The Winter Knights (33 page)

Just then, to the sound of breaking glass and splintering wood, the entrance to the dormitory closets burst open, and a high professor from the Upper Halls stepped out into the snow. His robes were torn and spattered with blood, and on his shoulders was a pair of quarms, skittering and squeaking. Behind him trooped the rest of the Upper Hall academics, their swords red with gatekeeper blood.

Dengreeve looked across and smiled broadly, his yellow tusks glinting. ‘Why, if it isn't my good friend, High Professor Fabius Dydex – and Squeak and Howler!’ He bowed low.

The high professor crossed the courtyard, his boots leaving bloody footprints in the snow. He looked about him.

‘The ravens will feed well tonight,’ he said with a grim smile. ‘And we've left a whole lot more of the traitorous wretches decorating the Central Staircase …’ Fabius wiped his swordstick on his tattered robes. ‘Though it was a hot fight, Dengreeve, I can tell you. There was more than one moment when I thought our time was up.’ He shook his head. ‘What
was
old Hax up to, allowing Xaxis to build up such an army here in the academy?’

Dengreeve walked over to the high professor and tickled one of the quarms affectionately under the chin.

‘Sky knows, Fabius,’ he growled. ‘But this is where it ends!’

Dengreeve motioned to the academics-at-arms to follow him and strode, grim-faced, across the snowy courtyard towards the high-arched door of the Hall of Grey Cloud. Fabius and the Upper Hall academics followed; white-faced squires grimly clutching their swords, shocked-looking high professors in bloodstained robes and young knights academic-in-waiting, their armour dented and stained.

Halting outside the hall, Dengreeve slammed his fist against the doors and roared, ‘Come out, Xaxis, and face the wrath of the Knights Academy!’

For a moment, there was complete silence, broken only by the squawks of the circling ravens overhead, and the faint coughs and barks of prowlgrins in the stables inside. Then without any warning the high-arched doors abruptly sprang open, unleashing a terrible, fetid stench that forced the academics-at-arms to step back and raise their hands to their faces.

And then it hit them …

A charge of crazed, whip-scarred, semi-starved prowlgrins, ridden by Daxiel Xaxis and his most fanatical lieutenants. And behind them, vast ranks of white-tunicked gatekeepers who'd been waiting silently in the Hall of Grey Cloud for the academics-at-arms to come out into the open.

Dengreeve was sent sprawling as the prowl-grins leaped over the academics-at-arms.

The tilt trees!’ shouted Fabius Dydex desperately. ‘Take cover in the tilt trees!’

He grasped Dengreeve, hauled him to his feet and set off across the courtyard at a run.

From all round them came screams and despairing cries as academics-at-arms, Upper Hall squires and professors alike fell beneath the surging onslaught of the mounted gatekeepers. While overhead, Daxiel and his prowlgrin riders picked off the swordmasters and knights academic with deadly bolts, taking care as they did so to keep well clear of their enemies’ flashing sword thrusts.

As they reached the comparative safety of the tilt trees, Fabius and Dengreeve threw themselves into the forest of poles and struts as crossbow bolts whistled about their ears. Gasping for breath, Dengreeve quickly assessed their situation.

It wasn't good.

Certainly the trees deflected the flights of the incoming bolts – but they also made it all but impossible for the academics to swing their swords. What was more, since the tilt trees had been designed especially for the prowl-grins to practise their battle-technique, it was surely only a matter of time before the mounted gatekeepers penetrated the forest from above.

As he looked round, Dengreeve realized that barely a hundred individuals from the Academy Barracks and Upper Halls had made it into the tilt trees – and most of them nimble young squires and fresh-faced academics-at-arms. Out in the courtyard, the bodies of their fallen comrades were staining the white snow red, while on the far side, the stream of gatekeepers pouring out of the Hall of High Cloud and encircling the tilt trees seemed endless. At their head, on a wild-eyed prowlgrin, Daxiel Xaxis punched the air in triumph, the leering grin all but hidden beneath his bandages.

‘The wrath of the Knights Academy, eh, Dengreeve?’ he taunted. ‘Now it is
your
turn to come and face the wrath of the gatekeepers!’

‘Sky blast the impudent wretch!’ growled Dengreeve, gripping his sword. ‘If he wants us so badly, he'll have to come in and get us, Fabius …’ He frowned. ‘Fabius?’

Dengreeve was startled by the look on his colleague's face. The high professor was staring out at the white and red expanse of courtyard between the tilt trees and the ranks of the gatekeepers – an expression of shock mixed with an unblinking intensity. On his shoulder, one of the quarms gave odd, bleating little cries. Dengreeve followed Fabius's gaze.

There, halfway between the gatekeepers and themselves, was the high professor's other quarm, a crossbow bolt through its tiny chest. As Dengreeve watched, it raised its small furry head and let out a cry of pain.

‘Squeak!’ Fabius Dydex breathed, so quietly that Dengreeve could barely hear him. ‘Don't worry, boy …’

‘Fabius, no!’ Dengreeve Yellowtusk said gruffly. ‘Don't be a fool!’

But the high professor did not hear him. With a guttural cry of rage, he sprang from the cover of the tilt trees and sped across the snow towards the dying quarm as fast as his bad leg would allow … only to fall heavily a moment later, twenty ironwood crossbow bolts peppering his body.

