by Paul Stewart
He spent the next few hours hammering the four upright corner logs into the soft soil in the shadow of the low ridge, and then attaching horizontal logs to them, using the nails. The timber was light, easy to handle, and the three walls of the little cabin rose with satisfying speed. Next, Cade took the branches and crisscrossed them to form a latticework roof, using the last of the nails to fix them in place. Then, picking up the spade, he strode back onto the meadowland.
The sun was lower by now, and turning from yellow to orange. Rumblix was asleep in a ball by the lakeside and snoring softly.
Using the spade to cut into the ground, Cade removed broad slices of turf, which he heaped into a pile. The soil anchoring the meadowgrass was rich and loamy and, as he dug, Cade began to consider the possibilities of planting a vegetable garden. Finally, when he had enough, Cade carried the turf back to the cabin and began laying it over the roof branches. Not only did the heavy sods cover the latticework beautifully, but their rich smell mingled with the aroma of the wood to create a pleasant heady fragrance. And with the last turf in place, and the tarpaulin rigged up to form a makeshift entrance, Cade was finally able to stand back and inspect his handiwork.
The cabin was modest, certainly, but sturdy and compact. He crouched down, pushed the tarpaulin aside and poked his head inside the dark interior. He breathed in the warm air, which smelled of meadowgrass and wood spice.
His little home was perfect. It was warm and dry and made him feel safe.
Backing out of the cabin, Cade climbed to his feet. The red sun was sliding down over the far western horizon and the forest was stirring into life as the night chorus began. Cade shivered as he considered what might be out there lurking in the distance. He looked back at his little cabin with its timber walls and turf roof.
He would sleep soundly tonight, he decided, and tomorrow he’d dig a meat cellar, and then a smoke shed the day after. And then a veranda. Maybe a look-out tower . . .
Just then, something gripped his shoulder.
Cade spun round, the spade in his hand raised above his head.
‘Thorne,’ he gasped.
The grey goblin took a step backwards, his crystal-blue eyes fixed on Cade’s waxen face. ‘Whoa. Easy, lad!’ the fisher goblin said, holding up his hand. ‘Thought you might be able to use these.’
Cade looked at the three silver-grey lakefish hanging from his other hand, stretched out towards him. ‘Th-thank you,’ he said, trying to sound as though he hadn’t just been scared half out of his wits. ‘That’s very thoughtful.’
Beside him, Rumblix stirred, then clambered to his feet. He yelped excitedly and bounded over to the grey goblin, his nostrils quivering.
Thorne patted the pup on the head, then handed Cade the fish.
The fisher goblin’s coracle was strapped to his back and Cade couldn’t help noticing how beautifully it had been constructed. The frame was made of thin strips of wood, which had been carefully curved and plaited together; the leather hull had been glued and stitched into position with absolute precision. Even the paddle that hung from Thorne’s belt, with its ridged handle and fluted blade, displayed a skill and workmanship that would have made Cade’s old woodwork teacher proud.
‘Been busy, I see,’ said the grey goblin.
Cade turned and followed Thorne’s gaze. Dark clouds scudded across the pink and orange sunset; the first stars began to twinkle in the east. In the fading light, Cade’s little cabin suddenly looked makeshift and hastily thrown together.
‘It’s a start,’ he said.
Thorne Lammergyre smiled, then slipped his beautifully crafted coracle from his shoulders and carried it to the lakeshore.
‘Well, take care, Cade Quarter,’ he called as he stepped into the coracle and set off across the lake. ‘Looks like we’re in for a storm tonight.’
Cade watched him go, then turned back to his cabin, Rumblix growling around his knees.
‘’Fraid it’s fish for supper again tonight,’ he said with a sigh.
He laid the fish down on a flat rock, then started to set the fire. He arranged twigs and dry grass at the centre of the ring of rocks, and had just ignited it when the first large plump raindrops began to plash all around him.
· CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE ·
THE RAIN GREW heavier as black clouds rolled in on the rising wind. Rain and hail. Cade pulled his hat down firmly on his head, lowered the brim, turned up his collar.
