‘We prefer it boiled up in our mother's cooking-pots,’ said one. ‘Nice 'n' warm.’
‘But you might like it as it is,’ said another, offering him a beakerful. ‘Sweet and refreshing.’
Rook took the beaker and sipped at the pink liquid. It was indeed delicious – and far more refreshing than he would have thought possible. 'Thank you, thank you,’ he said, grinning at the gyle goblins each in turn. ‘It's marvellous.’
‘You're most welcome, friend,’ came the reply.
The gyle goblins continued on their way and Rook waved after them. Alone once more, he turned and resumed his journey with renewed energy and, as he climbed the slope on the far side of the dip, his thoughts returned to Fenbrus Lodd and the meeting they'd had early that morning.
‘You're absolutely sure this is what you want to do,’ the High Librarian had pressed him. The pair of them had been standing in Fenbrus Lodd's study inside the library, the hushed purr of academic activity softly echoing all about them. ‘The Freeglade Lancers do an excellent job patrolling our borders, but they're a rough and ready lot, you know.’
Rook had laughed. ‘Unlike the librarian knights, you mean?’ he said.
‘Yes, well, we've got some pretty interesting characters in our ranks as well, I grant you,’ Fenbrus had said. ‘But that aside, Rook, there's a great future waiting for you here in the Great Library if you would only accept it. You've got the skills to make a superb librarian; the perseverance, the agility and accuracy – why only yesterday, my assistant Garulus Lexis was saying what a terrific start you've already made as a scroll-seeker.’ His brow had furrowed as he surveyed the youth warmly. ‘The Great Library needs bright young academics like you, Rook.’
‘I … I'm very flattered, sir,’ Rook had said, his cheeks reddening, ‘really I am. And I love the library, of course,’ he'd added, looking out through the study door at the magnificent roof timbers, bedecked with hanging barkscrolls. ‘And yet, I … I need something else … I'm a librarian knight who has lost his skycraft. Perhaps by joining the lancers I can serve not only the librarians but all Freegladers.’
‘By Earth and Sky, you sound just like Felix,’ Fenbrus had said, his eyes twinkling. ‘Can't seem to get him to leave the ghosts and join us in the Great Library. But I had such high hopes of you, my lad. Still,’ he'd said, shaking his head resignedly, ‘I can see I'm not going to change your mind.’ And he'd reached out, seized Rook by the hand and pumped it heartily up and down. ‘I shall miss you, lad, but I wish you all the very best. The library's loss is the Freeglade Lancers' gain. And remember, there'll always be a welcome for you back here at the library, any time you choose to return. Any time at all!’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Rook had said and was about to leave, when Fenbrus had told him to wait just a moment longer.
He'd hurried over to his desk, pulled a drawer open and rummaged about noisily inside it, returning a moment later with a roll of parchment, which he'd handed over. Rook had looked at it, curious.
‘Open it up, lad,’ Fenbrus had said, his eyes gleaming excitedly. ‘Given your chosen career, I think you might find it quite helpful.’
‘On the Husbandry of Prowlgrins,’ Rook had read out loud.‘A treatise by …’ He'd stopped, then smiled. ‘Fenbrus Lodd … So this is…’
‘My very first treatise, that's right, Rook,’ Fenbrus had said. ‘Keep it safe and return it to me one day – possibly with additions of your own. After all, you did say you enjoyed treatise work. And if you're not going to be a scroll-seeker, then we'll get you working as a scroll-writer, eh? Go on, then. Get out, before I change my mind and have you assigned to quill-sharpening duty.’
The High Librarian had sounded gruff, but Rook had noticed the moistness in his eyes. Despite his bluster and stern manner, Fenbrus Lodd has a kind heart, Rook thought, as he struggled up the overgrown slope – I wonder why he never lets his own son see it?
Reaching the top of a ridge at last – red-faced and out of breath – he looked up and saw the towering trees of the Ironwood Glade just before him. He stepped forwards and entered the huge stand of trees. It was like entering a gigantic, windowless hall. The temperature dropped and the sounds of the Free Glades outside became muffled.
Stepping gingerly over the glade floor, his feet sinking into the thick mattress of pine needles, Rook looked down. Somewhere far below him lay the Gardens of Light, where Xanth Filatine was being held.
