by Paul Stewart
It was hard work, particularly with the sun at its highest, beating down. But everyone pitched in with an energy borne of relief that the battle was over, and a determination that the terrible skyship would never fly again.
Cade grabbed the bucket of nails. Then, using his free hand to hold the side of the ladder, climbed the rungs, past three storeys of unfinished windows, and onto the rooftop. Thorne was halfway up the pitched roof, stripped to the waist, his skin slick with sweat. Wrapped around his head was an improvised sun hat, fashioned from a length of snailskin that dangled down at the back, casting a shadow over his neck. He was whistling to himself. With a soft grunt, Cade hoicked the heavy bucket up and placed it beside him – and hearing the nails chink, the fisher goblin turned.
A broad grin spread across his weathered features. ‘Thanks, lad,’ he said. ‘If you could just get them up here . . .’
With one arm outstretched, Cade picked his way over the beams – taking care not to fall into the gaps between. He set the bucket down and passed a couple of nails to Thorne, who hammered the shingle into place. Cade watched his friend wielding the hammer for a moment, envious of his easy skill, then scrambled up the tiles that Thorne had already fixed, and sat at the top, his legs straddling the top ridge.
The view from the top of the stilthouse was magnificent. And up so high, Cade was cooled by the gentle breeze blowing in off the lake.
Six weeks had passed since the battle for Farrow Lake. The hive-towers that had housed the wounded were empty now, and Celestia and Tug had been able to put away their medicines. The land, though, would take longer to recover.
Behind Cade, the scars of battle were all too visible. It would be years before trees filled the phraxshell craters that pockmarked the forest. Before him, however, the Five Falls looked untouched.
‘Thank Earth and Sky,’ Cade muttered to himself.
The mines and cables had been removed from the cavern entrances, and the torrents of water splashed down into the lake below as they always had, white against the turquoise water. To their side were the Needles and High Farrow, glinting in the sun. Beyond them the beautiful tree-clad ridges, stretching off as far as Cade could see. While on the far shore was his own cabin, nestling safe and secure in the verdant meadowlands. The lakefowl and wild hammelhorn that had abandoned the Farrow Lake when the shells had started to fall were back now. Their calls, honking and booming in the air once more, mingled with the sounds of sawing and hammering.
Twenty strides or so to Cade’s right, a mobgnome, a hammerhead and a woodtroll were plunging long-handled brushes into a tub of slaked lime one after the other, then slopping it on the walls of a newly constructed stilthouse, turning the sinister black timbers of the dismantled skyship bright white. Some way beyond them, half a dozen webfoots were busy securing a platform to the top of newly sunk stilt pillars, one plank after the other.
Phineal was with Firth and the hefty white webfoot, Phelff his name. Of the original party that had arrived on their skycraft, they were the sole survivors. The other three webfoots working on the platform had been slaves, imprisoned in the bowels of the Doombringer. One of them was the first slave Cade had freed when, following Merton Hoist’s death, he’d hurried down to the cavernous hold, unchained the door and thrown it open.
Cade had been right; there had been hundreds of slaves on board the Doombringer. They’d been taken from all parts of the Deepwoods, and each had their own tale to tell of the destruction and terror brought to their communities by the mire-pearlers. Thorne, Blatch, Phineal, Baahl the clan chief, and Celestia were all unharmed.
Thorne had turned to the frightened faces staring up at him from the depths of the hold and smiled. ‘You are all welcome to make a new home for yourselves,’ he’d announced, ‘here at Farrow Lake.’
And they had.
Eighteen freed webfoots in all had joined Phineal and his brothers at Fifth Lake Village to help tend and protect the Great Blueshell Clam that lived at the bottom of the lake of this, their new home. A dozen woodtrolls had set to work building a small settlement at the edge of the Western Woods, the round cabins they’d constructed now clinging to the sides of the lufwoods and ironwood pines like woodwasp nests, while an extended family of cloddertrogs had taken to the caves of High Farrow. And the rest – a collection of mobgnomes, gabtrolls, slaughterers, fourthlings, hairy-backed quarry trogs from the Northern Reaches, as well as goblins of every shape and size – had begun building their own distinctive dwellings beside the stilthouses of Fifth Lake Village. Sunken pit-lodges, stone cairn-huts and long thatched clan-halls now clustered along the shoreline.
