A Vanishing of Griffins Read online

And the trapdoor.

  And now…

  High above, on the wooden platform, King Arpie looked down at them and grinned. Patch could see the despair on Erner’s face. He also noticed that everyone on the platform kept turning to stare out into the dark shadows of the cavern beyond, as if expecting something.

  “Um, Alia…” said Patch. “What do you think is happening?”

  Alia stared at the King. “When we fell, I presumed we’d landed in a dungeon.” She started to click her fingers, and Patch had no idea why. “Now, well…it seems we have an audience.”

  “An audience for what?” said Patch.

  “Exactly,” said Alia, clicking her fingers more frantically.

  “Uh, what are you doing?”

  “Damn,” said Alia. “Damn. Not a fizz. Not even the littlest spark.” She looked out into the dark cavern, and seemed frightened. Patch realized he’d never actually seen her look scared before.

  “Spark?” said Patch. “You mean…”

  She rubbed her fingers together and frowned. “Nothing’s there! No magic!” Suddenly she held up her wrists, glaring at the manacles. “Of all the stupid, stupid luck… Clag iron! Has to be!”

  Behind him, coming from the depths of the cavern, Patch heard a distant noise. It was a clunk, little more, but the audience high above them started to chatter, their faces oddly eager. Erner looked sick.

  “Clag what?” said Patch.

  Alia rattled her manacles. “Sometimes cheaply forged iron gets just the right taint of quartz. It weakens the metal, you see, that’s why it’s cheap, but it just happens to ground a Sorcerer, drain their power!” Concentrating hard, she clicked her fingers. A glowing speck floated up and vanished. “See! Almost nothing left! I have to get these manacles off before…”

  Before…

  There was another noise from the depths of the cavern. This time, it was the echoing sound of a roar.

  Terror launched Patch into action. He looked around for a moment, then turned to Alia. “Quickly, set your wrists on the ground!” he said. “I have an idea!” He hurried to the cavern wall as Alia kneeled and held out her wrists. Patch ran back, kneeled in front of her, and raised a large rock high above his head. It wasn’t easy, given that he was in manacles too. “Now hold very still!”

  Alia glared at him and pulled her arms back. “Absolutely not!”

  “You said the metal’s weak! You said we have to get it off your hands!”

  “You’re as likely to break my wrists as free them, lad.”

  An odd change came over the audience above them. The chattering stopped, all eyes focused on the shadows.

  Alia and Patch stood and slowly turned around. Something was out there, but…

  They saw a flash of white, rising in the darkness, and watched it go up, up, up, soaring, and all the while coming towards them. It started to come down.

  With a great splat, the object hit the ground ten feet away.

  It was the head of a cow. The cow had been dead for a while – the ragged ends of the flesh at the neck were dried, and there was an awful smell of rot coming from it. The nose had been chewed and the eyes were gone.

  Patch stared at it. Alia stared at it. The audience gave a cheer of excitement.

  Then another noise became clear to Patch’s ears: a regular thumping, the sound of great feet galloping towards them.

  Fear locked Patch’s limbs in place. Alia was still trying to click her fingers, to no avail.

  He wondered if he could lip-Pipe something – there were Songs called Shrills that could scare off hungry animals, and certainly a Push Song would come in handy right now. He’d only ever tried those with a Pipe, never with his lips alone, but his lips were too dry; he couldn’t get a single note.

  And from the dark emerged a vast beast, twice the height of a human. Four-legged, its dark hide was covered in what seemed to be spikes, long and sharp, from almost every inch of skin. Its mouth had two enormous tusks that stuck out to the sides, five feet long at least. The rest of the mouth was a jumbled assortment of horribly jagged teeth; thick gollops of drool poured out as the creature ran towards them. Above the mouth, the eyes of the monster were huge and black, and sat atop a nose that dripped green mucus.

  The monster came at them full speed, but stopped at the cow’s head. It sneezed in the cloud of dust that its running had thrown into the air, and for a moment it regarded Alia and Patch with a terrible malevolence.

  Alia reached for Patch’s hand, and squeezed it. The end has come, Patch thought. After all we’ve been through. He thought of Wren, and hoped she was safe, wherever she’d ended up in the fall through the trapdoor.

