‘And then, nothing,’ said Spooler. ‘The next thing I knew I was lying in the gutter in the Undertown fish market.’
Twig hid his disappointment.
‘A mobgnome found me,’ Spooler continued. ‘He offered me somewhere to spend the night; he gave me something to drink. Woodgrog …’ His face clouded over. ‘And then … And then, thisV he wailed, and sobs of misery wracked his frail body.
‘It's all right, Spooler,’ said Twig softly. ‘You're safe now. We've found you - though Sky alone knows how. And now this sky ship will take you back to Undertown.’
‘But what is there for me in Undertown?’ the oakelf wailed.
‘You must make your way to my study in Sanctaphrax,’ Twig said. ‘The others are waiting for me there: Tarp, Bogwitt, Sleet. They will be delighted to see you. You can wait with them. Cowlquape and I shall return when we have discovered what has happened to the rest of the missing crew.’ He took the oakelf's bony hands in his own. ‘And we must travel on alone, Spooler. We can't take you with us. It was the same with the others. The glow that we create when we are together makes us too conspicuous.’
Spooler pulled away with surprising force. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘No, Captain. I cannot spend another moment on this evil vessel.’ There was a desperate urgency in his voice.
‘But Spooler,’ said Twig, ‘I've explained …’
‘I can be useful to you,’ Spooler persisted. ‘On the long voyage here I gleaned a considerable amount of information - vital information - about the slave market from some of my fellow-prisoners.’
‘But, Spooler …’ Twig began again.
‘Besides,’ Spooler went on, ‘I am an oakelf. Observant. Sensitive. My faculties are sharp. And like all other oakelves I know how to read the signs in the behaviour of others. I will be able to determine how the slave market operates.’
Twig shook his head.
‘And as for the glowing,’ Spooler continued without taking a breath, ‘apparently, there are all sorts in the market. All sorts! Including creatures that glow - the glimpelt when its fur gets wet, the fritts when they're frightened, the lumhorn when it's attacked … No-one will give us a second look.’
Twig glanced up at Cowlquape, who shrugged.
‘If you transgress just one of the unwritten laws of this place, then you're done for,’ said Spooler, drawing a finger across his exposed throat. ‘Believe me, captain, without my help in the Great Shryke Slave Market, you won't last ten minutes.’
‘He's got a point,’ said Twig.
Cowlquape nodded vigorously. ‘He certainly has!’ he said. The thought of falling into the clutches of the cold, glinting-eyed shrykes filled him with horror.
‘Then it's decided. We shall continue as three,’ said Twig.
‘I think this was meant to be,’ said Cowlquape. He looked down, suddenly serious. ‘I read something in the barkscrolls the night before last, something that I think is important. It is what Kobold the Wise said to his followers as they gathered at Riverrise to await the Mother Storm. “We are all but puppets, waiting for our strings to be tweaked. Our lives are nothing more than the workings of the unseen hand that holds those strings.”‘
Twig smiled. ‘And you think someone or something tweaked our strings, do you?’
‘I'm just telling you what I read,’ said Cowlquape.
‘I know,’ said Twig. ‘And perhaps you and your Kobold the Wise are right. After all, here we are - we've found the fourth member of my crew. It's more than I'd ever thought possible. If this is the work of an unseen hand, Cowlquape my friend, then I hope its grip is strong, for I feel the greatest test lies ahead of us out there.’
‘In the slave market,’ said Cowlquape, with a shudder.
‘The slave market!’ said Spooler darkly. ‘And I shall be your guide.’
‘Good, well, if that's decided,’ came a weary voice from the opposite end of the dank hold. It was the gnok-goblin, still manacled and quite forgotten. ‘Then will someone please release me.’
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN •
INTO THE GREAT
SHRYKE SLAVE
MARKET
Having kitted themselves out with fully-equipped longcoats and new para wings from the storeroom of the sky pirate ship, Twig, Cowlquape and Spooler bid a final farewell to the motley company and crew of the Skyraider. The sun was rising as they made their way to the end of the gangplank and Cowlquape was relieved to see that, away from the dark hold, neither Twig nor Spooler were glowing.
