The Last of the Sky Pirates (21 page)

Rook felt the prowlgrin being dragged backwards. It was like being caught inside a whirlwind. He tugged at the reins in a furious attempt to yank the creature out of the traction-like spiral of air which was drawing them closer and closer to the terrible gaping mouth. Suddenly, with a loud
crack
, the harness snapped. The reins came away in his hands.

‘No,’ he groaned, tossing the useless bits of tilder-leather to the ground, and hanging on grimly round the creature’s neck.

‘Pick on someone your own size!’ Hekkle’s voice shrieked and, turning, Rook caught sight of the puny shryke-mate – feathers fluffed up and eyes glinting – beating the ground furiously with a lullabee branch. Distracted, the huge logworm roared with rage and twisted round to confront the shryke. Twigs, leaves, rocks and earth were thrown high up into the air.

Suddenly free, the prowlgrin tore off as fast as its powerful legs could take it. Rook held on desperately as they thundered through the suddenly thinning lufwood trees and on into the brilliant light and vast spaces of the Silver Pastures themselves.

Rook felt a great wave of relief wash over him. Vast and softly undulating, the pastures were spectacular. The silvery grey-green was broken only by the thick streaks of the black and brown herds of migrating hammelhorn and tilder, which stretched out as far as the eye could see.

The wide sky, cloudless now, was dotted with birds in flight – a flock of snowbirds, a cluster of cheepwits, songteals twittering loudly, a gladehawk hovering and waiting to dive and, far, far in the distance, a solitary caterbird flapping sedately. Below, the huge herds moved slowly through the pastures. The air was filled with the warm, musty smell of their thick fur mingling with the mouthwatering scent of crushed grass. Their deep lowing rumbled sonorously …

A loud hiss cut through the air directly behind him. The logworm! Rook kicked his heels into the galloping prowl-grin, not daring to look back. The huge beast had followed them out into this vast sea of grass. Ahead, a large herd of shaggy hammelhorns trumpeted loudly and, turning on their heels, stampeded off in a cloud of dust.

The logworm was almost on top of them. Rook could feel the twisting air tugging at his cape, his trousers, his hair, and making the prowlgrin pant with exertion.

‘Faster! Faster!’ Rook cried out in desperation. ‘Don’t give up now!’ The prowlgrin snorted helplessly. It had done all it could; it could do no more. Clinging on tightly, Rook leaned forwards. ‘You did your best,’ he whispered.

The prowlgrin stumbled. Rook cried out. They crashed into the soft, herb-scented grass, Rook tumbling clear of his mount. The gaping maw of the logworm loomed over them, closer, closer …

‘No!’ he screamed. ‘Not like this!’

All at once Rook caught sight of a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. The next moment something struck him hard, knocking the air from his lungs, and – in a flurry of grasping hands, glinting wood and flapping sails – he was plucked from the ground.

Rook gasped. He was soaring up, up, up into the sky.

‘Just in time, friend,’ came a voice from behind him. Rook craned his neck round. He was on a skycraft! He was actually flying! There, astride a narrow seat behind him, was the pilot – a young, slightly built slaughterer, dressed in flight-suit and goggles. The skycraft lurched
to the left. ‘Stay still, friend,’ he said firmly. ‘She’s not used to passengers.’

Rook turned back, scarcely able to believe what was happening. He wrapped his arms round the neck of the skycraft’s roughly hewn figurehead and clung on tightly, his heart bubbling with joy.

Flying!

Far below, there came a long howl of despair. Rook looked down to see the brave yet hapless prowlgrin disappear inside the voracious log-like creature. A last plaintive squeal rose up through the air. Then nothing. Rook shuddered, and almost lost his grip on the figurehead.

‘Whooah
, steady there, friend!’ the pilot shouted. ‘First time in the air?’

Rook nodded and tried not to look down.

At that moment the fragile skycraft hit a pocket of turbulent air. It bucked and dipped, and went into a nose-dive. The slaughterer pilot’s hands darted forwards and began tugging at a series of ropes, raising weights and shifting the sails round, while his feet balanced the craft with thin, curved stirrups. Rook gasped, stomach in his mouth, as the ground spiralled towards them.

‘I know, I know,’ the slaughterer muttered through clenched teeth, as he tugged on two of the ropes at the same time. ‘You’re not built for two, are you, old girl?’

The skycraft abruptly pulled out of the dive and soared back into the sky – only to be struck by a ferocious gust of wind slamming into its side. Rook’s
stomach did a somersault as the buffeting crosswind threatened at any moment to send them into another terrifying spin. The patched sails billowed in and out; this side, that side …

‘Help!’ Rook shouted out despite himself, his cry whipped away on the battering wind. He glanced behind him.

With his jaw set grimly, the young slaughterer was gripping the steering-handles tightly. The skycraft juddered violently, threatening to shake itself to pieces at any moment.

‘Easy, girl!’ he coaxed as, balancing in the stirrups, he wrestled with the tangle of ropes.

Rook held his breath.

Slowly, slowly – his brow furrowed with concentration – the slaughterer brought the skycraft round. His feet were poised, ready for the moment when the wind struck them from the back. Rook gripped the carved wood with white-knuckled ferocity …

All at once the skycraft gave a violent shudder. The wind was directly behind them. The sails billowed, the ropes strained. With a terrible lurch – and an ominous crunch – the skycraft hurtled forwards like an arrow.