  Then the monster sneezed again and grabbed the cow’s head between its teeth, before running back into the dark.

  Above them, the crowd whooped and clapped, enjoying the show.

  Patch looked back to Alia. She’d kneeled down again, her manacled wrists out in front of her.

  “Use the rock,” she whispered, not taking her eyes from the dark. “Use the rock!”

  Laughter came from the platform above. “Normally this is when people try to run away,” cried the King. “Perhaps you think you can defeat the creature with your bare hands?”

  Patch ignored him and swung the rock down towards Alia’s wrists. He missed completely, the rock thudding into the sandy floor.

  Alia winced. “Concentrate, Patch! Take your time!” She threw a quick glance at the shadows that had swallowed the monster. “Also, hurry!”

  He nodded and tried again. The manacles consisted of two pieces of metal connected at a hinge; each piece was a thick strip of iron with indentations for the prisoner’s wrists. A padlock fastened the other end of the strips, and it was the padlock that Patch was aiming for. This time he connected with it, and cheered.

  Alia yelped. He’d grazed her arm and drawn blood. The padlock wasn’t even dented.

  He caught Alia’s eye. “Keep going?” he asked.

  Alia glanced feverishly at the shadows. “Yes!” she said. “Absolutely keep going.”

  He swung again, and hit the lock full-square. A chunk of the rock broke away, but the lock itself showed no sign of damage.

  “Uh oh,” said Alia, and Patch turned to look. There it was: the distant white shape, going up and up. The cow’s head was coming their way once more.

  Patch turned back and tried again, and again, but the padlock didn’t even seem scratched. Then he heard a growl, and the thunder of feet, or hooves, or whatever the creature had on the ends of its legs, because really, when he’d seen it first, he’d been paying much more attention to the spikes and the tusks and the teeth and the eyes.

  “Please, Patch,” said Alia, her gaze locked on the movement behind Patch that he really didn’t want to see. “Please. This time.”

  Patch nodded and tried to ignore the rumbling approach of death. He raised the rock, and just as he was about to bring it down he stopped. He’d been going about this all wrong – the padlock wasn’t the weak part, because it wasn’t made of clag iron.

  He took the chunk of rock that had broken off and placed it under the manacles, at the other side – where the hinge was – then aimed there.

  “Hold still,” he said. Alia did. He swung the rock with every bit of strength he could dredge up, and he felt the hinge give as he hit it. Another quick swing, and the hinge pin fell out. The manacles came apart, and Alia was free!

  She rose. The thundering of the monster’s approach filled Patch’s ears.

  “Get behind me,” said Alia. Patch moved quickly; he saw just how close the creature was (and trotters, he thought, now that he could see its feet again). Alia raised her hands, moving her fingers quickly, shapes being traced out in the light that was coming from them, but it was still terribly weak. “Come on,” she muttered. “Come on…”

  The creature reached the cow’s head. It looked at the two of them and bared its teeth in a sneer. It opened its horrible mouth and let out a frighteningly strange noise, s
omewhere between a bark and a hiss.

  The light around Alia’s hands was growing, but Patch could sense it wouldn’t do much good, not yet – she needed more time. The creature took a step towards them. Alia screwed her face up in frustration and anger, and let out a shriek that made Patch jump.

  The creature stepped back. It bent down and gripped the cow’s head between its teeth, then ran into the dark again.

  Patch let out the breath he’d been holding. “How did you manage that?” he said.

  “I’m not sure I did anything much,” said Alia. “I suspect that creature does whatever it feels like doing.” They both looked around to the wooden platform, as a great shout came from the King.

  “What?” the King cried. “A bit of playing around with them is great fun, but this is taking far too long! Hello out there? Mrs Larkweather? Hello? Seriously, get on with it!”

  Patch gave Alia a bemused look. Mrs Larkweather? he was thinking. They call that thing Mrs Larkweather?

  And just then, he heard something strange in the distant dark. He stepped away from Alia, towards the noise.

  “Where are you…” started Alia, but Patch kept going, and kept listening.

