There … at the edge of his mind … was that something? A hint, a taste: purple and spiky, the smell of musty libraries and ancient dust.
Necripha, he realised. Still frothing with anger at his escape.
The two trapped spirits would be fainter than that, he knew. Stuck behind the crystal walls of their prisons, battering against them like moths around a lantern.
He breathed slower, went deeper, searching and searching until …
There! Twin flickers of red and yellow. A kind of humming vibration that he recognised. It was Valkus and Gaunch. They were nearby and muffled by their crystals, but without the bonding power of Iffrit around them they were becoming bolder, stronger.
I have to be quick, Uki told himself. Before they escape again. Then his quest really would be over.
He hopped up and began to follow the trace of the crystals like a wolf after its supper. Keeping low to the ground, squinting through the murky darkness, he made his way to one of the huts. A timber-framed thing with walls of packed mud and a roof of straw, it was half hidden by a bank of nettles and ivy. There were no windows, but it did have a wooden door, loosely fitted on hinges made of rope.
Uki pressed a paw to it, then an ear. The sense of the spirits was a fraction stronger here – they were definitely inside – and better still, the hut seemed silent. No voices or movement.
It sounds empty, he thought, as he put a shoulder to the wood and gently pushed, hoping he wasn’t about to stumble into a den of slumbering Maggitch warriors.
No soldiers, thank the Goddess.
An empty hut, with two glass lanterns hanging from the rafters. In the centre, three squat wooden barrels, with piles of smaller kegs stacked up around the walls.
As Uki carefully shut the door behind him, he could hear a rustling, slithering sound. Or rather thousands of sounds, as they overlapped and ran into each other. Like a hundred straw nests of wiggling mice or …
Maggots! All three barrels were filled almost to the brim with seething, twitching bodies. Countless pale, fleshy grubs wriggling over one another and a sickly sweet stench of something they were eating. Long-dead meat or spoiled food. It made Uki want to retch.
This must be the next batch of flies, Uki realised. Among the white bodies he could see many had already begun to cocoon themselves in hard brown casing. The armoured, six-legged shells of dragonfly nymphs crawled, looking for a spot to climb out and hatch. A few more days and they would emerge as a cloud of deadly flying insects, ready to deliver Charice’s plague on another unsuspecting town or warren.
Uki edged past, deciding to burn the barrels on his way out. If he ever managed to escape, that is.
There was a doorway on the opposite side of the hut, covered by a piece of dirty sacking. He lifted it aside a fraction and peered through.
A tunnel lay beyond, sloping at a steep angle under the earth, into the mound. The crystals were down there somewhere, and so was Charice. Uki put a paw to his head. There could be endless loops of tunnels inside the hill. What if he ran into Charice before he had his harness? Without a spear, he couldn’t even scratch her.
Standing here won’t harm her either, said his dark voice. Stop being a coward and get on with it.
But I am a coward, Uki thought. Facing another spirit terrifies me. I don’t think I could do it on my own, even if I did have my crystals.
Still, he managed to put a paw inside the tunnel, then another. With gritted teeth, he headed down inside the mound.
It was the first time he’d been inside a proper burrow, but his mother had been a warren-dwelling rabbit, and living under the ground was in his bones. He found the solid, packed earth around him comforting. The dangling roots, the peaty, crumbly smell. The tracks of earthworms in the walls.
Oil lamps were burning in alcoves down the tunnel. A warm orange light that might have been cosy, if Uki hadn’t been expecting an armed Maggitch to jump out at any moment. After a steep climb down, the tunnel levelled out and then came to a T-junction, where he could turn left or right.
Uki stopped, crouching low, and edged his muddy head around the corner, pleased to see his coated fur was exactly the same colour as the earthen walls.
Nothing to the left, but a few metres down on the right was a rabbit. He was standing still, guarding the entrance to a chamber.
That means something important is inside, Uki thought. He could sense the faint tendrils of energy he had been following. Could it be the crystals?
