Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals

by Paul Stewart;Chris Riddell

  ‘Come with me, Madam,’ the old sky pirate had chuckled at last, when a red-faced Professor had pulled off the lacy mob cap before hastily returning it to his head, ‘to the back of my Wilderness Lair!’

  The five of them followed him round the side of the pit house and along a path through the fields behind, towards the towering treeline of the Deepwoods. As they entered the forest, Nate felt his pulse quicken, and behind him he heard Weelum give a low growl of excitement.

  ‘Silence!’ hissed the Professor over his shoulder in response.

  They continued down the path, which wound through a grove of copperwoods, until they reached a tall ironwood pine. Squall stopped. Nate looked up, but saw nothing at first. As he squinted more closely into the dense foliage though, he caught sight of a vessel moored to a lower branch – a medium-sized phraxlighter with an underslung phraxchamber and twin side funnels. Above it, on a timber platform lashed to the tree trunk, was a workshop, complete with hanging furnace, bellows, forge bench, tool racks and phraxlanterns.

  ‘She’s not much,’ beamed Captain Squall Razortooth proudly. ‘But she’s mine.’

  The others looked up. Constructed from a timber frame, the phraxlighter had been clad with countless misshapen scraps of metal, each one riveted into position. It scarcely looked capable of flight. Up near the lopsided beak-like prow, a name had been painted onto the side of a burnished rectangle of bronze.

  ‘Gladedancer,’ Nate murmured.

  Squall climbed up the ironwood pine with surprising agility for one of his age, and from the platform overhead there was the sound of scraping and tools, pots and benches being moved. When the captain emerged and stepped down into his phraxlighter, he had been transformed.

  Instead of the grubby nightshirt and oil-stained breeches, Squall now wore a heavy topcoat of deep ochre, with embroidered collar and buttoned-up coat-tails. His waistcoat was of dark fromp fur with silver buttons, and his trousers were double-seamed green felt of the finest quality. On his head, setting off his freshly combed side-whiskers, was a crumple-brimmed funnel hat of oiled leather; at his side was a long-barrelled phraxpistol with a carved handle of tilder ivory, while strapped to his back was a pair of angular parawings, folded back and spring-loaded.

  Seating himself at the controls, Squall shifted the chamber gears. A cloud of steam rose from the side funnels as he cast off from the platform, and the Gladedancer rose in the air. Immediately, Squall reached smartly forward and adjusted the hull weights, bringing the phraxlighter smoothly down to the forest floor.

  ‘At last!’ exclaimed the Professor, tearing off the lacy cap and shawl and clambering out of the dress.

  The others followed suit, revealing their own clothes beneath the costumes. Weelum reached into the backpack and handed the Professor his crushed funnel hat.

  ‘Er … thank you … Weelum,’ said the Professor somewhat awkwardly, taking the hat and brushing it off with his hands. ‘Now, perhaps you’d like to take your place in the phraxlighter?’

  The banderbear nodded and, clutching the luggage in his mighty paws, climbed aboard. The others followed him, taking their places on the narrow benches behind the sky pirate.

  ‘Eudoxia!’ laughed Nate, moments later, as the Gladedancer wheezed into action, clouds of ice-cold steam billowing from the side funnels as the phraxlighter rose slowly from the ground.

  ‘What?’ said Eudoxia, gazing round at him through wide green eyes.

  ‘Your moustache!’

  Touching her upper lip, she giggled and peeled off the twin twists of banderbear hair and placed them in Nate’s hand.

  ‘A memento,’ she said, and smiled. ‘For that memory box of yours.’

  • CHAPTER FORTY •

  With great clouds of icy steam billowing from its side funnels, the phraxlighter rose into the air. At the prow, on a padded seat, sat Squall Razortooth in front of a seeming jumble of cogs, pulleys and flight levers. Behind him, Nate and Eudoxia perched on a low bench, arm in arm and each clutching the side of the vessel with their free hands to steady themselves. On the wide built-in seat at the stern, Weelum sat hunched over and trembling, his small feathery ears quivering with unease. On either side of the great banderbear, squashed and uncomfortable-looking, sat Slip the scuttler and the Professor.

