The Huntress: Sky Read online

  To Granny, for inspiring me to rove the great wide and knowing the sea like you were Sea-Tribe.

  First published in Great Britain 2017

  by Egmont UK Limited

  The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

  Text copyright © Sarah Driver, 2017

  Illustrations copyright © Joe McLaren, 2017

  Additional interior illustrations by Janene Spencer

  First e-book edition 2017

  ISBN 978 1 4052 8468 4

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1764 9

  www.egmont.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication and Copyright

  Hackles

  Trianukka

  Skybrary

  PART 1: The Great Wide

  1: Sea Urchins

  2: Bragful Boastings

  3: The Dread

  4: Witch-work

  5: The Mountain

  6: Hackles Rising

  7: The Dredging

  8: Sawbones

  9: The Star Door

  10: Abomination

  11: The Runesmith and a Borrowed Longbow

  12: Hidden, Secret

  13: Swift Feathers

  14: Stench Songs

  15: Trespass

  PART 2: Hidden Places

  16: Bedraggled

  17: Yapok’s Iceberg

  18: Tea and Books and Butterballs

  19: Owl-weather

  20: Crow and the Dream-dancer

  21: Debauchery

  22: The Wild Tastes like Old Blood

  23: Dead Runes

  24: Black Rain

  25: Quiet Warriors

  26: No Hearth-welcome

  27: One Tribe’s Poison

  28: Monstrosity

  PART 3: Unity

  29: Spirit Battles

  30: Da

  31: Naming Ceremony

  Acknowledgements

  Back series promotional page

  I stand on the deck of the Huntress, blinking snowflakes from my eyelashes. In the palm of my hand rests a green jewel. When I peer inside it, my own grey eyes stare back, jolting ripples of shock through my chest in time with the oarsman’s drum.

  The jewel turns cold, wet and blubbery. Then it grows a spotted skin, like a whale shark. Gills wheeze open in its surface, oozing foam.

  I know, sure as the Sea-Tribe blood in my veins, that I’m holding the Storm-Opal of the sea.

  And I know I have to protect it, with every stitch of me, but the burden presses on my shoulders, heavier than the beat of the drum.

  The jewel splutters and a speck of saltwater prickles my lips. It needs the sea.

  We need the sea.

  I raise my arm to throw the Opal overboard, its gills struggling against me, but freeze when an urgent voice coils through the roots of my mind, like fog.

  Keep this hidden, Little-Bones. I cannot return, there is grave danger. Seek the scattered Storm-Opals of Sea, Sky and Land, before an enemy finds them and uses them to wield dark power. Take them to the golden crown before all Trianukka turns to ice, trapping the whales beneath a frozen sea. Remember the old song? The song will make a map. Keep your brother close by your side, and know you’re never alone. I will find you when I can. Da.

  A ragged breathing makes my skin shiver, as though spiders are tiptoeing along my spine. As I turn my head towards the noise, my ship begins to shift – until her deck is slick with blood and her flanks are studded with huge, fire-spitting guns.

  A face blurs into focus. The eyes dark and full of rage, the brows heavy and black, the thin lips pulled into a sneer.

  The face belongs to the murderous-false captain; the man in a red cloak and boots with brass buckles, the navigator who stole our ship. The one who took Grandma away.

  Stag.

  Even in the dream-world my muscles squirm to run from him.

  A stooped man in a cloak of purple lightning appears by Stag’s side. Stag whispers in his ear. Then the two of them raise their arms slowly to point at the Opal in my hand.

  I close my fingers around the jewel and tuck it close to my heart. My bones feel scalded. I wish their greed-filled eyes never touched the Opal.

  There’s a flurry of movement and when I look up Stag’s pointing a gun out towards the plank. My eyes follow his to a bundle of rags huddled there.

  Grandma.

  Before I can move, or shout, or anything, fire explodes from the gun and the grey world is streaked with splashes of red. The sky blinks, and the edges of the dream wobble like air above a flame, and then my hand’s empty. And the loss makes me stagger. The Opal spins away and suddenly it’s in Grandma’s eye socket. But she’s falling, crashing into the sea, wrenching out my heart as hers drowns.

  Mouse!

