Stormchaser (29 page)

With his head fixed to the branch at his back, the injured professor could not look down, and so it was left to Twig to keep an eye on where they were stepping – and that meant looking away from their destination. Each time he glanced up again, he found they had drifted to one side or the other.

‘Must I do everything?’ Twig complained irritably. ‘Why don’t you tell me when we’re wandering off course?’

‘I can’t,’ said the professor. ‘My eyes are closed.’

‘Well open them!’ Twig snapped impatiently.

‘I can’t,’ he repeated wearily. ‘With my head fixed at this angle, my eyes are set towards the sun. If I stare at it too long, I’ll go blind.’ He snorted miserably. ‘And what use is a Professor of Light who cannot see? I’d end up begging on the streets of Undertown.’

Twig turned away guiltily. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I…’

‘Oh, my dear boy,’ said the professor, ‘you are the last person under Sky who should apologize. You stuck by me in the Twilight Woods; you are sticking by me now. I am, and shall remain, eternally grateful to you.’ He paused. ‘It's that Screed character I’d like to tear off a strip. He
said
he’d slow down.’

Twig nodded, but said nothing. Perhaps the guide
had
slowed down. He and the professor were making such painfully slow progress that it was difficult to tell.

The journey was taking on the never-ending quality of a nightmare. Every yard was like a mile, every second seemed to take an hour.

‘Sky above!’ the professor moaned. ‘How much further to go? I don’t think I can take much more of this.’

‘You’re going to be fine,’ Twig assured him as he glanced over his shoulder to check that Spiker and the Stone Pilot were still following them. ‘It can’t be that far now.’ He turned back and looked up ahead – and gasped with horror.

‘What is it?’ said the professor, his eyes snapping open.

‘Screed,’ said Twig, as he unhooked his telescope with one hand and frantically scoured the horizon. ‘He's not there!’

The Professor of Light squinted into the distance. ‘He warned us this might happen,’ he said.

‘I know, but…’

‘Come now,’ said the professor. ‘I am old and in pain. I am allowed to be disheartened. But not you, Twig. You have your whole future in front of you.’

Twig stared ahead glumly. ‘Mud,’ he muttered, ‘that's all I can see in front of
me
. Oh, Professor. If only I hadn’t disobeyed my father, none of this would have happened. But no. I wouldn’t do as I was told. Stubborn and stupid, I had to sneak back on board the
Stormchaser
. This is
all
my fault.’

‘Twig, my boy,’ said the professor gently. ‘What's done is done. I am not about to apportion blame. The important thing now is how you deal with the consequences of your actions. If you …
WAAAAAH
!’ he screamed, as at that moment and without any warning, a scalding blow-hole erupted between the two of them.

‘Professor!’ Twig cried, as he was torn from his side.

He stared up in horror at the thick column of seething mud which shot up into the air like the trunk of a great white tree. Higher and higher it rose, loudly roaring, before folding over on itself and tumbling back to earth in a shower of thick, sticky globules.

‘Professor!’ Twig cried again. ‘Where are you?’

‘Over here,’ came a quavering voice from the far side of the column of mud. ‘I’m stuck.’

‘Just hold on,’ Twig called back. ‘I’m coming to get you.’

As the mud spewed forth from the hole, clouds of noxious steam billowed up all round Twig. Coughing and spluttering, eyes streaming, he staggered forwards. The heat shimmered. The mud gushed. Twig raised his arm to his face, but nothing could keep out the breath-snatching stench.

‘Can’t … find … you…’ he gasped.

‘Here,’ the professor's frail voice replied. It sounded close. Twig stopped, wiped his eyes and peered through the dense mist. And there, staring back at him, was the professor, not three strides ahead.

‘Stop!’ he was shouting. ‘Not a step further.’

For a moment, Twig could make no sense of what he saw. Clearly, the professor had not landed on his back for, although his head was most definitely at ground level, it was staring ahead, not up at the sky. And then he understood. The Professor of Light had fallen into a patch of quickmud. It was already up to his armpits.

Twig pulled his scarf from around his neck and tied it over his mouth and nose as a makeshift mask. Then, he removed his sky pirate's coat, knelt down at the edge of the sinking-mud and, with the collar and shoulders gripped tightly in his hands, tossed the other end towards the professor.

‘Grab hold of it,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll pull you out.’

