by Sarah Driver
It’s so much harder this time. My heart flutters like a sickly bird, making me snatch for breath, and sweat weaves down my back. Stag’s power is much too strong for me, and I hate, hate, hate it, but it’s true.
Stag jerks his gun towards me. Then he lowers it slowly to the ground.
For a heartbeat, Stag loses control of the terrodyl and I focus all my heart-strength on trying to send the beast away from the village, even though I know there are scores more of them and Stag can control as many as he wants.
I feel his eyes on my face and flick my gaze towards him, still beast-chattering.
Get out of here, go! You ent coming in here, turn back! Go!
In the corner of my eye there’s a swirl of red and gold skirts as Kestrel stands close by my side.
The terrodyl starts to turn in the air but then Stag’s beast-chatter reaches up and out and pulls it back towards the bell tower again.
Do not defy me!
Stag’s staring hard at my scar. ‘Very impressive. Not quite good enough, though.’
I step back, letting my connection to the terrodyl slip away. How’s he talking to both the terrodyl and me at the same time?
Stag grimaces, his eyes dark pits in his long, gaunt face. ‘That’s right. Do not meddle – too many girls like to make trouble, and it is tiresome.’ He shoots a quick look at Sparrow, nestled by my side, and I want to roar and howl and gloat that I did find my brother, even though he said I never would, I did.
The terrodyl jerks back to life, pulsing closer to the moot-hall. Keep going, chatters Stag urgently. Then he focuses on the hearth-healer again. ‘Where is it?’ he murmurs, almost calmly, as he opens his gun and tips powder into it.
Sparrow whimpers. I string my longbow with shaky fingers and search my pocket for the clutch of stumpy arrows I made.
The chief ’s lips don’t move. But her eyes lock onto mine. Then they quickly dart upwards, lingering on the bell tower for barely a beat. Her eyes are back on Stag before he’s finished fiddling about with the gun. My blood screams that she’s sending me a signal.
‘If you refuse to tell me where it is, the creature will be shot down, killing all your sick and injured,’ he says in a bored tone. He hacks out a cough and spits a glob of frothing blood onto the hard ground.
A breath I’ve been holding onto seethes from my chest. Have we come that close to finding it, only for him to get there first?
The woman keeps her head high and her eyes on Stag’s. The defiance lighting up her face gifts me heart-strength. I ent watching Stag use that gun a second time.
I gabble again in beast-chatter, fright panging in my gums. Stop, fly home, seek nest-brothers! I tell it, remembering the terrodyl we flew on, the one that got shot down by draggle-riders cos I lured it from its nest. I might be able to save this one. But Stag curses and steps towards me. I flinch and jerk away from him, slipping over and crashing to the ground, dropping my bow.
‘Mouse?’ asks Sparrow, reaching into the air and feeling for my hand. His white eyes go crossed when he tries to focus on Thunderbolt, buzzing in front of his face.
‘Don’t fret, just – stay put,’ I call up to him.
Stag smirks, and I want to rip it from his face – but I know there wouldn’t be anything human underneath.
‘Told you I’d find my brother,’ I spit.
He laughs. ‘Do you wish for me to tell you what a fine job you’ve done of keeping this doomed cripple temporarily safe and well?’ He presses his boot beneath my chin, forcing me to look up.
Our eyes meet and I’m locked in that old world of squirming guts and feeling too small and not being able to get to Grandma. I growl.
‘Stay away from her!’ shouts Kestrel. A dagger slips through the air, thrown by an iron-strong arm. It grazes the side of Stag’s face, snipping a cut in his ear. He jerks back from me, blood trickling down the side of his neck. Fury blazes in his eyes.
‘Kes!’ I shout, pushing off from the frozen ground. She stands strong, legs planted wide. She’s got two more daggers in her hands. I grab Sparrow and Crow pulls us closer to him and Kes. The four of us stand, facing Stag, breathless. Thaw-Wielder circles around our heads, bristling. Sparrow balls jagged lightning between his palms and the smell of it tickles into my nose.
Before Stag can raise his gun, a yell rings out, echoing off the rocks. ‘Stag! Sir, I was wrong! They don’t know where it is, I – I was wrong.’ The voice is familiar, but I can’t place it.
I look around, bafflement plucking at me.
Yapok stumbles out from behind a boulder and shuffles to Stag’s side, panting for breath. His hair stands on end and his white cloak is streaked with draggle-dung.
