The Winter Knights Read online

  ‘Catch us if you can, old chap!’ Raffix shouted, and urged his mount forward.

  In an instant, prowlgrin and rider sped across the blanket of snow in huge bounds, leaving a spattering of churned-up footprints in their wake.

  Quint leaned forward, braced his legs in the stirrups and gave two small twitches on the reins. Beneath him, he felt the force of the prowlgrin's mighty legs as it kicked off from the ground in a huge leap. The West Wall seemed to dip, then rise up like a flapping curtain as they sailed towards it, the air rushing past Quint's ears with an exhilarating roar.

  Then, as suddenly as they had launched off, they landed again, softly yet firmly, on a gently yielding branch, and the sound of tinkling icicles filled the air. Just ahead, higher up in the branches, the black shape of Raffix's prowlgrin rose in the moonlit air.

  ‘Trust the leap!’ Fenviel Vendix's barked instructions sounded in Quint's head as he squeezed the flanks of his prowlgrin with his knees. In answer, it leaped forward and on through the maze of criss-cross branches, seeming hardly to touch them with its powerful yet sensitive feet. ‘But remember to duck!’

  Whoosh!

  A branch whizzed past, a hair's breadth from Quint's face. Then another, and another, as he rolled in the saddle, this way and that, like a giddy fighting fromp.

  ‘Oooph!’

  On his prowlgrin's final leap, a jutting branch – supple as a sapling – sprang back and caught Quint full in the chest, plucking him from the saddle. Before he knew it, he was tumbling down to earth. His fall was broken by the maze of branches – each one grasping at him, only to bend back and pass him down to those below.

  ‘Oooph! Oooph! Ummph!’

  He landed in a flurry of snow at the foot of the last tilt tree. Perched high in the branches above, his prowlgrin looked down at him, head on one side and a great plume of mist billowing up from its flared nostrils. The next moment, Raffix landed beside him, sitting upright in the saddle and with the reins of his prowlgrin held nonchalantly in one hand.

  ‘I say, bad luck, old chap! You almost made it that time. Very last tilt tree caught you out.’ He let out a cry of laughter and pointed to the wall beside Quint. There, half obscured by snow, were the Gates of Humility. ‘Back where you started, I see!’

  ‘Yes, yes, very funny,’ Quint said, scrambling to his feet and dusting the powdery snow from his tunic. ‘I just need a bit more practice.’

  ‘Well, you carry on, old chap,’ laughed Raffix, with a tug on his reins. ‘I'll save you a hammelhorn steak. Whether you eat it or apply it to your bruises is up to you!’

  With that, he bounded back towards the Hall of Grey Cloud in a flurry of snow.

  ‘Here, Tash! Here, Tash,’ Quint called to the prowlgrin high in the tilt tree above him as loud as he dared.

  Just then, from behind him, there came a heavy wheezing sound, accompanied by odd clicks and whirrs. Quint spun round. And there, looming above him, blotting out the moonlight and throwing him into shadow, was the figure of a knight academic in full armour, sitting astride a magnificent black prowlgrin. From behind the visor, Quint could see two glittering eyes boring into his own.

  ‘Explain yourself, squire!’ a deep voice boomed from inside the visor as the silvery moonlight created a halo round the helmeted head, so bright that it made Quint shield his eyes with trembling fingers.

  ‘I … I .…’ he began.

  ‘You called to that prowlgrin by name!’

  ‘Y… y … yes,’ admitted Quint, looking down at his feet. Above him, his prowlgrin gave a whinny.

  ‘You are aware, are you not, that naming a prowlgrin is the sole right of a knight academic-in-waiting?’

  Quint nodded miserably. In front of him, the huge black prowlgrin stamped its foot as if to emphasize its master's point. On its bridle the name Vanquix was picked out in silver letters.

  So this must be the great Screedius Tollinix himself, thought Quint, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Screedius Tollinix, the finest knight academic in the academy, as harsh on himself as he was on others.

