The relief at seeing Aira and Domino made Moll stagger backwards in Wallop’s palm and, as her friends rode closer still, right up to the peak of the mountain behind the giants, Moll saw that Domino looked just as he had when they’d said goodbye to him at the North Door; he was no longer a slave to the Shadowmasks’ darkness! Instead, he held himself tall and Moll’s chest swelled with pride. This was the Domino she remembered. This was the man she’d come to regard as an older brother. Moll readied herself for the fight, but then a strange thing happened.
Aira slid from her horse and threw Wallop a large smile. ‘How are you, pal?’
Wallop shrugged, ‘Nae bad, Aira. About to eat some lying smidglings, that’s all.’
Aira led her horse closer to the giant. ‘See, I wouldn’t eat those smidglings if I were you.’
‘Why not?’ Petal grumbled. ‘They look delicious.’
Wallop nodded. ‘And they stole the Oracle Arrow from our cave which we were meant to protect until the child from the Bone Murmur came for it.’
Aira smiled. ‘Well, for a start the girl’s far too spicy to sit comfortably with your digestion – I know what you’re like, Petal – but also because that girl is the child from the Bone Murmur. And the wildcat there is the beast.’
The giants glanced at one another and then Petal groaned. ‘Can we eat the boy and his stupid ferret instead then?’
Siddy promptly fainted, but Domino only smiled. ‘Siddy here has helped Moll and Gryff on their journey to save the old magic. These are the children you’ve been waiting for. They are the ones who will force the Night Spinner and his Veil back.’
At the sound of Domino’s voice, Moll wanted to leap down from Wallop’s hand and throw herself into his arms – if only to block the mocking laughs she knew would come from the giants at the idea that she was the child from the prophecy – but the Ancient Ones didn’t laugh. Instead, they crunched down on to one knee while Wallop settled Moll, Siddy, Gryff and Frank on the peak beside Aira. Then Wallop, too, knelt in front of the group, his head bowed. And Moll stood, baffled, on the snow-strewn mountaintop, because surrounding her in a circle of mighty stone was a ring of giants swearing an oath to help her.
‘Keepers of the Ancient Book before you kneel,
We pledge to you an oath which our words do seal.
The arrow that you carry must slay the Spinner’s Veil
And we will fight beside you, as goes the old sung tale.’
The giants rose to their feet and Moll would have remained where she was, blinking in disbelief at talk of ancient books and old sung tales, had Domino not rushed towards her and swallowed her up in his arms. Moll leant into his thick coat and breathed in the familiar smell of campfires and trees.
‘You’re OK,’ she whispered.
Domino squeezed her tighter, then he bent down and tucked Moll’s hair back from her face. ‘The dark magic couldn’t crush my soul, Moll. It couldn’t crush Angus’ either, not when we both knew you and Sid and Gryff were out there.’
Moll shook her head. ‘But how? Did Aira and Spud find a cure?’
Domino nodded. ‘They took me down into Kittlerumpit’s tunnels with them – that mangy goblin said he wouldn’t hand over the cure without seeing the patient first.’ He paused. ‘Unicorn tears. Turns out only a creature that pure can lift the darkness of a Shadowmask’s curse.’
Moll shifted. ‘What was the price? I can’t see Kittlerumpit giving that out for free.’
Domino brushed the snow from Moll’s coat, then he smiled. ‘It’s not important. Not now.’ He tightened his spotted neckerchief. ‘A few of the Highland Watch are travelling south and along the way they’re giving the cure to all those poisoned by the Veil, but Aira heard your call so we knew you needed our help.’
They turned to see Aira helping a dazed Siddy to his feet and Frank hopping excitedly between Gryff’s legs. Domino hugged Siddy tight and Aira put an arm round Moll.
‘I see you’ve been keeping up the fight,’ Aira said.
Moll smiled as Gryff slunk to her side and rested his head beneath her hand. ‘Trashed a castle, killed a Shadowmask, escaped from a kraken, found the Oracle Arrow . . .’ She looked at Siddy who had recovered enough to give a shaky smile. ‘We’re not doing too badly.’
