As he got closer, Fenn could see that one of his eyes was bloody and puffed up, purple as a plum. He was gasping for breath and sobbing as he ran. Behind him, Fenn noticed a strange glow from across the Shanties. The thrumming was getting much louder now. He thought he recognised the sound and craned to see beyond the Gloriana.
Amber was frantically fiddling with the controls until Fathom pushed her aside. He flicked a few switches and the barge shuddered into life. Amber grinned at him in delight. Gulper staggered towards the barge, wheezing so badly he couldn’t speak.
“Quick, get on board!” Fenn shouted. But Gulper ignored Fenn’s outstretched hand, looking back over his shoulder, his eyes darting in fear. The humming was becoming deafening; something huge and mechanical-sounding was getting closer.
“I didn’t tell! I swear,” he gasped. “But Nile woke up! He’s coming!”
Fenn looked at the Gloriana; lights were flickering inside her and behind the ship the distant glow had grown to a large orange cloud. The wind carried a smell of burning; the Shanties were on fire. His worst fears were realised: the sound he’d heard was a Fearzero’s engine.
“Fathom! Let’s go!” shouted Fenn, starting to untie the moorings. Fathom revved up the barge’s engine.
Suddenly, in the distance, there was a terrible ripping sound of splintering wood and tearing metal, followed by screams and shouting. A hissing filled the air and the fog over the furthest barges thickened with steam from extinguished fires. An angry shout came from nearby, close to the end of the jetty. Gulper spun around.
Nile’s head dangled down out of the hole in the Gloriana’s side, his hands only just touching the planks of the jetty. The long strands of hair he used to disguise his baldness were flapping and his kimono had snagged on the broken timbers as he tried to climb through. The entire hulk was shaking, starting to crumble down around him.
“Gulper, help me!” he shouted, as he flailed around. Behind him, lost in the depths of the Gloriana, they could hear Mrs Leach wailing as the Gloriana’s sides collapsed inwards.
“Wait for me. Wait!”
Gulper looked at Fenn then back at Nile, who was thrashing about as powerlessly as the gulls they trapped. He took a step towards Nile, changed his mind, and took a step back towards Fenn. Tears of confusion fell from his eyes. Huddled on the Salamander’s bridge, Comfort sat rocking, holding her hands over her ears. Amber was shouting desperately at Fenn to cast off, but instead he held his hand out to Gulper.
“Jump!” He shouted.
Fathom revved the engine again. As Gulper dithered, Fenn heard a different sound approaching; a kind of whispering which, if they hadn’t been at sea, he would have mistaken for the sound of the wind blowing through masses of leaves. He peered into the darkness, unable to identify it, but just at that moment Nile broke free, tumbling onto the jetty as Mrs Leach popped out behind him.
In a flash they were up and running towards the barge, but as they ran, the gangplanks behind them seemed to be lifting and falling like an undulating wave. A hissing and squealing tide of squirming fur, thick tails and fangs was heading towards them. Rats; hundreds of them, spewing out of every crevice in the Gloriana’s side.
“Gulper! C’mon!” shouted Fenn, loosening the final mooring rope, but Gulper was frozen in fear. Transfixed, he watched as the Gloriana was lit up by a vermillion blaze, roaring flames shooting up behind and through her. “Gulper!” Fenn yelled desperately, leaning as far over the rail towards him as he could without falling, wriggling his fingertips to try and catch Gulper’s hand.
Nile staggered down the jetty, shoeless, Mrs Leach hot on his heels. Behind them rolled the carpet of rats, in their thousands now, running terrified from the wall of fire pursuing them. The wave caught up with Nile and began biting at his ankles and clawing up his kimono. He toppled for a few steps but then the weight of the rats on his back forced him over, instantly engulfing and flooding over him.
Mrs Leach was kicking at the rats, dancing about to try to stop them running up her dress, but in seconds the rats were swarming over and past them both, like water forks around rocks in a river, heading instinctively for the safety of the barge. Fenn still reached for Gulper, straining, holding out his hand.
“I’m coming!” Gulper shouted, moving at last.
