Uki and the Swamp Spirit Page 12

  Glopstickers. That’s what Rawnie had called them. Maggitch warriors who had been hiding under the mud and water, masks and tubes allowing them to breathe. They had pulled him down with them, before Jori could get to him …

  Jori! He peered around the pit, his eyes still stinging from the filthy swamp water. Was she here? Had they captured her too?

  He thought he could make out a figure, propped against the wall opposite him. Slithering and sliding, he made his way across on paws and knees, as quickly as he could. His body seemed reluctant to respond. Where was his strength? His energy? But there was no time to worry about that.

  ‘Jori?’ He reached the slumped body, knuckling the dirt out of his eyes with his paws and blinking to see better. ‘Jori, is that you?’

  The rabbit didn’t answer, and as Uki peered closer he could see why. It was dead. Long dead. The fur and flesh of its face had been eaten away to reveal bone. A skull face, with blank sockets for eyes and a row of grinning teeth.

  Uki yelped and pedalled backwards, pushing himself away from the body. Out of reach of its skeletal grasp.

  Don’t be so stupid, his dark voice chided him. It can’t hurt you. Whoever it was has been dead for months.

  ‘Dead for months,’ Uki repeated. ‘Can’t hurt me.’

  As his breathing slowed, he looked closer at the unfortunate rabbit. Was it a Gurdle? Maybe a Shrike? No, the clothes were wrong. It wore faded woven trousers and shirt, with a neckerchief of tattered tartan cloth. No frogskin leather or crimson armour. Not even any boots. If anything, it was dressed like rabbits from the north. From Nether and the twin cities. So how had it come to be here, trapped in a Maggitch pit?

  Nurg. Or maybe his brother. Uki remembered the three rabbits that had been the first victims of the escaped spirits. Simple hunters from Nether, they had been used like pack rats, ferrying Valkus, Charice and Mortix across Hulstland to find better, more powerful hosts. Uki and his friends had found one of them, still alive, outside the walls of Nys. Perhaps this one had been made to walk all the way to the Fenlands. Perhaps the Maggitches had captured him, and then Charice had slipped out, preferring to control the body of Granny Maggitch herself.

  ‘Sorry, Nurg. If that is you,’ Uki whispered. ‘Sorry I didn’t get here in time.’

  Just staring at that blank, grinning face made Uki uncomfortable. He had to find a way out of this pit, before he too ended up having the flesh eaten off his bones by worms.

  Leaning on the wall for support, he managed to get up. He still couldn’t understand why he felt so weak. Was it another plague? One his powers couldn’t fight off? Was it the cold, clinging mud?

  He used his paws to try and scrape some of it from his clothes. And that was when he noticed it …

  His harness. It was gone.

  Uki panicked.

  His spears, harness, buckle, crystals … the Maggitches must have taken them when he was unconscious. Before throwing him in the pit.

  He still had the powers of Iffrit. They were entwined with every cell in his body, they couldn’t be removed … but the trapped spirits in the crystals … the boosts to his strength and speed they had given him were gone. This weakness, the chill and aching – that was how it felt to be a normal rabbit again. Vulnerable, helpless. And with no way to trap Charice, even if he did get the chance.

  I have to get out of here!

  Uki turned to the wall and started to climb. Or rather, he flailed at the mud, clawing out soggy handfuls of clay, tumbling to the wet floor over and over again. He jumped, slid, scrambled, tumbled … Soon he was caked from head to foot in even more brown slime and his every muscle burned from the exertion.

  He knelt, resting his head against the wall and panting for breath.

  Heh-heh-heeeech.

  A sound came from behind him. A breathy kind of wheezing noise at the edge of his hearing. Uki froze, ears pricked, and heard it again.

  There was someone else in the pit with him. And they were laughing.

  He peered into the darkness at the furthest edge of the muddy hole. The daylight from above didn’t reach there. In the shadows he could make out a bulbous shape, up against the wall. Was it a rabbit?

  The laugh came again – little more than a wet, raspy cackle. The lumpy mass moved slightly, and Uki caught a glint of eyes peering out at him.

