The Last of the Sky Pirates

by Paul Stewart

  ‘Night-night,’ came Stob’s sleepy voice.

  ‘Good night, Hekkle,’ said Rook.

  Magda, already half-asleep, muttered softly and rolled over.

  Six days they travelled – six long, arduous days of hard riding. After the initial thrill of being inside the dark, mysterious forest, even Rook’s enthusiasm was beginning to wane. The going was tough, and when it rained at night, they climbed out of their hammocks the following morning feeling more tired and achy than when they had turned in. But with their destination still far off, they had no choice but to continue, no matter how weary they felt.

  Hekkle urged them on as best he could, encouraging and reassuring them, producing delicious food night after night and praising the contributions they were beginning to make to the forage sack. But the un remitting pressure of the long, difficult journey through the Deepwoods was taking its toll. Stob and Magda bickered constantly, while Rook’s sleep was increasingly troubled.

  On that sixth evening, as they tucked into their supper of grubs and fungus, the atmosphere was oppressive. Stob was in a foul mood, Magda was tearful, while Rook – who had drifted off to sleep and fallen from his prowl-grin earlier that day – was nursing a badly bruised knee.

  ‘Any more for any more?’ said Hekkle, offering round a tray of toasted ironwood bugs. The young librarians all declined. Hekkle looked at them fondly. ‘You are doing so well,’ he said.

  Stob snorted.

  ‘Believe me,’ said Hekkle. ‘I have never guided a more determined and courageous group through the Deepwoods than your good selves. Our progress has been phenomenal.’ He clacked his beak. ‘So much so that you’ll be pleased to know our journey is coming to its end.’

  ‘It is?’ said Rook eagerly.

  Hekkle nodded. ‘We are getting close to the Silver Pastures,’ he confirmed. His face grew serious and the familiar harsh tone to his voice returned. ‘But I must tell you that this is the most perilous part of our expedition.’

  Magda sniffed miserably.

  ‘Naturally,’ muttered Stob sullenly.

  ‘This area attracts the most dangerous of creatures,’ Hekkle went on. ‘The pastures – and indeed the densely populated Free Glades beyond – offer rich pickings. From sun-up tomorrow, we must be extra vigilant. But fear not. We shall not fail – not having come so far.’

  That night Rook slept worse than ever. Every squawk, every screech, every whispered breath of wind permeated his fitful sleep and turned his dreams to nightmares – to the nightmare.

  ‘Mother! Father!’ he cried out, but his voice was whisked away unheard as the slave-takers carried them both off. The whitecollar wolves snarled and howled. The slavers cackled. Rook turned away, trying to shut out the horrors of what had just taken place, when …

  ‘No!’ he screamed.

  There it was again. Looming out of the darkness; something huge, something terrifying. Reaching towards him. Closer, closer …

  ‘NO!’ he screamed.

  Rook’s eyes snapped open. He sat bolt upright.

  ‘It’s all right, brave master,’ came Hekkle’s voice. The shryke was perched above the hammock, looking down at the youth sympathetically.

  ‘H-Hekkle,’ said Rook. ‘Did I wake you?’

  ‘No, brave master,’ said Hekkle. ‘Stob’s snoring woke me hours ago.’ He smiled kindly. ‘Get up and get ready,’ he said. ‘The end is almost in sight.’

  Despite Hekkle’s words, the atmosphere that morning remained tense. They packed up quickly and in silence, and set off before the sun had risen high enough to strike the forest floor. On they travelled, through the morning and into the afternoon without once stopping.

  ‘What about the forage sack?’ asked Rook.

  Hekkle smiled. ‘Tonight you will feast on something grander,’ he said. ‘Hammelhorn, perhaps. Or if you’re lucky oakbuck.’

  Rook peered ahead into the shadows and shook his head. ‘It all still looks the same,’ he said. ‘How can you tell that the Silver Pastures are near?’

  Hekkle’s eyes narrowed and his head-feathers quivered. ‘I can sense it, Master Rook,’ he said quietly. He shuddered. ‘Believe me, the pastures are not far now.’

  As they journeyed further, the prowlgrins began to grow skittish. They snorted; they rolled their eyes. They pawed the ground and tossed their heads. Once, Rook’s prowlgrin bolted, and it was only Hekkle’s speedy re actions that prevented him from being whisked off into the endless forest alone.

