by Sarah Driver
‘’Til when?’
‘Until . . .’ He pauses. Shrugs. ‘It’s safe.’
I snort a messy laugh through my nose. ‘It ent never been safe, and won’t never be, neither!’
‘You know what I mean, Mouse,’ he says wearily. ‘The world’s different, now. Things are – proper crooked.’
I cross my arms. ‘But I’ll be going to the Tribe-Meet.’
‘I don’t think so, Bones.’
Which means ‘no’ in full-grown speak. ‘What? Why?’
He turns to a pouch by his bedside and rummages inside it for his pain medsins. ‘Like I said – it’s too dangerous.’
But I remember the way Leo looked at me. ‘For everyone? Or just me?’
He busies himself with looking around for something. But I know when he’s trying to dodge my gaze. ‘Da!’
He stills. ‘It’s naught to fret about, Mouse. It’s just something to keep you safe.’
But as he hobbles from the room, my chest feels bruised. I touch the dragonfly brooch on my tunic and when I close my eyes I can smell salt-traced air and see the great black shadows of the Huntress ’s sails ghosting across her wooden boards. How can Da force me not to rove when I’m so full of fight?
I’ve got to get my mitts on that letter.
My hand moves to an amulet hanging around my neck, and an idea tingles through me. The amulet is a slim oval of silver, gifted to me by Egret Runesmith and etched with the runes for binding, so I’m safe to dream-dance without having to draw protection runes all the time. My fingers brush my other amulet – the amber Bear gifted me.
Gods, I miss my friends.
I fling myself down on Da’s bed and shut my eyes, imagining climbing out of my skin. I gather all the fright in my chest – about the Withering, and the dying moonsprites, and the way Leo looked at me in the long-hall – and use it to hook onto my spirit. I feel the familiar dragging, and push into it, until my spirit nudges through layers of bone, muscle and skin. I tread the air above my body, blinking slow spirit-eyes. Then I dive through the door and into the corridor outside.
I drift past Pika, who’s kicking draggle dung off his boots at the entrance to the crooked corridor. As I pass, he shudders and glances up, looking through me. Then I startle a warmth-seeking goat that’s got lost in the maze of passageways. I turn in the air and dart along another passageway, past a group of Wilderwitches heading for the stone baths, drying-cloaks hung over their arms.
Leo’s chamber is a small, plain room at the top of a sweep of stairs, set deep in the rock above the long-hall. I slip through the wooden door and fly around the room, searching.
A small collection of books, bound in red, blue, green and gold, is stacked on her night table. A clothes chest stands at the foot of her bed. There’s a set of raindrop armour hanging from a hook, a gathering of stubby candles and a portrait of her and her daughter Kestrel that she had painted before Kes left on her mission to unite the youth of the Tribes. There’s no sign of the letter.
Just then, the door whines open and Leo strides in, tension tightening her face. She paces the floor, breathing fast. Then she draws a length of parchment from inside her cloak and yanks it straight. ‘How dare he?’ she mutters to herself.
I slither through the air and hover behind her shoulder, gulping the black runes burned into the parchment.
‘Consider this your first and final warning.’ My spirit startles, fracturing around the edges – I can almost hear the Wilder-King’s slow purr of a voice. ‘Do not imagine that your fortress protects you against the allies I have won. Allies that could be yours, also, if you heed the war cry echoing through Trianukka. The scarred girl is a hunted child. They will not allow her to further damage their cause. Surrender her, for the sake of your people. And surrender any chatterers dwelling amongst you.’
I raise my hand to trace my scar with my fingers, but my spirit edges just whisper against each other. I’m a hunted child. Small wonder Da tried to keep it from me.
The memory barges close – the night just one full moon ago, when slow, stealthy footsteps creaked through the snow behind me. I half-turned, as a salty hand wrapped around my mouth.
‘Fangtooth!’ boomed Da’s kelp-rich voice, stronger than his weakened body. ‘Release my child.’ The Protector’s spear-warriors surrounded us. Me and my brother were pulled from danger, but not before a blade against my neck nicked a tear in the skin.
Axe-Thrower, Stag’s wretched first mate, had hunted through the shadows of the stronghold, trying to get to me and Sparrow. Now she’s locked in Leopard’s dungeon, a hostage claimed by no one. And as for Da – he’s acting guilt-stung that he weren’t better at protecting me now we’re finally back together. For a while he kept saying sorry that Axe attacked me, like it was his fault.
