Jungledrop

by Abi Elphinstone

  The panther dipped his head at the sloth and the little creature dipped his head back, and at the same time Heckle muttered something vague and sheepish about almost believing in the panther, too.

  ‘I will repay all your kindness,’ Deepglint said, ‘not simply because it is my duty as a Lofty Husk to protect every good soul who enters Jungledrop, but because it would be an honour to stand alongside you three in this quest.’

  Fox was having trouble taking everything in. Here was a Lofty Husk treating her as if she mattered, as if she wasn’t entirely unlovable and useless, and it looked as if he might be joining them on their quest. Her heart quickened at the thought. ‘You’re coming with us to Shadowfall?’

  The panther leapt up onto the ledge above the waterfall and rolled his shoulder muscles back and forth, as if preparing to leap again, and when he looked down at them Fox noticed that his eyes blazed with purpose. And fight.

  ‘I am,’ he said.

  Heckle squawked excitedly and the sloth raised a cheery paw.

  ‘Shadowfall is the name of Morg’s stronghold,’ Deepglint said, his voice a low growl. ‘A forgotten temple that she now calls her own several miles north of here.’

  Fox’s face paled. ‘Why would the flickertug map tell us to go to Morg to find the Forever Fern? Surely we should be staying one step ahead of the harpy at all times. And if the Forever Fern is somehow at Shadowfall then why hasn’t she found it and swallowed the pearl to grant herself immortal power?’

  Deepglint shook his head. ‘That I cannot say. Magic rarely makes sense, at the beginning anyway.’

  Fox thought back to the flickertug map and how it had only yielded the first destination of their quest when the right person asked for it. Which was her. Could the same be true for the Forever Fern itself? Could it be up at Shadowfall, within arm’s reach of Morg, and yet somehow still hidden because it was Fox who was meant to find it, not the harpy?

  Deepglint glanced down at his leg. ‘I stumbled across Shadowfall almost a month ago now. I stalked right up to the gates before it, but I underestimated the reach of Morg’s power. So intent was I on launching myself at the harpy to try and save Jungledrop that I did not see her servant, an ape called Screech, until his jaws snapped down on my leg. Screech wears a key on a piece of string around his neck – I fear it is he who keeps Morg’s prisoners locked up – and he is filled with Morg’s darkest curses because the moment I felt his bite, my name and my magic left me. Suddenly I did not know why I was there, or who I was. All I knew was that I needed to run, so with the strength I had left inside me I fled. That was when I found Cragheart and took refuge here. It was weeks later that the phoenix magic in your satchel called me down to the swamp. And now, it seems, we must journey back to Shadowfall together.’

  Fox steadied herself. ‘You really think we should try and break into Morg’s stronghold, knowing what happened last time you went there, to search for something that Morg may, if she has enough dark magic on her side now, stumble across before us?’

  Deepglint nodded and, beside Fox, the parrot ruffled her feathers. ‘Heckle doesn’t like the plan one bit, but she also doesn’t like missing Iggy one bit either, and he’ll be at Shadowfall, so we must go on even though everyone is terrified.’

  ‘If we leave now, we will be there by nightfall,’ Deepglint said.

  Fox hoisted her satchel over her shoulder. It felt heavier than she remembered.

  ‘I’ve got a doubleskin mirror in here,’ she said, ‘although Goldpaw said it can only be used once. I’ve also got a phoenix tear, a flask of water, the rest of the nuts you brought us and my brother’s paintings, which I’m not leaving behind, even if you and Heckle think that’s silly. Because they’re important. As important as the phoenix tear.’ She picked the sloth up and wound his arms round her neck.

  Deepglint looked from the sloth to the satchel. ‘Keep the phoenix tear safe; it called me to you and you restored my magic, so perhaps it can help your brother, too, though its magic will happen of its own accord.’

  The Lofty Husk leapt down from the shelf of rock and walked alongside Fox, as Heckle fluttered ahead, back through the cave towards the entrance. Fox’s heart was thumping at the thought of the journey ahead, but, as she looked at Heckle and Deepglint and felt the warmth of the sloth on her back, she couldn’t help feeling that heading out into the unknown, knowing you had people on your side, might be a little like what it felt to be part of a loving family. And the thought made her heart feel a tiny bit fuller.

