Chasing the Valley

by Skye Melki-Wegner

  ‘I’ve got to get back to my camp,’ I say. ‘I won’t tell them about you, not yet. But if you try anything dodgy –’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Lukas steps towards me. When he enters a patch of moonlight, I get a better look at his body. He is hard and lean, built with the sort of rangy muscles that you never see on spoiled richie kids. But his face is strained, as though he’s lost a bit of weight, and quickly. I wonder how long it’s been since his food supplies ran low.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he says.

  ‘Danika Glynn.’

  He nods. There is a pause. ‘Well, Danika, I’m glad I met you. It’s not every day you meet a girl who can bring palace biplanes down from the sky.’

  Then he stands, gives a little smile and slips away into the night.

  I struggle back across the river, wring out my clothes and slip back inside our campsite’s illusion. I’m glad that we chose to camp beneath the rock ledge, because it tells me where the rest of my crew lies hidden. There’s no sign of disturbance and everyone seems to be sound asleep, so I sigh in relief. I return my pilfered knife to the pack and settle back onto the guard rock.

  The rest of the night passes in odd time – fast, then unbearably slow, then fast again. My clothes dry slowly, ruffled by the breeze. I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. I want it to be dawn, but I also want the night to linger. Why? Maybe I’m hoping that Lukas’s kite will fly again, that I’ll get some kind of confirmation that I didn’t just imagine him. It’s surreal to think there’s a boy out there in the dark, following our crew like a silent shadow across Taladia.

  When dawn finally comes, we eat a breakfast of gluggy porridge. We’re running low on syrup now, so Radnor carefully rations one drop for each of us. Its sweetness is so diluted that I can hardly taste it among the greyish slop of oats.

  The morning is a cold one, but at least there’s winter sunshine. It reflects off the rocks as we pass. We’re back down on the riverbank today, since the higher rock formations are now too crowded to slip between. Maisy still wraps her hands in spare clothes, but when I ask about her fingers she reveals they’re healing a bit.

  ‘I think my body was just getting used to the cold,’ she says.

  Everything seems quiet and normal. We ride along, shaking warmth into our limbs, and the foxaries lick lichen off some half-submerged boulders. But I’m starting to feel uncomfortable, as though we’re missing something important. The riverbank is narrowing, hemmed in by boulders and rock formations that grow higher with every passing hour. We’re heading into the true Marbles now.

  And if anything goes wrong, we’re trapped. There’s no way to climb up over these rocks in an emergency. It’s like walking through a crack in the earth, with no ability to scale the sides and escape. The rock faces get higher and craggier, the river keeps leading us lower down the slope, and the foxaries’ muscles tense.

  ‘They don’t like this place,’ says Teddy.

  Radnor gives a shake of his head. ‘The riverbank’s getting a bit narrow, that’s all. They’re worried their paws’ll get wet.’

  ‘Not just that,’ says Teddy. ‘Something doesn’t feel right . . . the way the wind is blowing . . .’

  I concentrate on the air around us, trying to figure out if he’s right. I hadn’t noticed it before, but maybe the wind is what’s putting me on edge. It blows towards us like it’s coming through a funnel or being blasted from a big industrial fan in one of Rourton’s factories. But surely these rock faces should shield us from the wind?

  That’s when the wave hits us.

  It gushes up from the river below, knocking us back in a tangle of screams and limbs. The foxaries make horrible sounds – choking, drowning – and the last thing I see is a snatch of empty sky. Then my head goes under. I flail instinctively, but there’s no way to fight the torrent. Someone kicks me in the head, and I feel my own boots collide with flesh. Everything turns to white froth – in my eyes, my nostrils, my lungs . . .

  Then the water recedes. We wash up onto shore, battered and gasping. I can’t stop coughing as water crawls up behind my nostrils and my eyes sting. The others are crawling beside me, but the shock makes me selfish – or perhaps I’m just a selfish person – because at first, I don’t even check that they’ve survived. I just cough and snort and haul my own throbbing body to safety.

