Uki and the Outcasts

by Kieran Larwood

  But how would they know about that? The only rabbits he’d told were Kree and Jori, and they wouldn’t have said anything. Would they?

  He remembered Jori had gone back to the clan house to get the neekball tickets. She could have told them then, his dark voice whispered.

  Stop it, he told himself. She’s your friend. You trust her.

  He did trust her he realised, and felt a sudden rush of guilt at having left them behind. If they were here, perhaps he wouldn’t be in this fix right now.

  ‘Bring him this way,’ Nox was saying to whoever held him. Clearly they had no idea he was awake. They had hit him hard enough to knock him out for hours, but they hadn’t reckoned on Iffrit’s healing power. It must have fixed him quickly, just like it did back in the graveyard when he was almost dead.

  If they don’t know about that, they can’t know about Valkus either, Uki thought, his mind racing. So Nox must be working for someone else. Jori’s cousin, maybe? Perhaps Venic wasn’t all that he seemed.

  Uki tried to flex the muscles in his arms, wondering if he had the strength to escape, but he couldn’t move them properly. His head still swam, recovering from the blow. He would have to wait until he got his strength back, and then burst free. If he tried too soon, they would just hit him again. Much harder, probably, to make sure he didn’t wake up.

  Maybe Kree will find the spear, he thought. Maybe they will be able to work out what happened to me.

  But how would they know where he was? They would think he had followed Mayor Renard, not been rabbit-napped by Nox.

  Thinking of Kree reminded him of what she had said back in Nether, about tracking Nurg’s brothers across the plain. Would she be able to do the same thing in a city?

  Uki looked down at the road again. It was just dried mud. Too well trodden to leave any tracks on it by walking, but maybe …

  As carefully as he could, Uki dug the claws of his feet down into the ground. He felt them bite into the earth and scrape along. The rabbits hauling him carried on, regardless. They hadn’t noticed a thing.

  Uki did it again, and again. He couldn’t see behind him to check whether he was leaving enough of a trail but it felt like he might be. Would Kree be able to follow it? Would his friends even want to, after he had left them so selfishly?

  ‘We’re here,’ said Nox, stopping in front of an old building. This was not the smart clan house Uki had first met him in. It was an old tumbledown building in a dirty, dingy part of the city. Uki could hear the river close by and thought they must be at the docks.

  ‘He’s awake,’ said one of the rabbits holding him, and Uki cursed under his breath. He’d been looking around, forgetting to pretend he was still knocked out.

  ‘Hit him again,’ said Nox. ‘Harder this time.’

  Uki struggled, trying to break free, but his arms were still too weak. The last thing he heard was the swish of a club heading towards the back of his head.

  And then nothing.

  *

  This time when he awoke, he was in a room. It had low wooden beams and plank walls. There were lanterns somewhere, casting flickering shadows everywhere except the dark corners. Uki saw crates stacked around the walls, most splintered and broken. Cobwebs thick with clumps of dust hung off everything in swathes, and the whole place smelt of damp and mildew.

  Uki’s head throbbed where he had been hit, twice. He could feel lumps there when he moved, and there were little flashes of light going off behind his eyes. But it wasn’t the only thing that hurt.

  His arms were being yanked above his head, his shoulders and wrists burning. He tried to look upwards, his vision still swimming, and saw metal shackles holding him to one of the roof beams. His feet were dangling in the air, the floor almost a metre below.

  Would he be able to break the metal cuffs that held him? He summoned what strength he had and pulled, but nothing budged. He was still stunned, and his restraints weren’t forged from copper or bronze. It was that hard, silvery metal, the same stuff that Jori’s sword was made of. He would have trouble breaking it even if he wasn’t so dizzy.

  ‘Nox. He’s awake.’ A voice came from behind him, deep and dim-sounding. The perfect voice for a henchman.

  ‘Already?’ There was some shuffling and the figure of Nox came into view. He walked up to Uki and peered into his face. ‘You’re a very tough young rabbit, aren’t you? Hurk hit you so hard that second time I thought you might never come round.’

  Uki tried to speak, but his tongue felt too fat for his mouth. He swallowed a few times, then managed to croak, ‘Why?’

