The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis

by Michael de Larrabeiti

  ‘Any trouble?’ asked Knocker, panting.

  ‘Nothing much,’ said Napoleon. He smiled like a slab of cement. ‘Just as well you didn’t get here earlier; there wasn’t enough for both of us.’

  Knocker counted the five casualties. ‘I’m glad you’re on my side,’ he said.

  It was then that the trap was sprung; the five dwarfs had done their job admirably. Their role had been to entice Napoleon and Knocker to this spot and they had succeeded. While the two Borribles were deciding what to do next there was a shout above their heads and dwarfs began to appear from all around.

  Knocker loaded his catapult and Napoleon followed suit. ‘This is more like it,’ he said.

  ‘It’s no joke,’ retorted Knocker. ‘They’ve been waiting for us; there’s loads of them up top.’

  ‘Shout for the others,’ suggested Napoleon. ‘This lot won’t be so brave with a few more Borribles here.’

  Knocker threw back his head and yelled, but assistance was not quick in coming and Napoleon and Knocker found themselves in deep danger. Worse, they had hardly a target to fire at. In the dark they could catch only glimpses of their enemy, yet all around them they could hear the scrabbling of feet and hands as dwarfs climbed down and through the cars, crawling nearer and nearer.

  ‘Back to back,’ said Knocker.

  Now hands were pulling and tugging at the Borribles, trying to separate them, trying to drag them away into captivity.

  ‘A Borrible,’ shouted Knocker, and fired a stone without aiming and heard a scream of pain. He reached for his torch and switched it on. He saw a face near to him but then his arm was struck with a metal bar and the torch dropped into the mud. Knocker lashed out with his fist and hit nothing; then something struck him a glancing blow on the forehead, something hard.

  ‘They’re throwing stuff down from above,’ he said and staggered forward, losing contact with Napoleon, but Napoleon grabbed him by the collar and pulled him upright.

  More things fell—a rain of junk falling through the real rain—nuts and bolts, steering wheels, clutch pedals, door handles, car seats and even headlight bulbs, exploding like cannon shot.

  Knocker staggered again, blood trickling down his face from the wound on his head. Napoleon held him with his arm. He too was struck on the shoulder by something hard and sharp. ‘We’ll have to get into a car,’ said the Wendle, suppressing a cry of pain. ‘This is dirty work at the crossroads all right, and no mistake.’

  The two Borribles dived into the nearest hulk. Napoleon struck out right, left and centre in the dark and there was the sound of bodies crawling out of the windows. He switched on his torch and shone it in a wide arc and the two Borribles saw faces all round them, in car after car, as far as the torch beam carried.

  Napoleon turned the light out. ‘Best not to see all that,’ he said philosophically. ‘You take this side, I’ll take the other side. If anything moves, hit it.’

  At this moment there was a concerted attack on the Borribles’ shelter and more missiles clanked down; a large bolt flew unseen through a window and struck Napoleon in the small of the back. He snatched it up and used it as a weapon, striking into the darkness with very good effect. ‘A Wendle! A Wendle!’ he yelled at every blow.

  At long last the call for help was answered. Torches shone in the roadway outside and the dwarfs retreated. They shouted to one another and climbed upwards, regrouping on the roofs of the topmost cars. A beam of light dazzled Knocker and Napoleon. ‘Are you all right?’ said a voice. It was Stonks.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Napoleon. ‘We’ve had to do all the fighting.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Stonks, and he lowered the beam. ‘I must have been in some other punch-up then.’

  Knocker crouched on the floor of the car and wiped the blood from his head. ‘How many you brought with you?’ he said. ‘There’s more dwarfs here than we thought.’

  Stonks sniffed as a large chunk of metal rebounded off the side of the car. ‘There’s quite a lot, yeah,’ he said, ‘but they ain’t very good. I mean they keep running away when you get close … I’ve got Torrey with me and Strikalite and some Scrappers outside.’

  ‘Anyone seen Ninch, yet?’ asked Napoleon. “Cos if you do I want him for myself.’

  As if in answer to Napoleon’s question a voice roared down from a pile of cars on the far side of the roadway. It was the voice of Ninch. Napoleon and Knocker crawled out of their car and looked up, shielding their eyes against the rain. Two or three of the Scrapper torches searched the sky, looking for the chief dwarf. From not too far away, maybe a hundred yards or so, came the sound of more fighting, at least two or three different battles.