  The pull to her is oar-strong but when I strain to reach her, hands hold me back.

  I’m hollow. Cold and numb. I’m too small. My voice is trapped under layers of ice. I’m frighted. I can’t get to Grandma. She’s gone.

  The hands loosen and I’m sprawling on the deck. I run, painful slow, then pitch fast off the plank, diving through the sea, stretching my fingers into the blackness. She should be here. Where is she? Grandma!

  For the first time ever, the sea is a dead place where naught lives. A crust of ice shuts out the light from above.

  Do you remember, when the sea, lay, still, in wait for me? drifts a voice.

  Don’t you remember?

  I thrash, reaching for the surface. The dream pinches my brain. I struggle in the grip of the dream-sea, fighting the water, clawing until my muscles scream . . . then finally rising up, up, up, through ice that thickens with every thump of my heart.

  My spirit thuds into my body and I jolt awake, gasping, neck stiff and sore.

  I’m slumped over a creature’s back, and my legs are hanging in thin air. As I scrabble to clutch onto something solid, my fingertips scrape a scaly hide – and the memory of where I am seeps through me.

  The young terrodyl streaks through a sky fat with snow.  Fastestfastestfastest, gabbles his beast-chatter.  Fastest beast of all! I dig my knees into his bristles to keep from falling off. My little brother Sparrow’s arms are wrapped round my waist and his head’s pressed against my back. Hunched behind him is Crow, the ship-wrecker boy who I still ent heart-certain we can trust, though he helped me rescue Sparrow from Castle Whalesbane.

  I remember flying all day; over a sea, a forest and a smog-shrouded city. Then I must’ve dozed off. Now the sun’s barrelling for the horizon again.

  Dream fragments are still thudding around my head like trapped moonsprites. The Sea-Opal! I quickly pat down my pockets, whistling in relief when I feel the bump of the gem through the cloth. But my dream-dance has left me drained and hollow. I remember for the thousandth time that Grandma’s dead, and it’s the same sharp, sick pang, followed up with guilt that I ent told my brother yet – and I don’t know how.

  ‘Finally, the rat awakes!’ calls Crow. ‘Any clue where we are?’ He snorts loudly and then spits into the air.

  I twist roun
d to reply, and wince as the bandage on my face pulls at the wound that slashes down my right cheekbone to the corner of my mouth. ‘I don’t know,’ I shout, as a fresh wave of pain sears through me. ‘Happens the world’s a flaming bigger place than even a Sea-Tribe girl could’ve guessed!’

  ‘Ain’t it just,’ Crow bellows.

  The terrodyl thrashes his head from side to side.  Where go where go now? he rasps.

  I tell the beast what I’ve been telling him since we took flight.  All I know is we have to fly as far and fast as we can from Castle Whalesbane. My tongue wraps itself around the raw, earthy words, tasting the wildness of my beast-chatter.

  Castle my nest home. Not bad place!

  I suck in a deep breath.  Stag was controlling your nest-mates and sending them after us. And the mystiks there wanted to hurt my brother!

  Where go? chatters the terrodyl. The fearsome-foul stink of his breath hits me right in the face.

  I bite back a wave of impatience.  Hang on. I need to think. I chew my cheek, trying to rid my brain of the last dream-tangles. The beast is right to ask – we need to head for somewhere, cos we can’t just fly forever. But we can’t go back to my ship either, cos it’s just as dangerous as the castle.

  Seek the scattered Storm-Opals of Sea, Sky and Land . . . remember the old song?

  Da’s message floats into my mind again. When my brother sang the old song, his notes stirred the message into a magyk map that showed me the three Storm-Opals. Now one is safe in my pocket, and I wish I could check the map again, but now it’s in Stag’s grimesome clutches. I just have to hope he won’t unlock the magic of the Opals himself. All I know is there’s an Opal waiting somewhere in the realm of Sky . . . could we reach it, somehow?

  ‘I need to pee,’ snuffles Sparrow, breaking into my thoughts.

  ‘Gods, what I wouldn’t give to stretch my legs!’ grumbles Crow.

  ‘Pipe down, would you?’ I shout. ‘I’m trying to think.’

