Dragons at Crumbling Castle Read online

  ‘Across the Carpet!’

  ‘Across the Carpet,’ they answered, as the carts slowly creaked forward. ‘Across the Carpet!’

  Snibril and Glurk rode their bounders along a fallen Carpet hair, watching the laden carts trundle by far beneath them. Although they had not been journeying long, the Carpet hairs were already thicker and grew closer together, and there were dark shadows between them.

  ‘It’s very quiet,’ said Snibril thoughtfully.

  ‘I wish it was noisy,’ growled Glurk. ‘When it’s this quiet it gives me forebodings. Listen.’

  ‘You mean the creaking of the carts?’ said Snibril, after a while.

  ‘Not that. There is something else.’

  Snibril listened. Then, above the creaking, he could hear something. Far away, and very faint, like a far-off drumming.

  ‘Carpet-messages,’ said Glurk. ‘The news of us will be passed from drum to drum right across the Carpet. There’ll be trouble, you mark my words. Whatever is drumming doesn’t like us on its territory.’

  ‘It will take more than drumming to stop us.’

  ‘There will be more than drumming. I feel it in my bones.’

  Snibril urged his bounder down the hair to the line of moving carts, and galloped up to the front wagon, where Pismire was steering. He looked at Pismire, then turned in the saddle. ‘We’re stopping here! Get the carts round in a circle!’

  Soon the animals were unharnessed and the carts had creaked into place. Here and there, on top of carts and in the shadows, sat armed bowmen, with the long thin bows that had made the hunters of the Fallen Matchstick famous. Fires sprang up all around the circle, and soon there were smells of stews and soups – and the roasting of fresh meat caught that day when Glurk had taken some bowmen out hunting in the hair-thickets. Snibril and Pismire ate with the Glurk family.

  ‘Good soup, this,’ said Glurk, drinking noisily. ‘I wonder what the hunting will be like across the Carpet. Now, what I always say . . . What in Weft’s name was that?’

  There was silence for a moment, broken only by the youngest child coughing on some soup that had gone down the wrong way. All around the circle people had stopped talking, and were reaching for their bows.

  Then they heard it again: a long, thin howl that echoed from hair to hair in the dark Carpet.

  In the shadows beyond the bright circle many pairs of tiny, evil red eyes were watching . . .

  Glurk snatched up his bow and peered into the darkness beyond the circle. ‘Snargs!’

  ‘What’s a snarg?’ asked Snibril, fitting a bolt into his crossbow.

  ‘Hunt in packs,’ puffed Glurk, his bow twanging. ‘Mainly claws and teeth. Can’t stand the light and hate anyone who can – hurry up with those arrows there!’

  Snibril watched as the people formed themselves into the traditional Carpet-fighting formation. A squad of bowmen stood by the fires, lighting the ends of their arrows. Then there was a twang and a loud whoosh! and half a dozen fire-arrows rose above the clearing, lighting up the darkness. Then every bowman could fire at the first snarg he saw. It usually worked quite well.fn1

  Glurk was sitting on a wagon and cursing each time he missed, and his newest wife was handing him up arrow after arrow. Snibril and Gurth (Glurk’s eldest son; he had twenty-nine – it seems a lot, but there you are) were standing together at a place where the snargs had knocked over a cart and were trying to get into the circle. Snibril could hear the sound of snarg bodies pushing their way through the Carpet, hemming the tribe in.

  Another flight of fire-arrows went up. Snibril felt for an arrow, then realized he had used them all.

  ‘Help, here!’

  he yelled, as he and Gurth took a flying leap onto the nearest cart.

  A mass of black bodies were pushing through the gap, growling and snarling. Then they stopped, their evil red eyes watching the people. Arrows clattered harmlessly off their thick skins.

  Then the biggest snarg, the leader of the pack, leaped forward until it was alone in the middle of the clearing.

  ‘It’s looking for someone to fight,’ whispered Glurk to Pismire. ‘And it might as well be me.’

  ‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ said Pismire, pointing.

  Someone had stepped into the firelight, holding a large carving knife. It was Snibril.

  The snarg chief seemed to laugh, then the two started to circle each other.

