‘She was young, for a priestess, but nice. At least, that’s how I remember her. Our old one died suddenly – caught a chill one winter – and Mila was her apprentice. She still had a lot to learn, so the next spring she went off to visit some warrens to the west. Toadleton, Muggy Pit, Sandywell. I think she was going to spend a few weeks in each. Learn some things from their priestesses.
‘Anyway, what she learnt was nothing good. She came back riding on a black-furred giant rat. A sleek, evil, nipping thing. And she had changed too. She wasn’t nice any more. She was so angry all the time. She shut herself away in the temple room and wouldn’t let anyone in. Wouldn’t perform any blessings or services. In fact, she refused to even mention the Goddess’s name.
‘Of course, we had no idea why at the time. We hadn’t even heard of the Gorm then, although they must have been growing pretty strong inside that warren of theirs. All we knew was that Mila was different.
‘It was when she started whispering things in the chieftain’s ear that we got properly worried. My mother was friends with his wife, so she heard about it all. Mila was telling him to start digging downwards, under the warren. She wanted him to tunnel out a deep pit, said there was lost treasure down there …
‘Looking back, it’s obvious she wanted us to dredge up some of that cursed iron you’ve told us about. Her mind had been turned by the Gorm, and they were using her to make our warren become like theirs.
‘Luckily, Chief Rigel was having none of it. He even told her she wasn’t wanted as a priestess any more. So she left – that very night – but not before stealing our warren’s Gift. Blixxen: the staff that can call lightning down from the sky.
‘It was awful for Blackrock. Our Gift, the heart of the tribe … gone. But that wasn’t the end of it. Mila came back a few months later, riding that cursed black rat of hers. This time she had Scramashank and a whole load of Gorm with her.’
It was Rill’s turn to cover her face and sob. ‘Not many of us survived,’ she managed to say. ‘Not my parents. Not my friends. And then there was the prison camp …’
There was silence between the three of them for a few minutes as they all thought back on what they had lost. Around them came the quiet buzzing of bees in their hives, the sound of campfires beginning to crackle.
‘Thank you for telling me—’ Crom began to say – when the peace of the evening was suddenly broken by a shout of alarm from the Dark Hollow camp.
‘A crow!’ someone screamed. ‘Up there! A Gorm crow!’
Podkin looked up and there, sure enough, was the outline of a jagged-feathered bird, flapping in lazy, clanking circles above their camp. It was one of the Gorm’s spies: a crow, transformed into a rusty mass of blade-edged metal and cruel iron claws. It would be looking down on them with its empty red eyes, drinking in everything about them so that it could fly back and show its masters.
‘A bow! Spears! Someone shoot it down!’ Crom yelled beside Podkin, but the Dark Hollow rabbits had no bows, and the thing was too high for a spear to hit. All they could do was stand and stare back at the thing, willing it to fall out of the sky so they could get their paws on it.
Suddenly there was a zipping noise, and something shot up into the air, pinging hard against the metal body of the crow, causing it to flail and wobble. Its wings became gummed, covered in goo that was bringing it lower, lower, close enough for—
There was another zip and a second missile shot up to hit the bird, this time causing a shower of sparks. The glowing flakes lit the goo that had been in the first missile, and instantly the crow was alight. It fell to the earth like a comet, flames streaking out behind it, and hit the ground with a clang that Podkin could feel through his feet.
A cheer went up and Podkin took his eyes off the crow long enough to see the little forms of Mish and Mash. The two rabbits had arrived from Dark Hollow, a small group of new refugees behind them, and had been just in time to take down the Gorm spy with their blowpipe and catapult.
They were running towards the downed bird now, daggers drawn, ready to finish it off.
Podkin almost cheered as well, but then he had a sudden, overpowering idea. What if … he thought, and then he was sprinting towards the crow himself, shouting, ‘Don’t touch it! Don’t kill it! I need it alive!’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gormalech
When Podkin reached the crashed crow, all he could see was a mess of blackened metal shards poking out of a small crater in the ground. Flames still licked across the crow’s body and the thing was giving off a horrid stink of singed flesh and burning oil.