  As they rose above the forest canopy, the sweet smell of bruised leaves filled the air. A moment later, the evening sky opened up around them, ribbons of crimson cloud set against the pink and orange blush of dusk. They were some twenty or thirty strides above the rippling ocean of leaves when Squall leaned forward and, with expert fingers, began adjusting the levers and handles in front of him. The phraxlighter came to a halt and hovered unsteadily in the twilight air.

  The controls appeared as cobbled together as everything else on the Gladedancer and yet, Nate could see, they were carefully engineered and intricately fashioned. Three pipes – one silver, one copper and one bronze, and each of different widths – emerged through a hole in the hull and ended in a riveted copperwood box in front of Squall’s seat. Two stout levers stuck out at the top, the first connected to the rudder and the second set to raise and lower the pendulous hull weights. A steam gauge, with numbers and a black needle on its face, was mounted on a circular plate beside them. As for the row of flight levers on either side of the pilot’s chair, they had clearly been fashioned from anything that had come to hand – a length of pipe, a black stove poker, the polished barrel of a phraxmusket …

  Squall Razortooth adjusted the hull weights and, glancing over his shoulder, noticed the look of intense concentration on Nate’s face. The old sky pirate smiled, his leathery skin crinkling at the corners of his dark mahogany eyes.

  ‘Hold on tight there, my fine young couple,’ he chuckled, winking at Nate and Eudoxia. ‘The old Gladedancer is going to do some fancy steaming!’

  He pulled back on a flight lever. As he did so, two plumes of steam billowed out from the side funnels and jets of white phraxflame blazed from the propulsion ducts of the twin phraxchambers.

  With a jolt, the Gladedancer leaped forward at astonishing speed, forcing Nate to strengthen his hold on the side of the vessel. Next to him, he felt Eudoxia’s grip tighten on his arm. The wind slammed into his face as, in front of him, Squall hunkered down low in his seat. On either side, the phraxchambers hummed and the funnels hissed, while the low whistle of the propulsion ducts rose steadily higher in pitch.

  Looking round through narrowed eyes, Nate could see that the air was full of phraxships of all shapes and sizes. The vapour trails from their funnels crisscrossed the evening sky. Heavily laden merchant ships with low-slung phraxchambers, phraxtugs pulling lines of sumpwood barges, small phraxlighters in arrowhead convoy, and mighty skytaverns bound for distant settlements, were all busy plying their trade in the evening sky.

  The high-pitched whistle of the propulsion ducts now changed to a hissing roar, and with it the timbers of the Gladedancer creaked and juddered, the plates of metal shifting about. Everything began to rattle as the phraxchamber sent tremors through the rickety vessel.

  Behind Nate, Weelum was bent low, his head tucked into his chest and his mighty arms encompassing the Professor and Slip on either side of him. Below, the jagged treetops of the forest canopy sped past in a blur.

  Squall turned in his seat, and Nate saw a look of concern pass across his weather-beaten features as he gazed back over his shoulder to the horizon far behind them. The sky pirate’s eyes narrowed. A moment later, he pulled a telescope from the folds of his embroidered frock coat and looked through it. Nate turned and tried to see what he was looking at, but with the naked eye all he could make out was the dim glow of a distant phraxvessel, its night lanterns already blazing.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Eudoxia, pushing her hair back as she turned her head and the wind whipped it across her face.

  ‘Trouble,’ said Squall Razortooth through clenched teeth.

  ‘Trouble?’ Nate repeated.

  Squall handed h
im the telescope. Nate put it to his eye and adjusted the focus. The phraxvessel revealed itself to be a sleek beak-prowed patrol vessel of the phraxmarine, with a low-slung phraxchamber and a long thin funnel billowing out an impressive trail of steam. As Nate watched, it turned in the sky until the heavy beak was pointing directly at them and began following the Gladedancer, like a vulpoon hunting a woodmouse.

  Nate handed the telescope back to the sky pirate. ‘They’re heading towards us,’ he told him.

  ‘Aye, lad,’ said Squall ruefully. ‘Spotted our steam trails most likely – thin and sleek as spidersilk, not like the rest of these chuggers around us.’ He indicated the merchant ships and timber barges in the distance with a wave of his hand. ‘It’s what the phraxpatrol is trained to do. But spotting’s one thing,’ he chuckled, winking at Nate and Eudoxia, before turning back to the controls. ‘Catching’s another!’

