by Paul Stewart
The yellow-green liquid fizzed where it landed and gave off twists of vapour. Twig screwed up his nose, but did not wake. In his dreams he was lying in a meadow beside a babbling, crystal-clear brook. Crimson poppies swayed back and forwards, filling the air with a smell so sweet it left him breathless.
Talons still firmly gripping the branch, the creature turned its attention to the cocoon itself. Filament by filament, it teased apart the matted clumps of wadding around the opening with the claws on its wings. It drew them silently across the hole. Quickly, the opening was closed.
Twig's eyelids fluttered. He was in a cavernous hallway now, lined with diamonds and emeralds which sparkled like a million eyes.
The creature flapped its wings and seized the branch in its wing-claws. It let go with its feet and then, suspended in mid-air, manoeuvred itself along the branch until its body was directly over the top of the cocoon. It splayed its legs and began sucking in air noisily. As it did so, its stomach inflated and the scales at the base of its abdomen stood up on end. Beneath each one was a rubbery pink duct which, as the creature continued to gulp at the air, slowly opened up.
All at once it grunted, and a sharp spasm juddered through its body. From the ducts, powerful jets of a sticky black substance squirted down onto the cocoon.
‘Mffll-bnn,’ Twig mumbled in his sleep. ‘Mmmsh…’
The glutinous tar-like liquid soaked in and slid down over the cocoon in all directions, soon covering it completely. When it set, the cocoon became an impenetrable prison.
With a reedy squawk of triumph, the creature seized the pod it had made in its taloned feet, sliced through the silken rope with one of its wing-claws, and soared off into the night. Silhouetted against the violet sky, the creature's huge wings beat up and down; below it the deadly pod swayed back and forwards, back and forwards.
Twig was floating on a raft in the middle of a sapphire sea. The sun, warm and yellow, beat down on his face as he bobbed along over the waves. All of a sudden, a ridge of black clouds cut out the light. The sea grew rougher, and rougher still.
Twig snapped his eyes open. He stared round him wildly. It was black. Pitch black. He lay there, motionless, unable to make sense of what was happening. His eyes refused to grow accustomed to the dancing darkness. There was no light. Not a glimmer. A bolt of terror zinged in his head and shot down his spine.
‘What's going on?’ he screamed. ‘Where's the opening?’
Struggling round to a crouching position, Twig felt about the surrounding casing with trembling fingers. It was hard to the touch. It echoed when knocked – boom, boom, boom – impervious to his pounding fists.
‘Let me out,’ he screamed. ‘LET ME OUT!’
The rotsucker screeched and lurched to one side as the sudden movement inside the pod knocked it off balance. It beat its wings powerfully and gripped the matt black ridges all the more firmly in its talons. It was used to its quarry struggling to escape. The frantic jerks and jolts would soon subside. They always did.
Twig was beginning to pant. Stinging sweat ran down into his eyes. The acrid smell of bile clung to him like a second skin. He gagged. The darkness seemed to spin. He opened his mouth and a loose vomit gushed forth. It was fruity, sour, full of pips and seeds. A picture came to him of the banderbear handing him something delicious; the banderbear that had been devoured by the horrible wig-wigs. Twig opened his mouth again and his whole body convulsed. Whooaarrsh! The vomit splashed against the curved walls of Twig's prison and slopped around his feet.
The rotsucker shifted the juddering pod round in its talons again. The feathery lightness of dawn was already fanning out across the far horizon. Soon be back. Soon be home, little one. Then you can take your place with the others in my treetop store.
Choking. Heaving. Eyes streaming in the acrid blackness. Head pounding with the lack of air. Twig pulled his naming knife from his belt and gripped it tightly. Leaning forward on his knees, he began stabbing in a frenzy at the casing in front of him. The knife slipped round. Twig paused and wiped his sweaty palm down his trousers.
The knife had served him well already – against the hover worm, against the tarry vine – but would the steel blade be strong enough to shatter the shell? He slammed the point hard against the casing. It had to be. Again. And again. It just had to be.
