by Philip Reeve
Then, when she was nearly eight, a dreadful thing had happened. Goblin raiders had come racketing down from Clovenstone, burning the farms and manors inland, marching on the town itself. The people of Porthstrewy had crowded inside the castle while Eluned’s father led his best men out to meet the goblins. A desperate battle raged across the cliff tops, but the goblin band was not as large as had been feared, and soon they were all lying dead in the gorse. All except one. One little cringing goblin, who snivelled and whimpered and begged for the warriors to spare him. He was covered in blood from half a dozen wounds, and Eluned’s father, who was a kindly man, found that he didn’t have the heart to kill him. (Sometimes, in her worst dreams, Eluned could still hear the goblin’s plaintive, wheedling voice: “Spare me! Spare me!”) Her father had brought him inside the castle. He had said, “We’ll patch him up and send him home to Clovenstone to tell his friends of the welcome they had from the men of Porthstrewy.”
But the goblin’s friends were not at Clovenstone. That was why the raiding party had seemed so small. Most of them were waiting, hidden, among the rocks on the cliff top. As soon as the snivelling one was inside and left alone, he stopped snivelling and opened the castle gates, and let the rest of his band come charging inside.
In the fight that followed, both Eluned’s father and her mother died, and she found herself shipped south, to the court of her uncle in Lusuenn, where most people were far too civilized and educated to even believe in goblins, let alone sea serpents and mermaids. When she told them how her parents had been killed they shook their heads and said, “Poor child! She is a little touched. It was brigands, not goblins, who attacked Porthstrewy.” The girls of the court made fun of her north country accent and called her “Princess Sneeze of Sneeze Harbour”. And when she turned sixteen her uncle announced that he was marrying her to the king of Choon.
So she had been in a foul mood on the day when he made her go aboard his ship, and when she dried her eyes and looked out through the windows of the stern cabin to see that huge grey figure climbing down the cliffs of Choon Head and sloshing towards her through the waves she did not think, “Oh no, a giant!” so much as, “Oh good, this will upset the wedding plans. . .”
How the sailors and the servants and the maids of honour howled when Fraddon plucked the ship out of the water in his huge hands! Some wailed for help, some jumped overboard, and some let off crossbows and catapults, whose shots, if they hit the giant at all, were no more than gnats’ stings to him.
The king shrieked and tried to hide under the cabin table, but it kept sliding away from him as the giant tilted the ship this way and that to admire its pretty paintwork. “We’ll be eaten alive!” he whimpered, bum in the air, spurs jingling as he quivered with terror. But Eluned, peering out of the cabin at the huge face peering in at her, could see at once that there was no harm in this giant. She had read about giants, and she knew that they are creatures of the woods and the high hills and that while they drink great quantities of water they do not really eat very much at all, and certainly not human beings.
So she opened the window and called out to him. “I am a princess,” she told him, “and the holds of this boat are full of treasure. Just set down all the mariners and passengers safe ashore, dear giant, and it is yours. But not me. You must take me with you. All the best giants have a royal prisoner.”
And that was what he had done. Eluned’s uncle and his people were set down in a frightened huddle on the tip of Choon Head, and Eluned had Fraddon scoop up the silly ones who’d thrown themselves into the sea and set them safely ashore too. Then he tucked the ship under his arm and went striding back to Clovenstone, and there she had stayed with him ever since. He was a very peaceable giant, who spent much of his time just daydreaming, standing like a tree in the woods or like an old stone up on Oeth Moor. Eluned helped him to make some clothes to replace the rags and uncured skins he was wearing when they met, and in return he cleared a garden for her, and brought fruit trees uprooted from the orchards of the south to plant in it, and whole cupboards full of books from the libraries of lazy kings who had never bothered reading them. Her ship, set squarely on the topmost tower of Westerly Gate, was a perfect place to read and think, and although she was a little scared at first to know that there were goblins close, and even heard them sometimes, caterwauling inside the Inner Wall, she quickly learned that they did not stray far outside it, and that they were far too scared of Fraddon to come anywhere near Westerly Gate.
