The Last of the Sky Pirates (13 page)

‘Thirty-five degrees to starboard!’ the captain barked.

The sky ship soared and around him its crew cheered and called out to one another. Rook felt a surge of ex hilaration. The shouts and cries of the sky pirates rose, getting louder and louder and—

‘Wake up!’ came an insistent voice.

Rook stirred. The dream began to fade. No, he thought muzzily, he didn’t want to be dragged away. He was enjoying it all too much – the sensation of flight, his sudden expertise with the flight-levers …

‘Wake up,
all
of you!’ the voice insisted.

Rook’s eyes snapped open. The sky ship disappeared – yet the sound of its crew seemed louder than ever. He turned to Partifule, who was shaking the snoring Stob roughly by the shoulders. ‘Wh-what’s happening?’ he murmured.

‘It’s a raid,’ the nightwaif whispered back. ‘A sky-pirate raid.’

Rook was on his feet at once. ‘It is?’ he said. He peered into the darkness. Sure enough, figures with flaming torches were shinning up ropes attached to grappling-irons and swarming onto the landing near the cages. ‘But this is fantastic!’ Rook gasped. ‘They’ve come to rescue Deadbolt Vulpoon.’

‘Fantastic for your friend Vulpoon if he does manage to escape,’ Partifule said. ‘Not so great for the rest of us if the shrykes go into one of their rage-frenzies. Like creatures possessed, they are, screeching, screaming,
spitting, slashing out at anything that moves … Rook!’ he called out, as the youth hurried off. ‘Come back!’

‘I must help!’ Rook called back.

‘ROOK!’ Magda shouted, as he disappeared into the shadowy and chaotic scene unfolding over by the hanging-cages.

Stob sat bolt upright, and looked round, bleary-eyed, startled. ‘What? What?’ he said.

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Magda. ‘Nothing at all. Except we’re in the middle of a sky-pirate raid. And the shrykes are about to go crazy. Oh, and Rook’s decided he wants a better view.’

Stob jumped up from his pallet. ‘Why didn’t anyone wake me before?’ he demanded.

Magda rolled her eyes impatiently.

‘Never mind all that now,’ said Partifule. ‘We must get as far away from here as possible.
All
of us.’ He stared back towards the cages, ears fluttering. ‘I … I can hear Rook,’ he said.

‘Let’s just go on without him,’ said Stob. ‘I can’t think why an under-librarian was selected in the first place. Insolent, sloppy, disobedient—’

‘Stob, be quiet,’ Magda snapped. ‘I’ll go and get him.’ And before anyone could stop her, she dashed off.

Unaware of the discord he was generating amongst his fellow-travellers, Rook darted ahead from shadow to shadow. All round him, the roaring sky pirates were homing in on the cage where Deadbolt Vulpoon was imprisoned. One had already shinned up the fluted column and had used a long pikestaff to jam the chain
and stop it from swinging. A second, at the very top, acted as look-out. Meanwhile, two more sky pirates – one a brawny giant with thick, matted hair and an eye-patch; the other (on his shoulders) an angular individual with steel-framed, half-moon glasses – were standing directly beneath the cage. All round them, a dozen or more pirates formed a protective circle, their weapons glinting in the intermittent moonlight like the horns of a phalanx of hammelhorns. The raid must have been well-planned.

Rook listened, spellbound, to the flood of muttered expletives as the bespectacled sky pirate picked at the lock of the cage door with the long, thin blade of his knife. All at once there was a click.

‘At last!’ he exclaimed, but his triumph was drowned out by the wail of a loud klaxon splitting the air, and the look-out’s bellowed warning.

‘Shrykes!’

The effect that single word had on the scene was both immediate and absolute. Bystanders and spectators on the landing turned away from the spectacle of the sky-pirate breakout, some taking cover, others dashing this way, that way, desperate to escape, yet terrified of running slap-bang into the oncoming shrykes – while those who had been trying to sleep through the raid, now picked up their bedding and fled for their lives.

Back on the road, the merchants and traders who had decided to journey through the night were suddenly thrown into turmoil. Those on foot scurried into the shadows and concealed themselves and their wares; those on wagons and carts shouted at their hammelhorns and prowlgrins, and the sound of cracking whips rose up above the klaxon wail and panicked screaming. There were crashes and collisions, cries of anger and groans of dismay as the carts keeled over and spilt their loads. And underneath it all, the rhythmic screeching of the shrykes advancing down the Great Mire Road towards the landing.

‘Fifty strides and counting!’ the look-out cried, then added, ‘I’m getting out of here.’

Rook stood rooted to the spot. He watched, mouth open and eyes unblinking, as the cage door flew back and Deadbolt Vulpoon himself squeezed his body through the narrow opening and dropped heavily to the boards below. He was free, Rook realized, his heart fluttering. The old sky pirate was free!

All at once an anguished cry rang out. Louder than the
klaxon, louder than the crowd, louder even than the shrieking shrykes. ‘Spatch!’ roared the voice.

It was the huge sky pirate with the eye-patch. He crouched down beside the companion who, only a moment before, had been on his shoulders. Now he was dead. A single crossbow bolt had shattered one of the half-moons of his glasses and lodged itself behind his eye.

‘Oh, Spatch, my friend,’ he wailed.
‘Spatch!’

