Midnight Over Sanctaphrax (22 page)

Vulpoon spun round, his face a picture of horrified shock. ‘You!’ he blurted out. ‘What are you doing here? Where are Teasel and Korb?’

‘Sleeping soundly,’ said Twig, a smile playing over his lips.

‘But this is an outrage!’ the captain roared. His eyes bulged. His face turned crimson in the purple light. ‘You're meant to be …’

‘Asleep?’ said Twig. He drew his sword. ‘Bound and gagged? All trussed up for market?’ He began to circle the captain.

‘I … You … It's …’ Thunderbolt Vulpoon blustered. ‘And that's
my
jacket you're wearing!’ he shrieked.
‘
GRIMLOCK
!
SEE TO THEM
!’

Grimlock blundered forwards.

Twig calmly ran his hand up and down the jacket, his fingers hovering over the jewels. ‘See, Grimlock,’ he said.

Grimlock halted in his tracks. ‘Pretty clothes,’ he said, his eyes lighting up.

‘Grimlock!’ bellowed Vulpoon furiously.

But Grimlock did not hear him. Mesmerized by the dazzling beauty of the wondrous jacket, he drooled.

‘It could be yours, Grimlock,’ Twig said. ‘All yours.’ He slowly slipped an arm out of a sleeve and let the jacket drop down his shoulder. ‘Would you like it, Grimlock?’ he said. ‘Shall I give you the pretty jacket? Shall I?’

Grimlock's eyes widened with confusion. He looked at the captain. He looked at the jacket. His brow furrowed. Twig slipped off the second sleeve and held the jacket in his left hand.

‘Grimlock, obey!’ Vulpoon screamed. ‘Do as you're told!’

A smile spread over Grimlock's clodden features. He
took a step forwards. Twig held the jacket out. ‘Take it,’ he said.

Grimlock reached out, snatched the jacket and slipped his arms down inside the sleeves. ‘Pretty jacket!’ he said, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Grimlock pretty!’

Twig pointed his sword at Vulpoon. ‘It would have taken so little to ensure the loyalty of your crew,’ he said. ‘And after all, you have so much.’ He turned away in disgust. ‘Remove his keys and tie him up, Cowlquape.’

‘Please, please,’ the captain pleaded. ‘No, don't do that, I implore you. I didn't mean anything. Really … It was all a misunderstanding …
Please!’

Twig grimaced. ‘And gag him, Cowlquape!’ he said. ‘I'll listen to no more of this creature's spineless whining.’

While Cowlquape bound and gagged the former captain of the
Skyraider,
Twig took to the helm and raised his telescope to his eye. Far in the distance and slightly to starboard, a patch of the unending Deepwoods seemed to be glowing with an oily yellow light. He focused the glass.

‘We've found it, Cowlquape,’ he breathed. ‘We've found the Great Shryke Slave Market.’

With nimble fingers, Twig raised the mainsail a fraction, realigned the studsail and lowered the port hull-weights. The great sky ship swung gently round until the faint, but growing, yellow glow was directly before them. He raised the port hull-weight, lowered the stern-weight and shifted the rudder-wheel a tad to starboard. The
Skyraider
was on course.

Cowlquape joined Twig at the helm and, as the slave market drew ever closer, the pair of them were overwhelmed by the sounds, the smells, the sights emanating from the curious agglomeration of life stretching over a vast area of the forest. For if the places the market had left behind were dead, then this - this raucous, pungent, seething mass of activity - was more vibrant than any place either of them had ever experienced before.

A thousand odours filled the air: pine-smoke and pole-weasel perfume, mothballs and woodgrog, and hammelhorns spit-roasting over roaring flames. Below it all, however - noticeable only when the currents shifted the more pleasant scents away - was the omnipresent

stench of rotting, of decay: of death.

Cowlquape shuddered involuntarily.

Twig turned to him. ‘You're right to be apprehensive,’ he said. ‘For all its glitter and dazzle, the Great Shryke Slave Market is a terrible place. It claims for itself the unwary, the foolish …’ He placed his hand reassuringly on Cowlquape's shoulder. ‘But not us, Cowlquape,’ he said. ‘We shall not fall into its clutches.’

‘A thousand strides, and closing,’ the look-out called down from the caternest.

Twig readjusted the hull-weights and shifted all the sail-levers down a fraction. The sky ship glided downwards through the sky.

‘Five hundred strides!’ the look-out announced. ‘Landing-stage on the port bow.’

Cowlquape squinted ahead. In front of them he saw an aerial jetty, jutting out from the top of a stripped tree. At the far end, closest to them, stood one of the bird-creatures: a stocky individual with dowdy feathers and a beak and claws which glinted in the purple light of the flare it was waving as it guided them in. Cowlquape swallowed.

‘A shryke,’ he murmured softly.

Twig raised the neben-hull-weights and lowered the stern-weight. The sky ship slowed and dipped. He lowered the sails, one by one: the flight-rock would do the rest.

‘One hundred strides!’

As if in response to the look-out's cry, Jervis and a gangly individual with a markedly twisted spine - Stile the ship's cook, Cowlquape presumed - appeared on the deck. They looked round, eyes wide, mouths open. The sky ship docked.

There were the passengers, sailing the ship. Grimlock was primping and preening by the bowsprit in a frock-coat. And the captain was trussed up on the floor …

‘What in Sky … ?’ Jervis muttered.

Just then, there was a loud thud behind them as the end of the gangplank dropped down onto the stern. Twig and the others turned to see a dozen or more of the formidable shrykes marching across the board and advancing towards them.

