The earth trance came to her as naturally as sliding into her Whisperer’s robe. She closed her eyes for a moment, savouring the rush of feeling that surged up and through her from the living earth.
She reached out and filled the room with her senses. Valderin and his guards stood ready all around her, Ebony behind her on the lintel of the door. And the demon was a nauseous, quaking presence in the centre. Dawn grasped that presence and let the earth’s power flow.
It was over in an instant.
Dawn opened her eyes to the white-washed room. She felt dizzy, but intensely alive.
On the surgeon’s table there was nothing but an ashy shadow.
Ebony swept down and landed lightly on her shoulder. It’s gone, she said. You did it.
The awe in Ebony’s voice was reflected in the stares of Valderin and his guards.
She had done it. For the first time, Dawn felt a sense of true belonging. She was the Palace Whisperer, and ridding the kingdom of Narlaw was what she had been born to do.
CHAPTER 15
The morning sun draped the great forest with soft golden light and the air thrilled with birdsong.
They’re back, thought Alice as she trampled through the undergrowth. The birds are back.
Storm had raced ahead with the other wolves and Alice had to reach out with her sense to check she had not strayed from their trail. Even such a gentle use of her ability brought a strange, heady feeling. After last night – the battle and the banishing – she felt so exhausted that the slightest exertion threatened to topple her.
She could hear Owen and the other villagers following her through the forest. They had struck out in search of the missing hunters as soon as the Narlaw were banished. Alice walked painfully slowly, often stumbling, catching her boots in the thick weeds and grasses that tangled between the trees. Still, none of the villagers overtook her. She could sense the change in them. Since banishing the Narlaw she was no longer Alice, the twelve-year-old novice from the woods. She was powerful now, someone to fear as well as respect.
In truth, she was afraid of her new-found powers as much as she was proud of them. She had taken a great leap forward but she did not feel quite ready for it; her life had changed – she had changed – and there could be no going back.
A familiar howl brought her back to her surroundings. Storm. She had found something. Despite her exhaustion, Alice found herself running, the desire to find Moraine obliterating everything.
The ground dipped and an uneven wall of rock rose to her right. There were sounds of movement ahead. She saw Storm first, peering back at her in tense anticipation. Then she saw the others.
Some of the villagers lay on their backs, some stood and some sat propped against the trees. All were moving slowly, testing their bodies. Alice recognized some of the hunters, scattered amongst others she didn’t know. She heard Owen shout behind her, calling for his father.
An owl hooted.
Alice swung towards the source of the sound.
There was Hazel on a low branch, her head angled in that quizzical, owlish way.
And there, struggling to her knees, was Moraine.
Alice charged into a strong embrace and almost knocked her mentor back to the ground.
Moraine grasped her with weak arms. “My dear,” she murmured. “Where have I been?” She looked dazed, puzzled at having woken in the depths of the forest, but she was smiling.
“It’s all right,” said Alice. “You’re back.”
Moraine nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
Alice held her tight, and all around them people rose gradually from the ghost-sleep, meeting their loved ones in the brilliant light of a new day.
The morning waned and a mist settled on the forest as they made their way home. Moraine recovered her strength gradually and Alice used the journey to tell her what had happened in the village. She could sense Moraine was disappointed in herself – for failing at the banishment, perhaps, or for doubting Alice and Storm at the beginning. The pain was etched into her weary face alongside the proud smile she turned on Alice. When they reached the burnt part of the forest Moraine let out a gasp. Alice made to steady her against the shock, but seeing the charred trees and her cottage half destroyed by the flames seemed to raise Moraine from her daze. Together, they set about salvaging all they could from the remains of their home.
It was then, with the mist curling through the trees like a cruel imitation of smoke, that Alice saw the raven.
It was perched on a twisting, fire-damaged branch of one of the oaks that stood beside the cottage – a dash of pure black against the mottled forest. Alice lowered the basket she was carrying as she felt the raven’s presence reach out to her. Moraine stepped up beside her and stopped, feeling it too.
Images arrived in Alice’s mind, an ancient, wild kind of whispering. She saw the shining yellow stone of the capital city of Meridar, the flags flying and a sky racing with cloud and she knew without words that this was a summons.
The images vanished.
Alice watched the raven twitch on the oak branch. Its beak was a great shining curve.
“A war council,” Moraine said.
“Yes,” said Alice.
Off through the trees there was a thump and clatter of hooves – riders approaching on the north road. The raven tilted its head and swept itself into the sky, huge and black. Alice watched it rise behind the forest canopy, setting the high leaves shaking as it passed. Its presence dimmed and was gone.
