Under Fragile Stone (22 page)

‘Taya … outside,’ he managed as he panted for breath.

Men were already crowding out the door to investigate the throttled yelps outside. Lorkrin followed the crush out to find Rug still standing, holding the thrashing hunnud by the throat. The gangly figure seemed at a loss as to what to do with it. The Reisenicks from the storyhouse had no such problems and fell on it with their knives, pushing Rug aside in their haste to despatch the beast. They were a little too enthusiastic for Lorkrin’s tastes and once he’d seen that Taya was all right, he turned aside rather than watch. Draegar
ruffled
the boy’s hair and led him back inside.

‘Let them do what they will, lad,’ he said. ‘They’ve made this their business now. Come on, let’s get you fixed up.’

Taya checked Rug over for wounds as he got back on his feet.

‘It’s a good job you wear all those layers of clothes,’ she told him. ‘I don’t think it got you. Do you feel okay?’

‘Yes. It was quite exciting, actually. But I didn’t know what to do with it once I had hold of it.’

‘You were brilliant. Come on, we’d better go and check on that daft brother of mine.’

Lorkrin was having his wound washed and an ointment applied by the landlord’s wife. He flinched as she dabbed some of the stinging liniment to the bite. Draegar was
standing
nearby, talking with a small, grey-skinned,
greasy-looking
 
man in furs and rawhide. Despite his style of dress, however, it was clear he was not a Reisenick; he looked like a Gutsnape, from the Gluegrove Swamps.

‘… and that swamp-gas slurpin’ toad of a Reisenick,
Ludditch
, can sniff the steam off of my sweat if he thinks he can ruin a perfectly good evenin’ at my favourite tavern with his rot-ridden, mangy, nit-bitten hunnuds and get away with it!’ He punctuated his litany by accurately expelling some hajam-stained saliva into a nearby spittoon.

The woman treating Lorkrin smiled reassuringly at Draegar. ‘Don’t mind his foul mouth, sir,’ she said. ‘Ol’
Trankelfrith
is a sweetie, really. You have to mind he doesn’t overdo the hajam weed while he’s travellin’, but he’ll get you where you need to go.’

‘I’m headed back to the Gluegroves. Where you wanna go and how many of you are there?’ Trankelfrith asked Draegar.

‘There are four of us, two children, the thin man there and myself. We’re making for Old Man’s Cave, and we’re trying to catch up with two trucks headed in the same direction. We’d like to avoid any contact with Ludditch’s people if it could be helped.’

‘I wouldn’t mind some contact with that fart-mouthed, frog-faced, fly-swallowin’ crab, myself, but if you don’t, I can take my sweet time getting round to it,’ Trankelfrith retorted. ‘Be ready to travel at daybreak.’

Harsq woke from a nightmare in a cold sweat and sat up, swinging his legs off the bed. The taste of metal in his mouth was strong enough to make him grimace. His hands were trembling and he clasped them together to still them. He 
knew the earthquake was coming before he felt it. The bed began to shake and the wooden frame of the building creaked and groaned. The tremor steadily increased in strength and Harsq threw open the door of his room and ran outside in a panic. It was not enough that Absaleth’s spirit was pulling apart the fabric of the land to reach him. When the Reisenicks realised what he had brought down upon them, their vengeance would be vicious and terrible – vengeance he had already tasted in his tortured dreams.

His disciples stumbled out of the building after him, shouting and crying, looking for somewhere safe to stand and not finding anywhere. He watched them from his hands and knees, feeling sick to the stomach with the motion of the ground. Behind him, he heard the cracking of wood and the building that housed the mechanic’s workshop buckled and folded in on itself. People screamed from inside.

‘They’re all out to kill me,’ he sobbed. ‘Dear Brask in the esh, what have I done to deserve this? What did I do wrong?’

Another building collapsed, and then another. People ran out onto the street and animals cried out in terror. Fires broke out as lamps fell and smashed. Men and women rushed to grab buckets of water, but no one could do
anything
while the tremors continued to rock the town. Harsq laid his head on his forearms and cried.

When their world stopped trembling, the people of the clans tackled the fires. Harsq’s followers joined in, doing what they could to help.

Ludditch appeared not long after, just as the first rays of dawn were brightening the sky. He found Harsq in the cab of the generator truck, clutching his empty gas canister and 
staring into space. The priest jumped when the chieftain opened the door.

