To Mum, Dad and Nick, for sailing through the storms with me

First published in Great Britain 2017

by Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © Sarah Driver, 2017

Illustrations copyright © Joe McLaren, 2017

Additional interior illustrations by Janene Spencer

First e-book edition 2017

ISBN 978 1 4052 8467 7

Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1763 2

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication and Copyright

Map of Trianukka

The Huntress

PART 1: We Rove

1 Terrodyls

2 Alone at Sea

3 A Flaming Earful

4 The Western Wharves

5 The Stranger

6 A Paw Print in the Ice

7 A Skilful Captain

8 Hunter’s Moon

9 The Frozen Wastes

10 Mouse Arrow-Swift

11 Whale-song

12 Aches and Pains

13 Storm

14 Turning Tides

15 The Unseeing Eye

PART 2: Winter’s Prowl

16 Dragonfly

17 Dread’s Eve

18 The Stone Circle

19 The Merwraith

20 Cut Adrift

21 The Hunter

22 Dungeon

23 Endless Night

24 Bad Blood

25 Moonrise over the End of the World

26 Hawk-courage

27 True-Tribe

PART 3: Flight

28 Rattlebones

29 Thunder Heart

30 What the Sea Spat Out

31 Crow

32 Labyrinth

33 Wreckers

34 One Boss

35 Crew

36 Bony Isle Bound

37 Devil’s Hag

38 Hooked

39 Blood-magyk

40 Song of Sorrow

41 Battle Scars

42 Castle Whalesbane

43 Dead Reckoning

44 Storm-brewing

45 Tentacles

46 Free Flight

Acknowledgements

Back series promotional page

The beasts are coming.

I’m below decks in the gloomy kitchens, helping Pipistrelle salt raw reindeer steak, when the first call hacks through the air. As the sound fades, my fingers stop dead and cold chunks of salt dig into my skin. My bones turn to water but I won’t let my knees buckle. Pip stops his tuneless whistling and scowls. My heart barely thuds before the clanging of the alarm bell shatters the silence.

Grandma always tells me I’m not to go out on deck when the great winged terrodyls come near. Two summers gone, they killed Grandpa. But this time I’ve got to keep our ship safe.

I stick my knife in my belt and let out my fiercest battle-howl.

‘Mouse!’ Pip grabs for me but his hands are slimy with reindeer blood and I wriggle free.

I run from the kitchens, tear through the murky passageways and into the armoury, with its stink of rot and rust. Spears, daggers, axes and harpoons gleam as I pass. I fling open an elm chest, grab my longbow and a quiver full of arrows dipped in poison-frog venom. Then I burst up the stairs onto the storm-deck.

The deck’s a-flurry with running boots and sweeping cloaks. We’ve been caught unprepared cos the terrodyls should be making for their nests now that winter’s prowling closer.

The battle-horn moans. ‘To arms! Bows and bills!’ Grandma shouts, from the fore-castle above. ‘Come on, you belching babble of layabouts!’

‘Aye, Captain!’ boom the crew.

Shadows thicken as the sun drops towards the horizon. Grandma’s black-cloaks stand along the port and starboard sides. There’s a whish as they draw arrows from their quivers. The oarsmen have left their benches so the Huntress sways in the sea, buffeted by the waves. I’ve not been on deck longer than a few heartbeats when a freezing shock of seawater smashes over the rail and drenches me.

The sound comes again, a hideous whip-crack caw. It makes me stagger and throw myself flat with my hands over my ears. My bow clatters to the deck. A shadow falls across me, cast by a pair of vast, hairy wings. They beat, drowning out my heart.

‘Mouse!’ a shaky voice cries. Slowly I turn my face towards the stern. The hatch is open a sliver and Sparrow’s teary brown eyes peer out.

‘Sing! Sing to the whales!’ I call to my brother, my voice fear-scratched. Sparrow’s gifted with the whale-song. Grandma says it’s an offering to the whales – the gods of the seas – to keep us safe. Terrodyls hate the gentle whale-song, so might be it’s the only thing that can save us, out here with no other trading ships close by.

As I watch, Sparrow opens his mouth and pours his song into the night. The wind gusts and carries his voice over the sea, pulling more strands of song from his mouth – the notes shiver and glow bright blue.

Another scream strikes deep into my brain. A three-strong hunting pack of ten-foot-long terrodyls circles overhead. Their beast-chatter is tangled into one hateful cry of killdeathdiepaindrownstrikedeathscuttlekill!

One of them dives towards me but I roll, quick, and its claws tear gouges in the deck. It screeches and comes at me again. I try to stand but bash into its wing, and it sends me crashing into a barrel of salted herring.

There’s a thud as the hatch bangs closed. Sparrow must’ve let it fall shut and now his voice is muffled. Will the whales hear him?

Two of the terrodyls dip lower and use their spear-point heads to strike the hull. They’re trying to send our ship down! Arrows skitter off the edges of their wings.

Grandma’s voice carves the air. ‘Stave the monsters off, but see you don’t bring them down on us!’ Her silvery hair billows around her head as she strides, clad in merwraith-scale armour. ‘Summon my prentice; might be she has a drop of whale-song left in her staff !’

Arrows fly. The terrodyls screech and snap their jaws, furiously rounding on the black-cloaks. Then Vole stalks along the deck, wielding a wooden staff topped with a crystal. Blue wisps of whale-song moan from the crystal; a song-wave that pushes the terrodyls back.

Stealing my chance, I scramble to my feet and hurry along the starboard side. Salt spray strikes my face and the wind whips my hair into my eyes. Grandma don’t spy me. If I stick to the left of her she won’t, neither, cos of her glass eye.

The tumbling sea stretches into the distance. The moon crawls up the sky, lighting the waves as they roll and crash around us. The arrows and Vole’s staff have chased the beasts away. But the staff ’s whale-song is already trailing off, leaving a silence that makes my skin creep. I can feel the Huntress holding her breath for the next attack.

I glance out to sea and my heart lurches, cos a huge grey fin glides along by our side – must be the bigtooth shark that’s been circling our ship for days. Hunt, weave, death-cold, it mutters from the water. Quest, crunch, search-bones. Drowns soon, soon, soon.

Pip reckons it’s the same rogue that munched a whole crew when terrodyls sent their ship down, three moons back. The wreck must be lurking on the seabed, riddled with merwraiths – the blind, scaly victims of drowning – and gulpers that can swallow a person whole. But it ent today that we’ll be joining that shipwreck, I swear it. I promised Ma I’d keep Sparrow safe for always.

As the thoughts of Ma nip at me, Sparrow’s voice rises up again, high and pure. His glittering blue notes skate across the water.

Gods of the sea,

Ice-bright,

Moonlight, the lighthouse on the shore . . .

The next great screech of the terrodyls makes me drop to my knees with my head in my hands. Pain swells behind my eyes. But then the shriek dies and my heart skip-skitters and I can breathe again.

Staggering, I grab my bow and haul myself into the rigging. I shin up the main-mast, the highest of the three. The wind tries to throw me into the sea but I cling tight.

At the top I leap into the crow’s nest and peer at the deck far below. The black-cloaks shout and scramble to find the best position to shoot at the beasts, which loop and plunge back down through the air towards us. With shaky hands I string my bow, take an arrow from my quiver and nock it. I rest the arrow on my finger and close one eye, trying to still my breath.

Suddenly I spot a bright wisp of whale-song coiling up from the sea, and a sad song groans through the air – a whale has come! The whale’s voice joins Sparrow’s and it’s the strangest thing, but spooky-beautiful.

Drumbeats,

Snow peaks.

Stare into the fire, see battles of yore . . .

A grey shape lurches clear of the water. If the whale is alone, its song might not be enough to save us. My heart sinks as the largest terrodyl jerks its head towards the shape and dives for the surface of the sea.

