Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals

by Paul Stewart;Chris Riddell

  A loud cry went up as the Clan Hall came into view. It towered above the surging crowd, tall and magisterial, like a vast crown studded with crystal. The carved timbers were silhouetted against the clear blue sky, the windows gleaming in the rising sun.

  Once, the mighty goblin Clan Hall had stood for everything that was great about Hive – its industriousness, its clan kinship and co-operation – and the council that had sat within its glazed walls had ruled wisely, bringing stability and prosperity to every one of its citizens. But all that had changed when Kulltuft Warhammer had seized power and turned the city’s energies to preparing for war and conquest.

  All at once, a dozen or so hammerhead guards appeared from the shadows, phraxmuskets raised. They stood before the great building, staring back at the crowd, which had come to a nervous halt before them.

  ‘Guards!’ Ragg Yellowtooth shouted to them. ‘Release us!’

  One of the guards raised a phraxmusket to his eye and trained it on a tall cloddertrog standing right at the front of the crowd.

  ‘Do what you have to do!’ bellowed Ragg.

  The guard’s finger tightened on the trigger – then relaxed. He tossed the weapon aside and, one by one, the others did the same.

  A triumphant roar went up from the crowd. As one, they surged forward once more, swallowing up the guards in their midst as they continued marching on up the steep hill.

  ‘Let us take back what belongs to all of us!’ someone shouted. ‘Not just the clan chiefs!’

  ‘It is time for a new council!’

  ‘A council for all, not just the few!’

  As the rallying cries went up, determined and optimistic, the inhabitants of High Town streamed from their clan huts and longhouses or, pushing tilderleather drapes aside, hung out from overlooking windows, cheering the crowds below. Matrons and money lenders, married old’uns and young couples, and young’uns, their voices high-pitched with excitement, joined the gathering throng as they completed that last stretch of road to the Clan Hall.

  ‘Open the Clan Hall to us!’ loud voices demanded, those at the front of the crowd hammering on the tall arched doors, while those at the back surged forward.

  ‘Open the Clan Hall to the New Council!’

  ‘The New Council! The New Council! The New Council!’ the cry went up through the crowd at the Clan Hall’s great doors.

  All at once, cutting across the pandemonium, there came a bloodcurdling scream from inside.

  The crowd fell silent, and in the long seconds that followed, individuals exchanged puzzled glances or craned their necks, trying to get a glimpse of what was happening.

  Then, out of the unnatural stillness, there came a clatter of wood on metal, followed by a resounding clang as the great ironwood bar that had been holding the Clan Hall secure was removed and tossed to the floor. The doors creaked slowly open, and Firemane Clawhand emerged.

  ‘Citizens of Hive,’ he called out, ignoring the catcalls and whistles that greeted his words. ‘The tyrant, Kulltuft Warhammer, is dead!’

  As he spoke, he swung his left arm out from behind his back and held it up high in the air above his shaven head. And there, skewered on the end of his glistening hook, dangled the severed head of Kulltuft Warhammer. The hair was matted and thick with blood, ribbons of leathery skin hung from the neck, while the eyes – those dark deep-set eyes that had filled those whose gaze they fell upon with such fear and dread – stared blindly at the gawping crowd as Firemane twisted the skull round at the end of his hook.

  If he had expected cries of joy and gratitude to greet his announcement, the chief guard was to be disappointed. A dark silence hung over the crowd as they stared back. Blood dripped down from the severed head and splashed on the stones below.

  ‘I have killed the High Clan Chief,’ Firemane declared, his voice breaking with sudden uncertainty. ‘For you, citizens … I did it for you …’

  A goblin corporal stepped forward, the light blue topcoat of the Flathead Guard uniform he wore stained with mud from the battlefield and the blood of his comrades and friends. Firemane recognized him at once as one of the soldiers who had dealt with him so ignominiously in the Winesap Tavern the night before.

  ‘You have learned nothing, Firemane Clawhand,’ the flathead goblin declaimed, his deep voice echoing round the gathered crowd, who muttered in solemn agreement.

  ‘But … but …’ the chief guard began.

  ‘The days of summary execution and bloodshed are over in Hive,’ the flathead continued, stepping forward and taking Firemane’s arm. ‘You shall have a fair trial in front of the New Council.’

