Deltora Quest #3: City of the Rats (7 page)

T
he carts creaked as the drivers climbed from their seats and jumped to the ground. “You are late!” growled the leader of the Grey Guards.

“It could not be helped,” said one of the Ra-Kacharz calmly. Lief heard a jingling sound, and guessed that the muddlets were being freed from their harness.

There was the sound of hooves, as though horses were being led towards the carts. The grey horses from the field behind the shop, Lief thought.

“Good morrow, my lords and my lady Ra-Kacharz!” shouted Tom’s voice. “A fine day!”

“A fine day to be late!” the Guard grumbled.

“Leave this to me, my friend,” said Tom heartily. “I will see to the changing of the beasts. Go and finish your ale. It is a long, dry way back to Del.”

Lief’s heart lurched. He heard Barda and Jasmine draw quick, horrified breaths.

The food was not to be dumped. The carts were going on to Del!

Lief lay motionless, his mind whirling. He hardly heard the sounds of the Guards’ feet marching back to the shop. Suddenly, everything had fallen into place. For centuries carts had trundled up the hill to the palace in Del, loaded with luxurious foods. However scarce food was in the city, the favored people of the palace never went hungry.

No one had ever known where the food came from. But now Lief did.

The food came from Noradz. The people of Noradz labored to grow and gather food in their fertile fields. The cooks of Noradz worked night and day to produce delicious dishes. But only a little of what they made was enjoyed by their people. The rest was taken all the way to the palace in Del. Once it had kept the kings and queens of Deltora in ignorance of their people’s misery. Now it fed the servants of the Shadow Lord.

The Ra-Kacharz were traitors to their people. Tom, who had pretended to be against the Shadow Lord, was in fact a friend to the Grey Guards.

A hot wave of anger flooded Lief. But Barda had his mind on more pressing matters.

“We must get out of this cart!” he hissed. “Now, while the Guards are gone. Lief, can you see —?”

“I can see nothing!” Lief whispered back.

Harness jingled. Kree screeched from somewhere nearby.

“It is strange. That black bird has followed us all the way from Noradz,” said a Ra-Kachar’s voice.

“Indeed,” said Tom thoughtfully.

Lief, Barda, and Jasmine stiffened under their covering of straw. Tom had seen Kree before. Would he guess …?

Tom cleared his throat. “By the by, I must give you bad news. You will have to return to Noradz on foot. The fresh beasts kept here for your journey home have been stolen — by some crafty travellers.”

“We know it!” said one of the Ra-Kacharz angrily. “You should have taken more care. We found the beasts trying to get back into their field behind the hill late yesterday. They had bolted for home, and thrown the strangers from their backs outside our front gate.”

“The strangers brought evil to our halls,” another Ra-Kachar droned. “They escaped death by a breath, and even now lie in our dungeons.”

“Indeed,” said Tom again, very softly. Then his voice became more cheerful. “There! These poor, tired muddlets are free from their bonds. If you will take them to the field, I will finish harnessing the horses. Then, perhaps, you will share a mug of ale with me before you begin your march.”

The Ra-Kacharz agreed, and soon Lief, Barda, and Jasmine heard the sound of the muddlets being led away.

Moments later, Tom spoke again. It seemed he was talking to the horses. “Should anyone wish to leave a cart unobserved, and run to the trees at the side of the shop, this would be the time to do it. Poor Tom is alone here, now.”

The message was clear. Clumsily, the three companions wriggled out of the straw and ran, feeling stiff and bruised, to the shelter of the trees. Tom did not look up. He just went on harnessing the horses, whistling softly to himself.

Lief, Barda, and Jasmine lay watching as the shopkeeper walked casually to the back of the cart where they had been hiding and picked up the straw that had fallen to the ground. He pushed it back into place, then strolled towards the trees, his hands in his pockets. He bent down and began pulling grass, as though he was gathering it for the horses.

“You sold us muddlets that did not belong to you!” Barda hissed at him furiously.

“Ah well,” murmured Tom, without looking up. “Poor Tom finds it hard to resist gold. He admits it. But what happened was your fault, not mine, my friend. If you had taken the left-hand path, as I advised, the beasts would never have caught the scent of home and bolted. You have only yourselves to blame for your present trouble.”

“Perhaps we do,” said Lief bitterly. “But at least our only crime is foolishness. You, however, are a liar. You pretend to be on the side of those who would resist the Shadow Lord, and all the time you help to feed his servants. You deal with Grey Guards as friends.”

Tom straightened, a clump of sweet grass in his hand, and turned to look at the sign that rose so proudly upon his roof.

