Secret Guardians

by Lian Tanner

  Also by Lian Tanner

  THE ROGUES

  Accidental Heroes

  THE KEEPERS

  Museum of Thieves

  City of Lies

  Path of Beasts

  THE HIDDEN

  Ice Breaker

  Sunker’s Deep

  Fetcher’s Song

  First published by Allen & Unwin in 2018

  Copyright © Lian Tanner 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76029 353 6

  eISBN 978 1 76063 755 2

  For teaching resources, explore www.allenandunwin.com/resources/for-teachers

  Cover and text design by Joanna Hunt

  Cover illustration by Sher Rill Ng

  Set by Joanna Hunt

  1 WITCHERY

  2 HO, SCOUNDREL!

  3 A NOBLE MYSTERY

  4 THE HONOURABLE TRADERS

  5 SHE IS NOT FOR EATING

  6 ONE OF HER FITS

  7 LESS DEAD

  8 BANDAGES

  9 THE SLYEST OF LOOKS

  10 OLD HATREDS

  11 IF IT WAS YOUR MA

  12 EEK!

  13 THOSE BRUTAL MURDERERS

  14 NO ONE LASTS IN THE SALT MINES

  15 THEIR TERRIBLE FATE

  16 BEST JOB I’VE EVER HAD

  17 THE REAL MINE

  18 SHINY

  19 IF WE DO NOT WORK, WE DO NOT EAT

  20 CERTAIN SAAF MAGICS

  21 HOW CAN I TRUST YOU?

  22 SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF

  23 CHICKENS DO NOT FIGHT

  24 ALL WE’VE GOT IS INFORMATION

  25 LORD RUMP WAS NOT SUFFERING

  26 DREAMS

  27 A WORM IN THE HEART

  28 EXPLORING

  29 GHOSTS

  30 YOU MUST ALLOW US SOME SECRETS

  31 SCORCHED WOOD

  32 THE AWFUL FEELING

  33 A PROMISE

  34 OUR FAVOURITE SNOTTY

  35 TWO CHUNKS OF MEAT

  36 THE SHUNNING

  37 DUCKLING’S DREAM

  38 YOU LIED!

  39 A GIFT

  40 WINDMILL

  41 A DANGEROUS PLACE FOR A CHICKEN

  42 THE WRONG PERSON

  43 A MESSAGE FROM OTTE

  44 INFORMATION

  45 OUT OF NOWHERE

  46 THE SMOTHERING DARKNESS

  47 I’LL TELL YOU WHERE THEY’VE GONE

  48 WE ARE HERE

  49 WHERE YOU CANNOT FOLLOW

  50 THE WORST MONSTER OF ALL

  51 ALWAYS A PRICE

  52 WHERE IS OTTE?

  53 MAYBE THE LAND KNOWS

  54 SUNLIGHT AND FRESH AIR

  55 THE BAYAMS OF LONG AGO

  56 RIGHT INTO THE CAGE

  57 I’M NOT GIVING UP

  58 THE GRANDFATHER WIND

  This one is for the booksellers, the ones who have hung on through difficult times, knowing that we need their passion and their knowledge more than ever.

  Someone was following them. In spite of their disguises, in spite of all their caution, someone was on their trail. Duckling was sure of it.

  Well, no. Not completely sure.

  She stopped walking and stared back the way they had come. It had rained last night, and the wheels of the horse-drawn cart left long shining streaks on the road. Duckling could see a couple of houses and a barn, and nothing much else except trees, fields and grass.

  There was no reason to feel so wary.

  She checked to make sure that Grandpa was busy driving the cart, and not watching her. Then she began to hum a shiny little tune.

  Immediately, a breeze sprang up around her, lifting her hair and warming her cheeks.

  Duckling whispered, ‘Go and find out if there’s someone after us. Bring me sounds and voices. Go seek.’

  The breeze should have raced away like an eager pup. It should have found out everything there was to know about whoever was behind them, and brought the information back to Duckling.

