Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals Read online

  THE EDGE CHRONICLES:

  The Twig Trilogy

  Beyond the Deepwoods

  Stormchaser

  Midnight over Sanctaphrax

  The Quint Trilogy

  The Curse of the Gloamglozer

  The Winter Knights

  Clash of the Sky Galleons

  The Rook Trilogy

  The Last of the Sky Pirates

  Vox

  Freeglader

  BARNABY GRIMES:

  Curse of the Night Wolf

  Return of the Emerald Skull

  Legion of the Dead

  Phantom of Blood Alley

  For younger readers:

  FAR-FLUNG ADVENTURES:

  Fergus Crane

  Corby Flood

  Hugo Pepper

  Praise from readers of

  THE EDGE CHRONICLES:

  ‘The Edge Chronicles are the best books I have read so far in my life. My favourite book out of all the trilogies is The Last of the Sky Pirates.’

  Aranga, Macclesfield.

  ‘My favourite book of yours is Freeglader because I love the big battles that Rook has and I love shrykes because they’re really evil and bloodthirsty.’

  Thomas, Fyfield.

  ‘I have read all of the Edge Chronicles books and I really enjoyed them. I especially enjoyed The Last of the Sky Pirates.’

  Jack, Guildford.

  ‘My favourite Edge Chronicle book is Beyond the Deepwoods.’

  Travis, IA, USA.

  ‘I’ve read all your books and the one I like best is Freeglader.’

  Peter, Shrewsbury.

  ‘My favourite book in the series is The Curse of the Gloamglozer.’

  Adam, New York, USA.

  ‘I really enjoy your books The Edge Chronicles. They are the best books that I have ever read, and trust me that’s a lot. My favourite book is either Stormchaser or The Last of the Sky Pirates. I think that you guys are a perfect team!’

  Tommy Legge, website.

  ‘I think the simplest thing to say is that your books ROCK!!!’

  Robbie, Dublin.

  ‘I have also read The Lost Barkscrolls and I loved it. I have really enjoyed The Edge Chronicles and I can’t wait for more.’

  Edward, Wimbledon.

  ‘… your books are a real gift to literature. The illustrations are beautiful and the stories are exceptional. I love how the books fit together like a jigsaw and how everything falls into place. When I read them I feel happy, excited, sad and moved all at once. I was constantly amazed and surprised. Thank you for creating The Edge Chronicles. They have touched my heart and I’m sure they’ve done the same for many others.’

  Katie, Oxon.

  ‘Your series is extraordinary! When I read about it, I feel exhilarated, and I feel as if I am in the book sharing the adventures with Twig, Rook and Quint.’

  Ellen, Co. Meath.

  ‘I love the combination between the detail of writing and pictures as it sort of pulls you into the book as if you are encountering what the characters are.’

  Jamie, email.

  ‘… you guys are my favourite authors! After reading Beyond the Deepwoods I could not put your books down and have read all of them since then.’

  Michael, Vancouver.

  ‘I really admire your Edge Chronicle books. I particularly like the adventure in them as it makes a gripping read.’

  Luke, Ditchling.

  ‘I enjoy your vast imagination on the series Edge Chronicles. Your books grip me into turning each page with thrilling adventure and murderous betrayals.’

  Jonathan, Vancouver.

  ‘I wanted you to know how much The Edge Chronicles has meant to my children – you have encouraged them to enjoy reading.’

  Diana, Brighton.

  ‘I am fourteen years old and I love The Edge Chronicles! Since the first one I have loved seeing how many different creatures could possibly inhabit the Edge. Possibly the best part of the series is the illustrations, they help you picture the creatures and the overall story better.’

  Connor, New York, USA.

  ‘After completing your series, The Edge Chronicles, I feel that it would be hard to find a book nearly as good as any in the series. The suspense that I experienced throughout The Curse of the Gloamglozer kept me from putting the book down.’

  Ethan Perry [no address].

  ‘The Winter Knights is another great installation to the series. What I love about this book and the rest in the series is that each book could easily stand on its own or be read in any order, but when you put them all together, details from one or another book come out, showing the in depth connection of everything that happens in life.’

  Mike Bram, website review.

  A DAVID FICKLING BOOK

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text and illustrations copyright © 2009 by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Doubleday, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of the Random House Group Ltd., London, in 2009.

  David Fickling Books and the colophon are trademarks of David Fickling.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89563-0

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  This book is dedicated to

  Joseph and William, our sons, who have shared

  our journey through the Edgelands, sustaining us

  with their enthusiasm, advice and countless

  conversations for nearly two decades.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PART ONE - GREAT GLADE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  PART TWO - HIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY


  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  PART THREE - RIVERRISE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  PART FOUR - THE EDGE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  CHAPTER NINETY

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

  CHAPTER NINETY-THREE

  CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR

  CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

  CHAPTER NINETY-SIX

  CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINETY-NINE

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ONE

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  The Edge Chronicles

  • PART ONE •

  GREAT GLADE

  • CHAPTER ONE •

  The eerie, booming call of the steam klaxon reverberated through the cabin, wrenching the dozen snoring phraxminers from their sleep. Some sat up immediately and looked round, bleary-eyed. Some slid from their floating sumpwood bunks and, still half-asleep, trudged off to the communal wash troughs. A couple of them simply rolled over and dragged the tilderfleece covers over their heads.

