‘We have to find shelter and a place to rest for the night,’ Flint said. ‘Blu needs dry clothes, a fire and warm food.’ He scoured the banks of snow either side of him. ‘The grizzlies hibernate in the Never Cliffs so if we find a bear cave we can bed down there.’
‘With the bears?’ Eska shifted. ‘Or will they have finished hibernating?’
Flint rolled his eyes. ‘It’ll just be us. Now, come on, before we lose the light completely.’
It took them an hour to find a bear cave in the end and it was Eska who spotted the opening between a cluster of trees on the mountainside. They helped Blu inside the rocky den and, while Pebble snuggled close to her, Flint lost no time in gathering kindling for a fire and branches for bedding and Eska prepared the remaining ptarmigan. Before long, they had a fire flickering and the colour returned to Blu’s cheeks, and though the Ice Queen’s anthem rolled out again that night, even louder than before, and Eska’s voice was ebbing away, Flint refused to be afraid. Because their strange little tribe was together still – and they had a plan – and through the short night he knew that Balapan would keep guard.
They left the cave early the next day, with the notes of the Ice Queen’s anthem ringing in their ears, and journeyed on through the Never Cliffs under a sunless sky: hiking slopes so steep they bent into a crawl, traversing ridges so narrow they hardly dared breathe and skiing through valleys so vast and white it was almost impossible to tell which way was up or down against the clouds.
Flint paused, panting, before the summit of yet another mountain. ‘I can see how the Ice Queen never found the Feather Tribe . . .’
Eska and Blu pulled up beside him.
‘We’ll find them,’ Eska said. Then she nodded to Balapan wheeling above them. ‘Remember the Ice Queen didn’t have the wild on her side.’
Blu pointed to the snowy overhang a few steps further up the mountain. It was lined with enormous icicles that hung down in turquoise fangs.
‘Don’t like them. Horrid,’ Blu said, shrinking inside her furs.
Flint looked at the row of ice daggers and shuddered. Something about them did feel oddly sinister. ‘Let’s keep going until we get over the top of this mountain, then we’ll strap on our skis, find a safe spot for food and—’
His words were cut short as one of the icicles dropped into the snow at his feet. It stuck in the snow like a lance.
Flint shook himself. ‘Skis on now. Let’s get some speed around the side of this mountain.’
Blu frowned. ‘You said top of hill for skis.’
Flint eyed the fringe of icicles. ‘Not any more. Something doesn’t feel quite right about this slope.’
Another shard of ice fell from the overhang and, from Flint’s hood, Pebble whimpered. And then more and more followed until the entire row of icicles was raining down like a flurry of spears. A barrier of criss-crossed ice lay before them and, up in the sky, Balapan screeched.
Flint’s flesh crawled. This was a mountain bidden to obey the Ice Queen and they were right in the midst of it.
Yanking Blu’s boots into their bindings, Flint tried to ignore the strange clicking, clattering sound coming from below the overhang. But when Eska looked up and gasped, he couldn’t ignore it any more and he watched, pulse thrashing, as the shards of ice gathered themselves up into a figure the size of a very tall tree. Its body glittered, its fingers were long, sharp slices of ice and all around its gaunt head barbs of frosted hair jutted. But it was the mouth that made Flint tremble: a dark cave strung with glinting icicles. The figure blew out – a deep, heaving breath as if waking from a long slumber – and his ice teeth rattled.
‘He’s – he’s real!’ Flint stammered.
Eska recoiled. ‘Who is?’
Flint tightened his hood round Pebble, grabbed Blu’s hands and pushed with his poles. ‘Needlespin!’ he yelled. ‘The ghoul that haunts the Never Cliffs!’
Jamming her poles into the snow, Eska led the way round the side of the mountain.
‘Ski! Fast!’ she cried.
Down they went, undoing hours of hard climbing, but that didn’t matter now because Needlespin was scuttling closer, wielding a silver-spiked ball and chain, and, though Balapan dived at him again and again, he barged her out of the way – and stormed on.
‘Visitors?’ he cackled. ‘Running away so soon?’
His voice was full of spiked edges and at the end of every sentence the words snapped off like broken ice.