Ignoring the jolts and judders which came from inside the pod, the rotsucker kept on towards its lofty store. It could already see the other pods silhouetted against the light, high up in the skeletal trees. Struggle away, my supper-lugs. The greater the struggle, the sweeter the soup, and the sound of the rotsucker's wheezy chortle echoed through the darkness. Soon you will fall as still as all the rest.
And when that happened, the evil-smelling bile the rotsucker had squirted into the cocoon would get to work. It would digest the body, turning the flesh and bones to slimy liquid. After a week, five days if the weather was warm, the rotsucker would drill a hole in the top of the pod with the serrated circle of hard bone at the end of its snout, insert the long tube and suck up the rich fetid stew.
‘Break, break, break,’ Twig muttered through gritted teeth as he slammed his naming knife against the casing over and over and over again. Then, just as he was about to give up, the pod resounded with a loud crack as the casing finally gave. A chunk of shell the size of a plate fell away into the darkness.
‘YES!’ Twig screamed.
Air, fresh air, streamed in through the hole. Gasping with exhaustion, Twig leaned forwards, placed his face to the hole and gulped deeply. In out, in out. His head began to clear.
The air tasted good.
It tasted of life.
Twig peered ahead. Far away in front of him, a row of jagged dead pines stood black against the pink sky. At the top of one of the trees a clutch of egg-shaped objects lined a branch: they were sealed caterbird cocoons.
‘Got to make the hole bigger,’ Twig told himself as he raised the knife high above his head. ‘And quickly.’ He brought it down hard against the casing. It landed with an unfamiliar thud. ‘What the…?’ He looked down and groaned.
The blow which had broken through the rock-hard shell had also shattered the blade of the knife. All he was holding was the handle. ‘My naming knife,’ said Twig, choking back the tears. ‘Broken.’
Tossing the useless piece of bone aside, Twig leant against the back of the pod and began kicking viciously at the casing.
‘Break, Sky damn you!’ he roared. ‘BREAK!’
The rotsucker wobbled in mid-flight. What's going on now, eh? My, my, what a determined supper-lugs you are. Let me just shift you round a little. There. That's better. Wouldn't want to drop you, would we?’
Twig kicked harder than ever. The pod echoed with the sounds of splintering shell and falling fragments. Suddenly, two wide cracks zigzagged across the casing, the warm glow of morning fuzzing their edges.
‘Aaaii!’ he shrieked. ‘I'm falling.’
The rotsucker screeched with fury as the pod lurched. It found itself tumbling down through the air. Keep still, curse you! Beating its tired wings fiercely it pulled itself out of the plummeting spiral. But something was wrong. It knew that now. What are you playing at, my naughty little supper-lugs? You should be dead by now. But be sure I shan't let you go.
Twig kicked again, and the crack ripped over his head and round behind his back. Again, and it continued below him. He glanced down. There was a jagged line of light between his legs. The vomit and bile drained away.
Whatever happened now, the rotsucker was bound to go hungry. The pod was disintegrating. Its quarry would never putrefy.
Twig stared in horror at the crack below him, as the smear of green grew wider. He stopped kicking. Falling from this height would be too dangerous. More than ever before, he needed help. ‘Caterbird,’ he shrieked. ‘Where are you?’
The rotsucker wheezed. Bad supper-lugs! Bad! It was almost at the end of its strength, sinking lower in the sky. Its brassy-yellow eyes swivelled rou
nd to look at its treetop store. So near and yet so far.
Beneath him, the smudge turned from green to brown. Twig looked more closely. The forest had thinned out and, in parts, died. Long bleached skeletons of trees littered the glittering ground. Some were still standing, their dead branches reaching upwards, grasping at the air like bony fingers.
All at once there was a tremendous crash. The pod had hit the top of one of those dead branches. Twig was thrown back. His head smashed against the shell. The crack widened, and the pod, with Twig still in it, was falling.
Down, down, down. Twig's stomach churned. His heart was in his mouth. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and braced himself for impact.
SQUELLLP!
He had landed in something soft, something which, even now, was oozing in between the cracks in the shell like grainy liquid chocolate. He dipped his finger in the brown substance and put it tentatively to his nose. It was mud. Thick peaty mud. He was in the middle of a boggy swamp.
