‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
Then she looked down at her feet and sighed. She was glad of the hideaway and all that it meant, but she was also sorry that now the eagle had repaid her favour she might not see it again. Eska’s heart was filled with longing – for family, friends and a home that she remembered – but a little space inside it had opened up for the eagle and, as she dipped her head before the bird now, she hoped that it understood.
The eagle ruffled its feathers, but it didn’t fly away. It just croaked, an impatient noise, as if it was eager for Eska to go inside.
She smiled. ‘All right, all right. I’m going.’
She turned back beneath the waterfall, stepping inside the hideaway and closing the door softly behind her. Then she flopped on to one of the beds, shutting her eyes against the sunlight streaming in from under the door. She knew she should take the spear down to the river – it was past midday and she had to eat – but the furs were so soft around her that, within minutes, she was fast asleep.
When Eska woke, the hideaway was dark and cold. She sat up on the bed and her stomach growled.
‘I should have gone fishing while it was light,’ she muttered, scrambling out of bed and feeling her way down the little tunnel to the window.
She pushed the sack curtains aside and a strip of moonlight fell across the hideaway. Eska pressed her face up against the glass and looked out.
‘Please be there,’ she whispered.
But the stone ledge the eagle had been perched on was silhouetted against the moonlight – and it was empty. Eska turned away. Of course the bird wasn’t there. It had repaid the debt and now it had left. Those were the ways of the wild.
‘Hunt,’ Eska said to herself. ‘You need food. Then a fire.’
For a moment, her mind wandered towards the next day, and the day after that. What was she doing, really? What was her plan? Find the Feather Tribe when not even the Ice Queen, with all her dark magic, could root them out? Use her voice to free the prisoners at Winterfang when she didn’t even understand its power and she knew the Ice Queen now had plans to steal it from afar?
Eska looked around her. Inside the hideaway she felt relatively safe, but she’d have to go out soon – to hunt, to get water and then on to find the Feather Tribe – and she’d be completely and utterly alone. The tasks ahead loomed large, but after a few minutes Eska shook herself.
‘There’s no time for that kind of thinking. I need to work out how to survive out here first. Then I can think about what happens next.’
She grabbed the spear. It had been carved from caribou antler and the end was tipped with a slice of flint bound with animal sinew. Gripping it hard, she opened the door.
And screamed.
There was a dark, round shape just in front of her on the rocks. For a second, Eska was rooted to the ground with fear and then the shape hissed and grew as two large wings flapped open and the eagle hurried to the opening in the waterfall before launching up into the sky. It landed, seconds later, on its ledge and Eska breathed out and laughed.
‘You scared me,’ she said as she crouched in the opening between the rock and the waterfall. And then Eska was silent for a moment as she realised that the eagle wasn’t just perched on a slab of stone. There was a large bundle of sticks on that ledge and the bird was settled inside them. Eska gasped. Those sticks were a nest. This was the eagle’s home.
‘I thought you’d gone,’ Eska said. ‘Most people seem to take off after they’ve met me.’
The eagle yapped as if to disagree, then it shifted its weight. Eska watched. The bird was trying to tell her something – she could feel it – but she couldn’t read its sounds and signals. Then she happened to look behind her, at where the eagle had been when she opened the hideaway door, and there, laid out on the rock, was a bird as white as milk.
‘A ptarmigan,’ Eska breathed.
And then she blinked in surprise. The bird’s name had come to her just like that – as if she’d always known it – and somehow she knew instinctively that she could use the ptarmigan’s feathers to fletch arrows before roasting its meat. Eska stayed very still. Were these memories stirring? Fragments of her past hovering closer? But, when several minutes passed and nothing more came to her, Eska picked up the bird and glanced at the eagle.
‘You caught this for me, didn’t you?’
The eagle yapped again and Eska dipped her head. Hunting for fish could start tomorrow because now she had food and shelter for the night. She stole back inside the hideaway and lit the stove – and, though there was an Ice Queen set on stealing her voice and a wilderness beyond the waterfall that seemed to shake the night air, Eska smiled.