“Have you not noticed, my friend?” he said. “Tom’s name looks the same, whichever side you are on. It is the same whether you approach from the west or the east. It is the same whether you are inside his shop, or outside it,
whether you see it in a mirror, or with your own eyes. And Tom himself is like his name. It is a matter of business.”

“Business?” spat Lief.

“Certainly. I am the same Tom to all. I do not take sides. I do not interest myself in things that are not my affair. This is wise, in these hard times. And there is far more money in it.”

He smiled, the edges of his wide mouth curving up, creasing his thin face. “Now, I suggest you make haste to leave this place. I will keep my good friends the Ra-Kacharz here for as long as I can, to give you a good start. Take off those glaring red garments first, but do not leave them here, I beg you. I want no trouble.”

He turned away and began strolling back towards the carts.

“You are a deceiver!” Lief hissed after him.

Tom paused. “Perhaps,” he drawled, without looking back. “But I am a live, rich one. And because of me, you live to fight another day.”

He walked on, holding out the grass and clicking his tongue to the horses.

The three friends began pulling off the red garments and boots, and stuffing them into their packs. Lief was simmering with rage. Jasmine glanced at him curiously.

“Tom helped us,” she pointed out. “Why should
you ask any more of him? Many creatures believe in nothing but themselves. He is one of those.”

“Tom is not a creature, but a man,” Lief snapped. “He should know what is right!”

“Are you so sure
you
know?” Jasmine answered sharply.

Lief stared at her. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

“Do not argue,” said Barda wearily. “Save your strength for walking. It is a long way to Broad River.” He fastened his pack, slung it over his shoulder, and tramped off through the trees.

“We must go back to Noradz first,” said Lief, hurrying after him. “We must tell the people that they are being lied to!”

“Indeed?” said Barda wearily. “And if we survived long enough to tell them, which we probably would not, and if they believed us, which I do not think they would, and if by some miracle they broke the pattern of centuries, rebelled against the Ra-Kacharz, and refused to send their food away any longer … what do you think would happen?”

“The Shadow Lord’s food supply would dry up,” said Lief promptly.

“Yes. And then the Shadow Lord would bring down his wrath on Noradz, make the people do his will by force instead of by trickery, and begin scouring the country for us,” said Barda bluntly. “Nothing
would be gained, and much would be lost. It would be a disaster.”

He lengthened his stride, and moved ahead.

Lief and Jasmine went after him, but they did not speak for a long time after that. Lief was too angry, and Jasmine’s mind was busy with thoughts she did not wish to share.

F
our days of hard marching followed — four long days in which Lief, Barda, and Jasmine spoke little and then only of moving on and keeping out of sight of any possible enemy. But when, at last, in the afternoon of the fourth day, they stood on the banks of Broad River, they realized that they should have planned their next step more carefully.

The river was deep, and its name described it well. It was so wide that they could only faintly see the land on the other side. The great sheet of water stretched in front of them like a sea. There was no way across.

Bleached white, and hard as stone, the ancient remains of wooden rafts lay half-buried in the sand. Perhaps, long ago, people had crossed the river here, and abandoned the rafts where they came to rest. But there were no trees on this side to provide wood for rafts — only banks of reeds.

Jasmine’s eyes narrowed as she peered across the dull sheen of the water. “The land on the other side is very flat,” she said slowly. “It is a plain. And I see a dark shape rising from it. If that is the City of the Rats, it is straight ahead of us. All we have to do is —”

“Cross the river,” said Lief heavily. He threw himself down on the fine, white sand and began rummaging in his pack, looking for something to eat.

He pulled out the collection of things they had bought from Tom and tipped them onto the ground in a small heap. He had almost forgotten about them, and now he stared at them with distaste.

They had seemed so exciting in the shop. Now they looked like rubbishy novelties. The beads that made fire. The “No Bakes” bread. The powder labelled “Pure and Clear.” The little pipe that was supposed to blow bubbles of light. And a small, flat tin box with a faded label …

Of course. Tom’s free gift. Something completely useless, no doubt, that he could not dispose of any other way. Lief sneered to himself as he turned the tin over.

“It is too far for us to swim. We will have to follow the river until we find a village where there are boats,” Barda was saying. “It is a pity to have to go out of our way, but we have no choice.”

“Perhaps we do,” Lief said slowly.

Jasmine and Barda looked at him in surprise. He held up the box and read aloud the words on the back.

“Are you saying that whatever is in this little tin box can dry up a river?” jeered Jasmine.

Lief shrugged. “I am saying nothing. I am simply reading the instructions.”

“There are more warnings than instructions,” said Barda. “But we shall see.”

