by Sarah Driver
‘How about some butter-tender cod, so soft and fresh it just slips off the bone,’ I whisper. ‘Birch-smoked, in sauce, or plain—’
‘Cinnamon buns!’ Sparrow bursts out, too loud, and I shush him. But the taste of fresh-baked buns is already on my lips and I breathe deep, and the diamond-dust glittering in the air is almost sugar, dancing against the black. I remember the clouds of sugar and flour in Pip’s kitchens, the pain in my fingers when I stole a bun before it got a chance to cool. How the pain was worth it, and so was burning my mouth.
‘You two ain’t helping,’ grunts Crow. Guilt tightens around me. His eyes have no lids – they’re just shiny circles of jet. I remember seeing him stuff dirty snow in his mouth. He’s too weak to shape-shift now, and he’s too weak to shift back proper. `
‘How we ever gonna get back to our ship?’ Sparrow whispers.
‘I don’t know. But we will.’ I grab his hand and squeeze his fingers ’til he cries out. ‘We will!’
When I wake up in the faint, sickly gloom, I press myself up onto an elbow, blinking in the light of the whale-song Sparrow strung in the lowest branches of the trees. Old One’s curled up on her side next to me and for a beat I reckon she’s glowing red. I look closer. Then my heart starts to hammer. There is red – clotted in her wisps of hair and smeared across her cheeks.
Old One is licked all over with blood.
I search around. Spatters of blood paint the faces of all the others, too. No one stirs.
The forest is silent. My breath’s too loud and time’s too slow.
‘Gods swim close,’ I whisper. I touch my face and it’s tight with dried blood. Why is there blood on me when I can’t feel a scratch? Is everyone dead? I climb onto all fours and I’m about to crawl to Sparrow when Old One moves.
I yell. The crust of blood on my face snaps. The others wake up too, eyes wide in bloodied faces.
Old One’s eyes open, her lashes pulling up strings of blood. Then she screams and I’m covering her mouth, in case whatever did this is still nearby. When I peel my hand away she yelps cos the blood’s stuck to her lips and glued our skins together.
‘Where’s all this flaming blood come from, if we ent hurt?’ I whisper.
The others look dazed.
‘Are we hurt?’ I mouth into Old One’s startled face. ‘Are we?’
‘No,’ says Blue, stretching. ‘It’s the trees.’
I pull a face. ‘What ’s the trees?’
Old One shudders. She keeps shuddering, and I realise she’s laughing.
‘Up,’ she gargles, testing out one of her new words, learnt from me. She jerks her head, her stretched earlobes wobbling under the weight of her hooks. I follow her gaze. Blood trickles down the trees’ trunks, pooling at the bottom.
I scowl up at the branches. ‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘Why are they bleeding?’
‘It’s just the sap these trees have,’ says Blue. ‘They’re healing trees. Tree-Tribes use the blood-sap on wounds, because it clots bleeding.’
‘You might’ve warned us,’ spits Crow through a tight jaw.
I spread my fingers wide, making space for my beast-chatter in the back of my throat. Thaw?
Somewhere high above our heads comes a tiny, far-off grunting chatter. She’s keeping her distance, and I can hardly blame her.
We lurch to our feet, watching each other from underneath blood-heavy brows. Wordlessly, we tramp on. Our lives become one endless trudge of roots underfoot, tripping us up, and branches overhead, scraping our scalps
Then I feel my spine prickle as I sense something else moving, close by. I squint into the trees surrounding us.
Dark figures are arranging themselves in the shadows.
As they pull free from thick tree trunks, I see them more clearly – tree-blood in their hair and heavy bear-cloaks around their shoulders. Vole used to tell us tales of Tree-Tribes, akin to bears – is that who these folk are?
When one of the figures steps towards us, Sparrow crackles a palmful of purple fire and holds it up.
The figures step back, blending into the trees.
‘Hey,’ says Crow. ‘Hey – we won’t hurt you!’
‘Come,’ drifts a voice from the trees.
Blue scrambles to her feet and hurries after them.
I hesitate, chewing my lip. Then I spew a curse and follow her, the others close behind me. I’m leading them all into danger if this ent safe. I don’t even know if we can trust Blue, let alone these strangers. There’s a rush of feathers as somewhere high above, Thaw tails the pack.
