by Lian Tanner
All the same, there was a breathlessness to them, a wide-eyed skittish look that kept Dolph awake at night, worrying that one or two of them might creep off and attack the Devouts on their own.
‘It’s like trying to herd seals,’ she whispered to Missus Slink. ‘They keep slipping away from me and I lose count of who’s where. That boy Gant, have you seen him? He was asleep last time I looked, and now he’s gone.’
‘There,’ said the old rat, pointing into the darkness.
Dolph sat up quickly. Gant was creeping round the outside of the little camp, whispering to his mates. One by one they stood up.
‘What’re you doing?’ hissed Dolph.
Gant half turned, and the moonlight caught his eyes. ‘None o’ your business, Witch. You’re not in charge ’ere.’
‘Never said I was.’ Dolph yawned, nice and casual, as if she was at the end of fishing shift and not worried about anything much except how soon she could get to her hammock. ‘Just thought I smelled a fight, that’s all. And since I’ve been fighting since I was nine years old, and am reckoned to be one of the quickest and fiercest on the Oyster, I thought you might want my help. Course, if you don’t, I’ll go back to sleep. It’s all the same to me.’
Gant and his mates whispered to each other. Then, ‘It’s a master on ’is own,’ said Gant, ‘with ox-cart ’n prisoners. I seen ’im up the road a step.’
‘Did he see you?’
Gant laughed scornfully. ‘What if ’e did? ’E’s not gunna call the alarm if ’e sees a starlin’, is ’e? Or an ’alf-starved fox? That’s ’ow they think of us. Vermin, we are.’ He glanced at his fellows again. ‘Least, we was. Not anymore.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Dolph. ‘Let’s scout it out. Work out what we’re going to do.’
‘No need to work out nothin’.’ Gant thumped his bony chest. ‘I done that already. We rush ’im, all of us at once, that’s what we do, and if you don’t like it, Witch, you don’t ’ave to come.’ And he set off into the night with his mates, all of them bouncing on their toes and whispering to each other.
Dolph groaned. ‘They’re going to get ’emselves killed, Missus Slink.’ But she followed them all the same, watching the boasts and the excitement with a wary eye.
It was just as well she did. The ox-cart was lit by two flaming torches, and by the time Gant and his friends reached it, they’d worked themselves into such a frenzy that they’d lost all common sense. They shouted their intentions at the tops of their voices, along with promises that the reign of the masters was over. Then, having warned the Devout that they were coming, they shambled towards him in twos and threes.
The Devout, of course, had plenty of time to get ready for them. He threw his two prisoners into the bottom of the ox-cart. Then he climbed up onto the driver’s seat and thwacked his cudgel against the palm of his hand.
‘Come on, scum!’ he roared, so loudly that the flames of the torches wobbled. ‘You think the Devouts are done? Come and see what I’ve got for you. I’ll show you done.’
Gant and his friends hesitated.
‘Idiots!’ hissed Dolph, running up behind them. ‘You don’t stop halfway. Gant, you take two around the back of him. You and you, attack from starboard – no, not that way. That way.’ She pushed them into position. ‘You two go round the other side, and you come with me, we’ll go straight ahead. And watch out for those torches.’
She didn’t give them time to think about it. They were wavering already – any longer and the habits of fear and obedience would get the better of them. She set Missus Slink on the ground, took out her fighting knife and said, ‘Now go!’
And with a battle cry that made them all flinch, she raced towards the cart, low and fast.
She was pretty sure that not all of them would follow her. It didn’t really matter; Dolph’d back herself against one of the Devouts any day. Even now, this man was laughing, as if he was looking forward to smashing her head, then going back to whatever he’d been doing.
She went straight on, as she’d promised. But at the very last minute, she dodged sideways, away from the cudgel, and slashed at the Devout’s ankle. Just like you taught me, Mam.
The man yelled with shock and pain, and swung around. But by then, Dolph was slashing at his other ankle, and Gant was there too, with at least three of his mates, swarming over the cart with desperate grins on their faces. They threw themselves onto the Devout’s back, like mice trying to take down a cat, and he roared and shook them off, lashing out with his cudgel and dropping several of them to the ground.
