‘I couldn’t do it.’ She looked back at Uki, her eyes gleaming with tears. ‘I just couldn’t. So I ran away instead.’
‘I don’t think that’s bad,’ said Uki. ‘Not wanting to kill someone, I mean. I think you did the right thing.’
‘My family clearly don’t.’ Jori flicked an ear at the crumpled form of her attacker. ‘Nobody runs away from Clan Septys. It’s an insult to their honour. They would rather have me dead than out here, giving away their precious secrets.’
Uki watched as Jori wiped her eyes on a corner of her cloak. He couldn’t understand how somebody’s own family would want to hurt them. Was that really how things worked out here in the big, wide world?
‘What about your parents?’ he said. ‘Don’t they love you? Won’t they miss you?’
Jori laughed – a hard, bitter sound – and shook her head. ‘You haven’t met my parents. They have three other children, older and more important than me. All they care about is the blood honour of the stupid Clan. The whole lot of them. They’re as cold as dead fish.’
She spat into the fire then wrapped her cloak tight around her. When she looked up at Uki again, she had returned to her previous self. Calm, elegant and superior. ‘Your turn,’ she said. ‘Tell me how you ended up alone in the forest, throwing boulders around like they were pebbles.’
For a moment Uki considered making up a tale – there was no way anyone would believe what had really happened – but he couldn’t think of anything convincing enough on the spot. A bear had passed by and thrown the rock instead of him? It was a magic stone that had just leapt out of the ground by itself? It had fallen from the sky, like a particularly heavy spot of hail?
In the end he just told Jori the truth, starting with his escape from his village and ending up with him rescuing her earlier that very evening.
As he spoke, he watched her expression change. From wide-eyed pity at the beginning, to a frown, then a sneer when he started talking about spirits and crystals. When it looked as though she was about to call him a liar, he reached into his pocket and handed her Gaunch’s crystal. For the rest of the tale she sat and stared into its swirling depths, feeling the heat and tiny buzzes of energy with her fingertips.
When Uki finished, Jori sat silent for a good few minutes longer. Finally, she handed him back the crystal then stoked up the fire, adding the rest of the firewood. She pulled some blankets out of her pack and tossed one over to him.
‘Sleep as close to the fire as you can,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be cold tonight.’
And with that, she rolled herself up in her cloak and blanket and went to sleep.
Uki sat and stared at her for a moment, trying to puzzle out her reaction. No questions? No teasing? No asking for more proof?
He thought she might sit up suddenly and start asking him things, but she didn’t. Instead, when her breathing slowed to gentle snores, he wrapped himself up too and snuggled near the crackling fire.
Other rabbits, he thought, were very strange creatures indeed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lak Kriya of the Kalaan Klaa
When Uki awoke the next morning, his first thought was to wonder where the roof of his hut had gone, and why his mother wasn’t asleep beside him.
Then he remembered. That was his old life. Everything was different now; nothing made sense. With a deep sigh he sat up, ready for another day in this strange, motherless world. At least there had been no more dreams last night. Although the nagging feeling that something was looking for him still remained.
Jori was already awake, wrapped in her cloak and poking at the ashes of the fire. Another frost had come in the night, coating everything in a film of white sparkles. Uki spotted a spider’s web hanging from the ruins, transformed into a net of tiny, perfect diamonds.
‘Breakfast,’ said Jori. She handed him something she had dug out of the fire. Some kind of round vegetable with leathery brown skin.
‘Haven’t you ever seen a potato before?’ she said.
Uki shook his head and bit into it. The centre was soft and fluffy. Hot steam billowed out, covering his face as he chomped away.
Jori watched him, delicately cutting slices from her baked potato with her belt knife. When Uki had finished and licked most of the crumbs from his fingers, she cleared her throat to speak.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘About what you said last night.’
‘Yes?’ Uki held his breath, waiting to be called a liar, or worse. He’d known it would be coming, after all.
‘You said there are three more … spirits … out there?’
Uki nodded.
