Skrimsli, page 16
‘Why don’t we just kill them now?’ That was Listig. ‘It’s so much less trouble. Everybody will pay us what they owe: Yalen and the Nordskys, the Automators too!’
‘Your thinking is always so childish, sister,’ Spion hissed. ‘My ransom plan will make us more money than we have ever had. There is no pension for assassins, you know. We have to take care of ourselves.’
‘But it might not work,’ Listig whined. ‘Oh, please let me just kill them now. It would be so easy.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! I have already explained the plan!’ Spion scolded. ‘Itmis has secure cells already in the amphitheatre in Otok.’
‘But I don’t want to stay in Otok!’ Listig whined again.
‘Oh, Listig,’ Spion snapped. ‘Your stupidity is breathtaking. We don’t stay there. Itmis does. We go back to the Sand City and…’ Here her voice dropped so Kal strained to hear ‘…tell them the Erem and the Palatine were taken from us by an armed gang…’ Spion dropped her voice another notch. ‘Who sadly killed all the nice Automator guards we took with us.’
Listig gave a horrible little giggle.
‘Meanwhile, Itmis cares for the captives,’ Spion continued, ‘runs a little show as cover, makes lots of money – which will keep him happy. When we have negotiated our payment, we will send word to Itmis, tell him that he will soon get his cut. Then we return, kill the captives and get evidence that we have done so. We’ll kill Itmis too and all the others, obviously. Don’t want any loose ends.’
Kal and Najma exchanged a horrified look while Listig giggled again.
‘When are we doing the part where the guards get killed?’ she breathed.
‘Quite soon, I think, don’t you?’ Spion said, and the two assassins laughed quietly together.
‘How much money do you think we could make out of this?’ Listig asked.
‘A lot,’ Spion replied. ‘Enough to retire to an estate somewhere.’
‘Could I have a dog, Spion?’
‘You can have a whole pack of dogs, dear Listig.’
There was an odd sound then, that it took Kal a few moments to identify: the sound of an assassin clapping her hands like a child at a birthday party.
Kal and Najma sat in silence, waiting for the sounds that would signal the twins were putting their murderous plans into action. Surely two slight, skinny assassins would struggle to overcome five burly trained fighters? Kal listened for the sounds of fighting, but there was nothing. Then, close to dawn, the carriage stopped.
‘Breakfast, gentlemen?’ Listig cried. ‘I think your hard work has earned a short rest and some refreshment. I have a loaf of spotted bread from Rumyc! From home!’
The guards sounded pleased. Kal heard the assassins climb down from the carriage and go amongst the men, handing out their breakfast. The poison in the food was fast-acting and effective. The men barely made a sound. A little coughing, a cry or two of alarm, the noise of bodies falling to the ground. Gunshots and the sounds of a knife being drawn followed as the assassins made it look as if the men had been killed in an attack.
Then they drove off their horses and got back on the carriage and set off again. The whole thing had taken less than half an hour. Kal and the Palatine sat in horrified quiet as the hours and the miles rumbled on.
By evening, the unmistakable smell of the river came into the carriage. The wheels rolled over the echoing metal of a bridge and the sounds of a bustling town rose up around them. They had reached Otok. Kal had heard sailors in Turgu talk about the place. ‘Two Towns’ was the name they gave it because Otok had two parts; Otok East was an important port on the river, where all the fingers of the Shamanow’s headwaters finally ran in to one. Otok West was a seaport at the end of a long inlet called the Finger, that lead out into the Belugi Sea. An ancient ridge of rock, the Divider, lay between the two towns, separating the river bend from the Finger of the ocean. From Otok you could sail anywhere! But it was a lawless town, a freeport, where anything, or anyone, could be bought or sold.
Kal managed to squint through the holes between the boards. They moved down streets that grew ever narrower and stank of open sewers. The sisters bickered about directions. At last gates opened and the horses pulled the carriage into a small yard filled with rubbish. Someone with wild hair and a muddy blue coat was closing the gates behind them. When the person turned, Kal saw it was Itmis Majak. He had changed since the night his father had died. No longer merely vain, there was a look in his eye that spoke of madness.
