Sarah Driver - Sky

then finally land sprawled on my front inside the mist-shadow. I scrabble to my knees as Sparrow and Crow plunge, shrieking, from the sky. I grab my brother and hold him still while the sticky mist hurls Crow up again before he tucks into a ball and rolls to a stop. The shadow seals shut over our heads, blinking out the sky.

Shock-waves judder through my body as I stare at a dark, throbbing world of cold and damp, its edges tightening around us. We’re caught in some kind of springy net. I touch the wall, then jerk back my hand. It’s like the whole thing is made of hard, sticky clumps of wet, spinning pearls.

My blood leaps. It’s woven from raindrops.

The walls close in until we’re hanging in the sky, tangled together in the bottom of the net, the raindrops pressed against our faces. Crow curses, flailing and jabbing me with elbows sharp as knives.

‘ What – how is – it’s raindrops !’ I gasp.

‘Some vicious magyk, don’t touch it—’ babbles Crow over my words.

‘How can I not touch it, kelp-brain?’

We tumble around like seastones, and I keep Sparrow close, my feet almost slipping through gaps in the bottom of the net.

The Opal falls from my pocket and a spear of panic stabs my gut until Thaw snatches it in her beak and drops it in my hand. She folds herself into my cloak.

Ugghhhh, foulness , she warbles, feathers quivering.

Horror clutches at my chest. Whose path have we stumbled into now?

Far below comes a thud and a splintering crack . I peer through the spinning raindrops to see our terrodyl sprawled across a rock, his beast-chatter filled with hurts. A trickle of inky blood fizzles from his crumpled wing and gnaws holes in the snow. Guilt stings me like a ray, cos the beast’s just a bab and I lured him from his home to help us escape.

Sparrow weeps, curled in a trembling ball, his moonsprite trilling inside his pocket. My gut clenches. If I hadn’t let go of one of his hands, he wouldn’t have slipped and maybe we would’ve been too quick for that spear. It’s my fault something bad happened – again. I thought I could grab one of them icicles, thought I knew best, but I didn’t .

Suddenly the net starts moving. Crow stares at me. ‘What is this thing? What’s going on?’ he whispers.

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know.’ I shut one eye and peer through a tiny gap between the drops of water. The net is dragging towards a brown smudge that’s growing bigger and bigger. I squint. My belly squirms. It ent one smudge – it’s a gathering. A flock. ‘Sparrow,’ I whisper. ‘Crow.’ I try to swallow but my throat catches. ‘Look!’

Crow puts his eye to the wall. ‘What are they?’ he asks, voice half choked.

‘How would I know?’ I grip the net in my fists and the raindrops wriggle against my palms. ‘How about we stop gabbing and get ready to fight?’

But my fire-crackle dims to embers as the smudges slice the sky, closer, closer, filling the world, until we can see what we’re facing – a flock of giant, shaggy beasts. Between each one’s wings sits a proud-faced warrior. They wield golden bows, blades and spears. I tear my gaze away and stare down at Sparrow’s tangled yellow hair, a howl of fright and heart-sadness brewing in my chest.

‘They look like huge winged foxes,’ says Crow, squinting and then twisting to look at me.

I force myself to look again. They’re more like . . . bats , but with the orangey fur and long muzzles of foxes. ‘Whatever they are they’re proper frightful.’

The creaky slick-click of their skins and bones mixes with the beat of their wings against the wind, like a war-drum.

Huntsaltbloodfish? Dragcatchriptaste! HuntHuntHunt – BITE – tongueraspslithertear!

Their beast-chatter is ravenous. Their teeth snap against the metal bits in their mouths, and lanterns swing from poles fixed to their heads.

The warrior at the front clutches a spear in one hand, and in the other a staff with a tendril of the raindrop net wrapped around it. All the warriors’ faces are draped in gleaming mail – as the net drags us closer, I realise their armour’s forged from raindrops, too.

‘But . . . the Sky-Tribes are dead!’ I stutter.

‘They look dead to you?’ murmurs Crow. He clenches and unclenches his fists.

When we’re within spitting distance of the warriors, the net stops moving and sags in the air, making us stumble. The staff clutched by the leader keeps us skyborne – but what if she lets go? My fingers fumble for the amber amulet hanging around my neck; the one that Bear gifted me for protection.

Scores of accusing eyes pierce the raindrop mail. My voice feels trapped, deep inside. I pull my face away from the wall and stare at my hands – they’re shaking. I curse, biting my nail, and press my eye to the gap again.

The leader stands with her feet planted strongly on her bat’s bare back. She points her staff at the net and jerks it and we’re whipped into a dizzying circle that makes us snatch for each other’s hands. When the net is still again, the top of it has unravelled to join the silver tendril wrapped around the staff.

Ten riders crowd the open net, staring down at us. Their bats’ wings slice the night, stirring a breeze of greasy flesh and dung.

‘The birds were fleeing from you,’ I breathe. A flicker of fright shudders up and down my spine.

The leader’s blue eyes narrow. She peels back her raindrop headdress. It melts into a loose cowl around her neck, revealing a white-haired girl of about fifteen moons, with a mean, neat face and a gold ring through her nose like she’s a bull. Black eye-paint slashes down from her brows to her jaw. She lifts her pointed chin. ‘We are much feared.’ Her thick, knotted accent is brushed through with disgust.

I struggle to my feet in the net and stand as arrow-straight as I can. Thaw pokes her head out of my cloak, ice-crusted feathers bristling with fury, but before she can bolt I clutch the cloak tighter, muffling her chattered protests. Ent no way I want this lot laying their mitts on my sea-hawk.

A second rider folds back their raindrop armour, swiftly becoming a girl with dark red hair, a big chin and widely spaced brown eyes. ‘These creatures stink of seaweed and fish guts,’ she says, wrinkling her forehead. ‘My draggle was the first to sniff them on the wind.’ She leans down to stroke the thing’s ear and it clicks an oily purr. Her words are laced with triumph and there ent a thing I wouldn’t give for the chance to knock her sideways into thin air.

‘Well scented, Pangolin,’ says the white-haired girl, squinting at me like I’m a speck of grot. ‘The Protector of the Mountain will reward you.’

The girl gifts her a snaggle-toothed grin. ‘Thanks, Lunda.’

‘Who are you?’ Crow glares at them through matted locks of hair.

The rider called Lunda twirls her spear, knuckle-rings flashing. She stares, a tight smile curling her lips but never touching her eyes. ‘ I ask questions. What are you doing here? Were you sent to perform witch-work?’ The other riders flinch and write symbols on their chests with their fingers.

Me and Crow swap looks. Witch-work?

She sighs, then barks a sudden command. ‘Take them to Hackles. The Protector will sentence them for their crimes, whether they speak or not.’ Her draggle’s wings carve the air as it swirls away from us.

‘What crimes ?’ I yell. ‘And what’s Ha—’

Crow reaches up and tugs my cloak.

I stumble, glance down at him and my brother, and fear stabs through me. ‘Sparrow!’ He’s lying limp as a gutted fish.

Crow rubs Sparrow’s arm. ‘Wake up, little mate!’