  She tiptoed outside the cave after the panther, her skin tingling with fear. It was mid-morning, but the sky was grey and close. There were no tree frogs croaking or birds squawking. The place was quiet, as if holding its breath, and all about them the trees crowded in like crooked giants. Dead creepers hung from branches and moss crawled over everything.

  Deepglint turned to Fox. ‘I will carry you only if it is an emergency. It drains my magic to carry another and I fear I may need every ounce of it for when we get to Shadowfall. So, for now, I want you to follow me because I will teach you how to run.’

  Fox frowned. ‘But I know how to run.’

  The Lofty Husk grunted. ‘Not in the wild, you don’t.’

  He slunk beneath a vine dripping with spiders, each one the size of a plate, before skirting round a boulder. Then he quickened his pace up the slope, leaping onto upturned logs and slinking past shrubs fringed with fangs. The panther moved as if he was made of silk and though Fox felt self-conscious at first, as she followed him through the trees, she found that if she moved like him – carefully and watchfully, pouring every ounce of concentration she had into the ground before her – she moved faster. And more quietly, too.

  Fox had never been particularly sporty back home, but then again she’d never had anyone to play sport with. She’d never kicked a football around with classmates or tried to throw a basketball through a hoop after school with friends. She’d never been on a bike ride with her dad or a jog with her mum. And yet here she was, forging a way through the Bonelands with surprising speed and agility because a panther had taken the time to show her how. She ran on, mirroring his moves, until they climbed to the top of a steep hill where the trees were small enough to peer over.

  The Bonelands spread out around them while behind, to the south, Fox could see Jungledrop proper and in the far, far distance a single speck of greenery. Timbernook was still standing against Morg’s magic. But only just…

  Deepglint shook his head. ‘If we don’t save Jungledrop tonight, Morg’s dark magic will swallow the whole kingdom.’

  To the north of where they stood there were jungled mountains rising far higher than the foothills they were amongst now. And cascading down from the largest mountain, a few miles away, there was an enormous waterfall whose water was entirely black.

  ‘Shadowfall,’ Fox murmured. ‘Morg’s temple is somewhere in there, by the waterfall, isn’t it?’

  Deepglint nodded. He pressed on through the trees that, once again, grew taller and more mysterious. Fox followed like a shadow, every creaking branch or snapped twig sending shivers down her spine, but she didn’t stop. She kept moving through the forest, her footfall soft but sure, as she, the sloth and Heckle followed Deepglint ever north towards Shadowfall.

  They only stopped when a message from the fireflies, which now reached Deepglint because his magic had returned to him, appeared before them. They read Goldpaw’s words about Morg’s Midnights kidnapping still more Unmappers, despite the protection charms she and Brightfur had cast, about Jungledrop being in mourning for Spark and her plea for Deepglint to answer if he could.

  They sent word back to Goldpaw that they were together and would be closing in on the Forever Fern soon. But, once the message was sent, Deepglint walked off on his own.

  Heckle perched on a branch level with Fox. ‘The biggest mistake grown-ups make, whether they’re people or magical beasts, is thinking that tears must be hidden.’ The parrot bowed her head. ‘Crying
over the loss of a friend shows the strength, not the frailty, of love. And love, of all things, fares better when it’s cradled in the open.’

  Fox watched as Deepglint returned moments later. He avoided her eye and they ran on in silence for a few more miles until afternoon came, and with it rain. And though the forest felt eerie – wind chimes echoed through the trees and plants grew everything from miniature coffins to rat tails and bat wings – nothing jumped out at them.

  Goldpaw had implied Jungledrop was swarming with Morg’s Midnights, so Fox thought it strange that she hadn’t seen a single one since setting foot in the Bonelands… What was Morg’s grand plan in all of this? Where were her monkeys? And how long would it be before the harpy used her growing power to find the Forever Fern?

  Sometimes, though, it’s better not to know all the answers. For if Fox had been able to glimpse inside Shadowfall at that very moment, what she would have seen unfolding before Morg’s throne would have chilled her to the bone.

  The light had begun to fade when Deepglint stopped before a stretch of dark, densely packed trees. They had wide trunks that bent forward in a mess of scoops and bulges, and their branches rose up in jagged clusters like crops of unruly hair.

