by Paul Stewart
Mugbutt made a move forwards. Hubble’s ears fluttered. Cloud Wolf’s hand gripped the hilt of his sword.
‘Sky above!’ the captain exclaimed. ‘Did you not hear me? The leagues have no use for stormphrax. They simply wish to prevent it from reaching the treasury of Sanctaphrax for if that happened, the floating city would again become stable and their lucrative alliance with the raintasters would fall apart.’
Slyvo Spleethe tightened his grip on his flashing sword.
‘They have tricked you, Spleethe. They want you to fail.’
‘You’re lying!’ Spleethe screamed, and turned to Mugbutt. ‘He’s lying!’
Cloud Wolf seized the opportunity. He drew his sword and threw himself at Slyvo Spleethe. ‘You mutinous bilge-cur!’ he roared.
But Mugbutt was too quick for him. As the captain lunged forwards, he raised his spear as massive and heavy as befitted the powerful flat-head goblin and leapt between them. The chiming sound of metal on metal filled the air as the captain and the flat-head launched themselves into deadly battle.
Clash! Crash! Clang! The fight continued, fast and furious. Cloud Wolf howled with rage.
‘Blood and thunder!’ he roared, ‘I’ll have the pair of you sky-fired!’ He parried away the increasingly frenzied attacks from Mugbutt. ‘I’ll split your gizzards. I’ll rip out your treacherous hearts …’
‘Waah-waah!’ the banderbear shouted out, and tore at the ropes that bound him to the helm.
The Stormchaser dipped and rolled. If it drifted towards the outer reaches, where the storm was raging at its wildest, the sky ship would be turned to matchwood in an instant.
‘No, Hubble,’ Cloud Wolf called out urgently. ‘I … I’m all right. You must hold a steady course.’
The raised voices, the clash of metal, the pounding of feet Twig could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Was his father fighting on his own? Where were the rest of the crew and why didn’t they come to their captain’s aid?
‘TEM BARKWATER!’ he bellowed, and beat his fists desperately against the locked door, ‘STOPE BOLTJAW!’
All at once, the door burst open. Twig tumbled forwards and was immediately grasped by Slyvo Spleethe. ‘I told you to keep your mouth shut,’ he hissed as he wrenched Twig’s arm up behind his back with one hand and pressed the knife to his neck with the other.
‘Wh … what’s happening?’ Twig said.
‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ Spleethe spat as he frogmarched Twig across the sparking deck. ‘Do exactly what I say’ he instructed, ‘and you won’t get hurt.’
Quaking with terror, Twig was bundled round the skirting-deck and up the narrow flight of stairs which led to the helm. The scene which greeted him filled him with sickening dread.
Cloud Wolf and Mugbutt were locked in mortal combat. Eyes blazing, jaws set, the pair of them were fighting for their lives. Their weapons clashed together with such ferocity, that spark after dazzling yellow spark jumped up out of the fizzing blue.
Twig wanted to leap forwards and fight by his father’s side. He wanted to slay the wicked mutineer who dared to raise his hand against Captain Cloud Wolf.
‘Easy now, Master Twig,’ Spleethe hissed in his ear, and increased the pressure on the dagger at Twig’s neck. ‘If you value your life.’
Twig swallowed anxiously. The fight continued. He couldn’t look; he couldn’t turn away. Now Mugbutt seemed to be winning, now Cloud Wolf had the upper hand. And all the while, the surrounding storm gathered strength. The lightning flashed again and again, illuminating the curdled clouds and glinting on the flashing blades.
There was no grace to the fight, no finesse. Mugbutt, as the stronger of the two, was content to hack and slash away, battering the captain into submission. Twig tensed nervously as he watched Cloud Wolf being driven back towards the far wall.
Spleethe, fearing the youth was going to cry out, clamped his hand over Twig’s mouth. ‘Patience,’ he whispered. ‘It will soon be over. And then I shall take my rightful place as captain of the Stormchaser. Captain Spleethe’ he mused. ‘It has a nice ring to it.’
Oh, Father, Twig thought desperately as Cloud Wolf battled gallantly on. What have I done to you?
‘Tem!’ he heard him crying out above the rumble of the thunder and clashing of the heavy blades. ‘Stopejaw. Spiker.’
But none of the sky pirates heard him. They were too busy keeping the increasingly unstable sky ship airborne.