  ‘Trial?’ blustered Firemane, bewildered, his eyes wide with panic. ‘But on what charge?’

  The flathead pointed to the severed head dangling from Firemane’s hook.

  ‘Murder,’ he said.

  • CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT •

  ‘It’s warm,’ said Cirrus Gladehawk, pulling the crushed quarmskin funnel hat from his head and wiping a sleeve across his sweating brow.

  ‘Certainly is,’ said the Professor. Undoing the top buttons of his short coat, he looked up at the high sun shining down out of a clear blue sky. ‘It’s a beautiful day.’ He turned to the grey goblin scuttler, who was trotting along behind them. ‘Are you sure you’re all right with that knapsack, Slip?’ he asked.

  ‘Slip’s absolutely fine,’ the grey goblin replied, his large eyes widening as he nodded enthusiastically. He patted the straps at his narrow shoulders. ‘Slip’ll take care of friend Nate’s knapsack,’ he said, ‘until he comes back for it himself.’

  The three of them left the Sumpwood Bridge behind them and continued along the pitted track, the turbulent river some way to their left, before cutting up through the outer reaches of Low Town. The narrow streets were thronging. It seemed as though everyone in East Ridge was out and about.

  They passed through a market square which only the week before had been all but empty, the couple of pinchfaced stallholders there having almost nothing to sell. Now, with the returning militias back tending their fields, the cluster of stalls, with their broad canopies and tasselled umbrellas, were overflowing with local produce, aproned goblins and trogs cheerfully hawking their wares to the bustling crowds buying them.

  ‘Honeybeets, three hivers a bag!’

  ‘Punnets of bluecurrants! Punnets of bluecurrants!’

  ‘Sapgrapes! Sweet juicy sapgrapes. Get your sapgrapes here!’

  There were webfoots selling lakefish, slaughterers with glowing braziers selling hammelhorn steaks and tilder sausages, and a gabtroll with boxes of teas and infusions, which she would mix to taste and wrap in brightly coloured paper cones. There were lugtrolls and mobgnomes sitting cross-legged on woven mats, surrounded by rolled-down sacks of pulses and beans; a gnokgoblin matron, her mouth-watering display of honey-drenched pastries glinting in the sunlight.

  The Professor paused at a low stall, the tabletop crammed with plump fruit and succulent vegetables, and selected a large, juicy-looking red woodapple. Polishing it on his sleeve, he looked across at the grey trog on the other side of the counter.

  ‘How much?’ he asked, reaching into the pocket of his breeches.

  ‘For one woodapple?’ said the grey trog and smiled. ‘Take it, friend.’

  ‘I thank you,’ said the Professor, nodding appreciatively and biting into it.

  On the far side of the market square, they headed up along a winding cobbled street. There was laughter and song in the air, and the sound of happy voices spilled out from the thatched low shacks and timber longhouses they passed, the shutters of every building flung wide open. A flathead, leaning out of her window to hang up wet washing on the jutting drying racks, waved down at them as they passed by. Twenty strides further on, a couple of cloddertrogs walking down the hill towards them, wished them a cheery ‘good day’.

  They passed the bathing tub, where a dozen red-faced individuals were luxuriating in the hot fragrant water, chatting animatedly as the
y were tended to by a family of mobgnomes, who scurried back and forth with glowing brazier stones and cloth pouches of herbs, whistling as they worked.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind a bit of a soak myself,’ said Cirrus Gladehawk, ‘on the way back this evening.’

  The Professor smiled and swallowed the mouthful of woodapple he’d been chewing. He pointed up ahead to the Winesap Tavern.

  ‘That’s where you’ll find me,’ he laughed. ‘Trying my hand at the gaming tables, just like the old days.’

  The inn was heaving, with customers spilling onto the streets outside. As they walked past it, the arched doors swung open and the sound of foot-tapping music from inside abruptly filled the air – above it, the unmistakeable cries of an animated game of splinters. A group of flatheads turned towards them, tankards of frothing ale in their hands, which they raised as one.

  ‘To your very good health!’ they chorused.

