by Sarah Driver
‘Another of us, then,’ says Hoshi, looking over at Toadflax, who nods.
But I shake my head. ‘You said Kestrel’s in the College of Medsin. The only way to join her is to pretend to be a book-learner – if I go in there with a strange full-grown, they’ll sniff trouble for sure.’ I look down at Blue. The sallow-faced girl leans drowsily on Leo’s shoulder. She needs to get home. ‘But if I go with Blue, she can show me how to reach the inner city. Aye, girl?’
She rubs her eyes, sitting up. Then she grins, dimples creasing her birthmark. ‘Course. And Pa can help you get the papers you need for entry into the College.’
‘I don’t know about this, Mouse.’ Leo’s face is pained. ‘You are too young to be going off into the city, and you’re a hunted child, after all, and—’
‘We’ll have Thaw with us,’ I blurt desperately, my insides pulling and squeezing with fright. ‘She can stay out of sight, and fly back to warn you if something goes wrong.’ You ent my ma, whispers a sudden, treacherous voice inside my skull. And I heart-bright know I ent too young for this. I can do it.
‘See what your hawk says to that, then,’ sighs Leo.
I chatter to Thaw and she puffs up her feathers proudly. ThawprotectThawprotect!
‘She’ll do it,’ I tell them.
Leo frowns. ‘Forgive me, Tribesman Fox, for what may be my greatest folly.’
I’m going! I bite back my grin and sit on my hands to keep from punching the air.
Astraia’s voice wakes me from a deep, dreamless slumber. Rise, girl-child.
I stumble to my feet, yawning in the gloom of the forest. Then I stoop to wake Blue. Her eyes flick open before I can breathe her name.
Toadflax is curled by Astraia, her chin resting atop the white wolf ’s huge head. But she’s awake already, calmly watching us.
Sparrow lies asleep next to Old One, quietly snoring. I feel a pang at the thought of leaving him, but I know this is the safest place for him until I return.
Crow cracks open one eye and peers blearily up at me. ‘Really going then, are you?’
‘You know I have to.’ I kneel next to him. The skin on his face is pulled tight over the bones below, and his forehead is clammy. The feathers on his arms have worried the skin, giving it a sore, scaly look. His eyes are mostly those of a bird and so is his nose. He shivers.
‘You ent well!’
‘I just needed a sleep, and some grub,’ he says, rolling onto his side and sitting up.
‘You ent coming with us,’ I tell him. ‘You got to save your strength.’
He stands up, like he’s about to argue with me, but then his face pales and he puts his head in his hands.
I gape at him. He straightens up, then sighs.
‘It’s just a dizzy spell. But you’re right, I’ll stay here.’
I sense that’s the end of that, so I change tack.
‘Can you guard this?’ I say, passing him my longbow, and he nods. There’s no way I can take Kin-Keeper into the city.
‘Ready?’ asks Toadflax, climbing to her feet.
I nod, swallowing down the lump in my throat. Thaw bolts from a tree branch to hover above our heads.
‘Then travel this track to that other world of dust and smog.’ Toadflax green-chatters until me and Blue are cocooned by branches and twigs, forming a pathway towards the city. ‘Hunters will not detect you in here, and you will be safe from spiders and bears. Go!’
Branches lace together like fingers. The Glade of Sorrows fades from sight, along with my crew.
We walk through the hollowed pathway, steps muffled by the pine needles. Thaw glides ahead. The air thickens with smog. I can’t see an end to the tunnel and we trudge on and one, stopping twice to rest. The third time Blue wants to rest I shush her and point to where the path is blocked by woven branches. ‘There – that looks like the end!’
We push through the end of the tunnel and Thaw soars up into the air. Before us sprawls a clanking tangle of a city, with towers and funnels jutting upwards like filthy fingernails, everything shrouded in a festering yellow smog.
There’s a slithering, creaking sound – the pathway to the forest has sealed shut. High overhead comes the heart-strong cry of my sea-hawk, so I know she’s watching us.
The smog traces wet fingertips across my cheeks. It smells of graves and iron and ear wax. I can feel it painting my skin and clothes with a sticky layer of grease.
We trudge closer, joining a stream of people making for the city, churning icy mud into slippery tracks in their wake. Behind us, great damp trees dangle heavy boughs into the smog, and sometimes when the smog shifts I think I can see eyes among the trees, too. I wonder if the two Nightfalls – the forest and the city – are watching each other.