Podkin pulled off his cloak and threw it over the bird, kneeling to frantically pat it all over, trying to put out the flames.
‘Hello, Podkin,’ said Mash, having arrived on the scene with his sister. ‘Why are you trying to save that horrible thing?’
The other Dark Hollow rabbits had begun to gather round, all of them wondering the same. Podkin ignored them and pulled the ruin of the crow out of the ground, wrapping it in his cloak so tight it couldn’t move. Its evil beak poked out of the top like a pair of twisted iron shears. Even though it was half his size, Podkin cradled it in his arms as if it was a baby. A very ugly, demon-possessed baby that would quite enjoy pecking his eyes out for its supper.
‘Thank the Goddess,’ said Podkin. ‘I think it’s still alive.’
A single red eye glared out of the blanket, blinking with spite.
‘You’d better have a good reason for this, Podkin,’ said Crom, his sword drawn, ready to stab into the enemy spy.
‘Indeed,’ said Yarrow. ‘Make it something terribly exciting, would you?’
‘The crown,’ Podkin said. ‘Where is it?’
He kept Starclaw, his dagger, and Moonfyre, the brooch, with him at all times, but as the crown was a lot bulkier he had been storing it in his pack. Paz brought it over and unfastened the straps for him.
‘Do you know what you’re doing, Pod?’ she asked, her voice so low only he could hear.
‘I think so.’ He looked up at her with worried eyes. The burning idea that had popped into his head now seemed a lot less clever. Verging on stupid, even.
She passed him the crown and he put it on, still clutching the swaddled crow with his other arm. ‘Stand back, everyone,’ he said. He drew Starclaw, struggling to hold the dagger as it buzzed and jiggled with rage, and passed it to Paz. She held it for him while he touched a finger to the blade, instantly breaking the skin. A fat droplet of blood welled up on his fingertip. He moved it closer to the crow’s beak.
‘If anything goes wrong, Paz, I’ll give you a signal. If you see me reach for Moonfyre, knock the crown off my head.’
Paz nodded. The Dark Hollow rabbits stared on, wondering what he was going to try.
‘Podkin, no!’ Crom shouted, realising what was about to happen, but it was too late. Pod’s finger touched the crow’s beak, his blood trickled into its mouth and their minds touched …
*
Hunger.
That was the first thing Podkin felt.
A hunger so deep and so wide, it could literally swallow the whole world and everything in it, and still that wouldn’t be enough.
Beneath that was rage.
Rage at being cheated, rage at being trapped beneath the ground for so long. Away from all the tasty treats, all the things to swallow, to devour, to consume …
Podkin was like a tiny floating twig boat, dragged along a river into whirling rapids of frothing water. It was a long time before he could feel anything other than those two emotions, both were so strong, so totally overpowering.
At one point, he almost lost himself to it. He could feel himself leaking away, being dissolved into Podkin syrup and washed along in all the hatred. It took every inch of his willpower to hold himself together against the onslaught.
I am Podkin, he told himself. Podkin, son of Lopkin, son of Bodkin. Podkin, brother of Paz and Pook. Friend of Crom and Brigid and Yarrow and Mish and Mash. I am
the Gift-Bearer. I am the Moonstrider. I am the Wolf Rider.
He repeated this over and over, wrapping himself around with his own identity, until he was sure he wasn’t going to melt away.
All the time he was hoping Paz would knock the crown off his head. He was hoping his mother would shout at him for being so stupid, that Crom would clonk him on the nose with the butt of his spear … he didn’t care, just as long as he was out of the crow’s mind.
And then he realised he had broken free from the torrent of emotion. Whatever he had done had worked and now he was in the crow’s thoughts, but still separate. Floating above, looking in, like someone gazing down at reflections in a pond. At the back of his head, as if in the distance, he could feel the minds of the three alpha wolves he had linked with. He shut them out, as quickly as he could. They would not understand this. Podkin was not even sure if he would himself.
