Beyond the Deepwoods (14 page)

‘Which way
now
?’ he said, and groaned. Everything had gone wrong. Everything! Not only had he strayed from the path, now he'd even managed to stray from the
forest
!’ And
you
wanted to ride a sky ship,’ he said to himself bitterly. ‘Some chance! A stupid, gangly little
mistake for a woodtroll, that's all you are.’ And in his head he heard the voices of Spelda and Tuntum chiding him once again. ‘He wouldn't listen. He never learns.’

Twig closed his eyes. A lost child once more, he did what he had always done when a choice proved too big for him: he stuck his arm out and began to spin round.

‘Which? What? Where? Who?

I do choose YOU!’

Opening his eyes, Twig stood and stared down the tunnel which chance had selected for him.

‘Chance is for the ignorant and weak,’ came a voice that turned Twig's skin to gooseflesh.

He spun round. There in the shadows stood one of the goblins. His eyes glinted like fire. What was this new twist to the gyle goblin's behaviour? Twig wondered.

‘If you do truly want to get out of the colony, Master Twig,’ the goblin said, more softly now, ‘you must follow me.’ So saying, he turned on his heel and marched off.

Twig swallowed nervously. Of course he wanted to get out, but what if this was just a trick? What if he was being led into an ambush?

It was hot in the tunnel, so stiflingly hot he felt dizzy and sick. The low waxy ceiling oozed sticky drops which plashed on his head and slid down his neck. His stomach ached for something to eat.

‘I've got no choice,’ he whispered.

The goblin's cloak flapped round a corner and disappeared from sight. Twig followed.

The pair of them walked along tunnels, up and down flights of stairs and through long empty chambers. The air was rank with the smell of staleness and decay; it was hard to breathe and Twig's head spun. His skin was clammy; his tongue was dry.

‘Where are we going?’ he called out weakly. ‘I reckon you're as lost as I am.’

‘Trust me, Master Twig,’ came the wheedling reply and, even as he spoke, Twig felt a cool draught hit his face.

He shut his eyes and breathed in the fresh air. When he opened them again, the goblin was out of sight. The next moment, as he rounded a corner, Twig saw light. Sunlight! Streaming in through the towering arched doorway.

Twig broke into a run. Faster and faster he sprinted, scarcely able to believe that he'd made it. Down the final tunnel … across the hall … and
OUT
!

‘
YES!
’ he shouted.

In front of him stood a group of three gyle goblins. They turned round and stared at him dully.

‘All right?’ said Twig cheerfully.

‘Do we look all right?’ said one.

‘Our Grossmother did try to poison us,’ said another.

‘So we did punish her,’ said the third.

The first one looked down at his dirty bare feet miserably. ‘But we did act too hastily,’ he said.

The others nodded. ‘Who will feed us now? Who will protect us from the gloamglozer?’ they said.

Suddenly, all three of them burst into tears. ‘We
need
her,’ they wailed in unison.

Twig stared back at the dirty gyle goblins in their filthy rags and snorted. ‘You
need
to think for yourselves,’ he said.

‘But we're tired and hungry,’ the goblins whined.

Twig stared back at them angrily. ‘So…’ He paused. He was about to say ‘so what?’, as the three unhelpful goblins had said to him before. But he was not a gyle goblin. ‘So am I,’ he said simply. ‘So am I.’

And with that he turned away from the gyle goblin colony, crossed the courtyard and marched back into the surrounding Deepwoods.

· CHAPTER EIGHT ·
T
HE
B
ANDERBEAR

T
wig undid the toggles of his fleecy jacket as he walked on. The wind had changed direction and there was an autumnal feel to the air. The weather was as unpredictable as everything else in the treacherous Deepwoods.

All round him, the forest was dripping as a recent fall of snow rapidly melted from the canopy above. Still hot, Twig stopped, closed his eyes and turned his face upwards. The icy water splashed onto his face. It was cool and refreshing.

Suddenly, something large and heavy struck Twig's head –
BOOF
– so hard that he was knocked to the ground. He lay still, not daring to look. What had hit him? The gloamglozer? Could the fearsome creature
really
exist? If it did, it was no use cowering. Twig opened his eyes, jumped to his feet and drew his knife.

‘Where are you?’ he screamed. ‘Show yourself!’

Nothing appeared. Nothing at all. And the only sound to be heard was the steady ‘drip drip drip’ from the trees. Then came the second
BOOF
. Twig spun round. A huge pillow of snow, which must have slipped from the branches overhead, had completely flattened a combbush.

Twig put his hand up. There was snow in his hair. There was snow all around him. He started to laugh. ‘Snow,’ he said. ‘That's all it is. Just snow.’