“Wait here,” said Moraine, creeping cautiously towards the road.
Alice followed and Moraine was about to repeat her command when she paused and nodded. She beckoned Alice to join her, as an equal.
From a safe distance they watched the road. It was just wide enough for a cart to pass and it stretched away for some fifty paces before vanishing in a sharp turn. The thud of hooves grew louder and the first of the riders turned the corner and emerged from the mist.
“The palace guard,” Moraine whispered.
There were at least twenty riders, wearing black-plumed helmets and black capes atop burnished armour. Their horses were armoured, too, with thick leather padding down their noses and flanks.
Alice stepped out on to the road beside Moraine. The riders reined their horses in, churning the muddy surface of the road.
“Are you of Catchwood village?” a woman’s voice bellowed down from the first horse. The gold edging on her cape marked her out as the leader.
Alice met the woman’s steely blue eyes. Those eyes held a look of duty-bound authority, though it was tempered by uncertainty and deep exhaustion.
“We are the Whisperers of that village,” Moraine said. “It was we who sent word of the Narlaw.”
“Are the demons near?” the guard asked.
Behind her, the rest of the detachment had formed two defensive lines, facing both ways into the dense forest.
“The demons are gone,” Moraine said. “There was a battle. My apprentice, Alice, banished them to the Darklands.”
The lead guard stared down at Alice with unconcealed surprise. “This little one?” she said.
Alice was about to respond to what felt like condescension when the woman gave an admiring nod.
“Well, it seems you breed your girls tough in the north,” she said.
Moraine nodded proudly. She glanced at Alice. “We will be journeying to Meridar,” she said. “A council has been called.”
The woman gave Moraine a strange look, as if a Whisperer’s secret knowledge was something never to be understood.
“Is that so?” said the guard. “Then we will supply you with an escort when our task here is done.”
Moraine spoke with the guard, explaining what had happened and what needed to be done, but Alice couldn’t concentrate. She glanced back into the trees with a shiver. She could feel Storm, but not see her.
I must leave the forest, she whispered.
Anywhere you go, I will go, said Storm.
The horses left them by the roadside in a thunderous rush and Alice continued to stare into the trees. She felt Storm there, along with the immense, shifting presence of the forest, and she held on to them both as if they were suddenly more precious than air.
They met at the village gates at dusk – Alice, Moraine, Hazel and Storm. Alice felt her own trepidation mirrored through the companion bond.
The leader of the palace guards came with two of her riders and two spare horses. The rest of the guards would stay in the village as a garrison to help defend against further attack.
A small crowd had gathered to see them off: Owen, Elder Byrne and many of those who had been saved from the ghost-sleep. Alice accepted their thanks with great embarrassment. She hugged Owen awkwardly and then it was time to go on their way.
Alice clambered on to her horse, a docile, tan-coloured animal who was not at all bothered by Storm’s presence beside her. Moraine mounted a small, black stallion, with Hazel perched on her shoulder staring imperiously around.
At the head of the column rode a lantern-bearer. The lantern threw orange light across the road, stretching the riders’ shadows as they left the village. Alice glanced back to see the village wall and the rooftops vanish from sight. The trees swayed in the evening wind. She smelled the freshness of the leaves, the sweet pine sap and the rich mud. She was leaving the only place she had ever known, away towards strange lands and uncertain times. But Storm was with her, and so she knew that she would be safe.
The lantern swung and the horses’ hot breath hissed into the cool evening air. Alice held fast to the reins and let the calm, patient creature carry her away towards the palace and the council of war.
Read on for an extract from
WARNING CRY
the second book in the
Guardians of the Wild series,
coming soon!
The sun rose behind Sleeping Rock and, as its rays crested the summit, long shafts of light speared into the savannah – pink, orange, brilliant white. The earth woke, insects buzzed into the air and the acacia trees shifted in the breeze.
Nara stood at the front of the house, her pack, bow and arrows beside her and her water skin hitched to her belt. She would miss this sight. Sleeping Rock would always be home to her, no matter how glad she was to be leaving.
She could hear her father in the kitchen, cleaning up after breakfast. Her mother was tending to the cows, milking them in her quick, orderly way; and Nara’s sister, Kali, was busy cleaning out the chicken sheds and collecting eggs to sell at the next market.
All this hard work going on around her felt like a reproach. Nara was a Whisperer, not a farmer. She had been chosen on the day she was born, when a single white feather landed at the door of her parents’ home.