We follow Blue along a path that winds through the trees. The trees begin to whisper to each other. The route soon joins wider paths leading north. The white spires of a city loom ahead, dwarfing the trees.
My boots fill dips made by moons and moons of roving. It makes me feel heart-strong.
Songs spiral back to us, along the path.
Songs about bears. Songs about wolves. Songs for the vanished moon and the sun hidden behind her skirts. Sparrow hums along with them, quiet at first, then louder. Soon, he’s full-throat warbling, and a put-put-putter of faltering blue notes spangle the air.
Old One squeezes my hand too tight. I gasp and prise her bony fingers off.
We follow the song-notes through a knot of twisted tree branches and suddenly Thaw swoops low out of the sky, brushing over the tops of our heads.
We stumble into a wide clearing. Half a hundred shelters have been crafted to blend with the trees and the earth; their frames are built from branches and leaves, and mud and animal skins have been used to lock the chill out.
A whispering peels away from the trees and rushes around the clearing. Dizziness makes me sway as a chattering crowds close. A chatter that’s deep and raw like mine, but with different sounds.
‘Mouse?’ says Crow, his voice too loud in the silence. ‘You alright?’
I step past him, turning around in a circle, listening hard. Thaw drops out of the sky and I put out my gloved hand for her to land on.
The gloom thins. A woman in a red cloak crosses a blanket of pine needles towards us, a sleek white wolf padding in her wake. The wolf lifts a muzzle dripping with icicles. Curiosity tips full-pelt into her wild bright eyes. They pin me to the spot.
‘You followed an ancient song-path,’ says the woman. She’s tall, with flushed cheeks and a tumble of long white hair. ‘Few have succeeded. Welcome to the Glade of Sorrows.’
‘Who’re you?’ I ask.
‘My name is Toadflax,’ she says. ‘And this is Astralia.’ she places a hand upon the head of the great white wolf. My breath catches as the beast’s eyes rest on my mine.
Toadflax lifts her chin and chatters to the forest. The branches of the trees creak as they lean low, then weave and knot and lace their fingers together behind us, hiding the way out.
‘Green-chatter,’ I breathe, feeling my eyes widen.
‘Yes. We work together with the forest. We are part of it.’
A third figure steps into the clearing behind her, face shrouded by her hood. ‘Toadflax,’ she calls out. ‘Who have you found?’ The hood shines – it’s woven from eagle feathers.
‘Leo? ’ I move towards her.
‘Mouse!’
The Tree-Tribesfolk help us brush the dried tree-blood from our cloaks and hair. I use my fingernail to scrape it from the grooves in Ma’s dragonfly brooch. We learn that Leo escaped from the trader who bought her from Storm-Bringer, and managed to limp into the forest and hide. She recognised the Forest of Nightfall from her maps and hoped to find Kes still camping there.
‘Where is she?’ I ask.
‘In the heart of Nightfall, at the College of Medsin. She and Egret are posing as young men and using false names – Kite and Boar.’
‘And what’s going on here?’ asks Crow, peering around.
‘The Tree-Tribes are gathering allies, ready to resist the forces tightening their control over our world.’
‘What about the other rid
ers, the ones you took with you?’ I ask.
Her mouth tightens. ‘Of the three, only one escaped with me. At the time I left, one remained at the Frozen Wastes; another was borne westwards by the slave-trader. But I will find them.’
We learn about the camp – normally, the Tree-Tribes live amongst the branches, but so many other folk have come to join them that they’ve made a camp on the ground. It’s organised like a village, with tents for storing food and a place to cook it, a tent where healers work and another for a blacksmith. There’s a great stinking pit of a privy, too, that they call a latrine. ‘I’ll be holding it in as long as I can,’ I whisper to Sparrow, and he nods, eyes like platters.
While we’ve been gabbing, tribesfolk have laid furs out over the forest floor and the trees have laced their branches together overhead, keeping out the wind and snow. A fire has been lit, and it crackles in the centre of the clearing. And a feast has appeared.
I press my fingers to my mouth as my eyes gobble the sight of all the pots and bowls. ‘Is it – real?’
