by Lari Don
Manky shook his head. “They don’t stink of curses, like those curse-empowered monsters inside. And we know you’re not friends with His Crowship. So we won’t open the doors.”
“Fine. I can open them,” said Snib.
“So can I,” said Innes.
“See, you don’t even need to open the doors,” said Beth. “Just step out of the way, then get back to work in the woods, where you belong.”
“No,” said Manky. “You can’t boss us around any more. You’ve never offered us any kind of power, any kind of excitement.”
Beth smiled again. “My family and my trees have offered you the chance to be part of a living growing ecosystem, and if that isn’t exciting, I don’t know what is.”
“So that’s how dryads define excitement,” Innes muttered to Molly. “Watching plants grow slowly upwards! That explains a lot.”
Beth continued, “But I don’t have to offer you anything. I can just do this…” She leant over the heads of the fungus fairies and laid her hands on the wooden doors.
And the carvings reached out for the fungus fairies. The trees on the doors stretched, their branches lengthened and their twigs reached for Manky, Minging and Mawkit.
The three fairies leapt out of the way and Manky flung his arms in the air. A pale frenzy of mushrooms burst from the peat floor, walls and ceiling. All growing towards Beth, covering her feet, dropping onto her hair.
Beth laughed. “I’m not afraid of anything from the earth. That’s where my life comes from too.” She moved gently away from the fungi at her feet, carefully brushed the fungi off her head, then snapped her fingers.
Roots shot out of the earth. Long thin snaky dirt-covered roots. Living roots of the stunted trees growing above and dried roots of the trees which had grown on the moor centuries ago.
The fungus fairies squealed and ran, but Beth’s friends stood in a solid line across the narrow tunnel, blocking their escape. The roots wrapped round the fairies, like hoops round a barrel. Then the roots pulled the three fairies back towards the doors, where the carved trees bent down, lifted them up and hugged them hard to the planks.
Beth said calmly, “Now my friends will go in. And you three will stay out here with me and discuss the nitrogen cycle.”
Snib walked forward, whispered to a carved wooden bird in a carved wooden tree, and the doors opened wide.
Molly saw Corbie’s curse army, sitting down to lunch.
***
Last time Molly had been here, Stone Egg Wood had been quiet. Apart from crows roosting in the highest branches and fledglings dozing in nests lower down, there had been nothing in this underground wood but tall pale-grey stone trees.
Now the place was bright and bustling.
Through the pillar-like trees, in the light of silvery lanterns, she could see a long table set up in the clearing in the middle of the woods.
She could see birds perched on branches of the surrounding trees and birds circling high in the air under the far-away ceiling.
Around the table she saw trolls, mermaids and monsters. She saw the two boys from the screen at the Hall, calmly spitting out insects and stones. She saw a fiery sheep, a fanged goat, and a white dog with red ears and starry eyes. She saw a man with his own rain cloud and the weeping thistle girl. She saw tiny flying snakes and huge horned wyrms. She saw a minotaur and a miniature dragon. She saw a tiny fairy in a daffodil-yellow dress, sitting on a stone twig.
Beyond the new recruits, Molly saw smaller tables covered in jugs and bowls, and beyond those was a large pool of water.
Theo led Molly, Innes, Atacama and Snib cautiously towards the feast, walking in the dim shadows by the peaty wall.
At the distant top of the long table, they could see Corbie in a high black throne, with Estelle seated in a lower gold throne on his right and Mrs Sharpe in an even lower grey chair on his left.
Mrs Sharpe was wrapped in her own tangled knitting.
Corbie was bright-eyed and happy, talking loudly and laughing louder.
Estelle was happy too. She had dozens of mirrors from the Chamber of Promises piled on the table beside her goblet, and she was picking them up to admire her reflection, while laughing at Corbie’s jokes.
Theo held up his hand and whispered, “This won’t be as easy as I’d hoped. Let’s try to get close to Estelle and hand her the bird without getting into a fight.”
Innes raised his eyebrows. “I thought your awesome power could handle anything. Are you doubting yourself now?”