  ‘I thought I saw something out there,’ said Magda a while later. ‘Something watching us …’

  Hekkle reined his prowlgrin in, and listened intently. ‘Courage, Mistress Magda,’ he said at last. ‘It’s probably just woodhogs scratching for oaktruffles. But we’d better move on quickly, just in case.’

  Magda tried to smile bravely. So did the others. But as dark, purple-edged clouds moved in across the low sun, plunging the forest into shadow, their hearts beat fast.

  In a loud hiss and a flash of yellow and green, a hover worm emerged from the undergrowth to their left and sped across their path, causing the prowlgrins to rear up in panic.

  ‘Steady,’ said Hekkle. ‘Keep your nerve.’

  Rook glanced round him constantly, his head jerking this way, that way, as he searched the shadows for whatever it was lurking just out of sight. His eyes focused in on a dark shape sliding off behind a tree. He shivered.

  Crack.

  ‘What was that?’ gasped Stob.

  ‘Stay calm, brave master,’ said Hekkle. ‘Fear amplifies the slightest of sounds.’

  Crack.

  ‘There it was again,’ said Stob. He looked round nervously. ‘From over there.’

  Hekkle nodded. ‘Stay close together,’ he whispered. He kicked his prowlgrin’s sides, urging it into a loping canter. The others did the same.

  Crack.

  The sound was behind them now, and fainter. ‘I think we lost it,’ said Hekkle, easing up. ‘But just in case, no-one must make another sound until we get to the Silver Pastures—’

  All at once something whistled over their heads. There was a thud and the sound of splintering wood. And there, inches from where Magda sat on her jittery prowlgrin, was a flint-tipped spear, embedded in the trunk of a great lufwood tree.

  Magda screamed. Stob held on desperately as his prowlgrin reared up and squealed. A second spear flew past, hitting the forest floor and scattering the iron-wood cones which lay there.

  ‘Take to the trees!’ Hekkle cried. ‘And try not to get separated!’

  But it was no use. All round them the air suddenly pulsed with the sound of low, guttural voices grunting in unison, throwing the prowlgrins into a panic.

  ‘Urrgh. Aargh. Urrgh. Aargh. Urrgh. Aargh.’

  The prowlgrins leaped around in alarm – and there was nothing their riders could do to bring them back under control. A second flurry of spears flew through the air.

  ‘Urrgh. Aargh. Urrgh. Aargh. Urrgh. Aargh.’

  ‘Rook! Stob!’ shouted Magda, as her prowlgrin thrashed about, trying its best to dislodge her. ‘It won’t climb! I can’t make it—’ She screamed as the prowlgrin suddenly bolted. ‘Help!’ she cried out. ‘Help!’

  ‘Hold on!’ Rook called to her.

  He yanked the reins and tried to steer his own prowlgrin after her. But the creature had a mind of its own and, before he could do a thing about it, had tossed him off its back and leaped up into the low-slung branches of a huge ironwood tree.

  ‘Stick together!’ he heard Hekkle shouting.

  Rook rolled over and looked round. Magda’s faint voice floated back through from the shadows. Stob and Hekkle were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Urrgh. Aargh. Urrgh. Aargh. Urrgh. Aargh.’

  Heart pounding, Rook looked up to see his prowlgrin perched on a branch of the ironwood tree above. He struggled to his feet, and cried out as searing pain shot through his injured knee. He fell to the ground again. ‘Here, boy,’ he whispered. ‘Come here, boy.�
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  The prowlgrin watched him from the branch, with wide, terrified eyes. Rook gritted his teeth. There was nothing for it. If the prowlgrin wouldn’t come to him, then he would have to go to the prowlgrin.

  Head down, he began dragging himself across the forest floor to the foot of the ironwood tree. His knee felt as if there were a knife lodged beneath his kneecap, jarring with every movement he made. Closer. Closer …

  ‘Urrgh. Aargh. Urrgh. Aargh. Urrgh. Aargh.’

  All at once another spear whistled through the air. It struck the prowlgrin in its side. With a low moan, the creature dropped like an ironwood cone, hit the ground with a thud – and fell still.

  Rook froze. What now?

  ‘Urrgh. Aargh. Urrgh. Aargh. Urrgh. Aargh.’

