by Philip Reeve
“Get clear!” Overseer Glunt was yelling, running towards the motionless armies. He was shouting it at the dwarves, but the others heard him too, and all began to back away. “That thing’s full of slowsilver! When it blows. . .”
It blew. Dark shards of its iron body went howling over the watchers’ heads, and sank like blades into the ground. But no rain of molten slowsilver came spraying out. What came instead, still bickering and squabbling, were hundreds of hatchlings. A scrambling scrum of little goblins came pouring out of the holes in the Dwarf, and as they clambered down its huge legs to the ground the whole figure overbalanced and toppled backwards, crashing down in ruin on the hill.
Around it, the hatchlings started to pick up the fallen weapons of the battle and attack each other. “Stop!” shouted Henwyn, pushing his way down the old mound. The dwarves, meanwhile, looked on in amazement. Some had panicked and run when the Giant Dwarf fell; others were crowding round the Brazen Head, waiting for it to tell them what to do, but there were still some – the armoured tallboys mostly, a few surviving diremoles and their crews – who held their ground and held their weapons. The hatchlings were too busy hitting one another to be any threat to them. Their commanders ran up and down their lines, shoving dwarves into position, urging them to attack the battered army of Clovenstone.
But then like a miracle, a horn rang out: a single, high, clear note. Even the hatchlings heard it, and looked up.
Over the hill’s brow, from the direction of Adherak, came a throng of riders. For a moment, in the dying light, no one could imagine who they were. Then Skarper recognized Carnglaze riding in the front rank, with Prawl beside him, and King Knobbler in a lacy fighting bonnet with pink ribbons, swinging a huge axe. Behind them rode the finest warriors money could buy; men of Musk and Barragan and the Autumn Isles, armed to the teeth and as ready for a fight as any hatchling.
“Thank you!” said Fentongoose, who had been appealing to the hatchlings to be quiet, completely unheard, and now found that total silence had fallen. “Now, put those swords and axes and things down, all of you. What sort of way is this to be carrying on? We are trying to have a battle here! Except I think it is over. It is over, isn’t it?” he asked nervously, looking around at the dwarves.
The tallboys sheepishly lowered their weapons, knowing they could not fight both the goblins and their new allies.
“It is over,” said Durgar, standing up from where he had sat the battle out, on top of the burial mound. “Isn’t that so, overseers?”
The overseers, scattered around on the hillside where they had landed when they leaped from the Giant Dwarf, all nodded, or murmured their agreement.
“What of the Head?” demanded one of the dwarf captains, a tallboy who towered almost to Henwyn’s shoulder, and others took up his call: “It’s not up to overseers. What of the Head? What does the Head say?”
But the Head said nothing at all. Dwarves scrambled over the great iron carcass to examine it, but the machinery inside it had been all wrenched and ruined when it fell, and the magic which had powered it for so long was fled. Dwarves would be their own masters from now on.
And that was almost the end of it. The dwarves went home to Delverdale, agreeing to pay for all the farms and villages that their Giant Dwarf had trampled on its march south, and to pump back to Clovenstone the remainder of the slowsilver they’d stolen. They were unsure who their leaders would be now, with the Head ruined and the overseers in disgrace, but many looked to Durgar for guidance, remembering how reliable he had always been, and how he and his daughter had been the only ones to question the wisdom of the Head.
Etty hugged Skarper tight before she left. “I’ll come and visit Clovenstone often,” she said. “I’ll bring other dwarves, to repair the damage that we did there.”
“And will you be a surveyor now, like Durgar?” Skarper asked.
Etty grinned. “I don’t know!” she said happily. “I don’t know what I’ll be! I might be anything. I haven’t decided yet.”
The army of Clovenstone and the army Carnglaze had raised went back together into Adherak, whose people were returning home as word of the victory spread. Lord Ponsadane and Kerwen of Bryngallow rode on towards Coriander. They promised faithfully to tell the High King of the bravery of the goblins, boglins, trolls, men, ghosts, girl and giant who had kept the dwarves at bay and brought the Giant Dwarf down in ruin. “Clovenstone can take its place now among the kingdoms of the Westlands, cheesebearer,” they called to Henwyn, as they rode away. “Tell your Dark Lady that, with our thanks!”
Many goblins had been injured in the battle, of course; a hospital was set up in one of the empty warehouses beside the floating market, and the women of Adherak helped Dr Prong to nurse them better. The boglins, however, vanished away in the dark on the night of the battle, and took their wounded with them. No one saw them go, but later, farmers up on Oeth Moor told of a thick mist which had drifted back up Sticklecombe and away across the hills.
Fraddon was too large to fit into the hospital, but he was not badly injured, only a little bruised and scorched. Henwyn’s family mixed up some ointment in one of their old cheese vats and spread it on his burns and cuts with curd paddles.
The new hatchlings, meanwhile, were far too badly behaved to be allowed into Adherak. Fentongoose and the older goblins began to herd them home, and a slow, slow business it was. The army which had taken just three days to march from Clovenstone to Adherak would take weeks to find its way home again.
