13 - The Den

Dirk’s arm tensed till it felt like rock beneath Rye’s hand. Rye tightened his grip, warning Dirk to keep silent. His own mind was reeling with what he had heard, but he knew it was vital that Cap, Bones and the trader did not suspect that they were being overheard. The whole story had not yet been told.

‘Wait!’ he breathed in Dirk’s ear.

Dirk glanced at him furiously, showing the whites of his eyes. Rye understood. Dirk was wild with anger because Cap had lied to him. He was mad with grief at the thought that clever, funny, determined Sholto might be dead, his possessions traded for scraps of food, and his bones used to repair Bones’ sled. He wanted to spring out of hiding, confront Cap and Bones, force them to admit what had been done—what Needle and her two henchmen had done, perhaps, with their deadly knives and their fear of the Master’s spies. Rye felt the same. But …

He met Sonia’s serious green eyes. She nodded and put a finger to her lips.

‘Be still, Dirk!’ he hissed. ‘Be still and listen!’

With relief he felt Dirk’s arm relax slightly, and heard his brother breathe out.

Cap had reached Bones. He was speaking to the frenzied man in a low voice, trying to calm him. He was shooting warning looks into the steam, too, as if advising Four-Eyes the trader to say no more.

Rye, Sonia and Dirk crept closer. They saw that the sled had been pulled up beside a flat bridge that was a simple raft of bones lashed together with strings of leather. The bridge spanned a wide, deep trench, the base of which was studded with spears of sharpened bone, their shafts buried, their wicked points aiming at the sky.

On the other side of the trench was a long, low hut. Beside the hut there was the gleam of water, the first the companions had seen in this barren place.

‘The ditch runs all around the hut like a moat, do you see?’ Sonia breathed in Rye’s ear. ‘They must pull in the bridge at night, to keep out bloodhogs and other enemies. Any beast trying to leap the gap would risk falling onto the points of those spears.’

Rye nodded grimly. The hut was built of dark stones, but its roof gleamed white. How many bones must it have taken to roof a place of that size? Who were the people who had died to provide those bones? How many Weld volunteers had been among the dead? Were Sholto’s bones among the rest?

Dirk had seen the bones, too. His arm had begun to tremble. Or perhaps it was Rye himself who was shaking. He could not be sure.

Linked tightly together, the companions stood and watched as Cap persuaded Bones to drag the sled on over the bridge. They remained motionless as, once Bones was safely out of the way, the end of a folding ladder dropped down through the steam. They waited while a wizened little man wearing a puffy velvet beret climbed down the ladder carrying a flickering lantern. But when Cap and the trader crossed the bridge, three shadows flitted after them.

‘The poor fellow grows madder every day,’ the wizened man rumbled in the deep, rich voice that did not match his appearance at all. He jerked his head at Bones, who was drawing the sled into place in front of the hut. ‘What’s all this about wizards in the Saltings?’

‘Oh, just another of his visions,’ Cap said carelessly. ‘He spends too much time alone out there. Come and sit by the Soak.’

He led the visitor towards the gleam of water and the two sat down, facing one another with the lantern between them. Rye, Dirk and Sonia followed.

Close up, the spring was not nearly as inviting as it had looked from a distance. It was little more than a puddle ringed with mud. The people of the Den plainly used the water, however, for a few white bowls lay scattered around the puddle’s rim. Rye thought the bowls were ordinary pottery, at first. It took a moment or two for him to realise, with sick horror, that they were made of human skulls.

Instinctively he glanced over his shoulder at Bones. Having placed the sled to his satisfaction, the old man was lowering himself to the ground beside it, his long, skinny limbs folding till he looked like a crouching spider. He was muttering to himself, fumbling with his ghastly necklaces, so that the yellowed teeth clicked against one another like rain pattering on a roof. His stomach heaving, Rye turned back to the two men by the Soak.

‘I dislike being called a cheat, Captain,’ Four-Eyes was saying in injured tones, as he settled himself. ‘My reputation is my livelihood.’

‘Quite,’ Cap replied calmly. ‘So you’d be wise not to take advantage of your best customers. Word gets around, you know. I didn’t see the stranger’s belongings myself, but it was clear from Bones’ description that you didn’t pay nearly enough for them. I daresay you kept the best things for yourself and traded the rest on quickly enough. What did you get for them?’

Four-Eyes shrugged, turning down the corners of his mouth. ‘Oh, very little,’ he said. ‘The fellow had fallen into an old jell-pit, after all. More things than his neck were broken, and the items that were still whole were in a very sad state indeed I’m afraid.’

He sighed gustily. ‘Still, I made the best of it. I managed to trade the coat, which was not in bad condition, for the sign on my vehicle. Certainly, I can’t read it myself, but a sign gives a business a professional tone. I’ve been meaning to have it done ever since I came by the paint a month or two ago.’

