by Philip Reeve
“Why do we have to go in this way?” asked Zeewa, wrinkling her nose as Skarper carefully slid a flat stone slab aside to reveal a dark hole, an entrance into one of the tunnels which radiated outwards from Redcap’s basements. A horrid smell emerged from the hole, along with a faint, eerie glow.
“Grumpling will be expecting us to try and nick his back scratcher,” said Skarper. “He’ll have set sentries on all the stairways. They’ll probably be asleep, because they’re goblin sentries, but we still can’t risk it. We’d probably have to clamber over them, and even goblins usually wake up when you clamber over them. We don’t want to wake up nobody, not if we can help it.”
“And if we do…” said Zeewa. She took a firmer grip on the haft of her broad-bladed stabbing spear, patted the oxhide pouch which hung from her belt, and said, “Lead on, Skarper.”
Skarper swung himself over the edge of the hole and lowered himself in. He dangled there for a moment by his fingertips, blinking at the horrible smell. Then he let go and dropped. There was a faint, wet SPLUDGE. Then another, as Zeewa dropped down behind him.
The basement of Redcap Tower was full of poo. All the basements of all the goblin towers were at least partly full of poo, because the goblins of long ago had sawed holes in the floors of the rooms above and used them as toilets. The Chilli Hats of Redcap Tower – who got their name from their habit of eating the fiery red chillis which they grew in the Lych Lord’s old glasshouses – did more poos than most, and all the poos of all the goblins that had ever lived in the Redcap were heaped up in its basement, or dribbling away down that tunnel into which Skarper and Zeewa had just jumped.
“Eww!” said Zeewa.
“Not as bad as I was expecting,” said Skarper.
“It’s up to my knees!”
“Think yourself lucky then. I’m a lot shorter than you, remember.”
They started to wade along the tunnel. It was night in the world above, but down here they could see their way quite clearly because the mounds and slicks of poo through which they floundered were glowing with a soft light. Either it was a property of all those fierce red chillis in the Chilli Hats’ diet, or their poo had been mixed with the luminous droppings of the blind white bats which nested in holes in the tunnel roof and flapped silently out sometimes to startle the two intruders, battering their flimsy wings in Skarper’s face, tangling in Zeewa’s hair.
At last they emerged from the tunnel into the basement itself. There the poo was even deeper.
“It’s up to my waist now!” whispered Zeewa.
“I know! It’s up to my chin!”
“Now it’s up to my chest!”
“Not far to go now. Look, there are the pooin holes, right above us…”
“Eugh! Now it’s up to my shoulders!”
“Glubbubble glug blug blub…” said Skarper.
Zeewa unwrapped the rope which she had wound around her waist. There was a hook on the end of it, and she began to swing this around her head. When it was moving fast, whooshing through the stinky air, she launched it upwards towards those dark openings that showed in the ceiling above her like the holes in a very old and mouldy cheese.
There was a faint clunk as the hook hit the edge of the holes, but it did not find a purchase there. It fell back into the morass below.
Zeewa, trying not to breathe, reeled it in and tried again. Again the hook whooshed round and round; again there came that clunk from above; again the moment of hope – would it catch this time? Would it hold? – and then the disappointment as it fell. But this time, instead of a simple splat as it dropped into the poo, there came a distinct bonk, and a muffled “Ow!”
Skarper had managed to get his head above the surface. “What was that?” he hissed. Glowing poo he felt he could cope with, but talking poo? That was just weird.
“Who’s there?’ asked Zeewa, raising her spear.
Over on the far side of the chamber two eyes glinted in the faint glow of the poo. “It’s me,” said a whiny sort of voice. “Flegg.”
“You’re the one Grumpling chucked down the pooin holes for nicking his toothpick!” said Skarper.
“I was only borrowin it,” said Flegg bitterly.
“How long have you been here?’ asked Zeewa.
“Ages!” said Flegg. “I can’t get out! The only way out is down that tunnel, and it only leads to worse places: great caves of poo, deep underground. There are things down there…” He shuddered, and smelly ripples spread through the swamp of poo. “Please, Skarper – you’ve got to get me out of here!”
