Sarah Driver - Storm

My belly squirms and fury lights my chest. I’m about to gift Coati the truth when Pike, the leader of the homeless Marsh-folk, stands and strikes the floor with his fish spear three times. ‘Stag burned our home and drained our marshes. He treated us as though our lives counted for nothing!’ His eyes blaze. ‘And mark me, Rider. He offers shelter only to certain breeds of people – those he and his allies deem elite .’

‘Aye!’ I call out, thumping my chest with my fist.

Coati shrugs. ‘I meant no offence,’ he says. ‘But I have heard the reports with my own ears. People are desperate. They say Stag offers a stability no one else can provide.’

Shouting, cursing and gesturing breaks out, with most folks telling Coati to mind his tongue. But more than a few are voices praising his words. The noise stops when the doors smash open, making every head in the hall turn.

Boots stride along the floor. A hornblower, draped in ice-matted furs, folds back his raindrop cowl. ‘Protector! An urgent message, received through the ghostways.’ The parchment rasps as he unwraps the scroll. ‘It is signed with the claw mark of the Wilder-King,’ he announces. But then something crescent-shaped – like a small moon, or a shell – slips to the floor. The hornblower stoops to pick it up, mouth slackening. ‘It’s – an ear,’ he stutters.

Folk gasp. Some leap to their feet, others reach for spears.

‘Whose ear is that?’ I ask Da. Crow leans close to listen.

Da shakes his head. ‘I can’t be sure, but – the Protector did send an envoy to the Wilder-King, who has not yet returned.’

Leopard stalks towards the hornblower and takes the ear in her hands, gently, as though it’s a broken bird. She grips the scroll and scans it quickly. Then her eyes search me out.

Me?

The look in their depths carves a hollow in my gut. I wrap my arms over my chest.

What does that scroll say?

‘This meet is dismissed,’ says Leo briskly. ‘Tribesman Fox, please stay behind.’

I hurry to Leo’s side as the hall begins to empty.

She looks from me to Da. ‘Sorry Mouse – it’s just your father I want to speak to.’

‘Anything you got to say to Da, you can say to me ,’ I tell her, jabbing my thumb into my chest. ‘Ent that so, Da?’

But he just looks at me like I’m five moons old. ‘I think you’d better listen to Leo this time, Bones.’

‘For serious?’

‘Aye. Get your hide gone and I’ll see you soon.’

I want to snatch the letter and gobble every rune on it, right now. I’m sure it’s got something to do with me, from the look Leo shone out. But I turn on my heel and shove my way past the stragglers. ‘He’ll tell me as soon as he gets out of here, anyway!’ I yell over my shoulder.

I wait for Da in his chamber. Beats and beats pass, until my belly growls and my nerves are bowstring-tight. When he opens the door, I leap out at him. ‘What’s that letter gabbing on about, then?’

Da ghosts a smile at me. ‘Ah, Little-Bones! Almost stopped my heart, you did.’

‘Don’t even think of changing the subject. You know that don’t work with me.’ I lift my chin. ‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

I swallow a scream. ‘The letter ,’ I repeat, ominous-calm.

Finally, he sighs. ‘Let’s just say, it wasn’t anything good.’ I gulp a breath but he stops my quiverful of questions with a look. ‘But it’s nothing we don’t already know, either – this world is full perilous, no doubts. So, there’s a new rule. You’re not to leave Hackles.’

‘’Til when?’

‘Until . . .’ He pauses. Shrugs. ‘It’s safe.’

I snort a messy laugh through my nose. ‘It ent never been safe, and won’t never be, neither!’

‘You know what I mean, Mouse,’ he says wearily. ‘The world’s different, now. Things are – proper crooked.’

I cross my arms. ‘But I’ll be going to the Tribe-Meet.’

‘I don’t think so, Bones.’

Which means ‘no’ in full-grown speak. ‘ What? Why?’

He turns to a pouch by his bedside and rummages inside it for his pain medsins. ‘Like I said – it’s too dangerous.’

But I remember the way Leo looked at me. ‘For everyone? Or just me?’

He busies himself with looking around for something. But I know when he’s trying to dodge my gaze. ‘Da!’

He stills. ‘It’s naught to fret about, Mouse. It’s just something to keep you safe.’

But as he hobbles from the room, my chest feels bruised. I touch the dragonfly brooch on my tunic and when I close my eyes I can smell salt-traced air and see the great black shadows of the Huntress ’s sails ghosting across her wooden boards. How can Da force me not to rove when I’m so full of fight?

I’ve got to get my mitts on that letter.

My hand moves to an amulet hanging around my neck, and an idea tingles through me. The amulet is a slim oval of silver, gifted to me by Egret Runesmith and etched with the runes for binding, so I’m safe to dream-dance without having to draw protection runes all the time. My fingers brush my other amulet – the amber Bear gifted me.

Gods, I miss my friends.

I fling myself down on Da’s bed and shut my eyes, imagining climbing out of my skin. I gather all the fright in my chest – about the Withering, and the dying moonsprites, and the way Leo looked at me in the long-hall – and use it to hook onto my spirit. I feel the familiar dragging, and push into it, until my spirit nudges through layers of bone, muscle and skin. I tread the air above my body, blinking slow spirit-eyes. Then I dive through the door and into the corridor outside.

I drift past Pika, who’s kicking draggle dung off his boots at the entrance to the crooked corridor. As I pass, he shudders and glances up, looking through me. Then I startle a warmth-seeking goat that’s got lost in the maze of passageways. I turn in the air and dart along another passageway, past a group of Wilderwitches heading for the stone baths, drying-cloaks hung over their arms.

Leo’s chamber is a small, plain room at the top of a sweep of stairs, set deep in the rock above the long-hall. I slip through the wooden door and fly around the room, searching.

A small collection of books, bound in red, blue, green and gold, is stacked on her night table. A clothes chest stands at the foot of her bed. There’s a set of raindrop armour hanging from a hook, a gathering of stubby candles and a portrait of her and her daughter Kestrel that she had painted before Kes left on her mission to unite the youth of the Tribes. There’s no sign of the letter.

Just then, the door whines open and Leo strides in, tension tightening her face. She paces the floor, breathing fast. Then she draws a length of parchment from inside her cloak and yanks it straight. ‘How dare he?’ she mutters to herself.

I slither through the air and hover behind her shoulder, gulping the black runes burned into the parchment.

‘Consider this your first and final warning.’ My spirit startles, fracturing around the edges – I can almost hear the Wilder-King’s slow purr of a voice. ‘Do not imagine that your fortress protects you against the allies I have won. Allies that could be yours, also, if you heed the war cry echoing through Trianukka. The scarred girl is a hunted child. They will not allow her to further damage their cause. Surrender her, for the sake of your people. And surrender any chatterers dwelling amongst you.’