Music began, a clash of discordant notes this time, and, very slowly, the Ice Queen’s body began to break apart into tiny shards of ice.
Moments later, all that was left of her was a gown of frozen tears.
Eska rushed back to Whitefur and bent down beside him. ‘Thank you!’ she whispered. ‘You held the Ice Queen back so that I could call the tribes together!’ The Erkenbear didn’t reply and Eska’s hand stilled over his fur. ‘Whitefur?’
She leaned over so that she could see his other side. It was red beyond repair and only then did Eska realise what had happened. While she had been uniting the tribes, Whitefur had been dying.
Flint and Blu gathered close.
‘I thought Erkenbears couldn’t die,’ Eska said in a small voice. ‘I thought Whitefur was beyond the Ice Queen’s dark magic.’
She let her head rest against the bear’s as the tears began to fall and Flint and Blu did the same.
‘He fought for you out on the Driftlands last year.’ Flint’s voice was choked. ‘And he fought inside the palace tonight. He would have fought again, Eska, because his heart was good and true and brave.’
‘Erkenbears,’ Eska said through the tears. ‘I remember my pa’s stories about them now. Wanderers call them the Ever-Wandering Ones; they believe that even after they die their souls speak to us when fresh snow falls.’
And, though the thought of being able to speak to Whitefur again sent a glimmer of hope through Eska, it didn’t ease the pain and she cried on, for the life of her old friend.
They lay with their arms round the Erkenbear for a while longer, then the sound of pummelling footsteps filled the palace.
‘The prisoners in the ice towers – they’ve been freed!’ Flint breathed, forcing himself to his feet. ‘Ma!’
He rushed from the hall, hand in hand with Blu, and Eska would have followed had her ears not snagged on another sound.
‘Eska!’
Eska’s legs felt suddenly weak beneath her and her breath scudded through her throat. Because she recognised that voice . . .
‘Pa,’ she whispered, and then louder, as she rushed towards the arches where the call had come from, ‘Pa!’
Grabbing an abandoned knife from the ground, Eska leapt out on to the palace wall. She dug the knife into the ice there and used it to clamber up on to the top of the highest dome. Then she stood up tall.
‘Pa!’
Tomkin and Blade had scaled the ice towers and hacked open the door that blocked the prisoners in and now men, women, uncles, aunts and grandparents were pouring across the bridges that connected the towers to the palace and rushing into the arms of their children. Eska’s eyes flitted between the crowds, then they fixed on a tall man with broad shoulders who wore the furs of a silver wolf.
He was faster than the others over the bridges, but he didn’t rush into the palace. He grabbed a spear from the ground, snapped it in two, then he dug the spikes into the ice dome and began to climb towards his daughter.
Eska felt her heart shake. ‘Pa!’
Wolftooth hauled himself up on to the top of the dome, but he didn’t stop to gather his breath. He rushed towards Eska and scooped her up in his arms.
‘My little girl!’ he sobbed. ‘My precious little girl!’
And, as Balapan called out from the velvet sky above, Eska held on to her pa.
And so it was that the Ice Queen’s rule crumbled. The sun rose just hours after the battle ended and because this was the midnight sun – the one that would shine all through the Spring and Summer without ever setting – the enchanted iceberg melted as quickly as it had been conjured. Spires fell, walls slumped and the ice oozed out into the sea. Nothing remained afterwards, not even the music box or the silver trees.
The tribes boarded their sleds and, at the invitation of the Feather Chief and Chieftainess, raced across the ice towards the Never Cliffs. There was a time for hiding and a time for fighting, but this, everyone knew, was the time for a feast.
Long into the next day the tribes talked, ate and drank goblets of cloudberry juice inside the Lost Chambers. And as so often happens after adventures end, the stories began. Tales of blizzard balls and wolverines, of willow-snatch and cursed musk oxen. But no story was as bold and as magical as the one Eska, Flint and Blu had to tell.
There were interruptions, of course, for stories in their first telling are rarely neat or simple, but despite Blu’s dramatic gurgling sounds when recounting the episode with the thunderghosts, despite Pebble’s yapping at the ice spider incident and despite Tomkin’s apologies to Flint for ever doubting his inventions or the power of Erkenwald’s magic, the trio did, eventually, get to the end of their tale.