Stag sighs, hand clamped to his ear as the blood from Kes’s dagger drips down onto his tunic. ‘I know full well that it’s here, and it’s thanks to you that I’ve been led to the right place. You’ve done well, Yapok. Take your reward and leave these four for me to deal with.’
Iron bitterness fills my chest and my mouth tastes dry and acid.
Kestrel takes a step closer to Yapok. She opens her mouth, as though she’s going to scold him. But then she draws back her iron-arm and hits him in the jaw. There’s a dull crunch. As he falls backwards, Kes’s shaky hands fly to her mouth. Then she looks at the edge of her iron-hand and wipes off a smudge of blood. Her face crumples and she grips her sides like she’s trying to hold her spirit in. Yapok lies at her feet, clutching his face.
Stag reaches inside his cloak, pulls out a brown sack and throws it onto Yapok’s belly. Thick gold ingots spill into the snow.
Kestrel gives Yapok a look so full of disgust and pity that a howling cry rips from his throat. ‘I don’t want your gold!’ Then he doubles over and spits out a tooth.
‘Take it, don’t take it,’ says Stag with a shrug. ‘But you will tell me where the Opal is.’ He grabs Kestrel and presses the gun to her side. Yapok shouts, struggling to his knees.
‘Let go of her!’ I yell.
Crow touches my elbow. ‘I’ll distract him,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘You find the Opal.’
Crow rushes at him, leaping high and blending swiftly into his crow-shape. He barrels into Stag’s face. Stag tries to turn the gun on him but drops it. It explodes in a cloud of dust and fire. Someone screams. I grab Sparrow’s hand and we run, not waiting to look back, heading for the bell tower. Inside, I pray to all the sea-gods my friends will stay safe.
We burst into the moot-hall, to the spot where the Opal started to glow. The door swings on its hinges and the place is deserted now the threat of black rain has spread amongst the villagers. We find a stairway and race up and up and up, Sparrow singing to navigate his way like a whale, and keep from bumping into the walls. I just have to hope I didn’t imagine the hearth-healer’s signal.
Right at the very top of the tower is a dark attic room with a huge bell in the centre. There’s a low iron bed, maybe so the bell-ringer can nap. At its foot is a wooden garb chest.
I step across the creaky wooden floor. The darkness presses on my eyeballs. A soft blue glow seeps through the cracks in the chest as I step closer. I sink to my knees. Snow whips through the broken window and stings my eyes. I root through the worn, patched clothes in the chest, a sob rising through me as my fingers touch cool, smooth stone.
I lift out a blue jewel. My breath catches, cos under the gem’s surface shimmer threads of pink, black and gold. They twist and twine like streaks of ink. The Sky-Opal.
‘Mouse?’ whimpers Sparrow, from somewhere to my left, in the gloom.
‘What?’
Then there’s a soft, wet choking sound. The breath gushes from my lungs. My head swivels to search the dark and a match is struck against the wall, showing my brother with a pair of big, hairy hands wrapped around his throat. Sparrow’s fingers crackle with lightning, but Stag don’t seem to feel the pain, even though a stink of burning meat sneaks through the room.
‘Very well done, Mouse,’ comes the voice of my nig
htmares. ‘But I think I’ll be taking that now.’
Sparrow’s eyes are wide and starting to bulge. He rasps for breath. The glow of the Opal lets me see how his skin is darkening to a blotched red-purple. Fright etches itself onto his skin, carving deep. A blob of blood rolls down Stag’s arm and plops onto the floor as Sparrow’s lightning cuts into his hands. But they don’t move from my brother’s throat.
I don’t even feel myself move. But suddenly Stag’s hands are off Sparrow and I’m dropping the Sky-Opal into them. I pull my brother roughly away from him in the same movement.
His thin breath scratches and then he’s coughing and spluttering in my arms and I don’t ever want to let him go again, not for a single beat, not ever. ‘I’m so sorry I stopped thinking about you, even for a heartbeat,’ I whisper into his hair.
Dimly I hear boot-steps leaving the room. The door slams and a key scrunches in the lock. Then the steps clunk fearlessly down the stairs. Life must be proper easy for loons what don’t have to be quiet or stay hidden all the time.
Sparrow wipes his streaming eyes and puts his hand on my cheek. ‘Sorry I got caught. Sorry about that stone we need to save the world.’
