Slowly, whispered rumours of the slaughter of the shryke roost-sisters filtered up to the Undertowners, and low murmurs filled the night air. A battle had been won, so it seemed, yet the roost-mother lived on. The battle-flock still had a leader and, having regrouped, was heading towards them.
Gilda pulled her cloak around her and shivered. It was going to be a long night.
Xanth was glad he was standing next to Henkel. With the whole shryke army on its way, he felt better knowing that the hefty, battle-scarred cloddertrog was at his side, mighty poleaxe in hand. Xanth looked down at the sword in his own hand. It was certainly magnificent, with a polished pommel, an ornate handle and a blade so sharp it could split a hair lengthways.
He looked up at the cloddertrog, his eyes gleaming. ‘It's fantastic, isn't it?’ he said.
‘Certainly is,’ said Henkel. ‘Some kind of ceremonial sword by the look of it. Though I daresay that won't stop it slicing a shryke or two in twain.’ He laughed throatily. ‘Try it out, lad.’
Xanth parried and lunged and swung the sword round in wide sweeps, before jabbing at the air in a succession of short sharp movements. It was so well-shaped and perfectly balanced that it seemed almost to move by itself, slicing through the air like an agile ratbird in flight.
‘Excellent, excellent,’ said Henkel. ‘It could have been made for you. And I'll tell you this, lad, if…’
The cloddertrog stopped and his eyes narrowed. Around him, the sky pirates stopped talking and scanned the treeline. They were behind the second ring of barricades, constructed from the trees cut down in front of them.
‘Open ground,’ Deadbolt had growled. ‘It'll stop them coming at us from the treetops.’
Ahead of Xanth, across the cleared forest, he could see the first ring of barricades. These were being defended by Felix and the ghosts. He could just make out the helmeted figure of the leader of the ghosts as he signalled to his companions to prepare for the onslaught they all knew was coming.
Xanth heard Henkel's gruff voice. ‘Hold your ground, lad,’ he told him.
Xanth gripped the handle of his sword and prayed that he might be brave. The night air was still, the only sound, the odd cough or muttered curse from the ranks of sky pirates lining the log barricade. All eyes were focused on the ghosts at the first barricade across the clearing.
Then Xanth heard it. A blood-curdling scream that sent shivers coursing down his spine. It was followed by another and another from the dark shadows of the treeline.
‘Here they come,’ muttered Henkel. ‘Sky protect us.’
Suddenly, a huge wave of screaming bird-creatures, crested with a glittering array of pikes, war hammers and bone-flails, broke through the trees and smashed into the first barricade. Xanth gasped. Everywhere, the ranks of ghosts splintered into individual fights as first in one place, then another, shrykes broke through their defences. The whiplash cracks of ropes cutting through the air and wrapping themselves round feathered necks sounded all down the line as the ghosts fought desperately to hold back the tide.
But it was hopeless, Xanth could see that, and his stomach gave a sickening lurch. There were just too many of the shrieking, frenzied shrykes.
Every instinct told him to turn and run away, now, before the evil flood of feathers and fury swept him away. Henkel must have seen the look on his face, for he turned to Xanth and laid a huge hand on his shoulder.
‘Steady, lad. This is the hardest part, waiting for the storm of battle to break. Trust in that sword and stay close.’
Xanth nodded and tightened his grip on the handle of the sword. Sharp and bright as it looked, could it really stop one of those evil shrieking bird-creatures? He was about to find out.
‘Fall back, Ghosts!’
Felix's shouted command sounded above the din of battle, and suddenly the air filled with whipcracks as ropes shot over Xanth's and the sky pirates' heads and wrapped themselves round tree branches behind them. In an instant, hundreds of white-armoured ghosts launched themselves out of the midst of the thrashing, flailing shrykes and flew through the night air, landing behind the second barricade.
Xanth gasped. He'd never seen anything so spectacular.
‘Very pretty,’ Henkel growled. ‘Now the real fighting begins!’
At the first barricade, the battle-flock screeched with frustration as the shrykes saw their enemy escape from their clutches. They swarmed over the log wall and surged forward across the cleared ground.
Xanth could see the eyes of the approaching bird-creatures flashing, bright yellow, their sharp beaks and talons glinting in the moonlight.