Twig squinted through the dense foliage at the slave market beyond. Everything was lit up by the oily yellow glow of the lamps, and it was just possible to make out the extraordinary architecture of this hidden city in the forest through the gaps in the leaves. There were tiled cabins and canopied platforms clinging to the trunks of the massive trees; turret-like constructions and curious spheres woven from woodwillow and sallowdrop twigs which hung from their branches, while wooden walkways, slung from tree to tree and strung with smoking oil lamps, formed a network of paths. The noise was cacophonous and unbroken; the stench, repellent.
‘This is the place,’ a voice in Twig's head whispered. ‘Let Spooler guide you.’
Twig turned to the oakelf. ‘Spooler,’ he said, ‘do you really think you can guide us safely through this terrible place?’
Spooler nodded. ‘I shall do my best,’ he said. ‘First of all, we must see about some white cockades. Come, let us go. And Sky protect us all.’
Twig's heart missed a beat as he followed Spooler over the wobbling plank of wood. He hadn't realized how high up they were for, although docked, the Skyraider was still some fifty strides above the forest floor.
‘The whole market is raised up,’ Spooler was saying. They had reached the other side and were stepping through the outer canopy of leaves. ‘Everything is fixed to, or suspended from, the great trees.’
Twig stared ahead of him, open-mouthed. ‘It's stranger than I ever imagined it would be,’ he whispered.
‘And vast,’ said Spooler. ‘Searching for an individual in this lot…’ His voice faded away and he flapped his hands at the thronging walkways, creaking and groaning under the weight of the crowds that snaked their way along them.
‘We'll manage,’ said Twig. ‘Somehow. Eh, Cowlquape?’ There was no reply. Twig spun round. ‘Cowlquape?’ he called. ‘Where are you?’
‘Wuurgh!’ came a small groan from back the way they'd come.
‘Cowlquape!’ shouted Twig. He ran back through the curtains of foliage and along the landing-stage. And there was his young apprentice, down on his hands and knees in the middle of the bouncing gangplank, eyes tightly closed, shaking like a leaf and unable to move. ‘It's all right,’ Twig said. ‘I'll come and get you.’
‘NO!’ Cowlquape wailed. ‘I can't get up. I'll fall. I know I will.’
Born and raised in Undertown, the youth had never liked heights. Living on the floating city of Sanctaphrax had been fine because it was so vast - though he'd avoided the higher walkways and always shut his eyes in the baskets. Sky sailing had scared him at first, but again the ship had been large and, when up on deck, he'd taken care not to look down. But this - wobbling about on a thin gangplank in mid-air - this was almost as petrifying as dangling on that rope from the Skyraider. In some ways it was worse. At least boarding the sky ship had been over rapidly; he'd just had to hold on. But here, the walkways went on for miles. How would he ever cope with them?
‘Crawl,’ he heard Twig instructing him. ‘Grip the sides of the plank and crawl forwards.’
Cowlquape's head spun. His breath came in short, sharp gasps. ‘I can't,’ he muttered. ‘I just can't.’ Even though his eyes were still clamped shut he could feel the space between him and solid ground.
‘You can!’ said Twig. ‘You can't stay here! Besides, if you fall, what would become of your precious barkscrolls?’
Cowlquape groaned. He felt for the sides of the board with his hands, then shuffled forwards on his knees
. His toes dragged along the rough surface of the plank.
‘That's the way!’ Twig shouted encouragingly. ‘Just a little bit further.’
Arms trembling and teeth clenched, Cowlquape moved forwards again. And then again. Moving without thinking. All at once, hands gripped his jacket and he felt himself being dragged forwards. His legs turned to jelly and he fell with a thud on something hard - the walkway shuddered. He opened his eyes. Twig was crouching down beside him.
‘This is a fine place for me to discover about your head for heights, Cowlquape,’ he said. ‘The whole market's strung up in the trees.’
‘Just give me a moment … I'll be all right,’ said Cowlquape bravely, climbing shakily to his feet. He followed Twig along the landing-stage. ‘It was just that gangplank. No sides.’ He shuddered. ‘Nothing to hold on to …’
At that moment, an ear-piercing squeal ripped through the air, followed by a torrent of curses. Twig, Cowlquape and Spooler ran across to the wooden rail and looked down. Cowlquape gulped nervously.