Nothing could have prepared Rook for the sudden burst of speed. It threw him back, snatched his breath away and plucked at the corners of his mouth. He screwed his eyes tightly shut.

‘Whup! Whup! Wahoo!’
he heard a moment later. He frowned in disbelief. Was the slaughterer seriously
enjoying this – or had the young pilot gone mad with fear?

Rook risked another glance over his shoulder. Although they were travelling at breakneck speed, and at an alarmingly steep angle, the slaughterer did seem to be in control. Standing up in the stirrups, he was pulling in the sail-ropes one by one, reducing the bulge of the individual sails, while at the same time keeping the fragile craft expertly balanced.
‘Whup! Whup! Wahoo!’
he cried out again. He
was
enjoying himself.

Ahead of him, Rook spotted a tall tower; a mass of roughly hewn timber that seemed to sprout from the pastures like a colossal wooden needle. Just below the point, Rook could make out a series of rough gantries and primitive walkways bedecked with lanterns that, even in the light of the pastures, seemed to be glowing.

‘That’s my beauty, I knew you could do it,’ the slaughterer muttered under his breath. ‘Nearly there … Nearly there …’ He tugged on a thick, plaited black rope above his head, and the sail to Rook’s left rose.

The effect was instantaneous. Instead of continuing forwards, the skycraft went into a slow, coiling turn, arcing through the air like a woodmaple-seed on the wind. Once round the tall needle of the tower it flew, then descended, inch perfect onto a rough plank gantry where the skycraft touched down.

Rook slumped forwards, exhilarated and exhausted in equal measure. The slaughterer tore off his goggles and leaped from the seat, his face bursting with pride. ‘Yes.’ He smiled, and stroked the skycraft’s carved prow. ‘I
knew you wouldn’t fail me.’ He looked suddenly thoughtful. ‘What does the Professor of Darkness know?’ he said. ‘More than a single pilot on a skycraft. Can’t be done, eh? Well, we’ve shown him, haven’t we,
Woodwasp
, old girl?’ He patted the figurehead affectionately.

Rook tapped him on the shoulder. ‘My name’s Rook Barkwater, and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart,’ he began. He paused. ‘Did you say
Professor of Darkness?
Are you also an apprentice?’

The slaughterer looked down and laughed. ‘I, Knuckle, an apprentice?’ he said. ‘No. Just a simple herder, me. The professor is a … an acquaintance of mine.’ He turned to face Rook, as if only now seeing him for the first time.

‘But you fly so well,’ said Rook. ‘Who taught you, if not the masters of Lake Landing?’

‘I taught myself,’ said Knuckle. He patted the skycraft lovingly. ‘Built her from scratch, I did. ‘Course, I’d be the first to admit that she’s not the most beautiful skycraft ever to fly, but the
Woodwasp
here is a remarkable creature. Obedient. Sensitive. Responsive …’

Rook was intrigued. ‘You’re talking about it as though it was alive,’ he said.

‘Aye, well, that’s the secret of skycraft flight in a nutshell,’ said Knuckle earnestly. ‘You treat your sky-craft like a friend – with love, with tenderness, with respect – and she’ll return the favour tenfold. When I saw you in trouble with that logworm, it was the
Woodwasp
herself who urged me to try to rescue you. “We can do it!” she told me. “The two of us together!” And she was right.’

‘And thank Earth and Sky for that,’ said Rook softly. ‘Without you both, I would have perished.’

Suddenly, from all around, came the sound of voices. Rook looked out from the gantry to see half a dozen or so skycraft – each one piloted by a single pilot – looping down through the air towards them. Like Knuckle, they seemed to be slaughterers, flame-haired and clad in leather flight-suits. They waved down enthusiastically.

‘That was amazing, Knuckle!’ shouted one.

‘The most incredible piece of flying I’ve ever seen!’ shouted another.

‘And with two people on board!’ said a third, awestruck. ‘If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d never have believed it possible!’

One by one, they landed their own skycraft on gantries below them, dismounted, and clambered up swaying ladders to join them. Knuckle bowed his head.

‘It was nothing,’ he said, modest, almost shy. ‘It’s all down to the
Woodwasp
here, the little beauty—’

‘But you are an excellent pilot,’ Rook butted in. He turned to the others. ‘The way he swooped down and plucked me from the jaws of the logworm. The way he battled with the air-pockets and gale-force winds …’ He shook his head with admiration. ‘You should have seen it!’ He glanced back towards the young slaughterer. ‘Knuckle, here, was magnificent! He saved my life!’

‘And who are
you
?
’
asked a short, sinewy slaughterer as he stepped forwards.

‘Looks like a merchant to me,’ came a voice.

‘Probably one of those apprentices,’ came another.

‘He
is
an apprentice,’ Knuckle answered for him. ‘His name is Rook Barkwater.’

Rook nodded. ‘I was travelling with two other apprentices,’ he said. ‘A shryke guide was taking us to the Free Glades. Have you seen them? Do you know if they’re all right?’

‘A shryke?’ said Knuckle, and screwed up his nose.

The others muttered under their breath. Shrykes were clearly not popular among the group of slaughterers.