‘The sails are working their way loose,’ Tern bellowed, as he heaved round on the sail-wrench. ‘Stope, realign the spinnaker bidgets while I try to secure the mainsail. Spiker, see to that tolley-rope.’
‘The flight brackets are jammed,’ Spiker shouted back, as the sky ship continued to toss and turn. ‘Stope, can you help me?’
‘I’ve only got ah the ah one pair of hands,’ Stope grumbled. ‘And if I don’t ah untangle this ah nether-fetter soon, we’ll all be goners.’
At that moment, a particularly violent gust of wind struck the port bow. Stope Boltjaw cried out as the sky ship listed, and the matted mass of rope and sail was snatched from his hand. At the other end of the sky ship, Cloud Wolf lost his balance and staggered across the deck.
‘Waah!’ cried the banderbear. If the other crew members could not come to his captain’s aid, then surely he should do something.
‘No, Hubble!’ Cloud Wolf said breathlessly, as the sky ship lurched back to starboard. ‘Keep hold of the helm, or we will all perish. That’s an order.’
Tears welled up in Twig’s eyes. Even now as his father’s arms grew weak Cloud Wolf was more concerned with his crew than he was with himself. How valiant he was. How knightly. He, Twig, did not deserve such a father.
Clash! Crash! Hack and slash! Mugbutt’s spear slammed down time and again, and with such force and speed, that Cloud Wolf could do nothing but defend himself. All at once, the sky lit up with a sudden flash of blinding light, the Stormchaser gave another awful lurch and the whole sky ship pitched forwards.
‘The mast is cracking!’ Spiker screamed.
‘Secure the main-fetter!’ Tern roared. ‘Lower the sails!’
Cloud Wolf, with his face to the stern, stumbled back. Mugbutt was quick to seize the advantage. He leaped forwards and swung savagely with his spear.
Cloud Wolf ducked. The heavy blade missed him by a fraction. Mugbutt roared with fury and lunged again. Twig gasped then sighed with relief as Cloud Wolf knocked the flat-head’s weapon away just in the nick of time and countered with a sudden attack. His sword thrust forwards at Mugbutt’s chest.
Yes! Yes! Twig thought, urging the sword on.
But it was not to be for at that moment a terrible sound of splintering wood ripped through the air as the mast snapped off, a third of the way up, and came tumbling down.
It crashed onto the deck and tipped over the side, where it remained, suspended in mid-air below the port side. The sky ship listed sharply to the left and threatened to roll right over.
‘Cut the ropes,’ Tern yelled, as he began slicing through the main-fetter, ‘NOW.’
Stope and Spiker leaped to his side and began slashing and slicing at the tangled ropes and rigging. With half the ropes cut, the rest abruptly broke as one under the heavy weight, and the mast dropped down through the sky. The Stormchaser rolled back to starboard.
Twig let out a muffled cry as he and Spleethe toppled backwards, and he felt the knife nick the soft skin at his throat. His father was faring even worse. Not only had the sudden jolt thrown Mugbutt out of reach of the thrusting sword, but now Cloud Wolf was staggering towards him, off-balance, sword flailing and utterly defenceless. Twig froze as the flat-head grabbed his spear again and raised it up. Another second and his father would impale himself on the great jagged blade.
‘WAAAH!’ Hubble roared as he too saw what was about to happen. He tore furiously at the ropes which bound him to the wheel.
Mugbutt, startled by the noise, glanced up and realized, to his horror, how cl
ose to the tethered banderbear he had ended up standing. One of his mighty arms was raised. Hubble roared again and swung out savagely. Mugbutt leaped desperately to his left fast, but not fast enough.
The blow caught the flat-head on the arm. It sent the spear spinning off across the deck, and Mugbutt himself hurtling to the floor. Cloud Wolf was on him like a shot. Without a moment’s hesitation, he brought his sword down, hard and sharp, severing the goblin’s head with a single blow. Then, bloodied sword raised, he turned murderously on Spleethe.
‘And now you,’ he stormed. ‘You…’ He fell silent. His eyes widened; his jaw dropped. ‘Twig!’ he muttered.
Slyvo Spleethe sniggered as he pulled the blade oh-so-gently across Twig’s throat. ‘Drop your weapon,’ he said. ‘Or your son gets it.’
‘No,’ Twig cried. ‘Don’t do this for me. You must not.’
Cloud Wolf tossed his sword aside and let his arms drop defencelessly. ‘Release the boy,’ he said. ‘You have no quarrel with him.’