  Tired, wary, he took a step closer. ‘Hello? Who’s there?’

  He heard a groan, feverish, not unlike the sounds his recent patients had made in the village. The rattling laugh came again too. There was more than one rabbit.

  Uki took another step. The longer he stared into the darkness, the more clearly he could see. The large shape was an enormous rabbit, wrapped in a muddy cloak. A smaller, spindlier creature was clutched in its arms. The big one seemed to be asleep, or unconscious at least, but the smaller one was watching Uki with cold, spiteful eyes.

  ‘Fancy meeting you here,’ it said, and then laughed again. Another hissing rattle that ended in a fit of coughing.

  Necripha, Uki realised. And the big rabbit must be Balto.

  He scooted back to the other side of the pit, as far as he could go, ready to run, jump … anything he could to get away from them.

  The last time he had come face to face with the pair, Balto had been about to cut him open. They had wanted Iffrit’s power and were more than ready to kill him to get it.

  What if they came for him now? There was no way out of this pit. With the boosted strength from the crystals he might have been able to beat them, but he alone was no match for Balto. Iffrit had given him many gifts, but they depended on having the trapped spirits nearby. Without them, all Uki’s powers would slowly drain away. And if that went on long enough, he would fade and die with them. By rights, he should be dead anyway. It was only Iffrit’s stitching that held him together.

  Uki tensed his muscles, preparing to fight and run. Even if all he managed was to lead them on a chase round and round the bottom of this pit, he wasn’t going to go easily. They would have to battle to take Iffrit from him …

  Except they weren’t even trying to stand up.

  Uki pricked his ears, listening with his head cocked. He could hear a phlegmy gasping sound every time Balto breathed. There was a higher, reedy whistling too that must be Necripha’s breath. And beneath the damp, slimy smell of the mud, he could detect a trace of sickness. The sour scent of feverish sweat that he recognised from when the Gurdles were gripped by plague.

  They were ill.

  Charice had infected them. They couldn’t come after him because they were dying.

  Thank the Goddess, Uki thought, allowing himself to relax. And then instantly felt bad for feeling such relief over another creature’s suffering. He wondered how far along they were. How many days or hours they had left.

  ‘Are you sick, little pest?’ When Necripha spoke, her voice was broken and feeble. ‘I can’t tell under all that mud. Are your eyes swelling? Is your skin beginning to bubble and burst?’

  Uki didn’t speak, not for a long time. This was his enemy, his hunter. The creature who had been on his trail since he came back from the dead. When he had sensed another being, up on Gollop’s Mound, it had been her.

  But there was nothing Necripha could do to him now. She could barely even speak. As long as he kept his distance, she was harmless.

  Just ignore her, he thought. Soon she’ll be too sick to talk. She’ll be too sick to do anything.

  Stupid, his dark voice chipped in. Just think of what she knows. She’s as old as the spirits themselves. She must have secrets about them – weaknesses that you could use. If you don’t try and prise them out of her, they’ll be gone forever.

  Secrets. Weaknesses.

  Just talking to her wouldn’t hurt, Uki supposed. As long as he was careful not to get tricked. As long as he remembered it was an evil spirit he was dealing with, not the old, dying rabbit that she appeared to be.

  ‘I’m not sick,’ he said, breaking the silence.

&
nbsp; There was a rustling sound and a groan from Balto as Necripha moved to see Uki more clearly. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you would be. The fire guardian gave you all of his powers when he spliced himself with you, didn’t he? Every last scrap. A complete and total bonding.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Uki. ‘Iffrit was so weak at the time. He was fading.’ He knew little of the magic the spirits could work, even though he was joined with one.

  ‘I suspected as much when I first met you. How very noble of him. And how very annoying. Even if we had managed to crack you open, there would have been nothing of Iffrit left to take. And yet it was clever of him too. The four spirits might have managed to beat him together, but they will have no chance when they are trapped in separate prisons. If, by some miracle, you manage to get them all, that is.’

  Uki needed to change the subject. To get Necripha talking about herself and how important she was. But he had to do it carefully, without her discovering what he was up to. How he wished Jori was here. What would she say in his place?

