Doombringer Page 10

  ‘Look for a steam trail!’

  Phineal’s voice cut through the hissing rush of air, startling Cade back to where he was: perched precariously on a small, fragile wooden craft that was hurtling across the sky.

  When the Caterbird finally levelled out, Cade looked down over the side. They were up higher than he’d imagined possible. If there had been clouds, he was sure they would be flying above them. But there were no clouds. Below lay the Deepwoods: tree-fringed ridges, deep valleys, winding streams gleaming like silver threads . . .

  Because of their height, it seemed that they were barely making any progress. But Cade knew the opposite was true. Up here, riding the lofty airstreams, the skycraft was travelling faster than any phrax-powered vessel down near the treetops.

  ‘Phineal! Phineal!’ Cade shouted out. ‘I think I’ve seen it. There.’ He pointed. ‘West-north-west.’

  There, glistening in the blue sky, were two long streaks of white – the steam trails from a twin-funnelled phraxsloop.

  ‘Well done, Cade,’ Phineal said simply, then added, ‘Hold on tight. We’re going down.’

  Cade didn’t need telling twice. He braced his legs and gripped the straps of the harness while Phineal realigned the flight weights and pulled in the undersails. Then, as he pulled on the tiller rope, the skycraft tipped forward – and went into a steep dive.

  Speeding upwards had been bad. Hurtling down towards the forest was a thousand times worse, and Cade clung on for dear life as the skycraft plummeted to earth.

  The steam trails came closer. Cade pulled out his spyglass and focused it. The outline of a phraxsloop was clear against the dark-green treetops. It was a snub-nosed vessel, with a medium-sized phraxchamber mounted in the middle. Steam billowed from the two funnels that sprouted from the sides. And as they got closer, Cade could make out its pilot. Long hair and matted beard. A greeny-brown cloak. There was no doubt that it was the individual he’d encountered in the forest behind his cabin.

  Merton Hoist.

  And there, Cade saw, lying in the stern of the sloop, was a large tarpaulin bundle lashed down with rope.

  ‘Tug,’ he breathed.

  They sailed on, closing steadily in on the phraxsloop. High above it, and sailing soundlessly, the Caterbird approached undetected.

  Almost above the phraxsloop now, Phineal’s hands played with the ropes, pulling on some, releasing others, and bringing the skycraft out of its dive and level in the sky. The webfoot reached down, and Cade’s heart missed a beat as he saw the long blade in his hand.

  Phineal turned. ‘You’ll have to steer,’ he said. ‘He won’t hear us coming above the hum of the phraxchamber.’

  Cade swallowed, but took hold of the ropes that the webfoot was holding out.

  ‘Keep us above the sloop as we come in,’ Phineal told him. ‘Steady, and to the stern. I’ll board her and free Tug. Be ready to climb as soon as I give the signal.’

  Cade levelled the flight weights and, as they got closer, lowered the mast sails a tad to slow the skycraft down. Phineal climbed to his feet and moved to the prow. He tied a rope around his waist and attached the other end to the carved caterbird prow, then, gripping the head with his arms, he swung down and dropped onto the back of the phraxsloop below.

  Cade’s hands were trembling as he watched Merton Hoist’s back hunched over the controls at the phraxchamber, one tattooed hand on the tiller. He didn’t look round.

  Phineal worked quickly, the sharp blade cutting through the ropes, and Cade saw Tug’s bemused face appear from beneath the flapping folds of tarpaulin. As Phineal tied the rope around Tug’s waist, Cade struggled to keep the skycraft steady. He was realigning the undersails when Tug looked up – and at the sight of his friend, his mouth opened and he let out a heart-rending cry.

  ‘Cade!’

  Merton Hoist turned. The look of puzzlement on his face changed to disbelief as he saw Tug and Phineal at the stern, and then the Caterbird hovering above.

  Suddenly, Hoist sprang into action. Cade watched in stunned horror, everything suddenly moving in slow motion, as the mire-pearler spun round. A wide-barrelled, large-bore phraxpistol was gripped in one hand. And before Phineal could duck, or Cade had a chance to take evasive action, Merton Hoist fired. Once. Twice.

  The first shot whistled past Cade’s ear. The second struck the port-side mast, splintering it, then ricocheted off and passed through one of the upper sails. The small hole was instantly ripped wide open by the powerful wind, leaving the sail in tatters.

