by Philip Reeve
Zeewa grinned at Skarper. “Now let’s go!” she said.
Skarper sniffed the air as they ran out on to the battlements. The moon was sinking. The ruined roofs of Clovenstone stuck up like rocky islands from a sea of mist.
“I can’t wait to get back to the Blackspike and wash this stink off me,” said Zeewa, as they started down the long stairways of the Inner Wall.
“Wash?” said Skarper with a shudder. “Ew! There’s not time, anyway. Not if we’re goin’ to get this Elvenhorn to Southerley Gate by the time the sun peeks up.”
Henwyn had had an uncomfortable journey to Southerley Gate, draped over the back of Prince Rhind’s horse as the Woolmarkers galloped through the twilight. When they passed into the green shadows of the woods he had thought, Perhaps the twiglings will come to my rescue. But the creatures of the trees stayed hidden.
As they descended to the bridge across the Oeth (the riders dismounted, Henwyn’s face bashing against the horse’s sweaty flank as Rhind led it down that long stair) he had almost hoped that the old troll would be back in its lair under the bridge: a troll attack might give him just the diversion that he needed to stage a Daring Escape. But the troll was still in the uplands with Torridge, Cribba and Ken: they were cooking trout around a campfire and singing cheerful trollish songs, and had no idea of what was happening to Henwyn.
He spent that night bound hand and foot, dumped in the grass on top of a low hill about a mile south of Clovenstone’s Outer Wall. The horses of the Sheep Lords were tethered nearby, and he could hear them shifting sometimes in the dark. Breenge slept in a little felt tent, above which the flag of the Woolmark flapped: a white sheep on a green field. Prawl, wrapped in his cloak, slept under the wagon. Rhind paced around the hill’s summit, keeping guard.
The little cook, Ninnis, was awake too. She was the only one of the party who seemed to feel sorry for Henwyn. She had brought him a cushion to rest his head on, and a blanket to cover him, and, while Rhind wasn’t looking, she had fed him one of the dumplings she had made to go with the stew she had served for supper. It was a bit embarassing for Henwyn, being fed like a pet, but he didn’t mind too much, because the dumpling was delicious.
“It is a pity you had to go and start an argument before we’d eaten,” she said to Rhind. (She had been his father’s cook since he was little, so she was allowed to speak to him like that, even though he was a prince.) “I’m partial to a nice cheese cobbler myself. I’d have liked to taste some of that Clovenstone Blue.”
“Cheese made by goblin paws?” scoffed Rhind. “It would be as foul and as squalid as everything else that goblins touch.”
“Oh, those goblins seemed friendly enough to me,” clucked the cook. “And the prisoner smells lovely, all covered in their cheese.”
“Smells like stale socks to me,” snorted Rhind.
“Well, you never did appreciate fine cooking, Your Highness.”
The cook sat comfortably on the seat of her wagon, but the prince was constantly on the move, one hand resting on his sword hilt, patrolling the edges of the little camp. The hillside sloped down gently towards a river, and the laughter of the distant water sounded very loud in the still and silent night. Beyond the river, the Outer Wall of Clovenstone showed pale as bone whenever the moonlight brushed it.
“If the goblins try anything before dawn, we’ll see them coming,” said Rhind, when his sister came out of the tent to take her turn at sentry duty sometime in the middle of the night.
But they didn’t try anything, and Henwyn started to feel resentful. Were his friends not even going to attempt to rescue him? He was ashamed at having let himself be taken prisoner so easily by these Sheep Lords, and the shame soon turned to anger. It was much easier to blame Skarper and the others for not rescuing him than to blame himself for getting captured in the first place.
But angry or not, he eventually grew sleepy, and sank into restless dreams. He was woken by a sudden shout from Breenge.
“Rhind! Awake, my brother! They come!”
Henwyn sat up and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes, then remembered that his hands were tied. He blinked a bit instead. The little tent was shaking and bulging as Prince Rhind got his boots and armour on inside. There was a loud thump and a muffled “Ow!” from the direction of the wagon as Prawl woke and sat upright, forgetting that he was underneath it. Eastwards, beyond the spiky outlines of the Bonehill Mountains, the sky was red, and a line of fiery gold showed along the world’s rim. Clovenstone still lay in darkness, but not deep enough to hide the two figures who had come out through Southerly Gate and were walking up the slope towards the Sheep Lords’ camp.
