The Huntress: Sky

by Sarah Driver

  Egret smirks. ‘She writes him secret love letters.’

  ‘They are not love letters.’ Kestrel rolls her eyes. ‘He was my friend, when we were children. But now such friendships are forbidden, we can only write.’ She throws her mooncake back onto the platter with a sticky splat.

  Ettler wriggles free from Kestrel’s cloak and follows Egret around, grumbling. ‘Get out of it, you!’ she snips.

  He wheels away towards the bench and lands with a squelch in Crow’s lap. ‘Urgh!’ bursts the wrecker-boy. He prods the squidge with a cautious fingertip.

  Kestrel turns to Egret. ‘Yapok is the only one beyond this prison who won’t turn us away if we go to him. I’m sure.’

  Egret moves towards the fire. ‘Are you trying to convince me, or yourself ?’

  Kestrel takes the other girl’s hands in hers. ‘Please. I am tired of folk telling me how to sit, what to wear, if I may speak. I am ready to be useful. I am ready to see more of this world, wars and perils and all.’

  ‘I thought we agreed that if we ever left the mountain we’d do it together, and we’d head for Nightfall,’ hisses Egret.

  Nightfall. The place where Grandma said Stag did his book-learning.

  Kestrel raises her coppery brows. ‘But – that was just a silly dream! We’d never really disguise ourselves as boys!’

  ‘Wouldn’t we?’ snaps Egret.

  Kestrel’s mouth falls open. ‘How could we live in a place where women aren’t even allowed to tread? Wouldn’t that be exchanging one prison for another?’

  Egret picks up a poker, darting a furious look at Kestrel. ‘You’re right. I was only making fun. Forget it.’ She stokes the forge-fire. Bright flurries of sparks rise up. Sweat trickles down her face and arms.

  ‘You can’t have thought—’

  ‘It’s fine, Kes. Just leave it,’ says Egret. Then she bursts into a snort of laughter that she stifles with her wrist, but I reckon she’s only laughing to make sure she don’t cry. ‘So you’ve made up your mind. You’re going.’ She speaks with a dull flatness.

  Kestrel stares at her back. ‘I have to.’

  Egret nods. ‘If they come, I will hide you.’ She turns around and her eyes sweep over our faces. ‘All of you.’

  Kestrel crosses the room to kiss her cheek. Egret brushes Kestrel away, pain flickering over her face.

  ‘Heart-thanks,’ I tell the runesmith awkwardly.

  ‘Not for long, mind. The inspections are much more frequent now. I’m being watched.’ Egret stares at my face and my hand flies to my scar.

  ‘Don’t touch the stitches!’ scolds Kestrel, so I fold my hands in my lap, biting my tongue.

  Egret rolls her eyes and gifts me a small smile. I grin back and it feels like the frost in the room has started to thaw. ‘What weapons are you skilled with?’

  ‘A longbow.’ Crow and me say it at the same time, then swap sidelong grins.

  ‘Well, this is an iron-works, so I have arrowheads but only one bow, left to me by my mother when she was captured by the Wilderwitches.’ She chews her cheek and looks down. ‘You may borrow it, along with some bowstrings, but you will have to craft the arrows yourself.’

  ‘Oh, no – I ent gonna take that from you.’ But even as I say the words I’m filled with heart-riot gladness. It wouldn’t be my own bow, but I’d be able to feel the springy yield of the sapling wood and the steadfastness of the heart-wood, be able to string it and feel the taut power to send an arrow whistling into an enemy’s throat . . .

  Egret smiles. ‘That face confirms there is no choice.’ She goes to a corner of the forge. When she turns back she clutches a tall wooden longbow and two small grey parcels. ‘Here. You can each take a raindrop cowl, as well. They’ll guard your necks from blades and arrows.’ She hands out the cowls.

  I take the bow. The wood is cool and smooth under my touch and I can just feel the deeply buried runes carved into it.

  ‘The runes etched into the yew are focused on uncloaking the witches’ ways,’ explains Egret. Then she turns to Crow. ‘I will lend you a sword, if you can use one?’

  ‘I ain’t bad,’ he says, puffing out his chest.

  Kestrel and Egret look at each other, doubtfully. I frown. Wonder if he’s just blowing gas cos he won’t stop staring at Kestrel?

  ‘Good. Here.’ Egret lifts a sword from a bench beside the fire. The tip scrapes the table and sends out a songnote that’s sweet and deadly. ‘Blood-singer, ’ says Egret, eyes on Crow’s face. ‘Wield her well, land-creeper.’

