51. An Expedition
‘My dear Forden,’ said Captain Gart Ironshank, clapping me on the back, ‘what we need, to brighten our spirits and restore the fire to our bellies, is an expedition!’
We were walking beside the Farrow Lake on a winding path from the bustling webfoot village towards the Levels. My nameless one, Kulltuft, was bounding ahead on those great galumphing legs of his. He’d grown to almost twice my size in the half year or so since I found him in the Northern Woods, and had proved a loyal and obedient companion, not to mention an excellent bodyguard.
‘Here, boy!’ I called. ‘Heel!’ In answer to my call, Kulltuft came bounding back down the path and came to a halt by my side, nuzzling me affectionately with his misshapen head. ‘An expedition, Gart?’ I said, turning to the old phraxship captain.
He nodded. ‘I’ve got it all worked out. In here.’ He tapped the side of his head and smiled. ‘What Farrow Lake needs to grow is industry - a stilt-factory producing goods we need right here, instead of shipping them all the way from Hive or Great Glade.’
Gart came to a stop and pointed out across the flat marshy mudflats of the Levels.
‘And what better place for a stilt-factory than here? Just think of it, Forden. The purified steam from the factory’s phraxengines would turn this wasteland into a market garden to rival any in Great Glade, and all the ironwood ore we could possibly need is just beyond, in the Western Woods…’
I tickled Kulltuft behind one ear, and was rewarded by a deep, growling purr.
‘That’s all well and good,’ I said, for I knew as well as Gart how the by-products of the phraxengines that powered stilt-factories didn’t produce pollution, but instead nourished and watered the land they stood on with the steam from their funnels. ‘But to build phraxengines, we’d need stormphrax - and plenty of it.’
‘Precisely,’ said Gart, smiling delightedly. ‘When the Farrow Lake militia defeated the mire pearlers, we captured Commander Felvis Yellowmane’s war-chest - a great iron-bound sumpwood thing it was, stuffed full of hivegeld and gladers; money he probably owed his troops and was hoarding. Well, as head of the Farrow Lake Chamber of Commerce…’
Gart drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest. For the first time I saw the ribbon at the collar of his topcoat, and the guilded carving of an ironoak acorn that dangled from it.
‘I proposed to the council that we invest that ill-gotten loot in buying stormphrax, and building a stilt-factory for the good of us all.’
‘But the stormphrax markets in Great Glade are controlled by the phraxmerchants. We’d need permits and permissions and payoffs…’
‘Not if we by-passed the phraxmerchants and went straight to the source,’ said Gart, his eyes twinkling.
‘To the phraxmines of the Eastern Woods?’ I said with a sharp intake of breath. ‘It would be risky. Even if we managed to get a berth on a sky tavern, we’d have to get past the merchants’ militia.’
‘Who needs a sky tavern when we’ve got the Wind Zephyr - the finest little phraxlighter this side of the Farrow Ridges? She’s fully repaired, supplied and ready to go. And I’ve got a very good friend in the Prade mine who I’ve been meaning to look up for years. What do you say, Forden?’
I weighed up Gart Ironshank’s proposal. If it worked, it could be the making of our little community here in Farrow Lake. But the risks were high and the dangers very real…
‘I’m in, on one condition,’ I said, patting Kulltuft on the head.
‘Name it,’ said Gart.
I smiled, ‘That you make room for one more.’