Eska turned panicked eyes to Flint.
‘Keep going!’ she shouted. ‘Keep going!’
But Needlespin was gaining on them, closing the children in between two mountains. Eska scanned the slopes for a crossing point until her eyes rested on a fallen boulder covered in snow that was wedged between the mountains.
She took in the vast drop below it – several hundred metres, at least – then she found herself pointing towards the boulder with her ski pole. It was the only way.
‘Across there!’ she bellowed, nipping from the mountainside on to the boulder.
Blu followed with Flint close behind.
‘You think I won’t leave my mountain?’ Needlespin screeched.
And he leapt over the gap between the slopes as if he was jumping over a puddle. He landed in a crouch and his icicled limbs creaked. Then he looked up, his teeth jangling. ‘Not when I’ve been given orders by the Ice Queen to hold you here.’
Eska’s mind whirled as they skied on down the next mountain. She thought about the inventions stashed inside Flint’s rucksack and the quiver on her own back, but there was no time to reach for anything like that because Needlespin was now swinging the ball and chain above his head.
‘Ice!’ he shrieked, thumping the spiked ball down into the snow. ‘More ice!’
And Blu, Flint and Eska screamed because, beneath their skis, they felt the mountain harden into a slope of bruised ice. Their skis lost grip, their poles clattered against the surface and, like three runaway marbles, they shot down the mountain.
Balapan plummeted, too, but she was thinking faster, seeing faster, bending the wind to suit her own purpose and missing the treetops and jutting overhangs by the slightest turn of her feathers. The eagle called out above a lip of ice.
Eska summoned up her voice until it was as loud as she could make it. ‘Point your skis towards Balapan!’
‘That’s a jump!’ Flint screamed. ‘We’ll soar for miles! Blu won’t manage the landing!’
But Eska was tilting her skis towards the eagle now, towards the mound of glittering ice scooping up to the next mountain, and, with no better ideas, Flint snatched Blu’s hand and steered his little sister after Eska. Pebble’s eyes grew large as they neared the lip.
And, close on their heels, Needlespin sniggered. ‘You can’t outrun me, children! Wherever you go, I’ll find you!’
His words echoed through the Never Cliffs, but Eska, Flint and Blu careered on and then – one, two, three – they were soaring off the ice lip, climbing the height of the mountain opposite, in the air.
They landed with a poof in powder snow, a tangle of skis, poles and limbs, before a cluster of trees dripping with icicles.
Flint twisted round to face Blu. ‘Are you okay?’
Blu’s bottom lip was wobbling. ‘I scared, Flint. Scared.’
Eska glanced around. ‘I think we’ve lost Needlespin . . . Maybe he could only cross those first few mountains?’
Pebble scrambled out of Flint’s coat and peered closer at a tree behind them. He took a few steps forward and the silence throbbed. Then, as Balapan veered towards them, Eska spotted a movement within the trees. A silver-blue eye flicked open between the branches, an icicled claw curled round a trunk and then, as Pebble clattered back towards Flint, Needlespin burst out from behind a tree.
‘Did you miss me?’ the monster spat.
He lumbered towards them and the group scrambled to their feet and launched their skis down the mountain. But they could hear Needlespin’s ball and cha
in whirring in circles and as it spun above him a torrent of icicles shot out from the silver spikes, narrowly missing the children’s furs.
‘Ice spears!’ Blu cried.
Flint clutched her hand for a moment. ‘Keep going! Just keep going!’
But Eska had learnt to listen when the panic crowded in – to eagles, to the wild and to the quiet beat of her heart. Whitefur, it was saying. Remember what Whitefur said to you back in the Giant’s Beard. And, as she darted between trees and swerved round humps and dips in the snow, she thought of her hideaway behind the waterfall and how a man who might or might not have been an Erkenbear had filled it with Diamond Dust.
‘Whitefur,’ she whispered. ‘Whitefur.’
Flint shot her a glance as he stooped beneath a branch. ‘What?’
‘Whitefur,’ Eska said again as one of Needlespin’s icicles whizzed past her ear. ‘At the time when you need help most, say my name – that’s what Whitefur said!’
