The Shadow of Malabron (31 page)

It was too small for him to stand up in, and so he shuffled at a crouch away from the entrance with his head down. Then he saw a glimmer of light and looked up. Ahead of him, only a few feet away, burned a ring of pale green flames.

The werefire.

W
ILL COULD HEAR HODGE AND FLITCH
grunting and cursing as they scrambled up the heap of stones. “Carrion … bladderbrain … bucket of tripe,” Flitch growled, and Will was not sure whether the words were intended for him or for Hodge. If they were able to squeeze themselves into the drain they would be on him in an instant. He had to get further from the entrance, but instead of moving he stayed where he was, riveted by the trembling ring of flames. It looked to him like a round, gaping mouth filled with green fangs.

He heard a sound and turned. Flitch’s hideous face filled the hole.

“Now listen, friend,” the hogman said with a ghastly attempt at a smile, “let’s just forget everything that’s gone before, and start again. You can’t go that way, obviously, so you might as well come back out. And you mustn’t believe we were serious about…” He gave a simpering laugh. “… about
eating
you.”

“Of course we weren’t serious, Sir William,” Hodge chimed in from over his brother’s shoulder. “We ate somebody three days ago and we’ve got plenty left in the pot.”

Flitch jerked violently and a sharp gasp came from Hodge.

“My brother is quite the joker,” Flitch said, rolling his eyes. “What he means is that we’d be happy to accept your challenge and meet you in combat. One at a time, or both of us together, whichever you prefer. Or if you’d rather just call the whole thing off and go home, that’s fine, too. We could be your guides out of the sewers. Don’t you agree, Hodge?”

“Indubitably, brother, we should be overjoyed to be of assistance in any way we can. All you have to do, Sir William, is come out of there…”

“He knows what he has to do, dungflap,” Flitch snarled at his brother, and then caught himself and turned to Will with a sheepish grin. “Or rather, what he
may
do, when he’s ready. No hurry at all. At your earliest convenience. We can wait. Happy to wait. Honoured, in fact. The thing is, of course, you don’t want to stay in there
too
long. The green fire attracts … nasty company.”

As Flitch was delivering this speech, Will noticed, he had squeezed a little further into the drain. Only a few feet separated them.

Will turned away and began to inch towards the flames.

“What are you doing?” Flitch growled. “You can’t go that way.”

Will reached the ring of fire and then drew back. To his surprise it gave off no heat. The flames did not even seem to rise from the floor of the drain or touch it in any way. They just appeared out of the air and vanished again, sometimes silently and other times accompanied by faint sounds like whispers or muted, cut-off cries. Though they looked pale green from a distance, Will could see now that the fire was made of many colours. As in the street earlier, he could see shapes in the flames, forming and fading away. They caught his gaze and held it just long enough that he wasn’t quite sure what he had seen, and wished to see it longer.

And now he saw that the werefire wasn’t really fire at all. The shifting shapes were not rising out of the flames, they
were
the flames. The werefire was nothing other than this beautiful, feverish dance of images. He wondered why everyone seemed to fear it so much. If this was the only way to escape the hogmen, he would take it.

He drew a deep breath, held it, and plunged forward.

He was sitting on a horse. He was outside, in the rain, sitting on a dappled grey and white horse. He was dressed in armour, and a long sword hung at his side. His head was bare and the cold rain was running down his neck. He shivered, vaguely remembering that he had been somewhere else just a moment before. But now he was here. Wherever
here
was.

Before him stood another horse, bearing a rider in black armour, his face concealed by a tall, gargoyle-faced helm. Beyond the rider a dark, sinister castle loomed like a giant bat with its wings outspread.

I’ve been here before
, Will thought, although he couldn’t say how he knew. The gloomy landscape, the castle, even the black knight, all were familiar. He had come to this place not once but many times. There was something he had to do here. Someone he had to find.

“Where is she?” Will shouted, and then realized he was asking about Jess. She was in danger. If he hadn’t left her this would never have happened. But he was here now. That was all that mattered. He had come to save her.

“Let me pass,” Will shouted.

Without answering the black knight drew his sword, spurred his mount and charged.

Will had never ridden a horse, but somehow he knew what to do. Gripping the reins with one hand, he dug in his heels and the horse sprang forward. The black knight thundered towards him, his mount’s hooves flinging up clods of mud. As the riders met, the black knight’s blade flashed down but Will met it with his own. There was a clang of steel, and then the black knight was past him and turning to strike again. Will expertly wheeled his horse, and with a deft, accurate stroke, sliced through the other rider’s saddle strap.

The black knight slid off his mount and crashed to the wet ground.

Will reined in his horse and leapt from the saddle. The black knight was still down, groping for his fallen sword in the muck. Will reached it before he did, and took it in his other hand. The black knight held up his arms in supplication or fear, but Will ignored him and kept on. He crossed the drawbridge, and went in under the portcullis of the castle. Seven armoured goblins appeared in his path, brandishing jagged-tipped pikes. He knew they were goblins because he had come this way before. He had fought with them, many times, and each time he had lost.

Not this time.

With a wild cry Will charged. His two blades seemed to take on a life of their own, whirling, darting, slashing. Pikeshafts splintered. Armour rang and split. In a matter of moments all seven opponents were weaponless and on the ground, groaning and pleading for mercy. Will ignored them as well and ran on.

