Doombringer

by Paul Stewart

  Before he had a chance to tether the little vessel to a mooring ring though, a webfoot goblin appeared on the boards of the under-balcony. He was one of the burly white webfoots, clutching a loaded crossbow. He stared for a moment at the phraxlighter, his eyes wide and crest flashing an excited orange and red – then turned and ran up the stairs.

  ‘They’re back! They’re back!’ Cade heard him calling.

  Moments later, there came the thumping of boots on stairs, and the under-balcony began to fill. There was Blatch, clutching his parchment notebook, the leadwood pencil behind one ear – and Cade noticed the spider’s web of cracks that spoked out across one of the lenses of his wire-rimmed spectacles. There were Phineal and Firth, along with the third webfoot, their crests all flickering a luminous hope-filled green. And the hammerhead clan chief, Baahl, gathering his feathered cloak around him against the cold night air as he stepped towards the balustrade and peered into the darkness at the hovering phraxlighter.

  Cade stared back, then lowered his gaze, unable to face the look of hope in their eyes.

  ‘The phraxmuskets?’ They were the first words out of Blatch’s mouth as he stepped forward to meet them. Then he saw the state of the phraxlighter, the tattered tarpaulin and the empty cargo bay, and Cade saw his face fall. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We lost them all,’ Thorne said bitterly, stepping off the phraxlighter and securing the tolley rope to the mooring ring. ‘A thousand of them . . .’

  ‘A thousand!’ Phineal blurted out, his crest glowing a sick-looking yellow.

  ‘In a blood storm,’ said Gart, his shoulders slumped as he stepped off the battered Hoverworm. ‘There was nothing we could do.’

  Cade followed him. He’d never seen Gart look so dejected.

  ‘But at least you made it back in one piece,’ said Blatch, clapping a bony hand first to Gart’s shoulder, then Thorne’s, before embracing Cade. ‘You must have had quite an adventure, the four of you,’ he went on, tickling Rumblix under the chin.

  Cade knew that Celestia’s father was trying his best to be cheerful, but he could hear the disappointment in his voice.

  ‘And we’d love to hear all about it,’ he went on, ‘but that will have to wait. As you must have seen, time is running out for our beloved Farrow Lake.’

  ‘The phraxmines,’ said Thorne, nodding. ‘We have to disable them.’

  ‘That’s easier said than done,’ Phineal broke in. ‘We can’t get near the falls. We’ve tried, and the mire-pearlers’ phraxcannon has driven us back each time. And what the cannon doesn’t destroy, their phraxsloops finish off. I have lost all but two of my brothers,’ he added, his voice breaking. ‘And if the mines explode . . .’

  Cade stared at the balcony floor, unable to bear the sorrow in the webfoot’s face. He knew how important it was for Phineal that the mines did not go off. If they did, the avalanche of rocks would block the falls and dam the river – allowing the phraxengineers to drain the lake and the mire-pearlers to plunder the clam beds. That is when they would discover that the Farrow Lake was home, not only to the clam colonies, but to the Ancient One itself: the Great Blueshell Clam.

  ‘My warriors have suffered grievous losses too, though the hope of phraxweapons coming sustained us.’ Baahl’s deep voice sounded weary as it broke into Cade’s thoughts. ‘But now, with no weapons . . .’

  Cade bit his lip. Reaching out, he stroked Rumblix’s fur. His faithful prowlgrin had done everything that he’d asked of him, and more.

  Baahl’s voice grew softer, more intense. ‘It hasn’t been done for generations,’ he said, ‘but now we shall have to risk the old ways. To call on the deep, dark savagery of the forests . . .’

  ‘Cade!’

  Suddenly Cade was plucked from the balcony and enveloped in a powerful embrace. Bottles clinked, and instruments and bundles pressed against his face. Then, just as abruptly, he was released, and looked up to see Tug’s great misshapen face smiling down at him. It blurred as Cade’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Tug!’ His voice was thick with emotion. ‘Tug! I’ve missed you, old friend.’

  Tug was wearing the apron Celestia had given him, festooned with the glass phials, medicinal bundles and rolls of bandages – and spattered with what could only be dried blood. Cade wiped away his tears.

  ‘Celestia?’ he asked.

  ‘Tug take you to her. We been busy. Very busy.’

