Fireborn Read online

  “Run or fight?” said Cartford.

  “Fight,” said Beatrice.

  Cabbage looked over the tops of the takkabakks at the castle turret. Something in there was directing the army, informing them, controlling them. He took Beatrice’s arm and directed her gaze.

  “It’s Slowin,” she said.

  “Can you stop him?” asked Cabbage.

  Before Beatrice could gather her thoughts a line of fire broke through the tree cover to their left. With a swiftness that shocked them all a counter-army of burning lanterns advanced towards the takkabakks, bouncing and swaying unevenly.

  “What is it?” asked Dorwin.

  The takkabakks paused, swerved and deflected their attention from the group of Flaxfield and the others and moved towards the fire.

  “It’s memmonts,” said Perry. “Hundreds of them.”

  Lanterns were lashed to the backs of the memmonts on a sort of harness. They leaped across the grass, agile, swift. The lanterns bobbed. The memmonts sprang forward. They spread out and ran towards the takkabakks.

  Close behind them, pouring from the forest, roffles, with blazing torches. Cabbage could see their barrel-packs on their backs, their short legs driving them on, helter-skelter towards the enemy.

  “They’ll be slaughtered,” said Dorwin. “Poor things.”

  “Will they?” said Flaxfield.

  The advance guard of the memmonts reached the front line of the takkabakks. The black beetles reared up, sharp-pronged proboscis poised to strike.

  “Please, no,” said Perry. “No.”

  His eyes were wet with tears. Of them all only he had spent much time with the gentle Deep World creatures.

  The takkabakks lunged at the memmonts, stabbing out. And as their spikes struck, the takkabakks burst open. Pus sprayed from their shattered bodies. The roffles cheered and careered down at them. The memmonts ran through the ranks of takkabakks, jumping over them, lanterns banging against the black armoured sides. As soon as the flame from a lantern touched a takkabakk it exploded and died in a sticky mess of its own insides.

  “But takkabakks love fire,” said Beatrice. “What’s happening?”

  The roffles followed the memmonts. Thrust their torches at them and shielded their eyes from the filthy spume that burst out from them.

  “Look at Slowin,” said Beatrice.

  The figure in the turret was too high for them to see clearly. At the window, where the woman had stood there was a consuming blackness, as intense as moonlight, as cold as ash, as dead as dust.

  The takkabakks retreated, scuttling back into the gates pursued by the roffles. The memmonts showed them no mercy, leaping on them, bursting them and leaping again. The roffles, more cautious, still advanced, stabbing their torches, ruthlessly driving them back into the castle.

  “They’ve given up,” said Cabbage. “I thought they’d keep coming till the last one was dead.”

  “I think they would,” said Flaxfield. “If it was left to them. It’s Slowin. He’s called them back. He needs them for another fight, another day.”

  They watched the rout in silence until the last of the takkabakks had died or disappeared.

  “It’s over,” said Cartford. “For now.”

  The memmonts, their task of disruption finished, wandered off aimlessly, grazing and sniffing the ground, turned away with fastidious elegance from the sticky remains of the dead takkabakks. The light from their lanterns was dying fast. The roffles chased the straggling takkabakks, jabbing their torches to drive them on.

  “Flaxfield, come on. We need help, before it goes.”

  Flaxfield looked down at Megawhim. He put out his hand and the roffle shook it.

  “You saved us all,” said Flaxfield.

  Megawhim looked anxiously at Perry.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Perry broke away from Dorwin and came to his father.

  “No. I’m fine.”

  Megawhim looked down.

  “We thought you needed help,” he said.

  Perry nodded.

  “Does a pig need a poultice on a pie tin?” he said. “Thank you.”

  Megawhim smiled, relieved.

  “We haven’t got much time,” he said. “Roffle light doesn’t last Up Top.”

  “How did you know it would work?” asked Cabbage.

  “We’ve fought with them in the villages. We learned it by chance. There’s no magic in the Deep World and their light comes from no sun. These creatures are not natural, they’re freaks of magic, made from magic and magic can’t hurt them, but the roffle fire is deadly to them. You needed help and it was all we could think of. But they’ll come back, when the light dies. We’ve been watching how they attack the villages. They won’t stay in there for long.”