‘What have you got to trade?’ their leader - a stout
bird-creature with multi-coloured beads plaited into her drab, tawny feathers - asked as she reached the bridge.

‘Not much, I'm afraid,’ said Twig. ‘Bit of a mix-up in Undertown. We ended up carrying hammelhorns instead of slaves.’

The shryke narrowed her cold, glinting eyes and tilted her head to one side. ‘Do you mean to tell me there are only free citizens on board?’ she squawked indignantly.

‘Except for one,’ said Twig. He prodded Captain Vulpoon in the back with his foot and smiled at the shryke. ‘A prime specimen,’ he said. ‘Links with academics, or so I understand.’

‘Really?’ said the shryke, her neck feathers ruffling up. She turned to her second in command. ‘The roost-mother might be interested.’

‘My thoughts entirely,’ said Twig.

‘How much are you asking?’ asking the shryke.

Twig's head spun. ‘A hundred and fifty,’ he said, plucking a figure from the air.

The shryke's eyes narrowed. ‘Roundels or docklets?’ she demanded.

‘R … roundels,’ said Twig. The shryke tutted and turned away. ‘I mean, docklets. A hundred and fifty docklets.’ He smiled. ‘I'm sure Mother Muleclaw won't be able to resist getting her claws into him.’

The shryke hesitated for a moment. Then, she turned back and stared at Twig with one yellow eye. ‘The price is still high,’ she said. ‘But… it's a deal.’

The crew of the
Skyraider
gathered on the main deck all gave a cheer as the shryke grasped the bundle before
her. Captain Thunderbolt Vulpoon had treated them all like slaves. There were no tears for the avaricious tyrant as - wriggling like a barkslug - he was hefted up onto the feathery shoulders of his captors and carried away.

‘Mffll bwfll blmmfl’
His muffled oaths were lost to the

The same to you!’ Jervis called after him. ‘And good riddance,’ He turned to Twig. ‘What's to become of us now, though?’

‘Of you?’ said Twig. ‘You're all free. You can do what you want, go where you want… Back to Undertown for a start, then who knows?’

‘Please, young master, take us back,’ pleaded Jervis, his gnarled hands reaching out and clutching Twig's. ‘We need a captain if we are to sail the ship.’

‘No, I…’ Twig muttered. ‘It's not possible. We … that is, Cowlquape and I have business to attend to …’

Cowlquape leant across, raised his hands and whispered in his ear. ‘The cargo, Twig. Don't forget the cargo.’

‘Don't worry, Cowlquape. I haven't forgotten,’ said Twig. He raised his head and addressed the motley crew before him. ‘When I said “you're all free,” I meant it.
All
those on board the
Skyraider
- each and every one - are free.’

‘You mean … ?’ Jervis began. ‘The … the slaves?’

‘Yes, old-timer,’ said Twig. ‘Those you helped to waylay and transport to this terrible place are as free as yourself. And I warrant that there'll be creatures amongst them who have some skill in skysailing.’ He turned to his young apprentice. ‘Come, Cowlquape. Let us go and release Vulpoon's prisoners.’

Cowlquape followed Twig back below deck, and down deep into the dark bowels of the sky ship. He couldn't help but feel a warm glow of pride inside him. Twig could simply have walked from the
Skyraider
and left its occupants to their fate. But no. Even now, though they were on a quest to search for Twig's lost crew, the young captain could still spare the time to assist others. Cowlquape remembered his dream, and winced with embarrassment. If anyone was fit to wear the mantle of Kobold the Wise it was the young captain, not himself.

As they clattered down the final flight of stairs - their boots echoing on the bare boards, the air, fetid and foul, chinks of light penetrating the gloom from broken hull planks - a cry went up from the chained prisoners. With a shudder, Cowlquape recognized the sound he'd heard earlier.

Is there someone there?’ they shouted. ‘Water! Water!’ ‘Something to eat.’ ‘Korb! Korb, is that you?’ ‘Have mercy on us, I beg you!’

Twig shook his head. There was no knowing when the poor wretches had last eaten or drunk anything and Twig's blood boiled at the monstrous injustice of it all. He strode towards the door, took the ring of keys from Cowlquape, selected the largest and pushed it into the keyhole. The key scraped in the lock like an angry rat-bird. Inside, the voices fell still.

‘Pfwooahl’
Cowlquape gasped as Twig pushed the door open and a blast of foul air struck him full in the face.

‘Hide your revulsion,’ Twig whispered back at him. ‘It is not the prisoners’ fault that their conditions are so disgusting.’ He stepped inside. ‘It is the greed that led to their imprisonment that is to blame for this foul place.’

A raucous clamouring immediately began. ‘Where's Korb?’ ‘Where's our food and water?’ ‘What's going on?’ ‘Why aren't we sailing any more?’

Twig looked around at the miserable assembly of flat-heads and gnokgoblins, cloddertrogs and woodtrolls, and raised his hands for quiet.

‘Friends, your ordeal is over!’ he called. ‘The
Skyraider
is to return to Undertown! And you will travel with it, to be reunited with your families!’

The prisoners looked at one another in confusion.

‘You are going home!’ Twig announced. He raised the ring of keys above his head and shook them. ‘As free citizens! You, and the crew that tyrant enslaved. There, will be no slaves at all on board this sky ship ever / again!’

For a moment, there was absolute silence. Then a flat-head goblin gave a mighty cheer, and the hold exploded in whoops and cries of tumultuous joy. The sky ship trembled and lurched as the trolls, trogs and goblins -their chains clanking - danced round with delight.