Chasing the Valley (11 page)

Radnor opens the packs and I gasp. The supplies are even better than I'd let myself hope. Each pack contains a massive sack of oats: if we ration carefully, we could live off porridge for weeks. There are two paper bags of dried fruit – apples, fried banana chips and even raisins. There are rocky flour cakes: baked to a dull brown and ready to sustain a hunter as he hikes across Taladia. And finally, there is a bottle of strange amber liquid, which resembles syrup. We all taste a speck on our fingertips and decide that it's made from apricots. The sugar sends a little rush across my tongue.

Just for tonight, we decide to forget about rationing. We've earned a feast. I drizzle apricot syrup across a flour cake, relishing the mess of savoury crumbs and sweet nectar between my teeth. Then I suck a ring of dried apple and even crunch down a fistful of oats with raisins. Making a fire would be too risky, so there's no hope of hot porridge, but we fill a large bowl with oats and water to soak overnight.

‘It should turn mushy, like cold porridge,' says Maisy.

I stare at her, wondering why a richie girl would ever eat cold porridge. Surely she's always had hot water and stoves at her disposal?

‘Our cook at home made something similar in summer,' Clementine explains. ‘She soaked oats in fruit syrups with dates, or apple and cinnamon.'

Eventually we finish eating. I feel a little sick. After days of hunger, my body isn't used to such a feast. But the sickness is tempered by a glorious feeling of fullness. This mightn't have been the fanciest meal in history, but it must rank among the most satisfying.

Teddy stretches, pats his belly and grins. ‘Ready to turn in?'

It isn't my turn to take a watch shift tonight; Teddy and Clementine are chosen to cover half the night each. I set up my sleeping sack on the edge of the campsite, where I can just steal a glimpse of stars around the edge of our rocky ceiling.

But no matter how long I stare, fingernails in my palms, there is no sign of a kite upon the sky.

 

 

 

I
n the morning, we gorge ourselves on summer
porridge. It's cold and gluggy, but a dash of apricot syrup turns the mush into a treat. The sugar in the syrup gives me enough energy to mount a foxary with a smile on my face.

Unfortunately, our happiness at the food supplies does not last. We spend the day travelling, winding through the Marbles' barren landscape. Occasionally there is a patch of open rock, where the foxaries are free to stretch their legs. We cover a lot of ground in these sprints, which is good, because I'm starting to hate this place. It's just so desolate. So lifeless. An endless sheet of grey.

Even the lack of pursuit is starting to worry me. There must be hunters looking for us, and maybe even the unknown person who killed the men in the forest, but all we see are boulders.

When the sun goes down, we camp in a tiny cove on the edge of the river. The deeper we travel into the Marbles, the larger the rock formations seem to become. There are more hiding places now, more campsites to plant our nightly circle of magnets. Sleeping on the riverbank provides a constant sound­track: a gurgle of water that lulls me into sleep.

Another day passes and another. Nothing changes. We follow the river. The wind gets colder, perhaps, and the nights come earlier, but these are just normal signs of winter. My physical wounds are healing well, but my thoughts grow more and more uneasy. By the fourth day, there is still no sign of our pursuers and somehow that scares me more than any actual fight I've seen.

‘We must have lost them,' says Radnor, looking pleased. ‘Hackel was right after all. They'll look for us on the trading road, not out here on the river.'

The others agree and dig into their porridge with a relaxed sort of looseness in their grins. But I'm not so sure. I can't stop thinking about those dead hunters in the forest, the ones whose food we are eating. Someone killed them. No, someone
executed
them. And that someone was on their way to the river.

Every night, I volunteer to take a watch shift. At first, the others refuse to let me, so I make up a story about how I can sense my illusion weakening in the early hours of the morning. It's a load of rubbish, of course – once the magnets have got hold of my illusion, I can't feel the power link at all. But no one knows much about illusionists, so the others seem to buy it.

‘All right, Danika,' says Radnor. ‘You'd better take the second watch.'

And so I spend half of each night watching the sky, waiting for that mysterious kite to reappear. It's stupid and I pay for it three times over when my limbs get jittery or I almost slip off my foxary the next day. Back in Rourton, I would never have risked such sleep deprivation. But this isn't Rourton, and the rules are different now. I no longer know what I should be doing to survive.

It's the fifth night when I see it.

The shape is distant – maybe a kilometre away – but it's silhouetted against a full moon. A flap of fabric, the shape of a stretched diamond. I sit bolt upright, fists clenching. There's no hope of seeing the flyer from here; there are too many boulders to see more than a couple of metres away. But I can see the string, the kite and the stars. And now I know for certain.

Someone is following us. Is this the person who killed the hunters? Is the kite-flyer another hunter himself, trying to lure us out with this strange bait? Or is it another refugee crew? Surely we can't be the only crew to engage a smuggler and find this secret river route. But if our pursuer is also a refugee, why would he – or she or they – risk everything by flying a
kite
? It's a flashing beacon to the hunters.

‘Radnor,' I whisper, and shake him awake.

He moans a little, but pushes himself up onto his elbows. ‘What?'

‘It's back.'

Radnor doesn't need to ask me what ‘it' is. He rolls out of his sleeping sack and follows me to the edge of our campsite, where I point towards the shape upon the sky.

‘I want to go and check it out,' I say.

Radnor shakes his head. ‘Forget it, Danika. No one leaves this circle at night, got it?'

‘What if it's another refugee? They might need our help.'

‘It's
not
another refugee,' says Radnor. ‘It's a hunter trying to trick us. If you go out there, you'll die.' He pauses. ‘And even if it
is
another refugee, they're suicidally stupid to be flying that thing around. I'm not going to burden my crew with another liability.'

