The Farrow Ridges

Alcestia and her father left this morning, returning to her cabin in the ironwoodpine stands in the Western Woods. By all accounts, the word ‘cabin’ doesn’t do justice to her extraordinary dwelling place, high up on a huge branch of one of those mighty trees. I would love to visit them both there one day soon, and said as much as they departed, the roost marshal bundled up in a flaxwool blanket in the back of Captain Ironshank’s phraxlighter and being tended to by his beautiful daughter.

Captain Ironshank is certainly full of remorse for his part in the recent disturbance at the Underlake of the Water Caverns, and has promised to act as a ferry service for all of us Farrow Lake dwellers for as long as we desire it. I thanked him heartily as I waved the Zephyr off from my jetty and watched it steam slowly across the Levels, and then climb towards the cloudy peaks of the Western Woods in the distance.

After the recent excitement, it was back to my solitary existence for me, and it must have been the twinge of loneliness that made me think to venture into the woods behind my pit house in Low Farrow. I’d checked the willowswitch cage I’d set in the woods each day for a week or more, but had had no joy. So it was with little hope that I set out into those northern forests to check it yet another time.

I was glad I did. The mewling, loud and plaintive, echoed through the lufwood trees and had my heart hammering in my chest with excitement. I had a length of rope at my belt, and I fashioned it into a slipknot halter as I approached the trap and peered at the prisoner inside.

It was the nameless one, battered and more emaciated than when I’d first encountered it, and obviously weak with hunger. It seemed that I had trapped it just in time. I unhooked my canteen and poured water into its gaping mouth, which it greedily accepted, its stalk-like eyes half closed in appreciation. With the creature thus distracted, I opened the cage and slipped the halter over it’s misshapen head, and coaxed it out on the end of the rope.

Whether through hunger, exhaustion, or a mixture of both, the nameless one came shambling after me like a tame lemkin, mewling piteously and shaking its great head from side to side. I led it through the woods and back to the pit house, where I tetherred the strange creature to the balustrade of my landing. I then hauled in my keep nets from the lake and spent a happy hour feeding my new companion craycritters and lakefish until its mighty hunger seemed sated.

It even permitted me to stroke the dome of its huge head, and emitted deep-throated purrs of contentment as I did so. It seems I have made a friend…

I knew something was wrong the moment Woodfish and I rounded the jutting reed-spur and Forden’s place came into view. The front door was ajar. Alcestia was sobbing, and my neighbour and Captain Ironshank were trying to comfort her.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Ironshank was saying. ‘So, so sorry.’

Something had gone badly wrong with the rescue attempt, I realized, and I quickened my pace to find out what. I hadn’t gone a dozen strides when I discovered I was on my own. I turned to see Woodfish struggling to catch up. His ancient face was haggard and drawn, and the barbels that hung from the corners of his mouth jiggled weakly as he panted and wheezed.

Go on, I heard him tell me, even his thoughts quavering in my head. I will see you there.

I didn’t need telling twice. I blundered along the lakeside track towards the low bluff where my neighbour’s small pit house nestled between two tall lufwood trees. I heaved myself up onto the half-finished terrace, strode to the front door and burst in.

The scene froze before me. Forden was standing in the far corner, where a cauldron bubbled over a blazing fire. He’d been ladling boiling water into a bowl, and the smell of aromatic herbs rose up with the steam. Captain Ironshank was in the middle of the room, looking down at Alcestia, who was crouched next to the cot in the opposite corner to the fire, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was stroking her stricken father’s forehead with her fingertips gently, though when she – like the others – turned towards me, her eyes blazed.

‘He did this!’ she stormed, pointing an accusing finger at the captain, then swallowed hard and collapsed into heaving sobs. ‘My poor, sweet, brave father…’

I stepped inside, crossed the floor and looked down at the roost marshal. He was deathly white, his wet hair plastered to his head and skin shiny with feversweat. His teeth chattered as he trembled. His yellow eyes rolled in his head. And I winced at the smell of his breath, which was sour and laced with a familiar pungent odour. ‘Spinefish poison,’ I murmured.