  The klaxon sounded a second time, like some great forlorn creature calling for its mate. A groan went round the cabin. Someone cursed.

  Nate Quarter sat up with a start – and cracked his head on the wooden slats of the bunk above. He slumped back onto the grimy pillow and rubbed his forehead ruefully. It was the same every morning when the dawn klaxon sounded. One moment he would be having a pleasant dream about winning a hand of splinters at a gaming table on a skytavern, and the next he’d be seeing stars and clutching his bruised forehead.

  From the bunk above him came a deep rumbling laugh. ‘Should sleep in your helmet, young’un.’

  ‘Thanks for the advice, Rudd,’ Nate replied as the smiling face of a young cloddertrog appeared. ‘But if you were really concerned for my welfare, you’d swap bunks with me.’

  ‘Sorry, Nate, just can’t do it.’ Rudd shrugged as he climbed down from the top bunk. ‘Cutters get the top bunks, with you glowworms down below. I’ll race you to the troughs.’

  Outside, the klaxon boomed a third time.

  Sitting up slowly this time, Nate swung his legs round and dropped down from the sumpwood bunk to the wooden floor. Dust flew up as Nate’s feet touched the ground, and the dried mud on the bare boards got between his toes. With a sigh, Nate wiped the bits from the bottom of first one foot, then the other, before pulling on his boots. He crunched across the floor to the low, circular doorway through which his friend had just disappeared, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.

  There was no getting away from it in a mining stockade, thought Nate irritably. The mud.

  It got everywhere; in your hair, under your nails, in the folds of your clothes. And no matter how many times the cabin was swept, there always seemed to be more left. Food tasted of it. Every surface was coated with it. Even the air was filled with a hazy mist of muddy dust. It made his scalp gritty and his skin grimy – and it left a nasty taste in his mouth.

  Nate crossed the wide expanse of compacted earth outside – fringed on three sides by the sleeping cabins – to the line of huge wooden troughs that jutted out from the log wall of the stockade. Already, the troughs were bustling with phraxminers, busy washing the grime of nightdust from their faces, and Nate had to jostle to claim a place beside his cloddertrog friend.

  The two of them made an odd couple. Rudd, like all of his kind, was broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. Powerful muscles rippled beneath the mottled skin of his large arms and squat legs. Born cavedwellers, the cloddertrogs made natural miners, their prodigious strength invaluable when it came to wielding a pickaxe at the pitface. Nate, on the other hand, was lean and lightly muscled, tall for his fourteen years, but fresh-faced beneath his closely cropped hair. A fourthling whose family had originally come from Great Glade, Nate Quarter was a skilled lamplighter, his job taking him all over the mine workings far below ground.

  Rudd eyed Nate humorously, before plunging his huge head back into the trough of swirling water and cleaning out his ears with his fingers. Nate joined him, plunging his own head down into the cold water.

  It felt so good. He rubbed his neck and shoulders, then under his arms. He ran his fingers over his head, prodded around his ears, his eyes, and took in a mouthful of water. His head popped up, beads of water clinging to his cropped hair as he swirled the clean-tasting water around his mouth and spat it back into the trough.

  Before him, the small globe embedded in the bottom of the trough purified the water instantly with its grain of sepia phraxdust. All around, the brackish green rainwater which had collected in the stockade water butts above poured down through wooden spouts, turning crystal-clear as it hit the line of wash troughs beneath.

  Nate shook his head and wiped a hand over his face. It felt good to be clean. But it wouldn’t last, he knew. It never did.

  ‘The scars are fading,’ said Rudd.

  Nate craned his neck and looked back over his shoulder. The angry red welts did look better, and when he reached round gingerly with his fingertips they were less hot to the touch. Yet the injustice of the beating would take far longer to fade from his memory.

  Nate was proud of his skill as a lamplighter, and justifiably so. It was one of the most important jobs in the mine. Without lamplighters, it would have been impossible to mine for stormphrax.

  Stormphrax!

  The most extraordinary, the most beautiful, the most sought-after substance in all the Edgelands. Ground to dust, a single speck could endlessly purify even the foulest water, whilst a shard of crystal, when harnessed, had enough explosive energy to arm weapons, fuel engines and power mighty skyships.

  Stormphrax. Lightning from the mighty storms that collected over the Twilight Woods. Discharged from the boiling storm clouds, the lightning bolts solidified in the twilight glow as they zigzagged down to earth.