‘Right, where were we?’ said Scoot.
‘I was saying one more time, are we sure we want to do this?’ said Preddy.
‘And I was saying one more time, shut up, Preddy!’ said Scoot.
‘It wasn’t a choice, Preddy. That’s the point,’ said Ottilie. ‘Whatever work they do here, we didn’t choose to come.’
‘What about your family? Aren’t you worried they miss you?’ said Gully.
Preddy turned slightly pink and adjusted his eyeglasses. ‘My father has a lot of enemies. I’m pretty confident he’ll have used my disappearance to his advantage. He’s been waiting for an excuse to take action against a number of them for years now. And anyway, I’m the youngest of six. My absence won’t have left much of a hole.’
‘How can you say that? Of course it has,’ said Ottilie. She gazed at him in the lamplight. There was a hollowness in his pale eyes that she had not noticed before.
Preddy shook his head. ‘Look, I’m with you, all right. I’ll come. I’m not going to stay here all by myself.’ ‘Noble words,’ said Scoot, snorting.
‘Let’s not pretend running away in the night is noble,’ said Preddy, brushing a speck of dirt off his trousers.
‘Neither is kidnapping,’ said Ottilie.
‘Or letting the kidnappers win!’ growled Scoot.
It was funny, Ottilie supposed, that Scoot was so determined to escape this place. Ottilie was quite sure Fort Fiory offered more comfort and security than his life in the slum tunnels had. But Scoot was a wild thing, used to making his own decisions, looking out for himself. He was twitching like a caged animal behind the Fiory walls and Ottilie knew that he, like she, could not move past the fact that they had not chosen to be there.
‘We have to stop fighting,’ said Gully. ‘Are we doing it or not?’
‘Yes. We are,’ said Scoot.
Ottilie and Gully looked at Preddy.
He frowned, pushing his eyeglasses higher up the bridge of his nose. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then we need to start planning,’ said Ottilie. ‘We’ll come back here tomorrow at the same time. I know someone who can help us.’
‘Are you out of your tiny minds?’ said Skip, gazing at them in disbelief. ‘Ottil – Ott, didn’t we already talk about this? It’s impossible!’
‘I know what you said,’ Ottilie replied. ‘But we don’t have a choice.’
‘This place is evil,’ said Scoot. ‘I’m not waiting around to get chomped on by a monster just because some lunatic with a nifty beard says the king wants me to hunt for him.’
Skip looked him up and down. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘Branter Scoot.’
‘You from the slum tunnels?’
‘Why? Do I know you?’
‘Doubt it. Just can pick it from your voice.’
They stared at each other for a moment, lost in old memories, until Skip blinked and scratched her nose. ‘Look, here’s the thing, if the dredretches aren’t enough to scare you, and they should be, you should know what they do to rule-breakers around here,’ she said.
Preddy paled.
‘What do they do?’ said Gully, seemingly undaunted.
‘There’s a story about a boy who tried to get out. He stole a sackful of silver from the vaults, released all the dredretches they keep locked up for training as a distraction, and tried to escape back to the Usklers. They caught him before he even made it to the boundary wall – and he was a third-tier huntsman who knew his way around.’
‘So what did they do to him?’ said Ottilie.
‘Well, people died, see – when he let the dredretches out, it caught them off-guard and they lost two huntsmen. So they held a trial to decide whether he should be hanged or marooned in the Laklands. They decided on the Laklands. And trust me, hanging would have been kinder.’
‘Did it actually happen? Or is it just a story?’ said Ottilie, her voice shakier than she would have liked.
‘I wasn’t here, but it definitely happened, and that’s not the only story. There was another boy, over west at Richter. He started skipping out on his wall watches and guard duty, someone got hurt, so they took off his ring and locked him in a cage next to a dredretch until he nearly died. They say it took weeks for his body to get better, and his head’s never been quite right since. And, there was another boy who got caught stealing food –’
‘Well, we’re not stealing anything … except weapons … and I guess food,’ said Scoot, ‘but we’re not getting caught, and no-one’s going to die because of us trying to escape. I want to get out of here before I get skewered by a death crow in the bleeding fledgling trials.’