Now I know the Fangtooth weren’t acting alone. That her attack was ordered by someone else. And that the attack ent really over. I keep my eyes on the letter as I read the runes again and again. Then Leo tenses, crumpling the parchment in her fingers, and twists to stare behind her.
I must’ve drifted too close and touched her – I can see how the skin at the back of her neck’s gone goose-pimpled. Suddenly I remember that she’s a dream-dancer, too.
‘Who’s there?’ she whispers.
I flick towards the door, squeeze through and soar down the stairs, spirit-heart weighing heavy. Most times, I can find a way to get Da on my side. But this time he’s never gonna let me go with the others to the Tribe-Meet. Not in a thousand moons. I stare up at the dark stone roof of the passageway as I fly. I feel like the walls of this stronghold are closing in, and if I ent careful, I’ll be buried alive.
Thunder grumbles, restless as a shark. I sit cross-legged on my bed, breathing the storm-stink that’s trickling in through the stones of Hackles. Thaw-Wielder breathes it with me, her eyes shining with added wildness.
The stink of a storm is the only thing that makes me feel free, these days. It kindles the flame in my blood. Stormlight flutters against the walls and I feel like I’m underwater with electric eels.
Crow sits in a chair, greasing his boots. ‘Could you give it a rest with all the sniffing?’
I tut. He don’t get it, Thaw.
She shuffles her feathers and spits in his direction. Soft-shell two-leg notknownotknowthings! Not REAL winged one.
‘And stop talking about me to Thaw! It ain’t fair.’
I stick out my lower lip. The poor bab don’t think it’s fair!
Thaw chortles.
Crow gifts me his danger-face.
I raise my brows. ‘Alright, don’t scorch your lugholes over it!’
The thunder cracks the sky apart, loud as huge iron drums being thrown around. Crow gasps, but I grin. ‘You should try hearing that when you’re out at sea.’
He scowls. In the attic rooms above, claws begin to scrabble. The rats are spooked.
Boots clank past my chamber door. I leap off my bed and rush to look – riders march along the passageway, heading to the caves to prepare their draggles to fly to the Tribe-Meet. Other preparations have been happening, too – spear-sharpening and armour-mending and gathering together of things to trade, like pots of squidge ink and stinking draggle furs and wooden snow-goggles and eggs scooped from the bogs. I’ve been shut out of all of it.
I slam my door and jump back onto my bed. ‘I am proper blubber-bored! They’re leaving for the Tribe-Meet at the morning bell. How can Da force me to stay here?’
‘At least someone cares if you live or die!’ interrupts Crow, loudly. His tone makes Thaw flap herself into outrage, rasping and spitting, eyes bright.
‘Calm your feathers, you stupid bird,’ snaps Crow.
Trymakeme, hisses my hawk.
Crow stands up, eyes on his boots. ‘Mouse, I mean – can you blame your da, really? How addled would he have to be to let you roam the place now that the Withering’s set in and there’s a hunt for your skin?’
I pull at the loose thr
eads in my blankets. ‘But no one gets how bad my bones are itching – itching! – to move, to rove, to do something!’
‘But maybe you can’t do anything, this time,’ he says more gently. ‘And maybe your da’s right – maybe, for once, you don’t have to. It ain’t your job.’
I shine my fierceness through the grime coating my skin. ‘I can’t do nothing – that’s never been what I do.’ And it never will be!
‘None of this is about you, though, is it?’ He picks up the pot of grease he used for his boots and turns away. ‘What would you do if you could leave Hackles, anyway?’
‘Um, let me ponder.’ I chew my cheek, pretending to think. ‘Go to the Tribe-Meet, then find the Opal, and save the world ?’
He sighs. ‘How about you start by coming to supper?’
‘Aye,’ I tell him, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘See you in the hall.’
Thaw oozes a low hiss at his turned back.
‘I heard that, Thaw-Wielder!’ he snaps, before leaving the room.
Thaw, I gabble quickly, my mind wheeling. I HAVE to go to that Tribe-Meet. Cos if I don’t prove myself to Da, how’s he ever gonna let me do anything, ever again? I’ve got to remind him what I can do. I’ll be back before he can blink, anyway! Thrills explode in my belly.