Poor Xanth, he thought. Nobody seemed to have a good word to say about him, and yet … No, it was no good. Try as he might, Rook couldn't remember anything about his friend's betrayal so long ago.
From high above his head, as he plunged deeper into the shadow-filled coolness of the glade, he heard sounds – the soft whinnying of countless prowlgrins; the low buzz of voices. And looking up into the tall trees, their huge branches criss-crossing, not unlike the roofbeams of the library, he saw that he was below the Prowlgrin Roosts. Hundreds of the creatures perched overhead – snuffling, nuzzling, resting and preening; some gnawing on bones, some wandering from branch to branch. And amongst them in the half-light, Rook could just make out individuals, with chequered green and white at their necks and red figures emblazoned on their chests.
‘The Freeglade Lancers,’ Rook murmured.
He started up the nearest ironwood pine, finding handholds and footholds in the rough bark and climbing at an angle, crossing from branch to branch, as he made his way up the close-growing trees. It was just like climbing the roof timbers at the new Great Library, only on an altogether bigger scale. Soon, he was far above the ground and all around him, in place of barkscrolls, were prowlgrins of all ages and sizes.
They ambled this way and that freely, purring contentedly as they grazed on the tilder-carcasses which hung from heavy hooks, and sometimes snorting loudly as, in a sudden display of activity, they launched off from one branch with their powerful back legs and grasped hold of the next with the long claws of their stubby forelegs. Clearly used to the lancers in their midst, none of them paid Rook any attention.
Nor, at first, did the lancers themselves. Those who were not asleep in hammocks, slung from the overhead branches, were busy with their duties. Some sat cross-legged, sharpening their ironwood lances with notched jag-knives. Some polished their breast-plates and limb-guards with tilder grease. Others – in twos and threes – were grooming their prowlgrins, brushing their fur and oiling their great paws.
Most of them, Rook noticed, were gnokgoblins, small
wiry creatures whose close relationship with the great roosting beasts was similar to that of the gyle goblins and spindlebugs in the Gardens of Light below. But there were a smattering of others – mobgnomes, lop-eared goblins, slaughterers … It was, in fact, a slaughterer who first noticed Rook. Looking up from the broken harness he was busy repairing, he caught sight of the young librarian.
‘Well, well, if it isn't a librarian knight,’ he said. ‘And what can we humble lancers do for you?’
Others looked round to see who their comrade was talking to.
‘Greetings, Freeglader,’ Rook said. ‘If you could take me to see your captain…’
‘Captain, eh?’ said one of the gnokgoblins. ‘And what would you be wanting with him?’
‘Certainly don't get many librarian knights around here,’ said his companion. ‘I thought you lot preferred being up in the sky.’
‘'S safer up there, innit?’ said the first gnokgoblin, raising his eyebrows and provoking laughter from the others.
Rook's face reddened. ‘I … I want … I wanted…’ he stammered.
‘Spit it out, lad,’ said the slaughterer. ‘Stone me, I thought you librarian knights were meant to be good with words – what with all them barkscrolls and that…’
‘Come on, now, you lot, cut it out,’ came a gruff voice.
‘Captain Welt,’ said two of the gnokgoblins as one.
Rook looked round to see a short yet heavily-built gnokgoblin swinging down on a rope fr
om a higher branch and landing squarely beside him. He had dark eyes, a low brow and a deep scar that crossed his cheek, clearly made by the knife that had left one of his ears half the size of the other.
‘In't there something useful you could be getting on with, eh, Grist, Worp, Trabbis?’ he asked, turning from one gnokgoblin to the other, ‘rather than joshing the lad here? And as for you, Ligger,’ he added, turning to the slaughterer, ‘I distinctly remember telling you to skin those tilders before the prowlgrins got their teeth into them. We need the pelts!’
‘Yes, Captain. Sorry, Captain, sir,’ said Ligger, and hurried off.
The gnokgoblin captain turned to Rook. ‘Well, son?’ he said. ‘Why are you here?’
The gnokgoblins busied themselves, while listening closely.
‘I want to join the Freeglade Lancers,’ Rook replied, trying to ignore the smirks of the gnokgoblins watching and listening from the surrounding branches.
‘Do you now?’ said the captain. ‘Can you ride?’
