Midnight Over Sanctaphrax: Third Book of Twig

  ‘But Twig …’ Cowlquape began.

  ‘Now, Cowlquape,’ said Twig firmly and, before his young apprentice could say another word, he dashed off through the crowd.

  Cowlquape stared after him for a moment, then turned to Spooler.

  ‘We'd best see about those prowlgrins,’ the oakelf said.

  Cowlquape nodded. He only hoped Twig knew what he was doing.

  The arena was thick with feverish betting as Twig made his way towards the ironwood tree.

  ‘Thirty gold pieces on twenty-eight minutes and nine seconds.’

  ‘Fifty each way on at least two hundred and fifty wig-wigs copping it.’

  ‘Seventy-five gold pieces!’

  ‘A hundred!’

  Ignoring the yelps of pain and cries of anger as he elbowed his way through the jostling crowd, Twig finally arrived at the point where the trunk of the great tree emerged from behind the top terrace. He stopped, pulled the sky pirate grappling-hook from the front of his heavy longcoat and glanced round.

  The atmosphere was now approaching fever-pitch and no-one - neither shryke nor spectator - noticed the young sky pirate standing in the shadows. Taking the rope in his hand, Twig swung the hook into the branches above and, when it took securely, scrambled up.

  ‘And now,’ Mother Muleclaw screamed above the din, ‘the moment you've all been waiting for!’ She nodded down at the shryke guard: she should begin to lower the banderbear into the pit below.

  Twig reached a broad, flat branch high in the iron-wood tree and crept carefully along it. He stopped when he was directly above the royal-box and hanging cage. Below him, Mother Muleclaw raised her wings.

  ‘And so,’ she announced, ‘let the contest begin … Whurrggh!’

  As one, the crowd let out a gasp of astonishment at the sight of the young sky pirate dropping down into the royal-box and seizing the roost-mother. An arm grasped her round the throat; a hand pressed the glinting blade of a knife against her ruffled neck.

  ‘Stop lowering the cage!’ Twig bellowed. ‘Bring it up level with the royal-box again - or the roost-mother gets it!’

  With a squawk of indignation, the tawny shryke paused and fixed Twig with an astonished stare. Then slowly, she reversed the direction of her turning. The roost-sisters were in uproar, shifting about on their podium, screeching and squawking. Other shrykes - tawny guards and great, serrated-beaked slavers - closed in on the tree from the walkways menacingly.

  ‘Back off!’ Twig roared. ‘Tell them,’ he hissed into Mother Muleclaw's feathery ear. ‘Tell them now.’

  ‘St… stay back,’ said Mother Muleclaw, in a strangulated voice.

  ‘And tell them to drop their weapons!’ Twig increased the pressure of the knife.

  ‘Do as he says!’ she squawked.

  ‘That's better,’ said Twig. Then, still maintaining the pressure on the knife, he reached over to the cage and unclasped the lid at the top. One of the banderbear's massive paws appeared.

  Suddenly, the crowd seemed to realize what was happening. Up until that moment, the spectacle of the youth threatening the roost-mother had held them captivated. Now they saw what he had in mind, and were incensed.

  ‘He's released it!’ they roared furiously. ‘He's letting it go!’

  Twig dragged the cowering Muleclaw to the far end of the royal-box as the banderbear heaved himself up out of the cage. He watched, heart in his mouth, as the great, clumsy creature grasped at a branch above his head for support, and stepped across the yawning chasm below.

  As the banderbear fell into the royal-box, the crowd exploded with anger. ‘It's getting away!’ they raged.

  The roost-sisters below craned their necks round to see what was happening.

  Twig watched the banderbear climbing to his feet. ‘Goom,’ he said. ‘I knew it was you.’

  ‘Wuh?’ the great beast asked. ‘T-wuh-g?’

  ‘Yes, Goom,’ said Twig. ‘Didn't I promise that I'd never abandon my crew.’ He glanced upwards. ‘Pull yourself up onto that branch above our heads. Then pull me up beside you.’

  The banderbear shuddered nervously, making the royal-box shake. Mother Muleclaw cried out as Twig's knife nicked the scaly skin beneath the feathers. The crowd howled with dismay as the great lumbering creature reached up, sunk its claws into the overhead branch and swung its tree-trunk legs up into the air.

  ‘A hundred and fifty says he doesn't make it,’ a voice rang out above the din.