‘You realise going out there untrained and unsupervised is more dangerous than any situation they will ever put you in,’ said Skip.
‘At least it’s our choice,’ said Preddy, surprising them all.
‘You’ll get caught,’ said Skip.
‘Not if you help us,’ said Ottilie.
‘I’m not going to help you get yourselves killed. You don’t even know anything about dredretches yet. You wouldn’t last ten minutes out there on your own.’
‘We’re going to wait for rain, then we at least have a chance. We just need you to help us get out of the grounds. Skip, please,’ said Ottilie, desperation pitching her voice a little too high. She cleared her throat and glanced at Preddy and Scoot. They hadn’t seemed to notice.
Skip crossed her arms and sighed loudly. ‘I can tell you where to go and when it’ll be clear, but that’s all, Ott. I don’t want you to go.’ She looked directly into Ottilie’s eyes, and Ottilie knew what she wasn’t saying in front of the others. Skip thought Ottilie could change things. She thought that a girl hunting dredretches was the beginning of something exciting, something new, and maybe it could have been, but all Ottilie could think about was getting Gully out of the Narroway. She had come to take him home and that was exactly what she intended to do.
15
Hero
To Ottilie’s increasing irritation, the days that followed were perfectly lovely. She didn’t think she had ever seen such a string of bright, unblemished skies. Their plan to escape was sufficiently reckless; Ottilie wasn’t stupid enough to attempt it on a clear night. Not only did dredretches apparently stay away on wet days, the cover of mist and cloud could only be helpful.
It had been five days since Skip had agreed to help. She told them exactly where to go, even reluctantly offering to snatch some food so that they need not go near any of the kitchens.
Their first task would be getting past the boundary walls, their second would be navigating the Narroway, avoiding dredretches and detection, and their third would be sneaking through the border, back to the Usklers.
They had tossed around several plans involving stealing guard uniforms and commandeering food-supply carts, but the truth was, even with Scoot’s expertise in sneaking and thievery, their lack of knowledge about the Narroway meant they were going to have to rely on chance and luck far more than planning ahead.
It had worked for Ottilie before. She had managed to sneak in, hadn’t she? She had found Gully. If she could do that, then she could do this. She had to believe it would work. If she stopped believing, they might as well just settle in and continue counting down the days until the fledgling trials.
It didn’t matter; until the blue skies yielded even a drop of rain, they were stuck. The upside was, the longer they remained, the more training they received, and knowing more about dredretches could only help.
Wrangler Voilies led them across a clover field. The bells tolled and a scattering of huntsmen strode out of the fort, heading purposefully in different directions; squad training, watch duty, guard shifts and hunts. Ottilie looked up at the tall boundary walls. She could see huntsmen pacing the parapets, and higher still, a wrangler in one of the sentry towers, gazing out into the endless forest to the north.
‘We have an entire library of bestiaries here at Fiory, and at Richter and Arko too,’ W
rangler Voilies was saying. ‘You will be assigned weekly study tasks once your trials are complete. Just one of the reasons we require you to be able to read.’
They had undergone a literacy and numeracy test a week ago. Although they wouldn’t be privy to their results until after the trials, Ottilie was sure she had done better than most. Certainly she had left many questions unanswered, but half of the fledges couldn’t even read so she was already at an advantage, thanks to Old Moss and her refusal to sell Our Walkable World.
‘The thing to remember, always, is that a dredretch is an unnatural beast. They are a plague upon humanity and serve no purpose to the living world. We are not their food source; they do not attack us out of necessity. It is merely their primary instinct to attempt to tear us apart, starting with the heart – a dredretch will always, always go for the heart.’
Prompted by his words, a long-lost memory stumbled across Ottilie’s mind.
‘If you do something wicked, the dredretches will come. They’ll sneak up behind and snatch your heart to put in their pies,’ whispered Old Moss, baring her blackened teeth.
‘Pies?’ a much smaller Ottilie had squeaked.
Old Moss nodded grimly. ‘Pies.’