  The snargs and the people watched as the chief snarg prepared to spring. But as it did so, Snibril ducked, and as the giant body whizzed over him, he threw the knife upwards as hard as he could. The snarg landed, skidded along on its face for a little way, then rolled over with its legs in the air. Dead.

  A howl went up from the snarg pack, and they began to creep forward, glaring at Snibril.

  ‘Enough!’ shouted someone, and something swung across the circle on a Carpet-creeper to pick Snibril up by his hair and drop him on a cart. Then it swung back, and leaped down in front of the snargs. Whoever it was put a long shining stick to his shoulder, and took aim.

  The snargs crept forward, as the strange figure raised the metal tube.

  With a large bang and a cloud of smoke the figure fell over backwards – and so, happily, did five or six snargs. The rest bolted, howling.

  The newcomer picked himself up, blew down his tube, coughed, and walked over to them.

  ‘My name is Bane—’ he began, but Glurk interrupted him.

  ‘Yes, you are a Wanderer. Only Wanderers carry the ancient guns of the Shiandian Empire. I am proud to meet you.’

  ‘Thank you. And you are Glurk, renowned across the Carpet as a brave and courageous hunter. You are Snibril, a Carpet-dweller with more imagination than most. And you are Pismire, wisest among Carpet-dwellers.’ He looked at them all and grinned. ‘I have been following you for inches.’

  ‘We saw nobody,’ said Snibril.

  ‘People don’t, not if I’m following them, and you talk loudly and don’t shield your fires. Be thankful that you have met nothing more terrible than a few snargs.’

  Pismire went white. ‘Do you mean there are worse things?’

  ‘Look, this is no time for talking. Get some sleep and we’ll leave by first light. Take some of those snargs too; they make a passable stew, if simmered.’

  Early the next morning the people were moving on again, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the clearing. Snibril’s bounder trotted along at the head of the procession, and Bane walked beside it. He was wearing a battered snarg-skin hat, a small bundle on his back, and carried his gun over his shoulder.

  ‘In the old days,’ he was saying, ‘when the city of Shiandi ruled half the Carpet from the Land beneath the Bookcase, the original Wanderers were explorers, guides, and kept some sort of order on the Carpet-fringes. At that time this track we can hardly get along was a broad road, crowded with traders and soldiers. But alas, after the great battle between Shiandi and the people of the South-West Chairleg, the Empire collapsed.

  ‘Now there are very few Wanderers, and most don’t bother to hand their old guns on to their sons; those of us left are looked upon as tramps, which we are really.’

  ‘What happened to Shiandi?’

  ‘It still exists. So does the city at the South-West Chairleg, and both armies have been seen again. That’s why I’ve been following you. Because my spies tell me that both armies have heard of some people who are looking for a new kind of land across the Carpet. Both Shiandi Beneath the Bookcase and the City of the South-West Chairleg want that land, for whoever gets it will be powerful enough to finally beat the other. In other words, they are looking for the people of the Fallen Matchstick. Or, to put it another way, you.’

  Camp had been struck, and except for a few guards who stood with their knees knocking, the people attended the special council of war outside Glurk’s wagon. Something had to be done. Glurk was making a speech, with much pulling of his moustache and waving of hands in the air.

>   ‘So the point is this,’ he finished. ‘If we are found by these armies that Bane says are looking for us, we won’t stand a chance. After all, we are pioneers, not soldiers.’

  The crowd around the table was silent, and then a Carpet-dweller named Blint stepped forward, and coughed nervously.

  ‘Perhaps we had better turn back?’ he whispered.

  ‘No!’ Snibril leaped to his feet and banged on the table. ‘No turning back now! We left our homes to come this far – we can’t go back. Haven’t we a dream of this land? Then we must be prepared to fight for it, against all the armies in the Carpet if necessary. Who agrees with me?’

  Glurk and Pismire immediately went to stand behind Snibril; slowly, family by family, all the others followed them, including an embarrassed Blint. Bane, who did not count himself as one of them, sat polishing his gun and whistling between his teeth. No one ever found him cursing and flapping his ears in amazement.