Dolph leaped in close again – only this time she went for the man’s hand. It wasn’t easy, not with Gant and his friends jumping and screaming all around her, and the torchlight making everything waver. But Dolph had been trained by the best knife fighter on the Oyster, and before the Devout knew what was happening, he had dropped his cudgel and was clutching his bleeding fingers.
It was the shortest battle Dolph had ever been in, which was just as well, because she’d seen something from the corner of her eye while she was darting in and out. Something that had almost stopped her in her tracks.
The cap’n.
He was lying in the bottom of the cart next to the human prisoners, bound so tight that Dolph had to look twice to make sure it was him.
She didn’t waste time wondering how he’d got there; she knelt beside him and started to unknot the ropes. Over her shoulder, she said, ‘Tie that man well. Don’t want him getting loose.’
There was no answer. Instead, she heard an ugly sound that brought her back to her feet. The Devout was lying on the ground and the town bratlings were kicking him. Some of them were picking up rocks—
‘Stop!’ shouted Dolph, in her most commanding voice. She jumped down from the cart. ‘You don’t kill your prisoners. You use ’em.’
Gant was one of those with a rock in his hands. ‘Use them for what? Fertiliser?’
His mates laughed, and Dolph smiled to show she was on their side. ‘No, I mean use ’em to bargain, to get what you want. Trade ’em for something. The other Devouts’ll want this bloke back, won’t they? So what’ve they got that you want?’
The town bratlings stared at each other. ‘My little sister,’ said one of them.
‘My brother,’ said another.
‘And mine.’
‘Don’t know if they will trade,’ Dolph said hastily. ‘They might decide they don’t want him back, not when they’re in such desperate straits. But it’s worth a try. Now tie him up, so he can’t get away. I’ll let the prisoners go.’
Gant tossed his rock from hand to hand. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t let them go, not just yet.’ He mumbled something to one of his fellows, who trotted off into the darkness. ‘Maybe we should use them for trade too.’
‘Not the cap’n,’ Dolph said quickly. ‘You don’t get to use him for anything. He’s coming with me.’
‘If you say so. Which one’s the cap’n? That boy with the silver face? I seen ’im when we was grabbin’ the Devout.’ Gant tipped his head to one side. ‘He a witch too?’
‘Aye,’ said Dolph. ‘If you touch him, your fingers’ll fall off.’
‘Weren’t gunna touch ’im. Just askin’, that’s all. Why’s ’is face silver? Is it a mask? I suppose it must be. Is ’e ’orrible underneath? No nose, and – and black lumps all over? Is that why ’e wears it?’
Dolph narrowed her eyes. She didn’t trust Gant one bit – didn’t trust all these questions and the way he kept glancing off into the darkness as if waiting for a signal.
Better get the cap’n out of here quick smart, she thought. And she turned back to the cart.
Behind her, Gant shouted, ‘Pin, you got it?’
‘Got it,’ came the reply, and Pin trotted into the torchlight with a rope in one hand and a rock in the other. At the end of the rope, dragging along the ground, was a tightly tied bundle. It was a moment before Dolph realised that the bundle had whiskers and a long tail.
&n
bsp; ‘Missus Slink!’ she cried. ‘What—’
‘Told it the witch wanted it,’ smirked Pin. ‘Offered to carry it. The rest was easy.’
‘But—’
‘You keep back, Witch,’ shouted Gant. ‘Or ’e’ll smash it, won’t you, Pin?’
Pin nodded, and raised the rock.
‘And they’ll smash your witchy friend.’
Dolph glanced over her shoulder. And there were four of the town bratlings, standing over the captain with rocks in their hands and the same gleeful expressions as Pin.
It took all her self-control to shrug, as if the whole business wasn’t nearly as important as Gant seemed to think it was. ‘I thought we were on the same side.’
Gant sneered. ‘No one’s on our side except us. You want to tell us what to do, just like the masters. Let the prisoners go, Gant. Do it this way, Gant. Do it that way, Gant. You’re an idiot, Gant. And maybe we was idiots for lettin’ the masters run our lives all that time. But not anymore.’