  It sounded like: whojabootyfuldunder. And: diddydiddy diddums. Then: wasdunderlike. Then: tikkytikkytumtums.

  And again: tikkytikkytumtums.

  Patch took another step, then another, and the sounds in the cavern behind him grew fainter – the King, mostly, shouting complaints to Mrs Larkweather. The sounds in front of Patch grew much louder.

  “Oogy boogy diddums!” said a voice. “What does Dunder like most? Does Dunder like dat? Yes, he does! Tickly tumtums, tickly tumtums! He likes dat, doesn’t he? Yes, he does!”

  It wasn’t the words that made Patch’s mouth fall open in shock. It was the fact that he thought he recognized the voice.

  “Barver?” he called. “Barver?”

  Alia hurried over to him. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. In the darkness far in front of them, in the deep gloom, a head was suddenly visible, popping up from what seemed like a hole in the ground, or a sharp drop in the cavern floor.

  Patch heaved a sigh of relief. It was Barver.

  “Patch?” came the echoing reply. “What are you doing here?”

  Patch smiled, but not for long: a moment later, another shape appeared, as the monster leaped from the hole and, snarling, ran right towards him. Alia weaved her hands in the air, and this time they trailed a purple light that had a curious solidity to it. Confidence had returned to her expression, even though the creature was bearing down on them.

  “Dunder!” came the voice of a woman, slightly trembly. “Dunder, you stop right there! Now!”

  The creature halted at once and sat on its haunches, panting. Its great tongue lolled from its terrible mouth.

  “It’s like a puppy…” said Alia. “But from Hell.”

  Patch nodded. That summed it up very well indeed.

  Barver walked slowly towards them; beside him was an old woman, relying on a cane for support.

  “Mrs Larkweather, I’m guessing,” mumbled Alia. “Presumably the owner of this…creature.”

  Dunder the Hell-puppy watched Mrs Larkweather and Barver approach, and was certainly very happy as the woman drew near to it and reached out a hand, rubbing its side hard in among the lethal-looking spikes.

  “Good boy,” said Mrs Larkweather.

  Alia started to walk closer, and Patch followed with some reluctance. Even though Alia had recovered her powers, the sight of Dunder was still very unsettling.

  Barver was scowling at them, Patch realized.

  “I think you two need to explain yourselves!” said the dracogriff.

  Alia gave a little cough. “Um, I may have made a slight mistake and mentioned Erner to someone while we were in The Ungrateful Worm. We were brought before the King and accused of being Custodian spies. The natter-clumps were delicious, by the way.”

  “Oh, don’t try to change the subject,” said Barver. “All you had to do was keep Patch and Wren safe, and now look at you! A blink of an eye away from horrible death!” He glanced at Patch and frowned. “Where is Wren?”

  “I haven’t seen her since we fell down the trapdoor into this cavern,” said Patch.

  “We’ll find her,” said Barver. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  Alia nodded towards Mrs Larkweather. “Is she your contact, Barver? The one you said was highly regarded by the King?”

  “Ah, yes!” said Barver. “Allow me to introduce Herdy Larkweather. Herdy, my friends Alia and Patch.”

  Mrs Larkweather bowed her head. “At your service. This here –” she nodded to the creature – “is Dunder. He’s a big softy, really, although he would have torn you both limb from limb in an instant if he’d felt like it. Not with me here, mind! He’s very obedient, is Dunder, so you’ve nothing to worry about now.”

  Alia and Patch shared a look. Dunder wasn’t really what the words “big softy” brought to mind. “Good to meet you,” said Alia. “Interesting animal you have there. Any idea what species it is?”

  Mrs Larkweather fussed Dunder’s chin. “None whatsoever,” she said. “But me and him have been together for twenty years! He was a lot smaller when I found him, and had none of them spikes, but he grew. Goodness, he grew!”

  “They used to work for the Pirate Queen of Ordin,” said Barver. “That’s where I know Herdy and Dunder from, you see. Far to the south. I was very surprised to hear that they were in Pengersick.”

  “We needed to move somewhere cooler,” Mrs Larkweather explained. “Dunder started to overheat too easily. Came up here when it was King Popper’s rule, only last year. Nice big cavern, they told me, lovely and cosy with plenty of ventilation, and they weren’t wrong!”