The twins jumped down to stand beside him. He tapped on the carriage.
‘You have them?’ he asked.
‘Of course we do, Itmis,’ Listig said.
‘Are the cells ready?’ Spion said.
‘Not yet,’ Itmis scowled. ‘I’ve been busy with my own fugitives.’
‘Itmis, you were supposed to be ready,’ Spion scolded.
Her sister interrupted. ‘I’m sure dear Itmis has been doing his best,’ she said. ‘What news of the tiger?’
Itmis smiled then, a slow horrible smile like a snake about to swallow something. ‘He is with that mutinous bear and the freak boy. They are close.’ Itmis rubbed his hands together, a gesture that Kal remembered was Kobret’s too. ‘They will be back in my control very soon.’
18
Owl
Under the Bridge
Owl steered the ochre boat into the narrow path of the moon and drew his story to its end.
‘Slowly, so slowly, the forest began to live again. The woman forgave the man for his foolishness and the Owl flew over their heads and the moon shone.’
Owl’s small audience, perched on sacks of lentils and rice, clapped. Madam Engedo clapped loudest of all. She came and sat beside him, ready to take her turn at the tiller.
‘Sit for a minute, Owl,’ she said and offered him half of an apple cake she had wrapped in a cloth. They ate the cake and watched the moon climb.
‘You know,’ Madam Engedo said, ‘you spoke the truth when you said it was a good story. I have heard you tell it many times now, and it is different every time.’
Owl looked at his boots. He still had no idea how to cope with a compliment. He was more used to being mocked for his voice and his appearance. But, Owl reflected, no one seemed to notice those things anymore. Not even himself.
‘You have been very useful, Owl,’ Madam Engedo continued. ‘I would be happy for you to stay aboard. I could pay you, not much, but a little.’
It was tempting for certain. Madame Engedo was as tough and enduring as a rock, but she was fair and kind. He loved the little world of the boat: arriving at some new village or town every day and leaving a few hours later. Blit fitted in, the way she managed to fit in anywhere. That was the business of dogs, Owl thought, to fit in around humans. No one would ever guess who she really was inside.
But the forest called to him more urgently every day. Every day there were bigger rafts of dead trees, freshly cut and headed downstream to build the railway over the Sea of Sand. And almost every day he re-told the story about the dying forest and who it was that saved it.
He told Madam Engedo he would think about it. And he would think carefully. A trip or two up and down the river would put a little store of money in his pocket and that was useful. The forest would wait a little longer, surely?
‘Don’t think too long!’ Madam Engedo said. ‘Otok is just around the bend. We’ll rest under the bridge overnight, but Otok is a wild place. All sorts goes on there. All sorts come there: sailors, smugglers, pirates. I’ll be heading downstream again as soon as I’ve unloaded.’
Owl helped the other passengers to find places to sleep amongst the sacks of lentils and rice. Once they were settled, he stood in the prow with Blit and watched the dark banks slip by on either side. They rose into high cliffs and then, around a long bend; a bridge came into view, high over the gorge. Even now, in the middle of the night, it was crowded with carts and people crossing it in both directions. The river beneath was busy too, with boats arriving and leaving constantly.
As they drew closer, Owl could see that the bridge of Otok had seen better days. The smooth curves of its arches were cracked and the pillars on which they rested no longer stood up straight. A tangled web of beams and girders held the whole thing up.
Madam Engedo steered the ochre boat to the left-hand arch. There was a wharf right beneath the shelter of the bridge, where smaller boats like theirs could tie up for the night. A scruffy pontoon poked out into the river. Owl left Blit on lookout while he jumped to the pontoon with the mooring lines and helped to make the boat fast.