  At least, it seems like safety until I look up. That’s when I see our attackers: two hunters, silhouetted against the sky. They’re members of the crew we saw before, but they must have split up to cover more ground. Or maybe the royal woman decided to leave a pair behind, hiding in wait, just in case. Whatever the reasoning, it’s worked. These hunters have found us and we’re going to die.

  ‘Hello, children,’ says one of them. It’s the man with the Water proclivity, the one who must have sent the wave. ‘We’re looking for a girl called Danika Glynn.’

  I freeze. Around me, my crewmates do the same.

  ‘That’s me.’ My voice is hoarse, battered by coughing, but I manage to straighten up onto my knees. If I’m about to die, I want dignity. I won’t let these filthy hunters blast me aside while I lie gasping at their feet.

  ‘You’re quite a celebrity, you know,’ says the hunter. He pauses, and then gives a nasty little laugh. ‘Oh, but of course, you don’t know, do you? You’ve been out here in the wilderness, without any access to newspapers.’

  I push my palms against the rocks, take a deep breath and manage to get to my feet. ‘What, you want my autograph before you kill me?’

  ‘You brought down a palace bomber, you brat! The city wall’s picture spells captured the whole thing – your face is on every wanted poster in the country. Did you really think we’d just kill you out here, in the middle of the Marbles?’ The man laughs again. ‘Oh no, we’re going to make an example of you.’

  My legs wobble but I refuse to fall. An example. I know what that means. It means a long, slow death in a city square – maybe even back in Rourton. They’ll turn it into a spectacle with alchemy weapons. They might make a tree sprout out of my chest, ripping me open with its growing roots. They might fill my clothes with firecrackers or . . .

  ‘No you’re not!’ says a voice.

  I whip my head around in surprise, because that voice’s owner is the last person I’d expect to stand up to a hunter. It’s not Teddy or Radnor or even Clementine. It’s Maisy.

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ says the second hunter, ‘but you’re not getting much say in the matter. You’ve had your fun, but this little runaway adventure ends right here.’

  He swipes out with his fist, as though grabbing a handful of air. Then he hurls the air downward in Maisy’s direction. I barely have time to realise he’s the one who sent the wind, when I’m diving towards Maisy to knock her aside. His fistful of air will smash her like a bullet. But I’m not the only one who leaps – there’s a crash, an eruption of cries, and I’m crushed in a heap of limbs on the rocks.

  Someone’s screaming and there are hands and feet everywhere. The mass lifts. Bodies roll away. For a terrible second I just see blood across my eyes, and I think something has blinded me. But it’s not my blood. It’s from Radnor.

  Teddy and Clementine lie beside me, arms still flung over Maisy. Clementine keeps letting out little half-screams, as if she’s not sure whether to shriek or cry. And when I follow her line of sight, I see Radnor. He’s covered in red, dark red, a sticky crimson like toffee apples in the market. His shoulder is a mess of blood and exposed flesh.

  ‘Radnor!’ But before I can reach him, there’s a wider blast of wind that rises up from the riverbank, and it throws us all sideways like twigs. I land with a painful thump on my own shoulder, but roll a few metres to absorb the impact.

  The second wave hits.

  It barrels down from behind us, sweeping our bodies into the river. There is so much water that the river fl
oods the space between the rocks. There’s no riverbank any more. There’s just water, water everywhere, rushing up to hurl us downstream. I thrust myself above the surface, steal a huge gasp of air, and shout, ‘Radnor! Maisy!’

  Other heads burst up around me, but it’s too confused and fast and within seconds I’m under again. Where’s Radnor? If we don’t stop the blood, he’s going to die. He’s going to bleed out right now, while the hunters play with us in this river.

  There’s a sudden wrenching at my lower back. It’s like I’m a fish, yanked from the river by a hook. It hauls me up above the water, just long enough to manage another gasp for air. I strain to swivel my head and realise what’s happened – one of the hunters has fished me out with long pole hooked onto my belt. He’s yanking me up, away from my friends. The others are allowed to die in this river, but he’s got other plans for me. I’m to become an example.