A woman with a long, curved nose, dark hair and bright blue eyes nods at me. ‘It’s real. Please, sit with us and eat.’ Concern is carved starkly into her face. She asks us for our names, and tells us hers is Hoshi.
We stagger towards the food. Crow snatches up a dark green leaf-parcel and bites it in half. Meat and onions spill out into his lap and he picks up the chunks and crams them into his mouth. He sees me watching and looks away, eyes flashing.
‘Why you wearing a mystik cloak?’ asks Sparrow rudely, eyeing the red cloth Toadflax is draped in.
She laughs. ‘Because I am a mystik.’
I scramble onto hands and knees and fiddle for an arrow.
‘Don’t panic so, Mouse,’ says Leo. ‘Toadflax is not like the mystiks you have met before!’
Hoshi nods. ‘You may have witnessed mystiks working under forces of evil—’
‘Aye,’ I break in, confusion plucking threads from my mind. ‘Mystiks captured my brother! They possessed Leo . . .’ And made her do proper foulsome things.
‘But true mystiks do not abuse their power,’ says Toadflax gently. ‘The name “mystik” has been stolen and twisted, misused. Sometimes, a group of people can be defined by the actions of a few. But you and your brother have the look of true mystiks. You are kin with the ancients.’
Me and my brother? I boggle at their faces until Leo laughs. Sparrow’s purple lightning tangles in my mind. Part of me knew he must be something like a mystik, cos the mystiks at Castle Whalesbane had the lightning power, too. But I never would’ve thought I might be one . . .
‘I thought mystiks were just banished scholars from Nightfall,’ I say.
Hoshi shakes her head. ‘The chief scholars of Nightfall are the Akhunds,’ she says. ‘They exploit mystiks for their powers – they don’t have their own magyk.’
‘Mystiks are folk with ancient power, which can manifest in many ways,’ Toadflax explains.
My mind whirls, but I’m too hungry to think straight, let alone pipe up any more questions. Hoshi crouches next to me and Sparrow and puts warm bowls of pink porridge into our hands. Soon I’m shovelling spoonfuls into my mouth and swallowing it so fast it scalds my pipes. The grains are chewy and swirled with honey. My belly feels full too quickly.
Next come steaming wooden cups sloshing with hot sweet juice that warms my bones and tingles my gums.
‘Cloudberry juice,’ Toadflax says, smiling. ‘Cures all ills.’
She hands a cup of juice to Bluebottle, then pauses, tracing the marks from her chains with a fingertip. Blue hangs her head, until her brown curls hide her face.
‘She was sold as a slave,’ I say for her, clenching my fists.
The woman nods grimly, standing and brushing down her skirts. ‘Our healers will have a balm to help the skin mend.’
As I’m sipping my juice, I watch the people of the camp stride between their shelters, kindling fires, stirring stews, mending boots and weapons, or talking in a mixture of tribe-tongues. Toadflax points out folk from different Tree-Tribes, and tells us many have travelled from other parts of the forest, or even from other forests.
Many of the folk of the camp are young, and I wonder if they’ve been gathered together by Kestrel. Toadflax catches me watching and smiles. ‘The youth are far better at bonding together regardless of Tribe. Your Kestrel knows that very well.’
Sparrow cocks his head. ‘Why are there so many people camping here?’
‘Some are displaced,’ answers Hoshi. ‘Others came to help us when they heard our dire need – we won’t give the powers of Nightfall what they want, so they let their scuttle-spiders run through the forest. They forbid us from entering the outer city. They fell ancient trees.’
‘What does Nightfall want?’ asks Blue.
‘Our land, and our bear-kin,’ she says, bright eyes ablaze in her brown face. ‘But we are not sure why, yet.’
‘I’ve heard Stag speak of making great, soulless armies,’ I tell them, and their faces turn graver. ‘I saw him use the Land-Opal to wrench a man’s soul free from his body, like all he was doing were pulling a tooth.’
Leo clenches her fists. ‘We must get it from him before he can do more harm.’
‘He’s planning to take it to Nightfall,’ I add.
‘Straight into the corrupt hands of power,’ murmurs Toadflax.
Sparrow interrupts the solemn talk – and my praise – by gargling his juice, like Grandma used to make us do with saltwater when our pipes were sore. Hoshi laughs.
