by Alex English
She took a deep breath and fired.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Echo held her breath as the last seed dropped into Mortice’s tankard with a gentle plip.
As Mortice turned away from the bars, she gave a quick thumbs up to Horace, who scuttled back over to her.
‘Did you get one in?’ he whispered.
‘Yes!’ Echo shoved the pea-shooter back in her pocket with a grin. ‘How long do you think it’ll take?’
Horace shrugged. ‘I don’t know . . . Look, he’s drinking it!’
Echo glanced back at Mortice, who was taking a swig of tea. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and set the mug back down on the floor by his chair. He glanced over and his eyes narrowed as he noticed them watching him.
‘What’re you two up to?’ he said, getting to his feet. Echo gasped in horror as his right boot caught the mug and sent it clattering along the flagstones, spilling the rest of the tea all over the floor.
‘Ah, blast and bother it,’ Mortice cursed, as he chased the mug across the corridor.
Echo’s whole body froze. She shot a panicked look at Horace. ‘Has he drunk enough?’
‘I don’t know!’
Mortice was wandering back to his chair with the empty tankard. He took a staggering sidestep and Echo held her breath. Mortice stopped, grimaced and clutched his forehead.
‘It is working!’ whispered Horace in wonder, as Mortice swayed where he stood. Then his face fell. ‘But if he collapses over there . . .’
‘We’ll never reach the keys!’ Echo jumped up, ran to the cell bars and rattled them. ‘Mortice!’ she shouted. ‘Come here!’
‘Wha—?’ Mortice turned towards them, his eyelids drooping.
‘Mortice!’ Horace joined Echo at the bars.
Mortice stumbled towards them. ‘What d’yer . . . whyooo all fuzzy?’
‘Quick, Mortice!’ they both yelled. ‘Over here, we need you!’
Mortice took another clumsy step, then his eyes closed and he fell, as if in slow motion, his mug slamming to the ground and smashing into a hundred pieces on the flagstones.
Echo watched, breathless, as Mortice slumped in front of their cell. After a few moments, he began to snore where he lay, a thin dribble of drool running from the corner of his mouth and puddling on the floor.
Echo dropped to her knees and reached for the ring of keys on Mortice’s belt. She pressed her shoulder against the bars and stretched her arm as far as she could, but her fingers barely grazed the cold metal. ‘I can’t quite reach it,’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘Let me try,’ said Horace, but he had no luck either.
Echo sat back on her heels in desperation. If only Gilbert was here! He’d be able to run straight through the bars and get the keys. But he was lost. No, this was it: she and Horace would be stuck down here forever. Tears of frustration suddenly welled in her eyes. ‘Oh, Gilbert!’ she cried.
There was a faint chirrup from the corridor and Echo froze. Had she dreamed it? Had all these days in the darkness of the dungeons finally made her lose her mind?
‘Did you hear that?’ she hissed to Horace.
‘Hear what?’
‘Quiet.’ Echo leaned forward and listened.
There it was again, incredibly faint, but most definitely a lizardy chirp.
‘Gilbert?’ she shouted. ‘Gilbert, is that you?’
There was another chirrup, louder this time, and a splash, and then Echo saw a flash of yellow in the dimness of the corridor. It was him! He was safe!
Gilbert sprinted across the floor towards them and wriggled through the bars, scampering up Echo’s body and flinging himself round her shoulders.
‘Gilbert, are you all right?’ Echo took him in both hands and nuzzled his snout.
He rolled his conical eyes in a way that seemed to say, Of course I am.
‘I thought I’d lost you forever!’ she said, smothering him with kisses until he turned fuchsia. ‘How in Lockfort did you find us?’
After a moment, Horace cleared his throat. ‘Um, Echo . . . It’s great that he’s back and I’m really sorry to interrupt your reunion, but the keys?’
Echo looked into Gilbert’s eyes. ‘Can you get them?’
In answer, the little lizard took a flying leap on to the floor, scampered over and clamped his jaws round the ring of keys. Every muscle in his little scaly body straining, he dragged them back to the cell.
