Midnight Over Sanctaphrax (18 page)

Ten minutes had passed since he'd stuffed the cloth announcement into his back pocket - ten minutes spent dashing along the quay, racing up and down the jetties, looking at the names of the sky ships. An old lugtroll had just assured them that the sky ship they were searching was at the second jetty, but they were there now and, despite looking twice, had drawn yet another blank.

‘You don't think it might have left early, do you?’ said Twig breathlessly.

‘If the two spare places have already been filled, maybe so,’ said Cowlquape, secretly hoping that it had.

‘But it
can't
have,’ said Twig. He paused and looked up and down the docks.

There were so many sky ships there - elegant league ships, sturdy merchant tug ships, streamlined patrol ships, as well as the occasional sky pirate ship - yet the
Skyraider
itself was nowhere to be seen.

‘Perhaps we should return to the posting-pole and …’

‘No,’ said Twig. ‘There isn't time.’ He called to a group of dock-workers standing with their backs turned, deep in conversation. “Scuse me,’ he yelled. ‘Do
you
know where a sky ship by the name of
Skyraider
is berthed?’

Without even deigning to turn round, one of them shouted back. ‘Nineteenth jetty. Bottom right.’

Cowlquape turned to Twig. ‘But we've just come from that end of the quays,’ he said.

‘I don't care,’ said Twig. ‘This could be our last chance.’ He grabbed Cowlquape by the arm and
dragged him forwards. ‘Come on, Cowlquape,’ he shouted. ‘Run!’

Along the quayside promenade, they dashed. With Cowlquape close on his heels, Twig barged blindly through groups of haggling merchants, upending boxes of fish and barrows of fruit. Cowlquape glanced back over his shoulders. ‘Sorry,’ he called. On they sped, past jetty after numbered jetty which stuck out into mid-air, high above the Edgewater River. The eighth, ninth and tenth jetties flashed past.

‘Faster, Cowlquape!’ Twig shouted breathlessly, as the voice in his head urged him on.

Twelfth … thirteenth … Cowlquape's heart was pounding, his lungs burning, yet still he drove himself on. Seventeenth … Eighteenth …

‘The nineteenth jetty!’ Twig exclaimed. He skidded round, jumped down the five stairs in one leap and pounded along the wooden platform. ‘And look!’ he cried. ‘How in Sky's name did we miss it before?’

Cowlquape looked up and followed Twig's pointing finger to a magnificent sky pirate ship tethered to the end of the raised jetty on the left.

‘The
Skyraider
!’ said Twig. ‘We've found it, but… Oh, no!’ he gasped.

The mainsail was up, the grappling-hooks had been raised and a small figure was crouched over the tether-ring, unfastening the tolley-rope. The sky ship was about to depart.

‘
STOP
!’
Twig roared, as he doubled his speed and hurtled headlong along the jetty. Although he could not
explain it, something told him he
had
to board the
Skyraider.
No other ship would do.
‘WAIT FOR US!’

But the crew-member - a mobgnome - paid him no heed.

‘STOP!’
Twig shouted again.

He could hear the mobgnome muttering irritably as he tugged at the snagged rope, then sigh with relief as it came free.

Nearly there …

The mobgnome tossed the rope onto the deck and, in the same movement, jumped aboard himself. Tantalizingly slowly at first, the sky pirate ship began to float up and away from the jetty.

‘NO!’
screamed Twig.

The gap between jetty and sky ship widened.

‘Are you with me, Cowlquape?’ he cried.

‘I'm with you,’ came the reply.

‘Then, jump!’ yelled Twig and, as the pair of them reached the end of the jetty at last, they launched themselves at the departing sky ship. Together they flew through the air, arms outstretched, willing themselves on.

‘Unkhh!’
Cowlquape grunted as his hands gripped the safety-rail and his body slammed into the hull. The next instant, Twig landed beside him.

Winded, the pair of them clung on for grim death. They would have to catch their breath before pulling themselves up on to the deck. But it didn't matter. The important thing was that they had made it, just in the nick of time.

‘Well done,’
whispered a voice in his ear.

‘We're on our way, Cowlquape,’ Twig murmured. To the Deepwoods and the Great Shryke Slave Market.’

Twig, I … I…‘

‘Cowlquape?’ said Twig, twisting his head round. ‘What is it?’

‘My hands … all slippery,’ Cowlquape mumbled, and Twig watched helplessly as his young apprentice struggled desperately to pull himself up. ‘Can't… can't hold …
aaaargh!’
He was falling. Away from the
Skyraider,
out of the sky and down to the pleated mud below…’

• CHAPTER TWELVE •
THUNDERBOLT VULPOON

T
wig heaved himself up, swung his leg over the safety-rail and rolled over onto the deck. Then, without pausing, he jumped to his feet and peered back down, over the side.

‘Cowlquape!’ he bellowed. Certainly he had heard no splash and, though he peered closely at the muddy riverbed below, he could see no sign of his young apprentice. ‘Cowlquape!’ he cried out again. ‘Where are you?’

‘Down here,’ came a weak voice.

Twig's heart gave a leap. ‘Where?’

‘On the hull-rigging,’ said Cowlquape. ‘But I don't know if I can hang on for much longer.’

‘Yes, you can!’ Twig urged him. ‘You've got to, Cowlquape.’

Far below now, the Edgewater River gave way to the Mire.

