Freeglader: Third Book of Rook

by Paul Stewart

  He saw his friend running towards him, his arms outstretched, his face creased with concern. Inside and outside, the light grew brighter; dazzling him, blinding him, till he could take no more.

  ‘Help me,’ he whispered, his last words as he crumpled to the ground in a curled and glowing heap.

  Xanth crouched down and put an ear tentatively to Rook's chest. His heartbeat was so faint, Xanth could hardly hear it.

  ‘I'm so, so sorry, old friend,’ he said, scooping Rook up in his arms and heaving himself to his feet. ‘This is all my fault.’

  He turned and began the long, arduous journey across the Edgelands rock, the heavy burden weighing him down and making every step an ordeal.

  ‘By Earth and Sky, Rook,’ he swore, stumbling on across the rocky pavement, ‘enough brave librarian knights have died because of me. I shan't let you become one of them.’

  • CHAPTER SIX •

  DUSK

  The Palace of the Furnace Masters

  Hemuel Spume rubbed his spidery fingered hands together and smiled a thin-lipped smile. He always enjoyed this time of day.

  The furnace fires had been freshly stoked for the night shift and the tall chimney stacks were belching out thick clouds of acrid smoke that stained the early evening sky a brilliant red. Exhausted lines of workers were tramping off to the low open-sided huts to snatch a few hours of much-needed sleep amid the unceasing din of the drills and hammers coming from the metal-working shops. An undercurrent of low, muttered complaints filled the air as the night workers jostled each other to reach their benches and forges.

  The Foundry Master was standing in the upper gallery of the Counting House, a tall, solid wooden tower at the western end of the magnificently carved Palace of the Furnace Masters. The mullioned windows were grimy with soot, both inside and out, yet this did little to mar the splendour of the view outside.

  As far as the eye could see, the rows of blackened chimneys pointed like accusing fingers up at the blood-red sky. Beneath them, the glowing furnaces seemed to stare back at Hemuel, like the eyes of a thousand forest demons, throwing grotesque shadows across the huge timber stacks that fed them. Everywhere there was noise, bustle and industry, just the way he liked it – and never more so than now, as dusk was falling. With the changing of the shifts, the clamour of activity in the Foundry Glades was reaching a crescendo, before settling into the night-time cacophony of hammer-blow, foundry-clatter and furnace-blast.

  Hemuel traced a bony finger through the soot on the window, and pushed his steel-rimmed glasses up his long nose. It hadn't always been like this. Oh, no. When he – Hemuel Maccabee Spume – had first come to the Deepwoods all those years ago, the Foundry Glade had been an insignificant forest forge, turning out trinkets and cooking pots for itinerant goblin tribes and the odd band of wandering shrykes. The ambitious young leaguesmen back in Undertown had said he was mad to bury himself out here in the Deepwoods, but Hemuel knew better…

  The corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement as he thought back to those early days. So much had changed since then, and almost all for the better – at least, for him.

  Stone-sickness had put an end to sky-flight, changing

  the patterns of trade in the Edge for ever. No longer could the heavily-laden league ships transport the manufactured goods of the Undertown workshops out to the Deepwoods and return with precious timber and raw materials; no longer could the sky pirates prey upon the wealthy merchants and traders. After stone-sickness had struck, all cargo had to travel overland. And that – as Hemuel Spume had taken note – was a costly enterprise.

  Once the shrykes had taken control of the Great Mire Road, the Undertown leagues had been forced to pay them high taxes for the right to trade with the Deepwoods. Costs of their products had soared and, as a result, the Undertowners had priced themselves out of business. Hemuel Spume had seized the opportunity to fill the gap in the market. The Foundry Glade – independent of the shrykes' greedy influence – had grown and prospered.

  Soon it wasn't just one glade but many, spreading through the boundless Deepwoods like a fungus. Its influence increased. Why, without the success of the Foundry Glades, the Goblin Nations themselves would never have grown to their present size. And what's more, whether they liked it or not, they were now totally dependent on the knowledge and skills of Hemuel Spume's Furnace Masters.

  Yes, times were good, Hemuel Spume had to admit, but you couldn't stand still. Oh, no, not for a moment. Once you did that, you became complacent.

