Skyfire (5 page)

‘Depends where you're taking us,' I say.

‘Back to Silent Peak,' Bastian says. ‘Back to my home. But we've got a damn long way to walk before midnight, so I'd say it's best to hurry.'

‘Why?'

A breeze ruffles the clearing.

‘Because my village rests above the earth,' says Bastian. ‘And at midnight, the earth cannot be trusted.'

Bastian leads us from the sky, gliding overhead to mark our path. From down here, his foxhawk seems no more than a pair of enormous wings, silhouetted by the afternoon light.

‘Are we sure about this?' Clementine says quietly. The scratches on her face and hands are drying now, but the lines of dark crimson look stark upon her pallid skin.

‘We could make a run for it,' Teddy says. ‘I mean, he's basically riding an overgrown chicken-fox, right? I reckon we could –'

‘We can't outrun it,' Lukas says. ‘Trust me.'

‘Oh, aren't you just an optimistic little ray of sunshine?' Clementine says.

Lukas raises an eyebrow. ‘I've been inside its
head, Clementine. I know how its muscles move, how its wings can beat.'

We squint back up at the sky again, and I know he's right. Those massive wings would sweep around in an elegant loop, and there'd be claws and bullets at our backs before we knew what was coming.

‘His people might help us,' I say. ‘And that hunter would have a hard job sneaking up on us now – the foxhawk'd see him coming miles off.'

‘But he gave us the option to leave,' Clementine says. ‘To return to Taladia. If we asked him nicely, perhaps he'd give us another chance to –'

Maisy places a gentle hand on her arm. ‘Clem, we can't go back. Not now.'

Clementine sucks down a harsh breath. Then she nods, a cold devastation behind her eyes. ‘I know. I know we can't. It's just …'

‘This isn't what you were expecting?' I say.

She nods again.

‘Join the club,' Teddy says. ‘I figured we'd be living it up in fancy spa baths, watching alehouse dancers and sculling champagne out of honey-melons. Dunno about you lot, but I'm not seeing a lot of melons around here.'

‘Just leaves,' Lukas says.

Teddy brightens. ‘Hey Danika, maybe you could whip up some of that leaf tea. Good way to fend off hunger.'

‘I thought you hated my tea,' I say.

‘Yeah, exactly,' he says. ‘Nausea's great for keeping your appetite down.'

I toss a fistful of leaves at his face. Teddy swats them away with a grin. Then his expression grows serious, and he turns to Maisy. ‘Hey, have you ever heard of these firestone things?'

‘Yes, I think so. But …'

‘What?'

Maisy waves a dismissive hand. ‘My books said they're just a superstition, like most of the rumours and legends from the Dark Ages.'

‘Well, Bastian doesn't seem to reckon they're a superstition,' Teddy says. ‘I mean, if it's his job to harvest 'em and all.'

‘What
are
they?' I say.

Maisy hesitates. ‘They grow in the earth, like crystals. And even once they're harvested, they must be stored in the dirt – buried again like seeds – to retain their power. They draw their magic from the earth itself.'

‘Magic?'

‘Well, they're supposedly a sort of … conduit,' Maisy says. ‘Like a radio frequency. A conduit for magic.'

I stare at her. A conduit for magic? I try to imagine a scattering of stones, with signals bouncing between them like radio waves. An alchemical blast,
leaping from stone to stone, beaming its power into the dark.

‘Are you sure?' I say.

‘No,' Maisy says. ‘I'm just telling you what the stories say.'

Lukas frowns and glances skywards, ensuring that Bastian is out of earshot. ‘My father was
obsessed
with this land,' he says. ‘Even mentioning it was enough to make his blood boil – he wouldn't even tell me its name!'

‘That's why Quirin wouldn't let his smugglers cross the Valley, isn't it?' I say. ‘Because King Morrigan had such a strange fixation on this place, and Quirin didn't want to get the king offside.'

Lukas nods. ‘I just wish I knew why.' He gestures at the trees, visibly frustrated. ‘I mean, it doesn't
look
special, does it? I don't see what could cause such an obsession. Maybe the firestones are real.'

‘I reckon this Farran bloke's got something to do with it,' Teddy says. ‘Maybe King Morrigan's got a grudge going on.' He turns to Lukas. ‘Hey, do kings and lords ever get together for parties? Maybe this Farran bloke cheated at marbles, or spat in your dad's soup or something.'