But not to Fenn. He tried to run back towards Nile and Mrs Leach, now both pillows of squirming grey. But it was hopeless; the wall of vermin hit him before he’d gone a yard. He thrashed about, kicking and sweeping his ratting stick through the rats as if scything corn, but the weight of them was unstoppable. Gulper was forced backwards, tumbling over the rail and falling onto the boat’s deck just as Fenn untied the last rope. Fathom slammed the boat’s controls forward and the barge jumped away from the jetty. Gulper was back on his feet in a heartbeat, trying to clamber over the rail to Mrs Leach, but Fenn held him back.
“It’s too late…” he said. “You can’t save them.”
Gulper wailed, and as they looked back, they saw Mrs Leach had managed to stagger to her feet and pull Nile towards the water. Arms around each other, they pitched over the edge of the jetty and disappeared beneath the waves.
They were in the nick of time. The whole jetty suddenly crumbled into the sea; the massive weight of rats sinking down with it. The strongest, fastest rats hurled themselves through the air, hit the barge rail and fell back into the water. Hundreds more followed. The air was thick with the sound of splashing and squeals; the water between the barge and the sinking jetty began to jump and spit as if it had been brought to the boil. Rats started to clamber up the bodies of others and onto the side of the barge. Fenn grabbed an oar and he and Amber whacked at them mercilessly. One massive rat, with a thick, ragged tail like a rope managed to cling to the oar, despite Fenn shaking it, and clawed up towards his arm, so Fenn had no choice but to hurl the oar into the water. As the boat slid away, Gulper leant on the rail, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of Nile and Mrs Leach resurfacing. Tears were rolling down his face.
Everything was vibrating now as the leaden humming sound was almost on top of them, unbearably loud. Through the darkness and fog, Fenn could just make out the sight of the outermost barges and boats buckling up. Something vast was ramming them from behind; their helms were being thrust into the air and dropped down again, smashing on the water and shattering into pieces. Looming out of the haze came a huge wall of steel and iron. Suddenly the Fearzero came into sharp focus; ploughing straight into the Shanties, knocking through the forts and destroying everything in its path. The Salamander rocked violently as Fathom locked the wheel hard to the right and accelerated through the huge wash.
Behind them came a grinding sound; the Fearzero had just snapped one of the fort’s concrete legs like it was a matchstick; nothing could stand in its way. The blade of reinforced steel on its bow scythed through the barges and boats; even the heaviest vessels were breaking like toys in its path.
As the Salamander picked up more speed, heading out of the narrow inlet, a carnage of drowned rats and sinking boats was left in their wake. A deep, shuddering groan sounded as the struts of the first fort began to crumple and the whole edifice started to collapse. It sagged sideways first, knocking the next fort and then the third, like a colossal game of dominoes. All three plummeted into the churning sea below, their weight displacing so much water that a huge wave immediately bulged up and outwards. With the force of this rushing at its back, the Salamander was propelled out of the mouth of the congested channel like a cork popping from a bottle. Bathed in an orange rain of smouldering ashes, it surged into open water, riding at a dangerous angle on the crest of the driving wave. They all clung to whatever they could, praying the battered boat would withstand the strain.
20
Finally the waves began to subside and the Salamander eased down into calmer water. They were now a good distance away from the remains of the Shanties and Fathom slowed the engine as Fenn raced to douse the brazier on deck with a bucket of w
ater. He didn’t want to take any chances. As they looked back, they saw the vast black shape of the Fearzero blotting the illuminated horizon, crushing everything to smithereens. In its wake it left high banks of broken-up barges still spinning on the wash that swept out from its bow. Fenn could see it was going dead slow, on a deliberate course, gradually arcing around to destroy the forts that remained standing.
“We have to go back to help,” Fenn said, grabbing the wheel, but Fathom held on tightly.
“Not unless you want to end up in a Mission or dead. The Fearzero will pick up any survivors.”
Fenn felt guilt weigh like a millstone around his neck. He guessed Chilstone’s spies had reported a sighting and when Chilstone didn’t find him amongst the boys rounded up, he’d ordered that the Shanties be destroyed. He remembered the Terra’s words: Chilstone was a madman, chasing a ghost.
