The Last of the Sky Pirates (29 page)

He steered his skycraft expertly round a great lullabee tree and on low over the jagged thickets of razorthorn beyond, his heart racing with the excitement of it all. He could hardly believe it; so soon after his final flight as an apprentice, here he was with the great Varis Lodd and his best friend, Knuckle the slaughterer, flying through the Deepwoods on a raid!

Darting swiftly and silently through the dappled light of the forest, the three skycraft – the
Windhawk
,
Woodwasp
and
Stormhornet
– kept low in amongst the towering trees. Rook’s hands played with the rope-handles, coaxing the skycraft this way and that, up, down and from side to side. It was difficult flying, demanding his constant attention.

Every so often – more from nervousness than necessity – his hand would pat his flight-suit, checking that all the unfamiliar items of flight paraphernalia were still in place: his grappling-hook and a coil of rope; his water-flask and – Sky and Earth forbid he should ever need it – his lufwood box, courtesy of Tweezel the spindlebug, with its bandages, potions and salves. On his chest he wore his telescope, compass and scales; at his side, his knife, Felix’s ornate sword and, slung through a leather loop on his belt, one of the small razor-sharp axes carried by all skycraft pilots. Now he felt like a real librarian knight, equipped for any eventuality. If only the uneasy fluttering in the pit of his stomach would go away.

Dense forest ahead
, Varis Lodd signalled to her two companions and, as one, she, Knuckle and Rook soared up high into the air and burst through the forest canopy.

Rook gasped with wonder as the tops of the trees spread out all round him. He stood up in his carved stirrups and, with the warm wind in his face, gave the
Stormhornet
full sail. The skycraft trembled for a moment before throwing Rook back in his seat and leaping forwards.

Stay low
, Varis signalled silently. It was important that they weren’t spotted.

Rook pulled at the looped pinner-rope. The
Stormhornet
swooped down obediently, and skimmed over the top of the watery forest, just like its yellow and red striped namesake that Rook had watched skimming the surface of the lake. How long ago that seemed now. Rook’s thoughts began to wander.

He went back to the previous evening when, just as he had been about to turn in for the night, he had heard a light
tap-tap-tap
on the door of his sleeping cabin. It was Varis Lodd, her flight-suit fully equipped and a loaded crossbow at her side.

‘Come with me,’ she’d said. ‘I have something to tell you.’

He had followed her down to Lake Landing, where Knuckle was waiting for them, twirling his lasso. Below them, the dark, turbulent waters of the lake surged and swelled; above, dark, boiling clouds tumbled in from the west. Varis had turned to address them both, her face sombre, her voice trembling with emotion. Rook had never seen her so upset.

‘Your young friend, Xanth, approached me this evening,’ she began. ‘Since his injury, he’s made himself useful by, shall we say, gathering information.’

‘Spying?’ said Rook, faintly shocked.

‘You could call it that,’ said Varis. ‘In our war against the Guardians of Night and their allies, we need to be vigilant. Anyway, young Xanth had disturbing news.’

‘Go on,’ said Knuckle, letting the rope fall.

‘Slavery has returned to the Foundry Glade.’

Knuckle shook his head bitterly. ‘Will the Foundry Master never learn?’

Varis put a hand on the slaughterer’s shoulder. ‘Like you, Knuckle here lost his family to slave-takers,’ she said to Rook. ‘We thought we’d taught them and their goblin allies a lesson last time we raided, but it seems they’re back to their old ways.’

‘These slaves,’ Rook remembered asking, ‘are they slaughterers? Gnokgoblins?’

And Varis had shaken her head. ‘They’re …’ She had turned to Rook, her eyes filled with a mixture of anger and sorrow.

‘What?’

‘Banderbears, Rook,’ she had said. ‘Banderbears.’

The
Stormhornet
juddered as the memory of Varis’s words made his fingers tremble. Banderbears! How could anyone enslave such mighty, noble creatures? The very thought of it made his blood boil. Yet that is exactly what Hemuel Spume, the Foundry Master, had done. What kind of an individual must he be to keep banderbears in chains?

‘You love banderbears as much as I do,’ Varis had said. ‘I knew you’d want to help rescue them.’

‘And Stob and Magda?’ Rook had asked.

Varis had shaken her head. ‘The fewer the better on this sort of raid,’ she’d said. ‘And you two are the best flyers in the Free Glades.’ She had paused. ‘If you’re with me, we’ll need to fly into the Foundry Glade under the noses of Spume’s goblin guards, release the bander-bears from their slave-hut and get away before we’re discovered. It won’t be easy’

‘We’re with you,’ Rook and Knuckle had both replied at the same time. It was then that Rook had first felt the fluttering in the pit of his stomach.

As the sun darkened and slid down towards the horizon, Rook felt the wind getting up once again. He trimmed his nether-sail and tightened his grip on the pinner-rope. Although the stiffening breeze would make their flight much quicker, it also made the skycraft skittish and wilful.

There it is
, Knuckle signalled, signing the words quickly, thumb and forefinger coming together to form the unmistakable signal for
glade
.

