The Farrow Ridges

‘Too late… Too late…’ Bragsworn’s words were ringing inside my head.

Certainly it wasn’t looking good. There were two of us and twenty of them. At least. All I had to defend myself was my knife, and although Bragsworn had a phraxpistol, we were so outnumbered it wasn’t even worth him pulling it from his belt.

The rowdy mob came barrelling towards us, clubs and swords brandished in their hands, and roaring drunken promises of what they would do to us with them when they caught us. I turned to Bragsworn. He was staring back at the advancing rabble – members of the so-called Defenders of the First Age – frozen with fear.

‘Too late, Bragsworn?’ I said. ‘If there’s one thing this life has taught me, it is that it is never too late. RUN!‘

I grabbed his arm and tugged him after me, and the pair of us dashed off into the darkness of the trees. Behind us, our would-be attackers roared with frustration and rage.

‘Stop ‘em!’ I heard them bellow. ‘Cut ‘em off!’ ‘Kill ‘em!‘

We crashed through the low branches and dense undergrowth, the bloodcurdling cries of our attackers ringing in our ears behind us. I glanced round once, then again a while later, then a third time – and was relieved to see that we seemed to be leaving them behind. But then I heard something. Something that dashed that relief in an instant and chilled me to the marrow; a voice – their leader – plotting their next move.

‘Head for the hive-house!’ he roared. ‘Smash the phraxloom! Victory to the Defenders of the First Age!‘

The hive-house! Where Laria and Vitus were sleeping…

‘This way,’ I hissed to Bragsworn, cutting up to the left and onto a short-cut track I hoped our pursuers did not know.

Bragsworn followed, but from his laboured breathing I could tell he was beginning to flag. I wasn’t about to leave him behind. Not only because that would mean abandoning him to certain death, but because I would need him with me more than ever when we arrived back at the hive-house – if we arrived there.

‘Not far now,’ I encouraged him. ‘Just a little bit further, Bragsworn. You can do it, my friend.’

With the moonlit Farrow Lake flashing between the trees to our right as we continued along the high track, we kept on. I glanced round again. The Defenders were further behind us, but I could still see the flickering of their flaming torches. They hadn’t given up the chase.

‘There it is,’ I said as we emerged from the treeline and my lakeside hive-house came into view, its curved roof and the adjacent shingle-topped loom shack silhouetted against the moon. I pointed to the lopsided shack. ‘Wait for me in there!’ I told Bragsworn and, before he could argue, dashed inside the hive-house.

‘Laria! Laria!’ I bellowed.

‘Hedgethorn?’ came a drowsy voice from the sleep-loft. ‘Is that you?’

‘Get up, Laria! Get Vitus!’ I commanded as I took the stairs two at a time, knelt down at my wooden chest and began rummaging through its contents. ‘Go to the loom shack. We can defend it better than the hive-house… NOW!‘

Maybe, as the former wife of a Freeglade Lancer, Laria was used to such emergencies. I’m not sure. Whatever the reason, moments later, without me having to explain what was going on, she was out of her hammock and hurrying down the stairs, with Vitus, still swaddled and sleeping, clamped to her chest. I followed her moments later, my phraxpistol in one hand and the old rusty phraxmusket in the others.

By the time I reached the loom shack, Laria and Bragsworn had introduced themselves to each other and from the reproachful look on Laria’s face, I knew Bragsworn must have told her what had happened at the Split Willow. I glanced out of the window. The Defenders were nowhere to be seen – but I could hear them, their drunken howls cutting through the cold night air.

‘Where’s Vitus?’ I said.

Laria nodded to an alcove at the back of the shack, behind the loom. I nodded back.

‘Right, Bragsworn,’ I said. ‘Defend the doorway.’ Bragsworn pulled his phraxpistol from his belt and knelt down, the barrel pointing out at the trees. I turned to Laria and thrust my own phraxpistol into her hands. ‘You ever used one of these before?’

