The Shepherd of Weeds (36 page)

ou may wonder why I’ve a
th
ed you here.” The subrector Snaith’s voice was singsongy before his large lecture hall. “Indeed, thank you all for coming!”

He stared out at the pale faces of the remaining students, the various disappointing subrectors he had corralled into his hall. He saw the pinched features of the failed Librarian, Malapert, beside the doddering old professor Breaux. One smallish girl in the front was crying quietly, and in this Snaith took great pleasure.

“I reali
th
e that thi
th
i
th
quite la
th
minute, but I’m afraid there’
th
been an error—a
th
mall over
th
ight. You
th
ee, I cannot po
th
ibly allow any of you to advan
th
e in thi
th
cour
th
e, to con
th
ider your
th
elf ta
th
ter
th
of any merit—product
th
of the e
th
teemed Guild—without fir
th
t ta
th
ting thi
th
—”

With a flourish of his scarlet-clad arm, he indicated a hulking blackened vat behind him, the contents of which had previously dripped from its bulbous rim and now sat hardened in unappetizing rivulets. The stench from the ink filled the hall. Carved into an archway above the terrible scene was the familiar phrase of the Tasters’ Credo:
Taste and Inform
, and it was with this slogan in mind that Snaith now commenced.

“Pen
th
il
th
, plea
th
e.” Snaith’s tone took on that of a lecture.

Few of the once-earnest students complied, and for the most part, the audience sat motionless, staring at the horrifying vat.

“What we have here today i
th
an ink compo
th
ed of the rare and imminently to
th
ic herb,
th
courge bracken. That
’th th-c-o-u-r-g-e, ath
in ruinou
th
plague. Do not con
th
ern your
th
elf if it i
th
unfamiliar—that i
th
why we are here today! It wa
th
, until quite re
th
ently, con
th
idered extinct. But we are in luck! And for that, we have our dear Director to thank. For today we will
th
ample thi
th
potent weed, and if you have paid attention to my lecture
th
, you
th
ould find your
th
elve
th
eminently prepared for thi
th
examination.”

Snaith approached a white-clothed table set with myriad goblets. His split tongue slipped from his mouth, wetting his lips. He donned a thick set of leather gloves and balanced a long ladle in his hands, his hunched back bulging. If he were to experience a moment of regret, it would be now, he reasoned, but, as the caustic ink dripped from ladle to goblet, he felt nothing but exhilaration.

Pivoting his ruined neck back to his class, he gestured at the row of waiting goblets. “Bottom
th
up! Oh, and pay no attention if it burn
th
on the way down.”

As Snaith busied himself with dispensing the poison, the lecture hall descended into a silence of the doomed. It was into this that his former apprentice Rue slipped silently from the shadows.

“Professor Snaith,” Rue called. Her hair was windblown from her journey upon Klair, and her body still frail from Mrs. Mulk’s, but her eyes were alight with fire.

He spun around, off balance.

“Ah,” he snarled. “Look who’
th
coming to dinner! If it i
th
n’t Rue Breaux.” Snaith’s smile was sinister. “I like you, Rue. I’ll kill you la
th
t.”

Six was nothing if not a patient cat, but his hunger was getting the better of him. The small hummingbird had done nothing to quell his appetite—especially now that he was so close to his prey.

Man flesh, the cat wanted. Having tasted man flesh, nothing else would satisfy him. And his patience was about to be rewarded. The girl who traveled with Ivy had left the door open a mere crack as she slipped through.

And a mere crack was all he needed.

The scent of the subrector Snaith wafted out the recessed door, mingling with the overriding mildew of the city—and drew Six nearer to the entrance. His padded feet made not a
sound as he prowled along the cobbles, pausing at the threshold beneath the symbol of the ox head. He nudged the door, relishing the aroma from within. And then, pushing through the small opening, the tattered cat found himself inside the inner sanctum—so near to Snaith he could almost taste him.

f Rowan’s encounter with Clothilde left him shaken, he soon recovered at the incredible sight with which she left him: the impenetrable gates of the Guild stood open and, framed starkly in the vast, jagged archway, the Army of Flowers just behind. Dawn was breaking in the distance, and in the small crack of pale sun, a wonderful thing was happening in the skies.

From the moors, the remaining caucus had regrouped and was bearing down on the battlefield—their dark shapes clustered together as if a squall. But this was no mere flock. They flew together tightly, a huge mass, while a panic spread through the vultures. The fiendish birds were turning away, to the dismay of the ink monkeys, their lumbering bodies barely able to keep aloft.

As the caucus drew nearer, Rowan saw why.

They had pulled together into a single form—a giant monster of a bird, its wings spanning the horizon. It was a whirlwind of chaos and feathers; the vast thing had great talons, which dangled far below into sharp curves, scratching the earth. Where the sharp curves left off, a few stragglers flew—mere specks in the sky.

The swirling, massive apparition drew up on the dark city, and the air was suddenly filled with the sound of wingbeats and the shrieking of the ink monkeys. As the sun rose unhurriedly behind the great flock, its yellowed rays slashed through its midst like flames.

