by Paul Stewart
‘Cade Quarter, you’re trying too hard,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t grasp, don’t cling, don’t fear the fall but . . .’ Her voice softened to a soothing lilt. ‘Breathe, feel, and . . . fly.’
She stepped back and looked at him, a faraway look in her eye. Cade stared back at her; at this strange fourthling girl who sounded so much wiser than her years. Tillman had told him that her real name was Feldia; that Whisp was just a nickname . . .
‘What do you whisper to Dominix when you’re riding?’ he asked.
Whisp turned her gaze to him, a smile plucking at the corners of her mouth. ‘But, Cade,’ she said, ‘I’ve just told you.’
· CHAPTER THIRTY ·
CADE GLANCED DOWN and realized that he was gripping Rumblix’s reins so tightly his knuckles were white. Beneath him, he felt a shiver of excitement ripple through his prowlgrin’s body.
‘Easy, boy,’ he whispered, patting Rumblix’s gleaming grey fur. ‘Not long now.’
They were second from the end of a line of shuffling, snorting prowlgrins and their nervous riders, climbing the ‘Stairway to Eternity’.
Before the revolution, when the tyrant Kulltuft Warhammer and his clan chief cronies had ruled Hive, these stone steps leading up to the top of the falls had been the final walk for many brave citizens of Hive. The Stairway to Eternity ended at a jutting lip of rock, a place of execution, from which those accused of speaking out against the clan chiefs were ‘barrelled’. Tied up, placed in winesap barrels, then dropped into the waterfall, those hapless victims who were not dashed to pieces on the rocks below were used as target practice by Warhammer’s elite guards in the Bloody Blades, positioned along the gorge path.
These days, though, the stone steps led to the covered high-jump gantry. And today – one of the two-weekly race days – the sides of the gorge path below were thronging with an expectant and excited crowd decked out in their best finery.
Back near the end of the line, inching slowly forwards, Cade had had plenty of time to absorb the atmosphere. Trogs, trolls, fourthlings and every variety of goblin had turned out to cast their eyes over the jumpers and riders as they made their way patiently along the gorge path and, step by stone step, up the Stairway to Eternity.
Cade’s gaze rested for a moment on the goblin matrons in mob-caps waving the wager sticks they’d purchased from the betting benches, and attempting to stroke the prowlgrins they’d just bet on for luck. And on the haughty long-haired goblins in expensive topcoats, who whispered to each other as they assessed the merits of each prowlgrin that passed by them. And once, glancing over his shoulder, he’d seen the huge figure of a Grossmother, her glistening eyes sparkling from beneath folds of fat, being carried through the crowd by fifty tiny, but attentive, gyle goblins.
‘Two thousand hivers on Spave and Verginix!’ Cade heard her booming voice rising above the hum of the crowd.
The Grossmother wasn’t the only one. It seemed all the smart money was being placed on the experienced orange and black prowlgrin ridden by a colonel in the Hive Militia to win. They were at the head of the line and would be the first to jump, followed in decreasing order of fame and experience by the other twenty-one pairs of jumpers and riders.
Back in twenty-first place in the line, the unknown Cade Quarter looked up. He and Rumblix had reached the top of the Stairway to Eternity. Whisp and her prowlgrin, Dominix, were just in front of them. On the slow progress up to the top of the falls, she had glanced back at Cade several times, her face calm and radiant.
‘You’ll be fine, Cade,’ she’d told him, mouthing the words slowly. ‘Fine . . .’
But Cade didn’t feel fine. His stomach churned, his mouth was dry, and beneath the heavy copperwood helmet his face was bathed with sweat. And all the while, the thundering sound of the mighty Edgewater River grew louder and louder, until it drowned out all other sounds and filled Cade’s mind with a numbing dread. Somewhere down there in the crowd jostling around the finishing rock were Thorne and Gart, their eyes trained on the high-jump gantry, waiting to catch sight of him.
He couldn’t let them down.
With a twitch of the reins, he urged Rumblix forward. They followed Whisp and Dominix out onto the covered gantry. The air was pungent with prowlgrin breath and toe grease, excited whinnying and low grumbling growls. Over the helmeted heads of the riders in front, Cade could see the bright light at the end of the dark tunnel.
