For Anna, Katy, Jack, Joseph and William
INTRODUCTION
A monstrous pall of swirling cloud hangs over the Edge, obscuring everything below. At its centre, a mighty storm fizzes and crackles with a deadly, destructive energy.
Like some evil demon, this dark maelstrom is devouring its prey, the once great city of Undertown. Yet even as the city crumbles and is washed away by the seething torrent the stormlashed Edgewater River has become, hope lives on in the hearts of the Undertowners – the cloddertrogs, gnokgoblins, lugtrolls and all those others who had once thronged the busy streets – fleeing down the disintegrating Great Mire Road. Led by the Most High Academe, Cowlquape Pentephraxis, and the librarian knights, their tethered skycraft bobbing behind them, they dream of a new life in that beacon of freedom and knowledge nestling in the far-off Deepwoods, the Free Glades.
Ahead of them lies the Mire, a treacherous wasteland of bleached mud and seething blow-holes, which is home to a host of fearsome creatures that prey on the weak and unwary. And then beyond that, beckoning from afar, the Edgelands, a place of swirling mists, where demons, spirits – and even the terrible gloamglozer – are said to torment those who venture into its barren landscape.
Further still lie the Deepwoods themselves, with their swarms of snickets, packs of wig-wigs, poisonous plants and venomous insects. Bloodoaks that would swallow you whole, and reed-eels that would bleed you dry. Rotsuckers, halitoads, logworms … Not to mention the primitive tribes that live there – the skulltrogs and gahtrogs; brutal, speechless creatures that hunt in packs and devour their kill while it is still warm.
But there is no going back. Not now. Every one of the fleeing Undertowners understands this to be true. For many, this is the beginning of the greatest adventure of their lives.
In this, they are not alone, for Undertown is not the only place to be affected by the dark maelstrom. At the far end of the Mire Road, the remnants of the Shryke Sisterhood of the Eastern Roost realize that their lucrative trade with Undertown is over. They, too, must seek a new life, but instead of hope, there is bloodlust and vengeance in their hearts.
News of the great disaster is also reaching the villages of the Goblin Nations, never slow to spot and exploit the weaknesses of others. Talk in the tribal huts, with their heaped skulls and dangling skeletons, is of war and conquest.
And they are not the only ones with grand designs. In the smoky, fiery hell that is the Foundry Glades, Hemuel Spume is hard at work on plans of his own. He is waiting impatiently for his business partner to join him. When he does, Hemuel Spume has a surprise waiting for him. He permits himself a thin smile.
‘I'll give them Free Glades,’ he mutters scornfully. ‘Long live the Slave Glades!’
As the dark maelstrom grows and spreads, the vast multitude of Undertowners struggles on along the Great Mire Road, and all the while driving rain beats against them mercilessly, chilling them to the bone and dampening their spirits.
They are fighting a losing battle. Ahead, sweeping across their path, bordering the Edgelands, are the beguiling yet treacherous Twilight Woods, a place that none but a shryke might journey through unscathed. All round them, the road is collapsing…
They must seek help, or perish.
The Deepwoods, the Stone Gardens, the Edgewater River. Undertown and Sanctaphrax. Names on a map.
Yet behind each name lie a thousand tales – tales that have been recorded in ancient scrolls, tales that have been passed down the generations by word of mouth – tales which even now are being told.
What follows is but one of those tales.
• CHAPTER ONE •
THE ARMADA OF THE DEAD
‘What are we going to do?’
Deadbolt Vulpoon turned from the cabin window and glared at the thin quartermaster who had just spoken.
‘The storms over Undertown are growing, if anything,’ said a cloddertrog in a bleached muglumpskin coat.
The other sky pirates at the long table all nodded.
‘And there's nothing moving on the Mire Road,’ he added. ‘All trade has stopped dead.’
The nodding turned to troubled muttering.
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ said Deadbolt, resuming his seat at the head of the table. ‘We are sky pirates, remember. Our ships might no longer fly, but we are still sky pirates. Proud and free.’ His heavy hand slammed down on the table so hard, the tankard of woodale in front of him leaped up in the air. ‘And no storm – dark maelstrom or not – is going to defeat us!’
