Skyfare, it was called – the collection of airborne creatures that would cling to the logbaits hung from the sides of the phraxship. Mist barnacles and sky lobsters, the baits attracted; cloudfish and windsnappers, and long gelatinous worms that gathered in clumps – and made for excellent eating. For centuries, captains of the old league ships and sky pirate ships had simply had these parasites skyfired off into Open Sky. Today, on board the mighty skytaverns, they were food.
Nate felt once again for the curled-up gladers in his pocket as he shuffled forwards. A thin, pasty-faced pink-eyed goblin in a shapeless hat and grubby topcoat barged straight into him.
‘A thousand pardons, my dear young fellow!’ the pink-eye exclaimed in an oily voice, seizing Nate’s coat by the lapels with one hand and making an elaborate show of brushing imaginary dust off Nate’s shoulders with the other.
‘That’s all right,’ said Nate, smiling at the shabby individual’s exaggerated concern and good manners. ‘No harm done.’
‘So very gracious of you to say so, young sir,’ the pink-eye smiled, doffing his shapeless hat before pushing past and out of the galley.
Three shuffling steps later and Nate found himself at the front of the line, the great cauldron bubbling enticingly before him.
‘Two pieces,’ he said.
He watched as the gnokgoblin matron expertly scooped two delicious-looking pieces of golden fried skyfare from the cauldron and placed them carefully on crisp barkpaper. She folded them into two neat parcels and presented them to Nate.
‘That’ll be five gladers each,’ she said.
Ten gladers! Nate thought. Nearly all he’d got left – but then the skyfare looked, and smelled, so delicious. He reached into his jacket pocket and frowned. The pocket was inside out. And his shirt was untucked. He remembered the thin, pasty-faced pink-eye barging into him …
‘Ten gladers?’ the gnokgoblin matron repeated.
‘I know, I …’ Nate made a show of going through his pockets, one by one, his ears burning with embarrassment. ‘I … I can’t seem to …’
‘Then, young master, I’m afraid I can’t serve you,’ said the gnokgoblin. ‘Pity, cause this is the house special.’
‘It is?’ said Nate, his stomach gurgling more noisily than ever.
‘Yes,’ said the gnokgoblin, handing Nate’s parcels to the next customer. ‘Fried snowbird, caught only this morning.’
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN •
Nate slipped away. He’d failed. Twelve gladers he’d had. Not much, but enough for a delicious meal. Now he had nothing, and both Slip and he would have to go hungry. With his head down, he retraced his steps, past the line of waiting passengers, out of the galley and back to the central stairs.
The staircase ran alongside the huge mast, which extended from the base of the phraxchamber down to the reinforced mid hull, where the heavy lode weights swung. It was formed of six mighty ironwood trees that had been clamped together. The outer bark had been stripped, the wood polished and varnished, to create a magnificent hexagonal column which formed the backbone of the Deadbolt Vulpoon.
Nate headed down the stairs, scarcely noticing the salons and crew cabins he passed. He’d fallen victim to a pickpocket. He could have kicked himself for his stupidity! And what was he going to tell Slip? Poor trusting Slip, down in the depths, defending their belongings, while he, Nate, got tricked and robbed like some Eastern Woods yokel.
Lost in his thoughts, Nate was only dimly aware of the growing hum of laughter and chatter the lower he went until, stopping at the top of a flight of wooden steps, he looked down and saw a carved sign above the heavy copperwood door below.
Tavern Hall.
This was the very heart of the great phraxship, Nate knew, where many of the passengers spent most of their time, drinking, carousing and spending money at the gaming tables. It was no place for a penniless young lamplighter down on his luck.
Nate was just about to trudge wearily back up the way he’d come when something on the top stair beside his foot caught his eye. He stooped down for a closer look. It was a coin. A halfglader. With a wry smile, he picked it up and slipped it into his pocket, before continuing down to the bottom of the flight.
‘Not quite penniless,’ he smiled to himself, before straightening his clothes, taking a deep breath and pushing open the heavy copperwood doors.
He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but the sight that met his eyes as he stepped into the great tavern hall of the Deadbolt Vulpoon overwhelmed Nate.