Theo shrugged. “There are five times as many curse-enhanced beasts here as we saw on the moor. And I can feel immense amounts of power from Estelle. Look how weak the white crow is. This bird has all the wisdom from the lost years; Estelle has all the strength. Estelle is the most powerful Keeper I’ve ever seen. I could probably beat her, but there would be a lot of collateral damage. To these trees. To the crows. To the curse-casters and curse victims. To you. I’d like to avoid a fight. But if we have to fight, this is what we do.”
They all leant in close, as Theo murmured, “Innes and Atacama, you clear our path to the Keeper. Snib, undermine Corbie’s hold over your brothers and sisters, keep them out of the fight, or, even better, bring them in on our side. Molly, keep the white crow safe, and do whatever is necessary to place her in Estelle’s hands.”
Everyone nodded, then kept walking quietly beside the peaty wall.
There was a rustling above them. Molly glanced up. A small brown-black crow was staring down.
Snib said, “Shhh, Gretta! Please!”
But the bird started to flap her wings noisily.
And everyone at the long table turned to look straight at them.
Chapter Twenty-five
Theo sighed. “We’ll have to do this the hard way.” He stepped out into the light.
Molly looked over at the feasting table. She saw the boy with the wolf ’s head, a lion with a mane of tiny snakes, and several wyrms. There were lots of predators at the feast, and Molly knew that as soon as one of them made a sound she would shift into their prey. Then she wouldn’t be able to give the bird to Estelle.
She grabbed a handful of moss from the base of the wall, squashed it into two plugs and shoved them into her ears. The damp fibres expanded and sealed her ears, cutting out all the sound around her, just as Theo called to Estelle, “Esteemed Promise Keeper, I greet you—”
Theo moved forward, with Innes on one side of him and Atacama on the other.
Snib tapped Molly on the arm and handed her the small white bird.
Molly couldn’t hear anything, but as she followed her friends, she could feel the faint fast beat of the bird’s heart against her fingers.
Corbie stood up and started yelling. The beasts at the table opened their mouths, showing their fangs and tongues. Molly felt the ground under her feet vibrate with the noise, but she couldn’t hear it, so it didn’t trigger her curse. She was still human and she still held the bird safe in her hands.
Snib was no longer beside her. The crow-girl was scrambling expertly up the nearest tree.
Ahead of Molly, Theo was still speaking, holding his hands out towards Estelle, with Innes and Atacama walking protectively beside him.
Corbie leapt up onto the table, scattering the mirrors. Estelle frowned at him. Corbie pointed at one of the recruits at the bottom end of the table, then pointed at the group walking towards the feast.
The curse-army soldier stood up.
It was Innes’s father.
Corbie stamped his foot on the table and the tall kelpie, his face scarred and angry, strode towards Innes.
Theo turned to Innes, and they spoke briefly. Innes smiled at Theo, nodded, then stepped forward to meet his father.
Molly didn’t know what the boys had said to each other, but she could see the growing tension in Innes’s shoulders as he walked towards his dad.
Corbie was patting his hands down into the air, calming the rest of his army. Maybe he thought one adult kelpie would
be enough to stop them getting to Estelle. Maybe he didn’t realise what Theo’s brutal new hairstyle meant.
But Molly knew that even though Theo’s power could knock Mr Milne all the way back to Craigvenie, Innes had to deal with his father himself.
Innes and his dad met between two tall stone trees. Mr Milne pointed to his own ripped boots. Molly wondered if he was asking Innes to kneel, to grovel.
Innes shook his head. His dad leapt at him, grabbed his shoulders and threw him to the ground.
But it wasn’t a boy who hit the ground, it was a horse. A large, thrashing, angry white horse.
Suddenly there were two horses.
The two stallions started to fight. Slashing with sharp hooves, biting with long teeth, barging with heavy shoulders, butting with bony heads and kicking again and again and again.
Theo walked past the horse fight, still talking to Estelle, who had her head turned away, checking her eye makeup in a glowing mother-of-pearl mirror.