  When she hands the sword to Crow he misjudges the weight and staggers under it, clanking the tip of the blade to the floor. I wince. Egret and Kestrel put their hands on their hips and cock their heads at each other.

  ‘It’s fine, I’m fine. I’ve got it,’ murmurs Crow, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

  ‘You sure you can—’ I start.

  He holds up a hand, a warning in his eyes. ‘Ah, do you have some sort of, um, holder, for it or—’

  ‘A sword-belt?’ asks Egret briskly.

  ‘Aye, one of them,’ he says, smiling broadly and standing straighter. Kestrel comes to help him secure the belt, and he blushes deeper than sunset when she touches him.

  Egret and me exchange glances and it’s all I can do not to roar with laughter. I shove my hands in my pockets and tighten my lips.

  Egret strides away and starts searching through a tall cabinet. ‘And you’ll need goggles to stop the snow-blindness – that’s a thing you need about as much as a spear in the brain.’

  ‘We need them for my brother, too.’

  ‘He won’t be well enough to come with us,’ says Kestrel, sorrow filling her eyes.

  A sick feeling plunges into my belly. ‘I don’t flaming care,’ I tell her. ‘I ent leaving him behind!’

  Egret nods briskly and passes me an extra raindrop cowl and a spare set of goggles.

  Kestrel shakes her head, then throws her hands into the air with a sigh. ‘Why should anyone listen to a sawbones, huh? What do I know.’

  Suddenly, on the other side of the wall, beyond the howls of the sky-wolves and the clang of weapons and the grumbling of Hackles, there are voices.

  ‘They can’t have disappeared! Why weren’t you looking?’

  We freeze, looking round at each other. The voices drift closer. ‘The storm hid them,’ whines Pangolin.

  A boot kicks the door. ‘Open up, Runesmith!’

  ‘Quickly, in here!’ Egret falls to her knees, peels back a coal-smeared rug and uses a chisel to lever up one of the floorboards. It’s a narrow, dark space, barely big enough to squeeze into.

  ‘They won’t get past your rune-casting, will they?’ asks Kestrel.

  ‘No, but if I do not admit them they will suspect something. They will starve us out or burn this forge down.’

  Kestrel nods reluctantly and lowers herself into the ground. I push Crow ahead of me. Kestrel rolls out of the way and he squeezes under the floorboards with her. Then I join them. I’ve just pulled my foot inside when there comes a frenzied rattling at the door.

  ‘Open up, or we force this door and take you captive!’

  ‘As though you could!’ mutters Egret. She presses her finger to her lips, then lowers the plank of wood over our faces.

  In the darkness and dust we listen as Egret strides across the room to the door, bare heels banging the floor. The door whines open and wind whistles into the forge.

  ‘Lunda, Pangolin,’ she says stiffly. ‘May swift-feathers bear you glad tidings, Spearsisters. My forge is here to warm you.’

  ‘Oh, spare us,’ snaps the frosty voice of Lunda. ‘Get out of our way.’

  By my side, Crow breathes heavily through his nose, but Kestrel lies silent, fingers splayed against the floor above, eyes flickering back and forth as though she’s trying to see through it.

  Dust prickles the back of my throat and my eyes water but I force a deep breath. If I choke, they’ll find us and we’ll be exec
uted before the sun sets.

  Boots stamp across the floor. The boards over our faces creak and groan. I shut my eyes and will them to leave. But the boots prowl to every corner of the room above us, and there’s a crash as something’s thrown aside. Next to me, Kestrel jumps. I turn my face and meet her eyes – the bird membranes on them drag up and down as she blinks.

  ‘Where are they?’ shrills Lunda.

  Egret says nothing.

  I breathe thin, prickly breaths. My gut clenches when there’s a clang of metal and something rolls overhead. Sounds like the Spearsisters are tearing the forge to shreds.

  Then a silence stretches. Dust stabs into my throat again. I clamp my mouth shut and rake a breath through my nose. But my pipes are squeezing shut. Kestrel turns her face towards me, shaking her head rapidly and stroking my arm. I brush her off.

  ‘Pang, keep searching,’ snaps Lunda. ‘When we find them in here we’ll—’

  I begin to splutter and gulp for air, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  As my cough rattles and grates, shouts ring into the night from outside, cloaking my noise.