‘Fire!' came Deadbolt Vulpoon's booming command, and a deadly volley of crossbow bolts spat from the ranks all around Xanth.
The first wave of shrykes screamed and fell beneath the clawed feet of those following, but the huge battle-flock hardly checked its pace.
‘Fire!' came the command again. ‘Fire!’
Each volley of missiles cut swathes through the feathered ranks – but still the shrykes continued towards them.
‘Here they come!’ bellowed Henkel as the wave of shrykes threw themselves on the barricades. Xanth gagged as the stale odour of rancid entrails and shryke waste tainted the air. All round him, the terrible feathered creatures burst over the barricade and fell upon the sky pirates, their eyes blazing, their beaks gaping. Beside him, Henkel swung his poleaxe in a low, horizontal sweep, decapitating three screaming shryke guards. Xanth thrust his sword out in front of him and felt a jolt run through his arm as first one shryke, then another, ran onto the point and skewered themselves through their hearts.
‘Well done, lad, well done,’ Xanth heard Henkel shouting across to him as he withdrew his sword, sticky with shryke blood. There was a roaring in his ears and he felt as if his heart was about to explode. ‘Watch out!’ Henkel roared. ‘Behind you!’
Xanth turned, to be confronted with a huge, muscular shryke, with flecked brown and cream plumage, swinging a spiked ball the size of his own head through the air towards him.
He leaped back, ducking as he went, and brought the sword round in a sharp uppercut, severing the shryke's arm, sending the ball and chain spinning back through the air before embedding itself in the creature's neck. Thick, dark blood gushed down her front as she fell, gurgling and twitching, to the ground.
He had scarcely a moment to catch his breath when three orange-feathered shrykes with scythes came at him. Desperately, Xanth parried their blows and ducked out of the way of stabbing beaks and claws. Sweat was pouring down his face as he gasped noisily, his lungs burning and his limbs aching.
‘Urrghh!' he cried out as a claw-hammer glanced off his shoulder and he fell to one knee.
Suddenly, the shrykes in front of him exploded in a shower of blood and orange feathers and Xanth looked up to see Henkel, bloodied poleaxe in hand, looming over him.
‘Run!’ he roared.
Xanth didn't need telling twice. He leaped to his feet and dashed after the cloddertrog, who cleared the way with massive swings of his poleaxe. They were joined on all sides by bloodied, feather-spattered sky pirates, as they dashed up the steep wooded slopes of the lufwood mount towards the summit. Behind them, the ghosts covered their retreat by swinging through the trees and raining down burning lufwood darts into the battle-flock's path.
At the summit, they were greeted by the ashen faces of thousands of Undertowners, huddled together in abject terror. Around them, the librarian knights had spread a thin defensive line, their skycraft firmly anchored to the rocky crag. It was clear by the grim looks on their faces, that this was where they were going to stand and fight.
Xanth saw the imposing figure of Fenbrus Lodd standing, arms folded defiantly, next to the stooped Most High Academe, Cowlquape. Varis Lodd and the Professors of Light and Darkness stood guard round them, their crossbow quivers bristling and their swords unsheathed.
Deadbolt Vulpoon came stamping up to them, his beard red with shryke blood, and his greatcoat c
ut to ribbons. ‘We held them as long as we could,’ he growled, bowing his head to Cowlquape. ‘And that son of yours and his ghosts are making them pay for every step of the mount they climb,’ he added, turning to Fenbrus. ‘He's a good 'un, and no mistake.’
Fenbrus Lodd looked grave. ‘This is where we make our stand,’ he said. ‘If the Great Library is to perish, let it be here on the lufwood mount over our dead bodies.’
‘It most likely will be,’ said Deadbolt darkly. ‘For they're in a blood frenzy now, just as I feared.’
Xanth sat down on a rock next to Henkel and tried to catch his breath. A pale moon shone down and bathed everything in silvery light. All round, there was the sound of quiet sobbing and stifled moans.
‘You did well back there, lad,’ said Henkel, wiping his bloodied poleaxe on his muglumpskin coat. ‘I was glad to have you by my side, friend.’
‘And I you, friend,’ said Xanth, managing a smile.
‘Come,’ said the cloddertrog. ‘The night is not over yet.’