And all the while, the golden eagle perched on Eska’s shoulder. The girl wondered whether the bird would leave her now that their quest was over. But then a new story was told by Wolftooth – one from a father to his daughter about a woman who had befriended an orca while caught out at sea. The whale was never tamed – for that would be like trying to tame the waves – but the animal shared a bond with the woman right through to the end and Eska began to understand then that even though this adventure might be over, something that would not, and could not, be broken had been left in its wake. Friendship. Between a Wanderer and a golden eagle, but also between them and a fox pup, an inventor boy and a little girl with a very large heart.
There was singing and dancing in the hours that followed. The Feather Tribe sang of ancient giants, much to the Grey Man’s delight, but he made a point of not showing it by complaining extra loudly about the cricked back he had acquired when crawling through the entrance to the Lost Chambers (because giants like nothing better than a good dose of sympathy). The Fur Tribe danced, a re-enactment of a legendary hunt which involved a lot of stamping and quite a few drums and the Tusks retold their ancestors’ stories through soapstone carvings.
As midnight drew near, everyone gathered outside the Lost Chambers. The sky was still a dazzling blue but, despite the sunlight, six stars glinted like faraway diamonds. The Sky Gods’ magic was there for all to see and even though the tail of the Little Bear had lost one of its lights, the constellation seemed to burn brighter than it had done before. And to Eska, Flint and Blu the stars felt like a reminder – of the dear friend they had buried in the Never Cliffs a few hours before and of what the smallest and most unlikely of tribes could do with a pocketful of courage.
Eventually the tribes dispersed, tired from a night of celebration and full of promise for an awakened and harmonious Erkenwald. A plan was formed by Wolftooth and Wild-Paw for the following weeks (because when grown-ups get involved that lamentably happens) but this was a plan built of Wanderer rules and Fur tribe invitations. The hideaway behind the Giant’s Beard was to be Wolftooth and Eska’s home for a while until the seasons changed and they felt like moving on.
First though, Flint had a detour he wanted to share with Eska. One that involved cloud cushions, weather clocks and moonlight hammocks.
But just as Wild-Paw and Wolftooth were readying their sleds, there was a roar that shook the core of the highest mountain. Two enormous Erkenbears bounded through the snow and stopped before the gathering.
Eska dipped her head at the bears then she climbed up on to one while Flint, Blu and Pebble mounted the other. The children didn’t need to tell the bears where they wanted to be taken. The Erkenbears already knew. This was a journey home.
They charged through the cliffs and as her golden eagle cried out in the sky above, Eska leant close to the Erkenbear. Her words were hushed and almost lost to the sound of thundering paws. But the wind heard and it carried her voice up and up – past the eagle’s wings and beyond the peaks of the Never Cliffs – until it reached the constellation glittering over the kingdom.
‘This is the wild,’ Eska whispered to the Sky Gods. ‘And the wild doesn’t play by ordinary rules.’
I started writing Sky Song at the same time as my husband and I started talking about having our
first baby. The planning for this book took place during the time I lost my first three pregnancies, the writing took place when I mourned them and the edits took place while I spent three months in hospital with complications regarding my fourth pregnancy. Put like that, you might assume Sky Song to be a story filled with pain and loss. There is pain and there is loss – how can there not be when life itself is filled with troubles just as worrying and upsetting as snargoyles, thunderghosts and villainous Ice Queens? – but overwhelmingly this is a story about hope. And courage. Because I’ve learnt a great deal about both over the last two years. About how, even in the darkest of times you can scrabble around to muster up a handful of faith and that, combined with a pocketful of bravery, as Eska discovers in Sky Song, can make all the difference. I also learnt much about the kindness of other people in the run up to having my little boy and writing this book, and I want to thank those who supported me and bolstered my spirit so that I felt strong enough to tell Eska and Flint’s story.