‘No!’ I scream.

Grandma looks up. ‘Mouse!’ I’m too high to see her face, but it must be frightful-fierce. ‘Get down from there or I’ll shoot ye down, little fool!’

I can hardly watch as the terrodyl rakes its claws across the flesh of the whale, leaving a bloody tear. ‘It can’t die for us!’ I bellow into the wind.

As the terrodyl hovers in the air above the sea, I take aim, draw and loose. My arrow slams into its wing. The beast gives a sickening scream. Far below, black-cloaks fall to their knees and moan. What if the sound stops our hearts, like the legends say it can?

‘Mouse! This ent the day to try my patience!’ roars Grandma.

My gut leaps but I grab another arrow and nock it to my bow. The creature draws close on huge wings that stir the air enough to twist the sails into knots. I can see my first arrow, lodged deep in the muscle. Blood beats in my ears.

Suddenly, chief oarsman Bear heaves himself into the basket, towering over me. ‘Get out of here, quick!’ he shouts. Fear is etched across his kind face.

‘I won’t!’ I sink to one knee and angle my bow straight up to the sky. The terrodyl shrieks again and Bear stumbles, but I focus on my breath, sighing in and out like the tides.

A razor-sharp wing slashes at me but I duck low, draw, loose. My arrow twangs into the terrodyl’s sinewy neck and pierces a thick blood vessel. Black blood hails down on us, hissing as it strikes the wood. A droplet fizzles on my arm and makes an angry red pit in my flesh.

Bear grabs my waist and throws me from the crow’s nest into the rigging. Rope burns my palms as I hurtle downwards. The Huntress shudders as the terrodyl crashes onto the crow’s nest with a great crunch of splintering wood. I jump the rest of the way and roll when I hit the deck. Bear lands beside me. Most of the nest falls away, showering splinters down around us, until all that remains is part of the mast and the bleeding body of the terrodyl. It twitches and finally stills.

The two living terrodyls scream in fury as I lie curled on the deck. All the wind is knocked from my lungs. Inky blood rains down from the broken mast and devours the wood with a smoky crackle.

‘Mouse, get below decks, now!’ Grandma booms. ‘And someone send for Pipistrelle – we need his cauldrons to catch that filthy slime, so it don’t eat the Huntress whole!’

Bear helps me up and starts to lead me away. ‘Oarsmen, to your positions,’ he calls down to the rowing benches. ‘Someone take up the drum until my return!’ I pummel Bear with my fists but he tugs me until my boots slide across the soaked wood.

The captain’s hatch has fallen closed again. When Bear opens it, Sparrow’s voice reaches us through the gloom. A clump of song knocks against my cheek, whale-skin cold. With it comes a low, sad groan from far across the water.

I twist to look over my shoulder and in the distance, lit by the yellow moon, the dark shapes of whales swim towards us in great numbers. They’re a mass of giant tails and fins, blowholing jets of water into the air. A veil of blue whale-song throbs over them, and Sparrow’s song rushes to join it. Together, they push against the terrodyls.

Bear stops dragging me and watches the horizon. Terrodyl screeches rip at the air as they reel away from our ship, recoiling from the whale-song. Tears of heart-gladness stream down my cheeks, but I swipe them away with the back of my hand – it’s nearly my thirteenth Hunter’s Moon and I ent some child.

The drum, the Huntress ’s life-pulse, begins to beat steadily as we pull away, heading west. As the black-cloaks gather up their arrows, an icy blanket of mist settles. Frog swings from the ropes, coaxing the lanterns to life. When he reaches the main-mast, he wiggles and weaves around the skewered terrodyl. I glance down; my breeches are torn at the knees and the wound on my arm is crusted with terrodyl blood. When I wipe my nose, my hand comes away bloody.

Grandma stalks towards me and Bear as the terrodyls throb out of sight. She’s wearing her danger-face. Without a word she grabs my sodden cloak and bundles me along the deck, past the hidden Hoodwink where the sea-hawks live, and down the steps to our cabin.

Sparrow’s stopped singing; now he’s just sobbing amongst the bed-furs. My brother’s sickly as a merwraith and full of heart-sadness, especially when he sings with the whales. Even more now that Da’s been away trading since the last full moon.

Thunderbolt, Sparrow’s pet moonsprite, sits on a pillow and chatters softly. Grandma plucks her from the pillow and drops her into a glass bottle, making a silvery moon-lamp that she hangs from a hook. It spills pale light across Grandma’s oak table, where the big crinkled map is nailed down, spotted with puddles of blood-red sealing wax. Furs, silks and velvets are heaped in one corner and chests are stuffed with golden eggs, onyx, jade and boxes of pearls. My diving sealskin hangs from a nail, still dripping wet from my morning dive.

That’s one of the things I’m best at – diving for pearls. When I collect more than three in a day Grandma tells us her best stories as we huddle amongst our blankets and furs.

Now I ent expecting stories, though. Just a flaming earful.

Grandma catches my jaw in her hand, checking my face for hurts. ‘You won’t be in need of stitching – I’ve a mind some of my crew will, though. Ent no place for a child on deck when terrodyls come near, girl. Half a hundred times I must have told you!’

‘But I ent no child. I just shot one of the terrodyls!’ I wave her hands away and fling myself down on the bunk I share with Sparrow. ‘And I’m the only one with the beast-chatter, so only I can understand—’

She scoffs. ‘You think we need beast-chatter to hear the hate in them terro-wails? You brought the creature down to crush us! Count yourself heart-glad we’re striking distance from land, with the damage you’ve done to that mast. By dawn we should be docked. But we’ll have to battle to make it through the night.’ Her voice is weary and her brow is furrowed with crags.

‘What am I to do with my arrows ’n my poison then? Save them for the merwraiths, when we’re good and scuttled?’

Grandma sits at her table and mixes sea-mud, kelp and herbs to make an ointment for my arm. ‘That’s enough o’ your flaming lip. If your da returned to find you dead and buried at the bottom of the sea, what would I tell him?’

‘That I died like any good captain; saving her crew.’ I scowl and pick a nib of hardened skin from around my fingernail. Bright blood wells and I suck it clean.

‘Twelve moons old and captain already, is she? I think not. I’m hopeful the gods will gift me a few more moons yet, my girl. And any captain knows better than to put the lives of all on board in danger, for the sake of showing off.’ Grandma seizes my arm and rubs ointment into my scorched skin. Her silver rings scrape me and I try to push her away but her hand’s clamped tight as a limpet.

My cheeks begin to burn. ‘I didn’t do it for showing off – I done it to avenge Grandpa, and to keep us safe! And it’s barely sundown. I’ll be thirteen tomorrow night! Sparrow’s eight and he ent even asleep yet!’ I splutter and almost choke on my words.

A small smile tugs at Grandma’s mouth. ‘Never mind what your brother’s doing, though he should be snoring by now. We might have need of his voice again afore the sun wakes. Off to the privy, now, Sparrow.’

‘Yep, off you go,’ I say, smirking at my brother. ‘Just be watchful that bigtooth shark don’t leap up and bite your behind while you’re peeing.’

Sparrow yelps and burrows deeper among the blankets. Grandma fixes me with her glass eye. Story goes, her eye went blind when she half turned to merwraith, when the ship of her childhood sank at the hands of wreckers and she nearly drowned. I stare back into its sea-green depths, hard and unblinking.

All of a sudden the fierceness drops out of her face and she starts to chuckle. ‘Gods have mercy,’ she gasps after a moment, clutching her sides. ‘Sparrow, off t’ the privy ’n I’ll hear no more about it. Mouse, get yourself into your nightclothes. You’re to get to bed, and stay put whilst I tend to my injured.’

She turns and clomps up the stairs, herding Sparrow before her. ‘My hide’s much too ancient for all this child-rearing caper,’ she exclaims. ‘Not enough that I’m captain and medsin-maker and—’ her grumblings fade as she disappears through the hatch.

