Freeglader: Third Book of Rook

by Paul Stewart

  Felix nodded. ‘Together,’ he said simply. ‘Together, father, we can do anything.’

  At that moment, there came a series of whistles and cries from the top of the Lufwood Tower, and a booming voice filled the air.

  ‘Freeglade Lancers, due south!’

  Fenbrus and Felix pulled away from one another. The Professors of Light and Darkness both put their telescopes to their eyes and looked.

  ‘Rook!’ gasped Magda, grinning at Xanth through her tears. ‘It's Rook!’

  Xanth raised his hand and shielded his eyes from the low sun, just rising up above the horizon. Far ahead of him, coming closer with every giant leap, was a band of Freeglade Lancers on prowlgrinback. Most of the mounts were heavy, stolid creatures in shades of orange and woodnut brown. But one – close to the centre at the front – was of a slighter, more sinewy build, and white with dark brown patches.

  ‘You're right,’ said Xanth. ‘It is Rook.’

  Bounding in from the northwest, emerging from the treeline and leaping through the colonies of hive-huts, the lancers were skirting round the fringes of the goblin army. Before the goblins had even registered that they were in their midst, the lancers had moved on.

  As Magda and Xanth watched, the prowlgrins bounded through the air, leaping higher than the rooftops and dodging the arrows and spears of the goblins. A moment later, the lancers were flying over the barricades and tugging on the reins of their snorting mounts. Rook jumped from Chinquix's saddle and hugged his friends.

  ‘You took your time getting here!’ he panted.

  His face was bruised, his arms grazed; his surcoat was torn and stained. Yet he was alive and, judging by the grin on his face, well.

  ‘Rook, I'm so glad to see you,’ said Magda, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘Oh, Rook, where is it all going to end? This fighting. All this killing…’

  Xanth patted her arm and drew Rook aside. ‘She's been through a lot,’ he said. ‘We all have.’

  Rook nodded. ‘I know, Xanth, I know,’ he said. ‘And it isn't over yet. Look after her, Xanth, I must make my report.’

  He turned and headed over to where Felix and his father stood, together with the two professors and Deadbolt Vulpoon.

  ‘The glade-eaters,’ said Rook. ‘They're coming!’

  Deadbolt Vulpoon nodded. ‘The lad's right,’ he said, and pointed to the wreaths of spark-filled black smoke coiling up from the distant machines as a thumping, roaring, screeching sound filled the air. The Professors of Light and Darkness exchanged glances.

  ‘So, this is it, then, Ulbus,’ said one. ‘First the villages, then the library, now New Undertown itself…’

  ‘Indeed, Tallus,’ said the other. ‘This is where we must make our stand.’

  Rook frowned. ‘The Great Library, destroyed?’

  ‘Ay, Rook,’ said Felix. ‘And Varis, dead. My father has taken it very hard. He has lost everything.’

  Rook reached inside his jacket, pulled something out and handed it to Fenbrus. ‘Not quite everything,’ he said. ‘You still have Felix, and … this.’

  Fenbrus found himself holding a familiar barkscroll, the words On the Husbandry of Prowlgrins emblazoned across the top.

  ‘The beginning of the new new Great Library,’ said Rook.

  Fenbrus looked up, tears welling in his eyes. All round them now, the sound of the roaring, screeching glade-eaters echoed malevolently. Gripping the barkscroll, Fenbrus Lodd strode towards the barricades, his eyes blazing.

  ‘This is not how it ends!’ he bellowed. ‘The accursed goblins may well have won the Battle of the Great Library, but they have not won the war!’

  ii The Battle of New Undertown

  With an ear-splitting screech and a gut-wrenching roar, the mighty glade-eaters lurched forwards. They sliced through the barricades like an axe through matchwood, and onto the streets of New Undertown in a tumultuous frenzy of destruction. Towers were razed to the ground, street-lamps crushed and crumpled, cobblestones churned up and sent flying off in all directions.

  With their battering-rams, their wrecking-balls, their spikes, scythes, chains and flails, the glade-eaters decimated everything which stood in their path. Building after building came crashing to the ground in a

  rush of rubble, splintered wood and billowing clouds of dust.

