In the Lair of the Mountain Beast

by James Moloney

  Berrin took a deep breath and let it out sharply through his nose. ‘That’s just it, Aden. There’s more I have to do. The final battle is coming. Doomsday, we call it. I have to be part of that. My parents, Aden, you have to understand. I have to free my parents from Malig Tumora, before he has no more use for them.’

  ‘Your parents again,’ said Aden. He knew he wouldn’t be able to convince Berrin now, not with his mind full of families and fighting. Instead he asked, ‘How long do you think I will live?’

  ‘With Jones? He’s a good man. You’ll survive until we defeat Malig Tumora. You might even be part of the battle.’

  ‘No, not that. How long will my body last?’

  The question startled Berrin. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m an experimental human, remember. I’ll be full size by the time I’m two years old. That’s what happens with dogs and cats. But animals only live for a few years after that, don’t they?’ Aden looked up at his friend, the melancholy in his face enough to crush a caring heart. ‘How many years before I’m old and ready to die, Berrin? How many?’

  Berrin was saved from answering by a shout from Olanda. The boys hurried to join her in the patch of dried mud where she stood waving them closer.

  Dorian arrived at the same time. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Look,’ Olanda said, pointing to the ground. In the middle of the circle formed by their bodies, they saw a line of tracks. ‘The animal that made these must be quite a size, don’t you think?’

  Berrin dropped to his haunches. The paw prints weren’t like anything he had ever seen: a cluster of circles each the size of his thumbnail and, digging deeper into the dirt on one side, the impression of claws. Very strange.

  All four Rats spread out to search the distant edges of the crater.

  ‘Did you see anything?’ Dorian asked when they regrouped.

  ‘Not a thing, and between us we’ve been all over the crater,’ Olanda said.

  Aden stooped lower to inspect the markings again. ‘Maybe it’s a bird — an eagle or something.’

  ‘Yes, a bird,’ said Dorian, checking the sky as she spoke. ‘That’s why we haven’t seen it today. A bird can fly in and out whenever it wants.’

  Berrin wasn’t entirely sure. He didn’t dwell on the matter though and Dorian was soon onto the most important issue.

  ‘It’s too dark to search any more. We’ll sleep beside the pond and try again tomorrow.’

  Half an hour later they were bedding down for the night.

  ‘You don’t think this whole journey has been for nothing, do you?’ Olanda asked Berrin.

  ‘It can’t be,’ he answered. ‘This is our last hope. If there’s no moth to find, we might never destroy Malig Tumora’s control.’

  He thought again of the distant horizons he had glimpsed earlier that day. How many people lived out there in the big world? If his suspicions about Malig Tumora proved correct, then their entire future depended on him and his three weary companions.

  Berrin looked for Aden and found him standing twenty metres away. He was staring up at the night sky where the moon was emerging slowly over the rim of the volcano. It was a beautiful sight but Berrin was too tired to appreciate it. His eyelids faltered and he fell quickly into a deep sleep.

  ELEVEN

  Noises

  ‘BERRIN, BERRIN, WAKE UP!’

  The voice swam down to Berrin like a persistent fish nuzzling a stone at the bottom of the ocean. Go away, I’m sleeping, he said to his dreams. My arms won’t move and my legs are made of lead.

  ‘Wake up! You have to see what’s happening,’ said the same unwelcome voice.

  Berrin opened his eyes and found a familiar silhouette staring down at him. ‘What do you want, Aden?’

  ‘You’ve got to see what I’ve found.’

  Berrin sat up yawning, still reluctant to leave his bed among the grass. ‘It’s dark. What could you find when you can’t see more than a couple of metres?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Aden, barely able to contain his excitement. ‘I knew there was something I’d forgotten. They’re nocturnal, you see.’

  What is he talking about, Berrin wondered, but he let himself be tugged along by the insistent Aden, who was bigger and stronger than he was. They stumbled away from the pond and on through a clump of small trees into the open meadows. Fortunately, the moon shone full-faced above, making the ground ahead easy to see.

  ‘This way,’ said Aden. ‘We’re going all the way to the rock face.’ He was carrying something very long.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The net. I’ve tied it onto a tree branch. You’ll see why in a minute.’

