The Huntress: Storm

by Sarah Driver

  But I can’t answer him. I cradle Thaw’s body close to me and rock, fingers deep in feathers, throat gouged by wailing. When Da scoops me into his arms I fold into him, tumbling into the darkest place I’ve known.

  There comes a time when the sun considers his return. It’s as though he’s waiting to be heart-certain that peace is here to stay. The dusk skies are brittle blue and the moon fresher than milk, and the day struggles to throw off the heavy cloak of night. But it’s happening.

  The first time I see another dawn, the sea is a spill of silver that reaches into my chest and pulls at me, hard. She’s restless again. So am I.

  The merwraiths return to their sea-mother’s arms and I spend all my waking beats with Grandma, and at night I sleep curled against her back. Cos sometimes it feels like she’s pulling away from us again, into some shadow-world. On the bad days, I beg her to tell me her name, but she’s grown vague, prone to muttering and sitting alone, face closed up. And she don’t know who she is.

  ‘Let her be, Mouse,’ says Da, touching my elbow.

  But a seed of doubt has settled inside my belly. She was dead a long while. Now the fight’s won, I reckon she don’t know what to do with herself.

  But on a better day we sit together and I watch her weave me a shawl from Thaw’s feathers, and at some point, after falling into a void so deep and dark I thought I’d never find my way out, I feel ready to wear it.

  Me and my crew travel back to the ship-breaking yards, to find the Huntress.

  ‘I don’t know if we can repair her, Mouse,’ says Da doubtfully, running his hand along the rotting wreck of her hull. We stand on the thawing ground of the breaking yards. The Huntress sits in a cup of loudly cracking ice, steam smoking out of all the cracks forming around her. She looks gruesome. I mean proper wretched. There’s a great iron spike sticking out her front in place of a bowsprit, like a narwhal’s tooth, for cutting the ice. The merwraith dredging claw has weighted her down on one side, and the cannons have slipped out, bashing holes in her hull. Her sails hang like strips of torn flesh. The plank’s snapped and so have the oars, and the storm-deck has rotted right through.

  I suck my teeth. ‘We’ll flaming try, with every stitch of us!’ I vow.

  Crow nods. ‘Aye. You all heard her!’

  I chatter to ask terrodyls for help and they let us attach cords to their feet. Then they lift off for Haggle’s Town, bringing our ship with them. The ship-builders will be able to help us. I pray they will.

  The Hagglers always did say we brought the terrodyls to their shores. This time, they’d be right. But they won’t do any harm. They swore me a promise.

  When we get to Haggle’s Town, the air bristles with the stinks of seaweed and sulphur and the droppings of all kinds of sea-birds. Folks burn oyster shells to make lime to repair buildings. Boats are heaved into the water again, and fisherwomen and men stand in them, jaws set, eyes sparkling with new hope. Coopers bash nails into barrels, the air rings with the hammering of the blacksmiths and chimneys cough up little puffs of steam as ovens are lit. Food’s been shared out from the stores of the former Wilder-King and the Skadowan, so until crops regrow there’ll be enough for the poorer folk to survive.

  Somehow, even here, folk know who I am. They call out to me as I pass. ‘Greetings, Mouse Arrow-Swift!’

  ‘Try one of my cinnamon buns!’

  Da whistles. ‘You are famed, Bones!’

  I punch his arm. ‘Leave it out!’

  We meet Pip, Vole, Frog and the little ’uns at the Star Inn. They toast me, making me flush. Pip musses my hair roughly, trying to cover the tears in his eyes. Bear grabs me and swings me up onto his shoulders like he ent seen me in a whole moon-cycle. His laugh rumbles deep in his chest.

  While we’re lodging at the Star, waiting in painful hope for news of the repairs, Leopard flies in to meet with me and my crew.

  ‘Mouse!’ she hurries to greet me. ‘I’ve brought news. Is your grandmother here, too? I think she’d be most interested!’

  ‘No,’ I tell her, flicking my eyes to the ceiling, where in an upstairs chamber Grandma sleeps all day and night, babbling under her breath. A spear of pain pierces my insides.

  ‘Oh. Well, you can tell her about it when she’s awake.’

  We take a table in the common room of the inn, next to the fire. The flames throw shadows over Leo’s face.

