‘Of course it’s my face, you bumbling idiot!’ the voice inside the rock barked.
Balapan raked her talons across a rounder rock.
‘Do be careful! That’s my bottom. It’s gone rather numb after all this lying down in one place, but I am still fond of it. In fact, I’d say it’s one of my best features.’
Down on their hands and knees, Eska, Flint, Balapan, Blu and even Pebble worked as quickly as they could to piece the Grey Man back together.
‘Put your back into it!’ the rocks squeaked. ‘I mean, put my back into it! And my hands – I’ll be needing them if you want me to help you!’
And, although the conversation was somewhat stressful and Blu seemed determined to place the Grey Man’s foot on top of his head and Pebble spent far too much time using his tail to flick stones at Flint’s bottom, they did, eventually, manage to cobble together a figure with the rocks. There was a moment of silence as the group looked at their creation arranged in the snow.
‘Now what?’ Flint hissed.
The Grey Man lay there in the vague shape of a man. His face was a blank stone still – there was no mouth, no nose, no eyes – and yet the creaky voice came again.
‘Now this,’ it chuckled. ‘Finally, this.’
As he spoke, the snow around him whipped up into a flurry then the stones began to move. They ground together like rusty joints, then the Grey Man stood up and on the stone that was his head a face showed. An old, wrinkled face, carved into the rock itself and spotted with lichen.
Two grey eyes blinked. ‘Am I tall and splendid?’
Eska squinted. The man came up to her knee.
‘But the Feather Tribe song . . .’ Flint mumbled as he glanced towards the Grey Man. ‘It said he was tall. And he needs to be if he’s going to help us find our way down the cliffs to the Frost Horn!’
There was an awkward pause.
‘I knew it!’ the Grey Man wailed. ‘I’m small, aren’t I?’ He raised a rocky palm to his forehead. ‘Oh, dismantle my legs; lop off my head! Cast me off the edge of the cliff!’
Blu reached out a hand and patted him on the head. ‘You being silly now.’
‘That wretched Ice Queen!’ the Grey Man snivelled. ‘When she cast me down, she stripped me of my devilishly attractive height. She said there were no room for giants in her Erkenwald.’
Flint’s jaw hardened. ‘Well, this isn’t her Erkenwald. It’s ours.’
And this time Eska didn’t have to prompt Flint to rummage through his rucksack for an invention. He ripped the bag open and pulled out a stoppered bottle. Under the fading light, Eska saw a jet-black liquid within the glass that every now and again flickered gold.
‘What’s that?’ the Grey Man asked suspiciously.
‘Bottled lightning,’ Flint replied. ‘A few drops can drastically increase an object’s size or speed.’
‘Are you sure, boy?’ The Grey Man wagged his finger at Flint. ‘Because I might have an allergy to it and I really don’t want—’
Blu, it appeared, didn’t have much patience with the Grey Man’s allergies and, before he could get any more words out, she grabbed the bottle from Flint and began tipping the liquid over him.
Flint snatched the bottle back before she could drain the whole thing. ‘I need the rest of it for something else, Blu. Something important.’
For a few seconds, nothing happened and then the Grey Man gasped. He was growing, before their very eyes. The rocks that formed his body swelled to become boulders, the stones that were his fingers stretched out into plinths and the rock that was his head grew until it was as big as a door.
The Grey Man cricked his neck and his voice came forth in a deep boom. ‘I had forgotten how splendid it feels to be a giant!’
Blu patted Flint on the back. ‘You best inventor.’
Flint beamed.
‘We’ve come for the Frost Horn,’ Eska whispered to the Grey Man.
‘Well, of course you have! I didn’t think you’d dropped by with the Erkenbears for a cup of tea!’
‘So, how do we get down to the shore without dying?’ Flint asked.
The Grey Man waved a hand casually. ‘Oh, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump. Would you like to ride on my shoulder or my head? Both will be equally uncomfortable.’
They chose the Grey Man’s shoulder – partly because it was a flatter surface, but mostly because, when Blu tried to scale the giant’s nose to reach his forehead, the giant had sneezed and Blu had been coated in a thick layer of slime.