‘Yes, I… But what about you?’ she said.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I said as she took the phraxpistol and crouched down at the window, the heavy barrel resting on the ledge.

Outside, the bloodthirsty roar grew louder as the Defenders got nearer. I hurried across to the phraxloom and, though my fingers were badly shaking, managed to transfer the crystal of phrax from Laria’s loom back into the old phraxmusket I had taken it from. I could only hope that my trusty weapon would still work.

Back at the window, I crouched down next to Laria. She turned and gave me a brave smile. I smiled back – then tore my gaze away as the first of the Defenders of the First Age suddenly burst from the trees. I turned and raised a hand to still the others. More tumbled out of the forest, bellowing, roaring, eyes full of hate. The fettleleggers and webfoots I’d seen; the two battle-scarred flatheads. And the hulking cloddertrog, Hench…

‘Earth and Sky protect us all,’ I whispered as my finger pressed against the trigger. ‘FIRE!!!‘

What unfolded in the next few moments is still a blur in my mind. The tallow-hats, candles blazing from the brims of their crushed funnel hats, charged forward onto the deck of the Rainseeker and set about the crew with long-scythes, pitch-irons and razor-pikes. As I dodged swinging blades and grappling bodies, I was able to discharge my phraxpistol into the melee and bring down several of the burly invaders. But all too soon, my luck ran out.

I stepped aside as a mean-faced goblin with half a nose and an empty socket where an eye once had been, lashed out at me with a sabre. The next instant, I felt a crushing blow to the back of my head and pitched forward into blackness.

When I came round, the deck fight was over. I was lying in a pool of blood – thankfully most of it not my own – amongst the stricken bodies of tallow-hats felled by the disciplined phraxmusket fire of the Rainseeker’s crew. Towering protectively over me and clutching a chunk of balustrade as a makeshift club, was Kultuft, my nameless one. Beside him stood Captain Gart Ironshank. Seeing me stir, the captain offered me his hand and helped me to my feet.

‘That was a close-run thing, Forden,’ he said ruefully, ‘and you seemed to be in the thick of it. Took a nasty blow to the head, I see…’

Before I had a chance to answer, there came a roar from the prow of the Rainseeker as its phraxcannon was discharged. Ahead of us, the central tower of the sumpwood stockade into which the tallow-hats had retreated to make a final stand exploded. A mass of splinters and burning shards of sumpwood rained down on us as, through the steam and smoke, the dazed looking defenders of the floating fortress threw down their tallow-hats and stamped on their candles.

At this signal of surrender, the burly, battle-scarred crew around us gave a mighty cheer and sky pirate captain, Throg Skullbaiter, made his way down from the helm of the Rainseeker.

‘Well fought, lads!’ he announced. ‘Now let’s free the slaves and put a torch to this accursed fortress.’

The crew obeyed, prising open the heavy trapdoors in the wooden floor of the stockade and freeing a hundred or so ragged, gaunt-faced captives below. Trogs, slaughterers, oakelves and woodtrolls – the tallow-hats had enslaved a cross section of midwoods’ dwellers after plundering their settlements and razing them to the ground.

Now it was the tallow-hats’ turn to taste their own medicine. Their leader, a hard-faced fourthling by the name of Lemlott Scrave lay mortally wounded in the smouldering ruins of the stockade and angrily waved away all offers of help. Turning away, Captain Skullbaiter ushered the freed slaves and the captured tallow-hats, now bare headed and grim faced, on board the sky pirate ship and threw the phraxchamber into reverse.

With a creaking and splintering sound, the Rainseeker broke away from the stockade and turned about, its funnel belching steam. From the deck, the captain threw a burning torch down into the wrecked stockade, which had begun to list badly to one side as its gantries and turrets succumbed to the flames.

Then, as the sky galleon gained speed, the floating fortress behind us rose in a great ball of flame and shot up into Open Sky. The sky pirate turned to Gart, Kultuft and me, then nodded towards our phrax-lighter, the Wind Zephyr.

‘Time to cut you loose,’ he said…