21

Sometime just before dawn the storm abated. Thunder echoed dully, far off across pale, slate-streaked skies. Rain slacked to a drizzling curtain in wan daylight. The sea was still running high. Shogg and Triss were sleeping, sitting draped over the tiller, worn out and exhausted after their tempestuous ordeal. The otter slid forward bit by bit, until his nose bumped against the tiller arm. He sat up straight, blinking through salt-crusted eyes, immediately aware of the sound of waves pounding across reefs and breaking on the shore.

“Triss, wake up, mate! ’Tis land, straight ahead. Land!”

The squirrelmaid woke, shivering, damp and cold. She stared at the approaching coastline, rocks and shingle broken by patches of sandy shore. It did not appear very welcoming, but it was a marvellous sight to a pair of escaped slaves.

“Where are we, Shogg?”

Her friend applied his attention to the tiller. “I ain’t got a clue, but we’ll be in big trouble if we runs afoul o’ those reefs, matey. Let’s try to slide in easy-like.”

Recalling the previous night, Triss scanned the horizon. “Where’s the big ship gone, d’you see it anywhere?”

Shogg smiled grimly. “T’the bottom o’ the sea, I ’ope. I don’t see it about, but there ain’t any sense in takin’ chances. We won’t put up the sail in case it gives us away—a sail can be seen from a good distance off. You see if’n there’s any dry vittles left, an’ water, too. I’d give me rudder for a mouthful of fresh water right now. Attend to that an’ keep yore eyes peeled. I’ll try an’ get us to shore safely.”

Viewing the strange new land, Shogg felt a thrill of anticipation as the shore loomed closer. He used all his skills to tack between the perilous rocks, some poking up out of the sea, others lying beneath the surface. Centering his attention at a sprawling stone outcrop on the tideline, Shogg sent the vessel toward it.

Triss found some apples that were undamaged. She uncorked a flagon of drinking water and tipped it to her mouth, washing out the heavy salt taste of the sea. It was sweet and refreshing. She passed it to Shogg, who wedged it against the tiller.

“I’ll take a drop when I gets us past this tricky bit, mate. There! ’Tis a straight run to land now. Let’s drink to our escape, Triss, we made it!”

As the keel scraped upon sand, Shogg leaped over into the shallows and hauled on the headrope. Triss was about to join him when she spotted the double sails bellying out on the horizon.

“It’s the big ship! Look!”

The otter acted promptly as he sighted the Seascab. “Quick, let’s pull ’er in behind these rocks. I ’ope they ain’t caught sight of us!”

Between them they managed to push and shove the vessel to the lee side of the outcrop. Shogg began stripping the sail from the mast and rolling it up, whilst Triss salvaged what food she could from their spoiled stores.

Empty grog flagons rolled about on Plugg’s cabin floor as the ship swayed gently. He sat with his head on the table, snoring in his chair.

“Laaaaaand hoooooooo!”

A moment later the silver fox was stumbling out on deck. “Land ye say, where away?”

Tazzin, who was on duty as steersbeast, pointed. “Straight on as she lies, Cap’n, dead ahead!”

Kurda came bounding up from amidships. “De land, mine new captain see it first, yarr. He say somet’ink move, over by der rocks. See!”

Plugg was too preoccupied with their position to pay the Princess much heed. He scanned the coast up and down.

Kurda slapped her sabre blade against the rail. “Vot you lookin’ for, vy you don’t listen to me?”

Plugg spoke as he continued inspecting the shoreline. “There should be a river runnin’ out across the beach. That’s where the chart says we make our landfall. I’m lissenin’ to yer, missy. Now who saw wot, eh?”

Kurda beckoned a tall, grave-faced Ratguard to her side. “Diss von, he is Vorto, mine new captain. Tell him!”

Vorto saluted with his spear before reporting to Plugg. “I saw it, a liddle boat, runnin’ fer those rocks, showin’ no sail. May’ap ’tis moored behind the rocks, Cap’n.”

Plugg turned, bringing his face close to the new officer and squinting into his eyes. “Vorto, eh, you got a fair ole pair o’ peepers on ye. Oh well, I’ll ’ave to take ’er in an’ scout the coast ’til I finds a landmark. Tazzin, you steer ’er landwards, but stop before those big reefs. I’ll be in me cabin, a-studyin’ the chart. Shout out when yore droppin’ anchor.”

Kurda blocked Plugg’s way, gesturing with her sabre. “You t’row down de anchor by de reefs, how ve get ashore?”

The Freebooter pushed past her, heading for his cabin. “Yore free to wade or swim, but if’n you stops playin’ wid that toy sword, I’ll let ye ride in the ship’s boat wid me. Slitty, make ready the jollyboat fer when we anchors.”

