“Before I go a step further, I want to tell you something,” Swarme said. “All this running off and giving me smart answers isn’t helping anybody. It’s putting all our lives at risk. If we don’t get away NOW and they catch us, the inne-keeper will put you on a VERY special menu, I shouldn’t wonder. Outlawes will come in their hundreds to get a helping. Tell him, Lanthorne.”
Lanthorne put his arm through Edwin’s. “Why are you being so naughty? Swarme’s doing his complete best to help you.”
“So we know where we stand?” Swarme insisted.
“Yes.”
“I’ll lead on, in that case.”
They crept down the side of the inne, following a track just wide enough for a hansomme. It led to a group of small outbuildings. Edwin could see so little he kept his arm linked with Lanthorne’s and allowed himself to be pulled wherever they needed to go.
From somewhere in the darkness, Swarme said, “If you start acting the fool now, I won’t be able to help you. Nagges are very unpredictable.”
“I understand.”
“They like their sleep, but they also like a bargain.”
Edwin had no idea what Swarme meant by this. What sort of bargain? They could hardly be about to sell the nagge something.
Lanthorne deposited Edwin next to the wall of one of the outbuildings and went to help his brother. Edwin had seen enough of the nagge’s personality when they stopped on the way up from Landarn to realize it wasn’t a good idea to blunder into one in the dark, so he kept very still. Footsteps moved backwards and forwards, with a lot of accompanying whispering. There was a brief, but exceptionally strong, smell of you-know-what, and this was followed by creaking and trundling noises as the hansomme was hauled out of its stable. Edwin felt the ground vibrate, as heavy hooves and then wheels moved past him.
“Come on,” said Swarme. “I thought you were in a hurry.”
“I can’t move because I can’t see,” Edwin replied tetchily.
“I’ll help you into the hansomme,” Lanthorne said. “Swarme’s got to feed the nagge. It won’t take us otherwise.”
Edwin clambered up the steps and flopped onto the passenger seat. Lanthorne joined him. Swarme’s voice reached them from a point next to the nagge’s head. It sounded as if he was having a conversation with an unco-operative child.
“Don’t say I never give you what you want.”
The creature snorted.
“Half now and half when we arrive. That’s what we agreed.”
More snorting of a grumbling kind.
When they broke their journey to the inne, Edwin had heard the nagge munching on thorn twigs. He realized at once that the sharp sound now cutting through the night wasn’t one made by twigs or thorns being chomped. It was the sound of powerful teeth cracking bone. He winced. There were several more sharp cracks and then the sound of contented, breathy chewing. So he was about to embark on the most important journey of his life in a hansomme pulled by an animal that insisted on a nosebag filled with human body parts.
“That’s all you’re getting till we arrive,” Swarme said.
The nagge stamped one of its feet and the hansomme shook.
“You heard what I said!” Then, in a more cajoling voice, Swarme added, “I’ve saved some really juicy bits for when we get to Morting.
“I’m locking you two in,” he said, when he climbed into the driver’s seat.
As Swarme closed the first flap, Edwin caught sight of a bag by his feet. As Lanthorne’s brother had made a point of not bringing any luggage with him, the bag could only contain one thing—the nagge’s next meal.
“Someone’s bound to have heard the hansomme, so we need to get out of here before they try and stop us,” said Swarme.
“Will they follow us?” Edwin asked.
“Once they see we’ve gone, they’ll get back to what they came here for. And Trunke can whistle for a hansomme. Now stop wasting valuable time. It’ll be a bumpy ride to start with.”
Swarme chuckled at this thought as he banged the second flap across.
“He’s so happy to get away from here,” Lanthorne said. “Finding my brother was the best thing that could have happened to us.”
Swarme was telling the truth when he warned them about the jolting. The nagge set off so fast the boys fell off the seat and the hansomme tilted alarmingly as it made its left turn from the inne track out onto the main road. Lanthorne laughed excitedly, and from outside they heard a couple of shrill whoops of delight from Swarme. These would have woken up the sleepers in the inne, if nothing else did. Edwin prayed that he wasn’t going to add hansomme-travel-sickness to his other troubles.
