Sky Song

by Abi Elphinstone

  He grabbed Blu by the hand, but to his surprise he found her reluctant to move on.

  ‘Come on, Blu. We’ve no time for this!’

  But his sister didn’t move. She kept her head down and her eyes fixed on the base of the mountain. ‘Chin down,’ she said. ‘Put chin down, Flint. Look.’

  Flint tucked his chin into his chest and followed Blu’s gaze then he saw what she was looking at – something they would have missed completely had Blu not listened to the spider’s instructions. There, nestled into the base of the mountain, was a very faint, dome-shaped crack in the snow as if, perhaps, someone had opened a way into the rock not so long ago.

  Flint and Eska brushed the snow away until they found what they had been looking for: a door carved into the cliff face with a small skull acting as a handle.

  ‘A bird skull,’ Flint breathed. ‘Snowy owl, it looks like.’ And then his face broke into a grin. ‘The snowy owl is the symbol of the Feather Tribe. I think we’ve found the way into the Lost Chambers!’

  They turned to see the spider drop to the ground then it scuttled down the path, on into the mountains. But as it went they noticed it didn’t leave a trail of thread or tiny pricks where its feet marked the snow. It left footprints. Human footprints. And as Flint looked at them he remembered Whitefur’s words: Good luck in your search for the Lost Chambers. And remember, you have the wild on your side and the wild doesn’t play by ordinary rules.

  ‘That was a Wanderer, wasn’t it?’ he whispered to Eska. ‘Like how Whitefur was an Erkenbear but also a man. That spider – it was . . . I don’t know what it was! But it was one of your kind, I’m sure of it.’

  Eska’s eyes were wide. ‘Do you think one day I’ll learn how to shape-shift into wild creatures?’

  Flint smiled. ‘Wouldn’t put it past you.’ He looked at his little sister. ‘You were right to trust that spider, Blu; to wait until you understood what it was saying.’

  Blu nodded. ‘I clever.’

  And though Flint was used to waiting for Blu, used to her dawdling behind and not understanding, this time she took his hand and, shivering, led him into the mountain.

  Eska followed with Balapan on her shoulder. They were in a passageway large enough to stand in and balanced on the rocky ledges either side of them were halved eggshells of every colour imaginable – speckled green, turquoise, mottled purple, gold – and inside each one a candle flickered.

  Flint pulled the door shut behind them, then his eyes travelled over the eggshells as they walked on. ‘Peregrine, pintail, lesser snow goose, red-winged sparrow, mountain bluebird. This is the Feather Tribe all right! Only they would know where to find the eggs of birds like these.’ And then he gulped as he remembered the reception his tribe had given Eska. He slid a glance at his friend who was looking equally nervous. ‘Just leave the conversations to me,’ he said.

  Eska nodded, then she laid her hand on Balapan’s talons and Flint thought it looked a little like the bird and the girl were walking hand in hand.

  Pebble hurried ahead, but, after a few minutes, he stopped and cocked his head to one side. Because blocking the way ahead was a large bird with a long, scooped neck and a fan of white feathers that filled the entire tunnel. It looked like a peacock and yet its colouring was different; this bird was as white as freshly fallen snow.

  Flint blinked in disbelief. ‘That’s a moonflit!’

  Eska gulped. ‘Is that good or bad? I didn’t come across them in my training with Balapan.’

  Flint rubbed his eyes. ‘Neither. It’s just – unlikely. Impossible even . . . These birds have been extinct for centuries!’

  Eska peered closer. ‘Look at its feathers. Each one has a circular pattern on it.’

  Flint nodded. ‘Eyes, our ancestors used to say, because moonflits can see beyond ordinary things – into hearts and minds and—’

  Blu squealed as the white markings flicked a fraction to reveal hundreds of grey, staring eyes.

  ‘I don’t know how the Feather Tribe got hold of this creature but I think it’s acting as a guard,’ Flint whispered. ‘I think if the moonflit lets us past it means it trusts us.’

  Very slowly, the feathered eyes opened and closed and then the bird lowered its tail feathers into a sweep of white and backed into the shadows so that the group could see what lay beyond. Darkness. A space so black there was no difference between blinking and keeping your eyes wide open. Flint lifted Pebble into his hood, then, holding Blu’s hand still, he shuffled forward.