  Behind the monstrous machines came the symbites – gyle goblins, gnokgoblins, web-foot and tree-goblins – in a great stampede, viciously driven along by the whips of the flat-heads following close on their heels. In the distance, spread out across the eastern farmlands, stood the massed ranks of the hammerheads and long-haired goblins, looking on. At their centre, the clan chiefs clustered beneath an ornate canopy.

  Grossmother Nectarsweet's huge cheeks were wet with tears. ‘My poor darlings!’ she blubbered.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ said Hemtuft Battleaxe. ‘Hemuel Spume's glade-eaters will do the hard work. Your sym-bites will simply “mop up” any remaining resistance.’

  ‘It's not the goblin way!’ spat Lytugg the hammerhead disgustedly. ‘My warriors need to bathe their blades in Freeglade blood!’

  ‘Don't worry,’ said Hemtuft. ‘There'll be plenty of Freeglade blood for your warriors when we get to the cloddertrog caves!’

  Beside him, Meegmewl the Grey and Rootrott Underbiter exploded into cackles of evil laughter.

  In the distance, a cloud of dust and furnace-fumes rose up from New Undertown as the glade-eaters ploughed on. From his position on the steering-platform of the leading machine, Hemuel Spume wiped the dust from his spectacles and cleared his throat. Beside him, the Furnace Master pushed the gear lever forward, and the glade-eater roared as the power was unleashed through the drive chains. The machine smashed through the wall of a half-wrecked tavern and rumbled on towards the Lufwood Tower ahead.

  As each building collapsed, the defenders of New Undertown seemed to melt away, while high above, the tiny specks of skycraft hovered like woodgnats, out of reach of the goblin missiles. Hemuel Spume permitted himself a thin smile of triumph. It seemed that his glade-eaters had knocked the fight out of this Freeglader scum. New Undertown would be his! He tapped the Furnace Master on the shoulder and pointed to the tower.

  ‘TO … THE … TOWER!’ he screamed in his ear above the roar of the furnace. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a sudden blur of green as something flashed past…

  With a gurgle and a splutter, the Furnace Master beside him slumped forward. The glade-eater swerved to one side, ramming into a tall statue and lurching on.

  ‘I … SAID, TO … THE … TOWER!!’ screamed Hemuel, pulling the Furnace Master back – then stopping when he saw that his own long thin fingers were covered in blood. There, sticking out from the base of the Furnace Master's neck, was a heavy leadwood bolt.

  Now, all around, green skycraft flashed past, spitting deadly leadwood bolts down at the glade-eaters. Hemuel threw himself to the floor with a terrified squeal and curled up into a ball as the great machine trundled on, out of control. Around him, the other glade-eaters were also in trouble as their Furnace Masters fell, in turn, to the crossbow bolts of the librarian knights.

  Soon the monstrous machines were beginning to collide with one another. Behind them, the goblins stumbled and slipped, jostling each other in their attempts to stay on their feet.

  ‘Stay steady up there!’ the flat-heads roared, whipping the symbites all the harder in their frustration and rage.

  Above them, peering down from the rooftops, the pale figures of ghosts appeared. Securing their grappling-hooks, they swooped down on their ropes and landed on the steering-platforms of the glade-eaters. Hastily, they rammed the gears into full throttle, wedging the levers forward with chunks of broken wood, before leaping back to the rooftops on their ropes.

  With a deafening roar, the glade-eaters accelerated, the hapless symbites struggling to keep up as their flat-head tormentors flailed at them with their whips. Through bartering-halls and merchant-towers, galleries, taverns,
hostels and shops; market-stands, stables and stalls, the mighty glade-eaters smashed an unstoppable path. Ahead, North Lake spread out like a great, glittering circle of burnished silver.

  Behind them, from alleyways and rubble-strewn passages, sky pirates appeared with cutlasses and pikestaffs, a sky pirate captain at their head. ‘Take out the flat-head overseers!’ he roared.

  The symbite goblins turned and stampeded back the way they'd come as the sky pirates fell upon the snarling flat-heads. In front of them, at Lakeside, the glade-eaters roared on towards the water's edge, with the goblins on the furnace- and weapons-platforms throwing themselves from them with yelps of terror.

  Twenty flat-heads lay at Deadbolt Vulpoon's feet as, around him, the sky pirates bellowed at the backs of their fleeing flat-head comrades. ‘Come back and fight!’

  ‘Not so brave now, without your machines, are you?’

  ‘Freeglader!’

  ‘Freeglader! Freeglader! Freeglader!’

