CHAPTER 12
RAZOR REEF
Stanley galloped. Earth and rock exploded out from his pounding hooves. His tangled mane and tail sailed in a wind of his own making and loam wetted his flanks. There was only one chance to save the Serendipity and it was slim one. He had to inform the Mayor and return with help while Reginald used the Happy Trader to block the mouth of Thompsons Creek like a cork in a bottle. The Serendipity would be unable to pass and then they could take back the ship and rescue Harry and Sally. If Reginald was unable to hold them or if he was unable to return in time with help, Harry and Sally would be lost.
Trees and rocks flashed by in a blur of colour. Stanley leapt another fallen log and burst from the shadows into the light. Behind him, Thompsons Forest stood tall and dark, its deep roots fixing it to the long hillside winding down to Thompsons Creek. Before him, lay newly furrowed fields and stone walls and crooked roads that served the scattered farms that lay north of the town.
He leapt a drainage channel full of weeds that cut a long straight line parallel to Thompsons Forest. Nearby, roughly hewn planks had been laid across to make a crude bridge. Everything depended on reaching Port Isabel quickly and raising the alarm. Reginald would do what he could to delay the pirates but alone and without help even he would eventually fail.
He galloped along an old stone wall, sheeted with moss and stained with age. He jumped a section that had fallen, joined a straight road bordered by small white flowers and opened up to full stretch. His hooves bit deep into rock that flew up behind like chaff in a strong wind.
He galloped down the road and around a bend overhung by the naked branches of an ancient oak and stumbled taking the corner but recovered without missing a beat. His muscles were beginning to sting but he pressed hard against the pain, tears streaming from his eyes.
The pirates weren’t at the wreck of the Interloper like everyone had said. They had been waiting upriver until the Serendipity was finished and loaded with supplies. That must have been their plan from the beginning. They took Harry and Sally and the small boats so everyone would get the Serendipity ready and give chase. They wanted everyone out of the way so they could take the Serendipity. Pirate Pratt had tricked them.
Stanley flew through a gate and skirted a small dam brimming with muddy water. The water looked cool and fresh. Golden daffodils tossed their heads gaily in the afternoon sunshine. High white clouds drifted serenely above, making slow moving shadows on the fields around him.
He wondered how Flossy, Larry and the others were. They would probably already have reached Kidney Reef and discovered the pirates weren’t there as they had thought. Perhaps they would come straight home. He hoped they would. Some of the faster boats may already be back. He should go down to the Quay and see. But first he had to get to the Mayor and bring help.
Stanley flashed by a small farm cottage. The windows were boarded up and it looked abandoned. On one side, an old cart sat mutely on timber stumps. Its wheels had been removed. On the other was the low round wall of an old well. Upon this sat a rotting wooden bucket loosely bound with rusty bands of iron.
He flew across another furrowed field patiently awaiting the coming of spring and leapt its western wall to join a well-worn road rich in potholes.
His trajectory would take him straight through Razor Reef, a long thick line of Heat Trees tens of miles long. It began in the plains and forests high above Port Isabel from whence it indiscriminately sliced through farmlands, gullies, ridges, ravines, vales and hills all the way to the coast in a long, straight line like the cut of a hot razor. He could already feel the radiant heat in the bright afternoon sunshine. The tips of the branches were white-hot and the trunks glowed like coals in an old fire, hot air shimmering.
He couldn’t afford to lose the time needed to go around so he would pass through. It was the shortest route to town and every second counted. The reef was only a few hundred yards wide but in some places the trees grew perilously close to one another. One wrong step and he would be burned, or worse.
He came upon a dam filled with muddy water and plunged in. The cold water was a sharp shock but he welcomed its icy fingers drawing out the heat of his run from Thompsons Creek. He drank deeply. The water would help protect him when he entered the reef. Luscious thick, green grass scattered with tiny pink flowers grew all around but Stanley didn’t have time to graze. He waded out, climbed the muddy bank and continued on, quickly reaching a gallop. Water streamed off his flanks and ran down his legs.
Before long, he reached a dry creek bed littered with broken rocks that lead directly into the reef. It had been part of Upper Thompsons Creek but the reef had dissected it a thousand years before as it slowly grew to become an impenetrable wall. On the far side was the sinkhole where the cold waters of Upper Thompsons Creek collided with the hot reef in a spectacular explosion of steam. On this side there was only the barren gully that snaked back through fields and farms to Thompsons Forest and down the long hill to Thompsons Creek.
Stanley weighed up the risks of entering. He thought of his friends.
In the silence and devastating heat, the dapple-grey horse stumbled down the creek’s steep bank, turned and entered Razor Reef without looking back.
He felt the heat build as he passed the first of the Heat Trees. Drying mud steamed and flaked from his flanks. The coral-like trunks were white hot and the branches overhead were glowing red with black tips. The blood-coloured light was strange because it came from every direction and there were no shadows. The thick air shimmered so that everything looked further away than it was and the creek bed was littered with rocks that had split open like dry nuts with sharp edges that cut.
Further in, the reef grew gradually denser but nothing seemed to be growing in the bottom of the gully and the way was clear for as far as he could see. He hoped it went all the way to the sinkhole on the far side. The water from the dam was gone and he was sweating profusely as his body tried to keep cool. He blinked clear his weeping eyes and pushed forward trying to imagine it was just like an unusually hot summer’s day.
A dozen yards in and he came to the bleached bones of an ancient skeleton. The animal appeared to have been overcome by the heat, collapsing and dying where it had fallen. It was a small mammal with a long tail but Stanley couldn’t tell the species.
