As the dawn broke, the Professor quickened his pace. On either side, the road was fringed with freshly hewn log cabins, mud-baked hive huts and newly dug ground pits; holes in the earth, roofed over with forest thatch, that were favoured by trogs. Over the rooftops, just beyond the recently cleared fields and pastures, and silhouetted against the pale sky, towered the Deepwoods forests themselves, as yet untouched by the expanding city.
This was the Northern Outer City, newest and poorest of the twelve districts. Here, hunters, trappers, small farmers and herders clung to the topcoat tails of Great Glade and made a living as best they could.
Up ahead, a prowlgrin’s bark made the Professor shrink back once more into the shadows. He flattened himself against the wall of a gladeoak cabin, phraxpistols in hand.
Moments later, a patrol of eight Freeglade Lancers galloped past, the feet of their prowlgrins pattering softly on the hard earth. The Professor waited a few seconds, then, holstering his pistols, stepped back onto the road. A few dozen shacks later, he stopped outside a ramshackle pit house sunk into the ground, with a rough thatch of lufwood sprigs and barkmoss and a heavily braced door of ironwood. The Professor descended the mud steps which led down to the door. He knocked three times and waited. From inside came the sounds of bolts being drawn back and beams lifted. The heavy door opened an inch and a bloodshot eye peered out.
‘Who is it?’ a gruff voice snarled.
‘Ambris Hentadile,’ the Professor replied in a low whisper.
‘Who?’
‘The Professor,’ he tried again. ‘From the Deadbolt Vulpoon. You lost everything at the splinters table and I paid for your food and grog for the rest of the voyage, remember?’
‘The Professor?’ the voice murmured. ‘The Professor! Why, of course!’
The door was flung open to reveal a brawny-looking individual in a grimy nightshirt, clutching a phraxmusket. His face was weather-beaten, the coppery skin covered in deep creases and fringed by short, close-cropped silver hair and elaborately braided side-whiskers. His deep-set eyes were the colour of dark mahogany and sparkled mischievously from beneath heavy black eyebrows.
‘Good to see you, Captain Razortooth,’ said the Professor with a slightly exaggerated bow of respect.
‘Always the gentleman,’ beamed Captain Razortooth, revealing a mouthful of matt gold and brown decay. He ushered him across the threshold. ‘But please, call me Squall. I’ll have no standing on ceremony in this Wilderness Lair!’
The Professor smiled as he stepped inside to find himself in a subterranean mud-walled room full of cluttered shelves and skychests, hanging telescopes and cloud gauges, and a vast array of animal pelts. In one corner there was a low-slung hammock; in the other, a battered-looking tavern table with two stools.
The original Wilderness Lair, as the Professor knew well, was the fabled bastion of the sky pirates in the First Age of Flight. Those swashbuckling adventurers had defied the tyrannical leagues of Old Undertown, engaging in mighty sky battles and hiding out in the eerie wastes of the Edgelands, where they moored their sky galleons at the precarious cliff face of Wilderness Lair.
What days those must have been, the Professor had often thought. Now, here he was, standing before one of the last of a dying breed – a sky pirate of the Third Age of Flight.
Instead of a magnificent sky galleon moored beneath the lip of the Edge cliff, this sky pirate ran an illegal phraxlighter which was chained up to a nearby Deepwoods tree. Instead of engaging in epic battles with leaguesmen, Captain Squall Razortooth had to content himself with dodging prowlgrin patrols and the militia of phraxmarines, who would confiscate any unauthorized phraxcraft piloted by unregistered engineers – and with good reason, as the Professor knew full well.
These home-made vessels, cobbled together from scavenged scraps, were notoriously unreliable, especially in the hands of self-taught or incompetent phraxpilots. After crashes, explosions and several appalling skytavern tragedies, the authorities of Great Glade had clamped down on these latterday ‘sky pirates’. That had been more than two hundred years ago. Now, they were almost unheard of.
The few sky pirates that remained were, like Squall Razortooth, simple forest folk from distant Deepwoods settlements, who had journeyed to Great Glade to train in the flight academies, only to drop out or fail the rigorous examinations. Making use of what little they’d learned, they flouted the rules by taking to the sky in illegal phraxlighters and creating their own chances, ferrying renegades, contraband and desperate travellers who needed passage, no questions asked.