Eska, Flint, Blu and Pebble sat on the Grey Man’s shoulder with the sack of feathers, silently envying Balapan gliding above. The sky ahead was pink and the sea around the icebergs almost purple as the light finally faded. Eska swallowed. Somewhere out there was the legendary Frost Horn and time was running out to claim it.
The giant strode back quite some way from the cliff edge.
‘We’re sort of in a hurry,’ Eska whispered. ‘Aren’t you going the wrong way?’
‘You must never underestimate the wrong way!’ the Grey Man thundered. ‘Because more often than not it turns out to be the right way . . . Just with a few more bends in the road!’
Flint nodded warily. ‘Yet another detour . . .’
The giant spun round and Eska and her friends clung to the rocky crevices in his shoulder. Then the Grey Man took an enormous stride forward – then another and another – and Eska dug her fingers into the cracks in the stone.
‘Hold on!’ the Grey Man hollered. ‘It’s been a while since I made the jump and I’ve no idea if my back will hold out during the descent!’
A look of horror washed over Flint’s face, but Blu grinned.
‘Wheeeeeeeee!’ she shouted as the giant leapt from the cliff. ‘I tell Tomkin I jump with giant!’
They plummeted down, down, down with Balapan at their side – past the puffins, kittiwakes and guillemots crammed on to the rocky ledges – and Eska’s stomach lurched.
‘And run from wolves!’ Blu giggled.
The horror plastered across Flint’s face deepened and then they landed on the snowy beach with a very large, and slightly painful, bump.
The Grey Man dusted a clump of lichen from his leg. ‘Not bad, considering.’
Eska breathed out and as she watched Balapan preening her feathers nearby she thought how much less complicated life would be if she was an eagle. Still, they had made it down to the shore, a drop many of the Feather Tribe had died attempting, and before them now was the sea – dark purple and loaded with icebergs. There were harp seals and bearded seals dotted here and there on the flat icebergs nearby, but further out, on the bridges, leaning towers, columned arches and pyramids chiselled out of ice, there was nothing at all. Eska thought of her ma suddenly and wondered whether she had stood on this beach and swum in the waters that broke over it.
The Grey Man lifted the group from his shoulder and set them down by the shore. They listened to the creak and jostle of the icebergs moving.
‘The Frost Horn,’ the giant said quietly. ‘You’ll find it among the last of the Groaning Splinters.’ He paused. ‘I would say more but the truth is I don’t know any more. I just remember, many moons ago, that the greatest of the Sky Gods left it there after breathing life into Erkenwald.’
Flint glanced at the driftwood lying about the beach and swung his sack of feathers to the ground. ‘I have a plan, a rough one, for when – if – we get the Frost Horn.’ He sighed. ‘But how do we even get out to the furthest icebergs in the first place? That’s a jungle of ice – we’ll need a kayak to steer us through!’
The Grey Man knelt down beside them. ‘Or just a very convenient wind . . .’
He didn’t explain any more and minutes later the last of the colour drained from the sky and night crowded in. Eska’s skin prickled. There would only be a few hours of darkness – the nights were getting shorter with every day that passed – then dawn would break and they’d be just one day away from the midnight sun . . .
‘You can’t go on now,’ the Grey Man said. ‘It’s too dark and you’ll need a rest and food.’ Pebble snuffled in agreement. ‘But I’ll take you at first light.’
The Grey Man stepped back and only then did Eska notice the abandoned igloo behind him. The slabs of snow were slightly misshapen – battered over the months by the winter storms – but it was a good enough shelter for the night and the group hurried towards it.
‘I’ll keep guard through the dark,’ the Grey Man said, settling himself down on a rock by the shore. He dropped his legs into the water and smiled. ‘It’s good to be home . . .’
Flint and Blu laid out furs inside the igloo while Eska clambered up the cliffs with Balapan. The eagle cracked open the gull eggs and drained the yolks there and then, but Eska pocketed as many as she could carry and stole back to the igloo. She crept inside. This was a former Tusk home and yet, in the hour she had taken to forage for eggs, her friends had transformed the snowy dome.