Thaw’s eyes glow, but her pipes spew tiny doubts. Two-leg girl danger times . . . hunthunthunt?
Aye, Thaw. But how’s any of them stupid lumberers gonna hunt me if I swap places with a Spearsister – like Pang? She’ll swap with me, I know it! And if the riders do a count they won’t find anyone extra. I block out a thought about what might happen if anyone needs me to throw a spear. Anything’s better than sitting here, ent it? And I might get to scratch around for snippets of news – or even CLUES – at the Meet.
She takes to the wing, soaring in circles around me until my hair’s stirred into a black cloud. Wild girl show them all!
Thaw wakes me before the morning bell. My limbs are stiff and cold-clumsy as I force myself out of bed. I tiptoe through the gloom to the draggle caves, pulling on the eelskin gloves Marshman Pike once gifted me to keep my fingers warm enough to wield weaponry. If I’m to be a Spearsister, I’ll have to be able to grip a spear, as well as draggle reins. I wait amongst tangled ropes of orangey draggle fur, huddled in a white goatskin cloak that Pangolin hung with iron storm-weights. Underneath clings the rune-spelled breastplate she loaned me, charged runes flickering across it like worms.
I watched the giant shaggy beasts shuffle their wings in their sleep. When the first riders clamour into the cave, heading to the tack room to don armour and fill saddle bags with supplies, I drift from my hiding place and begin sharpening Pangolin’s spear.
Once the whole stronghold is awake, Wilderwitches line the rocks outside. I edge as close as I can to the mouth of the cave and watch them standing, palms held up in front of them, trying to clear a sky-path through the storm. Their weather-magyk battles winds that thrash around like maddened beasts.
A rich smell catches in my nose and I turn to see a cook with greasy white hair passing cups of bone-broth among the riders. A mug finds its way into my hands, glowing with heat that I am more than heart-glad for. I stare down at myself in the gleaming surface of the broth. My eyes are painted from brows through to cheekbones with the black stripes of a Spearsister, an eagle-feather hood is pulled over my head and a raindrop cowl is moulded to my face.
‘Sup your broth and prepare to fly,’ commands Leopard. She wears a long black cloak of eelskin, gifted to her by Pike. I drop my eyes while she’s talking, in case she knows my stormy greys.
I listen to the bubbling of the broth and the crackling of the flames and the nerve-tense chattering of the draggles.
Huntnohuntnohunt? WhywhywhyHUNGRYwherefoodfly?
I’m half asleep with my chin propped in my hands when the storm dies, gaping breathlessness in its wake, sudden as the thunk of a dropped longbow. My chin slips out of my hands and my neck bends painfully as my head lolls. The Wilderwitches’ weather-magyk must have finally pushed the storm away from us. Now there’s just a deadened stillness.
Leopard pulls a small bronze spyglass from her pocket and presses it to her eye. ‘The chief storm has raged west,’ she announces. She sighs, tucks away her spyglass and nods to the draggle warden. ‘We fly.’
I blow out my held breath and we mount our draggles, Leo taking the lead. I copy the others; holding a spear in one hand and the reins in the other. When Leo raises her hand, the draggles swoop from the mountain.
Rough air bruises my eyeballs. My belly plunges, sloshing the broth I glugged. But hidden inside my armour, my lips riot into a grin. Finally, I’m roving.
Below, a group of song-weavers has gathered on the rocks to gift us music as we fly. A little clutch of Sea-Tribe kids – I spot the white shock of Ermine’s hair and Squirrel’s red braid – bang drums they’ve painted to look like whale-eyes. Eyes like portals, or knots in wood. I spot Da and Sparrow, singing together, and duck lower in the saddle. A flush of guilt steals across my skin, itching under all my layers.
We pull away from the mountain, dodging the silvery ghostway tubes that cobweb the stronghold so the Sky-Tribes can pulse messages to each other. The tubes quiver with voices.
Across the valley, tangles of lightning sprout like trees, and the sky flickers as though it’s blinking. When the lightning branches fade, their ashen ghosts hang in the air. My draggle fights the wind, despair mixing with the ice in her fur. I lean down and mutter heart-strengths to her.
