‘Mag?’ she screeched. ‘MAG!’
Mag looked up. ‘I'm in here,’ she called back, and the entrance was filled with the towering figure of Mumsie herself.
‘You're to come with me,’ she said to Mag. ‘Now.’
‘Is it time?’ Mag asked eagerly.
‘It's time,’ came the gruff reply.
Mag leaped off the bed. ‘Did you hear that, Twig? It's time! Come on.’
‘You'll not need no pet where you're going,’ said Mumsie.
‘Oh, Mumsie, plee-ease!’ Mag wheedled.
‘I'm telling you, you won't want it there. Not after.’
‘I will!’ said Mag defiantly.
Twig looked from one to the other. Mumsie was scowling. Mag was smiling.
‘You would like to come, wouldn't you?’ she said.
Twig smiled back. Anything was better than more time spent tethered to the bed. He nodded his head vigorously up and down.
‘You see,’ said Mag triumphantly. ‘I told you.’
Mumsie snorted. ‘You credit that animal with far too much sense…’
‘Please, Mumsie. Please!’ Mag pleaded.
‘Oh, if you must,’ said Mumsie wearily, as she gathered up the painted paper. ‘But you're to keep it on its lead.’ She rounded on Twig and fixed him with her bloodshot glare. ‘And woe betide you if you do anything – ANYTHING AT ALL – to spoil my Mag's big day!’
There was an air of expectation outside. The paths leading round the lake were thick with female trogs all heading in the same direction. Some were neighbours who Twig recognized. Some were strangers to him. ‘See how far they've come,’ said Mag delightedly.
On the far side of the lake, they came to a high fence which formed a vast circular enclosure. Clusters of the thin listless males hung round the guarded entrance. They cringed and whimpered as Mumsie cut a swathe through them.
‘Stay close, Twig,’ Mag snapped, and yanked at the lead.
Together, the three of them entered the enclosure. As they appeared, a roar of approval went up from the crowd assembled inside. Mag hung her head and smiled shyly.
Twig was greeted by a sight that he could scarcely believe was real. Extending down from far above his head was an enormous set of roots which fanned out near the ground to form an immense and lofty dome. Hand in hand around it stood the termagants, their tattooed skin bathed in the root's fleshy pink light.
Mumsie took hold of Mag's hand. ‘Come,’ she said.
‘'Ere!’ said one of the guards. ‘That creature can't enter the Inner Sanctuary.’
Mumsie noticed the lead still wound around Mag's other hand. ‘Course it can't,’ she said. She snatched the lead away and tied one end firmly to a twist of root. ‘You can get it later,’ she said, and chuckled throatily.
This time Mag made no move to stop her. As if in a trance, she stepped through the break in the circle of hands and on into the dome of roots itself. She didn't look back.
Twig peered through the gaps in the roots. At the very centre was the taproot. Thick and knobbly, it glowed brighter than all the rest. Mag – his little Mag – was standing with her back to it. Her eyes were closed. Suddenly the termagants began to chant.
‘Oh! Ma-Ma Mother Bloodoak!
Oh! Ma-Ma Mother Bloodoak!’
Over and over, louder and louder, they cried, until the entire cavern quaked with the deafening noise. Twig clamped his hands over his ears. In front of the taproot Mag had begun to squirm and writhe.
All at once, the cacophony came to an end. The silence trembled uncertainly. Twig watched as Mag turned to face the root. She raised her arms. She looked upwards.
‘BLEED FOR ME!’ she cried.
Before her voice had faded away, a sudden change came over the dome. The termagants gasped. Twig jumped away fearfully as the root he was tethered to abruptly changed colour. He looked round. The whole vast network of roots was glowing a deep and bloody crimson.
‘Yes!’ cried Mumsie, ‘the time is indeed upon our daughter, Mag.’
She pulled a small object from the folds of her paper dress. Twig squinted to see. It looked like the tap from a barrel. She placed it against the pulsing red central root and hammered it home with her fist. Then, smiling at Mag, she pointed to the floor.
Mag knelt before the spout, raised her head and opened wide her mouth. Mumsie turned the spigot and a stream of frothing red liquid immediately gushed out. It splashed over her head and streamed down her back, her arms, her legs. Twig saw Mag's shoulders rising and falling in the crimson light.