  ‘A king once found a way to steal the Opals for himself,’ she begins, staring into the surface of the wine in her pewter goblet. ‘It should have been impossible. The Opals were guarded. But the King bided his time and found a way.’ She clears her throat. The inn’s so quiet you could hear a needle drop. ‘Stag was like the old King in the legend. He wanted to rule over all that lived. This is why it is vital that traders trade stories and songs. We must never let a Trianukkan forget what happened, how history can circle back round. Also,’ she pauses, reaching out to cover my hands in hers. ‘We must look to the old ways to protect the Crown, once more. Each jewel in the Crown keeps us unified. Differences bind us; they should not drive us apart. We must elect one king or queen from every great Tribe to rule for peace and people.’ Her eyes are unwavering.

  My heart squirms out of my chest and drops, quivering, into my boots. It lies there, like a dead fish, gills flickering.

  No. Not this.

  ‘Mouse, you—’

  I push my chair back with a loud scrape. My heart bounds into my throat. Every head in the inn that weren’t already looking at me and whispering turns to me now. My cheeks burn. I try to speak but my mouth just flaps like a gill, so I blunder out of the inn and into the street. Ignoring the greetings that follow me, I run to the docks where my ship’s being repaired.

  I wish I could raise anchor, right now! I didn’t do everything I did just to end up further from my home than ever. I stare out to sea. Then, walking fast, I skirt the hulls of all the docked ships, my boots crunching mussel shells.

  The Huntress is rolled on her back, and carpenters swarm over her, hammering away at the clinker planking. I recognise one of them, who survived the mutiny against Stag. ‘Mouse!’ she shouts. She straightens, wiping sweat from her brow. Then she slithers off the ship onto the dockside, the little silver hammer at her belt tinkling.

  We press our foreheads together in a Tribe-Kiss. ‘Ent she ready, yet?’

  The carpenter shakes her head. ‘But it’s more hopeful than I’d thought. The Huntress is a proper fighter.’

  Despite my trapped, panicked feeling, I grin.

  ‘What is it, Mouse?’

  I scuff my toe. ‘I need to get out of here,’ I whisper.

  The carpenter’s eyes widen. ‘You will,’ she says, sweeping her eyes quickly over our ship and then back to my face.

  ‘No. Leo’s there, at the Star.’ I jerk my thumb in the inn’s direction. ‘She says they’re to crown three kings and queens. One for each of Sea, Sky and Land.’

  ‘Oh.’ The carpenter looks about as sickened by the news as I feel. ‘But no one from Sea can do a thing like that – if you’re a queen you’d have to sit around listening to the people’s gripes all day. We rove!’

  ‘Aye, don’t I know it!’

  ‘How could they expect one of us to stay still?’

  I shake my head, struck dumb by the stupids throbbing off it.

  She blows out her cheeks. ‘Alright, kid. Leave it with us. If we have to sneak you off these docks before the crowning, that’s just what we’ll have to do.’ She stalks back to the side of the ship and heaves herself up onto the hull, picks up her tools and gets back to work with a fresh burst of fury.

  I stagger backwards like she’s slapped me. Her words confirmed my frights and made them bite harder.  If we have to sneak you off these docks . . .

  She knows they’re gonna pick me. I double over and throw up into the water lapping the harbour. I ent no queen. I’m just me. And that’s what I wanna get on with being.

  When I get back to the inn, Crow’s searching for m
e. His face is thunderous. ‘I won’t let them, don’t you worry.’

  So he knows what’s coming, too.

  ‘Mouse?’ calls Vole. She rushes outside, her bab strapped to her chest, its head bobbing. ‘We need you, upstairs!’

  ‘Grandma?’

  Vole’s face is pale and the corners of her mouth are turned down and her eyes are ringed by black bags. When I ask after Grandma, two stark spots of colour burn in her cheeks. I should never have left her side, even for a heartbeat!

  I take the stairs two at a time.

  Either side of Grandma’s bed sit Da and Sparrow, each holding one of her hands.

  ‘Bones?’ she whispers. ‘Is that you?’

  Da moves out of the way and I sink to my knees, taking her hand.

  ‘Child. We had some adventures, aye?’

  I nod, but my voice is locked underneath a lump like a rock in my throat. Not again. Not again. I can’t lose her again.

  ‘At least this time, we have a chance to say farewell,’ whispers Da.

  I bite down on my tongue, hard. I know he’s right. But it don’t make any of this a stitch easier.