  Squall reached forward and eased the copper pipe as far back as it would go. Immediately, there was a twin roar from the propulsion ducts of the phraxchambers and the jets of phraxfire doubled in length and thickness. As they did so, the Gladedancer seemed almost to screech in protest as the wind howled through the riveted joints and splintered cracks in the battered hull.

  Nate looked down over the side of the vessel. They were dropping lower in the sky and the rushing blur of the forest canopy was getting closer. Just in front of him, the sky pirate was hunched lower than ever in his seat, his hands fluttering over the flight levers. The Gladedancer swerved and shuddered as the tallest of the treetops seemed to rush up to meet them, only to vanish behind moments later, their branches whistling past Nate’s ears and making him flinch. Beside him, Eudoxia trembled, her hand gripping his arm more tightly than ever. Weelum’s deep growls of alarm from the stern competed with the whistling roar of the propulsion ducts, while the Professor’s usually calm voice now rose to an excited bellow.

  ‘They’re falling behind! … We’re losing them!’

  Ducking, as a branch of an ironwood pine whirred overhead, Nate glanced back. Sure enough, the patrol ship was now a glowing spot in the orange sky, getting smaller by the moment.

  ‘A few more strides and we’ll be free and clear …’

  As if in answer to the Professor’s words, there was a sudden screeching sound of metal shearing from metal as the struts of the right-hand phraxchamber tore themselves from the Gladedancer’s hull, sending both chamber and funnel spiralling down into the forest below. Moments later, there was a muffled thump and a cloud of sepia dust mushroomed up into the sky behind them.

  Squall squirmed in his seat as he struggled with the controls, attempting to regain control of the Gladedancer as it bucked and listed dangerously to one side. Any moment now, Nate could see, as he clung to Eudoxia with one hand and the side of the vessel with the other, the phraxlighter risked slamming into one of the treetops ahead.

  With a grunt of effort, Squall eased the left-hand phraxchamber down until the roar of the propulsion duct fell to a low hum and shards of ice began tumbling down into the forest below. At the same time, by realigning the hull weights, the old sky pirate managed to right the listing Gladedancer as its speed slowed. Behind them, the lamps of the patrol vessel grew brighter once more as it steadily gained on the stricken phraxlighter.

  ‘We’re going to have to act fast,’ Squall said as he rose from his seat and turned to Nate and his companions. ‘There are ropes with grappling hooks in the stern. Hand them round. You’ll each need one. When I give the word, drop the hook down into the trees below, and when you feel it catch on a branch, swing down to the trees. You’ll be able to climb down to the forest floor …’

  Nate blanched. ‘But Weelum,’ he said, ‘he can’t climb trees.’

  Behind him, the Professor was already pulling grappling hooks and coils of rope from beneath the bench at the stern of the phraxlighter. He separated the tangle of ropes with shaking hands and passed them out to Nate, Eudoxia and Slip, keeping one for himself.

  ‘Can’t climb trees, you say?’ Squall repeated. ‘Well, who’d have thought it?’

  ‘No banderbears can climb trees,’ said Nate.

  ‘Wuh-wuh,’ said Weelum, looking up, touching his shoulder and head lightly, then describing a circle in the air with a raised claw. The moon climbs in the treetops, the banderbear walks beneath.

  ‘I’ll use a grappling hook,’ said Squall. ‘Our friend here can try his luck with these.’

  He shrugged the straps of the parawings off his shoulders and handed them to Nate. Between them, Nate and Eudoxia secured the parawings to the trembling banderbear, buckling the harness across his great chest.

  ‘Wuh-wuh, wurgh,’ Nate whispered in his friend’s twitching ear, his left hand fluttering. Jump, then pull on the cord, to float like a leaf on the wind.

  ‘Wuh,’ muttered the banderbear uneasily, with a long sweep of an arm. ‘Wuh.’ The ways of the pirates of the sky are strange indeed. He looked down. And as he stared at the blur of green as the Gladedancer forged on over the treetops, Weelum’s body trembled with fear.

  ‘We don’t have much time!’ shouted Squall.

  ‘Come on, Weelum,’ urged Nate. ‘I’ll see you down in the forest.’