  ‘Eat the rest of the nuts you brought,’ the Lofty Husk said quietly. ‘We will need all our strength for the hunchbacks ahead.’

  Fox grimaced. ‘Hunchbacks?’

  Deepglint nodded towards the trees in front of them. ‘Like the nightcreaks, these enchanted trees are bidden to do Morg’s command. One false move and they will finish us off.’

  Fox’s pulse skittered. The scoops and bulges on the trunks of the hunchbacks were faces. Sunken eyes, gnarled noses and – Fox tensed – wide, gaping mouths.

  The parrot hung back in the air. ‘Heckle is wondering whether there is another way on to Shadowfall?’

  Deepglint shook his head. ‘Hunchbacks line the Bonelands from east to west. You have to go through them to go on. So keep your wits about you, but save the doubleskin mirror for later, Fox. I have a feeling our need for it will be greater if we make it as far as Shadowfall.’

  And, with that, Deepglint set off towards the trees. Fox followed with Heckle flitting nervously above and the sloth wrapped round her neck. But, the minute they stepped beneath the hunchbacks, the trees’ dark magic stirred. A wind picked up, slow at first and moving with a moan in its wake. Fox hurried alongside Deepglint, then he broke into a run and Fox ran, too, faster and faster between the trees until the forest was just a blur around them.

  But the hunchbacks knew there were visitors in their midst and the clusters of branches that resembled hair twisted this way and that, like muscles flexing.

  And then a terrible howling started. Fox’s face drained of colour and the sloth’s arms stiffened round her neck. The noise seemed to be coming from the gaping mouths of the hunchbacks and, as it grew louder, the wind gathered pace.

  ‘Keep running!’ Deepglint roared. Then he glanced up at Heckle. ‘And keep flying!’

  As Fox pushed on through the trees, she felt glad that Deepglint had taught her how to run in the wild because the wind was so strong she could feel herself being blown towards the mouths of the hunchbacks and it was taking every ounce of her concentration and strength to stay on track. But this was no ordinary wind tearing through the forest. It didn’t blow; it sucked. Because this was the breath of the hunchbacks and it was gusting round Fox, desperately trying to nudge her closer and closer towards the hungry mouths.

  Fox skidded over the undergrowth as a fresh gust snatched her right up to the trunk of a hunchback. The sloth clamped his jaw on the bark, stalling the tree’s pull, but the cavernous mouth still loomed before them and little by little the sloth’s hold weakened. Then Deepglint was there, yanking Fox away, his teeth gripping her tunic, and Fox ran again, on and on through the trees, with the sloth clinging to her for all he was worth.

  Heckle screeched as a tree sucked so hard it pulled a feather from her tail. But still she flew. And still Fox ran. But when a double-trunked hunchback inhaled, yanking Deepglint from his feet and slamming him against its roots, Fox stopped and rushed to his aid.

  ‘Go on!’ the Lofty Husk cried as the hunchback sucked and sucked, gradually lifting the panther’s body up towards its gaping mouth.

  Fox watched, in horror, as the panther’s legs were swallowed in the hole until just his head and his scrabbling paws remained.

  ‘I won’t go on without you!’ Fox cried, yanking at the panther’s paws and hauling hard.

  Deepglint’s eyes met hers. ‘You must go on, Fox! There is too much at stake!’

  Fox blocked out his words, never loosening her grip on the panther’s paws for a second, and even the sloth dug his claws into the Lofty Husk’s fur. But cursed trees have to breathe out eventually. So, the moment Fox felt the hunchback release its breath, she pulled with all her weight at the Lofty Husk until she, the sloth and the panther fell to the ground, a tangle of limbs, fur and claws. Deepglint was up on his feet first and before Fox could follow suit she felt his heavy jaw grip her tunic and haul her up onto his back, then he stooped down for the sloth and yanked him aboard, too.

  This, the Lofty Husk knew, was an emergency.

  Then Deepglint was bounding on through the trees again, even though the wind roared and the branches shook. Fox hung on to the scruff of the panther’s neck while the sloth buried himself in her lap and Heckle hurtled down to join him. When Fox had ridden the panther before, she had jiggled about on his back but now she knew the Lofty Husk a little better. She’d watched how he moved, her eyes glued to his every step, and she felt her way into his stride.

