Vega Jane and the Maze of Monsters Page 4

  ‘Not important?’ I hissed back. ‘You’re all I’ve got, Delph. I can’t go through the Quag without you.’

  He looked away. I knew Delph so well that I understood he was searching for the right words to say back to me.

  ‘Well, neither will I,’ he said. ‘Both or nothing, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He drew closer to me. ‘Then what I’d do is get him up high-like with Destin and when the bloke least expects it, drop him.’

  I nodded slowly. This plan was certainly tempting. But if we killed the king, what might his minions do to us?

  Thorne led us back to the room where we had dined. Lit torches still lined the wall. He sat at the table, drew a knife, sliced open his finger and then waved the Stone over it and, I supposed, thought good thoughts. The wound instantly healed.

  He smiled. ‘We will begin the flight lessons next light,’ he said. ‘You will be taken back to the cage until then.’

  ‘Surely you have sufficient guards to watch over us without resorting to that,’ I said. ‘You’ll be invading Wormwood soon enough with your mighty legions. Compared to that, I doubt that the three of us will pose much of a challenge. We are totally in your power.’

  Thorne rubbed his beard while Delph and I stood there watching him, unsure how he would react.

  However, my plan worked and we soon found ourselves back in the room where I had slept.

  The ekos left the three of us there, but I noted that a pair of them was stationed right outside the opening to the room. I sat on the wooden pallet as Harry Two sidled up to be petted. Next to me, Delph said in a low voice, ‘It’s not enough for us to escape this place, Vega Jane. In his blasted aero ship, Thorne can fly right over the Wall.’

  ‘We’ll never let that happen, Delph. Never!’

  ‘So, you got a plan?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘Um, it’s forming right now in my mind,’ I said lamely. I lay down on the pallet. ‘I just need to sleep on it is all.’

  ‘Sleep!’ exclaimed Delph incredulously. ‘How can you think of sleep with all this goin’ on? I’ll not sleep a wink!’ he added emphatically.

  ‘Brilliant, then you can keep watch.’

  I closed my eyes, and Harry Two settled down next to me.

  As I expected, shortly after, I heard Delph’s soft snores. He was stretched out on the hard floor next to the pallet, sound asleep. His features were peaceful. I doubted that would last. I pulled the blanket off the pallet and covered him with it.

  I took another look at Delph’s features. He was very tall, about six and a half feet, with huge shoulders, dark hair and a wide forehead that crinkled when he was embarrassed, which was often. He was brave. And, well, just such a good Wug. He had never let me down.

  My heart felt like it had been split in half. Delph was expecting me to have a plan, to lead him and Harry Two out of here, and to save Wormwood from the mad king. Yet I had nothing. I was not a leader. I had always been a loner, more comfortable up my tree back in Wormwood with only my thoughts as companions. But now . . . ?

  I lay back on the pallet knowing full well that sleep would not be coming for me.

  I had no plan. And without a plan, we had no chance of survival.

  6

  THE FLIGHT OF THE KING

  Rough hands pulled us awake from our beds. It was a group of ekos, led by Luc.

  ‘All right, all right,’ muttered Delph as he stood, towering over them.

  I stretched and felt kinks in my arms and shoulders pop. I had been dreaming something, but I couldn’t remember what. They pushed us out of the chamber and down a poorly lit passageway. I could hear the sounds of digging and I figured that Thorne’s minions laboured non-stop. He struck me as that sort of king.

  We filed into a dark chamber with a dirty, pebble-strewn floor. Here, we were forced at sword point to sit and wait.

  Within a few slivers, Thorne walked in. He was dressed in trousers, boots and a long, loose shirt.

  ‘Can we get something to eat?’ I asked.

  ‘After we’ve flown,’ said Thorne. ‘It’s early yet; your hunger will hold.’

  I bristled at this, figuring that his belly was no doubt always kept full.

  ‘Do you have the chain?’ I asked, biting back my anger.

  He lifted his shirt and I saw it strapped around his waist. Seeing my chain on him made my face flush. He smiled at my obvious discomfort. ‘To the winner goes the spoils, Vega.’

