Crik (35 page)

‘If you try to leave, we will follow you,’ said Kyla, her face still showing bone. She drifted to the side of the giant gorilla. ‘There is no way to leave the Wold.’

‘I think he wants us to step into his hand,’ said Bill, ignoring the Ghost Walker’s threat.

‘If we do, it could crush us by just curling its fingers,’ said Jack.

‘Is there another option I’m missing here,’ said Inara. ‘We either go with the gorilla, or stay here and wait for the Myrms to regain their courage and come back to kill us all. Now, help me onto the hand.’

With Bill taking Inara’s legs and Jack holding onto her shoulders, the children climbed onto the iron palm. Effortlessly, the hand lifted them into the sky. Once they were in the air, the giant closed his fingers around the children. To Jack, sitting between the cracks criss-crossing the Giant’s palm, it seemed they had made a mistake trusting the giant. Drawing in the metal fingers the ape produced a scream of working joints that assaulted the children’s ears. Inara, screaming, held her hands against the sound. Suddenly the fingers stopped moving. Cradling them gently, the powerful giant took them higher.

Peeking through the curled fingers, Jack saw the Ghost Walkers looking back at him. Standing closest to the giant the two Red Sisters waved their staffs above their heads. The other Ghost Walkers drifted clear of the giant as the bones on Cadhla’s staff rattled in the wind and rain.

With a challenging roar, the giant gorilla turned, and clutching the children to its bronze chest, returned to the Red Wood.

Following its ow
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trail of destruction, the gorilla backtracked through the Red Wood. Imitations of what had once existed inside the Hedge Wall lay twisted at every turn. Through the ape’s fingers, Jack saw a large bronze dome, the apex of which had buckled inward. If he had to hazard a guess, he’d say the gorilla had sat on the huge dome. Even that funny idea did nothing to alleviate his terror. Jostled by every crashing footfall did not improve his demeanour. New bruises coloured his entire body, and poor Inara, unable to use her legs to steady herself, fared even worse.

Bill had started to cry as soon as the light from the Ghost Walkers faded behind them. ‘I can’t believe they killed her,’ he said, clinging to a finger wider than the span of his arms. ‘She didn’t have to attack the Myrms. I made Black attack them. Silver acted by herself. She left where she lay hidden to help us out, and we let that brute crush her head in with his club.’ He pressed his face tight against the mixed metal.

‘Where’s Black?’ asked Inara. She had her fingers wedged into the cracks lining the Giant’s palm, stopping herself from sliding across the hand. ‘He’s alright isn’t he? Everything happened so fast I don’t know what happened to him.’

‘He’s following us,’ said Jack. Black’s unmistakable form slipped through the metal foliage.

‘Of course he is,’ said Bill, sniffing loudly. ‘You don’t think I’d let him fend for himself do you? Wherever we’re going, Black’s coming too. He’s one of us, and I won’t leave him behind again.’

‘Can you see anything following us, Jack?’ asked Inara.

The torrential rain obscured much of the route they had taken through the rusting jungle. Twisted trees bordered the giant footprints that caught the downpour to make muddy pools. Wiping the water from his face, Jack scanned the upper branches, but he failed to see any chase. Frustrated he cursed the storm; for all he knew the Myrms could be leaping through the trees after them. The combined noise of the giant gorilla and the storm Krimble had brewed up, masked any sounds the Myrms would make as they leapt from tree to tree. ‘If they are behind us, I can’t see them.’

‘Good,’ said Inara. ‘You wouldn’t see the Myrms, but if the Ghost Walkers pursued us they would light up the wood.’

‘They aren’t going to forget about us,’ said Jack. ‘We may have escaped one hanging, but there’re plenty more branches to sling a rope over in the Wold. Unless this gorilla knows of a way through the Hedge Wall;’ he cast his hands up, ‘well, I hate to say it, the Ghost Walkers still have us trapped. Same as we were back in the valley, only this time we don’t know where we are.’

‘I want to bury her,’ said Bill. ‘She deserves that much.’

‘You don’t bury animals,’ said Jack.

Inara glared at him. ‘I can raise her if you like?’ she said to Bill.

Bill shook his head. ‘I prefer her as she was. If you raise her, she’d be like the others.’

‘Others?’ asked Inara, swiping her hair away from her eyes. ‘What do you mean by others? Do you mean like the deer that helped us escape?’