‘Colonel Thebius Spave and Verginix!’ the jump-marshal announced, and somewhere below, a klaxon boomed.
It was greeted by a tremendous roar from the crowd, followed by cries and shouts, sudden gasps; then all at once by a crescendo of cheers. The line of jumpers and riders took a step forward.
‘Rove Duggett and Felvix!’
The roar from below rose again.
Cade and Rumblix shuffled forward, Cade’s heart thumping in his chest. He desperately tried to go over the course in his mind, picturing the branches as they zigzagged down the gorge. On the way up he’d attempted to memorize them all – where the jump was narrow, where it was wide; where it went in front of the falling water and where behind; where it was in direct sunlight, where in shadow; where the gradient increased . . .
They shuffled forward. Another roar. Another step forward. Cade’s mind was whirring. He felt an ominous paralysing panic beginning to grow within him. He wasn’t up to this high-jumping race. What in Earth and Sky had he been thinking?
He turned in the saddle. Behind him was the last jumper, a broad-faced lop-ear groom in a shabby topcoat and battered helmet. The lop-ear smiled back at him and gave a shrug.
‘Don’t worry about it, friend. We’re the tail-enders,’ he said and winked. ‘I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?’
‘Feldia “Whisp” Dace and Dominix!’
The klaxon sounded. At first, there was polite applause and a few shouts – but then gasps and cheers that rose in volume and intensity to a huge roar, which grew and grew . . .
‘Names?’
‘What?’ Cade looked round.
‘I said, names?’ The jump-marshal, a tall long-haired goblin in a crimson topcoat covered in gold braid, looked at him tetchily.
‘Um . . . Cade Quarter and, er . . . Rumblix,’ said Cade numbly.
‘Take your position,’ said the jump-marshal, pointing to the circle of light at the end of the gantry.
Cade swallowed hard and pressed his heels gently into Rumblix’s flanks. The prowlgrin moved slowly forward to the very edge of the gantry. Cade looked out through the opening at the great city of Hive – at the tree-fringed terraces and domed mansions of the peaks; the white-fronted clan-houses and clusters of hive-towers of Mid Hive; the jumble of warehouses, foundries and crowded alleys of Low Town.
And, thundering down through the heart of it all, the great swirling torrent of the Edgewater River. Cade felt its spray, cold and refreshing, on his burning face.
What was the worst that could happen? He and Rumblix could stumble and fall to their deaths . . .
Or . . .
Whisp’s voice from the night before came back to him. You really have no idea how good you and Rumblix are . . .
‘Cade Quarter and Rumblix!’
Cade leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Rumblix’s ear.
‘Breathe. Feel,’ he whispered. The klaxon sounded. ‘Fly . . .’
As if in answer, Rumblix launched himself off the platform to the first branch, a wooden beam that had been driven into the sheer rock on the western side of the gorge. He gripped on with his front paws, then brought his back legs round at an angle, till he was all but facing back the way he’d come. His feet touched down for a moment – then he pushed off a second time, hurling himself back across the void, in front of the waterfall, to the second branch.
‘Breathe, feel, fly,’ Cade whispered in his prowlgrin’s ear as they flew through the air.
The third branch was wet with spray and slippery, but Rumblix didn’t falter. His sensitive back fee
t gripped the wood effortlessly, then swivelled, and he jumped onto the fourth branch, then the fifth, then the sixth . . .
The twelfth leap meant passing behind the waterfall. For a moment, everything went dark and echoey.
‘Don’t fear the fall,’ Cade whispered, relaxing in the saddle, his heart racing.
They emerged on the other side. Rumblix gripped the branch for an instant, then kicked off again.
The gorge was reaching its widest point, and the leaps between the branches were at their longest. Rumblix increased his speed, zigzagging back and forth across the yawning gap below, while the thunder of the falls drowned out all other sounds.
Then suddenly, in a blur of spray, Cade saw they were approaching the roiling white water at the foot of the falls. One more branch to go . . .
