Beyond the Deepwoods (19 page)

It reached up, snapped a dead branch from the tree and held it out across the treacherous swamp. Twig spat the foul mud from his mouth and made a lunge for it. He grasped hold of the bleached wood and clung on for dear life.

The goblin pulled. Twig was dragged through the thick sucking mud, closer and closer to the bank. He spat. He spluttered. He prayed the branch would not break. All at once he felt solid ground beneath his knees, then his elbows. The goblin let the branch drop and Twig crawled out of the swamp.

Free at last, Twig collapsed. And there he lay, exhausted, face down in the dusty earth. He owed his life to the goblin. Yet when he finally lifted his head to thank his rescuer, he found himself once more alone. The flat-head was nowhere to be seen.

‘Hey,’ Twig called weakly. ‘Where are you?’

There was no answer. He pulled himself to his feet and looked about him. The goblin had gone. All that remained was the piece of straw, chewed at one end, which lay on the ground. Twig crouched down beside it. ‘Why did you run off?’ he murmured.

He sat down in the dust and hung his head. All at once he was struck by another question. How had the flat-head goblin known his name?

· CHAPTER TEN ·
T
HE
T
ERMAGANT
T
ROGS

I
t was still. The sun beat down, hot and bright. All the vomiting in the sealed pod had left Twig's throat feeling as if it had been sandpapered. He needed a drink.

He picked himself up and looked back at his shadow which stretched far out across the treacherous swamp. At the end of it lay still water. It sparkled tantalizingly. If only there was some way of getting to it without being sucked down into the mud. Twig spat and turned away again.

‘It's probably stagnant anyway,’ he muttered.

He stomped off across the spongy wasteland. The swamp had once extended this far. Now, apart from the occasional patch of pale-green algae, nothing grew. Yet there was life there. With every step Twig took, clouds of vicious woodmidges flew up and buzzed round him. They landed on his face, his arms, his legs –
and where they landed, so they bit.

‘Get off! Get away!’ Twig cried as he slapped at the voracious insects. ‘If it's not one thing, it's … YOUCH!’ Slap. ‘… another!’ Slap. Slap. Slap.

Twig started to run. The woodmidges flew with him, like satin sheets flapping in the wind. Faster. Faster. Past the bony skeletons of dead trees. Headlong over the bouncy peat. Stumbling, slipping, but never stopping. Out of the desolate home of the evil rotsucker, and back to the Deepwoods.

Twig smelled them before he reached them. The loamy soil, the luxuriant foliage, the succulent fruit – familiar scents that set his mouth watering and his heart clopping faster than ever. The woodmidges were less impressed.

As the rich and fertile smells grew stronger, so their numbers dropped. They abandoned their quarry and returned to the wasteland, where the air was pungent and sour.

Twig trudged onwards and upwards. The Deepwoods wrapped themselves around him like a vast green quilt. There were no tracks, no paths; he had to carve his own way through the lush undergrowth. Through woodfern and bullbracken he went, up slopes and down dips. When he came to a sallowdrop tree, he stopped.

The sallowdrop, with its long waving fronds of pearly leaves, only grew near water. The banderbear had taught him that. Twig pushed aside the beaded curtains of the hanging branches, and there, babbling along over a bed of pebbles, was a stream of crystal clear water.

‘Thank Sky,’ Twig rasped and fell to his knees. He cupped his hands and dipped them in the ice-cold water. He took a sip, swallowed, and felt the cold liquid coursing down inside his body. It tasted good; earthy and sweet. He drank more, and more. He drank until his stomach was full and his thirst was quenched. Then, with a grateful sigh, Twig dropped down into the stream with a splash.

And there helay. The water ran over him, soothing the woodmidge bites, cleaning his clothes and hair. He remained there until every trace of mud and vomit and stinking bile had been washed away.

‘Clean again,’ he said, and pulled himself back onto his knees.

All at once, a flash of orange darted across the water. Twig froze. Wig-wigs were orange! Head still bowed, Twig raised his eyes and peered nervously through his lank and dripping hair.

Crouched down behind a rock on the far side of the stream was not a wig-wig but a girl. A girl with pale, almost translucent skin and a shock of orange hair. Company.

‘Hey!’ Twig called out. ‘I…’ But the girl darted out of sight. Twig leapt to his feet. ‘
OY!
’ he yelled as he splashed across the stream. Why wouldn't she wait? He leaped up the bank and onto the rock. Some way ahead, he noticed the girl dodging behind a tree. ‘I won't hurt you,’ he panted to himself. ‘I'm nice. Honest!’

By the time he reached the tree, however, the girl was gone again. He saw her glance back before slipping into a glade of swaying greatgrass. Twig dashed in after her. He wanted her to stop, to come back, to talk to him. On and on he ran. Around trees, across clearings – always close, but never quite close enough.

As she raced behind a broad and ivy-clad trunk, the girl looked back for a third time. Twig felt the hairs at the nape of his neck stand on end; his hammelhornskin waistcoat bristled. What if the girl wasn't checking to see
whether she had given him the slip? What if she was making sure that he was still following?

He kept on, but more cautiously now. Round the tree he went. The girl was nowhere to be seen. Twig looked up into the branches. His heart was hammering, his scalp tingled. There could be anything hiding up in the dense foliage waiting to pounce – anything at all.

He fingered his amulets. He took another step forwards. Where
was
the girl? Was it all just another horrible trap…?