  As the three of them continued up the hill, the streets grew narrower and the buildings fewer and farther between. They rejoined the pitted river track just below the gorge, rushing water cascading over the high drop, and looked up to see a small party of Hive Militia standing on the jutting rock above them. The sinister overhanging crane, silhouetted against the sky beyond like a hangman’s gibbet, was being swung round. At the end of its jutting crossbeam, a single barrel hung from a length of rope.

  Cirrus Gladehawk frowned. ‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘I thought the days of barrelling were over in Hive.’

  ‘So did I,’ said the Professor grimly, tossing the woodapple core into the foaming waterfall.

  They kept on up the track, arriving at the top of the gorge a minute later, and looked out from behind a tall jagged boulder to where the sound of a commanding voice was coming. There were six uniformed guards in all on the flat rock, their faces glum and sombre. Three were gnokgoblins in the topcoats of the Second Low Town Regiment, two were from the Flathead Guard, while the sixth – his back turned towards them – was a long-hair goblin corporal who, though he still bore the insignia of the Hemtuft Battleaxe Legion, wore it on the sleeve of an underjacket, rather than the sinister black topcoat of the feared Bloody Blades. All of them wore sapvine leaves in their funnel hats and copperwood helmets, the symbol of the New Hive Militia.

  It was the long-hair who was talking, his gruff voice ringing out above the background roar of the surging water.

  ‘Firemane Clawhand,’ he announced, reading from a length of yellowed barkscroll, ‘after a fair trial, you have been found guilty of murder and sentenced to barrelling.’

  From inside the barrel, there came the sound of muffled whimpers and pleading cries for mercy.

  ‘By the powers vested in me by the New Council,’ the long-hair continued, ‘the sentence will now be carried out.’

  The pleading became louder. The long-hair rolled up the scroll.

  ‘Release the barrel,’ he barked.

  The hammerhead stepped forward, his face a frozen mask. He seized the lever on the side of the crane gantry and tugged hard. The rope jerked and the barrel fell. It hurtled down the mighty waterfall, gathering pace as it dropped, until with a loud splintering crack it smashed to smithereens on the rocks below. For an instant, the rapids foamed pinky-red, before the water rushed on, sweeping the blood and the dead body of the shaved long-hair along with it.

  The corporal straightened up, his face grim. He turned to the others in the small party.

  ‘Dismantle the crane,’ he said. ‘That’s the last barrelling there’ll ever be in Hive.’

  ‘The last one, sir?’ said a young gnokgoblin as his comrades set to work.

  He looked fresh-faced and keen, his uniform smart and new, with polished buttons on his jacket and his breeches, sharply creased. The long-hair turned to face him, his hands on his hips.

  ‘The last one, Tag,’ he said earnestly. ‘Earth and Sky willing. Firemane Clawhand has paid for his misdeed and it is time now to look to the future.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Cirrus Gladehawk as he, the Professor and Slip resumed their journey, leaving the new militia behind.

  ‘Hive is already transformed,’ said the Professor, glancing over his shoulder as the terrible barrelling crane came crashing to the ground. ‘You can see it in the streets of Low Town and Mid Town. And as for the former clan chiefs …’ He smiled. ‘I hear that Ragg Yellowtooth has had his phraxmusket exchanged for a broom, which he now uses to sweep the streets of High Town. Turgik the furrow-browed, who it transpired was hoarding vast quantities of sapwine, has returned it all to the cave cellars he stole it from, and is out working the vineyards below East Ridge …’

  ‘And up at the Peak,’ said Cirrus Gladehawk, joining in with his companions’ laughter, ‘your old friend, Grossmother Meadowdew, and her sisters have opened the Gyle Palace to the poor and needy.’

  ‘Slip knows,’ said the grey goblin enthusiastically. ‘Slip was there yesterday, collecting a vat of gyle honey for poor Master Galston. Never seen anywhere as grand.’

  The Professor nodded, ill-concealed amusement plucking at the corners of his mouth as the three of them continued on towards the glistening lake of Back Ridge.

  ‘It seems they have learned a lesson after all,’ he said as they approached the thronging lakeside path. ‘I have high hopes for the future of Hive.’

  Cirrus nodded. ‘A future grounded in the principles of the past,’ he said, ‘with the clans working together as equals for the good of all the citizens. Why, on a day like today, I could almost imagine retiring here myself, to a nice lakeside mansion with good fishing and a full wine cellar …’

  The Professor laughed. ‘First things first, Cirrus,’ he chuckled. ‘We’ve still got work to do!’