  All at once, an enormous explosion sounded from Lakeside as the first mighty glade-eater plunged into the lake, its furnace rupturing as it hit the cold water and spewing burning and hissing lufwood logs high in the air. A moment later there was another explosion, then another, and another, as glade-eater after glade-eater dropped down into North Lake and blew up.

  Soon a thick steamy fog mingled with the dust in the rubble-strewn streets of New Undertown, and as each explosion sounded, it was greeted by a roar of approval from the ghosts, librarian knights and sky pirates clustered at the lake's shore.

  In the eastern farmlands, the goblin army had been waiting. Beneath the ornate canopy, Hemtuft struggled to focus the captured sky pirate telescope on the hazy outlines of ruined buildings.

  Then the explosions started.

  Meegmewl the Grey spat noisily. ‘I don't like the sound of that,’ he said grimly.

  Rootrott Underbiter nodded. ‘Not good, not good,’ he growled.

  Just then, out of the thickening cloud of dust, burst the symbite goblins in a disorganized stampede, with the Freeglade Lancers snapping at their heels. As the terrified symbites ran towards them, the lancers fell back in a defensive line. Mother Nectarsweet gave a high-pitched scream.

  ‘Look!’ she screeched. ‘Look what they've done to my darlings!’

  As the last glade-eater plunged into the waters of the North Lake and exploded, a huge column of water burst forth into the air like a mighty geyser. Higher and higher it climbed before falling abruptly away. And there, where it had been just moments before, floating head-down on the surface of the water, was the body of the former Foundry Master, Hemuel Spume, his boiled skin looking pinker in death than ever it had in life.

  The waters stilled, and the haunting sound of chanting voices echoed out across the surface of the lake from Lullabee Island at its centre.

  ‘Ooh-maah, oomalaah. Ooh-maah, oomalaah. Ooh-maah, oomalaah…’

  iii The Battle of the Barley Fields

  Lob hitched up his belly-sling and pushed back his straw bonnet. ‘It's a sad business all round, and no mistake, brother,’ he said.

  ‘It is that, brother,’ said Lummel, shaking his head. ‘It is that.’

  They were standing at the back of a great phalanx of low-belly spear carriers. Around them, the grey goblin archers, pink-eyed sling throwers and barb-spitters of the lop-eared clan clustered in an untidy rabble. Amongst them, standing out like ironwood pines, were huge tusked goblins, their massive clubs resting on their shoulders. Unlike the elite long-haired and hammerhead goblins, this was the untrained bulk of the goblin armies.

  ‘Them poor symbites didn't stand a chance,’ said Lob.

  ‘And it'll be our turn next, brother,’ said Lummel. ‘To pay for the clan chiefs' glory with our blood.’

  Next to them, a pink-eyed barb-spitter nodded, and a massive tusked goblin gave a low growl of approval. Lummel glanced at them sideways.

  ‘Friends of the harvest?’ he asked in a low whisper.

  Ahead of them, spread out along the top of the ridge, their weapons, helmets and breast-plates glinting in the bright yellow sunlight, stood phalanx after bristling phalanx of the elite of the goblin army, many rows deep. There were flat-heads to the left, with curved scimitars and studded cudgels, and long-hairs to the right, vicious double-edged battleaxes resting over their shoulders. At the centre – a head taller than all the rest and dominating the skyline with their heavy armour, their crescent-moon shields and fearsome serrated swords – were the hammer-heads.

  In front of them stood the clan chiefs beneath the ornate canopy, held aloft by five huge, tusked goblins. Mother Nectarsweet of the symbites was sobbing uncontrollably – causing Meegmewl the Grey of the lop-eared clan and Rootrott Underbiter of the tusked clan to scowl at her with contempt. Hemtuft Battleaxe picked at his shryke feathercloak distractedly, while Lytugg of the hammerhead clan stepped forward and addressed her warriors.

  ‘The so-called invincible glade-eaters are no more,’ she bellowed, and a wicked smile spread out across her thin lips. ‘Now we shall fight the goblin way!’

  Out of the ruins of New Undertown came the Freegladers.

  On the right were the Freeglade Lancers, still proud and upright on their prowlgrins despite their tattered tunics and blood-stained armour. Rook and Chinquix were at their head, with Grist – the only one of his original comrades to survive – beside him. The lancers were down to eighty now and their prowlgrins looked thin and exhausted.