  Ninch’s voice roared again. ‘You might as well give up, you lot down there. I’ve got you surrounded. You won’t get out of this one.’

  Knocker could feel Napoleon throbbing with anger. The Wendle stepped into the open, leaving the shelter of the overhanging cars. He shook his fist above his head and shouted at the dwarf, even though he was not visible. ‘Come down, Ninch,’ he bawled. ‘Come down here you stunted pygmy, you undersized shrimp. Come down and I’ll fillet yer.’

  ‘I don’t have to fight with you, mush,’ cried Ninch. ‘All I have to do is wrap you up and take you to Sussworth and that’s what I’m going to do, one way or the other.’

  Then another voice sounded from up above, a voice that was weak and twisted on the wind. ‘No you won’t, Ninch; it’s not fair. You always complained at being treated different because you were a dwarf, so why are you treating them different because they’re Borrible, eh? Why don’t you leave ’em alone?’

  Napoleon shone his torch upwards. ‘Stroll on,’ he said, ‘that sounds like Scooter.’

  Gradually more torches shone up into the falling rain as Scrapper reinforcements began to arrive on the scene, their battles won. There were other groups of them travelling across the roofs of the cars too, and soon the Borribles would no longer be outnumbered. Orococco, Twilight and Vulge came and stood by Knocker and Napoleon; they also stared into the sky.

  Ninch did not answer for a moment. He had thought his fellow acrobat at the bottom of the canal; but he did not remain surprised and silent for long. After a while he spoke and moved into sight, just visible on the edge of a teetering pile of cars. ‘So,’ sneered the dwarf, ‘you’re still alive, Borrible-lover. Well I shall have to hand you over to Sussworth as well, won’t I? You fool!’

  As Ninch finished speaking there was movement in a car at the top of a stack a little further down the road. Some torch beams swung over and showed Scooter climbing, with great difficulty, out of a window and on to the top of the topmost car. Once there he got to his feet and stood in the pelting rain, swaying in the wind and clutching his wounded shoulder. Someone had provided him with a raincoat several sizes too large, and the stubborn wind had almost blown it from his body for it streamed out from his arms like a ragged banner.

  ‘Listen to me,’ cried Scooter, shouting against the wind. ‘Listen to me, dwarfs. Don’t do what you are doing. The Borribles have done you no harm and they mean no harm. They are not murderers like Sussworth says. If only you’d—’

  Ninch interrupted this speech with a scream of anger. ‘Rubbish!’ he yelled. ‘Rubbish! Don’t believe him. The Borribles are thieves and murderers; the reward for them is enormous. Scooter is a turncoat, a traitor. Don’t believe a word he says.’

  More torches shone on Ninch now and in the light of them he jumped the gap that separated him from the next pile of cars, and then the next, and the torch beams followed him, and Knocker and the others saw him land close to Scooter and the cars swayed and rocked with the force of his landing.

  ‘Stop him!’ cried a voice. ‘He’ll kill Scooter.’ Knocker looked to his right and there was Chalotte with no raincoat, her hair flat to her skull, her clothes drenched, her face drawn with anguish.

  As soon as he was within reach Ninch began striking Scooter about the head with all his might, beating
him into silence. Scooter was too weak to defend himself. He raised his good arm to ward off the blows and stumbled backwards. He slipped, nearly fell and yet somehow he managed to scramble away from Ninch and on to another pile of cars. But Ninch followed, determined, intent on Scooter’s death, trying to push his one-time friend from the heights down to the mud below.

  Chalotte pulled her catapult. ‘Do something,’ she cried, and she fired and fired and Knocker and Napoleon and all the others on the ground did the same. But the shot, though not distant, was a difficult one, the torchlight uncertain, the wind and rain strong, and the stones that reached the dwarf only did so with a feeble power and Ninch did not notice them.

  At last a band of Scrappers climbed to the top levels on the opposite side of the road to Ninch and threatened him closely with their catapults and he was struck, once or twice, more forcibly from there.