I strip to my smallclothes, dry myself with a scrap of linen and wriggle into my nightshirt. One of my fingers is grazed raw from my bowstring, so I lick it clean and dab it with Grandma’s ointment. When I scoot onto our bunk and prop open the porthole the night rings with the siiigh and shhhhh of whales breathing.

In the sky, the great green fire spirits dance and ripple, stretching far away into the distance. Grandma says their pictures are gifts, to show us what will come and what has been. She says they showed our Tribe that I’d be a captain, before I was even born. At Sparrow’s birth the spirits said he’d be a whale-singer – and sure enough, he was singing before he could talk. I search for some sign of Da among the fire spirits as they flicker with life. But there’s naught of him there and my heart aches with it. ‘Da?’ I whisper.

Sparrow clatters back down the steps into the cabin. ‘You ent gonna see Da up there. He’s waiting with the land-lurkers.’ He jabs me in the ribs with his elbow to make me budge up on the bunk. I’m about to elbow him back when I see the way his hair sticks up in a nest cos I ent got round to brushing it today.

‘You better fetch that brush from—’

‘Shhh!’ hisses Sparrow. He bounces up on tiptoe and grabs the edge of the porthole to peer out.

A knot of women pass along the storm-deck, right below us. ‘Carpenters,’ I whisper, cos I can hear the little silver hammers on their belts chiming as they lug wood to patch some of the damage to the Huntress.

‘Bleeding nippers running about, bringing troubles on us,’ says one. ‘They should be kept below when the beasts come near! Captain’s granddaughter or no, it can’t go on!’

‘Aye, she could’ve scuppered us! We’ve a long night ahead.’

Me and Sparrow stare at each other. ‘I was just trying to keep our Tribe safe, and this is the heart-thanks I get?’

‘I’m cold.’ Sparrow pulls the porthole closed with a bang. ‘Who cares about the stupid carpenters? Can I have a story?’ he begs. He plops himself down amongst the bed-furs and wriggles his hand under the pillow to search out a crispy old starfish.

I sigh. ‘Crafty little bargainer, ent you?’ I shut one eye and squint at him. ‘All right. Just one.’

He pulls off a starfish arm and shoves it into his mouth. ‘No sky-monsters! And no stogs – Thunderbolt hates all giants cos they gobble up sprites and spit out their wings.’ The moonsprite hops about inside her glass bottle, making a tiny thudding sound like a moth beating against a lantern.

‘Gods,’ I mutter, rooting around under the bunk to grab the long, smooth walrus tusk with the pictures of Sparrow’s favourite story etched into it. ‘Next you’ll be telling me you still believe in the ghost of Captain Rattlebones or—’

‘Don’t!’ Sparrow shrieks, face gone pale. ‘You’re only allowed to tell the story of the Storm-Opal Crown!’ He nestles in next to me, peering at the pictures in the tusk. His yellow hair smells like nutmeg and his feet are cold as stones.

‘Get them freezing planks off me!’ I move the tusk to catch Thunderbolt’s moonlight. ‘One hundred moons and suns ago, long after the first oarsman beat his drum, but while you was still just a puny sea-spark on the wind—’

‘I weren’t never!’

‘—the last King of Trianukka had a golden crown that got gobbled up by a great whale. Three powerful Storm-Opals were to be set in the ancient crown, to heal the trouble between all the Tribes of Sea, Sky and Land and let them live in peace together. The first Opal held a foam of sea, the second a fragment of sky, and the third a fracture of land. But after the crown was swallowed—’

‘Did it hurt?’ murmurs Sparrow sleepily, tracing the etched outline of the whale with a fingertip.

‘Did what hurt?’ I kick his cold feet away again.

‘Swallowing a crown?’ He belches and I waft away the starfish-stink.

‘Ugh! What do you think, clumber-brain? Anyway, the Opals had to be kept safe somehow, didn’t they? So the crinkled old mystiks of the Bony Isle guarded them, deep within the walls of Castle Whalesbane, where the last King dwelt.’

I’m getting pulled into the thrill of the story, but Sparrow’s breath is soft with sleep, so I skip to the last bit and make it quick. ‘And he blamed the Sea-Tribe captain, Rattlebones, for hiding the crown in the whale’s belly, and that brought a hundred years of war, and gifted all the power to the land.’ My voice trails away. I run my finger across the etching of the first oarsman’s drum, then lean down and put the tusk back under our bunk.

Soon Sparrow’s garbling in his sleep. The Huntress creaks and the wind wails loud enough to almost burst my brain. The whales keep up their moaning; I try to block out their song with my pillow but it’s too loud. Shouts drift from Grandma’s medsin-lab – must be she’s stitching a wound, and I know she’s run out of stingray venom for the numbing. ‘What are you, True-Tribe or land-lurker?’ comes her distant roar.

When I hear her boots creaking down the steps to the cabin I turn towards the wall. I listen to her get ready for bed; taking out her glass eye, peeling off her armour. She flings off her boots but keeps her tunic and breeches on, in case she’s needed on deck.

She clambers into bed and I think about calling out that I’m sorry about the terrodyl, but I don’t know how to start. I dig my toes into the mattress. She might tell me off if I wake up Sparrow, so I keep quiet, but then another thought makes me bite my tongue – nighttime’s always when I think of questions about Ma. Ma was Grandma’s own daughter, but we never talk about her. Oftentimes I’ve lain in my bunk and wanted to call across the cabin: do you miss her? Cos I do. That’s the only gap between me and Grandma. The missing Ma and not saying a thing about it.

I open my mouth, turn over, but then Grandma’s walrus-snore starts rumbling so I shut my mouth and sigh.

When I’m captain I’ll have my own cabin, with no noisy kin to disturb me. I can’t wait to fill a captain’s boots. My eyelids grow heavy. Da’s coming home tomorrow, once we reach port. I grin sleepily into the pillow, imagining the treasures he might bring me for my thirteenth Hunter’s Moon. But having Da home will be the best gift of all. He’ll make everything right again.

I gasp awake from nightmares of ship wreckers as first light strikes through the porthole. I’m frighted enough to reach out for Sparrow, but his chest still rises and falls when I put my hand on him and slowly my nightmares fade into the bed-warmth. It’s been two full moons since he had one of his shaking fits, and I’m always tensed for the next one.

Sudden as lightning, bubbles of excitement pop and flutter in my belly. Da comes home today! Finally, he can teach me more about stars and tribe-tongues, and I can ask him again about what Ma liked to eat and how sweet she smelled.

I hop onto my knees and swing open the porthole. Only one or two other masts jut into the sky. The squawks of razorbills and black-backed gulls fill my ears.

I shake Sparrow’s shoulder. ‘We’re in port! We’re at the Western Wharves!’ He snuffles and rolls over, pulling the furs over his head. I leap from the bunk and fling on the first thing I can find that ent spattered with terrodyl blood. After pulling on my walrus-skin boots I fasten my fur cloak with a bone pin and fix Ma’s copper dragonfly brooch to my tunic. It’s the only thing I’ve got of hers, so I always wear it, to keep her spirit close to my heart.

As soon as I step above decks my eyes are dazzle-hurt and my nose fills with the stinks of smoke, fish, sweat, grease and tar.

Kids play amongst jumbled lengths of rigging and a group of Tribesmen struggle under the weight of the terrodyl corpse as they carry it towards the lowered plank, yelling whenever a drop of blood scalds them.

No one greets me. A cold feeling settles in my gut. So they all think me a fool for shooting the beast?

While I’m lost in thought, a heavy hand clamps down over my eyes. ‘Guess it, Mouse-Bones. A mouse should have the sharpest senses of all.’ A cool pod of something sweet is pressed beneath my nose. Bear must’ve been trading spices. At least he’s not being fierce with me.

