Clash of the Sky Galleons (11 page)

No sooner had Quint, Maris and Wind Jackal returned to the Tarry Vine tavern from the sky-shipyard, than his father had left again, ordering the two of them to stay behind.

‘Wait here for the crew!’ he’d barked as he strode out, his face drained of all colour. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

So they’d sat there, at the carved table, for hours. Maris had dozed off, while he, Quint, had been left to brood … He looked up at his friend.

‘No, not yet,’ he said, in a tired, listless voice.

‘I just don’t get it…’ Maris began.

‘Don’t get what?’ said Quint, stroking Nibblick miserably.

‘This message …’ Maris said with a frown.

‘It’s a trap, just like the others,’ Quint said darkly. ‘Think about it, Maris. First the slave market, then the cliff quarries, and now the Sluice Tower. Don’t you see? They’re all convenient, out-of-the-way places to set traps. Turbot Smeal is a fugitive. All Undertown - not just those who lost loved ones in the great fire of the Western Quays - would cheerfully kill him as soon as look at him, so he
has
to hide. In his evil, twisted way, he blames my father for his fate, so what does he do? He lures Wind Jackal to him …’

‘You mean …’ said Maris, staring at him.

‘Yes,’ said Quint. ‘Turbot Smeal himself is sending these messages.’

He looked down at the little ratbird in his lap. ‘I don’t know quite how, but he is, I’m sure of it. And he’s lying in wait, like a fat woodspider at the centre of a spider-silk web.’

The crew started returning to the tavern as late afternoon was slipping into early evening, and the sun was sliding down behind the rooftops. Ratbit and Spillins were first back. They’d not only managed to find the spider-silk sails that Wind Jackal had requested, but had had them delivered to Thelvis Hollrig’s shipyard, where they were to be rigged ready for the following morning’s departure.

‘Drove a real hard bargain, we did,’ Ratbit was saying, his swivel-eyes wandering round the gathered company as he sat down at the large lufwood table. ‘Eight sails for the price of four.’

‘And there’s enough material over to re-line my cater-nest,’ Spillins added, a broad smile across his wrinkly old face. ‘Fair chilled to the bone I was, up there. It’ll stop those draughts whistling through …’

‘No more than you deserve, old timer,’ said Ratbit, slapping his companion on the shoulders.

Quint was about to ask whether either of them had seen Wind Jackal, when Spillins turned and peered at the main entrance to the tavern. His rubbery smile grew wider.

‘Evening, shipmates!’ Steg Jambles announced jovially, as he strode across the floor.

The others looked up at him in surprise - before bursting out laughing.

‘Steg, you old rogue!’ Ratbit exclaimed, looking him up and down. ‘I thought you were meant to be buying new ropes and rigging…’

‘And so I did,’ said Steg.
‘And
delivered them to the shipyards …’

‘So, the chandlery sheds are selling fine jackets as well now, are they?’ said Spillins.

‘You look as elegant as a leaguesmaster in all that finery!’ Ratbit teased him.

Steg looked down and plucked at the new jacket he was wearing. It was a deep red, tapered at the waist and high-buttoned, with clam-pearl fastenings and a dark fromp-fur trim at the collar and cuffs.

‘If you think
I
look good,’ he said, turning and raising a hand towards Tem Barkwater behind him, ‘then
take a look at the lad here,’ he said.

Blushing furiously, Tem shambled forward and stood there, stooped and awkward, shuffling his feet.

‘Wonderful!’ cried Maris, clapping her hands together. Tem, you look magnificent!’

Tem lowered his head bashfully. He was wearing a thick jerkin and a tilder skin jacket, heavy canvas leggings and stout boots which, unlike Steg’s foppish jacket, looked practical and hardwearing. But it wasn’t these that caught the eye. Instead, it was the broad hammelhorn felt cap with the upturned brim which the youth wore at a selfconsciously jaunty angle that drew attention to itself. It was bright, flaming crimson and several sizes too big, and Tem was clearly in need of his very own hat-tipper to stop it slipping down over his reddening face. Gazing at the floor, he pulled the extraordinary headgear off and held it behind his back.

‘And you’ve had a haircut!’ said Maris.

‘No he hasn’t,’ said Steg. ‘He had his ears lowered!’

The crew burst out laughing - and Tem, blushing all the more furiously, rubbed his hands over his unruly mop of thick, freshly cropped hair.

‘Having fun, I see,’ came a soft, insidious voice behind them, and everyone turned to see Filbus Queep the quartermaster standing there; the great flat-head goblin, Sagbutt, standing at his shoulder.

‘Productive day, Queep?’ said Steg Jambles, his face becoming serious.

The quartermaster nodded as he took his place at the table. ‘I’ve secured a contract with the League of Taper and Tallow Moulders,’ he said. ‘A particularly lucrative contract, I might add, since none of our fine leaguesmen are brave enough to undertake such a task.’