He glanced across the trench to his wagon with childish satisfaction.

‘You’ve a fine new lantern, too, I see,’ said Cap, nodding at the lamp burning on the ground between them. ‘That at least came from the stranger’s bag in one piece, did it?’

‘Hardly new,’ the trader murmured, smoothly avoiding the question. ‘Rather battered, I fear. Still, we must all make do with what we can get, Cap, as you know. Now, about this bloodhog skull …’

‘Oh, never mind the skull, Four-Eyes,’ said Cap, smiling. ‘Clearly it’s of no real interest to you, if all you can offer for it is a few shivs of tarny root and a bunch of traveller’s weed. We’ll just do our usual jell trade, and—’

‘Not so fast, my friend!’ the trader broke in smoothly. ‘Nothing would please me more than to do you a favour, and I’ve been thinking. The next stop on my rounds is the Diggings, and it’s occurred to me that one of the guards there might well be interested in a bloodhog skull. So I might just be able to offer you a little more …’

Rye had stopped listening. He was staring at the lantern—the rusty, dented, but suddenly very familiar-looking lantern glowing on the dusty ground. There was a roaring in his ears that drowned out all other sound. He was remembering some words he had read in Sholto’s note of farewell to their mother.

I fear my decision will grieve you, so I am going quietly, without fuss. I have taken one of the lanterns. I hope you will not mind this.

His throat aching, Rye struggled to accept what he was seeing. He struggled to accept, at last, that his dream of Sholto had been false, that Sholto was dead.

‘We must go!’ Sonia hissed suddenly. ‘The others are coming. We must get back over the bridge before they reach it!’

Rye looked round and saw the people from the mounds trudging along the sled tracks towards the bridge. He knew that Sonia was right. Once everyone was crowded inside the small area bounded by the trench it would be almost impossible for the three intruders to remain unnoticed. The ghostly shape of the skimmer hook alone would eventually give them away.

And there was no reason to stay, in any case. He had heard enough … more than enough.

Dirk seemed to agree, for he turned his back without a word on the two men haggling by the Soak. Dirk’s face was drawn. Rye knew that his brother’s rage and burning desire for revenge had drained away, leaving only a terrible sadness behind.

Sholto had not been struck down by human hands. The treacherous ground of the Scour had killed him.

Certainly, Bones had robbed his body before carrying it back to the Saltings so that the snails could reduce it to a skeleton. No doubt that was why Cap had been so anxious to stop Rye, Dirk and Sonia from finding out about the death. He had feared their anger—feared they would use their magic to attack the people of the Den in revenge for what Bones had done.

But what point was there in anger? Sholto himself, with his cold, clear way of looking at things, would have understood Bones’ actions perfectly. He would have agreed that life here was too hard for anything to be wasted—even a dead man’s bones.

As quickly and silently as they could, the three companions moved back to the bridge and crept across it. Bones was still mumbling over his beads by the hut. Rye hoped fervently that the old man would not look up. If he did, he would surely see the misty shape of the giant hook floating over the trench. But Bones did not stir.

The people from the mounds were very close now, plodding along with bowed heads, most carrying skull bowls partly filled with blood-red jell. Reaching the end of the bridge, the companions just had time to slip around to the far side of the monstrous wagon before Floss, Needle and the rest began slowly filing past.

The wagon looked even larger close up. Warmth radiated from its metal surfaces, and it was still wreathed in a moist, foul-smelling haze.

Rye gazed at it, wondering dully how it moved without beasts to pull it. He bent to look at the vehicle’s underside, and as he did he caught sight of a strange little circular design painted low down on the side panel just below the doorway.

Rye peered at the design. It was hard to see clearly because it was a dark colour—red, he thought. It did not look as if it had been painted with a brush, but rather as if it had been hastily scrawled with a fingertip.

He was just about to point it out to Dirk and Sonia when without warning Dirk pulled himself up into the wagon, pushing aside the flap of goat hide that served as a door.

‘Dirk!’ Rye whispered in panic, pushing back the hood so his brother could see him. ‘What are you doing?’

Dirk looked back over his shoulder. ‘What do you think?’ he muttered. ‘The trader said his next stop was the Diggings. That is on our way, and it will be far safer and faster for us to ride with him than to walk. If he does the same thing there as he has done here, we will easily be able to slip out of the wagon while he is trading.’

‘But—’

Dirk’s face was very hard. ‘If we ask that little worm to help us he will certainly refuse, or ask a price we cannot afford to pay. So we will take what we want without his knowledge. He plainly did well out of Sholto’s death, so he can help us continue Sholto’s quest. Stop shilly-shallying, Rye! Come on!’

He turned away, the goat hide falling back into place behind him.