I breathe in deeply. ‘Vanilla?’

Bear’s hand lifts from my eyes and he spins me round, a big grin lighting him up. ‘Dead right. And look what else I found for you – one of your favourites, I think?’ He pulls a small jar of amber goo from his pocket.

‘Honey!’ I stretch up to take the jar, twist off the lid and scoop out a sweet glob, sucking it off my finger. ‘Heart-thanks, Bear!’

He beams, then shivers and wraps his arms around himself. ‘You know, ’tis early in the year for such a frost,’ he muses. ‘Where I was born, we fled from winter. Now, in the company of you northerners, I run further into her jaws.’

‘Aye.’ I pull my polar fox fur tighter about me. ‘You been up to Haggle’s Town? Did you pass by the Star Inn?’ I ask.

‘I’ve not yet left the dockside. Wanted to come back for you first, little lay-abed, even though I’m heart-keen to see my best friend.’ His dark eyes crinkle and dance when I crane my neck to look up at his face. ‘Shall we find your da?’

‘Yes! Let’s go!’

Bear laughs and offers me his elbow. I loop my arm through his and we’re heading for the plank when Vole bustles towards us. ‘That’s your mess, young Mouse.’ She nods at the smashed crow’s nest and the splintered wood strewn across the deck.

I feel the blood rush into my cheeks. ‘Ent my fault a pack of terrodyls chose to—’

She holds up a finger. ‘Salvage what timber you can, help take in the sail for patching and sand down the boards – you’ll find fresh sharkskin in the carpenters’ cabin.’

‘Now, Vole,’ starts Bear, reaching out to tuck a curl behind her ear. ‘What’s the harm in letting young Mouse come ashore to—’

‘Don’t you Vole me,’ she snaps, batting his hand away. ‘I’ve a tough enough job keeping the little ones in line as it is, without you leading them astray.’

I gaze across the port towards Haggle’s Town, where Da’s been lodging while he trades. My heart sinks like it’s been scuttled by a fire-arrow. ‘But I’m meant to be meeting Da at the Star Inn!’

Vole’s blue eyes narrow. ‘After your foolishness last night, if I were you I’d do as I was told.’ She swishes away, all skirts and ink-black hair. ‘Ermine! Squirrel! Little Marten! Stop playing tag and help with the work!’

I chew my lip to keep from hurling insults after her, cos I’m already in enough trouble.

Bear sweeps a bow at her turned back, merriment in his eyes. Then he gifts me a wink. ‘You’d better play along with the rules, Mouse-Bones.’

‘But—’

‘Ah, just for the time being. Some full-growns have forgotten how to loosen up! And, in heart-truth, trouble simmers in many a port, though the war was said to end when Captain Wren were small. You’re safest here.’

He plods across the plank and onto the craggy scrubland. I watch him pass into the shadow of towering evergreens and disappear between the lopsided wooden houses of Haggle’s Town.

‘Mouse!’ calls Vole.

With a snarl I stamp over to the mess and start separating the pieces of wood that’re good enough to be used for repairs. Once I’ve finished my hands are full of splinters. For a heartbeat the pain helps take my mind off waiting for Da. What I wouldn’t give for a breakfast of fat cinnamon rolls down at the Star while he tells me stories of his travels.

I sneak a glance across the deck and make for the plank at a sprint, squeezing past Tribesmen carrying thin timbers onto the deck.

‘Them splinters wouldn’t hold up my drawers, let alone a flaming mast!’ Grandma yells from the prow. She spies me. ‘Mouse! What you about, girl?’

I freeze. Vole catches up to me and grabs my arm. ‘Oh, no you don’t. Here.’ She shoves a broom into my hands.

I curse. ‘You can stop spying on me now, I’ll do it! Though if you like I could wrench a few of them bad teeth out for you. They’re turning proper rotten.’ I push past her on my way back to the deck.

‘Don’t you give my prentice grief, child!’ booms Grandma. ‘If you don’t want to help on deck you can get yourself to the kitchens and scrub the terrodyl blood out of Pip’s cauldrons.’

‘All right, all right! Everyone, becalm your sails, I’m doing it!’

As I work, I notice the eerie silence of the harbour. Why ent folk heading for market? Our ship alone must’ve brought enough goods to trade ’til next week. The only creatures lurking round the dockside are a few scrawny brown mongrels hunting for scraps. Their beast-chatter is knotted and worrisome. Hungryyip! Frightedcoldgrumblebelly.

I breathe and force my heart to slow, but nerves have turned my palms damp. I just want to fetch Da home and raise anchor. I can’t focus on work, so after Grandma goes ashore with a band of black-cloaks and Vole takes her nagging self below decks, I leap onto a barrel and give a short, sharp howl.

Sparrow stumbles blearily onto the deck, swigging water from a skin bottle. Then Frog and his sister, Squirrel, pop out from behind the mizzen-mast. Ermine, Hammerhead and Little Marten jump down from the rigging.

‘Who wants a game of Rattlebones?’ I ask, wiggling my eyebrows.

One by one, their faces light up with grins.

Sparrow fires off his question again, the one he’s already asked me two thousand times this morning. ‘Why ent Da home yet?’

‘Dunno, shut up,’ I say without looking at him.

‘But—’

‘Quiet!’ I’m trying to keep my mind fixed on our game of Rattlebones, named for the ancient captain of the fireside tales, but my nerves are fizz-popping.

Sparrow growls and plops down on the deck, chin in his hands. Rune tokens and reindeer bones lie scattered across the deck. Hammer draws back his arm to roll a pearl, but Frog jabs his spindly fingers into Hammer’s ribs. ‘Argh, you bleeding half-brain!’ The pearl flies from Hammer’s grip, hits the mast and bounces off into the middle of a group of women carving bone fishing hooks.

‘Take your blinking games below decks!’ one of them shouts. ‘And Frog, fifteen is too old to be wasting your time with the nippers! Make yourself useful.’

‘Sorry!’ calls Frog. Then he grins at Hammer. ‘Hear that? I’m far too old and important to be hanging about with the likes of you.’ Hammer pummels Frog on the arm. ‘Ow!’

I hide my grin in my hands. ‘My turn!’ I angle my wrist and aim. My pearl skitters along the deck and hits the furthest rune token. I snatch the token up and add it to my collection. Hammer clambers around the deck, counting up everyone’s runes and bones. ‘Mouse has the most runes,’ he announces with a small sigh. ‘She wins!’

‘Again,’ adds Ermine.

‘Squirrel loses – she has the most bones,’ says Hammer.

I whoop. ‘Captain Rattlebones will come for Squirrel tonight, looking for his bones!’

Squirrel’s face drains of colour. ‘Oh, I never win! Not never!’ She snatches up her breath in little sobs. ‘And don’t you even think about dumping those bones in my bed again! It’s so unfair!’

‘Stop your grizzle-gruzzling, it’s just a game,’ I snap.

Squirrel gets to her feet amongst the clutter of animal bones and runs off, red hair wild.

‘One day the tides will turn!’ Frog calls after her. ‘Mouse is gonna lose and then Captain Rattlebones will come for her, urggghhhhh!’ He waggles his arms at me and I shove him away.

My teeth ache from grinding my jaw. ‘Makes no matter; this ship’ll be mine one day and everyone’s gonna have to do what I say. Squirrel might as well get used to it.’ I gather my pearls and stuff them in my belt pouch.

‘Really?’ says Hammer. ‘That what you reckon a captain’s job is, bossing everyone around?’ His eyebrows twitch. ‘Can’t wait to be part of your crew,’ he mutters.