The professor clung on. Twig braced his legs, leaned backwards – and pulled as he had never pulled before. ‘Heave! Heave! Heave!’ he grunted desperately.

Slowly, slowly, the professor began to emerge from the ground. First his chest appeared, then his stomach…

‘Oh, my neck,’ the professor whimpered. ‘My poor, poor neck.’

‘Nearly there,’ Twig gasped. ‘Just…’

Squellssh …
POP
!

The sucking mud had released its grip on the professor's legs. He lay on his front, head down.

‘Professor,’ said Twig urgently, as he rolled him onto his back and wiped the claggy mud from his face. ‘Professor, can you hear me?’

The professor's thin, cracked lips parted. ‘Yes,’ he croaked faintly. ‘I can hear you … You saved my life.’

‘Not yet I haven’t,’ said Twig. ‘But I shall. Climb on my back.’

‘Oh, Twig,’ the professor protested. ‘I couldn’t …
You
couldn’t…’

‘We won’t know until we try,’ said Twig. He slipped his coat back on, turned and hunkered down. ‘Put your arms around my neck,’ he instructed. ‘That's it.’

Then, with a grunt of effort, he straightened up, grasped the back of the professor's bony legs with his hands and set off. Away from the quickmud, he trudged. Away from the blow-hole with its poisonous mist and fountain of scalding mud. On and on through the bleached and boggy landscape. The temperature dropped. The air cleared.

‘Still no sign of Screed,’ the professor muttered at length. ‘A deceitful individual if ever there was one. Takes our money, he does, and then abandons us to our fate. Probably sat in that shipwreck right now, with his feet up.’

Twig raised his head and stared out across the Mire. The shipwreck was, at last, looking nearer.

‘To Open Sky with that scurvy cur,’ Twig cursed, and spat on the ground. ‘With or without Screed's help, Spiker, the Stone Pilot, you and I are going to survive this ordeal. As captain of this crew, I give you my word.’

Screed was not in his wrecked sky ship home. The moment he was sure that no-one would notice, he had ducked down out of sight behind a rock and rolled in the mud until he was covered from head to foot in the bleached sludge.

‘Make myself disappear, I shall,’ he said, and chuckled throatily.

Then, satisfied that he was perfectly camouflaged, Screed climbed to his feet and doubled back across the Mire as fast as he could, keeping parallel to the path the sky pirates were taking. Although he could
see them, they couldn’t see him.

‘Keep to the path, you addleskulls,’ he hissed as he passed Twig and the old fellow. ‘Don’t want you getting swallowed up by the Mire, do we? At least, not yet.’

On and on he loped. Past the curious figure in the heavy clothes; past the oakelf – now down on his hands and knees – and on towards the body of the bander-bear. As he drew close, he saw that he was not the first on the scene. The white ravens were already tearing into the carcass with their beaks and claws.

‘Be gone, you bleached devils!’ Screed roared as he raced towards them, arms flapping wildly.

The white ravens bounced back on their springy legs, furiously cawing – but did not fly away. Screed crouched down. Although much of the body had already been consumed by the scavengers, the feet – huge, hairy and rapier clawed – were still intact. As he tilted his head to one side, the sun glinted on the countless minute crystals trapped in the fur between the toes.

‘Such beea-oootiful looty-booty,’ Screed smirked.

He drew his knife from his belt and, with the detached precision of a surgeon, sliced off the toes and slipped
them into his leather bag. The white ravens screeched and squawked in a frenzy of frustration.

‘There,’ he told them. ‘All yours now.’ And with that, he swung the bag onto his shoulder and loped off again. ‘One down,’ he chuckled. ‘Four to go.’

Spiker was the first he came to. The oakelf was still down on his hands and knees – yet no longer able to crawl. His breath came fast and wheezing. Screed stood, hands on his hips, looking down at the pitiful creature. The next moment he wrapped his arm around the oakelf's shoulders and pulled backwards. The blade of his knife glinted for an instant. The oakelf gurgled, clutched at his throat – and collapsed.

‘Did him a favour, really,’ Screed muttered to himself as he set to work on the toes. ‘Putting him out of his misery like that.’ He stood up and looked ahead at the figure with the hood, still struggling painfully on.

‘Ready or not,’ he muttered. ‘Here I come!’

The exhausting trek was taking its toll on Twig. Although little more than skin and bones wrapped up in a gown, the Professor of Light's weight seemed to be increasing as Twig lugged him, without a break, across the squelching, stagnant mud.