  “We should get away,” said Perry.

  “No.”

  Flaxfield took Beatrice by the hand. He reached out and took Cabbage as well.

  “Remember Springmile,” he said to him. Remember what she said. “If we want to defeat Slowin, look to Beatrice. If I want my magic back, look to Beatrice. I want both of those, so let’s see how we do it.”

  “Her name,” said Cabbage. “The one Slowin stole. It’s Flame.”

  “Flame,” said Beatrice. “I love that.”

  “The one he gave her is Ember,” said Flaxfield. “New fire can spring from ember.”

  “Then let it,” said Beatrice. “Come on.”

  She led them to the very gate of the castle. The roffles stood aside to let them pass, their torches faltering. The takkabakks squatted in a ragged army within the gates, glaring out at them. Cabbage caught his breath. Beatrice glared back. Years in the yard had taught her to hate what these creature had sprung from. They hissed and clattered at her.

  She took the seal from round her neck. The dragon’s head glinted in the starlight. The flames from its mouth shone with light from within.

  “I need wax, she said, “or something, to seal the castle. What shall I do Flaxfield?”

  Flaxfield shook his head.

  “Springmile told me that you were the answer. You must decide.”

  Dorwin stepped forward.

  “She told me to remember who I am,” she said. “I’m Cartford’s daughter. I’m the blacksmith’s daughter. I think this place needs to be sealed with fire and with iron.”

  “If you seal it,” said Perry, will Mattie ever get out?”

  Beatrice stared at him.

  “Mattie? What do you mean?”

  “He’s in there. He’s trapped.”

  “Mattie,” called Beatrice. “Are you there?”

  A small face appeared at the side of the portcullis, above the level of the takkabakks. He almost smiled at her.

  “Come down,” she called. “The takkabakks won’t hurt you now. Please. Come to us.”

  Mattie moved forward and stopped.

  “I can’t. It’s already sealed this side.”

  They stared at each other.

  “Look at you,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “You made me better and now look at you. I’m sorry.”

  Beatrice put her hand towards him.

  “It’s not your fault. It’s different. It’s something else that did this.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Megawhim tugged her sleeve.

  “The light is dying. Do it quickly.”

  The takkabakks were pushing back at them, testing the effect of the fire. Perry held the last of the roffle torches, swinging it to and fro to keep them back. Its flame was already spluttering.

  “Shall I see you again?” asked Beatrice.

  “I want that,” said Mattie.

  “Then I shall,” she said.

  She lifted a hand, but he was gone, back into his passageways, back into hiding.

  “Come back,” she said.

  She banged her fist against the stones.

  “Come back.”

  Dorwin touched her.

  “He’s g
one,” she said. “Come away.”

  “No,” said Beatrice. “We can’t leave him. We can’t abandon him.”

  “Mattie chose to go in there,” said Flaxfield. “And now he’s chosen for you to leave him there. Sometimes things choose us, we don’t choose them. We have work to do. Perhaps he has work there.”

  “It’s not right,” she argued.

  “Perhaps,” said Flaxfield.

  “Here,” said Cabbage. “You want something to seal?” He struck Flaxfield’s staff against the portcullis and sheared off a pointed end. It fell to the ground with a clang that rang through the stones of the castle. He touched it with the end of the staff. It melted and pooled into a near circle. Before it could cool again Beatrice took the seal and pressed it to the soft metal. When she took it away it left the imprint of a bird.

  “Flame,” she called. “Fire changed you and fire binds you. This place is your limit. Yours and the creatures you brought here. Stay here for ever.”

  She stepped back.

  The roffles waited. The light from their torches was spent. Darkness defined them.

  The takkabakks lunged at them, hurling themselves into the gateway. At the edge of the sealed mark they fell back, injured and hissing in pain.

  “They can’t get through,” said Flaxfield, “but it won’t hold for ever.”

  Beatrice stared at the place where Mattie’s face had last been seen.