‘And that they will do terrible things if they aren’t stopped?’
Uki thought of the islands and their inhabitants. The poisonous gases, the fortress prickling with spikes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a feeling that it will be awful.’
‘Then … if you don’t mind … I should like to come with you. To help, I mean.’
Uki nearly coughed his potato back up. She actually wanted to help him? Even though he’d said how dangerous it was? Even though she was some kind of royalty and he was a scruffy bumpkin from beyond the wall?
‘You see,’ Jori continued, ‘it would be a good way for me to repay my debt to you. And it would keep me far away from my clan’s warren. And, if we are successful, it would be a great achievement. I might even be able to return home and show them that my beliefs, my way of doing things, works just as well as poisoning and murder. If not better.’
Uki stared at her, wondering if this might all be part of a joke. ‘You do remember what I said, don’t you? About the danger and everything?’
‘Of course,’ said Jori. She patted her belt where the big knife and the flask were. ‘I can take care of myself you know. If that rabbit had tried to face me last night, rather than sneaking up on me, I would have sliced him like chopped radish.’
Uki had forgotten about the rabbit. He glanced over to where he lay, still motionless, his fur and clothing covered in a crust of frost.
‘There’s something else you should know,’ Uki said. ‘I think there’s someone following me. Or searching for me at least.’
‘Who?’ Jori looked around the forest, ready to draw her big knife again.
‘I don’t know really,’ said Uki. ‘It’s just a sense I have. I sense lots of things now … ever since Iffrit went into my head.’
‘Is it one of these “spirits”?’
Uki thought for a moment. ‘No, I don’t think so. I mean, it feels similar, like it is a spirit. But it definitely isn’t one of the things from the prison. They are in my memories now, in my mind. Like I’ve known them forever. I don’t really understand how it all works. Iffrit didn’t say anything about me being able to sense other spirits, although I suppose they must be around. Perhaps this whole forest is full of them.’
Jori relaxed again. ‘It doesn’t matter. Like I said, I can look after myself. And you can hurl massive lumps of stone about. I think we’ll be fine. What do you say?’
Uki thought hard. Iffrit hadn’t said anything about not asking anyone for help. And he couldn’t deny that it would be nice to have some company. Even if it was someone who made him feel awkward most of the time.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I accept.’
Jori smiled – looking much friendlier (and actually very pretty) without a scowl – and performed an elaborate bow. ‘In that case, partner, I suggest we break camp and begin our quest.’
Uki bowed in return, and they set about packing.
*
It turned out there was a path through the forest. The remains of the old road, dotted here and there with fragments of stones like the ones Uki had spotted before. It made their progress much faster, even though it didn’t quite line up with the direction Uki could feel the spirits calling from.
‘It’s definitely that way?’ Jori asked him as they walked. ‘You can tell where they are?’
‘Yes,’ said Uki. ‘It’s like I can feel
them pulling on a string that’s tied to my head. Another thing Iffrit did to me.’ Mentioning the guardian spirit made him remember one of the last things Iffrit had said to him. ‘Is there a town near here? My mother said there was one at the edge of the forest.’
Jori nodded. ‘Nether it’s called. A little trading town full of strays and runaways. Just a few huts bunched together really, but it’s the only place the plains tribes will trade with, so my clan visits there every now and then. For plants and herbs to make their poisons.’
‘I need to go there,’ Uki said. ‘I need to find a smith.’
Jori raised an eyebrow at him, so he told her about Iffrit’s instructions. She looked a little reluctant at first, but finally she agreed to head there. ‘There might be people looking for me,’ she explained. ‘I was staying there for a bit – I thought it would be the last place in Lanica my family would find me – but I had a feeling I was being spied on. That’s why I was hiding in the forest, trying to throw them off the scent. Not very well, it turns out.’
‘Oh,’ said Uki, ears drooping. Iffrit’s brief instructions were all he had to go on.
Jori fiddled with the silver stopper of her belt flask for a moment, and then sighed. ‘But we won’t find another smith until we cross the plains. That’s a three-day journey at least. I guess we’ll be fine in Nether. If we’re quick.’
