Legend of the Three Moons (26 page)

Unable to follow her, the Gochmaster's big eyes filled with tears. `But I will be lonely without you, Ly-la.'

Lyla chewed at her bottom lip. `No you won't. You have your Goch.'

Tears ran down his hairy face as he urged his Goch to try again. `I will miss you, Ly-la.'

Lyla hesitated then she took off Chii's whale tooth necklace and threw it to the Gochmaster. `This is a friendship necklace. It you wear it, it means we are friends.'

The Gochmaster put the necklace on over his head. `Thank you friend, Ly-la, I will wear it forever.'

His words and tears bothered her long after she'd left the nettle field.

Had she made the right decision? Could his Goch have been hidden? Could she have put up with its smell? Maybe, if he'd told it not to, its poisoned tongue wouldn't have hurt her. And was she so upset because she missed the ugly little Gochmaster?

Then she found the boat.

 

After leaving the boat Lem, Celeste, Chad and Swift splashed through what was left of the river until it became a trickle and disappeared into the sand beside an orange sandstone pinnacle.

That night they made a camp in the sand dunes, from where they could see everything but not be seen. Lying on their stomachs eating the red-shelled Sand Racer's eggs that Chad had found in the desert, they discussed what they would do if Lyla didn't return in two days.

`We'll go and find her,' said Swift, cracking an eggshell and sucking out the contents.

`She wrote that we were to go on after five nights,' Chad reminded him.

`She'll be here,' insisted Lem.

`Yes she will,' agreed Celeste, feeding Splash part of her yoke. `Lyla always does what she says she'll do.'

That afternoon Nutty warned them that there was a wagon pulled by two oxen coming along the riverbed.

Brushing away their footprints and the broken eggshells, the four hid in the dunes. The wagon, laden down with cages, baskets and three broad-shouldered men, finally came into view and stopped at the spot where the river disappeared into the sand. Two of the men unpacked the cages and baskets, tied them to one of the oxen then, with loud promises to be back soon, led the heavily-laden animal into the desert.

Nutty and Lem followed.

 

After finding their abandoned boat, Lyla jogged non-stop until she saw the wagon with its driver curled up asleep underneath it. A second later she heard the peep-peep of a piper bird, which was Celeste's secret call, and spied a hand with a snake bracelet waving above a sand dune.

They met on the other side where Celeste pulled Lyla down out of sight and hugged her. Swift launched himself at his sister, squeezing her so tightly he almost cracked her ribs.

`Did you find the eagle?' asked Chad, patting her on the head, as it was the only part of her he could reach. `Is it our father? Did you get the talisman?

Lyla nodded three times then she withdrew the blue feather from inside her jacket and handed it to him.

`Tell us everything,' urged Celeste. `You can tell Lem later. He and Nutty are stalking two of the men from the wagon.'

So they lay on their stomachs with their heads together and Lyla told them about Ulaan camp and town, Chii and the stone and metal-melting powder, Baatar and the great gert, General Tulga, the Blue Mist, and her new friend the Gochmaster.

When she finished, Celeste asked if the Gochmaster was really her friend and if she had really given him Chii's necklace.

`Yes he's my friend. And yes I gave him Chii's necklace, because I felt so bad about leaving him. But he couldn't come with us could he? I mean this is the most dangerous journey of all of them, isn't it?'

When they didn't answer, she added, `I'm sure Chii won't mind. If he is still alive after diving off Tsal Peninsula.' Then she bit her lip at the idea that he might not be.

Then Swift asked Lyla the question they'd all been wondering about. `Lyla, when you wrote in the sand for us to meet you here, and that the swinging birdcage in the
Three Moons' Song
is in the High Enchanter's Fortress of Storms... How did you know that?'

`I asked the Gaabi Desert sand that San Jaagiin gave me.'

Swift's eyes widened. `You talked to sand and it talked back?'

Lyla giggled. `I don't talk to it. I write a question in it and an answer appears. Chad saw me do it in Sebastian Ull's cottage in Mussel Cove. Only I asked him not to tell anyone because I didn't want to be a sand reader. But somehow San Jaagiin knew I was.'

`So you can fly
and
you're a sand reader,' said Celeste.