“This is going to be such fun,” said Lanthorne. Edwin slumped into his corner, clutching the backpack. Yet another drive in the early hours of the morning meant he now had two nights’ sleep to make up. He would be no help at all to Mandoline in his present state.
Edwin hadn’t been asleep long when Lanthorne shook him awake to the sound of Swarme shouting angrily. The boys could also hear an assortment of excited animal noises.
The speed of the hansomme increased to a dangerous level and it rocked so much from side to side that Edwin was sure they were going to overturn and be badly injured. How many animals were there? It sounded like a whole pack. Then the commotion stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
Edwin was convinced Trunke and the inne-keeper had pursued them with dogs or other, weirder beasts. They were surely about to be taken prisoner. He put his hands in his pockets for the penknife and lighter. These wouldn’t be much defence against two grown men who must have overpowered Swarme and possibly even killed him. There would now be three bodies on a bumper Special Menu. Edwin was so frightened he could taste sick in his mouth.
The flaps were thrown back and the boys cried out. Edwin was still fumbling with the penknife, but it was Swarme.
“A pair of wild things,” he said. “They came up on us from behind. Don’t know what they were; could only see their jaws. I tried to outrun them, but they were speedy little devils. I threw them half the nagge’s supper, but they weren’t interested. In the end, the good old nagge caught them both with its hooves. You may have heard the yelps. I quite enjoyed it, in a strange sort of way, but roll on morning.”
Laughing, Swarme banged down the flaps. Edwin and Lanthorne managed to laugh too.
The attack had nearly made them crash, but at least Edwin had learnt there were a few creatures in this world who turned up their noses at chunks of long-dead human being. And in a grudging way he was beginning to like Swarme after all. Nobody else in this world had squared up to wild animals for him.
Despite his exhaustion, Edwin knew it would take him a while to calm down enough to sleep. A few questions had been unsettling him and now was as good a time as any to raise them.
“Do Outlawes murder people specially, or do they wait until people die to get their Special Menu?”
“Pardon?” Lanthorne had already started going “Wheee!” again each time they bounced over a pothole, and Edwin’s question took him by surprise.
“Do Outlawes get impatient and murder people if they’re feeling hungry?”
“I told you, the teachers beat us with a stick if we talk about the olden days at school.”
“Don’t pretend you haven’t got any idea, Lanthorne, because I don’t believe you!”
Edwin had raised his voice and could feel his whole body shaking. He needed to know exactly what sort of world he and Mandoline had been dragged into, and
Lanthorne’s evasions were more than he could take. Lanthorne saw he couldn’t get away with silence. “This is what I heard somewhere,” he said quietly. “When people died and were put in their burial boxe, Outlawes might come along and steal the boxe, if it wasn’t buried deep enough. They’d wait until the dead person was ripe enough and then they’d have the Special Menu.”
Edwin was silent for a long time and Lanthorne didn’t know if he was expected to say more.
/> “Sorry I shouted at you,” Edwin said eventually. He was sickened by the possibilities that were racing through his head, bumping into each other and making new, equally terrifying scenarios. Mandoline was so tiny, no more than a snack for a few people. If Auntie Necra intended her for the Special Menu, she might be happy to wait for years until there was lots more of Mandoline to go round. And then what?
“I’m going to sleep now,” he said. Asking the questions had only made him feel worse. Sleep without dreams was what his body needed and then he would have his full strength to take on Auntie Necra. It was good to have Swarme as an ally, because if Lanthorne’s brother could kick aside attacking things, Auntie Necra wouldn’t stand a chance.
Edwin spent the rest of the journey asleep, apart from a couple of toilet breaks. They had brought no food, but his body was too tired to complain.
Towards the end of the afternoon, when he was awake again and sort of refreshed, Lanthorne suddenly said, “Edwin we’re slowing down,” and slid onto the floor as they turned a sharp corner. “I think we’re leaving the main road.”