  ‘Go to her,’ said Blatch, smiling at Cade before turning back to the others, his face careworn and grave. ‘Come, we must make a plan.’

  Cade followed Tug down the rope ladder from the under-balcony to the forest floor. Down on the ground beneath the hanging-cabin, they crossed the clearing, passing three hive-towers, each one heavily clad in the pine branches that camouflaged them, then stopped in front of the fourth.

  It was smaller than the others, yet the most ornately decorated. The fish scales, gleaming like oil on water, that were stitched around the frame of the doorway and up the woven fabric of the walls, had been laid out, Cade now saw, in intricate patterns. There were spirals and concentric circles, and parallel wavy lines, depicting the eddies and flow of the Deepwoods river the River Clan had adopted as its totem.

  Two hammerheads, fish-hooks on the front of their tunics and nets hanging round their necks like scarves, were hunkered down outside the hive-tower, deep in mournful conversation. At Tug and Cade’s approach, they looked up, and Cade expected to be challenged. But instead they rose to their feet and greeted Tug with great respect. Reaching out, one of the hammerheads grasped the corner of the snailskin curtain that hung at the entrance, and pulled it aside.

  ‘Enter, Tug, friend of the river,’ he said. ‘She needs you. Glave is worse.’

  As Cade followed Tug into the hive-tower, the air inside wrapped itself around him like a heavy blanket. It was hot, an open fire blazing at the centre of the floor, and laden with smells: fish-oil and eel-grease, lamp oil and pungent meadowgrass and glade hay . . . and something darker, muskier and sweet, like toasted almonds. Cade swallowed.

  It was the smell of phrax.

  Cade kept close to Tug as they crossed the hive-tower. Beyond the bright flicker of the fire, where groups of hammerhead matrons were preparing soups and broths, and on into the shadows they went.

  Wounded figures lay groaning on beds of glade hay. The glow of lamplight played on bandaged heads and swaddled bodies; on bloody wounds and eyes that stared unseeing into the distance.

  Cade felt a mixture of pity and rage. So much had happened while he was in Hive; so many atrocities that now demanded to be avenged. But how?

  ‘Cade,’ said Tug softly, and gestured ahead.

  Cade looked, and there, kneeling beside a young hammerhead warrior, was Celestia, her black hair tied back and her topcoat, like Tug’s apron, covered in medicine bundles, bandages, and small clinking bottles of tincture.

  She glanced up, and Cade saw how worn and tired she looked.

  ‘Cade!’ Her green eyes flashed. ‘We’ve been so worried . . .’

  The hammerhead beside her groaned and, looking down, Cade saw that his arm was a bandaged stump, and the side of his body was blistered with phrax burns, the skin red-raw and puckered.

  ‘Tug, come help me,’ Celestia said.

  Tug lumbered over and knelt beside her. Then, with great tenderness, he plumped up the glade hay beneath the hammerhead.

  Celestia reached over, unhooked a bottle from Tug’s apron and began applying salve to the warrior’s burns.

  ‘It’s been terrible, Cade,’ she said as she worked. ‘With the falls being mined, we couldn’t wait for you to get back. So we mounted an attack. Then another.’ She swallowed. ‘The clans were decimated . . .’

  Cade saw a tear escape and fall, glistening, into her lap as she continued to apply the salve. She didn’t look up.

  ‘So were the webfoots . . .’

  The wounded hammerhead moaned softly. The white bandage wrapped round the stump of his arm wa
s rapidly turning red as blood seeped through the material.

  ‘Scissors, Tug,’ said Celestia, ‘and bowl.’

  Her voice was suddenly firm and business-like. She took the pair of scissors that Tug handed her, then Tug placed a copperwood bowl beneath the arm while she cut through the bandages. The blood flowed freely from the wound.

  ‘Tourniquet,’ Celestia said, holding out a hand.

  Tug untied a length of tilderleather from his apron pocket, and Celestia tied it at the top of the arm. The blood kept flowing. Without being told, Tug stepped forward and, using a short length of wood, tightened the tourniquet further.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without Tug,’ said Celestia, without looking up. ‘He has a gift.’

  Tug grunted.

  ‘A natural healer . . .’

  As the bleeding finally stopped, Celestia took a bottle from her topcoat and dipped her hand inside. She smeared the copper-coloured unguent it contained over the wound, then replaced the bandage with a clean one.