  The Caterbird went into a spinning dive.

  At the back of the phraxlighter, Phineal threw his knife. It struck Merton Hoist in the right shoulder hard, the blade emerging at the back. Hoist fell away from the phraxchamber and clutched at the wound, his face contorted with pain. He fell back against the flight controls, causing the phraxsloop to drop from the sky like a stone, rolling in the air as it did so.

  Phineal and Tug jumped.

  Side by side, the skycraft and phraxsloop plunged down through the air. And far below, the trees of the forest tossed in the wind as they waited to take the two stricken vessels in their deadly embrace.

  · CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ·

  THE CATERBIRD DROPPED down out of the sky, Cade gripping hold of the bundle of ropes, wondering what to do.

  ‘Earth and Sky protect me . . .’ he breathed as, acting instinctively, he let go of all of the ropes but one. The rudder rope. This he gripped ferociously in both hands. Then, leaning back, he pulled on it with all his might.

  Beside him, the phraxsloop plummeted past unchecked. Merton Hoist was hanging onto the port balustrade with one arm, his moss-green cloak flapping like the broken wing of an injured ratbird.

  Heart thumping in his chest, Cade felt the Caterbird respond to the upraised rudder. He held on grimly to the rudder rope as the sails flapped noisily above him. Slowly, slowly, the skycraft was easing up out of its dive.

  All at once, from below him, there came a loud crash as Hoist’s phraxsloop struck the uppermost branches of the trees. Cade heard the sounds of cracking and splintering, and muffled cries – and looked down to see the sloop and its pilot disappear from sight beneath the leafy canopy of a vast spreading lullabee.

  ‘Cade! Cade!’ It was Phineal.

  He was below the skycraft, clinging to Tug’s shoulders. Tug himself was suspended from the Caterbird’s carved prow by the rope, and swaying to and fro like a pendulum.

  The forest canopy was no more than twenty strides below him. But Cade was in control now. Keeping a firm grip on the rudder rope, he grasped the sail ropes and lowered the flapping sails in one smooth movement. The Caterbird’s descent slowed right down as it approached the top of a towering ironwood pine.

  ‘Just a tad further,’ Phineal’s voice called. ‘Ease off on the rudder.’

  Letting go of Tug, the webfoot jumped down lightly onto a jutting branch at the top of the ironwood. Tug was dangling from the rope, head down and eyes shut, his great bare feet grazing the top of the forest canopy. He wasn’t moving.

  Cade swallowed anxiously, then followed Phineal’s instruction. The skycraft dropped down two strides or so and came to a steady hover.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Phineal. ‘Now chuck me the tolley rope.’

  Cade threw the coil of rope down to Phineal, who tethered the Caterbird to a stout branch. Next, leaving the skycraft bobbing in the air, its prow lower than the stern under Tug’s heavy weight, Cade climbed down gingerly onto one of the uppermost branches of the ironwood pine. It swayed gently beneath his feet, the heavy pine cones hanging below in clusters giving off a rich, nutty perfume.

  ‘Tug . . .’ Cade reached out and cupped his hand round his friend’s chin. ‘Tug, what is it?’

  Tug opened his eyes and looked at him from behind hooded lids.

  ‘Tug, speak to me,’ said Cade.

  Phineal climbed over and joined Cade on the branch. He shook his head.

  ‘It’s a classic slaver’s trick,�
�� he told him. ‘A cloth saturated in a tincture of sleepbane and camphor-root most likely, clamped over his face.’

  ‘Is he going to be all right?’ said Cade, alarmed.

  ‘Once the effects wear off,’ Phineal assured him. ‘Though he’s going to be a bit groggy for a couple of hours.’

  The webfoot reached forward and grasped hold of Tug beneath the arms, then braced himself.

  ‘I’ll steady him,’ he said. ‘You untie the rope.’ Phineal turned to Tug. ‘I’m going to swing you round, then I want you to stand on the branch below and hold onto the tree trunk as tightly as you can. Understand?’

  Tug nodded groggily.

