It was as if she was having the memory of a headache. She couldn’t quite feel it, but she was somehow reliving it. She glanced down at the bronze ring on her thumb.
Scoot cursed and stumbled backwards. ‘That is the biggest bleeding spider I’ve ever seen in my life!’
Trying to stay calm, Ottilie backed away on unsteady legs. ‘Scoot,’ she breathed, ‘I don’t think that’s a normal spider.’
The shiny eight-legged thing scuttled around the serpentine trunk, prying its hairy front legs off a blotch of lichen and raising its sharp, orange-tipped pincers to the air. It was enormous, twice the size of her hand, but it wasn’t the size that bothered her.
‘Has it … I think it’s got … it’s got wings!’
The spider unfurled two translucent wings, something like a cross between a moth’s and a bat’s wings.
‘Yep, wings. And friends!’ Scoot released a high-pitched squeak, stumbling backwards again as four more gigantic flying spiders scuttled out from behind the tree.
Heart flipping and falling about like a dying bee, Ottilie crouched down and picked up the two biggest sticks she could reach. She tossed one to Scoot, but he didn’t catch it. Scoot blinked and gazed down at the stick, looking as if he were about to be sick.
One of the spiders fluttered its wings, peeling its horrible hairy legs off the bark to hover in thin air.
‘I think we need to run,’ Ottilie whispered.
Scoot grabbed the stick, and together they bolted. They came off the path and forced their way through the bracken, dodging tussocks of sword grass and slipping on moss-covered logs.
The world was dark. Ottilie could barely see where she was going and all she could hear was the bizarre buzzing and clicking from the monstrous spiders zooming just behind their skulls. It was a horrible sound. Every click seemed to prick at her eardrums; every buzz made her teeth hurt.
Ottilie couldn’t stand it anymore; finally, she turned around. There was a spider an inch from her face, its eight legs moving as if it were scuttling through the air. Yelping in surprise, Ottilie tripped sideways, knocking Scoot off his feet.
The pair of them tumbled to the ground. The spider landed on her thigh. The tips of its needle-sharp legs sunk into her flesh as if her muscles were butter. The spider raised its poisonous pincers into the air, ready to bite. Ottilie struck out with the stick, just missing the spider as it withdrew, but hitting her own leg so hard that she cried out in pain.
Blood seeped through eight holes in her trousers but she was well enough to clamber to her feet. Forcing her breath to dive deeper, Ottilie pulled Scoot up beside her.
Another spider shot at her face. Scoot grunted and nearly knocked it out of the air with his stick, missing by half an inch. They were surrounded. Back to back, Ottilie and Scoot raised their sticks and faced the nightmarish swarm.
Ottilie was sure this was going to be the end of her. Her pulse pounded deafeningly in her ears and all she kept thinking was, They go for the heart. She took a deep breath, gripping the stick so hard her fingers cramped.
There was a moment of stillness.
A shape leapt out from the shadows; an enormous white feline, covered ear to claw in dark spots. Mid-leap, it caught a spider in its jaws, shook its head and flung it away in a shower of black shiny shards.
Hero, thought Ottilie.
Hero sounded out a series of guttural, grunt-like roars. The leopard’s call was answered immediately by a distant howl, followed by another and another. Ottilie shivered, but it was a good shiver. The howling somehow fortified her, replenishing her courage, returning her hope.
In an instant they were surrounded by a pack of snarling dusky wild dogs, their bright amber eyes fixed on the spiders hovering above. The spiders seemed unfazed. Thirty-two legs still danced horribly in the air, and their jarring noise still crawled over her skin, pinching, pricking and scraping as it hummed.
Without warning, the remaining spiders shot at Scoot. Hero leapt again, knocking Scoot sideways, taking one spider in her jaws and striking another out of the air with her paw. It was caught by a shepherd, crushed between its teeth and tossed aside into the dark.
‘Get down!’ someone yelled from behind.
Ottilie and Scoot threw themselves to the ground.
An arrow shot overhead. It pierced a spider squarely between the pincers. Impaled, and dripping with dark tar-like goo, the spider plummeted down, landing with a crunch by Ottilie’s arm.