  “Come on,” said Dorwin, taking her arm. “Let’s go home.”

  Beatrice nodded. She weighed the seal in her hand. Cold now, the light gone from the iron flames. She was shaking again. Her face was white beneath the scars. Her breathing was laboured.

  “I don’t want this,” she said. The words cost her more breath than she could spare. She turned aside, stepped away and, bending, her face down, vomited and coughed. She put her hand to her chest to control the pain. The seal dangled from its cord.

  The others turned their faces away, to spare her. All except Cabbage who put one hand on her shoulder and waited for her to recover. His own hand was unsteady. She felt the cost the spell had taken from him, too and was comforted.

  When she stood upright again she almost managed a smile at him.

  She held the seal out to Flaxfield. He put it round his neck.

  “Whenever you want it back,” he said. “It’s yours.”

  “No. Keep it. Or pass it on. You decide. You’ll know.”

  He slipped the seal inside his shirt.

  “I want to see Flaxfold,” she said.

  “Soon,” he said. “And we should get away from this place, but there are things to settle first.”

  The roffles were rounding up the memmonts and driving them back to the edge of the forest, to the roffle holes and home to the Deep World. All except Megawhim, who stayed close to Perry.

  “Lead us up the hill,” said Flaxfield. “We’ll see your memmonts safe home.”

  The company assembled high on the hill, in the undergrowth that announced the forest. The last of the memmonts squeezed back into the roffle hole, the only ones left from the Deep World were Perry and Megawhim.

  “Well,” said Megawhim, “I’ll be saying goodbye.”

  He gave a sideways look at Perry.

  “You’ll stay one more day, won’t you,” said Perry. “Please. I promised you a harvest pie. Stay and eat it with us at the inn.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I could, I suppose.”

  “And then we’ll go home,” said Perry.

  Megawhim’s face brightened.

  “Both of us?”

  “Of course.” He clasped Cabbage’s shoulder. “You’ve got work to get on with. And I can come and visit you, can’t I?”

  “Yes. Yes, please.”

  “And Cabbage can visit us, can’t he?”

  Megawhim started to argue. Perry looked at him steadily.

  “Yes,” said his father. “I’d like that. There’s lots to show him.”

  “The inn, then,” said Cartford. “And harvest pies.”

  In the turret room Ash flung herself on the floor and clawed her fingers into the stone slabs, gouging troughs. Her nails broke off and her bleeding finger ends left bright tracks of blood. The pain was a relief from the fury that was devouring her.

  “Flaxfield!” she howled. “Always Flaxfield.”

  She recovered herself enough to run down to the keep, pushing through the hunched takkabakks. She propelled herself at the gate, only to be flung back by the sealing spell.

  She grabbed the leg of the nearest takkabakk, ripped it off and launched herself at the creature, snapping legs, wrenching slabs of shell, breaking it open like an egg, pushing her face into the exposed soft, yellow flesh. She hurled it aside, half-dead and ran again at the gate.

  Bakkmann watched her mad rage and clacked away, to wait.

  One creature alone escaped the castle. A slow slide of slime slipped from a gap in the stonework. It pooled at the foot of the wall, shuddered, rose up and formed itself almost into a boy. Smedge watched the victorious gathering at the rim, the wizard and the boy, the roffle and his son, the woman, the big man. And the girl. Smedge lost form and flickered through weasel and slug, fox and toad. He regained almost the shape of a boy, the mouth the last to conform. When he spoke, the sound was soft, wet, soiled by slime.

  “Want to eat her from the inside,” he slurped.

  He considered following them, thought better of it. He didn’t like the look of the conjoined forces she had around her.

  “I’ll find you,” he slopped.

  He returned to slime and slid back into the caste, to look for Ash. |

  The harvest feast made Cabbage

  tingle with joy. He felt the hairs on his arms rise up and the hair on the nape of his neck prickle with pleasure.

  Everyone he loved was in this room.

  And the food.

  He had never seen such food.

  Never tasted such food.