She missed people a little at first, but she soon learned to do without them; if she wanted conversation she could always seek out some of the other strange creatures who made their homes in Clovenstone. It was far more interesting than being queen of Choon.
For a while there had been the annoyance of heroes coming to try and rescue her. Quite a few had ridden up the shattered road to Westerly Gate, tooting their war horns and waving swords about. Most had wisely turned and fled as soon as they saw Fraddon; a few had insisted on fighting, and he had been forced to sit on them. Eluned had strung their shields and weapons from the trees outside the gate as a warning to the others. But the shields were rotted now; the weapons rusty; nobody had tried to rescue her for ages.
That was the other thing about the song Henwyn had heard. It was a great deal older than he had thought. That bright day when Fraddon plucked Princess Eluned’s ship out of the waves and brought her to live at Clovenstone had been nearly thirty years ago.
She could see the shock of it in the young man’s face as soon as Fraddon set him down on the grass beside her pond. The poor lad had expected to find a beautiful young princess, not a lady of forty-something, with laughter lines around her eyes and her hair more grey than not. He would not want to win her hand in marriage! But, to his credit, he did his best to hide it, and he bowed and said, “Princess Eluned, I am Henwyn of Adherak, and I came here to rescue you.”
Eluned laughed and said, “But I don’t want to be rescued!” And then, because he looked so very disappointed, she added kindly, “But thank you anyway. And you may call me Ned.”
As soon as the Sable Conclave left Southerly Gate and began their journey to the Inner Wall, Skarper started looking for a way to escape. He was sure there would be some gap among the ruins which he could slip away down, and plenty of nice dark holes where he could hide. Unfortunately they had not gone ten yards before Carnglaze called a halt, pulled a length of rope from his pack, and used it to make a halter for him.
“Oi!” Skarper protested, struggling as the sorcerer drew the rope tight around his neck.
“Come, Brother Carnglaze,” grumbled Fentongoose, “that seems hardly friendly!”
“You may trust him, Fentongoose, but I do not,” replied Carnglaze. “I have read much about goblinkind, and all of it was bad. This one has a shifty look. We do not want him to abandon us somewhere in this maze of ruins, do we? We can let him go once we reach the Inner Wall.”
“Very well,” agreed Fentongoose reluctantly, and they went on their way with Skarper trotting ahead of them like a dog on a leash.
“This way,” said Carnglaze, “if your goblin friends attack, you’ll be the first to feel the bite of their blades.”
He seemed to think that Skarper might not already have thought of that.
They went past ruins full of lovely shadows, but there was no way now that Skarper could slip away. He began hopefully scanning the sky, for even another attack by cloud maidens would have been a welcome diversion; but the air above the ruined roofs was clear, and all the clouds were far away, clustered about the snowy summits of the Bonehills. Soon the trees closed over the road and it began its long descent towards the Oeth.
The three self-styled sorcerers looked about them warily. It was one thing to dream of reclaiming the Lych Lord’s kingdom; one thing to read about it in secret books and scraps of age-old documents; it was quite another to actually be here.
Down se
cret centuries in the lands of men the Sable Conclave had kept the stories of Clovenstone alive. A time will come when magic returns to the world, each generation of the Conclave’s elders told the next. We shall return to Clovenstone; one of our number shall sit upon the Stone Throne, and the power that was the Lych Lord’s shall be ours.
But they couldn’t live only for that far-off day. While they were waiting they had to have jobs, and families, and homes to live in. So, although they claimed to be dark sorcerers and the servants of the Lych Lord, the dark sorcery thing was really more like a hobby for most of them. They would creep off to their secret meetings to practise magic (which never worked) and pore over old books of spells (which they only pretended to understand) while their wives sighed wearily, told them not to stay out too late, and reminded them about the shelves they’d promised to put up in the pantry. Over the years the darkness had been bred out of them. Few people in the lands of man believed in magic any more. Lately a philosopher named Quesney Prong had proved that there was no such thing, in a series of popular lectures called Why Magick Doth Not Exist. Many former members of the Conclave had been convinced by this intelligent Prong, and had drifted away to take up other hobbies, such as basket-weaving, or re-enacting the Battle of Dor Koth with little model soldiers. Now only three were left.
