Читать книгу TOLLINS II: DYNAMITE TALES - Conn Iggulden - Страница 11

Sparkler found the dragonfly racers slightly annoying. Grunion had certainly changed. It wasn’t just that he wore badges, or even the pride he took in the little cup he’d won for Pond Endurance. It wasn’t even the plasters he wore on his ears, or getting up at dawn to train. He had found a hobby and Sparkler was pleased for him. He just wished he wouldn’t take it all so seriously.

“I can’t come on a raid with you,” Grunion said, leafing through a manual with pictures of racing harnesses. “I need to be here for Blue Thunder’s midnight feed, or he’ll be sluggish in the morning. If we’re going to beat that team of Red Needlers, he needs all the rest he can get.”

“Is it a ‘he’, Grunion?” Sparkler asked innocently. “How can you tell?”

“The markings,” Grunion replied, without looking up. “It’s the pattern of colour, you see, and the wings, which are…” His voice faded away as he became aware of Sparkler’s stare. “All right, I don’t know. I still can’t come on a raid with you. Human books are forbidden anyway. I’m not getting into that kind of trouble again!”

Sparkler sighed to himself. He liked Grunion. The Tollin was kind and cheerful, but truth be told, he was a little bit timid. Not frightened, or cowardly, just not a fan of loud noises, surprises, or creeping about at night.

“All right, Grun,” he said. “Good luck with the race tomorrow.”

“We don’t need luck,” Grunion replied.

“We?” said Sparkler. “Are you racing as well then?”

“It’s an expression. We are the team, Sparkler. Blue Thunder and Grunion.” Grunion leaned closer. “You know, I think they have a damselfly in that pack of reds. That’s cheating, Sparkler! A damselfly!”

“Goodness,” Sparkler said. “How, um, unsporting of them.”

“Exactly!” Grunion replied. “Still, Blue Thunder is in fine form. I’ve only just finished waxing him.”

“Him?”

“Or her. It’s the pattern, or something. Or the wings.”

Sparkler left his friend reading the instructions on a tin of wax with the High Tollin’s face on it. That was another strange thing. Just days after Sparkler had mentioned the idea in conversation, there seemed to be products all the racers had to have, from special racing harnesses, to ear protectors and body wax.

Sparkler had even seen a poster for a thing he could have designed himself, which used a steel spring to launch targets into the air for training.

The world was changing. Ever since he’d lit the first tiny forge and produced a misshapen lump of black iron, everything was different. It was as if he’d unlocked something in his people and they didn’t need him as much. He supposed he should be pleased about that, but somehow, he just wasn’t.

He could have gone to Wing, or even old Briar. They would have understood the excitement he felt about a whole room of human books. Being turned down by Grunion had taken the fun out of it, somehow. Sparkler walked back across the common with his hands in his pockets, kicking idly at pebbles.

That night, Sparkler went alone to the Memorial Hall and squeezed through a gap under the roof-tiles. It was the largest building he had ever seen and every scratching sound he made echoed back at him as if there were someone else in there.

In the gloom, he flew down to the floor and fiddled with a piece of flint and iron that produced sparks. It wasn’t easy, as each spark left green lines across his vision, but he managed to light a small lamp. Iron was amazing stuff, he’d discovered. He was working on a needle compass, but the one he had made just pointed north. That was fine if he wanted to go north, but he didn’t always want to go that way.

The lamp lit up a row of shelves and he looked up, then up again. There they were. Row upon row of books, stretching away into the distance. When he’d found books before, it had always been in a house, where he could be disturbed at any moment. Here, there was no one. He read the human sign above the door. ‘Library’ sounded a little bit like liberty and it was freedom of a sort. All human knowledge was there and it was his. In a sort of joyous trance, he walked to a low shelf and looked at his first title.

“The Complete Works of Shakespeare,” he read aloud. Shaking spears sounded pretty exciting and he liked to see how things worked. It was perfect. He heaved the book out on to the wooden floorboards and opened it, placing the lamp where the light could spill across the page. He would read this one first and then work his way down the shelf.

As dawn came to Chorleywood and the racing dragonflies were finishing their power breakfasts and being rubbed down, Sparkler was still there with that first book, his mouth hanging slightly open in amazement.