  ‘It's just that I raised him from a pup, sir. He's always had this line of fur around his mouth. That's why I call him Tash, sir. But it's only a nickname …’

  ‘Silence!’ the voice behind the visor boomed. ‘Have they taught you nothing in the Lower Halls, squire? We are sky-scholars here. These creatures are of the earth. Naming is an honour we sky-scholars bestow on them only when they rise to the highest rank, to serve our purpose in sacred stormchasing! Anything else smacks of earth-scholarship. Do you understand?’

  Quint nodded glumly.

  A gauntleted hand reached up and snapped open the visor catch. Slowly, the visor rose and Quint found himself staring into a stern but by no means unkindly face.

  ‘You are young,’ Screedius said, his voice less angry now, ‘and you have admitted your mistake. But you must understand that prowlgrins here in our venerable academy exist only to serve us. We tolerate them because we need them. Even noble Vanquix here.’ He patted the black prowlgrin affectionately. ‘It is to the sky we look,’ Screedius continued, his intense eyes boring into Quint's. ‘To await the day when we are called to serve Sanctaphrax.’

  ‘You mean, stormchasing …’ Quint whispered.

  The knight-in-waiting nodded. ‘Indeed, and there's a storm coming all right, young squire,’ he said. ‘I can feel it. Why else are we plagued by this eternal winter? There is a Great Storm brewing, perhaps even the Mother Storm herself. A storm that I've been waiting for all my life. I shall be ready and waiting for it as it passes overhead. And when I am chosen …’ He hesitated. ‘If I am chosen, then I shall not let Sanctaphrax down.’

  There were twelve other knights academic-in-waiting in the towers that ringed the academy, but surely, Quint thought, Screedius would indeed be chosen. After all, everybody knew he was the finest of them all, didn't they? Quint looked into the knight's face. He seemed to have forgotten he was standing in front of him, for his eyes had a strange faraway look in them.

  ‘I shall chase the Great Storm,’ Screedius continued in a low voice, as if to himself, ‘penetrating to its still centre, and journey with it on into the heart of the Twilight Woods. There, at the moment the lightning strikes, I shall lower Vanquix and myself down from the stormchaser in our body-harness to recover the bolt of sacred storm-phrax, even as it buries itself in the forest floor. Then we shall return to Sanctaphrax in triumph …’

  His face was flushed and his eyes burned with fiery intent.

  ‘I shall not fail. I shall not fail!’

  With those words, Screedius Tollinix lowered his visor once more, tugged on Vanquix's reins, and the pair of them headed across the frozen courtyard. Back towards the lonely tower they went, high above the western end of the Upper Halls.

  In the twelve adjacent towers, the other knights were also waiting, just like Screedius, to prove themselves, Quint thought. And perhaps, one day, he – Quintinius Verginix – would join them. If he did, then one thing was certain. He wanted the prowlgrin in the tilt tree above him to be by his side.

  ‘Here, boy!’ he called. ‘Here, boy!’

  Three weeks later, Quint woke to the sound of the dawn gong with a strange sense of foreboding. It was as if his time in the Hall of Grey Cloud had been but a dream. Outside, the skies were heavy with dark grey stormclouds and a light snow shower was beginning to fall.

  The other squires were also subdued that morning. Today was the last day in the Hall of Grey Cloud and the greatest test lay just ahead. Quint tried to clear his head of the vision of Hax Vostillix and the Hall of High Cloud. After all, he told himself later, as they all lined up to await the arrival of Fenviel Vendix, the Hall Master of Grey Cloud himself had seemed strict and frightening on that first day. Yet now, despite his stiff manner, Quint and all the other squires saw him almost as a friend.

  All, that is, except Vilnix Pompolnius. For even though, at Raffix's prompting, Fenviel had tempered his punishments,
Vilnix still hated the hall master with a passion.

  Fenviel Vendix appeared, cutting short Quint's daydreaming, and the squires snapped to attention. The hall master started far to Quint's right, and proceeded to make his way along from the end of the line, pausing to shake hands with the squires, one by one, as he went.

  Quint felt a shiver of excitement mixed with pride. In taking them by the hand and looking them in the eyes, Fenviel was according the young squires great respect. It had been tough in the Hall of Grey Cloud, but they had made it, and the hall master was proud of his young charges. Above them all, their prowlgrins – each one hand-raised from the egg – sat on their roost branches, looking down.