‘Spinefish poison,’ Alcestia repeated glumly. ‘And there’s no antidote for it. No cure.’ She flung her arms around her father’s neck. ‘Nothing in this world that might make him well again…’

There is one thing.

Woodfish must have spoken inside the head of everyone gathered there, for there was sudden silence. He crossed the floor of the pit house, pulling the vial from his robes as he approached the cot. He tugged at the stopper. Alcestia jumped to her feet and seized his arm.

‘Stop! What are you doing?’ she cried, fear and suspicion in her eyes. ‘What is that stuff?’

‘Trust him,’ I told her gently. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and eased her away. ‘If anyone can save your father now, it is this ancient waterwaif…’

Alcestia nodded reluctantly, and clung to my arm as, with a bony hand, Woodfish cupped the back of her father’s head and raised it gently from the pillow. Forden and the captain joined us as the waterwaif touched the top of the open vial to the roost marshal’s quivering blue lower lip, then slowly tipped it up. Drop after drop fell into his open mouth, until the vial was empty. Then the roost marshal swallowed.

The effect was immediate. Colour flooded his face and spread through his body. The trembling ceased, the sweat dried up. Woodfish plucked at the bandages at the roost marshal’s chest, and we watched incredulously as the wound bubbled and frothed, then healed itself before our very eyes, until the skin was smooth and unblemished.

The poison had left his body, Woodfish announced. And now it is time also that I left.

He pulled himself up and, brushing aside the thanks and invitations to stay, headed for the door. As I watched him shuffle across the uneven floor, the empty vial in his hand, I knew that Woodfish had not only saved the life of Alcestia’s father, but had sacrificed his own life in the process. He reached the door and stepped outside without turning back, but in my head I heard his voice.

Don’t worry about me, Hedgethorn Lammergyre. Maybe my journey will take me back to Riverrise; maybe it will take me to Open Sky instead. Either way, I shall not complain, for my life has been longer than long and fuller than I ever had a right to expect, and if it is indeed my time to depart this world, then so be it…

I started after him, determined to help this brave old waterwaif if I could. But he stopped me in my tracks.

I travel alone, he said. But thank you for your hospitality, Hedgethorn Lammergyre. There was a pause. And the most excellent woodgrog.

I looked back at the roost marshal, who was looking both healthy and happy now. He looked up and, as our eyes met, I knew with a sudden shock that I recognized him. But where from?

Captain Ironshank brought the Zephyr down low over the Farrow Lake and cranked up the speed. As we skimmed over the water towards my pithouse at Low Farrow, I glanced over my shoulder.

Alcestia sat at the back of the phraxlighter, her father’s head cradled in her lap. His face was ashen white and his eyes were half-closed; an ominous red stain disfigured the front of his topcoat where the vicious barb of the trog spear had exited. The wound looked bad and I only hoped the scant medical supplies I had back at my pithouse might help. Alcestia’s worried eyes stared into my own and I knew she was counting on me.

With a judder and a grat plume of ice cold steam, the Zephyr came to a hovering halt above my jetty, and Ironshank and I lifted the roost marshal as gently as we could out of the phraxlighter. Once inside, we laid him in my sumpwood cot, and I put a cauldron of lakewater over the fire to boil and set about tearing my precious linen sheets into bandages. Alcestia helped me, efficiently and without fuss, while Captain Ironshank strode backwards and forwards between the fire and the cot, shaking his head and muttering that this was all his fault.

After we had cleaned and bandaged Alcestia’s father’s wounds, we made him as comfortable as possible and settled down to an uneasy vigil. Apart from the few cleansing herbs and a pot of hyleberry salve, there were no medicines I could give the roost marshal to ease his pain. He lapsed into unconsciousness and, half an hour later, was running a high fever.

Alcestia turned to me, her beautiful eyes brimming with tears. ‘The white trogs tip their spears with spinefish poison,’ she said quietly. ‘If only we’d been able to clean the wound in time…’

She turned back to her father and buried her head in her hands, giving herself up to her grief. Ironshank paused by my chair and took off his crushed funnel hat.