  A body passes beneath me, pale and gasping and filling the water with clouds of red. It’s Radnor. I fumble for the buckle and my belt slips free, snaking violently up through my trouser loops. A moment later, I hit the water. The hunter above me shouts, but it’s too late – I’m back in the river and I don’t intend to be hooked again. Not while my crewmates are still flailing down here, anyway.

  I grab Radnor’s ankle and try to haul him towards me, but the water is too strong. He slips away, and I’m left holding nothing but froth. We are tossed and turned, gushing downstream between the rock faces, and the world turns over and over until I see nothing but snatches of foam and sky.

  Then I see the drop. I only get a quick glimpse – sometime in the middle of flailing sideways through the torrent – but it’s enough to know we’re going to die. We’re heading for a steeper slope, practically a cliff, and the river gushes off its edge like a waterfall.

  ‘Grab –’ I manage, but then my head goes under. I thrust myself up again and shout, ‘Grab onto something!’

  There’s a large boulder coming up, only metres from the edge of the fall. A few bodies are already clinging to it, and I see a glimpse of blonde hair, but there’s no way to tell whether Radnor made it. I collide with the rock and manage to grab on, then push my head above the rapids to get a better look. Teddy Nort screams and for a second I think he’s gone over the falls. Then I realise he isn’t screaming for himself. He’s screaming for one of the foxaries.

  We watch, helpless, as a second foxary scrabbles at the edge. Teddy starts releasing his own grip, ready to go and haul the animal back towards us, but I seize his arm to stop him – if he loses his grip on the boulder, he’ll go over too. There’s another terrible scream, or a howl, and I’m not sure whether the sound comes from the foxary or from Teddy or maybe even both. Then the animal disappears over the edge of the waterfall.

  ‘No!’ Teddy shouts, fighting me.

  My head goes underwater and I choke, but manage to thrust my mouth back up in a coughing fit. ‘It’s too late, Teddy!’

  ‘Where’s Radnor?’ shrieks Clementine.

  I glance around, but there’s no sign of life in the water. Four members of our crew cling to this boulder – Teddy, the twins and me. Two foxaries are dead, and I can’t see the last one; hopefully it managed to get a grip on the rocks somewhere behind us. Then I see the body below the surface, churning pinkish blood through the water.

  ‘Radnor!’ I lurch sideways, forgetting my own need to hold onto the boulder. But Teddy grabs the back of my shirt and holds me steady, forming a chain of bodies as I snatch Radnor’s ankle and drag him forward.

  There’s a horrible shout from above. I know it’s the hunters, and I know they could kill us at any second, but there’s no time to look up. All I can do is haul Radnor’s bleeding body towards me . . .

  ‘Arrgh!’

  Something falls from the sky. It’s a body – a larger body, a fully grown man – and he crashes down into the river beside us. One of the hunters, but I can’t tell which one. His head smashes against the rocks on his way down, and he disappears beneath the water. A few seconds later, a dark bulk passes over the edge of the fall and I know he’s gone.

  ‘What –?’

  ‘Look!’ interrupts Teddy.

  I wrench my gaze upward. There is only one hunter left: the man whose power is Water. But he’s grappling with a smaller figure, a boy whose fingers are alight with odd flashes of silver. Lukas!

  As we watch, Lukas ducks to avoid a blow from the hunter. I can’t tell what he’s doing, or how he’s summoning this magic – he must have more enchanted objects than just a kite. These flashes of silver, these bursts of light that claw at the hunter’s face, go far beyond a simple Bird proclivity.

  They’re getting closer to the edge, now; my breath catches in my throat as Lukas teeters on the brink. The hunter is so much larger, with fists that could crush the throat of a teenage boy in seconds. But Lukas darts sideways and kicks out at the man’s shins. There is a scream – of rage, maybe, or just terror – and the hunter topples over the edge of the cliff.

  The river surges. It must be a final act of vengeance as the Water hunter falls, because suddenly I’m underwater. Froth smashes over my head, grinding me down into the rock. I lose my hold on Radnor, and almost on the boulder itself. Water floods into my nose, my ears . . . it forces open my lips and fills my lungs, batters against my eyelids . . .