  Instead, it played around her for a moment or two, whisking a dead leaf past her ear and a feather past her eyes. Then it paused, gave a disappointed sigh and wandered away.

  When it came back, the sounds it brought were so small and quiet that they could have been anything. Or anyone.

  Duckling glanced over her shoulder, but no one had noticed that she’d stopped. Pummel and Arms-mistress Krieg were walking on either side of the horse, so they could guard Otte without looking as if they were guarding him. Otte was riding the horse, with four white mice peeping from the collar of his dress, and a rug to hide the fact that he only had one leg. The cat was perched in front of him, and his night-black chicken Dora sat behind him.

  Duckling hummed the shiny little tune again.

  This time, the breeze stayed and stayed. It blew in her ears and up her nose. It tied her hair in knots. It picked up half a dozen blades of grass from the side of the road and dumped them on top of her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered, brushing off the grass. ‘I need to know if there’s someone following us. Go seek!’

  At that, the breeze gave a huff of annoyance and disappeared.

  Duckling waited, but it didn’t come back. So she hummed again. And again and again.

  But there was no sign of her witchy breeze.

  Instead, a strong gust of wind suddenly blasted across the road, touching no one but Duckling. It was nothing at all like her breeze; it was bossy and rumbustious, and as it passed it picked up a handful of reeds and threw them at her.

  ‘Ow!’ cried Duckling. ‘Stop it!’

  Grandpa swivelled in the driver’s seat of the cart and called, ‘Are you quite well, my sweet?’

  ‘Yes, Grandpa.’ Duckling pushed the hair out of her eyes. Ever since they’d escaped from the Strong-hold and left the city of Berren behind, her grandfather had been trying to find out the truth about her witchery. Once, Duckling would have told him everything. But she had changed over the last couple of weeks, and all she said was, ‘It was a wasp. It’s gone now.’

  ‘Then you will not be making any more unexpected noises?’ said Grandpa. ‘They do not bother me, you understand, but there are strangers approaching and I would not like to frighten them, or cause them to look too closely at our disguises.’

  Duckling trotted up beside the cart, shading her eyes. Two women and a man were walking down the road towards them.

  Or rather, they were walking down the road towards Dame Swagger and her Glorious Travelling Theatre Troupe.

  Most people, if they were escaping from great danger, would make themselves as small and unnoticeable as possible. But Duckling’s grandpa didn’t believe in small and unnoticeable.

  And so, as the strangers drew level with the cart, Duckling smiled widely, the way a travelling theatre boy called Tanglefoot would smile. (A boy who wasn’t worried about witchery-gone-wrong. A boy who didn’t believe in witchery.)

  Grandpa brushed the dust from the bosom
of his enormous floral dress and said in his best Dame Swagger voice, ‘Greetings, fair travellers! How is the weather down south? Mild and sunny, I hope, and everyone in the mood for a bit of entertainment?’

  The older of the two women smiled shyly at him. ‘We haven’t come far, Frow, so we can’t tell you about the south. But the next village you come to, that’s ours, and I reckon they’d like to see you.’

  ‘Then see us they shall,’ cried Grandpa, and he sang the first few lines of a very rude song that left the travellers laughing.

  But as soon as they were out of earshot, Arms-mistress Krieg growled, ‘I wish you would not draw attention to us, Lord Rump. We are supposed to be hiding, but you put us all in danger.’

  ‘We are hiding in plain sight,’ retorted Grandpa, ‘which is always the best place. As for putting us in danger, you are the one who glowers at everyone we pass. You are the one who rests your hand on your sword, as if you will lop off their heads if they so much as look at young Otte. Why, you scared those poor people half to death, and it was only my song that calmed their suspicions.’

  ‘And that is another thing,’ said Krieg. ‘You should not sing such songs in front of the children.’

  ‘I have heard far worse in the Strong-hold,’ said Otte.

  ‘That is not the point, Young Ser—’ began Krieg.