‘Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t,’ Spleethe teased. He put away his dagger, but drew his own sword in a flash. ‘Maybe I’ll…’
The sky cracked and flashed, and the Stormchaser pitched wildly, first to one side, then to the other. The sky ship was drifting perilously close to the edge of the storm and there was nothing Hubble could do to stop it.
Then all at once and before anyone realized what he was doing, Spleethe let go of Twig. He shoved him to the floor and raced headlong at the captain, sword raised.
‘Aaaaaa!’ he screamed.
The sky ship shuddered violently. Every beam, every plank, every joint creaked in protest.
‘Two minutes, and counting,’ Twig heard Spiker calling then, with sudden alarm, ‘Tem! Boltjaw! The captain’s in trouble!’
At long last the others had noticed that something was wrong. But too late. Far too late. Already Spleethe’s sword was slicing down through the air towards Cloud Wolf’s exposed neck.
Below the hull, one of the port hull-weights was being shaken loose. Abruptly, it broke free and tumbled down through the sky. The Stormchaser keeled to starboard.
The sword landed heavily, missing its target, but burying itself deep in the top of Cloud Wolf’s arm his sword arm. Slyvo Spleethe’s lip curled. ‘You were lucky that time,’ he said. ‘You will not be so lucky again.’ He raised the sword a second time. ‘I am captain now!’
‘Hubble!’ Twig cried out desperately. ‘Do something!’
‘Wuh-wuh!’ the banderbear bellowed, and gripped the wheel. The captain had told him ordered him to stay put.
For a moment, their eyes met. ‘Wuh-wuh’ said Twig.
‘WAAH!’ Hubble roared. Mind made up, his eyes blazed and his hair bristled as he ripped the ropes from their moorings, and tore them to pieces as if they were made of paper, ‘WAAAH!’
A shaggy white mountain, he stormed towards Spleethe in a flurry of flashing claws and bared teeth. He seized the scurrilous quartermaster round the waist, raised him up in the air and slammed him furiously back down onto the deck. Then, before Spleethe could so much as move a muscle, the banderbear roared again and came crashing down on the quartermaster’s back.
There was a thud. There was a crack. Slyvo Spleethe was dead his spine broken in two.
Twig climbed shakily to his feet, and desperately clung hold of the balustrade as the storm-tossed sky ship pitched and rolled, totally out of control. The mutinous usurpers might have been dealt with and his father’s life spared but the situation was grim.
With no-one now at the helm, the wheel was spinning, while the sails that remained flapped uselessly overhead. Below the hull, two more of the balance-weights shook themselves loose. The Stormchaser tossed and twisted, bucked and dived. Round and round it spun, threatening at any moment to tip upside down and scatter the hapless crew to certain death below.
Cloud Wolf struggled to pull himself up with his one good arm, wincing with pain as he did so. Tern Barkwater who, with the others, had finally made it to the bridge, struggled to get to him.
‘Leave me!’ Cloud Wolf cried fiercely.
A blinding flash tore across the sky, lighting up the Stormchaser and revealing the true extent of its damage. Any second now, it would break up completely. Cloud Wolf spun round to face his crew.
‘ABANDON SHIP!’ he bellowed.
The crew stared back at him incredulously. What madness was this? Abandon ship, when they were on the verge of reaching their destination?
At that moment, the air all round them exploded with the clamour of countless small birds as they billowed up from the bowels of the ship. Their triangular wings and whiplash tails, all frantically beating, flashed black against the dazzling background. Thousands of them, there were, yet they flew with single intent. When one turned, they all turned.
Squawking, squeaking, screeching, the flock wheeled this way and that as if to the command of some unseen choreographer.
‘Ratbirds’ Tern murmured with horror. He knew as did every sky pirate that ratbirds only abandon a sky ship that is truly doomed. He spun round. ‘You heard the cap’n’ he bellowed. ‘Abandon ship!’
‘And alert both the Stone Pilot and the professor’ Cloud Wolf called out.
‘Aye aye, cap’n’ said Tern Barkwater, and staggered off to do the captain’s bidding.
Spiker was the first to go. As he threw himself from the balustrade he called back, ‘We are crossing into the Twilight Woods … Now!’
The rest of the crew soon followed him. Despite the awful danger of remaining on the Stormchaser a moment too long, one by one they knelt down and kissed the deck, before climbing reluctantly up onto the side and leaping off into the purple air. Stope Boltjaw.