‘I’m not saying what you did was wrong,’ said Bill. ‘It’s just that, if Silver were to return to us, she’d smell different.’

‘What does that have to do with anything?’ asked Inara.

‘When I share Black’s skin, I smell things like he does. I know when a Myrm is close, by lifting my nose to the wind. Back in Crik Wood, Black could sniff out a deer trail and follow it for miles. Since finding Black again, I’ve smelt the animals you’ve raised. They smell wrong. It’s not just the smell of decaying flesh and dirty hair.’ Bill looked between the fingers holding them aloft.

‘What else can you smell?’

‘They smell wrong Inara,’ he said. ‘The stench coming off them turns my stomach. Everywhere reeks of rot. I don’t want Silver to smell wrong. Neither does Black. That’s what he was doing when the gorilla came marching through the trees. He was remembering Silver’s scent.’

‘When Dwayne’s dog died,’ said Jack, ‘your grandfather told him that his dog would always be close. That his dog could smell him on the wind, and would wait for him like a good dog should.’

Nodding, Bill said, ‘That’s how animals remember.’

‘You can worry about what something smells like when we know what this giant wants with us,’ said Inara.

‘You were the first to want to trust it,’ said Bill.

‘Only because we had no other choice,’ said Inara. ‘For the moment we don’t have to worry about the Ghost Walkers. We do have to worry what’s about to happen to us.’

The gorilla crashed through bronze branches that scored its metal skin with a loud screech. It carried on, allowing no obstacle to slow its steps. Tearing a few trees from its path the giant entered a deep gorge. Valley walls echoed its crashing gait. Using its free hand to support itself, the gorilla stooped forward, picking up speed as it went deeper into the valley. The cries from the children mingled with the thunderous steps of the metal ape.

‘This is crazy,’ called Jack, clutching Bill. His teeth snapped together as another jolt hit his body.

When the gorilla increased its pace, Inara had gone from one end of the hand to the other. Her fingers bled, and her sleeve had torn away from her thin arm. ‘Careful, you stupid ape,’ she cried.

‘Hush Inara,’ cried Bill, ‘He might hear you.’

‘Hear me? How can he hear me when he’s crashing through the Red Wood, snapping iron as though it were kindling? My ears ring every time it takes a step.’

Silence.

The children stopped talking. They looked at one another. Realising the gorilla had come to an abrupt stop Bill mouthed the words ‘He heard you.’

Looking between the imprisoning fingers revealed the bottom of the deep valley. Sheets of grey rain washed the stone that surrounded them. Iron wool bushes, dotted the landscape, shivering in the downpour. Day had darkened into night with the passing over of the clouds. Jagged bolts danced through the cloud, exposing the world in instant brilliant white. Below ran Black, keeping to a winding path parallel to them. In the moment of the lightning strike, Jack noted Yang had retained the shape of the cat. Crashing thunder swallowed his frightened gasp.

Gripping the creased palm, Inara sat too far from the edge to see the land. ‘Where are we?’

Sonorous, metal digits began to open; the tortured joints pummelled their ears. The rain fell on them as the sky opened up. Looking up the children saw the gorilla looking down at them. Copper lips spread, revealing large iron teeth. Its squashed nose flared, blowing cold water away in a mist.

‘It’s going to eat us,’ said Bill.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Jack. ‘If it wanted to chew us up, it would’ve eaten us by now.’ He wished he believed his own words.

The gorilla brought its face closer to its open hand. Its eyes were both wider and taller than were the children. ‘Sorry if I hurt you,’ its voice boomed, ruffling the children’s hair. ‘I tried to be careful; it’s just that you are so soft.’

‘You can talk,’ said Bill.

‘Of course he can talk,’ called out a voice from below.

Scrambling to the edge Jack looked down on Huckney, who waved up at him. ‘Huckney,’ he cried.

‘Of course it’s me,’ said the blacksmith as the giant gorilla lowered the group to the ground. ‘I’d have thought you would’ve known Gashnite belonged to me.’

‘I don’t belong to anyone,’ said Gashnite, beetling its brow.

‘Sorry,’ said Huckney. ‘I should’ve said, who else could create something as marvellous as Gashnite. Isn’t he incredible? It took me days, and more metal than I have ever used before.’