‘But the cap’n isn’t—’
The boy interrupted her. ‘You ’n your friends might’ve winkled the masters out of the Citadel, but they’re still strong, and they don’t like witches. So maybe they’ll give us somethin’ good in exchange—Don’t you move!’
Dolph eased back on her heels, and let the knife fall to her side.
Gant smiled. ‘We don’t want to kill your friend, Witch. Don’t want to kill your little rat neither, or those two prisoners. Much better to use them, like you said. But if you try ’n free them with some of that fierce fightin’ you’re so proud of, if you do anythin’ we don’t like, we’ll smash their ’eads in.’
DOWNWARDS
Inside the Grand Monument, the six children crouched close to the ground, with smoke swirling about their heads. They had all wet their jackets and jerkins in the dark pool, and wrapped them around their faces, but it wasn’t enough.
Nat had draped his wet armbands across Wretched’s nose, but that wasn’t enough either. The dog lay hunched and miserable at Gwin’s feet, his head half-sunk in the pool. Every now and again he gazed up at Nat with pleading eyes, as if he thought the boy was doing the whole thing on purpose, and could stop it if he really wanted to.
Gwin wished her brother could stop it. Smoke had been pouring in through the crevice for more than an hour, and her eyes were streaming. If it hadn’t been for that precious draught, they’d be dead by now. Or surrendered.
She wondered how long it would take the pigeon to fly to the mountains. And how fast that mysterious airship could sail, coming back the other way.
If the airship even existed.
But it does exist, she thought fiercely. It does! And she imagined the ragged sails again, high above the Grand Monument, and Hob and Bony shimmying down a rope to attack Brother Poosk and put the fire out.
Sharkey rubbed his good eye, which was streaming as badly as Gwin’s, and whispered, ‘We have to rush ’em. I say we do it now.’
‘Don’t like your chances, shipmate,’ said Mister Smoke, who was the only one unafffected by the worsening air. ‘Poosk and Bartle are watchin’ that crack in the rock awful close.’
Sharkey’s voice was muffled by the jerkin. ‘Then can you see another way out, Mister Smoke?’
‘The root still lives. That says downwards to me, shipmate.’
Sharkey shook his head in frustration. ‘And how’re we supposed to go downwards? Dig? The ground’s almost as hard as the stones. No, we rush ’em.’
‘We might as well slit our own throats and be done with it,’ said Petrel. ‘It’s thinking that’ll get us out of here, not fists.’
‘Aye, shipmates,’ said Mister Smoke. ‘Clever thinkin’, that’s what we need.’
Except I can’t think of anything except the airship, thought Gwin. And Papa.
It was then that Rain began to sing, quietly and with lots of suppressed coughs, about the cool sea breeze that blew across West Norn in midsummer. Her voice was very different from Gwin’s, which was made for open spaces and proclamations. But there was something about that thin, croaky song that dragged Gwin back to practicalities.
Hob won’t come for a while yet, she reminded herself. So forget about him and think about downwards. How can we go downwards?
There had been times, before Mama died, when Gwin would ask a question in her head and Nat would answer it without knowing he’d done so. It hadn’t happened for weeks, and Gwin had stopped expecting it.
But now Nat dipped his finger into the pool and swirled it around, as if he was listening. ‘It’s deeper than it seems. Shallow water doesn’t sound like this.’
‘Don’t see what difference that makes,’ whispered Petrel. ‘We can’t breathe water, shallow or deep.’
Gwin sat up so suddenly that her rabbit-skin jacket fell from her face. Immediately the smoke seized her throat, and she bent double, trying to hold down a coughing fit.
‘Downwards,’ she croaked. ‘What if it’s not under the ground – whatever you’re looking for? What if it’s – under the water?’
They all stared at her, their eyes red and desperate. Fin said, ‘But then how could we get to—’ He broke off. ‘Sharkey, what are you doing?’
Sharkey was already struggling out of his shirt. ‘If there’s something down there I’ll find it. Can I take the lantern?’
‘Aye, take what you need,’ said Petrel, pushing the lamp towards him.
‘But it’ll go out,’ croaked Gwin.
‘It’s waterproof,’ said Sharkey. He tucked his eye patch into his pocket and lay flat on his back beside the pool, so that the smoke drifted above him. With a look of intense concentration, he began to breathe deeply. In. Out. In. Out.