The sky pirates joined the librarian knights defending the summit of the lufwood mount, and before long, the white figures of the ghosts came whistling through the trees on their long ropes and added to their number. Dark clouds drifted across the moon and a chill wind got up as an eerie silence fell over the crowded mountain-top.
‘What are they waiting for? Why don't they attack?’ whispered Xanth.
They could hear the shrieks and calls of the battle-flock in the trees below them. ‘They're gorging on the dead,’ said Henkel simply. ‘And when they've finished …’ he surveyed the treeline with weary eyes ‘… then they'll come for us.’
They hadn't long to wait. The calls of the shrykes abruptly grew louder, with one piercing shrieked cry loudest of all.
‘KAAAAR-KAAAAR-KAAAAR!!’
It sounded through the lufwood trees of the mount.
‘Kut-kut-keer-keer!’ came answering shrieks from all around.
Suddenly, the air was alive with feathered arrows whistling out of the trees and into the defenders. One grazed Xanth's cheek and sent him cowering to the ground. When he looked up, the battle-flock had broken cover and was advancing towards them.
They no longer swarmed in a shrieking, surging tide, but instead, were walking slowly and deliberately up the rocky slope. Their feathers dripped with blood; their claws and beaks were crimson and their eyes glowed a deep, throbbing red.
Xanth stared at the bloody spectacle, mesmerized. There was nothing anyone could do to stop this terrible onslaught, he realized miserably. They were all doomed.
As the huge circle of shrykes closed in on the Undertowners and their defenders, the piercing call sounded again.
‘KAAAAR-KAAAAR-KAAAAR!!’
The huge shryke roost-mother pushed through the flock and raised a dripping claw. This was it! The final gorging!
Then all at once, there came the clear, sweet sound of a tilderhorn calling out from the forest below, followed by a low rumbling like distant thunder. The roost-mother paused, her claw still raised high. What was this?
‘Kiii-kiii-kiii.’ Small, yelping cries spread through the battle-flock behind her, which changed to shrieking calls of panic a moment later.
From behind them, out of the forest, a great, bristling, writhing creature was attacking and driving the startled shryke battle-flock into a confused jostling heap. As Muleclaw turned, the creature seemed to split up into hundreds of individuals, each with a spike, stabbing and goading the shrykes from every angle.
Xanth looked up. Around him, all eyes had turned towards the sounds of distress coming from the back of the battle-flock. Suddenly, an armoured lancer on an orange prowlgrin burst through the shrykes, followed by twenty more. Green and white chequerboard pennants fluttered from their lances; red banderbear badges emblazoned their white tunics.
‘The Freeglade Lancers!’ the shout went up.
Soon, everywhere Xanth looked, lancers on prowlgrins were breaking through the shrykes and scattering them in confusion.
‘KAAAAR-KAAAAR-KAAAAR!’ shrieked Mother Muleclaw as she saw her battle-flock disintegrate and fall back in a frenzied, flapping panic.
Behind her, Xanth gripped the magnificent, razor-sharp sword, took a deep breath and swung it through the air.
‘KAAAAR-KAA … K… urrgh!’
The roost-mother was dead before she hit the ground, her magnificent plumed head with its curved black beak separated from her gold armoured body.
‘Henkel! Henkel!’ Xanth cried, turning back in triumph. ‘I did it! I got her! I killed…’
He stopped and fell to his knees. Henkel stared back at him with unseeing eyes, a thin trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, his body slumped forward in a half-sitting, half-crouching position and a barbed, feather-flighted shryke arrow protruding from his chest.
‘Hey, you there! Yes, you!’ came an angry voice. Xanth turned, to see Felix Lodd standing over him, his eyes blazing. ‘Where did you get that sword?’
Sister Drab and Matron Featherhorn tramped back through the forest, their shryke-males still on leashes clasped in their shaking hands. It was dark and cold, with the moon lost behind rain-drenched clouds that had swept in from the north.
‘Our darlings!’ wept Matron Featherhorn. ‘So young, so inexperienced. They couldn't help themselves…’
‘It was the blood frenzy,’ said Sister Drab, shaking her head. ‘That I should have lived to see the day a battle-flock turned on itself, and shryke gorged on shryke.’