Molly glanced round. Snib was balanced on a narrow branch, talking to a growing flock of crows, eagles, vultures and other black birds in the trees around her, their heads tipped and eyes bright as they listened.
Molly ran forward, ducking under a vicious kick from Innes, to join Theo. Her job was to get this bird into the Promise Keeper’s hands. She couldn’t be distracted by concern for her friends.
She walked on one side of Theo; Atacama walked on the other.
Corbie was yelling again, this time at the flock of birds gathered round Snib.
The Keeper turned to Mrs Sharpe, who was trying to drink from a goblet, though her hands were tangled in muddy brown and yellow wool. Estelle prodded Mrs Sharpe, gestured towards Theo, then looked back down at her mirrors.
Theo glanced at Atacama, who nodded.
The witch struggled to her feet, her woollen bonds loosening just enough for her to move. Estelle grabbed a loose end of yellow wool, and looped it round the arm of her throne.
Innes and his father galloped past in their horse forms, biting at each other’s ears and withers. When they reached the pool beyond the tables, they both shifted to human form, and began wrestling and punching. Molly could see a black eye blooming on Innes’s face.
Both kelpies toppled into the water.
Mrs Sharpe wriggled and the windings of wool loosened even more, still tight round her neck, but flapping round her shoulders and arms, like a badly made cloak. The witch glanced at Estelle, then moved towards Theo, Molly and Atacama.
Atacama ran ahead to intercept her.
Even wrapped in her mossy silence, Molly was aware of a disturbance in the air above: falling feathers, whirling wings, slashing talons. She saw two flocks of birds wheeling overhead. Birds still loyal to Corbie and birds now persuaded to work with Snib were fighting each other high above the trees.
Then Molly looked from the treetops to the water far ahead of her. She saw a long pale-green tentacle rising out of the pool. The kelpies were fighting in their monstrous underwater forms.
Beside her, Theo was walking forward in a slow formal dignified approach to the top of the table. No one was blocking his way, because many of the birds who’d been listening to Snib were now circling the table, preventing the curse army recruits getting up from their chairs.
Molly saw fluffy fledgling crows mobbing the weather-witch who’d created the ice-ambush on the moor. The two boys with the beetles and gems were clutching each other under the table. And Mr Crottel was hiding his face in his paws, while black hawks dived towards him.
But as she watched, Corbie’s birds fought back. They attacked Snib’s birds, distracting and disrupting them so that Corbie’s loyal soldiers could start to push through the wall of fighting birds.
The first to break through was a tall figure made of triangles of silvered glass. It sliced through the air towards Theo and Molly.
Theo flicked a hand, and the thousands of fragments melted together, forming one solid mirror shape that toppled forward inelegantly.
Then Molly felt a gust of warm wind. The roc was swooping towards them, its broad wings shattering the trees in its way. Huge branches hit the ground with thumps Molly could feel in her heels.
The roc flew lower, and everyone still seated at the feast, no matter what side they were on, ducked under the table.
Molly couldn’t hear the roc scream, but she could feel the rush of air as the giant bird glided down, demolishing more trees as it came. She shivered as she saw long sharp black talons, strong enough to crush an elephant, swooping towards her.
Theo caught a delicate white twig as it fell from a broken tree, and placed it on the tip of his index finger. The twig started to spin, faster and faster, like a tiny propeller. Theo blew gently and the spinning twig rose up into the air.
As it rose, still spinning, the twig grew and grew: branch-sized, then tree-sized. It created a strong whirlwind, knocking more nests from trees. The vortex of moving air caught the roc and threw it, like a frisbee, to the other side of the wood. The roc crashed to the ground, bringing down rows of trees and crushing two bikes up against the far wall. The roc lay there, in the distance, moving feebly. Still alive, but unable to attack again.
The soldiers crawled out from under the table, and tried again to shove past Snib’s brothers and sisters.
Molly kept walking steadily forward, sidestepping the chaos around her.