‘Come, Logg.’ It was the captain himself. He laid a hand on the sky pirate’s shoulder. ‘There is nothing more we can do for him. We must leave before the rest of us taste the shrykes’ weapons.’

‘I’m not leaving Spatch here,’ came the belligerent reply as he hoisted the limp body up onto his massive shoulders. ‘He deserves a proper burial, so he does.’

‘As you wish,’ said Vulpoon. He raised his head and looked round at the expectant sky pirates, all waiting for his command. ‘What are you waiting for, you mangy mire-rats? Let’s get out of here!’

As one, the sky pirates turned on their heels – only to find their escape route cut off. The shryke guards had surrounded the landing on all sides and were closing in. The sky pirates had no choice but to fight.

‘Forget what I said!’ Vulpoon roared. ‘ATTACK!’

The air abruptly shook with an explosion of noise as the sky pirates and the shrykes fell on one another. The shrykes swung their bone-flails, and fought with beak and claw, crossbow and evil spiked scythes. The pirates battled back with cutlass and pike and baked mire-mud
slingshots that hissed like angry hover worms as they cut through the air.

The fight was short and vicious.

A crossbow bolt whistled past Rook’s ear. He came to his senses, wild excitement turning to cold, stomach-churning fear. He flung himself behind an upturned cart, its cargo of heavy stone jars strewn around it.

In front of him two sky pirates – one tall and thin, one short and portly – stood back to back, battling with two shrykes. The pirates’ swords glinted and clanged. The shrykes’ claws flashed, their beaks gnashed. It looked as if the sky pirates were tiring when – as if to some un spoken command – both of them lunged forwards. Their attackers were skewered simultaneously. The sky pirates withdrew their swords and turned to face a fresh onslaught.

There were dead shrykes everywhere, but those who fell were instantly replaced by more of the frenzied bird-creatures, answering the klaxon-call and streaming down the Great Mire Road.

‘Take the balustrades!’ Rook heard Vulpoon bellow, and looked round to see the sky pirate captain fighting off two shrykes at the same time. ‘And
keep
them,’ he grunted as first one, then the other shryke fell lifeless to the ground. ‘We all leave together,’ Vulpoon cried. ‘When
I
give the word.’

Just then Rook saw the flash of crimson and yellow feathers as a tall, muscular shryke guard emerged from the shadows behind Vulpoon. She was wearing a gleaming breast-plate and a plumed helmet. A spiked scythe was raised above her head.

‘Captain!’ screamed Rook, leaping to his feet.

Just in time, the sky pirate captain dodged sharply to his left. The scythe struck the wooden boards and stuck fast. Vulpoon swung his heavy cutlass. With an ear-piercing screech, the shryke hawked and spat. A glistening boll of saliva flew through the air and splattered into his face. Crying out in disgust, Vulpoon staggered backwards in the direction of the cart.

Rook gasped with surprise. This was no ordinary shryke guard, he realized. With her bright plumage and her stature, she must be one of the elite Shryke Sisterhood.

‘Deadbolt Vulpoon!’ the shryke-sister screeched, as she advanced towards him in a hissing whirr of bared talons. ‘The great Deadbolt Vulpoon! Let’s see how great you are now!’

Vulpoon was dazed and half-blinded. The shryke-sister contemptuously knocked his sword away. Then, balancing on one clawed foot, she slashed at his arm with the other.

‘I’ll rip out your heart!’ she shrieked. ‘And devour it!’

There was blood seeping through the sleeve of Vulpoon’s jacket and dripping down the hand which clasped his sword. The sky pirate slumped to his knees in front of the upturned cart.

It was all but over.

Vulpoon had no sword. The shryke – eyes blazing, unblinking – approached with her razor-sharp talons outstretched.

‘Fool,’ she shrieked. ‘Did you truly believe we were
unaware of who you are? Did you? You, great captain, were the bait to lure them here.’ She nodded back to the battle for the balustrade continuing behind them. ‘With you dead, they’ll give up, and I will have rid the Edge of you and your sky pirate scum once and for all.’

Vulpoon made no reply He was utterly defenceless. The shryke-sister seemed to enjoy toying with him.

‘No longer shall I be a mere shryke-sister,’ she screamed. ‘I shall return to the Eastern Roost victorious and claim my reward.’ She paused. ‘Mother Hinnytalon of the Eastern Roost. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think,’ she said, and shrieked with raucous laughter. ‘There is only one thing standing between me and my goal,’ she added. Her gaze hardened and fixed itself on Vulpoon. She raised her claws, ready to strike. ‘You.’

‘Wrong!’ Rook cried out as he sprang to his feet, a heavy pot clutched tightly in his shaking hands raised high above his head.

Looking up at the cart, the shryke was stunned into inaction for a split second – and that was all it took. With a grunt of effort, Rook brought the heavy pot crashing down onto the shryke’s head. It smashed into the helmet and shattered, sending pieces flying through the air, and the shryke staggering backwards.

Vulpoon made a lunge for his sword. In one graceful movement he straightened up and swung it round in a low, rising sweep, beheading the creature with a single blow. The plumed helmet clattered to the ground, while the head it had once protected bounced across the landing, beak agape and eyes bulging with surprise.

Vulpoon turned. His jaw dropped. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Again.’

Just then a second voice called out. ‘Rook. Quickly!’ It was Magda. ‘Come on,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘We must leave now.’