  ‘The sky-wolves have regrouped,’ says Pangolin. ‘They’re making for the draggle-caves.’

  ‘You’d better get out there,’ says Egret. ‘I’ve got to get back to work myself, or we’ll run out of weapons to fight this attack.’ Real fright scratches her words thin.

  ‘This time, you have escaped me,’ says Lunda. I picture her mean face; all narrowed blue eyes and neat little ears and teeth. ‘But I know you’ve been hiding something. You should skate very carefully from here on, Runesmith. The ice is prone to cracking.’

  There’s a crash as the forge door slams shut, cutting dead the sound of the swirling wind and snow. I can’t breathe, and I scrabble against the floorboards as a hacking cough scrapes my lungs.

  ‘Mouse?’ Crow thumps the floorboards with the edge of his fist. ‘Get her out of here!’

  I gasp for breath, tears streaming down my face, and bang my legs against the bottom of this dusty pit.

  The boards creak as Egret levers them up. Then she grabs my wrist and hoists me out of the hole. I brace my arms against my thighs, head stuck between my legs, desperately gulping air.

  ‘The fighting will keep them from my door for a few wing-beats,’ says Egret, when my sails are calmed. ‘Long enough for you to prepare yourselves more fully, while I work.’ She turns to a rack of bent, bloodied spears, and sets to heating one over the fire, hammering it back into shape.

  Kestrel wraps some mooncakes in a piece of cloth and tucks them into a bag at her hip. Ettler settles himself inside. ‘No munching our supplies,’ she warns. Then she sorts through a pile of blades, filling the gaps in the circle on her chest, and hands me a long, skinny dagger.

  It’s a proper one, made for a full-grown – the type Grandma always said I was too young to have. I test the point against my palm and gasp at the sharpness. Then I stick it in my belt and tug my cloak closed to keep it hidden. ‘Heart-thanks!’

  I’d give anything for my own knife, my own longbow, my own home. My own Tribe. But the kindness of this sky girl smashes a tide of heart-gladness over me.

  We wait, watching Egret repair old armour and forge new weapons. She pulls her gloves off to write runes along the length of a spear, whispering under her breath. Then she plunges it back into the fire to seal the magyk.

  Finally, she steps back from the fire and crosses to the door. Sweat zig-zags down her neck. She presses her ear to the wood. ‘You don’t have long,’ she says. ‘There may be a lull – Spearwarriors will come to refresh their weaponry.’

  Nerves skitter in my belly as I shoulder my bow and pull on a raindrop cowl. It smooths itself over my face like a cool second skin. Crow does the same, then tightens his sword belt.

  ‘When we get out there, stay close!’ Kestrel warns. ‘To reach your brother we need to sneak through the pantries.’

  We move towards the door. Egret grabs Kestrel’s arm. She pulls her into a fierce hug, and kisses her. Two bright spots of colour bloom in Kestrel’s cheeks.

  Then she slips through the door, and we follow her into the jaws of chaos.

  The wind shrieks, stabbing pain deep into my ears. We fight our way through snowdrifts and patches of slippery slush, sticking near the edges of the fortress, in the shadow of the mountain’s jags. I squint through the ice crystals glittering in the air.

  Fallen sky-wolves and Spearwarriors are strewn across the courtyard. The ones still fighting are a grey-red snarl of shield-heavy paws and fang-sharp spears.

  I fumble to string my borrowed longbow, then remember I ent got any arrows yet and swallow back a yell.

  When the battle sways towards us we lie flat behind a boulder and breathe sticky clumps of snow into our mouths. I’m almost too tired to be frighted. Then the fight spirals away again, and Kestrel scrambles up.

  ‘Come on!’ breathes Crow in my ear. As I push myself upright my hand sinks into the steaming warmth of a sky-wolf ’s sliced-open belly. When I fall, Crow drags me up by the back of my cloak.

  Kestrel pushes open a low window set into the side of the mountain, and we drop into a flickering, crooked passageway. We run past great looming tapestries woven from bright thread, showing draggle-riders flying into battle. At the end of the passage Kestrel turns a ring in a door, and the shadows suck her inside.

  We follow. I blink in the gloom. Crow is a tall, panting blur next to me. ‘Where’d she go?’

  I feel him shrug.

  Something moves below us. Kestrel waves frantically, a grainy outline against a cave-dark wall. We edge forwards and tip down a wide stairwell. Kestrel waits for us to catch up.

