Read Online The Warriors of Brin-Hask by Cerberus Jones - Free Book Online

the
Guild’s best salted scorpions as thanks from Control.’
    A cheer went up from the warriors.
    ‘You’d rather have salted scorpions than chocolate?’ said Charlie.
    The door of Tom’s cottage opened with a creak.
    ‘I thought I heard voices out here.’ Then Tom remembered who he was talking to. ‘Your
grace.’
    ‘Did you hear we get to stay, too?’ said Amelia.
    ‘And Ms Rosby said Amelia and I should get to know everything!’ Charlie added.
    Amelia didn’t think that was quite what Ms Rosby had said, but she let it go for
now. Tom grunted.
    ‘Did she come to see you too?’
    He nodded. ‘Said she wanted to send someone to do up this place.’ He looked sullen.
‘Said it’s not good enough for the most active gateway on this side of the galaxy
to look like it’s run out of a slum. A slum! Can you believe some people?’
    Amelia thought of the plates of forgotten sandwiches. And the apple cores. And the
open packets of biscuits that lay among the piles of charts and clockwork. It said
something, she thought, that even a nest of cyber-rats had preferred to live in a
nearly empty hotel than come anywhere near Tom’s squalor. She had no idea what the
rats had been eating, but apparently it was better than any of Tom’s leftovers.
    Tom stood back from the door to let the Brin-Hask through, and just rolled his eyes
as Amelia and Charlie followed them.
    ‘So what will Control do to this place?’ said Amelia.
    ‘Nothing!’ he growled. ‘I convinced her it was far safer to leave it as it is. If
she does it up too flash, well, that’d only raise suspicion if anyone from Forgotten
Bay came looking, wouldn’t it? Some old shack in the woods, and all clean and fancy
inside?’
    ‘Oh,’ said Charlie. ‘So all this mess is just a clever disguise, is it?’
    Tom scowled at him.
    The gateway grumbled.
    ‘What time will our wormhole align?’ said King Hibble.
    ‘I’m not sure, your grace,’ said Tom, immediately polite. ‘The wormholes keep speeding
up, but unpredictably. And as you know, the Brin-Hask connection is always unstable.’
    ‘Why?’ said Charlie.
    Tom glared, but the king answered him. ‘We come from one of the furthest reaches
of the universe where gravity works slightly differently. It’s stronger in our world,
for one thing.’
    Charlie nodded. ‘Is that why you’re all so short?’
    Charlie! Amelia thought anxiously. Why would you say that?
    But the king just nodded. ‘And, to be modest, why we are so strong. Your planet’s
gravity is like a shadow of what we are used to at home.’
    To make his point, he put a hand under the corner of Tom’s sofa and lifted. Without
any apparent effort he held one end of the sofa above his head. The other end was
still on the ground but Amelia was in no doubt, he could have easily lifted all of
the sofa’s weight – it was only the size that was too much for his paws.
    The gateway grumbled again, and this time Amelia heard the cawing of distant birds.
    ‘It’s here!’ said Tom. ‘You have to go now.’
    Amelia wondered how sixty warriors could get down that long stone staircase quickly
enough, but gravity was the answer there, too. King Hibble simply called out, ‘In
ranks!’ and the warriors fell into rough formation and jogged into the next room.
    ‘Farewell!’ the king cried and they ran, leaping, into the hole in the floor.
    Charlie would have run forward after him to get a proper look, but Tom caught the
back of his shirt and said, ‘They practically bounce down. Imagine it for yourself,
because you’re going nowhere near those stairs.’
    Charlie frowned, but didn’t argue for once. The gateway’s grumble increased until
the noise hurt their ears, and the door at the bottom of the stairs was sucked shut
with a bang. The cottage was silent.
    ‘Right, then,’ said Tom. ‘Off you go.’
    ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ said Charlie. ‘And we only came to invite you to celebrate with
us up at the house.’
    Tom snorted. ‘You can