  After all, look what had happened to the shrykes at the Eastern Roost. They'd sat back and grown rich on the Undertown trade, putting all their eggs in one basket, so to speak. And now, if the reports he had received from his business partner were to be believed, they, along with Undertown itself, were finished.

  As Foundry Master, Hemuel Spume wasn't about to stand still. He had great plans, monumental plans; plans that would change the face of the Deepwoods settlements for ever. Territory, riches, power: he wanted it all.

  He turned and surveyed the ordered rows of lead-wood desks stretching off before him down the dark hall. At each one, hunched over and spattered with black ink, sat a scribe. There were mobgnomes, lugtrolls and all manner of goblins, all furiously scribbling, accounting for firewood quotas, ore extraction, smelting rates and workshop output. The air buzzed and hissed with a sound like mating woodcrickets as five hundred quills scratched and scraped at five hundred pieces of coarse parchment.

  The sound was punctuated by the dry rasping cough peculiar to the Foundry Glades. Foundry-croup, it was called. Most who breathed the filthy, smoke-filled air suffered from it. The scribes, up in the Counting House gallery, got off relatively lightly – unlike the slaves who worked the foundries. Two years they lasted on average, before their lungs gave out.

  Hemuel Spume made it a habit always to wear a gauze mask when he inspected the foundries. At other times, he kept to the high towers and upper halls of the palace, where the air was considerably cleaner. Nonetheless, even he was prone to the occasional coughing fit. It simply couldn't be helped. Feeling a tell-tale tickle in his throat, he reached into a pocket of his gown and pulled out a small bottle, which he unstoppered with his spidery fingers and put to his lips.

  As the pungent syrup slipped over his tongue and down his throat, the tickling stopped. He returned the stoppered bottle to his pocket, removed his glasses and polished them fussily with a large handkerchief.

  Thank goodness for Deepwoods medicines and the gabtrolls who dispensed them, he thought. He, personally, had ten of the stalk-eyed apothecaresses at his sole disposal. How his sickly business partner would enjoy that, he mused.

  ‘Excuse me, Foundry Master, sir?’ came a tentative voice.

  Spume looked up, replacing his glasses as he did so. An aged clerk, Pinwick Krum, stood before him, an anxious frown on his pinched face.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Spume snapped impatiently. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘The latest consignment of workers has arrived from Hemtuft Battleaxe,’ Krum replied.

  Spume's eyes narrowed. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I'm afraid there's only five dozen of them,’ came the reply. ‘And they're all lop-ear goblins…’

  ‘Lop-ears!’ Spume cried, his face reddening and a coughing fit threatening to explode at any moment. ‘How many times do I have to tell him? It's hammer-heads we need, or flat-heads – goblins with a bit of life in them – why, those lop-ears are nothing but slack-jawed plough-pushers!’ He poked his clerk in the chest. ‘Battleaxe is not to be paid until we've tried them out. If they're no good, he doesn't get a single trading-credit, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Krum, his voice laden with weariness.

  Hemuel Spume turned, rubbed a hand over the sooty window and peered out into the darkness. Below him were five chained columns of abject goblins, their heads bowed and bare feet shuffling, being led by guards through the filthy encampment, one after the other.

  Lop-ears
they certainly were, the curious tilt of their crooked ears accentuated by the number of heavy gold rings which hung from them – but Spume was relieved to see that the majority were pink-eyed and scaly goblins, fierce in battle and hard workers, rather than the indolent low-bellies that Battleaxe had tried to fob him off with before.

  ‘Humph! Better than the last lot, I suppose,’ he said peevishly. ‘But nowhere near enough.’

  ‘I know, sir,’ said Pinwick Krum, wringing his hands together ingratiatingly. ‘But what is one to do?’

  Spume slammed his fist down on his desk, causing the great mass of scribes to look up as one, consternation on their brows and nervous coughs in their throats.

  ‘This is intolerable,’ he shouted. ‘Absolutely intolerable. The furnaces have to be fed! Now, more than ever. I will not allow everything we have built up here to be jeopardized by a lack of labour. Doesn't anyone want to work these days?’ He poked the shrunken clerk hard in the chest again. ‘I want three hundred new workers,’ he said. ‘Good workers! Hard workers! And I want them by this time next week at the latest. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But…’

  ‘Hammelhorns butt, Mister Krum,’ Spume interrupted. ‘You are not a hammelhorn, are you?’