The Stone Pilot. Tem Barkwater and the Professor of Light. As the blast of air struck them, so the spring mechanism of their parawings leapt up, the wind pockets inflated with air and they glided off and away.
Back on the bridge, Cloud Wolf was making his way to the helm, step by agonizing step, as the sky ship continued to judder and jolt.
‘You too, Hubble,’ he shouted at the steadfast banderbear. ‘Leave your post. Go!’ The great beast surveyed him dolefully. The sails fluttered and tore. ‘Now!’ roared Cloud Wolf. ‘Before the sky ship goes down.’
‘Wuh-wuh,’ he cried, and lurched off to obey. As he moved away, Cloud Wolf saw that the banderbear had been shielding a second member of the crew who had not yet left the sky ship.
‘Twig!’ he barked. ‘I told you to go.’
The swirling clouds squirmed. The Stormchaser shuddered and creaked.
‘But I can’t! I won’t leave you!’ Twig cried out. ‘Oh, forgive me, Father. This is all my fault.’
‘Your fault?’ Cloud Wolf grunted as he struggled to take control of the helm. ‘It is I who is to blame leaving you at the mercy of that scoundrel Spleethe.’
‘But…’
‘Enough!’ roared Cloud Wolf. ‘Leave now!’
‘Come with me!’ Twig pleaded.
Cloud Wolf said nothing. There was no need. Twig knew that his father would sooner lose his own life than his ship.
‘Then I’ll stay with you!’ he said defiantly.
‘Twig! Twig!’ Cloud Wolf cried, his voice barely audible above the rush and rumble of the storm. ‘I may lose my ship. I may yet lose my life. And if that is my fate, then so be it. But if I lost you … It would…’ He paused. ‘Twig, my son. I love you. But you must leave. For you and for me. You understand, don’t you?’
Tears welling in his eyes, Twig nodded.
‘Good boy,’ said Cloud Wolf. Then, lurching awkwardly from one side to the other, he hurriedly unbuckled his sword-belt, wrapped it round the scabbard and thrust out his hand. ‘Take my sword,’ he said.
Twig reached forwards. His fingers grazed his father’s hand. ‘We will see each other again, won’t we?’ he sniffed.
‘You can depend on it,’ said Cloud Wolf. ‘When I regain control of the Stormchaser I shall be b
ack for you all. Now go,’ he said, and abruptly returned his attention to the rows of weight and sail levers.
Sadly, Twig turned to leave. When he reached the outer balustrade, Twig looked round and stole a final look at his father. ‘Fare fortune!’ he cried to the blasting wind, and launched himself into the air.
The next instant he screamed out in terror. He was dropping like a stone. The parawings must have been damaged when Spleethe had thrown him into the store-cupboard. Now they were jammed. They would not open.
‘Father!’ he screamed, ‘FA-THER!’
•C H A P T E R T W E L V E•
INTO THE TWILIGHT WOODS
Twig screwed his eyes tightly shut as he fell, faster and faster. If ever he had needed the caterbird who, since Twig had been there at its hatching, had sworn to watch over him then surely it was now. Yet, as he continued to tumble through the sky, the caterbird failed to appear.
The air sped past Twig, snatching his breath away. He had all but abandoned hope when, suddenly, he heard a loud click. The mechanism on the parawings sprang up, the wings flew open and whooopf the silken pockets billowed out. Caught by the wind, Twig was tossed back upwards like a leaf in a gale.
He opened his eyes, and struggled to right himself. It was the first time Twig had had to perform a real emergency leap, yet when he pushed his legs back and his arms forward, as he had been taught, he found himself gliding effortlessly with the wind. ‘Flying’ Twig cried excitedly, as the wind sent his hair streaming back behind him. ‘I’m flaaaah-ying!’
All round him, the air crackled and hummed.
Something was happening. Something new; something bizarre. The lightning which, up until that moment, had been confined to the surrounding wall of cloud, suddenly began darting forwards to the centre of the storm in long, wispy threads. They danced and spiralled and began weaving themselves together in a ball of electric light.
Twig gazed in wonder. ‘This is it’ he whispered excitedly. The Great Storm must be about to discharge its single mighty lightning bolt.’ His hair stood on end; his head thrilled with anticipation. ‘This is what it has all been building up to. This is what we came to see the creation of stormphrax.’