A stormbird, Rowan thought.

He wrenched his eyes away from the dazzling scene with renewed determination. Grig was rolling through the hulking iron-studded doors of the city of Rocamadour before him. His cart jingled and clinked with industry, the canvas cover sewn everywhere with pockets meant for supplies, coils of rope of varying thicknesses and lengths neatly aligned on the vehicle’s front posts. His cluster of trestlemen, Crimble included, flanked his entry, defending against the few guards that greeted them with their broadaxes. The scarecrow army surged on by them, the few of Peps’s townsfolk rallying in their midst, brandishing ragtag weapons.

“Where are their forces? Their brutal weapons?” Grig shouted to Rowan, his eyes sparkling.

They were coming, Rowan knew. But Grig was still too far to call out his orders. He attempted a quick calculation. How many Outriders awaited them? Theirs were the secret nether regions of the city, deep and unknown. There was no telling how many men Verjouce had sent, tongueless, to those depths.

The corridor following the gate was a bottleneck of sorts, and the Army of Flowers was corralled within its walls. Twisted, cobbled streets led off it—a desperate place to take the fight. Looking up the high wall, Rowan saw it was unpatrolled. Not a single Outrider.
Clothilde
, he realized. She had somehow opened the doors for them and eliminated the upper guard. She had bought them some valuable time. All that greeted them was the resonant
clang
of the alarm, echoing off the slick stones and alleyways of Rocamadour.

The ink monkeys had recovered from their initial fright and were urging the hulking vultures upward, whipping them with their bone-tipped tails. They screamed at one another in displeasure and gnashed their teeth as they rose high in the air, the vultures teetering unsteadily with the sudden ascent.

There was a moment of silence, as before a cloud bursts open with thunder, and Rowan held his breath.

As he watched, the giant stormbird shattered into a million pieces as it fell upon the vultures midair. The noise was deafening. Tiny martins, hulking eagles, giddy magpies—all battled as one; the air rang with their shrill war cries. But the
foul ink monkeys were merciless, and Rowan’s heart sank as wounded birds began to rain about him.

But suddenly, confusion was everywhere. In an inexplicable moment, the hissing and screeching of the vicious monkeys ceased. Where the monkeys were but an instant ago—they quite simply were not. Their greasy hides and gruesome horn buds had vanished, their unsettling remains sifting about in small whorls of dried ink. A silken powder drifted down on the battlefield. For, unbeknownst to Rowan, in the spire, scourge bracken had found a new mistress—and as the fickle weed abandoned Vidal Verjouce, the ink monkeys, too, were forsaken.

Rowan stood upon the base of a lamppost, shouting orders.

There was no time for further thought—at any moment more of the Guild’s forces would answer the alarm and fall upon them.

Grig and his handful of trestlemen companions were to head to the spire in search of Axle. The remaining army would hold its position, keeping the gates open and fending off any further strikes.

Jumping down from the post, Rowan readied the cleavewood club he had taken from a fallen scarecrow. He turned to Grig and continued privately. “You won’t find Axle unguarded.”

The inventor smiled, patting a burlap sack of charcoals
and tidy packets of gallthorn. “Then we’ll smoke him out. And you, Master Truax?” Grig appraised his friend. “Where in this forsaken city are you off to?”

“The inkworks,” Rowan replied. “They must be destroyed.”

Grig nodded, desperately coiling a length of uncooperative rope from the side of his wagon.

“Take backup,” the trestleman advised.

Rowan shook his head. “There’s no one to spare.”

“Then take this—” Grig removed a plain, brown paper box from his jingling cart.

Rowan frowned.

“Pulverized staunchroot,” Grig explained. “From Ivy’s workshop.”

“Grig—” Rowan broke into a wide smile. “You’re a genius!”

Giving the inventor an admiring pat on the back, Rowan ran off. He was a graduate of the Guild. And just like the Director, he could find his way to the Warming Room blind.

he inkworks were vastly expanded since Rowan last set eyes on them with Ivy on their way to Pimcaux.

Coils of copper tubing, performing mad twists and studded with zigzagging rivets, crowded the upper reaches of the tall space, and beneath them a mayhem of industrial machinery was unleashed. He skidded to a halt.

The former taster oriented himself with the enormous set of bellows that breathed air upon a great fire pit, which in turn warmed immense vats of Lumpen’s water. The dreaded scourge bracken was brewed in these and in a series of smaller vessels that followed. Any steam that was produced was captured, and when it condensed, it was ushered into a drip hose and returned to the mix to be refined, capturing the volatile oils. A series of pumps pushed the clotted brew through to a
rasp and strainer and finally to a wooden screw press. Through a maze of receding glass pipes set upon glowing flames, the ink gradually darkened, becoming ever more concentrated, until it reached a minuscule funnel, which emptied its bitter contents into a tiny beaker. Here Dumbcane had a worktable erected. The ink was tested for potency and then sealed in a glass ampoule for the Director’s pleasure.