Rook looked ahead. Far in the distance, he saw thick black smoke belching out of the tall foundry chimneys and staining the sky above with a dark smudge of filth. His heart missed a beat.

Tack down!
Varis signalled urgently, the
Windhawk
darting back down into the forest.

Rook shifted the rope-handles, bringing in the nether-sail and letting out the loft-sail while, at the same time,
shifting his balance in the stirrups and slowly raising the pinner-rope. He chewed his lower lip nervously. The
Stormhornet
dipped forwards and dived down through a break in the canopy of leaves. As it entered the protected shadowy half-light below, the wind immediately dropped and the delicate craft trembled and dropped. Rook’s fingers darted round the ropes and levers. The skycraft righted itself and swooped on.

Varis flashed a quick signal –
Outstanding flying, Rook!
– and smiled.

Rook found himself grinning broadly then flushed as blood rushed to his cheeks. He felt suddenly so proud that the great Varis Lodd should compliment him on his skill. He patted the
Stormhornet
’s prow. ‘Well done,’ he whispered.

The light began to fail as they journeyed on. Time and again, Rook had to swerve to avoid the trees and their great spreading branches which suddenly loomed up out of the gloom before him. Just ahead, he noticed an oily yellow light glowing between the trees.

Follow me, both of you
, Varis signalled over her shoulder.

She flew steeply upwards and landed silently on the broad branch of a huge, ancient ironwood tree. Rook and Knuckle came down beside her. Varis signalled to the other two and pointed towards the source of the light ahead.

Rook unhooked his telescope and raised it to one eye. Peering through the overhanging branches, he studied the glade before him. Vast, sick, scarred, the clearing was
like a great festering scab on the surface of the forest. It stank of sulphur, of pitch, of molten metal. It echoed to the percussive sounds of hammers clanking and wood being chopped; to the roar of the furnaces, to the whipcrack and barked commands of the goblin taskmasters, and the synchronized crunch of spades and pickaxes digging deep down into the ore-pits.

Beneath it all, like a dark mournful choir, was the sonorous groaning of the labouring goblins. Rook trembled. What those poor, miserable creatures must be suffering to produce so terrible a sound …

Just then, cutting across the cacophony of heavy toil and deep despair, there came a long creak, followed by a dull thud. Rook swung his telescope round. A cloud of dust, billowing up at the edge of the great clearing, settled to reveal the latest felled tree lying on the ground where it had crashed down. Already, a team of goblins were scampering over its immense trunk, stripping it bare.

The beautiful forest!
Rook signed.

Hemuel Spume
, Varis signalled back, and drew a finger in a cutting motion across her throat.

Rook nodded.

Apart from the ash-heaps and earth-mounds which erupted from the bare earth like boils, there were also mountains of stripped logs, each one serving one of the foundries. Teams of stooped, bony goblins – their hooded robes tattered and their skin ingrained with years of grime – were removing the logs, one after the other, and dragging them with ropes and hooks towards the foundries, and inside. Work-team after work-team, log after log – yet the tall, unsteady heaps never diminished in size, for no sooner was one tree-trunk removed, than it was replaced by another, newly felled, as the cancerous glade ate further and further into the surrounding forest.

Where are the banderbears?
Rook signed, shoulders shrugging.

Knuckle tapped him on the shoulder and pointed.

A banderbear! Heart beating excitedly, Rook shifted his telescope round and homed in on the banderbear emerging from the bottom of the tall, bulbous foundry to his left. The sight shocked him to the marrow in his bones.

The poor creature, with its jutting ribs and sunken cheeks, looked half-starved. Its mossy fur was singed and lustreless; all over its hunched, cringing body, bare patches of red-raw skin showed through. Shackled at its ankles and wrists, the banderbear was being escorted by two goblins, each one armed with a long, heavy stick – which they used often and with obvious relish. The banderbear took the blows, neither reacting nor resisting. And as Rook watched it
slowly shuffling on towards the slave-hut, he realized that the creature’s spirit had been crushed.

Five more banderbears appeared, one from each of the foundries. If anything, their condition was even worse than the first. None of them seemed able to move any faster, despite the vicious blows and angry oaths that rained down on them. One was limping badly. Another had an angry weeping burn on its shoulder. All of them were shivering violently, freezing cold now after their hours spent in the blistering heat.

Rook turned to Varis. Her eyes were blazing; her jaw clenched and unclenched. She gripped her crossbow in both hands. Rook – his pity turned to anger – felt for the dagger and sword at his belt, then looked back at the glade.

As he watched, the banderbears were led into the slave-hut and chained to the central pillars within. Despite the roof, the open-sided building offered no shelter from the biting wind, and the six shackled banderbears huddled together for warmth at the centre of the mattress of filthy straw, mute and trembling, their eyes lifeless and dull.

Rook scanned the glade through the telescope. It seemed almost empty. With the banderbears no longer stoking the furnaces, the foundries had fallen idle, and the last of the ore-workers, tree-fellers and log-pullers were disappearing inside their long-huts. The goblin guards followed them, laughing and joking.