  Then we hurry to the bottom and rush through a tall archway. We enter a sprawl of huge, connected caverns, hewn into the guts of the mountain and lit by cracked, guttering moon-lamps. Kestrel pushes us flat against the damp wall as a dozen squidges – all as small and fat as Ettler – huff past, rolling a great stinking cheese across the floor.  Heavepushnolicking! The cheese wheels past, as tall as I am, cloaking us in a sickly vapour. Crow staggers, wrapping his hands over his mouth and nose. ‘Take it we’ve found the pantries, then,’ he mutters between his fingers. ‘Should be called the putrids.’

  We prowl between teetering wooden shelves that stretch to the distant ceiling. The breathless ranting of row after row of squidges is deafening. They chug along in lines, hauling jars, pans, boxes and tins with their chubby tentacles.

  Goats’ milk to the snow-chests, with the meat and butter!

  Quag-eggs to the lower shelves, nest them in beds of nettles!

  NO nibbling the mooncakes. No bites, not a one!

  Spices middle shelves, berries in our mouths!

  I cover my ears and try to suck enough thin air through my cold-numbed lips.

  ‘All right?’ Kestrel asks. She tapers off with a snatched breath of alarm as the door squeals open. ‘Down!’ she whispers.

  I roll underneath one of the enormous shelves, praying to all the sea-gods it don’t squish me. Crow dithers, then Kestrel shoves him towards another shelf and he squeezes under it. I watch Kestrel sweep underneath a shelf on the other side of the room.

  I peer out as two riders stride in, garbed in iron-grey cloaks and tall leather boots. One, a boy with yellow braids tangling over his shoulders, fingers the dagger at his belt, gold spikes gleaming on his knuckles. He eyes the squidges with bored disgust. ‘I could’ve told them she wouldn’t be in here. She’s long gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’ says the other, a girl with flame-red hair and a surprised-looking mouth. ‘She’s still the Protector’s daughter, and anyway, she knows as well as we do that beyond sky-territory there’s no clean air left to breathe.’

  ‘I hope she tips herself right off the edge of the world.’ The boy reaches out and flicks a squidge, making it squeal. ‘She’ll do it, too, if she knows what’s good for her. Better that than face what’s waiting for her in the long-hall.’ He move
s to the shelf Kestrel is hiding under, his toecap inches from her terror-stretched eyes.

  There’s a bang as the girl opens a cupboard and closes it. ‘The Protector’s been at the sleep-struggles again, by the way,’ she whispers. ‘The night frights. Last night she jumped to the top of her canopy and started scratching at the ceiling! She scratches herself, she scratches the walls, she scratches us if we try and stop her. I don’t know what to do.’

  Kestrel makes a fist against the floor and presses her lips into it. She frowns, shaking her head slightly.

  ‘Sometimes I find her here, stuffing her face in her sleep!’

  The boy grimaces. ‘Quiet!’ he orders. ‘Our Protector brims with mountain-strength.’

  ‘Something is wrong, Spearbrother!’ insists the girl. ‘In waking hours she is exhausted. At night, she is afraid to sleep. My pa says she is not the Protector she once was. Don’t you remember before, when things were different?’

  There’s a pause, while the boy looks at her blankly. ‘This is the way it has always been.’ His expression hardens. ‘And if you don’t shut up, Tern will be weaving lace from your hair.’

  While they gabble on, I flatten my ear to the ground. Strange shouts and snores twist in the deep underground. The floor chills my bones. I lie still as oak.

  Finally, the warriors fall into uneasy silence. They pace the length of the pantries, turn and stalk back again, then leave.

  Kestrel rolls out from underneath her shelf and helps us out of our hiding places.

  ‘C’mon,’ I say, casting around. I spot a low wooden doorway on the other side of the pantries. ‘Is it this way?’

  No answer comes, and when I look back, Crow’s watching Kestrel suspiciously.

  ‘How could I ever leave?’ she says, eyes full of heart-sadness.

  I move to her side and reach for her but she backs away from me. Her mouth is drawn into a tense line. ‘I can’t,’ she says quietly, beginning to turn away.

  I grab her arm and make her look at me. ‘What about Yapok, and the great wide? You’re almost there! You’ve almost left your ma’s grip.’

  ‘That Spearsister spoke the truth.’ Her breath comes too fast. ‘The Protector says that there’s no clean air beyond our sky-territory, and if I ever left, I’d suffocate. She says my arm would die. She says my bones would turn to mush without the strength of the mountain to hold me up. She says—’