Ottilie Colter and the Master of Monsters

by Rhiannon Williams

  Contents

  Title Page

  1: Little Bird

  2: Leo’s Remedy

  3: The Sea Spears

  4: Sleeper Come

  5: The Dark Hours

  6: Feathers

  7: Hooves

  8: The Pack

  9: Wounds

  10: Wall Watch

  11: Secrets and Signatures

  12: Frost and Flame

  13: The Haunted Stables

  14: The Bone Tower

  15: Whistler

  16: The Flaming Tapestry

  17: Hush

  18: The Tipped Barrow

  19: Fish for Hero

  20: A Secret Blade

  21: The Spy

  22: Ambush

  23: Witch Hunt

  24: An Iron Coffin

  25: Moth and Moravec

  26: Sanctuary

  27: A Visitor

  28: Maeve’s Secret

  29: Goedl

  30: Bird Tales

  31: Champion

  32: Wrangler Kinney’s Revenge

  33: Nox

  34: Bill’s Warning

  35: The Witch

  36: Hostage

  37: Missing

  38: The Cave

  39: Fort Richter

  40: Varrio’s Hex

  41: Victory

  42: Bone and Heartstone

  43: Restless

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  1

  Little Bird

  Bill stood in a puddle. His eyelashes swept low, fluttering as he dreamed …

  A young girl was crouched in the corner of a shadowed space. Wisps of icy hair floated above her shoulders, and fading bruises coloured the backs of both hands, one of which rested at an odd angle.

  Angry voices could be heard somewhere out of sight.

  ‘How could you have kept this from me?’ said a man’s voice.

  ‘I did not wish to speak of it!’ a woman answered. ‘If people heard … if they knew …’ Her words were like the hissing and spitting of an angry cat. ‘I couldn’t face it. It felt like – like confirmation!’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘That we are … that she is our punishment.’

  ‘That was confirmed the day she was born,’ said the man. ‘Nothing for a decade and then this, a girl … That twisted creature is our curse. At least now she can be useful. We can put her to work.’

  Inside the room, the girl’s shoulders shook.

  Bill’s eyes opened. He considered his drowned feet and wondered how he had come to be there. All water was laced with memory. It tended to bring about funny dreams, which was just one of several reasons Bill didn’t usually have snoozes in puddles.

  He felt a scratching from his head. A downy ghostfinch was perched between his horns.

  ‘Did you make me sleepwalk?’ he said.

  The bird didn’t appear to respond. Instead, it pecked a fat green leafmite out of Bill’s hair and swallowed it in one gulp.

  Bill strained his mind, trying to remember the dream. He’d seen that girl again, the girl with the floating hair. The birds kept reminding him. He was sure he knew more – sometimes she was older – but he couldn’t keep it straight.

  Bill had never had so many memories about one person before. He wondered if it had something to do with his location. He had been living high up in the hollow of a tree on the edge of the River Hook for the past two seasons. He had picked the spot very carefully: it was safe, out of sight, with a perfect view of the duck hatch. He was waiting for someone. He still had her hair in a bag. He couldn’t remember her name, or where she had gone, but he could remember her. She had said she would return, and Bill had been waiting ever since.

  2

  Leo’s Remedy

  Something screeched overhead. Ottilie tripped backwards, smacked into Maestro’s side and bounced off him into the mud. Maestro swung around and bared his enormous fangs. His breath smelled of salted eel. Ottilie cringed, ignoring the impulse to dive sideways and curl to protect her underside. Showing fear only made Maestro worse.

  ‘All right down there?’ called Ned.

  Ottilie scrunched her nose up. Ned was leaning over the fence, the ghost of a laugh lighting his face.

  ‘What was that?’ said Ottilie, clambering to her feet and scanning the skies.

  ‘Just an owl, I think,’ said Ned.

  Ottilie’s cheeks warmed. She squinted up at the boundary wall and could just see the silhouette of huntsmen against the pale sky. Of course it wasn’t a dredretch. Fiory’s huntsmen would have sounded the alarm or shot it down. That was their job. Fort Fiory was one of three stations in the Narroway, the slip of land between the Usklers, to the east, and the deserted Laklands, to the west. Huntsmen at the stations – Fiory, Arko and Richter – were charged with managing the dredretch threat, keeping the monsters out of the Usklers.

