The Winter Knights (27 page)

And so he'd started his metal spinning. His friend Raffix, the gangly Upper Hall squire, had encouraged him, often coming down to the forge late in the night and staying on until almost dawn, working the furnace bellows, and laughing and joking to keep his spirits up.

The heat of the furnace seared Stope's face as he forced himself to keep his eyes focused on its fiery heart. Six … seven … eight loops, he counted off. And now …

He leaped back from the furnace and swept the long-handled tongs round in a fiery arc, down into the quenching-trough. A loud hiss was followed by billowing clouds of acrid steam as Stope tore off his forge hood and stared down into the bubbling water. There, cooling from glowing white, to bright yellow, to intense coppery red, was an intricate cage of spun metal.

Stope held it up to the early dawn light that was now streaming in through the high, narrow windows of the forge. The metal cage glinted and glistened. A small opening secured by tiny silver hinges and a gold clasp, and it would be complete. Stope smiled delightedly. He couldn't wait to show Raffix.

He turned the cage round in the light. ‘A fire float,’ he whispered.

iv
The Loftus Observatory

‘What was that?’ the Professor of Light murmured distractedly to himself.

He looked up from the great telescope and peered round the shadowy observatory tower. He'd heard something, he was sure of it … But maybe it was just his imagination. That was what came of spending too long staring into Open Sky.

He'd been busy scouring the heavens for some sign of poor Hemphix Root, the latest knight academic to be dispatched to the Twilight Woods in search of stormphrax. He shook his head sadly. The sky ship had turned turvey almost at once, and been blown away into Open Sky before Hemphix had had a chance to abandon ship and parawing himself to safety.

Another brave young knight academic lost, and for what?

‘To satisfy the crazed fantasies of Hax Vostillix,’ the professor muttered to himself.

So far as he was concerned, there hadn't even been a hint of sourmist in the wind. But Hax wouldn't listen, and as head of the Knights Academy, it was
his
decision – not even the twin Most High Academes could overrule him.

‘Madness, utter madness,’ the professor grumbled as he climbed to his feet and made his way down the ladder to the Observatory Chamber below.

The moment he stepped down from the final rung, he noticed that something was wrong. There was a cold draught; a banging noise … He turned to see that one of the four glass-panelled doors, each of which led out onto individual gantry platforms, was flapping open.

‘How did that happen?’ he wondered out loud, and tutted with irritation. ‘Must be my other half getting careless in his old age again.’

He crossed to the door, still muttering under his breath about the Professor of Darkness, and pushed it to. There was, he discovered, something the matter with the lock – as though it had been forced – and he had to push the door firmly in order to lock it. As he did so, his feet slipped on several metal bolts lying on the floor, which skittered away into the shadows.

‘What's the old fool up to, leaving his bits and pieces lying about?’ he said, turning away. ‘I could have slipped and broken my neck!’

Outside, the blizzard was closing in once more, with the wind blowing more ferociously that ever. The gantry platform creaked and shuddered. And, as the professor made his way slowly and carefully down the spiral flight of stairs, he grumbled to himself, unaware of the curious double echo his footsteps made, as if there were four, not two, feet on the stone steps.

•CHAPTER SEVENTEEN•
HAX

i
The Captain of the Gatekeepers

W
ith a flourish of his thick cape – fur-trimmed and emblazoned with the red logworm insignia – Daxiel Xaxis shoved the tall arched doors of the Hall of Grey Cloud open and strutted inside. It was bitterly cold in the cavernous hall.

Since there was no timber to spare Daxiel had ordered that the braziers be left unlit. ‘The prowlgrins are here to work, not to be pampered,’ he'd snarled when the head stable-hand had objected. ‘Take this rabble,’ he'd added, pointing to the grooms, ostlers, stable-hands and byre-gillies, who were busy tending the roost pillars, ‘and assign them to the treadmills!’ Reluctantly, all the servants in the Hall of Grey Cloud had obeyed their new master.

It wasn't long before the warm, earthy, slightly musky smell of the stables had been replaced with a sour, eye-watering stench - a mixture of rotten offal, rancid fat, and old straw, putrid with prowlgrin droppings. Daxiel Xaxis, Captain of the Gatekeepers of the Knights Academy, never seemed to notice the smell, however. He strode through the hall now, head up and eyes narrowed, inspecting the roost pillars above.

‘What's that skewbald doing up there when there's work to be done?’ he demanded of a young stable-hand, nodding towards a brown and white prowlgrin perched on a low branch of a roost pillar.

‘It's lame, sir,’ came the reply. ‘Damaged its left leg on the treadmill last week, it did.’