I’m bawling, then. Great, sloppy, hot tears that roll down my face and drip off my nose into his hair. For a while I can’t move, and Sparrow makes me rest until my heart stops skipping and the storm in my veins settles.
I wrap my hand in some old garb from the chest and break the last shards of glass away from the window. Then we tie together odds and ends of bedding and make a rope to lower ourselves out and to the ground. As soon as my feet touch the mud Crow’s streaking towards us, changing back into a boy even before he lands.
‘Gods, could you have taken any longer?’ he croaks, talons thudding into the ground as he grabs my shoulders. ‘I chased Stag off but then he turned the terrodyls on me and got away. I was heading to the tower when he strutted out, looking mighty chuffed with himself.’
‘He took the Sky-Opal,’ I tell him, casting around fearfully. My failing sits on my shoulders, pushing me into the ground. ‘Then he locked us in the tower.’
Kestrel and Yapok run out from behind a burning hovel. ‘What’s owl-boy still doing here?’ asks Crow, striding towards Yapok.
Kestrel gets between them. ‘It wasn’t his fault.’
Yapok stares around at us, face cracked with guilt and shame. I try to blink away the rage clouding my eyes. ‘How’d you work that one out?’
She grips Yapok’s hand and strokes the scars. ‘Tell them, Yapok. Tell them what you told me.’
He opens his mouth but before he can speak, a maddened roar echoes around the hills.
‘MOUSE! ’
I’m already scrabbling away, running as fast as I can, shouting for the others to hurry. I find my longbow and arrow lying in the snow and snatch them up.
‘Wait! ’ commands Stag.
Yapok steps away, into the shadow of the moot-hall.
I can feel the way the Opal in my pocket burns brighter cos the Sky-Opal is so close. They are kin. ‘He’s feeling the pull of the Sea-Opal,’ I gasp. ‘He’s gonna realise we’ve got it!’
Stag bounds out of the darkness, fury splayed across his face. He’s flanked by filth-streaked, dead-eyed dredgers.
I fumble an arrow to my longbow, but before I can loose it, Yapok flings himself at Stag’s back, his hands erupting into wolf-paws that punch Stag roughly to the ground. His gun flies from his hands. Realisation swirls through my bones – Yapok’s as much a Wilderwitch as the Wilder-King. He’s part wolf, too.
The Sky-Opal flies into the air and thuds into the snow. Stag lies still, stunned for a beat. Then he’s fighting to his feet, but Thaw bursts into the air and swoops at his head, great strong wings and talons striking him from all sides. He drops to his knees, hands and face torn. While he’s down, Yapok grabs the Sky-Opal and throws it to me.
I pocket it, grab Sparrow and run past the houses of the village. Crow, Kestrel and Yapok tear after us. Thaw! I scream. She bolts through the sky, gliding by my side.
A door bursts open. The chief hearth-healer steps outside, holding a gun in two hands. Flanking her are other women, wearing the sign of the crossed brooms. They nock fire-arrows to their bows, draw and loose before Stag and the dredgers can blink. ‘You are not welcome in Hearthstone!’ they cry as one voice, heart-strong together.
As we run past, the chief gives me the tiniest nod. She hoists her gun to her shoulder and squints down it at Stag.
When I look back, the healers have surrounded Stag and the dredgers. Under the orders of the chief, they start to wind ropes around their wrists.
I whisper a heart-thanks to the healers and keep running, slipping in the snow. I clutch Sparrow’s hand tightly.
Higher in the hills, clouds swarm down from the mountain. We disappear under their white skirts, the hems already crackling to ice. Our clothes stick damply to our skin. The back of my neck grows clammy and tiny raindrops pearl on the hairs on my forearms. Hail clatters on the horse-herders’ skin tents on the mountainside and thuds against our cloaks.
When Yapok walks too close to Crow, the wrecker boy spits at his boots and veers roughly away, to put more space between them.
‘Stag wants to keep the Sky-Tribes divided,’ Kes calls after Crow. ‘He wants to divide everyone. And that starts with manipulating the young, just like at Hackles. But we are going to resist. We must unite, and stay strong together, before we can hope to unite the rest of the Tribes.’
She’s desperate to see the good in Yapok, whatever he’s done. Her heart-strength steals my breath. I want this girl for crew. ‘Aye!’ I tell her. ‘We won’t let him win.’
She nods at me. ‘No, we won’t.’