Lyla shrugged. `I don't know about the flying. When I floated off Table Mountain it was because of Edith's peppermint roots. And when I dream-fly it's a warning about something that is going to happen in the future. But real flying? I don't think so, because I've tried and my feet won't leave the ground.'

`Have you any of the peppermint roots left?' asked Swift.

`No.'

`Any stone and metal-eating dust?'

`A bit.'

`Any Gaabi Desert sand?'

`No. It was spilt.'

`What about this sand?' He pointed to the sand they were lying on. `Can you ask it if we will find the swinging bird cage?'

Lyla wrote the question in the dune sand. But it didn't hum the way the Gaabi Desert sand did, and no answer appeared.

The two hunters returned at sunset with their ox, carrying two baskets of eagle eggs, four nets containing twelve young eagles and two nets full of squawking eagle chicks.

Lem and Nutty arrived at their dune camp a few minutes later. After giving his sister a hug, he demanded Lyla tell him everything. She said she would, once he told them what he'd seen.

`The hunters use meat to lure the young eagles down from the pinnacles, and they tie poles together to make one long pole to hook down the hanging nests that contain the eggs and chicks.'

`Did you see any parent birds?' asked Chad.

Lem shook his head. `The ox told me the hunters come every month; that the captured chicks die within a day and their feathers are sold for pillow stuffing. He said the young eagles are sold as fighting birds; and that the hunters never go near the mud lake for fear of Mudmen.'

Celeste looked up from playing with Splash. `What are Mudmen?'

`Silent moving, non-speaking High Enchanter guards made from the mud of the lake. They cannot be killed because they aren't truly alive. It's my guess they protect the Fortress of Storms and that we will see them soon enough. But for now, who will help me save the young eagles?'

Celeste and Lyla said they would, and an excited Chad and Swift nudged each other.

`Good. When the hunters are asleep we'll cut the nets and set them free. If anything goes wrong we'll meet up over there.' Lem pointed to a crooked pinnacle, outlined in scarlet by the setting sun.

`Then we'll walk to the lake,' added Lyla. `Because we are running out of time.'

When it was dark enough not to be seen, Lem dug up the casket, put the feather inside, and buried it again.

Swift and Chad set off for the crooked pinnacle, carrying everyone's bags and weapons. And Lyla, Lem and Celeste crept towards the wagon.

Cutting open the hunters' nets was easy. Unwinding the wire that they'd wound round the eagles' beaks was more difficult. Then the ox lowed a warning.

`Wake up! Someone is robbing the wagon,' yelled the driver. But he was too late.

The young eagles soared skywards and the children scattered. The hunters chased after them but, as they hadn't been walking great distances or rowing and bailing for days like the children had, they were soon puffed out and left behind.

Fifteen minutes later Celeste and Lyla met up with Chad and Swift at the crooked pinnacle. Lem ran up last.

`Nutty says the hunters turned back long ago. He also said there are other things moving around in the desert.'

Lyla turned on her heel staring at the moonlit desert. `Do these other things have weapons?'

`Arrows, darts and spears.'

They set off, creeping from pinnacle to pinnacle and watching every shadow, but when Nutty growled a low warning they all froze.

Out from behind a pinnacle stepped four strange figures. At first glance they appeared to have two heads, one on top of the other. But, as the golden moon came out from behind a cloud, the children saw that they were just very thin beings, covered in mud and carrying large round baskets on top of their huge round heads.

The moonlight also lit up their ugly empty eye holes and gap-toothed mouths, and the tiny bows and quivers worn across their shoulders. The only clothing they wore was a strip of muddy material hanging from their belts.

Despite having no actual eyes, it seemed the creatures could somehow still see because they suddenly `saw' the children. They turned together, and in complete unison dropped their baskets, unhooked their bows, grabbed darts from their quivers and aimed.

`Mudmen attack!' Lem yelled. He raised his sword and ran straight at the mudmen. The other children followed.

The first arrow hit Celeste's bag. A second arrow missed Lem, and a third pierced Chad's thigh.

Lyla slammed into the mudman who'd shot Chad and knocked him back into his basket of eagle eggs, then grabbed his bow and snapped it in half.

