The Winter Knights (16 page)

Quint reached the roost pillar and hurriedly climbed it. All round him, he could see the roost branches of the other roost pillars filling up as the tired creatures leaped up to them with the last of their strength.

Soon, the flocks working on the giant treadmill on the East Landing would also return. The giant log burner suspended from that side of the rock balanced the effect of its counterpart, and consumed whole tree-trunks at the same prodigious rate. There would, however, be fewer prowlgrins returning from the East Landing, since a pair of giant tree fromps had been brought up from Undertown to aid them in their labours. Even so, with their arrival, the prowlgrin roosts would be full again.

‘Hello, Tash,’ grinned Quint as he patted his prowlgrin tenderly on its quivering nostrils. ‘Did you miss me? Time to stretch those legs of yours!’

He swung the tilderleather saddle onto his prowl-grin's back, and the creature gave a whinnying cry of excitement in reply.

Already the squeals and barks of the second group of returning prowlgrins could be heard approaching the hall. Their daily labours done, they were looking forward to their rest on the heated roost branches. In fact, it was the source of that heat – the braziers Fenviel had installed – that had given the Professors of Light and Darkness the idea for the giant log burners that now glowed day and night on either side of the great floating rock.

It wasn't, however, a permanent solution. It could never be, for the giant log burners needed huge quantities of timber to do their work – timber that had to be shipped in from the distant Deepwoods. And in this perilously cold weather, that was no easy task.

League ships (and the occasional sky ship of an enterprising sky pirate captain intent on undercutting the leagues’ prices) landed at the boom-docks constantly, where they unloaded their cargoes of timber logs. Lufwood and lullabee burned best, the latter filling the air with eerie strains of music, but the leaguesmen liked to carry the denser leadwood too, in an attempt to counter the extreme buoyancy of the chilled flight-rock. There were few accidents on the incoming journeys. The return flights, however, in the unloaded sky ships, were a different matter entirely, with several vessels losing control and soaring off into Open Sky.

From the boom-docks, the logs were transported on the backs of flat wagons. They were driven by mobgnomes and cloddertrogs, and drawn by teams of hammelhorns through the snowbound streets of Undertown to Anchor Chain Square. There, each day at dawn, the log burners were lowered and replenished before being winched up to resume their vital task.

Quint watched the latest returning prowlgrins climb wearily up to their perches, while the ostlers and stable-hands rushed about, delivering buckets of refreshing water and nourishing offal.

‘Come on, Tash,’ he urged, jumping into the saddle and twitching the reins. ‘Let's go and find Raffix before it gets too crowded to move.’

With a low growl, Quint's prowlgrin hopped down to the floor a dozen strides below. It landed soundlessly beside the glowing brazier and, at Quint's tugged command, headed towards the central roost pillar. There they met Raffix – who was sitting on the tall, dark brown prowlgrin that
he
had raised from a pup – and the pair of prowlgrins loped off on powerful legs to the far end of the hall, where high doors led to the Inner Courtyard.

Quint had thought that the hall itself was cold, despite the braziers, yet as he led his prowlgrin out through the doorway, the blistering icy air struck him like a vicious slap in the face. It was so cold it snatched his breath away, leaving his nostrils stinging and his eyes watering.

Bathed in moonlight and shrouded in the latest fall of snow, the Inner Courtyard resembled a vast blank barkscroll. On the far side, a row of tall posts ran along the curve of the West Wall, stopping just short of the low entrance to the Gates of Humility. At irregular intervals up the central trunk were thin horizontal branches of varying strength, which criss-crossed from one post to the next, creating a thicket of timber. These were the tilt trees, on which the abilities of the ablest prowlgrin and rider could be tested to the limit.

‘Catch us if you can, old chap!’ Raffix shouted, and urged his mount forward.

In an instant, prowlgrin and rider sped across the blanket of snow in huge bounds, leaving a spattering of churned-up footprints in their wake.

Quint leaned forward, braced his legs in the stirrups and gave two small twitches on the reins. Beneath him, he felt the force of the prowlgrin's mighty legs as it kicked off from the ground in a huge leap. The West Wall seemed to dip, then rise up like a flapping curtain as they sailed towards it, the air rushing past Quint's ears with an exhilarating roar.

Then, as suddenly as they had launched off, they landed again, softly yet firmly, on a gently yielding branch, and the sound of tinkling icicles filled the air. Just ahead, higher up in the branches, the black shape of Raffix's prowlgrin rose in the moonlit air.

‘Trust the leap!’ Fenviel Vendix's barked instructions sounded in Quint's head as he squeezed the flanks of his prowlgrin with his knees. In answer, it leaped forward and on through the maze of criss-cross branches, seeming hardly to touch them with its powerful yet sensitive feet. ‘But remember to duck!’

Whoosh!

A branch whizzed past, a hair's breadth from Quint's face. Then another, and another, as he rolled in the saddle, this way and that, like a giddy fighting fromp.

‘Oooph!’

On his prowlgrin's final leap, a jutting branch – supple as a sapling – sprang back and caught Quint full in the chest, plucking him from the saddle. Before he knew it, he was tumbling down to earth. His fall was broken by the maze of branches – each one grasping at him, only to bend back and pass him down to those below.

‘Oooph! Oooph! Ummph!’

He landed in a flurry of snow at the foot of the last tilt tree. Perched high in the branches above, his prowlgrin looked down at him, head on one side and a great plume of mist billowing up from its flared nostrils. The next moment, Raffix landed beside him, sitting upright in the saddle and with the reins of his prowlgrin held nonchalantly in one hand.