Uki was about to thank her, but she had already turned and was heading down the path, making him trot to keep up.
They walked in silence for a while, Uki simply enjoying not being on his own any more. But as the gap in conversation grew wider and wider, he began to feel as though he should fill it. What did rabbits who hardly knew each other talk about? The weather? The scenery? Uki’s eye kept being drawn to the blade on Jori’s belt. It was made of a silver metal he’d never seen before. The hilt sparkled in the morning sunshine. The thing was beautiful yet deadly, and it fascinated him.
‘That big knife,’ he said. ‘What is it made of?’
‘Big knife?’ Jori laughed. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a sword before?’ She drew it and swished it through the air a few times before laying it across her forearm so he could look at it.
‘Sword,’ said Uki, trying the word out. ‘The warriors in our tribe had stone axes and spears. Some had knives, but they were of orange metal. Copper.’
‘This is steel,’ said Jori. ‘Made from iron. It’s Damascus-forged and this groove down the middle is a “fuller’. It reduces the weight. The metal has been folded over a hundred times to make it stronger.’
The long blade had a ripple pattern running through it, like a babbling stream. The edge looked sharp enough to split his whiskers.
‘I thought iron was poisonous,’ said Uki. ‘My mother said it was controlled by an evil god that lived under the ground.’
‘Nonsense.’ Jori rolled her eyes. ‘That’s what they believe across the mountains in Gotland and Enderby. But iron from the ground is tainted. In Hulstland we use sky metal. Haven’t you heard about Eisenfell?’
Uki shook his head, feeling stupid again. Jori didn’t seem to mind and began to explain it to him.
‘Hundreds of years ago, a rock fell from the skies – from up where the stars are – and landed in Hulstland. It made a colossal crater in the ground, and when rabbits explored it, they found it was full of workable iron.
‘Cinder was the king of the biggest tribe at the time. He taught his smiths to forge steel and used it to make tools and weapons. To build walls and towers with stone. He turned the crater into a city – Eisenfell – and then grew an empire from it, joining all the tribes of Hulstland together. They became the clans that exist today, and Cinder became the Emperor. And all because of metal like this.’
‘Amazing,’ said Uki, staring at the sword with even more respect. ‘A weapon like that must be very special.’
‘Very,’ said Jori, swishing it through the air in circles again. ‘Every year there is less and less sky metal. Owning steel swords and armour is a sign of how powerful and wealthy your clan is. This is only a small blade but it would still cost more than a house. I bet my father would love to have it back.’
At the mention of her father, Jori’s scowl returned. She sheathed her sword, and they walked on in silence again.
*
Even with the extra speed from following the path, the sun was nearing the horizon when they reached the edge of the forest.
The trees had begun to thin a while ago, but the sight of the plains suddenly appearing still drew a gasp from Uki. There had been wide open space in the Wastes of course, but it had been broken up by mountains, twisted trees and – in the far distance – the jagged white and blue streaks of the glaciers.
But none of that quite compared to his first sight of the Blood Plains.
Grass. Red grass. Like a sea. No, an ocean.
Acres and acres of it, as wide and empty as the sky above. No trees, no bushes, just silvery ripples as the wind blew across. It made Uki feel tiny and lost, like when he looked up at the endless stars in the night sky. How could a speck like him make a difference in this vast, dizzying world?
As well as giving him a clear view for miles, the lack of trees made his sense of the three spirits stronger. They were out there somewhere, off to the south-east: an itching behind his eyes when he looked that way, as if they might be specks on the horizon, just too small for him to see clearly. It was a very frustrating feeling.
After a few moments, Jori nudged his shoulder. ‘If you’ve finished gaping, the town is over there.’
Uki looked to his left, where the line of the forest stretched off towards the Wall. Twenty metres away there was a cluster of stone buildings, ringed by a patchy fence of wooden stakes. Smoke drifted up into the sky from several chimneys in thin white streams. The place was scarcely bigger than the village he had come from.