‘Which is?’ asked Steg.

‘We’re to deliver a cargo of candle-wax to the Great Shryke Slave Market…’

‘But we’re meant to be picking up a consignment of bloodoak timber,’ Quint butted in.

Queep swivelled round and fixed the youth with a piercing stare. ‘Indeed?’ he said, narrowing his eyes. ‘Blookoak timber, you say?’

‘Yes, it was agreed this morning between my father and Thelvis Hollrig,’ Quint explained, ‘to cover the cost of the repairs to the
Galerider
.’

‘I see …’ said Filbus Queep, taking out a small notebook and a stub of ironwood charcoal. He opened the book and
scribbled some calculations. ‘That should work out very nicely…’ He smiled thinly. ‘Repaired sky ship - faster journey time - more hold capacity …. Tallow to slave market. On to Timber Glades. Bloodoak to Undertown …’ He snapped the little book shut and looked round the table. ‘Equals a healthy profit!’

‘I’ll drink to that!’ roared Steg Jambles, raising a tankard of woodale.

The others raised their own tankards and drank a toast, as Maris and Quint exchanged glances. Queep wiped woodale foam from his mouth and looked at Quint.

‘Anything wrong, Master Quint?’ he asked.

Quint traced a finger over Rain Fox’s name on the table. ‘There’s been another message,’ he said quietly.

All eyes turned to him.

‘Smeal?’ said Queep bitterly.

Quint nodded.

‘Not again!’ the quartermaster muttered, removing his steel-rimmed glasses and polishing them slowly on the front of his shirt. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘If Wind Jackal were to decide to go off on his own in pursuit of Smeal, then I would be the first to give him my best wishes.’ He paused to replace his glasses and pushed them up his nose. ‘Yet if he wishes to continue as captain of the
Galerider,
then I think we, as crew, have the right to expect his undivided attention.’

Steg gasped. ‘
“If he wishes to continue as captain”,’
he repeated. ‘Queep, this is mutinous talk.’

‘On the contrary’ Queep responded, ‘I am merely pointing out the duties of a captain. If those duties are
not fulfilled, then the individual forfeits his right to remain captain.’ He shrugged. ‘It is the way sky pirate captains have been deposed and replaced ever since sky pirate ships first took to the sky’

All round the table, the crew nodded sagely. Quint looked down at the table, angry and embarrassed. It was Maris who broke the awkward silence.

‘Wind Jackal is trying to bring a former quartermaster to account for his treachery’ she said. ‘Now, it seems, his current quartermaster is set on turning his crew against him.’ She stared furiously at Filbus Queep.

‘Is this true?’ came a sonorous voice.

Everyone looked round at the newcomer, a mixture of shock and guilt plastered across their features. Spillins blanched, while Steg Jambles turned woodbeet-red. Both of them looked away. Ratbit held the captain’s gaze, but couldn’t stop blinking.

‘Well?’ said Wind Jackal.

‘Just heard you received another message,’ said Filbus Queep silkily his voice low and eyebrows raised.

‘Did you now?’ said Wind Jackal.

He headed for the largest chair at the table - a wooden armchair with interlocking tarry vines carved into the upright back - and sat down. Then he looked at each of the crew-members seated round the table, one by one, his gaze lingering just long enough to make each of them uneasy.

‘Have I ever let you down?’ he asked, his eyes now darting round the circle of crew-members. ‘Have I?’

A couple of them shook their heads and looked down,
unable to hold his gaze. Steg Jambles, blushing, cleared his throat.

‘All the years we’ve sailed together, haven’t I always looked out for you?’

Tem Barkwater scratched the back of his neck. Ratbit, elbows up on the table, supported his forehead on his hands.

‘Spillins,’ said Wind Jackal. ‘You’ve been in my crew longer than any of the others. ‘On all our raids and battles, have I, as captain, ever left a crew-member behind?’

‘N … no,’ the oakelf stammered.

Wind Jackal turned to Ratbit. The mobgnome wilted under his intense stare.

‘That time we were ambushed in the lufwood glades -I came back for you on prowlgrinback, remember?’

‘I’ll never forget it, sir,’ Ratbit replied.

‘Sagbutt,’ said the captain, turning his attention on the flat-head. ‘Do you remember down in the boom-docks, when you foolishly turned your back on that leagues-man and were clubbed unconscious? Eh? We ended up losing half our cargo, didn’t we? Did I turf you off the
Galerider?’

‘No, sir,’ the flat-head grunted.

Wind Jackal’s eyes scanned the table.

‘Steg, you fought with me at the Battle of Wilderness Lair. I know your heart is true.’

Steg nodded. There was a painful lump in his throat.

‘And you, Filbus.’ Wind Jackal’s penetrating gaze rested on Filbus Queep. ‘Surely you remember the oath you made to me when I rescued you from that group of
murderous under-professors in Sanctaphrax?’