‘Waaaaiii!’ Twig screamed.

The ground had opened up and Twig was falling. Into the earth he tumbled, and down a long curving tunnel. Bump, bump, roll, bumpety, roll, crash, bang and
plaff
, down onto a thick bed of soft straw.

Twig looked up, dazed. Everything was spinning. Yellow lights, twisted roots – and four faces staring down at him.

‘Where you bin?’ two of them were saying. ‘You know I don't like you going upground. It's too dangerous. You'll get carried off by the gloamglozer one day, my girl, and that's a fact.’

‘I can look after myself,’ the other two replied sulkily.

Twig shook his head. The four faces became two. The larger one loomed closer, all bloodshot eyes and corrugated lips.

‘And what's this?’ it complained. ‘Oh, Mag, what have you brought back
now
?’

The pale-skinned girl stroked Twig's hair. ‘It followed me home, Mumsie,’ she said. ‘Can I keep it?’

The older woman pulled her head away and folded her arms, breathing in, and swelling up, as she did so. She stared at Twig suspiciously. ‘I trust he's not a
talker
,’ she said. ‘I've told you before, I draw the line at pets that can talk.’

Twig swallowed anxiously.

Mag shook her head. ‘I don't think so, Mumsie. The occasional noise, but no words.’

Mumsie grunted. ‘You'd better be telling me the truth. Talkers means trouble.’

Mumsie was enormous, with rippling forearms and a neck as broad as her head. What was more, unlike the girl, whose pale skin made her almost invisible in the subterranean gloom, Mumsie was all too visible. With the exception of her face, almost every bit of exposed skin was covered with iridescent tattoos.

There were trees, weapons, symbols, animals, faces, dragons, skulls; you name it. Even her bald head had been tattooed. What Twig had first taken for curls of hair plastered to her scalp, were in fact coiled snakes.

She reached up and scratched thoughtfully under her broad nose, inadvertently flexing her biceps as she did so. The sleeve of her patterned dress rode up with a rustle – and Twig found himself staring at a picture of a young girl with fiery orange hair. Beneath it, in indigo letters, was a tattooed message:
MUMSIE LOVES MAG
.

‘Well?’ said Mag.

Her mother sniffed. ‘Mag,’ she said, ‘you can be such a trying trog at times. But … I suppose so,’ she said. ‘
HOWEVER
,’ she added, interrupting Mag's whoops of delight, ‘
you're
responsible for it. Do you understand?
You
feed it,
you
exercise it, and if it makes a mess in the cavern,
you
clean it up. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Crystal clear, Mumsie,’ said Mag.

‘And if I hear so much as a single word,’ she went on, ‘I'll wring its scrawny little neck. Right?’

Mag nodded. She reached forwards and grabbed Twig by the hair. ‘Come on,’ she said.

‘Yow!’ Twig helped, and slapped her hand away.

‘It hit me,’ Mag howled at once. ‘Mumsie, my pet hit me – it
hurt
me!’

Twig suddenly felt himself being whisked up off the floor and swung round. He stared petrified into the trog-woman's ferocious bloodshot eyes. ‘If you ever,
EVER
push, slap, scratch or bite my little moonbeam, I'll—’

‘Or in any other way hurt my body,’ Mag butted in.

‘Or in any other way hurt her body, I'll—’

‘
Or
my feelings.’

‘— hurt her body or her feelings, I'll—’

‘Or try to run away…’

‘Or try to run away,’ Mumsie repeated. ‘You're dead!’ Her paper dress rustled as she shook him. ‘Obedient and dumb, that's the rule.
OK
?’

Twig didn't know whether to nod or not. If he wasn't allowed to speak, was he expected to understand? With Mumsie's massive fist gripping his coat so tightly, he could scarcely move anyway. She sniffed, and dropped him onto the floor.

Twig looked up warily. Mag was standing behind her mother, her hands held primly at her front. Her face bore an expression of impossible smugness. She leant forwards and tugged his hair for a second time. Wincing with pain, Twig climbed passively to his feet.

‘That's more like it,’ Mumsie growled. ‘What are you going to call it?’ she said.

Mag shrugged and turned to her new pet. ‘Have you got a name?’ she said.

‘Twig,’ he replied automatically – and immediately wished he hadn't.

‘What's that?’ roared Mumsie. ‘Was that a word?’ She prodded Twig hard in the chest. ‘Are you a talker after all?’

‘Twigtwigtwigtwig,’ he said, desperately trying to make it sound as unwordlike as possible. ‘Twigtwigtwig!’

Mag put her arm around Twig's shoulders and smiled
up at her mother. ‘I think I'll call him Twig.’

Mumsie glared at Twig through narrowed eyes. ‘One word, that's all,’ she snarled. ‘And I'll rip your head off.’

‘Twig's going to be just fine,’ Mag reassured her. ‘Come along, boy,’ she said to him. ‘Let's go and play.’

Mumsie stood, hands on hips, watching as Mag dragged him away. Twig kept his head down. ‘I'll be keeping my eye on that one,’ he heard her say. ‘You see if I don't.’

As they continued along the tunnel, Mumsie's threats faded away. There were stairs and ramps and long narrow slopes that took them lower, always lower, deep down into the ground. Twig felt uneasy at the thought of the weight of all that earth and rock above him. What was to stop it falling down? What was to stop it swallowing him up?