by Paul Stewart
Rumblix did what he always did when the phraxlighter moored – he leaped from the stern and disappeared into the forest. Cade watched him go. It had worried him the first time Rumblix did this, but as Thorne had explained, the prowlgrin needed to stretch his legs after the long hours spent penned in on the cramped vessel if he was to remain in peak condition. Besides, as Cade knew well, one whistle always had him bounding back to his master’s side.
Cade opened the lid of the storage box behind the cabin, pulled out the hammocks, bedrolls and waxed covers he’d stowed there that morning, and went in search of suitable branches to hang them from. Gart remained on the Hoverworm, carrying out his nightly maintenance: realigning the rudder ropes, oiling the phraxchamber’s cooling-plates and checking the pressure gauges. That afternoon, he’d noticed the thrust faltering on occasions, and he took the opportunity now to clean out the propulsion duct.
As for Thorne, the fisher goblin was on supper duty.
He unpacked the hanging-stove and hooked the chains to an overhead branch. He filled the pot-belly of the stove with chopped wood and screwed-up balls of waxed parchment and lit it. Then, using water from the bark hollows, he filled a copperwood pot and set it over the heat. Soon, the water was steaming, and Thorne added ingredients – gladebarley, woodthyme, and pieces of fish that he’d dried himself.
Everyone knew the tasks that had to be done and, bathed in the turquoise light, the evening routine was carried out quickly, efficiently, and in silence. No one spoke – not until supper was ready.
‘Come and get it,’ Thorne called.
Cade gave a short, sharp whistle. Moments later, there was a rustling of leaves, and Rumblix burst through the branches and landed beside him. Thorne laughed and patted the prowlgrin on his back.
‘Hungry again, eh?’
He poured some of the steaming broth into the empty offal bucket and set it down. Rumblix sniffed at it unenthusiastically, ate a little, then looked up expectantly.
‘Sorry, boy,’ said Thorne. ‘No feathered visitor this time.’
Rumblix dipped his head back into the bucket.
‘That’s the way,’ said Thorne. ‘Eat it all up. We need you big and strong for when we get to Hive.’
With Rumblix slurping noisily, the other three hunkered down on the broad branch. Thorne ladled the fish broth into bowls, passed them round, and they ate. Gart and Thorne talked about the Winesap Inn, and Rampton Gleep, and the last time that Thorne had seen either of them. But Cade found that he was too tired to concentrate. And when he’d emptied his bowl, he said no to the offer of a second helping and turned in for the night.
‘Sleep well, lad,’ Thorne and Gart called after him.
Cade climbed into his hammock, pulled the covers up to his chin and lay there for a while, his eyelids growing heavy as he tried to count the moonmoths that fluttered above him in the turquoise glow. Three. Four. Five . . .
And then he was asleep.
It was the clatter of pots that woke him. For a moment, Cade thought it was Thorne clearing up after supper. But when he opened his eyes, he saw the new day had already dawned, and that the clatter below was Gart and Thorne packing up the phraxlighter. It was as he was sitting up in his hammock that Cade first noticed the small figure perched on a higher branch behind him.
A scraggy-looking bird creature was staring down at him.
Its eyes were big and yellow. Between them was a hooked beak that looked far too large for the creature’s angular head. Feathery tufts grew at the back of its scaly scalp, and there were two long feathers dangling down on either side of its head. They were as bedraggled as the drab plumage that covered the scrawny neck that protruded from a homespun robe. Feathered arms ending in sharp claws were crossed at its chest, while the creature’s large feet, with their knotted knuckles and curved talons, gripped the branch firmly.
‘Do you plan to stay here long?’ it said. Its voice was reedy and nasal.
Cade stared back. ‘You’re . . . you’re a shryke, aren’t you?’ he gasped.
Cade had never actually seen a shryke before, but in Great Glade, the ferocious bird-creatures were legendary. Once they been a major force in the Deepwoods. But then, centuries earlier, a mighty shryke battle-flock had suffered a devastating defeat in the savage wars that had erupted at the founding of the Free Glades. Then the great shryke city of the Eastern Roost had suffered a catastrophic egg-blight and been abandoned – and along with it, the shryke empire’s ambitions to dominate the Edge.
