Ottilie Colter and the Master of Monsters

by Rhiannon Williams

  Ottilie’s ribs locked. A wyler pack? This was not good news.

  Conductor Edderfed went on to insist that they watch for changes and irregular behaviour. Anything new or out of the ordinary had to be reported immediately, and the bone singers, with huntsmen as guards, would be given the task of monitoring the expansion of the Withering Wood.

  He was linking everything. He had said nothing to suggest that the wyler attack was an isolated incident, or that the cause had been discovered and dealt with. This meant it could happen again – not just could, was likely to.

  Ottilie couldn’t focus. She saw Joely Wrecker, her blood-soaked hair dripping down her front, and shuddered. One wyler had done that – just one. She thought again of all the girls, unarmed and untrained. She imagined the bedchamber with ten wylers instead of one, and shattered the image as soon as she had the power. Wylers were supposed to be solitary. From what she’d read, they never so much as paired up.

  She glanced at the back of Leo’s head, wondering what he made of this new information. He didn’t turn, but beside him Ned looked back at her. His jaw was set and his usually laughing eyes were cast in shadow.

  Someone had to be behind all this. That hooded figure, and the witch who hexed the king, it was all connected. It had to be. She had to find out who the witch was.

  She had been thinking about witches a lot – who they were and why they were gone. People didn’t like talking about witches, or what was done to them, which, Ottilie was learning, was a sign that something was wrong.

  For the first twelve years of her life, the only book she had access to was Mr Parch’s Our Walkable World. It was how Old Moss had taught both Gully and Ottilie to read. Ottilie had read it so many times that random facts still clung to her memory like strands of old cobweb.

  She was fairly sure they had started hunting and burying witches when the Roving Empire had control of the Usklers. The Usklerian royals had fled, and many of their people had gone with them. She had since learned, much to her surprise, that they’d escaped west to the Laklands, an old enemy of the Usklerian Kingdom. Alba, who was a distant descendant of the Lakland people, had told Ottilie a story …

  ‘The Laklands and the Usklers were always fighting,’ Alba had explained over a late-night cup of spiced saffi milk. The patchies stocked the milk to help calm distressed patients, but Alba’s mother, Montie, kept a supply of it as well, considering the number of huntsmen who visited her kitchen when they were feeling vulnerable.

  ‘But around a hundred and fifty years ago,’ Alba continued, ‘when the Roving Empire conquered the Usklers, the Laklanders offered many Usklerians refuge, even giving the royals land and positions in the court.

  ‘Then, years later, when the Roving Empire lost its grip, the Laklanders helped the Usklerian royals take back their kingdom, on the condition that the Usklers would never attack the Laklands again.’

  Before then, Ottilie had never heard this version of events. She had not known that the Usklers had promised to keep peace with the Laklands to repay their kindness.

  ‘They kept the promise for a while.’ Alba’s face darkened. ‘But when Viago the Vanquisher came to power, he decided he wanted to conquer the Laklands and take the land they had been granted in exile. So he broke the promise. They went to war and it lasted years, and eventually the Usklers flattened the Laklands.’

  It was a horrible, bloody history. The Usklers had committed a great wrong and nobody talked about it. Ottilie wondered how many people even knew. The Laklanders certainly did – those who had survived. But, landless, they had spread far and wide, few of them remaining in the Usklers, with good reason.

  What exactly happened with the witches during that time, Ottilie didn’t know. The Roving Empire had wanted them gone, and when the Usklerian royals were reinstated, it seemed they did too. The witch hunts continued until every last witch was supposedly locked in an iron coffin, deep beneath the ground.

  Was it because witches were all bad? Was magic an evil, unnatural thing like the dredretches? Ottilie couldn’t find anything in all her reading. But would people have allowed them to be buried alive if they were not evil? Surely not. Still, thinking about everything she had learned – about that broken promise, and all the senseless violence that followed – it seemed foolish to blindly trust that leaders knew what was right and wrong.