‘Fly!’ he whispered, rising in the stirrups and feeling Rumblix’s powerful leg muscles ripple as the prowlgrin stretched to seize the jutting beam of wood that seemed to rise up to meet them. The branch shot past, Rumblix’s toes barely grazing the wood . . .
And they were falling!
Cade shut his eyes and leaned forward, his arms spread as he embraced his prowlgrin. Rumblix’s wet fur was soft against his cheek; his breath, hot and pungent, filled his nostrils; and, with his chest pressed hard to the creature’s round body, Cade felt his prowlgrin’s beating heart against his own. Rumblix shuddered, muscles rippling then relaxing, and gave a whinnying snort of triumph.
Cade opened his eyes.
They were standing on the finishing rock, the white water bubbling around them. They’d made it. And in one piece. Cade didn’t know how fast their time had been, but the crowds on the banks of the Edgewater on either side were going wild. Cade pulled off his helmet and looked up at the branch high above their heads, then back down at the rock they had landed on. It was an astonishing leap.
He slumped forward and hugged Rumblix tightly. ‘You flew!’ he whispered.
· CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE ·
‘YOU DID IT,’ said Whisp, her grey eyes fixed on Cade.
‘We did it,’ he said, and smiled. ‘You and me, Dominix and Rumblix.’
The crowd could scarcely believe their eyes. Two pairs of unknown prowlgrins and their riders had taken first and second place. And the timekeeper – an academic from the Sumpwood Bridge – had been the most astonished of all.
He was standing on the west bank of the Edgewater River next to the minute-glass. The tall contraption, with its two long glass vessels set one above the other so that the sand in the upper one would stream down into the one below, gleamed in the sunlight. The flow of sand had been stopped the instant Cade completed the course. Now the timekeeper was examining the minute-glass to make sure he’d read its calibrations correctly.
He had, he confirmed to the jump-marshal.
The twentieth and the twenty-first jumpers had beaten the rest. What was more, their performances had been so astonishing that the twenty-second rider did not bother to jump, but disappeared from the gantry and went in search of the betting benches to lay a wager of his own on the grand jump-off.
This second leg of the competition was a simple race between the two fastest jumpers. It was different from the timed jumps. Instead of completing the course by zigzagging back and forth between the branches, unable to miss any out, the jumpers were now allowed to select their own individual route down the gorge.
Cade frowned. He and Whisp were back on the covered gantry, sitting astride their respective prowlgrins. Rumblix was skittish and excited, full of energy and eager to jump again. Dominix was breathing more heavily, his tongue lolling and flecks of spittle bubbling at the corners of his mouth. His age, Cade could see, was telling against him, but as he watched, Whisp leaned forward, massaged his great white brow and whispered quietly to him. The old white’s eyes brightened, and his powerful legs rippled and braced in response. Despite his age, with a rider like Whisp, Cade knew that Dominix would make a worthy opponent in the coming race.
And that was the problem.
‘You and Tillman have been so kind to me,’ Cade told her. ‘And I know how important this race is to you . . .’
‘I have to win,’ Whisp said simply, holding Cade’s look. ‘The Hive Militia roost-marshal is down there with a bill of sale in his hand. Tillman will lose everything if Dominix and I don’t win. I’m sorry, Cade.’
‘So am I,’ said Cade quietly, thinking of the terrible situation back at Farrow Lake. ‘Everything I hold dear is riding on this race. I wish it wasn’t.’
Whisp smiled. ‘Then you must jump to win, Cade Quarter.’ Her grey eyes flashed. ‘And I shall do the same!’
‘Take your positions!’
The jump-marshal stood by the opening. Cade noticed how the tufts of his hair had been freshly oiled and knotted for the occasion, and the buttons of his topcoat given an extra polish.
Rumblix padded up to the edge of the gantry next to Dominix. And as he looked down, Cade felt a sense of elation, quite different from the terror of the first jump.
The klaxon sounded, and Rumblix and Dominix leaped high into the air. Instead of landing on the branch closest to the gantry, though Cade saw Whisp direct Dominix off to the right, where he hopped lightly down the glistening rocky outcrop, then landed on a branch further below.
