Chasing the Valley (16 page)

I frown. ‘Isn't this what hides your scent from foxaries?'

‘That's why I want you to take it,' Lukas says. ‘If I'm going to join this crew, I want . . . well . . . I don't think I deserve your trust until I've earned it. And this is a first step in that direction.'

I roll the rose between my fingers. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Without that charm I can't abandon the crew or sneak away to betray you, can I? It wouldn't take long to track me down with the foxary – not out here.'

I hesitate. It feels wrong to take the charm, which is probably worth more than anything I've owned. And besides, it was a gift from Lukas's family.

‘It's all right,' I say, feeling a little awkward. ‘You fought off a pair of hunters to save our lives. I don't need this to trust you.'

He gives me a quiet smile. ‘Thank you, Danika. I'm not used to . . .' His voice trails away, and he shakes his head as though to clear it. ‘Look, if you don't need it to trust me, then consider it a gift.'

‘A gift for what?'

‘Just a thankyou gift,' he says.

There is a pause.

‘All right,' I say. ‘Thank you. It's beautiful.'

I hold out my wrist to reveal my mother's bracelet. Lukas smiles gently, takes the silver rose, and twists its metal loop through the bracelet. I pull my wrist back to examine it. ‘How do I use it?'

‘Close your eyes.'

I hesitate. ‘Why?'

‘It's how you bond with an alchemy charm for the first time. Don't worry, it only takes a minute.'

There's nothing fishy in his expression, so I shut my eyelids.

Lukas takes my hand and places it against the silver rose. ‘Now just focus on hiding yourself,' he says. ‘Pretend you're far away, where the beasts can't find you.'

I try to concentrate, but Lukas's fingers are warm against my wrist and it's hard to focus. I take a deep breath and tell myself that this is just like casting an illusion. I focus upon my desired result: hiding away, beyond a foxary's senses . . .

There is a sharp twang in the air. The silver rose heats up in my fingers, so hot that I almost drop it. ‘Ow!' I open my eyes to see Lukas smiling at me. ‘Did I do it?'

He nods. ‘You've bonded with the charm now. The spell will be ready when you need it.'

There's a pause. I finger the rose, feeling a little awkward. I wish I had something to give him in return. ‘Thanks, Lukas.'

‘You're welcome.'

I can't think of anything else to say, so I turn back to face the edge of the cliff. The moon is rising higher now; it casts just enough light to make out the world below. In the distance, I can see the horizon. And tomorrow, I hope, we might find a way to reach it.

 

The next day, we travel parallel to the edge of
the cliff. I feel oddly conflicted, torn between grief and a strange sort of lightness. The landscape makes me think of Radnor, which sends an ache through my gut. Boulders, cliff, sky . . . everything here seems to signal death. But at the same time, I find myself fingering the silver rose upon my bracelet. I'm not sure why – maybe I'm subconsciously afraid I'll lose it – but it's reassuring to roll its solid shape between my fingertips.

After a while, I realise that I'm wearing the bracelet around my wrist instead of my elbow. I automatically move to shove it back out of sight – but then I stop myself. I don't think my crewmates would steal from me. Not even Teddy.

It isn't until noon that Maisy spots a possible route down the cliff. We're rounding a large bend in the plateau, so we've got a decent view of the cliff face ahead. She gives a shy little cough to get our attention, then points towards a rough ledge of rocks that trails down the cliff.

‘I think we found our ladder,' she says.

It's tempting to rush down into the fields, to escape from the Marbles' endless grey. There might be grain down there, or edible flowers. Even a pot of boiled thistles would be welcome at this point. But we force ourselves to travel slowly, to assess each footfall before we take the plunge.

‘If we fall,' Teddy points out, ‘then a field full of thistles won't do us much good.'

I know what he's thinking, of course. What we're all thinking. Radnor fell down into this place. Somewhere down below, in the swampland perhaps, his body lies alone.

It's hard to get the foxary to cooperate; it doesn't seem keen on descending such a narrow strip of boulders. I don't blame it, either; I'm having enough trouble with two legs, let alone four. But Teddy manages to coax it down with a little whisper, and a rub behind the ears. I can't help smiling at how they trust each other: the thief and the beast.

I sometimes hope my proclivity will be Beast
too. It must be nice to have a guaranteed friend out here – although it would've been terrible for Teddy when the other foxaries died. That's the price of relationships, though. I learned that when I was just a kid, the night I watched my family burn. You get the benefits of companionship, of love and trust, maybe. But I'm not sure it's worth the pain that you get when they're gone.

About halfway down, Lukas stiffens.

‘What is it?' I say, suddenly alert.

‘I think I can sense . . .' He swivels around and breaks into a grin. ‘Look, I knew it!'

In the distance, a flock of birds circle above the fields. They dive and swoop in perfect formation: a better crew than we'll ever be. Their dance is almost hypnotic. In other circumstances, it might seem nice to watch them for a while. But since I'm dangling halfway down a cliff – not the best time for bird-watching – I just turn back to the slope and look for somewhere safe to place my feet.

At the bottom, we stop for a rest. Our bodies still ache from the abuse of the river, and this trek down the cliff-side has hardly comforted our muscles.

‘I think we should head back towards the swamps,' says Clementine. ‘Where the river disappeared, I mean. Perhaps there'll be a clue about where to go next.'

‘What, like a big sign saying “This way to Gunning”?' says Teddy. ‘We'll be backtracking our whole trip since the waterfall. That's another day's travel wasted.'

There's a pause.

‘Does anyone have another idea?' I say. ‘Can you remember
anything
Radnor said about how to find Gunning?'

Everyone shakes their head.

