by Paul Stewart
It was all but over.
Vulpoon had no sword. The shryke – eyes blazing, unblinking – approached with her razor-sharp talons outstretched.
‘Fool,’ she shrieked. ‘Did you truly believe we were unaware of who you are? Did you? You, great captain, were the bait to lure them here.’ She nodded back to the battle for the balustrade continuing behind them. ‘With you dead, they’ll give up, and I will have rid the Edge of you and your sky pirate scum once and for all.’
Vulpoon made no reply He was utterly defenceless. The shryke-sister seemed to enjoy toying with him.
‘No longer shall I be a mere shryke-sister,’ she screamed. ‘I shall return to the Eastern Roost victorious and claim my reward.’ She paused. ‘Mother Hinnytalon of the Eastern Roost. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think,’ she said, and shrieked with raucous laughter. ‘There is only one thing standing between me and my goal,’ she added. Her gaze hardened and fixed itself on Vulpoon. She raised her claws, ready to strike. ‘You.’
‘Wrong!’ Rook cried out as he sprang to his feet, a heavy pot clutched tightly in his shaking hands raised high above his head.
Looking up at the cart, the shryke was stunned into inaction for a split second – and that was all it took. With a grunt of effort, Rook brought the heavy pot crashing down onto the shryke’s head. It smashed into the helmet and shattered, sending pieces flying through the air, and the shryke staggering backwards.
Vulpoon made a lunge for his sword. In one graceful movement he straightened up and swung it round in a low, rising sweep, beheading the creature with a single blow. The plumed helmet clattered to the ground, while the head it had once protected bounced across the landing, beak agape and eyes bulging with surprise.
Vulpoon turned. His jaw dropped. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Again.’
Just then a second voice called out. ‘Rook. Quickly!’ It was Magda. ‘Come on,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘We must leave now.’
‘That is the second time you have saved me,’ Vulpoon said. ‘What did you say your name was?
‘Rook Barkwater, if it pleases you,’ said Rook.
‘It pleases me well, lad,’ the sky pirate captain said. ‘Rook Barkwater. I will never forget what you have done for me this night.’ He nodded towards Magda. ‘But your friend is right,’ he said. ‘You must leave now.’
‘Captain,’ roared a voice from behind him, and a swarthy individual grabbed at his arm. ‘The balustrade is clear. Come quickly before more shryke reinforcements arrive.’
With the sky pirate pulling Vulpoon in one direction, and Magda dragging Rook away in the other, their gaze met for one last time.
‘Fare you well, Rook Barkwater,’ the captain called out.
‘Goodbye, Captain,’ Rook called back.
He and Magda hurried back to the sleeping stall to find Stob and Partifule sitting up on the driving seat of a sturdy hammelhorn-drawn cart.
‘Where did you get that?’ asked Magda.
‘We found it abandoned,’ said Stob. ‘Lying on its side—’
‘Just jump up,’ Partifule shouted out urgently Magda and Rook leaped onto the back of the cart. Stob cracked the whip and the hammelhorn plodded off along the road as fast as it could, leaving the sky pirates and the shryke guards far behind them. The shuffling walkers on the road jostled and jumped out of their way, but the shrykes – hurrying to the landing where the battle still seemed to rage – paid them no heed.
As they rumbled on over the boards, the shouting grew distant and the klaxon-wail faded to nothing. Still they continued, driving on through darkness, mile after mile. Their pace slowed as they became snagged at the back of a convoy of heavy wagons. The darkest hour came and went. Soft strands of light threaded their way up from the horizon as the sun prepared to rise.
Rook’s head spun. More had happened to him during that last day than would normally occur in an entire year. Yet they had made it. He turned to Magda and smiled. ‘Do you think the worst is behind us?’ he asked.
Stob glanced round. ‘That shows how much you know, under-librarian,’ he snarled unkindly. He turned back and nodded up ahead. ‘Look.’
Rook climbed to his feet to get a better view. Although the sky was, for the most part, still swathed in impenetrable darkness, directly in front of them was a curious golden half-light, like the glow from a giant tilder-oil lamp.
‘What is it?’ asked Rook.
‘Need you ask?’ said Stob.