  ‘Why did we capture you?’ Nox shrugged. ‘I have no idea. We simply follow orders. I can’t think what the mistress wants with a mismatched scrap of a thing like you, but the sparrow she sent said you were important.’

  ‘Mistress?’ Uki said. Who was he talking about? ‘Don’t you work for Venic?’

  Nox laughed, a cracked, bitter sound. ‘Venic? Please – that idle, good-for-nothing whelp? I’ve had many masters come here from the Coldwood to run the clan house over the years, but he is the absolute worst. All he cares about is going to parties and drinking blackberry wine. Besides, I only pretend to work for that bunch of poisoners. My real loyalty is with the mistress.’

  He reached up to his cloak, where the serpent badge of Clan Septys was pinned, and turned back the collar. Hidden underneath was another symbol: a wide-open eye, cold and staring. Uki had seen it before somewhere, but his head was too fuzzy to think. In the city? In Nether? The Uluk Miniki camp?

  Then it came back to him. That eye had been above the windows of the tower he saw in his first dream. Which meant it was something to do with that thing hunting him. Could Nox be working for that? And what had its name been … Necro … Necra …

  ‘Necripha,’ he said.

  ‘Yes!’ Nox’s milky eyes widened in surprise. ‘How do you know her name? Have you met her before?’

  He came close to Uki’s face, hungry for answers. Whoever this Necripha was, Nox was clearly in awe of her, and desperate to meet her. He was almost dribbling at the thought. Uki turned his head away, disgusted.

  ‘No matter,’ said Nox, shuffling over to the doorway and peering through a crack. He rubbed his paws together, as excited as a young rabbit on Bramblemas morning. ‘You will see her yourself, soon. To think, all these years serving the Endwatch and tonight I will finally get to see the leader herself! We had word this morning that they were nearly at the city. She should be here any minute!’

  The thought of that filled Uki with terror. He struggled against his shackles, kicking and wriggling, but they didn’t budge. It only made his shoulders burn and grind more, his arms feeling like they might pop out of their sockets at any moment.

  Nox laughed again. ‘You won’t escape that easily,’ he said. ‘That’s Eisenfell steel those shackles are made of. I had to steal every penny in the clan strongbox to pay for them.’

  ‘No!’ Uki writhed and struggled for a few minutes more, but even his great strength couldn’t help him. His eyes kept flicking to the doors, hoping that Kree might have followed his trail and was about to burst in, ready to rescue him.

  No one came.

  Finally, he gave up and slumped, dangling. There was nothing he could do except wait for Necripha to arrive.

  *

  He wasn’t waiting for long.

  Nox had taken to pacing the floor, and there were snores coming from somewhere behind him. The other two rabbits who had dragged him here, Uki presumed.

  Then, out of nowhere, there was a sudden rap at the door, making every rabbit in the room leap out of their fur. Nox dashed to draw back the bolts, and a crowd of black-cloaked figures pushed their way into the room.

  There were six of them altogether. One, in particular, stood out: a broad, hulking rabbit, his cloak barely covering his sloping shoulders and craggy boulder of a head. He looked around the room with narrow eyes almost lost beneath his heavy brow, one paw on the hilt of the dagger at his belt.


  The others were all identical copies of each other – the same size, faces hidden by the cowls of their hooded cloaks – apart from one, who was hunched and bent over. A knobbled staff was clutched in one paw, and Uki could see patchy grey fur, knuckles swollen and twisted with arthritis.

  That one is even older than Nox, Uki thought. Surely that can’t be Necripha?

  But he was wrong. Nox dashed from the doorway to bow and scrape before the gnarled figure. ‘Mistress Necripha,’ he said, simpering. ‘I have captured the black-and-white child as you commanded.’

  ‘Is he unharmed?’ The voice was the same as that in his visions, Uki realised. The fur on his neck prickled.

  ‘Yes, Mistress,’ said Nox. ‘Well … mostly.’

  With small, shuffling steps, the hunched rabbit moved closer to Uki. He held his breath as it reached up, lifting back its hood. Underneath was the face of an old, old she-rabbit, her head covered in a black scarf. Skin hung in folds from her neck and cheeks. Bones showed through the patchy fur. Her front teeth were an ochre brown and jutted from her mouth. Her eyes were deep set and a dark shade of crimson. They flicked over Uki, taking in every detail, lingering on the crystal in his harness buckle.

