The Last of the Sky Pirates (32 page)

‘This is it,’ Rook murmured happily, the fluttering back in the pit of his stomach as he skimmed the tops of the trees fringing the far side of the lake. Before him lay the vast, mysterious Deepwoods, rippling in the wind like an endless ocean.

As the leaves rushed past him in a blur of greens and blues, he imagined his completed treatise nestling beside Varis Lodd’s masterpiece, on the seventeenth buoyant lectern of the Blackwood Bridge, deep down in the Great Storm Chamber Library. He could see the bound leather volume with its gold lettering:
An Eyewitness Account of the Mythical Great Convocation of Banderbears …

Far off in the distance a flock of snowbirds wheeled up from the trees below and soared into the air, their white wings flashing brightly in the rising sun. Farther still, a rotsucker flapped across the hazy sky. Beneath it, clutched in its claws, the egg-shaped silhouette of a great caterbird cocoon swung back and forth.

Rook frowned as the immensity of the Deepwoods – and his task – struck him. He pushed all thoughts of the completed treatise from his head; this was no time for daydreaming. He had come a long way since that morning when Fenbrus Lodd, the High Librarian, had announced that he, Rook Barkwater, had been selected as a librarian knight elect. He had journeyed to Lake Landing. He had built the
Stormhornet
with his very own hands and learned to fly. Now, finally, he was setting forth on his treatise-voyage.

‘At last,’ he whispered, as he swooped down low over the leafy canopy. ‘Now it all begins.’

ain was falling as Rook stirred from his sleep. He was high up on a colossal branch of an ironwood tree. The canopy he’d rigged up in the branches above his head, before turning in the night before, had kept the worst of it off him. But his hammock and sleeping bag were damp, and would have to be aired later if they were not to end up mildewy and rank.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Rook got up. He yawned. He stretched. His breath came in wispy twists of mist. Shivering with cold, he lit the hanging copper stove, placed a small saucepan of water on its flickering, blue flame and went to check on the
Stormhornet
, tethered securely to one of the huge branch’s offshoots.

‘I trust you are well rested,’ he whispered to the little skycraft. ‘And not too wet to fly.’

He ran his fingers over its smooth, varnished prow, over each and every knotted rope and tethered sail. A
shower of tiny raindrops glistened as they fell from the silky material. He tightened the flight-weights. He greased the levers … Everything seemed to be in order.

Behind him, the water started to bubble.

Rook hurriedly rolled up his hammock and sleeping bag, folded away the waterproof canopy, and secured all three behind the
Stormhornet’s
saddle. Then, back at the hanging-stove, he removed the saucepan from the heat, carefully capped the flame and poured the boiling water into a mug. He stirred in three spoonfuls of dried charlock leaves and wrapped his hands around the piping-hot mug.

He looked out from his vantage point on the ironwood branch. The rain had all but stopped and the forest was beginning to fill with birdsong as the sheltering cheepwits and songteals emerged from their shadowy perches and leafy hollows. He heard a rustle of leaves, and looked down to see a family of woodfowl foraging for food far below.

Rook sighed. He, too, should eat – yet all he had left from the previous evening was a thick slice of baked loafsap, wrapped up neatly in a broad, waxy leaf.

As he opened the small green package, the musty odour of the pappy fruit filled his nostrils and, although his stomach rumbled hungrily, his appetite completely
disappeared. ‘Stop being so fussy,’ he told himself, biting off a large chunk and chewing gamely.

He knew from Varis Lodd’s woodlore lessons that the edible loafsap was both nutritious and filling. He knew also that it was unwise to set out on an empty stomach … But the fruit was so unpalatable! Rook took a sip of the charlock tea and swallowed the whole mouthful of claggy pulp in one go. He grimaced. ‘That’ll do,’ he said, tossing the half-eaten slice away. It landed with a soft
thud
. The woodfowl darted off in all directions, squawking with alarm.

Rook climbed to his feet, packed up the precious stove and untethered the
Stormhornet
. The sunlight pierced the thinning clouds and, shining down through the gaps in the trees, gleamed on the burnished green leather of his flight-suit. In the weeks that had passed since he’d first set off from Lake Landing the stiffness of the leather had gone, and the flight-suit had moulded itself to the shape of his body, fitting him now like an extra layer of skin.