  The chanting was louder than ever. It seemed to be coming from every direction. Rook was on his own – wounded and frightened. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t hide. And something huge was coming towards him … With a surge of panic mixed with nausea, Rook suddenly realized that it was as if his nightmare were actually coming true.

  Then he saw it. Tall, brutal, half-formed – it looked like a larger, fiercer and much, much uglier version of a cloddertrog. Its huge, blunt face was mottled and scarred. The flat nose sniffed the air, the heavy jutting brow frowned over deep-set, red eyes that scanned the gloom of the forest floor.

  Rook shrank back down into the soft leaf-cover on the ground and held his breath. His only hope was that it did not see him.

  ‘Urrgh!’ it grunted over its shoulder, and was joined by another trog with jagged, yellow nails and long matted hair.

  ‘Aargh!’ its companion responded. It pulled a spear from the giant quiver slung across its shoulder and brandished it in the air. ‘Aargh!’

  From all round came replies, and out of the shadows emerged more of the hulking great trogs. Rook trembled with terror. Each of the creatures had skulls – whole strings of them – tied on leather thongs around its neck. They rattled as the trogs walked, jaws grinning and empty eye-sockets staring out in all directions.

  ‘AARGH!’

  The first trog had spotted him. Their eyes met.

  ‘No, no, no,’ Rook muttered as he desperately tried to scuttle away on his backside, dragging himself along with his scrabbling hands.

  The creature advanced unhurriedly. It drew back its heavy, muscular arm and threw the spear.

  Rook ducked.

  It whistled past him, and on into the tangled undergrowth behind. The creature drew another spear and lumbered forwards, the necklace of skulls rattling. Its mouth opened to reveal a set of long, wolf-like teeth.

  ‘AARGH!’ it roared.

  A sharp pain shot up from Rook’s injured knee. He collapsed. It was no good. There was nothing he could do. He could feel the pounding feet vibrating through the ground beneath him, he could smell rancid fat. The facets of the flint spear glinted in the dappled light as the trog raised it, ready to strike.

  ‘AARGH!’

  Rook closed his eyes. So this was how his nightmare ended, he thought bitterly.

  Just then, from behind him, there came the sound of furious scratching, followed by a loud whirring noise. The trog cried out.

  Rook looked round to see a dense swarm of small, silver-black angular creatures emerging from the undergrowth where the stray spear had landed. Despite the perilousness of his situation, the instincts of a true earth-scholar were awakened in him. With their long, pointed noses and stubby triangular wings, they were clearly related to the ratbirds which had once roosted in the bowels of the great sky ships. Like the ratbirds, they flew in flocks. Unlike their harmless, scavenging cousins, however, these small, vicious creatures seemed to be hunters.

  Wheeling through the air in a great cloud, the countless silvery creatures flapped in perfect synchronization. When one turned, they all turned. Together, they resembled nothing so much as a billowing sheet, tossing and turning in the wind. ‘AARGH!’ bellowed the trog.

  The flock switched in mid air, and swooped down towards it. Roaring loudly, the trog swiped at them with its spear. Several of the tiny creatures plummeted to the ground – but with so many, the loss of half a dozen of their number meant nothing.

  ‘AARG—’

  As Rook stared, fascination replacing fear, the flock struck. It engulfed the trog in an instant. The sound of gnashing and slurping filled the air – but only for an instant.

  The next, the creatures flapped back into the air, squealing loudly.

  Rook felt the icy fear return. The flock had stripped the hapless trog to the bone. Where he had been standing a moment before, there now stood a white skeleton and empty, grinning skull which, as Rook watched, fell to the ground in a heap of bones. The gruesome necklace of skulls lay among them. The spear dropped down on top of them all.

  At the sight of what had happened to their leader, the others let out a howl of alarm.

  ‘Aargh!’ they screamed. ‘Urrgh!’ And they turned on their heels and hurtled back into the forest.

  The flock of tiny, blood-crazed creatures wheeled round in the air – looking, for a moment, like a vast sky ship with billowing sails – before turning as one, and speeding off after the fleeing trogs.

  For a moment Rook could not move. His breath came in short, jerky gasps. Beside him lay one of the small creatures, its neck broken. He picked it up. It was small – smaller than the palm of his hand and scaly. Four razor-sharp teeth protruded from its slack jaws.

  Rook trembled. On their own, the creatures were nothing, yet when they swarmed they were transformed into a huge, fearsome predator.