  ‘Right,’ said Snibril. ‘Now I have a plan. These armies are waiting somewhere to attack us. If they do, we will lose. But they don’t expect us to do one thing.’

  ‘What?’ asked Pismire.

  ‘Attack them first! Keep the wagons moving, but a few spies go out ahead. I’ll be one of them. Then, if we spot anything, we can come back and warn the people, and then try and stop the army finding us. Pismire, you’ll be needed here. You too, Glurk, and don’t argue. Bane . . .’

  ‘I was waiting for that,’ said Bane, slinging his gun over his shoulder. ‘We’d best go now.’

  Snibril got his crossbow and a full quiver of arrows, stuck two swords and a club in his belt, a spear in either hand, and a knife between his teeth. Bane smiled, and removed them all except the bow and the sword.

  ‘A Wanderer never clutters himself up,’ he said. ‘We outnumber them two to two thousand as it is.’fn2

  A short while later the two of them had climbed a hair, cut themselves Carpet-creepers – Bane taught Snibril this useful trick – and swung softly off into the darkness.

  After dark the Carpet was a dangerous place to be in. Little beady eyes looked out of every shadow, and strange things clomped and snuffled in the darkness. Here and there round the edge of the Carpet winked tiny pinpoints of light, where an isolated village slept behind strong barricades. Every time a distant snarg howled people shook in their beds, and pitied anyone out in the Carpet on such a night.

  Snibril and Bane slept halfway up a hair, one watching while the other rested. Something large and black seemed to be dancing around the bottom of the hair, blowing its nose menacingly. Snibril didn’t know what it was, but he was glad when it went away.

  Peering down, Snibril thought he could see a light in the hairs, and hear drums beating. Suddenly the light rounded a hair and came into full view, and he could see hundreds of torches marching together, shining off armour and spears.

  He woke Bane, who spent a long time looking through his portable telescope.

  ‘That’s the Shiandian army all right,’ said Bane. ‘Or some of it at any rate.’

  ‘It’s quite big enough for me! What are we going to do about it?’

  ‘They seem to be camping here for the night, so we’d best wait till morning. However . . .’ Bane looked thoughtfully down at the army, which was making camp, setting up tents, and lighting fires. Interesting smells rose from the camp-kitchens, and Snibril thought sadly of the meagre rations he carried in his pack. ‘I wonder why there aren’t that many of them,’ Bane continued. ‘I don’t trust them. I wonder if the wagons are in any danger?’

  ‘Well, they are about an inch south of here. They should be safe— Great galloping snargs! Look!’

  Through the dark there came another army, or rather the other half of the first one. And between each platoon of soldiers was a wagon – Snibril recognized them. On the first wagon, looking very miserable, sat Pismire and Glurk, who could hardly be seen for ropes.

  ‘How did they do it?’ moaned Snibril.

  ‘Ambushed them, I shouldn’t wonder,’ muttered Bane between clenched teeth. ‘Wait till I get my hands on ’em! I’ll teach ’em to harm innocent travellers while I’m around!’

  ‘What will they do now?’

  ‘Take them back to Shiandi for questioning, I shouldn’t wonder. And when they do, we’re going with them!’

  A few hours later, when the complete army and their prisoners started back to the city, search parties were sent out to make sure they weren’t followed. But they didn’t notice two grey shapes swinging from hair to hair, high above their heads . . .

  The city of Shiandi had been carved, long ago, out of a speck of dust. It had many tall, black towers, and was surrounded by a high black wall with only one gate. The Carpet around the city was dark and shadowy.

  In through the great gate of Shiandi marched the Shiandian army, dressed in black and gold armour, their marching echoing between the dark walls. The carts of the people were dragged in too, and the black gate closed with a final clang!

  Two pairs of eyes peered out of the hairs near the gate.

  ‘There aren’t any guards,’ whispered Snibril.

  ‘They never bother to guard Shiandi. They put all their trust in the walls. If you’ll just follow me, however . . .’ Bane tiptoed into a nearby thicket and Snibril heard him cutting a small piece of hair. Then Bane came running out with the hair held in front of him, stuck it in the Carpet in front of the wall, sprang into the air and disappeared over the top.