Now, five hundred years later, many believed that shrykes had died out completely. Yet here Cade was, talking to one of these legendary creatures.
The shryke cocked its head to one side. ‘I’m not actually a shryke,’ it said. ‘I’m a shryke male.’ He flapped a feathered arm behind him. ‘My shryke mistress lives just over there.’
‘Your shryke mistress,’ Cade muttered, remembering that in shryke society, the females were in charge.
He climbed from his hammock and peered into the foliage where the shryke male was pointing. At first he saw nothing, but then caught sight of what looked like a walkway, half concealed by the trees, and beyond it, some kind of construction.
‘That’s your house?’ said Cade.
‘The shryke mistress’s roost,’ the shryke male corrected him. ‘Along with the nest-huts of her sisters.’
‘You talking to yourself up there, lad?’ came Thorne’s voice.
‘No,’ Cade replied. ‘To . . .’ He turned to the bird creature. ‘I don’t know your name.’
‘Gwilp,’ he said. It sounded like a small burp.
‘Gwilp,’ he called back. ‘Gwilp is a shryke.’
‘A shryke!’ Gart and Thorne cried out. The next moment, they appeared beside him, phraxmuskets in hand, with Rumblix between them. They eyed Gwilp up and down. Gwilp stared back at them with obvious unease.
‘A shryke male, actually,’ he corrected them.
‘A shryke male,’ said Thorne, then smiled delightedly. ‘Never thought I’d see the day . . . Delighted to make your acquaintance, Gwilp. Do you roost around here?’
‘Over there,’ Cade answered for him.
Thorne and Gart exchanged glances.
‘Shrykes of old had a fearsome reputation,’ said Gart. ‘There was a time when the mighty battle-flocks seemed certain to conquer the entire Deepwoods . . .’
Thorne was nodding. ‘What kind of a welcome would we receive if we were to visit your roost?’ he asked, turning to Gwilp. ‘We have items we might barter,’ he said. ‘Pots, knives . . . For food – and a little offal, perhaps,’ he added, reaching down to stroke Rumblix’s glossy fur.
‘You’d be most welcome. The shryke mistress loves to trade,’ said Gwilp. ‘If you want to meet her, I can take you.’ He paused. ‘You three,’ he said. ‘Not the leaper. The shryke mistress might get the wrong idea and eat it.’
Cade blanched. Eat Rumblix! He saw the same look of concern in Thorne’s face.
‘Gart, you stay here with Rumblix. Keep him tethered,’ Thorne said. ‘I’ll take Cade. And I want us ready to leave the moment we get back.’
Gwilp waited while Thorne threw a few of their belongings into a pack, then the three of them set off for the shryke roost. Climbing from branch to branch, they soon came to the start of the shryke walkway that Cade had glimpsed through the trees.
Constructed from ropes and planks of wood, the suspended bridge snaked its way through the lullabee glade. Cade’s gaze darted nervously around as he followed the others. The whole area seemed devoid of life. No birds. No creatures. Gwilp’s comment about what might happen to Rumblix echoed ominously in Cade’s head, and he was about to ask Thorne what they should do if the shrykes proved to be as ferocious as it was thought when the walkway abruptly emerged into a concealed clearing at the heart of the glade.
A circle of trees had been felled to create it, with a single tree left standing at its centre that had been stripped of its branches and sawn off at the top of the
main trunk. Platforms had been attached to the inner ring of trees and modest nest-huts built upon them, their roofs consisting of large, intricately woven bowls, supported from below by circular walls of sun-baked clay, from which roosting poles protruded. Encircling the clearing and crisscrossing the air at different levels was a series of walkways that connected one shryke nest-hut to the next. The largest nest-hut of all rested on top of the pillar-like tree at the centre of the clearing, with yet more walkways radiating out from it in all directions, like the spokes of a wheel.
It was to this central nest-hut that Gwilp was headed, with Cade and Thorne following warily behind. Gripping the rope balustrade tightly as the walkway swayed, Cade looked up to see two shryke females perched on a roosting pole in front of their nest-like construction.
Compared to the shryke male, these shrykes were huge, three or four times larger than Gwilp. And unlike Gwilp, they were finely clothed. Generous swathes of material, decorated with feathers, teeth and claws, were wrapped around their shoulders; richly patterned fabric aprons and cloaks matched their gaudily bright feathers, while separate pieces of cloth formed elaborate head-dresses. Their hands ended in sharp, curved talons, as did their feet, which they tapped rhythmically on the wooden boards of the platform as they talked.