  ‘Waah!’ cried Weelum, and without glancing back, he gripped the cord in his trembling paw and stepped off the side.

  The phraxlighter pitched wildly as the heavy creature tumbled away into the darkening sky. Nate watched Weelum tug on the dangling rope. With a soft click and a loud whoosh, the great lufwood and tilderskin parawings sprung open, the rush of oncoming wind making them billow and flex, and the banderbear glided off through the air.

  ‘Earth and Sky be with you,’ Nate murmured as he reached down and wound the end of the grappling hook rope around his right hand.

  ‘Now for the rest of us!’ said Squall.

  Exchanging glances, Nate, Eudoxia, Slip and the Professor stood up, rucksacks and bedrolls slung about their backs and shoulders. Gripping the bows with one hand, they dropped the grappling hooks down over the side of the phraxlighter. Squall adjusted the flight levers, slowing the Gladedancer still further, then pulled a locking bar down to hold the levers in place. He climbed to his feet.

  Slip’s grappling hook caught on a branch first. With a cry of surprise, he was jerked from the side of the phraxlighter and swooped down towards the forest canopy below. Eudoxia was next, with the Professor disappearing a moment after her. As Squall took his place next to him, Nate glanced down, wondering when his own grappling hook might snag a branch.

  ‘Sky protect you, lad,’ he heard Squall saying and was about to reply when, with a great tug – so strong it felt as though his arm was being wrenched from its socket – he was yanked from the stricken craft.

  For an instant, Nate felt he could fly. His head spun and his stomach turned somersaults. Holding his breath, he swung down through the air, the green canopy rushing up to meet him. A moment later, he plunged through the dense foliage and ended up dangling from the rope, the three-pronged grappling hook lodged into the fork of an ironwood pine branch above his head and the shadowy forest floor far below.

  ‘Nate, over here!’

  He glanced round. The Professor was suspended from the upper branches of a lufwood tree some distance to his right. Close by, Eudoxia was climbing up her rope, hand over hand, to the lullabee branch above her head, with Slip, who was already standing on a jutting branch to her left, reaching out to help her. Seconds later, Nate heard a soft crunching noise and a grunt of expelled air as Squall’s rope went suddenly taut, and the captain appeared beside him, hanging down from his own grappling hook.

  Overhead, the Gladedancer was listing heavily to port as, unencumbered by passengers now, it zigzagged on across the Deepwoods. Behind, the beaked prow of the Great Glade patrol ship came into view, closing in for the kill.

  ‘Farewell, old girl,’ Squall Razortooth murmured sadly as the Gladedancer headed towards the looming silhouette of a huge copperwood tree.
>
  As it struck, there was a blinding flash, followed a moment later by an almighty roaring crash! as the phraxvessel exploded. Dazzling flashes of molten metal sped off across the sky in broad arcs, before burning out or tumbling down into the forest below. A passing skein of snowbirds scattered in all directions, squawking with alarm. A moment later, all that remained of the Gladedancer was the faintest whiff of toasted almonds – and a moment after, that too was gone.

  High in the darkening sky, the patrol vessel turned and headed back in the direction of Great Glade, a trail of steam pouring out behind it.

  ‘That’s that, then.’ Squall Razortooth shook his head. ‘My career is over. What use is a sky pirate without a skyship? I mean, who would want to employ me now?’

  Nate reached out a hand to the old sky pirate. ‘I would,’ he said.

  • CHAPTER FORTY-ONE •

  By the time Nate and the old sky pirate had unhooked themselves and climbed down to the forest floor, it was dark and the Deepwoods were alive with strange noises. There was chattering and screeching, howling and roaring; the snapping of twigs and the rustling of leaves. Fromps barked, quarms coughed and hooted, and a thousand other unseen creatures added their own clicks, chirrups and rasping calls to the night-time chorus.

  Slip, Eudoxia and the Professor were waiting for them at the foot of the great lufwood tree. Their faces were drawn and anxious.

  ‘What do you think we should do now, friend Nate?’ Slip asked softly, his huge dark eyes flickering with concern.

  Nate frowned.

  ‘I’ve given countless lectures from the hanging baskets of skytaverns on all aspects of Deepwoods flora and fauna,’ the Professor admitted, ‘but I’ve never actually spent a night this far out, down on the ground.’