‘Perhaps I am just an Eastern Woods yokel after all,’ he muttered to himself as he took in the scene before him.
He was standing on a gantry just below the densely carved ceiling beams of a cavernous hall, five times the size of the Hulks back in his small corner of the Eastern Woods. A circular stairway led down into the heart of the tavern hall, which was dominated by a great curved woodale bar.
This bar, constructed from the finest buoyant sumpwood, was built around a cluster of four huge casks. From these gigantic barrels, gleaming metal pipes snaked out in all directions like a Deepwoods tarry vine, twisting and curling their way over the polished wood of the floating woodale bar to large taps, over fifty in all, each with an attendant in an ale-flecked apron. Round all of them, waving their empty flagons, thirsty drinkers jostled good-naturedly and waited their turn.
Away from the seething mass gathered round the sumpwood bar, Nate could make out clusters of individuals hunched over gaming tables. Tall lamps of elaborate design, set into the tables, glowed dimly from all corners of the huge tavern and from the luxurious private balconies that lined its walls. The figures Nate could see in these balconies were, judging by their elegant clothes, the richest passengers on board, kept safely apart from the unwashed masses at the lamp tables below.
A glance across the wide expanse of the tavern floor was enough to tell Nate that many of these passengers shared the depths of the phraxship with him. Just like him, their main concern seemed to be money, for they clustered round the lamplit gaming tables like woodwolves round a kill, eyeing every move made by those seated at them, eager to wager their own forlorn coins in the hope of striking lucky.
Clutching his solitary halfglader in his fist, Nate Quarter set off down the staircase to join them. He made his way past the throng around the sumpwood bar at the centre of the tavern hall, and entered the bewildering display of dimly glowing lamps, each one shedding a golden glow onto the game unfolding below it. As he approached the first table, he recognized what was being played.
With their eye-shields and feathered quills, there was no doubt in Nate’s mind that the circle of gamblers were playing shuttle. They all stared unblinking at a spinning disc in the middle of an elaborate board of inlaid tilder ivory, waiting to see on which tree symbol it would fall. As soon as it did, they would take their quills and note their scores on the barkpaper in front of them, with cries of delight or groans of dismay.
A party of noisy cloddertrogs were playing shove-glader at the next table, which was long and narrow and covered in chalk markings, while a particularly raucous bunch of flatheads and hammerheads were engrossed in a round of hench just beyond. From the level of noise, the game was clearly reaching the point when one of them would win the copper pot full of carefully arranged glader coins, which stood at the centre of the great round table.
Nate moved on. Rumblestakes. Two-Bit Drop. Carrillon. Some games he knew, but had never played. Some he could play, but not well. Some, he didn’t recognize at all. It was only when he approached a low circular table surrounded by high-backed chairs that he realized the circle of gamblers occupying them were playing a game he both recognized and was reasonably good at.
Splinters.
It was a game of strategy and skill that Nate had learned at his father’s knee during long cold winter nights in the mining stockade. The thin slivers of buoyant wood, pointed at both ends, were plain on one side and elaborately decorated on the other. Nate knew them all of
f by heart. They included the ‘Knight Academic’, the ‘Most High Academe’ and the gruesome ‘Grinning Gloamglozer’, along with the ‘cloud’ splinters – over twenty in all – sixty ‘tree’ splinters and, most significant of all, the ‘Hatching Caterbird’.
Each player in the high-backed chairs was dealt ten splinters, which they kept close to their chest, discarding those they didn’t want by letting them float out over the table, to be plucked from the air by an opponent, who discarded their own splinter in turn. This floating and catching could last for hours as each player calculated what splinters their opponents held and which floated above the table, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Nate stood at the back for a moment, watching the state of play and gauging the skill of the players. They were good, all six of them.
