by Paul Stewart
A troop of tusked quarms swung up into the branches high in the treetops, their distinctive hooting calls filling the air. Below the walkway, a giant mudworm uncoiled from a sumpwood root and buried itself in the waterlogged forest floor, sending a plume of liquid mud high into the air.
Celestia walked fast, and Cade, struggling into his jacket and trying to button it up, had to jog to catch up.
‘What’s the big rush?’ he protested. ‘Can’t we get some breakfast at least?’
‘I thought you’d appreciate a lie-in more than breakfast,’ said Celestia. ‘Just wait till you see the Hoverworm!’
‘They’ve finished the varnishing?’ said Cade.
He stepped through the carved wooden arch that stood at the entrance to the skycraft yard – the clearing in the sumpwood forest with the skyship cradle at its centre – and stopped dead in his tracks. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened as he stared at the refurbished skycraft. Suddenly he understood the barkscroll sketch he’d been shown before.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Delfina Dax, her nose crinkling as she laughed at the look on Cade’s face.
‘It’s wonderful,’ he breathed.
Gart Ironside stood at the wheel of the Hoverworm and gazed out of the circular window of the wheelhouse. The row of newly appointed flight levers at his side remained untouched as he concentrated on the rudder wheel in front of him. The phraxchamber below thrummed at maximum propulsion as the little vessel climbed higher and higher into the sky.
It looked quite different from the skycraft that had set off from the Farrow Lake – and the gleaming varnished woodwork and renovated figurehead of the open-mouthed hoverworm weren’t the only differences. The shape of the vessel itself had changed, as testified to by the shadow scudding over the scrubby landscape below. Set midway between the angular prow and blunt stern, directly above the under-hull phraxchamber, there was now a tall, slender mast, its cross beams concealing the yet-to-be-unfurled sail array.
On the foredeck, securely tethered, Cade stood with Celestia to get the best view possible. Eudoxia was in her cabin, and Tug, leaning in at the aft-deck trap door, was listening intently as she spoke.
‘This is as high as I can take her,’ came Gart’s voice from the wheelhouse.
‘Thank you, Captain Ironside,’ said Delfina Dax, stepping out of Eudoxia’s cabin. ‘Tug and I will take it from here.’
Cade smiled at the look on Tug’s face as he straightened up and flexed his massive arms. It was a mixture of pride and bashfulness; half smiling, half frowning.
Eudoxia herself emerged from her cabin and stood beside the two of them. She nodded to each in turn.
‘Release the aft sails!’ Delfina ordered.
Tug gripped the winding mechanism installed in the aft deck and began turning the wheel. In front of Cade and Celestia, there was a sudden flash of white as a sail unfurled from the tall sumpwood mast embedded in the foredeck. On either side of it, as Tug quickly turned the sail crank, an array of dazzling white spidersilk sails billowed out, the wind taking them.
At the controls in the wheelhouse, Gart shut off the phraxchamber and the steam from its funnel wisped to a halt. Then he stepped back to allow Delfina Dax to take over.
In the bitter cold of the high sky, powerful air currents took hold of the Hoverworm and sent it speeding across the sky.
‘Gorgetown in two days,’ said Eudoxia.
Gart Ironside looked at the flame-haired fourthling guiding his ship. Delfina glanced back over her shoulder at him and smiled.
‘Here’s to steam and sail,’ she said.
· CHAPTER EIGHT ·
The Hoverworm arrived at the Northern Reaches shortly after six bells on the second day. They had made exceptional time.
Throughout the journey, Delfina Dax and Gart Ironside took turns at the wheel, both of them taking care to go with the powerful north-westerly air current that filled the magnificent white spidersilk-sail array. Neither they, nor any of the others on board, had ever travelled at such speed before – or at so high an altitude. Thankfully, wearing the clothes and equipment that Cade and Celestia had purchased back in the Midwood Decks, no one suffered from frostbite or succumbed to ice-blindness.
On their arrival, Gart secured the little vessel to a jutting rock, while Delfina supervised Tug in dismantling the sail array and packing it away in the foredeck hold. They would moor up for the night in this barren landscape, with its towering escarpment and deep central ravine, then complete the final stretch of their journey the following morning.