  ‘No, sir. B…’

  ‘If Hemtuft Battleaxe wants our goods, then he has to pay for them!’ he shouted. ‘And our price is goblin labour! And it's just gone up, tell him. Now, get out!’

  Pinwick Krum turned and left, muttering quietly under his breath as he went back down the lines of coughing, quill-scratching scribes, and over to the side door. Hemuel Spume watched him going, an unpleasant smile playing over his thin lips.

  ‘Three hundred, Krum. Don't disappoint me,’ he called after him. ‘Or I'll have you put on double stoking-duty in the leadwood foundry. You won't last five minutes.’

  As Krum shut the door quietly behind him, Hemuel Spume returned his attention to the window. Although the sun had only just set, the thick pall of smoke that hung permanently overhead had already thrown the Foundry Glades into darkness. The tail-end of the column of lop-ears was being checked in at the slave-huts.

  ‘Sixty measly goblins,’ he muttered. It was barely enough for five foundries, and he had twenty-five to fill.

  Hemuel Spume shook his head. With the projected rate of expansion, even if Pinwick did manage to secure a deal for three hundred goblins, a month later they would need another three hundred, and three hundred more the month after that … It was simply unsustainable.

  He raised his head, and stared off past the great Foundry Glades to where the distant Deepwoods lay. There, far off to the north, lay the Free Glades. Hemuel Spume smiled, his small, pointed teeth glinting in the lampglow.

  ‘The Free Glades,’ he purred. ‘That so-called beacon of light and hope …’ His lips twisted into a sneer. ‘And a limitless supply of slaves.’

  ii The Great Clan-Hut of the Long-Haired Goblins

  ‘So that's the great Hemtuft Battleaxe, is it?’ Lob asked, peering over the heads of the goblins in front of him, struggling to get a good view.

  ‘Doesn't he look fine in that shryke-feather cloak of his!’ commented his brother, Lummel. ‘They say he plucked each feather himself from a different shryke-sister.’

  ‘Shut up, back there,’ a voice hissed angrily. ‘Some of us are trying to listen.’

  Lob and Lummel fell silent. As a rule, their older brothers would have attended such an important assembly, but all six of them had recently been dispatched to the Foundry Glade as slave-labour, and what with harvest-time fast approaching and all, there had been no one else to send to report back. The last thing either of them wanted to do was get on the wrong side of a hefty great hammerhead at their very first Meeting of the Clans.

  ‘Sorry, Master.’ Lob touched his bonnet deferentially and nudged his brother to do the same.

  The hammerhead ignored them.

  Lob and Lummel Grope were low-bellied goblins of the lop-ear clan. In their straw harvest-bonnets and characteristic belly-slings, they stood out amongst the warlike goblins all around them, and both felt more than a little overawed.

  They were standing at the centre of a vast crowd that had assembled outside the great open-sided clan-hut of the long-hairs; a crowd packed with goblins of every description, all crushed together so tightly it was difficult even to breathe. Flat-heads and hammerheads, pink-eyed and scaly goblins; long-haired and tufted goblins, snag-toothed, saw-toothed and underbiter goblins; all were represented.

  Inside the clan-hut, on a raised stage, sat Hemtuft Battleaxe of the long-hair goblin clan, leader of the Goblin Nations. Preening his shryke-feather cloak, the grey-haired Battleaxe looked down from his carved wooden throne, placed as it was on top of a pile of skulls of deceased clan elders. On the platform before him stood the leaders of the four other clans, their heads bowed in supplication.

  Rootrott Underbiter, clan chief of the tusked goblins, was the first to look up, his two massive canines glinting, his yellow eyes impassive. As leader of one of the larger clans, there was a look of sullen insolence on his face, despite his thin, twitching smile.

  Next to him stood Lytugg, leader of the hammerhead clan, and granddaughter of the old mercenary, General Tytugg of Undertown. For one so young, she boasted an impressive array of battle scars as befitted the leader of the most warlike of all the goblin nations.

  Beside her, sat the old, hunched figure of Meegmewl the Grey, clan chief of the lop-ears, as sharp-witted as he was ancient. Although the least warlike of the major clans, the lop-ears were the most numerous by far, and Meegmewl was not to be underestimated.