  Ninch realized his danger and leapt back out of harm’s way. Scooter collapsed unconscious, incapable of any more resistance. Then Ninch called his dwarfs to him and had them maintain a fierce barrage of junk while he and some others kicked and pushed at the car on which Scooter lay.

  This car, only lightly balanced on top of its pile, rocked and began to slip. More dwarfs lent a hand and the whole edifice started shifting. The Adventurers, ignoring the missiles that were falling about their heads and shoulders, began to climb hand over hand through a different stack of cars. They fired their catapults whenever they could but the dwarfs kept under cover, and all the time the tower that bore the defenceless Scooter rocked and swayed more violently.

  ‘Dammit, dammit, dammit,’ hissed Napoleon as he clambered upwards, cutting his hands, scraping his knees. ‘That bloody Ninch.’

  But when Napoleon and the others emerged at the summit a wide canyon still separated them from the enemy, and even those Scrappers who were on the right side of the road were having a hard time getting anywhere near Ninch because he was protected by so many dwarfs.

  The Adventurers advanced to the edge of the canyon and stared through the eddying squalls of rain. They could see where Scooter lay, sprawled on his back, the storm beating down on his bloodless face. Napoleon fired his catapult at Ninch but the wind bore the stone away. ‘Hey, you,’ roared the Wendle. ‘You harm that Scooter and I swear I’ll kill you, if it’s the last thing I ever do.’

  Ninch never heard the threat, not only because of the wind but also because at that very moment the car he was pushing slid from the top of its pile, and with an awful grinding and clashing of metal against metal plunged to the ground below, carrying Scooter with it.

  Chalotte could not believe what she had seen. She lowered her head into her hands and a cry of dismay rose from deep in her throat. ‘Oh the madness,’ she moaned, ‘the madness of it.’

  There was worse to come. With the weight of one vehicle removed, the pile which had supported it lost its equilibrium and began to buckle in the middle, finally toppling over in an avalanche of crumpled steel sheet. The cars in the piles to right and left, no longer held in position, slid sideways, and with more clanging and clatter they collapsed like tower blocks in an earthquake. Windscreens burst and showered diamonds of glass like fountains into the air; exhaust pipes bent and fractured and doors sprang open. A huge section of the scrapyard had slumped over and buried itself in the mud.

  The dwarfs cheered and shouted in triumph. Ninch raised his arms and clasped his hands above his head like a heavyweight champion. ‘There,’ he bellowed into the wind. I’m leaving yer now … but I’ll be back and next time we’ll get yer!’ With that defiance Ninch began to scramble away over the wet roofs and beneath him, in the citadel of wrecks, his followers crawled from car to car and went after him.

  The shock of the avalanche had rippled everywhere and the Adventurers felt the tower where they stood begin to sway and tremble. They moved fast and fled from those treacherous peaks, working their way down to the safety of ground level, where they knew there was much to be done if Scooter was to be rescued. Everything was in chaos and confusion with many cars overturned and others on their sides. It was a dangerous jumble of scrap and every edge of metal was jagged and razor-sharp.

  But the Borribles did not falter; there was no time. Strikalite organized the Scrappers immediately, sending most of them in hot pursuit of the dwarfs to make sure they left the yard, but also to put paid to some of them, if possible. The remainder of the tribe, together with the Adventurers, began to look for Scooter, or as Napoleon said, ‘What might be left of him.’

  The Borribles had a hard time of it. They slipped and slithered over the fallen vehicles, which see-sawed and lurched under their weight. Their torches stabbed the darkness. They pushed their heads through shattered windows and splintered windscreens; they cut their hands on triangles of rust and groped below the surface of the creeping mud where Scooter might lie drowning. The search went on and on, more desperate by the minute, until at last Charlotte found him, his legs sticking out from the underside of a wreck, pathetic, like the legs of a squashed frog.

  ‘Over here,’ called Chalotte, and the torches converged on her. ‘I hope this is him; I can’t be sure.’

  Stonks looked down. ‘If he’s under this car,’ he said, ‘he’ll have suffocated.’

  ‘I recognize his shoes,’ said Bingo. ‘Hurry!’

  ‘Get along the side of the car, everyone,’ Stonks ordered, taking charge. ‘Now, get a hold of something and we’ll try and lift it. When we do that, Chalotte, you pull him out.’