From their cover in the rocks, Shogg and Triss watched the Seascab heading in a direct line for the outcrop. The otter shouldered the rolled-up sail. “Cut an’ run, Triss, ’tis all that’s left to us. We ain’t stoppin’ round ’ere fer Kurda to practise ’er sabre on us.”

The squirrelmaid hefted a stone-tipped spear, part of the simple weaponry Bistort had left aboard for them. “I wish I could stay and pay her back for murdering poor old Drufo. I’d give her the same chance she gave him. None!”

Shogg weighed the bag of slingstones and the sling he had armed himself with. “Aye, but there’s prob’ly a full crew o’ Freebooters an’ a pack o’ Ratguards with ’er. We wouldn’t stand a chance, Triss. Right, we’d best move. Let’s go east an’ a touch north, keepin’ those rocks atween us an’ them so they don’t see us. Kurda will try to track us, ye can rely on it.”

They set off at a brisk jog toward some dunes.

Kurda did not wait for Vorto to assist her. She leaped from the jollyboat and splashed off through the shallows toward the rocks. Plugg had brought Prince Bladd along with him but, when the Freebooter captain jumped overboard into the shallows, the fat young princeling kept his seat in the jollyboat’s centre.

“I get mine paws vetted if I jump in dere, I not like vet paws!”

Plugg shook his head in despair. “Slitty, you ’n’ Ripper give Prince slobberchops a lift ashore, an’ don’t get ’is paws wet, ’e don’t like it!”

Vorto waited until all the Ratguards had waded ashore. Lining them up, he marched off to find the Princess.

Kurda was standing on the lee side of the rocks, leaning against the stolen boat, studying the pawprints that ran off toward the dunes. Vorto arrived with the Ratguards and saluted smartly.

The Princess smiled. “Yarr, mine good Vorto, you vere right. Here is der ship, and der tracks, see!”

Plugg came swaggering up with a few of his crew. He inspected the vessel, stroking its sides and patting the stern in admiration. The Freebooter liked what he saw.

“Haharr, she’s an ’andsome liddle beauty. The slaves who built this’n knowed wot they was doin’. Now then, yer ’igh royalness, I wouldn’t be stannin’ gapin’ at those pawtracks all day, if’n I was you. This drizzle will soon wash ’em out.”

Kurda gave him a supercilious stare and drew her sabre. “Tchah! You know about der sea, but I know all about der land. Vere is Riggan?”

At Vorto’s command, a rat stepped forward. She was of wiry build, older than the rest, with a long nose and slitted eyes. Kurda’s sabre pointed to the fugitive tracks.

“You can find dese creatures, yarr?”

Riggan crouched and sniffed the prints. She rubbed a few grains of sand in one paw and licked them lightly. “Find ’em? Yer ’ighness, Riggan can find ’em as easy as findin’ vittles on a plate fer dinner!”

The Pure Ferret smirked at the Freebooter Captain. “Nobeast has ever escaped Riggan. She is mine father’s special slavecatcher. Dis rat can track a butterfly over de solid rocks. A drop of der drizzle vill not stop her!”

Plugg’s voice oozed sarcasm as he answered. “Ye don’t say? Now, ain’t that nice. Right ho, me beauty, you take yore rats off an’ play yore liddle ’unting game. As fer me, well, I’m only a simple ole Freebooter. I’ll ’ave me crew cast about fer landmarks so we kin find this Mossflower place, while I stops ’ere an’ polishes me new liddle boat up. May’aps ye’ll bring me ’er sail back when you catches up wid those slavebeasts. Now, be careful ye don’t rip it, I’m partickler about me property, eh, Slitty?”

Slitfang grinned. “Aye, very partickler, Cap’n!”

But Kurda was not listening. She had set off with her Ratguards, slightly behind Riggan, who was travelling at a fast, easy lope over the wet sands.

Shogg and Triss headed east over the dunes, making for an outcrop of trees in the distance. The squirrelmaid got slightly ahead of her otter friend. She stopped and waited for him to catch up.

He hitched the bundle of sailcloth higher on his back. “Runnin’ takes some gettin’ used to, matey, after all that sittin’ on me rudder in a boat fer long days. Let’s keep on goin’, me paws are beginnin’ to feel better now.”

The land was mostly scrub grass, with patches of broom and thistle. They ran steadily, side by side, with Shogg occasionally glancing back over his shoulder.

“We don’t know if they’re on our trail or not. This drizzle should blur our tracks, Triss. I ’ope it keeps up.”

The squirrelmaid indicated the trees ahead. “When we get to those, I’ll shin up one and scan the land.”

Riggan did not stop or even pause to check the pawprints. She knew she was on the right trail.

Kurda clipped a thistle bloom with her blade edge. “Vorto, ven ve find dem you do nothink, surround dem and leave der rest to me. I vill show dem how I deal mitt runavay slave thieves, long and slow I show dem, yarr!”