Rook glanced round one last time to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. Then, shifting the sails and weights, and tugging on the pinner-rope, he launched the
Stormhornet
into the dappled, forest air. ‘Perhaps today,’ he whispered, just as he whispered every morning. His breath came in soft, puffy clouds. ‘Perhaps today will be the day’

Three months Rook had been journeying; three long, tiring months. By day, when not foraging for food and water, he would scour the Deepwoods for any tell-tale
signs of a banderbear – a woven sleeping nest, branches newly stripped of fruit, or heavy footprints in the soft, boggy places beside woodland springs. By night, he would rest up in the tall branches of the great trees, lying in his hammock and listening out for the curious yodelling of the creatures.

So far, he had heard them on three occasions. Each time, when he had risen the following morning, he had set off in the direction of their calls, his heart beating with anticipation. He still recalled the intense thrill he had felt in the Foundry Glade, when he saw those first banderbears. Now, he couldn’t wait to see more – free, healthy banderbears in their own habitat – but as the sun had moved across the sky and the shadows had lengthened, Rook had, each time, been forced to concede defeat. The elusive creatures were proving far more difficult to locate than he could ever have imagined.

Yet his journey had not consisted only of disappointments. There had been triumphs, too, along the way; achievements, discoveries – each one faithfully recorded in his treatise-log in his small, neat handwriting, and illustrated with detailed pictures and diagrams.

Today I came across deep, tell-tale scratches in the bark of an ancient lufwood tree where a banderbear had sharpened its claws. Some scratches looked fresh, others were covered with green moss, suggesting that the tree is a regular scratching-post. I am greatly encouraged
.

Four days he had camped high up at the top of a neighbouring lufwood, keeping constant watch. No
banderbear had appeared. On the morning of the fifth day he had packed up and, with a heavy heart, set off once more. That evening, having set up his hanging-stove and hammock, the
Stormhornet
tethered safely to a branch, he sharpened his stub of leadwood and recorded a new entry.

After abandoning the scratching-post, I flew all day. Just before midnight I spotted a small mound of oakgourd-peel beneath one of the tall, bell-shaped trees – surely the sign of a recently passing banderbear. My hopes were confirmed by the presence of a banderbear footprint. I sat up most of the night in a nearby ironwood tree, hoping the creature might return for the few fruits remaining
.

But again, the creature let him down. His journey continued bright and early the following morning.

The days began to blur into one another, with weeks turning to months, and still no sight of the shy, retiring creatures. Rook grew lean, yet strong; his senses razor-sharp. He got to know the Deepwoods increasingly well. Its changing moods. Its shifting character. The plants and trees and creatures that dwelt in its dark, mysterious shadows. What to eat and what to shun. Its sounds. Its smells. And at night, he would record the fauna and flora he encountered.

Today I discovered a woodbee hive. I was successful in smoking the swarm out with a branch of smouldering lullabee wood. The honey was delicious in the charlock tea, turning it a surprising blue colour, like the sky before a storm …

I have just witnessed a halitoad stunning a fromp with a blast of its noxious breath, seizing the creature in its long
,
sticky tongue and swallowing it whole. The hideous beast then swelled to twice its size, before letting go a revolting belch. I stayed well hidden for an hour …

It has been a week of violent thunderstorms. Once, while I was taking shelter, an ironwood close by was struck by lightning and burst into flames. I heard an odd ‘popping’ sound, which turned out to be the tree’s seedpods bursting open, and scattering their seeds far and wide. ‘In death there is life,’ as Tweezel would say. By Earth and Sky, the Deepwoods is a strange and wonderful place …

Today I witnessed something truly horrendous. Drawn towards it by the sound of desperate screeching and squealing, I came down in the air to see the unexpected spectacle of a hammelhorn, apparently in flight! Around its middle, gripping tightly, was a tarry-vine – the long, green, parasitic sidekick of the terrible bloodoak. The creature struggled, wriggled and writhed, but the tarry-vine was too strong for it. And when a second vine came to its aid, coiling round the hapless hammelhorn’s neck, the struggle was over. The vines pulled the creature through the forest towards the gaping maw at the top of the bloodoak’s thick, rubbery trunk. The ring of razor-sharp mandibles clattered loudly. With a sudden flick, the two vines released the hammelhorn, which dropped headfirst down inside the great flesh-eating tree. The creature’s muffled cries fell still. The vines turned red …

Rook lay the stubby twig of leadwood down. He was sitting cross-legged, high up in a spreading lullabee tree, his stove blazing, his hammock hanging absolutely motionless in the still, humid air. The moon shone down on his pinched, anxious-looking face. The hammelhorn
had reminded him of his fellow apprentice.

‘Are you safe, Stob?’ he whispered. ‘Have you found your coppertrees yet? Has your treatise work begun? Or …’ He swallowed, and fought hard against the choking emotion which rose in his throat.