The dripping increased as Twig continued on his way. Like heavy rain it was, pouring down below. Twig was soon wet through and, as he trudged deeper into the Deepwoods, the ground became more and more boggy. Every step became an effort – an effort made all the worse by hunger.

‘With the slaughterers,’ he muttered. ‘That was the last time I had a proper meal. And Sky knows how long ago that was.’

Twig looked up. The sun was bright and even down on the diamond-dappled forest floor he could feel its ripening warmth. Fragile twists of mist were coiling up from the soggy soil. And as the hammelhornskin dried out, Twig himself began to steam.

His hunger was impossible to ignore. It squirmed and gnawed inside his stomach. It growled impatiently. ‘I know, I know,’ said Twig. ‘And as soon as I find something, you can have it. The trouble is, what?’

When he came to a tree heavy with a deep, dark purple harvest, he stopped. Some of the round, plump pieces of fruit were so ripe they had split their skins and
were dripping golden juice. Twig licked his lips. The fruit looked so juicily sweet, so succulently delicious. He reached up and clasped one.

It was soft to the touch and came away from its stalk with a slurp. Twig turned it over in his hand. He polished it on his furry waistcoat. Slowly, he brought it to his mouth and…

‘No!’ he said. ‘I dare not.’ And he hurled the fruit away. His stomach gurgled angrily. ‘You'll have to wait,’ Twig snapped, and marched grimly on, muttering under his breath about how stupid he'd been even to
consider
.
eating something unknown. For although many of the fruits and berries in the Deepwoods were sweet and nourishing, many more were deadly.

A single drop of juice from the rosy heartapple, for instance, was enough to kill you on the spot. And death was far from the only danger. There was fruit which could blind you, fruit which could explode inside you, fruit which could leave you paralysed. There was one, the scrapewort berry, which brought you out in a warty blue rash that never disappeared. And there was another, the pipsap, which shrank those who ate it – the more you ate, the smaller you became. Those unfortunates who had too many disappeared altogether.

‘
Much
too dangerous,’ Twig said to himself. ‘I'll just have to hang on till I come to a tree I do recognize.’

Yet, as Twig continued through the Deepwoods, of all the countless different types of tree he saw, there wasn't a single one that looked familiar.

‘This is what comes of growing up with woodtrolls,’ he sighed wearily.

Since they never strayed from the path, the woodtrolls relied on others to provide them with fruit from the Deepwoods. They were barterers, not foragers. Now, more than ever before, Twig wished this were not the case.

Trying hard to ignore his stomach's protests, Twig tramped on. His body felt heavy but his head was oddly light. Mouth-watering fragrances wafted towards him from the fruit trees, while the fruits themselves seemed to glow enticingly. For hunger is a curious creature. It dulls the brain, but heightens the senses. And when a twig cracked, far away in front of him, Twig heard it as though it had broken right beside him.

He stopped dead and peered ahead. Someone or something was there. Twig advanced, taking care not to tread on any of the brittle twigs himself. Closer he went, darting from tree to tree. He heard something moan close by and crouched down out of sight. Then, heart chugging, he edged slowly forwards, peered nervously round – and found himself face to face with a huge and hairy mountain of a beast.

It was rubbing the side of its furry face gently with one massive clawed paw. When their eyes met, the creature threw back its head, bared its teeth and howled at the sky.

‘Aaaargh!’ Twig screamed, and scrambled back behind the tree. Shaking with fear, he heard the splinter and crack of snapping branches as the beast lumbered off, crashing its way through the undergrowth. All at once the noise stopped, and the air filled with a plaintive yodel. The next instant, from far away, a second voice yodelled in reply.

‘Banderbears!’ said Twig.

He'd heard them often enough before, but this was the first Twig had seen. It was even bigger than he'd imagined.

Although prodigiously large and strong, the banderbear is a timid creature. Its large doleful eyes are said to see the world larger than it really is.

Twig peeked round the tree again. The banderbear had gone. A trail of crushed vegetation led back into the forest. ‘That's one path I
won't
be taking,’ he said. ‘I…’

He froze to the spot. The banderbear had
not
gone. It was standing there, not ten paces away. With its pale green fur, it was almost perfectly camouflaged. ‘Wuh!’ it groaned softly and raised a giant paw to its cheek. ‘Wuu-uh?’

The creature was truly massive, at least twice as tall as Twig himself, and built like a vast pyramid. It had tree-trunk legs, and arms so long its knuckles grazed the ground. The four claws at the end of each limb were all as long as Twig's forearms, as were the two tusks that curved up from its jutting lower jaw. Only its ears – delicate winglike objects, constantly on the flutter – did not look as though they had been hewn from rock.