A rich loamy scent filled the darkening air. The lake hissed and, from the far side of the meadowland, the forest rustled and rushed as the wind tore through the upper branches of the trees.
Cade eyed his little fire uneasily. It was struggling to keep going. He pinched the edges of his jacket between his fingers and thumbs, leaned forward, arms outstretched, and attempted to shield it from the increasing downpour. But it was hopeless. The fragile flames were snuffed out with a hiss and a wisp of steam, and the fire that Cade had hoped to grill the fish over was dead.
‘Well, I’m not eating them raw,’ Cade muttered to himself as he dropped the fish inside the pot. He secured the lid on top to keep out Rumblix – who just might – then surveyed the sky.
The dark banks of cloud were roiling and swirling, and in the distance, lightning glowed in their pleated folds. Far-off thunder grumbled, deep and forbidding.
‘Looks like Thorne Lammergyre was right about that storm,’ Cade told Rumblix. The pup was crouched down forlornly beside him, his grey fur black with wetness and his nostrils closed to the driving rain. ‘Come on, boy,’ said Cade. ‘We can eat when this storm’s passed.’ He pulled the tarpaulin aside. ‘Let’s just get out of the rain for now.’
The prowlgrin pup bounded inside the cabin eagerly. Cade bowed his head and followed, pulling the tarpaulin down behind him. Rumblix shook himself, sending a spray of water droplets flying off into the air.
Cade grimaced as they hit his face, then smiled. He hadn’t the heart to chide the little creature.
The cabin felt chill now; the fragrance of meadowgrass and wood had turned sour. And when Cade pulled off his hat he discovered that it was no longer dry either. Large drops were falling on his head – drops which, when he wiped at them with his hands, he found were thick with black mud.
He looked up at the roof, puzzled, only to see that the rain-sodden turf was slumping down between the crisscrossed beams and that water was dripping through, saturating the mud that had anchored the turf in place and melting it away little by little.
Outside, the storm was now directly overhead. Through the widening gaps in the roof, Cade saw blue-white flashes of lightning, which were followed almost immediately by deafening cracks and crashes of thunder. Cade hugged the trembling Rumblix to him with one arm and covered his head with the other. The wind had become monstrous. It was howling and bellowing like a wild beast; it clawed at the cabin, which flexed and creaked ominously.
All at once, behind him, the tarpaulin was ripped from its moorings and disappeared off along the lakeside, flapping like a wounded bird. Cade turned. Everything was in pitch darkness. The next moment, the sky exploded with lightning, and Cade saw the lake framed by the cabin entrance.
His stomach pitched. The waters had been stirred up by the howling gale into dark troughs and spume-flecked peaks. Driving rain billowed like sheets, turning the surface of the lake to a turbulent blur. The waves were crowned with dirty spindrift that was skimmed off and sent flying as the waves crested. They rolled towards him, crashing over the rock jetty and lapping at the entrance of the cabin.
Cade and Rumblix retreated into the far corner as the last of the disintegrating turf roof tiles were whipped away by the wind. The sky was bright with the dazzling lightning bolts that zigzagged down into the jagged treeline.
As Cade watched, open-mouthed, a blazing tree, the flames dazzling white despite the torrential rain, rose up from the forest on the far shore, slowly, slowly, until its roots reached the treetops, when it was snatched away by the wind. It soared ov
er the lake, rising higher with every passing second as the buoyant wood burned.
Moments later, it was joined by another one, and then another. And another. Until the whole lake was lit up by burning trees blazing trails across the indigo sky. It was beautiful . . .
Just then, a wave broke over the threshold of the cabin and swirled around Cade’s feet. The ground turned to quicksand and the timber walls swayed as the shallow foundations of the cabin dissolved. In his arms, Rumblix let out a desolate howl.
‘I know, boy. I know,’ Cade said, reaching down and grabbing his backpack. ‘We’d best get out of here before the whole lot collapses.’
But Rumblix didn’t need to be told. He leaped out of Cade’s grasp and dashed from the cabin, bounding across the meadowlands as fast as his legs would carry him. Cade set off after him, his head down and body stooped.