The tent shuddered some more, and Rhind emerged. He stole around the hilltop, trying to look commanding, but the effect was spoiled by the way that his hair was all mushed up on one side from his night on the ground. He glanced at his sister and said, “Stay by the prisoner, Breenge. If those goblins try to trick us, kill him.”
Breenge nodded, and drew a knife from her belt (an awfully sharp and long knife, it looked to Henwyn).
“I say, er, steady on now, there’s no need for unpleasantness,” said Prawl, as tousled as Rhind and as blinky as Henwyn.
“Be silent, sorcerer,” said Breenge.
“Sorry.”
The two newcomers were close enough now for Henwyn to see that they were Skarper and Zeewa, and his heart lifted at the sight of them. As they drew closer, Zeewa took something from her belt. Rhind must have thought it was a sword, because he drew his own and shouted loudly, “You were supposed to come unarmed!” But Henwyn knew that Zeewa didn’t approve of swords, which she thought were clumsy, foolish things, and no match for the spears of her own Tall Grass Country.
“She is unarmed, Rhind,” he said. But by that time the first long rays of the rising sun were fingering the hill and even Rhind could see that the thing Zeewa held out as she strode towards him was no sword.
“The Elvenhorn!” he said, in a strangled sort of whisper intended for his companions. In a louder voice he commanded Zeewa, “Bring it here!”
“That’s exactly what we are doing!” said Skarper grumpily. “We’ve spent the whole night getting it and bringing it here, too, when we should have been curled up snug in our own nice nests. Hello, Henwyn! Are you all right?”
“Yes,” said Henwyn. “A bit stiff, that’s all. And covered in cheese.”
“Believe me, there are worse things to be covered in,” said Zeewa.
“Let him go, Rhind,” said Skarper. “Then we’ll give you the Elvenhorn and you can be off on your quest, and good riddance to you.”
“Careful, my brother,” said Breenge. “Does not the old proverb say, ‘Trust not the word of a goblin’?”
“Does it? I haven’t heard that one.”
“Well if it doesn’t, it ought to. They’re bound to try some trick or other.”
“Good point, Breenge,” said Prince Rhind. “I say, goblin. How do we know you won’t just run off with the Elvenhorn as soon as your friend is free? Give us the Elvenhorn, and we’ll give you your friend.”
“And how do we know you won’t run off with Henwyn as soon as you have the Elvenhorn in your hands?” demanded Zeewa.
“Why would we do that?” asked Rhind, bewildered. “He’s no earthly use to us, and he smells like socks.”
“Free him then,” said Zeewa. “And I shall give you the Elvenhorn. You have my word that there will be no tricks, and I am no goblin, but the daughter of Ushagi, Lord of Ten Thousand Buffalo and King of the Tall Grass Country, west of Leopard Mountain.”
“I’ve never heard of any King Ushagi,” said Breenge. “Or the Tall Grass Country either.”
But Zeewa had drawn herself up to her full height, the sunrise shone in her eyes, and although she was weary and still a bit pooey, she was so clearly a princess and a daughter of kings that there was no point
in arguing. Quickly, Breenge sliced through the ropes that bound Henwyn’s wrists and ankles. He stood up, and then immediately fell over again because his legs were all wobbly from having been tied all night. But he managed to stand again, and to stumble downhill to where Skarper stood waiting, and Zeewa came past him carrying the Elvenhorn, which she gave to Prince Rhind.
Rhind held the horn high in the gathering light, as if he were hoping some passing artist might notice him and stop to do a massive painting entitled, Prince Rhind Finds the Elvenhorn. (In fact, he was wishing he had thought to ask an artist as well as a cook along on his quest.) The light of the new day caressed the ancient instrument and glimmered in all the semi-precious stones that studded it, and it looked rare and wild and magical.
Then, before anyone could stop him, Rhind put the horn to his lips, and blew.