Fifth Lake Village was turning into a town . . .
‘I’ve been giving some more thought to your father’s barkscrolls.’ Thorne’s voice broke into Cade’s thoughts. ‘Those blueprints . . .’
Cade turned. His friend was looking at him, his hammer poised above a nail that had been half knocked in.
‘That phraxchamber I constructed,’ he said. ‘The one with the spheres . . .’
Cade nodded.
‘Well, it’s still going,’ he said. ‘That one tiny speck of phrax crystal that I took from my old militia phraxmusket has been enough to power the phrax force for . . . what? – nine . . . ten weeks now . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Remarkable,’ he breathed. ‘And I’ve been working on the second barkscroll which, if your father’s calculations are right – and I’ve no reason to think that they aren’t – will increase the efficiency of the phraxchamber fourfold.’
Thorne straightened up and glanced over at the skeletal remains of the Doombringer. Blatch Helmstoft, pencil and notebook in hand, was busy directing two burly hammerheads, who were taking the vessel’s phraxchamber apart.
‘I’ve discussed it with Blatch,’ Thorne went on, ‘and we reckon that we can use the Doombringer’s phraxchamber to build dozens of phrax-force engines, enough to power stiltshops, factories and foundries to provide work and livelihoods for everyone here at Farrow Lake . . .’ He paused. ‘If,’ he said, ‘that’s the way we want to go . . .’
He turned away, and knocked the nail in flush against the shingle with three short sharp blows from the hammer.
‘Is it the way we want to go, Cade?’ He picked up another shingle tile, another nail. ‘After all, we live in the Third Age of Flight. The age of phrax,’ he mused. ‘We can’t unlearn the advances that have already been made, however much we’d like to. But we can control how they are used.’
‘Use my father’s invention for good, you mean?’ said Cade.
Thorne nodded. ‘Just like that accursed skyship,’ he said, his eyes glowing with a sudden intensity. ‘Think about it, Cade. Instead of destruction, we can build something sustainable – a haven of peace and prosperity, at one with these beautiful surroundings . . .’
‘Thorne! Cade!’
The two of them straightened up and turned, to see Celestia and Burrlix, her black prowlgrin, approaching from the forest. Beside them, Rumblix galloped, whinnying and purring with excitement and happiness.
‘Fed and watered,’ Celestia said with a grin. ‘Not to mention well exercised, both of them.’ She reached over and patted the pedigree grey prowlgrin. ‘Only the best for a champion of the Hive Falls high-jump!’ She sprang down from Burrlix’s saddle. ‘So what have you two been talking about so intently?’
Cade descended the ladder and joined her on the ground. ‘The future,’ he said.
As if in answer to his words, the sound of a steam klaxon echoed across the sky.
The sawing and hammering stopped as all eyes turned to the horizon. And there, looming into view, was the vast steam-belching skytavern, the Xanth Filatine, on its long, meandering return voyage to Great Glade from Hive.
Cade shrank back. So much had happened since the last time the skytavern had visited. Its appearance now took him by surprise. Along with Celestia and the others, he watched as it came down and hovered above Gart Ironside’s sky-platform.
Gart was
there to meet it, standing by his newly repaired water tank, crates of merchandise and supplies at his feet. The skytavern lowered a pipe from a hatch in the midships and began pumping up water, while Gart sent up crates in the nets that had been lowered. It all took a matter of minutes, while above, leaning on the balustrades and peering out of portholes, the passengers stared down at the bustling new settlement that had seemingly sprung up out of nowhere in this forgotten corner of the wild and savage Deepwoods.
One passenger was taking a particularly close interest in Farrow Lake. When he’d looked out of the porthole in the lower decks, he’d recognized the place at once. This was the sky-platform where it had all gone wrong for him. The place where that stowaway he’d got his hooks into had leaped to what Drax had fondly believed was his death.
His white hair fashioned carefully into spikes and his large pale eyes shielded from the sunlight by tinted eyeglasses, Drax Adereth slowly shook his head. His lip curled.
