‘What’s breakfast?’ said Branter Scoot as they walked down the corridor.
‘What’s breakfast?’ said Preddy in disbelief.
‘I was wondering that,’ said Ottilie, distracted for a moment.
‘Breakfast is the first meal of the day,’ said Preddy indignantly. ‘How do you both not know that?’
‘Never heard of it,’ said Ottilie.
‘Then what do you eat in the morning?’ said Preddy.
Branter Scoot raised his eyebrows. ‘Nothing, usually.’
‘You don’t eat anything in the morning?’
‘No.’
‘Never,’ said Ottilie.
‘Amazing,’ said Preddy.
Branter Scoot pushed the door open to the springs, a cavernous room that smelled of salt and wet bird. It had a curved ceiling, four enormous square pools rimmed with blue-patterned tiles, and several copper basins with pipes and pumps to draw water.
Ottilie made a snap decision. ‘I’m starving!’ she said, paying no attention to the boys already bathing. It was nothing she hadn’t seen a hundred times. Back in the Hollows, the wash grotto was used by boys and girls alike. Once they reached a certain age, some of the girls used bathing gowns, but the boys weren’t expected to cover up, which had never seemed fair.
‘I thought you said you never eat in the morning?’ said Preddy.
‘But we didn’t get much at all yesterday. I was hungry all night.’ It wasn’t a lie.
‘Me too!’ said Branter Scoot, poking his hollow stomach with his thumbs.
‘Maybe we should just do a quick wash-off and go and eat?’ said Ottilie.
‘That’s a thought,’ said Branter Scoot.
Preddy crinkled his nose. ‘Oh no, I’ll be bathing. I’ve never been so filthy in my life!’
Branter Scoot snorted. ‘I have. Though come to think of it, I never get proper baths. Might as well have a go.’
‘You two go ahead. My stomach’s about to start eating itself,’ said Ottilie. Smiling inwardly, she hurried over to a basin, pumped the lever and began scrubbing away at her arms, neck and face with creamy soap that smelled of honey and gum leaves. It was a welcome change. Back in the Hollows they mostly used river salt to clean themselves, which was scratchy, and left her skin feeling itchy and dry.
It took longer than she thought to get clean. There were still specks of black dirt hidden among her freckles when she finally gave up.
There was just one more problem. She needed to change into the clean clothes. Where could she do that?
Without thinking it through, Ottilie headed for the exit. Once in the corridor she held her breath and, blocking all thoughts, kicked off the lambswool slippers, ripped away her night clothes, tugged on the simple green shirt, tunic and trousers and stood there, breathing hard, utterly amazed that she had managed it without being seen.
When she re-entered the bedchamber, Gully was sitting on the bed eating his breakfast with a curious expression on his face. There was another wooden tray beside him that was obviously meant for Ottilie. She hurried over and shoved an entire fistful of warm brown bread in her mouth.
‘So there are girls here too,’ said Gully. ‘Did you know that?’
Ottilie shook her head, her mouth full. ‘Vem uh first.’ ‘They’re the first you’ve seen?’ said Gully.
Ottilie nodded.
‘Me too.’
‘Th-ervants,’ said Ottilie, nearly choking. Frowning, she swallowed. ‘What now? Did that Lyre man say?’
‘We’re going up for an assembly,’ said Gully.
‘To explain, do you think?’
‘Hope so.’
Gully sounded calm, but there was a look in his big dark eyes that Ottilie knew very well. It was the look he used to get when he was much younger and Freddie didn’t come home. Confused, frightened, alone. Ottilie had always been there, but Freddie was supposed to be. Even at that very moment, where was Freddie? Had she noticed they were gone? She had probably noticed three times and forgotten three times. No, as usual, it was just Ottilie and Gully, in it alone.
‘Morning food,’ said Gully, eyeing their trays. ‘Funny,’ he added.
‘I think it’s a rich people thing.’
‘What do they need food in the morning for? They’ve been sleeping all night.’
‘I’m not complaining,’ said Ottilie, shovelling a whole brambleberry pie into her mouth.