Flint had a fire going and above it Blu had hung the magnifying glass infused with rainbow essence and, though from the outside the igloo looked just like a dark shape huddled at the foot of the cliffs, inside it glowed every colour possible. Turquoise danced over the roof, purple flickered across the floor and gold shone on the walls.
‘It’s beautiful in here,’ Eska whispered. ‘A pocket of Erkenwald not yet ruined by the Ice Queen.’
Flint cracked the eggs on to a flattened stone he had placed above the fire, then he looked at Eska.
‘We’re going to find the Frost Horn,’ he said. ‘However far out on the Groaning Splinters it is.’
‘But it’s not just finding the horn, is it?’ Eska whispered. She thought of Rook leading the Tusk guards towards the Lost Chambers. ‘It’s everything that comes after that – blowing it from the skies, getting the tribes to fight with us, stopping the Ice Queen from changing Erkenwald for ever.’ She looked down. ‘So many things to hope for.’
Flint nodded. ‘But think back to where we’ve come from. The music box, the Giant’s Beard, the Never Cliffs and the Grey Man outside guarding our sleep. It’s going to be okay.’
‘We find Ma,’ Blu said.
It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. And Eska realised then that hope moved quickly. It could burn inside you one minute and then, just when you thought you’d lost it, you’d find it shining in the hearts of your friends. She looked around the igloo. So long as one of them remembered to bring hope with them, perhaps things would turn out all right.
As the sun rose over the horizon, big and pale and flooding the Groaning Splinters with light, Flint, Blu, Eska and Pebble knelt on a flattened iceberg. The Grey Man strode out into the sea, nudging the iceberg forward, and Flint stifled a yawn. He knew Eska hadn’t noticed him creep out of the igloo in the night, but, if he carried on yawning like this, she’d start to ask questions – and some things were better left unsaid, especially while the Ice Queen’s anthem was going on and Eska’s voice was little more than a wisp of breath.
Flint glanced at Balapan circling above them. ‘She has an unfair advantage in this quest,’ he muttered. ‘Wings make all the difference.’
The Grey Man walked on for a while longer, then he paused before a maze of iced bridges, arches and spiral columns.
‘I’ll leave you here,’ he said. ‘It seems like a perfectly reasonable place.’
‘But we need to get to the furthest of the Groaning Splinters,’ Eska whispered. ‘We’re not even among them yet!’
Flint nodded. ‘It’s not as if the wind is going to carry us on. It’s as calm as a millpond this morning!’
Blu jabbed a little fist in both Eska and Flint’s sides. ‘Listen to giant. He know way.’
The Grey Man smiled at Blu. ‘For someone so small, you’re actually rather wise.’ He stood back from the iceberg. ‘And now for a spot of convenient wind.’
He took a deep breath in and his stone body crunched as his chest swelled, then he bent down, level with the iceberg the children sat on, and let his breath out. The iceberg drifted across the water, steered by the giant’s breath, and the group swung round as they realised what was happening.
‘You’re really not coming with us?’ Flint cried.
The giant’s breath continued to push the iceberg out even though the Grey Man now stood up tall. ‘I cannot stay any longer; there is someone I need to speak with.’ He paused. ‘But you will find the Frost Horn and together you will blow it from the stars.’
Flint wondered whether it would be impolite to point out that the time for overdue catch-ups with friends was probably not now, just hours from the Ice Queen’s dominion over Erkenwald, but there was something in the giant’s eyes as he said goodbye – something kind and honest and wise – and Flint didn’t press the matter further.
‘Thank you,’ Eska whispered.
And, though the sound didn’t reach the giant waving from the shallows, Flint could tell that he knew the shape of those words because he smiled.
The giant’s breath steered the iceberg on towards the Groaning Splinters and, had Flint’s and Eska’s minds not been filled with images of the Ice Queen wiping out the tribes and tearing down the Sky Gods if they failed to find the Frost Horn, they might have marvelled at the spectacle before them – at the spires, domes and caves of glittering blue ice. The iceberg drifted beneath an arch and on towards a row of spiked peaks.
‘Does it seem a bit too quiet to you?’ Flint asked after a while. ‘If you ignore the Ice Queen’s anthem . . .’