Few of these sky pirates or their vessels lasted long, usually crashing or exploding far out in the forest, never to be seen again. Squall Razortooth was the exception.
Thrown out of the flight academies after a drunken brawl, plain old Neb Sawtooth as he was then had already been well on the way to becoming an accomplished phraxpilot. Undaunted by his expulsion, he’d worked for years in the factories and workshops of East Glade, yet always harbouring the ambition of returning to the skies …
All this, the Professor had learned at the splinters table of the skytavern, Deadbolt Vulpoon, as a destitute Squall Razortooth poured his heart out to him. Finally, Squall had told him, he’d managed to pilfer enough tiny shards of stormphrax to begin the construction of a small phraxlighter of his own. This he’d done in utmost secrecy out in the Northern Outer City, where fewer questions were asked.
Then, in true sky pirate tradition, he had named himself Squall Razortooth – Captain Squall Razortooth – and he had taken to the skies in his phraxlighter, which he had called the Gladedancer.
With few rivals, Squall had made a good living and slowly amassed enough to buy a ticket on the Deadbolt Vulpoon to visit the settlement of his birth in the tree ridges of the far west. But, like many such tiny communities, Squall had found it ruined and deserted, and had returned to Great Glade aboard the skytavern, broken-hearted and drowning his sorrows. It hadn’t taken long for the tavern gamblers to strip him of his hard-earned wealth. But the Professor had taken pity on the ruined sky pirate and been touched by his story.
That had been ten years ago. Now, the Professor needed his help.
Squall showed him to the table and drew up a stool. The Professor sat down and ran his fingers over the surface of the table. It was carved with the names of the sky pirates who had sat there long ago, when the table had graced a tavern.
Zephyr Razorflit. Thunderclap Tilderstag. Cloud Wolf …
‘It’s a beauty, isn’t it?’ smiled Squall, stroking the surface of the table lovingly. ‘Traded it for twenty fromp pelts and a quart of woodgrog from an old shryke in New Undertown. She claimed it originally came from a tavern in Old Undertown – though you’ve got to take that with a grain of phraxdust …’
‘Beautiful,’ replied the Professor. ‘I’ve always loved things from the past. Especially from the First Age of Flight – the age of the sky pirates …’ He looked up from the table and into Squall Razortooth’s dark mahogany eyes. ‘Talking of which,’ he said quietly, ‘I find myself in need of a sky pirate. One of the old school; brave, daring and … loyal.’
The sky pirate smiled. ‘I suppose you do, Professor,’ he said, ‘especially with the whole of the Old Forest Militia out looking for you and a thousand-glader reward on your head …’
‘You’ve seen the wanted notices?’ said the Professor.
‘Could hardly miss them,’ said Squall. ‘They’re posted all over the district.’
‘I couldn’t afford a thousand gladers, but—’ began the Professor, only for Squall to hold up a hand to silence him.
‘I won’t take your money, Professor,’ said the sky pirate. ‘Not after the kindness you showed me back on the skytavern. She’s a bit battered, and not quite the ship she used to be, but the Gladedancer will take you far enough out into the woods to get you clear of the Great Glade Militia.’
He reached up to a shelf and took down two glasses and a flask of fiery woodgrog. Pouring t
wo measures, he handed one glass to the Professor and raised the other.
‘To the sky pirates of old!’
• CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT •
‘Your turn, Nate,’ said Eudoxia with a mischievous grin.
‘Must I?’ sighed Nate.
‘If you want to get out of Great Glade, you’ll allow Miss Prade to do her work,’ said the Professor solemnly, his mob cap pulled low over his face and the goblin matron’s shawl tightly knotted round his shoulders.
‘Go on, then,’ smiled Nate. ‘Do your worst.’
Eudoxia selected a small charred ember from the selection she’d gathered from the ash bucket of the stiltshed’s stove.
‘Hold still,’ she told him, reaching up and drawing two small vertical lines between Nate’s eyebrows, and two more across his forehead. She blurred them with her thumb.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Ageing you,’ she said simply. ‘They’re looking for a young lamplighter, not a portly old fourthling farmer.’