‘I repeat my question,’ said the thin quartermaster with a supercilious sniff. ‘What are we going to do? There are over thirty crews in the armada. That's three hundred mouths to feed, three hundred backs to clothe, three hundred purses to fill. If there is no trade on the Mire Road, then what shall we live on? Oozefish and mire water?’ He sniffed again.
‘No trading, no raiding,’ said the cloddertrog.
Again, the assembled sky pirates nodded in agreement.
Deadbolt Vulpoon grasped the tankard and raised it to his lips. He needed to collect his thoughts.
For weeks, the dark clouds had gathered on the far horizon at the Undertown end of the Great Mire Road. Then, two days ago, the huge anvil formations of cloud had merged into the unmistakable menacing swirl of a dark maelstrom.
Sky help those caught underneath, he'd thought at the time.
Now Undertown was lost from view and the Mire Road was deserted. A great shryke battle-flock had disappeared in the direction of Undertown just before the storm struck, and then the remaining shrykes from the tally-huts had retreated back to the Eastern Roost…
Deadbolt took a deep draught from the tankard and slammed it back on the table. ‘I have sent out another raiding party,’ he announced with a confidence he didn't feel. ‘And until we get to the bottom of this, I for one don't intend to panic.’
‘Raiding party!’ snorted the thin quartermaster, pushing his chair noisily back and climbing to his feet. ‘To raid what?’ He paused. ‘I hear there's opportunities opening up in the Foundry Glades, and that's where my crew are headed. And you're all welcome to join us!’
He strode from the cabin.
‘Gentlemen, please,’ said Deadbolt, raising a hand and motioning to the others to remain seated. ‘Don't be hasty. Think of what we've built up here in the Armada. Don't throw it all away. Wait until the raiding party returns.’
‘Until the party returns,’ said the cloddertrog as the sky pirates got up to leave. ‘And not a moment longer.’
As they trooped out, Deadbolt Vulpoon climbed to his feet and returned to the window. He looked out through the heavy leaded panes at the Armada of the Dead beyond.
What exactly had they built up here? he wondered bitterly.
When stone-sickness had begun to spread through the flight-rocks of the sky ships, he and the other sky pirates had read the writing on the wall. They came together and scuppered their vessels, rather than letting sky-sickness pick them off one by one.
The hulks of the sky ships had formed an encampment in the bleak Mire, and a base from which to raid the lucrative trade along the Great Mire Road. It wasn't sky piracy, but it was the closest thing to it in these plagued times. And sometimes, when the mists rolled in and the wind got up, he would stand on his quarterdeck and imagine he was high up in Open Sky, as free as a snowbird …
Vulpoon looked at the grounded vessels, their masts pointing up so yearningly towards the sky, and a lump formed in his throat. The ships still bore their original names, the letters picked out in fading gold paint. Windspinner, Mistmarcher, Fogscythe, Cloudeater … His own ship – the Skyraider – was a battered and bleached ghost of her former glory. She would rot away
to nothing eventually if she didn't raise herself out of the white mire mud.
But that, of course, could never happen, for the flight-rock itself at the centre of the great ship was rotten. Unless a cure for stone-sickness was discovered, then neither the Skyraider, nor the Windspinner, nor the Mistmarcher, nor any of the other sky pirate ships would ever fly again.
Thick, sucking mud anchored the great hulls in place, turning the once spectacular sky vessels into odd-shaped buildings, made all the more peculiar by the additional rooms which had been constructed, ruining the lines of the decks and clinging to the sides of the ships like giant sky-limpets.
What future lay ahead for him? he wondered. What future was there for any of the those who called the Armada of the Dead home?
Deadbolt reached for the telescope that hung from his breast-plate. He put it to his eye and focused on the distant horizon.
He could see nothing through the impenetrable black
clouds – either of Under-town or of the Great Mire Road. Even the distant Stone Gardens, normally silhouetted against the sky, were covered with a heavy pall that obscured them completely.
Deadbolt Vulpoon sighed. He lowered the eye-glass and was about to turn away when something caught his eye. He returned the telescope to his eye and focused the lens a second time. This time his efforts were rewarded with a clear picture of seven, eight … nine individuals tramping towards him. It was the raiding party.