  ‘Right,’ I said briskly. ‘Well, let’s crack on.’

  We were joined by a dozen ekos and made our way up a set of steps in the same chamber that we had fallen into when we first arrived.

  With the cranking of gears, and ekos straining on ropes below, the ceiling canopy rose, revealing the blue sky. As we clambered on to the surface of the Quag, the dozen ekos raced past us and formed a perimeter, their weapons ready and their gazes scanning both sky and land. They looked like they had done this before. Then they removed their peaked caps and put them in their pockets.

  Next, they sank down into the long grasses. Except for their eyes, they were completely invisible. Now I understood the grass on their arms and heads. They had adapted to their environment.

  I shot a glance at Delph and saw that he had noted this too.

  ‘Smart to become invisible in a place like the Quag,’ he said.

  I nodded and looked at Thorne. He was scanning the skies, and then his gaze swept the area we were in. He grunted at an armed ekos, who came forward and relinquished his weapon to Thorne. Thorne expertly examined the morta, raised it to his shoulder, swivelled around, aimed into the air and fired. A moment later a bird fell from the sky, mortally wounded.

  Thorne handed the morta back to the ekos and gave me a derisive look. ‘Unlike you, Vega, I came into the Quag armed and ready. However, when I fell in the hole, I thought I was finished. But when I fired off the first morta round at the ekos, they scattered like dormice. After that, they came back to me on their knees and it’s been that way ever since. That was the easy part, actually. The hard part was teaching the blighters to do things, make things. I plan to return to Wormwood in triumph. That’s the only thing that’s kept me going all this time. Now, my lesson, Vega. How do we proceed?’

  ‘I have to go with you,’ I said.

  ‘How is that possible?’

  I indicated the straps still hanging from my chest.

  ‘Why can’t you just tell me what to do?’ he countered.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘You jump straight up or get a running start and leap into the air. You point your hands where you want to go. Shoulders and head up to gain height. Reverse that to go down. Right before you touch the ground, slip your feet downward so you can land on them. But if you botch any of that while you’re up there by yourself, we’ll need something to pick up the pieces of you with.’

  Thorne, if it were possible, looked even paler than normal.

  ‘Let’s try it your way first,’ he said with as much dignity as he could muster.

  I held out my hand. ‘Let me have the chain, then.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘If I’m controlling the flying, I need to have the chain.’

  He lifted his shirt, removed it, handed it over and then stood with his back to me while I strapped him into the harness.

  He glanced back at me. ‘Just remember, Vega, that your friend and your canine will be surrounded by my ekos. If anything happens to me, they die.’

  I turned away so he would not see the utter hatred on my face. ‘I understand.’

  Destin, I could tell, had been ice cold while around Thorne’s waist. Now the links warmed to my touch. That gave me comfort.

  ‘Because we’re tied together, we’re going to have to jump straight up. Just mimic my movements. Right, then, on the count of three. One . . . two . . . three!’

  On the last number, I kicked off hard, and so did he, albeit a little late. We rose awkwardly into the air and then quickly gained both speed and
height.

  I slowly lifted my feet into the air, drawing his with mine. We levelled out and soared along. The wind pushed harshly into my eyes and they started to water. From my cloak pocket I pulled out the goggles that I had used at Stacks. Thorne had not taken these from me because there was nothing special about them. But with the goggles on, I could see clearly and not be troubled by the wind in my eyes. Thorne’s long hair blew into my face, but I tucked it under the harness’s leather straps and it stayed there.

  Thorne said, ‘This is absolutely incredible.’

  Though I despised him, I nearly laughed at the wonder in his voice and words. It was exactly how I had felt when I first took to the air.

  I led him through the same drills that I had with Delph. We stayed up for a while, doing ascents and descents, changing direction, darting around trees and soaring over small hills. While Thorne gazed around spellbound, I was taking in every detail and comparing it to the map of the Quag I had in my head and to what I had seen from the cliff when we first entered the Quag.

  And with what I was seeing, I thought I might be sick.