‘She's drinking it!’ he shuddered.
Mag drank and drank and drank; she drank so much that Twig thought she must burst. Finally, she sighed a deep sigh and let her head fall forward. Mumsie switched off the flow of liquid. Mag climbed unsteadily to her feet. Twig gasped. The thin pale-skinned girl was beginning to expand.
Upwards, outwards, her whole body was growing larger. The flimsy dress she had been wearing split and fell to the ground – and still she grew. Massive shoulders, bulging biceps, tree-trunk legs … And her head! It was already immense when, suddenly, the hair – that wild shock of orange – cascaded down to the ground. The transformation was complete.
‘Welcome!’ said Mumsie, wrapping the freshly painted dress around the newest termagant in the trog-cavern.
‘Welcome!’ cried the circle of her termagant sisters.
Mag turned slowly round in acknowledgement. Twig recoiled with fear. Where was the pale thin girl who had loved him and looked after him? Gone. In her place was a fearsome and terrible termagant trog. Once tattooed, she would look exactly like her mother, Mumsie.
Mag continued to look around. Their eyes met. She smiled. Twig smiled back. Perhaps she hadn't changed – inside, at least. A thick slobbering tongue, like a slab of liver, emerged from Mag's mouth and slurped over her corrugated lips. Her bloodshot eyes glinted.
‘YOU LITTLE PIECE OF VERMIN!’ she bellowed.
Twig looked over his shoulders in horror. Surely she couldn't be addressing him. Not her pet. Not her ‘Twig, darling’. ‘Mag!’ he cried out. ‘Mag, it's me!’
‘Aaaargh!’ screamed Mumsie. ‘I knew he was a talker.’
‘Yes,’ said Mag coldly. ‘But not for much longer.’
Twig felt the earth shaking as she pounded towards him. With trembling fingers he tugged at the knot. In vain. Mumsie had tied it far too tight. Twig gripped hold of the rope, placed both feet up against the root and pressed back as hard as he possibly could. Nothing happened.
‘Don't even think of escaping!’ Mag roared.
Twig shifted his grip and tried again. There was a crack, and he flew back through the air. The rope had held – but not the root. A frothing red substance oozed from where it had severed.
‘Whooooaaahhh!’ Mag raged.
Twig turned on his heels and ran. He darted between two of the guards and sprinted down towards the lake. The trog males stood around gawping.
‘Move!’ Twig yelled as he elbowed them out of the way.
He could hear Mag behind him, followed closely by the rest of the termagants. ‘Rip out his gizzards!’ they were screeching. ‘Tear off his legs! Smash him to smithereens!’
Twig reached the lake. He sped away to the left. A group of half a dozen trog males were standing in front of him.
‘STOP HIM!’ Mag ordered loudly. ‘CATCH THE LITTLE BEAST!’ Then, louder still, when they simply stepped aside as Twig thundered past: ‘YOU PATHETIC LITTLE MORONS!’
Twig glanced back over his shoulder. Mag was gaining on him. There was a look of terrible determination in her bloodshot eyes. Oh, Mag, he thought. What have you become?
Mag drew level with the trog males. They were watching her askance; all, that is, apart from one. As Mag lumbered past him, he stuck out his leg. It caught Mag's foot. She stumbled. She lurched. She lost her balance and came crashing to the ground.
Twig gasped with surprise. It had been no accident.
Mag sprawled r
ound and made a grab for the trog male, but he was too agile for her. He leaped to his feet, limped out of reach and looked up. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he called to Twig.
‘What are you waiting for? Head for the roots where they shine brightest. Over in that direction.’ There was a wheedling, mocking tone to his voice.
Twig looked round.
‘Well?’ the trog male gave a twisted smile. ‘Do you want to be skinned alive by your little mistress? Follow the wind, pampered pet – and don't look back.’
· CHAPTER ELEVEN ·
GARBLE, GABTROLL
AND HEARTCHARMING
Twig did exactly as instructed. He ran headlong across the trog-cavern towards a distant point where the lights from the roots glowed brightest and not once did he look back. He could hear the furious termagants behind him, panting, pounding; sometimes catching up, sometimes falling behind.