‘Shut it,’ I murmur, peering at the rune tokens I collected. One of them is carved with an Yr, meaning bow, which makes me smile cos of my longbow. Others, showing the runes Fe and Ar, promise wealth and plenty – never a bad thing for a trader. But the last one has a long I chiselled into it, meaning ice, and I turn the rough piece of wood over in my hands. Everyone knows the runes hold secret meanings. What could this foretell?

‘We all miss your da, but it ent Squirrel’s fault he’s not home,’ says Ermine, glowering at me through his shock of white hair. ‘But it is someone’s fault we’re tethered to this ghost-harbour, waiting for the Hagglers to come for us, and that we’ve traded half our finest wares for timber what’s not even strong enough to repair that smashed mast.’

‘Say that again with your fists up and your teeth bared,’ I growl.

Hammer gets between me and Erm. ‘Settle your bones, both of you. Captain’s got extra crew on watch, so no one will dare board the Huntress.’

‘She went ashore without her glass eye in, just to make herself look more frightful-fierce,’ I tell them. Ermine breaks into a toothy smile and I grin back, heart-keen to drop the fight.

I grip the ice-rune tightly in my fingers. ‘Ent it odd that it’s already so icy and all the other ships have sailed?’

Hammer opens his mouth but then a great cry goes up and my head spins to look at the gangplank on the port side.

Grandma and her black-cloaks stride up the plank onto the storm-deck. ‘She’s back!’ I scramble to my feet, slipping on a stray pearl.

I’m running towards her to ask after Da when the black-cloaks move aside to let a tall stranger in a scarlet cloak climb aboard. I skid to a stop and stare. The man plants his gold-buckled boots wide and rests his fists on his hips.

The stranger’s face is long and pinched, with a crooked hawk’s nose, downturned lips and great black brows. But it’s his eyes I keep looking at, as he lets them crawl all over the Huntress. They’re grey and wide like rock pools stuffed with eels, ready to swallow me up. Suddenly they fall on me, dead and heavy, but I keep my face icicle-fierce. The man smiles, baring a row of sharp teeth.

‘What’s going on? Who’s that man?’ asks Sparrow, tugging on my cloak.

‘The king of the bleeding sea-cows. How would I know?’ I wrap an arm round Sparrow’s shoulders and rest my chin on top of his tangled hair. Sick longing for Da twists inside my belly.

Grandma’s hair swirls in the salt spray. There’s a green glint when she moves her head – she must be wearing her glass eye again. She stands arrow-straight and crosses a fist over her heart. Her sea-hawk, Battle-Shrieker, hulks on her shoulder, talons clutching a scrap of cloth. Quiet falls, leaving just the shrilling of sea-birds and the sloshing of waves against the hull. ‘Tribesfolk, this is Stag, a long-lost member of our Tribe. Some of you know him—’ Someone cheers, and Grandma grins broadly. ‘Some of you don’t. But all of you will make your captain heart-glad if you join me in welcoming him home.’

Welcoming him home ?

‘Blessings and thanks to you, Captain Wren,’ he replies. ‘As a hearth-gift I have brought the carcass of the bigtooth brute that’s been plaguing these waters, slain by my hand.’

As he speaks, Bear and a group of fishermen struggle up the plank, lugging the colossal shark. Its blood makes dark puddles on the wood. The world melts into deafening cheers, but I don’t care about the shark, cos the man called Stag slides his eyes over my face again. Then they dart away, across the deck. My guts wriggle, heavy and damp as a bucket crammed with slimy hagfish. Who is this Stag? What does he want with the Huntress ?

And other questions stab behind my eyes, in my chest, into the back of my throat, again and again and again. Where is Da? How could Grandma have returned with this strange man instead?

‘Stag!’ calls an oarsman. ‘Too many heartbeats have passed, good brother. Where have you roved?’ As Stag strides into the greeting, I notice something folded over his arm. It’s a sealskin. My heart jangles and Sparrow’s body tenses, cos he’s seen it too.

A sealskin cloak just like Da’s, stained with dark splotches of blood.

Sparrow presses his sticky little hand into mine.

‘This cloak was found by washerwomen on the riverbank,’ says Stag, passing the sealskin to Grandma. ‘As one of your own, I recognised the symbol of the Huntress sewn into the skin.’

My belly drops away. Grandma flashes a look at me and Sparrow before she glances at the underside of the cloak. She nods and her face grows flushed and slack. I grip Sparrow’s hand tight enough to make him whimper.

‘Bear!’ calls Grandma.

‘I believe it belonged to your navigator. His name was Fox?’ asks Stag.

A startled murmur swooshes around the deck. Grandma meets my eyes. Stag’s words fly between us. Was?

Bear appears, breathless, breeches smeared with tar and shark blood. He pushes past black-cloaks and carpenters and comes to stand behind Sparrow and me. His warm hands rest on our shoulders. ‘After all these years, he returns,’ he murmurs.

‘What happened at Haggle’s Town? Where’s Da?’ I ask. Bear shakes his head gently.

Before I can brace myself, the stranger speaks again. ‘I gift you a thousand heart-sadnesses for the death of your navigator.’

Bear’s fingers tighten and he pulls us closer to him. ‘Fret ye not,’ he whispers in our ears.

Am I going to have to cut out Stag’s stupid land-lurking tongue, just to shut him up? ‘Don’t you listen to this thundercloud in breeches!’ I shout. ‘We’ve got to search for Da!’

Stag’s eyebrows almost vanish into his hair when I shout, but it’s Grandma who speaks, in her no-messing voice. ‘Bear, get my grandchildren below decks. The rest of you, on with your duties. The Wharves are dangerous and empty of trade. The Hagglers blame us for bringing terrodyls close to their shores – land-lurking fools. So finish patching the sail quick-sharp – we raise anchor before sundown. We rove!’

‘We rove to trade, to meet, for the restlessness in our bones; we rove at one with the sea!’ cry the Tribe in answer. But I stay silent, cos even if we ent safe here, I don’t wanna leave without Da, and I don’t want my Hunter’s Moon celebrations without him.

I tip back my head to see Bear. His eyes are fretful, but kindness fills them when he looks at me. ‘Come, gentle-hearts. Word is Pip’s got a cauldron bubbling with his best squid tentacle stew.’ He steers my brother and me away but I duck under his arm and race to Grandma.

I clutch her tight. ‘A blood-soaked sealskin don’t mean nothing!’ I hiss, flicking my glare between her and the land-lurker. ‘We ent leaving here without Da!’

‘Enough, child.’ She tries to prise off my fingers but I dig my nails in. ‘Mouse!’ she snaps. ‘You heard what I said and I will not have you quibbling so. We sail and that is an end of it.’

I lower my voice. ‘Come with me, please, I need you in private.’

Grandma smiles sadly. ‘Go, dearheart. Fill your boots. A future captain must keep up her strength.’ She leans down and presses her forehead to mine in a Tribe-kiss. ‘Meet me in my medsin-lab after you’ve slurped your stew.’ Then she turns back to Stag. ‘Will you break hearth-bread with me?’

Below decks, I ladle some stew from a steaming cauldron into a bowl and sit next to Bear at one of the long wooden benches. My stomach’s clenched like knotted rope. Bear’s oar-scabbed fingers slip beneath my chin to make me look into his coppery eyes. ‘Happens your da’s a tough ’un, same as you. My silver’s on him being the one to find us, next time we dock.’

I drop my spoon with a splash and prop my head in my hands. ‘But he’s gonna miss my thirteenth Hunter’s Moon and he swore he’d be back in time. Da keeps his promises, so why ent he home? Ent no way he’s dead, I don’t care what that Stag says.’ My voice wobbles so I kick the table leg and swallow back my tears.

Bear wraps a huge arm around my shoulders and squeezes me tight. ‘So as you gathered, I didn’t find your da. But I did find this.’ With his other hand he brings a small, dark piece of wood from his pocket. It’s whittled into the shape of a ship. I’d know it anywhere – it’s a carving I made for Da, a tiny model of the Huntress. He takes it everywhere with him. A wave of sickness spreads through me.