Edwin became alert at once. He sprang up and started to bang continuously on the flaps. Swarme was obliged to open up, because the nagge had begun to react to the noise.
“What?…” Swarme began to say but Edwin, backpack on, was already on the driver’s seat next to him, making it very clear he had no intention of being shut away again. “You mustn’t be seen,” Swarme said. “Not out here. You’re a Shiner, remember? You’ll give the game away.”
“Who cares?” Edwin shouted at him. “I need to see where we’re going.”
“Edwin, please.” Lanthorne had followed him up onto the driver’s seat.
“Be quiet! He may be your brother, but he’s bloody well not mine.”
If Swarme’s rescue plan came to nothing and Edwin was forced to save Mandoline on his own, he simply had to know the lie of the land. The road back to Landarn was straightforward, but this minor road to Morting looked different. What if he had to adopt a plan B that required him to drive a hansomme himself?
“If you’re going to ride at the front, then cover yourself up properly,” Swarme told him.
Thoughts were tumbling over each other in Edwin’s mind. He had never driven a go-kart, let alone a hansomme pulled by a creature from a horror film. He began to look closely at the way Swarme managed the nagge. Threaten it, promise it a reward when we arrive, or just set fire to its tail, he thought.
Lanthorne made himself comfortable, sitting between his best friend and his newly rediscovered brother. He tried not to upset Edwin by smiling too broadly, but very soon he was pointing out features and chattering away.
“Please don’t talk to me, Lanthorne,” Edwin said. “I need to concentrate.”
The road to Morting twisted and turned, as if it were too shy to draw attention to itself—or, more likely, as if it didn’t want the outside world to know what went on there. It was a narrow lane with forks and branches off it that Edwin found confusing and hard to remember. If he ever had to drive along it with Mandoline on his lap, he hoped it would be during the hours of daylight, and that Swarme was leaving wheel tracks clear enough for him to follow.
14
Out There
There were none of the high thorn hedges that had bordered the road on the first part of their journey. The ground here didn’t seem to have enough energy or even interest to produce anything taller than a few feet. This didn’t mean that Edwin was able to see for miles. The lane to Morting was squashed into the bottom of a dip for its entire length. Steep banks rose on either side, and only occasionally was there a gap which allowed him to see beyond the lane. What he glimpsed was as dismal and depressing as the objects close at hand. The forks in the road and the branches off it were no more than new folds in the ground that quickly turned corners and never let you see where they were heading.
Dark grey, pointed rocks jutted out of the lane-side banks at all heights like iron spikes, and if there were patches of grass they were always a desiccated grey and looked as if they could crumble away at any moment. Bushes resembling untidy bundles of barbed wire filled in much of the space between the rocks. Any bird wishing to nest in one of them would have been shredded if it tried to squeeze between the razor-sharp twigs.
Edwin had once spent a holiday on the edge of Dartmoor, a place he found wild, and always soggy underfoot, yet it filled him with energy. What he saw as the hansomme rolled along was the kind of Dartmoor that Mother Nature might have come up with after a day suffering from a migraine, the children out of control, the dinner turned to cinders in the oven and the dog being sick on the best rug. There were rocks and razor-twigged bushes wherever he looked. He couldn’t understand how Lanthorne found so much to interest him.
During their holiday on Dartmoor, Edwin remembered, his mother had drawn him to the window one evening, saying, “Come and look at this, Ed.” They looked out at the sunset over Tarlan Tor. Streaks of a red, so deep you thought it would bleed if you touched it, had begun to finger their way across the western horizon. The streaks ran into each other until, for a few moments, the sky was a sheet of bloody splendour.
Family memories. Affection. People who were sometimes annoying or annoyed, but never grey, and who never dreamt of doing that dreadful, unspeakable thing. Edwin’s thoughts turned to how his parents must be feeling now. They had been without both of their children for three days—the baby kidnapped, and their son, who should have known better, making matters much worse by running off. He wished they knew how hard he was trying to get Mandoline back. These thoughts wouldn’t help, though, and so he stared out at the countryside to clear his head. He tried his hardest to superimpose colour on it, but the utter greyness won each time, insisting on charcoal and ash instead of any kind of brightness.