  Ottilie should have known. Dredretches were not easily confused with ordinary beasts. Although the different dredretch species could vaguely resemble familiar creatures, they were a mockery of nature’s design and, if they came close enough, caused a physical sickness that the huntsmen were trained to ward off.

  Ottilie turned to Ned. ‘Why are you down here?’ she said, annoyed that he’d witnessed her moment of clumsiness.

  Ned grinned. ‘I was looking for Leo.’

  Ottilie scowled at the mention of her guardian’s name. It was Leo’s fault she was there in the first place. ‘He’s not here,’ she snapped.

  Ned raised one of his dark eyebrows.

  ‘Leo says he’s not happy with my performance,’ she quoted. ‘He sent me to practise with Maestro by myself.’

  ‘So why are you just standing with him in the paddock?’ Ned said with a half-smile.

  ‘Are you here to spy?’

  He let out a bark of laughter.

  Out of the corner of her eye Ottilie noticed Wrangler Kinney, the balding wingerslink master. He had undoubtedly been spying – hoping for a fresh excuse to mock her. Ottilie liked to think he was just bitter because none of the wingerslinks liked him. She had even seen Maestro trip him up with his tail when Kinney was passing by. The gold-toothed grouch walked around with a whip tucked into his belt and Ottilie knew it was the only reason the beasts obeyed him. She had never seen him use it, but the wingerslinks certainly seemed to know what it was for.

  But it was more than that, Ottilie knew. The all-male Narroway Hunt had recruited her brother, Gully, not her. She might have cut off her hair and pretended to be Ott, Gully’s older brother from the Swamp Hollows, but the ruse didn’t last the year. When she was found out, Ottilie had feared being separated from Gully. But instead she had been consigned to the shovelies, the disgraced rank of former huntsmen, condemned to burying dredretch bones, until she saved Leo from the monstrous kappabak and was finally accepted as the first female member of the Narroway Hunt. But, after everything, that fear had never really gone away.

  Her return to the Hunt had not been met with a warm welcome. It had been made very clear to her that many of the Fiory community resented Ottilie’s position. Kinney was one of them. He loved to watch her fail – loved to comment, too – but Ned’s presence was probably keeping him at a distance this morning.

  ‘I tried to get the saddle on him but he kept throwing it off,’ she said, scowling at the great silvery wingerslink. ‘Then he bit me.’

  Ned frowned. ‘He actually bit you?’

  ‘Yes. Well. No. He put his jaws over my arm and then let it go, but I got the message.’

  Ned laughed again.

  ‘Leo knew th
is would happen!’ said Ottilie, giving Maestro a shove with her shoulder. ‘He knew Maestro wouldn’t let me anywhere near him by myself!’

  ‘Probably.’

  Ottilie growled. Maestro joined in, harmonising with her frustration. She elbowed him in the rump and he bared his teeth again. She stared him down, nearly losing herself in his huge, fire-wreathed eyes.

  ‘Do you know where he is?’ said Ned.

  She blinked. ‘Who? Leo? No. What do you need him for?’

  ‘Voilies is looking for him. I figured you’d be the best person to ask.’

  ‘Well, I wish I wasn’t,’ she grumbled.

  Ned smiled. ‘Only two seasons to go. Then you’ll be rid of that one too.’ He nodded at Maestro.

  Although she had only just been permitted to hunt again, Ottilie’s fledgling year was half gone. At winter’s end she and her friends would undertake their order trials. After which Leo would no longer be her guardian and Ottilie, if she was made a flyer, would be assigned a wingerslink of her own.

  ‘I can’t wait.’ She glanced at Maestro and felt immediately guilty. ‘What does Voilies want with him, anyway? It’s barely even light yet.’ She waved her hand at the pink mist draping the dawn sky.

  ‘He skipped out on his check-up this morning,’ he said, with a trace of concern.