  Cade looked at Tug, fascinated by his gentle strength as he maintained his grip on the length of twisted leather, while stroking the hammerhead’s forehead with his thumb. Looking around, he saw the other injured warriors, dozens of them, bearing the scars of battle in this third age – the age of phraxmuskets and cannon.

  He felt a nudge at his side and, turning, he saw that Rumblix had followed him. Celestia had risen to her feet and had seen him too.

  ‘Rumblix, boy!’ she said, and Cade saw her smile for the first time since his arrival. She reached out and squeezed Cade’s hand. ‘We’ll catch up, I promise,’ she said. ‘But first I must get fresh bandages from the cabin.’

  She brushed past him, and was gone.

  Cade wanted to go with her, but he suddenly felt utterly weary, and the thought of seeing the brave disappointment on his friends’ faces again was almost too much for him to bear. He slumped to the floor, and felt Tug’s arm round his shoulder on one side, while Rumblix nuzzled against him on the other.

  For the first time since leaving Hive, Cade felt himself relax – warm and comforted, hidden out here in the depths of the Western Woods. He closed his eyes. His head began to nod . . .

  The explosion was loud and close by. Cade’s ears were still ringing when there was another explosion, and then another. Then sporadic bursts of phraxmusket-fire. Cade’s hand felt round automatically for the phraxmusket on his back.

  From outside the hive-tower, someone shouted a warning.

  Suddenly everyone inside was leaving. The fire was doused. Young’uns were shepherded by matrons. Warriors seized weapons and helped the wounded. It all took moments, as was the hammerhead way.

  Cade was on his feet, Tug and Rumblix beside him. The hive-tower was empty. The three of them ran outside, the sound of phraxmusket-fire growing louder. In the clearing, hammerheads from the other clans were pouring out of their hive-towers and silently streaming into the forest. Cade glanced up at the hanging-cabin, and his jaw dropped.

  It was on fire.

  Flames flickered in patches on the roof, in one of the upper windows, on the under-balcony. Four phraxsloops, each one piloted by a hulking mire-pearler in patchwork rodent-skin longcoats, heavy boots and crushed funnel hats, were hovering over the cabin, while the rest of their crew slid down ropes and entered the top storey.

  Cade stumbled backwards in confusion as, from inside the cabin, there came stuttering flashes of phraxmusket-fire.

  ‘Come,’ said a voice at Cade’s side, and he turned to see Chert, chief of the Shadow Clan, standing beside him. ‘We must seek the safety of the forest.’

  ‘But the others!’ Cade protested.

  As he spoke, he saw first Blatch, then Thorne, Gart, Phineal and the webfoots, together with the clan chief, Baahl, being led out onto the cabin roof at musket-point. Celestia came last, her face ashen white, but defiant. He felt Chert’s hand on his shoulder pulling him away. The mire-pearlers bundled their captives on board the waiting phraxsloops that now hovered beside the balcony, then flew up into the air as the flames took hold of the cabin.

  Below, the clearing was deserted. The clans had slipped away unseen. Only Cade, Tug and Rumblix stood rooted to the spot, shocked and trembling, as the magnificent hanging-cabin turned into a buoyant ball of flame before their eyes. It broke the chains and soared up into the night sky, taking all their hopes and dreams with it.

  Cade pulled his phraxmusket from his shoulder and pointed it at the last of the departing phraxsloops – only for the clan chief to step out of the shadows, grab him roughly by the arm and yank him back.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Chert growled. ‘You won’t be any use to your friends if you’re dead.’

  · CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR ·

  CADE LOOKED AROUND warily as Chert led him, Tug and Rumblix deep into the trees. It was dark, yet no lamps had been lit. The only light came from the full moon overhead, which penetrated the leafy canopy and dappled the forest floor with pools of silver.

  Cade looked at Chert miserably. ‘Baahl mentioned a plan,’ he said. ‘Something to do with . . . with the old ways; with the dark savagery of the forests . . .’ He shook his head. ‘What did he mean?’

  ‘We must use the power of the Western Woods against the skyfarers,’ said Chert curtly. He paused, and his eyes narrowed as he listened intently to the sounds of the forest.