As he neared the patch of brightness, it revealed itself to be a densely packed cluster of gleaming white roots. Which way now? His scalp tingled, his heart throbbed. There were half a dozen tunnels in front of him. Which one – if any – would lead him outside?
‘He's lost!’ he heard one of the termagants bellowing.
‘Head him off,’ instructed another.
‘Then, off with his head!’ roared yet another, and they all screeched with hideous laughter.
Twig was desperate. He would have to escape down one of the tunnels but what if the one he chose was a dead end? And all the while he was trying to decide which one to take, the termagants were trundling closer. Any second they would bear down upon him. Then it would be too late.
Twig shuddered with fear and exhaustion. As he hurried past the entrance to one tunnel, a cold draught of air turned his sweating skin to gooseflesh. Of course! Follow the wind: the trog male's words. Without a second thought, Twig dashed down into the airy tunnel.
Wide at first, the opening soon grew both narrower and lower. Twig didn't mind. The more he had to stoop, the less likely it was that the huge termagants would be able to follow. He heard them, grunting and groaning and cursing their misfortune. All at once the tunnel turned a corner and came to an abrupt halt.
‘Oh, what?’ Twig groaned. It was a real dead end. He stared in horror at a pile of bleached bones which lay half covered by sand and shale. There was a skull, and the beaded remnants of plaited hair; a twist of rope was looped around the crumbling neck. It was a pet that had not managed to escape.
Just ahead of him, a single root extended down into the tunnel. Twig reached out his hand. It felt as dead as everything else; cold, stiff, and not shining. So where was the light coming from? He looked up, and there, far far above his head, was a small circle of silvery brilliance.
‘He's found one of the air shafts,’ came the furious voice of one of the termagants.
Twig pulled himself up into the branch-like growths of the root. ‘Indeed I have,’ he muttered.
Hand over foot over foot over hand he went, climbing towards the light. Arms aching and fingers trembling, he looked up again. The light seemed no nearer. A wave of alarm coursed through his body. What if the hole at the top wasn't large enough for him to climb through?
Foot over hand over hand over foot, higher and higher he continued, his breathing loud and rhythmical. Ooh. Aah. Ooh! Aah! At last, the circle of light did start to look bigger. Hurrying up the last few feet of root as quickly as he dared – it was a long way back down to the bones at the bottom of the shaft – Twig stretched his arm out into the warm sunlight.
‘Thank Sky it's daytime,’ he sighed. He heaved himself out onto the grass and rolled over. ‘Otherwise I'd have never found my way ou…’ Twig fell silent. He was not alone. The air was alive with panting, with snarling, with the juicy odour of decay. Slowly, he lifted his head.
Lolling tongues and flared black nostrils. Ice-pick teeth, bared, glinting, slavering. Yellow eyes, staring impassive – sizing him up.
‘W … w … woodwolves,’ he stammered.
The ruff of snow-white fur around their necks bristled at the sound of his voice. Twig swallowed. They were whitecollar woodwolves: the worst kind – and here was a whole pack of them. Twig inched back towards the air shaft. Too late. The woodwolves, noticing the movement, let out a low bloodcurdling growl. With open jaws and dripping fangs, the one nearest him leaped up from the ground and launched itself at his throat.
‘Aaaargh!’ Twig screamed. The outstretched paws of the beast thumped into his chest. The pair of them toppled backwards and landed heavily on the ground.
Twig kept his eyes shut tight. He could smell the warm rotten breath on his face as the woodwolf sniffed and tasted. He felt a row of pinpricks along the side of his neck. The woodwolf had him in its jaws. One movement – from either of them – and that would be that.
Just then, above the deafening pounding of his heart, Twig heard a voice. ‘What's going on here, then?’ it said. ‘What have you found, eh, lads? Something for the pot?’
The woodwolves snarled greedily, and Twig felt the teeth pressing down sharply into his skin.
‘Drop it!’ the voice commanded. ‘Stealth! Drop it, I say!’
The teeth withdrew. The stench receded. Twig opened his eyes. A short elf-like creature clutching a heavy whip, was standing there and glaring at him. ‘Friend or food?’ he demanded.
‘F … f … friend,’ Twig stuttered.
‘Get up, friend,’ he said. The woodwolves twitched as Twig climbed to his feet. ‘They won't hurt you,’ he said, seeing Twig's discomfort. ‘So long as I don't tell them to,’ he smirked.