Particularly skilful was a dour-looking fourthling. The others around the gaming table called him the Professor, though with his crushed funnel hat and topcoat, so short it barely reached his waist, he did not look like any academic Nate had ever heard of. He seemed to be building a useful hand of ‘storm cloud’ splinters, while letting the ‘tree’ splinters float past. Next to him, a sour-faced pink-eyed goblin in a shabby topcoat seemed out of his depth. He’d floated several ‘Academic’ splinters, and was having trouble catching anything to his liking. Two webfoot goblins squabbled quietly between themselves while, opposite them, a grumpy mobgnome matron with a head cold tutted loudly as she snatched another splinter from the air above the table. The black-eared goblin next to her, in a triple-buttoned embroidered waistcoat that was stretched taut across his enormous belly, smiled and grasped his splinters to his chest.
Clearly, Nate realized, he’d been just about to strike, but then had thought better of it.
The splinters above the table continued to circulate in the warm air from the huge lamp in the centre. It was tense; very tense. Suddenly, the mobgnome matron sneezed noisily and pushed back her chair.
‘It’s no good!’ she croaked. ‘The splinters are just not floating my way this evening. I’m out!’
Tossing her splinters into the air, she got to her feet and waddled off towards the crowds at the sumpwood bar. In the shadows around the table, the motley bunch of spectators seemed to shrink back. This game – with the handsome pile of gold gladers gleaming in the middle of the table – was just about wrapped up, and everybody knew it. It was a straight battle between the fourthling and the black-ear, and anyone joining the table now would just be throwing away their halfglader stake.
‘What, nobody fancies joining the Professor and me?’ smirked the black-eared goblin, his eyes wide with mock surprise. ‘It’ll only cost you a halfglader.’
Without a second thought, Nate slid into the vacant chair and tossed his halfglader onto the pile in the centre of the table.
‘Well, well, well,’ said the black-ear, squinting at Nate. ‘A young phraxminer, I see. You do know how to play splinters, I take it.’
Nate smiled as he effortlessly plucked ten splinters from the air and fanned them out with a flick of his wrist. ‘A little,’ he said.
The dour-looking fourthling in the crushed funnel hat next to him smiled. ‘And do you know the origin of this fine game of skill and strategy?’ he asked. He plucked a ‘Black Cloud’ from the air and let a ‘Weeping Willoak’ float free.
‘I know it’s been played in the towns of the Eastern Woods for a long time,’ Nate ventured, careful to keep his mind on the splinters floating past. Deftly, he plucked a ‘Professor of Darkness’ from under the black-eared goblin’s nose without him noticing, and let go of an ‘Ice Fog’.
‘It originated over three hundred years ago at a place called the Armada of the Dead, far out in the Mire,’ the fourthling said, his dark eyes never leaving the splinters floating above the table. ‘It was where the sky pirates scuttled their ships when stone sickness first struck. In their isolation and boredom, they devised this game using splinters shaved off sumpwood planks.’ He chuckled. ‘They say old Deadbolt Vulpoon himself was one of the finest splinter players there’s ever been …’
‘Yes, all very interesting, “Professor”,’ the black-ear said scornfully, dithering over a ‘Raintaster’ before plucking it from the air and releasing a ‘Lufwood Sprig’. ‘But this is no time for your history lessons …’
Nate looked at the splinters in his hand. Apart from the ‘Professor of Darkness’, he had nothing to trouble the fourthling or the black-ear and, he realized, glancing at the two webfoots opposite who continued to squabble, nor did they. Time was running out. The fourthling had a strong ‘Cloud’ hand and the black-ear seemed to be holding an unbeatable ‘Sanctaphrax’ hand. He could strike at any moment.
Just then, Nate saw one of the webfoots let go of the ‘Professor of Light’ splinter, which floated up into the air above the table.
‘So tell me, why do they call you the “Professor”?’ said Nate casually, his eyes fixed on the ‘Professor’ splinter.
‘Because he’s always spouting on about history and other boring subjects,’ jeered the black-ear unpleasantly. ‘And the rich passengers in the baskets throw him halfgladers in return. Downright demeaning if you ask me …’
‘Nobody is asking you,’ said the fourthling quietly, throwing the goblin a dark look.
It was the moment Nate had been waiting for. He flicked out a hand and grasped the ‘Professor of Light’ splinter before either of them noticed. Casually, he let a ‘Lullabee Grove’ float free. On their own, the ‘Professor’ splinters weren’t worth much, but together, the ‘Professors of Light and Darkness’ beat almost every other splinter hand there was.