Lukas snorts. ‘Not when their nations are enemies, no.'

‘Damn,' Teddy says.

Following Bastian's lead, we emerge from the woodland into a field of massive boulders. They remind me a little of the Marbles back home – a landscape as lumpy as boiled potatoes. But here, flares of steam blast up in the distance and the rocks sting hotter than cooking pots.

A heavy smell hangs in the air, like rotten eggs, or restaurant bins in summer. Each whiff brings a wave of memories. Huddling in alleyways. The flies and the stench. The clattering of doors as kitchen hands dumped rotting lettuce and old chunks of meat …

Clementine pinches her nostrils shut. ‘What in the name of Taladia is that?'

Teddy takes a deep sniff. ‘Smells like home, I reckon.'

‘Maybe in the part of town where
you
grew up,' Clementine says, ‘but I've never smelt anything so awful in all my life.'

‘I think it's sulphur,' Maisy says. ‘My books said it smelled like rotting eggs. And those must be geysers.' She points towards the blasts of steam. ‘We'd better stay away from them. If a blast comes up under out feet, then …'

She trails off, looking nervous.

‘Good idea,' Teddy says. ‘I mean, I know I look dashing in red, but I don't fancy life as a pot-boiled lobster.'

The stench thickens as we trek deeper into the boulder field. But with time my nostrils adjust, and even Clementine stops pinching her nose.

‘Ah,' Teddy says, with a deep sniff. ‘Home sweet home. Told you you'd recognise it.'

Clementine scowls. ‘I need my hands to balance, Nort.'

‘Sure you do. And you need your nose to savour this subtle bouquet of –'

‘Nostril abuse?'

‘I was gonna say “good old-fashioned Rourton charm” – but hey, whatever floats your boat.'

The nearest geyser rumbles. It's a deep sound, a guttural roar that rises through the stones and gurgles up through the soles of my feet. It almost tickles: not just a sound, but a physical spasm.

High above, Bastian lets out a cry. ‘Run!'

We don't stop to ask questions. I've heard that tone in people's voices before, and it's never ended well. We run.

‘What's happening?' Clementine gasps.

No one answers. None of us has any idea, beyond the fact that the ground is shaking. Spurts of hot fluid rise and burst like fountains in a richie's garden. Bastian's foxhawk wheels overhead, searching out the safest path for us to follow. ‘This way!'

I stumble blindly forwards as the air fills with steam. I narrow my eyes to a sliver and barrel
onwards. My heart pounds. I stumble through piles of slippery pebbles. The earth groans.

We duck behind a stack of teetering boulders. A moment later it collapses in a chaotic clatter of smashes and cracks. A jet of steam erupts from the debris and I yank Maisy away from the blistering air. ‘We've got to get out of here!'

‘Oh, really?' Clementine snaps. ‘I'd never have guessed.'

There's a shriek overhead – the cry of the foxhawk – and I wrench my gaze up with a start. Bastian soars southwards and his beast lets out another screech, as though to summon us. We take off at a shambling run, just as the earth where we were standing begins to crack.

I grab Clementine and wrench her aside as a blast of steam erupts beside her. She screams, overbalancing, but steadies herself against my grip.

‘Come on!' I choke.

My breath comes in sharp gasps, but my legs are oddly steady. I don't know if it's just the animal instinct to survive, but my earlier stumbling and fumbling is over. My body knows what to do. It's almost like riding a foxary – sitting back in a numb sort of terror as my limbs take over. My legs leap between rocks; my arms fling outward to balance myself; my head ducks aside to avoid a blast of wind and ash.

And oh, the ash. It tumbles around me like snow. A snow of grey, as pale as the sky, but with the brushing irritation of hot flakes of pepper. It spews up from the nearby geysers, until its heat and dust and coarseness sting my thorn-scratched skin. Every breath is hot and ragged in my throat.

We can't see Bastian any more. I have no idea which way to turn, which way to run.

‘Look out!'

The stones beneath my boots begin to crack. I stumble, my balance shattered as the rocks slip and slide. Lukas snatches me with such a jerk that a surge of pain stabs my left shoulder. The shoulder's been dislocated several times, and the sudden lurch threatens to pop it from its socket once more. But my shoulder stays in place, and I keep my feet.

Behind me, the earth collapses into a startling dark hole. Long and thin, deep and dark – like a knife-wound in the flesh of the earth. I stagger away from it, Lukas's hand tight on my sleeve, before the steam blasts up with the screech of a kettle.

