Beyond the Deepwoods (18 page)

Twig was beginning to pant. Stinging sweat ran down into his eyes. The acrid smell of bile clung to him like a second skin. He gagged. The darkness seemed to spin. He opened his mouth and a loose vomit gushed forth. It was fruity, sour, full of pips and seeds. A picture came to him of the banderbear handing him something delicious; the banderbear that had been devoured by the horrible wig-wigs. Twig opened his mouth again and his whole body convulsed.
Whooaarrsh!
The vomit splashed against the curved walls of Twig's prison and slopped around his feet.

The rotsucker shifted the juddering pod round in its talons again. The feathery lightness of dawn was already fanning out across the far horizon. Soon be back. Soon be home, little one. Then you can take your place with the
others in my treetop store.

Choking. Heaving. Eyes streaming in the acrid blackness. Head pounding with the lack of air. Twig pulled his naming knife from his belt and gripped it tightly. Leaning forward on his knees, he began stabbing in a frenzy at the casing in front of him. The knife slipped round. Twig paused and wiped his sweaty palm down his trousers.

The knife had served him well already – against the hover worm, against the tarry vine – but would the steel blade be strong enough to shatter the shell? He slammed the point hard against the casing. It had to be. Again. And again. It just
had
to be.

Ignoring the jolts and judders which came from inside the pod, the rotsucker kept on towards its lofty store. It could already see the other pods silhouetted against the light, high up in the skeletal trees. Struggle away, my supper-lugs. The greater the struggle, the sweeter the soup, and the sound of the rotsucker's wheezy chortle echoed through the darkness. Soon you will fall as still as all the rest.

And when that happened, the evil-smelling bile the rotsucker had squirted into the cocoon would get to work. It would digest the body, turning the flesh and bones to slimy liquid. After a week, five days if the weather was warm, the rotsucker would drill a hole in the top of the pod with the serrated circle of hard bone at the end of its snout, insert the long tube and suck up the rich fetid stew.

‘Break, break, break,’ Twig muttered through gritted
teeth as he slammed his naming knife against the casing over and over and over again. Then, just as he was about to give up, the pod resounded with a loud crack as the casing finally gave. A chunk of shell the size of a plate fell away into the darkness.

‘
YES
!’ Twig screamed.

Air, fresh air, streamed in through the hole. Gasping with exhaustion, Twig leaned forwards, placed his face to the hole and gulped deeply. In out, in out. His head began to clear.

The air tasted good.

It tasted of life.

Twig peered ahead. Far away in front of him, a row of jagged dead pines stood black against the pink sky. At the top of one of the trees a clutch of egg-shaped objects lined a branch: they were sealed caterbird cocoons.

‘Got to make the hole bigger,’ Twig told himself as he raised the knife high above his head. ‘And quickly.’ He brought it down hard against the casing. It landed with an unfamiliar thud. ‘What the…?’ He looked down and groaned.

The blow which had broken through the rock-hard shell had also shattered the blade of the knife. All he was holding was the handle. ‘My naming knife,’ said Twig, choking back the tears. ‘Broken.’

Tossing the useless piece of bone aside, Twig leant against the back of the pod and began kicking viciously at the casing.

‘Break, Sky damn you!’ he roared. ‘
BREAK!
’

The rotsucker wobbled in mid-flight. What's going on now, eh? My, my, what a determined supper-lugs you are. Let me just shift you round a little. There. That's better. Wouldn't want to drop you, would we?’

Twig kicked harder than ever. The pod echoed with the sounds of splintering shell and falling fragments. Suddenly, two wide cracks zigzagged across the casing, the warm glow of morning fuzzing their edges.

‘Aaaii!’ he shrieked. ‘I'm falling.’

The rotsucker screeched with fury as the pod lurched. It found itself tumbling down through the air. Keep still, curse you! Beating its tired wings fiercely it pulled itself out of the plummeting spiral. But something was wrong. It knew that now. What are you playing at, my naughty little supper-lugs? You should be dead by now. But be sure I shan't let you go.

Twig kicked again, and the crack ripped over his head and round behind his back. Again, and it continued below him. He glanced down. There was a jagged line of light between his legs. The vomit and bile drained away.