Soon we reach the outskirts of the city, where the poorest folks dwell. The small shapes of their bodies crawl across white ridges set into the hill rising ahead of us.
When we’re closer, the hill towers over our heads.
‘Welcome to the Backbone!’ bellows a boy with tangled hair down to his waist, swinging from a walkway by his feet, like a monkey, twirling a lit torch in his hands.
The Giant’s Backbone turns out to be named for exactly what it is – the huge spine and ribcage of a long-dead giant. It’s a place of stinks and grime and shouted words so laced with filth they’d make an oarsman blush. Hovels are stacked ten-high along the ribs. Grot-streaked faces stare down, heckling travellers. They spill slops from buckets down to the ground, splattering whoever’s passing.
We walk through a tunnel cut into the hill, feeling the weight of the Backbone pressing down on us.
We emerge outside the city gates, under a sky scabbed over with smog and spider webs. I keep bumping into shadowy figures, cos I can barely see a hand in front of my face. Folk loom suddenly through the smog, yelling at us to get out of their way.
The smudged outline of heavily guarded gates drifts in and out of sight as the smog crawls. A grime-streaked line of folk wait to get into the city. The guards point black-tipped spears down at their chests. Other guards patrol on the ground, sorting folk into different groups and searching them. They nod to some, letting them through the gates. But others are turned back.
The lamplight spills orange pools through the smog, showing frozen white spires at the heart of the great city.
A small group cloaked from head to heel in thick black bear pelts hurries past. ‘Scholars,’ whispers Blue.
The gates whine open and something huge and black scuttles out, tall as one of the townhouses I glimpsed when the Huntress docked at Haggle’s Town. It’s got long black legs, shiny like they’ve been ink-dipped. Its breath rasps as it passes by. Then another clacks past, and I strain back my neck and my gut clenches tight and hot as I catch sight of monstrous eyes, electric blue and big as dinner platters.
Scuttle-spiders! On their backs sit riders with whips, wearing filthy silken hats that rise tall from their heads, like smaller versions of the city funnels. As I stare, one of the hats splutters open at the top, belching out smog.
‘What’s that?’ I ask.
‘What?’
‘That! ’
‘Oh, that’s a smog-filter!’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘Don’t you know anything?’
The line bumps forwards. Soon, any exposed scrap of skin is stuck all over with specks of grot and grit.
Bluebottle presses her hand into mine. ‘Get ready,’ she tells me. ‘I know how to get us inside the city. But we can’t let anyone follow us.’
We stay in line until we’re next to the wall of one of the towers. Strange, watchful creatures peer down from atop the gateposts, swivelling their bloodshot eyes. I listen into the beast-chatter space, and there’s just a tear, a nothing, so I know they’re hunched shape-changers, guards of the city in disguise as inky monkeys, vultures, cats, and other shapes that are trickier to make out.
Then a shadow drops over me.
‘Watch out!’ someone cries. I look up. A spide
r’s eyes are fixed on me. Its breath rasps, too quick. Its inky black legs slither over the cobbles as it scuttles closer to me.
Oooohhhhhhmmmwarmbloodcrackneckgrindbonestopulp!
I’m under the belly of a brown, furred blot that’s swallowed the smoggy city from sight. The whole thing twitches to the right and I duck, my fingertips squashing into the slimy cobbles. Then Blue’s face appears up ahead, between the two arching pillars of its back legs. She beckons to me and I tear out from underneath it, skin shivering.
Thaw screams, darting through the air, but I send a quick bolt of chatter up to her. Stay hidden, Thaw! I’m alright!
But a shudder laps from my belly through my chest and into my mouth, along with a hot spurt of bile. The spider-rider’s whip lashes at my feet, splashing filth into my face. ‘Get out of it, ’fore I shuck the flesh from your bones!’
Blue pulls me out of the way.
‘Get your skin home, Blue,’ calls the spider-rider. ‘Your pa’s gonna spit sticks when he hears you’ve been out here!’
She takes my hand. We squeeze through a gap in the wall and race down a set of steps into the dark.
‘Where are we going?’ I pant.
‘Shh!’ she says. ‘I know the spider-paths. Just keep up, don’t slip, and don’t slow down – don’t want them weaving webs around you!’