‘You called him “the Roost Marshall”,’ he observed, and when I nodded, he gazed down at his boots. ‘That can mean only one thing,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘This is a veteran of the Great Glade Militia, and not just any veteran at that. He must have been a senior officer of…’

‘The Freeglade Lancers,’ Alcestia confirmed, wiping her eyes. ‘My father led the charge of the Freeglade Lancers at the Battle of the Midwood Marshes.’

‘My father was killed in that battle,’ I muttered, ‘fighting for Hive.’

‘Those days are over,’ said Alcestia. ‘My father came out here to escape the memories of those terrible times. And now…’

I shook my head. The roost marshal’s breathing was shallow, and there was an ominous rattle in the back of his throat. This great warrior was losing his final battle – the battle for life.

‘Alcestia,’ I began, ‘I’m so sorry…’

Just then, the door to the pithouse burst open…

There was nothing unusual about the hivehouse that I could see. Everything was in its place, and the footprints soon petered out on the other side of the threshold. I was about to go back outside to check for the intruder there, when I heard a voice. It was weak, yet clear – and speaking inside my head!

I’m over here.

I spun round, scanning the dark interior. My gaze fell on a small figure in the shadows beside the fireplace at the centre of the hivehouse and I wondered how, by Earth and Sky, I had missed him. Yet there he was, curled up in one of my chairs, the oldest-looking creature I had ever clapped eyes upon.

Greetings, he said, the voice still inside my head. He climbed to his feet, slowly and with painful effort. He stuck out a withered hand, which I took. It was like shaking hands with a clammy stick. My name is Woodfish. I apologize for intruding, but weariness overcame me on the trail, and I sought a moment’s shelter in your hive hut…

‘Greetings, Woodfish,’ I said. ‘I’m Hedgethorn. Hedgethorn Lammergyre – and you’re welcome to rest awhile.’

He was short and stooped, with green-tinged, scaly skin and large ears. I recognized him as a waterwaif, one of the many types of waif that once moved to every part of the Edge but, since the founding of Riverrise, tended now to remain in that great city of theirs. Realizing that I was still clutching my studded cudgel, I tossed it guiltily aside.

The Deepwoods are dangerous indeed. You are wise to be cautious, the voice told me. I heard the sound of soft chuckling. Yet I mean you no harm.

Who are you?’ I wondered. He must have read my thoughts.

For a glass of woodgrog, he said, I shall gladly tell you my tale…‘

I poured us both mugfuls of spirit – concocted  myself in my sapstill – and handed one to the waif. I sat down opposite him.

Before drinking from it, he pulled a glass vial from an inside pocket of his jacket, unstoppered it with shaking fingers and let a single drop fall into the clear honey-coloured liquid. He took a sip. His dull eyes instantly gleamed brightly, and when he next spoke, it was with his mouth, not his thoughts.

‘Have you heard of a character from the past by the name of Twig? Captain Twig?’

Indeed I had. Quint, Twig, Keris and Rook. Every young’un knew their tales from the golden age of the Edge, some five hundred years earlier. Woodfish nodded.

‘I knew him,’ he said, and ignored my gasp of surprise. ‘He was captain of the Edgedancer, and I was one of his crew.’ He sighed and took another sip. ‘We went through many scrapes together, but the one I aim to tell you about took us to Riverrise, back before the waif city had been founded…

‘There were five of us who ended up there. Myself and Twig; his young friend, Cowlquape; as well a banderbear, Goom, and the Stone Pilot, a trog who never turned termagant, who went by the name of Maugin. A Mother Storm was imminent, and Captain Twig had to get back to Sanctaphrax before it struck that great floating city. He and Cowlquape flew there, roped to the blazing trunk of a skyfired tree, hoping against hope to save the city from certain destruction.

‘They succeeded, that much I know, since the Mother Storm continued her journey and struck the Riverrise peak itself. Captain Twig had promised to come back and rescue the rest of us if he was successful…’ The waterwaif’s eyes clouded. ‘Yet he never arrived.’

