Snowbone (25 page)

Manu stepped inside. The shed was hot and very noisy. Toward the far end, he could see another set of open doors. There were men there, unloading a coal wagon. They must be feeding a furnace. Yes! There it was! An enormous oven, long and rectangular, with a heavy door. But what could be inside? Bread? Fish? There was no telltale smell. Could it be bricks? Manu couldn't see any lying around. He started to search, and he was so busy looking, he didn't see the grimy hand that reached out to touch his shoulder.

“Argh!”
cried Manu, spinning round.

A short, square mechanic was beaming up at him, his overalls damp with sweat. “I'n't it grand?” he said proudly, pointing at the machinery. He pulled a spotted handkerchief out of a pocket and wiped his wet brow. “First time here?”

“Er, yes,” stammered Manu. “It is.”

“Come to buy?”

Manu wondered what on earth the man meant. Suddenly he realized. “Yes,” he said. “My family has a farm. Up north. We need some help on the land.”

“Course you do!” said the damp mechanic. “It's hard work is farming! Will you excuse me just a minute?”

He waddled over to the oven and peered at a temperature gauge on the door. Then he took a few steps back and looked up into the rafters, where a small platform was suspended from the ceiling. He held up his thumb.

“OK, Miggsy!” he shouted. “Let's get her cooled!”

A young lad on the platform waved and pulled a lever, and suddenly Manu was soaked with rain. Water was pouring down from a web of sprinkler pipes set high in the ceiling and, as it hit the hot machinery:
ssssssss!
The steam rose like an angry rattlesnake.

Then the rain stopped, as swiftly as it had come. Manu could hear nothing but dripping and splashing and a soft, wet sighing.

And cries. Wild, animal cries coming from inside the oven. And thumps. Terrible thumps, as if something were trying to get out.

“Watch yourself!” cried the damp mechanic, dripping like a nose.

Manu heard the rumble behind him and turned. Two men were coming in with a mule wagon. They positioned it in front of the oven and the damp mechanic opened the door.

The heat hit Manu like a fist. He staggered back, blinking. And then, through his watery eyes, he saw what was making all the noise.
Babies.
Dozens and dozens of newborn wooden
babies, right there in the oven. They gurgled and grinned and screamed for food, and looked around and piddled and pooed. And the men loaded them into the wagon and they were driven away, bound for who knows where.

“We offer a full service here,” said the damp mechanic. “You can take them as eggs. Store them at home. Bring them to life when you need them. But if you don't want the hassle of hatching them yourself, we can do that for you.”

“In there,” said Manu, still shaken by what he'd seen.

“Aye, in here!” The damp mechanic stroked the oven lovingly, as if it were a prize-winning cow. “This is a Prestige Patented Birthing Machine. The only one in the country! The eggs are put in here and heated to the optimum temperature for birthing. It's scientific is this!”

“Wow,” said Manu.

“Eh, lad,” said the damp mechanic, positively glowing. “You've got summat special to tell the folks back home, haven't you?”

Manu nodded. He couldn't speak; his voice had deserted him. But it didn't matter. No words could ever describe what he was feeling right now.

he marketplace, late. No sound except the dripping of a tap. The coughing of a distant mule. The velvet flurry of a bat.

A dry, dusty darkness. Pools of amber beneath random work lights. Black-line buildings. Shadow sheds. And Snow-bone, flitting like a moth between them. Eyes straining in the dark. Ears attuned to the sound of silence. Feet carefully placed.

Behind her somewhere: Blackeye, Tigermane, Figgis, Manu. Like cats, slinking into the night on pouncing paws.

Filizar remains in the wagon, despite his protests.

Five minutes later. The log cabin. A single lamp. Muslin curtains. A shadow play: Tarn pacing up and down, brushing her long, long hair.

The friends watch. Fascinated. Greedy. Tense.

Snowbone prepares to give the signal.

What will they do with Tarn once they have her? The friends haven't been able to agree. Tigermane wants to hold her captive.
Tarn has inside information
, she reasons.
We could
use it in the battle against slavery.
Filizar and Manu want Tarn imprisoned, with the key thrown away. Blackeye listens but makes no comment. He will accept any decision. Snowbone and Figgis hold their tongues, but their flashing eyes speak for them. Tarn will die for what she's done. Maybe tonight, maybe later, but she will die.

Snowbone looked behind her, into the shadows. She couldn't see the others, but she knew they were there. She raised her hand—

Wait! The door was opening. Tarn was coming out.

Snowbone cursed and lowered her arm. She stood up, beckoned to her friends and started to follow.

Tarn headed for the marketplace. She skirted the bidding arena and passed between the pens, walking confidently through the shadows. But as she neared the main road out of the market, she slowed down, as if she were listening. Then, unexpectedly, she turned right.

Snowbone and the others followed, circling her like a pack of shadow lions.

Tarn stopped at the slaveholding house, opened a door and went in.

The friends gathered uneasily outside.

“We can't all go in the same door,” mouthed Snowbone. “Too risky.” She pointed at her friends in turn and indicated where they should go. “Round the back … this side … far side.
Listen.
I will hoot like an owl—then we all go in.”

