The Winter Knights (20 page)

No, Screedius had to trust in Hax Vostillix whether he liked it or not. Hax claimed that a Great Storm was imminent and every fibre of the knight academic's being wanted to believe he was right.

He turned away from the window and began the long slow task of buckling himself into his armour, the same ritual that he repeated every day. First the underquilting, then the inner pipework – tightening valves, securing joints. Now the leg-armour, joints greased, clips checked; then the arms – elbow guards, shoulder arches. Next the great breast-plate and backplate, smooth and polished, bedecked in outer pipework and glass-capped gauges. And finally the heavy helmet, lifted into place and firmly secured.

As he lowered the visor, Screedius could hear the sound of his own breath roaring in his ears. And, seen through the eye-plates of twilight-refracting crystal, the world outside turned the colour of golden wood-honey.

He was ready now to descend the three hundred and seventy-two steps of the tower and climb into the saddle of Vanquix, oiled, groomed and waiting for him in the Inner Courtyard. Then it was a short gallop to the Great Hall at the far end of the Central Viaduct, where he would wait for the bell to toll.

Three weeks had passed since the twin Most High Academes had knighted him with the great curved ceremonial sword. A tap on each shoulder and suddenly he was a knight academic-in-waiting no longer, but instead, a fully-fledged knight academic!

Yet the waiting went on. Hour after hour, day after day. For three long weeks he'd dressed in his armour and waited at one end of the viaduct, while his stormchaser – the
Windcutter
– waited for him at the other. And still the Great Storm had not come.

Arriving at the Great Hall and urging Vanquix inside, Screedius raised his visor and permitted himself another look at the sky. He checked the drift and swirl of the towering anvil clouds. Perhaps today
would
be the day …

‘I'm ready,’ he whispered to the sky, his breath a long, wispy plume of mist, ‘whenever you are.’

Out of nowhere, there came a sound, the like of which no-one in the great floating city of Sanctaphrax had heard before – but one that none would ever forget.

It began as a low rumble, more a vibration in the freezing air than an actual noise. The ink-pots and bone-handled quills rattled across the desk-tops of the floating benches, causing the squires to reach out and grab them, before they fell and smashed on the curved walls below.

Then, as the sky rapidly darkened, the rumble turned into a roar. It was coming from above them, out of the depths of Open Sky. Louder it grew, and louder, clattering round the egg-shaped lecture hall like an invisible caged beast.

Quint trembled and clapped his hands to his ears.

Rising in pitch now, shifting from a roar to a shriek to a piercing wail, it sounded as if a thousand sky spirits were laying siege to the towers of Sanctaphrax, which bent and quivered before them. And as the rasping, screeching sky-howl climbed to its terrible crescendo, so the ground trembled, the buildings shook, and in every college and school of the frozen city academics fell to their knees and called for the Sky to protect them …

And then - just as Quint thought he could bear it no longer - something happened. Almost as suddenly as it had arisen, the sound simply died away and the bruised air was left throbbing with silence.

Hax Vostillix burst into the great lecture hall, wild-eyed and dishevelled, and stabbed a finger towards the dome. Quint looked up, and saw a huge anvil-shaped cloud billowing across the sky, churning and curdling everything around it.

The Great Storm!’ the Hall Master of High Cloud cried out in triumph, and let out an unhinged cackle. ‘It has come! Sky be praised!’

At the same moment, echoing through the hallway, came the sound of a distant bell tolling.

‘It's the Great Hall bell!’ someone exclaimed.

‘They're ringing the Great Hall bell!’

All at once, the Knights Academy exploded in a flurry of frantic activity. Doors slammed, voices were raised, and from every corner there came the tramp of running feet as the professors and squires, the gatekeepers, academics-at-arms and hall-servants alike all dashed down stairs and along corridors. Cloaks and capes were grabbed, caps with furry ear-flaps were pulled down over heads, snow-goggles were put into place. And as the vast multitude surged towards the magnificent double doors, which burst open with a loud
crash
, the tolling bell grew louder still.

Swept along with the rest were Quint and Phin, hurriedly wrapping scarves around their necks and tucking in their quilted vests.

‘What's wrong, Quint?’ Phin asked above the babble of voices. ‘The Great Storm has arrived. Aren't you excited?’

The next moment they burst out from the end of the corridor, like a cork from a bottle of shaken winesap, into the windlashed, snow-covered cityscape beyond. The colour was extraordinary – a malevolent ochre-tinged wash tainting the thick snow; and there was a curious odour to the air. Sour, burnt, almost like toasted almonds.