Vorto could tell by the look in Kurda’s red eyes that she meant every word of it.

On reaching the tree fringe, Triss dropped her foodpack and went up the trunk of a sessile oak with all the skill of a born climber. Vaulting and swinging, she passed the middle branches and was soon up in the topmost boughs. Shogg craned his neck back and looked up to where she perched on a high limb.

“Wot’s the word, mate, any signs o’ the vermin?”

His worst fears were confirmed as Triss called down, “Aye, I can make out Kurda with about a score of Ratguards coming this way fast. It looks like Riggan slavecatcher is leading them—no wonder they got onto us so quick!”

Shogg bit his lip with worry. Every slave at Riftgard knew the name and reputation of Agarnu’s relentless tracker. None had ever escaped Riggan.

“ ’Tis bad news for us, mate. The only thing we can do is t’keep runnin’ until they’re so far from their ship that they gets tired o’ chasin’ us an’ turns back, maybe.”

As Triss began climbing down the oak, she suddenly noticed another squirrel climbing alongside of her. He was a jolly-looking, fat beast, his shoulders crossed with webbing that was stuffed tight with hard green pinecones. She nodded to him; he nodded back and struck up a conversation.

“So you’re going to run for it. Well, good luck to you, good luck, that’s what I always say.”

Triss noticed that there were many more fat squirrels, all climbing down from neighbouring trees. She arrived back on the ground accompanied by roughly fifty of the creatures.

Shogg bowed politely.

“Good day to ye, friends!”

The one who had spoken to Triss was obviously their leader. He shook rainwater from his huge bushy tail. “Good, what’s good about it? Nothing good about sitting up in a tree getting drenched, that’s what I always say!”

Now that she knew the squirrels meant them no harm, Triss felt a lot more at ease with them. She spoke to the leader. “I’m sorry for trespassing in your wood, but we’ll be gone right away. Sorry we can’t stop to talk.”

Tossing up a pinecone and catching it without even looking at it, the squirrel remarked, “No hurry. I’m Whurp, Chieftain of the Coneslingers. You don’t have to run if you prefer walking, that’s what I always say.”

He tossed the pinecone high, shook paws with them both, and caught the cone before it fell. Triss was impressed.

“I’m Triss, and my friend’s called Shogg. We really do have to go, Whurp. There’s not much use walking with those Ratguards hard on our paws. We need to run.”

Whurp tossed his pinecone, batted it with his tail and caught it one-pawed as it bounced off the sessile oak. “Oh, don’t fuss yourself about a few rats, Triss, we can snarl them up here for a good while. You and Shogg follow my daughter Burnby, she’ll lead you through the woods and out the other side. We’ll see to the rats for you. Rats are bad creatures, that’s what I always say.”

Shogg noticed the thong wound about Whurp’s paw. “I see ye carry slings. What d’ye throw from them, cones?”

Whurp tossed the cone he was toying with to Shogg. “Aye, cones just like that one, good and hard, quite sharp, too. They wouldn’t kill a beast, we’re not in the business of slaying any creature. Only use them in defence of our territory, that’s what I always say.”

Shogg took out his pouch of slingstones from Peace Island. “These are some stones I was given to use by a friend, far across the seas from here.”

Whurp took the pouch and opened it, pouring forth into his paw the bluey-green, sharp-edged stones. His eyes lit up. “From far across the seas you say, Shogg. Wonderful, beautiful treasures like these, and you waste them by throwing them away with your sling? Never throw away precious things, that’s what I always say!”

He passed the pouch back carefully, but Shogg refused it. “Keep ’em, mate, as a gift from us. Look, we’ve really got t’go now. Nice meetin’ ye, Whurp.”

As Burnby led them off through the trees, Whurp called out, “Goodbye, friends, and good fortune go with you. I can’t thank you enough for these stones. The Coneslingers will treasure them forever. A treasure of great worth is a treasure worth treasuring, that’s what I always say!”

Burnby took Triss’s paw, giving her a quiet smile. “I could tell you other things that my dad always says, but I’d need ten seasons to do it.”

Triss squeezed her paw. “Thank you for your help, but can your dad really stop the Ratguards?”

Burnby plucked a grass stalk and chewed on it. “Ask yourself, Triss. Did you see us when you entered our forest? Did you even know all of us were watching you? Coneslingers are invisible when they want to be—we can defend our wood against any number. Shogg, follow behind me. Watch that willow branch, don’t touch it!”

When the otter saw the thin cord holding a whippy branch strained in an arc, he understood. “Haharr, a trap, eh, that’d soon stop anybeast who didn’t see it. A good idea, Burnby.”

She nodded. “That’s why you must follow directly in my trail. These woods are full of such traps, pits, catapults, nooses. But those rats won’t be bothered by them.”

Shogg looked puzzled. “Why’s that, mate?”