Wallop lowered his head so that it was level with the mountaintop. ‘I’m sorry for almost eating you all – and for Petal’s attitude. She’s usually a vegetarian, but this has been a long, cold winter with very little food.’ He looked north suddenly, into the encroaching darkness, then turned back to the others. ‘If the Night Spinner stole the arrow, he must have taken the Ancient Book too.’
Siddy frowned at Moll ‘Why steal the book?’ He scooped up Frank who had done so many cartwheels in the snow she was now hyperventilating. ‘What use is an ancient story to the last Shadowmask?’
Moll shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But it’s night already and, if we don’t destroy the Night Spinner and his Veil before the full moon drops, the sun won’t rise tomorrow and everything we’ve done will have been for nothing.’
Wallop placed a hand down on to the mountaintop, spraying an avalanche of snow over the group.
‘You need to keep heading north,’ he said. ‘That’s where the dark magic is coming from.’
Moll knelt down beside Gryff and held him close and, although she knew that somewhere within the Barbed Peaks the last Shadowmask was waiting for her, she wasn’t afraid. They had the Oracle Arrow, Domino was OK and the giants had sworn to help them. They were closer than ever to finishing all of this – and to getting Alfie back.
Aira gathered up the reins of the horses, but as she did so, Moll and Gryff’s gaze slid to the giants. Every single one of them was standing absolutely still, facing the darkness of the north, as if their enormous eyes were picking up sights far beyond even Gryff’s vision.
Moll screwed up her eyes into the snow. ‘What is it?’
There were mumblings among the giants and one or two picked up large boulders from the foot of the mountains.
‘Something’s coming from the north,’ growled Wallop.
The giants fell silent and through the quiet Moll heard a rattling, scuttling sound. She reached into her quiver for the Oracle Arrow and slotted it to her bow. But it wasn’t the Night Spinner and his Veil that crested the mountain; it was a herd of stampeding stags. They bore no resemblance to the magnificent beasts Moll had seen on the moors with Aira – these were the skeletons of deer whose bones clattered and knocked and whose antlers shook from side to side like clawed branches.
The giants lumbered towards the beasts, hurling their rocks into the herd. Aira raised her crossbow and Domino seized his pistol, but, when Moll went to fire her arrow, Siddy clamped a hand on her arm.
‘Save it,’ he said. ‘Remember, you’ll need it to destroy the Veil and the last Shadowmask.’
Moll backed towards Gryff as more and more stags spilled over the peaks and ridges in a wave of dark magic. Aira sent a bolt careering towards them and Domino fired his pistol, then Moll threw up her hands.
‘We can’t just stand here and watch!’
The stags streamed closer, white against the night and flooding beneath the giants’ legs. Domino fired into the throng and a stag rushing up the mountain buckled, then collapsed into a rubble of bones. But more kept coming and Moll scrambled backwards into the snow as a stag surged forward and scooped her up with its antlers. Gryff leapt at the beast, lashing out with his claws until he’d wrestled Moll to the ground, and then Aira shot a bolt into the stag and it lay still in the snow. Moll lifted herself up and Siddy slotted a stone into Moll’s catapult, but, when it was raised to his chin, he and Moll froze.
There, hanging above a distant peak and only just visible against the snow and the night, was something dark and glittering – and mounted on it was the unmistakable silhouette of a cloaked figure.
‘The Veil!’ Moll shouted. ‘And the Night Spinner! They’ve come for us!’
Domino ushered everyone
behind the line of giants, who were now blocking the stags from climbing the mountains, and through their rocky legs they peered out.
‘The Veil isn’t moving towards us,’ Domino said slowly. ‘It’s going away . . .’
‘But why?’ Siddy asked. ‘The Night Spinner will have seen this fight. He must know Moll and Gryff are here.’
Wallop bent down to the group; his huge ears hadn’t missed a word. ‘The Night Spinner will know that we giants pledged an oath to help you. He will have sent the stags to detain the Ancient Ones with the hope that Moll and the wildcat will follow without us.’ He thrashed his arm against several stags that crept close, then he turned to Moll. ‘He wants you to journey over the Barbed Peaks alone so that you arrive weak and exhausted, but I swore an oath to you and I’m not going to let you down now. My giants can hold the stags from pouring south for a while, but we need to move fast.’