She returned to her work, drawing on thin lines like raven’s feet, which fanned out from the corners of his eyes, and thicker marks which ran from the sides of his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. Then she rubbed white ash into his hair and placed the battered wide-brimmed hat of woven gladegrass on his head.
Stepping back, she admired her handiwork. ‘Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’d just finished ploughing a forest field in the outer city!’ she laughed.
Nate examined himself in the small mirror Eudoxia held up. He certainly looked the part. With the mud-stained breeches and the three undershirts rolled up and stuffed inside his shabby embroidered waistcoat, he looked for all the world like an old plough hand.
Beside him, Slip was unrecognizable beneath the heavy hooded cloak of an oakelf, while Eudoxia herself was resplendent in wagoner’s overalls, a peaked hat and a magnificent moustache that she had fashioned from clippings of Weelum’s fur. Much to everyone else’s amusement, the Professor was dressed in the gaudy dress, mob cap and decorated shawl of a goblin matron, while Weelum towered over him as his cloddertrog attendant, in a heavy rain hood, tightly wound neck scarf and full-length cape. In one gloved hand he clutched a parasol; in the other, Nate’s knapsack. Over his shoulder were slung a second backpack and assorted bedrolls.
Nate knew that if they were indeed to get out of Great Glade undetected, then they all had Slip to thank for it. For it was the little grey goblin scuttler who’d used his skills to sneak back to the cabin row and retrieve a tilderleather backpack of cooking utensils, strikefires, bedding rolls and the like, as well as Nate’s knapsack, with its precious lightbox and even more precious box of memories. Not only that, but night after night, as the ring of the Old Forest Militia had slowly closed in around them, Slip would disappear silently into the darkness. Then, just before dawn, the hatch to the stiltshed would creak open and Slip would appear, carrying his latest find from the washlines of Copperwood and East Glade – a cloak, a dress or a cloddertrog rain hood.
Finally, the Professor decided, they were ready.
‘They’ll be expecting us to make our escape at night,’ he told the others as they pulled on the assortment of pilfered clothes. ‘So we’ll walk out of here in broad daylight in an hour or so’s time, when the streets fill up.’ He looked them each up and down, before nodding with approval. ‘Nate and Eudoxia go first, and Slip follow just behind. Nate, tell the banderbear to stay close behind me. And to keep quiet!’
‘His name is Weelum,’ Nate told the Professor.
‘Wuh-waah!’ growled Weelum, tapping the side of his rain hood with a gloved paw, then thumping his chest. The glass eye’s heart is cold towards Weelum.
‘What did it say?’ asked the Professor.
‘Weelum understands,’ said Nate.
He knew that, unlike his friends Eudoxia and Slip, the Professor was unsure of the banderbear, and regarded him as an unpredictable wild creature who had no business living in a city like Great Glade. But whatever the Professor’s views, Nate wasn’t going to leave Weelum behind.
As midmorning approached, they climbed down from the stiltshed and slipped out of the allotments and into the busy streets of Copperwood. Nate and Eudoxia walked side by side, pretending to be lost in conversation, while a few paces behind, the hunched figure of Slip in his oakelf robes followed silently. A little way back, but within earshot, the Professor walked somewhat stiffly, his face all but obscured by the lace-edged mob cap, with the looming figure of Weelum behind, trying not to step on the Professor’s trailing skirt.
They approached a couple of hefty cloddertrog constables who were lounging next to a glowing brazier in the shadows beneath the statue of Mangobey Cartshank, phraxmuskets over their shoulders. One was warming his outstretched hands in the shimmering heat, the other was gripping a mug of steaming oaktea. There was a ‘wanted’ poster tied round the base of the statue, with the names of the four members of the ‘Copperwood Gang’ listed, and news of the thousand-glader reward in large black letters. Not that the guards noticed. Neither of them gave the disparate group so much as a glance as they walked past, and continued towards the bridge over Copperwood Creek.