She didn’t recognise the huntsman. He was off-duty, in a daywear uniform, and with the exception of a bow, he wasn’t armed. The huntsman seemed to think the danger had passed. He took a step towards them – then suddenly lurched forwards.
‘They’ll sneak up behind …’
It happened in an instant. Mid-fall, his eyes widened and he cried out in pain. Ottilie stepped towards him, hand outstretched, searching for some way to help. In the blink of an eye his shirt tore open over his heart and eight hairy black legs emerged, followed by the great shiny body of the fifth flying spider.
The monster crawled out of the huntsman’s chest as if it were creeping out of a hole in a tree. Ottilie’s gasp finally escaped her lips as the huntsman hit the ground with a horrible thump.
Scoot got shakily to his feet. There wasn’t time to scream or cry or vomit. The spider was still lingering in the dark, waiting to strike again. It flew at Ottilie. She dove out of the way, scraping her already injured leg against the sharp remains of one of the dead spiders. The shepherds were growling, hackles raised. Hero was bent low, poised to leap.
Ottilie could hear more people approaching. The spider had disappeared, but she knew better than to think herself safe. She sensed motion behind Scoot.
‘Scoot, move!’ she bellowed.
Scoot threw himself back onto the ground. A dagger flew out of nowhere, colliding with the spider in the exact spot where Scoot had been standing. It was not enough to pierce the shiny black armour, but one of its thin wings was crushed by the blow.
It was Leo – he had thrown the dagger. Igor was just ahead of him. The spider writhed and wriggled in the air, losing height. Igor lashed out, slicing it clean in half with a cutlass.
Leo and Igor looked down at the fallen huntsman, lying in a twisted lump upon the ground.
‘It’s Chris Crow,’ said Igor, utterly calm.
Leo didn’t respond.
‘Idiot,’ said Igor, rolling his eyes. ‘Imagine getting taken by a yicker. I can’t believe I only get two points for felling a dredretch that just took out a fourth-tier huntsman. Pathetic.’
For just that moment Ottilie’s head cleared, the numbing clouds of shock pulled back, and she was able to feel true revulsion. It wasn’t only Igor’s indifference that disgusted her, or his cruel attitude. It was that thing, that dredretch, that foul, unnatural monster that had brutally, senselessly slaughtered the brave boy who had just saved their lives. She didn’t think she had ever felt anything so much like hatred in her life.
Leo looked like he was about to punch Igor, but before he could, a group of huntsmen and wranglers appeared. Jaw clenched, Leo moved over to the fallen huntsman and gently rolled him into a more dignified position, resting his hand over the gaping hole as if that might somehow mend the damage.
Despite his harsh words, Igor had turned pale. He was looking anywhere but at the fallen huntsman. Ottilie, on the other hand, couldn’t look away. Beside her, Scoot lurched onto all fours and vomited. Less than a minute later, Ottilie did the same.
16
A Change of Heart
It was an ancient Uskler belief that if a person was laid on a funeral pyre without their heart, they could not pass on as they should. The sleeper wouldn’t come for their soul, and they would be pulled down to the underworld to exist eternally among the dark creatures that dwelt there.
Mr Parch said it wasn’t true. He said it was simply a story, and that no human being could pass down to the underworld. A person couldn’t descend those stairs unless t
hey had spent their entire life doing truly evil things, and never felt the least bit sorry, so that by the time they died, their heart was so malformed it could no longer be recognised as human.
Whether it was believed or not, people still acknowledged the tradition, and if someone passed away without their heart intact, great pains were taken to recover and restore it. Such was the case for the heart of Christopher Crow.
‘This was a tragic accident,’ said Captain Lyre, his candlelit face a mask of grim calm.
The fledges were gathered in the largest lounge in their corridor. It was a stark room, with a single square hearth and a shabby tapestry depicting a witch hunt. The yickers had attacked only hours before and Captain Lyre had called an assembly to offer some explanation.
Ottilie was uneasy. For the first time, she felt it might be wrong to leave the Narroway. But how could she stay? Just sitting in this lounge was making her nervous. She was getting far more attention than she liked. What with the bruising and bandages there was no hiding the fact that she and Scoot had been the two fledges involved.