Moll looked up. The snow was easing and in its place was a mountain range washed blue beneath a bright, swollen moon. They had only a few hours to force the dark magic back.
‘Now quickly, climb into my hands,’ Wallop said. ‘One stride of mine is an hour’s walk for you.’
Aira glanced at the highland ponies. ‘And my horses?’
‘Petal will look after them. She’s kinder to animals than she is to smidglings.’
Amid the din of broken rocks, roaring giants and clattering bones, the group hoisted themselves into Wallop’s fists: Aira and Domino in one, Moll, Siddy, Gryff and Frank in the other. Then Wallop raised himself to full height, crushing a stag as it charged between his legs.
‘Hold on tight,’ he muttered, closing his palms around those he’d pledged to help. ‘This is going to be a bumpy ride.’
Moll pressed herself into the crevice of Wallop’s thumb, then she felt the world slide as the giant set off, bounding over mountains and ridges, ever north with each lurching stride. On and on Wallop ran, leaping over peaks and racing along ridges until Moll lost all sense of time. She only knew that, when the giant opened his palm, she’d have to face the last of the Shadowmasks and his deadly Veil.
‘Are you scared?’ Moll found herself whispering to Siddy.
He clutched her hand in his. ‘Yes.’
Moll pressed his palm. ‘I am too, Sid.’
‘You’ve never really admitted that to me before.’
Moll gathered Gryff close to her until she could feel his heartbeat chiming with hers. ‘I always thought you’d think less of me if I told you.’
They careered right as Wallop headed further inland.
‘I’d never think less of you, Moll. You catapulted a giant in the face and even then I knew I’d never leave you.’
‘But being brave is my thing,’ Moll said. ‘I don’t have much else.’
‘Don’t have much else?’ Siddy scoffed. ‘Being brave is only a little part of you. You’re loyal and funny and kind – at least you are when you’re not cross.’ He huddled up next to her. ‘People have more than just one thing. This Bone Murmur and everything that’s happened since we took up our fight against the dark magic, that’s only a small part of you. Once all this is over, there’ll be tree forts and wagons in the woods and you and me and Alfie all back together again.’
‘Do you really think we can do it?’ Moll asked. ‘You reckon the Tribe and that arrow in my quiver are enough to force the last Shadowmask magic back for good?’
Siddy fell quiet, but when he did speak Moll wanted to hold his words close and store them in her pocket for ever. ‘We’re more than enough, Moll. Together, we can do anything.’
And, as they crouched inside the giant’s palm, Moll saw Siddy’s courage clearly: up against the giants he had fainted and on the train north he’d nearly buckled, but at the end of all things – in the face of the crushing of their hopes and dreams and a sun that might never rise – Siddy was brave. There was a sureness to his words, a grit, and it counted for more than any weapon ever could.
‘If something happens,’ Moll said after a while, ‘anything at all, you should know what a brilliant friend you are, Sid. I might have lost my temper and said things I didn’t mean, but I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else with me and Gryff.’ She paused. ‘There aren’t many who can say they’ve done what we’ve done and seen the things we’ve seen.’
Siddy laughed as Frank cuddled up in his arms. ‘Tree ghouls, kelpies, smugglers, krakens. What a journey this has been.’
Moll smiled into the darkness, then she thought of Alfie, of how he’d been with them every step of the way until they’d set off for the northern wilderness, and an ache spread out inside her. She leant her head against Gryff’s fur and, as his purr rumbled deep inside her body, Moll wondered whether it was possible for anyone to love their friends as much as she loved Gryff, Siddy and Alfie.
Hours passed and, when the giant did eventually stop and open his palm, the night was thick around them. A single cloud shifted across the moon, coating the mountains in darkness, but when it slid back Moll gasped. Wallop was standing on the top of a snow-covered ridge and climbing the height of the mountain in front of them was a staircase carved into the rock. It wound higher and higher up the cliff face, the snow puckered by footprints, until it reached a monastery perched on the very top of the mountain. Its icy walls and spiral turrets shone silver in the moonlight.
‘The Rookery,’ Wallop panted. ‘We thought this monastery was abandoned, but I followed the Veil straight to the staircase before the Night Spinner stepped off and crept up.’ He paused. ‘This is where I leave you. I need to get back and help the Ancient Ones against the stags because, if those beasts spill over the Stone Necklace, the Highland Watch will be unable to contain them and the people of the north won’t stand a chance.’