  ‘Should we make a plan?’ calls Crow. ‘You don’t have to do all the thinking by yourself, you know. Are you telling this thing where to fly?’

  I hunker closer to the terrodyl’s skin, against the wind. Should I tell Crow about the Opals?

  Before I can gift him a reply he tuts and I feel angry spikes throbbing from him. ‘You still don’t trust me, do you?’

  This boy’s even more impatient than me. ‘Course, I just—’

  ‘Whatever!’ he snaps. ‘Just keep us away from your ship, for the time being.’ Then he yawns. ‘Anyway, now you’re awake I’d say it’s my turn to catch a few winks.’ He falls silent, and soon enough his breathing’s sleepy-soft.

  We zoom further and faster through the sky. Ice-cold snot is stuck to my lips, and I keep ’em moving so they don’t freeze shut. ‘My name’s Mouse,’ I mutter. ‘I’m thirteen Hunter’s Moons old.’ My teeth chatter. ‘The Huntress is our ship. The home of our Tribe. And we’ll claim her back from Stag.’

  My sea-hawk, Thaw-Wielder, snoozes between my belly and one of the terrodyl’s spines; a warm bundle of sleek feathers. She’s grown again, but she ent realised she’s got to be more gentle when she lands on me – I’m still sore from the last time her huge claws thudded into my shoulder. I rub her head, feeling the delicate bones of her skull beneath her feathers. Then I pull my hand back as a shock stabs into my fingers – the Opal in my breeches pocket has made Thaw puff up into a ball, crackling with heat and smelling like the sky before a storm.

  I scan the horizon. On the shore, stretched from east to west, a beach of black sand wears a skin of ice, and beyond glints a dark sea hissing and pluming into jets of water that are fighting not to freeze solid.

  I hum under my breath.  You must remember what waits there, you’ll find it at the point high in the air.

  Then I stop, cos the song brings my dream-dance crashing back over me like a wave. Thaw stirs and stretches out a brown and white wing, uncovering her eyes and watching me curiously.  Remember how that line of the old song once gifted us the idea of searching at Whale-Jaw Rock, Thaw? I say when I can breathe again.  It’s east of here, and marked by a great plume of water, that looks like a whale breathing through its spout.

  Sea-breather, she babbles, eyes glinting.

  I nudge the terrodyl’s right side with my heel.  We should bear east! I call.

  My gut lurches into my mouth as the creature twists in the air to change direction. He chuckles.  Long-flying since asked crawler where go. It answers almost at end of world!

  I grin at the beast’s cheekiness, and turn back to Thaw.  Reckon we’d better find the place soon, I tell her.  Cos the world’s ready to crunch up our bones and spit us out if I don’t get all three Opals to the golden crown.

  She blinks slowly at me, a shiver rippling through her feathers.  Remember home, she warbles softly.  Remember name. Tell Thaw feather-truth, bone-truth. The fierceness in her eyes gifts me the heart-strength to dredge my truth from the depths of my bones.

  My name is Mouse. I’m thirteen Hunter’s Moons old, I mutter between chattering teeth.  Sometimes my Tribe call me Little-Bones. I love to howl and dive for pearls and shoot arrows from my longbow. There’s fire-crackle in my heart, Grandma always said. There’s fire-crackle in the hearts of all my Tribe. It’s a fight that blazes inside.

  Thaw gurgles a quick battle-squawk and puffs up her feathers.

  My home’s been thieved, and now I’m out in the wild. My Tribe are in danger. I need my fire-crackle more than ever. Cos the fight’s only just begun.

  We fly east, the sea curving from our left and spilling into the distance ahead. The wind buffets the terrodyl and tries to claw off our skins. I’m watching for the Huntress without even meaning to, cos my heart pangs whenever I glimpse movement below.

  I picture my friend, chief oarsman Bear, battling furious waves and shivering at his post. Forced to be one of Stag’s oar-slaves, chained and half starved. I have to make things right and claim our ship back – there ent a beat to lose.  Can you keep watch for the geyser – the sea-breather? I ask Thaw, as we fly over a landscape of cracked brown earth, abandoned dwellings and ripped out trees that lie on the ground, roots grasping for the sky. My belly twists like I’ve swallowed a nail – seems like the world is brimming with chaos.

