Storm. Sarah Driver

considers. ‘He’s using his power for ill-doings. Maybe that protects him, somehow.’ She takes my hand. ‘Enough about him, though. Just be careful. Please?’

      ‘I’m stuck here, ent I?’ I pull my hand away and turn to stare at the Opals, pins pricking my eyes. ‘Can’t get much more careful than that.’ My voice comes out more bitter than I expected.

      ‘I know. I’m sorry – you must hate me, coming back here and telling you what to do.’

      I offer her a small smile. ‘It’s alright.’

      She links arms with me. ‘Now, more importantly – shall we go and find some food?’

      We step into the flickering torchlight of the long-hall. The place rings with the cries of babs, the bleating of goats and a score of mismatched tribe-tongues. Squidges have wedged themselves into clusters along the tops of the walls and on the chains of the lanterns. The round, feathered, squidlike creatures squeal about the cold, chubby tentacles quivering. They drip ink onto folks’ heads and into their food.

      Great oaken eating benches glitter with hollowed, hungry eyes. The benches are laden with piles of kids, thumping each other’s arms, tumbling around, jostling for space. As we walk past, they nudge each other, staring at my scar. Their stares make me feel skinned. What I did for Leo’s lost spirit is famed round here.

      ‘There treads the sea-witch,’ someone whispers behind our backs. Nervous laughter whistles around my head, and my shoulders tense.

      ‘Ignore them,’ whispers Kestrel.

      Easy for her to say. She’s getting out of here. We stand in line for shallow bowls of goats’ milk porridge. Pangolin joins us. She’s bundled in thick wool dyed the colour of flame, and a grey enamelled pin in the shape of a draggle holds her cloak close around her neck.

      She greets us both, but Kestrel’s manner is stiff and the two eye each other warily. Maybe Kes still ent forgiven Pang for the way she was under the old regime.

      I’m so busy watching how they are with each other, the seed of my idea swelling in my bones, that I end up stepping on Pang’s cloak and she trips, almost knocking a pot over.

      Curses whip from the cooks’ mouths.

      ‘She never meant to!’ I blurt.

      ‘Make her words big to her elders, will she?’ threatens a fat old waddler called Kid, with six chins and three mean looks she switches between. She raises a tarnished ladle like a fist and turns to Kestrel. ‘Sawbones, you keep these filthy sea-roving folk out of my kettle-fires.’ She turns her broad back on us. ‘That’s the last of the provisions. Protector says we’ve to hold back the pot-scrapings for the prisoner.’

      Axe-Thrower. But she wasn’t the only prisoner, before. Leo captured a mystik and locked him in the belly of Hackles, but one day the cell was empty ’cept for a dark stain on the floor. The mystik leaked through the cracks in the stone.

      Kestrel’s cheeks have reddened. ‘If my mother finds out you spoke of Mouse in such a way, she will not be pleased!’

      Kid rounds on us, eyes rolling in her head. ‘You dare take a tone with the women who have kept watch over you since you were belly-swell?’

      Lunda appears, holding a bowl of porridge scraped clean. ‘Your mother won’t be around much longer anyway. Oh – haven’t you heard?’ she asks innocently. ‘She received a summons, just before the mid-meal bell. She’ll be flying to the Frozen Wastes as soon as possible.’

      As me and Kes hurry from the hall, Kid’s words arrow into our backs. ‘She and her kin pine for the sea like a pack of seals. I say, let them fish for their breakfast.’

      We find Leo in her chamber. She tells us the summons came from the Fangtooth Chieftain. ‘Stag has turned on the Fangtooths,’ she tells us. ‘My strongest warriors are making ready to fly as soon as we are able.’

      ‘You cannot accept this summons!’ begs Kestrel.

      ‘That Chieftain chased me and Crow into the sea with a volley of fire arrows,’ I add, curling my lip. But I swallow down the real reason I don’t want her going. You can’t abandon us !

      Leopard smiles sadly. ‘How can I not go? My help has been requested. Isn’t unity what we fight for? We are trying to re-establish ourselves as a major Trianukkan Tribe. The time for hiding is over.’

      ‘Then there’s something I need to tell you,’ I say quietly.

      Kestrel turns startled eyes on me.

      Leo nods. ‘Go on.’

      I gabble breathlessly about how I reckon the Land-Opal is at the Wastes – cos that’s what Da’s magyk map told us the last time we used it. The map unlocked when Sparrow sang the old song, and showed us the bright amber orb, far to the north.

      Leo pockets the knowing like an ingot of gold, promising to look for the Opal. But she won’t let me go with her, however hard I beg.

      Three morning bells later, Leopard orders the riders to keep me busy with milking the goats, polishing the moon-lamps and helping in the sawbones’ nest. Then she and Kes take to the skies, bound on their separate missions, leaving me stuck here. And while I work, all I can think is that Kestrel’s gone, Da’s gone, Leo’s gone, Stag’s still got one of the Opals and here I am, washing out old medsin bottles.

      I only remembered that lemming with no beast-chatter after they left.

      Time slips past. And the faster it hurries, the stronger my idea grows. If full-growns won’t let me do anything, then the kids are gonna have to stick together to get stuff done. I just have to watch folks for a bit longer first. I have to know, good and proper, who I can trust . . .

      ‘When’s Da coming back?’ asks Sparrow, blundering into the midst of my thoughts.

      We’re cross-legged before the fire in my chamber and I’m smoothing fat into my longbow, Kin-Keeper, to seal the new runes I’ve carved into the yew – though I’ve not yet managed to bring them to life, like Egret Runesmith can. Folk reckon she’s the most gifted rune-worker on the mountain, and many are bitter that she left. But I know there’s no way she and Kes would be apart.

      Before I can reply, Sparrow pipes up again. ‘How long do we have to wait around here? When can we go home? The whales need us, you know.’ A slug of blue gloop leaks from his nostril and he sniffs it back in. ‘The ones that ran away from Stag and then got stuck under the ice.’

      I feel sick at the mention of Stag. He’s taken everything from us – our home, our grandma, the whales. He tried to kill Da, and Kestrel. He made Crow do his dark bidding.

      ‘The only way we can help them is by getting the Opals to the Crown, wherever that is.’ I stand and brush myself down, rubbing the fat into my hands.

      ‘But how?’

      ‘Leo’s planning to look for the Land-Opal while she’s at the Wastes. So if Da gets back first, my bet is he’ll go too.’

      ‘And then he’ll have to get all three to the Crown?’

      ‘Aye. So, we need to think over everything we already know about it. There must be clues we’ve missed.’

      ‘Well, we know that the Sea-Opal and the Sky-Opal are here, at Hackles,’ he says, firelight tickling his cheeks.

      I roll my eyes. ‘Aye, course