They had been treated for their cuts and scrapes in the infirmary. The young assisting physicians, or patchies as they were called, dabbed leatherwood honey on the puncture wounds on Ottilie’s lower thigh. Sitting quietly, Ottilie overheard them muttering that the huntsmen were still trying to track down the scraps of Christopher Crow’s heart so that he might be burned with as much of it as possible the following day.
The conversation had been so disturbing that Ottilie had barely felt anxious as they cut her already torn trousers, splitting them halfway up her thigh. Only just in time did she think to slump and let her hands rest in the space between her legs, so that the patchies would not notice anything suspicious about her body.
‘It is very important that you understand this sort of thing does not happen here in the Narroway, not within our three stations’ walls,’ said Captain Lyre. ‘Yickers cannot fly higher than the boundary walls. They were constructed at a height specifically calculated to keep the smaller flying dredretches out. And nothing larger will ever make it past our guards undetected.’
Larger? Ottilie squeezed her eyes closed. She had come into contact with two types of dredretches now; jivvies and yickers. Both were horrifying and, by all accounts, small. The thought that there were bigger monsters out there, lurking beyond the boundary walls, should have frightened her, but a peculiar emotion was stifling the fear – a mix of outrage and fury. Ottilie was angry at the dredretches, furious that they existed.
‘These yickers came through a fracture at the base of the wall that should have been discovered and mended long before now,’ Captain Lyre continued, ‘and were it not for the disturbance of the coming storm, our bone singers would have sensed the dredretch presence immediately.
‘This was a rare mishap that has resulted in tragedy. Christopher was an excellent huntsman and he gave his life for a noble cause. This is a very dangerous job, I won’t deny it, but you were chosen for your exceptional potential and we train you very well. It is horribly unfortunate that this occurred so early in your time with us, but perhaps it has helped you to understand how important it is that we continue our fight against the dredretches in the hope of not only keeping the Usklers safe from this scourge, but one day eradicating these monsters all together.’
‘He’s worried we’ve been spooked,’ said Preddy, after Captain Lyre had left.
‘We? You didn’t have those things flying at your face. It’s me and Ott that’s been spooked,’ said Scoot.
They were huddled in a corner of the lounge. Ottilie chose a stiff, orange-cushioned armchair facing away from the rest of the room. She was sick and tired of the staring, and worried that if so many of them kept looking, one of them might somehow figure out she was a girl.
‘Wish they’d all go to bed,’ hissed Scoot, glaring at a group nearby.
‘We should really go to bed,’ said Preddy, brushing his fair hair out of his eyes and covering a yawn.
Prompted by Preddy, Gully yawned loudly – not bothering to cover his mouth. Ottilie gazed at him. In that moment he seemed very young, and it was nearly enough to make her keep her mouth shut – but not quite.
‘The thing is,’ said Ottilie, ‘He’s right.’
‘Who is?’ said Gully, blinking sleepily.
‘Captain Lyre. It actually sort of has helped me understand.’
‘What are you saying, Ott?’ said Scoot, his jaw twitching.
‘We’re too stubborn, you and me,’ said Ottilie, looking Scoot directly in the eye. ‘We were so angry about being brought here in the first place, we couldn’t see the bigger picture.’
‘You can’t be saying you’ve changed your mind!’ he hissed. ‘You can’t want to stick around here after seeing that ranky thing crawl out of his ribs?’
‘I’ve got to say, I’m not so keen on going out there untrained, and I didn’t even see it happen,’ said Preddy. ‘And what is ranky?’
‘That’s part of it,’ said Ottilie. ‘We were crazy to think we could handle ourselves out there alone. Skip said so, I just didn’t want to listen.’
Scoot stuck his jaw out, glaring. He looked as if he were about to bite her head off, but he didn’t speak.
‘But that’s not the main point,’ said Ottilie. ‘If it was just that, then I’d say let’s stay and let them train us, then make a break for it when we think we’ve got a fighting chance.’
‘But you’re not saying that?’ said Gully, watching her closely.
