Free The Winter Knights by Paul Stewart Page B

Embertine shook his head. ‘That could be just what Hax wants us to do,’ he said. ‘No, we must bide our time. I know it's hard, Screedius, but you must trust me on this, I still have work to do …’
    Their voices faded as they continued down the corridor. Quint turned to Stope. ‘Well that was very strange,’ he said. ‘I've never heard Philius Embertine talk that clearly about anything but armour before.’
    ‘I have,’ said Stope, his brow wrinkling into a puzzled frown. ‘Earlier today, when he talked to me in the armoury. He's not as foolish as he looks, you know.’
    Quint broke into a broad smile and clapped the grey goblin on the shoulder. ‘He's not the only one!’ he laughed.

•CHAPTER EIGHT•
TREASURY DAY
    A fter a brief respite, snow was once again falling on Sanctaphrax. Roofs, turrets, bridges and balustrades were all piled high with great pillow-like drifts which, as the snowflakes settled, grew higher and higher, and more unstable. In the end, a light gust of wind or a white raven's flapping wing was all it took to upset the snow's precarious balance and send it tumbling down through the air. All round Sanctaphrax, the flupp flupp flupp of the packed snow hitting the ground could be heard – followed, on occasions, by the muffled cries of unwary passers-by.
    Of course, these weren't the only sounds to be heard in Sanctaphrax. As always, there was the curiously ethereal music of the great floating city – from the percussion and timpani of the meteorological instruments clashing and clattering, to the reedy pipe-like sounds of the wind whistling through narrow gaps and gullies.
    With the snowfall, however, not only was the music more subdued, but now there were new sounds. The eerie chiming of countless giant icicles, the muted plash of footsteps tramping through the snow and, loudest of all, the constant grating and grinding of the massed ranks of shovels. Armies of underlings from the academies and labourers from Undertown were working around the clock to keep the streets and squares of Sanctaphrax clear. Under the watchful eye of flat-head goblin guards, they worked in teams, shifting the snow along from the centre of the city, down avenues and roads, until they reached the edge, where it was dumped over the side.
    ‘Put your backs into it, you lot!’ barked a stocky flat-head, a fur-lined hood crammed down over his hairless head. ‘Gotta clear all this lot away before the procession arrives.’
    The rag-tag collection of trogs and goblins said nothing. Heads down and thick mist billowing from their mouths, they continued the arduous, if not impossible, task of removing all the snow from Mosaic Quadrangle, even as more was falling from the dark-grey sky above.
    ‘Blooming ridiculous,’ a mobgnome complained to his neighbour, an old, bow-legged tusked goblin. ‘Procession! I mean, I ask you! In this!’ He straightened up and swung his arm round in a wide arc.
    ‘Snow on Treasury Day,’ the tusked goblin commented, as she shuffled forwards. ‘Beggars belief, dunnit?’
    ‘You can say that again,’ said the mobgnome, resuming his snow-clearing. ‘I remember last year. Beautiful blue sky and hardly a breath of wind. And the year before that, a slight shower, but there's never been snow before – not on Treasury Day.’
    ‘And now look at it,’ grumbled a lumbering clod-dertrog to their left. ‘You'd think they'd cancel it, what with all this weather 'n’ all. Or at least postpone it …’
    ‘Ooh, can't do that,’ came a voice from behind them. The mobgnome, the tusked goblin and the cloddertrog turned to see a shabby woodwaif, a stiff broom in his spidery hands, shaking his head grimly. ‘First day of the second moon when it's in its third quarter. That's Treasury Day. Always has been and always will be. It's tradition, and you can't change tradition …’
    ‘Which is where we lot come in,’ the mobgnome muttered. ‘Shovelling and sweating …’ He looked up at the