  Nearly a month had passed since Leo had been cornered by the kappabak. Ottilie had found him just in time. Any longer and it might have been more than his leg that was crushed. The patchies were strictly monitoring his recovery. Maestro had come further much faster. Wingerslinks were remarkable healers, and the fur had already grown to cover the jagged scar in his side.

  ‘Voilies needs a hobby. His obsession with Leo makes me gag,’ said Ottilie, her words harsher than she intended.

  Ned’s brow creased. ‘Are you all right? You don’t sound like yourself.’

  ‘I just got bitten by a wingerslink,’ she said, looking away from him. She didn’t want to talk about her bad mood, or what had caused it.

  ‘And that’s all?’ he pressed.

  It wasn’t all. At breakfast that morning Igor Thrike had brushed against her, muttering something foul in her ear, and it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened.

  ‘It’s early and Maestro bit me. That’s it,’ she said, forcing herself to look him in the eye. Ottilie had no desire to share the truth with Ned. She didn’t want him thinking she couldn’t handle herself, or that she needed protection.

  By lunchtime, Ottilie’s mood had not improved and she found she couldn’t face the dining room. It wasn’t just Igor Thrike and Wrangler Kinney who bothered her; Maeve Moth and Gracie Moravec still took every opportunity to spit something nasty in her direction. The truth was, Ottilie was having difficulty sleeping and she found herself close to tears more often than she liked.

  Determined not to be defeated by the day, she resolved to take a nap and start it over, but when she opened the door to her bedchamber it was immediately clear things were not going to go her way – Leo was leaning against her window.

  Ottilie scowled across the room.

  ‘Good afternoon to you too,’ said Leo.

  ‘What do you want?’ she snapped, thinking of Maestro’s jaws clamped over her arm.

  Leo raised his eyebrows. ‘You are in a bad mood.’

  ‘What did Ned say to you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Leo, waving his hand. ‘Just that you weren’t having a good day.’

  ‘And you thought you could make it better by breaking into my room?’ she said, stomping inside and slumping onto her bed.

  ‘Yes. Get dressed and come with me,’ he said, moving towards the door. He refused to use his crutches any longer but still favoured his right leg as he walked.

  ‘I am dressed.’

  Leo made an impatient noise that reminded her of a whining dog. ‘Get your hunting gear on, we’re going out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re ranked seventy-sixth and I know where to find a knopo troop.’

  Ottilie felt a flicker of excitement. Knopoes were an elusive, high-scoring dredretch. She had encountered a loner but never a troop. It was too tempting to resist.

  The huntsmen were awarded points for every dredretch they felled. Some species, like jivvies, the bloodthirsty death crows, were worth as little as one point per fell. The highest-scoring dredretch on record was the ferocious kappabak, worth one hundred and fifty. At the end of the hunting year the huntsmen with the highest scores were named champions of their tier, a supreme honour.

  Ottilie couldn’t help but dream of becoming a champion. If she made champion, everyone would have to take her seriously. She would finally be considered a rightful member of the Narroway Hunt, and maybe the Hunt would allow other girls to join.

  It was true that becoming champion of the fledgling tier was a near impossible dream. Over the last few weeks, she had improved her position quite quickly. But she had a long way to go. When Ottilie was made a huntsman again, they reset her score. She had to restart her fledge year two seasons behind everyone else, with a bottom-place ranking.

  In the early days of Leo’s recovery, Ottilie had taken the lead in their hunts. She scored more points per shift than ever before, improving her ranking of eighty-seventh to seventy-sixth. If Leo really knew where to find a knopo troop, she was sure she would make another leap in the rankings before this week was through.

  Ottilie kept a close eye on Maestro’s jaws as Leo tightened the girth on the double saddle. ‘How can we even go out when we’re not rostered on?’

  ‘I got Rudolph Sacker to swap his shift for mine tomorrow,’ said Leo, tucking in the strap.

  ‘Well, this seems more like a treat for you than for me,’ said Ottilie. ‘I was going to take a nap.’

  Leo snorted. ‘You’re miserable. I’m cheering you up.’

  ‘Of course you think scoring points is the only way to cheer someone up.’ She strangled her smile.