  ‘Take your lessons from bottlenose dolphins,’ Grandma mutters. ‘Be joyful, like them. For the gods’ sake be joyful every now and then!’

  Beyond the small window in her room, a twist of silver light begins to dance. Grandma turns her head on the pillow to watch the fire spirits. She stays silent for a long beat, then nods slowly. ‘Mouse,’ she says, turning to me. ‘Will you join me in a reading?’

  I gape at her. ‘Aye, course.’ What I don’t say is that I don’t know if I’m any good at reading the spirits.

  I tuck in next to her in bed, and Sparrow gets in with us too. It’s a clear night and soon the fire spirits have kicked into a joyous riot, twisting and arcing in white ribbons and green jags and purple flickerings.

  ‘Open the window, child,’ rasps Grandma.

  She takes my hand and starts pointing out shapes. We look for signs. We mutter to each other. Sparrow’s snuffled breathing soon tells us he’s fallen asleep. I feel the fire spirits playing at the edge of the in-between, alive beyond the rules of time. Before dawn, we know who the crowns of Sky and Land are going to. As for the Sea, I can’t tell and Grandma won’t say. She asks for a scrap of parchment to write on. My heart feels heavy.

  After breakfast, I hurry back to her room. She ent breathing often enough. I watch her chest. It barely moves, and when it does, the breaths are shallow. But she’s smiling. ‘I can feel her calling me, Mouse.’

  ‘Who? ’ I gasp, against the iron-heavy sadness tugging at the corners of my mouth.

  Her smile broadens. ‘The sea.’

  I twist my neck to look behind me for Da. He steps closer and puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m here.’ His voice is torn to rags.

  I close my eyes and let the shuddering, sorrowful wave roll up through me.

  I press my forehead to her withered hand and let the aching in me gouge out tears that spill onto her skin.

  In my dream, I fly to our ship, but the Huntress is changed again. She’s not wrecked, but she don’t look the same. The guns are gone, the dredger vanished. But I don’t recognise the crew.

  A hatch opens, and a girl strides out. ‘Stop messing with me, Owl!’ she shouts. ‘I always know when Huntress changes course, even by a whisker!’ Determination and fierceness and a spark of mayhem, shifting like the sea, set her mouth into a grim line and make her blazing eyes dance. She fights down laughter as she strides away from the hatch, her mess of wild, matted brown hair hanging down, curved silver blade at her hip. Hail drums against the sea, punching the waves flat.

  Grandma?

  Echoes pulse through me, from my own time.

  Jump, witch.

  My spirit rushes after her.

  The girl – my fifteen-moons-old Grandma – prowls along the storm-deck, hiding behind barrels. Then she pounces, wrestling a yellow-haired boy with a sea-hawk on his shoulder to the boards. The hawk bursts into the rigging with a hiss.

  Storm-Tamer no-sit, stupid two-leg brawlings!

  Storm-Tamer? He was Grandpa’s hawk – this boy must be Grandpa!

  ‘Get off me, Wren!’ He grins broadly, freckled face dimpling.

  They look so heart-glad. Peacefulness fills me. I let the dream-currents pull me away from them, until their words are lost somewhere in the long-ago.

  When I wake up, I realise I must’ve fallen asleep holding Grandma’s hand. I lift my head. ‘Grandma?’ I murmur. But she’s slipped away.

  Spring warms our skins and makes the sea sparkle and shiver. The gods lay down green blankets for the beasts to birth their babs on. Sparrow patrols the harbour, singing with the whales that seek him. We celebrate his ninth birth-sun, and he makes us call it his nine-and-a-halfth cos the Withering froze the seasons, and so we’re late marking it.

  The Hoodwink sea-hawks return from the south. Watching them makes me feel like I’ve swallowed a rock.

  A hawk who calls herself Bone-Breaker builds a nest in my chamber, and I can’t chase her away. So in the end I shrug, like, so what? And I take to ignoring her.

  But before I can blink, there are large, smooth eggs in the nest. Soon, Breaker’s got hatchlings of her own. And they make a proper noisy racket in my room, with their constant shriekings for food.

  Bone-Breaker! You sneak!

  She chortles at me.

  One of the fledglings makes a home in the hood of my cloak and won’t leave me alone. She chitters and chatters, zooming round my head, begging for scraps and games.

  Worms, she whispers, proper husky-bab-soft.