I stumble forwards, away from the noise, and clap my hands across my ears. The others are doing the same: clenching their ears and eyes, like children trying to escape a dream. But this is no dream. If we don't get a grip on ourselves, we'll die.

Focus, Danika
.

Bastian is still invisible. It's almost like running through the centre of an alchemy bomb. I'm as blind and helpless as the night of my first ever bombing, when I was a child wrapped in my mother's arms. But instead of magic, we face ash and stone and boiling water.

‘All right!' I say. ‘Follow me.'

I don't know where I'm leading them. I have no better idea of our surroundings than anyone else, and I'm hardly qualified to take charge in a situation like this.

Lukas joins me at the front of the group, and we charge towards a sparser patch of rocks. The air thickens, as hot and stuffy as a quilt in midsummer. But the boulders look smaller up ahead, and if that means less risk of collapsing rock formations, I'll take it.

Teddy cries out and jumps sideways, just as the earth beside him crumbles into darkness. I yank him back from the brink, and we stumble together onto a wider stretch of rock.

The world gives one final rumble. The geysers flare and fizzle, then settle back down into silence. A gush of wind, a clearing of steam. The stillness coats my limbs like fabric, heavy and hot in the aftermath of the earthquake.

‘Is it over?' I manage, coughing. ‘Is it –?'

And the stones beneath me fall.

Darkness.

Perhaps I'm dead. There's no way to know for certain. My body isn't moving, and my breath feels like fire in my throat.

‘Danika!'

A hand fumbles beneath my head: strong fingers, slick with liquid.
Liquid?
A sharp pang on my scalp as the fingers brush a flap of skin aside, and I realise it's blood. My blood. The air stinks of it, sharp as copper, mixed with the chill of mud and stone.

I hear more shouting. I think I'm in an enclosed space, because the voices slap and echo downwards to meet me.

I open my eyes. It's dark. A lone circle of light shines high above me, revealing a chink of pale grey
sky. All around me is stone and muck: the ruins of the rock formations that collapsed around my feet.

‘She's alive!' Hot breath puffs across my face. ‘We're all right! We're both all right!'

I blink again, fighting to steady my vision. Teddy Nort's face swims into focus. Even in the dappled light, there's no mistaking that unruly tangle of hair. His breathing sounds a little strained, and for a terrible second I think he's been hurt. I try to struggle up onto my elbows.

‘Don't move!' he says. ‘Geez, Danika, look at you.'

There's a long pause. I feel the pressure of him staring at me, the weight of concern in his gaze. I fumble to make my tongue form words – something, anything to make that fear leave him. I don't like the idea of Teddy Nort being scared, and I don't like the idea of
me
looking weak. It's like the whole world has been pulled out from under me.

In a way, I suppose it has.

‘Look at you,' Teddy repeats, sounding distressed.

‘Can't,' I whisper. ‘Haven't got a mirror.'

Teddy laughs, although the sound is a little choked. ‘I thought … For a second I thought …' He takes a faltering breath, then shakes his head. ‘You're all right. You're gonna be all right. I've taken worse falls than this one.'

I try to smile, straining to force the world back into focus.

‘Banged your head on the way down, I reckon,' Teddy says. ‘I was lucky – landed with my head on your stomach. You're a damn good landing mat, you know.'

‘I'll keep that in mind,' I manage.

Teddy pushes his hand tighter against the back of my skull, and tilts his head up to shout. ‘Need a little help down here!'

There are more shouts overhead, but I can't make out the words. The voices slide like water in my ears. Someone scuffles on the surface, perhaps fighting to come down.
Lukas
. I hear his voice now, louder than the others.

I lean my head back into Teddy's hand.

‘Head wounds always bleed,' Teddy says, trying to reassure me. ‘Once I went tumbling off the side of a guard station and whacked my head on the gutter. You should've seen the bump. Couldn't show my face in downtown Rourton, or my mates would've called me “Egghead” till the end of time.'

I wet my lips. ‘Lukas.'

That's not what I meant to say. But the word slips out on its own, like a pair of warm syllables on my tongue. I hear Lukas's voice overhead and suddenly I want more than anything to see his face. His bright green eyes, his curling dark hair. I want to feel his fingers link with mine: long and slender, but warm and reassuring. And with the pain of my head and
the ache in my bones, I'm past even caring how pathetic that sounds.