Soon we’re sploshing underground through freezing stone passageways. I keep tight hold of Blue’s hand. Things brush past us – things covered in sharp, bristly hairs. I see their eyes, gleaming at me from corners.
We come to a crossroads and wade through muck towards a wide sewer. The stone passageway turns to a wooden one lit by lanterns. Spiders drop one by one out of the ceiling and scurry past. My skin tries to squirm off my bones.
‘Here’s my house!’ calls Blue, voice echoing damply off the wooden boards.
She reaches up into the mouth of the darkness and hauls herself up where the spiders have been dropping from. Then her pale, spindly arm sticks back down and her hand flaps at me. ‘Come on!’
I run towards it and jump, letting her help me up through the floor of a house built halfway between the upper world and the underworld of spiders. I straighten my spine inside a warm room painted red. The high ceiling is draped with the ropes of old cobwebs. Buckets are lined up along one wall – half full of dead birds, frogs, millipedes and woodlice. My skin itches.
On a wooden table a single tallow candle crackles in a green lantern, throwing twisted shadows across the walls. An old woman stands at the stove, pounding a lump of dough halfway into the next realm. A hairnet like a web covers her hair, and her chin quivers as she mutters to herself.
A tall man steps into the room, wearing one of those smog-filtering hats and a weary face full of long, deep lines. ‘Is it flesh day, or fish day?’ he asks the cook.
She twitches towards a bronze cauldron and dips a ladle inside, bringing up a clot of steaming, ragged meat. ‘Flesh, master. Definitely something’s flesh.’
The man turns his head, and startles so badly he thumps his head on the ceiling. ‘Bluebottle? ’
The cook drops the ladle with a clang. Oily droplets splash onto her apron. She whirls to stare at us, floury hand covering her mouth. ‘Oh, Missie Blue!’
‘Pa!’ shouts Blue. ‘Nanny!’
‘Who is this?’ he barks, grey brows clamping together like the city gates.
‘Pa, I escaped! Thanks to this gi—’
I hold my hand out to her pa. ‘Name’s Hog,’ I tell him, in my deepest voice.
He clasps my hand and shakes it firmly, before turning back to his daughter. ‘Blue, I sent you away because this place is no longer safe for you!’ he says in a hushed voice. ‘Children have been going missing all semester—’
‘Out to fetch a pot of kaffy or the City Bulletin and they never come back!’ wails Nanny, wringing her hands.
Blue’s pa nods gravely. ‘I didn’t pay passage out of here for you to come running back again!’
Falteringly, between sobs, Blue tells him how the spider she was sent away on got killed by the Stony Chieftain’s raiding party, and she was taken by the slaver.
He removes his hat and wiry grey curls spring free. He pulls her close in a hug. ‘Oh, Blue!’ His mouth twists.
A spider sweeps inside and clacks across the floor, bending its legs to fit under the ceiling. I gasp, shrinking back and squeezing my eyes into narrow slits. Blue’s pa strokes it as it passes and the spider rocks on the spot, purring.
‘What – why’s it come in here?’ I splutter.
‘It’s alright,’ says Blue. ‘He’s just a little one.’
‘It flaming ent alright – he’s huge!’
‘He won’t hurt you,’ she soothes. ‘They all know us. Pa’s the Spidermaster, he raises them himself, from hatchlings.’
‘Each nychthemeron’s turn, my beauties come home to my lair,’ he says. ‘But with this maddening weather, they’ve been roaming wild. To put it another way, lad, we have lost track of them, and they seem to be growing ravenous. The food is running low, so they have been forced to begin their own, ah . . .’ He trails off, searching for his words. ‘Hunt.’
Oh. Hell’s flaming teeth! I gulp.
‘Do not fret. I work all hours trying to round them up.’
‘What’s a nickthem – whatever you said?’
‘Nychthemeron?’ He smiles. ‘It’s the time between each sunrise and the next. But of course, now that the weather’s turned so bizarre . . .’ He trails off, smile fading.
The sound of chanting seeps into the room. ‘Oh, not those ranters and ravers,’ says Nanny, looking disgusted. ‘There’s no use raving about the end of the world, say I. What are we to do about it, even if it is coming?’ She pushes us into chairs and brings a fresh, steaming loaf of dark brown bread to the table. We cut slices and spread them with butter. She brings us small bowls of brown stew and I dunk my bread into it.