I steel my heart and bite my lip, hard enough to tear the skin. ‘Where did you get it?’ I ask, running my thumb across the wood. I try to blink away my tears, but one escapes and drips onto the runes that Da and me etched to spell our names. Mouse and Da.

‘Now, don’t take your sails down just yet, Mouse. I found it at the Star, and I’ve half a thought it’s like a paw print in the ice – a trail your da’s left behind, to let you know all’s well.’

His words kindle a spark in my belly. Da knew we were meant to meet him at the Star Inn, so what if he did leave it there as a trace of himself ? That better be the truth of it. What with Ma gone, I can’t lose Da as well.

‘So who’s the sour-jowls, then? Why’s he here?’

Bear rubs his chin. ‘I don’t know why he’s come back. I was just a lad when he left, about your age, and the thing is, his jowls were no less sour then.’ He leans closer. ‘Some folks just don’t know how to have fun.’ Bear picks up his bowl, winks at me over the top of it and gulps down the rest of his stew. ‘Shall we remember the leaner times and gift our heart-thanks to the sea-gods for this food?’

‘Aye,’ I mumble, ducking my head close to my bowl. ‘Blessings and heart-thanks, you gods of the sea.’

Bear stands and cracks his knuckles against the ceiling. ‘Back to work,’ he says through a yawn.

I watch the table opposite through a veil of steam. Stag sits on a wooden chair draped with polar fox fur, sharing a flagon of ale with Grandma. A great black crow hunches on Stag’s shoulder.

Grandma’s voice is low. I strain my ears above the clatter of the crew to listen. ‘Not so long ago, the Hagglers showed respect to a captain when she went ashore to trade, and we could barely satisfy their demand for herring. Now the bakers won’t even buy a dusting of nutmeg and there are whispers of slavers and wreckers on every breath of wind.’ Scorn bubbles in her throat. ‘Trouble’s brewing, ports are fast closing. Friends are few. And gods only know what terrodyls are doing so far north this late in the season.’ She turns to a scroll and quill on the table, dips the nib into a pot of squid ink and scratches at the parchment.

‘Indeed, Captain Wren. Their habits have been odd of late, according to reports from the fishing villages and Hill-Tribe chieftains – though nothing has been heard from Castle Whalesbane for many suns and moons.’

Just then, Sparrow plunks a wooden bowl carved with a jagged ‘S’ onto the bench and plops down next to me, grubby hands fumbling for a spoon. A gold brooch in the shape of an arrowhead gleams on his tunic.

His face hasn’t seen a good scrub for gods know how long and dark circles ring his eyes. Look after him, Mouse, whispers Ma in my memory. But some days the looking after feels too hard. I send out a silent prayer to the sea-gods, begging them to keep away his shaking fits.

‘Din’t Grandma wash your face?’ I ask.

‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘And I don’t care. Don’t like washing.’

‘I can smell that much, slackwit. I’ll have to do it then, won’t I?’ A stray moonsprite runs across my knuckles, covering them in silvery moon-dust.

‘You lemme be.’ He sighs over his food and rubs his eye with the heel of his hand. ‘Can I swap my arrowhead brooch for Ma’s dragonfly? Just for one day?’

I shake my head. ‘Not on your life. Remember last time, when you let Ermine borrow it and he tried to feed it to a sea-hawk?’ At my words, a thrill flickers along my nerves, cos tonight I’ll get my own sea-hawk during my Hunter’s Moon celebrations. But the thrill feels like a betrayal of Da.

Across the room, Stag’s crow thwawks and stretches out its wings, hopping from foot to foot. Stag turns his head slightly and the crow grows still as oak.

Sparrow sighs, takes a spoonful of stew, then spits it out again and starts pushing his wobbly tooth back and forth with a finger. ‘When’s he coming back—’

‘I told you, I don’t know!’ I’m so sick of him asking questions when I’m just trying to get my head clear. Sometimes I wanna live underwater, even if it means being a merwraith, so all I can hear is my own heartbeat and the dolphins and whales calling.

‘Well I’ll tell you then. He won’t never be coming back,’ Sparrow whines, like somehow it’s my fault. He pulls off his boots and draws his knees up to his chin. The stink of his feet climbs into my nose. ‘That was his cloak, all right. And it were covered with—’

I thump the table with a clenched fist. ‘I saw it too, little fool!’ I hiss. ‘A man as strong as our da can live without a sealskin.’

Sparrow snuffles loudly and swirls his spoon through the stew. I think of the cloak draped over Stag’s arm and bite the inside of my cheek as I push my bowl away.

‘Where you going?’ pipes Sparrow.

‘Anywhere that ent here,’ I mutter, weaving past folk carrying bowls and flagons. I head above decks, cos I can feel my longbow calling, like she always does when I need to think.

Sundown’s an hour away when we raise sail for the Wildersea; the great greyness we have to cross to reach the Bay of Thunder, for the Tribe-Meet. The Western Wharves fade behind us in the mist, and the foghorn booms.

I’m out on the storm-deck, practising my right-handed shooting. Grandma’s black-cloaks keep arrows nocked to their bows as we sail past the closed ports of the Hill-Tribe chieftains, who watch, shields up, from their jagged fortresses.

Leaving without Da feels every kind of wrong. But I ent gonna doubt him. If he says he’ll come home, then he’ll be here, sooner or later. I keep a tight hold of the carving in my pocket and treasure what Bear said – that it might be a paw print Da left for me.

My last arrow thrums into the animal-skin target. As I lick the salt from my lips and stoop to gather my fallen arrows, I remember with a jolt that Grandma said to meet her in the lab. My pulse flickers as I race below.

Grandma’s medsin-lab is marked with a sign saying ‘Leave Me Be!’ but I push open the heavy door and step inside. The stinks of boiled sea-slugs and algae greet me. I’m dwarfed by tall shelves crammed full of brown bottles, with labels written in squid ink. There are vials of wolf-fish blood, for keeping divers’ blood warm, and the dragonfish luminescence Grandma worked on for moons and moons, to make into night-vision eye drops for the night-watchmen. On the wall is a note: ‘A new-birthed oyster ent no bigger than a peppercorn,’ to keep her impatience in check.

Grandma stands at her table, tipping a blue powder onto measuring scales. Beside her, glass tubes of jewel-bright liquid seethe and bubble. The table’s strewn with chisels, mallets and saws, and stained with dark patches of blood from her amputations and tooth-pullings.

‘Young Mouse,’ she says, without turning. ‘Come and help me brew this potion for Sparrow’s shaking fits. Fetch me three sea-slugs, if you please.’ I’d a mind I was being silent. How’d she know I was there?

I dump my bow and quiver on the floor and turn to the shelf behind me. When I find the right jar I grab a rusty pair of forceps and pick out the scaly green slugs, dropping them onto a square of cloth.

‘So why’s this Stag here, then?’ I ask, idly digging the forceps into the flesh of a slug.

‘He’s a navigator.’ Grandma looks at me like she’s about to say more but her jaw closes again with a pop.

‘Aye, but we don’t need a new navigator; we’ve got you til Da comes back.’ I spot the mortar and pestle, add violet root and start to grind it up for the potion.

She laughs croakily and turns back to her work, dropping the sea-slugs into a small cauldron, where they burst and sputter. ‘Happens I’ve got too much shrimp on my platter and I could do with the help. Think of that?’ She sets the cauldron over a flame and adds a gooey ball of rotten kelp to the slug-sludge. ‘Fetch the porpoise bladder, dearest.’

I scuff over to some barrels filled with the odds and ends that Pip can’t find a use for in his kitchens, and haul a big white bladder out of one.