Crow freezes, then turns slowly back to face us. ‘What’ve you got to say, then?’ he asks Yapok, shoving his hands into his armpits.
Yapok screws up his face. ‘I had to protect the Skybrarian. He’s the nearest thing I’ve got to family. I just wanted things to stay the same as they’ve always been, for us to be left alone with our books!’ he whispers. ‘But it kept getting worse.’ Then he turns to look at us. ‘When I met all of you – it was already a snowball I couldn’t stop.’ He scratches at the burn-marks on his palms. In a flood I picture Stag making the burns. ‘He knew I’d do whatever it took.’ He looks like he’s gonna say more but then his face crumples.
I step towards him and lean onto my tiptoes, gifting him a Tribe-kiss before he can move away.
Crow nods slowly. Then he wraps an arm around Yapok’s shoulders and they walk on together. Kestrel struggles along with her skirts twisting around her ankles. ‘Still reckon breeches are just for men?’ I ask. ‘Shudder to think how I’d be faring in a flaming skirt.’ She glares at me, then laughs.
After that, the climbing gets harder, and we’re often silent. We scrabble, skid, scramble, gulp for air. I slip and land heavily on my side, and Kes gasps, but I’m up again before she can help me.
My muscles scream. Sparrow pulls his hand away and lags behind. ‘I can’t do it!’
Crow grabs him and swings him onto his shoulders.
‘We need somewhere to hide and make a plan. Somewhere we can be safe.’ I think about what the map showed us. ‘We need to find the Icy Marshes. They shouldn’t be too far.’
‘Far enough that we’ll need to find horses,’ says Crow.
Sparrow squeals out a sudden laugh. ‘Mouse is bed-wet-frighted of horses!’
‘Will you shut it!’ I bite, as the others snicker into their hands. Even Yapok chuckles. But just the mention of them skittish beasts has filled my chest with tiny stinging arrowheads, and made my palms sweat.
We pass a herd of horses that are heart-sad skinny, so we leave them be. Then we spy a horse-herder wrapped in a moss-coloured cloak, but he chases us off, waving his stick, before we can get close enough to beg him to sell us a few horses. The next herd is a straggle of beasts with fright shining in their eyes, too wild for Crow to c
atch. But finally, when we’re ready to collapse in the snow, we find a clutch of horses grazing on tough roots. They’re tethered, so they ent wild. But there’s no herder in sight.
‘We might as well take ’em,’ pants Crow as he unties four horses. ‘For all we know, the owner’s not coming back.’
‘And we’ll pay for them,’ says Kes firmly, making us fetch together all the bits of silver we have.
‘It’ll go to perfect ruddy use amongst a bunch of lone horses,’ huffs Crow, eyeing the silver bits as Kes slips them into the saddlebag of one of the horses left behind.
The whole time, I force my spine arrow-straight and pretend my gut ent boiling into a hot frenzy. I wipe my sweaty palms on my cloak.
Before we mount, I stare up at my skinny chestnut gelding and try not to bolt. It watches me with heavy-lashed brown eyes, stamping at the ground and snorting.
Crow makes me step closer and sniff the horse’s neck – it’s like wood, like someone’s warm tunic, solid, and maybe a tiny bit comforting.
‘Ain’t that the best smell in the world?’ he asks. I shrug, biting my cheek.
I try to hold onto the smell of comfort as Crow swings me onto the horse’s back, but soon I’m fighting to control the crackle of fright passing between me and the beast, who don’t trust me a stitch.
Flighty frighty fearsome two-legs, no trust, wants to run, I want to runrunrunrunrun throw buck rear.
Don’t even think about it. Whoa, steady!
The others are all mounted now, watching me. Sparrow is bundled in front of Kestrel. The knot in my belly tightens and tightens, and sickness spreads through me.
‘Ready?’ asks Yapok. ‘We should keep moving.’
‘I can’t,’ I tell them, my voice the size of a krill.
‘Told you,’ says Sparrow, smug as anything.
My mouth trembles. Even with everything we’re running from, I still can’t swallow this heart-fright. Feels like I’m wearing my skin inside out. I don’t understand horses, and Kes keeps asking me if I’m all right, and I can’t answer her. I hate having four legs under me that ent mine and that I can’t control. All I want is to jump from the saddle, even if I break my flaming leg doing it, and get away. The horse tosses its head. Painful fright shoots through me.