Three weeks we sailed, back over the seemingly endless expanse of the Deepwoods in that battered old leagueship with its damaged flight rock. It needed constant tending, but with Quint’s navigation and careful sail-setting, we made remarkably good progress, considering.
Maris was severely weakened by the fever and kept to her quarters for the most part, only venturing out in the early hours to stand at the balustrade and gaze mournfully back the way we’d come. She never spoke, not even to Quint, who’d grown steadily more gaunt and careworn as our journey continued. I suspected that neither of them were eating properly.
Not that Gobtrax cared. He spent most of his time poring over the sky chart in the ante-chamber, calculating how much the information it contained was going to make him once we got back to Undertown. More than once, I caught sight of him doodling designs for magnificent high hats on scraps of barkscroll, and cackling to himself.
Quint saw him too, for he’d taken to hanging around on the aft deck outside the ante-chamber when he wasn’t on the bridge. Now that we were heading back, and the Mire and the two cities were only a few days away, Gobtrax had barred Quint from the chamber and denied him access to the chart.
‘You endangered my ship with that whelp of yours!’ Gobtrax had thundered. ‘Did you really think I’d reward you with access to my sky chart?’
Quint was caught like an oozefish on the end of a line. Gobtrax knew that without the sky chart, the chances of Quint ever finding that little woodtroll village were practically non-existent. His jotted sky-compass reading only made sense if plotted on the chart – which is why Quint had sneaked into the ante-chamber on that first day of our return voyage. But since then, Gobtrax had set Kelter on guard, and Quint couldn’t get in.
‘I’m a fair captain,’ Gobtrax had said, loud enough for both me and Maris to hear. ‘You’ll get your cut of the profits when I auction the sumpwood locations. But what use is a woodtroll village . . .?’ He’d paused for effect, enjoying the taunt. ‘Wouldn’t it be a shame if that last location you plotted on my chart were to be erased?’
The effect of these words on Quint had been dramatic. He had drawn his sword and would have run the league captain through if the cowardly Gobtrax hadn’t retreated quickly behind his bodyguard.
‘Of course, you can give up your share of the profits in return for the location,’ Gobtrax had wheedled.
Quint could only wriggle on the end of the league captain’s line. With no profits, the Stormchaser would remain grounded, all our hard work would have been for nothing, and Quint’s promise to Maris to return for their son would have to wait. We would have to start all over again. I could see his desperation growing with every passing day.
Finally, two days out of Undertown, Quint made his move. Gobtrax was slumbering in his wing-back chair on the aft deck and Kelter was over at the prow, hauling up bait logs. I glanced back at the bridge and saw that Quint wasn’t at the wheel.
Suddenly, the door to the ante-chamber opened and Quint emerged, clutching the sky chart in one hand and his sword in the other.
Gobtrax opened his eyes, bloodshot and bleary from too much sapwine, and took a moment to understand what he was seeing. When he did, he leaped from his chair, full of indignant rage.
‘How dare you!’ he thundered. ‘Kelter! Kelter!’
Quint had had enough. Stuffing the chart inside his jacket, he lunged at Gobtrax, the tip of his blade ripping open the league captain’s fancy skycoat, sending the mire-pearl buttons flying off in all directions.
‘Help!’ Gobtrax squeaked.
Kelter was there in an instant, pushing past me on the flight deck and leaping down onto the aft deck, cudgel in hand.
Quint turned to meet him. He was wiry, fit, strong, agile – yet compared with Kelter, he looked puny. The hulking great cloddertrog towered above him, barrel-chested, legs like tree trunks, fists like rocks. He swung his great cudgel double-handed, slamming it into Quint’s sword. There was a horrible splintering crack of bone and the sword went flying.
Quint ducked down as the cudgel swung round a second time, this time the blow aimed squarely at his head. He dropped to the ground and rolled over, then, just as I had once done, struck Kelter’s legs and sent him toppling backwards. The lumbering cloddertrog landed heavily on his back. The air was driven from his lungs; the cudgel went scudding across the deck.
And Quint was upon him. Pinning the winded cloddertrog to the deck, his knees pressed down on his chest, he raised his fist and punched him in the face- once, twice, three times . . .
‘Quint,’ came a voice. It was Multinius Gobtrax.
Quint paused, looked up, and I saw his face drop as he saw what I saw.
It was Maris. She must have come up from her cabin at the sound of the fighting – and the captain had grabbed her. He stood there now, one arm tight around her throat, the other pressing the glinting blade of a knife to her exposed neck.
‘The sky chart. Now,’ he said coldly. ‘Or your precious Maris dies.’
Quint looked at the captain. At Maris. He climbed up off Kelter and reached inside his jacket for the sky chart, only for Maris to cry out.
‘Don’t give it to him, Quint. I don’t trust him,’ she wailed. ‘We’ll never find our baby if you do, and . . . and . . . I’d rather be dead than live my life without ever seeing him again . . .’
Gobtrax laughed cruelly, tightening his grip round Maris’s neck. ‘Your choice, Quint,’ he said. ‘Wife . . .’ He pressed the blade more firmly against her neck, then nodded at the rolled parchment in Quint’s hand. ‘Or sky chart.’
‘The baby!’ Maris howled. ‘Save our baby . . .’
But Quint had already made up his mind. Leaning forward, he held out the sky chart to Gobtrax – who snatched it out of his hand, shoving Maris aside as he did so.
Kelter was just climbing to his feet when I stepped over him, knocking him out cold with the heavy cooling rod. Then, gripping it tightly in my hands, I swung it round and drove it into the captain’s side.
Gobtrax was looking down at the sky chart just then, that smirk of his on his lips. He never knew what hit him. With a high-pitched yowl of pain, he staggered to one side – slamming into the mast and the rock burners. The flames of one of the burners licked against his sleeve, setting it alight. Screaming with shock and horror and pain, Gobtrax stumbled across the flight deck.
Quint leaped towards him, desperate to wrest the sky chart from his grip – but it was already too late. The parchment was ablaze!
Staggering backwards, Gobtrax struck the deck balustrade which, battered like everything else on the rickety Reaper of Plenty, gave way under his weight. With a screech of despair, Gobtrax, now burning like a torch, hurtled down to the forest below.
‘No . . . NO!’ Maris screamed.
She raced towards the edge of the ship and would have thrown herself off as well, if it hadn’t been for Quint, who grabbed her arm, swung her round and held her in his tight embrace.
Maris struggled, but weakly, all the while sobbing inconsolably, ‘My baby . . . my baby . . .’
‘We’ll find him, Maris. We will,’ Quint told her. ‘We’ll search the Deepwoods, locate that woodtroll village and find our son again . . .’
I pulled my hood from my head and dashed it to the deck in helpless frustration.
As Quint continued, trying his best to calm Maris down, he caught my eye and I trembled at the despair in his face. Quint knew, as I knew myself, that for all his reassuring words, without the sky chart, their child was lost for ever . . .