‘But why him ? Could’ve had any of the crew be a navigator if you ordered ’em to. Da was training up a few good ’uns, anyway.’ I dump the bladder onto the table. It makes a soft ooooohh sound as the air’s knocked out of it.

Grandma ladles the cauldron gunge into the neck of the bladder. ‘Ha! Being a captain ent about giving orders.’ She threads a needle and starts to stitch the bladder shut. I add my violet root to a glass tube with a ladleful of elder wine and set it boiling over a flame. ‘A crew’s like the sea herself: full of wild moods. A skilful captain learns to weather stormy seas, but only once she’s learned to weather her crew.’

I squint up at her.

‘Ack, such solemn grey eyes, always finding me out since the day you were born!’ She laughs. ‘Stag was a young member of this crew, moons ago. Any Tribesperson may return after a wandering if the captain judges them to be heart-sore for their true home. Stag is True-Tribe and his skills are much needed here – he is a truly exceptional navigator.’

‘He’s a sombre old loon, is what he is. Besmirching our deck with his sneering jowls.’ I use tongs to lift my glass tube from the flame and fix it in a vice to cool.

Grandma’s mouth twists like she’s trying not to laugh. ‘You ent frighted of him, now, are you, Bones?’

‘No, I flaming well ent!’ My face floods with shame. I slam my fist down onto the table as Grandma hoots with laughter. ‘But he can’t be trusted.’

Grandma stretches across the table for a rag. ‘Time will tell, dearest heart. Shall we gift him a chance to prove himself ?’ She wipes her hands on the rag. ‘Truth be told, my girl, the sea is the only one you can trust, though she’s no fool and she claims anyone who don’t show her rightful respect.’ Her good eye flickers between both of mine, and deep inside her glass eye, little flecks of gold begin to swirl. Ent noticed that before – less it’s just my imagination.

‘I wonder if turning thirteen’s lent you the strength for what I’m about to say.’ Her mouth draws into a grave line.

‘What?’ I gape up at her, my heartstrings pulling and thudding.

She pushes loose strands of hair away from her face. ‘Stag’s moving into your da’s cabin.’

The words hit me hard in the chest, like Grandma’s thrown the whole stinking porpoise bladder at me. ‘You ent serious.’ I back away, a storm in my veins turning my cheeks hot.

‘Mouse, calm your bones, you know I don’t want to heart-bruise you.’

‘So why are you, then? You still sore with me cos of that terrodyl? I never meant to bring it down on us!’

‘No, course I ent.’ Grandma’s eye burns into me. ‘But if you ever try a repeat performance I’ll do far worse.’

I nod, quick. ‘I thought you wanted Da back as much as me ’n Sparrow do!’

‘Course I do, Little-Bones.’ She folds herself onto a wooden stool, looking more crumpled and tired than ever. ‘There never was a finer man. I’ve loved him like my own son, ever since your ma first fell for him at a Tribe-Meet. And gods know we could do with him aboard. But you saw that sealskin, clear as stars.’

‘So what? Anyone can lose a cloak. I’d bet it weren’t even his blood!’ I bite my lip, hard.

‘Aye, that’s a point. I don’t know exactly what it all means.’ Grandma sighs, her craggy face pained. ‘But if he is alive, your da’s more than capable of crewing another vessel until he can return – then the cabin will be his again. Meantime, we’ve to forge on, and Stag needs a place to sleep. Tonight we celebrate your Hunter’s Moon. I’m heart-certain your da will be with you in spirit.’

‘I couldn’t give a twisted fishing hook for any birth-moon without Da!’ I turn my face away as tears prickle the backs of my eyes. ‘I ent ten, so don’t talk to me like I am. I want Da here, body and spirit. Don’t let Stag have his cabin. Please.’

Grandma smiles gently and reaches for me. ‘Listen. The cabin was yours for a heartbeat, when you shared it with your da. But you’re half-grown now, learning the ways of a captain. Looking after your brother. Does a captain pine after past lives? We can’t own a thing in this world, and a cabin’s wooden walls, that’s all.’

‘Ha!’ I shout bitterly, swiping at my face with my sleeve cos the tears are dripping down even though I’m fighting hard. ‘You always say there’s so much of our blood in Huntress she’s like our living, breathing kin! Now the truth comes, that you think –’ I snatch for breath ‘– you think she’s naught but wooden walls!’

Grandma looks at me. Her mouth’s turned down at the corners and her good eye shines bright. ‘Aye, girl. There’s Stag’s blood in the Huntress, too. Like it or not.’ She bundles me into her arms and I breathe her warm, herby scent.

Someone taps at the door. ‘Mouse! Are you in there? It’s time for your gift-giving!’ calls Vole.

My pulse quickens. I wipe my nose on my sleeve and pull away from Grandma, looking up into her face.

She brushes the hair off my forehead and nods briskly. ‘Come and greet your first sea-hawk.’

Near the prow Frog, Vole and Big Marten play pipes and drums. Moon-lamps hang from hooks along the deck, bright against the dusk. My heart lifts when I see my moon rising, a full yellow orb that bathes the sea in milky light. Wherever Da is, maybe he’s looking at the moon too, and thinking of me.

Pip lays out a feast beneath the stars: oranges and cinnamon buns, lobster claws, whole spiced tentacles, roasted snowshoe hare, toasted anemones and sweet curd tartlets.

Folk stuff themselves with grub and leap in the firelight, clad in animal masks and hoods. I take an orange and run my thumbs over its cool, bumpy skin, but I can’t eat. The fire spirits twine overhead, flickering white, green and purple, but they still don’t gift me any sign of Da. Bear rumbles his loudest growl and the littlest ones shriek with laughter.

High above us on the top of the fore-castle, a group of women gather moonlight. I crane my neck to watch as they spin orbs of light between their hands and drip pools of it into glass bottles to make moon-lamps.

A Tribeswoman lets out a cry as she drops a silver splash of moonlight onto the boards. It quickly forms a moonsprite that runs off, streaking silver footprints across the deck. Squirrel chases it, giggling, red hair braided over her shoulder.

I send imaginary arrows and my fiercest battle-howl into the night sky, as the pipes and drums and horns and fiddles play faster and faster. The whirs and clicks of the orcas’ song fill the air. ‘The whales are dancing with us!’ Sparrow shouts, cheeks nipped with cold.

Bear hears him. ‘Aye, the sea-gods have blessed your thirteenth moon, Mouse-Bones!’ He grabs our hands and spins us in a circle. Sparrow squeals with laughter.

All the faces around me are familiar ones, and I’m heart-glad, but how can Grandma say the stranger is True-Tribe when he ent even bothered showing up for my celebration? I wrinkle my nose. He must have too much work to do, given he’s such an exceptional navigator.

Squirrel clambers down from her best spot in the rigging to gift me with a tiny arrowhead chiselled from jet, hung on a hook. I thread it through my ear and grin at her. ‘Took me three sunrises to make it!’ she chirps through a mouthful of sugared almonds.

Sparrow’s gift is a wooden whale that he carved himself, with chips of jet for eyes. It looks like a great shapeless lump of wood, but I keep my mouth shut about it.

From Bear I have an amulet of dark amber, wrapped in silver and hung from a string of dried sinew. ‘It’ll bring you luck and protection,’ he tells me, grinning as he lifts it over my head. My gift to him is a proper toothy smile.

‘Can I have something, too?’ begs Sparrow, eyeing my gifts sullenly.

‘Your birth-moon, is it?’ I ask.

He sticks out his tongue. I make a grab for him but he wallops me on the arm and darts out of the way. Then he gasps. ‘Look!’

I turn as Grandma appears, cradling my sea-hawk fledgling, and before I can think I’m jumping in the air and shouting for joy. I startle the bird so much that she poos a white river all down Grandma’s arm.

‘Mouse, you witless sculpin!’ Grandma scolds, but laughter sparkles in her eye. ‘Don’t unsettle her so!’