  Aden led the way towards the walls of the crater. ‘It’s along here somewhere,’ he told Berrin, who was glad that for once he didn’t have to show the way.

  ‘There! Can you see it?’ Aden cried.

  ‘See what?’

  With the long handle of his net in one hand and Berrin’s elbow grasped in the other, Aden blundered on through the knee-high grass. ‘Look closely ahead. Do you see the dark patch in the rock? It’s the opening to a huge cave.’

  ‘So it’s a cave. What’s so special …’

  Berrin’s tongue froze on that last word. His eyes had taken over. Every part of his concentration was now devoted to what he could see, as movement through the night air caught his eye. Something small flew above his head, then another and, seconds later, a third.

  ‘Moths,’ he breathed.

  ‘Yes. They’re coming out of that cave, one and two at a time. I’ve tried to follow them but the moonlight isn’t strong enough.’

  ‘Are they the moths we came to find?’ Berrin asked with an enthusiasm that suddenly rivalled Aden’s.

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll have to catch one to take a closer look.’

  Aden stepped forward, handling the long stick with more skill than he had ever shown with a sword. Two of the moths fluttered free into the moonlight. He let them go while he shifted the branch into place, with the net hovering over the cave mouth. Then, whoosh, with a quick scoop he caught the next moth to emerge.

  Berrin rushed to his side. ‘Let’s take it back to the girls. We can compare it to the picture Ferdinand drew.’

  Ten minutes later they had woken Dorian and Olanda. Ferdinand’s drawing lay exposed to the moonlight while Aden caught the struggling moth in his hand. When it was free of the net, he lay the moth on the ground and pressed his finger onto its abdomen so its wings were stretched out flat.

  ‘Look, there are the little half-moons on each wing. This is the moth we’re after!’ cried Dorian.

  The four children began to hug one another. ‘We found it, we found it!’ they shouted together until their joy echoed around the crater’s walls. In the confusion Aden let the moth escape.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘There are plenty more flying out of that cave. They come out to lay their eggs on the leaves and grasses, I think. But during the day they prefer the darkness of the cave.’

  ‘So we can only catch them at night,’ said Dorian, her mind already focused on the most important thing. ‘No time to lose then. We’ll get as many as we can tonight.’

  Berrin and Olanda took a turn with the net on its long stick and were soon as expert as Aden. Dorian held the large bag Agatha had made and counted each precious moth as it was carefully slipped inside.

  Twenty … thirty … Dorian had just called forty when Olanda turned around suddenly. ‘Did you hear something?’ she asked the others.

  Berrin was busy with the net, Dorian with her counting and Aden was watching for the next moth to fly silently from the cave’s mouth.

  ‘What did it sound like?’ Berrin asked.

  ‘Hard to describe,’ Olanda said, already wondering whether she was imagining things. ‘A funny sort of humming. I’ve never heard anything like it before.’

  Berrin was listening but before he could put his mind to what it might be, Aden cried,
‘There, another one! Quickly, Berrin, use the net,’ and by the time the moth was safely in Dorian’s bag, they had forgotten all about Olanda’s strange noise.

  ‘One hundred,’ Dorian counted at last and, though they hadn’t discussed how many they would need, this seemed as good a number as any.

  ‘It’s starting to get light,’ said Aden, looking up at the circle of sky through the crater’s rim. ‘We won’t catch any more now.’

  They set off towards the pond, chattering and slapping each other on the back. Could it really be true? Berrin had always been hopeful, but such a success was unbelievable. ‘A hundred moths!’ he said. ‘We’ll have them back to the tunnels in …’

  The others didn’t hear the rest because Berrin’s words were overpowered by a terrible roar. It was the same deep rumbling they’d heard the night before, only this time it was much louder and close by.

  ‘The mountain beast,’ said Olanda.

  There was no creature to be seen but all four Rats knew where the ominous noise was coming from. They stood staring in the one direction, back towards the cave where the moths lived.

  ‘What do you think it is?’ asked Dorian as the rumblings continued.

  ‘That’s just it,’ Berrin said. ‘I don’t want to think about what’s making that sound. Something alive, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Yes, definitely alive,’ said Olanda, agreeing for once without argument.