“We’re not going out,” said Skarper, and pointed at the ceiling. “We’re going up.”
Zeewa swung her grappling hook for a third time. This time it hooked on something above, and held firm. She tested the rope, then hauled herself up it, through the pooin hole, and reached back for Skarper.
“Come with us!” Skarper told poor Flegg. “You can help. Then we can all leave together.”
“Help with what?” asked Flegg suspiciously.
“We’re going to borrow something from Grumpling ourselves. I expect you’d like to get your own back on him?”
“But Grumpling is the king of this tower,” said Flegg doubtfully.
“We don’t have kings in these towers no more,” said Skarper. “We’re finished with all that nonsense. It’s high time somebody taught Grumpling a lesson, and we’re the ones to do it.”
While he spoke he was scrambling hand over hand up the rope, till Zeewa caught him and dragged him through the pooin hole.
Flegg watched him go. Then he called nervously, “All right! I’m coming! Wait for me!”
The room above the poo lake was almost as dingy and stinking as the lake itself. Old books, looted from Clovenstone’s ancient libraries, lay about in heaps, where pooing goblins could grab them to use as bumwipe if they were feeling particularly civilized. Zeewa, Skarper and Flegg picked their way between the rotting volumes, careful not to trip over any and go plunging back down another of the pooin holes which were dotted at random all over the floor.
At last they found their way to a door and out into a passage. Up a long spiral of worn stone steps they went. Now and then they passed a sleeping goblin. From open doorways drifted sounds of snoring.
“Where is Grumpling’s bedchamber?’ Skarper asked Flegg. He was glad they had found this small poo-caked goblin: he would save them a lot of searching.
“Keep goin’ up,” said Flegg.
Up and up. Once they passed a room where firelight glowed and dice rattled, but the heavy door was half closed, and they padded past it and on up the stairs, unheeded by the goblin gamblers within.
At last they reached Grumpling’s chamber, right at the top of the tower. It was a chilly place, with big gaps in the stonework through which the moonlight shone and the night breeze blew. Skarper was glad of that; the moonlight let him see where he was going, while with a bit of luck the breeze might blow away some of the smell of poo. Even so, there were a few sleepy sniffs from Grumpling’s henchmen, who lay sprawled about on the floor. “Who farted?’ asked one of them, as Skarper tiptoed over him.
Zeewa followed Skarper into the big room, but Flegg seemed to think he had done his part just by leading them there. He stayed cowering in the doorway, watching with wide, watery eyes as they crept towards the sleeping Grumpling.
No nest on the floor for the King of the Chilli Hats! Grumpling had found himself a proper bed. It was a huge four-poster with moth-eaten curtains and a carven headboard, which he had made his Chilli Hats drag up all the twisting, turning stairs of their tower. He lay snoring in it, half covered by a heap of furs and throws. Under his lumpy pillow, Skarper could just see the tip of the Elvenhorn poking out into a handy moonbeam.
He turned to Zeewa. As silently as she could, the girl set down her spear, reached into the bag she carried and drew out a she
et of parchment and a stick of charcoal.
Skarper crept closer to the bed. Floorboards squeaked and squoinked beneath him, but Grumpling never stirred. Carefully, carefully, Skarper lifted the edge of the pillow. Carefully, carefully he slid the Elvenhorn out. It was bigger than he had expected, and even more encrusted with shells and stones and barnacles. Some of the stones shone in the moonlight like precious gems, which they probably were.
Meanwhile, Zeewa was drawing the thing in as much detail as she could manage, standing there in the half-dark. As soon as she was finished, she passed her picture to Skarper, who handed her the Elevenhorn in exchange. Carefully, carefully, he slid the drawing under Grumpling’s pillow.
Grumpling muttered something in his sleep and half-opened one dull yellow eye, but Skarper whispered, “There, there,” and he settled into his dreams again.
With luck, thought Skarper, he would find Zeewa’s drawing under his pillow when he woke and think it was the actual Elvenhorn. Hopefully he wouldn’t work out that he’d been robbed for hours and hours.
Chuckling silently at his own cleverness and Grumpling’s stupidity, he started tiptoeing after Zeewa back towards the door.