Wallop set the group down in the snow and Moll swayed at the sudden stillness of the mountain.
‘Thank you, Wallop,’ Aira said. ‘From all of us.’
Wallop nodded, then he bent down opposite Moll. ‘Keep an eye open for the Ancient Book. You may not understand why, but you’ll play a part in restoring it to us.’
Moll glanced over her shoulder at the Oracle Arrow. ‘I’ll do my best not to let you down.’
The giant smiled, the cracks in his face wrinkling about his eyes. ‘You’re a rare sort of girl, Moll. There’s a determination buried inside you that the bravest of my giants would crave.’ He rose up to his full height and his icicled hair sparkled in the moonlight. ‘Travel well, my friends, travel well.’
He bounded back across the mountains, striding over peaks as if they were molehills, and, when the dark finally swallowed him up, Moll turned to face the Rookery. She took a deep breath, felt for Gryff and then together they walked down the ridge towards the stone staircase.
Gryff went first, pausing every now and again on the steps, ears cocked. Moll followed close behind, trying to ignore the sheer drop to her right as they made their way up. The moon was blocked by a layer of cloud, but every time it broke apart light shone down, picking out the footprints on the steps that the Night Spinner must have made. Moll was surprised to see how small they were – only a bit bigger than her own – perhaps the last Shadowmask was old and shrivelled, like Orbrot had been.
Eventually they came to the top of the staircase and Gryff paused before an archway. A rook croaked from the stonework above them, making Moll jump, then it took off and once more silence fell. Moll craned her neck as far as she dared.
‘Looks like a courtyard,’ she whispered. ‘With open arches for windows and a door on the far right wall leading into the monastery itself.’
Moll held her breath as Gryff slipped through the archway and hid in the shadows against the wall, then the rest of the group followed. The courtyard was large and lit by flaming torches and Domino had to put a hand over Moll’s mouth to stop her from gasping as she took in the creatures that held these lights: stone gargoyles that leant out from the walls, with hooded eyes, snouts and claws framed by jagged wings – and inside t
heir gaping mouths flames flickered. There was a fountain in the middle of the courtyard, the tinkle of water the only sound to scrape the quiet night, and sitting on the stone lip, raising a cup to his mouth, was a figure draped in black robes. By his side hung the Veil, a quivering blanket of death.
Siddy flicked the catch back on the pistol Domino had given him, then he turned to Moll and in a whisper so quiet it was almost just a breath, he said, ‘Go for the Night Spinner first. We can finish off the Veil afterwards.’
Silently, Moll lifted the Oracle Arrow from her quiver. It felt heavy in her hands and her heart was thundering so fast she felt sure that she would drop it. But, when Domino placed a hand on her back, urging her on, she gripped it hard before slotting it against her bow. The flames danced all around them, the fountain trickled on and Moll knew in that moment that she would never get a more perfect shot than this. The Shadowmask’s back was turned – she had the advantage of surprise – and in a single shot she could avenge her parents’ death and put an end to the witch doctor’s magic.
Siddy was there beside her and Gryff’s body was pressed against her legs. Now. This was her chance. Moll pulled back on the bow until the string was taut, then she closed one eye, took aim at the figure’s back, where its rotten heart would be – and released the Oracle Arrow.
The silver bolt thrummed from her bow, sailing through the air before digging deep into the Night Spinner’s back. The Shadowmask slumped to the ground, the arrow too quick for one final cry, but any joy Moll felt was short-lived because what she saw next made her blood run cold.
A figure emerged from the doorway leading into the monastery: dark, robed and with a mask of stitched-up sack. The mask tilted, then a laugh slithered out as the Veil glided towards him and the shock brought Moll to her feet.
‘No!’ she cried.
Aira turned panicked eyes to Domino. ‘You said there were only six witch doctors! So who is . . .?’
The laugh grew, drowning out Aira’s words until it filled the courtyard and the flames inside the gargoyles’ mouths shivered with pleasure. Then it dropped to a snarl. ‘I am Wormhook, the last of the Shadowmasks.’
The Night Spinner Page 20