The Last of the Sky Pirates: First Book of Rook

by Paul Stewart

  With a mighty shudder and an ominous creak, the Skyraider began to lift up into the air. Twig let the heavy anchor chain fall away with a resounding clang.

  ‘We shan’t need that where we’re going,’ he called to the others.

  The tattered sails billowed. The sky ship listed to one side and pulled away from the black crag. Higher and higher the great sky vessel flew, calmly, sedately, until, all at once, the wind caught it from behind and sent it soaring up into the air so fast that Rook’s head spun and his stomach did somersaults.

  ‘This is amazing!’ he cried out. ‘Incredible! I can’t believe that I’m actually flying on board a sky pirate ship!’

  Twig chuckled. ‘Neither can I, lad,’ he said. ‘Neither can I. Sky above, but I’ve missed it! The thrust of the sails, the sway of the weights – the wind in my hair. It’s almost like the old days,’ he said. ‘As if I were a sky pirate once again.’

  Rook turned to him, his eyes bright with excitement. ‘But you are!’ he said.

  Twig nodded slowly, as his fingers danced over the flight-levers. ‘Aye, Rook, I suppose I am,’ he said. His brow furrowed. ‘The last of the sky pirates.’

  t was the darkest hour just before the dawn. A fine dew, glistening in the overhead lamplight, covered the surface of the crumbling Sanctaphrax rock. From a shadowy crevice came a soft, slurping noise. Something was stirring.

  A long, glistening tentacle appeared, then another – and the two gripped the rock and pulled. A dripping, jelly-like creature emerged. Three small round bumps on the top of its head grew large, cracked open and eyed the surroundings suspiciously. The tentacles reached out again and dragged it forwards.

  Where the creature passed, the rock behind was left bone-dry, and as it slipped and slid about, it began to swell. Larger it became, larger and larger until, with a hiss and a spurt, three rear-tentacles suddenly uncoiled and squirted a thick, oily substance over the rock behind it. It had drunk enough.

  The rubble ghoul slithered back down between the cracks in the broken rock. Having sated its thirst, it was now hungry.

  Far, far above, a hammerhead goblin was also hungry. Ravenous, in fact. And thirsty. And cold. He stamped his great booted feet and pulled his black robes up against the icy air which, so high up the towering building, was cold enough to cover the wood of the jutting gantry with a feathery coating of frost.

  ‘Just you wait till I get my hands on you, Gobrat, you useless, squint-eyed little runt!’ he growled, and his breath came in dense puffs of cloud which glowed and squirmed in the yellow light of the hanging oil lamps. He paced back and forwards, slapping his arms against each other in an attempt to get warm. ‘Leaving me here to do your guard-duty!’ he complained. He should have been relieved at nine hours the previous night; now, the first rays of early morning sun were already lining the distant clouds with silver. ‘All through the night I’ve been standing here!’ he muttered angrily. ‘I’ll stove in your skull! I’ll break every bone in your body! I’ll—Waaargh!’

  The heel of his boot skidded on an untouched patch of frost, and sent the goblin crashing to the floor. His heavy horned helmet came loose as his head slammed viciously down on the cold, hard wood with a loud crack!

  Dazed, the hammerhead sat up. He saw the helmet scudding towards the edge of the gantry. Heart hammering furiously, he lunged forwards and grasped one of the helmet’s curving horns just as it was about to tumble down from the high gantry.

  ‘That was a close one,’ he told himself grimly. ‘You take care, now, Slab.’ He climbed to his feet and put the helmet back on his head. If he’d lost it, the guard master would have clapped him in irons and thrown him into solitary confinement for a week as punishment.

  Slab checked the rest of his equipment – the curved knife at his belt, the powerful-looking crossbow on his back, the heavy hooked pikestaff … Everything, he was relieved to discover, seemed to be in order.

  Just then, in the distance, far below, came the sound of the bell at the top of Vox Verlix’s Undertown palace tolling the hour. It was six. He’d now been on duty for eighteen hours! He stared out across the chasm of open sky as the sun slowly wobbled up above the horizon, shielding his eyes as the light grew dazzling. He looked down.