He had to stop a couple of times, when the smoke grabbed at his throat. But he always started again. And just when Gwin was beginning to think that he was going to lie there forever, he grabbed the lamp, rolled sideways into the water and disappeared with barely a splash.
Gwin, Rain, Fin and Petrel leaned over the pool and watched the spark of light spiralling away from them, deeper and deeper. Then that too vanished, as if it had dropped off the bottom of the world, and the cavern was left in utter darkness.
‘I would never have guessed it was so deep,’ whispered Fin.
Petrel sighed and said, ‘We should’ve known the Singer’d come up with something. Maybe you’re not as bad as I painted you, Fetcher girl. What’s your name?’
‘Gwin.’Wretched’s hot tongue licked her hand.
‘I’m Nat,’ said her brother. ‘How long can Sharkey hold his breath?’
‘Ages,’ whispered Rain. ‘Ages and ages.’
They waited. The darkness was so complete that Gwin felt as if she was in a cocoon. She closed her sore eyes and let herself believe she truly was the Singer.
It took away what little breath she had left. It made her feel scrubbed and raw, with her heart right out in the open where the wind and weather could shred it. But at the same time she felt more hopeful than she had in weeks.
‘E’s been gone four and a half minutes,’ said Mister Smoke. ‘That’s awfully long for one breath, shipmates.’
Rain started to sing, her voice no more than a breath of air in Gwin’s ear.
‘Come back, Sharkey,
Come back, Sharkey—’
Gwin wiped her eyes and stared into the depths of the pool. She and her family had always held themselves a little separate from other people. It was what Fetchers did, how they survived. Sometimes they helped those who needed it and at other times they were helped. But there was always that respectful space around them, a space that Gwin had never tried to cross.
Now, for the first time, she felt as if she was part of something else. As if she and Nat and the other four children added up to something, though she didn’t yet know what it was.
She joined her voice to Rain’s.
‘Come back, Sharkey—’
Nat coughed, and smothered the sound with his arm. Fin whispered
, ‘Perhaps whatever is down there is dangerous—’
‘Come back, Sharkey,
Come back, Sharkey—’
They were all singing it now. Nat coughed again. So did Petrel. The smoke was growing unbearable.
‘Come back, Sharkey—’
Suddenly Nat said, ‘I can hear him.’ At the same time, Wretched’s tail thumped and Rain squeaked, ‘Look!’
In the depths of the pool, a light was glowing.
It surged upwards like a firefly dancing, and a tiny piece of Gwin’s heart surged with it. She leaned over the pool. ‘Come back, Sharkey!’
And there he was, hauling himself out of the pool with his chest heaving and the lamp lighting up their filthy, relieved faces.
‘What did you find?’ demanded Fin, as soon as Sharkey was back on dry ground.
‘You didn’t hold your breath all that time, did you?’ whispered Petrel. ‘Cos I couldn’t hold mine for half of it. A quarter, even.’
Sharkey shook his head. ‘No, no – it’s all right. I reckon it was – just over a minute.’ He hauled in another breath, and the smoke caught at his lungs. He coughed loudly.
He slammed his hand over his mouth, but it was too late. Brother Poosk’s gloating voice wound through the smoky air towards them.
‘Dear me, I hope you are not sickening for something, children? It must be awfully cold in there. Here, Brother Bartle, build the fire up some more. We do not want the children to catch a chill.’
Almost immediately the smoke grew thicker, which set them all to coughing, including Wretched. It was no use trying to hide now – Poosk knew they were there.
Petrel whispered, ‘What’s down there, Sharkey? Why’d you – cough cough – take so long?’
‘I got lost – cough – on the way back. There’s a couple of – cough cough – different ways you can go. It was a bit confusing, even with the lantern. But I think I know the way now.’
‘The way to where?’ asked Fin.
‘The pool’s like a sort of tunnel – cough cough –filled with water. It goes down, then up again, to a proper room on the other side. It doesn’t look as if that part’s ever been smashed. I didn’t look around much – cough – just wanted to be sure there’s no smoke there. And there’s not. We should go, now!’