She wasn’t alone now. She had an eagle – a friend – on her side.
Flint sat in the hammock in his bedroom, watching the long evening light beyond a circular window. A turret leaning out to the side of the tree house that he, Tomkin and Blu lived in, Flint’s bedroom was more of a laboratory really. Curved walls were lined with wooden cupboards and inside these were hundreds of bottles, jars, test tubes and funnels filled with bubbling liquids. They were inventions still in progress and Flint always left the cupboard doors open when he was at home; it was important to keep an eye on his contraptions just in case they misbehaved.
He plucked at the silver strands that made up his hammock. He had spun it from moonlight, the gossamer of rare – almost extinct, Flint suspected – ice spiders and after several weeks of experimenting, and consulting the bark which bore the carvings about Erkenwald’s magic, Flint had discovered that the strands guaranteed glorious dreams.
He gazed at some of his other creations lining the upper shelves. A football made of caribou hide and stuffed with a knot of wind which travelled so fast when kicked it was almost impossible for any opponent to stop; a clock that read the weather not the time – it poured snowflakes, fluttered sunbeams and oozed mist; a wooden chest in which he had trapped a thunderstorm (with the result that it let out a loud burp every now and again) and a pinch of stardust, and, if unleashed at precisely midnight, the chest rained silver coins for a month.
He sighed. There were lamps lit by sunbeams and rolls of string made from coils of mist. But everything remained locked inside this turret, usually behind closed cupboard doors, so that Tomkin didn’t fly off the handle when he saw the inventions still very much existed. Flint swayed back and forth in his hammock and wondered whether it was only magic that Tomkin distrusted. It felt a little as if it might be him, too.
‘What wrong, Flint?’ came a little voice from among the cushions on the floor.
The cushions were snow clouds dusted with sunbeams that Flint had invented for comfort and warmth and Blu was a huge fan. She hurled one at Flint, but missed and several jars toppled off a shelf.
‘Shhhhhh,’ Flint whispered, leaping out of his hammock to check that none of the jars had cracked. He placed them back where they belonged. ‘Tomkin’s having a meeting in the kitchen with Blade and – I’ve told you before – you’re only allowed to come in and see my inventions if you keep very, very quiet.’
Blu giggled as Pebble chewed on a cushion. It had been half an hour, at least, since his last meal and the fox pup was already feeling peckish. Blu lifted Pebble into her lap as Flint flopped back into his hammock.
‘You sad, Flint. I know you sad.’
Flint turned a magnifying glass over in his hand. It was infused with rainbow essence and could pick up footprints in the snow long after they had vanished from the naked eye. He’d used it earlier that day, reassuring Tomkin that it was the only one of his inventions that still existed and that it was an invaluable gadget when tracking animals for the tribe, but a small and very guarded part of him had been using it for another reason. To track Eska’s footprints. Because, no matter how hard he tried to stamp her out of his head, he couldn’t.
He thought back to their conversations on the sled. Eska’s ideas had been wild and full of cracks, but Flint knew the power
of wild ideas. And, despite what he had said to her, the line between angry and interested had been blurring. What if Eska had been right? What if Tomkin needed more than just spears and shields to stage a successful rebellion? But how could he convince a whole tribe to trust in magic again on the word of a strange girl?
Flint shifted in his hammock. He’d allowed Eska to be driven out into the wild where he was sure she wouldn’t survive. And, though he’d found her tracks earlier that afternoon, there was now a curfew at the Labyrinth following his unsuccessful mission to Winterfang the day before and Blade had called Flint back before he could follow them for long. So – for all he knew – Eska might be dead already.
Flint swallowed. Outsider or not, she hadn’t deserved this.
Blu settled the fox pup on her brother’s chest, then wrapped her arms round them both. ‘Hug for you.’
Flint smiled.
‘Better?’ Blu asked as she drew back.
‘Better,’ Flint replied, ruffling her hair. ‘Always better after a Blu hug.’