‘So far as the good folk of Gorgetown are concerned, we’re just a small phraxship from a settlement in the Deepwoods,’ Delfina told the others, ‘in search of some quality streakstone.’
‘Well, the first part is true, at least,’ Gart said with a laugh.
Cade laughed too. Quite a change had come over the grizzled phraxship captain since they acquired this new member of the crew, he’d noticed. Gart Ironside had started combing and oiling his side-whiskers and moustache, and taken to wearing his best waistcoat underneath his battered topcoat.
It was triple-breasted, with the coiling form of a mythical ‘cloudeater’ stitched down its front. And at supper later that night, as they sat beneath the stars on the foredeck, Cade noted how the captain took great care to tuck his kerchief in at the neck to protect the waistcoat as he sipped the logbait broth that he and Celestia had prepared.
‘This will be the last supper we share together on our voyage,’ Eudoxia said softly. ‘And on behalf of New Sanctaphrax, I’d like to thank Captain Ironside and Miss Dax for their magnificent efforts.’
In the light of the phraxlamp, Cade could see that Eudoxia’s eyes were sparkling.
‘Tomorrow,’ she continued, ‘we will meet up with Lemulis Lope, a stone-master of note and a trusted Friend of New Sanctaphrax, in the deep quarry at Gorgetown. Then we shall continue our journey.’ She turned to Delfina. ‘I promised your father, Miss Dax, that the captain would get you back to the Midwood Decks without delay.’
Delfina and Gart exchanged looks. Then Delfina’s nose crinkled and she laughed, while Gart’s face grew redder than ever.
‘The skycraft yard will do perfectly well without me for a while longer,’ she said, reaching out and taking the captain’s hand. ‘Gart here has promised to show me this Farrow Lake of yours. From the way you all talk about the place, it seems well worth the journey.’
Eudoxia smiled and raised her tumbler of woodtroll ale. ‘We all wish the two of you a very happy voyage.’
No one slept particularly well that night. They were too excited about reaching their destination. Before the sun had even risen, they had eaten, packed up and were flying on, the little skyship silhouetted against the pink-tinged dawn sky.
Cade, Celestia and Tug were standing on the deck of the Hoverworm, cloaked in the dark blue storm-capes they’d found on a stall on the Midwood Decks, when the hanging-houses of Gorgetown came into view. In the wheelhouse, Gart brought the little vessel in to dock at a stone jetty carved into the side of the towering ravine. It was just one of dozens peppering the glistening rock face, all interconnected by precarious-looking rope bridges and ladders.
Eudoxia emerged from her cabin dressed in her smoke-grey travelling cape, the hood raised. Cade, Celestia and Tug raised their own hoods and followed her as she stepped down silently onto the jetty. They had said their goodbyes the night before, amid laughter and tears, and now, from above him, Cade heard the thrum of the phraxchamber as the Hoverworm turned in the air and steamed away, Gart at the wheel and Delfina clutching his arm.
As instructed, he and his friends did not wave to them. Instead, they walked purposefully in single file behind Eudoxia as she made her way through groups of quarry workers and merchants. Cade glanced from side to side from beneath his hood as he walked, trying his best to take everything in without being noticed.
The quarry workers were huge, as big as Tug, who, oddly, in the four stitched-together st
orm-capes that Cade had made for him, seemed to blend in perfectly. They were the trogs Cade had heard about – Eudoxia had told him how, back at New Sanctaphrax, their rock-cutting skills had proved invaluable in securing the descending trail. But these were the first he’d ever seen.
They were low-browed and broad-nostrilled, with shaved sloping heads and massive, powerful shoulders and arms, coated in thick, bristling fur. They wore baggy breeches, dusty grey aprons and hobnailed boots with metal toecaps, and from their broad belts hung gourds of stone polish and hammer-grease, together with stone-picks and gleaming chisels.
For the most part, they were gathered in groups of ten or more around smaller goblins and fourthlings in distinctive conical hats, with clusters of tiny barkscrolls hanging from them. These smaller individuals were barking orders and instructions to their quarry teams who, nodding and shrugging their hairy shoulders, were trooping off to whatever part of the ravine they would be quarrying that day.
This same roll call seemed to be taking place on all the other jetties as well. Behind him, Cade heard Tug give an uncomfortable moan, and it occurred to him that this sight must be awakening unpleasant memories for his friend.