  There, below, were the Stone Gardens, their once mighty rock-stacks now a mess of broken rubble littering the dead rock. Screetown and Undertown were wreathed in mist and, in the middle distance, the Great Mire Road was already teeming with countless tiny individuals as it wound its way back into the murky gloom and disappeared. For despite the bright start to the day, there were dark clouds rolling in from the Deepwoods far to the north-west, threatening rain, maybe even a lightning storm …

  ‘A storm, after all this time.’ Slab hawked and spat. ‘That’d show those accursed librarian knights,’ he growled. ‘Think they’re so clever, so they do – with their books and learning and their pathetic little skycraft.’ He stared up into the great banks of cloud, praying for a lightning bolt to strike the top of the tower. ‘But they’ll learn one day. When Midnight’s Spike heals the rock and we return to the skies, then they’ll see—’

  ‘Strength in night!’ came a gruff voice behind him, and Slab turned to see a brawny, heavily tattooed flat-head who bore the scars of many a battle standing in front of him, his clenched right fist pressed against his breastplate in ritual greeting.

  ‘Ah, Bragknot, strength in night!’ Slab replied, and saluted in response. ‘Am I glad to see you. Gobrat never showed up, the little—’

  ‘Gobrat’s gone missing,’ said Bragknot. ‘No-one seems to know where he is.’

  ‘Soused on woodgrog and slumped in some dark corner, if I know him,’ Slab muttered bitterly. He yawned.

  ‘Eighteen hours without a break I’ve been up here. Eighteen hours …’

  Bragknot shrugged. ‘It happens,’ he mumbled un – sympathetically and looked all around, scanning the townscape below and squinting into the distance. ‘Quiet watch, was it?’ he said. ‘No problems?’

  ‘None,’ said Slab.

  The flat-head nodded towards the great banks of cloud looming closer. ‘Looks like rain,’ he commented. ‘Just my luck!’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ll leave you to it,’ said Slab. ‘I’m off to get my head down.’

  ‘You do that,’ said Bragknot, turning towards him. ‘I’ll—’ He gasped and looked back over Slab’s shoulder. ‘Sky above! What is that?’

  Slab chuckled. ‘I’m not falling for that one again,’ he said.

  ‘I mean it, Slab!’ said Bragknot. ‘It’s … it’s …’ He grabbed the smirking hammerhead by the shoulders and twisted him round. ‘Look!’

  Slab’s eyes widened. His jaw dropped. This time, Bragknot had not been playing one of his stupid games. There really was something there.

  ‘It can’t be,’ he whispered, trembling with awe as a great ghostly vessel emerged from the cover of dark, swirling cloud.

  Too young to have seen one before, Slab stood transfixed, staring in disbelief at the vast, solid sky ship as it swept gracefully down through the air towards them. With its huge billowing sails and massive hull, it was more awesome than he could ever have imagined.

  ‘B-but how?’ he faltered. ‘How is it possible?’ He shook his head. ‘A sky ship still flying … Where did it come from?’

  ‘Never mind all that!’ bellowed Bragknot. ‘Sound the alarms! Raise the guard! Mount the harpoons! Come on, Slab! We must—’

  Just then Slab heard a high-pitched whistle and a soft thud. He spun round. Bragknot stood there, swaying slowly back and forwards on the spot. He looked back at Slab, his eyes filled with fear and confusion as his fingers closed gingerly round the ironwood bolt lodged in the side of his neck. His throat gurgled. Blood gushed down over his black robe. The next moment he staggered backwards and toppled over the edge of the gantry, dropping down silently out of sight.

  A second bolt whistled in over Slab’s head and embedded itself in a broad crossbeam behind him. A
third shattered the hanging-lamp. It was followed by a dozen or more arrows, hissing in through the air and quivering where they struck.

  ‘To the gantries!’ Slab roared. ‘We’re under attack!’

  ‘What is it? … What’s going on?’ several voices cried out from above and below him.

  ‘Over there!’ shouted someone from an upper gantry pointing into the cloud, now swirling round the tower.

  ‘A sky ship!’ bellowed another.

  ‘It’s turning this way!’ shouted yet another, a telescope raised to his eye. ‘And it’s got heavy weaponry aboard!’

  A loud rasping klaxon sounded, followed by another and another … Soon, the whole Tower of Night echoed to the clamour of the Guardians answering the call to arms.