He listened for the cries of the birds from the cliffs, but there was nothing now. He looked back towards the flatter icebergs where the seals had been resting. They were gone, too . . . The iceberg glided on and Flint watched Balapan dipping low between the Groaning Splinters as if, perhaps, she had seen something. He reached for his Anything Knife and Eska gripped her quiver.
Then a sloping brown head slid above the surface in front of the iceberg the group huddled on. Amber eyes, whiskers curling from a dark wet nose and two sharp white tusks hanging either side of a drooping mouth. One by one, more brown heads appeared until they surrounded the iceberg in a dark circle.
Flint swallowed. ‘Walruses.’
The giant’s breath nudged the iceberg forward, but the largest of the walruses lifted its blubbery body out of the water a fraction more until it blocked the path through and the iceberg ground to a halt.
‘They’ll let us past, won’t they?’ Eska whispered.
But, when the largest walrus shook his blubber and let out a juddering roar, Flint knew these were not ordinary walruses. Like the wolves back on the Driftlands, these were now brutes cursed to obey the Ice Queen.
Flint fumbled with his knife as a walrus thumped its enormous body on to the ice and stabbed at the children with its tusks. Blu screamed and Flint jammed his boot into its head then, as it reared backwards, Eska sent her arrow into its blubber. The walrus sank out of sight, but the others drew closer.
‘Have you got an invention in your bag that can help us?’ Eska gasped.
Flint’s eyes widened as he remembered he had left his rucksack back in the igloo. The Grey Man had warned against extra weight on the ice and Flint hadn’t wanted to lose the snow-goose feathers he’d carried this far in the depths of the icy sea. He brandished his Anything Knife as another walrus shunted its hideous body against their iceberg, then Balapan dive-bombed the beast and it drew back for a second.
‘They’re trying to topple the iceberg!’ Flint cried.
He pulled Blu behind him and plunged his Anything Knife into the neck of a walrus whose tusks were just centimetres from Eska’s leg. The beast let out a low grunt-whine, then it vanished beneath the surface.
The air shook with the Ice Queen’s anthem and the roars of the walruses as they hacked the iceberg with their tusks, clawing closer to their prey, but Flint and Eska were in the hunt now, their aim sure, their weapons poised to kill, and Balapan was wielding her wings and talons above anything th
at came close to Blu.
Before long, just one walrus remained. The largest of the herd. It disappeared beneath the surface and when Flint glanced down he could see only the water and the undersides of turquoise icebergs.
‘Has it gone?’ Eska whispered.
The quietness dragged on and Flint lowered his knife, then there was an almighty boom from beneath as the walrus thrust its weight into the middle of the iceberg. It juddered. It groaned. And Flint’s eyes widened.
Then it crunched in two, Flint and Blu on one side – and Eska on the other.
The walrus slid through the water towards the iceberg that Flint and Blu were stranded on and, though Balapan hurtled down to try and distract it, the walrus merely batted the eagle away and, narrowing its yellow eyes, made a beeline for the iceberg.
‘Keep going!’ Flint yelled to Eska. ‘Use your bow as an oar until you reach the furthest of the Groaning Splinters! Then find the Frost Horn!’
The walrus slashed its tusks into the ice by Blu’s boot and when Flint wrenched his little sister away he looked up to see Eska frantically trying to paddle towards them. Flint brandished his knife and the walrus held back for a moment.
‘Turn round and keep going!’ he shouted again. ‘This is your chance, Eska – I can fight the walrus!’
For a second, Flint saw Eska falter, then she turned her terror-stricken face away and inched towards the last of the Groaning Splinters before the wide stretches of ocean.
Flint took a deep breath, then he turned back to face the walrus.
As Eska approached two glistening columns of ice, she turned briefly to catch a last look at her friends. But what she saw made her insides roil.
A shattered iceberg. Water pulsing red. And one fur mitten floating on the surface.
Balapan screeched from her shoulder and surged into the sky, circling the crimson water again and again. Eska stood up – the horror drumming her bones, the anthem swirling in her ears – but, when Balapan landed at her feet with her head bowed, she threw back her head.
Sky Song Page 16