‘This is it,’ the chieftain declared to him, ‘I can feel it. It’s comin’ … it’s almost here. We just need to do this one last thing, find that damned heart and finish it like you said and we’re done. The ground’s just tryin’ to pull free, that’s all this is. And we’re goin’ to cut its chains. You with me, priest?’

‘Brask be praised,’ Harsq coughed. ‘Let His will be done.’

‘
That’s
the spirit, boy. Now, when they first showed up, Emos and his cronies said they were headed for Old Man’s Cave. Could be that was just to put us off, but I reckon their story was straight. So, we’re going to head that way. My boys have been staking out all the main trails up to the north and we got some on their way up to wait at the cave itself. You see, those caves are the only way into the mountain itself. Used to be an old hermit who lived up there who knew every inch of the place – straggly old bird who figured
hisself
as some great alchemist, and he told me all about that mountain, though not without some persuasion! And I know that there’s one tunnel that leads right into the heart of Absaleth itself. Now, where do you think they’d be takin’ Orgarth, if they wanted to get him back in his boots?’

‘Mr Ludditch, I still believe you’re wrong about this,’ Harsq protested. ‘The god-heart is back at the
mines
…’

‘Aw, now, don’t you worry about runnin’ Orgarth down, Kalayal, that’s our job. You just have to help us catch hold o’ him and bundle him out o’ here. Now, get your people in order and be ready to roll. We’re goin’ huntin’.’

The chieftain strode away, bellowing instructions to his clansmen. Harsq put his head in his hands. Ludditch was out of control. He was insane. The exorcist sniffed and wiped 
his running nose. The land was coming apart. He had to flee Ainslidge before the Reisenicks realised what he had done to them. There would be no escape when Ludditch discovered the truth. Harsq looked sourly out through the windscreen at the ruined street, seeing only the mud road and the hungry soil he knew lay beneath. A sickened resolve settled in his heart. He had always been a faithful instrument of his god. If it was Brask’s will that he should die, then so be it. Praise be to Brask.

Lorkrin awoke groggily. Somebody was shaking his arm and the movement shot a dart of pain through his injured
shoulder
. He opened his eyes to see Taya looking down at him. He was lying in a bunk in a small, room, the only light coming from the grey dawn glow through a small, latticed window.

‘Up you get – it’s time to go,’ she said, in that annoyingly bright tone their mother used in the mornings. ‘How’s that shoulder?’

‘Sore,’ he mumbled, wishing he could sleep longer.

‘That was some quake last night. I nearly fell out of the bunk.’

‘There was an earthquake?’ Lorkrin gaped. ‘Did I miss
anything
good?’

‘Nothing broke, if that’s what you mean.’

He sat up and groaned; it felt as if he had only just laid himself down. He saw that Rug was already standing by the door, waiting patiently for him and his sister. With a last regretful look at his bed, Lorkrin quietly followed his sister out and closed the door behind him. 

The air was cold and damp, the morning still dark as the sun had risen high enough to light the sky, but had not yet reached down into the glade. Still feeling sleepy and
hunching
their shoulders against the cold, the Myunans followed Rug around the storyhouse to the stables. Trankelfrith, the Gutsnape from the Gluegroves, was there with Draegar, helping the Parsinor draw up a map of Ainslidge.

‘Morning!’ Draegar greeted them, as if he had enjoyed a long, deep sleep, rather than a night of drinking and telling tales. ‘How’s that wound, lad?’

‘’S okay,’ Lorkrin yawned, stretching to try and loosen up his stiff body and wincing slightly as it caused a twinge in his shoulder. ‘So are we taking horses, or what?’

‘Not quite,’ Draegar winked at them. ‘You’re in for a bit of a treat.’

‘Ah, young ’uns.’ Trankelfrith grinned at them, revealing teeth stained green by hajam weed. He pinched their cheeks and they winced as he shook the pinched flesh in some kind of show of friendliness. ‘Why don’t you two help me saddle up my little beauties here? But mind their mouths, they’ll give yah a nasty bruise if they get a hold o’ your flesh.’

‘And not just
them
, either,’ Taya muttered, rubbing her cheek as he turned away.