  Grandpa interrupted her. ‘How many times have I warned you not to call him that? He is – no, she is Daisy, the youngest member of our little troupe. No title. No special attention. No glowering!’ And he subsided into his seat, shaking his head and muttering, ‘Amateurs. I am surrounded by amateurs. If we are all murdered in our sleep tonight, do not blame me.’

  Duckling looked over her shoulder, but she still couldn’t see anything suspicious. If only her witchery had come with instructions, like the ones Grandpa used to give her when she was small. This is how you pick a lock, my sweet. Watch closely, I will test you on it tomorrow.

  But there were no instructions. An old Saffy woman had blown in Duckling’s ear, and ever since then Duckling had been able to hum up a witchy breeze.

  She wished she knew why she had been given such an astonishing gift. Had she been mistaken for someone else? Would that someone turn up one day and demand that Duckling hand over the witchery?

  They can demand all they like, she thought. I won’t give it up, not for anything.

  She let the cart pull ahead, and hummed the shiny little tune again. To her relief, the witchy breeze came to her, and although it seemed sluggish and only half its usual self, it did as she asked, and wandered back the way they had come.

  When it returned, the sounds it brought were just loud enough to send a chill down Duckling’s spine.

  Clank clank

  Rattle

  ‘Haw haw haw—’

  For a moment, she felt frozen to the spot. That clanking sound reminded her of the monstrous Harshman who had tried to kill Otte. Who’d tried to kill all of them.

  But the Harshman was still trapped inside the stone walls of the Strong-hold.

  Wasn’t he?

  She couldn’t take the chance. She ran after the cart, and as soon as she caught up with it, she blurted, ‘Grandpa, I think someone’s following us!’

  In the week since they’d all escaped from the Strong-hold, Pummel had been watching Duckling and Lord Rump closely. They had betrayed him once; he was determined not to be caught by surprise if they tried it again.

  So when the cart began to pull off the road into a small clearing, far earlier in the day than usual, his first thought was, Is this a trick? What are they up to?

  ‘Duckling believes someone is following us,’ said Lord Rump. ‘She may be right; she may be wrong. But it is well to be cautious, so we will stop here for the night.’

  ‘If someone’s after us,’ protested Pummel, ‘we should be running, not stopping.’

  ‘If someone is after us, dear boy,’ said Lord Rump, ‘they will chase us even harder when they see us run. Therefore, we will not run. We will call their bluff.’

  He guided the horse towards a rocky outcrop on the far side of the clearing, and climbed down with his dress flapping around his ankles. ‘We will set up camp exactly as we have done on previous nights. And from this moment on, we will not use our real names. Do you hear me?’

  For once, Arms-mistress Krieg agreed with him. She unsheathed her sword and nodded at Pummel, saying, ‘You have your staff? Good. Daisy will sit in the cart and you and I will stand nearby. Frow Cat, you will sit in the cart also. Your claws are excellent weapons.’

  The cat jumped down from the horse without a word. But Lord Rump scowled at the arms-mistress. ‘I beg you not to wave your sword around like that, Ember. You stand out like a toad in a plum pudding. We are a theatre troupe, remember, and must behave like one. Tanglefoot, please see to the horse.’

  Duckling lifted the chicken onto her shoulder and began to unbuckle the horse’s harness, saying, ‘Clodhopper, can you help Daisy into the cart?’

  Clodhopper. That was who Pummel was supposed to be. A stupid name for a stupid boy.

  But I’m not stupid, he reminded himself. Being honest isn’t stupid, no matter what Lord Rump thinks.

  He fetched Otte’s new crutches – the ones Arms-mistress Krieg had made in their first couple of days on the road – and handed them up to the younger boy, who gripped them firmly and slid to the ground.

  As they walked back to the cart together, Otte pointed to a large mushroom growing at the base of the rock. ‘That is a shaggy ink cap. Could you pull it up for me, please, Clodhopper, and put it in this jar? It will dissolve into black ink, which I can use for writing.’

  Back in the Strong-hold, Otte had been a scribe. He had also secretly acted as a physician, mending cats, dogs, chickens, mice and the occasional human with his collection of herbs and potions. If it hadn’t been for Otte, the scar on Pummel’s cheek would have been far worse.