Wobbling awkwardly, Twig reached up, slipped his fingers between the largest of the cracks, and tugged. The mud was already up to his ankles. At first nothing happened. Even now, the tar soaked fibres of the cocoon were formidably strong. The mud reached Twig's knees.
‘Come on!’ he said.
With his elbows locked, he prised the crack a little further apart. The veins stood out on his temples, his muscles knotted. Abruptly, light came streaming down on him. The shell had finally split in two.
‘Oh, no,’ he cried, as the larger piece of the broken pod immediately turned up on its end and slipped down into the mud. ‘Now what?’
His only hope lay with the smaller piece, still floating on the surface. If he could just climb up, maybe he could use it as a makeshift boat.
In the sky above him he heard a shrill shriek of fury. He looked up. There, circling above his head, was a hideous and repulsive creature. It was watching him through gleaming blank yellow eyes. Broad black leathery wings, glistening with sweat, flapped noisily into the air. Suddenly, it turned and dived, and the next instant Twig felt sharp talons grazing his head and pulling out tufts of hair by the roots.
The creature wheeled round and dived again. Rubbery threads of green saliva were streaming down from the end of its long snout. This time, Twig ducked. As it swooped in close, it screeched again and sprayed him with a shower of the evil-smelling bile.
Gagging emptily, Twig heard the fading clap-clap of wings. The vile creature was flapping away. When he looked up again it was perched at the top of a distant dead tree, black against the curdled morning sky. Beneath it, hung the cluster of pods, each one full of rotting matter. Twig sighed with relief. The creature had given up. He would not be joining the others in that line of death.
A moment later, his relief turned to panic. ‘I'm sinking!’ he cried out.
Clutching the piece of shell, Twig tried desperately to heave himself up out of the bog. But each time he pulled down, the shell tipped over, taking on still more of the mud. At his third attempt, it sank completely.
The mud was round his stomach now, and rising. He flailed his arms about and kicked out with his legs, but the thick ooze only sucked him deeper down.
‘Oh, Gloamglozer!’ Twig wailed. ‘What do I do?’
‘Don't panic, that's the important thing,’ came a voice.
Twig gasped. There was someone there, watching him struggle. ‘Help!’ he screamed. ‘HELP ME!’
He twisted himself round as best he could, a movement which lost him another couple of inches. Past his chest now, the mud was creeping up to the base of his neck. A short bony goblin with a flat head and yellow skin was leaning up against a dead tree, chewing a piece of straw.
‘You want me to help you?’ it said, its voice sing-song and nasal.
‘Yes. Yes, I do. You've got to help me,’ he said, and spluttered as the mud trickled into his mouth and down his throat.
The goblin smirked and tossed the straw aside. ‘Then I shall, Master Twig,’ it said. ‘So long as you're sure.’
It reached up, snapped a dead branch from the tree and held it out across the treacherous swamp. Twig spat the foul mud from his mouth and made a lunge for it. He grasped hold of the bleached wood and clung on for dear life.
The goblin pulled. Twig was dragged through the thick sucking mud, closer and closer to the bank. He spat. He spluttered. He prayed the branch would not break. All at once he felt solid ground beneath his knees, then his elbows. The goblin let the branch drop and Twig crawled out of the swamp.
Free at last, Twig collapsed. And there he lay, exhausted, face down in the dusty earth. He owed his life to the goblin. Yet when he finally lifted his head to thank his rescuer, he found himself once more alone. The flat-head was nowhere to be seen.
‘Hey,’ Twig called weakly. ‘Where are you?’
There was no answer. He pulled himself to his feet and looked about him. The goblin had gone. All that remained was the piece of straw, chewed at one end, which lay on the ground. Twig crouched down beside it. ‘Why did you run off?’ he murmured.
He sat down in the dust and hung his head. All at once he was struck by another question. How had the flat-head goblin known his name?