The others nodded and crept away. Snowbone peered through a crack in the door. It was black inside. She waited a
minute more. Then she took hold of the door handle, hooted like an owl and stormed in.

She couldn't see a thing. Even with the door left open behind her, her eyes were struggling to make sense of the dark. She could hear the others. She could see their outlines moving in the light spill elsewhere. But no one seemed to have found Tarn.

Snowbone crept forward, aware that the others were doing the same. The warehouse seemed empty. Where had Tarn gone?

And then she heard a rumble and a rattle and a roar and—
DOOOlsA!
—something immensely heavy guillotined down behind her. She reached out—and felt bars. Thick iron bars. Then someone bumped into her. Tigermane. They grabbed each other and stared wild-eyed into the darkness. Then they saw a light, way up in the rafters. A lantern, handheld. It began to sway, and they heard the footsteps of the carrier as she descended a flight of stairs. And now Tarn was lighting lanterns all around the room, and each new lantern revealed more of the terrible truth. They were caught in a colossal cage.
All of them.

“Well, well, well! What have we got here?” said Tarn, sidling up to the bars and lifting her lantern high. “Five little fishes in a net! Quite a haul.”

She looked hard at Manu. “I know you.” The cold malice in her words chilled the air between them. “I was aware you'd followed me out of Ashenpeake, but I didn't think you'd find me here.”

“We would find you anywhere,” said Snowbone.

“Is that so?” said Tarn. “Then I'll have to put you where
you can't follow.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a box of matches. “Remember your friends?” She rattled the box.

Snowbone hurled herself at the bars, sucked in her cheeks and spat hard:
thool
A thick gob of spittle flew through the air and landed—
splatl
—on Tarn's face.

“You evil, ignorant woman,” said Snowbone. “Do you think by killing us you've won the war? This is just the beginning. More will follow.”

Tarn wiped the mess away. “Let them come,” she said. “I have plenty of matches.” Suddenly the sneer fell from her face. She drew back. Tilted her head. Listened. Ran swiftly to one of the side doors—and dragged Filizar in. “Well, look at this!” she said. “A little crab, come to find the fishies!”

The friends gasped as one. Filizar, their only hope—gone!

Tarn threw Filizar down in the middle of the room. Then she moved from door to door, closing and bolting them fast. Filizar looked despairingly at the others and mouthed a single word:
sorry.

Tarn returned and stood with her hands on her hips, studying Filizar.

“Nice coat,” she said at last. “Give it to me.”

“What?” said Filizar.

“Your coat,” said Tarn. “Give it to me.”

Filizar unbuttoned his coat, shrugged it off and handed it over.

“You are a low-down, bottom-of-the-barrel, snake-belly thief,” snarled Snowbone. “You'd steal teeth from your grandmother's mouth.”

Tarn wasn't listening. She was feeling the quality of the
cloth. It was exquisite. The softest silk. It was like stroking a breeze. She put the coat on. It fit, though on her it was more like a jacket. She looked at herself admiringly and slid her hand into one of the pockets. She found something and pulled it out: a handful of nuts in a twist of cloth. She smiled and ate them, then fished in the pocket again.

The friends watched her in silence. There was something strangely compelling about her actions. It was like watching a magician pulling tricks from his cloak.

Tarn pulled out a small golden penknife. She nodded appreciatively and put it back. Next, a sweet wrapped in a leaf. She slipped it into her mouth.

“I wish you'd give me my coat back,” said Filizar suddenly. “I'm cold.”

“Too bad,” said Tarn. “I'm keeping it. Besides, you won't have any need of it where you're going.”

“I wish you'd let us go,” Filizar went on. “I wish you'd open the cage and set my friends free. I wish you'd unbolt the doors. Let us disappear back into the night.”

Tarn swallowed the last of the sweet and laughed. “Some chance!” She started to root in the other pocket.

“I wish I'd never come here!” said Filizar hurriedly. “I wish I was still at home. I wish I'd never listened to this lot.”

Tarn frowned. She pulled out an old, tatty bit of leather and looked at it, puzzled.

“I wish I could fly away!” cried Filizar wildly. “I wish I could grow wings! I wish the roof would fall in!”

“I wish you'd shut up,” said Tarn.

Filizar stumbled forward, as if an invisible fist had thumped him in the back. Frantically, he turned to his brother. M anu
saw a desperate face, wide-eyed, pleading—and silent. Instantly, he understood.

“What did you just say?”
said Manu. Tarn glared at him. “I said, ‘I wish you'd
SHUT UP
!’” And suddenly—
wooof!
—there was a cloud of blue smoke, and when it cleared, Tarn had vanished.

“
hoa!” cried Snowbone. “What happened there?”

“She got away!” cried Figgis in despair. “That's what happened! We had her this close—and she got away!”

“No, she didn't,” said Filizar. “That bit of leather she had in her hand? It was the Tongue of Torbijn. We made her wish twice.”

Snowbone stared at him wonderingly. “You are brilliant!” she said. “But I thought I gave the Tongue to Skua?”