Back so soon? he wondered, a nagging feeling of disappointment settling in the pit of his stomach.
Two of the sky pirates were holding up poles, at the top of which was a large brazier-cage. The burning lufwood charcoal it contained blazed with a bright purple light which illuminated the treacherous Mire, ensuring that no one inadvertently stumbled into a patch of sinking-sand, stepped on an erupting blow-hole, or stumbled into a fearsome muglump…
As the raiding party came closer, Vulpoon leaned out of his cabin window. ‘Any luck?’ he bellowed.
Yet even as he cried out he knew the answer. The sacks slung across their shoulders were empty. The raid had yielded nothing.
‘There's nothing to be had at all,’ a tall mobgnome with an eye-patch shouted back.
‘The road's deserted,’ added another. ‘The shrykes must have headed back for the Eastern Roost.’
‘We found these two halfway across the Mire,’ said a third, a lanky flat-head with a large ring through his nose. ‘Claimed they were on their way to see us. Nothing but a few trinkets on either of them.’
Deadbolt Vulpoon noticed for the first time the two strangers in their midst. Both were young. One of them was dressed in librarian garb, the hood of his cloak pulled up against the cold Mire wind. The other – taller, tougher-looking – was clothed in bleached muglump skins. He raised his head and returned Vulpoon's gaze boldly.
‘What can we do for you, lad?’ said Vulpoon.
‘My name is Felix Lodd,’ came the reply. ‘As for my business, that is between me and the leader of the great Armada of the Dead.’
For a moment Vulpoon hesitated. The youth was impudent. He could have him locked up until he learned a few manners – and yet he had spoken admiringly of the Armada…
‘Bring them up,’ he ordered.
‘And there was a battle, you say?’ said Deadbolt Vulpoon.
They were in the captain's cabin, the assembled sky pirates seated at the long table. The youth in the muglump skins stood before them, his hooded companion behind him.
‘Yes, a great and terrible battle,’ said Felix, nodding. ‘Vox Verlix…’
‘Vox Verlix, ruler of Undertown!’ interrupted the thin quartermaster who, on hearing of the raiding party's return, had delayed his departure. ‘Is that slimy skyslug still around? Swindled me out of a whole consignment of bloodoak timber once, he did. He was busy building that tower of his on the Sanctaphrax rock. Swore I'd get my revenge!’
Deadbolt raised his hand to silence him. He turned back to Felix. ‘What about Vox Verlix?’ he asked.
‘Organized the whole thing, by all accounts,’ said Felix. ‘Tricked the goblins and the shrykes into going down into the library sewers, then triggered a storm to drown the lot of them.’
‘So he's responsible for the dark maelstrom!’ Deadbolt shook his head. ‘I might have known. Typical academic – always meddling with the sky.’
‘Yet it was also to be his undoing,’ said Felix.
‘You mean he's dead?’
‘Almost certainly,’ said Felix. ‘I saw his palace collapse as the maelstrom closed in.’
‘Pity,’ said the quartermaster, his teeth glinting unpleasantly in the yellow lamplight. ‘I've been looking forward to slitting his gizzard.’ His right hand, poised as if holding a dagger, slashed through the air. ‘Like so,’ he said, and his cruel laughter, echoing round the cabin, was joined by the others seated about the table.
‘Undertown is destroyed,’ said Felix, and the laughter stopped abruptly. ‘Utterly destroyed. We managed to escape…’
‘Who is “we”?’ asked Deadbolt, leaning forward in his chair.
‘Undertowners, young and old; librarians from the Great Library in the sewers, and …’ He paused. ‘And those I command – the Ghosts of Screetown.’
A low murmur went round the table. Suddenly the youth's confident, almost impudent, manner made sense. Even out here in the Mire they had heard of the Ghosts of Screetown – so called because of their bleached white, ghostly appearance – who were a band of fearless hunters and fighters from the worst part of Undertown.
‘So, you're the leader of the ghosts,’ said Vulpoon, trying to disguise the awe in his voice.