  Rook memorized every detail of the tiny creature, fascinated and repelled in equal measure. If he ever got back to the library, he would describe it and name it, and perhaps one day a young under-librarian would pick up his treatise and read about it, and wonder … He would call it a snicket.

  Slowly and painfully, using one of the discarded spears which littered the forest floor for support, Rook climbed to his feet. He stared round into the gloomy shadows. Whichever way he turned, the forest looked the same. He sighed. He’d escaped the primitive skull-trogs, and the snickets – only to find himself lost and alone in the depths of the Deepwoods.

  Back in the underground library, he had often wondered why so many of those who had written about the Deepwoods described it as endless. Of course it isn’t endless, he would say. You can see that from the map. Look, here it becomes the Edgelands, and here it borders the Twilight Woods … After a week tramping through the forest, however, ‘endless’ seemed exactly the right word. It was so vast that anyone lost could wander for ever, and never find a way out.

  Too frightened to call for his missing companions, Rook set off, orientating himself as best he could by the distant glow of the sun. His knee throbbed and, now that the dangers had passed, he was left feeling weak with hunger. He stumbled on, glancing round constantly, trying not to cry out as the forest sounds seemed to grow more and more sinister with every step he took. ‘Stay calm,’ he told himself.

  But what was that? It sounded like footsteps – and they were coming towards him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he whispered, his voice breathless with rising fear. ‘Don’t panic’

  Yes. Yes. They were definitely footsteps. Heavy, surefooted. Had one of the terrible skulltrogs come back to finish him off? He crouched down behind a vast trunk, festooned with hairy-ivy, and peered out tensely. The foliage parted and—

  ‘Hekkle!’ Rook cried.

  ‘Master Rook!’ the shryke exclaimed. ‘Can it truly be you? Oh, brave master, praise be to Earth and Sky!’ Rook climbed awkwardly to his feet. ‘But you’re hurt! What have you done?’

  ‘It’s my knee,’ said Rook.

  Hekkle dismounted and trotted towards him. Crouching down, he inspected it closely. ‘It’s swollen,’ he said at last. ‘But nothing too serious. Sit down for a moment, and I’ll fix it up.’

  Rook slumped back heavily to the ground. Hekkle remove
d a pot of green salve and a length of bandage from his backpack and began treating the knee.

  ‘Did you see the flying creatures?’ said Rook. ‘Thousands of them, there were. They stripped that giant trog to the bone in a second.’

  Hekkle nodded as he rubbed the salve into the joint. ‘And not only him,’ he said darkly.

  Rook took a sharp intake of breath. ‘You mean …? Stob … Magda …’

  Hekkle looked up. ‘I meant the other trogs,’ he said. ‘The brave master and mistress are safe,’ he said. ‘They are waiting for us at the edge of the Silver Pastures.’

  ‘Praise be to Earth and Sky, indeed,’ Rook breathed.

  ‘There,’ said Hekkle, as he knotted the ends of the bandage securely. ‘Now, let’s get you up onto my prowlgrin.’

  They set off at a brisk trot, with Hekkle at the front holding the reins, and Rook behind, gripping the saddle tightly. As they loped on, the trees around them began to thin out. A head wind, blowing into their faces, sent the dark clouds scudding away across the sky, and for the first time that day, as warm shafts of sunlight flooded the forest floor, Rook began to feel optimistic about what lay ahead.

  ‘Not far now,’ said Hekkle. He pointed to a line of tall lufwoods. ‘Those trees mark the edge of the pastures.’

  Rook grinned. They had made it. The next moment his happiness was complete. ‘And look!’ he cried out. ‘Magda and Stob!’

  ‘You’re right, brave master,’ said Hekkle. ‘But … Oh, no!’ His feathers ruffled and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. ‘What is that?’

  ‘What? What?’ said Rook. He looked intently for any sign of danger, but could see none. Stob and Magda had dismounted next to a long log, tethered the prowlgrins to a nearby lufwood tree and were standing with their backs turned away, looking out across the pastures beyond. ‘What is it?’ said Rook. He was suddenly frightened.

  Hekkle flicked the reins and kicked into the prowl-grin’s side. ‘Watch out, Master Stob!’ he shrieked as they pounded across the ground, but the wind whipped his warning away. ‘Mistress Magda!’