  Cade heard the hoots and shrieks of night creatures: the low sonorous booms of tree fromps, a lemkin’s staccato calls, the chatter of quarms. Chert’s ears twitched, then the hammerhead abruptly turned and strode off down a rock-strewn slope. Cade followed and, a few moments later, caught signs of movement in among the trees. Suddenly he found himself in the midst of hammerheads from all four clans, who silently emerged from the shadows around him.

  They were standing in a small glade beside a hollow. Cade heard the sound of flowing water and, looking across the clearing, saw a stream running down through the trees and gathering in a dark, shimmering pool. The wounded had been carried to the broad hollow beside it. They lay on makeshift mattresses of scythed-down weeds and grass, nursed by goblin matrons, and Cade was struck by the fact that the hammerheads barely made a sound, despite their obviously painful injuries.

  Further along the bank, a band of young’uns were clustered around the pool, plunging their hands into the white silt at the bottom and smearing it over themselves till they were covered from head to toe. They looked like pale spectres. Then, gathering still more of the mud and dolloping it into buckets, they returned to the matrons, who began smearing it over both themselves and their patients.

  Suddenly, out of the darkness on the far side of the stream, two dozen or so hammerheads emerged. Like the young’uns and the matrons, their bodies were completely covered with the white silt. On their shoulders, they were carrying four heavy poles between them, from which were strung the bodies of three-horned tilder.

  The clan chief turned to the approaching warriors, his hands gesticulating silent commands.

  Without saying a word, the hammerheads nodded, then crossed to a vast spreading lufwood tree, where they dropped the tilder to the ground. Cade was intrigued. As he watched, they tied ropes to the ankles of the four tilder and slung them from the branches, before cutting their throats and collecting the blood in the buckets the young’uns brought over from the pool.

  Rumblix yelped. The smell of the warm blood was making him quiver with hunger. As Cade took a hold of his reins he realized that his hands were shaking.

  These must be the old ways that Baahl had spoken about. They certainly were savage – though what use this bloody sacrifice might be when the mire-pearlers attacked, Cade could not imagine.

  He turned to the clan chief, who had taken off his hammelhorn waistcoat, and was smearing himself with the white mud from head to toe. It had a deep loamy smell, like old leaf-fall and decaying logs.

  ‘The skyfarers have defeated us with their phraxcannon,’ Chert said. ‘Now they will
want to enslave what is left of the clans. We will offer ourselves up to them.’

  Cade swallowed. ‘But why?’ he asked.

  ‘To take their eyes away from you, Cade Quarter, and your nameless one. We will lure the skyfarers from their ship, using their greed for slaves, while you strike.’ The clan chief stared at Cade intently. ‘Gart Ironside and Blatch Helmstoft were going to prevent the detonation of the mines which would block the cavern mouths, while the fisher goblin was going to lead you and Helmstoft’s daughter in an attack on the Doombringer to silence the mighty cannon . . . Now both tasks fall to you.’

  Even as the clan chief spoke, Cade realized how hopeless it sounded. But what choice did they have, with the others held captive? He remembered the look of defiance on Celestia’s face as she had been jostled onto the mire-pearlers’ phraxsloop.

  ‘Rumblix and I will head for the Five Falls,’ he said resolutely. ‘Tug will board the Doombringer . . .’

  ‘And we will provide the diversion,’ said Chert. Then, holding Cade’s gaze, he picked up the hammelhorn-fleece waistcoat and gave it to him. ‘We go to different fates, you and I,’ the clan chief said solemnly. ‘My warriors and I in plain sight; you in stealth. May the spirit of the great curling-horn watch over you, Cade Quarter.’

  · CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE ·

  AS DAWN BROKE, Cade urged Rumblix on, the pedigree grey galloping over the treetops of the Western Woods towards the Five Falls. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Tug on the edge of the forest behind him, heading off in the opposite direction round the lake. His great misshapen head was bowed low as he lumbered forward purposefully, as fast as he could, his great swinging arms propelling him on.

  The fur of the hammelhornskin waistcoat Cade was wearing bristled as if sensing the danger that he and Rumblix were galloping towards. Cade pulled the collar tight around his neck as the Doombringer, moored at Gart’s sky-platform, came into view in the distance. He thought of his friends held captive on board, and of the brave hammerhead warriors about to do battle.