‘Sorry,' Teddy says. ‘Have you
seen
that bloke trying to climb? Gonna have to settle for me instead.' He grins, a flash of white in the darkness. ‘Can't guarantee I'm as good at kissing, but …'

A woozy laugh escapes my throat. Experimentally, I move my head to the side. I catch a glimpse of light – the briefest flash of something in the dark. ‘Teddy …'

‘Yeah, that's me,' he says. ‘Glad to know you've figured out my name at last.'

I raise a finger, pointing towards the flash. Teddy hesitates; I feel his weight shift beside me in the shadows. Then he leans across, and I know he's seen something too. An odd little flash: the kind you only spot when you flick the angle of your gaze.

‘Hang on,' he says. ‘Don't move.'

‘Wasn't planning to.'

Teddy keeps one hand cupped beneath my head, but stretches out his torso, then his legs, until one foot is straining and fumbling in the darkness.

He swears, then retracts his leg long enough to kick off his boot. He prods around with his toes, fumbling and cursing like a monkey with an impressively dirty vocabulary. ‘Aha!'

Something rolls across the ground towards us, guided by his flexing toes. Teddy brings it close
enough to snatch, then holds it up to the chink of daylight. It's round and glinting, thick with shards of crystal.

‘What's that?' I say.

‘Dunno, but I bet it's worth –'

The rope hits his head with a quiet
whumph
. It's a thin grey cord, woven from some kind of shredded tree-bark, and presumably from Bastian's supplies. He must be back on the ground now, helping to supervise our rescue.

Teddy scowls, then shouts up to the surface in mock anger. ‘Got enough head wounds down here already, thanks!'

I reach up to prod at my scalp. ‘I think it's stopped bleeding.'

Teddy wriggles his fingers, examining the wound. ‘Yeah, I reckon you're all right. Just a bang and a bit of blood – not too serious.' He pockets the glinting stone, then offers a relieved smile. ‘You up to this?'

I nod. Apart from a swelling headache, I'm not really injured. Just a few scrapes and bruises. ‘Yeah. Not as bad as it looks.' I pause, before a new thought hits me. ‘Wait, what about you? Are you hurt?'

‘Nah.' Teddy grins. ‘I've taken enough tumbles in my time to be pretty much smash-proof.'

He loops the end of the rope into a foothold and helps me rise. We both shove our feet into the loop, standing, and I clench my hands around a higher
section of rope. Teddy wraps his arms around me, holding me steady. ‘Don't fall, all right?'

‘Good plan,' I say. ‘I can see why you're such a criminal mastermind.'

There's a sudden shout from overhead.
‘Ready?'
It echoes down oddly through the shaft, bouncing from rock to rock.

‘Yeah!' Teddy says. ‘Let her rip.'

The rope jerks. I jolt a bit, swinging, but manage to steady myself against the rope and Teddy's weight. And then, at last, we rise towards that precious circle of sky.

The wound is shallow, but tender. Lukas bandages my head with fabric from his sleeve, his expression tight, his fingers gentle. I have a sudden flashback to our night in the prison tower and I can't contain a smile. Lukas frowns, as though afraid that my sudden smile might be a sign of brain damage.

‘I'm fine,' I tell him. ‘Just a memory.'

As it turns out, Teddy has a few bangs and scrapes of his own. A bloody graze runs down one arm and, in the light of day, his left eye looks bloodshot. I fight down a squirm of guilt at my behaviour in the shaft. Now that my head is clear again, it's embarrassing to think of how well Teddy cared for me – and how I didn't even notice his injuries.

When I mention this to Lukas, he just gives me an exasperated smile. ‘Danika, you got knocked out. Your brain was all muddled. Stop expecting yourself to be perfect all the time.'

I frown at this, a little hurt by his words. I've never pretended to be perfect. Hell, I'm the idiot who shot down a palace biplane, plastering us across every wanted list in Taladia. I'm the one who made a reckless deal with a smuggler. That doesn't mean I'm happy about it – or that it's fine to ignore an injured friend.

Teddy, however, doesn't seem too concerned.

‘Can I get an eye patch?' he says. ‘I reckon I'd look dashing with an eye patch.'

Bastian gives him a stern look. ‘It's not a serious wound, son. You'll be back to normal in a few hours.'