‘I … I have ridden a prowlgrin before, sir,’ said Rook. ‘I'm sure, with a little practice…’
‘Practice!’ the captain snorted. ‘I'm sure with a little practice, I could fly a skycraft, but that wouldn't make me a librarian knight. What makes you think you could make it as a Freeglade Lancer?’
‘It's just that … well …’ Rook began, his face falling. ‘I lost my skycraft – crashed over Screetown – and I can't seem to carve a new one, and I've been stuck in the library in the meantime. And … and then I saw you out on patrol the other evening. And I talked to Felix about it, and he said…’
‘Felix?’ said Captain Welt, his good ear twitching. ‘Felix Lodd?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Rook.
‘Felix Lodd of the Ghosts of Undertown?’
Rook nodded. ‘Felix said I could do a lot worse than join the Freeglade Lancers, especially after what you did at the Battle of Lufwood Mount.’
‘Did he now?’ said the captain, nodding sagely. Behind him, Rook could hear the eavesdropping gnokgoblins murmuring to one another. They were all clearly impressed.
‘Well, why didn't you say so before?’ said Captain Welt. ‘Any friend of Felix Lodd is welcome to join us, and Sky knows we could do with new riders. We lost a lot of good lancers at the lufwood mount.’ He shook his head for a moment, then reached forward and slapped Rook on the back. ‘String your hammock up over there,’ he said. ‘Grist and Worp'll sort you out – and report to me tomorrow morning at eight hours. Understood, Lancer?’
‘Understood, sir,’ said Rook happily.
Rook slept well. The cool night air suited him so much better than the stuffy atmosphere inside a sleeping cabin; it always had. He was woken at sunrise by Ligger the slaughterer, who had prepared a breakfast of smoked rashers of tilder and pine-hen eggs for himself, Rook, and the three gnokgoblins, Grist, Worp and Trabbis. The five of them were soon hunkered down on the broad branch, tucking in.
‘So, Worp tells me you're an Undertowner,’ Grist was saying, as he chewed the salty fried meat.
‘I was brought up in the Great Library in the sewers of old Undertown,’ Rook nodded. ‘But I was born out here in the Deepwoods, so I'm told.’
‘Told?’ said Worp. ‘Don't you know?’
‘Let the lad enjoy his breakfast in peace,’ Ligger interrupted, and gave Rook a nudge. ‘Don't mind them. Gnokgoblins are nosy – you can tell that just by looking at them!’
The three gnokgoblins laughed so hard, Rook thought they might fall off the branch if they weren't careful.
‘It's all right,’ he reassured Ligger. ‘I don't mind. I'm an orphan. My parents were killed by slavers when I was little, and the librarians took me in and raised me.’
‘Undertowner, librarian, gnokgoblin or slaughterer – it's all the same,’ said Worp, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. ‘We're all Freegladers now.’ The others all nodded. ‘Though for a moment back there, I didn't think we'd make it,’ he said quietly.
‘You were at the Battle of Lufwood Mount?’ asked Rook, putting down his plate.
‘We all were,’ said Ligger.
‘We lost some good lancers that day,’ said Grist, shaking his head grimly.
‘Them shrykes had the frenzy upon them,’ said Worp and shuddered. ‘The hunger…’
‘If the roost-mother hadn't been killed, we'd have lost a whole load more,’ said Trabbis.
‘You're not wrong there,’ said Worp and the others nodded earnestly.
‘I saw it happen,’ Ligger said, ‘just as Vanquix and me made it through to the Undertowners' lines. Never saw the like of it in all my days. This young lad stepped up – shaved head, big flash-looking sword. Sliced her head off in one blow, he did! Right in front of us. The whole shryke flock just went crazy – turned and started attacking each other.’ He shuddered at the memory of it. ‘So where were you?’ Worp asked Rook. ‘Head in the clouds?’
‘Well, sort of,’ said Rook, smiling. ‘But not in the way you mean … I'd been struck by a sepia storm, way out in the Edgelands. I was half dead. My banderbear friends took me away from the mount before the actual battle began. They made their own way to the Free Glades, taking it in turns to carry me. I remember very little about it…’
‘A friend of banderbears, eh?’ said Ligger, obviously impressed.