In the Nightwoods where Tug came from, his kind were enslaved by tiny red and black dwarves and forced to work the thorn forests, goaded with whips and cudgels, and worse. Tug had escaped, but he still bore the scars of his brutal mistreatment – both physical and mental.
Eudoxia must have heard Tug as well, for she stopped and motioned him over. Tug went to her, stooped low in his patchwork storm-cape, and Eudoxia spoke quietly to him for a few moments in that way that she had. Tug straightened up and nodded, then fell back into line.
‘I want to learn how to do that,’ whispered Celestia to Cade. ‘To allay fears and inspire confidence the way Eudoxia does …’
‘You heal folk,’ Cade told her. ‘The sick and the wounded. I’ve seen you do remarkable things, Celestia. The hammerhead goblins you cared for after the Battle of Farrow Lake, for instance.’
‘That was their bodies, Cade,’ said Celestia. ‘Not their minds.’
‘I’ll teach you,’ said Eudoxia, surprising both Cade and Celestia that she’d overheard their hushed voices. She turned to them. ‘In New Sanctaphrax,’ she added, and sighed. ‘Though we have to get there first.’
They came to the far end of the jetty, where a ladder led down the side of the sheer ravine to what looked like a cave entrance far below. All around them now, the clink and clatter of quarry tools, metal on stone, echoed through the morning air.
‘Follow me,’ said Eudoxia, and she stepped down onto the first rung of the ladder. ‘It’s perfectly safe,’ she added, turning back, ‘built to take a hairy-back trog’s weight. And if you fall, the lower nets will catch you …’ She smiled mischievously. ‘Usually.’
The others followed Eudoxia carefully down the swaying ladder. They passed teams of trogs, fastened to the ravine walls by harnesses, who were busy cutting slabs of rock from iridescent-coloured seams.
‘We’re among friends here,’ said Eudoxia as she stepped off the bottom of the ladder and onto the ledge at the cave entrance. ‘But keep a sharp lookout. I want to know if you see anything suspicious. Quove Lentis’s spies are everywhere these days.’
‘Even here?’ said Cade, looking around at the bleak mine-scarred landscape.
‘Particularly here,’ said Eudoxia. ‘The trogs are skilled at working stone, and have always made excellent Descenders.’ She shook her head unhappily. ‘Great Glade has no time for Gorgetown.’
She lowered her hood and, joining her on the ledge, Cade, Celestia and Tug did the same.
A tall thin goblin with heavy-lidded eyes greeted them at the mouth of the cave. He wore a long, glistening robe of green leather, nubbed and grooved and unlike any leather Cade had ever seen.
‘Lemulis Lope, how is the blockade-breaking going?’ asked Eudoxia, and from the way the goblin bowed to her, low and with great respect, it was clear to Cade that he must be the Friend of New Sanctaphrax that Eudoxia had spoken of.
‘The blockade grows more powerful by the day,’ Lemulis Lope replied in a thin, reedy voice. ‘Getting to the floating city by skycraft has become all but impossible. Fortunately, most of our scuttlebrigs continue to make it through …’
Lemulis paused and regarded Cade, Celestia and Tug from beneath his heavy lids.
‘I didn’t expect you to return so soon,’ he said, turning back to Eudoxia. ‘I trust you found the person you were looking for?’
‘The less you know, the safer for all of us, dear Lemulis,’ said Eudoxia, taking the goblin’s hand and following him into the cave. ‘Do you have scuttlebrigs ready for us?’
‘Saddled and provisioned at all times,’ he replied. He glanced up at Tug and frowned. ‘Though we’ll need to arrange something special for the nameless one here.’
‘He has a name,’ Cade said, stepping forward. ‘His name is Tug and—’ He stopped short. ‘What are those?’
They were standing in a large cavern, the stone floor polished to a high sheen and pulsating with colours that swirled across its surface. A phraxlamp on a tall tripod stood at the centre, its light playing on the floor creating the effect.
But it wasn’t the streakstone, beautiful though it undoubtedly was, that had made Cade stop in his tracks. It was the walls of the cave. They seemed to be moving – until Cade realized that he was looking at roosting creatures of some sort.