‘To our knowledge,’ Wrangler Voilies continued, ‘dredretches don’t eat or drink, nor do they excrete waste, unless you consider a general oozing and dribbling of toxic mucus and other forms of goo to be excreting waste.’
Ottilie screwed up her nose and Scoot pretended to vomit beside her. Having just completed their morning run, they were heading up the hill to the training yards. Ottilie was still very red in the face and Preddy was noisily struggling to catch his breath.
Igor Thrike, one of the select elite assigned to assist them that morning, thumped Preddy so forcefully on the back that he stumbled forwards, tripping over his own foot.
There were sniggers from all sides. Gully pulled Preddy to his feet and Ottilie glared at Igor Thrike. She could hear Scoot cracking his knuckles beside her and sensed him glaring too. Igor Thrike simply smirked and walked ahead.
The most unpleasant of all the select elite assigned to their group, Igor was a tall, narrow boy, at least fourteen years of age, with dark hair and a hollow, harshly angled face. He seemed to shift between two expressions: haughty and threatening. Ottilie disliked both equally, and she wasn’t the only one. Leo Darby had been holding himself stiffly since Igor’s arrival that morning, and Ottilie could have sworn that every time Igor spoke it was followed by the subtle click of Leo’s clenched jaw.
‘The sickening effect of a dredretch’s presence is a uniquely human weakness,’ said Wrangler Voilies from up ahead. ‘And it is only humans that they actively pursue.
‘Other animals are not affected by the sickness, but they do sense their unnaturalness and are generally repelled – just as well, as a dredretch will attack a natural beast when provoked.
‘There are still other beasts living in the Narroway, although far fewer than there were before the dredretch scourge. The shepherds that help safeguard these grounds are dusky wild dogs, native to these lands. You will have seen them prowling the inner and outer perimeters. You may also come across our leopard shepherd. Hero, as she is affectionately known, is a grey coastal leopard who sought refuge from the dredretch-infested land and joined our shepherd pack.’
Ottilie’s ears pricked. The leopard shepherd; Skip had told them about her. Getting past the leopard shepherd was a key part of their escape plan.
‘But back to dredretches,’ Voilies continued. ‘However unnatural, they do have hearts that pump blood, or something similar, and brains that function at varying levels depending on the species. If you manage to pierce the heart or the brain of any dredretch they will perish almost instantly.
‘However, it’s not that simple. Dredretches have defences like no natural animal. In certain species, the barrogaul for example, a shell-like cage, as strong as iron, encases the heart. Nothing, no weapon, can puncture it. But every creature has its weakness. How do you fell a barrogaul, boys?’
‘The eye,’ said Igor and Leo at the same time.
Igor’s lips thinned.
They had reached the fence around the training yards. Chuckling, Wrangler Voilies turned to face them. ‘Precisely! There’s always a way. You will find that most dredretches can heal a flesh wound almost instantly, but an arrow through the eye and into the brain causes irreparable damage. Leo, tell us, what is the primary weakness that all species of dredretch share?’
Ottilie was sure he was going to say rain.
Leo’s eyes flicked to Igor, and a smug smile lit his freckled face as he answered, ‘Salt slows the healing process of any wound.’
‘Indeed,’ said Wrangler Voilies. ‘Salt. Dredretches can’t abide it. That doesn’t mean you throw handfuls of rock salt at them, although that may sting, and in a pinch you can use a slingshot to do something similar – we have a more effective method. There is a particular type of salt that won’t rust a blade, found in the southern salt springs. We use it to make our weapons poisonous to dredretches.
‘Forged in salt flame, any wound from a salt blade will not heal as it should, weakening the dredretch until you are able to deliver the fatal blow. But do not forget the rule of innocence. All of this – a regular blade, a salt blade, any weapon – if the blow is delivered by a non-innocent, any fully-grown man, it will not so much as scratch the skin.’
Ottilie frowned. Of everything he had said, she found this detail the most difficult to accept. It was beyond reason that the age of the hunter could somehow protect a dredretch from injury. It didn’t make sense. She looked around. Did anyone else notice this? But the wranglers were practically branding them as chosen ones. Perhaps they didn’t care to question it.