In their pleasant little homes in Coriander, Fentongoose, Carnglaze, and Prawl had felt very daring and dangerous when they greeted each other in the Lych Lord’s name and lit black candles before the image of his winged head. Here, among the gaunt ruins of his kingdom, they were starting to feel distinctly nervous.
“It is a solemn thought indeed that after so many lifetimes of waiting it should fall to us to come here,” Fentongoose said, as they went deeper and deeper into the woods. Although he was trying to sound brave he could not stop his voice from trembling a little.
“When the Lych Lord’s power is ours and we have great goblin armies and things at our disposal,” Prawl grumbled, “the first person I shall wreak my terrible revenge on is the cobbler who sold me these boots. They pinch like anything.”
Carnglaze said nothing. In his youth he had been a soldier for a few months in the service of the king of Zandegar, and he felt that made him responsible for the safety of the expedition. Certainly he could not rely on Fentongoose and Prawl to look after themselves; they were clever men, and very learned, but in his opinion they should not be allowed out alone. So he kept one hand on the hilt of his old army-issue sword, and when they reached the bridge over the Oeth he stopped, and jerked on Skarper’s rope so that Skarper stopped too.
“What’s wrong?” asked Fentongoose.
Carnglaze nodded towards the bridge and its tumbled parapet. “That damage is recent. See how no moss or ivy has overgrown it?” He gave Skarper’s halter another yank. “What happened here, goblin?”
“I dunno, do I?” Skarper protested. “Nothin’. Bridges fall down, don’t they? Specially in Clovenstone.”
“That sounds quite reasonable,” admitted Fentongoose. “Everything else here is in ruins, Carnglaze. Why should this bridge be any different?”
“Very well,” said Carnglaze grumpily. “But you go first, goblin.”
This was exactly what Skarper had been hoping for, for as they descended into the valley a plan had come to him. It wasn’t a very good plan, but it was the best he had, and it involved leading the softlings on to this bridge and escaping when the troll emerged to eat them. Of course, there were many things that might go wrong, of which the most likely was that the falling stones of earlier might have killed the troll, or at least hurt it so badly that it had slunk back down into its hole beneath the water to lick its wounds. Still, it was better than no plan at all. Skarper went cautiously out on to the bridge and stopped in the middle.
“What’s wrong?” called Fentongoose again, stepping quickly behind Carnglaze and Prawl in case danger threatened.
“I’m just being careful,” retorted Skarper. “Bridges is trollish sort of places. Sort of place you might find a TROLL,” he added hopefully, and the word echoed from one bank of the Oeth to the other and then back again, but nothing stirred in the dark pool beneath the bridge: nothing rose from the water to attack his captors. He sighed, and hung his head, and plodded on. The others followed him, and he led them up the stairs on the northern bank. Obviously the poor old troll was dead, he thought, and for a moment he felt almost as sorry for it as he did for himself.
They walked on, the road climbing steeply. The ruins and the woods were quiet; there were none of the furtive rustlings and scuttlings that Skarper had noticed on his way south. Perhaps the things that lived among the trees had been frightened away by the coming of these big, loud human beings, he thought. But he knew that the goblins in the old towers would not be scared of them. The Inner Wall reared above the old buildings ahead like a petrified wave. Hundreds of twisty thorn trees grew from the crevices of the stonework, and the afternoon sun spread their shadows across the wall’s face like nets. From the nearest of the towers – Blackspike and Slatetop – Skarper knew that goblin eyes might already have glimpsed the travellers making their way through the ruins. Behind them, huge and terrible, the Keep thrust its pronged head into the heights of the sky.