Everybody knew that Whisperers were vital to the kingdom of Meridina, that they were healers and channelers of the earth’s power, that they had saved the kingdom from destruction in the past. But still Nara’s parents had cursed the arrival of the white feather, along with the raven who had delivered it.
What good was a Whisperer to a farmer’s daughter? What use were a Whisperer’s skills when only hard work and experience could put food on the table?
Nara was a good Whisperer – she could heal, she could communicate with almost any kind of animal and she could set protective wards that kept predators at bay. But her daily training took her away from the family farm and, at the age of twelve, she still couldn’t milk a cow properly, or separate a herd for market or plant maize that would grow in the crumbly red soil of their farmland.
Although her parents never said so, Nara knew she was a disappointment. It was clear in the way they constantly praised her sister. Kali was devoted to the farm in a way that Nara never could be.
And now the raven had visited their home once again. It had come like a falling shadow, bringing Nara an urgent message from the palace in Meridar. She had closed her eyes and the raven had placed images in her mind. She had seen a strange, dense forest – more green than she had ever imagined. And between the trees she had seen the Narlaw, the shape-shifting demons she had learned so much about in her Whisperer training. In the raven’s vision they took the forms of women, men and wolves, and Nara had felt a terrible chill run through her. A hundred years had passed since these demons were last banished to the Darklands. But the raven’s message was clear: the Narlaw had returned and Nara, along with all of the Whisperers of Meridina, must journey to the palace for a council of war.
Despite her anxiety, Nara had needed no further convincing to leave. She had packed her things and, one day later, here she was, ready to go.
She watched the morning light creep over the clefts and ridges of Sleeping Rock. Behind her, on the far side of the house, the cattle lowed and snorted in their pens – those great grey cows whose bristly chins Nara had always loved to stroke.
Today she would leave all this behind. Her parents didn’t understand the responsibility of a Whisperer – that Nara had been born to protect the wilds, and that the Narlaw were the biggest threat there had ever been.
Nara was determined to show her family who she really was, to go from healer to warrior and banish the demons just like Queen Amina had a hundred years ago. She felt a ripple of fear at the thought. She had learned the theory of banishment from Lucille, her mentor, but to be faced with a real, shape-shifting demon was a different matter all together. They were stronger than three men combined and they could steal your form and drop you into an endless, dreamless sleep at a single touch…
Nara gripped her bow tightly and breathed the cool morning air. She reached out with her Whisperer sense and felt the world around her – the sway of the grass, the bush larks darting overhead. All of this would be gone if the Narlaw were allowed to return. The demons lived only to destroy, feeding on the living parts of the world as a fire feeds on dry timber.
Her journey would span the length of the kingdom, up into the cold and unknown north. To where the ravens roosted and the Darklands threatened from beyond the mountains.
Paws padded lightly on the earth behind her, reminding Nara that she wouldn’t be facing these challenges alone. She turned as her leopard companion, Flame, emerged from inside.
Some things are worth rising early for, Flame said.
Her words rang out in Nara’s mind and the bond between them grew warm at Flame’s approach.
Do you think they have mornings like this in the north? whispered Nara.
Flame squinted into the sunrise and flicked her long, black-tipped tail.
Not like this, she said.
No, said Nara. Not like this.
Nara lay her hand on the soft, patterned fur of her companion’s back. Flame was slender and proud, the colour of the savannah itself. She could vanish in the shadows of any acacia tree.
A cool day, said Flame, flaring her nostrils.
Nara nodded. There was a thinness to the air, the clouds gathering and shifting.
A good day for a long walk, she said.
Flame looked up at Nara, those sand-coloured eyes regarding her intently.
A long walk we’ll take together, Flame said.
The sun had crested the long, barren summit of Sleeping Rock and the savannah was doused in its light – the wide-spaced acacia and date trees, the tufts of red-grass and dropseed.
How cold do you think it is in Meridar? asked Nara.
Colder than we could imagine, said Flame, pacing a circle around Nara.
Well, I’m glad I packed my thickest blanket, said Nara. Us fur-less creatures have to be careful.
Perhaps we should go, said Flame. I don’t think there’s going to be a big farewell party.
Copyright
STRIPES PUBLISHING
An imprint of Little Tiger Press
1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,
London SW6 6AW
First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2015.
Text copyright © Kris Humphrey, 2015
Illustrations copyright © Chellie Carroll, 2015
eISBN: 978-1-84715-632-7
The right of Kris Humphrey and Chellie Carroll to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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A Whisper of Wolves Page 10