The noise was coming from a small platform with a red and white striped canopy some way below them. A bandy-legged goblin was leaping around and brandishing a massive fist at the air below him. Beside him was a blazing stove suspended on chains from the branch above.
‘Blast you to open sky for wriggling free like that!’ he was screaming. ‘You've ruined me! Ruined me, do you hear?’
Cowlquape squinted below. There was something there - silent now - bouncing from branch to branch down to the ground. He turned to Twig. ‘What is it?’ he said.
Twig shrugged.
‘A woodhog, probably,’ said Spooler. He nodded towards the goblin, still jumping up and down on the platform in uncontrollable fury. ‘There are hundreds of vendors like him all over the slave market, living from hand to mouth …’
Suddenly, there was a sharp creak and, with a splintering of wood, the platform broke away from the tree-trunk it was anchored to. The goblin screamed and clutched wildly at the hanging stove. For a moment he swung wildly. Then - his fingers hissing and smoking with the intense heat - he let go.
Cowlquape stared in horror, appalled, yet unable to tear his gaze away as the second creature tumbled down after the first. Screaming with terror, the goblin struck a thick branch with a thud, the body - limp now and twisted, with arms and legs akimbo - continued down, down, down …
‘Sky above!’ Cowlquape cried out. ‘What are they?’ He pointed down at the ground, where dozens of fluffy orange creatures were gathering, their bear-trap jaws agape.
Twig and Spooler peered down. ‘Wig-wigs,’ they said in unison.
Twig shuddered. ‘Terrible creatures. They hunt in packs and devour their victims, dead or alive.’
‘Here, they don't even need to hunt,’ said Spooler. ‘They live well enough off the discarded waste from the slave market…’ The body of the goblin crashed down onto the ground and was immediately pounced upon by the ferocious wig-wigs. ‘And anything else that drops down. Accidentally or otherwise,’ he added.
‘And when they've finished, there's nothing left,’ said Twig. ‘Not a scrap of fur or a splinter of bone.’
Cowlquape blanched. ‘They … they can't climb trees, though,’ he said anxiously. ‘Can they?’
Twig shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, they can't.’ And from the look which came into his eyes, Cowlquape guessed that the young captain was speaking from experience.
‘Come,’ said Spooler urgently. ‘We must find a tally-hen and buy our white cockades at once. Without them we could be seized by a slave-trader and put on sale at any moment.’ His huge black eyes darted round the shadows. ‘I heard that there's usually one near the end of each landing-stage,’ he said. ‘Yes, look.’ He pointed to a tall, narrow hut secured to a tree. ‘There's a tally-lodge.’
Twig looked. It was one of the turret-like constructions he'd seen earlier. ‘What are we waiting for then?’ he said.
Together, the three of them crossed the gently swaying hanging walkway. Too terrified to look either left or right, Cowlquape kept his gaze fixed on the hut as he shuffled across. They approached the door.
Close up, the building was a small triumph of Deepwoods architecture. Constructed from buoyant lufwood, it was sturdy yet almost weightless, and artfully curved to minimize wind resistance. A lantern above the door illuminated a gold-lettered plaque: Tally-Hen Mossfeather. Twig raised his fist and knocked.
‘Enter,’ came a raucous voice.
As Twig went to lift the latch, Spooler stayed his hand. ‘Be sure to wait for her to speak first,’ he hissed. ‘It is the way here.’
Twig nodded and opened the door, and the three of them walked into the dark room. Acrid smoke from the tilder-oil lamps around the walls immediately caught in their throats and made their eyes water. A swarthy shryke with metallic grey-green feathers and ivory-white talons stood before them, her back turned, busily moving coloured discs around a numbered tally-board.
Twig stepped forward and waited.
‘Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, plus time-penalties,’ the shryke muttered to herself. ‘Can't you see I'm busy?’ she snapped.
‘We wish to buy white cockades,’ Twig replied boldly.
The shryke paused. ‘Buy, did you say? Not beg, borrow or barter?’ She spun round. ‘And what do you intend buying them with? We don't take tokens or vouchers. It's two gold pieces per person.’
Twig reached inside his jacket, undid the leather pouch and counted out six gold pieces. He handed them over. Without saying a word, the shryke took one of the coins and bit into it with her savage-looking hooked beak. She looked up.