‘There was nothing you could do, sister,’ said Matron Featherhorn, her eyes streaking. ‘Nothing any of us could have done. Their blood was up. They couldn't help themselves. With Mother Muleclaw dead up there on that accursed mount, there was no one left to control them.’
‘Curse the Undertowners!’ spat Sister Drab. ‘And curse the Freeglade Lancers! To think we had victory within our grasp …’
‘What is there for us now?’ asked Matron Featherhorn. Behind her, the males warbled and twittered feebly.
Sister Drab turned and looked at her companion, her gaze cold and unblinking.
‘Our finest battle-flocks destroyed in Undertown. Now our fledgling army killed in the Deepwoods. We have nothing left, dear Matron Featherhorn,’ she said bitterly. ‘The age of the shrykes is over.’
• CHAPTER NINE •
NEW UNDERTOWN
The sun shone down on the Free Glades. Never before had the streets of New Undertown thronged with quite so many revellers as that evening in late summer, when the new turned out to celebrate the arrival of the old. After their long and dangerous journey, the vast multitude from old Undertown marvelled at their new surroundings.
Every ornately carved building on every thoroughfare, from grand avenue to narrow alley, was festooned with flags and streamers, and multi-coloured bunting criss-crossed overhead. Long lines of twinkling lanterns – yellow, pink and white – had been strung up throughout the town, from the elegant Lufwood Tower at its centre to the cowl-shaped Hive Huts to the south. They zigzagged along each street, they lined the bridges, they ringed the squares; down to Lakeside they went, gleaming and glinting from every market stall and reflected in the deep, still waters of North Lake.
As the golden light of the setting sun dimmed, the lanterns seemed to glow brighter than ever, flickering on the happy faces of the Undertowners, new and old. Some were laughing, some were singing, some were dancing – everything from whirling goblin jigs and rowdy trog stomps, to a hopping lugtroll line that snaked its way through the streets. A band of musicians played alongside it on pipes, drums and a vast stringed instrument carried by four and played by three more. Through the centre the winding chain of dancers went, past the Lufwood Tower and down to Lakeside, where the street-stalls were overflowing with food and drink.
‘Woodale! Get your woodale here!’ bellowed a ruddy-faced mobgnome from behind a trestle table which bowed in the middle under the weight of a large and heavy barrel.
&
nbsp; ‘Goblets of winesap!’ called a gnokgoblin matron from a neighbouring stall.
A group of lugtrolls – young and old, and all weary after their long journey from old Undertown – compared what was on offer, before pausing in front of a gabtroll's barrow. One of them – a young male in a ragged cloak – leaned over a steaming vat and breathed in deeply.
‘'Tis oakmead, sir,’ said the gabtroll softly. ‘Spiced and honeyed, with just a hint of nibblick.’ She picked up a tankard and a ladle and poured a little of the warm liquid out. ‘Would you care to try some?’ she said.
The lugtroll took the tankard and sipped. It was delicious. ‘How much?’ he asked cautiously.
‘How much?’ the gabtroll replied, her eyeballs bouncing about on their stalks in amusement. ‘This is the Free Glades. All for one, and one for all.’ She swept her arms round in a wide arc. ‘Everything's free. All that you poor, dear old Undertowners can eat and drink.’
The lugtrolls looked at one another, smiles breaking out on their faces. Back in the filth and misery of old Undertown, they'd had to scratch a living hauling firewood for the leagues' forges. The work was hard and the days were long, and the only payment was a meagre supper of grey gruel and black bread. Yet here in New Undertown, the air was sweet and everywhere they looked they were greeted by happy, smiling faces.
‘Thank you, mistress gabtroll,’ the young lugtroll proclaimed gratefully. ‘Thank you a thousandfold.’
‘So it's oakmead all round, is it?’ the gabtroll said, her tongue slurping noisily over her eyeballs as she ladled out the drinks. ‘To your very good health!’ she announced. ‘And welcome! Welcome, one and all.’
In every part of the throbbing town, as was happening throughout the Free Glades, from the southern meadow-lands to the northern fringes, from the eastern woodtroll villages to the western shores of the Great Lake, the newcomers were being greeted and feted like long-lost friends and relations.