Brightling Read Free

furiously. They watched the injured krackodyle slowly sink below the muddy water, bubbling blood. When it had vanished, Scaramouch wound around her legs, purring: but only for a moment.
    He turned his blazing wild eyes to her and never had those dear eyes said so clearly, wordlessly,
Follow me!
    â€˜I’m coming!’ Sparrow called. ‘Anything you say. You’re the boss!’
    Scaramouch didn’t follow the main path, but turned straight into the swamp. He leaped from tussock to tussock and stone to stone with Sparrow struggling to keep up. Suddenly a krackodyle shot up in front of them, flat and hard as an ironing board, but Scaramouch was on it in an instant, spitting and clawing at its eyes. Sparrow bit back a scream and dodged out of its way. Her legs felt like jelly, her heavy, wet boots were dragging her down and it was hard to move quickly. All she focused on was following the cat as he hopped and leaped across the swamp.
    He was heading towards an isolated, dead tree.
    Scaramouch made a final leap right onto the back of a krackodyle and, without daring to think, Sparrow did the same, closing her eyes and jumping blindly, bouncing off the creature’s back as if it were a springboard, and from there into the black skeleton of the ironwood. The creature swirled round angrily, snapping at her. More krackodyles were slithering towards them. The muddy water heaved and swirled as they came.
    Scaramouch was up the tree and quickly scrambling higher, digging in his claws and running vertically upwards. Sparrow wrapped her tired arms around the lowest branch.
    â€˜Wait!’ She hauled up her leaden legs. ‘Wait!’
    Snap! Snap! Krackodyles were biting at her toes.
    That
made her yank up her legs quickly. Fear helped Sparrow to drag herself onto a higher branch, then up onto another, until she was clear of the fearful open mouths below.
    The krackodyles gathered around the base of the tree, clacking their teeth as if they were taking part in a strange chorus, opening and closing their jaws like a nest of gigantic, ravenous baby birds. Sparrow edged her way over to Scaramouch, who was sitting in a wide hollow where five branches grew out from the tree trunk and where there was enough room for them both to snuggle safely.
    Scaramouch lay on her, pushing his forehead against her chin and purring loudly. His long whiskers tickled her chin. His massive paws kneaded her stomach as if it were a lump of bread dough.
    â€˜Yes, we’re safe, we’re safe, Scaramouch – you dear, wonderful thing,’ Sparrow murmured, rubbing his head and his ears. ‘You found me. You saved my life!’
    Scaramouch’s purr rumbled on like a giant bee, and his eyes closed.
    â€˜I know, I missed you too. I wanted to take you, but that nasty Miss Knip locked you up.’
    â€˜Meow.’
    â€˜She is evil, isn’t she? But we’ll never see her again. Ever.’
    Sparrow lay back against the branches. The sky above her darkened and darkened and she watched the stars come out until the night was alight with thousands and thousands of brilliant twinkling dots. She did not look down at the krackodyles, preferring to pretend they didn’t exist, and at last she closed her eyes and slept.
    All night the krackodyles slithered around the base of the tree and occasionally Sparrow woke as one of them thumped against the trunk and set the ironwood ringing, or snapped its horrible chops more loudly than the rest.
    The cat, butting Sparrow under the chin with his head, woke her.
    She sat up quickly and looked around, remembering where she was. It was not quite sunrise; it was that moment when the air is silent of birdsong, strangely colourless; the sky, the reeds, stones and grass, grey and toneless. The air was very cold and still.
    Sparrow looked down to the ground. It was as if the land was made of a patchwork of leathery, knobbly logs and not an inch of grassy swamp or water was visible –