  And before I know it, I’m giggling and playing peek-a-boo with her and feeding her worms and tearing off bits of fish for her eager, gulping beak.

  The guilt stings. No hawk could ever replace Thaw. But I’ve missed having a hawk by my side. And telling tales of Thaw’s bravery to this little hawk will help keep her memory pulsing with life.

  The ship repairs are slow but steady. Talking to the carpenters and ship-builders about our crew’s needs distracts me for a while from the thought of Leo’s return to Haggle’s Town.

  I’ve got one leg out the window of my chamber when Da steps into the room and hauls me back inside. ‘You have to hear her,’ he says, firmly. He’s as fretted as I am, I realise. But he’s right.

  Folk have been calling at the inn to bring ‘gifts for the Sea-Queen’. But I stay locked in my room. I’ve had robes stitched with golden sea-silk, flagons of spiced kaffy, wooden carved whale shapes and clay pots of lobster stew and necklaces of coral and amber and fat jars of priceless honey – I’ve eaten most of that straight from the jar, heart-thanks very much – and a litter of sleek white kittens wearing silk bows that I had to give straight back before Bone-Breaker could swallow them whole or feed them to her squalling fledglings. Of all the stupid gift-givings!

  I almost trip over a pile of gifts as I stomp my way down the rickety wooden stairs to meet Leo. Outside, more folk are pressed against the windows, arms laden with gifts for me. When they catch sight of me, they send up a great cheer that rattles the windows and sends smoke belching out of the fireplace. Before I can gift them all my rudest gesture, Da pins my arms by my sides. ‘Calm your sails,’ he whispers in my ear.

  ‘Right, I will!’ I declare, marching over to sit by Leo. She turns to me in surprise. ‘So, d’you wanna tear my sails down now, or later?’ I hold out my hands. ‘Why don’t you bind my wrists and have done with it?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mouse,’ she says, eyes round. ‘I am unsure of what you mean.’

  I fall silent, hide my face in the steam of a cup of wish-tea that the innkeep brings me. The tea tastes like a salty fish broth. Yapok and the Skybrarian sent a recipe here, as a heart-thanks for saving their iceberg from the storms. At least their gift is simple and of some flaming use to me.

  ‘I came to talk to you on the matter of the kings and queens,’ says Leo, pulling a piece of parchment fro
m her pocket. It’s Grandma’s letter – the one she wrote after we read the fire spirits.

  My gut twists so sharply that I catch my breath. ‘Well, I know that!’

  ‘Mouse,’ warns Da, drawing up a chair next to us. ‘You are being frightful rude to our friend.’

  I whip to face him, feeling fire lick my cheeks. ‘What choice I got? You’re not the one that’s gonna end up strapped down to the land! I’d rather be fed to the scuttle-spiders! It’s my life,’ I finish lamely, sounding like Sparrow.

  ‘Mouse, I think you have misunderstood,’ says Leopard, sipping her tea. Her lips twitch with a buried smile. ‘Your grandmother did not glimpse queenship as your destiny.’

  ‘She wrote to you, though?’ I whisper, hardly daring to breathe. ‘She wouldn’t tell me who would get the crown for the Sea, and I thought—’

  She smiles at me. ‘I and the other Tribe leaders would like to make you the Sea-leader at the stone circle, for every Tribe-Meet. But not the Sea-Queen.’

  ‘Gloriousness! ’ I fling up my arms, knocking my tea across the table. I push back my chair and lean over, wrapping my arms around Leo. ‘Heart-thanks!’

  The folk in the inn mutter amongst themselves.  Not queen? Why not? Who, then? She’d better give me back my sea-silk!

  ‘I never wanted it anyway, slackwits!’ I yell joyfully over my shoulder. I can’t wipe the grin off my mouth. It clings like honey and tastes just as sweet.

  Leo casts her eyes across Grandma’s letter, and swallows. ‘Wren wrote that the Sea-King is to be your brother, Sparrow.’

  ‘What?’ hisses Da.

  My mouth falls open. ‘What? ’ I echo. A laugh bursts from my lips. ‘Sparrow, a flaming king?’

  ‘This is not funny, Mouse,’ scolds Da, like I’m the one that said it. His hands fidget like they always do when he’s tense, and he twists his gold hair into a knot atop his head. Then he turns to Leo. ‘My son is far too young and ill of health, and he needs his family.’