‘You learned to speak from that crass ringmaster?’ Fletcher said sceptically.
‘No. I is learning from another. A noblewoman, who is living in a cage. The human slaves are not being allowed to speak with she, so she taught I in secret. It was I who is being in charge of bringing woman food and water, changing woman’s straw.’
‘You know Captain Cavendish?’ Sylva exclaimed.
‘I do not know her name. She never trusted I enough to tell I. But she told I of you lands. How you hate the orcs like we. I did not believe the other gremlins, that you kill we like vermin.’
He trailed off for a moment, a wistful look in his enormous eyes.
‘She is losing her mind, in the later years. So I is escaping and coming here. Then I is being captured when I is scouting. Bad men put I in pit. Then you save I.’
It was a lot to process. But one glaring question remained unanswered.
‘Where the hell are we?’ Fletcher demanded.
34
Blue did not reply. Instead, he unleashed a tirade of orders, all clicks and whistles.
In an instant, gremlins surrounded them once again, appearing as if from nowhere. Many had daubed their skin with green and brown ochres to blend in with the foliage. Others rode their own maras, their blowpipes firmly centred on Fletcher and the others. These were even more warlike, with bone-carved harpoons strapped to their backs and more of the deadly knives that had almost slit Fletcher’s throat.
‘We is taking you into the Warren, to meet leader,’ Blue trilled, as the closest gremlins marched into the burrows. ‘I warn you, we darts can make you sleeping, or freezing or dying. When we shoot this time, we use the dying ones. Do not make gremlins nervous. They eager to kill you, they is hating you as much as this one.’
Half-ear grunted and stood up as Blue prodded him with his blowpipe. The maimed gremlin’s hateful glare never left Fletcher’s face, but he backed away with his hands spread wide and empty. Fletcher did not blame him. After the cruelty he had seen in that tent just three nights ago, he would feel the same way.
Othello was still asleep, so they reluctantly left him with Solomon, as well as Athena – who kept watch in the trees above. Lysander continued to keep his eyes closed, so he remained too, while Sariel was too large to fit into one of the burrows.
Blue descended into the burrow he had come from, the largest of them all. Its mouth yawned dark and ominous but, far within, Fletcher could see the same glowing mushrooms that grew in the Great Forest.
Despite the burrow’s greater size, Fletcher and the others had to crawl on their hands and knees to fit, with Ignatius and Tosk scampering ahead, ever wary of an ambush within. It was with great relief that the tunnel opened up into a large chamber, big enough to fit them all, if they stooped and pressed together. The luminous lichen was even thicker here, and they were all lit by an eerie green glow.
‘Are we sure this is a good idea?’ Sylva whispered.
‘If they wanted us dead, we would already be in the ground,’ Cress replied. She glanced at the earth above her and laughed. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘The dwarf is speaking truth. We will not be harming you if you do not give reason,’ Blue said, nudging his mara into a tunnel that sloped even deeper. ‘This way. Mother is being waiting below.’
They pressed on, their already filthy clothing stained further by the dark, moist soil. The temperature seemed to increase as they crawled deeper. They passed chambers on either side of the path they followed. Within them, furry mounds of mara pups suckled on their mothers’ bellies, so young that they were yet to open their eyes. Piles of fruit, tubers and freshly cut grasses sat beside them, and the adult mara grazed on them as they passed.
The next room contained spherical green eggs, tended by gremlin matrons who splayed themselves over the grapefruit-sized objects protectively when they saw the intruders. They hissed as Fletcher peered in, and he hurriedly crawled on, whispering to Sylva, ‘Gremlin eggs’.