‘Fine, noble creatures,’ the gnokgoblins were all agreeing, when all at once a tilder horn sounded, the rasping cry echoing round the glade.
‘Eight hours already,’ said Ligger. ‘Time to muster.’
The gnokgoblins hurriedly finished the rest of their breakfast and drained their mugs. Ligger grabbed Rook by the arm.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You've got an appointment with Captain Welt.’
The next two weeks were among the most challenging of Rook's life. Despite his training as a librarian knight, nothing could have prepared him for what followed. Instead of the elegant arts of ropecraft, sail-setting and flight practice, Rook learned the bone-crunching techniques of branch-riding and ironwood jousting.
Gripping on to a slender lower branch with his legs, and dodging the incoming ironwood pine-cones, he had to remain in position as the branch was bounced up and down by ropes, tugged and jerked by bellowing lancers. Time and again he was unseated, and fell down onto the soft pine needles below, only to climb back onto the branch and resume the seemingly neverending practice.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, every day there were the endless tilts at the quintain, with the heavy ironwood lance clasped under one arm while the other was strapped to his side. Suspended from a branch in a narrow rope-swing and pushed, Rook swung to and fro, hitting the target and being hit in equal measure by the quintain's pivoting padded arm. At night – despite the others sniggering at the bookish former librarian in their midst – he read from Fenbrus Lodd's treatise, soaking up every word and learning all about the prowlgrins he had yet to ride.
In the third week, he was introduced to the creatures at last and instructed how to clean and groom them, how to file their claws and oil their leathery feet. He patted them on the sides of their great heads and tickled them with his fingertips, just the way the treatise had taught him to. He learned about tack; the harnesses, saddles and reins, and the heavy bits that were held between their great, gaping mouths which enabled them to be controlled.
Ligger and the gnokgoblins all had prowlgrins of their own, on whom they lavished great care and attention. They were tame – sleek grey, brown, orange and black creatures who had formed strong bonds with their riders. But there were also others – some young and unbroken; others ownerless since the loss of their Freeglader riders. These, Rook and the other new recruits looked after. It was at the end of that third week that Captain Welt himself came up to Rook at the close of yet another gruelling day.
‘I've had my eye on you, Rook Barkwater,’ he said. ‘You're a quick learner and no mistake. I think the time's come for you to choose a prowlgrin of your own. Ligger,’ he said, turning
to the slaughterer. ‘Take him with you to the central-corral. Tomorrow, he'll ride beside you on patrol.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Rook, breaking into a broad smile. It was the moment he'd been waiting for.
He and Ligger set off at once, cutting through the Ironwood Glade, towards the great central roost, chatting excitedly as they went. As they got closer, the air grew musty and Rook could hear the sounds of whinnying and snorting as the roosting creatures sensed their approach. They were greeted by the roost-marshal, Rembit Tag, a small, muscular gnokgoblin with thick, black hair.
‘We've been sent by Captain Welt,’ Ligger announced. ‘Rook here needs a prowlgrin mount.’
‘Does he now,’ Rembit said, eyeing Rook up and down, gauging his size and weight. He selected a saddle for him and handed it over. Then, turning, he nodded towards the herd. ‘I'd go for one of the large greys,’ he said. ‘Not too much spirit, but dependable.’
Rook looked. They were a mixed flock. There were the large brown, grey and black prowlgrins, with thick, muscular hind-legs and tiny front paws. Then the slightly smaller, but more skittish, orange prowlgrins – sleek and fast, but harder to handle. Rook stepped forwards, and walked amongst them, patting them, stroking and tickling them. The prowlgrins purred and nuzzled against him. Rembit was impressed.
‘They like you,’ he said. ‘You seem to have a natural way with them.’
Rook nodded. The prowlgrin has forty-three places receptive to stroking, patting and tickling: the eyebrow, the middle digit of the toe … Fenbrus's treatise intoned in his head.
There was one prowlgrin he'd noticed, perched on a branch some way off from the others. Unlike them, with their yellow eyes and plain coats, this one had eyes of bright, piercing blue and a skewbald pattern of dark brown patches on snow-white fur.
The white, spotted prowlgrin – exceptionally intelligent, but temperamental. Rewards careful handling, but easily ruined by a heavy hand …
‘What about that one?’ he said.