  They burst out of the wood, leaving the hunchbacks thrashing with fury behind them, and Fox saw that the forest had come to an end for a reason. Before them stood a river, cutting through the trees, with long, wispy reeds lining its banks.

  Fox eyed it nervously in the gathering dusk. The water that flowed sluggishly between its banks was black.

  ‘We’re close, aren’t we?’ she panted. ‘The water’s black because Shadowfall’s near?’

  Deepglint nodded, but he said nothing for a while as he caught his breath. And then, quietly, he spoke. ‘If you and Fibber had not stayed and helped me earlier, I would have been swallowed by the hunchback.’ He padded along next to the river, his footfall silent among the reeds. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Anyone else would have done the same,’ Fox said.

  Deepglint paused for a moment. ‘You underestimate what you and your brother are made of, girl.’

  Fox felt the sloth in her lap puff out his little chest with pride and she smiled. Then Deepglint walked on, hugging the river close, even though its waters glimmered like oil.

  The parrot hopped from Fox’s lap to her shoulder. ‘Heckle is wondering what horrors are still to come. An ambush from a river full of crocodiles perhaps? A last-minute hello from Morg’s Midnights?’

  Fox shuddered but Deepglint kept walking. On the far side of the river there was an avenue of trees. But they weren’t nightcreaks or hunchbacks this time. These trees were white because they were made entirely of bones.

  Deepglint stopped. ‘That,’ he said quietly, nodding at what the avenue of trees led to. ‘That is what’s next.’

  Fox felt her skin bristle. In the fading light at the far end of the avenue, she saw a tall black gate set between towering walls made of shards of bone. The walls ran in a wide circle so that it was impossible to see the temple inside. But, even so, Fox could tell from the black waterfall careering down the mountain behind the bone walls that this, at last, was Shadowfall.

  Her eyes returned to the avenue of trees. There was something moving among the branches: dark, furred shapes with long, swooping tails. And suddenly it made sense why they hadn’t seen any of Morg’s Midnights in the Bonelands so far…

  They were all here. Hundreds of them, swarming the trees around the gate, clearly placed there by Morg to guard the temple against intruders.r />
  ‘Whatever the harpy is up to,’ Deepglint whispered, ‘it is clear she does not want anyone interrupting.’

  ‘Do – do you think she’s found the Forever Fern and it’s inside the temple?’ Fox asked. ‘And that’s why she’s got all her Midnights guarding Shadowfall?’

  Deepglint shook his head. ‘If Morg had found the fern, we would know about it. No, I believe it is still here somewhere, just beyond her reach.’ He paused. ‘And she has not got all of her followers out on guard tonight. There is no sign of the ape called Screech, the one who wears a key around his neck and is in charge of keeping Morg’s prisoners locked up.’

  Fox looked again at the monkeys squatting in the trees. ‘But still,’ she murmured, ‘there are so many Midnights here. How will we find a way through the gate?’

  Deepglint narrowed his eyes, then slunk low into the reeds so that they were all hidden from sight.

  Fox scooped the sloth from her lap and placed him on her back, then slid off the panther and turned to face him. ‘We can’t beat an army of those monkeys. Even Goldpaw said she hadn’t found a way to kill them.’

  The parrot cowered in the reeds beside Fox. ‘We have to. Somehow. Because Heckle knows that Iggy is inside. And with night approaching there are only a few hours left to stop Morg before she seizes all of Jungledrop’s magic.’

  Deepglint said nothing at first, then his ears pricked forward and he frowned. ‘Listen,’ he whispered. ‘Listen hard.’

  At first Fox could only hear the river moving darkly through the reeds, but then her ears caught what Deepglint had heard. A strange but distinct ticking sound. Like that of dozens of clocks ticking away in the dusk.

  And that’s when the beginnings of a plan started to take shape inside Fox’s head.

  Back in Doodler’s Haven, Goldpaw had said the monkeys went back to the Bonelands after every raid, then when they returned they were just as strong as they had been before they were injured. The panther had said it was because there was something unnatural about them.