‘I say, bad luck, old chap! You almost made it that time. Very last tilt tree caught you out.’ He let out a cry of laughter and pointed to the wall beside Quint. There, half obscured by snow, were the Gates of Humility. ‘Back where you started, I see!’

‘Yes, yes, very funny,’ Quint said, scrambling to his feet and dusting the powdery snow from his tunic. ‘I just need a bit more practice.’

‘Well, you carry on, old chap,’ laughed Raffix, with a tug on his reins. ‘I'll save you a hammelhorn steak. Whether you eat it or apply it to your bruises is up to you!’

With that, he bounded back towards the Hall of Grey Cloud in a flurry of snow.

‘Here, Tash! Here, Tash,’ Quint called to the prowlgrin high in the tilt tree above him as loud as he dared.

Just then, from behind him, there came a heavy wheezing sound, accompanied by odd clicks and whirrs. Quint spun round. And there, looming above him, blotting out the moonlight and throwing him into shadow, was the figure of a knight academic in full armour, sitting astride a magnificent black prowlgrin. From behind the visor, Quint could see two glittering eyes boring into his own.

‘Explain yourself, squire!’ a deep voice boomed from inside the visor as the silvery moonlight created a halo round the helmeted head, so bright that it made Quint shield his eyes with trembling fingers.

‘I … I .…’ he began.

‘You called to that prowlgrin by name!’

‘Y… y … yes,’ admitted Quint, looking down at his feet. Above him, his prowlgrin gave a whinny.

‘You are aware, are you not, that naming a prowlgrin is the sole right of a knight academic-in-waiting?’

Quint nodded miserably. In front of him, the huge black prowlgrin stamped its foot as if to emphasize its master's point. On its bridle the name
Vanquix
was picked out in silver letters.

So this must be the great Screedius Tollinix himself, thought Quint, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Screedius Tollinix, the finest knight academic in the academy, as harsh on himself as he was on others.

‘It's just that I raised him from a pup, sir. He's always had this line of fur around his mouth. That's why I call him Tash, sir. But it's only a nickname …’

‘Silence!’ the voice behind the visor boomed. ‘Have they taught you nothing in the Lower Halls, squire? We are sky-scholars here. These creatures are of the earth. Naming is an honour we sky-scholars bestow on them only when they rise to the highest rank, to serve our purpose in sacred stormchasing! Anything else smacks of earth-scholarship. Do you understand?’

Quint nodded glumly.

A gauntleted hand reached up and snapped open the visor catch. Slowly, the visor rose and Quint found himself staring into a stern but by no means unkindly face.

‘You are young,’ Screedius said, his voice less angry now, ‘and you have admitted your mistake. But you must understand that prowlgrins here in our venerable academy exist only to serve us. We tolerate them because we need them. Even noble Vanquix here.’ He patted the black prowlgrin affectionately. ‘It is to the sky we look,’ Screedius continued, his intense eyes boring into Quint's. ‘To await the day when we are called to serve Sanctaphrax.’

‘You mean, stormchasing …’ Quint whispered.

The knight-in-waiting nodded. ‘Indeed, and there's a storm coming all right, young squire,’ he said. ‘I can feel it. Why else are we plagued by this eternal winter? There is a Great Storm brewing, perhaps even the Mother Storm herself. A storm that I've been waiting for all my life. I shall be ready and waiting for it as it passes overhead. And when I am chosen …’ He hesitated. ‘
If
I am chosen, then I shall not let Sanctaphrax down.’

There were twelve other knights academic-in-waiting in the towers that ringed the academy, but surely, Quint thought, Screedius would indeed be chosen. After all, everybody knew he was the finest of them all, didn't they? Quint looked into the knight's face. He seemed to have forgotten he was standing in front of him, for his eyes had a strange faraway look in them.

‘I shall chase the Great Storm,’ Screedius continued in a low voice, as if to himself, ‘penetrating to its still centre, and journey with it on into the heart of the Twilight Woods. There, at the moment the lightning strikes, I shall lower Vanquix and myself down from the stormchaser in our body-harness to recover the bolt of sacred storm-phrax, even as it buries itself in the forest floor. Then we shall return to Sanctaphrax in triumph …’

His face was flushed and his eyes burned with fiery intent.

‘I shall not fail. I
shall not fail!
’

With those words, Screedius Tollinix lowered his visor once more, tugged on Vanquix's reins, and the pair of them headed across the frozen courtyard. Back towards the lonely tower they went, high above the western end of the Upper Halls.

In the twelve adjacent towers, the other knights were also waiting, just like Screedius, to prove themselves, Quint thought. And perhaps, one day, he – Quintinius Verginix – would join them. If he did, then one thing was certain. He wanted the prowlgrin in the tilt tree above him to be by his side.

‘Here, boy!’ he called. ‘Here, boy!’

Three weeks later, Quint woke to the sound of the dawn gong with a strange sense of foreboding. It was as if his time in the Hall of Grey Cloud had been but a dream. Outside, the skies were heavy with dark grey stormclouds and a light snow shower was beginning to fall.

The other squires were also subdued that morning. Today was the last day in the Hall of Grey Cloud and the greatest test lay just ahead. Quint tried to clear his head of the vision of Hax Vostillix and the Hall of High Cloud. After all, he told himself later, as they all lined up to await the arrival of Fenviel Vendix, the Hall Master of Grey Cloud himself had seemed strict and frightening on that first day. Yet now, despite his stiff manner, Quint and all the other squires saw him almost as a friend.

All, that is, except Vilnix Pompolnius. For even though, at Raffix's prompting, Fenviel had tempered his punishments, Vilnix still hated the hall master with a passion.