  As the sun rose above their heads, they continued round Hive lake, its stilthouse-lined shores peppered with whistling webfoot fishermen, dragging in their catch, and young’uns laughing and shouting as they splashed in the shallows and skimmed stones. Taking the right fork at the back of the lake, they headed up into the forest that lined the slopes of Back Ridge, Cirrus removing his hat to mop his brow for the twentieth time and Slip shifting the knapsack on his back.

  The track grew narrower, with low branches scraping at their heads, arms and shoulders as they climbed higher. From up ahead, there came the sounds of sawing and hammering and the low mumble of voices, which grew louder as they approached until, emerging in a broad clearing high up at the top of the ridge, a scene of busy industry – out of place in the quiet forest setting – opened up before them.

  Directly in front of them was a tall pile of sumpwood boards with the banderbear Weelum, his back turned, sawing them into different lengths. Ropes lay beside him, each one neatly coiled, while a length of hull rigging dangled from the branches of a large broad-leafed bush. Arch-Professor Ignum Spave, High Academe of the Sumpwood Bridge Academy, had been as good as his word, furnishing the archivists with all the materials they’d requested.

  Opposite them, on the far side of the clearing, was a tall ironwood pine and, far up at its top, was a skewered phraxship, gleaming in the sunlight. The soft chinking sound of metal on metal blended with the hammering coming from inside the battered timber hull.

  Cirrus Gladehawk and the Professor stared up at the Archemax, noting the changes that had taken place since their last visit. Slip trotted over to greet Weelum.

  ‘Wuh-wuh,’ he grunted happily, rolling his paws over and over to show just how busy he had been, then turned to greet Cirrus and the Professor, who nodded back.

  ‘She’s certainly coming along,’ said Cirrus Gladehawk to the Professor excitedly.

  The Professor nodded.

  There was still a huge hole in the hull, where the top of the tree had lanced the skyship’s hull timbers, but the fore deck had been repaired and the beak-shaped prow restored; and high up above its central deck, the phraxchamber was being worked on. Several of its curved upper panels had been removed to reveal its inner workings, and a s
pray of jointed struts of bevelled metal glinted in the bright sun.

  All at once, a stocky figure in a dark jacket straightened up, a bolt-driver in one hand and a wrench in the other. He reached up and straightened his crumpled funnel hat – and noticed the newcomers down below as he did so.

  ‘Cirrus, Professor, Slip,’ Squall shouted down, his deep voice loaded with pride. He laughed throatily. ‘Welcome to my new workshop!’

  ‘How’s it coming along?’ Cirrus called back, his eyes glittering with excitement.

  On the aft deck, the mottled and the hairy heads of Klug Junkers and Togtuft Hegg the archivists appeared over the port bow, and beamed down.

  ‘The timberwork’s nearly complete,’ said Klug. ‘We can finish off the last few sections when we’ve got her airborne.’

  ‘If we get her airborne,’ said Squall Razortooth. ‘Have you got them?’

  ‘Slip’s got them here!’ said the grey goblin excitedly, shrugging the knapsack from his shoulders.

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ said Squall. ‘Not much use down there, are they?’

  Slip hurried across the clearing to the foot of the ironwood pine and started to climb the tall tree. Cirrus and the Professor followed, leaving only Weelum down on the ground, looking up at them.

  ‘Wuh-wuh,’ he murmured. May Nate’s gift bring life to the great skybird.

  High in the upper branches, Togtuft Hegg reached down to help Slip over the port bow and onto the deck. Cirrus and the Professor scrambled aboard after him. They looked around.

  ‘It feels good to be back on board,’ Cirrus Gladehawk purred. He stared at the freshly varnished boards, at the gleaming brass bolts, tolley mounts and cleating bars, and the thick white ropes of the hull weights that were threaded through the system of pulleys and cogs beneath the polished bone-handled flight levers. ‘She’s looking almost as good as the day they launched her, all those long years ago, at the Ledges shipyard.’ He reached up and ran a hand lovingly over the bottom of the phraxchamber, a broad grin on his face.