heavily on his back. Rumblix dropped down onto his chest. His mouth opened and, for a terrible moment, Cade could only stand and stare as the prowlgrin bared his teeth.
But instead of savaging the goblin, Rumblix stuck out his long prehensile tongue and began licking at the hammerhead. At his shoulders and neck; his exposed chest. Under his arms. The goblin squirmed helplessly, convulsing with laughter as the little prowlgrin tickled him.
‘Stop! Stop!’ he spluttered.
Grinning himself, Cade pulled Rumblix off and held his halter while the hammerhead goblin climbed unsteadily to his feet. He looked down and wiped the slobber from his skin, then looked up at Cade. His face, with its broad brow, wide-set eyes and sweeping ears, grew more serious.
‘You saved Teeg,’ he said formally, touching one fist to his chest. ‘From the strangle-vine. Teeg is grateful.’ He crouched down before the prowlgrin pup, who was straining in Cade’s grip. ‘Teeg tastes good?’ he asked, his eyes sparkling with amusement. He returned his gaze to Cade. ‘Hammelhorn grease,’ he said, tracing his fingers over his gleaming skin. ‘Keeps cold out.’ He smiled a broad, chisel-toothed grin. ‘Your branch-leaper likes the taste.’
‘Are you all right?’ Cade asked.
‘Teeg is unhurt,’ the goblin said with a nod. ‘Teeg was scouting ahead for the tribe. The Shadow Clan of the High Valley Nation . . . Teeg was careless.’
The hammerhead youth was taller than him, his build more muscular, and up close Cade could make out the markings on the goblin’s face and arms. There were ironwood pines, curved cloud shapes and thin spidery black lines that curled over his brow ridge and round his upper arms.
Hammerhead goblins had always intrigued Cade. Back in Great Glade, hammerheads were used as muscle. Fierce, loyal and formidable fighters, they often became guards or soldiers – or skymarshals on board the skytaverns, Cade recalled, his stomach churning at the memory of how close he’d come to being skyfired by the hammerhead skymarshal on the Xanth Filatine.
This savage young hammerhead wore a leather jerkin and breeches, and his broad muscular feet were bare. On his brow, over each wide-spaced eye, he wore a ring, and several more banded his neck. And when Cade breathed in, his nose was filled with the odour of the hammelhorn grease smeared over the hammerhead’s face and arms. It smelled of stale meat and woodsmoke, and something else – something savage and untamed. Something far removed from the world of Great Glade with its stilthouse factories, academies and skytaverns. Cade’s world. It smelled of the Deepwoods.
‘Father,’ said Teeg. He was looking past Cade and Celestia. ‘These two heavy-foots saved Teeg from the strangle-vine.’
Cade turned and followed Teeg’s gaze.
Before them stood the imposing figure of an adult hammerhead goblin. He was tall and heavily muscled, tattooed, ringed and coated with gleaming grease. He had a large backpack strapped to his broad shoulders and held a vicious-looking blackwood spear in one massive hand. He had approached them so silently that neither Cade nor Celestia had heard him, and the hammelhorn grease had masked his smell from the prowlgrins.
‘Heavy-foots,’ said the hammerhead, his broad-spaced eyes turning to Cade and Celestia. ‘So far from the great water?’
As he spoke, Cade became aware that they were now surrounded by hammerheads, a dozen or so in number. They stood in a circle where, seconds before, there had been no one. Some, like Teeg’s father, carried blackwood spears. Others bore bone-handled knives, or studded cudgels, or carved copperwood bows, the drawstrings loaded with stone-tipped arrows and pulled back taut. All of them carried heavily laden backpacks on their shoulders.
‘We were foraging,’ Celestia said, ‘when we saw your son snared by the tarry . . . the strangle-vine—’
‘Chert know you,’ the hammerhead interrupted her. ‘You are daughter of the heavy-foot from the cabin in the air.’
‘Yes,’ said Celestia, ‘but how? I’ve never seen you before.’
‘You don’t see the clan, but the clan see you. Many times,’ he added. ‘On your branch-leaper in the forest.’
The hammerhead stepped forward and held out his huge hand. ‘Chert of the Shadow Clan thanks you. Both of you.’
Celestia and Cade shook his hand in turn.
‘Now,’ he went on, ‘you must make camp with the Shadow Clan.’
‘We’d love to,’ Celestia said, ‘wouldn’t we, Cade?’
Cade nodded.
The hammerheads had lowered their weapons, but their brutal, elongated faces showed no emotion. Chert and Teeg turned away and started walking, and Cade and Celestia followed, leading their prowlgrins by the reins.
Around them, the other hammerhead goblins spread out and kept pace, but so silently that Cade had to keep looking right and left to make sure they were still there. What was more, the tattoos on their heads and arms, together with the muted colours of their clothes and backpacks, meant that they blended into the dappled woods perfectly – so perfectly, in fact, that it was only when they stopped walking about half an hour later that Cade realized the twelve hammerheads had been noiselessly joined by many more.
Forty or so of them, Cade guessed as they gathered silently around Chert and his warriors on the edge of a small glade. Males and females. Young and old. All of them tattooed and ringed, and all of them carrying curious rolled-up bundles on their backs.
A hammerhead youth, similar in age to Teeg, was waiting for them in the centre of the clearing. His hands were cupped to his mouth and he was imitating the low, hollow cough of a fromp. It was this call, Cade realized, that the clan had been following. With their remarkable hearing, they had picked out the call of their scout from amid the clamour of screeching, whistling and howling of the forest creatures and made their way to him.
The glade they found themselves in was pale green and grey, and
shot with shadows cast by the slender willoak saplings that grew there. It was sheltered from the wind by a stand of massive ironwood pines on the far side, and smelled of the nibblick and woodthyme which grew in dense clumps at the centre.
Chert strode over to the scout and laid a hand on his shoulder, nodding appreciatively before turning to the rest of the clan and giving a three-fingered signal.
In response, the tribe silently split into three groups and set to work. And as Cade and Celestia watched, the females and young’uns unrolled the bundles they had been carrying, which revealed themselves to be lengths of woven wicker matting.
The older males and the youths pulled the large packs from their shoulders and began methodically taking out their contents: machetes, scythes, jag-blade knives, as well as small cooking pots and various utensils for cutting, chopping, grating and skewering. Then, as the females tied the wicker matting together with strips of tilder leather, the males cut down a number of the willoak saplings and began constructing a large frame.
The third group, the hammerhead warriors – including Chert and his son, Teeg – laid down their backpacks and slipped away into the forest.
Meanwhile, in the clearing, in a matter of minutes, the older males had tied the saplings together to form a vast cone onto which the females attached the woven matting. Then, coming together, they all raised the wickerwork cone upright and hammered in copperwood staves around its base to anchor it.
Cade stepped back, wide-eyed with astonishment. From seemingly nowhere, and in almost total silence, a mighty hive tower had just risen in the centre of the clearing. The hammerheads then spread out. The females gathered kindling and firewood from around the fringes of the clearing, as well as bunches of the nibblick and woodthyme. The young’uns climbed up into the ironwood pines, leather water-gourds on their backs. Up high, they selected those great hanging pine cones that had collected rainwater in their upturned seedpods the night before, tipped them up and carefully poured the water into their gourds.