  Then it’s gone. The torrent drains like water in a sink. I’m clinging to a boulder in an ordinary river, coughing and spluttering beside a group of be­draggled bodies. I manage to force my eyes open, to count them. Teddy. Clementine. Maisy. Me.

  ‘Where . . .?’ I take a shaky breath. ‘Where’s Radnor?’

  No one answers. But we all turn towards the edge of the waterfall, knowing the terrible truth. In that last rush of water, all we could do was save ourselves. No one kept a grip on Radnor’s broken body.

  And now, our leader is gone.

  We throw our sodden bodies onto the bank. Someone is hyperventilating – maybe it’s me, I don’t know – and it feels like a drum is beating inside my skull. All I can do is breathe, in and out, in and out, and try to quell the horror that’s strangling my gut.

  After a few minutes, a gentle hand touches my shoulder. I flinch.

  ‘Sorry,’ says the voice. ‘Are you hurt, Danika?’

  I force my eyes open. It’s Lukas. He must have clambered down the edge of the rocks. I suddenly feel a surge of guilt; he just saved our lives, but I’d completely forgotten about him.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I manage. ‘You?’

  He nods and helps me to my knees.

  ‘Who are you?’ says Teddy, staring at Lukas with a numb expression. He almost looks as though he doesn’t care – and right now, I don’t blame him. Radnor is dead. He’s dead.

  ‘I’m another refugee, from Norville,’ says Lukas. ‘I’ve been following your crew to find my way through the Marbles.’

  ‘It’s true.’ I hesitate, then add, ‘I think we can trust him. He’s been following us for days, and he hasn’t hurt us. And he just saved our lives.’

  Teddy nods, apparently too stunned to feel suspicious. My stomach feels as cold as stone, and my fingers tingle where I last felt Radnor’s ankle against my skin. He was just here with us, a moment ago. Alive. Breathing.

  Maisy is staring towards the edge of the waterfall, as though hoping Radnor will magically pop back up into view. Clementine buries her head between her knees, bunching white-knuckled fingers into her hair.

  After a long moment, we venture to the edge of the waterfall and peer over. There’s no way down, not from here. The cliffs are too steep, too rough. If we all had Water proclivities, maybe we could melt into the river and ride it down. But since we don’t, trying to descend would just mean death.

  Even worse, we can see the river far below. The river is supposed to be our guide, to lead us all the way to Gunning. But about fifty metres away
from the base of the cliff, it merges into a messy swamp and disappears. Surrounding the swampland, there’s only empty fields. No more Marbles, no more river . . .

  And no idea how to find our way.

  ‘We’ve got to move,’ I say, when it becomes obvious that no one else is going to take charge. ‘We have to get away from here, find somewhere to hide . . .’

  Maisy looks around at me, face paler than I’ve ever seen it. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You’re right.’

  The others don’t argue. We move automatically for the next few minutes, traipsing back up the river to the original ambush point. Our lone surviving foxary clings to a ledge halfway up the rocks, but Teddy manages to coax it down with some gentle murmurs and hand signals. I wonder whether this foxary knows its friends are dead. I wonder whether the deaths caused Teddy physical pain, since he’s so connected to these animals. When I remember Teddy’s scream in the river, it seems all too likely.

  We backtrack for a while, until we find a stack of boulders that are the right height to serve as stairs. Then we clamber up out of the riverbank, onto the higher plain of rock above.

  ‘Where now?’ says Teddy.

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. Did Radnor tell the route to anyone else?’

  ‘All I know is to follow the river,’ says Clementine. ‘But I never heard him mention a waterfall.’ She lets out a low breath. ‘We should have taken the trade road. None of this would have . . . I mean . . .’ She pauses. ‘It would have been so much easier.’

  ‘If we’d taken the trade road, we’d all be dead.’ Teddy looks grim. ‘If a plan seems too easy, it’s too easy for your enemies to figure out. I’ve learned that much from burgling.’

  There is a long pause. Now that the initial shock is wearing off, the aches are beginning to set in. The river’s battering has not been kind to our bodies.