Stormchaser (20 page)

‘And now you,’ he stormed. ‘You…’ He fell silent. His eyes widened; his jaw dropped. ‘Twig!’ he muttered.

Slyvo Spleethe sniggered as he pulled the blade oh-so-gently across Twig's throat. ‘Drop your weapon,’ he said. ‘Or your
son
gets it.’

‘No,’ Twig cried. ‘Don’t do this for me. You must not.’

Cloud Wolf tossed his sword aside and let his arms drop defencelessly. ‘Release the boy,’ he said. ‘You have no quarrel with him.’

‘Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t,’ Spleethe teased. He put away his dagger, but drew his own sword in a flash. ‘Maybe I’ll…’

The sky cracked and flashed, and the
Stormchaser
pitched wildly, first to one side, then to the other. The sky ship was drifting perilously close to the edge of the storm – and there was nothing Hubble could do to stop it.

Then all at once and before anyone realized what he was doing, Spleethe let go of Twig. He shoved him to the floor and raced headlong at the captain, sword raised.

‘Aaaaaa!’ he screamed.

The sky ship shuddered violently. Every beam, every plank, every joint creaked in protest.

‘Two minutes, and counting,’ Twig heard Spiker calling – then, with sudden alarm, ‘Tem! Boltjaw! The captain's in trouble!’

At long last the others had noticed that something was wrong. But too late. Far too late. Already Spleethe's sword was slicing down through the air towards Cloud Wolf's exposed neck.

Below the hull, one of the port hull-weights was being shaken loose. Abruptly, it broke free and tumbled down through the sky. The
Stormchaser
keeled to starboard.

The sword landed heavily, missing its target, but burying itself deep in the top of Cloud Wolf's arm – his sword arm. Slyvo Spleethe's lip curled. ‘You were lucky that time,’ he said. ‘You will not be so lucky again.’ He raised the sword a second time. ‘
I
am captain now!’

‘Hubble!’ Twig cried out desperately. ‘
Do
something!’

‘Wuh-wuh!’ the banderbear bellowed, and gripped the wheel. The captain had told him –
ordered
him – to stay put.

For a moment, their eyes met. ‘Wuh-wuh,’ said Twig.

‘
WAAH
!’ Hubble roared. Mind made up, his eyes blazed and his hair bristled as he ripped the ropes from their moorings, and tore them to pieces as if they were made of paper. ‘
WAAAH
!’

A shaggy white mountain, he stormed towards Spleethe in a flurry of flashing claws and bared teeth. He seized the scurrilous quartermaster round the waist, raised him up in the air and slammed him furiously back down onto the deck. Then, before Spleethe could so much as move a muscle, the banderbear roared again and came crashing down on the quartermaster's back.

There was a thud. There was a crack. Slyvo Spleethe was dead – his spine broken in two.

Twig climbed shakily to his feet, and desperately clung hold of the balustrade as the storm-tossed sky ship pitched and rolled, totally out of control. The mutinous usurpers might have been dealt with and his father's life spared – but the situation was grim.

With no-one now at the helm, the wheel was spinning, while the sails that remained flapped uselessly overhead. Below the hull, two more of the balance-weights shook themselves loose. The
Stormchaser
tossed and twisted, bucked and dived. Round and round it spun, threatening at any moment to tip upside down and scatter the hapless crew to certain death below.

Cloud Wolf struggled to pull himself up with his one good arm, wincing with pain as he did so. Tem Barkwater who, with the others, had finally made it to the bridge, struggled to get to him.

‘Leave me!’ Cloud Wolf cried fiercely.

A blinding flash tore across the sky, lighting up the
Stormchaser
and revealing the true extent of its damage. Any second now, it would break up completely. Cloud Wolf spun round to face his crew.

‘
ABANDON SHIP
!’ he bellowed.

The crew stared back at him incredulously. What madness was this? Abandon ship, when they were on the verge of reaching their destination?

At that moment, the air all round them exploded with the clamour of countless small birds as they billowed up from the bowels of the ship. Their triangular wings and whiplash tails, all frantically beating, flashed black against the dazzling background. Thousands of them, there were, yet they flew with single intent. When one turned, they all turned. Squawking, squeaking, screeching, the flock wheeled this way and that as if to the command of some unseen choreographer.

‘Ratbirds,’ Tem murmured with horror. He knew – as did every sky pirate – that ratbirds only
abandon a sky ship that is truly doomed. He spun round. ‘You heard the cap’n,’ he bellowed. ‘Abandon ship!’