They walked together to the river’s edge and Lief
pried the lid off the tin box. Inside were some tiny crystals, each not much larger than a grain of sand. Feeling rather foolish, he pinched out a few of the crystals and tossed them into the water. They sank immediately without changing appearance in any way.

And nothing else happened.

Lief waited for a moment, then, fighting his disappointment, he tried to grin. “I should have known better,” he shrugged. “As if that Tom would give away anything that actually —”

Then he shouted and jumped back. A huge, colorless, wobbling lump was rising from the river. Beside it was another — and another!

“It is the crystals!” shouted Barda in excitement. “They are sucking up the water!”

So they were. As they grew, spreading as Lief watched, they joined together to make a towering, wobbling wall that held back the river. And the water between them simply dried up, leaving a narrow, winding path of puddled, sandy mud.

Kree squawked in amazement as Jasmine, Lief, and Barda stepped carefully onto the riverbed, squeezing between the jellied lumps and walking on until they came to the end of the dry patch. Then Lief threw another pinch of crystals into the water ahead, and, after a moment, more lumps broke the surface of the river and another path began to clear for them.

The crossing of Broad River was a strange, frightening journey. In all their minds was the thought of what would happen if the trembling walls that held back the river should fail. The great press of water would close over them. There would be no escape.

The swollen Water Eaters blocked their view as they crept along, twisting and turning, their feet sinking into the soft mud. Lief was just beginning to worry that the crystals in the tin box would run out before they reached the shore, when suddenly the shore was before him, and he was clambering up onto a harsh, dry plain.

He stood with Barda and Jasmine, staring.

The plain lay in the bend of the river. It was encircled by water on three sides, and should have been lush and fertile. But not a blade of grass softened its hard, baked clay. As far as the eye could see there was no sign of any living, growing thing.

In the center was a city whose towers shone dark red in the last rays of the setting sun. Though it was so far away, a feeling of evil and menace seemed to stream from it like vapor.

They left the river and began to move over the bare plain. The sky arched over them, red and lowering. From above, thought Lief suddenly, we must look like ants — three tiny, crawling ants. One blow would kill us all. Never had he felt so exposed to danger.

Kree felt it, too. He sat motionless on Jasmine’s shoulder. Filli was huddled inside her jacket, only his small nose visible. But even their company could not help Jasmine. Her feet dragged. She began to walk more and more slowly, and at last, as the sun began to sink below the horizon, she shuddered and stopped.

“I am sorry,” she muttered. “The barrenness of this place is death to me. I cannot bear it.”

Her face was white and set. Her hands were shaking. Lief and Barda glanced at each other.

“Only now I was thinking that we should soon stop for the night,” said Barda, though Lief doubted this was true. “We must rest, and eat. And I do not think the city is a place to enter in darkness.”

They sat down together and began unpacking their food, but there were no sticks to make a fire.

“Now is a good time to try Tom’s fire-making beads,” said Lief, following Barda’s lead and trying to be cheerful. In the failing light, he read the instructions on the jar. Then he put one of the beads on the ground and hit it sharply with their digging tool. Immediately, it burst into flames. Lief added another bead and it, too, flared up. Soon there was a merry blaze that apparently needed no other fuel. He pushed the jar into his pocket, well-satisfied.

“Instant comfort. Amazing!” said Barda heartily. “A villain Tom may be, but at least the things he sells are worth their price.”

It was still early, but Barda and Lief spread their supplies around them and made much of deciding what they would eat. They added water to one of the flat white rounds of No Bakes and watched it swell quickly into a loaf of bread. They cut the bread into slices and toasted it, eating it with some of the dried berries, nuts, and honey they had carried from Raladin.

“A feast,” said Barda contentedly, and Lief was relieved to see that Jasmine’s tense face was beginning to relax. As they had hoped, the warmth, light, and food were giving her comfort.

He gazed over her shoulder at the distant city. The red light was fading from its towers now. Hulked on the plain, it stood silent, grim, deserted….

Lief blinked. The last rays of the sun were playing tricks with his eyes. For a moment it had seemed as though the earth around the city were moving like water.

He looked again, and frowned in puzzlement. The plain
was
moving. Yet there was no grass to bend in the wind. No leaves to blow across the clay. What …?

Then, suddenly, he saw. “Barda!” he said huskily.

He saw Barda look up, surprised by the fear in his voice. He tried to speak, but his breath caught in his throat. Waves of horror flooded through him as he stared wildly at the moving plain.

“What is it?” asked Jasmine, turning to look.

And then she and Barda were crying out together, leaping to their feet.

Spilling from the city, covering the ground, surging towards them like a long, low wave, was a scurrying, seething mass of rats.