With a trembling hand, Fabius stretched out and touched the lifeless body of his tiny companion. Then, with a sigh, his head slumped forward into the snow, now red with his own blood.

Dengreeve Yellowtusk groaned and buried his head in his hands. It was all over. The Knights Academy – the finest school in all Sanctaphrax, and sole protector for everyone on the great floating rock – had fallen into the hands of Daxiel Xaxis!

All at once, from close by, there came a piercing scream. Dengreeve looked up. It had come from the Gates of Humility in the West Wall, just beside the tilt trees. The gate creaked open and a stooped figure shuffled out into the courtyard and rose slowly from its knees. In one mighty, tattooed fist was a terrified gatekeeper, held by the scruff of the neck; in the other was the great curved sword of a flat-head goblin warrior.

Sigbord, Captain of the Treasury Guard, surveyed the massed ranks of the gatekeepers from beneath the massive ridge of his brows. The scars on his face showed evidence of his recent torture.

‘Throw down your weapons and surrender!’ he roared. ‘By order of the twin Most High Academes!’

‘The Most High Academes have no authority over the Knights Academy!’ Daxiel shouted back, his eyes burning with rage. ‘Only the hall masters can give such an order!’

‘Then, surrender!’ came a barked command. Another figure, tall and gaunt and clutching a prowlgrin crop bound together with woodtwine, emerged from the Gates of Humility.

‘You!’ Daxiel Xaxis pulled viciously on the reins of his prowlgrin, which was rearing up and pawing the ground.

Fenviel Vendix, Hall Master of Grey Cloud, eyed his usurper coolly. ‘Surrender!’ he barked again.

Sigbord raised his sword and the top of the West Wall suddenly bristled with the fearsome goblins of the treasury guard.

Behind him, Daxiel heard the clatter of metal as the more faint-hearted of the gatekeepers dropped their weapons.

‘Never!’ he screamed, digging his jagged spurs into the sides of the prowlgrin and charging at the hall master full tilt.

Fenviel raised two fingers to his lips and gave a sharp, high-pitched whistle. In answer, a deep hooting cry sounded from the other side of the West Wall and the ranks of the treasury guard parted as two giant tree fromps clambered over the ramparts and down into the courtyard.

Daxiel gave a scream as one giant tree fromp swept him from the saddle in mid-charge with a huge clawed paw, and slammed him to the ground at Sigbord's feet. The other fromp gave another impassioned hoot and strode towards its former tormentors on the treadmills. At the creature's approach, the ranks of the gatekeepers broke up in panic, and again the clatter of falling weaponry filled the air as the last of them abandoned the fight.

With a short whistle, Fenviel called the huge creature off.

Overhead, the sky was full of squawking white ravens circling ever lower over the tempting feast spread out across the Inner Courtyard.

Daxiel Xaxis stared up at the Captain of the Treasury Guard, his eyes wide with fear between the swathes of bandages. Sigbord ran a finger down the angry-looking scars on his face where, to make him sign the false confession, he had been branded with searing metal. He'd dreamed of this day for a long time. A smile plucked at the corners of his mouth.

‘You and I have a little unfinished business,’ he said, and with that, he thrust the blade of his sword through the Captain of the Gatekeeper's heart and turned away.

‘Let the ravens feast!’ he growled triumphantly.

Just then, and with no warning, the ground gave a violent lurch, sending the treasury guard, gatekeepers and academics alike reeling. Emerging from the tilt trees, Dengreeve Yellowtusk brushed the snow from his bloodstained tunic, the quarm on his shoulders squeaking mournfully.

‘Let them feast indeed, Captain Sigbord,’ he said grimly. ‘Yet if this winter doesn't end soon, we shall all end up as raven meat.’

•CHAPTER TWENTY•
THE WINTER KNIGHTS

An Ancient Barkscroll from the
Great Library of Sanctaphrax

I
,
Quode Quanx-Querix, first Knight-Scholar of Sanctaphrax, must set this down in blackroot ink on barkscroll parchment, and lodge it for all time in the Great Library, newly built this short while since, that the scholars who come after might heed my warning, if, as I fervently hope, our young city survives.

I, who built the Great Pulpit Hall, the first building on the sacred rock of Sanctaphrax, and founded the Order of Knight-Scholars, have seen much in my long life. I have seen the First Scholars conjure marvels from the air, spread the light of knowledge from the shining beacon of Sanctaphrax into the farthest reaches of the dark Deepwoods, from whence all manner of diverse tribes and creatures have been drawn to encamp below our floating rock. I, too, have seen the darkness that has been sucked from the sky and made manifest in
the Great Laboratory of the First Scholars; an abomination that, even now, makes my blood run cold.

I, and my fellow Knight-Scholars, did battle the monstrous creation the First Scholars unleashed into the stonecomb, and many brave souls had the life sucked from their bodies. But we prevailed, and entombed the abomination in a chamber deep within the rock from whence there is no escape. Loud were the lamentations when the Great Laboratory was likewise sealed for all time, its terrible history recorded in the blackwood carvings in the Palace of Lights, but even the most fervent of the First Scholars conceded the wisdom of this act.