The Twyning (43 page)

As he approaches, I scramble out of the cellar and stand before him. I see now that whatever he is carrying is alive. He holds it up.

“Rat king.” He smiles. “I’ve not seen one of these for years.”

His big hand holds a ball of rats’ tails that have grown into one another. There are twenty or so beasts hanging down. Their eyes are glassy with shock, but they are still alive.

“Found it in the house.” He looks at the writhing creatures with something like affection. “Under the stairs.”

“What will you do with it, Bill?”

He looks around and notices the stone steps behind me.

“I’ll leave them in the cellar there, I reckon,” he said. “It’s bad luck to harm a rat king.”

“So this could be your lucky day,” I say.

“It’s certainly theirs.” He gives a little chuckle, then walks to the cellar, down the steps, and into the darkness below.

When he comes back without the rat king, he does something unusual. He lays his big right hand on my shoulder.

“Someone opened a window,” he says.

“Did they? Fancy that.” I manage to laugh.

“Are you all right, boy?”

“I am, thanks, Bill.”

“Not much of a hunt, eh?”

I shake my head.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.” He sniffs, like a man used to being proved right. “You should never take liberties with a rat.”

“They got a bit of help down at the river. Are you in trouble?”

“They believed what you told them. They thought that was the kind of stupidity that Bill Grubstaff would do. Sometimes it’s useful when folks think you’re a fool.” He looks away, then adds quietly, “It’s you we should be worried about.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“They know who opened the window. Someone saw you climbing down.”

I think for a moment. “There’ll be no more work from the doctor, then.”

Bill frowns.

“It’s not your job you should be worrying about,” he says. “Turns out one of the setters knows where you live. They’re on their way to the tip to find you. They’re saying they’re going to set light to it and burn you out.”

It takes a moment for the full horror of what Bill is saying to become clear to me.

“Lucky you’re not there, eh, boy?”

“Caz.” I whisper the name.

“What’s that, boy?”

I hear his words behind me.

I am already running.

. . . in the bark. It is no longer making noise to strike fear in the prey, to summon other dogs. It is merely telling its owner that it is doing its best.

When a rat hears that sorrowful note, it knows that today it will survive.

After the escape from the house, there were battles as citizens escaped in every direction. Now and then the unmistakable sound of death could be heard in the darkness, causing those of us who had found hiding places to crouch down, motionless.

Soon, though, the dogs were making the sound of defeat. They were tired. Their owners were angry.

What would I have done without Floke? It was he who led the citizens in the house into battle after the Twyning had done its heroic work. In the moments after we left the house, I discovered that I was no warrior. Beside Floke, I was slow, weak. When he leaped over obstacles, I scrambled and fell, short of breath, as panicky as a ratling.

I may have been the leader of the kingdom, but when it came to facing the enemy, I was a taster, no more and no less. With a dog before me, I was as helpless as any citizen. I could reveal as loudly as I liked. I could be a hearer and hear great truths. These gifts counted for nothing when deadly white teeth were flashing, blood was flowing, and bones were being crushed in mighty jaws.

Floke knew that. His only revelation, repeated with every stride and gasp, was — Survive! Survive! Survive!

And I did. When the dogs were heading away from the river, we moved with speed ahead of them. Then, as others moved onward, we doubled back and into a clod-cave that, through that strange instinct only warriors have, Floke knew would be there.

As still and silent as two stones, we heard the men and the dogs as they passed, their barking and their shouts fading.

We waited there until the last sounds of battle had died away and the air no longer smelled of fear and rage and blood, but it was simply nighttime in the world above.

Floke climbed out of the hollow we had found.

— All is safe now, Efren. The battle is over.

I climbed out and looked around. There were no lights, no human voices. The enemy had gone.

— Floke, I . . .

For once, I had difficulty revealing. My friend looked at me.

— You were a leader, Efren. You did what you had to do. You owe me nothing.

— I didn’t really fight.

— In your way you did.

There was nothing more to be revealed. It was time to gather the kingdom, to start again.

There was a stump nearby. I climbed up onto it, composed myself, and prepared to reveal.

— Growan?

Silence.

— Growan, are you alive?

Nothing.

— Driva?

— I am here, Efren. Some of the does and ratlings died, but many are with me.

— Stay where you are, Driva. Do not return to the world below until I give the order. Barcas?

— Here, Efren. On the far side of the river.

— Gvork?

There was no reply, and I felt a twitch of sadness. Gvork had been a brave historian.

One after the other, I called my leaders. Most, I discovered, had survived. The kingdom may have been scattered around the world above, but it was still there.

— Victory.

The word was Floke’s.

— There is no victory when citizens have died, but, yes, there is still a kingdom.

Yet Floke seemed restless, and I knew why.

— Stay here, Efren. There is something I must do.

Before I could reveal, he was gone.

I waited, thinking of all that had happened on that terrible, glorious night. The flyte of the warriors; the ambush from the trees; the mysterious rising of the river that had changed the course of the battle; the Twyning advancing toward the enemy, plaining as it went; the courage of citizens, led by Floke, within the house; the escape. The Court of Historians would have much to record.