‘We are approaching the Twilight Woods,’ said Partifule, his voice hushed and reverent. ‘Which, my young friends,’ he continued, ‘is the most treacherous and perilous place in all the Edge.’
he waif pulled gently at the reins, and the great lumbering hammelhorn snorted and came to a halt. It shook its shaggy head, with its immense curling horns, and waited patiently. Partifule got down from the wagon.
Rook sat up, suddenly wide awake, and looked around. The unfamiliar, eerie light bathed everything in a golden glow. A straggle of gnokgoblins pulling handcarts clattered past, their heads down, their faces grim.
‘Why have we stopped?’ said Rook.
‘Search me,’ said Stob beside him, stifling a yawn.
‘I must leave you now,’ said Partifule.
Magda gasped. The waif turned to her, took her hand and gazed deeply into her eyes, listening to her thoughts. ‘You will reach Lake Landing,’ he said. ‘Of that I am convinced. From the little time I have spent with you all, I have been impressed with your determination, your bravery’ – he turned to Rook – ‘your compassion.’
‘And we with yours,’ said Magda softly.
Partifule nodded and lowered his head. ‘I have already come closer to the Twilight Woods than I like.’ He looked up ahead at the line of trees, bathed in their alluring half-light, which signified the end of the Mire and the beginning of the treacherous woods. ‘Even at this distance, the twilight glow fills my head with the strangest visions … and voices …’ He shook his head. ‘And for a waif, that is dangerous indeed.’
‘Go, then,’ said Magda. ‘And thank you.’
‘Yes, thank you, Partifule,’ said Rook.
The pair of them turned to Stob. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered. Partifule nodded to each of them in turn. ‘Ahead of you lies great danger. But you will not be alone. There is a guide waiting for you in the Eastern Roost. He is one of the greatest and bravest of us all. You will be in good hands, believe me.’
He turned away, tears welling in his dark eyes. His ears fluttered. ‘Earth and Sky be with you,’ he said softly. ‘Farewell.’
As they approached the tally-hut, Rook could see the road ahead disappearing into the Twilight Woods. It shimmered and swayed, as if under water, before losing itself in the miasmic gloom beyond. Where it did so, Rook noticed that the very construction of the road seemed to alter.
It became narrow beyond the tally-hut, and the balustrades seemed to be closer together. They curved up like the bars of a cage. Above, there were two long cables – one on each side of the road – slung through great hanging hoops and snaking off into the distance.
The gnokgoblins emerged from the tally-hut with lengths of rope, which they threw over the cable-hooks above their heads. Then they attached both ends to their belts.
‘Knot them firmly!’ screeched a shryke guard, looking on. ‘And keep moving, if you know what’s good for you.’
Alone amongst the creatures of the Edge, shrykes were impervious to the effects of the treacherous forest. Their double eyelids ensured that its seductive visions had no power over them. It was this immunity which had enabled them to build the Great Mire Road, and now meant that any who crossed the Twilight Woods were dependent on the callous and unpredictable bird-creatures for safe passage.
‘Next!’ came the rasping voice of a tally-hen from the hut.
Rook, Stob and Magda got down from the cart and entered the hut. A large speckled tally-hen sat in the dimly lit interior behind an ornately carved lectern. She looke
d up.
‘Three is it?’ she squawked. ‘That’ll be nine gold pieces for the rope and three more for the cart. Hurry up, hurry up! Haven’t got all day …’
Magda paid and the shryke handed them each a length of rope from a sack hanging from the side of the lectern, and a scrap of barkpaper with a symbol scrawled on it in brown ink.
‘For the cart!’ she snapped as Rook took it gingerly from her talons. ‘Next!’
Outside, a shryke guard met them and snatched the barkpaper from Rook. She examined it with unblinking yellow eyes, handed it back and clicked her bone-flail. A second shryke appeared and climbed up into the driver’s seat. With a vicious snap of the reins, she drove the hammelhorn on. The wagon clattered off along the timbered road and into the Twilight Woods in a cloud of glittering dust.
‘Central Market, Holding Pens,’ squawked the guard. ‘It’ll be waiting for you there.’ She jerked her head to one side. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’
Magda stepped forward. She flung her rope up into the air and over the cable-hook. Stob and Rook followed suit. Rook flushed crimson as he fumbled with his leash-rope, making the knots round his belt as tight as possible.