  Fenviel stopped at Quiltis, shook hands, and moved on. Then at Tonsor, repeating the process. And on to Phin, who was standing next to Quint. Staring ahead, yet observing the procedure as best he could out of the corner of his eye, Quint saw the angular academic bend stiffly forward and clasp Phin by the hand. He nodded curtly and Quint thought he detected the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  The next moment it was his turn.

  He looked up to see Fenviel gazing back at him. There was a softness about his expression that surprised the youth, and when he shook his hand, the grip was firm and reassuring. He nodded. Quint nodded back, his heart almost bursting with the pride he was feeling.

  Not a word was spoken as the hall master passed on down the line.

  Half a dozen squires on from Quint, at the end of the line, Fenviel arrived at last in front of Vilnix Pompolnius. The youth's face was ashen white, and he was staring ahead defiantly.

  Fenviel looked into the youth's eyes and held out his hand.

  Vilnix's lip curled almost imperceptibly, but the effect was as shocking as if he'd hit Fenviel with his own riding crop. Unable to forgive the hall master, Vilnix kept his hand clenched at his side. The two of them faced each other, motionless, for what seemed like an eternity.

  Finally, the hall master turned and left.

  As soon as he was gone, the squires let out a collective breath and the line broke up into excited huddles of friends congratulating each other. Only Vilnix was left alone, and he slunk off behind a roost pillar.

  ‘Quint! Phin!’ Raffix's voice rang out. ‘Look who I've brought to congratulate you on completing your time in the Hall of Grey Cloud!’

  The squires turned to find Stope the forge-hand beaming with delight, standing next to the tall Upper Hall squire.

  ‘Stope!’ cried Quint and Phin together, and they both grabbed the grey goblin's hand excitedly. When they had finished laughing and joking and slapping each other on the back, Quint took Raffix to one side.

  ‘I just wanted to say thank you, Raff, for having a word with Fenviel.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Vilnix didn't seem that grateful, but it certainly made my life a lot easier!’

  ‘Don't mention it, old chap,’ laughed Raffix. ‘After all, it's Vilnix who should be thanking me, not you. You only let his name slip to the hall master. He, on the other hand, practically starved a prowlgrin pup to death.’

  From behind them came a sharp hiss, and Quint turned round to see Vilnix glaring at him from behind the roost pillar. His face was whiter than ever, his eyes blazing and the fading scar on his cheek flushed with colour.

  ‘You told on me?’ he snarled, spitting the words out. ‘I won't forget, Quintinius. I won't ever forget!’

  •CHAPTER ELEVEN•

  THE HALL OF HIGH

  CLOUD

  The Lecture Dome of the Hall of High Cloud was every bit as impressive as Quint had heard. Considered by many to be the finest work that the renowned architect, Flux Cartius, had ever designed, it was a masterpiece, more splendid than the domed Great Hall which stood at one end of the Central Viaduct, and in design ranking alongside the elegant Mistsifting Towers. As he and his fellow Lower Hall squires filed in, Quint realized – and not for the first time – just how privileged they all were to be members of the Knights Academy.

  They made their way along one of the ornately carved flying-jetties to the buoyant benches, which floated at the ends of delicate silver chains. As they did so, Quint craned his neck back to gaze up at the clear dome far above his head.

  Built above the northern wing of the Knights Academy, the great glass construction spanned the air with the lightness and delicacy of a nightspider web. Each bowed strut was fashioned from a slender length of leadwood, steam-curved and slotted into place to form great interconnecting arcs. Then the whole structure had been glazed with the finest crystal ever to have been produced in the glass foundries of early Sanctaphrax.

  Each flawless pane had been hand-cut and individually polished; some were tinted, and all of them had been etched with detailed calibrations by which the size, speed, shade and billow of the clouds passing overhead could be calculated.

  Sadly, the original foundries had long since disappeared, taking most of their manufacturing secrets with them – though their legacy lived on in the various viaduct schools dedicated to glass-blowing. The difference between the original panes of glass and those which had been replaced due to weather damage was all too plain to see. It was, Quint thought, the difference between homespun and spider-silk, between woodgrog and winesap – between the merely adequate and the absolutely outstanding.