  When he looked back at that night his delight at what had been prepared and presented was always blighted by a small, silly regret that he had not been able to eat everything that was available. Not that he wanted all of everything. He couldn’t even eat a little of everything. He reached his limit long before he had tasted the roast ham hock or the pressed ox tongue. Sometimes, when he conjured up the feast in his memory, the chicken and bacon pie that he had been saving till last came to haunt him. He left it too late. By the time he went to get a portion he couldn’t eat another thing.

  Cartford managed to eat more than he thought a human being could find room for. He was astonished at how much food a roffle managed to put away. Perry served Megawhim a huge portion of the pie, “Just as I promised,” he said. The boy sat on his recovered barrel pack. Even Dorwin had a good appetite. Flaxfold didn’t seem to eat anything, but she had overseen all of the preparation, and Cabbage decided that not a little magic had gone into the work.

  Beatrice made only a small repast, though she enjoyed what she had.

  Flaxfield ignored everything set out on the tables and Flaxfold brought him a trout, pan-fried in butter, with toasted almonds on top. His own meal at a harvest feast.

  Beatrice, Perry and Cabbage sat apart from the others. The villagers pursued their cheerful, noisy celebrations. Beatrice was silent for the most part, while Perry and Cabbage jabbered on excitedly, recalling the battle with the takkabakks. She listened, weighing their memories.

  “You kept them away with the torch,” said Cabbage.

  “You broke off that iron spike,” said Perry.

  They congratulated each other on the part they had played. Beatrice waited for a moment to speak.

  “It was Flaxfield, though,” she said. “It was the power of Flaxfield through his staff that did it.”

  Cabbage and Perry looked at her shyly.

  “No,” said Cabbage. “It was you. It’s you that all this is about. Springmile told us that, and she’s right.”

  Perry chewed and swallowe
d politely before he added. “Cabbage is right. You knew what to do. And it was your magic through Flaxfield’s staff that did it in the end.”

  “How was that?” asked Cabbage.

  “Because she was bound to Slowin,” said Flaxfield, who had appeared at their table with Flaxfold by his side.

  “Some more?” she said, her arms full of dishes of food.

  The boys looked on with appreciation as she spooned meat and gravy onto their plates. Beatrice raised a hand to indicate that she had had enough.

  “Some greens?” asked Flaxfold.

  Perry watched her serve him some cabbage.

  “Not for me, thanks, it gives me wind,” said his friend.

  Perry looked up from his plate. Flaxfield winked at him. Cabbage blushed and changed the subject.

  “What do you mean, bound to him?” he asked.

  Flaxfold moved away. Flaxfield drew up a chair and joined them.

  Beatrice concentrated on his words.

  “They were made together, Ash and Beatrice,” he said. “Made by the wild magic. Made by Slowin’s great theft of her name.”

  He moved aside to make room for Dorwin. Beatrice let the newcomer slip her hand on hers. She counted the people at the table. Five of them. A woman. A wizard. An apprentice. A roffle. And her. A nothing. Taken from home, no longer an ordinary girl. Indentured to a thief, and immediately sundered from him. Not an apprentice. Not a wizard. A nothing.

  “What will happen now?” she asked.

  “It’s a hard truth,” said Flaxfield. “But it must be told.”

  “Tell it quickly, then,” she said.

  Flaxfield smiled at her.

  “You’re the strongest of all of us,” he said. “You want to face the worst without delay.”

  Beatrice faced him square on.

  “I face my face every day,” she said. “If I can live with that I can face anything. What happens next?”

  “We part. Perhaps for ever. Perhaps to meet again some day. I don’t know.”

  “I’m going to see Perry again,” said Cabbage.

  Beatrice held up her hand for silence.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “Slowin, or Ash or whatever, he or she, or whatever, is locked away safely for now. It won’t always be so. She’ll look for ways to escape. She’ll try to get revenge. The magic will decay. It will weaken. So far, she’s contained, not defeated. There will be a time when we have to defeat her. Until then, the way to keep the magic strong is never to talk about it. Not even to each other. Keeping Boolat in mind will feed it. If we meet we shall remember. So we must not meet. As far as possible we should even try to forget it, not even let it live in our minds.”