A second mudman's damp, slippery arms slid around her waist and his clammy hands locked behind her back. Lyla struggled but could not break his grip, nor could she stop him and the first mudman from pulling her down into the sand. As her feet and legs disappeared, she yelled for help but Lem was wrestling with the third mudman who had an arm around Swift's neck

Chad was leaning back against the nearest pinnacle, swiping his sword back and forth at the fourth.

The small bodies of the mudmen attacking Lyla were under the sand and the sand was up to her shoulders by the time Celeste stabbed at the mudmen's hands and dragged her out.

With a faint sucking sound, the two mudmen disappeared beneath the sand.

Celeste and Lyla turned to help the others and saw Swift sinking into the sand.

Celeste leapt forward and stabbed at the muddy hands that held her cousin, while Lem and Lyla pulled Swift free. With another oozing sound, the two remaining mudmen disappeared under the sand.

Expecting to be dragged under with every step, Lyla and Lem carried Chad to a pinnacle with a sandstone base.

Lyla snapped the fletching off the arrow in Chad's leg and, although he didn't cry out, it must have hurt because his grip on Swift's hand was crushing.

The arrow had gone through the side of his thigh, but hadn't gone deep. Lyla warned him she had to push it all the way through and suggested he close his eyes and concentrate on breathing.

It hurt - a lot! But Lyla had it out before his scream woke the chicks nesting high in the pinnacle. Chad cried quietly into Celeste's shoulder, while Lyla slathered his wound with Wind Horse Rider's ointment and bandaged it with strips of her Raider's shirt.

Around them the three moons light turned the Boiling Desert to silver and the distant mud lake into a jet-black line. In the centre of the lake, with about a hand's width of desert around its fortified walls, stood the High Enchanter's Fortress of Storms.

`When did that appear?' whispered Celeste.

`While we were fighting the mudmen,' yawned Lem.

`Do you think it will be there in the morning?'

`Let's sleep, and we will find out when we wake up.'

The moment she woke, Celeste looked for the fortress. It was still there shrouded in the morning haze. Then she noticed that Chad was awake.

`How's your leg? Does it hurt? Can you walk?'

Chad assured all of them that his leg only hurt a little bit and that he could hobble as fast as they could walk, so they set off for the lake and the fortress.

They were hot and thirsty by the time they reached the dry, cracked-mud tide-line, and had drained their water bottles long before they stood by the lake's slurping, muddy edge.

Sticking out of the mud were two long rows of ornate post-tops.

Lyla tied her hair back to get it off her sticky hot face. `Could be a bridge.'

`It doesn't go anywhere except under the mud,' said Celeste, as she swapped sides with Lem to help support Chad. `And why hide a bridge that doesn't go anywhere?'

`Perhaps so people can only reach the Fortress of Storms at low tide,' Lem said, picking up Nutty.

Celeste looked at the Boiling Desert and then at the mud lake. `What people?'

`Mudmen, General Tulga, Raiders. How do I know?'

By middle day it was obvious Lyla was right. The lake receded to reveal a bridge that went all the way to two huge metal gates set low in the fortress's high walls.

They were halfway across the bridge, slipping and sliding on the mud that was left on it, when a black cloud appeared from behind the fortress walls. As they watched, the cloud circled the four towers then broke apart, transforming into hundreds of eagles.

`Well, now we know where the parent eagles are,' Chad joked weakly.

Flying wing tip to wing tip the eagles swooped so low over them that the children could see their piercing black eyes and sharp open beaks.

Suddenly an enormous bald-headed bird, with only one eye, landed spread-winged between them and the gates. In an instant, all the other eagles landed on the bridge, blocking it completely.

Lem, Lyla, Celeste and Swift loosened their swords as the lead eagle strutted towards them, flicking its head from side to side in a menacing war dance.

A flurry of wings overhead announced the arrival of another twelve eagles. These birds landed between the children and the one-eye leader. The angry caws of the new younger arrivals and those of the thwarted older birds were deafening.

`It's the eagles we rescued,' Lem shouted. `See the wire marks on their beaks. I think they're protecting us. Quick, push through the others and run to the gates. And make it quick! The lake is rising again.'

Celeste glanced back and saw that the desert end of the bridge was already covered. Her dry throat became even drier with fear. What if they were stuck out here, hanging onto the railings of the submerged bridge? What if the mud sucked them under and drowned them?