They sailed away from the light of the burning Shanties and into the night; empty, black and strangely silent. The Shanties had never been quiet; too many people, the constant squawks of street hawkers and gulls, the clanging of metal. Fenn could remember the stillness of the marsh when it was blanketed in snow, but the others, dislodged from their noisy world, looked scared. Amber and Comfort huddled in a corner of the deck between two huge coils of rope. Gulper slumped down beside them, weeping and shaking his head in bewilderment. Amber put her arm around him.
“Gulper … we’ve made it, we’re free,” she said, gently wiping the blood off his cheek with the palm of her hand. Gulper turned to look at her, white track-marks of tears streaking his filthy cheeks. His young face had become haggard with the nervous twitches that a life of pain and poverty had dealt him.
“Free?” he asked, his eyes searching her face and his lips trembling.
Fenn crouched down next to them. He shrugged Halflin’s coat off and wrapped it around Gulper, then he put his hands on his shoulders; to steady him, like Halflin had readied him to leave East Point. Tikki crept close, his eyes wide and alert to the sound of Gulper’s whimpering, tentatively putting a paw up on his knee, sniffing the air.
“Free to go where?” Gulper whispered.
Amber and Comfort looked at Fenn expectantly.
“As far away from here as possible,” he said. “East Marsh first, then maybe on to West Isle?”
The Shanties were a blister of yellow on the black horizon. While Fathom steered, Fenn got the others to check the barge for seaworthiness. He wondered if there were any crew hidden on the barge but every cabin was empty. Before any of them had a chance to see inside the secret cabin, Fenn boarded over the door; he guessed something like this had been Nami’s fate. There was no point in his friends guessing that too.
Even though flakes of snow drifted in wintry flurries, mottling them with petals of ice, no one wanted to sleep below. Instead they rigged a tent across the deck and brought up blankets from one of the cabins. Fenn had found a nailed-up cupboard in the kitchen, inside which were hundreds of wads of neat rectangular pieces of paper, each printed with the words “TWENTY POUNDS” which, they scrunched up to relight the brazier.
They brought up any provisions from the kitchen that could be useful: bags of rice and dried beans, rope, water purification tablets, boots, water bottles and knives. They found that the Salamander was well stocked with lamps, candles, paraffin and matches, and there were enough clothes to keep them all warm; although Fenn preferred Halflin’s battered old garments to anything the Salamander’s crew might have worn.
Amber, who had a nose for such things, added an ancient book to the growing pyramid of items; it was at least one hundred years old with two large yellow A’s on it. It was some kind of atlas; water warped, its paper puffy with damp and frilled like the underside of a mushroom, but salvageable. Fenn peeled apart the pages that showed the old coast, long before East Marsh ever existed, and realised there had once been a lighthouse, fifteen miles south-west from the hill the Punchlock was now built on. Once dozens of lighthouses had dotted the shores, but since the Rising they’d all been submerged.
Amongst the food, Amber found a box of beans that looked like coffee but didn’t smell like it. She nibbled on the corner of one and pulled a face, passing one to Gulper to try, but as she did so Comfort put her hand out, took it off her and licked the edge. She smiled, put the bean between her two hands and nodded, grinding her palms together.
“Guess it’s OK to eat!” Gulper said.
Comfort pulled a log from the pile they were feeding into the brazier and knocked the bark off so she was left with a smooth, roundish cylinder of wood. She then piled the beans into a piece of cotton and began rolling and beating it until she had a fine powder. She mixed it in a tin jug with a spoonful of sugar then added hot water to it, making a velvety sweet drink that warmed their hearts with its lovely flavour. They’d never had chocolate before.
As they sat around the brazier drinking, Fenn remembered the evenings when Halflin had sat with him after a hard day at the Punchlock and how his grandad would try to distract them both with a story or strange fact; like how giant squids have the largest eyes of any creature, bigger than a plate; or how a tiger shark eats its brothers and sisters before it’s born. But as he looked around at their dejected faces, he realised this wasn’t the time for distractions. His friends needed dreams.