It was growing cold by the time I heard from Floke again, and the safety of darkness was fading.

— Efren?

— Floke.

— I have found it. The Twyning lives.

. . . through the town, silent, their lamps swinging beside them.

But when Bill and I catch up with them on the road that leads to the tip, they are on the narrow road leading to the lane. There is no easy way to overtake them without being noticed.

We follow them, unseen, a few paces behind.

When they reach the tip, I will find my way in to warn Caz. Nobody knows that rubbish tip better than I do.

As we grow closer, a sound beyond the fall of men’s boots on the road reaches us. Voices — many voices.

At first, I think some sort of revelry is taking place in one of the houses near the tip. But then there is no laughter, no music. This is no party.

Ahead of us, the men turn into the lane, and at that moment a terrible fear grips my heart.

“Wait,” Bill mutters beside me. “Just wait, Dogboy.”

A crowd has gathered at the end of the lane — men, women, children, even babies in their mothers’ arms, their faces flickering in the pale light of the lanterns.

They are staring at the tip, as if waiting for a command of some kind.

At the back of the crowd I can see the doctor standing in silence. Beside him is the person I have not seen all night — Mr. Valentine Petheridge MP.

The hunters we have been following push their way through the waiting throng. One of them, a powerfully built man with a dark beard and angry eyes, turns to face the crowd.

“Is he in there, the brat?” he asks loudly.

“Rat, more like,” a woman shouts.

A man near the front of the crowd points at the tip. “There’s two of them in there,” he says. “Someone’s seen them — a boy and a girl. Living with the rats.”

“They are rats and all,” the bearded man says. “And we’ve seen what the rats can do in this town. Once they used to eat our food. Now they’re attacking us and eating us alive!”

“They drowned some of our dogs,” another hunter shouts. “They’re attacking from the trees, tearing people’s throats out.”

A woman screams. A small child standing nearby starts to cry.

“It’s them or us.” The bearded man clenches an angry fist as he speaks. “Plain and simple — them or us. And, if someone helps them, they should be treated like rats, too.”

All the while, I am looking for a way to reach Caz. The crowd is so thick that it surrounds the tip on every side. It is impossible to see how I can get through.

“We had ’em tonight,” the hunters’ leader is saying. “Thanks to the skill of the doctor and the bravery of our dogs, we trapped them in a boarded-up house. You know what happened?”

There is silence around the tip.

“A nasty little tyke from the streets let them escape.”

“We saw him!” the other hunter calls out.

“Mark this, my friends. If any of our children die, it will be those little devils in there”— he points to the tip — “who’s to blame.”

The crowd is shouting now. They are like dogs, baying for their prey.

I shout as loud as I can.

“It was me! It was me!”

No one so much as looks at me. My voice is lost in the uproar.

A chant starts up — “Rats! Rats! Rats! Rats!”— as the hunters move around the tip. One of them lights a flare.

I scream, but Bill holds me fast.

“Wait,” he said. “I’ll go. Where’s the entrance?”

But now flames are licking upward on the far side of the tip. Fanned by a gentle wind, the fire crackles into life. The chant is deafening now.

“Rats! Rats! Rats! Rats! Rats!”

Bill squeezes my shoulder. “Stay here, boy. I’ll get her.”

He pushes through the crowd, barging men and women aside, but when he reaches the front, he stops.

Something is emerging from the tip. At first it seems like a whiff of smoke caused by the fire. Then in the lights, it changes.

A small figure crawls on its hands and knees out of the tip. Once out, it slowly takes to its feet. Then stands motionless.

“Look!” someone shouts. “It’s a little girl.”

Caz stands there in her nightdress, looking around her in wonderment. The flames behind her are taking hold and must be hot on her back, but she ignores them.

She bends her right leg in the way I know so well, the toe barely touching the ground. She spreads her arms as if they are wings and she is about to take flight.

Then she begins to dance. She skips, turns, jumps, whirls in front of the blazing furnace, a restless shadow who seems as it moves to be part of the fire itself. The crowd is silent now, but Caz is singing as she dances. Men, women, children watch in astonishment. The only sounds in the lane are the crackling of burning wood, the roar of the flames, and, through it all, a small voice singing.

The fire makes quick work of our home, but for every moment that it burns, Caz dances and dances and dances.

Slowly, she moves toward us.

The fire is so dazzling behind her that she is but a darting shape until she reaches the crowd. Then she half turns, and at last the face of my Caz, smeared with soot and dirt, her eyes wide and sparkling with tears, can be seen. Those at the front move back from her, as if she is some kind of spirit.

She is smiling, but with a peculiar kind of rage that I have never seen in her, or anyone else, before or since. The crowd watches her, bewitched, as she dances, still singing a ghostly wordless melody all of her own. Then, as if noticing the fire for the first time, she stops dancing and singing and gazes at the flames as they begin to die down.

She turns, stares at the crowd, a sort of madness in her eyes. Then she reaches into her nightdress and takes something out.

She holds it close to her face for a moment. Then, in a sudden movement, she darts, arms outstretched, toward the crowd. There is a panicky retreat.

She offers what she is holding to the crowd.

There is a scream.