  ‘How … how did you end up in here?’ he asked. ‘I thought you were behind us.’

  ‘Saw me in one of your visions, did you?’ Necripha coughed and spat something gloopy into the mud. ‘We were behind you. You’d left Reedwic by the time we got there. My stupid agent said you’d gone into the fen. He said you had a smith with you that worked for one of the savage tribes here. That he could find their village. Like a fool, I believed him.’

  ‘The rabbit with the purple cloak. The one who sent the bat. Where is he now?’

  ‘Inside a viper’s belly. As are two others. Three more got sucked down, drowned in the mud. They were gone before Balto could pull them out.’

  ‘And then the Maggitches found you?’

  Necripha coughed again. Her voice seemed to be getting weaker. ‘Yes. We were wandering … lost. These masked rabbits burst up from under the water. Ingenious breathing tubes … I didn’t know they could do that. They brought us to their warren, on top of this hill. And that’s where we saw Charice. But don’t you know this? Haven’t you been looking through my eyes?’

  Uki shook his head. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had any recent visions of Necripha, not until just moments ago when he saw himself, huddled in a sorry ball of mud.

  ‘Strange. Maybe it’s Charice’s power. I’ve been feeling it … pounding in my head for days. So difficult to think clearly.’

  Uki had too, but he could sense Necripha turning the conversation round to him again. He wanted to find out what she knew about the spirits …

  ‘What did she do when she captured you? Charice, I mean?’

  ‘Do? She threw us in this pit, that’s what she did. After poisoning us … with this plague. I tried to talk sense to her. To make her … join me, but her brain has been warped. All the sickness and disease … changed her. She’s more lost now than ever before …’

  This is it, Uki thought. She’s talking about the past. Keep her going.

  ‘Wasn’t she always like that, then? Back before the Ancients locked her away?’

  ‘I don’t think so. My memories of that time … so hazy … There must have been something wrong with her, for them to put her in that prison. She must have failed at what they created her for.’

  Uki knew this was true, thanks to the memories he had gained from Iffrit. Those memories didn’t include Necripha, however, or how she was connected to these ancient spirits.

  ‘How did the Ancients make you? Why did they make you?’

  Necripha was silent for a long time. So long, Uki thought she might even have died. When she spoke again, her voice was shaky and dreamlike. As if the fever was tightening its hold.

  ‘I remember … bits and pieces … fragments. Being a child. Were we children? Small. Together. Brothers and sisters, maybe … I don’t know if we were born or made. Gormalech was there. And there were others. Lots of others …

  ‘And then we were changed … given jobs. I had to collect information. Store it away, organise it. A library of facts and numbers … everything in order, everything in place. All that knowledge. All those secrets. I was so good at finding, cataloguing. Until Gormalech ruined it …’

  ‘Is he the one who ate the world?’ Uki spoke as gently as he could, coaxing, soothing. ‘The one you told me about?’

  ‘Ate it … yes.’ Necripha’s chest rattled as she fought for breath. ‘All gone. Buildings. People. My library. He couldn’t stop. Then everything was empty … it was just him and me, for such a long time.’

  ‘He covered the Earth,’ said Uki, remembering the tales his mother had told him. ‘He was made of living metal.’

  ‘Metal … yes … but he didn’t cover everything. The stories aren’t quite right. The Ancients left small, shielded places. There were ruins, mountains, glaciers. He swooshed about amongst it all … swish, swash … you could hear him coming days before. He was easy to hide from. Hide and seek … can’t catch me …’

  She’s feverish now, Uki thought. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. Now’s my chance.

  ‘Does he have any weakness, this Gormalech? Do any of you? Is there a secret way to destroy the things the Ancients made?’

  ‘Never-ending … we … never … end. But … one way. Your Iffrit … bonded … became …’

  ‘He bonded with me, yes. But what did he become? I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me …’

  But if there was anything else to tell, Necripha had lost the power to say it. She fell silent, only the faintest whistling of her breath telling Uki she was still alive, and even that was steadily failing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Kill or Cure

  The longer Uki watched Necripha, the worse he felt.

