The Last of the Sky Pirates (14 page)

‘That is the second time you have saved me,’ Vulpoon said. ‘What did you say your name was?

‘Rook Barkwater, if it pleases you,’ said Rook.

‘It pleases me well, lad,’ the sky pirate captain said. ‘Rook Barkwater. I will never forget what you have done for me this night.’ He nodded towards Magda. ‘But your friend is right,’ he said. ‘You must leave now.’

‘Captain,’ roared a voice from behind him, and a swarthy individual grabbed at his arm. ‘The balustrade is clear. Come quickly before more shryke reinforcements arrive.’

With the sky pirate pulling Vulpoon in one direction, and Magda dragging Rook away in the other, their gaze met for one last time.

‘Fare you well, Rook Barkwater,’ the captain called out.

‘Goodbye, Captain,’ Rook called back.

He and Magda hurried back to the sleeping stall to find Stob and Partifule sitting up on the driving seat of a sturdy hammelhorn-drawn cart.

‘Where did you get that?’ asked Magda.

‘We found it abandoned,’ said Stob. ‘Lying on its side—
’

‘Just jump up,’ Partifule shouted out urgently Magda and Rook leaped onto the back of the cart. Stob cracked the whip and the hammelhorn plodded off along the road as fast as it could, leaving the sky pirates and the shryke guards far behind them. The shuffling walkers on the road jostled and jumped out of their way, but the shrykes – hurrying to the landing where the battle still seemed to rage – paid them no heed.

As they rumbled on over the boards, the shouting grew distant and the klaxon-wail faded to nothing. Still they continued, driving on through darkness, mile after mile. Their pace slowed as they became snagged at the back of a convoy of heavy wagons. The darkest hour came and went. Soft strands of light threaded their way up from the horizon as the sun prepared to rise.

Rook’s head spun. More had happened to him during that last day than would normally occur in an entire year. Yet they had made it. He turned to Magda and smiled. ‘Do you think the worst is behind us?’ he asked.

Stob glanced round. ‘That shows how much you know, under-librarian,’ he snarled unkindly. He turned back and nodded up ahead. ‘Look.’

Rook climbed to his feet to get a better view. Although the sky was, for the most part, still swathed in impenetrable darkness, directly in front of them was a curious golden half-light, like the glow from a giant tilder-oil lamp.

‘What is it?’ asked Rook.

‘Need you ask?’ said Stob.

‘We are approaching the Twilight Woods,’ said Partifule, his voice hushed and reverent. ‘Which, my young friends,’ he continued, ‘is the most treacherous and perilous place in all the Edge.’

he waif pulled gently at the reins, and the great lumbering hammelhorn snorted and came to a halt. It shook its shaggy head, with its immense curling horns, and waited patiently. Partifule got down from the wagon.

Rook sat up, suddenly wide awake, and looked around. The unfamiliar, eerie light bathed everything in a golden glow. A straggle of gnokgoblins pulling handcarts clattered past, their heads down, their faces grim.

‘Why have we stopped?’ said Rook.

‘Search me,’ said Stob beside him, stifling a yawn.

‘I must leave you now,’ said Partifule.

Magda gasped. The waif turned to her, took her hand and gazed deeply into her eyes, listening to her thoughts. ‘You will reach Lake Landing,’ he said. ‘Of that I am convinced. From the little time I have spent with you all, I have been impressed with your determination,
your bravery’ – he turned to Rook – ‘your compassion.’

‘And we with yours,’ said Magda softly.

Partifule nodded and lowered his head. ‘I have already come closer to the Twilight Woods than I like.’ He looked up ahead at the line of trees, bathed in their alluring half-light, which signified the end of the Mire and the beginning of the treacherous woods. ‘Even at this distance, the twilight glow fills my head with the strangest visions … and voices …’ He shook his head. ‘And for a waif, that is dangerous indeed.’

‘Go, then,’ said Magda. ‘And thank you.’

‘Yes, thank you, Partifule,’ said Rook.

The pair of them turned to Stob. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered. Partifule nodded to each of them in turn. ‘Ahead of you lies great danger. But you will not be alone. There is a guide waiting for you in the Eastern Roost. He is one of the greatest and bravest of us all. You will be in good hands, believe me.’

He turned away, tears welling in his dark eyes. His ears fluttered. ‘Earth and Sky be with you,’ he said softly. ‘Farewell.’

As they approached the tally-hut, Rook could see the road ahead disappearing into the Twilight Woods. It shimmered and swayed, as if under water, before losing itself in the miasmic gloom beyond. Where it did so, Rook noticed that the very construction of the road seemed to alter.

It became narrow beyond the tally-hut, and the balustrades seemed to be closer together. They curved up like the bars of a cage. Above, there were two long
cables – one on each side of the road – slung through great hanging hoops and snaking off into the distance.

The gnokgoblins emerged from the tally-hut with lengths of rope, which they threw over the cable-hooks above their heads. Then they attached both ends to their belts.