We explore the feast again, tasting hot baked roots, rich truffles and spiced bone broth, and heavy little cakes packed with nuts and dried fruit. A boy squeaks mushrooms round a fat-bellied pan. He serves them to us atop flat pieces of bread, with squashed garlic.
As I eat, strength drip, drip, drips into my veins. I lean against Sparrow and listen to the pine needles shivering. I watch, awestruck, as the green-chatterer speaks gently to the trees and mushrooms and winter plants, and their tendrils lean into each other, branches linking fingers, and then move away again. The forest sounds as creaky as my ship.
‘We have to stop the Withering,’ says Toadflax. ‘Leopard has told us how the Legend of the Storm-Opals is true, and how the scattering of the stones has led to this vicious chaos. She also told us how two of the Opals are already safe at Hackles – we may all take great comfort from this.’
I sense Sparrow turn quickly to look at me but I hold still and breathe deep enough to keep the stain of guilt from my cheeks. The Opals weigh heavy in my pocket. But this has always been my mission, since before anyone else knew about the scattering. And maybe it’s my fate to bring the Opals to the Crown – what if they’re safer with me than at Hackles, anyway?
I don’t like locking secrets away from Leo. But I’ve got to prove myself to her, and to Da.
‘We’ve been exchanging letters with the Skybrarian,’ continues Hoshi. ‘We know that your ancestor, Captain Rattlebones, never hid the Crown away – that was a lie spread to keep the Tribes at war.’
Astraia’s muzzle steams a deep growl, and I dig my nails into the soil. ‘At Hackles I got a message from the Skybrarian’s apprentice, Yapok. He said that some of the ancient sky-scripts have older runes hidden under the ones you can read. Like the truth’s been painted over with lies.’
‘We learned the same thing, here,’ says Leo. ‘We should see how he’s getting on with revealing these true runes, alongside continuing to try to work out the truth about the Crown.’
‘Leo, can we call on the draggle-riders?’ I ask. ‘My Tribe have pitched up at Hackles, too. I know they’ll want to fight. We could rally them here, with Da if he’s better.’
‘I have already sent a raven to Hackles,’ she says with a smile. ‘But I will send another, to let your father know that you and your brother are safe.’
I wince, and she laughs. ‘You are going to have to face him at some point!’
‘I know. I just don
’t want to do it before I’ve proven myself to him.’
‘What do you want, child of salt?’ asks Toadflax.
I blink. I feel like I’ve barely ever been asked what I want. I’ve just known how things are. I stare at my lap, the food making me almost as slow and stupid as the cold did, before the fire. All I want is sleep, but when I crack my lips apart another answer spills.
‘To survive. And for all living things to survive with me.’
Before I can take another breath, Sparrow stirs. ‘That’s not the real thing what she wants,’ he pipes.
Leo chuckles.
My mouth drops open. I reach out and flick his arm. ‘Ow!’ he croaks. ‘Well, it ent. That’s just what everyone wants, ent it.’
‘Oh?’ The mystik’s face creases into a weary smile. ‘And what do you think she wants, young man?’
‘Aye, go on then. Why don’t you tell everyone what it is I want.’ My arms sneak around myself before I tell them to.
Sparrow puffs up at being called a man. ‘To be a captain. That’s what it’s always been, with that stinker.’
Even as the truth of his words touches me, sudden hot anger stabs my bones. ‘You don’t know.’ I look away from them all.
‘It is not a thing of shame,’ whispers the chatterer.
‘It is!’ I whip to face her. ‘It’s selfish.’
‘No. Haven’t you learned the truth of it, yet? A captain carries so much of the weight of life for her crew. To lead is to serve.’ Before her words have faded, Toadflax grows pale and gasps in pain. Thin black lines pop under the green-chatterer’s skin.
When a tree is cut, she feels it, chatters the wolf, padding to the woman’s side. She weakens.
I swap fretful glances with Leo. ‘We’ve tried the pain medsins I brought with me, as well as Forest remedies,’ she says. ‘Nothing is working.’
I stand. ‘Then there’s no time to waste. I have to get into the city, link up with Kes and search for the Opal.’
‘Not alone,’ says Leo firmly, struggling to her feet.
‘Not with you, neither – you’re injured still, and you need to be better when the others get here.’