Uki took a good look at the guard. He was tall but hunched, his head covered in a hooded snakeskin cloak. Beneath it, Uki glimpsed patches of swollen flesh. Angry clusters of red boils hung down from the guard’s chin, and his eyes were puffed up into narrow slits. Crusted ooze dribbled like melted candlewax from his nose and mouth, and Uki could hear a wet, wheezing sound as he breathed.
He’s in the grip of Charice’s plague, Uki thought. But does that mean he’ll be weak enough for me to beat?
He remembered the rabbits who had attacked the Gurdle village. There was nothing weak or vulnerable about them. No, charging down the tunnel and attacking the guard was a stupid idea. He needed some kind of distraction to get him away from the door.
That was when he thought of the maggot barrels.
Two turnips on one stalk, Uki thought. He was back in the hut, listening to the quiet, squirmy rustling of the maggots. His eyes roamed around the other barrels in the room. Smaller kegs, stacked everywhere, marked up in Hulst runes and other forms of writing he’d never seen before.
Smugglers’ booty. Wine and rum, probably, but there had to be other goodies too. Uki had noticed all the lamps everywhere. They needed oil to burn – nut oil, seed oil; his mother had even told him of ships that sailed out into the icy waters to hunt giant sea beasts and make oil from their fat.
He spotted a keg with a squiggle painted on that looked something like a flame. Lifting it down, he pulled out the cork bung and sniffed: a strong, fishy odour that burned his eyes. When he shook the keg, he could hear the liquid sloshing inside. A thick, gloopy sound. It was definitely oil.
Uki heaved the keg on to his shoulder and began to pour the oil into one of the barrels. It sloshed all over the teeming grubs, sinking down into the depths, covering them with its shiny slickness. They seemed to sense that something was wrong and began to wriggle even faster. Uki was worried that some of the chrysalises might pop, although they would probably be too thickly coated in oil to fly.
He threw the empty keg aside and cracked open another. Into the barrels it went; a soupy, fishy, maggoty mess. When he was sure that every last plague-bearing grub had been covered, he went back to the booty around the walls and made a gap to hide in, as close to the tunnel entrance as possible. Then he took one of the lanterns down from above.
‘Here goes,’ he said to himself. He dropped the flaming lamp into one of the barrels and jumped back.
He had half expected the barrel to explode, but instead a large, steady flame appeared, quickly growing to fill the barrel top. It flickered up to the rafters, flooding the hut with blazing light. Uki had created a giant lamp, with whale-oil fuel and maggots for the wick. They began to sizzle and pop, giving off a rancid, burnt stink.
There weren’t the clouds of smoke he’d been hoping for, but the blaze and the smell might be enough to attract attention. Uki tore the sacking from the tunnel doorway, held it to the burning barrel and then used it to light the other two. When all three were blazing merrily, he ran to his cubbyhole and hid.
The stench of crisping maggots filled his lungs and made his eyes sting. He wrapped his damp, muddy cloak over his mouth, trying to breathe as little as possible.
It wasn’t long before the guard in the tunnel noticed it too. Uki heard his footsteps approaching. He was making gargling, grunting noises as he tried to sound the alarm through his swollen, blistered throat.
Eyes watering, Uki waited until the guard blundered into the hut. As he’d hoped, the Maggitch rabbit ran straight to the
barrels, panicking about his precious creatures being turned into a barbecue.
Seizing his chance, Uki slipped out of his hiding place and ran down the tunnel to the now unguarded chamber. It had a flimsy wooden door made out of planks of worm-eaten wood, which swung open when Uki pushed it. He entered a dark chamber.
Dark, except for two spots of coloured light that glowed on a table in the centre. Red and yellow – the crystals that held Gaunch and Valkus.
Uki ran to grab them, finding them still slotted into his harness. His three remaining spears were on the table too, crusted in dried mud but unbroken.
Fingers trembling, he pulled off his muddy, sodden cloak. It was torn to shreds, he saw, past saving. With a twinge of regret, he dropped it to the ground and pulled the harness over his head, feeling the leather straps fall into their usual places, filling the gaps that had felt so empty.
As soon as the crystals were back on his chest, he felt Iffrit’s energy ripple through him again, covering the trapped spirits in their prisons, knitting their bindings tight. All his strength came bubbling back. His muscles felt like they might pop, his legs were like springs of Eisenfell steel, his senses sharp as Jori’s swishing sword.