Because of the stowaway, Drax had spent three months in a cell in Hive. Three months before his master, Quove Lentis, High Professor of Flight, had seen fit to bribe the guards to release him. Three months in which he had nursed his hatred for the young stowaway, whose mentor, Tillman Spoke, had had him arrested.
And now, there he was, plain as day, standing by this miserable excuse for a lake. What was the place called? Ah, yes.
‘Farrow Lake.’ Drax Adereth spat the words out.
Free at last, he had to report back to Quove Lentis in Great Glade; explain how he’d been careless enough to get arrested in the first place. But after that he would return to this backwater – and when he did, Cade Quarter would not escape . . .
Gart Ironside steered his new phraxsloop across the Farrow Lake, a fluffy line of steam, silver in the moonlight, trailing behind it. The mire-pearlers had shamefully neglected its phraxchamber and flight weights, but Gart had made repairs and managed to get the little vessel skyworthy once more. Now, the New Hoverworm flew fast and straight, and with a low, pleasing thrum to its phraxchamber.
As he approached Cade’s cabin on the far side of the lake, Gart’s expert fingers played over the flight levers, and the phraxsloop came down lower in the sky. He brought it to a steady hover just above the stone jetty, to allow his passenger – a fourthling from the skytavern – to step down.
She was blonde, her thick hair piled up on her head, gathered together and secured with a silver clasp. She was wearing a dark cape made of a heavy material that shimmered in the light of the moon. And as she plucked up the hem and stepped down, Gart noticed that the boots beneath were weathered and worn from long journeying.
‘Cade, lad,’ Gart called out as Cade emerged from the cabin and descended the steps from the veranda. ‘You’ve got a visitor from . . .’ He paused, turned. ‘Where did you say you were from?’
The woman approached Cade, treading lightly over the stone jetty. She smiled, her eyes bright and tear-filled as she uttered a single word.
‘Sanctaphrax.’
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
STEWART & RIDDELL are the co-creators of the bestselling Edge Chronicles, which now boasts sales of over three million books and has been published in over thirty languages around the world. They also created the award-winning series Far Flung Adventures, and the fantastic Barnaby Grimes.
PAUL STEWART is a highly regarded and award-winning author of books for young readers – everything from picture books to football stories, fantasy and horror. Before turning his hand to writing for children, he worked as an English teacher in Germany and Sri Lanka. He met Chris Riddell when their children attended the same nursery school.
CHRIS RIDDELL is an accomplished graphic artist and author. He has illustrated many books for children including Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Russell Brand’s retelling of The Pied Piper of Hamelin and writes and illustrates the Ottoline and Goth Girl series. He has twice won the Kate Greenaway Medal and his book Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse won the Costa children’s book award.
BY PAUL STEWART & CHRIS RIDDELL
THE EDGE CHRONICLES:
The Quint Saga
The Curse of the Gloamglozer
The Winter Knights
Clash of the Sky Galleons
The Twig Saga
Beyond the Deepwoods
Stormchaser
Midnight Over Sanctaphrax
The Rook Saga
The Last of the Sky Pirates
Vox
Freeglader
The Nate Saga
The Immortals
The Cade Saga
The Nameless One
Doombringer
BARNABY GRIMES:
Curse of the Night Wolf
Return of the Emerald Skull
Legion of the Dead
Phantom of Blood Alley
WYRMEWEALD:
Returner’s Wealth
Bloodhoney
The Bone Trail
For younger readers:
FAR-FLUNG ADVENTURES:
Fergus Crane
Corby Flood
Hugo Pepper
‘Stunningly original’ GUARDIAN
‘Beautifully illustrated’ THE TIMES
‘Entertaining fantasy as its finest’ TES
THE EDGE CHRONICLES: DOOMBRINGER
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 15775 4
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Penguin Random House Company
This ebook edition published 2015
Copyright © Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, 2015
Cover artwork copyright © Jeff Nentrup, 2015
Cover design and lettering copyright © James Fraser, 2015
First Published in Great Britain
Corgi 978 0 552 56758 9 2015
The right of Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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