  Stonks bent his knees and took a firm grip on the roof of the upside-down car. His companions did the same and on the word of command they heaved upward with their arms and pushed downward with their legs. The strain was terrifying and the face of every Borrible bulged and turned red with the effort.

  ‘Up, damn you, up!’ shouted Stonks, and the strongest Borrible of all heaved and pushed and swore and every Scrapper and every Adventurer there did the same. At last, when it seemed that the car would never move, it did, slowly, just an inch or two with a slow sucking sound as it came free of the mud. Chalotte crouched and eased the body out into the open and a huge bubble of air came up with it.

  ‘I’m in the clear,’ she shouted when she was, and after one more second Stonks gave the word and the car was allowed to sink back into position.

  Chalotte knelt on the ground and held Scooter’s head in one hand and tried to scrape the mud from his face with the other. ‘Is he still breathing?’ she asked.

  Stonks bent and slipped an arm beneath the dwarf’s shoulders. ‘Take his feet, someone,’ he said. ‘Let’s get him out of the rain.’

  The sagging body was half carried and half dragged to the nearest steady car and laid gently along its back seat. Chalotte squeezed into the small space that was left and continued cleaning the battered face with a bit of rag that Stonks had discovered. The rest of the Adventurers poked their heads through the window spaces; the Scrappers kept watch.

  ‘Is it him?’ asked Knocker.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Chalotte, ‘it’s him but I think he’s dead.’ She wiped Scooter’s ears with the rag. ‘The only adult who ever turned into a Borrible and he has to go and die. Sod’s law.’

  ‘Sussworth’s,’ said Knocker.

  Chalotte tipped Scooter’s head back and placed her mouth over his mouth; she exhaled and Scooter’s chest rose and fell abruptly. His eyelids fluttered.

  ‘He’s alive,’ said Stonks.

  Scooter opened his eyes and looked up at Chalotte. The rain beat down on the roof of the car. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. His voice was a broken whisper. ‘I thought I could get him to stop, get him to leave the other side and join us … but it’s the reward … It’s made him mad.’

  ‘Don’t talk,’ said Chalotte. ‘We’ll have to get you out of here, look after you, get you somewhere safe.’

  Scooter’s eyes closed with pain, blood bubbled on his lips. ‘It hurts, Chalotte,’ he said, ‘inside. I feel bad.’

  Chalotte lo
wered her head to her chest so that Scooter should not see her tears. Napoleon turned his back and stared into the weather. ‘What can we do?’ he said to Knocker. ‘I’m not good at this.’

  Knocker shook his head, pale. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘I dunno.’

  Scooter’s eyes opened again. He looked round the windows of the car at the Adventurers, a yellow frieze of austere faces lit from underneath by their own torches. ‘How are my ears, eh?’ he said, and a pallid smile touched his mouth. A drop of rain fell from the roof and splashed on his face and Chalotte leant her body forward to take the drops on her back. She touched his ears gently.

  ‘They’re fine,’ she said. ‘You have two of the finest ears I have ever seen … better than Knocker’s, better than Napoleon’s even.’ She wanted so much to cry but she held back.

  Now Scooter’s face shone with a bright smile. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘That’s really good.’ His breath rattled in his throat. ‘I never would have gone in with Ninch, you know, at the beginning, if I’d known about Borribles.’

  Suddenly Scooter let out a cry of pain and sat bolt upright, his eyes wide open but seeing nothing. ‘I’m glad I’m a Borrible,’ he cried with a voice that came from a hundred miles away. ‘I’ll never grow old now, never!’ Then a ball of blood burst at his lips and coloured his teeth bright crimson and he fell into Chalotte’s arms like an old limp sack, half full of sand.

  Chalotte cradled the head in her arms and wiped the blood from the face. ‘Turn out the torches,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to see.’ She began to cry then, properly; not with a lot of noise but with a lot of tears.

  One by one the torches were extinguished and the Adventurers stood unmoving, their hands by their sides. They said nothing until at last Knocker could bear the sound of weeping no longer, and it was not Chalotte alone who was weeping. Knocker could feel the tears on his own face; Stonks shook his head and his face was wet and not with rain alone. Napoleon, Orococco, Twilight, Bingo, Vulge and Torreycanyon, a great grief had seized them all. A brand new Borrible had died.