‘So,’ says the Spidermaster, pulling up a chair next to us. ‘What brings you to my lair, young Hog?’ He watches me with mild blue eyes.
I take my time swallowing the chewy bread. ‘I was shipped as a slave along with your Blue,’ I tell him truthfully. ‘We escaped and found our way here. I’ve always wanted to try my luck in the city, at the College of Medsin. Can you tell me about this place?’
‘The inner heart of the city is where pupils live and learn under the guidance of the Akhunds,’ he tells me, tearing off a piece of bread. ‘They travel to classes on spiderback, so I am responsible for the transport timetable. I know all the paths.’ He waggles his fingers and his eyebrows at the same time, grinning. ‘Of course, that means I have to maintain them, all year round. When the mud is—’
Blue leans across to me, tumbling brown curls as wild as her pa’s grey ones. ‘You’ll regret asking Pa about the city, especially the transport network,’ she whispers. ‘He loves it.’
‘Spidermaster?’ I ask.
He stops, looking surprised. ‘Yes, lad?’
‘How do I get to the College?’
He sits back, wiping his mouth with a rag. ‘If you leave through my shop at the front of the house, where the pupils buy Spidertokens, you’ll find a Spiderstop right outside. If you catch a number three Spiderbus you’ll be taken straight into the inner sanctum – though at peak times, you could be waiting a while for a space, so please leave plenty of time to reach your destination.’
Blue rolls her eyes at me.
‘Younglings start off at a general school, studying many subjects. But they specialise at age thirteen. Then, they must choose a college,’ says the Spidermaster, messily mopping up his stew with a slice of bread. ‘There’s Medsin, Philosophy, Runelore and Ancient Lore. But you can’t just walk in and enrol, I’m afraid.’
I nod, hooked on every word. ‘I know that,’ I lie. Gods. Nightfall is proper controlled! The grains from the bread are sticking in my teeth, so I reach my fingernail into my mouth to pick them out.
Blue
jumps in her seat. ‘Almost forgot!’ She rummages in a box on the table and passes me a toothpick. ‘The flies always stick in your teeth, eh, Pa?’
‘Quite right,’ he laughs, reaching for his own toothpick.
‘What?’
Blue gestures towards the half-eaten loaf. ‘That’s fly pie.’
I do my best to breathe and still my roiling belly. I stare at the bread – now she’s said it, I can see how black the grains are, and how there are shiny bits that look like wings . . .
‘The look on your face!’ Blue giggles. ‘The spiders always catch more flies than they can eat, so we help them out. It’d be a waste not to, especially now food’s running short.’
‘Heart-thanks for the food,’ I tell them, pushing back my chair. ‘But I should go into the city, now.’
‘Not tonight,’ says Nanny firmly. ‘You children need to rest, and I won’t have you out after the night bell.’
‘You will need robes and a bear pelt if you want to enrol as a Medsin pupil,’ says the Spidermaster. ‘Since you took such care of my daughter, I’ll see what I can do. There is a trusted friend I think I would be wise to send you to – Akhund Olm.’ He stands, thrusting his hands into his pockets. ‘Nanny, I go out searching for my beauties again. See the children get to sleep.’ He sweeps a black cloak around his neck and returns the smog-filtering hat to his head. Then he strides away.
By the time I wake up, my bones have thawed out and the deep ache in my muscles has eased. I feel like I’ve slept for an age. Across the room, Bluebottle still slumbers. There’s no sign of Nanny or the Spidermaster, but a pot bubbles on the stove. A bear pelt has been draped over me, and on a chair nearby a scarlet robe is folded. A pair of shiny black boots wait underneath the chair. On top of the robe is a ribbon-tied scroll.
I get up, careful not to disturb Blue, and force down some more of the fly pie from last night. Then I wriggle into the robes and pelt. When I check the pockets, there’s a small black book of tickets inside, each showing a picture of a spider. Heart soaring, I unwrap the scroll. A second piece of parchment drops out. I stoop to pick it up, holding onto it while I read the main scroll – I’m relieved to see that it’s written in the common rune-script. My eyes drink the runes as I step from the room. Then I grin. The Spidermaster has found papers proclaiming me a new pupil of the College of Medsin. Next, I read the second note.