And as Needlespin roared behind them, his teeth jangling like hollow bones, Flint and Eska shouted Whitefur’s name. Again and again they bellowed it and at first Needlespin simply laughed and hurled out another batch of icicles.
Then a curious thing happened. Tiny flecks of shimmering silver puffed out into the air around Flint and Eska and no matter how many times Needlespin pitched his weapons he couldn’t hit the boy or the girl. The icicles simply bounced off the shell of sparkling snow and clattered to the ground.
‘Whitefur’s Diamond Dust,’ Eska breathed. ‘It’s protecting us!’
Then she watched, aghast, as Needlespin charged down the mountain behind them and tossed a spear at Blu. It struck her on the elbow and she cried out in pain. Flint swerved towards her, taking a little of her weight.
‘Say Whitefur’s name, Blu. It will help you!’
Blu leant into her brother’s side as they skied. ‘Don’t understand. Don’t understand.’
‘Yes, you do, Blu. You do. Trust me. Say Whitefur’s name.’
‘White – Whitefur,’ she stammered.
‘Yes, Blu! Again – louder this time.’
Blu flung the Erkenbear’s name out into the Never Cliffs as Needlespin’s spear careered towards her. ‘Whitefur! Whitefur! Whitefur!’
The icicle crashed to the ground and all around her the Diamond Dust danced. Blu, Flint and Eska flew on down the mountain, shooting off bumps and veering round trees.
‘Now what?’ Flint shouted to Eska.
‘Follow Balapan.’
And though Needlespin scuttled over the snow towards them, flinging his ball and chain against the trees, they followed the eagle – until it circled a cliff edge with a terrifying drop beneath. Flint turned to Eska as they raced towards it.
‘No,’ he breathed.
Balapan plummeted down and then tucked her wings in just before she hit the snow. She soared up into the sky again and, with one eye on the snow and one eye on her eagle, Eska tried to understand what Balapan was saying.
‘Pull up at the last minute,’ she panted, tucking into a ball to quicken her pace. ‘And grab whatever you can to stop yourself from falling. Trust me!’
Behind them, Needlespin’s voice hacked through the air. ‘Over you go! Splinter splat! You’ll be easier to guard with broken bones.’
Eska, Flint and Blu were level now and, as they sailed towards the cliff edge with Needlespin just metres behind, they yanked their weight sideways, slipped off the edge and then clung to the tops of the trees immediately beneath.
Needlespin charged over the lip, his arms wide, ready to crush the children in his icy grasp, but they were nowhere to be seen. And as the monster leapt into the air he realised his stride had been too big – too greedy – because he’d overshot his prey and the trees they clung to and far, far below, snaking through the cliffs, was the one thing that could break him.
Black ice.
The frozen river loomed like a shadow and Needlespin picked up more and more speed as he hurtled towards it, limbs flailing. Then there was an almighty crash as he hit the ice and Eska, Flint and Blu, clutching at the branches of the trees beneath the ledge, watched the broken pieces of Needlespin’s body rattle across the river.
An eerie silence followed and for a while all Flint, Eska and Blu could do was stare at the river below them. Then the Diamond Dust slipped away through the trees and Flint put an arm round Blu’s shoulders.
‘That was close,’ he panted.
‘I think mentioning Needlespin before we set off from the Giant’s Beard would have been helpful,’ Eska replied.
Flint glanced at Blu. ‘I didn’t want to scare her.’
Blu looked down through the branches and wailed.
Eska rolled her eyes. ‘Because finding out this way was so much better . . .’
Flint turned to Blu and hauled her on to a sturdier branch. Then he looked at Eska. ‘You and Balapan saved us back there. We’d never have survived all that without you.’
Eska grinned then she looked around. ‘Maybe don’t tell Tomkin we got Blu jammed into the top of a very high tree.’
Blu pulled at a branch. ‘We tell Ma.’
Flint laughed. ‘Let’s kick these skis off and climb down.’
Balapan was waiting on a rock at the foot of the trees and as they clambered through the lower branches Flint watched as she swooped to Eska’s shoulder and leant against the girl’s cheek. Eska stretched up a hand and ran it over the eagle’s wing and Blu shuffled through the snow towards the eagle.
‘Want to hug Bala.’