  Two hundred says we'll be looking at a new roost-mother before the night is out!’ yelled another.

  The crowd went wild.

  At his third attempt, Goom managed to swing his legs over the edge of the branch and drag himself up. He crouched down on the broad branch and lowered a great arm.

  ‘Wuh!’ he said.

  Twig grabbed hold of the banderbear's wrist. Goom pulled, and Twig was whisked up clear of the royal-box. The instant her attacker was gone, Mother Muleclaw cried out.

  ‘Seize them!’ she shrieked, jumping up and down in the box in a fever of rage. ‘No-one threatens the roost-mother and lives! Guards … Aaargh!’ she screamed, as one of the banderbear's razor-sharp claws sliced through several of the ropes that kept the royal-box in place. The box swung wildly. Her sharp talons gripped the wooden sides. ‘No,’ she whimpered. ‘Have pity …’

  ‘Pity?’ Twig shouted. ‘The only pity is that this was not done long ago,’ And with that, he reached down and sliced through the last ropes.

  The royal-box plummeted down through the air, with Mother Muleclaw screaming all the way.

  The crowd roared with delight. This was even better than a banderbear. This was the roost-mother herself. As the first of the wig-wigs emerged from the dark openings in the stockade, the noise became deafening. Whooping. Wailing. Cheering and shouting. ‘A hundred on …’ ‘Five hundred that…’ ‘A thousand!’

  Twig turned to the banderbear. He seized him by a quivering paw.

  ‘Edge your way along this branch,’ he shouted, ‘then down onto that one, there.’ He pointed to a broader, flatter branch growing out of the trunk behind him. ‘It's almost as wide as the walkways. And then, when I say jump, jump!’

  ‘Wuh!’ the banderbear grunted in alarm.

  The noise all around them was deafening: a great screeching from the shrykes and the roar of the bloodthirsty crowd.

  ‘Trust me,’ said Twig, struggling to make himself heard. He turned and made his own way along the branch, arms raised to keep his balance as the heavy banderbear anxiously lumbered after him. The leaves quivered. The branch swayed. Below him, Twig saw the boards of the wooden walkway come closer.

  ‘Jump!’ he shouted.

  ‘WUH!’ cried the banderbear, and the pair of them leapt from the branch and down to the walkway below. Scrambling to his feet, Twig looked around wildly. Angry shrykes on the adjacent walkways were running at them from every side, shoving their way through the crowds who were still thronging towards the extraordinary spectacle unfolding in the pit.

  ‘Twig! Twig!’ came an urgent voice.

  Twig spun round to see Cowlquape and Spooler on a broad platform just ahead, pushing towards them through the crowd. They both held a tether in each of their hands, at the end of which were four startled prowlgrins.

  ‘Well done, Cowlquape!’ he shouted.

  Just then, four shryke guards dropped onto the walkway from above. They landed between them, cutting Twig and the banderbear off from escape. In a split second the banderbear was on them. With a mighty blow from his paw, he swept two shrykes from the walkway in a flurry of feathers. The other two dropped their clubs and flails, and fled with terrified screeches.

  ‘They were the biggest ones I could find,’ panted Cowlquape, as he and Spooler finally reached the others. The prowlgrins bucked and whinnied from the end of their tethers.

  ‘Ideal,’ said Twig. ‘Goom, take the biggest. Climb up, all of you.’ He grabbed the reins and leapt onto his own prowlgrin.

  Goo
m remained still. ‘Wuh-wuh!’ he groaned miserably.

  ‘It's the only way,’ said Twig. ‘Come on!’

  Already more shrykes were gathering. For the moment they hung back, but when there were enough of them, they would rush forward. There was murder in their yellow eyes.

  Reluctantly, the massive banderbear clambered up onto the waiting prowlgrin. The creature groaned under the heavy weight, and locked its bow-legs.

  ‘All right?’ said Twig.

  The banderbear nodded unhappily.

  ‘Let's get out of here!’ Twig shouted.

  Gripping the reins tightly, he kicked hard into the prowlgrin's flanks. The others did the same. The next instant - as if in some strange dance - the four beasts reared up, pawed the air with their fore-legs and leapt forwards.