  But in the rush to escape, nearly everything had been left behind. And so, in the last week, Pummel had pulled up herbs, picked flowers, and plucked bark and leaves from the trees they passed. Otte hung some of them from the sides of the cart to dry, and pounded others to paste. Whenever they passed a rubbish dump, Pummel collected little glass jars in different colours: blue and green and cracked white, and stone brown with darker specks, and clear and purple and black.

  So now Otte had a whole new collection of herbs and potions. He had bandages too, torn from clean scraps of cloth and rolled into neat bundles.

  Pummel bent over to pull up the mushroom, and Duckling appeared beside him, with the chicken in her arms. ‘Have you used the raashk today?’ she whispered.

  ‘Why?’ asked Pummel, keeping his eyes on the ground. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Because my witchery isn’t working properly.’

  Pummel straightened up and stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It isn’t working, not the way it should,’ whispered Duckling. ‘And someone’s following us. What if it’s the Harshman?’

  ‘He can’t get out of the Strong-hold,’ said Pummel.

  ‘We don’t think he can get out. But my breeze brought me something that sounded like armour clanking. Or chains.’

  ‘I thought you said it didn’t work.’

  ‘This was when it did work,’ said Duckling, stroking the chicken in a worried sort of way.

  Pummel didn’t trust Duckling and her grandfather, not the least little bit. They’d lied to him right from the start, and tied him up so tightly in one of their Schemes that he would’ve been killed if Duckling hadn’t changed her mind.

  But changing her mind didn’t make her trustworthy. It didn’t make her his friend.

  All the same, the thought of the Harshman was enough to make him take the small leather pouch from his boot, untie the string, and tip the raashk into his hand.

  It looked like nothing more than a big tooth with a hole in the middle, and it had been given to Pummel by the same
old Saffy woman who’d given Duckling her witchery. At first he had tried to throw it away, but it had always come back to him, which was just as well, because it had ended up saving Otte’s life several times.

  Pummel put his eye to the hole, and Duckling and the chicken faded to a shadow. The rock was hardly there; the road was gone, replaced by dimly glowing threads and half a dozen ghosts—

  Dimly glowing? In the Strong-hold, those threads had been much brighter. And the ghosts had been more solid, and had tried to talk to him. These ghosts drifted past, as fragile as moths.

  Pummel took his eye from the hole, and they vanished. ‘Does it still work?’ whispered Duckling.

  He nodded and turned his back on her.

  And so they prepared, while trying to look as if they weren’t prepared. Otte sat in the back of the cart with the chicken on his lap and the white mice in his sleeves, and carved a twig for use as a pen. The cat sprawled next to him, cleaning her big paws.

  Lord Rump hitched up his skirts, set a fire in the circle of stones left by previous travellers, and put an ancient kettle on to boil. But his cane was never far from his hand.

  Duckling cut a staff like Pummel’s, and sparred with an imaginary enemy, saying in dramatic tones, ‘Ho, scoundrel! You have murdered my mother and my sister. Now I shall have my revenge!’

  Arms-mistress Krieg leaned against the cart, with her sword hidden next to her elbow, and watched the road.

  It wasn’t long before Pummel heard the tramp of feet, purposeful and strong. ‘It doesn’t sound like the Harshman,’ he whispered.

  ‘Good,’ murmured Lord Rump, tipping a handful of tea into the kettle. ‘But the Harshman is not the only danger. Remember who we are supposed to be. Do not give away our true identities, no matter what happens.’

  Then he raised his voice and said, in the tones of an old woman, ‘No, no, Tanglefoot. I told you; the emphasis is on murdered and revenge. Try it again.’

  Pummel watched the road and saw a dozen men marching towards the clearing. Their hair was tied in knots on top of their heads, and their clothes were brightly coloured. But the most distinctive thing about them was the stripes tattooed across their faces.

  ‘What do you see?’ whispered Lord Rump.