  She doesn’t look so scary, Uki thought. What was the smith screaming at? Those red eyes? Her disgusting teeth? Or something under her scarf?

  ‘The fire guardian is in him,’ Necripha said. ‘I can feel it there. It has merged with him somehow … given itself to him.’

  Nox scurried over to Necripha’s shoulder, still bowing and nodding his head. ‘We found some spears on the child, mistress. And there’s a crystal in his buckle.’

  ‘I’m not blind, you dolt!’ Necripha waved a paw and her big servant grabbed Nox by the ears and yanked him out of the way.

  ‘Gaunch is in the crystal. Do you see, Balto?’ The big rabbit grunted. ‘The guardian must have told him how to catch them. But without them all, he will fade and die. He has trusted his task to this child rabbit! Why would he do such a thing? Why not just crush the brat’s mind and take his body?’

  The big rabbit, Balto, grunted. It appeared to be the most intelligent thing he was able to say. They’re talking about me like I’m not even here, Uki thought. I’m just a piece of meat to them: a thing that holds Iffrit inside.

  ‘Mistress,’ Nox was back again. ‘You should know that this child is friends with a daughter of Clan Septys. He came to the house with her. They may be looking for him even now. I have told you how powerful the Clan is …’

  ‘I don’t care about the clans of Hulstland!’ Necripha shouted, making Nox cringe into a ball. ‘Not even the notorious Shadow Clans! I have seen them rise, I will see them fall. Besides, how will they know where we are? They can’t search both cities in a night. We are safe here for the moment.’

  ‘What shall we do, mistress?’ Balto asked. He was staring at Uki with something that looked like hunger.

  Necripha tugged the wispy whiskers on her ancient chin. ‘I’m not sure. When those rabbits in Nether told me about this child, I assumed the fire guardian had simply possessed him. I also assumed it would be stronger than it is. All those years in the quantum prison must have weakened it.’

  ‘Can we get it out?’ Balto rubbed his huge paws together.

  Necripha stared hard at Uki again. ‘It’s not as simple as that. The guardian and this … boy … have become meshed together. You may have to kill him to find it. When he’s dead, the guardian should come out. It’ll be a small grain of light, no bigger than a seed. Once we have it, I will try to make it bond with you. You will get its power. If it’s too twined up with the child, then we shall have to use my other plan.’

  ‘Other plan?’ said Balto, sounding disappointed.

  ‘Yes,’ said Necripha. ‘We shall just release Gaunch from his crystal and then persuade him to join us. Once we have him on our side, it will be easy to convince Valkus as well.’

  ‘You mean I won’t get the magic?’

  ‘No, Balto,’ said Necripha. ‘Not if you don’t have the guardian’s power of binding. I’m sorry. We shall just have to make the spirits work with us. Once they see I will allow them to do their evil work, I am sure they will agree.’

  Balto drew a curved dagger from his belt and glared at Uki. It looked like he had set his heart on having Iffrit’s powers and through them, the strength of the spirits. Now Uki had ruined it and was about to pay a harsh price.

  ‘Wait!’ Uki shouted. ‘You can’t!’

  Necripha ignored him, as if he wasn’t even there. Balto took a step closer.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Uki shouted. He kicked and wriggled but the shackles didn’t budge. Balto was reaching out for him now, the dagger in his other paw, glinting in the lamplight.

  ‘Who are you people?’ If Uki was going to die, he at least wanted to know who was killing him, what they planned to do with his power. ‘Why were you in that tower in the forest?’

  ‘Wait!’ Necripha held up a paw, making Balto freeze. ‘How do you know about the tower? That place is secret!’

  ‘I saw it,’ Uki said. ‘In a dream.’

  ‘You saw it?’ Necripha moved to stand in front of him again. ‘What else did you see?’

  ‘I saw you hunting in the trees,’ Uki said. He racked his brain, while he still had it, thinking of other things to say. He had to buy some time … think of an escape … pray that Kree would find him. ‘And I saw you in Nether, talking to the smith …’

  ‘The boats. Did you see the boats we sailed here in?’