The two Myunans came forward, faces lifting in curiosity as the Gutsnape unlatched the door of the stable and stepped inside. There came the sound of mewing, as if from a pair of huge kittens. Trankelfrith made some comforting noises, and there was the rattle of a bridle being strapped on and buckled up. Then he led the first animal out.

The head was at about chest height, but was the size of a large hog’s. It had a triangular mouth set in a flat face, with 
three jaws lined with blunt, flat teeth. Its two shiny, black eyes were huge, set in raised sockets that moved
independently
of each other, so the animal could look two different ways at once. Along each of its sides, two sets of spines were folded in close to its body. Its green skin was dry and knobbly with turquoise blotches that suggested the dappled
shadows
of foliage.

‘A gruncheg.’ Taya smiled, approaching it carefully and running her hand through the coarse hair on the back of its neck.

Trankelfrith led the animal forwards and seeing it come out of the stall was not unlike watching a magic trick. The stall could only have been seven or eight paces deep, but the gruncheg just kept coming, walking on row after row of stumpy legs, its body revealing itself to be at least
twenty-five
paces long. The creature had been coiled up inside the stall like a snake. With its rotund, green body and rows of legs, it resembled a giant caterpillar, but it moved more like a centipede. When Trankelfrith had led the first one out,
Draegar
took the reins and the Gutsnape went inside for the second. Lorkrin and Taya fussed over the creature,
scratching
the top if its head and stroking its neck. It mewed
sleepily
and pushed its head up against their hands.

‘This is going to be a laugh,’ Lorkrin said, grinning from ear to ear.

‘I don’t understand,’ Rug muttered. ‘How are we going to catch up with engined wagons on these creatures? They don’t look very fast to me.’

Trankelfrith, who was affectionately plucking lice from the skin of the second one, looked over at Rug and cackled hoarsely. He licked his fingers and wiped them on his jerkin. 
Then he lifted the first of five saddles from inside the stall and hauled it onto the gruncheg’s back. The saddle had sturdy leather straps for stopping the rider from falling off.

‘They can trot along fast enough,’ he said, and gave another short cackle.

The animals were loaded with saddlebags filled with Trankelfrith’s wares and then the riders climbed on and Trankelfrith strapped them in. Draegar and the two children were mounted on one and Rug climbed on behind
Trankelfrith’s
saddle. Before the Gutsnape got on himself, Draegar had a quiet word with Rug about their new companion.

‘You probably don’t remember anything about hajam weed,’ he muttered, ‘but it’s best that you know. Those that eat the weed experience the world as a brighter, sharper, more exciting place, but it has some nasty downsides. They can become a little too fearless and take unnecessary risks and there are times when they become so absorbed in what they are experiencing that they can forget important little things. Like breathing, for instance. If you see him starting to turn blue, just give him a shout and remind him to breathe. Apart from that, you should be just fine. Enjoy the ride.’

‘That’s not going to be very likely now,’ Rug said anxiously.

Trankelfrith climbed on, pulling a fur cap with leather
ear-flaps
onto his head, turned back to wink at his passenger and then flicked his reins.

‘On, Plessebel, ya ol’ hag, there!’ he called to his mount. ‘Hup, girl!’

Plessebel moved with a smooth, winding motion, crossing the yard to the wall of cobrush trees that lined the hillside. Rug wondered how they were going to penetrate the 
tangled mass. But as they reached the tree-line, the gruncheg suddenly lifted the front half of her body and Rug found himself being hoisted up into the air. The creature’s front legs found a gap high up in the mesh of branches and caught hold with the claw-like toes on the ends of her feet. Then Rug was tipped back, held in only by his straps, as the gruncheg pulled the front half of her body up into this gap and lifted the back half up off the ground. Through the gap was what appeared to be a path beaten through the tangle, the branches so interwoven that they created a rigid track which the gruncheg now followed upwards. Rug tipped himself forwards as the animal levelled out and grabbed the pommel of the saddle when Plessebel suddenly lurched
forward
, quickly picking up speed.

They came out on the roof of the forest and all around them Rug could see signs of more of these tracks, spreading in a network across the top of the forest. The spines along Plessebel’s sides extended and Rug was startled to see flaps of skin unfolding between them. These sheets of skin were held aloft and angled to catch the wind. The word escaped him at first, and then he remembered. Sails. The grunchegs had sails.