  Ottilie looked up at Captain Lyre. He had told them on their first day that they had been specially recruited on a secret mission for the king. But where was Varrio Sol, King of the Usklers, grandson of the treacherous Viago the Vanquisher? East, in All Kings’ Hill, across a fat channel of saltwater, where the dredretches could probably never reach him.

  9

  Wounds

  ‘I’ve had it!’ said Skip, flopping onto Ottilie’s bed.

  The custodians hadn’t been invited to the meeting but Ottilie had filled Skip in later that night.

  ‘What happened when that wyler got in? It went straight for us,’ said Skip. ‘We’re defenceless because they won’t let us defend ourselves!’

  ‘I know.’ Ottilie had been thinking about it too. There were hundreds of girls in the Narroway, tucked behind high walls with monsters beyond them. ‘Everyone should be allowed to learn to fight them. Has anyone ever … I mean, besides what happened with me – has anyone ever asked?’

  Skip scowled and crawled further up the bed. ‘I asked the custodian chieftess once, when I was much younger. She took the rod to the back of my hand for my insolence.’

  Once, that might have surprised Ottilie, but after being locked in the burrows and put on trial in front of the directorate, she understood how dangerous disrupting the Hunt’s rules could be.

  ‘But what about Wrangler Ritgrivvian?’ said Ottilie. ‘They let her be a wrangler. Why is it different?’

  ‘They let her be a wrangler because there’s no-one better. I’ve heard she used to work for the king,’ said Skip. ‘But she had to claw her way up. She doesn’t talk about it much – makes sense.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Something went wrong,’ Skip said, as if it were obvious. ‘I don’t know what, but I’d say that’s how she ended up here.’ Ottilie’s confusion must have shown on her face because Skip added, ‘You know … the eyepatch …’ She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘What about it?’ Ottilie had just assumed that Wrangler Ritgrivvian was missing an eye, like Wrangler Furdles.

  ‘It’s crocodile skin, didn’t you notice?’

  She hadn’t noticed, and she didn’t understand the significance anyway.

  ‘When an eyepatch is made of crocodile skin it means negligence,’ explained Skip, cupping a hand over her eye. ‘It’s a punishment – supposed to humiliate. It’s mostly for servants when something gets lost or broken, or someone under their care gets hurt. The length of time they have to wear it depends on how bad it was, and if it was really bad they take the eye too, and they have to wear the patch forever. I don’t know what happened with Ramona, but she’s been wearing that patch as long as I’ve been here.’

  Ottilie had never heard about this. But, of course, no-one around the Brakkerswamp, where Ottilie grew up, had servants to punish. She wondered what had happened. Negligent wasn’t a word she would have associated with the horse mistress.

  ‘I’ve never asked her about it,’ said Skip. ‘It’s not something you can just bring up.’

  They were getting distracted. Whether Ramona Ritgrivvian had a right eye didn’t matter. What mattered was convincing the Hunt to train girls.

  ‘We need to ask again,’ said Ottilie. ‘Properly.’

  Skip leapt off the bed, her face glowing. ‘You’ll help? You’ll ask them?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘They may not take it well. We could get into a lot of trouble.’

  Skip was right, it was dangerous. Many would say she was making trouble. Voilies would lash out, and some others of higher rank would too. She remembered the sallow-faced Director Yaist,
the one member of the directorate who had voted that death be considered a punishment for her deception. He might even use it as an excuse to reopen that debate, to get rid of her once and for all.

  But it was worth it. Things were clearer to her now. She couldn’t let the fear of being cast out stop her from doing what was right. If she didn’t do this, who would?

  ‘People died,’ she said firmly. ‘Every girl in that room could have died. If there was ever a time to ask, it’s now.’

  They needed support. Although Ottilie was in a better position than Skip to ask the directorate, she was still just a fledgling, ranked in the bottom third, and considered by most a blot on the ranking wall. They would have to write their request and have it signed by as many elites as they could get. Surely after everything, Leo would help with this. A champion’s support would have to make them consider it.

  Ottilie was too wound up to sleep. She wanted to talk to her friends. Scoot’s room was right next to hers, so he was her first stop. She knocked softly on his door.