But he had reckoned without Flegg. The little Chilli Hat had been watching everything from the shadows beyond the door, and suddenly he shouted, “Grumpling! They’re robbing you!”
“Ssshhhh!” hissed Skarper. “You’ll wake him!”
“I wants to wake him!” yelled Flegg, at the top of his squeaky voice. “Wake up, Grumpling! Traitors! Thieves! Intrudlers!”
All the goblins in the chamber were waking up, groping for the weapons they’d laid down beside them when they went to sleep. Moonlight jinked on notched old sword blades and the spikes of maces. “Wossup?” the goblins grumbled, and, “‘Oo’s ’air?”
The huge bed groaned as Grumpling rolled over on it and sat up blinking. “Eh?” he said. His eyes focused on Flegg. “It’s him, boys! It’s that toofpick-nabber. Somebody grab ’im! Chuck him out the window!”
“No, Grumpling!” wailed Flegg, as a dozen dirty paws reached for him. “I am loyal! Look how loyal I am! I’ve climbed all the way up here from the pooin holes just to tell you about Skarper and this softling. Them’s the traitors! Them’s the nabbers! They’s stolen your scratchbackler!”
Grumpling grunted. He lifted his pillow, and his eyes narrowed as he peered beneath it.
“My scratchbackler’s still right here where I left it,” he said.
“It’s a trick!” wailed Flegg, as Grumpling’s boys seized him and started to drag him towards the nearest window. “It’s only a picture! Skarper nabbed your scratchler and that softling done a picture of it!”
“Picture?” Grumpling was getting annoyed at this business of the difference between things and pictures of things. It was confusing softling rubbish, that was what it was. Why couldn’t things just be things? He picked up Zeewa’s drawing. He sniffed it. He turned it this way, then that. He tried to scratch his back with it. “It looks like my scratchbackler,” he said suspiciously. “But it feels different. Like it’s gone all papery.”
He turned the drawing over. The blank back of the parchment glowed in the moonlight.
“Aaaargh!” screamed Grumpling. “It’s distrappeared!”
“It’s in the softling’s pouch, Grumpling! Seize the softling! Search her pouch! Then chuck her and Skarper out the window!”
But Skarper and Zeewa were not hanging around to be seized or chucked out of windows. Quite early on, while Grumpling was still peering at the drawing, Skarper had whispered to Zeewa, “Run!”, and now they were hurtling down the stairs, Skarper leading the way, Zeewa close behind him like a long shadow.
Goblins spilled out of the doors of their lairs, woken by the voices from above. “What’s going on?’ they asked.
“Bad dream!” said Skarper, scampering past.
“Grumpling had a nightmare!” explained Zeewa, following him down.
Grumpling’s fierce bellow of rage came rolling down the stairs behind them, shaking plaster from the old walls, like the tolling of some huge, cracked bell. “I bin ROBBLED! Stop them! STOP THEM ROBBLERS, I SAYS!”
Skarper and Zeewa had had a good start, and the goblins further down the tower were slower to wake and last to hear the angry roarings from above. But they could all tell that something was amiss. A few grabbed at Skarper and Zeewa as they passed. The flight was beginning to turn into a fight – not deadly yet, but furious, the goblins using fists and fangs, teeth and tails, while Skarper elbowed goblins in the belly and Zeewa laid about her with her spear-shaft. The constant scuffles delayed them, and all the time, filling the stairway behind them, they could hear Grumpling’s angry howls.
“I BIN ROBBLED!”
Even so, they had almost reached the exit by the time they were finally caught. There was a doorway which led out on to the Inner Wall, and all the guards there had left their posts to come and see what the racket was about. The door stood unguarded, but four thick bolts sealed it, and as Skarper was opening the third of them he heard Zeewa shriek, then felt the rough paw of one of Grumpling’s henchgoblins close upon his ear. Zeewa slammed her spear-shaft down on the goblin who had caught her, but his skull was thick, and the shaft snapped. Skarper’s captor used his ear as a handle with which to lift him, kicking and struggling, into the air.