Now, Nate thought, careful not to let the triumph register on his face, he had a real hand of splinters!
Whether the fourthling had allowed the goblin to goad him, or just wanted the game to end, Nate wasn’t sure, but the Professor chose this moment to strike.
‘Scuttle,’ he said in his quiet, expressionless voice.
When a player uttered this word, all at the gaming table had to reveal their hands by sticking the sharpened ends of their splinters into the tabletop. The webfoots broke off from their whispered squabbling to emit growls of disgust as they simply let their splinters float free. Their hands – like the one the dispirited pink-eye clutched to his chest – were, they knew, too weak to bother to declare.
Pity, thought Nate, because one of the webfoots, he noticed, had been holding the ‘Hatching Caterbird’, an excellent splinter, but almost useless without a ‘Lullabee Grove’ to go with it.
The Professor allowed himself a thin smile as he stabbed his splinters into the table. ‘Grey Cloud, White Cloud, Flat Anvil, Ice Storm …’ The wily fourthling had built up a strong ‘Storm Cloud’ hand that would be hard to beat.
Hands shaking, Nate pushed his splinters into the soft wood in front of him, pitted with tiny holes from countless previous games.
‘Mist Bank, Deep Elm, Apprentice Fogtaster … So far, so ordinary.’ The black-eared goblin snorted with contempt. ‘That the best you can do, phraxminer?’ he sneered.
‘Not quite,’ said Nate, stabbing his last two splinters into the table. ‘Professor of Darkness and … Professor of Light!’
There was a gasp from behind the chairs from the spectators, and the Professor leaned forward and clapped Nate warmly on the shoulder.
‘Didn’t see that coming. Nicely played, young sir,’ he said. ‘The “Professor” beaten by the “Professors”. I like it …’
‘Not so fast,’ hissed the black-eared goblin, his dark eyes boring into Nate’s as he stabbed his splinters into the table. ‘The Hatching Caterbird … and the Lullabee Grove!’ he said. ‘Beats the Two Professors. I win, I think!’
The goblin reached for the pile of gold gladers at the centre of the table.
‘I don’t understand …’ Nate began. ‘I let go of the Lullabee Grove, but the Hatching Caterbird was in the webfoot’s hand …’
‘Simple,’ said the fourthling, c
limbing to his feet, a thin blade glinting in his hand. It flashed in the lamplight as, with a flick of his wrist, he slit the sleeve of the black-eared goblin’s undercoat.
Three identical ‘Hatching Caterbird’ splinters floated up from the torn coat sleeve.
‘We have a cheat at the table.’
This time his voice boomed above the noise and clatter of the surrounding tables, which seemed to fall silent at the sound of the word. Cheat, cheat, cheat … The word spread in whispers round the cavernous tavern hall, until all eyes were on the dispute at the splinters table.
‘We settle this now,’ said the fourthling, confronting the black-ear, who was on his feet, rubbing his wrist and eyeing his accuser with a look of pure hatred.
‘Whatever you say, Professor.’ He spat the words out into the silence.
Tables and chairs were pulled away all round them, leaving a wide expanse of floor between the two protagonists. Sitting rigid in his high-backed chair, Nate looked across the splinters table at the fourthling and the black-ear facing each other, legs apart, arms at their sides and fingers flexing. He had a ringside seat. He swallowed hard. The air seemed to crackle with intensity. Someone behind Nate stifled a cough; over at the sumpwood bar, a dropped flagon clattered to the floor.
The fourthling and the black-ear didn’t take their eyes off each other for an instant. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, there were two flashes of metal as the arms of both individuals shot out in front of them. A moment later, the black-ear let out a strangulated gurgling cry and crashed down to his knees, clutching his great belly.
There, at the centre of a growing crimson stain, was the fourthling’s long-handled throwing knife, embedded up to the hilt. The fourthling removed his crumpled funnel hat and pulled the black-ear’s knife from it, before crossing the floor slowly to his defeated opponent and seizing his own knife by the handle.
Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals Page 10