Burnby chuckled. “Because my dad won’t even let them get this far. Never let the foebeast enter your home—”

Triss interrupted. “That’s what he always says!”

Their laughter echoed through the trees as they strolled in leisurely fashion through the Coneslingers’ wood.

Riggan halted at the tree fringe. Kurda came hurrying up with Vorto and the Ratguards.

“Dey go in dere, yarr?”

The slavetracker inspected the ground, then peered up into the trees, sniffing the air suspiciously. “Aye, yore ’ighness, they’ve gone inter these woods, but there’s sum-mat I don’t like about this place. I ain’t put me paw on it yet, but I’ll find out.”

She took a pace into the trees . . . and found out. Three iron-hard green pinecones hit Riggan, one on the head, another on the paw, and a third in the throat. She toppled over, senseless.

Immediately the Ratguards threw themselves flat. Vorto placed himself in front of Kurda, shielding her. “Somebeast up in the trees is attackin’ us, marm!”

Kurda signalled as she backed off. “Archers, shoot arrows at dem, slay der beasts!”

Four Ratguards set shafts to their bows. The first one fired off at a shape high in the trees.

Kurda popped her head up from where she was crouching. “Gutt, dat teach dem!”

Half an arrow, the pointed part, nicked her paw, and she yelped. “Yowch! Vot happen?”

The archer gasped in amazement at what he had seen. “Marm, somebeast up there in that tree, ’e caught me arrer an’ snapped it in arf, ’e’s throwin’ it back!” He ducked as the feathered half bounced off his ear.

Vorto whispered orders to four Ratguards. “Crawl out an’ git Riggan back ’ere. We need ’er.”

The four began to crawl forward, but were peppered so hard with green cones that they were forced to shuffle backward, their shoulders, backs and behinds smarting furiously. His paws numbed by two more flying cones, Vorto dashed off to a small rise in the ground where Kurda was crouching.

“Yore ’ighness, I think we’d better retreat!”

The flat of Kurda’s blade whacked him in the midriff. “Retreat? Vot you t’ink I am? De Princess of Riftgard does not run from sillybeasts who t’row pinecones. Ve stay here and teach dem lesson for insolence!”

She poked her head up and screeched angrily, “You hear dat, ve teach you der le . . . Unkhh!”

A particularly fine specimen of the fir tree whacked solidly down between the Pure Ferret’s ears, stunning her. This was followed by a matter-of-fact voice calling out, “Sorry, could you repeat that? I don’t understand what ‘Unkhh’ is supposed to mean. State your intentions clearly, that’s what I always say!”

Burnby led Triss and Shogg out at the far side of the trees that marked the Coneslingers’ domain. She gestured eloquently at the open lands.

“There, my friends, you may go whichever way you please. I must return now and lend a paw to pin your foes down for a while. I’m rather looking forward to it. Bye bye!” She sprang up into the trees and was instantly gone.

The two friends waved, not knowing whether Burnby could see them.

“Goodbye, and thank you for your help!” Triss called. “Well, what do you make of that? What an easy escape! Burnby couldn’t wait to get back to a bit of cone slinging. You’d never think it to look at her—such a quiet, pretty maid, so reserved and well-mannered, but so warlike!”

Shogg fluttered his eyes. “Aye, a bit like meself: quiet, well-mannered, pretty. Ouch! Mind that speartip, mate!”

Triss chuckled. “Come on, you rogue, which way now?”

The drizzle had stopped, and sunlight was peeping out from between the clouds. Shogg shaded his eyes, gazing around.

“See that dip over there? I’m bettin’ there’s a stream runnin’ through it. So ’ere’s wot I think we should do. We’ll get our paws wet, follow the stream west. They’re bound to get away sooner or later. Riggan’ll pick up our tracks, ye can rely on that. But she’ll only trail us as far as the stream, then she ’as a choice.”

As they made their way to the dip, Triss echoed Shogg’s words. “A choice. How do you mean?”

The otter gave a sly wink and explained. “Riggan’s choice is simple, mate. Which way did we go after enterin’ the water, west or east? Now ask yoreself, which way d’you suppose two runaways would go? East an’ inland, or west an’ back t’the sea, where there’s a Freebooter ship loaded with vermin who’d slay ye as soon as look at ye, eh?”

The otter’s canny scheme dawned on Triss. “Of course! She’ll head east, that’s the sensible choice. You mightn’t be pretty and reserved, but you’ve got a shrewd head on your shoulders, mate. Come on.”

Shogg’s guess proved right. There was a thin stream winding through the dip, and it was quite shallow. They proceeded carefully, trying hard not to leave any telltale traces that the slavecatcher could follow. Both fugitives hoped fervently that Whurp and his tribe of Coneslingers would keep Kurda and her Ratguards pinned down for a long while: the longer the better, for the survival of Triss and Shogg depended upon it.