‘Knot them firmly!’ screeched a shryke guard, looking on. ‘And keep moving, if you know what’s good for you.’

Alone amongst the creatures of the Edge, shrykes were impervious to the effects of the treacherous forest. Their double eyelids ensured that its seductive visions had no power over them. It was this immunity which had enabled them to build the Great Mire Road, and now meant that any who crossed the Twilight Woods were dependent on the callous and unpredictable bird-creatures for safe passage.

‘Next!’ came the rasping voice of a tally-hen from the hut.

Rook, Stob and Magda got down from the cart and entered the hut. A large speckled tally-hen sat in the dimly lit interior behind an ornately carved lectern. She looked up.

‘Three is it?’ she squawked. ‘That’ll be nine gold pieces for the rope and three more for the cart. Hurry up, hurry up! Haven’t got all day …’

Magda paid and the shryke handed them each a length of rope from a sack hanging from the side of the lectern, and a scrap of barkpaper with a symbol scrawled on it in brown ink.

‘For the cart!’ she snapped as Rook took it gingerly from her talons. ‘Next!’

Outside, a shryke guard met them and snatched the barkpaper from Rook. She examined it with unblinking yellow eyes, handed it back and clicked her bone-flail. A second shryke appeared and climbed up into the driver’s seat. With a vicious snap of the reins, she drove the hammelhorn on. The wagon clattered off along the timbered road and into the Twilight Woods in a cloud of glittering dust.

‘Central Market, Holding Pens,’ squawked the guard. ‘It’ll be waiting for you there.’ She jerked her head to one side. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’

Magda stepped forward. She flung her rope up into the air and over the cable-hook. Stob and Rook followed suit. Rook flushed crimson as he fumbled with his leash-rope, making the knots round his belt as tight as possible.

‘Tie them firmly!’ commanded the guard. ‘And keep moving.’

With a deep breath Rook plunged into the rippling twilight after the others. He felt the rope go taut and tug on him. Straining with exertion, he pushed on; the hook, rasping on the cable above, like a leadwood anchor-weight, pulling him back. Every movement was an effort. Every step, an achievement.

He struggled after the other two. Up ahead, the gnokgoblins laboured with their handcarts, their ropes swaying as they pulled at them. Behind him, Rook could see a small group of cloddertrogs milling round the tally-hut.

‘Keep moving!’ screeched the guard behind him. ‘If one stops, you all stop! Any hold-ups and you’ll be cut loose! Remember!’

Rook pressed resolutely on. Soon his lungs were on fire, his legs ached and he found himself gulping in the thick, humid air as fast as he could. His head was swimming, and everything swayed and swirled in front of his eyes. I can’t keep going! he thought, fear churning in the pit of his stomach.

Behind him, the cloddertrogs panted and groaned. In front, Stob’s back shimmered, sometimes close, sometimes impossibly far away. Then, just as Rook thought he was going to faint with exhaustion and be trampled on by the following cloddertrogs, the panic and fatigue suddenly seemed to disappear. He felt strength returning to his limbs. The rope seemed less like an anchor and more like a string holding a balloon. A sense of elation began to course through his body.

It was, Rook thought, like being immersed in a pool of warm, golden water which swirled round his body and made him feel oddly buoyant. It poured into his ears, his eyes, his nose, drowning out the grunts and groans of the cloddertrogs and turning the toasted-almond scented air to shimmering liquid. And when he went to speak, it filled his mouth with forgotten tastes of his
earliest childhood, before the slave-takers had stolen his parents away – oak-flake rusks, smoky woodbee honey, delberry linctus …

There were voices too, calling from the shadowy depths. ‘Come,’ they called, their honeyed tones matching the thick, dappled light. ‘Rook.
Rook!’

Rook trembled. That voice, so familiar … He felt his throat aching with loss, with longing. ‘Mother?’ he said tremulously. ‘Is that you?’

The woods swallowed up his words. Ahead of him, he was dimly aware of Stob waving his arms and laughing hysterically, and of Magda’s great, gulping sobs. ‘Keep moving,’ he told himself. ‘Keep moving.’

Rook tried to clear his mind, to ignore the voices and just look ahead – but the Twilight Woods seemed to have a hypnotic hold over him that he could not shake free.

He found himself looking into the endless expanse of golden forest. The trees, sparkling with a strange sepia dust, creaked and groaned with age as the soft, warm breeze stirred their branches. The air twisted and sighed. Something – or someone – flitted between the shadowy tree-trunks.

All at once a strange, spectral figure was emerging from the gloom. Rook stared with fascinated horror as it approached the road. Mounted on a prowlgrin, the apparition wore the tarnished antique armour of an ancient Knight Academic. It was as if an illustration in one of the library scrolls had come to life. The gauges and pipes, bolts and levers covering the rusting armour were all there; even in the twilight Rook could make
them out quite clearly. He reached out and tapped Stob on the shoulder.