  Aden didn’t seem in any condition to agree or disagree. His face had gone as white as the snow on the ridges high above them. ‘We stood in the mouth of that cave for hours,’ he said. ‘I even went inside it a little way before I came to wake you up.’

  ‘Just as well you didn’t go any further,’ Berrin said. ‘You might be quietly digesting inside a huge stomach right now.’

  Aden’s legs buckled and he was suddenly sitting in the long grass. While Berrin knelt beside him, waiting until the colour washed back into his face, Dorian asked the obvious question.

  ‘Will it come out to attack us?’

  ‘We saw those strange tracks,’ Berrin reminded her. ‘The mountain beast must come out here sometimes.’

  ‘To feed, most likely,’ Olanda added.

  ‘Then we’d better make sure it doesn’t feed on us. We’ve got what we came for. Let’s get our things from the pond and start climbing.’

  At this order, Aden jumped quickly to his feet and, still carrying the net on its long pole, he beat the others back to the camp. ‘Should I bring this with us?’ he asked, holding out the net.

  ‘No, we don’t need it now,’ said Dorian.

  ‘I’ll put it inside Olanda’s grotto, in case we ever have to come back again.’

  Come back again! thought Berrin. The echoes of the mountain beast’s menacing roar had barely faded. They were never coming back here. But Aden was already angling the net through the hole high among the boulders.

  Jasper had begged his way onto Berrin’s shoulder to make sure he wasn’t left behind. The boy was about to remove him so he could lift his pack into place when he saw Olanda reach for her crossbow and pull back the string.

  ‘What is it?’ Berrin called softly.

  Olanda wasn’t looking towards the cave. She seemed to be watching the boulders above them. She waved one hand to make them stay quiet, then, with the smooth agility that Berrin both envied and admired, she turned to her left and fired.

  The bolt shot upwards, heading for the highest of the boulders. It had barely travelled twenty metres when it struck — not rock, but something hard all the same. A sharp metallic ping reached their ears as the bolt was deflected and tumbled away out of sight.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Dorian shouted in alarm. She and Berrin had already drawn their swords.

  Olanda was too busy reloading to reply, but there was soon no need. Her target emerged brazenly from behind the rocks and, to his horror, Berrin knew exactly what it was.

  ‘The observation ball,’ Aden breathed when he recognised it as well.

  Neither Dorian nor Olanda had seen the observation ball before, but they had heard the boys describe it after their escape from the menagerie. They knew that it was the eyes and ears of their enemy, Malig Tumora.

  Olanda was taking aim with a second bolt.

  ‘Your-weapons-are-useless-against-this-ball,’ said the familiar robotic voice.

  ‘How did you know where to find us?’ Berrin demanded.

  ‘Where-to-find-you? You-have-not-been-out-of-my-sight-since-you-left-the-city. My-sensors-have-tracked-you-every-metre-of-the-way.’

  The four Rats stared at one another in dismay. Tracked all the way?

  ‘Heat-sensing technology,’ Aden whispered. ‘The computer was tracking us in the dark, using the heat from our bodies.’

  ‘The-young-human-is-correct,’ droned the ball. ‘At-night-a-satellite-picked-you-out-of-the-cool-air. During-the-day-I-used-a-robotic-bird-with-cameras-instead-of-eyes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you capture us earlier then?’ said Dorian defiantly.

  ‘So-that-you-would-lead-me-to-the-moth-with-the-crescent-shapes-on-its-wings.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Dorian challenged the observation ball. ‘A moth? That’s crazy. Why would we risk so much —’

  The robotic voice cut her off. ‘Do-not-toy-with-my-intelligence. The-moth-is-a-threat-to-my-plans. I-suspected-that-a-party-of-young-humans-would-try-to-find-it. You-gave-me-the-opportunity-to-find-it-for-myself.’

  ‘But we haven’t found it,’ said Berrin, trying desperately to continue Dorian’s bluff.

  The observation ball made no reply at first and Berrin dared hope that he had put doubts into the computer’s mind. Then he heard his own voice and the voices of his companions, not from the ground beside him, but from the observation ball. ‘We found it, we found it,’ came the delighted cries.