We fly over Hearthstone, where almost all the dwellings have been rebuilt, with Leo’s help. But when we reach the Icy Marshes, fury flares in my gut. Terrodyls swirl through the sky, patrolling to make certain the Marsh-folk never dare to return. All that’s left of Pike’s home is a field of blackened wooden stumps capped with bulbs of ice.
Refugees wade through the reeds and ford the rivers on their way towards the mountains, seeking higher ground. We hover while a few riders drop to land and tell them how to reach Hearthstone or Hackles.
As we pass into wilder territory that could be more hostile, Leo calls for us to douse our lamps. I lie along my draggle’s back and stretch to reach the metal lantern hanging on its pole. The hinges squeak as I fumble the door open, making my draggle flick her ears irritably.
Sorry! That needs oiling, I chatter.
I wet my fingertips and squeeze the life from the flame. As the other lamps blink out, heavy gloomlight thickens around us. We race deeper into the murk. I keep to the rear. We soar over leagues of ice-ridges carved by the storm winds; great blue-white dunes that gift the land the look of the wrinkled skin of a whale. Maybe that’s all we are. Whale lice crawling over some giant sea-god.
When Leopard drops back to check we’re all well enough to keep going, I dodge but she draws alongside me and leans across to grip my chin, guiding my eyes to meet hers. My heart skitters.
‘You really thought I would not realise?’ she asks, letting go of me with a sigh. A few Riders twist in their saddles, staring at me with narrowed eyes.
I shrug, cheeks burning. ‘Reckoned it were worth a stab.’
To my startlement, Leo’s face dimples into a grin. ‘I promised your father I would keep you safe – I will deal with this disobedience when we return,’ she swears. ‘But I do admire your determination.’
I don’t dare return her grin, but I let my eyes sing out my wildness.
We reach the sea, where storm-waves have frozen solid, into ice-mountains that rise like great dark fins. Between them, the sea that ent yet frozen bubbles weak as a dying Tribesperson’s spit.
Ice-bound ships litter the sea, wounds agape in their flanks. Tears well in my eyes as I think of my ship. Bear. Frog. Pipistrelle. Vole. I breathe the names of my Tribe into white ghosts on the air. Where are you? Where?
In the distance, a steady drum begins to throb, shattering my thoughts.
The drum beats louder, closer. It rattles my rib
s. Riders stare around them, and I feel their nerves tense.
The rider nearest me draws a breath. But then there’s a choking sound as the air catches in her throat.
Movement catches my eye from the left. I twist in the saddle. My skin jumps. Smoke puffs in time with the drumbeat I heard. As I stare I realise that it’s vapour, that it’s something’s breath. Something big, to make that much steam. Something with a footstep even bigger, to make a drumbeat that loud.
A dark shape is looming. My heart clangs and hammers.
Through the bleak light stamps a chalk-white giant with a skull bubbled all over in milky sores.
Yellowy fluid seeps from sores and trickles down the giant’s body. He leans down, opens his cavernous mouth and smashes his tombstone-teeth around a frozen wave. He chews the ice, then bends for another bite.
The giant’s blistered flesh sucks any last warmth from the half-frozen clouds and the sluggish sea, which throws up a new tower of ice as he passes.
A long, low groan knocks from the giant’s mouth, echoing around the sea of crystal waves. I remember seeing giants like this one in the stories etched in bone that Grandma and Da used to read to us. They were called stogs – the biggest of the Tribe of giants, and the most miserable. They made the seas by weeping, and liked to pluck ships from the waves, crushing them with their bare hands. But the stories said the giants were all sleeping . . .
Not any more.
The stog’s face is craggy-glum and his legs are as long as masts. His hot breath knocks the draggles up and down in the air like toy ships. He snaps a hateful glare onto us and roars, a sound that booms through my chest and makes my teeth chatter. Then his fist swipes through the air.
The draggles scatter. Leo calls orders lost as the storm winds begin to whip again. The stog groans, and kicks out against a wave, making icy rubble fall.
I’ve ended up alone on one side of the giant’s flailing arm, the others all watching me from the other side. As I struggle to control the draggle, I lose my grip on Pangolin’s spear and it falls, clanging onto the ice below. A Spearsister jerks her face towards me. Wisps of white hair have escaped her hood – Lunda. ‘Is that who I think it is?’ she spits. ‘She’s not even meant to be on this patrol!’