  ‘Who is it?’ he called.

  ‘It’s Ottilie,’ she whispered through the wood.

  There was no response. Ottilie knocked again, a little louder.

  He ignored her.

  She frowned, feeling worried. Conductor Edderfed’s speech had distracted her. She had forgotten that strange moment when Scoot hadn’t saved her a seat. It was a small thing, but here, standing outside his door with silence from within, she felt the weight of it grow.

  Invitation be damned – she tried the door, but it was bolted from the inside.

  ‘Scoot, let me in!’ she hissed.

  ‘I’m sleeping.’

  Even through the door she could hear the sullenness in his voice.

  ‘I’m not going away. Let me in!’ She rattled the latch. She heard the weight of his steps and the scrape of the bolt. The door flew open and Scoot stood there in his pale green nightclothes, glaring.

  Ottilie shoved him aside and marched into the room. ‘What is the matter with you?’

  Scoot thrust the door shut and said nothing. He just stood there, jaw ticking and fingers twitching.

  ‘Why are you mad at me?’ she said, unable to hide the hurt.

  ‘Because,’ he said in a half-whisper.

  ‘Because what?’

  ‘Because you think you’re too good for us!’ he burst out.

  ‘What?’ Ottilie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was one of the lowest-ranked fledges in the Narroway, and arguably the least popular person in Fort Fiory.

  ‘You do!’ said Scoot. ‘You’re never around anymore. You’re always with the elites.’

  ‘What elites?’

  ‘Leo and Ned. We’re not good enough for you,’ said Scoot, turning away from her.

  ‘I am not … I don’t –’

  ‘You’re always with Leo!’

  Ottilie moved around the room to face him, determined that he listen to her. ‘Leo’s my guardian. I have shifts with him nearly every day. You’re with Bayo all the time too!’

  Scoot still didn’t look at her. ‘I hunt with him, that’s all. Same as Gully with Ned. He’s still around … he’s still our friend first!’

  Ottilie was shaking with frustration. ‘So am I! You’re being stupid, Scoot. You just see Gully more because he’s with the footmen too, so you do all the same training!’ She took a step towards him, noticing a nasty set of puncture wounds high on his shoulder. ‘Scoot, what’s –’ She reached out, but he jerked away.

  ‘Fanged pobe got me, weeks ago!’ he spat. ‘You would know that if I ever saw you.’

  Ottilie felt close to tears. ‘That’s not fair, your day clothes don’t show –’

  ‘Leo’s the one who told them you’re a girl! And you just forgave him straight away. You don’t care about … about everything he did.’ Scoot started pacing back and forth, his shoulders hunched so far forward it took inches off his height.

  ‘I didn’t just forgive him straight away.’ Her hurt twisted into anger. ‘And that’s none of your business!’

  ‘He doesn’t even like you … he thinks you’re useless. Preddy told me, when he was his guardian and you were a shovelie, Leo said heaps of nasty stuff about you.’

  ‘Stop it, Scoot!’ It was like a punch in the gut. Though she wasn’t overly surprised: Leo had said awful things to her face. She had expected him to say them behind her back as well.

  ‘You’re being pathetic,’ said Scoot. ‘You just follow him around … you’re like a lovesick whelp.’

  She let out a bark of derisive laughter. ‘I am not lovesick, and I do not follow him around.’

  ‘You are and you do!’ He was still pacing, moving further and further away from her. ‘Everyone can see it.’ He turned his back.

  Ottilie clenched her fists. ‘You wouldn’t be saying that if you still thought I was a boy. I’m acting exactly the same.’ With that, she stormed from the room, slamming his door behind her.

  10

  Wall Watch

  Ottilie shuffled sideways, trying to get a bit of distance from Preddy. They were practising their footwork with Wrangler Voilies, and Preddy kept tripping over his own boots. The move they were learning would be used with a flail, but until they mastered it they simply held short sticks with no chain. It was lucky for Ottilie – if Preddy had been holding a flail, her skull would have acquired several dints that morning.