  ‘Watch out,’ Phin said, his voice hushed yet urgent as he grabbed at Quint's sleeve.

  Even though he'd spoken barely above a whisper, Phin's warning rang out around the Lecture Dome. Alarmed, Quint looked down to find that they'd reached the end of the jetty and that below him the golden walls of the lower half of the hall curved down to form a vast bowl. It was, he thought, like being in the middle of a huge, hollow egg.

  Because it was a place for lectures, it was essential that the professors who spoke there could be heard without having to raise their voices. The Lecture Dome fulfilled this requirement perfectly, for the acoustics of the egg-shaped hall were as crystal clear as the glass dome that encased it. Even the most hushed and tremulous whisper uttered from the magnificent buoyant lectern could be heard perfectly in every part of the hall.

  ‘Hall Master of High Cloud …’

  ‘Important speech, I heard …’

  ‘… about the weather …’

  ‘And about time!’

  Phin's whisper was not alone. The domed hall was filled with voices, both soft and loud. Academy lecturers and professors, dressed in long dark gowns and ceremonial conical hats, filled the gantries that curved around the walls. Visiting academics from the School of Light and Darkness, the College of Cloud, the School of Mist, the Academy of Wind, and all the other more prestigious institutions in Sanctaphrax packed the visitors’ balconies above. And squires – from both the Upper and the Lower Halls – filed through the entrance halfway up the golden wall, out along the flying-jetties and onto the buoyant sumpwood benches bobbing about in the air just beyond.

  ‘Hold it steady,’ said Quint, as he climbed gingerly onto the floating bench, joining Phin and Tonsor, who were already sitting down and preparing to adjust the leadwood weights that dangled below it.

  All round the great domed lecture theatre, the procedure was being repeated as the squires took their places on the benches – in twos, threes; sometimes even in fours – and fiddled with the weights until they were hovering effortlessly in mid air.

  The sumpwood seats were so sensitive that once equilibrium had been reached, the slightest movement was enough to make the bench rise gracefully up, or descend, or drift off in any desired direction. And that was what they did, rising and falling as their occupants vied with each other to get the best position, floating above, below or in front of the Grand Lectern.

  ‘Careful!’ Phin said urgently as a bench shunted past, knocking them momentarily off balance.

  Its sole occupant, Vilnix Pompolnius, glared back at them. ‘Just stay out of my way,’ he snarled before turning away.

  Ignoring him, Quint readjusted the balance-weigh
ts, and they rose higher to get a better view of the lectern.

  Just then, Hax Vostillix appeared at the entrance to the hall, with the captain of the gatekeepers, Daxiel Xaxis, grim-faced at his side. The hall master was dressed in robes of finest spider-silk, trimmed with lemkin fur and embroidered with marsh-gems and mire-pearls. In his hand, he carried a long, carved staff of black thornwood, which he raised to silence the hall as he made his way along a flying-jetty towards the Grand Lectern.

  At the end of the jetty, Daxiel Xaxis stepped forward and steadied the buoyant lectern for his master. Hax Vostillix climbed onto it, leaned down and expertly adjusted the hanging-weights. The lectern slowly floated out into the great open void of the hall. Then, when he was satisfied that it was hovering just where he wanted it – at the very centre of the Lecture Dome, and high enough to require everyone to lift their heads to see him – Hax straightened up, looked around and raised his staff once more for absolute silence.

  ’Members of the Knights Academy …’ he began in his deep, resonant voice, made even deeper and more impressive by the acoustics of the lecture hall.

  The high professors, academics-at-arms and knights academic crowding the gantries round the walls acknowledged him by bowing their heads. The three other hall masters – Philius Embertine in his armour; small, stooped Arboretum Sicklebough the tree goblin, and Fenviel Vendix, who was standing stiff and upright, gripping his prowlgrin crop – bowed from their own ornate gantry.

  ‘Esteemed visitors from the seven schools …’

  Hax's gaze fell on the visiting academics in the balconies, who smiled and bowed obsequiously. Hax returned their smiles, and as he bared his teeth, a look of wolfish triumph passed across his face, only to vanish a moment later as he gripped the lectern and turned his gaze upward.