‘Here, have the rest of mine,’ said Gully, sliding his tray over to her.
A damp-haired Preddy trotted back into the room, closely followed by Branter Scoot. They had barely managed a bite each when Captain Lyre appeared in the doorway.
‘The time has come,’ he said dramatically. ‘There’s no turning back now.’ He winked, tapped his cane twice on the door and turned, whistling for them to follow.
10
The Narroway Huntsmen
They were seated in rows. To her left, Ottilie could see Leo and Ned sitting with a group of young uniformed boys. Directly in front stood Captain Lyre, leaning casually against his cane. Three huge arched windows lay beyond, orange shutters thrown open, a stream of sunshine lighting him from above and behind. The buttons on his blue coat glowed like tiny fireballs in the light.
A boy had collected their bronze rings at the door. Ottilie felt strange without it. Her head ached a bit and she felt on edge. Somewhere above, a bell rang eleven times. It was an hour from midday.
Captain Lyre grinned. ‘Let’s begin.’ He spun his cane, then tapped it on the stone dais beneath his feet. ‘Welcome,’ he paused, ‘to your calling.’
‘What?’ whispered Branter Scoot.
‘You are here, at Fort Fiory, on a very secret mission for the king.’
Ottilie felt her mouth fall open. So this wasn’t part of some Laklander plot. The pickings were orchestrated by the Crown.
‘You lucky boys have been specially selected for important work – the most important work any man will ever do. You are called to join the Narroway Hunt.’ Ottilie looked around. The other boys looked as confused as she felt.
‘Let me start by explaining where we are. At this very moment, we are in one of three strongholds, or stations, in the Narroway – a thin strip of land that connects the Usklers to the Laklands.’
So Branter Scoot had been right. Ottilie reached back into her memory. She was trying to picture the faded map in Old Moss’s copy of Our Walkable World. She could see the edge of Longwood, and the Laklands reaching out to the west. She thought she could remember a stretch of unnamed land in between.
‘Why have you never heard of the Narroway? Because we ensured it. There is no better-kept secret than what goes on in this place, and for good reason, but I’ll get to that later.’ He paused to clear his throat. ‘We have people throughout the Usklers who keep a record of boys with promise. Those of you who made the cut were then collected and brought here.’
Ottilie’s insides churned. The keeper, that’s what Bill had said. The keeper had been watching Gully, decided he had promise, and given the order for the swamp picker to snatch him.
‘We apologise for the manner in which you were removed from your previous circumstances, but we are confident, as always, that you will forgive us, and be willing and happy to stay.’
Ottilie screwed up her nose. ‘Happy to stay?’ she mouthed to Gully.
‘This business – what we deal with here – it’s bigger than all of us. So what do we deal with?’ A slow smile crept across his face. ‘Beasties, monsters, prowling fleshfeasters, heart thieves, demons, whatever you called them in the past, the creatures of myth and nightmare, they’re real and they’re here. If you know any of the old Lore, you may have heard the name dredretch, the deathly scavengers.’
Ottilie had heard of dredretches. They were mythical underworld beasts, drawn to the surface by acts of terrible violence. Old Moss had told her that they stole hearts, and fed on death and human wickedness, but it was a myth. Mr Parch had always been very clear on that.
‘The infestation began in the unoccupied west. The Laklands are overrun. When the scourge breached the Narroway, this land was sealed off and the threat contained. That’s what we do here – we hunt dredretches. There is only one thing standing between the dredretches and the Usklers, and that is our Narroway Huntsmen.’
‘Blimey,’ muttered Branter Scoot.
‘That is why you are here.’ Captain Lyre paused dramatically. ‘You will train to become Narroway Huntsmen.’
Ottilie noted his use of the word will. It was quite clear they would be offered no choice in this. But could it be true? Could these monsters be real? And these huntsmen, all young boys snatched from their homes … why? Why not a real army?