There was a knock at the door – a quick, no-nonsense rap. Flint leapt up from his hammock and smacked a hand down on a wooden button on the wall. The cupboard doors closed, immediately hiding all his inventions from sight, then he shoved the cushions into a trunk, grabbed a spear and a polishing cloth, and turned the key in the door. Tomkin stood before him.
‘Yes?’ Flint asked, rubbing the cloth over the tip of his spear.
‘Lofty’s saying he found the tracks of a sleigh pulled by musk oxen in the forest,’ Tomkin muttered.
Immediately, Flint thought of Eska. There was no way she would have escaped if the Ice Queen had found her.
‘Blade thinks the Ice Queen was here looking for the girl you took from Winterfang.’
Blu cocked her head. ‘Eska. I like Eska.’
Tomkin gave her a stern look. ‘No, Blu. You don’t. She – and your brother – have got us into a mess.’
Blu frowned. ‘Everyone OK?’
‘Yes.’ Tomkin avoided her eyes. ‘But that’s not the point.’ Blu skipped from the room and Tomkin turned to Flint. ‘We need to be careful when hunting. If the Ice Queen found Eska in Deeproots, she’ll assume one of the tribes helped her and are hiding nearby. There’s no sign of the Ice Queen now, but you can bet she’ll send her Tusk guards back to the forest to search the area.’ He paused. ‘So, I’m telling everyone to select hunting grounds wisely and keep watch at all times.’
Flint nodded. It was an effort to keep his mind on his tribe and hunting when he knew for certain now that Eska was at the mercy of the Ice Queen.
‘Any sign of the girl?’ he asked as casually as he could.
‘No,’ Tomkin replied. ‘Lofty turned back at the sight of the sleigh marks.’
Flint scrubbed his spear harder, as if somehow that might undo the guilt he felt inside. He was a part of the Fur Tribe, but Eska’s words had made him question his place here. Why, when he tried so hard to harness the mind of a Fur Tribe warrior, did he end up feeling more and more like an inventor? And why, when the Feather Tribe might know important things – like how best to fight the Ice Queen – did his tribe insist on cutting themselves off? Flint couldn’t help feeling that he was as much of an outsider in the Labyrinth as Eska had been.
‘I’ve doubled the hours on weapon-making and added another fighting session before breakfast,’ Tomkin said. ‘We’ll need to be ready for the rebellion soon – and this time we won’t lose.’
With that, he left the room and Flint slumped on to his hammock. He’d been wary of detours after so many failed missions, but he couldn’t help feeling that Eska was a detour he should have pursued. Regardless of where it might have led him.
Eska crouched on a stone in the middle of the river, squinting against the glare of the morning sun. She didn’t like being out in the open, especially because, until just a few moments before, the valley had been ringing with the Ice Queen’s anthem and Eska kept imagining Tusk guards, sent to drag her back to Winterfang, cresting the summits of the surrounding hills. But none came and she needed to prove to herself that on her first morning here she could find food. The water rushed around her, clear and sparkling and, she hoped, full of fish, because she couldn’t let the eagle do all her hunting – that would be rude – and who knew how long it planned to stay? Maybe it had other nests.
Eska focused on the water, her spear hovering just centimetres from the surface. There was a cry from somewhere above her: the eagle’s call and, so long as the bird was with her, she didn’t feel afraid.
Minutes passed and, just as Eska was beginning to think perhaps there weren’t any salmon swimming in the river, a shot of silver scales flashed beneath the surface. She launched her weapon, but, in her excitement, it wasn’t just the spear she thrust forward. Her whole body went crashing into the icy water, too.
Quickly, she emerged, eyes and mouth wide with shock, and scrambled up on to the bank. The eagle had now landed and stood just a few metres away and, though Eska wasn’t sure whether birds could look unimpressed, she felt that this one did.
She scowled at it. ‘I suppose you’d have known better?’
The eagle glanced at the hideaway, then back to the river and Eska didn’t need to speak eagle to understand what that meant. Get dry. Come back. Try again.