  Clutching on for dear life, Twig and Cowlquape, Spooler and Goom found themselves charging along the walkway away from the ironwood tree and the terrible arena. They knocked spectators and shrykes aside. Cowlquape held on desperately. He'd never ridden a prowlgrin before, and never wanted to again. It was terrifying.

  The walkways swayed and shuddered beneath them, market-stalls crashed as they careered past - but the prowlgrins were as sure-footed as they were swift. The market sped by in a hazy blur of colour and oily lamplight. Suddenly, they were approaching the end of a walkway that gave way to nothing. It was the edge of the slave market. The astonished face of a slate-grey shryke peered out from a tally-booth directly ahead.

  Now what? thought Cowlquape, his heart pounding.

  Without a moment's hesitation, the prowlgrin beneath him launched itself off from the end of the walkway and into mid-air. Cowlquape sank his heels deep into its belly as the wind whistled past. He gripped the reins, white-knuckled.

  Below him, the forest opened up like a gaping chasm. Falling. They were falling. His stomach leapt up into his mouth; he screwed his eyes shut. This was worse than the Sanctaphrax baskets, worse than the sky ship, worse than …

  Ker-dunk!

  His whole body jarred as the prowlgrin grabbed a branch with its fore-paws and, in an instant, kicked off again with its hind-legs. Cowlquape gripped the reins tighter still. Again, the forest opened up. And again, the prowlgrin landed, sure-footed on a branch before kicking down hard with its powerful hindquarters and leaping again.

  The prowlgrin was well trained. Even though Cowlquape had never ridden before, all he had to do was hold on as it forged its way through the forest from tree to tree. Ker-dunk - whoosh! Kerdunk … Little by little, it became easier. Cowlquape was learning when to tense his stomach and when to relax; when to lean forwards, when to sit back.

  But what of the others?

  Cowlquape stole a hurried glance back over his shoulders. Twig and Spooler were close behind him. And behind them was the banderbear. Despite the weight on its back, Goom's prowlgrin was managing to keep up. Then, with a jolt, Cowlquape saw a flurry of movement behind the banderbear. Half a dozen or more of the tawny shryke guards, on prowlgrins of their own, were close on their heels.

  ‘What do we do, Twig?’ Cowlquape shouted out. ‘They're catching up.’

  ‘Courage, Cowlquape!’ Twig called breathlessly. ‘Prowlgrins are beasts of the Deepwoods. They're used to travelling through the dark forest. But shrykes are roost creatures. They seldom stray far from the flock.’

  Quite suddenly, the lights of the slave market disappeared and they were plunged into gloom. Cowlquape cried out with fear and screwed his eyes tightly shut.

  ‘It's all right!’ he heard Twig shouting happily. ‘Cowlquape, open your eyes. It's all right.’

  Cowlquape did as he was told and was relieved to discover that, though the forest itself was indeed pitch black, the sky pirates he was travelling with were glowing brightly in the darkness. Twig, Spooler and Goom; all three of them were bathed in the strange luminous light.

  On they went, without easing up for a moment, from branch to dark, looming branch; fleet and sure-footed.

  Then Twig called out. ‘They've stopped!’

  Cowlquape glanced round a second time. He saw the group of prowlgrins with their shryke riders perched on branches in the shadows, some distance behind them. They seemed in no hurry to continue the chase into the depths of the black forest. He saw something else; his cockade had disintegrated completely. All that remained was the pin.

  ‘Thank Sky!’ he murmured. ‘We've beaten them! We … whooah!’ he gasped as he slipped in the saddle.

  ‘Careful, Cowlquape,’ said Twig. ‘We might have escaped the Great Shryke Slave Market, but there are still wig-wigs below on the forest floor.’

  Cowlquape gripped the reins grimly. And as they continued on their flight and the slave market was left far behind, he kept his gaze fixed firmly on the forest ahead.

  They did not stop, nor even slacken their pace. Before they could descend to the forest floor to rest up for the night, they had to ensure that they were well away from the voracious wig-wigs that had been attracted by the slave market. Cowlquape grew weary as they pressed on.

  ‘How much farther?’ he shouted after Twig.

  ‘Just a little,’ Twig shouted back. ‘We must…’

  ‘Captain!’ shouted Spooler. The agitation in his voice was unmistakable. ‘Captain Twig, it's Goom's prowlgrin.’