He came to a door, hacked his way past the three mace-wielding ogres guarding it, and entered. A narrow, winding flight of steps led down to a torchlit corridor lined with cells. From all directions came shrieks and moans, and other ghastly sounds. Then a high, terrified cry that pierced his heart. Jess! Will rushed from one door to the next, looking through each barred window for his sister. To his shock, the cells were all empty.

There was another, larger door at the end of the corridor. That was where the terrible sounds were coming from. Cautiously he approached, with the odd feeling that this was not going the way it was supposed to. He was a hero. He wasn’t meant to hesitate. He had battled his way into this castle, he had never come this far before, he was about to
win
. But now… Now there was something nagging at the back of his mind. Something he was forgetting.

As Will reached for the door handle, he felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned. There stood Rowen, frowning at him.

“Idiot,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Numbskull. Blubberbrain. Dolt.”

She gave him a shove, and he staggered back, startled. He’d
felt
that. The pikes and maces of his enemies had been like caresses in comparison.

“What’s the matter with you?” Will shouted. “I have to find Jess. She’s here somewhere.”

“Look behind you, stupid,” Rowen said. “
Behind
you.”

Will turned his head. He was crouched once again in the drainpipe, still within the ring of werefire.

Behind him came Flitch’s voice, ragged with rage.

“You can’t go that way, idiot. Didn’t you hear me? Halfwit. We’re not going to lay a finger on you, we swear…”

The hogman had squeezed himself further into the hole. His fat, grasping hand was only inches from Will’s foot.

“We promise,” Hodge shouted from behind him. “Please come back, Sir William. It’s not safe in there.”

Will scuttled quickly to the other side of the werefire.

“We’ll find you, you little vermin,” Flitch shrieked, all pretence of friendliness abandoned at last. “We know these sewers inside and out. Every nook and cranny. We can smell your blood like warm broth. We’ll find you, and when we do we’ll boil you in a pot and make a stew out of you…”

“Oh, it will be a lovely stew, Sir William,” Hodge called. “You’ll be amazed what a fine chef my brother is…”

Will crawled away, dazed. Now he understood the true danger of the fire. If Rowen had not appeared, he might have stayed in that story, believing himself a hero, until the hogmen had him back in their clutches.

The drain sloped up round a curve and the hogmen’s shouts quickly faded. Soon Will noticed that the tunnel was widening, and he was able to rise to a stoop instead of crawling on his hands and knees. He went on like this for what seemed a very long time, his way lit by more outbreaks of the werefire, which he passed by quickly without daring even a glance.

Finally he rounded another curve and came to a space where the drain he was in joined two other, larger tunnels. Where they met there was another shaft running upwards at a steep slant into deep shadow. Ragged pennants of werefire fluttered along the walls of the shaft, but Will breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of a row of iron rungs like a ladder. Surely this would take him up into the keep.

He jumped, caught the lowest rung, hauled himself up and began to climb.

The rungs were further apart than they had appeared from below, and the going was harder than Will had expected. After climbing for a long time he stopped to catch his breath, where a smaller drainpipe opened into the shaft. As he clung there, panting, he saw a pair of slitted red eyes watching him from the opening of the drain.

“Get lost!” he roared. Something he could not see hissed and skittered away.

He pressed on, and now when he looked up he could see a faint green glow above, seeping through the seams of what looked like some sort of circular trapdoor. Will climbed on, and soon he reached the trapdoor, breathing hard. Planting himself as firmly as he could against the sides of the shaft, he reached up and pushed against the door with all of his remaining strength. After a terrible moment in which it seemed the door would not budge, it suddenly came unstuck and lifted with a rusty creak.

Grunting with the effort, Will shoved the door out of his way and hauled himself up out of the shaft. Once he was out he heaved the trapdoor shut and lay panting, too exhausted to do anything more than look around.

He was in a large, windowless room with damp stone walls and a high ceiling crossed by thick wooden beams. From them, suspended by chains, hung several empty cages whose doors appeared to have been wrenched open. On the opposite wall a flight of steps climbed steeply to a small door made of iron. All around him the floor was strewn with shards of glass and the splintered remains of shelves, tables and chairs. A few shelves still stood against the walls, and upon them sat glass bottles and flasks filled with various sorts of liquids, powders, and in some cases, what appeared to be small creatures suspended in thick, murky fluid. Hanging from a hook in one corner was a skeleton that was human-shaped but had curling horns and a long tailbone.

The light in the room came from many small eruptions of werefire, silently burning in corners, along the walls and on the stairs. There were even flames clinging to the beams and burning down into the room, like ghostly bats stirring in their sleep. The largest and brightest of the fires filled one of the open cages hanging from the beams and seemed to crouch there within the bars like an animal waiting to spring.

It was as if he had found the very source of the fire.

As Will lay there he heard a faint fluttering, like the wings of countless moths, and sensed the dizzy swarming of a thousand stories trembling to take shape.

He rose unsteadily and made for the stairs. He hoped that he was in a lower room or dungeon of the keep, and that beyond that small iron door he might find a way out. In any event, he had to get out of this room.

As Will set foot on the bottom step he felt the air in the room grow colder. The hair rose on the back of his neck and he turned slowly. To his horror he saw that the werefire in the cage was moving, flowing out and dripping like melting wax onto the floor, where it grew stronger and brighter and began to take shape. Before his eyes the fire grew into a human-like figure, with arms and legs and a head crowned with flames.

The head turned towards him, and in the depths of the flames a face began to form. Its mouth opened wide and it howled, with the sound of a hundred voices.

Will dashed up the steps to the iron door, grabbed the latch and pulled. The door did not budge. He tugged again and again. The door was stuck fast.