‘Since when does a ghost need help?’ interrupted the quartermaster in a sneering voice. ‘I mean, after Screetown, surely the Mire can hold no terrors for you – if you are who you say you are.’
Felix took a step towards the quartermaster, his eyes blazing. ‘I do not ask help for the ghosts,’ he said. ‘I ask it for the Undertowners and the librarians who, even as we speak, are back there in the black mists of the Mire Road. They cannot return. They must go on, but the way is perilous.’ He took a long, slow breath. ‘But you know the Mire,’ he said. ‘By going through the Edgelands, we can avoid the Twilight Woods. But first, we must get across the Mire. For that, we need your help…’
‘And if we do help you,’ said Vulpoon, ‘what's in it for us?’
Felix smiled. ‘Spoken like a true sky pirate,’ he said impudently.
Deadbolt Vulpoon felt himself redden with sudden anger. ‘What's left for you here?’ the youth continued. ‘Without Undertown and the Mire Road trade, you'll rot away here like these precious ships of yours. Join us, and you can build a new life in the Free Glades…’
‘And what's to stop us simply raiding you?’ Vulpoon interrupted gruffly.
‘Try that,’ said Felix hotly, ‘and the Ghosts of Screetown will cut you down, and the mire mud will run thick with treacherous sky pirate blood.’
‘You march in here, insulting sky pirates and our sky ships,’ said Vulpoon, his eyes blazing and fists clenching. ‘And you expect us to help you!’
The librarian stepped forward and lowered his hood for the first time. The others fell still and looked at him.
‘Once, Deadbolt Vulpoon, you needed help,’ he said, his voice low, the words quick. ‘You were locked up in one of the roadside shryke cages. I gave you food to eat and water to drink. Do you not remember? You said you would never forget,’ he added softly.
The sky pirate captain looked stunned for a moment before breaking into a huge grin that made his face wrinkle up and his eyes disappear.
‘You!’ he boomed, striding across the cabin. ‘That was you!’ Roaring with laughter, he clapped Rook on the back warmly. ‘Barkwater, isn't it?’
‘Yes, sir. Rook Barkwater,’ he said. ‘And now it is my turn to ask for help from you.’
‘Rook Barkwater,’ Vulpoon repeated, shaking his head in amazement. ‘Of all peopl
e!’ He turned to the other sky pirates. ‘This lad saved my life,’ he said. ‘I cannot refuse him what he asks. We shall help the Undertowners.’
‘He didn't save my life,’ snorted the thin quartermaster.
Deadbolt's face darkened. He reached out and grasped the quartermaster by the collar with a huge hand, and twisted. ‘You were ready enough to quit the Armada before,’ he roared. ‘This way, you get to enjoy the Free Glades rather than the filth of the Foundry Glades. Say “no”, and I'll snap your scrawny neck, Quillet Pleeme, by Sky I will!’
‘There'll be no need for that, will there, Quillet?’ said the cloddertrog in the bleached muglumpskin coat, loosening Deadbolt's grip.
The quartermaster shook his head weakly.
‘The ghost is right,’ the cloddertrog said. ‘The Armada is finished. There's nothing for us here. We're with you, Captain.’
‘To the Free Glades!’ roared Deadbolt, releasing the quartermaster and clapping Rook on the shoulder once more.
Rook smiled. ‘To the Free Glades!’ he replied.
• CHAPTER TWO •
EXODUS
By Sky, lad,’ gasped Deadbolt Vulpoon, pausing at the top of the mud dune to catch his breath, ‘that's a dark maelstrom all right. The darkest, blackest, most accursed I've ever seen, and no mistake.’
Rook scrambled up beside him, the claggy white mud pulling at his mud-shoes and mire-poles like hungry oozefish. ‘And it seems …’ he panted, ‘to be spreading.’
Deadbolt hawked and spat with disgust. ‘This is what you get when you tamper with nature,’ he growled. ‘Cursed, meddlesome academics! They can't leave anything alone!’
In front of them, a thick, dense line of low mesanumbic cloud – flat at the top and with great billowing forms beneath – was advancing from the direction of Undertown and steadily engulfing the Great Mire Road, like a huge logworm swallowing its prey.