  Eska tiptoed after them. ‘Is it a dead end?’

  Blu moaned. ‘I want home, Flint. Tired. Cold.’

  Flint squinted into the black, but, just as he was about to speak, there was a creak and then a click behind them. And he knew immediately what had just happened. A door in the dark had been closed.

  They had walked straight into a trap.

  Eska felt Balapan leap from her shoulder, but as she reached out with scrabbling hands they met with wooden bars ahead, around and behind. Eska gulped. They were locked inside a cage. She swung her skis down to grab her bow and heard Flint unsheathe his Anything Knife.

  Then a voice in the dark spoke. ‘Who are you?’ It was a boy who sounded only a little older than Eska and Flint.

  ‘Two – two of us are Fur Tribe,’ Flint stammered. And then he paused and added hopefully, ‘Fur Tribe warriors and—’

  ‘Need fire,’ Blu whimpered. ‘Cold toes.’

  Another voice slithered out of nowhere. A girl this time and her tone was frostier than the boy’s. ‘They don’t sound like warriors to me. I vote we let our arrows fly.’

  ‘I’m a Wanderer,’ Eska said. ‘Wolftooth’s daughter. He came to you before the battle at Winterfang.’

  Her words were met with a deathly hush, then the girl’s voice came again and each word was coated in hate. ‘You’re not welcome here. Your father is the reason ours are gone. If he hadn’t come and stirred up ideas of fighting the Ice Queen, maybe ours wouldn’t have left the Never Cliffs.’ She paused. ‘You’re the reason we lost our tribe.’

  The boy spoke again. ‘Easy, Rook. Remember the moonflit. It let them pass.’

  But there were murmurings now – dozens of voices clamouring in the dark.

  ‘Get her out!’

  ‘She’s got no right to be here!’

  Eska’s ears churned with the all too familiar sounds of a tribe turned against her and she felt the hopes she’d harboured on her journey through the Never Cliffs sift slowly away.

  And then Rook’s voice came, cool but loaded: ‘We should kill her . . .’

  Eska’s pulse skittered and the voices grew into a knot of angry hisses.

  ‘How dare she show her face?’

  ‘Our parents are gone because of her!’

  ‘She’s probably working for the Ice Queen now!’

  Eska shrank inside her furs and from Flint’s feet Pebble whimpered. Was it to be like this everywhere she went? Walls of loathing that she couldn’t break down?

  The voices rose louder still, the threats grew darker, and Balapan leapt back on to her shoulder. Eska felt the eagle’s talons dig down to her bones, then Balapan cried out, a sharp screech that echoed through the mountain. The voices fell silent.

  ‘Lights,’ the boy in the darkness commanded. ‘Bring up the lights.’

  A scraping sound followed, of metal striking stone, then, one by one, lamps emerged on rocky ledges until, finally, a giant atrium came into view. Enormous dreamcatchers studded with quartz and strung with snowy-owl feathers dangled from the roof while the cavern floor was scattered with loose feathers: red ones striped with black, white ones dashed grey, large black ones, oval downy ones and small electric blues. And there were branches, too, fashioned into chairs and tables in among the feathers. It was like a giant nest.

  But even more extraordinary were the Feather Tribe themselves. The cavern walls were full of scoops and bulges and inside every one was a large wooden birdcage, like the one Eska and her
friends were trapped in, but the doors to these other cages were open. Crouched within were boys and girls, all with black hair and dark skin, and clad in wolf furs with colourful feathers splayed out in a fan over their shoulders and chests. They were armed – each with an arrow poised on a bow – and every single one was pointing at Eska and her friends.

  ‘You have a golden eagle?’

  It was the boy they’d heard speak first and he was standing in the biggest of the birdcages, one tucked into the middle of the far wall. He climbed down the ledges, his electric-blue shoulder feathers glimmering in the candlelight, before striding across the cavern floor. He stood before his prisoners, but his face was softer than Eska expected it to be.

  ‘We only want to ask about the Frost Horn,’ she said quietly.

  Flint nodded. ‘We don’t mean any trouble.’

  ‘I had a dream that you would come,’ the boy said. ‘A girl with a golden eagle asking about the songs we sing of the long-forgotten Frost Horn.’