‘You wouldn't do that,’ said Twig. ‘W … would you?’
‘All depends,’ came the reply. The woodwolves began pacing to and fro, licking their lips and yelping excitedly. ‘We small people have to stay on our guard. Stranger equals danger, that's my motto. You can't be too careful in the Deepwoods.’ He looked Twig up and down. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘you don't look too much of a threat.’ He wiped his hand vigorously on his trousers and thrust it forward. ‘The name's Garble,’ he said. ‘Garble the Hunter, and this here is my pack.’ One of the woodwolves snarled. Garble gave it a vicious kick.
Twig reached out and shook the hand being offered him. All round them, the woodwolves were whipping themselves up into a slavering frenzy. Garble stopped in mid-shake, pulled his hand away and inspected it.
‘Blood,’ he said. ‘No wonder the lads found you. The smell of it drives them proper crazy, it does.’ He crouched down and carefully wiped his hand on the grass until all trace of the blood had disappeared. He looked up. ‘So what exactly are you?’ he said.
‘I'm…’ Twig began, and then stopped. He wasn't a woodtroll. But then, what was he? ‘I'm Twig,’ he said simply.
‘A twig? Never heard of ‘em. You look a bit like a lop-ear or even a blunderhead. Even I find it difficult to tell them apart. Fetch a good price though, they do. The sky pirates are always after goblins from the wilder tribes. They make good fighters even if they are a bit difficult to control … Are the twigs good fighters?’
Twig shifted uneasily from foot to foot. ‘Not really,’ he said.
Garble sniffed. ‘Wouldn't get much for you, anyway,’ he said. ‘Scrawny little specimen that you are. Still, you might make a ship's cook. Can you cook?’
‘Not really,’ Twig said again. He was inspecting his hand. There was a cut on his little finger, but it didn't look too bad.
‘Just my luck,’ said Garble. ‘I was on the trail of a big lumpskull – would have made me a pretty penny, I can tell you – and what happens? He goes running straight into the jaws of a bloodoak and that's the end of him. Terrible mess. And then the boys pick up your scent. Hardly worth the bother,’ he added, and spat on the ground.
It was then that Twig noticed what Garble the Hunter was wearing. The dark fur was unmistakeable. How many times had he stroked fur exactly like it: sleek, smooth and tinged with green.
‘Banderbear,’ Twig breathed, his
blood beginning to boil. This obnoxious little elf was wearing the pelt of a banderbear.
Garble was shorter than Twig, considerably shorter. In a straight fight, Twig was sure he could overpower him easily. But, as the circle of yellow eyes stared at him unblinking, Twig had to swallow his indignation.
‘Can't stand around all day, chatting,’ Garble went on. ‘I've got some serious hunting to be getting on with. Don't have time to waste on wolf-bait like you. I'd get that hand seen to, if I was you. Might not be so lucky next time. Come on, boys.’
And, with the yelping pack all round him, Garble turned and disappeared into the trees.
Twig sank to his knees. He was back in the Deepwoods, but this time there was no banderbear to protect him. No sweet, lonely banderbear, just wolves and hunters and lumpskulls and blunderheads and…
‘Why?’ he wailed. ‘Why all this? WHY?’
‘Because,’ came a voice – a voice that sounded gentle and kind.
Twig looked up and started with horror. The creature that had spoken looked neither gentle nor kind. In fact, she was monstrous.
‘So what brings you … SLURP … to this part of the … SLURP… Deepwoods?’ she said.
Twig kept his head down. ‘I'm lost,’ he said.
‘Lost? Nonsense … SLURP… You're here!’ she laughed.
Twig swallowed nervously. He raised his head.
‘That's better … SLURP… Now why don't you tell me all about it, m'dear. Gabtrolls is very good … SLURP… listeners,’ and she flapped her huge bat-like ears.
The yellow light of late afternoon glowed through the pink membrane of her ears, picking out the delicate network of blood vessels. It glistened on her greasy face and glinted on the eye-stalks. It was these – long, thick, rubbery, swaying; now contracting, now elongating, and both topped off with bulbous green spheres – which had so startled Twig. His stomach still felt queasy, yet he couldn't look away.
‘Well?’ the gabtroll said.
‘I…’ Twig began.