“What would you do if you got into West Isle?” he asked Fathom instead.
“Eat!” Fathom answered, laughing. Amber’s eyes lit up.
“Me too. Then I’m building a house. For me and Comfort,” she said, giving Comfort a squeeze.
“What do you know about carpentry?” Fathom asked teasingly.
“I’ll use peat. The house I lived in when I was little was made of it. Until it got flooded and washed away.”
“You need to build on stilts. Like the houses of New Venice. They know how to build on water there. They’re beautiful too,” Fathom said wistfully.
“Nope, whatever you build needs to float,” Gulper insisted. Fenn nodded.
“My grandad said the next Rising could be huge,” he said quietly. “Even bigger than the Great Rising.”
“Why are we talking like we’re not going to get behind the Wall?” Amber said, exasperated. “We might!”
“Chances are, we won’t,” Fathom said. “Or one of us won’t.”
“It’ll be me,” Gulper said. “I don’t look so good.” Fathom smiled at him.
“You’re unique,” he said kindly.
“Let’s make a deal,” Amber said. “Either we all get in or we all stay out.”
They all nodded.
“Let’s have a toast then,” said Amber.
But as Fenn watched Amber pouring out more of the sweet drink, he was really thinking about Halflin and where he would fit in all their plans. He looked up at the sky and felt a chill at the thought that Chilstone might be looking at the same stars at that very moment. Fenn suddenly realised he could never be part of a family, not with his friends, nor with Halflin: Chilstone would never let him because he’d never stop hunting him. Anyone that got in his way would get hurt, whether it was the Sargassons, or the people on the Shanties. This was Fenn’s fight and one he had to fight alone. The others were now clanking their mugs together to toast their future. As Amber’s mug rattled against Fenn’s he was jolted out of his thoughts and felt a cold shiver of loneliness.
As the night wore on, they took turns at the helm. By the time it was Fenn’s shift the sky to the west was still freckled with lingering stars sparkling against the inky night, but the sky to the east was fading. Amber appeared beside him.
“So we’re heading for East Marsh right?” she said.
Fenn didn’t seem to hear her, but carried on staring at the sea. The crumbling storm clouds were mottling to the colour of apricots as the sun crawled up over the horizon.
“Fenn?”
Amber’s voice was barely above a whisper and her face was tense and white; she’d been up all night, too exhausted to sleep. She reached o
ut for his hand and squeezed it tightly, as Fenn turned to look at her. He didn’t know what to say. He’d got his friends out on the open sea and, if the Terras caught them, who knew what would happen. They could be killed and it would be all his fault. He felt scared and guilty but at the same time he knew that whatever he felt didn’t matter right now; he had to say something. It was a shock to find the weight of his friends’ hope was heavier than his own fears had ever been.
“My grandad will help us.” He said.
Since he’d left all he’d wanted to do was get back to Halflin, to make sure he was all right, to do ordinary things again. But after the Sweep something had changed in Fenn. Halflin would be fifty-six next spring; it was time for Fenn to take his turn protecting him from the Terra Firma.
He imagined the dangers that lay ahead. What was it Halflin had said? There were four ways to stay alive: kill, fight, run or hide. He’d kept alive by doing the last two, but that wasn’t the same as living. Whatever he did, he wasn’t going to put his friends at risk the way he’d put Halflin in danger. He needed to get them to safety.
“Will it be safe to hide there?” Amber asked.
In his mind’s eye Fenn focused on the geography of East Marsh. From his hours gazing through his telescope, he knew the tributaries and inlets as well as he knew the purple veins that knotted Halflin’s gnarled hands. He would dock the Salamander where the Panimengro had hidden, deep in the marsh, down beyond the dead snags where the herons liked to fish. Halflin could sort out permits and give the others enough food for them to journey on to West Isle. Then Fenn would think of a way to get Halflin and Lundy to safety. Maybe they could go with his friends? After their safety was guaranteed he’d make contact with whatever was left of the Resistance on East Marsh. If there was no one then he’d get word out. He had to find people as tired of running as he was, and as ready to fight. He couldn’t be the only one.
Fenn Halflin and the Fearzero Page 17