The others beg Bastian to give us a ride on the foxhawk, citing our collection of minor injuries. But Bastian still doesn't trust us, and I can't really blame him. His foxhawk travels high in the air, and it'd be dangerous to let strangers ride beside him. If we decided to push him from the saddle …

‘Your cuts are shallow,' he says. ‘You'll be fine.'

Clementine glares at him. ‘I thought you said the earth couldn't be trusted at midnight. That
wasn't
midnight.'

‘That's not what I was talking about.' Bastian waves a dismissive hand. ‘That was just an earthquake. It
happens, sometimes, at any time of day. You see, the earth here is unstable …'

‘Oh, great,' Teddy mutters. ‘Earthquakes? When I said I wanted alehouse dancers, I didn't mean the whole landscape should start dancing a jig.'

And so we're left to trek along the ground as the mother of all headaches bangs away at my skull. At least there's no sign of King Morrigan's hunter. As the hours pass, I begin to hope that we've left the man behind. Teddy keeps up a rambling commentary about what might have happened to him.

‘Swallowed up in that earthquake, I reckon. Or maybe he's allergic to nuts. Or, hey – I bet he's got a deathly phobia of oversized chicken-foxes …'

By the time we reach the base of Silent Peak, the sky is dark. The mountainside is thick with tangled forest and a rising chill. Our boots crunch and crackle in frosty undergrowth, and Bastian wheels down from the sky to lead us on foot. The foxhawk paces along behind him. It moves almost like a horse on rein – except for the snap of its teeth when I venture too close.

‘My village is close,' he says. ‘We'll make it by midnight.'

I can't help wondering, though, how a village could exist in the middle of this forest. No farmland lies on the slope. No fields of grain or cattle to feed
a population. Just the forest, the shadows, and the crunch of frost in the dark.

‘We've got watchmen to keep an eye on things,' Bastian says. ‘No need to worry about your hunter here – you'll be safe among my people.'

Finally, I spot orbs of light between the trees.
Alchemy lamps.
But they don't hum or thrum their light from ground level, where a village might be expected to sit. In fact …

Lukas grabs my arm. ‘Look.'

For a moment I think he's pointing at star-shine: winks of floating light in the canopy. But these aren't stars. They're too large, too close, too bright.

‘Lanterns,' Maisy whispers. ‘Up in the trees.'

We squeeze through the final thicket – cursing and bristling as the foliage scratches our skin. Then I halt, struck dumb by the sight of Bastian's village.

The buildings are cabins, carved from wood and flickering with lantern light. But they don't squat down in the clearing. They perch high in the branches, connected by chain bridges and wooden platforms. Metal pipes run across their walls like cobwebs, filtering steam and soot from their fireplaces.

‘Treehouses!' Teddy says.

The word sparks in my memory. An old children's tale about a boy in the countryside who built a house in the branches of an elm.
The Squirrel Boy
,
it was called. He lived in the wilderness, all alone, and filled his belly with rats and roseberries.

I've never seen a real treehouse – the only trees in Rourton are ornamental shrubs in richies' gardens – but I'm willing to bet that Teddy and I heard the same bedtime story.

I turn to Bastian. ‘Why …?'

He gives a grim smile. ‘At midnight, the earth cannot be trusted. Safest to sleep up high, see?'

Actually, I don't ‘see' at all, but Bastian doesn't give me a chance to question him. He leaps aboard his foxhawk and rides it up, flapping wildly, to perch upon a central platform. There's a moment's pause when I can't see him from below, but I suppose he must be securing the beast to the platform.

Finally, Bastian peers over the edge. ‘Up here, folks.'

He points to a wooden ladder by the edge of the clearing. It climbs high up the trunk of a tree, into the shadowed nooks and crannies of the canopy. My head throbs and my limbs ache, but I force myself up the ladder with a final burst of strength.

Almost there
, I think.
Almost time to rest.

Bastian waves us onto a bridge of metal chains. ‘This way.'

We follow. Teddy is light and quick on his feet; his burglar's instincts take to this sky-bound walkway with ease. I'm not too bad, either, but our crewmates
struggle. Clementine swears under her breath in a most unladylike fashion, slipping regularly between the chain-link footholds.

We cross several wooden platforms, which serve as balconies for adjoining cabins. I peek curiously into passing windows, half-afraid of what I might see inside. But my stomach settles a little when I spot an old man in a rocking chair, cradling a pot of tea in his hands. In another cabin, children play cards by a cooking fire. They're on the thin side, but they look content. Happy, even.