  Head down, Slab dashed back along the exposed gantry. Skidding awkwardly on the slippery wood, he tumbled in through the doorway. Behind him there was a flash and an almighty splintering crash as an incoming ball of flaming ironwood severed the jutting gantry and sent it hurtling down below. Had it landed a second earlier, he too would be hurtling down with it.

  Slab climbed shakily to his feet. All round him the air was filled with bellowed orders and screeched commands. Doors banged and shutters slammed as section after section within the great tower was sealed off to prevent an invasion. Heavy boots pounded up and down stairs as well-armed, black-robed Guardians hastened to the west side of the tower to repel the great attacking sky ship.

  In all the chaos and confusion no-one noticed a small skycraft as it swooped down through the dark, swirling mist on the far side of the tower.

  With the cloud as cover, the sky ship spat out a flaming salvo at the Tower of Night. Gantries splintered and shattered; great holes appeared in the walls and, where the heavy balls of flaming ironwood penetrated, small fires broke out.

  Inside the tower the Guardians of Night were in turmoil, with the guard masters barking out a stream of orders.

  ‘Shove that broken beam back into place!’

  ‘Douse that fire!’

  ‘Load the harpoons!’

  ‘Prime the catapults!’

  While some effected makeshift repairs and others smothered the flames with water and sand, small groups ventured out onto the jutting weapon-platforms where the heavyweight weaponry stood on plinths, bolted to the floor. Working in threes, they took up their battle positions. At the harpoon-turrets, one jumped into the firing seat and primed the shooting mechanism, one loaded a harpoon into the long chamber, while the third grabbed the wheel at the side of the turret and began turning. Slowly, as the sequence of internal cogs moved, the whole mechanism swung round. Then, seizing a second wheel, he altered the angle of the long barrel until the huge harpoon was pointing directly at the attacking sky ship. At the swivel catapults a similar process was taking place. When the launch trajectory had been secured, the guards – two at a time – heaved enormous, heavy boulders into each of the ladle-shaped firing bowls.

  ‘Fire!’ roared a guard master. Then another, higher up, bellowed the same command. And another, and another.

  ‘Fire! … Fire! … Fire!’

  A volley of harpoons and rocks exploded from the Tower of Night and hurtled towards the sky ship. One of the harpoons struck the starboard bow; a second skittered across the lower deck. Further back, a boulder dealt a glancing blow to the stern. All would have shattered a small skycraft, but the mighty sky ship barely seemed to flinch.

  The Guardians of Night reloaded. The Skyraider rose up higher in the sky. The harpoon-turrets and swivel catapults were realigned.

  ‘FIRE!’

  The second bombardment did even less harm than the first, with not a single harpoon or boulder meeting its target. Peering through their telescopes into the swirling cloud, the guard masters saw the bearded figure at the helm – resplendent in satin frock coat and tricorn hat – barking commands of his own. The main-sail billowed. The stern hull-weights dropped. Abruptly, the hovering sky ship soared upwards, returning fire as it did so.

  ‘They’re heading for Midnight’s Spike,’ someone cried.

  ‘Defend the spike!’

  ‘Defend her with your lives!’

  ‘FIRE!’

  A third salvo of rocks and harpoons soared into the sky, a single rock hitting amidships, where a lone banderbear feverishly tended the great flight-rock. The bander-bears at the rear of the ship replied with a heavy bombardment of the flaming ironwood balls. The walls of the tower suffered more damage and one harpoon-turret was destroyed by a direct hit. Two Guardians – one up high on a look-out gantry and one on a weapon-platform some way below – were struck by arrows simultaneously. The pair of them keeled forwards and, one after the other, tumbled down through the air as in some strange and terrible dance.

  ‘More fire-power!’ roared a guard master.

  ‘Reinforcements to the spike chamber at once!’ bellowed another.

  ‘Alert the Most High Guardian!’

  ‘Call Orbix Xaxis!’

  Slab crouched down on the boards and peered out through the shattered wall. He had neither harpoon-turrets nor swivel catapults up here at the look-out gantry, yet the death of his comrade-in-arms would be avenged. With trembling hands, he raised the sight of the crossbow to his eye, slid the ironwood bolt into place and ratcheted the string back.

  ‘This is for Bragknot,’ he muttered grimly.

  The sky ship loomed up before him, thick clouds of mist swirling around it. Slab lowered his head. He took aim. For the briefest of moments, the sky ship drew level. He fired the crossbow.