He’d become so used to these feelings, it wasn’t until he’d lost them that he remembered how strong the crystals had made him. Why hadn’t he been more confident? Why hadn’t he charged at Charice when he’d had the chance?
But he had the chance now.
He snatched up his spears, slotting two into his harness, holding the third ready in his paws. Marching back to the door, he pulled it open and stepped out into the corridor … only to be met by a terrifying sight that made his new confidence evaporate like marsh mist.
Charging along the tunnel from deep in Gollop’s Mound was a horde of angry rabbits.
Except they didn’t really look much like rabbits any more. Riddled with disease, like the guard had been, their faces were hidden beneath swellings and streams of gunk. They filled the whole tunnel as they scrabbled their way up, their ruined paws leaving streaks of poisoned blood on the earthen walls. Only the odd scrap of snakeskin clothing showed they had once been Maggitches.
Uki stared, frozen. He hadn’t imagined there would be so many. There was no way he could fight them all, not even with his renewed strength. He would end up stripped of his harness again, and thrown back in the pit with Balto and Necripha.
But there was a chance to escape. If he could get to the tunnel junction before them, he could run up and out through the hut. He could get back to the Gurdle village and bring them here … with their help he might be able to hold off the Maggitches long enough to find Charice. And if he was quick about it, there might not be any bloodshed.
The thought of seeing his friends again gave him the push he needed. He put his head down and sprinted at the oncoming creatures, flying down the tunnel like an arrow from a bow.
Closer, closer he came to the horde … close enough to smell the stink of disease pouring off them. Close enough for the rabbits at the front to spot him through their swollen eyelids.
‘Intruder! Intruder!’ came their garbled shouts, and they reached out for him with their bloated paws. But at the last second, when he was just about to crash into their grasp, he swerved left and pelted up the tunnel. He had reached the turning with half a whisker to spare.
Uki wasn’t safe yet, though. He could hear the screams from the crowd behind him as they turned the corner themselves and started following him up the slope. It was only their numbers that slowed them down, crammed in the tunnel like ripe blueberries in a wine press.
And there were more up ahead.
As Uki cleared the tunnel and burst into the hut, he could see the guard had got help. There were at least five Maggitches, all standing around the burning barrels, flapping at them with blankets and their snakeskin cloaks. Smoke was everywhere now, and the choking stink of burnt wood, fish oil and cooked maggot. The scene was so chaotic that Uki was able to blunder through them all before they even knew he was there.
He barged the Maggitches out of his path, sending them flying into each other and the smouldering tubs of dead maggots. They tumbled about the room, knocking kegs over, smashing the barrels and sending sprays of charred filth everywhere. Through it all shot Uki, straight out of the hut door and into the blissful fresh night air.
Still, he wasn’t safe. The alarm had been raised and more Maggitches were outside, these ones ready with spears and bows, suspecting their camp was under attack. They turned at the sound of the hut door crashing open and had a brief glimpse of Uki, framed in the lamplight, before he was amongst them, ducking and weaving as he sprinted out of the camp.
One or two got off a shot and Uki heard the whistle of arrows zipping past his head. But his coating of mud made him hard to spot, and he was soon out of the cluster of huts, in between the straggly clumps of nettles and brambles.
The ground sloped steeply downwards towards the marsh and was dotted with holes, roots and trailing vines. Still running at speed, Uki stumbled once, twice and then found himself tumbling, ears over tail, bouncing down the side of the mound like a child’s ball.
Crump, crump, crump! His body was jarred as he spilled over and over, finally crashing to a stop in a cluster of hawthorn bushes. Somehow, his spear was still clutched in his paw, although his head was spinning too much to use it.
He was trying to untangle himself when he felt the front of his harness being grabbed. A strong paw had hold of him, yanking him upwards to where a single fierce eye gleamed out of a scarred pink face.