‘No. Seeing those things, seeing what it did to him … for no reason … it just … it ’s not right.’ Ottilie was convincing herself as she spoke. She didn’t want to feel this way, but she did. She was speaking a truth from deep down – something she could no longer ignore. ‘I think, even though the pickings and everything are so wrong … I think the work needs doing, and I want to help.’
‘You want to stay here and hunt those things?’ said Scoot. ‘You’re bonkers, Colter.’
It was mad. She knew it was mad, but something had changed in her that day. Her priorities had shifted. Ottilie couldn’t think about the fact that she was unwelcome. She couldn’t think about going home, or even taking Gully home. She wanted to learn to defend herself, to be strong, and to beat back these monsters that had no place in her world.
‘We’d have to travel through the Narroway to escape … so we’d be facing them either way,’ said Preddy, warming to the idea. ‘At least this way we’re choosing to hunt them, instead of them hunting us.’
‘And we’re hunting them to keep people safe, instead of fighting them off to save our own skins,’ said Gully, picking at a loose thread in his cushion.
‘So you agree then?’ said Scoot to Gully.
‘Think so,’ said Gully, looking up.
‘Skip said to me, you can’t just reset things to the way they should have been – sometimes you have to adapt,’ said Ottilie. ‘We were upset because they didn’t give us a choice to come here, but we can make it our choice to stay. I know we could have escaped … I really believe we could have after a few months of training.’
‘Course we could have!’ said Scoot.
‘And knowing that means it’s our choice to stay or go, really. So I’m making the decision right now that I want to hunt dredretches.’
‘Me too,’ said Gully.
Preddy nodded.
They all looked at Scoot.
‘Oh all right,’ he grumbled. ‘But if I end up having my heart pecked out by a bloody jivvie in a week and a half you’re going to be really sorry you ever made that rousing speech, Ott Colter.’
Later that night, when Preddy and Scoot were snoring, Gully crept onto Ottilie’s bed. A sliver of moonlight framed the window shutters, offering a shred of visibility in the blackness.
‘Can’t you just tell them?’ he whispered. ‘Now that we’re staying …’ his tone was eager. ‘Why don’t you just tell them you’re a girl.’
Ottilie gri
maced. ‘Because I can’t. They’d make me leave … or worse.’ She felt the covers move as Gully scrunched them between his fists.
‘How do you know?’ His whisper was whiny with impatience.
‘Because I do … because … you’ve heard them, they don’t think girls can hunt, or should be allowed to, or both. And don’t forget, they didn’t pick me in the first place. It’s not just that I’m a girl. I was never meant to be here.’
‘But you’re the same as the rest of us in training. You’re better at shooting than me!’ He moved to slap the mattress, but Ottilie grabbed his shoulders.
‘Gully, we can’t talk about this here – not again. Someone could hear,’ she hissed. ‘No-one can know, not even Preddy or Scoot. The more people that know, the more likely it is that someone – any of us – could slip up. Do you understand?’
‘No,’ he said sullenly. ‘I don’t.’
‘Are you all right with what I said? That we’re staying … do you want to?’
Gully fidgeted, and didn’t answer. ‘Do you think Freddie’s noticed? Do you think she cares?’ he said.
Out of habit, Ottilie glanced around the room before taking his hand in hers. ‘Of course she does.’
His shoulders slumped. Ottilie knew he didn’t believe her. She wasn’t sure she believed herself.
‘I do want to stay,’ he said eventually. ‘I like learning this stuff … I want to be good at it. I want to be a huntsman.’
‘Me too,’ said Ottilie. It was the first time she had properly admitted it to herself. She wanted to be one of them. She wanted it more than anything.
17
Stage Fright
Ottilie couldn’t believe how quickly the days flew by. Suddenly there were only four days until the trials. Four days left to train. Four days until she would be locked in an arena with an entire flock of what Captain Lyre had called death crows.
How she fared against these monsters would determine her guardian pairing and her permanent station. There was only a one-in-three chance that Ottilie and Gully would remain together. Ottilie knew it, but there was nothing she could do about it, so for now, for the sake of giving herself the best chance of surviving the trials, she buried the thought.
Ottilie Colter and the Narroway Hunt Page 10