‘It … it's no good,’ Cowlquape whimpered. ‘I can't get a foothold and my arms … so weak …’

Twig looked round desperately for help, but the
Skyraider
was oddly deserted. The mobgnome had disappeared, and there was no-one else in sight apart from a squat and somewhat flamboyant figure standing up at the helm.

‘Help!’ he bellowed. ‘Help! Someone's fallen overboard!’

Lost in the mechanics of skysailing, the helmsman seemed unaware of the drama unfolding behind him. The sky ship soared higher.

‘There must be someone here!’ Twig roared,
‘
HELP ME
!’

‘What, what, what?’ came a nervous, twittery voice by his side. It was the mobgnome, back again. An ancient-looking gnokgoblin with bow-legs and white whiskers stood behind him.

Twig groaned. Neither of them looked up to much. ‘My companion fell,’ he explained hurriedly. ‘He's clinging on to the hull-rigging. Get me a rope and a stave-hook. Now!’

The two crew-members nodded and disappeared. A moment later, they were back. Twig tied one end of the rope to the main aft winding-cleat and tossed the rest over the side. Then, with the stave-hook under his arm, he lowered himself down the rope.

‘Whoa,’
he gasped, as the sudden rush of wind snatched his breath away. ‘Keep your nerve,’ he told himself. ‘Easy does it.’

With the rope twisted between his feet, Twig carefully
let himself slip down. Hand over hand, he went, past the portholes, past the winched grappling-hooks. Further and further. As the hull curved in and away from him, he found himself dangling in mid-air.

‘Don't look down, whatever you do,’ Twig heard.

He twisted round. And there was Cowlquape, half-way down the side of the sky ship, clutching hold of the hull-rigging for dear life. He'd managed to loop one leg through the criss-cross of ropes, but there was blood all round his fingers from his blistered palms. Every second he remained there the rope dug in deeper.

‘Hold tight, Cowlquape!’ Twig yelled across the airy gap. ‘I'm going to try swinging closer.’

By constantly shifting his weight Twig set himself in motion - not back and forwards as he'd hoped, but in a series of widening circles. The sky ship soared higher still. Far below him, the bleached mire glistened like the surface of an ocean of milk. As the circles grew wider still, Twig passed closer and closer to the hull-rigging until finally, with the stave-hook outstretched, he managed to hook a piece of rope and pull himself in.

‘There,’ he grunted, as he grabbed hold of the rigging to Cowlquape's right. ‘We'll have you back on board in no time.’

He twisted round, and tied the rope firmly around Cowlquape's waist. As he was securing the knot, he saw just how badly the lad's hands had been chafed. The blood was dripping from his shaking fingertips.

‘Hang on, Cowlquape,’ he said. ‘I …’

The stave-hook slipped from his grasp and tumbled down to the ground below. The sky ship was by now too high for them either to see or hear it landing. Twig squeezed Cowlquape's shoulder.

‘I'm going to climb back up on deck,’ he said. ‘When I give the word, let go. We'll pull you up.’

Cowlquape nodded, but could say nothing. His face was white with fear.

Twig darted up the hull-rigging and leapt back onto the deck. The mobgnome and the old gnokgoblin were still there.

‘Grab the rope and take the strain,’ he ordered. The two crew-members did as they were told. Twig joined them.

‘Let go, Cowlquape!’ he shouted down.

The rope lurched and grew heavy.

‘Right,’ Twig grunted to the others. ‘Now, pull! Pull as if your lives depended on it.’

Slowly - painfully slowly - the three of them tugged and heaved, inching their way back across the deck. Suspended below them, Cowlquape felt as if nothing was happening. It was only when he twisted round and looked back at the hull that he saw he was indeed rising up towards the deck.

‘Nearly there,’ Twig said encouragingly. ‘Just a little bit more and … Yes!’ he exclaimed, as the tousled head of his young apprentice abruptly came into view. While the mobgnome and the gnokgoblin braced themselves, Twig secured the end of the rope to the tether-post, rushed back to the balustrade and seized hold of Cowlquape's wrist. ‘Got you!’ he grunted.

Cowlquape tumbled down onto the deck. Twig slumped down beside him, exhausted.

‘Well, well, well, what have we here?’ came a syrupy voice. ‘Scurvy stowaways, is it?’

Twig looked up. It was the squat figure he had seen at the helm. He climbed to his feet. ‘We're no stowaways,’ he said, and pulled the small piece of cloth from the posting-pole out of his pocket. ‘We wish to travel with you to the Great Shryke Slave Market - I take it you are Thunderbolt Vulpoon.’

‘Captain
Thunderbolt Vulpoon,’ came the reply, as the fastidious little person tugged at the ruffs around his wrists and twirled the points of his waxed moustache. A
great ring of keys jangled at his belt. ‘Indeed I am.’ His eyebrows arched and curled like the sound holes on a wood-lute. ‘But this is against all the laws of skysailing,’ he said. ‘Surely you must know that nobody may board a sky ship without its captain's permission. How else can a potential passenger be vetted before setting sail? I don't even know your names.’

‘I am Twig,’ said Twig and, ignoring the puzzled flicker of half-recognition which passed across the captain's ruddy face, he turned to his apprentice. ‘This is Cowlquape.’

The captain sniffed dismissively ‘Riff-raff by any other name would smell as rank.’ He turned. ‘Grimlock!’ he bellowed.