  She was barely alive now. Balto was even closer to death. They both lay in the mud, only the tiny movements of their chests showing there was any kind of spark left in them.

  But I could cure them. The idea came to him, popping into his head out of nowhere. One drop of my blood and they would start to recover.

  The more he thought about it, the more he was filled with the horrid realisation that it would even be the right thing to do. He hadn’t given them the plague. He hadn’t thrown them in the pit. But if you let someone die when you knew you could save them … wasn’t that the same as killing them?

  I can’t believe you’re even thinking about this. His dark voice sounded amazed and disgusted. Most of the rest of him was too. But there was a fraction of Uki that felt terrible. No matter how horrible and mean Necripha and Balto were … surely they didn’t deserve this?

  They tried to kill you. They would do it again, if they could. They’re just as evil as Charice and the others.

  Yes, but he wasn’t killing them either, was he? He was just locking them away, where they couldn’t hurt anyone. If he didn’t help Necripha, then she would be dead. And he would be a murderer, of a kind.

  ‘Jori, what should I do?’ He wished she was here to tell him. Although he had a good idea she would side with his dark voice. As would Kree. And Coal, probably.

  And yet Jori had given up her entire future, just because she didn’t want to kill. No conditions about only wanting to attack evil or mean rabbits … she had refused to kill anybody. If Necripha had been a target for her to assassinate, she wouldn’t have done it. No way. Sorry. Throw me out of the clan if you must.

  ‘I can’t do it either,’ Uki realised.

  Whatever Necripha might be, whatever she might do to him in the future, letting her last breath gasp out without helping was the same as giving her a dose of poison.

  He had to save her. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t.

  Idiot.

  Perhaps he was. He’d certainly feel like one if the two Endwatchers got better, turned around and then strangled him.

  But there was a chance that might not happen.

  A chance.

  Uki walked over to them, galoshes slurping through the sl
ime. He had no knife this time, but there was a pin at the collar of his cloak. He found the point and jabbed it into his finger, wincing, until a little bead of blood appeared, bright red against the mud.

  ‘I don’t know if you can hear me,’ he said. ‘But please don’t hurt me when you get better. Remember what I did for you.’

  He pressed his bleeding thumb to Necripha’s mouth and then did the same for Balto. Then he went and crouched in the furthest corner of the pit again. And waited …

  *

  It took some time for the blood to have its effect. Long enough for him to wonder if he’d been too late.

  Night was beginning to fall, the sky above turning dark and the shadows at the bottom of the pit growing thicker. A heavy tiredness crept over Uki. He felt numb, exhausted … but he didn’t dare fall asleep. The terrifying thought of waking to find Balto’s hands around his neck was enough to keep his eyes wide open.

  Perhaps the Gurdles will rescue me, he thought. Perhaps they’re about to invade the camp right now.

  But there were no sounds of battle from outside the pit. Just the distant calls of marsh birds and the ever-present hissing of wind in the reeds.

  Uki was considering whether to go and prod the Endwatchers to see if they were dead, when Balto let out a groan.

  Here we go. This is it.

  Necripha was the next to stir. She made a coughing, retching sound in her sleep. After that, they both began to writhe and wriggle, as the particles of Iffrit in their system fought off Charice’s plague.

  Finally, in the last few minutes of twilight, Balto sat upright, toppling Necripha’s frail body into the mud. He flailed around with his giant arms, trying to grab something, before scooping up a double pawful of wet slime. He held it above his head and squeezed, catching the droplets of filthy water in his open mouth.

  What under earth is he doing? Uki wondered, before remembering how hungry his friends had been when they first recovered. He had made fresh soup for them to eat, but Balto had to make do with stagnant swamp muck.

  The big rabbit drank a few more handfuls before realising he had dumped his mistress in the dirt. He carefully picked her up and squeezed some slime for her. Uki could see her cracked, wrinkled mouth lapping up the disgusting moisture. He huddled in his corner, trying to hide himself beneath his sodden cloak. Perhaps they might even have forgotten he was here …