  Preddy tripped again, his lanky legs leading him in completely the wrong direction.

  ‘Enough,’ called Wrangler Voilies, clapping his hands together with pursed lips. ‘Take a short break.’

  Wrangler Voilies was never one to criticise Preddy. Coming from the wealthy outskirts of Wikric Town, Preddy had entered the Narroway with a basket of skills that the other fledges didn’t possess. Not only was he educated and well spoken, but he had experience hunting – albeit natural beasts – and was already proficient at archery and horseback riding.

  Voilies always favoured the most talented recruits. Gully had been a favourite of his from the first day, but Ottilie knew he had a particular liking for the huntsmen from wealthy families, like Leo and Preddy. This preference helped explain why he had always so disliked Scoot, who hailed from Wikric’s slum tunnels and whose manners were nearly as rough as Gurt’s, the bramblywine king of the Brakkerswamp.

  Ottilie trudged over to retrieve her waterskin from the edge of the yard. She didn’t want to think about Scoot. It gave her a dismal, sick feeling in her stomach. She hadn’t talked to him since their argument the night before. In fact, she hadn’t really talked to anyone. To avoid running into him she’d skipped breakfast that morning, which did nothing to improve her mood.

  ‘He didn’t mean it,’ said Preddy quietly, over her shoulder.

  Ottilie’s chest felt tight. She took a gulp of water and didn’t answer.

  ‘I know you had a fight. Whatever he said – he didn’t mean it. He’s just …’

  She turned and narrowed her eyes. ‘Just what?’ A lump formed in her throat, which only made her angrier.

  Preddy nervously adjusted his eyeglasses. ‘I think he’s just jealous, and he’s … he’s not very good at managing his feelings.’

  Ottilie threw up her hands. ‘Jealous of what? I’m ranked sixty-third –’

  ‘Not of rankings or anything.’ He paused for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure he should say more. After a breath or two he added, ‘He’s jealous of Leo. Because you spend so much time with him, and not … us.’

  Ottilie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Leo’s my guardian,’ she said irritably. ‘I’ve always spent this much time with him – except when I was a shovelie.’

  If she really thought about it, though, it was possible she had been spending more time with Leo than she used to. Back before everything went wrong, before he betrayed her, Leo used to treat her more like a fledge. She remembered him complaining when he’d found Ned sitting with her and Gully at dinner. But since she’d come
to his aid that day, he had treated her more like a friend, seeking her out in his free time, inviting her to practise with him and Ned. But she hadn’t been neglecting her friends … had she?

  ‘Do you feel like I’ve been choosing him over you?’ she asked, making a mental note to ask Gully.

  A pink tinge bloomed on Preddy’s cheeks. ‘We’re all seeing less of each other now that training’s split up. You’re missed sometimes, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her stomach twisting.

  ‘You don’t need to apologise. I wish I was better friends with my guardian. Everything’s very serious with Jobe,’ he added, with a slight grimace.

  ‘But how come Scoot’s having such a tantrum about it?’

  Preddy’s cheeks darkened to red. ‘I think maybe Scoot sees you a bit differently now – now that he knows you’re a girl.’

  Ottilie tensed, resisting the impulse to stamp her foot. ‘That’s not fair!’ she said through gritted teeth.

  ‘No, I don’t mean in a bad way. I mean in a … I think he thinks … or maybe he has a little bit of a fondness for you.’

  ‘A fondness?’ She didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Scarlet in the face, Preddy raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Oh.’ Ottilie finally caught on. ‘Oh no. What? Why?’

  ‘I … well … he –’

  ‘No. We’re not talking about it. Preddy! I wish you hadn’t said that. It’s not … I doubt …’

  Wrangler Voilies clapped his hands. ‘Back to work, everyone.’

  ‘Let’s never talk about this ever again,’ she muttered.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Preddy.

  That night, Leo and Ottilie stood alone, looking over the moonlit forest to the east. Leo hated wall watch. He always said it was his least favourite shift. At least on singer duty, when they guarded the bone singers, they were beyond the boundary walls.