  ‘It’s not the only way,’ he said, hoisting himself into the saddle. ‘But it’s the best way.’

  Her smile broke free as she climbed up behind him. Slipping her feet into the stirrups, she braced as Maestro launched into the air. They settled into a smooth glide over the treetops and her worries pulled back, like a scarf streaming behind her. ‘So where are these knopoes?’

  ‘Jungle Bay on the north coast,’ said Leo. ‘There’s a fair bit of Narroway between here and there and if we’re lucky we’ll see a lot of action.’

  They were indeed lucky.

  On their journey north they encountered a squail, six morgies, a nest of barbed toads, endless jivvies, a trick of flares and no less than twenty leaping ripperspitters – horrible rat-like dredretches with acidic saliva, which they used to spit in a huntsman’s eyes.

  Leo elbowed the last ripperspitter, sending it spiralling to the left, and Ottilie shot it clean through the head with an arrow. The rodent fizzled, its flesh bubbling and melting as it fell into the basin of bracken below.

  Twilight draped the Uskler pines and the sickle moon glowed brighter in the dusky light. Leo guided Maestro down to land in a small clearing by a dried-up stream.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ said Ottilie, pulling more arrows from the saddlebag.

  Leo unbuckled his injured leg and slid down Maestro’s side. He tossed her a knife to replace the one she’d lost inside a morgie’s narrow jaw. Like reptilian terriers, morgies attacked from below, trying to tear foot from ankle. One of them had leapt and, to its peril, snapped just as Ottilie swung her knife: it ended up swallowing the blade whole.

  Leo was grinning. ‘You want to go home to bed?’

  ‘Course not,’ she said with a smile.

  Jungle Bay was only a short flying distance from the clearing, but Leo decided Maestro should have a break before they took on the knopoes. The Hunt had had little success in tracking them. They were unpredictable, and seemed content to settle in all manner of landscapes: forest canopies, wetl
ands, alpine regions, and now Leo had found them in the coastal cliffs. Despite their adaptability, this was strange. There were two things they knew all dredretches couldn’t stand: salt and rain. Coastal regions were a haven for natural beasts because dredretches disliked salty sea spray and tended to stick further inland.

  Leo grabbed himself a dustplum, tossed one to Ottilie, and settled down on a half-rotted log. Maestro lay in front of him. His crystalline eyes slid shut, but he kept his head slightly raised, poised to act should the need arise.

  They sat in silence for quite a while – probably because their hunt had run smoothly and Leo couldn’t think of anything critical to say. Ottilie smiled to herself.

  ‘See, I was right,’ said Leo. ‘I did improve your day! We haven’t even got the knopoes yet and look at you, grinning like an idiot!’

  ‘I am not grinning like an idi–’ Ottilie froze. She could see something in the distance.

  ‘What?’ Leo stood up.

  Ottilie raised her bow and aimed an arrow through a gap in the trees. ‘Someone’s watching us.’

  3

  The Sea Spears

  The wind picked up, catching on the trees, whose shadows snatched like talons and teeth.

  Leo moved to stand beside Ottilie, cutlass in hand. ‘What do you mean someone?’ he said, peering ahead.

  The light from their glow sticks didn’t reach beyond the clearing.

  ‘I saw someone between the trees,’ said Ottilie, her bow still raised. She had a horrible feeling that the mysterious hooded figure she had seen twice before was now watching them, only a few yards away.

  ‘It’s happened before,’ she said. ‘That day, with the kappabak.’ She hadn’t told Leo back then. She didn’t know why she was telling him now. Maybe just because he was there to bear witness. People listened to Leo. If he reported the sighting, no-one would question it, or suspect he was just a frightened little girl.

  Maestro stared ahead, his ears tipped forwards.

  ‘He can see something,’ said Leo, taking a step.

  There was a flash – was it lightning? No. It was wrong: not bright but the opposite, a flash like blackness in the already night-heavy trees. Ottilie shook her head. She was just thinking she must have imagined it when there was a great swishing sound, followed by the swooping of wings and a bloodcurdling squawk to rival the call of a squail. They braced, but the creature didn’t attack, and she heard the beating of its wings growing faint in the distance.