‘Nether,’ he said.
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ said Jori, half smiling. ‘Truly a wonder of the rabbit world. At least you won’t look out of place in your barbarian outfit.’
Uki gave her back a glare as they wandered towards the town.
*
There was a gate in the south of the Wall with an ancient guard-rabbit snoozing on a stool outside. He didn’t so much as twitch a whisker when Jori and Uki walked past him. Even if he had, his blunt spear was lying in the dust, well out of reach. Uki was amazed. Weren’t there ferocious bands of rabbits out on those plains? And what about his own tribes? Ice Waste rabbits raided south of the Wall sometimes, too.
Jori noticed the shocked look on his face and laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I think this place is safe from attack. But only because there’s nothing here worth taking. Look.’
Inside, Uki saw the ‘town’ was made up of ten or twelve rectangular buildings, much bigger than the roundhouses of his village. They were built from the same grey stone as the Cinder Wall (in fact, some of the carved blocks looked as though they might have been pillaged from the Wall itself) and roofed with wooden slats or turf. One of them had three enormous creatures tied up outside. Big, fluffy things with giant ears, gangly, folded-up legs and long swishing tails. They nibbled hay from a manger, twitching their noses and occasionally giving a little hop.
‘Jerboas,’ Jori said. ‘The plains tribes ride them.’
‘My mother told me,’ Uki said. But her description hadn’t done justice to how strange the things looked.
‘That must be the smith.’ Jori pointed to a building that had a low shelter attached. There was a brick forge in the middle of the shelter with a tall chimney stack that was belching white smoke.
Walking up to it, Uki could see the smith at work. She wore a long, leather apron, and was holding a pot at arm’s length with a pair of tongs that glowed bright orange at the ends. As he watched, she poured molten copper from the pot into a clay mould on her workbench, then set the tongs aside when it was full. She mopped her forehead with a sleeve, then looked up at them.
‘Good evening,�
� she said. ‘Can I help you?’
‘My … friend … has something he needs crafting,’ said Jori. She had a way of talking that instantly made the smith stand straighter and listen. If Uki had tried to speak, he expected he might have been told to hop off. ‘Tell her your requirements, Uki.’
‘Um … yes.’ Uki fumbled in his pocket for Gaunch’s crystal shard. When he brought it out, the smith gasped aloud.
‘That’s the biggest gem I’ve ever seen! And there’s moving lights inside it! Where did you find it? Is it rabbit-made?’
Jori spoke quickly, before Uki could even think of an answer. ‘It’s a family heirloom. Very old. Very important and valuable. Isn’t it, Uki?’
‘Yes, yes … Family,’ said Uki, wondering why Jori had interrupted. ‘I need it put on to a spear shaft. There are three more as well.’ He thought for a moment, remembering Iffrit’s instructions. ‘And I will need to take the crystals off and put four of them into a belt … or something. So that I can keep them close all the time.’
He wished he’d given it more thought, but the smith’s eyes were already gleaming with the thought of a new project. ‘I can make a haft they’d fit to, easily,’ she said. ‘My husband is a leatherworker. He should be able to make a belt. Maybe a harness to hold the spears in too … When did you want the job done by?’
‘Tomorrow morning,’ said Jori. ‘It’s urgent.’
The smith’s face fell. ‘The morning? I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able. I’m just finishing for the night as it is …’
‘You will be paid well,’ said Jori, pointing to the serpent badge on her cloak. Uki thought this was a cue for him to give the smith something. He fished in his other pocket and brought out a few of the small crystals, the ones Iffrit had told him to take for payment.
‘Here,’ he said, putting them on to the workbench. The smith gasped and staggered, grabbing the bench for support. Even Jori’s eyes boggled.
‘Are they … diamonds?’ The smith rubbed her eyes and blinked. ‘There’s enough there for us to buy a forge in Eisenfell itself! Are you sure you want to pay this much?’
Uki and the Outcasts Page 7