Woodfish fell still. I took a sip of woodgrog from my own mug, and nodded encouragingly. ‘And then?’ I prompted him.

‘And then?’ he echoed. ‘Five long years passed. Of course, the rejuvenating waters of the Riverrise spring kept us all healthy and young, but the call of the Deepwoods proved too much for us. Goom was first break. He kept having dreams that he was being summoned to one of the banderbear’s Great Convocations, and one morning he departed. I never discovered whether he reached his destination…

‘For my part, I left soon after. I tried to persuade Maugin to accompany me, but she would not break her promise to wait for her beloved Captain Twig.’ He shook his head. ‘Ibelieve the poor girl died, though the rumours I gleaned on the waif trail were vague and contradictory. As for me, having filled two large gourds that I fashioned myself from a couple of sloughed serpentwaif skins with the potent life-giving waters of the Riverrise lake, I set forth, leaving the Nightwoods far behind me and returning to the Deepwoods that I had learned to call my home…’

‘Five hundred years ago,’ I breathed.

Woodfish nodded. ‘The sacred water has kept me alive,’ he said, and smiled wryly, ‘though scarcely young, as you can see, Hedgethorn. I have witnessed the three ages of flight. Always on the move, I have journeyed to every corner of the Edge – except for one. I have never returned to Riverrise…’ He glanced at the vial, its contents all but used up.

‘And you are on your way there now?’ I ventured.

‘I was,’ he said wearily. ‘Perhaps…’ He paused. I waited for him to speak again, and waited. My mind strayed to my promised visit to my neighbour, Forden Drew. I was keen to discover whether he and the others had managed to rescue Alcestia’s father from the white trogs. I was about to explain this to Woodfish, when he raised a bony hand. He had been eavesdropping on my thoughts again.

‘I shall come with you,’ he said.

[For Woodfish's full story, read Midnight over Sanctaphrax]

The Roost Marshal and I made our escape from his prison chamber in the central stalactite, but before climbing towards the cavern ceiling, I had one last thing to do. Telling the old caverneer to wait for me on the walkway, I climbed down onto the stalactite itself and began my descent. The surface was smooth and wet, but pitted with cracks and indentations that made ideal hand and footholds.

Across the lake, the din continued, heightened by the angry roars of enraged white trogs. But this distraction wouldn’t last long. I knew that time was running out. As if reading my mind, several white trog canoes were returning across the Underlake towards the stalactite forest. I had to be quick.

I climbed down to the end of the great stalactite, clinging to its circumference like an upside-down fromp, the blood rushing to my head. Reaching into my topcoat, I pulled out the red jewel and carefully eased it back into the cleft at the stalactite’s tip. I twisted it, and the jewel clicked into place and was held fast like a cooling rod in a phraxchamber.

Quickly, I climbed back up the great stalactite and joined the roost marshal on the walkway. He was smiling broadly. ‘Well done, lad!’ he congratulated me. ‘You have righted a grievous wrong inflicted on the tribes of the Underlake.’

Below us, a canoe full of furious white trogs was disembarking and clambering up the dangling rope ladders to the stalactite forest.

‘I only hope they see it that way,’ I said, as the roost marshal and I began a hurried retreat up the walkways towards the cavern ceiling.

Behind, I could hear the guttural cries of the white trogs as they gave lumbering chase. We got to the topmost walkway a heart-thumping minute later, and I untied the tether from the fish-gut rope balustrade and attached it to my harness. The old caverneer showed his long experience by instinctively leaping onto my back as I tugged hard on the tether three times. In answer, high above at the other end of the black pothole into which the tether rope disappeared, Captain Ironshank began to winch us to safety.

We rose up into the air and began to be pulled towards the safety of the pothole in the great vaulted ceiling of the cavern, but not before a volley of serrated bone-tipped spears whistled past our ears. More white trogs arrived on the walkway below and raised their weapons.