All at once the air seemed to explode around him. Blinded and deafened, Cade dived forward and landed flat on his front. When he looked up, he saw that the cabin must have been hit by lightning because it had burst into flames. One by one, the split logs shot up into the air like blazing rockets as what was left of his cabin disappeared into the storm-ravaged night.
Cade groaned and buried his head in his arms. He hadn’t done a single thing right. He could see that now. He’d built his cabin too near the lake. He’d roofed it with turf. And as for the wood he’d used, it might have been light and easy to work, but by the way it had burned, it was obviously the worst type of timber he could have chosen.
He remembered how proud he’d been of his little cabin when he’d shown it to Thorne Lammergyre earlier. The fisher goblin hadn’t said anything about the cabin, but had warned him about the approaching storm. Now Cade knew why.
Trembling, cold and wet, with the rain and hail beating down on him, Cade felt a complete failure. All his hopes and dreams of a new life in the Farrow Ridges had been destroyed. Soaked, flooded and set ablaze in a single night.
Cade climbed slowly to his feet and trudged over to the prowlgrin pup. Out here in the meadowlands they were exposed to the full force of the wind and rain, as well as the deadly lightning. Cade knew they needed to find shelter in the forest, despite the terror it held for him. He took a few stumbling steps towards the dark treeline, only for a flash of lightning to confirm his worst fears.
There, lit up with awful clarity, was a monstrous creature.
It was powerfully built, but bent over, with long arms that dangled down so low its knuckles grazed the ground. Its legs were thick and bowed. And set upon broad, muscle-knotted shoulders was a head that was large and lumpen and hideously misshapen. Heavy jutting brows topped tiny deep-set eyes; a lopsided jaw was studded with fangs, while the skull – devoid of any hair – was a mass of bone mounds, at the centre of which was a thick ridge that extended down the back of the head and spine.
‘No, no . . .’ Cade murmured, his voice tight in his throat.
He tried to turn, to run, but he could not. His feet felt rooted to the spot.
The lightning faded and the meadowlands and the forest beyond were plunged into impenetrable blackness. The wind screamed. The thunder roared. The waves of the lake pounded on the shore. Yet above the cacophony of the storm, Cade could hear something else. He was sure he could. The sound of footfalls, loud and lumbering, as the terrible creature came crashing down across the meadowlands towards him.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t scream. He felt his legs buckle beneath him . . .
· CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO ·
‘WHO ARE YOU?’ Cade’s voice was barely more than a whisper, and there was a heaviness in his chest that tightened as he took a breath.
‘Don’t try to talk,’ said the girl.
She was beautiful, with gleaming jet-black hair, olive skin and the greenest eyes Cade had ever seen. They shone like shards of jade as she looked down at him.
‘Thorne was so worried,’ she told him.
Cade realized he was lying in a bed with a soft mattress and a quilt pulled up over his chest. The girl was standing over him, so close he could smell her warmth and a fragrance like woodjasmine and new-mown hay as she pressed a compress to his forehead. It felt deliciously cool.
‘I’m Celestia Helmstoft,’ she said. ‘Thorne asked me to look after you. You’ve been ill with lake-fever.’
‘But—’ Cade began.
Celestia put her finger to his lips, and Cade felt shivers jangling up and down his body at the softness of her touch. Her green eyes sparkled.
‘I said, don’t try to talk,’ she chided him gently, then straightened up, leaving the cold compress on Cade’s brow. ‘Lie still and rest,’ she said, and before Cade had a chance to speak, she had turned and left his side.
A moment later, he heard her footsteps on the stairs.
Cade reached up and removed the compress from his forehead. It was made of folded white damask soaked in a fragrant salve with a sweet, musky smell that he could not identify.
As he propped himself up on his elbows, his head felt light and the room swayed gently. At first, he thought it must be the effects of the fever, until he realized that the bed was floating. Made of buoyant sumpwood and anchored in place by two chains, one at each end, the bed was hovering at the centre of a cone-shaped room, which rose up to a shadowy point high above his head. Honey-coloured timber had been used for the beams, which had been spliced and dovetailed together with pinpoint precision. The walls were made of plaited strips of willow, and varnished with a deep copper glaze.