Whatever happened now, the rotsucker was bound to go hungry. The pod was disintegrating. Its quarry would never putrefy.

Twig stared in horror at the crack below him, as the smear of green grew wider. He stopped kicking. Falling from this height would be too dangerous. More than ever before, he needed help. ‘Caterbird,’ he shrieked. ‘Where are you?’

The rotsucker wheezed. Bad supper-lugs! Bad! It was almost at the end of its strength, sinking lower in the sky. Its brassy-yellow eyes swivelled round to look at its treetop store. So near and yet so far.

Beneath him, the smudge turned from green to brown. Twig looked more closely. The forest had thinned out and, in parts, died. Long bleached skeletons of trees littered the glittering ground. Some were still standing, their dead branches reaching upwards, grasping at the air like bony fingers.

All at once there was a tremendous crash. The pod had hit the top of one of those dead branches. Twig was thrown back. His head smashed against the shell. The crack widened, and the pod, with Twig still in it, was falling.

Down, down, down. Twig's stomach churned. His heart was in his mouth. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and braced himself for impact.

SQUELLLP!

He had landed in something soft, something which, even now, was oozing in between the cracks in the shell like grainy liquid chocolate. He dipped his finger in the brown substance and put it tentatively to his nose. It was mud. Thick peaty mud. He was in the middle of a boggy swamp.

Wobbling awkwardly, Twig reached up, slipped his fingers between the largest of the cracks, and tugged. The mud was already up to his ankles. At first nothing happened. Even now, the tar soaked fibres of the cocoon were formidably strong. The mud reached Twig's knees.

‘Come
on
!’ he said.

With his elbows locked, he prised the crack a little further apart. The veins stood out on his temples, his muscles knotted. Abruptly, light came streaming down on him. The shell had finally split in two.

‘Oh, no,’ he cried, as the larger piece of the broken pod immediately turned up on its end and slipped down into the mud. ‘Now what?’

His only hope lay with the smaller piece, still floating on the surface. If he could just climb up, maybe he could use it as a makeshift boat.

In the sky above him he heard a shrill shriek of fury. He looked up. There, circling above his head, was a hideous and repulsive creature. It was watching him through gleaming blank yellow eyes. Broad black leathery wings, glistening with sweat, flapped noisily into the air. Suddenly, it turned and dived, and the next instant Twig felt sharp talons grazing his head and
pulling out tufts of hair by the roots.

The creature wheeled round and dived again. Rubbery threads of green saliva were streaming down from the end of its long snout. This time, Twig ducked. As it swooped in close, it screeched again and sprayed him with a shower of the evil-smelling bile.

Gagging emptily, Twig heard the fading clap-clap of wings. The vile creature was flapping away. When he looked up again it was perched at the top of a distant dead tree, black against the curdled morning sky. Beneath it, hung the cluster of pods, each one full of rotting matter. Twig sighed with relief. The creature had given up. He would not be joining the others in that line of death.

A moment later, his relief turned to panic. ‘I'm sinking!’ he cried out.

Clutching the piece of shell, Twig tried desperately to heave himself up out of the bog. But each time he pulled down, the shell tipped over, taking on still more of the mud. At his third attempt, it sank completely.

The mud was round his stomach now, and rising. He flailed his arms about and kicked out with his legs, but the thick ooze only sucked him deeper down.

‘Oh, Gloamglozer!’ Twig wailed. ‘What do I do?’

‘Don't panic, that's the important thing,’ came a voice.

Twig gasped. There was someone there, watching him struggle. ‘Help!’ he screamed. ‘
HELP ME!
’

He twisted himself round as best he could, a movement which lost him another couple of inches. Past his chest now, the mud was creeping up to the base of his neck. A short bony goblin with a flat head and yellow skin was leaning up against a dead tree, chewing a piece of straw.

‘You want
me
to help
you
?’ it said, its voice sing-song and nasal.

‘Yes. Yes, I do. You've got to help me,’ he said, and spluttered as the mud trickled into his mouth and down his throat.

The goblin smirked and tossed the straw aside. ‘Then I shall, Master Twig,’ it said. ‘So long as you're sure.’