It made a high, thin sound, like a far-off sheep with indigestion, or the squeaking of a mystical kazoo. But, thin though it was, the sound travelled. It rolled away across Oeth Moor and Clovenstone into the far blue distances, and Skarper had the strange feeling that it would keep on rolling until it reached the very edges of the world.
“No!” shouted Prawl. “Stop! You’re meant to blow it when we reach Elvensea, not here!”
Rhind lowered the horn. “I had to try it,” he said. “I mean, we want to know that it works, don’t we? We want to be sure that they haven’t palmed us off with just any old horn. I was just checking that it actually is magical.”
Echoes of the horn blast still seemed to hang in the bright air as if they were rebounding from mountains so far off they could not be seen.
“Seems all right to me,” said Breenge.
“One blast shall part the waters,” said Ninnis, in a strange, dreamy voice.
“And so our quest begins in earnest,” said Prince Rhind. “Soon all the world shall know our names. Our tale shall be told in song and story. The beauty and bravery of Breenge and the perspicacity of Prawl shall be legendary, and I shall be one of the heroes of the Westlands and dwell in the Hall of Heroes at Boskennack.”
Henwyn snorted. He had met the heroes of the Westlands, and a very disappointing bunch they’d been, but that spring the High King had summoned the old warrior Garvon Hael back to Boskennack to take charge of their training and knock some sense into them. Henwyn didn’t think that Garvon Hael would have much time for Prince Rhind. “You will need to lose some weight and gain some sense before you enter the Hall of Heroes, Rhind,” he said.
Prince Rhind ignored him. He took from a pouch on his belt a baldric, much like the one on which his sister’s war horn hung. It was made from green wool and decorated with the forms of running sheep. He attached the Elvenhorn to it, slung it across his chest, and mounted his horse, which Breenge had already untethered. Breenge followed suit, while Prawl hurriedly took down the tent and stowed it in the back of the wagon.
“North, to Floonhaven!” shouted Rhind. “North, to Elvensea!”
None of them said a word more to Skarper, Henwyn or Zeewa. “Not so much as a ‘thank you’,” as Skarper would say later, “or a ‘sorry for being such rotten, thieving hooligans’.” Only Prawl managed to give them an awkward little wave as the company rode away, Rhind far out in the lead, cantering across the heather towards Clovenstone’s Westerly Gate, from where the old road led north and west to the harbours of the Nibbled Coast.
The cry of the Elvenhorn had been heard all over Clovenstone. In the mires north of the Inner Wall the clammy boglins of the marshes heard it and looked up, listening. In the woods near Westerly Gate the old giant Fraddon lifted his head, and the twiglings who had been chasing one another through his hair went stiff and still as bunches of mistletoe, waiting for the sound to fade.
All winter Fraddon had been lost in his memories. He had been thinking about his friend, Princess Ned, and how he had brought her to Clovenstone, and how sad and strange it was that she was no longer there. He had barely noticed the thick snows of winter as they fell and drifted and thawed around him. He had not noticed the snowdrops or the crocuses or the bluebells as they pushed their way up between his giant toes. But he noticed the sound of the Elvenhorn. It came into his memories and dragged him back to the real world for a moment. Something is going to happen, he thought. Something new. And then, as usual, he thought, I must tell Ned about it.
But of course he couldn’t, because she had gone beneath the grass. And what was the point of any new thing happening if Ned was not there to see it?
The horn’s cry sang among the crags and corries of Meneth Eskern. It echoed around the towers of the Inner Wall and set their old stones trembling. It woke Flegg, who had fallen asleep in Grumpling’s chamber up at the top of Redcap Tower. He didn’t know what it meant, that faint and far-off tooting noise, but he knew that he was very happy not to be trapped down the pooin holes any more, and very pleased with himself for the clever way he’d found to weasel his way back into Grumpling’s good books.
Wondering if Grumpling and the others had managed to get the Elevenhorn back, and whether they had chopped up Skarper and Zeewa, he went scuttling down the stairs. He had not descended very far before he could hear the voices of the other Chilli Hats grumbling and complaining somewhere below him.