‘Come on, boy!’ Cade urged, twitching Rumblix’s reins, and the two of them dropped down to the branch directly beneath them. Then, with a jutting spur of rock making it impossible for him to do the same again, he pulled Rumblix round and the two of them leaped out for the other side of the gorge, the spray from the waterfall splashing into Cade’s face as they did so. From there, he did a second direct drop, then another, then flew back across the gorge – behind the waterfall this time.
All at once, there was a flash of white as Whisp and Dominix crossed past them in mid-air. Rumblix landed on the twenty-eighth branch, while Dominix, completing a prodigious jump, landed on the thirtieth.
On either side of them, the crowd on the gorge path was going mad, waving arms, flags, jumping up and down; everyone shouting out the name of their favoured prowlgrin.
‘Dominix!’
‘Rumblix!’
The mist and spume that billowed up from the waterfall as it crashed down into the pool at its base filled the air. Cade could no longer see Whisp. He could only hope that they wouldn’t crash into one another and topple down into the water below. With his legs braced in the stirrups, Cade hunched forward in the saddle, his chin resting on Rumblix’s head.
‘Breathe. Feel,’ he whispered. ‘Fly!’
With a burst of exhilaration, he felt Rumblix respond with a sensational leap, down, down, down towards the finishing rock below. He was going to do it! He was going to win! . . .
Suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, Dominix soared out of the flying spray across their path. The great white prowlgrin passed so close to Cade that he felt the warmth of the creature’s body. Brushing past them, Dominix landed on the finishing rock, a fraction of a second before Rumblix himself landed – and Cade felt a sickening lurch in his stomach as he slumped back in the saddle.
‘I’m sorry, Cade,’ Whisp’s voice sounded close by his ear. ‘I had to do it.’
She twitched the reins and Dominix, his mouth foaming and nostrils flared, leaped across the rocks to the west bank of the river, where the crowd was cheering. Cade stared after her. He could see the race-goers laughing and waving, their mouths open as they bellowed and roared. But he couldn’t hear them. All he was aware of was the thundering roar of the falls and its echo – the clamour of failure which pounded inside his head.
He’d failed.
Failed.
Looking up, he saw Thorne and Gart standing on the river bank. Rumblix trotted over the rocks and jumped down to join them. Cade slipped out of the saddle miserably.
Over by the timber platform, the timekeeper was leaning against the large minute-glass, applauding, as goblins in green and gold uniforms gathered around W
hisp, Dominix and Tillman Spoke. The prowlgrin breeder was grinning delightedly, but Whisp stared fixedly at the ground.
‘I’m so sorry!’ Cade began – then stopped when he saw the look on Thorne and Gart’s faces.
Gart reached into his topcoat. ‘The odds on both Rumblix and Dominix were forty to one at the beginning of the first round,’ said Gart, a frown on his face. ‘They thought that Dominix was too old and Rumblix too young. But I knew better. Just one look at them parading along the gorge path and up the Stairway to Eternity and I could see the pair of them were head and shoulders above any of the others in the field. So I split my bet and put two hundred and fifty on each of you.’
‘You mean . . . ?’ said Cade.
‘Yes,’ said Gart, handing Cade one of the two wager sticks he was holding, and tossing the other one away.
Cade looked down. Dominix to win, it said in black letters.
‘Two hundred and fifty at forty to one! Ten thousand hivers!’ said Gart delightedly.
‘You might have lost the race, Cade,’ said Thorne, his eyes gleaming. ‘But thanks to Gart here, we won!’
· CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO ·
THE HOVERWORM PITCHED and rolled. Savage winds swirled around the vessel, howling and roaring like a pack of ravenous whitewolves, while banks of black storm clouds, as tall as mountains, closed in from every direction. Forks of dazzling red lightning split the sky and hurtled zigzag down to the forest below. Thunder followed, split-seconds later and so loud that the trees trembled and the sky pulsated visibly with strange shimmering ripples of energy.
‘What are they?’ Cade gasped, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
He, Thorne and Gart were in the wheelhouse of the tiny vessel, staring out of the windows. One minute they had been sailing westwards into a cloudless sunset. Then this. Hurricane winds, red lightning, thunder – and now these extraordinary rings spreading out across the sky.