Sarah Driver - Storm

To my readers, for a dazzle-bright debut year.

Heart-thanks for crewing up with me and Mouse!

May the sea-gods always swim close to you.

First published in Great Britain 2018

by Egmont UK Limited

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

Text copyright © Sarah Driver 2018

Illustrations copyright © Ray Tierney 2018

Map illustration copyright © Joe McLaren 2018

Additional illustrations first published in 2017 in the titles The Huntress: Sea and

The Huntress: Sky written by Sarah Driver and published by

Egmont UK Limited, The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London, W11 4AN.

Additional illustrations copyright © Joe McLaren 2017

Additional interior illustrations by Janene Spencer.

All rights reserved.

The moral rights of Sarah Driver, Ray Tierney and Joe McLaren have been asserted.

First e-book edition 2018

ISBN 978140584691

Ebook ISBN 9781780317656

www.egmont.co.uk

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

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Cover

Title Page

Dedication and Copyright

Trianukka

The Spidermaster’s Lair

Epigraph

Excerpt from The Sharkskin Scripts, Volume I: The Great Trianukkan Tribes

PART 1: The Hunted Child

1 The Withering

2 The Scarred Girl

3 The Sneaking

4 Blood on the Stones

5 Trouble’s Hook

6 Visitations

7 The Summons

8 Our Own Sneaking

9 Wandering Warriors

10 One Condition

PART 2: The Moonlands

11 The Inn Between

12 Diggers-tip Cold

13 Disbelievably Wretched Slackwit

14 Lucky Find

15 Bloodcakes

16 By Tooth, by Nail

17 Burial

18 You with the Fire

19 Forest of Nightfall

20 Sneaky Trees

21 True Mystiks

PART 3: The Beasts are Coming

22 Nightfall

23 Akhund Olm

24 The College of Medsin

25 Webs and Smog

26 Beckoning the Spirits Out

27 Rough as a Clam

28 Gather the Ghosts

29 The Shadow of Spiders

30 Back from the Brink

31 Realm of Fog and Pearls

32 Don’t You Remember?

33 The Belly for the Work

34 Breaking the Chains

35 Not Too Clever

36 Wherever We Rest Our Bones

37 Brew an Uprising

38 Battle

39 False Crown

40 The Crown

41 Frozen Breath

42 My Daughter

43 Thaw

44 Sea, Sky, Land

45 A Crowning

46 Sea Voyages, for the Living and the Dead

47 Hunter’s Moon

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange

– William Shakespeare , The Tempest

Excerpt from The Sharkskin Scripts, Volume I: The Great Trianukkan Tribes

Dating back three thousand years, this ancient manuscript now resides in the Skybrary high in the Iceberg Forest of the Wildersea, under the care of the Skybrarian and his apprentice, a young Wilderwitch boy named Yapok.

We, the gathered Sea-Tribe captains, scratch these runes into skin with ink, tears and blood-truth.

In troubled times, dark forces rise. This is known. Long ago, the land of Trianukka was ravaged by unending war. In this dark time of blood and iron, a great evil rooted into our world. The evil grew, then spread. It bled into the minds of many, becoming a movement known as the

We must never forget the darkness wielded by this movement. We must make sure it never befalls our world again.

This dawn, at a ceremony on the highest peak, the Kings of Sea, Sky and Land have set three Storm-Opals in a golden crown, weaving the Tribes together in peace. Each sacred stone has been instilled with a sliver of the elements: a foam of sea, a fragment of sky and a fracture of earth. The jewels are to be guarded by a king of the giants. It is foretold that if the Opals are ever separated, evil will rise once more, and the land will be torn apart.

Hackles. Ancient stronghold of the Sky-Tribe of the draggle-riders. One full moon’s turn after a Fangtooth hunted me through the snow.

Stark eyes glint all around me, peering from the depths of fur hoods. I sniff the air. Fear-stink. Everywhere . The long-hall is packed with scarred and bandaged folk. Outsiders seeking refuge in this Sky realm of thick grey walls. Their murmurs clot together and rise into the air, crowding it with questions. Some are Sea-Tribe, and looking at them makes me wonder about my ship, and the rest of my own crew.

I’m huddled on a bench, ice-bitten and swamped in a heavy cloak of goatskin, listening to storms pummel the mountain fortress with daggers of ice.

I try to stop the fright in the air from seeping through my skin. But the walls are smeared with silver streaks that tighten my belly into knots. Moonsprites are dying, cos no moonlight can pierce the frozen clouds.

‘You alright, Little-Bones?’ Da whispers. He’s sitting next to me, grey-skinned and pretending he’s got no pain. He still ent recovered proper from being kept a prisoner of the mystiks. With food grown scarce, the flesh is slow to gather on his bones, and his jaws grip his teeth too tight. ‘You don’t have to be here for this, you know.’