  Phineal manoeuvred him round until his legs touched the branch below, then he lowered him down onto it. Tug looked down and seemed surprised to find himself standing upright. His legs went wobbly, and he grabbed hold of the tree trunk beside him, with Phineal supporting him. Cade leaned forward and untied the knotted rope around Tug’s middle.

  ‘You two wait here,’ Phineal instructed. ‘I’ll bring the Caterbird down to you.’ His crest glowed a warm orange as he patted Cade on the shoulder. ‘Nice flying by the way, Cade Quarter.’

  The webfoot returned to the hovering skycraft and climbed aboard, then brought it down to hover beside the ironwood branch. Cade – basking in Phineal’s praise – gently guided the disorientated Tug onto the prow deck. The Caterbird pitched wildly under his weight. Cade grimaced, but the varnished sumpwood was more than buoyant enough to support Tug’s weight.

  Tug himself noticed nothing amiss. He sat down heavily, his head slumped onto his chest and he began to snore loudly.

  Cade joined Phineal in the flight seats below the masts. The webfoot had his hand raised against the glare of the sun as he scanned the surrounding forest.

  ‘Over there,’ he said, pointing.

  A little way off, billowing out of the low branches of a lullabee tree, were clouds of steam. And there, halfway down the trunk, was Merton Hoist’s phraxsloop, wedged tightly in the fork of two great branches. The prow was dented and the phraxchamber was skewered by a splintered length of branch. One of the two funnels had been badly mangled, hissing steam still billowing out of it; the other funnel had been shorn off completely.

  Cade saw Phineal pull a gutting-knife from his belt, and he reached down and untied his phraxmusket from beneath his seat. Then, raising two of the mast sails, Phineal guided the Caterbird down towards the wrecked sloop. The hissing grew louder.

  ‘Where is he?’ Cade heard him mutter as they drew closer. ‘Where is he?’

  Cade scanned the deck of the phraxsloop. But there was no trace of Hoist. He remembered seeing him dangling from the balustrade, and hearing the grinding crash as the vessel had struck the trees. Could anyone have survived such a collision?

  Then Cade saw it.

  ‘Look,’ he said, and pointed at the blood; splashes of red, bright against the silvery turquoise of the lullabee leaves.

  Phineal nodded, his crest flashing a grim indigo and purple.

  ‘And there’s more over there,’ said Cade, pointing to the smearing of blood on the branch below them.

  Whether it was from the wounded shoulder, or some other injury he’d picked up when he crash-landed, the mire-pearler was bleeding badly. One thing was clear, though.

  He wasn’t dead.

  Phineal brought the Caterbird down to land and stepped off the skycraft onto the ground. Cade jumped down after him.

  ‘He can’t have got far,’ said Phineal, lashing the Caterbird securely to the base of the lullabee tree and pointing to the trail of blood that led off across the forest floor. ‘We’ll track him on foot.’

  · CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ·

  LEAVING TUG SLUMPED over on the foredeck and snoring softly, Cade and Phineal crept forward, following the trail of blood on the forest floor. Beyond a stand of lufwood trees, the trail led into the long grass of a vast clearing.

  Phineal stopped, blade in hand, and looked out across the swaying grass. There, pausing and stooping to graze as they went, was a great migrating herd of triple-horn tilder moving steadily across the pasture. Thousands of them. Bucks and does, old and young, with curling horns and glossy butternut-coloured fur; new-born fawns, with spindly legs and three bumps on the tops of their heads, their backs still dappled with blue.

  Cade shouldered his phraxmusket, then pulled his spyglass from his top pocket and surveyed the clearing, while Phineal knelt down and dabbed at a pool of blood at his feet. Beside it lay several lengths of cloth from a torn shirt.

  ‘He’s been bleeding pretty bad,’ said Phineal.

  Cade nodded. He looked around, his head swimming at the sight of all the blood, spattering the grass and the leaves of the low shrubs, staining the ground – and then he saw it. A knife, the bloodstained blade glinting in the shards of sunlight. The mire-pearler must have pulled it from the wound.

  ‘Phineal,’ he said quietly.

  Phineal straightened up, then, catching sight of the knife, stooped down and picked it up. He wiped the blade on his breeches, then turned to Cade.

  ‘Maybe he didn’t make it after all,’ he said.

  ‘You . . . you think he might be dead?’ said Cade.