‘The point of all this is that every dredretch is different, and some are much easier to fell than others. Lucky for you, jivvies are relatively simple. Their skulls are paper thin; one good blow to the head would squash the brain and fell a jivvie with no blood spilled and no salt needed. The same goes for the ribs and the heart. That said, a nick from a salt blade will do the same in time. Salt can paralyse certain smaller dredretch kinds, and one arrow, anywhere on the body, is a death sentence to a jivvie. That’s why, in our scoring system, jivvies are only worth one point and a barrogaul is worth one hundred.
‘But. Mark my words, fledglings: do not underestimate them. Jivvies are difficult targets. And at this point, not a single one of you would have a chance against one, let alone a flock. So, let’s see if we can improve upon yesterday.’ He unlatched the gate and ushered them into the training yards.
By mid-afternoon, miraculously, the sunlight faltered and dark clouds rolled in from the south. They hung low, obscuring the peaks beyond the fort. It was going to rain. This was it. Tonight was the night. Ottilie was overwhelmed with apprehension. Their plan was ridiculous – hardly a plan at all. What had they been thinking? It would never work!
Ottilie couldn’t focus, couldn’t think. Subtle tremors quaked from her thumbs to her elbows. She missed every shot she attempted, and earned herself a mortifying scolding from Wrangler Voilies when she nearly pierced Igor Thrike’s ear with an arrow, and stumbled backwards into a weedy fledge called Dimitri Vosvolder, jabbing him in the gut with the tip of her bow.
When she missed her next shot, hitting Scoot’s target rather than her own, Wrangler Voilies bellowed, ‘That’s it Colter, weapon away. A lap of the shepherd perimeter. Now!’
Scoot let out a loud bark of laughter.
Red-faced and riled up, Wrangler Voilies rounded on Scoot and snapped, ‘Three laps for you, Mr Scoot!’
They marched towards the yard gate. Leo nudged Ottilie as she passed. He was very obviously trying not to smile. ‘A little to the left next time,’ he whispered, tilting his head in Igor’s direction.
Ottilie swallowed her laugh, fearing it would get her into more trouble. She and Scoot broke into a jog, leaving the training yards far behind.
> ‘Are we really doing this tonight?’ said Ottilie, gesturing to the darkening sky. She was actually glad to have been sent on a punishment run. The exercise was already calming her nerves.
‘If it rains,’ said Scoot, deliberately crushing a patch of whiskerweed underfoot.
There was no chance that it wouldn’t rain. Thunder rumbled somewhere far off, and a few moments later a fork of lightning lit the sky.
‘Witch,’ said Scoot.
‘What?’ Ottilie was distracted, trying to avoid the whiskerweed. She knew her boots were thick enough, but avoiding those needle-sharp spines was an old habit.
‘When lightning strikes the ground, means there’s a witch buried alive below. There ’s a song about it,’ said Scoot.
‘That’s not what the lightning song’s about … is it?’
‘Wail, whine, dinnertime,’ he recited.
‘What’s that got to do with witches?’
‘Because witches used to eat their babies.’
‘What? No they didn’t!’
Scoot shrugged. ‘Just what I heard.’
They passed into Floodwood, a damp stretch of forest in the eastern part of the grounds. The world grew very dark and Ottilie felt oddly tense. She shivered, the hairs on the back of her neck raised.
Through fish-scale leaves she could see swollen clouds, black as soot, and something up ahead – a shape between the thin, winding trunks. A person? Ottilie slowed. It was a figure in a hooded cloak, she was sure of it.
‘Scoo–’ Something rustled by her ear. Ottilie’s head snapped to the right. ‘Did you hear that?’ she hissed, tripping to a halt. She felt light-headed.
‘Probably just a shepherd,’ said Scoot, stopping beside her.
Gooseflesh spread up her arms, but Ottilie wasn’t the tiniest bit cold. Her breath caught in her chest. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a cluster of shiny black legs creeping around the trunk of a viper-spine tree.
Ottilie Colter and the Narroway Hunt Page 9