‘Brilliant!’ Echo took the ring of keys, the metal weighty and cold in her hand, and tried each one in the lock until she found the one that fitted. It turned with a satisfying clunk and the cell door swung open.
‘Come on,’ she said, stepping carefully over Mortice. ‘Let’s find the others.’
She darted down the corridor, Horace following close behind and Gilbert zigzagging over the walls beside them. Soon she saw a familiar, frizzy-haired head in a gloomy cell up ahead. ‘Professor!’ she shouted.
‘Echo!’ exclaimed the professor, scrambling to his feet and bounding over to the cell door. ‘How did you manage to—’
‘We drugged the guard.’ Echo unlocked the cell and swung the door open to cheers from the sky pirates. ‘Quick. We need to go before he wakes up.’
Behind him in the cell, Bulkhead, Flora and the other sky pirates jumped up. All apart from Lil, that was. Instead, she sat alone in a corner, her head in her hands.
‘Nice piratin’!’ said Bulkhead, giving Echo a friendly slap on the back.
‘Good work, mateys!’ Slingshot high-fived Echo and Horace as he passed.
The others all filed out of the cell, but Lil remained sitting, her back against the stone wall.
‘Cap’n?’ said Bulkhead. ‘You comin’?’
‘Mother?’ said Echo tentatively.
Lil shook her head and got to her feet with a sigh. ‘Being back down here makes me realize how stupid I was for believing Alfons. I should have fought harder to get you back.’
‘But . . . but you didn’t know I was alive!’ said Echo. ‘We’ve all believed his lies.’
Lil nodded. ‘I know. But I shouldn’t have.’ She looked up at Echo. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’ Echo took her mother’s hand. ‘None of that matters now. We can’t let King Alfons take our freedom away again. We can get out, all of us. But we need you to lead the way.’
Lil smiled, her eyes full of tears. ‘You make a pretty fine leader yourself.’ Her chin quivered as she spoke. ‘I am proud of you, Echo. So proud.’ She smiled. ‘You’re a true Black Sky Wolf.’
Echo felt her cheeks grow hot and she beamed with pride.
Lil cleared her throat and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand for a long moment. ‘Right then.’ She turned to face Echo, her expression deadly serious. ‘We need to move before the guard wakes up. But, before we get going . . .’ She took off her hat, unpinned her wolf pin from her curls and fastened it to Echo’s. ‘Lead on, Captain Echo,’ she said. ‘I think you’re in charge of this adventure.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Once Bulkhead had dragged Mortice into the cell and Echo had locked the door, she and the others followed Gilbert back through the tunnels, only stopping to retrieve Echo’s postal pigeon, which lay among Mortice’s belongings under his chair. As they raced through the dripping corridors, they passed cell after cell of inquisitive prisoners.
‘What’re you lot doing?’ yelled one man, his beard yellowed and straggly.
Echo shoved the ring of keys deeper into her pocket and kept going. But they weighed heavy in her heart. Didn’t all these people deserve to be free, instead of being locked up down here? To see the world beyond Lockfort?
‘Hurry, Echo,’ said Horace, urgently tugging at her sleeve. ‘As soon as one of the other dungeon keepers finds Mortice, they’ll be looking for us.’
Echo sighed and marched onwards. Eventually, they left the cells behind them and the corridor widened out into the huge ceremonial chamber. They gathered by the skull-rin
ged entrance to the expulsion chute and everyone fell silent as they stared at the engraved hatch.
‘Well,’ said Horace, ‘I suppose this is it.’
Echo nodded, her throat dry.
‘It’ll be a long journey without our airships,’ said Lil, her brow creased with worry in the torchlight. ‘I only just made it across the Barren on foot last time.’
‘That chute is a bumpy old ride too,’ said Professor Daggerwing, as he heaved open the hatch, releasing a blast of chilly air. ‘All those rivets. Most unforgiving on the derrière.’
Echo peered through the opening into the darkness. She could just make out the brass sides of the start of the chute, before the tunnel snaked away into the gloom. It looked steep, and uncomfortable too. The cool breeze coming out of the opening made the candles flicker and Echo stood back.
‘Do you want to go first, Echo?’ asked Lil.