Cade lay back on the pillow with a sigh. The workmanship was superb, and reminded him of the fisher goblin’s meticulously constructed coracle. This hive hut must be Thorne Lammergyre’s house, Cade realized, and he felt a pang of embarrassment when he thought of the miserable little shelter he had shown Thorne so proudly just before the storm struck.
The memory of the storm came back to him in all its horror. How it had raged. How the Farrow Lake had turned into a turbulent maelstrom that had thrashed and pounded and flooded his cabin. The crash of thunder. The dazzle of lightning. The burning trees, soaring over the lake.
And the creature: monstrous, misshapen, illuminated at the edge of the forest in the blue-white light, staring back at him . . .
Had he really seen it? Or had, even then, this fever the girl had mentioned, taken hold of his senses?
Cade’s gaze strayed. There was a table to his left, and a three-legged stool, and beyond that, standing in shadow, a large ironwood chest. His jacket and breeches lay neatly folded on the top, with his boots on the floor beside it. At the far side of the room was the circular staircase the girl, Celestia, had disappeared down. The polished blackwood banister gleamed in the sunlight that streamed in through a large triangular window. Cade peered out.
The view was of the Farrow Lake, an unbroken vista over its still, silvery surface and the Western Woods beyond, so calm and peaceful now, beautiful in the morning light.
The stairs creaked and Cade heard the sound of footsteps. A moment later Celestia’s black hair and radiant face appeared, and Cade was struck by her beauty all over again.
‘It’s been two days,’ she said briskly. ‘You need to eat.’ She was holding a wooden tray in her hands; a steaming bowl, a spoon and a drinking cup were set upon it.
Cade’s throat felt raw and, despite the quilt, he was cold and shivery, and very light-headed. The last thing he felt, though, was hungry.
Celestia set the tray down on the table, then pulled up the stool and sat down. She reached out and placed the back of her hand against Cade’s brow, and he was startled by how cool it felt.
‘You’re burning up,’ she told him. ‘I made you some broth. But first . . .’ She picked up the cup. ‘Drink this.’
‘Do I have to?’ said Cade weakly.
‘It’ll make you feel better,’ she told him simply.
Reluctantly Cade took the cup, put it to his lips and drained the contents in one painful gulp. It tasted bitter, fiery, with
a sour, mouldy aftertaste.
He lay back. Almost at once, the heaviness in his chest began to shift, and the strength returned to his body in a warm, fluid rush. He sat up. His head was clear; his throat had eased . . .
‘What was that?’ he said, amazed.
The green-eyed girl smiled. ‘Charlock root, lakebane, camphor-berry.’ She reeled off the herbs matter-of-factly. ‘And . . .’ She paused. ‘Just the tiniest touch of hoverworm venom.’
‘Venom!’ Cade exclaimed, dropping the cup and clutching his throat.
‘To speed the effect,’ said Celestia calmly – though by the look in her eyes, she was plainly enjoying Cade’s alarm. ‘It worked, didn’t it?’
Cade was forced to nod.
‘Now, eat,’ Celestia said sternly, passing Cade the wooden bowl and spoon. ‘Lakefish broth,’ she said as Cade tried a spoonful. ‘And before you ask,’ she added, ‘no, there’s no hoverworm venom in it.’
Celestia got up and walked over to the stairs and, for the first time, Cade noticed the clothes she wore. A tooled leather jacket with rings, loops and pouches sewn onto the arms, from which various vials, small bundles and packets were hanging. Tight-fitting leggings, reinforced at the knees, and heavy boots, cross-tied and buckled at the ankle. A knife was holstered to one leg and a whip was coiled at her belt.
Celestia Helmstoft was Cade’s age, but she was clearly no novice out here in the Deepwoods. Cade felt suddenly young and foolish.
‘Finish the broth, then get dressed,’ Celestia called to him as she descended the stairs. ‘Thorne’ll be back from the lake soon and he’ll be pleased to see you up.’
‘Thank you,’ Cade called after her.
He ate the broth quickly, his appetite now fully restored. Then, leaping out of bed, he hastily dressed, his fingers fumbling over jacket buttons and boot buckles, painfully aware of how flimsy and inappropriate his city clothes now seemed.