With the ochre boat securely tied up for the night, there was nothing to be done until the markets in the town opened at dawn. There wasn’t a great deal of night left for sleeping but Owl settled down with Blit in their favourite spot in the prow of the boat. Tucked down between two sacks, whose contents moulded to his shape, with an empty sack or two for a blanket, Owl was very comfortable. Blit turned round three times, curled up at his feet and was instantly asleep, snoring delicately.
Owl lay for a while staring up into the arch of the bridge above him. Should he do as Madam Engedo suggested and stay with the boat? Or leave as he had planned and get another ride further upstream into one of the tributaries of the river? He fell asleep without a clear decision.
He dreamed, as usual, of Skrimsli. The ache inside his heart had grown no easier to bear or less painful. By day there were enough distractions to hold the hurt at bay, but in his sleep it rose up like a tide. The Skrimsli in his dream tonight was different. Not a small cub, nor a drowned corpse, not snarling in defiance at Kobret, not rolling in the snow with Taze.
This Skrimsli was bigger and bolder, even oranger, and he was very definitely telling Owl to wake up, wake up now!
Owl opened his eyes. The nest of haphazard metal and wood that supported the cracked arch above him was softly lit by the yellow streetlights on the wharf. Staring from it was a vivid, stripy ghost with eyes of green fire. Owl sat up so quickly his head spun. The face above him did not vanish. He shook his head, looked away, looked back and concluded that he was not dreaming. He looked steadily up into the green eyes and felt the cub’s familiar presence bound into his mind, almost knocking him over with purring enthusiasm and joy.
Owl! Owl! Owl!
Get up! Get up! Come come!
Meet end of the bridge. Upstream. Quick. Before light.
With that, the striped apparition vanished. Owl sat down, dazed. Dream or real? There was only one way to find out, but where was the end of the bridge exactly? The end of the underside of the bridge was a different place from the end of the upper side, where the road ran. If he was to make it before light he would have to leave now.
Blit was still asleep. He scooped her into his jacket ignoring her sleepy growls, then grabbed his bag and a small loaf he had been saving for breakfast and climbed up onto the pontoon. He walked back along the side of the boat until he was level with Madam Engedo’s little cabin. The curtains were drawn and there was no sign of her. There was no time to wake her or to say goodbye. He whispered a thank you to her window and set off.
The paved surface of the wharf gave way to mud just a few yards back from the water’s edge. The downward curve of the bridge’s last arch met the ground in deep shadow. It was impossible to see anything. Owl wandered around in the dark and decided that couldn’t be where the cub meant. He headed out from under the bridge. There was just a little light in the eastern sky, enough to find a narrow path along the bank, heading upstream. But it led away from the bridge. There seemed to be no other path, just a steep bank covered in brambles and young trees. Owl began to run. Blit, now fully awake, was grumbling about being carried.
Where we go? her wolf-self demanded.
Find cub! Owl told her.
Cub dead, she said and wriggled from his arms to run in front of him along the path. Stupid Owl.
Owl hoped the path would loop back, or fork into a path that led back to the top of the bridge. But it only wound down. It was getting light fast.
Quick before light, the cub had said. Was Skrimsli in danger? Was he being chased? Or had Owl just imagined it all? If he couldn’t find the right spot on the bridge he’d never know.
He turned and retraced his steps, looking for a path that led in the right direction, that he had somehow missed. Suddenly, out of one of the trees up the bank, a white owl took flight, and swooped silently in front of them. It was so sudden that Owl gasped and looked up to where it had come from. There was the path leading to the upper side of the bridge, a narrow slice though the bushes. Another step and he would have passed it by again.
This way, Blit. Quick.
The path was so narrow, the plants so tall, and Owl so short that, once he was running along it, Owl couldn’t see more than a few paces ahead or behind. It was no longer ‘before light’. Even if he found the right place, would Skrimsli wait? Short legs working hard, Owl struggled on. Before he expected it, the path popped through a hedge and Owl and Blit found themselves on the roadside. It was very definitely ‘the end of the bridge’ and this was the upstream side. There was already a river of carts and people on the bridge but absolutely no sign of a tiger.