‘Three cockades, you say?’
‘One for each of us,’ said Twig.
The shryke nodded sullenly and turned towards a locked door in the back wall, which she opened to reveal a dark safe carved into the living tree itself. She lifted the lid of the box inside and removed three woodthistle-shaped white rosettes.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘The cockades ensure free right of passage for three days and three nights. After that, the material rots away. If you are caught without cockades you will be seized and sold as slaves.’
‘Three days in this place will be more than enough,’ said Twig.
The shryke snorted unpleasantly. ‘That's what they all say. But I'm warning you,’ she said, ‘the days and nights bleed into one another in the Great Shryke Slave Market. Our visitors are always complaining about the uncommon haste with which time passes …’
‘Which is why we must thank you and bid you farewell,’ said Twig promptly. ‘We have much to do.’ With that, he spun round and left the room, the others following after. The door slammed shut.
‘Surly creature,’ Cowlquape commented.
‘Shrykes aren't exactly known for their graciousness,’ Spooler scowled. ‘Yet those who are made tally-hens generally act with more integrity than most.’ He frowned. ‘Attach your cockade to the front of your jacket where you can keep an eye on it. The slave market is full of light-fingered individuals, and hats with cockades upon them have a horrible habit of going missing.’
With the white cockades positioned and secured to Spooler's satisfaction, the oakelf turned and set off into the slave market. The others followed.
‘And keep close,’ Spooler instructed. ‘Even as cockaded free citizens you risk being picked off by some unscrupulous merchant who would lock you away till the cockade rots and then claim you as his - or her -own.’
Twig's top lip curled with contempt. ‘Is there no honour at all amongst slave-traders?’ he said.
‘You can't buy and sell honour, captain,’ said Spooler. He smiled ruefully. ‘And money is the only thing that matters here.’
Twig frowned. If any of the crew they were searching for had ended up in the slave market, what chance would they have stood in so mercenary a place?
‘There is an auction in the slave market,’ Spooler was saying. ‘The Grand Central Auction. I thought we might try there fi
rst.’
Twig nodded. ‘Come on, then,’ he said wearily. ‘But let's keep ourselves to ourselves - and our eyes and ears open.’
Back in Sanctaphrax, a ferocious storm was raging. High winds and driving hail battered the floating city. Above it, the sky was a cauldron of seething, swirling clouds tipping down bolt after bolt of jagged lightning. Up in Twig's study in the opulent School of Light and Darkness, the purple glow from the stove played on the fidgety faces of three sky pirates.
‘It's all this waiting around that I can't stand,’ Wingnut Sleet complained as he paced up and down the small room.
Bogwitt, who was sprawled out in a chair trying to dislodge some meat from his teeth with a fingernail, looked up. ‘It's all them academics ever seem to do,’ he growled. ‘Idle bunch of slackers the lot of them.’
‘Mind you,’ said Sleet, wincing uncomfortably with every flash of lightning, ‘I wouldn't fancy being out on a night like this. You know, I swear the weather's getting worse.’
Tarp Hammelherd shivered and crossed the room to warm his hands at the stove. ‘Goodness knows what it must be like in the Deepwoods,’ he said. ‘I hope Captain Twig's safe.’
Sleet turned to him, his scarred flesh quivering. ‘And what if he never returns?’ he said. ‘Are we to be expected to spend the rest of our lives in this poky little room?’
‘The captain looked after us,’ said Tarp. ‘The least we can do is wait for him.’
‘Yes, but for how long?’ Sleet persisted.
‘As long as it takes,’ said Tarp firmly. A volley of hailstones drummed against the pane of glass, drowning him out. Tarp shuddered and looked out through the window. ‘Sky protect you, Captain Twig,’ he murmured. ‘May you be successful on your quest to find those other crew-members less fortunate than ourselves
‘And get back here as quickly as you can!’ added Wingnut Sleet.
The Great Shryke Slave Market was like nothing either Twig or Cowlquape had ever experienced before: a sprawling labyrinth that extended further than any creature could walk in a day and a night - not that such terms had much meaning in a place lit by glowing lamps and sputtering torches, where the sunlight never penetrated.