He pressed deeper into the reef. Above, tangled branches closed off the sky like a roof of fire. It felt like he was in a tunnel, or an oven. He turned and looked back but the dense, shimmering air prevented him from seeing where he had entered. Perhaps it had been a mistake to attempt a crossing. Perhaps it would have been better to take the long road by the river and circle round. Then he thought of Reginald holding back the pirates, alone. He had made it this far and the reef was only a couple of hundred yards wide at most, so it was said. He lifted his head and pushed on with heavy hooves.
He passed a second skeleton, probably the same species as the one he’d seen further back. It was stretched out with the effort of reaching back down the gully. It looked like the first animal had entered the reef and the second had followed to bring it out. Both had been overcome and died before they were reunited.
Soon he reached an impassable boulder at a sharp bend. Heat Trees ran along both sides of the gully so that he was boxed in. He retraced his steps and found a place where the Heat Trees growing along the rim were thinner. It took three attempts to get to the top and the effort left him breathless but it was worth it. The stony ground was flat and level like a road and it appeared to gently curve around the boulder.
He followed the road until he reached a wide clearing filled with bubbling volcanic pools rimmed with salt crusts and reeking of suffer. Steam tumbled into the air above the pools and out of cracks in the surrounding rock. At the centre of the strange place were the ruins of an ancient building shaped like a hexagonal pillbox. The slab roof had collapsed inwards long ago and the wall closest to him had fallen. Blocks of pale stone and bright silver metal lay scattered on the bake
d ground or were half submerged in the pools. Inside, strangely-jointed metal arms poked out from the walls. They were like living arms that had been denuded of fur, skin, muscles and tendons so that only bones remained. The arms had pincers, like crabs, rather than hands, hooves or paws. Some of the arms were twisted out of shape, others had been torn from their sockets and lay scattered amongst the wreckage. Rectangular towers of black glass were arranged in rows like soldiers. But there has been an explosion and some had toppled. Others had been twisted and smashed, shards of black glass lying all around. He had no doubt he was looking at something made during the Machine Age. Even the owls had not made anything like this.
What was this place and why was it built? What had destroyed it and why? What did the metal arms and the black towers once do? There was no way to know and he had no time to learn more. He had to find his way out of the reef as quickly as he could and bring back help from Port Isabel.
Leaving behind the ruins and the bubbling pools, Stanley trotted along the curving road until he reached the gully on the other side of the boulder. A wall of stumpy Heat Trees lined the gully’s rim but there was an opening that looked big enough if he was careful. Blinking clear his weeping eyes he peered through the gap and saw that that the gully beyond was clear and level. It even seemed to open up as if he was nearing the far side of the reef.
There was little room to move as he squeezed through the opening on his knees. But just when he thought he’d made it he stumbled and fell heavily against the trunk of a Heat Tree. The pain of burning flesh washed out his vision and he rolled down the bank and struck his head on a rock at the bottom.
When he regained consciousness he was lying on his side, heart hammering, breathing shallow and laboured. His first thought was of Elizabeth and the day they met. Then he remembered that his survival, and that of Reginald’s and the others, depended on him getting to the other side of the reef as quickly as possible. Perspiration, mingled with mud and blood, streamed from his flanks and sizzled on the hot stones as he staggered to his feet and continued on. His heart felt like it would beat out of his chest and his lungs, as if they were on fire. The blow to his head was affecting the vision in his right eye and his blistering burns throbbed painfully.
There was no going back the way he had come. The gully walls were too steep on this side of the boulder and the wall of thickly clustered Heat Trees growing along the rim was impenetrable. There was only one way to go: forward down the gully and out the other side.
Stanley stumbled on, one heavy hoof in front of the next, lungs burning with each short breath, perspiration streaming from every pore, eyes weeping. He was cut every time he brushed against a sharp-edged rock but the pain was nothing compared with the throbbing, blistering burn on his shoulder.
A dozen yards on, overcome with exhaustion and the severity of his injuries, he staggered to a halt and fell to his knees. Who was he kidding, he was just a farm horse and everybody knew that crossing Razor Reef was impossible. Nobody would blame him if he failed, what counted was that he had the courage to try. Then he remembered Reginald straining against the ropes as he grounded the Happy Trader on the sandbar, and the Serendipity rising above them as it unwittingly glided into Reginald’s trap. The dogs were howling in frustration when Reginald had looked sadly at him and said, ‘I’ll hold them back if you run for help, Stanley. But don’t do anything reckless.’ Then he had galloped up the narrow trail through Thompsons Forest leaving Reginald to face the pirates alone. And he remembered Sally Sloth saying before she was captured by the pirates that he didn’t have to be just a farm horse, that he could be more, that he was meant for more. And he remembered Elizabeth. For her he would be more!
Struggling to his feet and drawing down on his last reserves Stanley pressed mightily against the hot, heavy air and imagined drinking deeply of the creek’s cool waters on the other side. He pictured bringing help back to Reginald in time and saving Harry and Sally from the fleeing pirates. In light of his deeds Elizabeth would overlook that he was just a stammering farm horse and instead call him her hero. His father would say he was proud of him, that he didn’t have to work for Farmer Weasel anymore, and that he should go and pursue his dreams.
As he staggered down the gully, the force of his hopes and dreams was the only thing keeping him upright. He rejected every thought of failing and refused to give up.
So focused was he on taking his next step that he didn’t notice the glowing canopy above was thinning and that steam and dappled sunlight were washing over him. He became aware of a rushing boiling sound only after he had rolled down an embankment and plunged into the steaming and swirling waters of the sinkhole that marked the sudden and violent end of Upper Thompsons Creek.
A Girl called Admiral Fairweather Page 12