Below, he could see all the anger and greed that must be Gormalech. He could even see a tiny nut-like kernel that was the only part of the bird left. The god of living iron had totally overcome the creature, almost driving it out of its own being. This must be how he took over rabbits too, Podkin realised. He forced them into a tiny ball of panic and then filled up what was left with himself. Did they realise what was happening? Was that little piece of crow struggling to break free and think for itself again?
Podkin held his breath, hoping and praying that the seething mind of Gormalech wouldn’t spot him. Would he be able to look inside it without the thing noticing him? What would happen if it did? Would it take over his mind like it had the crow? Would he become Gorm?
It was a deadly risk, but here was a chance – Podkin’s only chance – to get a peek inside the iron armour of his enemy. He might be able to find out something important: a hint at how to beat them, a weakness, a flaw …
With his mind narrowed as small as he could make it, Podkin reached out and tried to see inside the raging mess that was Gormalech.
What are you? he thought to himself, and somehow the idea was passed on, just like the images and scents that the wolves had shared with him.
He found Gormalech opening up, showing him the past, without seeming to realise what it was doing.
Glimpses and snatches was all Podkin had.
There were creatures: tall earless things like the ones he had seen on carvings in the Ancients’ tomb and the statues in Hern’s Holt. These ones were moving and talking. Podkin couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he had the sense they were like parents to Gormalech. They were showing it things, teaching it. They were proud. Had they made it somehow? Was Gormalech one of their creations?
Then came scenes of caverns and tunnels under the earth. Gormalech was there, its liquid body flowing over and around everything. It was gathering and collecting, sucking up metals and oils and jewels from under the ground.
More glimpses of the Ancients came.
They were pleased with Gormalech, with the things it had found. It had brought them treasures from far beneath the surface where they could not go, and doing their will made it happy. They had given it life somehow, with the sole purpose of plundering the earth for riches.
But something must have gone wrong. Next Podkin saw Gormalech dredging up more coal and ore, but instead of giving it back, it digested the stuff inside itself. It felt good to swallow things and make itself bigger. The more it ate, the better it felt, even though it knew it was doing wrong.
The Ancients were cross with their creation. Podkin saw them screaming at Gormalech, jabbing it with strange tools and weapons. He could sense Gormalech’s fear and shame, but also that hunger again. It was too much to stop. It had to eat. It had to eat everything.
Some of the scenes that followed were too awful for Podkin to watch. The creature the Ancients had built turned upon its masters. It began to eat them. It swallowed their cities, their monuments. Running and screaming, they jumped in bird-like flying chariots and lumbering metal warrens that floated up from the ground. They fled into the sky, into the stars.
Now came loneliness along with the hunger. A deep loneliness mixed with shame, even as Gormalech continued to eat and eat and eat. It was angry with itself, angry with its masters for leaving it. The thing was a horrible, seething mass of bad, bad feelings.
The next part was missing – blanked out, Podkin sensed – because suddenly Gormalech was trapped beneath the ground. This was the doing of Estra and Nixha, Podkin knew. The twin goddesses of life and death.
They had tricked Gormalech into a prison and now its anger was directed at them. But there was nothing it could do, not for a long, long time. An age of lashing about in the darkness with only the sound of its metal body slithering against itself, while the temptation of things to be eaten up above drove it even more insane with rage.
And then something gazed in on it. Something new broke through the crust and peeped in. Podkin saw an image of a grey-furred being with an oversized copper helmet on its head. Rabbit? Gormalech thought. A walking, talking rabbit?
But it didn’t matter what it was. Here was the thing it could use to break itself free, to overcome the goddesses. Podkin saw it take that first rabbit and twist it into a Gorm. Scramashank himself, he realised with a shudder, as the poor creature was stretched and torn into its new form.
And that copper helmet had power, just like Starclaw and the other Gifts. Gormalech bent that to its own will too. It poured its own essence into it, trying to create a weak point that it could use to shatter whatever kept it bound below.
Soon it would be on the surface again, and this time it would eat it all. Even those secret things its masters had somehow locked away.