‘Tie them firmly!’ commanded the guard. ‘And keep moving.’
With a deep breath Rook plunged into the rippling twilight after the others. He felt the rope go taut and tug on him. Straining with exertion, he pushed on; the hook, rasping on the cable above, like a leadwood anchor-weight, pulling him back. Every movement was an effort. Every step, an achievement.
He struggled after the other two. Up ahead, the gnokgoblins laboured with their handcarts, their ropes swaying as they pulled at them. Behind him, Rook could see a small group of cloddertrogs milling round the tally-hut.
‘Keep moving!’ screeched the guard behind him. ‘If one stops, you all stop! Any hold-ups and you’ll be cut loose! Remember!’
Rook pressed resolutely on. Soon his lungs were on fire, his legs ached and he found himself gulping in the thick, humid air as fast as he could. His head was swimming, and everything swayed and swirled in front of his eyes. I can’t keep going! he thought, fear churning in the pit of his stomach.
Behind him, the cloddertrogs panted and groaned. In front, Stob’s back shimmered, sometimes close, sometimes impossibly far away. Then, just as Rook thought he was going to faint with exhaustion and be trampled on by the following cloddertrogs, the panic and fatigue suddenly seemed to disappear. He felt strength returning to his limbs. The rope seemed less like an anchor and more like a string holding a balloon. A sense of elation began to course through his body.
It was, Rook thought, like being immersed in a pool of warm, golden water which swirled round his body and made him feel oddly buoyant. It poured into his ears, his eyes, his nose, drowning out the grunts and groans of the cloddertrogs and turning the toasted-almond scented air to shimmering liquid. And when he went to speak, it filled his mouth with forgotten tastes of his earliest childhood, before the slave-takers had stolen his parents away – oak-flake rusks, smoky woodbee honey, delberry linctus …
There were voices too, calling from the shadowy depths. ‘Come,’ they called, their honeyed tones matching the thick, dappled light. ‘Rook. Rook!’
Rook trembled. That voice, so familiar … He felt his throat aching with loss, with longing. ‘Mother?’ he said tremulously. ‘Is that you?’
The woods swallowed up his words. Ahead of him, he was dimly aware of Stob waving his arms and laughing hysterically, and of Magda’s great, gulping sobs. ‘Keep moving,’ he told himself. ‘Keep moving.’
Rook tried to clear his mind, to ignore the voices and just look ahead – but the Twilight Woods seemed to have a hypnotic hold over him that he could not shake free.
He found himself looking into the endless expanse of golden forest. The trees, sparkling with a strange sepia dust, creaked and groaned with age as the soft, warm breeze stirred their branches. The air twisted and sighed. Something – or someone – flitted between the shadowy tree-trunks.
All at once a strange, spectral figure was emerging from the gloom. Rook stared with fascinated horror as it approached the road. Mounted on a prowlgrin, the apparition wore the tarnished antique armour of an ancient Knight Academic. It was as if an illustration in one of the library scrolls had come to life. The gauges and pipes, bolts and levers covering the rusting armour were all there; even in the twilight Rook could make them out quite clearly. He reached out and tapped Stob on the shoulder.
‘Do you see it?’ Rook called. Stob kept on walking and made no reply. Rook hurried after him. ‘A Knight Academic! Stob! Out there in the woods! He’s getting closer!’
‘Shut up and keep moving!’ Stob growled back. ‘Or a shryke guard will cut you loose. You heard what they said.’
‘He’s right, Rook,’ Magda called back. Her voice was thick from crying. ‘It’ll soon be over if we just keep moving and don’t lose our heads.’
Rook glanced back; the knight had vanished. He could hear muffled sighs and taunting whispers and, whichever way he looked, he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye – though when he tried to focus in on it, the movement ceased and he saw nothing.
Was anything real in the Twilight Woods? he wondered. Or was it inhabited solely by phantasms and ghosts – the spirits of those who had fallen victim to the seductive charms of the dimly lit forest?
Just then there was a loud crash. One of the gnokgoblins’ handcarts had overturned, sending its cargo of metal pots clattering and clanging across the narrow road. The group came to a halt, twisting round on their leash-ropes as they attempted to right the cart and rescue its spilt contents. Soon they were all hopelessly tangled, and shouting at each other.