  Eska lowered her bow and, with Balapan still perched on her shoulder, she gripped the bars of the cage. ‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘Your songs – that’s why we’ve come!’ She glanced down at Blu. ‘And to find proper shelter for our friend; she fell in the lake and the thunderghosts nearly drowned her.’

  There was a snort from behind the boy as a girl with narrow eyes and a fan of black feathers over her upper body slunk forward.

  ‘Lies, Jay. Don’t listen to her. No one could outwit the thunderghosts now that the Ice Queen has them in her power.’ She paused. ‘And there’s something strange about her voice. I don’t like it.’

  Eska recognised the girl as the one who had spoken with such malice a moment ago and she knew she had a choice: back down, as she had done in the Labyrinth, or stand up and try being brave. ‘It’s not lies,’ she said shakily. ‘Flint rescued Blu from the lake with one of his inventions.’

  The boy, Jay, frowned. ‘Inventions?’

  Flint blushed and then mumbled something into his chest, but Eska pressed on. ‘Yes. When he said he was a warrior earlier, he meant to say that he’s an inventor.’ Her voice was rough and gravelly, thanks to the Ice Queen’s magic, but she gathered up her words nonetheless. ‘One of the best that Erkenwald has ever seen.’

  Flint slid a glance to Eska. ‘You really are terrible at conversations.’

  But Jay didn’t wrinkle his nose or scoff at Eska’s words. He just nodded, then he looked at the girl beside him. ‘There is something different about her voice, but I’m not sure it’s something we should fear.’ He paused. ‘And we could do with an inventor in times as dark as these. What do you think, Rook?’

  Rook circled the cage, her dark eyes never leaving Eska’s. Then she shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. But you know what I think of your visions . . . Just because you dreamed of a moonflit protecting us and one turned up to show us the entrance to the Lost Chambers doesn’t mean that we should let an inventor, a Wanderer and,’ she looked down her nose at Blu, ‘a snivelling little nobody into our tribe – especially when they go banging on about the Frost Horn, which we all know doesn’t exist.’

  Flint raised his chin at Rook, his eyes hard, and Eska could feel the anger on Blu’s behalf boiling inside him.

  She reached out a hand and held his arm. ‘Not now, Flint. We need their help.’

  Rook’s words dripped on. ‘They’ll weaken the Feather Tribe, Jay. Mark my words.’

  She sloped off into the shadows and Jay turned back to his prisoners.

  ‘The moonflit trusted you earlier and that’s enough for me, whatever Rook says. But, before I tell you anything about us, I need to know how you found the Lost Chambers when even the Ice Queen and her guards failed to.’ He paused. ‘Prove that you’re against the Ice Queen and her dark magic.’

  And so Flint and Eska told Jay of their escape from Winterfang, of the sleigh chase through Deeproots, of Whitefur’s words about the Sky Song and the Frost Horn and, finally, about the ice spider who had helped them find the Lost Chambers.

  Jay nodded when Eska and Flint finished speaking. ‘You’re a true Wanderer, Eska. Your bond with the golden eagle proves it. And I can sense the power in your voice – despite what the Ice Queen is doing to it.’

  Balapan’s talons squeezed Eska’s shoulder gently and she felt a quiet sense of pride.

  ‘My parents are the Chief and Chieftainess of the Feather Tribe,’ Jay said. ‘And, though they’re locked up in Winterfang, they told me to listen to my dreams – the gift every Chief of the Feather Tribe is blessed with – and I’m listening to them now.’ He lowered his voice and looked straight at Eska. ‘I want to help you.’

  And those last five words cradled Eska in warmth because there was an opening now – a little space in this tribe for Eska and her friends.

  Jay took a key from his pocket and turned it in the birdcage lock. The door creaked open and Eska, Flint, Pebble, Blu and Balapan stepped out into the atrium. But, from the shadows of an alcove, Rook narrowed her eyes and turned a sharp white fang over in her hands. It was the one she had stepped on a few weeks ago while out in the open, the one that had caused her foot to turn black before she pulled it out and the one that belonged, undoubtedly, to a cursed wolverine. And only one person had the power to hex wolverines . . .

  Jay glanced at Blu, then cupped his hands round his mouth. ‘Pipit!’ he called. ‘Take Blu here to the hot springs. She needs a warm bath.’

  Blu clung to Flint. ‘You come, too. My brother. Bath.’