Just then, a single thin shaft of light from the noonday sun burst through a thin fissure in the cavern ceiling and hit the tip of the great stalactite far below. The red jewel blazed, shimmering light bathing the great cavern and underlake in a magnificent iridescence. No wonder the white trogs prized this jewel of theirs so highly. With a roar of triumph, the trogs below turned and re-entered the stalactite forest, just as we entered the darkness of the pothole.

Emerging at the top, I looked up to see Captain Ironshank’s face, purple with exertion, staring down at me from the phraxlighter. Reaching out a hand, he pulled us both on board, the smile on his face suddenly freezing as I eased the roost marshal’s arms from my shoulders and got to my feet.

I turned and followed Ironshank’s gaze. The old caverneer was slumped at my feet, a vicious barbed spear embedded in his back…

I could count on one hand the times that I’ve ventured into the caves. I don’t like them. The walls close in around me, and I get dizzy and breathless. Typical grey goblin. Still, needs must when the gloamglozer drives. I had no choice but to enter the caves if Forden’s plan was to work. And since the caverneer’s young daughter was beside me, I kept my fears to myself.

Alcestia chatted incessantly as we made our way up to Midridge and along to the caves. I heard about her father’s work (apart from usual caverneer’s stuff, he was analysing the cave mosses for their medicinal properties), her life in Great Glade (the tall stephouse in Ambristown where she’d been born, the death of her mother from fretcroup, and subsequent death of her brother in the Battle of the Midwood Marshes)…

As the falls drew near, the roar of the cascades drowned her out, and we entered the cave in silence. I must confess, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. The tunnel was broad enough to walk two abreast, while the ceiling was so high I didn’t have to stoop. What was more, as we went deeper in, shafts of light penetrated from above, illuminating the paths. We soon came to a high walkway that looked down on the milky waters of the Underlake.

The place buzzed with activity, with white trog fishermen out on the lake in their long canoes, while on the shore, their bulging nets were being emptied of their catch. I saw fish and crustacea being sorted into barrels, along with strange translucent creatures with tendrils and tentacles, quite unfamiliar to me.

Our orders were to create a disturbance. ‘Anything,’ Forden had told us. ‘Just get their attention.’

We got their attention all right! Alcestia whooped and hollered like a troupe of furious quarms, while I picked up rocks and hurled them down at the lake water.

The reaction was instantaneous. Suddenly the white trogs were running this way and that, like termites in a mound that was under attack. One group took to the rocksides and began clambering up towards the slope. Another group gathered at the lake shore in a circle, trying to work out where the curious sounds were coming from. There was shouting and yelling. A solitary trog directly below was attempting to toss a rope to a canoe full of his companions. A couple of matrons were shouting advice from further along the shore.

I waited for the rockclimbers to get closer, then let go a volley of rocks that sent the whole lot of them tumbling back into the lake. Alcestia let out great whooping cries of delight, soon drowned out by the enraged roars of the white trogs as they splashed about in confusion. It took time for them to organize themselves and storm up the slope; precious time for Forden and his plan to rescue the caverneer. I only hoped it was working and, as I glanced at Alcestia, I knew she was thinking the same.

As the trogs approached, Alcestia and I made a dash for the tunnel, and escape. We ran with all our might into the blackness, the white trogs falling back, reluctant to leave their beloved cavern. We emerged from the cave to find that dusk had fallen, and set off along the path we’d taken earlier. Alcestia kept looking back at High Farrow, and I knew she was searching for the Zephyr and the precious passenger she hoped it was carrying. But there was not a sign, and we arrived back at my hivehouse none the wiser.

Alcestia was beside herself. ‘Where can he be?’

‘Forden probably insisted that Gart drop them back at his pit-house,’ I told her. ‘Why don’t you go and see?’

‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ she asked.

‘I… There’s something important I need to see to first, Alcestia,’ I told her. ‘I’ll be along later.’

I didn’t want to tell her about the footprints I’d spotted on our return. They were wet and webbed, and led directly to my hivehouse. Only when I was sure she was out of harm’s way did I head for the door. I had my studded cudgel gripped in my hands. Someone was there, and I was ready for them…