As they passed by it, Nate recalled the first time he’d done so. He remembered the gnarled slaughterer with his fishing rod and creel, and the sound advice he had given about checking for vacancies on the hiring posts … How long ago that now seemed. Then he had been fresh-faced and full of hope, setting out on a new life in ‘the Big Steam’. Now, he was on the run.
‘It started at the thousandsticks match,’ Eudoxia was saying, her low voice breaking into Nate’s reveries, ‘this feeling between the Professor and Weelum.’
It had been a week since Nate had seen anything but the inside of the stiltshed, and despite his aching ribs, sore shoulder and the fear of discovery, it felt good to be out in the fresh air of Copperwood.
‘It was just after you fell,’ Eudoxia went on. ‘I looked down at the field and spotted the Professor running towards the sky marshal’s phraxlighter. The sky marshal had landed and was having an argument with the constables. The Professor just jumped in, took off and headed straight for the high pine. He scooped you up, then turned, flew straight past Branxford – who was waving that black thousandstick of his and shouting – and came barrelling towards us in the Copperwood box.’
She reached up and pressed her fingers to the two halves of the moustache, making sure that neither of them had slipped.
‘I think he was hoping to find Friston Drew in his seat,’ she said, ‘but all he found was Slip, Weelum and me. The constabulary was clattering up the steps towards us, and I could see you lying in the phraxlighter hurt, so I instinctively climbed aboard, and Slip followed. I could tell the Professor wasn’t happy, but it all happened so quickly. He saw that I wasn’t going to leave you, so he took off again – which was when Weelum reached up and grabbed the side of the phraxlighter, and wouldn’t let go. He just wanted to come with us, you see. He was worried about you.’
Eudoxia glanced round at her companion and smiled, her eyes sparkling.
‘Just like the rest of us …’
They were walking down a narrow alley, each side lined with market stalls. The high sun shone down on the burnished pots and kettles that hung from hooks, and on the displays of lace laid out on the trestle tables. Eudoxia hesitated for a moment, her fingers plucking at an embroidered prowlgrin blanket, before moving on.
‘Mind you, the Professor was furious,’ she said, turning back to Nate. ‘Up we went, rolling and juddering, half turvey-turned by Weelum’s weight, with the Professor cursing and swearing. I thought we were going to crash right there and then, but the Professor managed to bring the phraxlighter down in a hayrick on the edge of the Silver Pastures. Said we were lucky to be alive. The hull was split in two and the rudder smashed to pieces. But the phraxchamber was intact and didn’t explode.’
‘Thank Sky,’ Nate said.
‘Th
ank Sky indeed,’ said Eudoxia. ‘We made a run for it on foot, with Weelum carrying you on his back all the way to Slip’s stiltshed. Not that that made any difference to the Professor. He just kept saying that now we’d all be on the run, and that it hadn’t needed to be this way. He wouldn’t even look at Weelum …’
‘It wasn’t Weelum’s fault,’ said Nate. ‘The ones to blame are Felftis Brack and Branxford—’
He paused, a look of shock on his face. There, just ahead of them, was the phraxchamber works – or at least what was left of it. The stilthouse itself had toppled over on its side, the roof chimneys either twisted or shorn off at the base, and a great blast crater now lay in the centre of the yard, fringed with splintered and shattered stilts, pointing accusingly at the sky.
Already, though, repairs were under way. New stilts were being erected, the stilthouse had been bound and braced with chains and cables, and an army of workers was busy preparing to right it once more with steam cranes and levers.
At the gates, they’d been busy too, Nate noticed. The wrought ironwork lettering of Glemlop and Drew had been replaced with a painted lufwood sign that read Brack’s Phraxchamber Works.
‘What next?’ muttered Nate. ‘Brack’s phraxmine?’
‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it,’ replied Eudoxia fiercely.
• CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE •
By late afternoon, they’d arrived in the Northern Outer City district without any major mishap. A party of oakelf brothers had passed them in New Undertown and been surprised when Slip didn’t respond to their greeting, and the Professor had appeared to snub several goblin laundresses at a fountain in East Glade, but apart from that their disguises had held up very effectively. So effectively, in fact, that at first glance Squall Razortooth hadn’t recognized the Professor when he knocked at his ground pit door.
Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals Page 21