  Boats? Thought Uki. I didn’t see that. That must be how they got to Nys so quickly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just the other things.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Necripha. ‘There is more to this than I thought. I need to look at this young rabbit more closely.’ She reached a paw behind her head and began fiddling with her scarf. A feeling of sick horror started to rise in Uki’s throat. He remembered seeing this through Necripha’s eyes when she had made the smith shriek so. Now he was going to see exactly what she had …

  Necripha’s scarf fell away and it was indeed Uki’s turn to scream. There, in the centre of her forehead, was an extra eye. Blank and crimson, like her others, it blinked at Uki, twitching as it peered into him. He could feel its gaze, boring through his mind like a burrowing mole. It tunnelled through his thoughts and memories, rooting around, plucking at the juicy ones. He could sense the part of him that was Iffrit, buzzing and tingling in anger as if it were being poked and prodded, every last fragment of it peered at.

  The feeling went on for minutes, the longest minutes of Uki’s life. Finally, Necripha pulled the black scarf over her forehead again, tying it tight behind her wrinkled ears. Uki breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t really looking forward to what Balto might do, but it would be better than going through that again.

  ‘We seem to have a connection, you and I,’ Necripha said. ‘That guardian spirit in you must be related to me somehow. We must have had a link in the time before. That is how you’ve been able to see through my eyes.’

  ‘Time before?’ asked Uki. If he could keep her talking for a bit longer, maybe help might come.

  ‘The time before the Ancients left,’ said Necripha. ‘Before Gormalech. How much did the spirit tell you? Do you know its name?’

  ‘Iff something, I think,’ said Uki. He didn’t want to give too much away. ‘It didn’t really tell me much. Apart from that I had to catch the four spirits.’

  ‘Iffrit.’ Necripha stroked her whiskers again. ‘Yes, I do remember. But everything is so muddled. Bits and pieces missing. It was so long ago …’

  ‘So there were rabbits around then? In the time of the Ancients?’

  Necripha laughed. ‘This body is aged, but not that old! No, I am a spirit too. Somewhere in this head is a little spark of a soul. I was made by the Ancients, just like your Iffrit. Just like Gormalech. He is related to me too. You might even call him my brother. When he went crazy and ate the whole planet,
I hid. For thousands of years. Can you imagine what that was like? Dodging and sneaking, creeping this way and that. And knowing that if he found me, he would guzzle me in an instant, suck me up to be a part of his squirming metal body.’

  ‘What happened then?’ Uki asked. ‘Why did Gormalech stop eating everything?’

  ‘Those beings known as the goddesses came,’ said Necripha. ‘Estra and her sister Nixha. They fooled that fat iron lump, somehow. They found a way to bind him under the earth. Some pact or truce, it is said. “The Balance” they call it. A piece of trickery, more like.’

  ‘I bet you were happy about that,’ said Uki. Keep her talking, keep her talking …

  ‘Happy? That one horrid ruler had been replaced by another?’ Necripha opened her mouth to laugh. A hideous, croaking sound, like a frog gargling with sand. ‘I wanted this world for myself. If my brother could have it, why not me? Instead, I was made to sneak about like a common thief, hiding away like a shadow.’

  ‘So you took over that rabbit’s body? Went and lived in your secret tower?’

  ‘This body?’ Necripha pulled at the saggy skin of her face. ‘This is just one of many I have used. They only last for a hundred years or so, then they fall apart. I took the first one not long after the goddesses made your kind. So small and … furry compared to the bodies of the Ancients. And with these stupid, flapping ears. But there is always another disciple willing to give their body to me. And so I go on.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just make friends with the goddesses?’ Uki asked. ‘I’m sure they would have been glad to see you.’

  ‘Glad? Glad? They sealed my brother under the earth. What would they have done to me? No, I didn’t want them to find me. I hid away again and built up my secret church, my Endwatch. We have hidden in that forest, watching, spying, ever since. Gathering every piece of information we can, searching out the old magic of the Ancients.’

  ‘Why?’ Uki asked. ‘What for?’

  ‘For the moment we can use it, of course! The Balance between Gormalech and the goddesses can’t last. One day there will be a winner and then … then my Endwatch will strike and I shall seize the power! I shall be the one that rules over this Earth!’