· CHAPTER TEN ·
THE TERMAGANT
TROGS
It was still. The sun beat down, hot and bright. All the vomiting in the sealed pod had left Twig's throat feeling as if it had been sandpapered. He needed a drink.
He picked himself up and looked back at his shadow which stretched far out across the treacherous swamp. At the end of it lay still water. It sparkled tantalizingly. If only there was some way of getting to it without being sucked down into the mud. Twig spat and turned away again.
‘It's probably stagnant anyway,’ he muttered.
He stomped off across the spongy wasteland. The swamp had once extended this far. Now, apart from the occasional patch of pale-green algae, nothing grew. Yet there was life there. With every step Twig took, clouds of vicious woodmidges flew up and buzzed round him. They landed on his face, his arms, his legs – and where they landed, so they bit.
‘Get off! Get away!’ Twig cried as he slapped at the voracious insects. ‘If it's not one thing, it's … YOUCH!’ Slap. ‘… another!’ Slap. Slap. Slap.
Twig started to run. The woodmidges flew with him, like satin sheets flapping in the wind. Faster. Faster. Past the bony skeletons of dead trees. Headlong over the bouncy peat. Stumbling, slipping, but never stopping. Out of the desolate home of the evil rotsucker, and back to the Deepwoods.
Twig smelled them before he reached them. The loamy soil, the luxuriant foliage, the succulent fruit – familiar scents that set his mouth watering and his heart clopping faster than ever. The woodmidges were less impressed.
As the rich and fertile smells grew stronger, so their numbers dropped. They abandoned their quarry and returned to the wasteland, where the air was pungent and sour.
Twig trudged onwards and upwards. The Deepwoods wrapped themselves around him like a vast green quilt. There were no tracks, no paths; he had to carve his own way through the lush undergrowth. Through woodfern and bullbracken he went, up slopes and down dips. When he came to a sallowdrop tree, he stopped.
The sallowdrop, with its long waving fronds of pearly leaves, only grew near water. The banderbear had taught him that. Twig pushed aside the beaded curtains of the hanging branches, and there, babbling along over a bed of pebbles, was a stream of crystal clear water.
‘Thank Sky,’ Twig rasped and fell to his knees. He cupped his hands and dipped them in the ice-cold water. He took a sip, swallowed, and felt the cold liquid coursing down inside his body. It tasted good; earthy and sweet. He drank more, and more. He drank until his stomach was full and his thirst was quenched. Then, with a grateful sigh, Twig dropped down into the stream with a splash.
And there helay. The water ran over him, soothing the woodmidge bites, cleaning his clothes and hair. He remained there until every trace of mud and
vomit and stinking bile had been washed away.
‘Clean again,’ he said, and pulled himself back onto his knees.
All at once, a flash of orange darted across the water. Twig froze. Wig-wigs were orange! Head still bowed, Twig raised his eyes and peered nervously through his lank and dripping hair.
Crouched down behind a rock on the far side of the stream was not a wig-wig but a girl. A girl with pale, almost translucent skin and a shock of orange hair. Company.
‘Hey!’ Twig called out. ‘I…’ But the girl darted out of sight. Twig leapt to his feet. ‘OY!’ he yelled as he splashed across the stream. Why wouldn't she wait? He leaped up the bank and onto the rock. Some way ahead, he noticed the girl dodging behind a tree. ‘I won't hurt you,’ he panted to himself. ‘I'm nice. Honest!’
By the time he reached the tree, however, the girl was gone again. He saw her glance back before slipping into a glade of swaying greatgrass. Twig dashed in after her. He wanted her to stop, to come back, to talk to him. On and on he ran. Around trees, across clearings – always close, but never quite close enough.
As she raced behind a broad and ivy-clad trunk, the girl looked back for a third time. Twig felt the hairs at the nape of his neck stand on end; his hammelhornskin waistcoat bristled. What if the girl wasn't checking to see whether she had given him the slip? What if she was making sure that he was still following?
He kept on, but more cautiously now. Round the tree he went. The girl was nowhere to be seen. Twig looked up into the branches. His heart was hammering, his scalp tingled. There could be anything hiding up in the dense foliage waiting to pounce – anything at all.