They had long tentacle-like antennae, four eyes peering out from beneath prominent brow ridges, and broad leathery bodies the same colour as the rock. Each of them had six legs that ended in broad webbed feet, and that reminded Cade of the umbrellas of the Midwood Decks. They wore collars and neck rings attached to stout-looking tethers that ran down across the floor and were fixed to hooks on the three-legged phraxlamp stand.
‘So you’ve never seen a scuttlebrig before,’ said Lemulis Lope dryly. ‘I suggest you acquaint yourselves with them quickly, since you’ll be riding them all the way to the floating city.’
‘Riding them?’ said Celestia, fascinated. ‘Like riding a prowlgrin?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Lemulis. ‘They can’t climb trees, so branch-hopping is out of the question. Though if you have experience of prowlgrins, I daresay scuttlebrigs won’t present too many problems. Now, tell me,’ the goblin continued, leaning towards Cade discreetly. ‘Does Tug, here, talk?’
‘Tug talk,’ said Tug softly. ‘Tug sail skyships. Tug love prowlgrins.’ He gave a lopsided smile. ‘Not sure of scuttlebrigs … Scuttlebrigs fast?’
‘Extremely fast, especially across the grasslands of the Mire,’ said Eudoxia, leading Tug and the others over to the phraxlamp. ‘They’re also perfectly camouflaged, changing their colour to match the land they’re crossing,’ she explained, ‘making it almost impossible for them to be detected from above—’
‘Which is just as well,’ Lemulis broke in. ‘Otherwise nothing would have got through the blockade. As it is, judging from the reports coming in, New Sanctaphrax is suffering. But without this lot,’ he said, patting one of the creatures on its dark leathery shoulder, ‘the place would have been brought to its knees long ago.’
Lemulis shook his head and turned away. He started to select tethers, then gave them out to each of the small group in turn. He paused for a moment before handing an especially broad tether to Tug.
‘For Tug here, “Old Scritcher”,’ he announced. ‘The biggest scuttlebrig in the stables.’
From high up on the cave walls, the creatures began to climb down towards them, the phraxlight playing on their bodies. As they approached, Cade saw that they were wearing full harnesses and, on the nubbed tail ridge at the end of their backs, high-backed saddles with circular stirrup rings.
All of them, that is, except for Old Scritcher, who was indeed far bigger than the rest. He had leather traces trailing from his harness and, as the others watched, Lemulis Lope called over three goblin grooms,
who were on the far side of the cavern, polishing the floor with round mops.
‘The chariot,’ he said curtly, and dismissed them.
Moments later, the grooms returned from an inner cave, pulling a floating sumpwood cradle, which Lemulis attached to Old Scritcher.
‘It’s trickier to handle than a saddle,’ Lemulis cautioned. ‘Long reins to get the hang of, and without stirrups you need good balance.’
Cade smiled and clapped Tug on the back. ‘Something tells me that’s not going to be a problem for Tug!’
They set off from Gorgetown shortly before dawn, the lights of the hanging-houses glittering and sparkling like glisters high up at the top of the vertical rock face. The scuttlebrigs moved quickly and smoothly down the steep ravine walls, their umbrella feet peeling off and then sticking to the rock with strange squelching sounds. And as the sun rose, and the land they were crossing grew slowly lighter, so too did the scuttlebrigs’ armour-like skin.
Around their shoulders, the riders wore makeshift capes that Lemulis had distributed, fashioned from scuttlebrig hide. They didn’t change colour as well as the skin of the living creatures, but they helped conceal them and, as their journey continued, offered protection from the harsh winds and searing sun.
Away from the high escarpment, they came to a ledge that led to another ledge, and then another, and Cade, who was sitting up straight in the saddle on the back of his scuttlebrig, had an excellent view of the rocky landscape ahead. They were moving along a narrow trail, stepping up then down onto the overlapping ledges as they progressed along the ravine. The wind rose and clouds closed in and, after several hours, they emerged from the deep trough onto a vast flat expanse of rock pavement.
‘We follow this for the next couple of days,’ Eudoxia called back to them above the howling of the wind. ‘Until we reach the grasslands.’
Tug and Old Scritcher galloped past her, with Tug swaying from side to side in the sumpwood chariot as it gathered speed.