Xaxis rounded angrily on the trembling stable-hand. ‘Last week!’ he stormed. ‘How many times do I have to tell you people? If they can't work, they're dead meat. Understand?’

‘Y … yes, sir,’ the stable-hand replied, on the verge of tears.

It had been so different in the old days, when Hall Master Fenviel Ve n d i x had been in charge. Strict and stern he might have been, but it wasn't unknown for Fenviel to stay up for nights at a time tending a lame prowlgrin personally. When Daxiel Xaxis and his gatekeepers had taken over, Hax Vostillix had given them one order, and one order only. ‘Keep the treadmills turning, day and night!’

Before long, the neverending labour at the East and West Landings had taken a terrible toll on the prowl-grins of the Hall of Grey Cloud, and the rigid order of the roost pillars had broken down completely. If it was to maintain a perch, every prowlgrin now had no option but to work hard, day in, day out – and the ever-growing number of gatekeepers in the hall, with their logworm tunics and freshly forged weapons, made sure that they did so.

There were no more ‘retirement’ pillars for those creatures who had served Sanctaphrax, no matter how well. Any old or sick prowlgrins were simply slaughtered, becoming stew or glue, depending on their age. Neither were there sire-roosts or brood-roosts any longer. There was no time to raise and nurture pups, ensuring they grew strong and healthy, to replace the losses. Instead, to maintain numbers, prowlgrins were supplied by the leaguesmen in Undertown, who made a healthy profit from the flocks of sickly malnourished specimens they shipped up from their stinking hatching pens.

And as for the magnificent knights’ pillar roost, since the original thirteen highly trained pedigree prowlgrins had departed on their ill-fated voyages, their places had been taken by increasingly young and skittish creatures, as ill at ease as their young masters.

Acknowledging the salutes of a cluster of newly-recruited gatekeepers, Xaxis left the great hall through a low arched doorway and marched briskly up the stairs on the other side. It had been a long and trying day. As if secretly building up his army of gatekeepers and getting the furnace masters to equip them with the weapons they needed wasn't enough, Daxiel had also had to run after Hax Vostillix from the moment he'd got up.

With each failed stormchasing launch, Hax felt less and less secure, and now insisted that his Captain of the Gatekeepers stayed at his side at all times. It was tiring, and a bore, Daxiel thought, especially when he had his own plans to attend to …

He hurried along the corridor, seized the gold handle of his blackwood door and burst into his chamber, only to be confronted by the looming figure of a leaguesman standing by the window with his back towards him. At the sound of the door slamming shut, the intruder spun round.

His face was red and sweaty, and he was wearing clothes which, though opulent, were clearly old and worn, as if the owner couldn't bring himself to replace them. The embroidered patterns on the quilted jacket were of the finest silver thread, carefully patched in numerous places, while the ruffs at his neck and cuffs were flamboyant, but frayed.

‘What are
you
doing here, Heft?’ Xaxis demanded, his hand moving automatically to the handle of his sword. ‘I thought I told you not to come to the academy. It looks suspicious if you keep turning up …’

‘I wouldn't have to,' said Heft Vespius, his whiny voice laced with a hint of menace, ‘if you kept your side of the bargain. I've found you new gatekeepers - the meanest, toughest, fiercest tavern brawlers that Undertown has to offer. And it wasn't easy, I can tell you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Now I want to be gangmaster of the East and West Landings, just like we agreed.’

‘It's not that easy, Heft,’ said Xaxis smoothly. ‘You know that. This isn't Undertown, where the leagues can throw their weight around with impunity’

He joined the fat leaguesman at the window and stared out at the snow-capped towers and spires outside.

‘In Sanctaphrax, you need to watch and wait, flatter and deceive, calculate just the right moment, then …’ He raised a gloved fist. ‘Strike!’

Daxiel slammed the fist into Heft's flabby midriff.

‘
Ooophh!
’ Heft doubled up in pain and collapsed at Daxiel's feet.

‘Perhaps you'll listen in future when I tell you not to come here – especially now of all times …’

‘Why … now …?’ gasped Heft, turning a red, fear-filled face up towards the Captain of the Gatekeepers.

‘Because, my fat friend,’ said Daxiel, with an evil sneer, ‘the academics-at-arms are getting suspicious. That jumped-up little swordmaster is looking for any excuse to demand that Hax Vostillix disband the gatekeepers, and if the Captain of the Gatekeepers is seen meeting leaguesmen in his chambers, it's just the excuse he needs.’ Daxiel held out his hand and smiled grimly. ‘But let's not quarrel,’ he said.

Heft gingerly took the captain's outstretched hand and pulled himself sheepishly to his feet.

‘If you could just see your way to having a word with Hax. Get him to make me the gangmaster,’ he said in his whiny voice, ‘like you promised …’