Tossing his cane into the air, Captain Lyre said, ‘Obviously’ – he caught it – ‘there is a lot you don’t know. There will be plenty of time to get into everything over the course of your training. For now, this is what you need to know. Fort Fiory, where we are now, is one of three stations in the Narroway, each named for one of the old gods. Fiory, after the black lord of the raptors. Arko, in the east, named for the silver mare. And Richter, in the west, named for the mother wolf. Every year one station hosts the fledgling trials; this year it’s us, Fiory.’
Ottilie ground her teeth. She didn’t like the sound of the word trials.
Captain Lyre opened his arms in a paternal, welcoming gesture. ‘The trials will measure your strengths and weaknesses so that we can appoint you a guardian for your first year with us – your fledgling year.’ He gestured to a group of uniformed boys, including Leo and Ned. ‘Your guardian, a personal mentor of sorts, will come from the select elite …’
Ottilie felt her attention slipping away. This was irrelevant. She and Gully were leaving. Nothing Captain Lyre said could change that. Someone would figure out she was a girl before long, and she didn’t think these secretive people would be pleased to discover they had an imposter in their midst. She couldn’t risk being separated from Gully, not now she had found him again.
She pictured the two of them sneaking back the way they had come, through the forests, over the lake, beyond the mountains. A host of monsters prowled out of the shadowy corners of her mind, sullying the landscape and making their quest for freedom seem impossible.
‘Now for the fun part,’ said Captain Lyre, twirling his cane. ‘It’s not all work. That would be awfully dull. There are five tiers of huntsmen. You, fledglings, or fledges, are our first tier. You will gather an individual ranking over the course of the hunting year. The top-ranking huntsmen in the third tier and beyond become our select elite – the best of the best. You receive points for every dredretch you fell and at the end of each year one huntsman per tier is named champion. This is a great honour – the ultimate achievement. It is the title that every huntsman in the Narroway strives to attain.’
Ottilie found herself shaking her head. Hunting dredretches? She wasn’t sure she could believe it. How was there was a stretch of land full of monsters hiding west of Longwood? How did no-one know about it? And – if it was true – how long would it be before the dredretches spilled out of the Narroway and into the Usklers?
It was too much. It was too ridiculous.
‘Now, I’ll be back in two shakes … discuss.’ Captain Lyre crossed the room and disappeared out the door.
The stillness bristled with uncertain whispers. No-one seemed to want to talk loudly, and no-one seemed to have a whole lot to say. Ottilie felt as if she had just been hit over the head with a shovel.
‘What do you think?’ said Gully quietly.
Ottilie shook her head. She didn’t want it to be true. ‘His name’s Captain Liar.’
‘Well … spelt differently,’ whispered Preddy.
Branter Scoot gazed at him in disbelief.
Preddy turned pink. ‘He said …’
‘It doesn’t make any sense. How can all this be going on and no-one know about it?’ said Ottilie.
‘I would imagine some people know about it. The King’s Company must,’ said Preddy.
‘He means all … everyone – ordinary people,’ said Branter Scoot.
‘The thing is, if it were actually true, they wouldn’t be kidnapping kids and making us deal with it,’ said Ottilie.
Branter Scoot nodded grimly, his narrowed eyes darting towards the door.
‘But what if it is true?’ said Gully. ‘What if there really are monsters here?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Branter Scoot. ‘Ott’s right. They think they can fool us, convince us we’re here in the service of the king. Make us want to stay by talking about honour and duty and protecting the Usklers. I tell you Captain Lyre would have to walk through that door with –’
The door at the back of the room swung open and Captain Lyre strode in, a birdcage clasped firmly in his hand.
11
Death Crows
Ottilie felt her blood drain from her skull to her toes. Her hair began to prickle and something felt very wrong in her chest. It was as if her lungs were filling slowly with water, drip by drip, and she could do nothing to stop it. Ill and confused, she tracked Captain Lyre with heavy eyes. He proceeded to the front of the room and held the birdcage aloft.
Inside the cage was a birdlike creature, made of feathers, shadows and scales. Ottilie tried to focus, but it was difficult to see it clearly. The bird looked like a crow, only larger. Dark vapour trailed from its shiny black wings. Where there should have been eyes, Ottilie saw only gaping sockets. Its talons were made of peeling scales, red as blood, and its narrow black beak was whittled to a needle-sharp point. The monstrous bird was eerily calm. It clung to the bottom of the cage with bloody claws, its beak poking through the gaps in the bars.