  The dark, fog-shrouded river I had spotted to the west from the cliff had moved to the north. The forested mountain to the north that had looked blue had shifted to the east. And the rocky slope was no longer even there.

  I said to Thorne, ‘What is that mountain in the distance?’

  ‘I have no idea, having never been there.’

  ‘I suppose it’s always been there, though,’ I said. ‘I mean, whenever you’ve looked at it, the thing’s been right where it’s always been, hasn’t it?’

  He turned his head and I could see a faint smile. ‘If you’re referring to how things in the Quag tend to move themselves, then yes, I have noticed that.’

  I exclaimed, ‘How can a mountain or river move? It’s impossible, isn’t it?’

  ‘You will find that nothing in the Quag is impossible,’ he sneered.

  It seemed barmy to believe such a thing was true, but the facts were literally staring me in the face.

  Screams ripped me from my thoughts. I looked down and saw a very young ekos being chased by two freks. The other ekos were firing their mortas, but the ekos and its pursuers were well out of the weapons’ range.

  ‘Idiot creature,’ snapped Thorne, who was looking down now. ‘Ah, well, let’s do some more manoeuvring, Ve—’

  However, I had already gone into a steep dive.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ screamed Thorne.

  The little ekos could never outrun the freks. They were gaining with every leap of their long limbs. In less than a sliver, he would be done for.

  I aimed so that I would approach from the rear. I slipped Destin from around my waist as Thorne continued to struggle.

  ‘Up, up!’ he screamed in my ear. ‘No!’

  Down below I could see full-grown ekos racing along, their mortas aimed. And there was another ekos – a female, by her appearance – running faster than any of them. Though she had no morta, I knew almost certainly she was the little ekos’s mother.

  I swooped in behind the freks and used Destin to swat them on the sides of the head. They were instantly bowled over by the blows. I put on a burst of speed, dropped the hand in which I held Destin and soared over the little ekos.

  ‘Grab it,’ I called down to him. He looked up, the fear painful to see in his small face.

  ‘Grab it!’ I screamed, indicating the chain.

  I heard growls behind us. The freks had recovered. I looked back. They were gaining. I looked ahead. A huge stand of trees was just ahead. I had to pull up.

  ‘Go! Go!’ screamed Thorne, trying to snatch at the chain that I kept just out of reach. ‘Leave the damn creature. Leave it!’

  ‘Take it,’ I yelled to the little ekos, ignoring Thorne. Then, something occurred to me. I grunted. I didn’t know exactly what I was grunting, but I figured it was better than jabbering at the poor, terrified thing in Wugish.

  He reached out his little hand and his fingers closed around Destin. I instantly pulled up and we did a sharp bank and headed in the other direction, missing the trees and leaving the freks far below.

  When the freks turned to follow us, they were met head-on by a mass of morta-firing ekos. I heard shot after shot before two large demonic beasts thudded to the dirt for the very last time.

  We were flying back when I heard a scream. I looked down. The little ekos had lost his grip on the chain. He was plummeting to his death. I went into a dive, but I knew I was too far away to catch him in time. My heart sank.

  Like a blur, Delph came racing into view. He leaped, his long arms stretched to their limit.

  ‘Yes!’ I screamed in joy.

  Delph caught the little ekos before he hit the ground.

  He rose and carried him over to his mother.

  The mother took her young in her arms, first hugging and kissing and then scolding him in severe grunts. Then she went back to hugging and kissing him again.

  ‘You imbecile!’ roared Thorne at me as we touched down. ‘You could have got me killed. And for what? An ekos? I should have you—’

  He stopped because the ekos had surrounded us. Then Luc, accompanied by the mother, approached and knelt down. Each took one of my hands and kissed it.

  Then they did the same to a mightily embarrassed Delph.

  The mother ekos dragged her young one over and grunted at him until he did the same. When I looked down into his tiny, unwrinkled face, I noted that his eyes were as red as the far older ekos. I smiled wide when the little creature put his arms around me and squeezed tightly.

  Delph was so tall that the little ekos just gripped his legs when he next went to hug him.