“Heads right down, you two,” said Swarme. “This is Morting.”
No, this is the end of the world, Edwin thought. And I’m here because I hated having a baby sister and I said so.
Dusk dripped into the narrow lane and began to spread in a pool across the untidy village. Squinting from beneath his hood, Edwin took in Morting’s main street. The houses were set at random angles, as if their builders weren’t remotely bothered about neatness or planning. There were no front gardens, none of the little touches which suggest houses are cared for and not a single light in the windows.
The hansomme and its three passengers appeared to be the only source of life and sound for miles. Edwin had expected they would sneak into Morting, because they were planning a kidnap, but here they were, sauntering along and drawing attention to themselves. They might as well be blowing trumpets or letting off fireworks, for all the secretiveness they showed. Edwin was also becoming increasingly worried by Swarme’s careless attitude. Their driver had even begun to hum softly to himself.
“Shouldn’t we be sneaking in?” Edwin asked. “We don’t want to warn Auntie Necra we’re here.” His intention was to take her by surprise, tie her up, kick her “right up the bumption”, as his grandfather said, and then get away with Mandoline as fast as he could.
Swarme winked at him, a lopsided, grotesque wink that made it look as if his eye were about to pop out. “Clever old Swarme has everything under control,” he said. “I’m so pleased with myself I could almost whistle. Auntie Necra will be sitting in her chair chattering to herself, with no idea at all of the surprise I’m bringing her.”
Lanthorne looked nervously from side to side. “Swarme, I’m worried,” he said.
“Shut up,” said Swarme. “I’ve just told you. I’m enjoying the moment. You should enjoy it too. It’s not every day something goes perfectly to plan.”
“We’ve done it, Lanthorne,” Edwin said. “Or almost done it. Swarme’s got us here.”
“I know he has,” Lanthorne said proudly.
“Let’s celebrate with some speed,” said Swarme, laughing. “Hold on, ’cause here we go.” He stung the nagge with his whip, drove them, he
ll for leather, to the end of the main street and then skilfully guided the hansomme through the gap in a thorn hedge, before coming to a halt in front of a square house which was already losing its edges in the falling darkness.
“Is this Auntie Necra’s house?” Lanthorne asked.
“The very same. Now get down.”
Edwin was happy to obey. They were three against one, because Swarme hadn’t mentioned anyone else living with Auntie Necra. Swarme could hold her down, while Edwin tied her up. They would even let Lanthorne bite her if he really felt like it, because she had hurt him often enough in the past.
Swarme deftly slipped the nosebag of Special-Menu scraps over the nagge’s head and then, taking a firm grip on Edwin and Lanthorne, one on each side of him, he walked them to the front door. He had to kick the door because he wasn’t prepared to relax his hold on the boys. His fingers dug painfully into Edwin’s arm.
The door opened a little way.
“Hello, Auntie. I’ve brought you a present.”
Swarme’s mocking words crushed Edwin’s hopes to the size of grit.
15
So Here You Are
Swarme let go of Lanthorne and used both hands to keep Edwin’s arms by his sides. He was much stronger than Edwin and no amount of wriggling and shouting could stop Edwin being pushed through the door of Auntie Necra’s house and taken down a dark passage.
Very quickly, he found himself in a small, dark room with the door locked behind him. He fell onto the floor, sobbing at the hopelessness of his situation. Lanthorne was outside shouting. He told Edwin he was sorry. He called his brother names and he started crying too. He must have been pulled away, because his voice became fainter. A door slammed and there was silence. In that silence, Edwin heard the only sound in the world that could lift his spirits at that moment—a baby crying.
Edwin sat up and did his best to calm himself. Mandoline was alive and she needed him. Rolling around on the floor like a six-year-old who has been told, “No more sweets,” wouldn’t help her.
The Dead World of Lanthorne Ghules Page 13