Then they noticed Gwilp.
‘Ah, visitors!’ said the taller of the two shryke matrons, stepping down off the perch and motioning for Cade and Thorne to approach.
‘I found them, Mistress Hinnygizzard. In the lullabee grove.’
‘He found them, Sister Plume,’ the matron said to her companion, then turned to Thorne and Cade. ‘Did you realize you were lost?’ she asked, and cackled with laughter.
Cade sighed with relief. Given everything he’d heard, he had expected the legendary shrykes to be far more intimidating. Yet these two seemed affable enough – despite their savage-looking beaks and claws.
‘We are travelling to Hive from our home at Farrow Lake,’ said Thorne. ‘I am Thorne. This is Cade. We would like to trade, for food—’
‘Trade!’ Mistress Hinnygizzard squawked delightedly. ‘Oh, we shrykes love to trade, don’t we, Sister Plume? You come from Farrow Lake, you say. Where in Sky’s name is that?’
Cade blushed under the two shrykes’ yellow-eyed stare. ‘It’s . . . it’s a new settlement, south-west of here. Just a few dwellings, and a skytavern platform.’
Mistress Hinnygizzard flapped her emerald and blue arm feathers in excitement. ‘Skytavern platform! How glamorous. We would love to take a journey on a skytavern, wouldn’t we, sister? But we’re simple forest folk, making a living as best we can. Nothing left over for such luxuries.’
She hopped back onto the roosting pole, her expensive fabric skirts rustling as she did so. Sister Plume settled down next to her.
‘How different from the olden days,’ Mistress Hinnygizzard sniffed, her yellow eyes growing heavy-lidded and dreamy. ‘Once, shrykes ruled the forests, you know,’ she mused. ‘With our great travelling markets we controlled the trade of half the known Deepwoods, while our magnificent city at the Eastern Roost was the envy of all the Edge . . .’
Cade held his breath, wondering where this was all leading. But then she paused, and her eyes grew bright.
‘So you wish to trade,’ she said, turning to Thorne. ‘What do you have to barter?’
‘We need food,’ he told her. ‘More specifically, offal, if you have it. And we have these.’ He pulled his pack from his back, dropped to his knees, and began removing the contents. ‘A copperwood bowl, perhaps,’ he said, running his thumb around the rim. ‘Intricately engraved. Finely turned ironwood spoons. These goblets, inlaid with amber . . .’
As Mistress Hinnygizzard eyed the contents of Thorne’s pack keenly, Cade looked around him and saw several more shrykes. Shryke matrons perched on roosting poles in front of a couple of the smaller nest-huts; a shryke male scuttling along one of the walkways from one nest-hut to the next, an earthenware pot balanced on his feather-tufted head.
‘We have no need for copperwood bowls, finely engraved or otherwise,’ Mistress Hinnygizzard was saying. ‘Nor spoons. Nor goblets. As I said, we’re simple folk, aren’t we, Sister Plume?’
‘We are indeed, sister,’ her companion nodded.
‘But, what’s this?’ Mistress Hinnygizzard asked, plucking the red-lead pencil from the top pocket of Thorne’s jacket and examining it in her claws.
‘It’s . . .’ Thorne began.
But the shryke matron was not listening. Instead, she reached inside the folds of her silken cloak and drew out a hand-mirror, which she held up to observe her face. ‘A little, so,’ she said, drawing a red line on the side of her beak. ‘A line here. And here. And here . . .’
She turned to Sister Plume, her large hooked beak a blaze of red. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.
Her companion nodded admiringly. ‘The great Mother Muleclaw the Third herself could not have looked more magnificent as she led her flocks into battle,’ Sister Plume said softly. ‘You look ready for battle, my dear,’ she said. ‘Or, at the very least, a cruise on a skytavern.’
The two shrykes squawked with amusement.
‘Gwilp!’ Mistress Hinnygizzard commanded. ‘Supply these fine traders with all the offal they desire.’
· CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR ·
‘IT HASN’T CHANGED at all,’ shouted Thorne, twisting round to Gart and Cade as he led the three of them through the dense crowd that packed the Winesap Inn. ‘Half of Low Town seems to be in tonight,’ he laughed.
The tavern was vast, with richly carved wooden pillars rising up to support equally ornate roof beams high above their heads. By the far wall a staircase led up to a balcony where well-dressed goblins sat at tables and were served by scurrying oakelves in tall conical bonnets. Below, goblins of all types clustered around troughs that lined the walls, dipping long-handled ladles into them and drinking the golden winesap that gave the tavern its name.
Cade wrinkled his nose. The flickering tallow candles gave off a rancid odour and the winesap troughs smelled sour and musky – a smell that intensified each time a group of drinkers called for their own trough to be filled. Stacks of barrels lined the walls, and when the shout went up, a goblin in a dirty white apron would hurriedly climb a stepladder and turn a spigot, sending a fountain of glistening liquid down through the air and into the trough below.
All around them in the crowded tavern, the residents of the Low Town district of Hive were taking refreshment after a long day spent hard at work in the pressing mills and sap-sheds that produced the wines Hive was famous for. Cade looked about him at the different faces. A tufted goblin with thick black hair sprouting from the tips of his ears. Pink-eyed goblins, with their wide milky stares. And a couple of low-belly goblins, their enormous stomachs supported by the ‘belly slings’ slung from their shoulders . . .
Once they would have lived in separate warrior clans in various parts of the Deepwoods, each with their own chosen weapons and battle dress, and constantly at war with one another for territory. Now they were city folk, living and working together, and all dressed in the blue-dyed jackets of winesap workers.
It seemed a world away from Cade’s quiet little cabin beside the tranquil waters of Farrow Lake. His stomach churned as he thought of his friends back there, and how they were all depending on him, Gart and Thorne – and Rumblix of course – for their very survival.
They had set off from the shryke roost at noon the previous day and, owing to the good weather, Gart had suggested they fly through the night. After more than two weeks on board the cramped Hoverworm, Cade and Thorne were happy to agree, and all three of them had taken turns to pilot the phraxlighter through from dusk to dawn.
Sitting at the wheel, the steady thrum of the phraxchamber below him and the carved hoverworm prow in front, Cade had gazed out at the Deepwoods and marvelled at the vastness of the mighty forest. Once, the city of Great Glade had seemed huge to him – his entire world.
But not now. However magnificent its buildings, it was just a pinprick in this endless expanse.
As dawn broke, Thorne and Gart had joined him in the wheelhouse. Gart had passed Cade his spyglass, which he’d put to his eye. And there, far away on the horizon, Cade had caught his first glimpse of Hive, a seemingly chaotic jumble of buildings crowded one on top of another on the towering slopes of two mountain peaks, a thundering waterfall pouring down the gorge between them.
And as they drew closer, Thorne had taken Cade to the prow and pointed out landmarks. Cade could hear the pride in the fisher goblin’s voice.
‘That’s High Town at the top of West Ridge, where the rich folks live. Large mansions, terraced gardens, spectacular views,’ said Thorne, pointing to the top of one of the mountain peaks. ‘See that building there? It’s the Clan Hall. Where the High Council meets. Used to be dominated by the clan chiefs, but after the war we changed all that . . . And there,’ he said, nodding towards the top of the mountain opposite, ‘is the Peak.’
Cade found himself looking at an impressive palace, seemingly fashioned from gleaming wax. ‘Who lives there?’ he asked.
‘That’s the Gyle Palace. It’s where the Sisterhood of Grossmothers and their gyle goblin followers live,’ Thorne told him. ‘Over there are the Docks,’ he continued. ‘And that’s the Sumpwood Bridge, home to the Hive Academy – a lot like your academic district in Great Glade . . .’
Cade stared at the magnificent bridge, with its grand facades and pointed towers, spanning the river at the bottom of the gorge – and he found himself thinking how different life might have been if his father had been an academic there, rather than in the School of Flight run by the treacherous Quove Lentis . . .
‘Down there is Low Town, my old district,’ Thorne said, pointing to a docking-tower at the foot of East Ridge, where the sprawl of buildings ended and the fields with their neat rows of winesap vines began. ‘It’s where the finest winesap in all the Edge is produced.’