  On the left, the sky pirates marched behind the braziers of their captains, with Deadbolt Vulpoon at their head. They'd polished their breast-plates, compass brass and telescopes, which now gleamed and glittered in the sunlight, and looked impressive despite their ragged greatcoats.

  At the centre, led by Felix and his father, Fenbrus Lodd, came the Ghosts of New Undertown and a motley selection of ageing librarians from the Great Library, armed with clubs, scythes, sling-shots and catapults. The ghosts had fought hard but they knew that, numbering less than two hundred, their task against the thousands of goblins facing them was hopeless.

  Behind them, leading their skycraft on the ends of tether-ropes and ready to take to the air at a moment's notice, came the librarian knights. Between the Professors of Light and Darkness walked Xanth, his dark eyes betraying both fear and pride. Of the nine hundred librarian knights, fewer than three hundred remained. Their ranks now included the callow apprentices from Lake Landing, led by Stob Lummus – a worried, haunted-looking Magda Burlix at his side.

  Behind them all, the ruins of New Undertown smouldered, and beyond that, the white cliffs of the cloddertrog caves glimmered in the afternoon haze. There, holed up and waiting for news, was the defenceless population of the Free Glades, huddled together. All that was standing between them and the bloodthirsty goblin hordes was this rag-tag army.

  Tramping through the fields of blue barley – the Waif Glen on one side and the dark fringe of the Deepwoods on the other – the Freegladers approached the huge goblin army, which rippled with anticipation. Felix stepped out and raised his hand.

  ‘We shall stand and fight, here in the barley fields!’ his voice rang out. ‘And die if we must as Freegladers!’

  ‘Freegladers! Freegladers! Freegladers!’ came the response.

  Ahead of them, the ranks of the flat-heads, long-hairs and hammerheads lurched forwards as if in answer to their challenge.

  ‘Earth and Sky be with us all,’ Fenbrus murmured by his son's side.

  As the goblins bore down upon them, every Freeglader felt his heart race and his stomach churn. The ground itself trembled beneath the marching feet of the massed ranks of the goblins, and as they drew closer, the sun dazzlingly bright behind them, they started chanting – a single word, over and over…

  ‘Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood…’

  A hundred strides apart … Ninety … Eighty … The Freegladers could smell the foul odour of their enemies' unwashed bodies.

  Seventy … sixty … fifty s
trides. They could see the tattoos emblazoned on their skins, and hear the sinister jangle of their barbaric battle-rings above the continuing thud-thud-thud …

  Closer and closer. The goblins' chants had turned now into a frenzied, guttural howl mixed with a different noise…

  Felix gasped. The noise wasn't coming from the ranks of the goblins. It was coming from the fringes of the forest to the east – a loud, yodelling cry that sliced through the still afternoon air.

  The goblins seemed oblivious to it. Lost in their blood-lust, they thundered on, closing the gap…

  Thirty strides … Twenty…

  Now, he could see the reds of their bloodshot eyes. This was it. The Freegladers' last stand…

  Fifteen … Ten…

  All at once, the yodelling reached fever-pitch and out of the dark-green edges of the Deepwood forest came a great, seething brown mass which tore into the flat-heads on the goblin army's left-hand flank. Mighty goblin warriors were picked up and flung screaming through the air, as the ferocious beasts – all whirring claws and flashing tusks – tore through the goblin ranks like a blade through butterwood.

  Rook leaned forward in his saddle as Chinquix snorted and skittered about uneasily. ‘Banderbears,’ he breathed. ‘A convocation of banderbears!’

  In front of the Freegladers, the elite of the goblin army was disintegrating. A flat-head swung his studded cudgel, only to have it knocked from his hands like a young'un's rattle – and his head crushed a moment later by a banderbear's tusked bite. A pair of long-hairs, their battleaxes swinging above their heads, were felled as one, as a huge, dark-brown banderbear struck out with one mighty claw.

  First one, then two, then three hammerhead goblins were skewered on their own serrated swords, then tossed to the ground and trampled by roaring bander-bears, their fur red with blood.

  Those not slaughtered threw down their weapons and fled back towards the mass of lop-ear and tusked goblins to the rear, who were looking on in dumbstruck amazement. The banderbears – now as red with goblin blood as the emblem on Rook's tunic – threw back their great heads and bellowed in triumph.