She stepped over a russet egg rolling out of a broken nest. Now their link with the curses was broken, no birds would ever hatch from these stone eggs.
Ahead of her, Mrs Sharpe attacked Atacama. The witch knotted her cursed wool into nooses and nets, and threw them at the sphinx. Atacama attempted to leap over and round the traps, to tackle the witch.
Molly wondered why Mrs Sharpe, who had told them to search for the bird in the box, was now trying to stop them getting the bird to Estelle. Then Molly noticed the witch’s glazed eyes, the wool still wrapped threateningly around her throat, and the glowing yellow fibres linking her to Estelle’s throne. Maybe Mrs Sharpe wasn’t free to make her own choices.
Mrs Sharpe was flinging nets of wool at Atacama, but more than half of her attacks landed nowhere near the sphinx. She was using large exaggerated gestures, her effort obvious to anyone watching her, but she wasn’t aiming very accurately. Molly realised Mrs Sharpe was fighting the wool that was controlling her, as well as fighting the sphinx in front of her.
But enough of her wild woolly attacks were landing around Atacama’s paws to trap him in tangled snares.
Molly turned to free Atacama from the wool. Theo grabbed her arm and pulled her forward. He mouthed something at her. She nodded. Her job was to take the bird to the Keeper, not to help her friends.
Snib was perched in the tree, surrounded by a blurred battle of the birds. Atacama was biting at mustard-coloured wool, struggling to get free. Innes was crawling in human form out of the pool, but was dragged back in by half a dozen thick tentacles.
Wyrms and wolves and waves of other curse-empowered creatures were now fighting their way from the long table, trying to attack Theo, trying to attack Molly.
Molly lifted one hand and touched the mossy earplugs, checking they were firmly in place. The noise of these angry predators wouldn’t affect her, wouldn’t shift her into their prey.
So she ignored them. She walked forward, the bird in her hands and silence in her ears.
Then she noticed the smooth fangs of a snake-maned lion and the curved claws of a heavy black wolf, and realised they could rip her apart in her human form too.
Corbie’s soldiers were crashing against the wall of crows and hawks, swiping at wings and tails, knocking Snib’s sisters and brothers out of the air.
If they all burst through, silence wouldn’t protect Molly or the small bird she held from claws, teeth and anger…
Chapter Twenty-six
The curse army was breaking away from the feasting table. The wall of birds wasn’t strong enough to stop them attacking Theo, Mol
ly and the white crow.
Molly wondered what she could do to protect the small bird. She wondered what she could do to protect herself…
Then Theo stopped and faced the table. He lifted his hands and the thickest broken branches from the roc’s descent rose up to create a pale knobbly fence behind the chairs at the feasting table, preventing any more guests getting up and joining the fight.
Theo resumed his steady walk towards Corbie and Estelle at the far end of the feast. Molly walked beside him, the battle still raging around her and above her.
Broken black feathers spiralled through the air, crumpled nests and crushed lanterns littered the ground.
Atacama and Mrs Sharpe were flinging claw strikes and nets of wool at each other.
Snib and Corbie were directing arrows of birds at each other.
Innes and his father were rising out of the water, throttling each other.
As she walked through the chaos, Molly knew Theo had been keeping the worst of it away from her and away from the bird in her hands.
But Theo would soon need all his power to defend himself. Because Estelle had finally put down the pearly mirror. She was no longer gazing at her reflection. She was staring straight at Theo.
And she looked angry.
Then the Promise Keeper stood up.
Theo gave Molly a gentle shove, so she took a couple of involuntary steps away from him. She banged into the legs of a boy who was spitting cockroaches at a vulture lifting him into the air. Molly backed out of the fluttering rain of insects and looked up at the boy struggling in the bird’s grip.
She couldn’t be sure which of them was on her side. But the boy was a victim of Estelle’s charged-up curses, and the vulture had attacked her friends on the moor.
So she cradled the white bird in one hand, grabbed a skinny branch and jabbed it upwards into the splayed outer feathers of the flapping wing above her, hoping it would disrupt the vulture’s flight.