Echo swallowed. Something was nagging at her.
‘Come on,’ said Horace, looking around anxiously. ‘The guards might come in. They’ll be getting ready for the Gateopening Ceremony tonight.’
‘Tonight?’ said Echo. ‘How do you know?’
Horace shrugged. ‘Mortice said.’
‘A Gate-opening Ceremony. Tonight.’
‘Yes,’ said Horace, looking at her as though she was stupid. ‘That is what I just said.’
Somewhere, deep in Echo’s mind, a spark of an idea flickered.
‘Maybe we could let everybody out,’ she said slowly.
‘What do you mean, everybody?’ said Horace.
But Echo was already racing back to the cells, the keys jingling in her hand.
‘They’ll never make it across the Barren on foot, Echo!’ shouted Lil after her.
‘They won’t need to!’ Echo yelled back. ‘We’re going back through the castle!’
She sprinted out of the hallway and back into the dimness of the corridors, Lil and the others racing after her. ‘What are you doing?’ called Lil.
But that spark of an idea was smouldering, burning, setting fire to a raging inferno inside Echo that couldn’t be stopped. ‘Remember how my father wanted to open the gates and let the people of Lockfort discover the world?’ She paused to open one of the cell doors. ‘Here,’ she said, throwing the bunch of keys to the goggle-eyed prisoner, ‘let everyone out and follow us.’
‘Echo, I still don’t understand,’ said Lil, as Echo set off again down the corridor.
‘You said you wanted to finish what he started.’
‘But what about the prophecy?’ said Lil. ‘People believe in it. It doesn’t matter what you or I say to them. They won’t leave without it being fulfilled, and that’s impossible.’
Echo shook her head. ‘Nothing’s impossible. What day is it today?’
Lil shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘Does anyone here know?’ she asked the sky pirates.
They all looked at one another and shook their heads. Echo ran to the bars of the nearest closed cell and rattled them. ‘Hey!’ she yelled. ‘Hey, you!’
The woman inside looked up from where she was slumped. ‘What is it?’ she grunted.
‘What day is it today?’
‘Dunno. Er, the fifteenth? Gate Ceremony, innit?’
‘No, I mean the day of the week.’ Echo shifted from foot to foot in exasperation.
‘Well –’ the woman counted on her fingers – ‘I been in here three days. And the night before I came in I had dumplings for dinner, and I always have dumplings on a Thursday, so that makes it—’
‘Sunday,’ interrupted Echo, her heart thudding. ‘Sunday night.’ Ideas spun through her mind like a whirlwind. A she-wolf, a dragon, Tuesday, blood. Somehow they were combining into something solid.
‘But . . . but Echo, even you can’t make Tuesday come on a Sunday night,’ spluttered Horace.
‘Can’t I?’ Echo reached into her pocket, drew out the postal pigeon and ran back towards the expulsion chute.
‘What are you doing?’ cried Horace after her.
‘Sending a message!’ Echo yelled back over her shoulder.
She scrawled a note on a scroll of paper, spun the dials to set the coordinates and hurled the little bird down the chute. The whirr of its mechanical wings died away as it disappeared into the darkness.
‘I just hope there’s enough time,’ she muttered to herself, slamming the lid of the expulsion chute closed. She raced back down the corridor, almost crashing into Horace coming in the other direction. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’re going this way.’
‘Echo, what are you doing?’ said Horace, staring in horror at the prisoners bursting from their cells. ‘There is no other way out of the dungeons, you know that!’
Echo kept going. ‘Of course there is.’
Horace shook his head. ‘I must have looked at Father’s map a million times. The only way out is the expulsion chute, or the ceremonial gate, and that’s locked.’
Echo stopped for a moment. ‘How did we get in here?’
‘They brought us through the ceremonial gate.’
‘The first time.’
‘Through the kitchens,’ said Horace. His face fell in horror. ‘But we can’t get out that way. There’s too many of us. Someone will see!’