‘All right then,' I say. ‘Clementine's plan is the best we've got.'

The grass in the fields is tall and thick, about the height of our chests. It's dotted with boulder formations and occasional groves of scraggly trees. The trees don't bear any fruit in winter, but we're so hungry that we settle for chewing the bark. At least it keeps our teeth busy.

The further we walk, the taller the grass becomes. Soon it's at my eye-level, and then even higher. I feel like I'm back in the forest, unable to see any sign of a horizon. There's only foliage, all around me, and I've never felt so lost.

‘If that woman finds us now, we're dead,' says Clementine, looking gloomy.

Lukas stiffens. ‘Woman?'

‘Yeah, there's some horrible woman leading the hunters,' I say. ‘We think she's royalty, because the others kept calling her “Your Highness”.'

Lukas looks uncomfortable. Almost self-consciously, he raises a hand to his charm necklace. ‘That's Sharr Morrigan. The king's niece. She's got a reputation for being cruel.'

‘How'd you know about her?' Teddy frowns. ‘You're just a scruffer from Norville. The royals don't spend much time in the dodgy cities, do they?'

Lukas shakes his head. ‘Everyone in my city knows about Sharr. She leads a platoon of hunters near Norville, and uses the city as her base.' He swallows. ‘You wouldn't believe the things she does to people. Even to children, if they get in her way.'

We all fall silent, because we
can
believe it. We saw what Sharr did to her fellow hunter when he dared to question her plan. Blasting aside a few worthless scruffer kids would probably seem perfectly acceptable to someone like Sharr Morrigan.

By the time evening rolls around, we're still as lost as ever. The entire world seems a sea of grass. It whips my face with every gust of wind and blots out the sky.

The only relief comes when we find a grove of scrappy trees. I set up the magnetic circle and cast my illusion, then we wriggle our gutted sleeping sacks into uncomfortable positions among the roots. There's no real space to lie comfortably – the rocks and roots dig into our backs – but it's better than the grass. At least we can see the stars, since the trees' branches are so sparse in winter.

‘That's the Warrior of the Northlands,' says Maisy, pointing out a constellation above our heads. ‘And that one's called the Wolf.'

I squint at the stars, but all I can make out are dots. I've never seen much sense in constellations, but my mother used to like them. She always pointed out a particular formation through our uppermost window. Something called the Gun, I think, or perhaps the Pistol.

‘Which one's the Pistol?' I say.

Maisy points to a formation. It's not directly overhead, so grass and branches conceal half the shape. But I recognise it now, the L-shaped cluster of stars.

‘My mother always said to remember the Pistol,' I say. ‘Said it was a good luck constellation.'

Teddy snorts. ‘Yeah, because shooting people is really lucky.'

I think back to those evenings with my parents, clustered in our cheap apartment in Rourton. Before my father brought home the radio, we would pass the nights by singing songs and telling stories.

‘My mother used to sing an old folk song – that one about the star-shine,' I say.
‘Oh mighty yo, how the star-shine must go . . .'

‘Everyone knows that one,' says Clementine. ‘It doesn't mean anything. It's just a stupid scruffer song.'

‘I don't know it,' says Lukas.

We all turn to look at him.

‘Really?' says Teddy, raising an eyebrow. ‘It used to be a smuggler song, but I reckoned everyone in Taladia must have known it by now. Dunno why it caught on, really. I reckon that tune about the drunken caterpillar is catchier.'

A gust of wind blasts through our grove, and I turn my face sideways to avoid the dust. A couple of leaves flutter down onto our sleeping sack, and I'm suddenly grateful for the circle of magnets around us. These bare-limbed trees seem like a worse and worse hiding place by the minute. But I stare up at the stars, and think of my mother's voice.

Oh mighty yo,

How the star-shine must go

Chasing those distant deserts of green . . .

I don't realise I'm whispering the lyrics aloud, until Lukas gives me a smile. When I was a kid, on those first lonely nights after the bombing, I used to sing myself to sleep with the star-shine song. I guess my lips haven't forgotten the temptation to whisper the tune.

‘Don't stop,' Lukas says.

I shake my head, embarrassed to have been caught. But to my surprise, another voice soon continues the song. It's Maisy. A moment later, she's joined by Teddy, and then I find myself singing along again.

It's ridiculous, really, to hold a campfire singalong out here. For a start, we don't have a campfire. Besides, we're all exhausted and starving and grieving. But the song makes me feel like a kid again: safe and warm. The others must feel something similar, because countless Rourton parents choose this song as a lullaby.

Oh mighty yo,

How the star-shine must go

Chasing those distant deserts of green.

We shall meet with the tree-lands

Then bet with the stream's hands

As star-shine's fair pistol shall gleam . . .

Lukas sits up. ‘What was that last bit, again?'

‘As star-shine's fair pistol shall gleam,'
I repeat. I don't see why he's looking so excited about a corny folk song, but my words seem to confirm the glint in his eye.

‘And before that,' he says, ‘the bit about the tree-lands, and the stream . . . Don't you see, Danika? Don't you see what this song is about?'

And suddenly, I do. I see what's been before our eyes the entire time, what I've been too blind to realise. This song started life as a smuggler ditty, and smugglers don't do anything without a reason. This song isn't just a pleasant tune. It's a map.

It's our map to the Valley.

‘
The tree-lands
,' I whisper. ‘That means the forest, doesn't it? And the line about the stream's hands – that's how Radnor knew to follow the river!'

Teddy's mouth splits into a grin. ‘And it doesn't just say “the stream,” it says to
bet
with the stream! Remember what I said when we first saw the Marbles? It looks like you could bet on a game of marbles out there . . .'