  A few seconds later Snibril had followed him,fn3 and then they swung themselves hand over hand along a ledge until they reached a window.

  They were looking into the Great Hall, and the first thing Snibril saw was Glurk, bound and held by five soldiers. On the steps leading up to the emperor’s throne stood a bound Pismire, looking defiantly at the emperor, a thin Carpet-dweller in a crown and long robes.

  ‘For the last time, where is this land?’ screamed the emperor.

  Pismire said nothing.

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Shan’t.’

  ‘Guards! I’ve had enough of this one. Take him down to the cells with the others. We’ll soon get the truth out of him—’

  ‘Stop that!’ yelled Snibril.

  They all turned to look up in surprise.

  Before anyone realized what was happening the soldier within kicking distance of Pismire had his toes trodden on. While the soldier was hopping about Pismire removed his sword, and with one mighty hack cut his ropes to free himself. While Glurk was making short work of the guards near him, the other two climbed down into the hall, and the fight was on.

  The four of them stood together like . . . well, whenever they tell stories around the campfire, Carpet-dwellers always speak of that battle with hushed voices.

  It was soon over, but more guards were battering on the doors.

  ‘Which way to the cells?’ panted Bane, dragging Pismire away from the emperor, who was sitting on the back of his throne and screaming.

  ‘Down,’ said Glurk, pointing to a dark tunnel. The four of them rushed down it just as the doors of the hall burst open. A gaoler, who looked up to see four ferocious fighters bearing down on him, dropped his keys and ran.

  Glurk and Pismire ran from cell to cell, unlocking the heavy doors and releasing the more revengeful people.

  ‘The carts are still in the courtyard,’ cried Snibril. ‘Follow me!’

  It did not take long for the people to fight their way up to the courtyard where the carts were. They were used to fighting in narrow spaces, and Carpet people have sharp teeth and claws, when they want to use them.

  Snibril, Glurk and Bane (and Pismire, who had just decided to become a soldier) ran up the steps leading to the gatehouse tower. A few soldiers were there, but not for long.

  Snibril grabbed one as he ran past. ‘Open the gate,’ he said.

  ‘This is no time for half measures,’ said Bane, prodding the prisoner in the ear with his gun. ‘Tell us how to open the gate, if you please, or
I will blow your head off.’

  He said it quite quietly, but the soldier gulped, and slowly turned the windlass that opened the gate.

  As the gate rose the first cart went trundling out, and cart after cart followed, going as fast as any cart had a right to. Any soldiers who were foolish enough to keep on fighting were cuffed and thrown into the bushes. When the last cart bounced out of Shiandi the four fighters swung down over the wall and landed on it.

  The chase was something that Snibril remembered all his life. The carts were not built for speed, but they tore through the Carpet so fast that he expected the wheels to fly off in all directions. And, a long way behind, he could hear the army.

  ‘What now?’ he shouted, as they clung onto the jolting roof.

  ‘What indeed,’ said Bane. ‘I think we are heading towards the Swinging Bridge. There is a great gap in the Carpet, and the bridge is a single hair that crosses it. I think that it is just wide enough for a cart to cross.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Pismire.

  It was just wide enough, but Pismire happened to look over the edge of the cart as it crossed the bridge, and found himself staring right down through the Carpet. After that he didn’t look down again.

  Snibril looked back once they were over, and saw the soldiers coming up to the bridge. They were going to cross!

  ‘Over my dead body,’ he muttered, and jumped off the cart. He ran out to the middle of the bridge and drew his sword. Bane saw him go and, without being seen, jumped off the cart and slipped into the bushes.

  Snibril stood alone in the middle of the thin, high bridge, and swished his sword about a bit to make it quite clear what would happen to the first soldier that crossed.

  For a peaceful Carpet-dweller Snibril looked furious as he advanced along the narrow bridge. The leading soldiers had to move back, which pushed them up against the soldiers at the back who were trying to get to the front to see what was going on.

  Meanwhile Bane had spat on his hands and gripped the end of the bridge. His eyes crossed and his muscles twanged like bowstrings as he took the weight, until he was holding the end above his head. His feet began to sink into the Carpet.