Grumpling’s lumpish henchgoblins were all clustered together at a bend in the little passageway which led out on to the wall. Flegg squeezed past them, and peered around the corner of the wall. The door on to the wall was open, but no one was going out.
“What’s happenin’?” asked Flegg, tugging at the tail of Grumpling’s second in command, a large goblin named Widdas.
“Grumpling’s had his head chopped off!” said Widdas.
“Ooooh,” groaned Grumpling, who was sitting in the middle of the knot of goblins with his back against the wall. A couple of the other Chilli Hats were fanning him with their red caps.
“That Muskish softling did it,” said Widdas. “We wants to get after her, but we can’t, because look what she left in the doorway!”
Cautiously, Flegg peered around the bend in the passage again. There was something lying on the floor there, just inside the door. A scrap of parchment with some marks on it…
“Careful, Flegg!” said Widdas. “It’s a dwarf boom! It could go off bang at any moment!”
“How long has it been there?” asked Flegg.
“Hours an’ hours! So it must be goin to eskplode really soon! Be quiet! Even our voices might set it off!”
Flegg sighed. Sometimes his fellow goblins were so stupid it depressed him. He strolled along the passage and picked up the parchment.
“No!” and “Aaargh!” and “Get down!” squealed the other Chilli Hats, sticking their fingers in their ears and bracing themselves for the explosion.
Flegg crumpled up the parchment into a tiny ball. He tossed it from paw to paw, while the goblins winced and gasped. Then, to their total astonishment, he batted it high into the air with a flick of his tail and opened his mouth wide. The parchment ball dropped in, and Flegg swallowed it with a loud gulp. For a moment he looked thoughtful. Then he lifted his tail and let out a long, satisfying fart.
“There,” he said.
“Wow!” said the few goblins who hadn’t run away when he started his juggling act.
Flegg patted his tummy. “Dwarves!” he scoffed. “They haven’t made a boom yet that can get the better of a Chilli Hat’s belly. Don’t you lot know that?”
The Chilli Hats shuffled their feet and looked ashamed.
“Flegg,” said Grumpling, “you saved my life! At least, you would have done if my head hadn’t already got chopped off.”
“Yes,” said Flegg, “I was just coming to that, O King. You see, you does still seem to have a head.”
Grumpling felt his face suspiciously: his ears, his fangs, his snout. “That’s just my imaginingings,” he said sadly. “Remember when Beake
r got his leg chopped off in that fight with the Sternbrow crowd? He could still feel it for years afterwards.”
The Chilli Hats all nodded wisely. “The mind can play strange tricks,” said Widdas.
But Flegg said, “Yes, but we couldn’t actually see Beaker’s leg, could we?”
“Course not! It had got chopped off.”
“So how come we can see your head?”
The goblins all looked puzzled. One called Gove started to explain that it was an after-image, like you got when you looked at a candle flame for too long and then looked away and you could still the candle flame for a bit, but that was too scientific for the Chilli Hats and they shushed him by kicking him and sitting on his head. Slowly, as if Flegg’s words had broken a spell, understanding was starting to dawn.
“You mean, I’m NOT dead?” asked Grumpling.
“You is very much alive, O King of the Chilli Hats,” said Flegg.
Grumpling stood up. He tilted his head from side to side a few times, just to check that it really was attached. Then he started walloping the goblins who stood around him. “You idiots!” he roared. “Why din’t any of you lot work that out what Flegg just said?”
“But we didn’t…”
“You said…”
“Don’t blame us, Grumpling!”
“We’re goblins, not doctors!”
“Ow!”
“An how come none of you had the nerve to eat that dwarf boom like what little Flegg here just did?”
“But…”
“We…”
“Please stop hitting us!”
“Widdas?” said Grumpling.
“Yes, Grumpling?” The massive goblin stepped forward obediently at the sound of his name. Grumpling seized him, dragged him to the open door, and kicked him out through it. Widdas vanished over the battlements of the Inner Wall, leaving a long, dwindling scream behind him. A few moments later those goblins with the sharpest ears heard the faint splat as he hit the ground far below.