Page 45 of The Neverfear

‘What woulds you says to a slivers of ratatoskan horn? They is pure glimourie-richness.’

‘A sliver? No.’ The Sailsman licked his lips. ‘It would have to be a whole horn.’

‘Ratwin, don’t! We’ll think of something else!’ said Christopher.

‘No negulating! We must gets to Polytemus!’

‘Would the horn grow back?’ Anya whispered to Jacques.

‘It is possible,’ he said. ‘But a horn is a ratatoska’s pride and joy.’

‘It is for Irians,’ said Ratwin. ‘She is the heart of the Palace of Glimts. Without hers, it is nothing but brickses and emptiness.’

‘Exactly!’ said the Sailsman. His eyes were alight with the gleam of a deal. ‘Here. I’ll throw in a pair of ankle-wings.’ And he threw them to Anya. ‘Can’t say fairer than that. Now come here, little ratatoska.’

Ratwin stood on all fours at the prow of the Neverfear as it took off like a rocket over the waves. Her poor horn was a ragged stump, and she had not allowed Christopher or Anya to touch it.

‘Onwarding!’ she cried. There was a catch in her voice, a quaver. ‘We is hornless but we is dauntless! We is comings to saves you, Irian Guinne!’

Nighthand Versus Nappies: Nighthand Victorious

Fidens Nighthand was a tall man: taller than the vast majority of doorways. And he was strong. He barely felt the weight of the little child whom he carried on his shoulders.

‘You and me, Teren,’ he said. ‘We are making great progress through the days, I think.’

It was true that some of the aspects of the child’s care – nappies, for instance – seemed both gruesome and complicated. They had at first almost defeated him – until Gallia, who had experience of such things, had offered to teach him.

‘You pin them to the inner layer of cloth,’ she croaked. ‘Never to the baby.’

So for several days Teren the Immortal child and Fidens Nighthand the Berserker had got on supremely well. The fendthorn’s leaves had waved in the breeze.

‘I told Vigo Nex,’ Nighthand said, ‘that I was no longer in the treasure business. That was untrue of course. I am in the business now of protecting living treasure. You, and Irian, and the young ones, and the creatures.’

With his spare time, he wrote love poems for Irian, and laid them on her bedside table for her to find on her return from Atidina, where she was tending to a herd of unicorns. He had never in fact read a poem, and had only the loosest sense of what they involved, but he tried.

Irian Guinne: our hearts are twin.

Your soul is rare: and very fair.

Your face is perfect:

Nothing rhymes with perfect.

Nighthand was vaguely aware that there might be something lacking in the poems, but nonetheless he persisted. On the fifth day, though, he began to be restive. ‘I wonder, Gallia, why they’re not yet back? I’ve sent out the ratatoskas for news, but none have returned. I should go to Atidina. They’ve been gone longer than I expected.’

‘She said a few days,’ said Gallia. ‘And you have sworn not to take Teren off the island!’

Nighthand looked long and hard at the sharp-faced old bird. It is hard to tell if a gagana is lying: they are naturally inscrutable.

‘Gallia,’ he said. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’

‘No,’ said Gallia. ‘Or at least, yes. There are many thousand things, Nighthand, I have never told you. For instance, do you know the story of how the borometz wool tax was standardised across the islands?’

And the man, ferocious and bristling with weapons as he was, found himself defenceless in the face of her lecture on the economic history of mid-century Lithia.

Love Turned To Hate

The tide was out, and the cage was dry, but Irian Guinne had eaten no food for days.