Echo smiled. ‘I don’t care if anyone sees. This isn’t the time for sneaking about. This is the time for making a stand.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Getting into the kitchens was the easy part. Bulkhead hoisted the sky pirates up in the dumb waiter one by one, before squeezing in himself and being pulled up by Slingshot, the professor and Lil. The rest of the sky pirates and a steady stream of prisoners followed after them.
At first the kitchen staff hadn’t even noticed. The whole place was in a frenzy of feast preparation, with chefs shouting orders, ladles clanging on pans, boys stirring great tureens of soup, rolling barrels of mead or winding the handle of a spit where a glistening hog was roasting in front of the fire. Echo stood, Gilbert clinging to her shoulder, and breathed it all in. After days of gruel and bread, her mouth watered. But there would be no dainty slices of roast swan or quince pie for her tonight. No, tonight she had something far more important to do.
Little by little, the noise clattered to a halt as the chefs and the kitchen boys and girls stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at the motley crew emerging from the dumb waiter. For a moment, everyone just stood and stared in silence, the only noise the bubbling of hot liquids and the crackle of fat in the fires.
The kitchen children turned and looked at each other, then back at a chef with a round ruddy face beneath his tall white hat. The fingers of one of his huge hands curled round a meat cleaver. He fixed Echo with furious eyes, then let out a growl and advanced towards her, his hatchet raised.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ he roared.
Echo swallowed and glanced over at Horace, who was staring white-faced at his boots. The professor twisted his hands together and began to whistle tunelessly. She looked in panic at Lil, who gave her a nod.
‘You can do it!’ Lil whispered.
‘Well?’ bellowed the chef.
Gilbert trembled on her shoulder, but Echo took a deep breath and stepped forward. ‘I’ve come to open the gates,’ she said.
‘The gates?’
‘Yes, sir. Of Lockfort.’
The chef’s face suddenly cracked into a smile. Echo frowned. Had she said something funny?
‘I’m going to open the gates,’ said Echo, firmly this time. She put her hands on her hips and glared back at the chef.
‘And how exactly are you planning to do—’
‘Haven’t you ever asked yourself if there’s more than this?’ she asked, gesturing around the kitchen.
The chef shrugged. ‘Nope.’
Echo raised her voice and turned to address the children. ‘Haven’t any of you wondered what’s out there?’ she said, looking at the kitchen boys and girls, who had gathered round her, staring. The whi
te-aproned workers muttered and looked at one another as if someone else might have the answer.
The red-faced chef frowned. ‘Out where?’ he said.
‘Beyond the city walls.’ Echo climbed up and stood on a nearby workbench to address the whole kitchen. She raised her voice. ‘Beyond the Barren.’
‘There’s nothing beyond the Barren,’ said the chef, with a laugh. ‘Everyone knows that. You lot have been down in the dungeons too long. All that damp has turned your brains to mush.’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Why should any one of us listen to you?’
Echo paused for a moment. Why should he listen to her? The bench wobbled as Horace emerged from the back of the group and scrambled up next to her.
‘Will you listen to your prince?’ he asked.
A look of recognition flashed across the chef’s face and his expression suddenly turned from fierce to fearful. ‘Your Highness,’ he stammered, ‘is that really you?’
Horace, who Echo noticed was shaking very slightly, drew himself up to his full height. ‘I suggest you listen, all of you. What Echo has to say is important.’
‘Lady Echo?’ The chef squinted at her and his jaw dropped.
Hundreds of faces turned to stare up at Echo from across the kitchen. She took a deep breath and began again.
‘Outside the city walls,’ she said, ‘there’s a whole world. A world you’ve never been to or seen, or even heard about in stories. But it’s there, I promise you. We’ve been there.’
Horace nodded in agreement and a murmur rippled through the crowd.
‘There are cities and mountains and oceans,’ she continued, glancing across at Professor Daggerwing. ‘All just waiting for you to explore them.’
‘Explore?’ said the chef. ‘What if we’re happy where we are?’
Echo clenched her fists in frustration. ‘But how will you know if you never try?’ She scanned the room for a familiar face and spotted One-Eye in the crowd, listening intently. She raised her voice. ‘Some of you must be curious.’
‘No time to be curious. There’s work to be done,’ said the chef. ‘The king needs us.’