‘And alert both the Stone Pilot and the professor,’ Cloud Wolf called out.

‘Aye aye, cap’n,’ said Tem Barkwater, and staggered off to do the captain's bidding.

Spiker was the first to go. As he threw himself from the balustrade he called back, ‘We are crossing into the Twilight Woods … Now!’

The rest of the crew soon followed him. Despite the awful danger of remaining on the
Stormchaser
a moment too long, one by one they knelt down and kissed the deck, before climbing reluctantly up onto the side and leaping off into the purple air. Stope Boltjaw. The Stone Pilot. Tem Barkwater and the Professor of Light. As the blast of air struck them, so the spring mechanism of their
parawings leapt up, the wind pockets inflated with air and they glided off and away.

Back on the bridge, Cloud Wolf was making his way to the helm, step by agonizing step, as the sky ship continued to judder and jolt.

‘You too, Hubble,’ he shouted at the steadfast banderbear. ‘Leave your post. Go!’ The great beast surveyed him dolefully. The sails fluttered and tore. ‘Now!’ roared Cloud Wolf. ‘Before the sky ship goes down.’

‘Wuh-wuh,’ he cried, and lurched off to obey. As he moved away, Cloud Wolf saw that the banderbear had been shielding a second member of the crew who had not yet left the sky ship.

‘Twig!’ he barked. ‘I told you to go.’

The swirling clouds squirmed. The
Stormchaser
shuddered and creaked.

‘But I can’t! I won’t leave you!’ Twig cried out. ‘Oh, forgive me, Father. This is all my fault.’

‘Your fault?’ Cloud Wolf grunted as he struggled to take control of the helm. ‘It is
I
who is to blame – leaving you at the mercy of that scoundrel Spleethe.’

‘But…’

‘Enough!’ roared Cloud Wolf. ‘Leave now!’

‘Come with me!’ Twig pleaded.

Cloud Wolf said nothing. There was no need. Twig knew that his father would sooner lose his own life than his ship.

‘Then I’ll stay with you!’ he said defiantly.

‘Twig! Twig!’ Cloud Wolf cried, his voice barely audible above the rush and rumble of the storm. ‘I may
lose my ship. I may yet lose my life. And if that is my fate, then so be it. But if I lost you … It would…’ He paused. ‘Twig, my son. I love you. But you must leave. For you and for me. You understand, don’t you?’

Tears welling in his eyes, Twig nodded.

‘Good boy,’ said Cloud Wolf. Then, lurching awkwardly from one side to the other, he hurriedly unbuckled his sword-belt, wrapped it round the scabbard and thrust out his hand. ‘Take my sword,’ he said.

Twig reached forwards. His fingers grazed his father's hand. ‘We will see each other again, won’t we?’ he sniffed.

‘You can depend on it,’ said Cloud Wolf. ‘When I regain control of the
Stormchaser
I shall be back for you all. Now go,’ he said, and abruptly returned his attention to the rows of weight and sail levers.

Sadly, Twig turned to leave. When he reached the outer balustrade, Twig looked round and stole a final look at his father. ‘Fare fortune!’ he cried to the blasting wind, and launched himself into the air.

The next instant he screamed out in terror. He was dropping like a stone. The parawings must have been damaged when Spleethe had thrown him into the store-cupboard. Now they were jammed. They would not open.

‘Father!’ he screamed. ‘
FA-THER
!’

• CHAPTER TWELVE •
I
NTO THE
T
WILIGHT
W
OODS

T
wig screwed his eyes tightly shut as he fell, faster and faster. If ever he had needed the caterbird – who, since Twig had been there at its hatching, had sworn to watch over him – then surely it was now. Yet, as he continued to tumble through the sky, the caterbird failed to appear.

The air sped past Twig, snatching his breath away. He had all but abandoned hope when, suddenly, he heard a loud click. The mechanism on the parawings sprang up, the wings flew open and –
whooopf
– the silken pockets billowed out. Caught by the wind, Twig was tossed back upwards like a leaf in a gale.

He opened his eyes, and struggled to right himself. It was the first time Twig had had to perform a real emergency leap, yet when he pushed his legs back and his arms forward, as he had been taught, he found
himself gliding effortlessly with the wind. ‘Flying,’ Twig cried excitedly, as the wind sent his hair streaming back behind him. ‘I’m flaaaah-ying!’