My first thank you goes to the NHS, to the outstanding Lewis Suite midwives at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital (Ruth, Usha, Joyce, Vida, Ann, Marcia, Hayley, Jayne, Ghazala, Elizabeta and Elsie), as well as the healthcare assistants (Danielle, Jumoki, Yulia, Sandra and Ratchna) and the doctors (Samantha, Maya, and Miss Danjal) whose care, encouragement and expertise meant that I could keep writing in the ward despite the daily uncertainties. Thank you also to my incredible friends and book-world buddies who brought stories, pork gyozas, smiles and even mobile nail salons to the hospital to keep me going.
An enormous thank you goes to my publishers, Simon & Schuster, for making every possible effort to support me through writing this book: to my publicist, Hannah Cooper, and marketing gurus, Jade Westwood and Elisa Offord, for re-arranging signings and tour dates; to sales director extraordinaire, Laura Hough, for holding meetings at my house when I couldn’t travel further than five minutes from the hospital; to my editor, Jane Griffiths, for turning edits around so quickly, for understanding how to bring out the wild magic in Sky Song and for nudging me towards fairytale prologues and epilogues; to designer Jenny Richards and illustrator Daniela Terrazzini for the most beautiful cover I could have dared to hope for. And I also owe a big thank you to my agent, Hannah Sheppard, for checking up on me in hospital and for offering both wisdom and reassurance regarding my writing.
Thank you to the wonderful kids who have read my books, sent me letters (and get well cards) and even quotes to feature in Sky Song. Special thanks goes to Toby Crapper from Eagles Class at Whitchurch C of E Primary School for naming Bala, to my epic Canadian cousins, Abigaile, Catelin, Rachel and Meghan, for brainstorming the Fur, Feather and Tusk tribes in Devon and to Sam Prince from Ashley C of E Primary School who helped inspire inventor boy Flint. And a big well done also goes to the winners and runners up of the various competitions I hosted last year: Naomi Betts, Seren James, Louis James Sanders, Lydia Cubley, Sughra Shah, Coleen Junkaluhad-Ives, Harry Dabb, Brendan Culshaw and Sebastiano Alden.
Thank you, as ever, to my incredible family. To Dad for your prayers and thoughts, to Will and Tom for your hospital visits and potato comments, to Charis for the delicious food and care packages and to Mum for giving up so much of your time to rush me to hospital, sit by my bedside and cook me countless meals. I could never have written this book without your constant love and support. And thank you also to my wonderful sister-in-law, Steph. You inspired Blu in Sky Song and I hope I have managed to capture a little of your joy, kindness and courage in her. My life is infinitely better because you are in it; thank you for all that you have taught me.
My last thank you goes to my husband, Edo. You adventured alongside me while I researched this book (living with Kazakh Eagle Hunters in Mongolia and dog-sledding across the Arctic) then you carried me through the writing stage when things got complicated (sleeping on hospital floors, driving faster than ambulances to get me the quickest care, bringing endless meals into the ward and purchasing Game of Thrones Monopoly when I hit three months in hospital). I can think of no one I’d rather have faced my battles alongside. Your patience, positivity and love not only kept me sane; they filled me with hope about what our lives still hold in store for us. Our tribe may not be very big (yet) but with you by my side and Logie strapped to my back I feel like we can brave all the snargoyles, thunderghosts and villainous Ice Queens that happen to come our way. Thank you for everything.
Abi Elphinstone grew up in Scotland where she spent most of her childhood building dens, hiding in tree houses and running wild across highland glens. After being coaxed out of her tree house, she studied English at Bristol University and then worked as a teacher. She is the author of The Dreamsnatcher, The Shadow Keeper, The Night Spinner and Sky Song. When she's not writing, Abi volunteers for Beanstalk charity, speaks in schools and travels the world looking for her next story. Her latest adventures include living with the Kazakh Eagle Hunters in Mongolia and dog-sledding across the Arctic.
www.abielphinstone.com
Twitter: @moontrug
Facebook: /abi.elphinstone
Instagram: @moontrugger
Also by Abi Elphinstone
The Dreamsnatcher
The Shadow Keeper
The Night Spinner
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © 2018 Abi Elphinstone
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved.
The right of Abi Elphinstone to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.
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PB ISBN 978-1-4711-4607-7
eBook ISBN 978-1-4711-4608-4
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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