‘Eddy Skovey, could you take care of that for me,’ said Captain Lyre.
Ottilie watched as if from a dream as Ned took the bird from Captain Lyre and calmly left the room.
‘It’ll take a little while. Just breathe through it,’ said Captain Lyre.
Feeling hideously nauseous and halfway to a faint, Ottilie looked around. The select elite seemed completely unaffected, but the captives looked – well, they looked like Freddie, withering away in the depths of winter.
‘That, my dear fledges, was a dredretch, albeit a minuscule one. There are many different species, and they come a lot bigger and a lot fiercer than that, believe you me.’
Ottilie glanced at Gully. He looked positively corpse-like.
‘Death crows. We call them jivvies. They’re blind as bats but they can still do you a lot of damage. Now, you’re probably all wondering why you feel like you’re about to drop dead. That would be the presence of a dredretch. Get too close and they start literally drawing the life out of you. It’s one of the things we will train you to deal with here. You’ll notice none of our elite look half-melted like you lot. But until you’re able to manage it, we have ways of helping.’
He held his hand up and pointed to a flat bronze ring around his thumb. Ottilie felt her fingers creep over to her own naked left hand, yearning for the protection, for the cure.
‘Our experienced huntsmen don’t wear them anymore – don’t need them. You’ll be getting yours back in a bit, but obviously I needed to show you what we’re dealing with. These things are unnatural. Their very presence triggers our demise. If so much as one itsy jivvie crossed the border and made its way to Wikric Town, it could cost dozens of lives. More. So, as I said before … this is important work. The most important work there is – and we need you to do it.’
The room almost came back into focus. Even through the dredretch sickness, Ottilie knew he was about to answer a very important question.
‘The thing about a dredretch is that it can only be felled by an innocent,’ Captain Lyre said. ‘That’s why we have to recruit you young. Once you turn eighteen, any weapon you wield will be ineffectual.’
Ottilie was almost disappointed by the explanation. Was that really true? Was it logical? But perhaps dredretches, bein
g some strange form of living death, defied logic. It also didn’t explain why only boys were recruited, or why they had to be kidnapped. Why was everything done in secret? She glanced around to see if anyone else seemed sceptical, but most of them just looked concussed.
Ottilie’s breathing had eased and she sensed her colour returning, but she felt no less disturbed. Was this why she had always hated Longwood – why it always felt so funny in there? Longwood bordered the Narroway, a home to monsters whose very presence made you sick.
No wonder.
Captain Lyre divided them into four training squads for the trials, based on their current sleeping arrangements. Thankfully this meant Ottilie and Gully were in the same group.
Their squad was led into a small chamber with a high ceiling. It was chilly and completely unadorned, but for several half-melted candles shoved onto the spikes zigzagging up the walls. The boys hovered awkwardly in the centre of the room. Ottilie glanced out the enormous window to her right. There was a spectacular view of dark green hills and a snow-capped peak beyond the high boundary walls.
The door slid open and they were greeted by two men; an enormous balding man with a tangled ginger beard, and another supremely tall fellow, broad-boned, but gangling, and lacking any appearance of muscle. He had a very crooked nose and neatly combed hair. There was something very wet about him.
‘Hello, hello,’ said the fellow with the crooked nose. He was a pompous sort with a false smile, and Ottilie felt immediately that she did not like him.
‘My name is Tudor Voilies and this is Reuben Morse,’ said the fellow, gesturing to the ginger giant. ‘We are what we like to call wranglers here in the Narroway. Your instructors, essentially. We will manage your training for the five or so years you’ll spend in the service of the Narroway Hunt. We organise and co-ordinate all guard shifts, watches, hunts and patrols …’
Ottilie chewed on her lip, feeling panicky. She didn’t want to hear anything more about ‘five years’ or ‘patrols’.
Ottilie Colter and the Narroway Hunt Page 6