‘How could you make something so big in secret? The wolves heard you working, surely the Ghost Walkers would have found you.’ said Bill, following Jack off the palm.

Huckney grinned and his eyes sparkled as he said, ‘Not only did they know, they gave me their blessing!’

‘How?’ asked Bill.

Indicating the massive hands of the gorilla the blacksmith answered. ‘The Wold is a jungle of rot and decay. The rusting trees give this place another name.’

‘The Red Wood,’ whispered Jack.

Huckney nodded. ‘I proposed making Gashnite to uproot the old trees my father built, so that I may plant my living trees in their stead.’

‘Living,’ said Jack, looking up at the iron trunks crowning the ravine. Cut from hard metal, those trees were cold, not at all like living trees.

Huckney saw the doubt in his eyes. ‘Everything that grows is alive. It does not matter that they came into being from the pages of my book. Each one is independent of me.’

‘Doesn’t your Talent give your animals their personalities?’ said Bill, interested despite his fear of pursuit.

‘Wish that I could, if so I wouldn’t have made a quarrelsome mouse. No, they are who they are and as long as I am close, they will remain that way. I bring life to this wretched place; which is why I will not leave.’

Inara remained quiet, pensive, thinking of all she had brought into the Wold.

‘You rescued us,’ said Jack, ignorant of Inara’s concerns.

‘I know the Ladies; more importantly, I know the Red Sisters. It was fortunate that Justice met you. If Cadhla or Evangeline had attended when the Myrms brought you to the tree, you’d have hanged that day. Kyla is bad enough,’ said the blacksmith, ‘but those two are far worse.’

‘You put yourself in danger for us,’ said Inara, from the gorilla’s hand.

The blacksmith shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. The Wold is my home; I’ve lived here for most of my life. Besides, the Ladies need me. Who else can finish off the Wold? No, they’ll be angry with me, but I know they won’t do anything.’

‘How’d you create the gorilla?’ asked Jack.

‘Gashnite,’ said Gashnite.

‘Sorry,’ said Jack.

The blacksmith smiled. ‘Gashnite is by far the largest creature I have ever made. It took days of hard labour to bring him to life. If you notice, many different types of metal went into his making. Copper, bronze, iron, steel, zinc, and silver covers his back. Although I didn’t have enough of one type, I think I did a good job with what I had.’

‘He’s perfect,’ said Bill.

‘What goes, crash, crash, boom, boom, stomp, stomp?’

Looking behind Gashnite, Jack spied Herm running toward them. The metal squirrel clutched his acorn to his chest.

‘Hello, Herm,’ said Jack.

Herm leapt onto Gashnite’s arm, clutching the copper curling up the forearm of the gorilla. ‘My head is still rattling, after you came running into the valley,’ said the squirrel, knocking the acorn it held against the giant. ‘It’s lucky with all this noise that I don’t need to hibernate.’

‘Quiet Herm,’ said Huckney.

‘What has two legs, and a head of lead?’ asked the squirrel.

‘Shush,’ said the blacksmith.

‘What’s harder, your hammer or your head,’ retorted Herm. ‘You have no time, yet you waste it, which is a crime. The Myrms are at my back, they are so near, and yet you show no fear.’

‘They recovered quicker than I had expected,’ said Huckney, addressing the children. ‘Gashnite isn’t the subtlest of creatures, and they have followed his path to us.’

‘Where can we go?’ asked Jack. ‘There’s no way through the Hedge Wall.’

‘You won’t be going through the hedge, you’ll be going over it,’ said the blacksmith grinning.

‘Have you made a giant bird to fly us over?’ asked Bill, excited.

Tapping his chin, Huckney said, ‘Wish that I had considered it. Well it’s now too late to craft such a bird.’

‘I’ll be taking you over the Hedge Wall,’ said Gashnite.

‘You,’ said Jack.

‘Gashnite can climb the hedge,’ said Huckney. ‘He’ll carry you over, using his feet as a second pair of hands.’

‘What goes splat after a great fall?’ asked Herm.

The same notion occurred to Jack as he looked up at the immense gorilla. The Hedge Wall loomed over the valley. ‘Can the hedge take Gashnite’s weight?’

‘The wood in the hedge is stronger than any metal,’ said the blacksmith.

‘How high is the Hedge Wall?’ asked Bill, tilting his head back to look at the Wold’s barrier. ‘Does it even have a top?’