  Thaw-Wielder flicks open one bright yellow eye.  Thaw watches! She hops out of my lap onto the terrodyl’s head and fans out her striped wings, shaking the frost from them. Then she huddles down, head twitching to right and left as she watches for the flicker of the geyser.

  Heart-thanks, Thaw, I tell her. Then I cough, cos my beast-chatter always comes from the very back of my throat, and I’m proper parched to boot. Long icicles hang from the terrodyl’s wings. Wonder if I could snap one off for drinking water?

  I stretch out my arm, eyeing an icicle, but then a fizzing finger of lightning stabs from the sky into the black sand below, exploding black arrows up into the air. The terrodyl hisses and swerves away from where the lightning struck. Then a sparkle catches my eye, and when I glance again we’ve crossed the shoreline and a glittering forest has opened up below us.

  A forest of shapes.

  Scores of towering blue icebergs shoot upwards from the sea. Glowing balls of blue zip between the bergs. I squint down at them and then my chest riots. ‘Berg owls!’ The feathery bundles thud into caves they’ve burrowed in the ice. ‘We’re flying over the great Iceberg Forest of the Wildersea!’

  When I turn to grin at the others, a slip of moonlight skitters out of Sparrow’s tunic pocket and streaks silver footprints up his neck, over his ear and onto my shoulder.  Where where what-huh-what black-hair chatters? Thunderbolt chimes eagerly. The moonsprite swings from my earlobe with a tingle-cold grip.

  I chuckle.  Icebergs. You can’t miss ’em. It means we’re flying over the border of the Wildersea! Now all we need to do is follow the icebergs east towards the Bay of Thunder, and I’ll know how to find Whale-Jaw Rock from there.
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br />   She gifts me a short chirrup of approval before zipping back to Sparrow. Not so long ago me and the sprite couldn’t stomach the sight of each other, so I’m heart-glad she still wants to be friends.

  ‘What d’ya reckon, Sparrow? Ent these bergs something?’ Then I remember he can’t see much, cos of the creeping white film on his eyeballs, and I chew my tongue.

  ‘I’m thirsty.’ That’s all he says, and proper quiet.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’re on the right path, so we won’t be flying much longer. And I’ve got an idea,’ I call to him, eyeing the icicles on the terrodyl’s wings.

  ‘Can I have a story, too?’ he whimpers. ‘My nightmares are more stronger. They keep giving me the brain-aches.’

  I squeeze his hand. ‘S’alright, they’ll soon stop now we’ve got you away from that place.’

  ‘But I feel like something bad’s gonna happen.’ He bangs his head against my back. ‘I dreamt a golden lightning bolt shot us down.’

  ‘We’ve left the bad stuff behind, too-soon,’ I tell him softly, panicking inside about what to do if he has more shaking fits. ‘How about that story?’ I clear my throat. Stories grow twisted over time, especially if you tell them without story pictures etched in bone to guide you. But I remember one so well that I can taste the words, ready to spill out. The story everyone knows, but I never knew the heart-truth of when I used to tell it before. Now the truth of it rattles through my marrow.

  ‘One hundred moons and suns ago, long after the first oarsman beat his drum, the last King of Trianukka had an ancient golden crown and three powerful Storm-Opals.’ As I tell the story, I feel Sparrow relax against me the tiniest bit. I clutch the terrodyl’s spine tightly as it navigates the Iceberg Forest. ‘The Opals were to be set in the crown, to heal the trouble between all the Tribes of Sea, Sky and Land and let them live in peace together. The first Opal held a foam of sea, the second a fragment of sky, and the third a fracture of land. But before the gems could be set in the King’s crown, it got gobbled up by a great whale. The Opals had to be kept safe, so the crinkled old molluscs—’

  ‘You mean mystiks!’ murmurs Sparrow.

  ‘Aye, same difference. The mystiks of the Bony Isle guarded them, deep within the walls of Castle Whalesbane, where the King dwelt. The King blamed the Sea-Tribe captain, Rattlebones, for hiding the crown in the whale’s belly, and that brought a hundred years of war, and gifted all the power to the land.’