Up and up they climbed, scrunching over the mounds of roof slates that had avalanched across the road. At last a great gateway came in sight, a high black archway opening like a mouth in the base of the wall. A portcullis of rusted iron spikes grinned at them from its shadows.
“You won’t get in that way,” Skarper said, keeping his voice to a whisper for fear that sharp goblin ears might hear. “Them iron gates is rusted shut, and there’s all sorts of rubble blockin’ up the passage through the wall behind.”
“How do you goblins come and go then?” Fentongoose wondered.
“There are secret little ways,” said Skarper. “I don’t know them, though. I never been outside the wall before today, and I came over the top, not under.”
Prawl looked up and whistled. “You climbed all that way?”
“Not climbed, not exactly. . .”
Carnglaze looked left and right along the foot of the wall. “If the gate is really blocked then we must scout about and find one of these goblin ways. . .”
But Fentongoose had grown impatient. “Why should we sneak into our domain like thieves?” he demanded, stamping his foot. “We are the Sable Conclave! Goblins are feckless, feeble-minded creatures. They have been leaderless since the Lych Lord fell. They will be glad to know that we have come to rule and guide them. I shall announce our arrival.”
“No! Don’t do that!” Skarper started to say. But the sorcerer had already scampered back a few paces and scrambled up on to the plinth of a toppled statue, from where he felt sure he could be seen by anyone looking from the towers and battlements above.
“Goblins of Clovenstone!” he shouted, his thin, reedy voice echoing back at him off the wall. “The time of waiting is at an end! The old powers of the world are stirring again, and the sorcerers of the Sable Conclave command them! Look, one of your own kind, bold Skarper, has come with us to prove that we are your friends. . .”
No reply came down to him from the watchful window-slits of Blackspike or the silent battlements of the Inner Wall. He rummaged under his collar and pulled out the amulet which he had shown to Skarper earlier. “Behold! The Lych Lord’s token! We are his heirs, and the inheritors of the magic that was once his! Why, only the other day we used our powers to brew a potion which summoned up a dreadful creature of the underworld, in the form of some cheese. . .”
He faltered; somehow that hadn’t sounded as impressive as he’d meant it to. He wished he hadn’t mentioned the cheese.
“Imagine what wonders we will be able to work once the Keep is open to us and I sit upon the Stone Throne!” he continued. “So open your gates to us in friendship! We are the new lords of Clovenstone!”
The echoes faded, and only the wind stirred, blowing dead leaves along the wall’s foot. Then, from high in the Blackspike, a dreadful, shrill, metallic honking sound began, and from Slatetop Tower there came an answering tinny bray.
“What’s that?” gasped Prawl, clapping his hands over his ears.
“Goblin horns,” said Carnglaze.
“They are welcoming us!” Fentongoose said eagerly.
Skarper shook his head, but it didn’t really show, because every other part of him was shaking too. “That’s war horns!” he said, and would have run, except that Carnglaze still held his halter, and Carnglaze seemed to have been frozen solid by the trumpet blasts. “War horns is the only sort of horns goblins have!”
He knew too well what would be happening, hundreds of feet above. High in Blackspike Tower the goblin lookouts would be running to warn King Knobbler about the softlings. High in neighbouring Slatetop Tower, Mad Manaccan’s lookouts would be telling him the same news. The sounds of the horns would alert the goblins of other towers too, but Skarper was not too worried about them, because by the time they arrived the massacre would be over. Blackspike and Slatetop would be buzzing like beehives by now, as Knobbler and the others snatched up whatever weapons came to hand and hurled themselves down the stairways, trampling smaller goblins underfoot in their eagerness to reach the intruders.
“We must run away!” quavered Prawl, which Skarper thought was the first sensible thing he’d said since they’d met.
“No, no,” said Fentongoose. “A simple misunderstanding; I’m sure it can be ironed out. . .”