But Henwyn and Skarper were in a hurry: they knew how worried Princess Ned must be, and they wanted to get back to her as soon as they could. Henwyn had asked the cloud maidens to carry the good news to her, but although the cloud maidens had gathered themselves together and they and their cloud were almost as good as new, they were still annoyed about having been dissolved, and anyway, they were very taken with Kerwen and Lord Ponsadane; when the two heroes rode away, the cloud went with them.
“There is nothing else for it,” said Henwyn. “We must carry word to Clovenstone ourselves; we can go on ahead of the army, and put Princess Ned’s mind at rest.”
“You ride ahead,” Garvon Hael told him. “Don’t worry; Fentongoose and Prong and I will bring these goblins safely home.”
Fraddon was eager to leave too, for he badly missed the trees and waters of Clovenstone. So as soon as his wounds were salved and bandaged they set off, the giant limping along as slowly as he could go, Henwyn and Skarper riding horses, and Zeewa striding along behind (they had offered her a horse, but she mistrusted horses, and no horse would have let her ride it anyway, with those ghosts all around her).
A chill wind battered at them as they crossed the moor: a wind of winter, trembling the water in the puddles, blowing the dead grass flat. But no rain came, and although Skarper thought the air smelled of snow, none dropped on them during their journey north.
On a cold bright morning they came over the last ridge, and saw Clovenstone ahead of them. Zeewa was footsore by then, so Fraddon picked her up, and her ghosts wrapped themselves around his neck like a scarf. Then Fraddon broke into his rare, heavy run, and Henwyn and Skarper kicked their horses to a gallop, and they all went racing down to Clovenstone, to be greeted with whoops and friendly punches when they brought their good news to the goblins who’d been left on guard at Southerly Gate.
The guards had good news of their own. “The slowsilver’s coming back! The lava lake is filling again!”
Up the long road through the ruins they all went hurrying, twiglings scampering happily through the bare branches overhead, dragonets flitting around them. The gate guards heaved the big gate in the Inner Wall wide open to let them through. “Princess Ned wasn’t feeling too bright, so she couldn’t come to meet you,” said Spurtle (who wasn’t looking too bright himself, being still half sofa). And there she was, in her old russet dress, standing waving among the fruit trees. They waved back,
and Henwyn and Skarper climbed down off their horses, and they ran towards her.
And it was then that the terrible thing happened. Princess Ned clutched suddenly at her side, and they saw her face change from joy to a sort of astonishment. Then her knees gave way, and she fell, and lay upon the grass.
“Ned!” they shouted, and ran to her. Henwyn and Skarper knelt at her side; Fraddon bowed his huge head over her; Zeewa, slipping down from the giant’s hand, stood watching from a little distance, with all the goblins left in Clovenstone gathering behind her in a worried, whispering crowd.
Ned’s face was pale; her mouth was faintly blue. She felt as though a great weight were pressing on her, pushing her down into the grass. Dr Prong had warned her of this. Her heart was weak, he said. Too much exercise, too bad a shock, might make it break. But Ned had never guessed the joyful surprise of seeing her friends come safely home might break it. She felt cheated. She reached for Skarper’s paw, and Henwyn’s hand. “Oh, how annoying!” she said. “Now I shall never know how everything turns out! Tell me quickly, was the battle won?”
Henwyn nodded. Skarper said, “It was.”
“And Fentongoose and Dr Prong? And Garvon Hael?”
“They’re all right,” said Henwyn, trying not to cry. “Almost everybody’s all right, and there are loads of new hatchlings. They’re all coming home. They’ll be back soon. Just wait till Dr Prong is here. . .”
Ned smiled at him. “I am sorry,” she said. “I wish I could. But I don’t think I can.”
The snow which Skarper had smelled on the wind was starting to fall at last. The tiny dry flakes came whirling across the garden, settling on the dark earth of the flower beds, gleaming in Ned’s strewn hair, dusting down white upon her face, catching in her eyelashes.
“This is what I saw in the oracular bathtub at Coriander!” said Henwyn through his tears. “I thought the falling stuff was ash, but it was snow.”
“Oh Ned!” said Skarper, and his ears drooped.
Zeewa put her dark hands kindly on their shoulders and said nothing, and the tears of Fraddon fell down on them all like rain.
They laid Ned in her cabin in the old ship, and lit candles around her, which was the custom of the Westlands, and sat for a long time sadly, talking about the arrangements that must be made. The goblins dug a grave for her, in her favourite corner of the new garden, where a little stream splashed down over the rocks of Meneth Eskern and made a pool. And although they none of them felt hungry, they cooked some food, and ate, and after that their talk grew strangely happy and full of laughter as everyone remembered good stories about Ned. Long after the other goblins had gone to their nests Skarper and Henwyn sat in the main cabin of the old ship, and Fraddon stood outside and looked in through the open windows, and they kept remembering stories, and telling them to Zeewa, who had hardly had a chance to know Princess Eluned.
And at last, although none of them thought that they could sleep that night, they slept, exhausted by their long journey and their grief. And in the dark of the night, when a butter-pat moon hung above Blackspike Tower, the candle flames in Ned’s cabin fluttered, and Ned’s ghost rose and walked.