‘Turn this way, Morkbuff!’ wheezed their elderly leader. ‘You, Pegg! Help him out … No, not like that!’
Magda, Stob and Rook came to a halt a few strides away. Behind them, the cloddertrogs approached.
‘Keep moving!’ they bellowed. ‘We can’t!’ Rook called back. ‘Or we’ll get caught up with that lot.’ He pointed at the tangle of goblins.
Another handcart crashed over.
‘Somebody do something!’ shouted Stob above the din.
‘That’s really helpful!’ said Magda. ‘What do you suggest?’
Around them, the Twilight Woods seemed to be listening. From the shadows, Rook was aware of movement. The Knight Academic reappeared.
‘Look,’ he whispered excitedly to the other two. ‘He’s back.’
They followed Rook’s gaze.
‘He’s not the only one,’ said Stob.
Sure enough, other figures were emerging from the shadowy gloom, as if drawn by the gnokgoblins’ commotion. Rook shuddered. There were ragged, half-dead trogs, skeletal leaguesmen, several desperate-looking goblins, some with missing limbs and many bearing terrible wounds. They stood all round them; hollow-eyed, staring, silent.
The gnokgoblins saw the ghostly crowd they had attracted and fell still. The two groups watched each other in absolute silence; the living and the undead.
Despite the clammy heat, Rook felt icy sweat run over his face, into his eyes, down his back. ‘This is a dreadful place,’ he whispered.
Suddenly, there came the sound of furious screeching and squawking, and a squadron of shryke guards appeared through the gloom, glittering dust flying in their wake. Just as suddenly, the ghostly apparitions melted back into the woods.
‘What’s going on?’ squawked the shrykes’ leader, an imposing female with bright yellow plumage and a purple crest. ‘Why is no-one moving?’
Everybody started talking at once.
‘Silence!’ roared the shryke, the feathers round her neck ruffling ominously. ‘Twilight-crazy, the lot of you!’ She turned to her second-in-command. ‘Clear this featherless vermin off my road, Magclaw, and get the rest moving!’
‘You heard what Sister Featherslash said!’ rasped Magclaw, with a click of her bone-flail. ‘Cut them loose! Now!
’
The gnokgoblins began wailing, and Rook flinched as the shrykes began slashing at the snarled ropes with their razor-sharp scythes. The ropes fell to the ground. The shrykes chased the weeping goblins into the woods.
‘Get moving, the rest of you!’ ordered Sister Featherslash. ‘I’m sure you’ve all got important business in the beautiful Eastern Roost!’ She cackled unpleasantly. ‘If you ever get there.’
Magda, Stob and Rook set off quickly.
‘I don’t care what the Eastern Roost is like, it can’t be worse than this,’ said Magda. ‘Can it?’
‘Just keep moving,’ said Stob. ‘And try not to think about it.’
Rook looked back over his shoulder. In the eerie, dappled light, the elderly gnokgoblin was sitting on a tree-root, waving his arms and protesting loudly to thin air.
ut of the swirling twilight loomed a lufwood tree, so enormous that a gateway had been tunnelled through the middle of its vast trunk. It straddled the road, separating the Twilight Woods from the Eastern Roost beyond. High up, above the arched entrance, the cable to which the leash-ropes were attached came to an end.
Two shryke guards stood sentry, one on either side of the gateway. ‘Untie your ropes!’ one of them commanded harshly as Magda, Stob and Rook approached.
They quickly did as they were told. Already, the cloddertrogs were arriving behind them.
‘Proceed by the Lower Levels to the Central Market!’ barked the other guard. ‘The upper roosts are for shrykes only’ Her yellow eyes glinted menacingly. ‘You have been warned!’
Rook’s head was beginning to clear as the strange, penetrating atmosphere of the Twilight Woods released its grip. He squinted into the gloom beyond the Lufwood Gate.
The first thing that struck him was the smell. Beneath the roasting pinecoffee and sizzling tilder sausages, beneath the odours and scents, of leatherware, incense and the greasy smell of oil lamps, there was another smell. A rank and rancid smell. A smell that, as the wind stirred, grew more pungent, then less – but never faded completely.