  Thorne, who, I observed, had been studying all of this quite closely, said kindly, ‘All right now, it’s over. Everything is fine. The little . . . lad is safe.’ He made some quick grunts and then pointed at me, and then at himself.

  It seemed to me that a few of the ekos looked at us somewhat doubtfully after this. When I asked Thorne what he had said, he assured me that he had given us full credit for the rescue.

  Delph whispered, ‘And if you believe that, I’ll sell you a jabbit for a pet.’

  ‘Enough flying for this light, Vega,’ said Thorne. ‘I have no doubt I will get the hang of it soon enough. And then I will have no more need of your assistance, just your chain. Or, rather, my chain.’ He snatched Destin away from me and then pushed and prodded us along until we descended once more into the darkness beneath the Quag.

  We were led back to my chamber, and guards were posted outside. However, a few slivers later, the mother ekos came in carrying a large wooden tray. Luc was behind her. She put the tray down on a stone slab and smiled at us.

  On the tray was a pitcher of water, some goblets and what looked like milk, some meat and a few hard-boiled eggs and a fat tomato, all sliced. And two loaves of bread that oozed warmth. And there was a bowl of nuts and some hunks of different cheeses, which filled the chamber with their delicious smell.

  I smiled and tried to grunt in return, which made her laugh. She reached her grassy arms around me and gave me a hug. I hugged her back. Luc came over and embraced me too. Then the couple, tears in their reddened eyes, departed.

  ‘I think we made some friends this light,’ said Delph as he sat down and started digging into the meal.

  I knelt next to him and poured us out goblets of milk. It was cold and tasted fresh. We were so hungry that we didn’t speak – we just chewed, drank and swallowed. I had given Harry Two his share, which he was happily devouring on the stone floor. I finished my meal and sat there idly rubbing my canine’s ears.

  Delph finally pushed away from the tray after finishing a long drink of milk, and looked at me. ‘So, what are you thinking, Vega Jane?’ he asked curiously.

  I took a deep breath and then just let it out. ‘The same thing you’re thinking. We have to get out of here before old King Thorne runs out of use for us. But firs
t we need to find out more of his plan to attack Wormwood. And I still want to know how he got down that cliff.’

  ‘The cliff? Why is that so important to you?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I don’t like unanswered questions. And Thorne is pure evil. You saw how he was going to let that little ekos die.’

  ‘Aye,’ Delph said. ‘’Tis comfortin’, though, ain’t it? These creatures got feelings like us. Care ’bout each other.’

  There was a lot going on in Delph’s head. And that, for me, was comforting.

  I eyed the doorway, where I could now see Luc taking a peek at us. An idea struck me.

  ‘I think this night would be a great opportunity for us to do a little exploring.’

  ‘Exploring!’ exclaimed Delph. ‘And how do we do that?’

  ‘Like you said, we made some friends here.’

  7

  LUC SPEAKS

  The mother ekos and Luc entered our chamber later to retrieve the meal tray.

  I said, ‘I know you can’t understand me, but thank you.’

  ‘It is we who need to thank you, Vega,’ said Luc as the female ekos nodded.

  ‘You can speak Wugish?’ I asked Luc in astonishment.

  He nodded. ‘King Thorne taught me as a way to prevent him from losing the speech himself. And I taught my daughter here, Cere.’

  Cere added, ‘We do not speak Wug to the others. King Thorne forbids it.’

  ‘And it was your son that was nearly killed by the freks?’ I asked.

  She nodded, and tears clustered in her eyes. ‘But for you and Delph, Vega, little Kori would be no more.’ She placed a grassy hand gently against my cheek. ‘Despite what King Thorne said, we knew that to be true.’

  Delph said, ‘So, what load-a rubbish did the mighty “king” say then, eh?’

  Luc answered, ‘That it was his idea to save Kori.’

  I cried out, ‘He tried to stop me from saving him. He’s an evil Wug.’

  ‘Yet we all fear him too much to ever oust him,’ said Luc.

  Delph scoffed. ‘There’re lots of you blokes. And only one-a him.’