His words sting. Is that all I am to him – a liability, tossed into his hands at the last minute? He speaks as though I've ruined his plans by tagging along, ruined his perfect crew of five. But really, Hackel isn't here at the moment and I'm the one providing the illusions. I've earned my place in this crew, haven't I?

‘This is an order, Danika,' says Radnor. He pauses, and doesn't continue until I meet his gaze. ‘You are not to leave our campsite to follow that kite. Ever. If you try it, I will kick you off this crew.'

‘You need my illusions.'

Radnor shakes his head. ‘Everyone on this crew is expendable. Your illusions are useful, but we can survive without them.'

I imagine being kicked off the crew, out here in the middle of the Marbles. I have no idea how Radnor is navigating, apart from following the river. But the river will run out eventually, and then I'll be left alone. No food, no companions, no plan for survival.

‘Don't wake me again, Danika,' says Radnor. ‘Not because of the stupid kite, anyway. If you want to weaken your own reflexes by staying up night after night, be my guest. But you're not dragging me down with you.'

He stalks back to his sleeping sack, slides into the fabric and shuts his eyes. But I doubt he'll sleep again tonight. He'll pretend, of course, but I'm sure he's secretly watching me. He doesn't trust me, not entirely.

I run a hand through my hair, take a shaky breath, and return to my guard post. The kite is still there, taunting me. I just want to know who's flying it. Is that too much to ask?

 

The next day, we travel on. Radnor doesn't
mention the kite or our late-night conversation. He just shovels down a flour cake, helps load up the foxaries and waves us on our way.

I'm sharing a foxary with Maisy today. Teddy has informed us that the beasts are tired of carrying the same people, so he wants us to ‘mix it up a bit' to keep them happy. He rides with Clementine. Radnor, of course, has a foxary to himself. I guess there are some perks to being leader, apart from having the power to chuck people off the crew.

For the first few hours, no one really talks. It's a little awkward; Maisy is so timid and I'm half-afraid to make any sudden movements. What if I startle her into falling off and into the river?

When I was riding with Teddy, we used to talk quite a bit. He'd keep me entertained with stories of his assorted burglaries: how he stole a six-foot wedding cake for his gang-member's birthday, or fleeced a richie socialite of her diamond ring. In turn, I told him anecdotes from working in Rourton's bars: the dodgy customers, the drunken proposals, the embarrassing secrets that people admitted when they were off their faces. Neither of us mentioned the bad things – the bombs, the deaths, the days of starvation. When you're a scruffer, those things go without saying.

But I'm not so sure about talking to Maisy. All I've gleaned about the twins is that their surname is Pembroke, their family is wealthy and Clementine blew all their savings to fund this trip. Our lives have been so different up until now. I imagine Maisy sitting in a mansion on High Street, nibbling on custard pastries and syrup cakes while music plays from a top-notch radio. What did she do all day? Then I remember what she's said about reading.

‘So,' I say, ‘you like reading, right?'

Maisy nods. The movement sends her blonde ponytail bobbing up and down in my face.

‘What sort of stuff did you read?' I say.

She gives a little shrug. Then, after a few awkward seconds of silence, she says, ‘Lots of things. I like to learn about the world.'

‘Why?'

‘I thought I'd never get to see it,' says Maisy. ‘It was nice to explore outside for a bit, even if it was only with words.'

I frown. Maisy sounds as though she's been trapped or something. But most richie girls have plenty of money they can use to explore Rourton; they like to wander up and down High Street and buy perfume from the boutiques, or sit around giggling in high-class restaurants. They must still accept the curfew, of course, and the city wall's limits – but within those boundaries, money is freedom. Maisy could have bought herself a chance to
explore, if she'd wanted.

Then I realise. That's what she's done.

Instead of buying perfume and coffee, Maisy and Clementine have used their riches to fund this trip across Taladia. Is that why they ran away? To see the world? But it doesn't make sense. No one would risk death or starvation or dehydration, or any other number of perils that arise on refugee journeys, just to go sightseeing.

Perhaps they're escaping from army conscription. But richies get all the plum jobs in the army; they'd never have been shunted onto the frontline with the scruffers. And besides, the twins can't be older than sixteen – it's not as though conscription is an urgent issue. Who in their right mind would flee a life of luxury two years early?

Maybe they're
not
in their right minds. Maybe having so much money does something funny to your brain. I want to ask more directly: ‘Why the hell did you run away?' But the last time I tried interrogating Maisy, she broke a water jar and ran off like a startled mouse.

I struggle for a gentler way to phrase my question. ‘Well, now you've seen the world. What do you think of it?'

‘It's better than . . .'

‘Better than what?' I prompt.

But Maisy just shakes her head and looks down at our foxary's neck. A few minutes later we stop for lunch and that's the end of the conversation.

As we ride on into the afternoon, I start to notice a strange itching on the back of my neck. If we were back in Rourton, I might assume I'd been bitten by a rodent or something, but there's nothing here to bite me – not unless one of my companions has developed some very strange sleepwalking habits, anyway. I've spotted a few moths and dragonflies, and once a tiny lizard on a rock, but our foxaries' scent seems to frighten other animals away.

I raise a hand to touch the itchy spot and I'm surprised to feel a series of bumps growing on my neck. They feel like welts, sensitive to the touch.

My proclivity mark is starting to develop.

This is
not
a good time to develop my powers. The process can take days, weeks or even months – but those itchy bumps are always the first sign. I know that I'll soon feel tired and cranky, which isn't going to help me survive the journey to the Valley. It's lucky Radnor doesn't know what's happening, because I'm about to become an even greater liability.

Although, if my maturation is a fast one, maybe I'll become a liability to our enemies too.