Owl stood to one side, trying to keep out of the way, as the people and vehicles streamed past. Then a stone hit Owl on the back of the head. He turned to see a group of about a dozen children, barefoot, in dirty ragged clothes. They were smiling smiles that Owl knew so well. He turned away, knowing that in a moment he would have to run. Blit barked and snarled but the children did not see her inner wolf and just threw stones at her too. Owl began to run back towards the entrance to the path but, in his panic, he missed it and found himself running in among trees on the side of the road. The children followed, shouting names and throwing stones. Soon he was surrounded, his back against a tree trunk, Blit snarling at his feet. One of the children, the one who Owl guessed had thrown the first stone, began to chant.
‘Freak, freak, freak.’
Gleefully, the others joined in. They picked up sticks and began to close their circle. Owl sank down and wrapped his arms over his head in a feeble effort to protect himself. Blit stopped snarling and wriggled into the shelter of his curled body. Owl shut his eyes.
Without warning the chanting ceased and the children fell deathly quiet. There was a deep growl that at first Owl thought came from Blit’s inner wolf. Except that he could hear it with his ears. Then came a long, yowling moan. The children made high sounds of utter terror far beyond the realms of screaming and Owl heard their footsteps pound away. Owl unfolded himself and looked up. There in front of him, not a dream and definitely not dead, was Skrimsli: bigger, bolder and more beautiful than ever. Owl ran towards the tiger and buried himself in his stripes. Blit danced around their feet.
Cat not dead, her thoughts sang delightedly.
It took them both a moment to notice that Skrimsli was not alone. He had a bear companion. A massive creature as big as Kobret’s poor slave bear.
‘Karu?’ Owl exclaimed.
Karu, the bear replied lumbering into Owl’s mind, communicating not in words, or pictures but in a feeling whose meaning took shape like a slow paw-print. Not Kobret’s creature now. Alive. Yes.
He stepped forward and sniffed Owl’s face. The eyes that had been like dark holes were warm and friendly, brown flecked with sparks of green.
Owl, I hurt you, Karu said. Hurt no more! Hurt no more!
Owl felt the bear’s deep sadness. It was hard to communicate anything back to match his odd mixture of image, feeling and thought, but Owl did his best.
Friend now, Owl tried to say. Friend! And he felt that Karu had understood.
In the towns Owl had seen along the river, animals, apart from dogs and cats, were rare. There were herds of goats wandering along the riverbanks, and sometimes elephants doing lifting work for humans, but nothing more. The news of a bear and a tiger scaring a gang of children near the bridge would spread fast. People would come after them. They needed to get out of the town and back into wilder country as soon as possible.
They travelled in a line with Karu at the front, then Owl and Blit, and Skrimsli behind. Owl had often seen how good Skrimsli was at moving silently but he was amazed to see that the bear could do so too. When Karu had been under Kobret’s command he had crashed about, often bumping into things. You could always hear him coming. But now he moved like a brown shadow, ghosting between the trees, knowing just when to be still to escape attention and when to move fast.
They couldn’t go along roads and simply take the fastest route out of town. They had to skim through gardens and vegetable plots and patches of weeds, down alleyways and over abandoned building plots. All in broad daylight because there was nowhere to hide until nightfall. It was slow work, with lots of stopping to hide to avoid being seen. By early afternoon they were still not clear of the town.
Otok bulged out to the north, squeezed between the Divider and the river. The town here was dense with the houses of rich traders, ship owners, smugglers; there were shops and wide streets and no scruffy patches of forgotten greenery to hide in. It was through this difficult terrain that Owl and his friends now tried to move. They crouched in the last patch of weeds they had found at the back of a large stables. Just ahead was a road full of horses, carts, people and lectric veekles. On the other side of the road were shops of all sorts and then more streets.
We’ll have to go back the other way through that park, Owl said.
We can’t, Skrimsli replied. They have hounds back there on our trail. Listen!
Owl’s ears picked up the barking and baying of a pack of hounds that Skrimsli’s keener ears had heard minutes before.
