The Last of the Sky Pirates (17 page)

‘What is it?’ Stob asked, trying to hide the nervousness in his voice.

‘Roasting,’ said Hekkle simply. ‘Roasting alive, on a spit in the Central Market. Now, let’s go.’

When Rook thought back to the ensuing journey to the Deepwoods Gate of the Eastern Roost, he could scarcely believe he had survived the terrifying experience. The sound of his own breathing inside the mask, the inky blackness of the coal-glass spectacles and the noises of the upper roosts – unfamiliar, and all the more sinister for that – haunted him in dreams for months afterwards. They were climbing, climbing, constantly climbing. Even inside the mask, Rook sensed the air becoming fresher the higher they went. The cacophony of the lower roosts receded, to be replaced with the strange disturbing calls of the shrykes promenading along the upper walkways. There were coos, shrieks, and odd staccato throat-throbbings which built up to a sudden hooting scream.

‘Steady,’ whispered Hekkle, leading them on the end of his golden chain, like a tame lemkin. ‘The sisters are just singing to one another. Nothing to worry about.’

But the sounds made Rook’s blood run cold. How long had they been walking? In his growing panic it seemed like hours – although it could only have been minutes; half an hour at the most. He wanted to ask Hekkle, but he knew that it would be madness to utter so much as a single word. Behind him, Stob trod on the backs of his heels, and Rook bit his lip hard.

‘Steady, your gracious holinesses,’ cooed Hekkle, then, in a louder voice, ‘Make way for the sooth-sisters! Make way!’

Rook was aware of the clattering of claws on the wooden walkway as respectful shryke-matrons moved aside.

‘Give our blessings to the Golden Nest,’ came a harsh shryke voice.

‘May the egg-clutch prosper, sisters,’ came another.

‘Fruitful hatching!’

The calls sounded all round them. Rook’s heart was thumping like a hammer. He battled to control his churning stomach and the panic rising in his throat.

‘The sooth-sisters bless you,’ called Hekkle in his singsong voice. ‘The sooth-sisters bless you.’ He whispered urgently out of the side of his beak, ‘We’re nearly there. Keep together. One more walkway and we’ll be at the prowlgrin corral beside the Deepwoods Gate.’

Stob stepped on the back of Rook’s heel again. Rook stumbled heavily, the jolt almost dislodging his heavy
coal-black spectacles. He screwed up his left eye as daylight flooded through a gap that had opened up between the mask and the lens. He felt the spectacles wobble on the beak.

‘Careful, sister!’ came a piercing voice.

Out of the corner of his eye Rook glimpsed a tall, imposing shryke-matron bedecked in finery, sitting on a raised bench and flanked on either side by smaller, but no less gaudy, companions. He was suddenly aware of a familiar overpowering stench. The shryke-matron’s plumage ruffled and she let out a contented squawk as an acrid white shryke-dropping fell through the hole beneath her and down onto the lower roosts below.

‘That’s better,’ she said, turning to her companion. ‘Now, you were saying, Talonclaw …’

‘Oh, yes,’ said the shryke next to her, also letting a
sour-smelling spurt of droppings go. ‘The sky pirate cut off her head with one blow. Leastways, that’s what I heard.’

‘Come now, sisters.’ Hekkle’s voice had that hard edge back in it. He pulled at Rook’s robes. ‘We must get to the prowlgrin corrals. We have nesting materials to gather in the Deepwoods, remember.’

Rook forced himself to put one foot in front of the other. He hunched his shoulders, convinced that the piercing yellow eyes of the shryke-matron seated on the ornate latrine would unmask him at any moment.

‘Wait!’ The matron’s raucous cry rang out.

Rook froze. The spectacles rattled on the bridge of his beak. The matron rose from her seat and adjusted her skirts. Rook scarcely dared breathe. Behind him, the other two were rooted to the spot. The matron approached and Rook shut his eyes tight.

‘May blessings attend your nest-building,’ said the shryke-matron, and bowed. Rook inclined his head gingerly in response, praying the spectacles would stay in place. The matron turned and her talons clicked on the wooden boards as she and her companions walked away.

‘Quickly now.’ Hekkle’s voice sounded urgently in his ear. ‘Before they return!’

They hurried on in a nightmare of tension and un certainty, Rook catching glimpses of evil shryke faces as they made their way to the Deepwoods Gate, all the time in terror of his spectacles falling from his mask. The acrid smell of shryke droppings gave way to the warm, musty
smell of prowlgrins. Rook could hear their soft, throaty purrs as they neared the corrals. It sounded strangely reassuring.

Hekkle guided them down a gangplank, and Rook could feel the heat given off by the roosting prowlgrins. He peered out of the side of his spectacles. The creatures were all round them, perching on broad branches and looking down on the newcomers with their sad, doleful eyes. Hekkle reached up and untied one of them. He passed the tether to Magda.

‘Climb up,’ he said. ‘And take the reins. She won’t move until you kick her.’