It was the name Blu had started using for the eagle and neither Eska nor Flint had corrected her.
‘I’m not sure eagles are very good at hugging,’ Eska said softly. ‘Animals are a bit different from humans.’
Blu tilted her head. ‘Animals hug. Just not with arms.’
And, as she raised her little hand towards Balapan, the eagle loosened her wing and brushed it against Blu’s palm.
‘There. Hug. See?’
Flint ruffled her hair. ‘I’m proud of you, Blu. You were brave just now. Really brave.’
They shared out some mountain cranberries and water, then they strapped on their skis and looked down at the river winding on through the Never Cliffs. A cluster of tundra swans were feeding on algae where the afternoon sun had thawed the ice, but other than that the landscape was absolutely still and, just as Flint was about to suggest they get going, Eska gasped.
‘The river,’ she said quietly. ‘Before the mountains close it in, there are lots of little tributaries branching off from it. And, well, if you squint hard enough, the river almost looks like a giant feather . . .’
Flint peered at the scene below and his eyes widened. ‘You’re right.’
‘Feather Tribe close,’ Blu said.
Flint thought about it. ‘I once heard that the Tusk Tribe used to stand on the cliff tops to the north of the kingdom, then look down at the icebergs and read messages in their shapes.’ He paused. ‘Maybe the Feather Tribe use landmarks as signs, too. Blu’s right; I think they are close . . .’
The three of them skied quickly down the mountain and rather than crossing the frozen river – the episode with the thunderghosts was still fresh in everyone’s minds and Needlespin’s remains lay scattered across it – they hastened along beside it, following its curve and jumping over the tributaries which snaked out into the mountains. They glanced around, eagerly searching for any signs of civilisation, while Balapan flew overhead. And, when Pebble realised that Needlespin was no longer a threat, he leapt down from Flint’s hood and joined in the hunt.
The fox pup bounded ahead, sniffing at the snow and padding carefully across the tributaries, but, when the mountains closed in again and just the main river ran on through a narrow gully, Pebble started barking.
‘Shhhh, Pebble,’ Flint hissed. ‘We can’t afford to draw attention to ourselves.’
But still the fox pup barked and Flint noticed then that he was pawing at the snow on the mou
ntainside to their right.
Eska frowned. ‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘What has he found?’
‘I think he’s caught a scent and wants us to follow it.’
Flint hurried closer to Pebble and noticed a shelf of rock hanging out above the path, a few metres above the fox pup. In a swish of feathers, Balapan landed on it, then she stayed very still.
‘Something about this mountain is important,’ Eska said slowly. ‘Both Pebble and Balapan know it.’ She took a step beneath the ledge and her eyes widened. ‘Look at this!’
Strung from the tip of the ledge right down to the base of the mountain was a giant spiderweb laced in ice. It hung in delicate spirals, each loop coated in dashes of frost as thin as silver eyelashes, and Flint knew, as he gazed upon it, that magic was involved. Then he saw how: the centre of the web was a cluster of ice and on it sat a spider. It was the size of a fist and as clear as glass.
‘An ice spider,’ Flint murmured. ‘They usually spin ice unless it’s a clear night, then they spin moonlight.’ He paused. ‘It’s beautiful, but how is it going to help us?’
They watched quietly as the spider left the middle of its web. Then Flint understood – the web was not complete – the spider was spinning still and the gossamer it spun did not fill the spaces left with ordinary loops. Words were appearing, silver words that shone in the twilight.
‘It – it’s trying to tell us something,’ Eska breathed.
No one dared speak until the spider had stopped and two words glistened in the web.
CHIN DOWN
Flint turned to Eska. ‘Chin down? I don’t understand.’ He threw his hands up. ‘We’ve only got three days to stop the Ice Queen and we’re faced with an ice spider spinning nonsense! We need to find the Feather Tribe!’
‘Chin up,’ Eska said. ‘I heard you say that to Blu when you were trying to encourage her to keep going through the Never Cliffs this morning.’
Flint turned away from the web and looked on down the path through the mountains. ‘Yeah, well, this spider got it wrong then because it’s saying Chin Down which makes no sense at all.’
Sky Song Page 12