  ‘That much blood,’ said Phineal, his crest glowing a dark purple. ‘If he isn’t dead now, he soon will be.’

  Sky willing, Cade found himself thinking.

  The pair of them looked ahead as the trail of blood crossed the clearing and disappeared into the forest.

  ‘Come on,’ said the webfoot, stepping out into the sea of rippling grass. ‘He must be somewhere nearby. And when we find the body, maybe we’ll find some clue as to what those mire-pearlers are aiming to do.’

  Cade lowered his spyglass and was about to follow him, when all at once, from somewhere out in the clearing, there came a colossal crash. He didn’t need his spyglass to see that something had alarmed the great herd of grazing tilder.

  And then he saw it. A logworm.

  It had appeared suddenly, rearing up out of the long grass on the far side of the pastures on powerful jets of air, before crashing down directly in front of the herd, blocking its path. The tilder instantly panicked. Those in front scattered, while those following behind turned and stampeded back across the clearing, only to find their way blocked again by a second logworm, which reared up out of the grass as suddenly as the first and came crashing down in front of them.

  As Cade and Phineal watched, the two logworms hissed and writhed as they rose back into the air. The terrified herd turned away again and began thundering towards the edge of the clearing where Phineal and Cade were standing. Thousands of triple-horn tilder, heads down, hoofs pounding down the lush grassland, desperately seeking the safety of the forest as the two logworms hovered on either side of the herd.

  Cade fumbled with the strap of the phraxmusket, only for Phineal to stay his hand.

  ‘Watch,’ he said simply.

  Suddenly, about fifty strides in front of them, Cade heard a great whoosh of air, and a third logworm rose up out of the long grass – directly in the path of the stampeding herd. As it too crashed down and rose up again in a writhing, undulating movement, the herd turned again and thundered off, back in the direction they’d come.

  Penned in on three sides by the logworms now, the tilder raced towards the distant treeline.

  Cade raised his spyglass once more and then swallowed hard. There, waiting patiently in the dappled shadows on the very edge of the treeline, were stacks of logs, one on top of another, intertwined and beginning to writhe and pulsate horribly.

  More logworms! Hundreds of them . . .

  The tilder herd stampeded towards them, their eyes rolling and teeth bared in blind panic. At the very last moment, the writhing wall of logworms rose up in a mighty whooshing hiss, like a squadron of phraxships taking to the air. Unable to stop, the stampeding herd crashed headlong into them.

  As Cade watched in horrified fascination, triple-horn tilder
were thrown up into the air in waves, only to come crashing down into the logworms’ cavernous maws.

  ‘Earth and Sky,’ he murmured weakly.

  The remaining herd scattered in all directions, but were hunted down by the writhing, rolling logworms, which came tumbling out across the grassland like a moving wall. Lunging after one, then another, and another, the hideous creatures sucked tilder after panic-stricken tilder into their gaping mouths and down to their innards. There, still struggling, they were gripped by rippling bands of powerful muscle which contracted in slow spasms, snapping their bones and crushing the life out of them.

  The rapidly thinning herd howled and screeched as the logworms’ feeding frenzy grew more intense, rising to a hideous cacophony – before coming to an abrupt stop when the last tilder was swallowed up.

  And then there was silence.

  Across the clearing, bloated logworms hovered just above the ground in clusters. For a moment, the gorged creatures paused. Then, still hovering, they began to disperse. Slowly, no longer writhing or rippling, but heavy and sagging drunkenly, the logworms heaved themselves in ones and twos across the clearing and into the shadows of the forest.

  A couple came lumbering towards Cade and Phineal, causing Cade to reach for his phraxmusket once more, only for Phineal to raise a finger to his lips.

  ‘They won’t bother with us now,’ he whispered. ‘They’ll lie up and sleep for weeks, slowly digesting the food in their bellies. Ferns will take root on their backs. Moss will grow thick and green. They’ll look like any other fallen logs – and be just as harmless,’ he added. ‘Until the sound of migrating tilder triggers another cascade . . .’

  ‘Cascade,’ Cade repeated numbly.

  ‘That’s what we’ve just witnessed,’ Phineal said. ‘A logworm cascade. One of the great and terrible spectacles of these mighty Deepwoods of ours. Never seen one before . . .’

  ‘And I hope I never see one again,’ said Cade with a shudder.