  Flint ushered Blu towards Pipit, a little boy with dreadlocks and green spotted shoulder feathers. ‘I need to talk with Jay. Go along now, Blu.’

  But Blu shook her head. ‘With you. Big brother. And Pebble.’

  For a moment, Flint ground his teeth, then he remembered Blu’s face beneath the Devil’s Dancefloor and how far she had come from all that she knew and loved. And he saw what was really important.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ he said to Eska and Jay and as he walked, hand in hand with his little sister, after Pipit, he couldn’t help feeling that something about Jay was oddly familiar. He racked his brains as he crossed the cavern, but his thoughts were broken by a voice from the shadows.

  ‘Strange kind of warriors,’ Rook muttered.

  Flint tensed as he heard the words, but he kept on walking, out of the main atrium and along another tunnel that widened into a very different chamber. It was smaller than the first and when Flint saw that it was filled with a dozen bubbling hot springs jutting out from the rocks he forgot his anger. He grinned at Blu and moments later they were submerged in the steaming water. Even Pebble found himself kicking about in a smaller pool and Flint wondered then at all the things he’d seen since meeting Eska. It had been a detour worth following, after all.

  They dried themselves with feathered blankets, then slipped back into their furs and returned to the main chamber, where the tribe were sitting round a long table piled with food. Balapan watched from a ledge up among the dreamcatchers, only shifting her gaze to snatch at the mice she found scuttling through the cavern, while Flint and Blu took a seat next to Eska, up by Jay at the head of the table. The Feather Tribe ate quietly, now and again stealing glances at the newcomers and sharing thoughts in guarded whispers.

  Jay swallowed a mouthful of food. ‘We plan to hide here for as long as it takes for the Ice Queen’s rule to crumble. We’re quick-moving and we’re quiet. We can stay one step ahead of her and the Tusk guards in the Lost Chambers.’

  Eska fiddled with her fork. ‘The Ice Queen’s rule isn’t just going to crumble if she fails in her plans – not without me finding this Frost Horn and claiming the Sky Song. Because when the midnight sun rises she and all her prisoners at Winterfang will perish.’ Jay’s face paled and Eska went on. ‘Staying hidden isn’t an option. And, when I blow the horn, I’m going to need help. I’m going to need your tribe to stand alongside me, to fight when the time comes.’

  Flint winced. Eska had gone straight in and now
there was no turning back. ‘The battle at Winterfang was lost because our parents didn’t really know what they were up against,’ Flint said quietly. ‘They tried to fight an Ice Queen with spears and bows, but that’s not enough. We need to call upon,’ he lowered his voice, ‘magic this time. Upon the Frost Horn, the Sky Song, your dreams—’

  ‘—and Flint’s inventions,’ Eska said firmly.

  Flint cringed into his furs. They hadn’t even reached the main course and he and Eska were already talking about magic and inventions.

  But, before Jay could reply to any of this, another voice answered from the end of the table. Rook. She flung her bowl aside and stood up, her eyes scanning the rest of her tribe.

  ‘That Wanderer there wants us to stand alongside her and fight! With magic? The very thing that tore this kingdom apart! She thinks that with the help of our songs, she’ll find the forgotten Frost Horn and use it to defeat the Ice Queen!’ Rook gestured around the cavern. ‘She wants us to risk all this for the sake of a magic that no one believes in any more!’

  There were mumblings from the Feather Tribe as Rook’s poison worked deeper.

  ‘So, what do you say, Jay? You’ve always told us to lay low, out of sight and out of danger.’

  Jay said nothing for a while then he cleared his throat. ‘I wonder, Rook, whether Eska and Flint are right. Hiding away until the midnight sun passes isn’t the answer any more – not when it means risking the lives of all our families trapped in Winterfang.’ He paused. ‘Maybe we do in fact have a fight ahead of us – and, if so, we might need to start trusting in Erkenwald’s magic again.’

  The candlelight glimmered over Rook’s feathers. ‘We were managing fine before your guests showed up. What if they were tailed here by Tusk guards? What if the Ice Queen finds us?’

  The Feather Tribe exchanged anxious glances.

  ‘Or,’ Rook spat, ‘what if fighting means the end for us, like it did for so many of our parents?’

  The boys and girls huddled round the table nodded.