‘Got one!’ he heard his captor shout and, from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a large metal hammer beginning its swing downwards through the air, towards his head.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Beneath Gollop’s Mound
‘Coal! NO!’ Uki shouted, raising a paw, trying to block the hammer speeding at him. ‘It’s me! It’s Uki!’
There was a flicker in Coal’s gaze, a tremor in his arm. He swerved the blow at the last second and it whistled past Uki’s face, making his whiskers tremble.
The strong fist gripping Uki’s jerkin tightened and he was lifted higher in the air as Coal stared him up and down. Uki knew he wouldn’t be recognised straight away. His distinctive patchwork fur was hidden under claggy half-dried mud. He could quite easily have knocked Coal’s hand away, but he didn’t want to hurt his friend with his newly returned strength. Instead, he waved a paw.
‘The harness …’ he said, pointing at the buckle on his chest. ‘The crystals.’
Coal’s eye instantly widened, and he dropped Uki like a hot potato.
‘Bless my whiskers! I nearly knocked a hole in your head! I’m so sorry!’
‘That’s … all right …’ Uki said, catching his breath. The flight from the tunnel, the hut, the fall … it had all happened in the space of a minute. He was only just beginning to recover when two other furry bodies jumped on top of him, spilling him to the ground.
‘Uki, you’re alive!’ Kree was hugging him around the waist, while Jori squeezed his shoulders.
‘Thank Kether!’ she said. ‘We managed to fight off those Maggitch Glopsticker-things, but I saw you go under the mud …’
‘I’m fine,’ said Uki, picking himself up again. Just when he thought the welcomes were over, a huge pink tongue suddenly slapped against the side of his face. Mooka had bounded up next to him and was licking him with great affection.
‘Ugh!’ Uki tried to push the jerboa away. ‘What is he doing?’
‘He’s pleased to see you,’ said Kree. ‘He knows you saved his life.’
‘Does he?’ Uki wasn’t sure that was true, but he gave Mooka a quick cuddle, just the same, before turning back to his friends. ‘I didn’t expect you to be here. Did you come on your own?’
‘We’s all here,’ said a voice from somewhere in the dark. He recognised it as Ma Gurdle. ‘We’s come for the muckle gurt reckoning.’
Uki squinted acros
s the darkened fen and thought he could make out the shadowy shapes of many rabbits, all cloaked and crouching low. He could see the odd glimmer of a spearhead or arrow, but from up on the mound the whole force was invisible.
‘Rawnie took us straight back to the village,’ Jori explained. ‘We raised the alarm, and we all came here. We were going to attack at dawn.’
‘I think we might need to act before then,’ said Uki. ‘I’ve a feeling the whole Maggitch clan is about to come charging down on top of us.’
‘Why?’ asked Kree. ‘What happened to you?’
In few words, Uki told them about the pit and Necripha. He described the vats of larvae and the tunnels inside Gollop’s Mound.
‘Roasted maggots? I wondered what you stank of,’ said Kree, wrinkling her nose. ‘I thought it was the crusty slime all over you. That smells too.’
‘Well, I’m very sorry,’ said Uki, pointing up the hill with his spear. ‘But I haven’t had time for a bath. Now we must get back into the tunnels to find Charice.’
‘What about this Necripha?’ Coal asked. ‘Is she still in the pit you spoke of?’
‘Why are you asking about her?’ Jori scowled at the smith. ‘She can stay there and rot for all we care. Our mission is to get the spirit.’
‘Do you think the Gurdles can cause a diversion?’ Uki said. ‘There were too many Maggitches to deal with on my own, but if they are busy fighting, I might be able to slip through.’
‘I think the dilly-version be coming to us,’ said Ma Gurdle. She nodded to the top of the mound where the Maggitches had banded together. They held lanterns and flaming torches to see by, and they were about to come storming down the hill after Uki.
‘They don’t know we’re here,’ Jori said. ‘We can take them by surprise.’
‘Weapons ready,’ Ma Gurdle hissed to her troops. ‘If you could give them Maggitches a bit of persuasion, Uki …’
‘Excuse me?’ Uki stared at the patch of darkness that Ma Gurdle’s voice had come from. ‘Persuasion?’
Uki and the Swamp Spirit Page 14