It did not look like Ned. It did not look like anything. No curse was laid upon this spirit. It was more like a pleasant feeling, which brought comfort to the restless sleepers in the main cabin. But Zeewa’s ghosts saw it. They rose and clustered around it, and Tau purred, and Kosi said, “Welcome.”
Ned’s ghost still felt fluttery and unsure of herself. She looked down at Henwyn and Skarper where they lay sleeping, curled up on their chairs. She thought they might be cold, and wanted to pull a blanket over them, but of course she couldn’t; she couldn’t touch anything; she was a ghost. She looked out at Fraddon, asleep on his feet outside, the big, kind, ugly face she knew so well. She said, “The worst part is, I wanted to know how everything will work out. Who will look after Clovenstone now? Will Henwyn be king? He is the Lych Lord’s heir, after all; it is his by right, really. . . But he is so young! Perhaps Fentongoose will help him. And Skarper too; Skarper is wiser than he looks. And what about Zeewa? Will she go home to the Tall Grass Country, west of Leopard Mountain?”
Kosi said, “She would like to stay here at Clovenstone, I think. For a while, at least.”
“Oh,” said Ned’s ghost sorrowfully. “Am I allowed to stay here, do you think? To hang around and see what happens next? To keep watch over them?”
Kosi shook his head. “Your time is over, Lady of Clovenstone. It is their time now.”
“But you are still here!”
“Not through choice. And not for long, not now. Will you take us with you, lady?”
“Take you where?” Ned’s ghost wondered. “Of course I will, if you would like me to. But where?”
Kosi smiled. He stooped over Zeewa and kissed her forehead, and Tau the ghost lion licked her face, and of course Zeewa felt nothing but a faint chill which made her frown and snuggle deeper inside her cloak. Then Kosi gestured for Ned’s ghost to follow him, and stepped out through the ship’s curved wooden wall. Out into the night air above the garden they flew, and Ned’s ghost looked back and saw the other ghosts streaming from the old ship like smoke: the lion, the antelope, the fish, the flies. When Ned agreed to take them with her the curse had broken, and they were untethered from Zeewa. Like a moonlit mist they blew across the rocks and roofs of Clovenstone, through the stones of the Inner Wall, and out across the marshes, where lanterns burned, and boglin voices chanted. Ned’s ghost looked down, and saw beneath the mist to the boglins gathered there, and beneath the waters to where the dampdrake lay, curled up at home again in its own deep mere.
The ghosts soared over it all, and descended to the silent Houses of the Dead. Kosi led them to the hilltop, and as she stepped between the old stones, Ned’s ghost suddenly felt the cold, frost-prickly grass under her feet, which made her realize that she had not felt anything till then. She looked down and saw that she was herself again, or at least a sort of see-through version of herself.
Tau the ghost lion came and nuzzled her, and she could feel the nap of his velvety nose against her fingers and smell his liony smell.
When the Gatekeeper rose out of the grass she cried out in surprise and said, “Oh, a ghost!”, before remembering that she was a ghost herself, and laughing.
“Welcome, Princess Eluned,” said the Gatekeeper. “Welcome to the resting place of the dead of Clovenstone.”
“I have brought some friends,” said Ned’s ghost, letting a ghost beetle settle on her hand, a ghost bird on her head. “Is that all right?”
“We have been expecting them,” said the Gatekeeper.
Ned’s ghost turned and looked back towards the Inner Wall; to the towers, with their dim lights burning. She was thinking of Fraddon, Henwyn, Skarper and the goblins. “I shall miss them all so much,” she said.
“I know,” said Kosi.
“I’m frightened,” she said.
“It is just another adventure,” said Kosi. “You are good at those.”
He held out his hand to her, and she took it, and together they sank down like smoke into the grass, and the ghost animals went with them, until the hill was still and silent, and the moon was gone, and the first light of dawn touched the eastern sky.
Skarper woke suddenly and sat bolt upright, wondering what was wrong. For a moment he could not think what it was. Then he realized that Zeewa’s ghosts, which had been rustling and buzzing and droning in their usual way when he fell asleep, had fallen silent. The air above the sleeping girl was still. The only sound was Henwyn softly snoring. Skarper looked everywhere, but there were no ghosts.
He rose, tiptoed past Henwyn, and went to the window. Outside, the snow was falling again, proper snow this time, whirling down white against the pale sky and the old dark towers. He thought, Princess Ned’s gone, but it’s still snowing. Everything is s
till going on without her. And although he couldn’t really imagine ever feeling happy again, he knew that one day he would, and that things would go back to normal, or at least find a new way of being normal, like a river finding a new path for itself. And he thought, We’ll be all right, Henwyn and me and the others. We’ll manage.
And the sun rose, and brought a new day to Clovenstone.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With thanks to my editors, Marion Lloyd and Anna Solemani, to Dave Semple for the brilliant illustrations, to Sarah McIntyre for suggesting the title, and to Sam Reeve, for listening.
First published in the UK in 2013 by Marion Lloyd Books
This electronic edition published in 2013 by Marion Lloyd Books
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Copyright © Philip Reeve, 2013
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eISBN 978 1407 13532 8
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