‘It's just that … The stormcloud …’ Quint began, struggling to keep up with Phin as he peered up at the swirling sky above. ‘There's something not quite right …’

Impelled along the snow-filled streets, their booted feet crunching in the frozen snow, Quint and Phin continued on to the foot of the Viaduct Steps. From every corner of Sanctaphrax, hundreds and thousands of others joined the throng, streaming from the buildings on all sides and converging.

Past the East Landing they went, the creak of the turning treadmill filling the air as the prowlgrins and giant fromps inside it tramped on and on, endlessly raising and lowering the log burner suspended below. Into the bottleneck between the Minor Academies and the Loftus Observatory – grunting with effort as they forced themselves through – and on towards the great squares which afforded the best views of the magnificent viaduct.

‘Over here, Quint, old chap!’ came a voice.

Quint glanced round to see Raffix, his head swathed in a tilderskin hat with thick ear-muffs, standing on a raised plinth waving his arms.

He and Phin struggled towards him, their elbows gouging a route through the dense, surging crowd. As they got closer, Raffix leaned towards them with an arm outstretched and, one after the other, pulled them up on the plinth beside him. As Quint squeezed in beside Phin, he turned – and gasped. For there, high up in the air, secured to the side of the Loftus Observatory was a sky ship.

A stormchaser!

‘What do you think of her?’ said Raffix.

‘She's magnificent,’ said Quint, awestruck by the beauty of the sleek vessel.

‘She's called the
Windcutter
,’ Raffix went on, and smiled wryly as the icy wind plucked at the ear-flaps on his hat. ‘A fine name for a stormchaser! And here comes her master!’

Just then, from the other end of the Central Viaduct there came a fanfare of tilderhorns. A moment later, high up, just beneath the towering glass dome, the balcony doors flew open. And there, resplendent in shining armour, sat Screedius Tollinix, knight academic, astride his black prowlgrin, Vanquix.

At the sight of the knight and his prowlgrin, the entire crowd erupted with whoops and cheers, which grew louder and more frenzied as the pair of them made their way slowly along the top of the viaduct. They looked so magnificent that, for the moment, Quint forgot his misgivings about the huge cloud that was fast approaching.

With Vanquix and Screedius more than halfway across the viaduct, the sky was looking more threatening than ever. The wind had grown stronger too and, as the crowd stared up at the valiant knight and his prowlgrin mount, so thick feathery flakes of snow began to tumble down out of the sky.

Screedius approached the sky ship, tethered at the far end of the viaduct. He was met by the excited figure of Hax Vostillix, whose white beard was flapping wildly in the wind.

‘The Great Storm is approaching!’ he screamed as the sky blackened overhead.

Screedius raised his visor and turned his green eyes upwards. The anvil-shaped stormcloud was moving swiftly, and the suggestion of a swirl was beginning to spin it. But its formation was dense, and no tendrils of lightning flickered in its depths. Instead, the eddies of snow seemed to be getting thicker.

‘What are you waiting for?’ screamed Hax, almost beside himself with anxiety and excitement. ‘It is a Great Storm. You must not let it get away!’

Screedius turned his intense gaze on the Hall Master of High Cloud and spoke, his low voice almost lost in the swirling snow-filled wind.

‘I shall not fail.’

With those words, Screedius tugged at his reins and Vanquix leaped from the viaduct and landed on the deck of the sky ship. The crowd, shielding their eyes from the falling snow, cried out in jubilation. And their cries grew more excited still as Screedius dismounted and began raising the sails, one by one. First the mainsail, then the sky- and studsails – each one flapping and billowing as the wind caught it. Finally, the loudest cry of all went up as Screedius loosed the tolley-rope and, with a sudden lurch, the
Windcutter
soared up into the turbulent air.

‘Skyspeed!’

‘Return safely!’

‘Sky protect you!’

The words of encouragement and well-being were whipped away on the lashing wind, and it is doubtful whether Screedius Tollinix heard anything as he struggled to control the sky ship. Battling with the billowing sails while at the same time trying to maintain control of the dangerously buoyant flight-rock, he circled the Loftus Observatory, before setting off into the heart of the storm as it passed overhead and sped on over Undertown and on towards the Mire.

Quint felt his heart racing as he watched the sky ship grow tiny in the raging maelstrom. It looked so fragile, so flimsy. The sails flapped, the flight-rock burners flared on and off and, in the crowd all round him, there were murmured prayers and benedictions, with the more suspicious of those in the crowd fingering the charms and amulets which hung around their necks.

For a second the
Windcutter
could be seen clearly, sideways on against the mass of turbulent cloud. The next, it disappeared inside. All eyes in the crowd stared unblinking at the spot where the sky ship had entered the storm, but there was nothing more to see as the Great Storm continued inexorably towards the Twilight Woods, with the knight academic and his faithful prowlgrin at its centre.

‘Sky protect you, Screedius Tollinix,’ Quint murmured. ‘Sky protect you.’