  There was a thump. A twang. The bolt shot into the air and disappeared into the thick misty cloud. Slab held his breath. The next instant, rising up above the cacophony of noise from the tower itself, there came an anguished yodelling cry and, as the cloud fleetingly thinned out, he saw a banderbear clutch at its heart and fall off the sky ship.

  ‘Got you!’ Slab snarled, as the great hairy beast tumbled down through the air. He raised the crossbow to his eye a second time. As he looked through the view-finder, he saw three great flaming balls hurtling straight towards him.

  Before he had a chance even to cry out, the ironwood balls struck – tearing apart the whole upper section of the tower and snuffing out the life of the hammerhead guard. The building shook from top to bottom. The sky ship rose higher, almost level with the great spike that topped the tower.

  ‘They’re using grappling-hooks!’ screeched a guard from the base of the spike as a heavy three-pronged hook abruptly flew out from the Skyraider and hurtled towards it. ‘They’re trying to destroy Midnight’s Spike!’

  ‘Sacrilege!’ bellowed another.

  ‘Destroy the invaders!’ roared yet another.

  The Guardians intensified their efforts to repel the attacking sky ship with volley after volley of boulders and harpoons, arrows and crossbow bolts – and anything else they could lay their hands on. The air trembled with the din of battle. The Skyraider responded with arrows and crossbow bolts of its own, and the great flaming balls of ironwood which tore chunk after chunk from the dark tower. Numerous goblins, trogs and trolls in the black robes of the Guardians of Night plummeted to their deaths. Another grappling-iron clanged against Midnight’s Spike. A second banderbear was struck …

  On the other side of the tower the skycraft approached. Lightly, stealthily – like a woodmoth on the wing – it flitted up and down the great east wall, its rider looking for a place to enter. Finally he swooped down onto a small, jutting gantry, two-thirds of the way up, which appeared to be deserted.

  The rider dismounted. As he tethered the skycraft securely to eye-hooks screwed into the wall, the weak milky sunlight penetrated the thick cloud and shone into his face. The youth – jaw set and brow creased with concentration – turned towards the small, dark entrance and disappeared inside.

  As Rook peered into the gloom, the dark, menacing atmosphere assaulted his senses like a battering-ram slamming into locked fortress doors. It was dark within
the tower despite the hanging-lamps, and the stench of death and rancid decay was overpowering. Rook faltered – numb, dumbstruck, incredulous that anyone could have created so evil a place.

  He could hear voices, countless voices. Their muffled moans and feeble cries echoed in the darkness, a soft and terrible accompaniment to the bass rumbles and furious percussion of the battle raging far above him. ‘Poor wretches,’ Rook murmured. ‘If only I could save you all.’

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he wrapped the cloak of nightspider-silk round his shoulders and ventured further into the tower. He found himself in a confusing labyrinth of narrow walkways and rickety flights of stairs sandwiched between the outer wall of the tower and an inner wall. At wild irregular angles, the wooden stairways zigzagged off in all directions – above and below him, and away to both sides. The sound of the hopeless, groaning prisoners grew louder, the foul stench more intense.

  Rook’s eyes followed the path of the walkway he was standing on. It led to a small, square landing, before doubling back on itself and rising steeply further up. At the far side of the landing, set into the shadowy inner wall of the tower, was a door.

  Is that one of the cells? he wondered. There was only one way to find out.

  Rook dashed up the stairs. On the landing, as he approached the heavy, wooden door, he saw what looked like markings. He pulled the sky-crystals from his pockets and, holding them together, used the pale light they emitted to examine the door more closely. Several names had been scratched crudely into hard wood: RILK TILDERHORN, LEMBEL FLITCH, REB MARWOOD, LOQUBAR AMSEL … Each of them had a line gouged through them. Only the name at the bottom remained untouched.

  ‘Finius Flabtrix,’ Rook whispered. ‘An academic, by the sound of him.’

  There was a shuttered spy-hole in the door and heavy bolts at the top and bottom. Rook reached forwards, slid aside the spy-hole cover and quickly glanced inside. He couldn’t make out anything in the blackness, but the stench intensified. Gingerly he reached up and drew the top bolt across; then the bottom bolt. Slowly he pushed the heavy door open and looked in.