  Twig spun round. ‘Oh, no,’ he muttered. The poor creature was suffering under the burdensome weight on its back. Its strength was all but used up. Each leap was laboured, each landing a gamble. As for Goom himself, the banderbear's glowing face was contorted with fear as his mount struggled on, ever more precariously.

  ‘Wuh,’ it was groaning. ‘Wuh-wuh.’

  Twig sighed. There was nothing for it. Wig-wigs or no wig-wigs they would have to descend. Sky willing, they had already put enough distance between them and the vicious orange creatures.

  ‘Down!’ he bellowed, and tugged on the reins of his own prowlgrin. ‘We're going down.’

  Their slow descent coincided with a thinning of the trees. As they leapt down, from branch to branch, lower and lower, Cowlquape scoured the forest floor for any tell-tale flash of orange.

  There was none. He sighed with relief.

  They landed in a tussocky glade of greatgrass. First Twig, then Spooler and Cowlquape, and finally Goom. His prowlgrin slumped to the ground, panting with exhaustion. Goom rolled off and lay beside it. The others dismounted, too. Spooler led the prowlgrins to a nearby tree and tethered them to a low branch. Twig crossed over towards the banderbear and crouched down next to him. He wrapped his arm around the creature's great neck and Goom rose, lifting Twig right off his feet.

  The two figures lit up the glade with their eerie glow.

  Cowlquape ran over to join them.

  ‘You did it!’ he exclaimed. ‘You did it!’

  Twig turned his head and smiled at his young apprentice. ‘We did it,’ he said. ‘You and me and Spooler, and Goom himself. We all did it!’

  • CHAPTER SIXTEEN •

  THE WELL-TRODDEN

  PATH

  Having ridden so far and for so long, the four travellers were weary. Twig knew there was no point in forging on any further that night.

  ‘We'll stop here,’ he said ‘and set off again early tomorrow morning. Cowlquape, Spooler, get a fire going. Goom and I will see about something to eat.’

  ‘Aye, aye, captain,’ said Spooler.

  Cowlquape shivered as he watched Twig and the banderbear setting off into the darkness of the great forest. They looked so small against the massive trees: so insignificant, so vulnerable.

  ‘Take care,’ he muttered, and busied himself collecting sticks and branches from the surrounding undergrowth - taking care himself not to stray too far.

  ‘Good,’ said Spooler when he returned. ‘Make a pile over there.’

  Cowlquape dropped the huge bundle of wood and watched Spooler coaxing a flame from something grey and fluffy. ‘What's that?’ he said.

  ‘Barkmoss,’ said Spooler,
between blows. ‘Excellent tinder. Usually’ He blew some more. His face was red and gleaming. ‘The accursed stuff's damp though.’ He blew harder still. Abruptly, the moss burst into flames. Spooler placed it gently down on a flat rock and turned to Cowlquape. ‘Get me some small twigs,’ he said. ‘Dry ones.’

  Cowlquape leapt to the pile and returned with a handful. He handed them to Spooler, who arranged them in a pyramid-shape above the flames. They too caught, and the pair of them stoked up the blaze with larger logs. Soon, they had a huge fire burning.

  While Spooler sorted through their provisions for pots, plates and mugs, Cowlquape sat himself down next to the fire. With the night-sounds all around - a screech here, a squawk there - he felt safer there next to its protective flames. He reached into his bag for his beloved barkscrolls.

  At that moment, there was a crashing noise to their left, and Goom came blundering back through the forest. Twig followed close behind, keeping to the trail the banderbear had carved out. He approached the fire and emptied a sack of fruits and roots onto the ground. ‘Oak-apples, dellberries, yarrowroots,’ he said, ‘and numerous other delicacies especially selected by Goom with his sensitive banderbear nose, as being both nutritious and delicious!’

  ‘Wuh!’ said the banderbear, nodding his head in agreement. He lowered his great shoulder and lifted off the body of a young tilder. An arrow stuck out from its neck.

  ‘Did you shoot that, Twig?’ said Cowlquape, impressed.

  ‘With my improvised home-made bow and arrow,’ Twig laughed. ‘It's been a long time, but I haven't lost my touch,’ he said. ‘Steaks for us and the rest of the carcass for the prowlgrins.’

  A sudden fit of spluttered coughing echoed round the trees just above. Cowlquape ducked down and covered his head with his hands - only to see the others laughing at him.

  ‘It's just a fromp,’ said Twig. ‘Quite harmless …’