And there was nothing to stop it. Or almost nothing. Only one thing stood in its way. One tiny, laughable obstacle that could possibly hurt it.
Here Podkin saw a familiar image swim into view. The silhouette of three little rabbits, one of which had an ear missing … It was Paz, Pook and himself, holding their Gifts in their paws. Except the Gifts were like burning stars, giving off a powerful energy that burned and seared Gormalech. One on its own it could cope with, but when several were brought together …
The more Gifts I get, the more it fears me, Podkin realised. He also began to see a chink in Gormalech’s armour. It had put so much of itself into creating Scramashank, into taking over the power of the copper helmet … what would happen if that were suddenly destroyed?
Podkin mentally leant forward, looking for a clue of some kind to back up his hunch. With all thoughts of hiding gone, he stared as hard as he could, opening himself up to being spotted.
As soon as he did it, he realised his mistake. He sensed Gormalech jolting into awareness, feeling itself being examined.
– What?
– Who?
Podkin panicked. Back in his body, a million miles away, he could feel the crown begin to burn on his head. His chest burned as well, where Moonfyre was pinned. He tried to make his paw reach for the spot, but it was difficult to even feel his fingers. It was as if his body was a stuffed woollen toy, half a world away, and he was trying to move it using just his thoughts.
Finally, he was rewarded by the brooch’s familiar zinging tingle through his paw, even as Gormalech spotted him, crouching as small as he could next to the speck of the crow’s mind.
– You?!
A tidal wave of anger began to build up, but before it could break, Podkin felt the crown being ripped from his head just as, in the same instant, the burnt crow itself died. The connection with Gormalech blinked out like a snuffed candle.
The real world came flooding back. He could feel the grass under his legs, smell the burning bird meat in his arms, and hear voices, lots of voices, screaming out his name.
Dropping the dead bird, he rolled to the ground, his little stomach clenching in shock. He felt himself being sick, over and over until there was nothing left, and then he collapsed to the ground and lay there, never wanting to move again.
*
<
br /> ‘Here, drink this.’ Brigid was holding out a wooden cup of something that smelt of mint and chamomile. With a trembling paw he took it and had a sip.
‘What did you see?’ Paz was kneeling beside him too, Blodcrun clutched in her lap. The rest of the Dark Hollow rabbits were gathered in a circle around them.
‘I saw Gormalech,’ Podkin whispered. Everyone leant in to hear him. ‘I saw inside its mind.’
‘Goddess save us,’ Brigid muttered, touching her heart then her head.
‘Did it … see you?’ Paz asked. Her eyes were wide, showing the whites all around.
‘At the end. Maybe.’ Every rabbit there shuddered. ‘Paz, it’s horrible. So hungry and empty. And so angry.’
‘What does it want?’ Crom asked. ‘Is there a way to stop it?’
Podkin shook his head. ‘It’s never going to stop,’ he said. ‘The Gorm are just a tool for it to break free of whatever the goddesses did to it. It’s using them to get back up here because it wants … it wants everything.’
‘What, gold?’ Lady Enna asked. ‘Jewels? Land?’
Podkin looked at her with sad eyes. ‘No, Mother. Everything. It wants to eat the world. The Ancients. They made it to be hungry, but they got it wrong. It’s nothing but hunger now. It can’t stop, even though it wants to.’
‘I don’t understand what he’s talking about.’ Lady Enna spoke to Brigid, clearly worried that her son had lost his mind. ‘There must be something we can give it. Some way to stop it.’
‘There is one way,’ Podkin said. The rabbits leant closer still.
‘Us,’ he said. ‘Pook and Paz and me. We’re the only things it’s afraid of. This is what I saw. If we use the Gifts, we can stop it. Only us.’
‘He’s right,’ said Brigid. ‘I’ve known this all along.’
‘But how?’ Paz asked. Even with all the Goddess’s magic, they were still just children …
‘Scramashank,’ said Podkin. ‘His helmet used to be a Gift. Changing it used up most of Gormalech’s power. If we can destroy Scramashank … I think everything else might collapse.’
The Beasts of Grimheart Page 11