Goblins crowded round them. One had a torch. The flames cast their yellow light over a sea of ugly, inquisitive faces.
The sea parted as Grumpling came stomping through to stand before his captives, scowling. He pointed a trembling claw at Zeewa. “I knew it was asking fer trouble, lettin softlings into Clovenstone,” he said. “What’s in her bag?”
“I’ll show you if you like,” said Zeewa, and she twisted free of Grumpling’s friends before they could snatch it from her. While they watched, she plucked another charcoal stick and a second sheet of parchment from the bag and began to draw.
“What are you drawing?” asked Skarper. “Not the Elvenhorn? He won’t fall for that a second time. Well, not for long.”
But although the picture that was taking shape on Zeewa’s parchment was long and pointy, it was not the Elvenhorn. With a few swift, simple strokes she drew a sword. She held the drawing up in Grumpling’s face.
“She’s got a sword!” shouted Grumpling, and he and all his goblins scrambled backwards, out of reach of the sharply pointed blade. “Where’d she get that from?”
“I am challenging you to a duel, Grumpling,” said Zeewa.
Grumpling, like most bullies, was a coward. He didn’t like the idea of fighting the girl one bit, but he didn’t want his Chilli Hats to see that he was afraid of her, so he stretched a big goblin grin across his face and said, “All right, softling.” One of his mates passed him a huge old broadsword, gleaming sharp. He tested its edge with his thumb. “Ouch! I mean, Ha! I’m gonna chop you up easy.”
“Not if I chop you up first,” said Zeewa. She was drawing again, her charcoal swooshing over the parchment. When she held up the new picture the grin dropped off Grumpling’s face. For there in the girl’s outstretched hand was his own head! He recognized it from that time old Fentongoose had made him look at a thing called a mirror and explained what his reflection was and why he didn’t need to keep hitting it. There were his own handsome cauliflower ears, his noble cauliflower nose, his unripe-gooseberry eyes, and his mouth, open like a knife drawer, all sharp fangs and astonishment.
She was holding his head! How could she be holding his head? She must have cut it off without his even noticing! And how pale it was!
Grumpling went weak at the knees. “I don’t … I don’t feel too good, boys,” he croaked.
“Grumpling’s head!” the other goblins were muttering. “She’s beheaded Grumpling!” And their panic and amazement was so great that even the cleverer ones among them, who didn’t usually hav
e any trouble telling the difference between things and their pictures, were caught up in a sort of panic, and believed that they, too, could see their leader’s head dangling from Zeewa’s hand. A few were asking how come Grumpling still had a head attached to his shoulders. “That’s just the ghost of his head,” others explained, and soon all their voices were drowned out in the rising panic as Grumpling crumpled to his knees and then collapsed backwards into the arms of his henchgoblins.
For a moment Skarper was afraid that their fright and confusion would turn into anger, and that they would rush Zeewa and avenge their king by lopping her into the tiniest pieces they could manage. But they were all far too scared of this strange Muskish girl who had produced a sword from nowhere – a powerful magic sword, no doubt, so sharp that she had been able to slice Grumpling’s head off without them even seeing her move!
The goblin who had been holding Skarper dropped him and ran. Skarper wasted no time. He scrambled back to the door, opened that last bolt, and pushed his way out into the lovely, cool, moonlit, Grumpingless night.
“Come on!” he shouted back to Zeewa. But Zeewa was making one last drawing.
The previous year, when the dwarves had attacked Clovenstone, they had brought all manner of strange and cunning weapons with them. Some that had particularly alarmed the goblins were the little black metal balls they threw, filled with some mysterious powder, and which exploded with a bang and a flash upon landing. Fentongoose claimed that these were called “bombs”, but the goblins all called them “booms”, after the noise they made. It was one of these that Zeewa sketched, complete with its fizzing fuse. When she was finished, she set it down on the floor of the passageway, just inside the door.
The eyes of the Chilli Hats widened as they recognized it. “It’s a dwarf-boom!” they wailed. “She got a dwarf-boom! Run! RUN FER YER LIVES!”
And run they did, dragging their possibly headless king behind them, to seek shelter from the explosion around a bend of the passage.