  “Yes,” said Alia, not holding back on the sarcasm. “Lovely and cosy, for all the executions. That’s what you two do for a living, yes? People get dropped down here, and everyone watches as they die?”

  Mrs Larkweather seemed quite hurt by Alia’s tone. “Well, really,” she said. “The threat of Dunder is usually plenty by itself. Before King Arpie, an actual execution was a rare thing. But I’m afraid Arpie turned out to be quite keen on them.” She stopped and looked at something past Patch. “Oh, heck, speak of the devil…”

  Patch and Alia turned to see King Arpie striding towards them from the far wall of the cavern, with a handful of others in his wake. In all the commotion, Patch had forgotten about the Pirate King; he seemed more than a little angry, and was cursing as he walked, using quite a variety of phrases that Patch had never heard before.

  At last, the King and his entourage reached them; he paused for a moment, trying to compose himself. “Mrs Larkweather,” he managed. “I am very disappointed. Do you know how much your…creature costs to feed?” Mrs Larkweather opened her mouth to reply, but the King answered his own question: “Three cows a week! Three! And what do I expect in return? Just that whenever I send people down here to be executed, they end up dead in as entertaining a fashion as you and your pet can manage, as a lesson to anyone else who dares to betray me, steal from me, or maybe even just get on my nerves! Do you understand?”

  This time the King waited for Mrs Larkweather’s timid response. “I understand, Your Majesty.”

  “And do you know what I really do not expect?” said the King. “That instead of killing them horribly, you get into a nice little chat with them! What next?” He seemed to notice Barver for the first time, and sneered. “Were you and your friend going to offer them some tea?”

  Mrs Larkweather kept quiet.

  “Well, answer me, you idiot!” yelled the King. He stepped towards her and jabbed her in the shoulder with his staff. “Answer your King!”

  “Sorry, Your Majesty,” said Mrs Larkweather, sounding close to tears.

  Up to this point, what had held Patch’s attention was the sheer gobsmacking arrogance of the King. Suddenly, though, he became aware of what Alia and Barver were
looking at, utterly fascinated.

  Dunder.

  Dunder, who was watching the King with narrowed eyes, as the King made his owner very, very upset.

  The man nearest the King had also spotted this, and spoke up with a tremble in his voice. “Um, sire…” said the man. “I think, perhaps…”

  “Oh, do shut your face, Skreep,” said the King. “I’m King! I’m allowed to lose my temper.” He turned back to Mrs Larkweather. “Now,” said the King. “I’m going to go back to the viewing gallery, and I expect there to be a nice little show, ending in plenty of blood and guts. Have you got that?” He jabbed her again. Skreep winced and took a step backwards, as did everyone in the King’s entourage. There was a barely audible growl coming from Dunder’s throat.

  “Yes, sire,” said Mrs Larkweather.

  “Good,” said the King, sounding much calmer all of a sudden. “Now that we’ve sorted out this little misunderstanding, I think we should—”

  He didn’t get to say anything else.

  In one move, Dunder opened his vast mouth and brought his head down, and the King disappeared into the creature’s maw. Then Dunder sat back up. There was some muffled screaming.

  “Dunder!” said Mrs Larkweather, horrified. “You put the King down right this second! You bad, bad boy!”

  Dunder looked ashamed, but he kept his mouth firmly shut.

  “I mean it!” said Mrs Larkweather. “Put the King down right now! And don’t chew him! Don’t you dare chew the King!”

  Dunder chewed. The King’s entourage gasped. Barver and Alia were enjoying every moment.

  “Put him down right now!” shrieked Mrs Larkweather, wagging a firm finger of disapproval, and at last Dunder obeyed.

  He opened his mouth, bent forward, and spat.

  Out came the King. Patch looked, but not too closely. King Arpie Noss wasn’t going to be doing any more ruling. Or breathing, for that matter.

  “Oh, Arpie,” said Skreep with a sigh. “You daft sod.”

  Dunder sneezed, then coughed, and out came Arpie’s crown, covered in slobber and rather dented. The Hell-puppy whimpered and looked lovingly at Mrs Larkweather.