  ‘It heard us last night,’ Aden explained. ‘The observation ball recorded our words.’

  ‘Yes-and-I-know-the-bag-the-young-girl-carries-is-full-of-these-moths,’ the observation ball added.

  Dorian gripped the bag tightly. ‘You’ll have to cut off my hands before I let this go.’

  ‘Keep-the-bag,’ said the mechanical voice of Malig Tumora. ‘In-just-a-few-minutes-the-entire-species-will-become-extinct-along-with-everything-else-in-this-crater.’

  ‘Does extinct mean what I think it means?’ Olanda whispered.

  Before he could answer, Berrin’s eye caught a momentary reflection from the slopes high above them. He gasped, making the others look up as well.

  ‘Gadges,’ said Dorian. ‘What are they doing? Are those ropes they’re pulling behind them?’

  ‘They’re much too thick to be ropes,’ Berrin said. Whatever they were, they worried him even more than the sight of the Gadges.

  ‘They’re pipes,’ said Olanda. ‘Like the ones that pump the flowers’ scent to the city buildings.’

  The four friends watched helplessly as a team of Gadges dragged the thick black pipes lower and lower, past the snow line and further still. Seven, eight, nine pipes, Berrin counted silently. ‘They’re going to pump the flowers’ scent into this crater?’ he said. ‘What’s the point of that? The Gadges can take us prisoner any time they like.’

  ‘They-are-too-afraid-to-enter-this-crater. Even-Gadger-Red-himself,’ said Malig Tumora’s voice, taunting them with the name of the Gadges’ savage leader. ‘For-once-you-are-safe-from-his-teeth-and-his-claws.’

  If they were being spared a cruel death at the hands of Gadger Red, then an even greater horror lay in store. When Aden spoke, Berrin had his first hint of what that horror might be.

  ‘Petrol. I smell petrol!’

  Dorian turned on Aden. ‘What are you talking about? There aren’t any cars or trucks close by. How can there be —’ She stopped mid-sentence. ‘Petrol. You’re right. I can smell it too.’

  They all could.

  ‘The pipes,’ said Berrin, pointing towards the ridge. ‘The Gadges aren’t pumping the flo
wers’ scent through those pipes; they’re pumping petrol.’

  ‘A fuel–air bomb,’ Aden whispered. Then he was shouting it to his companions. ‘Do you remember the burnt-out patch of ground we came across? The grown-ups said a fuel–air bomb caused it. The Gadges are going to pump the air full of petrol fumes then set them alight. In a crater like this, there’ll be nothing left. It’ll destroy all the moths in one huge explosion.’

  ‘Not just the moths,’ Berrin said. ‘It will kill every living thing.’

  TWELVE

  Plug the Hole

  THE SHARP STENCH OF PETROL stung Berrin’s nose and grew stronger with every second. While he and his companions began to understand their fate, the observation ball climbed slowly away from the crater’s floor.

  ‘It doesn’t want to fry along with everything else in this place,’ growled Olanda. She fitted another bolt to her crossbow but, before she could fire, Berrin put his hand on her arm.

  ‘No, if you hit it, there might be a spark. The air around us will explode.’

  ‘What difference does it make? The whole valley will go up in flames any minute now.’

  Though it was the last thing Olanda wanted to happen, her words seemed all too accurate when a helicopter appeared over the rim of the crater. Booms jutted out from each side and suspended beneath them sat a pair of rockets.

  ‘Look, the Gadges are climbing back up to the ridge,’ said Dorian. She didn’t need to explain any further. Once the last Gadge was safely free of the crater, the rockets would ignite a fireball as spectacular as any eruption this volcano had ever produced.

  ‘The pond! It’s our only chance,’ Berrin called.

  They hurried to its edge, tossing everything they could into the water ahead of them — their ratpacks, their weapons — though Dorian could not bear to part with the bag of precious moths. They waded into the water themselves until Aden called a halt.

  ‘It won’t work,’ he said. ‘The fire will use up all the oxygen and it could be hours before any fresh air reaches down this far. Even if we survive the blast, we’ll suffocate.’