With Hekkle’s help, Magda tentatively pulled herself up onto the prowlgrin’s back, taking care not to let the shryke-mask slip. She reached round the harness for the reins and gripped them tightly. On either side, Rook and Stob did the same. Finally, Hekkle jumped up onto his own prowlgrin and pulled the great beast round.

‘Kick!’ he cried.

All four of them jabbed their heels into the prowlgrins’ sides. The prowlgrins moved off, thrusting away from the broad perch with their hind-legs and clinging onto the one ahead with their fore-claws. Following the lead of Hekkle’s prowlgrin, they clambered down onto a walkway. Rook glimpsed a large gateway up ahead.

‘We’re approaching the guard tower,’ said Hekkle, reining in his prowlgrin. The others did the same. All four prowlgrins slowed to a sedate lope, placing their fore-paws down and swinging their hind-legs forward.

At the end of the long walkway, the guard tower came closer.

‘What are we going to do?’ said Magda.

‘Nothing,’ said Hekkle. ‘Remember, you are sooth-sisters. You do not need to talk to mere guards. I shall speak for you.’

As they reached the guard tower, a tawny shryke with a rusty lance stepped forwards. Hekkle approached her. Rook, Magda and Stob stood apart and aloof, their heads raised imperiously, blind behind their spectacles.

‘You heard me,’ Rook heard Hekkle saying sternly a moment later. ‘We seek nesting materials for the Golden Nest.’ His voice dropped. ‘Do you
dare
to stand in the sooth-sisters’ way?’

‘No, no,’ the shryke guard said. ‘Pass through.’ She put her lance to her side, clicked her heels and bowed her head. Hekkle led his prowlgrin past. The others – keeping as rigid as possible as their prowlgrins lurched – followed close behind. Rook held his breath. He could only pray that the guard would neither see behind the spectacles nor hear the noisy hammering of his heart.

Step by faltering step, they left the Eastern Roost and entered the Deepwoods. The moment the last of them had crossed the boundary separating the two, Hekkle kicked his prowlgrin into action. The others followed suit, and all four of them hurtled off into the great forest, leaping from branch to branch.

‘Wahoo!’
Rook screeched, with a mixture of elation and relief.
‘Waahoooo!’

Hekkle laughed. ‘Well done, brave friends,’ he said. ‘You have done well.’

‘You are a brave guide,’ said Rook. He glanced back over his shoulder. The guard tower had disappeared from view. ‘We made it!’ he gasped, and he tore off his shryke-mask, glasses and heavy robes and tossed them to the air.

Magda did the same. ‘At last,’ she sighed, tears of relief welling up in her eyes.

Stob pulled off his own mask and held it before him. ‘I think I made a pretty convincing sooth-sister,’ he said. ‘Even if I do say so myself—
Whoooah!’
he cried out as his prowlgrin stumbled, and he almost lost his grip.

He gripped the reins tightly with both hands. The shryke-mask slipped from his fingers and bounced through the branches, down to the forest floor below. He noticed the others staring at him. ‘What?’ he said.
‘What?’

Back at the guard tower the shryke guard was receiving a second visitor, a callow youth with a dark stubble covering his scalp sitting astride a prowlgrin.

He had pulled back his hood and thrust a pass under the guard’s beak.

‘See here,’ he said quietly. ‘The gloamglozer seal of the Most High Guardian of Night. And here. The thumbprint of Vox Verlix. And here, the crossed-feather stamp of the Shryke Sisterhood. I trust that is authority enough for you. Well, is it?’

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,’ the guard said, scraping her feet furiously. It was not proving to be her day. ‘What was it you wanted to know?’

Xanth ran his fingertips lightly over his shaven skull. ‘I asked whether any had recently passed this way?’

‘Three sooth-sisters, sir,’ said the guard, ‘and an accompanying shryke-mate.’

‘Mm-hmm,’
said the youth. ‘And did they say where they were bound?’

‘On a nesting expedition,’ said the guard promptly.

Xanth snorted. ‘An expedition to the Free Glades more like,’ he said.

The guard cocked her head in puzzlement. ‘But shrykes don’t go to the Free Glades,’ she said.

‘Precisely,’ said Xanth. He turned away and tugged at the reins. The prowlgrin grunted, sniffed the air and was off, leaping from branch to branch.

Xanth held on tightly. He didn’t look back.

he four riders rode on hard into the Deepwoods, leaving the Eastern Roost far behind them. With the wind in their hair and their stomachs in their mouths, Stob, Magda and Rook clung desperately onto the reins as their prowlgrins – sure-footed, yet breathtakingly swift – hurtled on from branch to branch through the trees. For more than an hour they continued like this, neither pausing for breath nor descending to the forest floor. It was late afternoon by the time Hekkle finally signalled that he considered it safe to leave the trees.

‘Are you sure?’ Stob called back uneasily. ‘What about the wig-wigs?’

‘They seldom stray this far from the roosts,’ Hekkle reassured him. ‘Besides, you must be getting tired. It’s much easier riding on the ground.’