  Nor, for that matter, was Grossmother Nectarsweet the Second, clan chief of the symbites. She spoke for the gyle, tree, webfooted and gnokgoblins of the nations – the symbites who were responsible for such a rich array of products, everything from gyle-honey and dew-milk, to teasewood rope and lullabee grubs. Her five chins wobbled in a languid ripple as she raised her huge head and met Hemtuft's gaze levelly.

  Hemtuft Battleaxe waved a hairy hand. As leader of the long-hairs and most senior of the goblin clans, his word was law. He knew though that, without the support of the other clans, the Goblin Nations would disintegrate and return to the roving, warring tribes they had been before. And that was something no one wanted.

  ‘I understand, of course I do,’ he said, as the crowd around the clan-hut jostled closer, trying to catch every word. ‘Your lop-ear clan has paid a heavy price in supplying the labour to the Foundry Glades, and yet it is a price we must pay for the spears, the ploughs, the cooking-pots, and everything else that none of us would do without.’

  ‘Say the word, and my hammerhead war bands could overrun the Foundry Glades like that,’ said Lytugg, with a snap of her bony fingers.

  Hemtuft shook his head. ‘Lytugg, Lytugg. How many times must we go over this?’ he said wearily. ‘It is pointless to use force against the Foundry Glades. Hemuel Spume and the Furnace Masters would die before they revealed the secrets of their forges and workshops to us. And then where would we be? In charge of a lot of useless machinery that none of us could operate. No, if we are to succeed, we must pay the price the Foundry Master demands of us…’

  The skeletons of the old clan chief's predecessors, hanging from the rafters of the huge thatched roof, clinked like bone wind-chimes in the breeze.

  ‘But why must we pay it alone?’ Meegmewl the Grey croaked, turning his milky eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘Because there are so many of you,’ retorted Rootrott Underbiter nastily.

  ‘… And not a single hammerhead or flat-head shall stoke a furnace!’ Lytugg snarled fiercely. ‘We are warriors!’

  Around Lob and Lummel, the hammerhead and flat-head goblins cheered and brandished their hefty clubs and spears.

  ‘But things can't go on like this!’ Grossmother Nectarsweet's big, wobbly voice proclaimed, silencing the cheering.

  ‘And nor shall they!’ Hemtuft roared, getting to h
is feet and spreading his arms wide, until, in his feathered cloak, he resembled a large bird of prey. ‘For if we attack the Free Glades and enslave them, then never again will goblins have to be sent to work the foundries. Slave gladers will go in their stead!’

  Lob and Lummel turned to one another, eyebrows raised. All round them, the crowd exploded with noise, and a chant got up.

  ‘Slave Glades! Slave Glades! Slave Glades!’

  ‘There has never been a better time for this, our greatest battle!’ General Lytugg's voice rang out above it all. ‘The shrykes are all but done for! Undertown is no more! With help from our friends in the Foundry Glades, we shall launch an attack on the Free Glades while they are vulnerable and in disarray; an attack the like of which the Edge has never known. No one will withstand the might of the Goblin Nations.’

  Lob shrugged. Lummel lowered his eyes. They both knew that it hadn't been Freegladers who had sent their brothers to be worked to death in the Foundry Glades: Hemtuft Battleaxe and the other clan chiefs had seen to that.

  ‘We shall be victorious!’ bellowed Lytugg, and a mighty roar echoed round the great hall.

  Lob and Lummel were feeling increasingly out of place in the midst of all the grimacing faces and frenzied cries. What was wrong with farming? That was what they wanted to know. After all, everyone had to eat. Instead, all their neighbours seemed to have but one thing on their minds the whole time. War!

  Flaming torches were lit and waved in the warm evening air as the crowd began to break off and return to their villages.

  ‘To victory!’ roared Hemtuft Battleaxe after them. ‘And the Slave Glades!’

  iii The Hatching Nurseries of the Eastern Roost

  ‘Look at the little darlings! Always hungry!’ hissed portly Matron Featherhorn to her gaunt companion, the elderly Sister Drab. The pair of them were making their way along the central aisle of the great hatching-hut, inspecting the nursing pens as they went.