A short while later, Eska emerged from her hideaway, dry and warm. But it was nearing midday now and she still hadn’t caught a fish. She walked along the bank and, just as she was getting ready to jump on to the rock in the middle of the river, the eagle squawked. Eska followed its gaze towards the sun and realisation slowly dawned.
‘My shadow,’ she murmured. ‘It’ll scare the fish . . .’
She wandered a little further downstream until she reached a point where the bank was low and the ice had melted from the edge. She knelt down in the snow and waited and, a few metres away, the eagle waited, too.
After several minutes, though, Eska grew stiff and she shook out her legs and changed position. The eagle hissed and Eska went back to waiting. When ten minutes passed and still no fish emerged, Eska thumped her spear down in the snow.
‘It’s no good.’
But the bird didn’t move. It stayed exactly where it was, its feathers tucked into place, its eyes locked on the river. Eska sat despondently beside the bird, the seconds drifting into minutes, and she began to notice the silence around her. The whole valley was cloaked in quietness, but the longer she waited – and listened – the more the silence spoke. Water murmured, river ice groaned, a ptarmigan’s wings whirred and a weasel scampered up a tree. She had somehow overlooked all this before. And Eska wondered then whether there was more to being a hunter than being big and strong. Perhaps it was just as important to be still – to listen keenly – and to see into the heart of the things that most people missed.
It took over an hour to catch her first fish, but, when Eska lifted the salmon out of the river on her spear, her face glowed with pride.
‘I did it!’ she laughed. ‘I actually did it!’
The eagle ruffled its feathers and Eska found herself wishing that Flint had been there to see this, too. She tried to remember the ritual he’d told her about.
‘Thank you, North Star,’ she whispered, holding the fish up in her hands and glancing at the sky, ‘wherever you are up there. And thank you, little fish, for choosing to submit your life to me.’ She paused. She felt there should be more somehow. ‘It was especially kind of you because I was getting really cold and a little bit uncomfortable sitting out here on the snow. So, you came along at just the right moment. Thank you very much and I hope—’
The eagle hissed so Eska decided perhaps it was time to wrap up the ritual.
‘—that I have honoured the bond between animals and tribes. Even though I’m not strictly in a tribe. Yet.’
She gutted the fish, as she’d seen Flint do, and, with the eagle flying above her, she walked back to the hideaway.
Eska was surprised to
see the bird swoop into the opening behind the ice and watch her, from the platform, as she cooked the fish on her stove. But she didn’t shut the door or pretend the eagle wasn’t there. Instead, she talked as she cooked, feeling glad of the bird’s silent presence.
‘If you’re going to stick around,’ Eska said, ‘I’ll need a name for you.’
The eagle yapped and Eska suddenly wondered whether it was annoyed.
‘Not because you’re a pet,’ she added quickly. ‘More because you’re here and I’m here and—’ She wanted to blurt out that she was lonely, that she was scared to go to sleep because her heart ached even in her dreams, but instead she concentrated on turning the fish, ‘—it would be nice to know your name.’
The eagle yapped again and Eska thought she might have misread the sound before because, now that she listened, she could hear the softness at its core.
‘It should sound wild, this name.’ Eska cut the fish in half. ‘The kind of word the wind might use if it could speak.’ She looked up. ‘Because you’re like the wind, you know. Fast and free and fierce.’ She thought about the eagle showing her the hideaway and teaching her to fish. ‘You’re kinder than the wind though.’
She edged forward and placed half of the fish on the rock outside her hideaway. The eagle stayed where it was and it was only when Eska looked away and began to eat her own portion that the bird tucked into its share.
As they ate, Eska glanced at the eagle now and again. The wound from the snare was healing already and, as the minutes drew on, Eska felt something familiar stir inside her. The bird was proud and strong, but it was also protective – of her, at least – and its character felt like a trait she’d once known. A memory flickered then slipped from Eska’s grasp. But a word remained, a name that was unmistakably female and that to Eska really did sound like the language of the wind.
Sky Song Page 7