I rush to her and grip her arm, peering at the hawk’s spiky feathers and up-to-no-good face. She’s got yellow eyes and a white crest like spilt sea-foam. She stares at me but no words come yet. I can sense the beast-chatter in her, though, and it stirs the wild-crackle in my blood.

‘Can I take her?’ I gasp, opening my palms.

‘Gently,’ Grandma says.

The fledgling settles her feathers against my skin and cosies her face up to my neck. It tickles and makes me laugh. Her heart drums wild against my frozen palms.

‘My granddaughter has claimed her thirteenth moon, and will take her place by my side at the next great Tribe-Meet!’ announces Grandma. ‘Let it be known the fire spirits named her hawk Thaw-Wielder.’

Folk begin to cheer, howl and clap. Sparrow wanders up to me and scuffs his boot against the boards. ‘She ent even half as good as Thunderbolt.’ His moonsprite flits around his head, shedding moondust into his hair. Her light shows up the jealousy in his wrinkled nose and stubborn chin.

I open my mouth to tell him what I think of that stupid moonsprite when Thaw-Wielder poos down my cloak. Sparrow laughs so hard he bashes into the mast.

How much of that stuff have you got in there? I ask the bird.

She stares at me and makes a soft peep that nearly sounds like lotslotslots.

Grandma smiles. ‘It’s good to hear the wildness of the beast-chatter in your throat, my girl. This hawk is lucky to have you.’

Heart-pride blazes in my chest. But I wish, fierce as anything, that Da could be here to greet Thaw-Wielder with me.

Tonight Grandma’s let me sleep out on deck with my sea-hawk, in the hammock Da uses when he takes the watch. Thaw-Wielder tucks her beak into her feathers and her sides rise and fall with tiny beast-breath. The only other life out here is the night-watchmen and the creatures lurking below the starlight-silvered sea.

In the light of the Hunter’s Moon I cradle the carving of our ship in my hands. Grandma’s words echo around my brain. There’s Stag’s blood in the Huntress, too.

Worms, croons Thaw sleepily. I fetch a pink wriggle-treat out of my pocket and she slurps it up. Wormswormsworms.

The tiny model of the ship has all three masts and jutting sticks for oars, though some of them must’ve snapped off. This ship belongs to me and my kin, I whisper to the snoozing hawk. Not that Stag. The wind rises and gusts suddenly, filling the sails, and the Huntress speeds along like she agrees with me.

I’m about to put the carving back in my belt pouch when my finger brushes a knotted lump in the wood at the base of the tiny fore-mast. I pluck at it. Thaw, lend me your beak and you can have lots more worms. Her eyes flick open and she looks where I’m pointing. She nibbles and drags at the knot with her sharp beak, and it extends into a thin cord.

Wormswormsworms? Worms? she asks, fanning out her wings and tail feathers.

Shh, wait! Frowning, I grasp the cord and pull.

My breath lodges in my throat like a fishbone. Beautiful, silken white blooms unfurl, attached to the miniature masts. They’re little white sails. My eyes fill with tears. We were meant to add the sails together, Da and I, but he must’ve finished the job without me.

I turn the carving over to look at the other side and suddenly I sit bolt upright, heart hammering. Thaw bursts into the rigging with a shrill hoot.

Etched in spidery squid ink around the edges of the sails are runes, delicate enough to look like decoration to eyes less sharp than mine. My eyes follow the symbols:

KEEP THIS HIDDEN, LITTLE-BONES.

I CANNOT RETURN, THERE IS GRAVE DANGER.

SEEK THE SCATTERED STORM-OPALS OF SEA, SKY AND LAND, BEFORE AN ENEMY FINDS THEM AND USES THEM TO WIELD DARK POWER.

TAKE THEM TO THE GOLDEN CROWN BEFORE ALL TRIANUKKA TURNS TO ICE, TRAPPING THE WHALES BENEATH A FROZEN SEA.

REMEMBER THE OLD SONG? THE SONG WILL MAKE A MAP.

KEEP YOUR BROTHER CLOSE BY YOUR SIDE, AND KNOW YOU’RE NEVER ALONE.

I WILL FIND YOU WHEN I CAN.

DA.

My heart flutters like a wild thing. A message from Da – I knew he was alive! Then his message starts to settle about me like a heavy cloak. The Storm-Opals are real? I thought they were just part of a story! My mind tries to catch hold of this new knowing, but it’s too big. There’s so much power in them Opals, Thaw! The story says they can bring all the Tribes together in peace, if they’re returned to the crown. How’d they end up scattered? And how am I meant to find them?

My eyes gobble the runes over and over. Wasn’t I just pondering the meaning of winning that ice-rune this morning and now here’s this message, talking about ice again!

Thaw-Wielder zooms down to land on my knee and stares up at me. Da used to sing me the old song, I tell her. But that was many Hunter’s Moons ago, when I was little. I search my mind, but I can’t remember the words.

She pecks my ear with her cold beak. Lift throat-warble to sky!

Reckon she’s telling me to sing, but I frown and shake my head. I don’t know the words, Thaw. And anyway, singing ent my strong point, mostly cos the beast-chatter clogs my ears all the time.

I pull the cord from the other side and the tiny sails collapse and disappear back inside the carving. I’ve got to keep Da’s message secret. Bear’s right; Da did leave the carving as a trail!

Trail! Old song. Worms? she peeps.

I stow the ship in my belt pouch and pull the furs up to my chin as I sway gently in the hammock, feeding worms to the sea-hawk.

For hours I lie awake and stare at the full moon, etching Da’s message onto my memory. I don’t mind keeping it hidden – for once I can have a secret, just for me. But how can a song be a map? And what kind of danger has kept Da from coming home?

When my eyelids grow heavy I’m restless. I know I should settle my bones good and proper, cos otherwise my spirit’s gonna pull free and fly through the night in a dream-dance. That’s what happens if my mind can’t stay still.

As I slip into the dreaming world, my spirit tugs against my body. Fright pangs beneath my skin; I fight, but it’s too late. I climb out of my sleeping self, cold night air brushing my spirit. I flit away from the hammock and fly below decks. Something drags me like the tide, towards Da’s cabin. But when I reach the door the din almost shocks me back to my body.

A man shouts and cries out like a frighted bab. I drift inside and the stranger’s there, asleep in Da’s bunk. A candle burns by his bedside – is he afraid of the dark? He thrashes and yells. ‘Lost. Dark. No! Gone. Almost had them. But I’ll find them again, can’t have been for nothing—’ Then he startles awake and stares about him for a long moment. ‘Who’s there?’ he barks. But he can’t see me, cos only my spirit is there, dream-dancing.

Darkness falls earlier every night, now this fearsome winter’s stirring. I watch through the porthole as the Huntress prowls past a stretch of ice-flats. These skinny sea-paths through the ice are perilous, cos the land-lurking Fangtooth Tribe rule this place with terror.

Grandma’s orders float along the deck. ‘Lamps doused! Shields up! Oarsmen below! Black-cloaks, be watchful for Fangtooths. The Huntress is entering the Frozen Wastes – Sparrow’s whale-song is the only sound I want to hear, from this beat on. May strong winds fill our sails.’

The drum fades and Sparrow’s high voice rises, like a bell, to chime along with the whales. Blue puffs of song blow past my face. His voice will keep the whales close and they’ll guide us forwards in the dark, so we don’t crash into the ice.

Thaw-Wielder clings to my shoulder. How does Grandma think I’m gonna be captain if she don’t let me join the watch when danger lurks? I mutter.

Danger? Thaw trills.

I need to be out on deck, where I can watch for polar dogs and keep an eye on that Stag. Suddenly I snatch a yawn, and Thaw catches it in her beak. Last night in my dream-dance I saw Stag thrashing in his sleep, and babbling about something being lost. My mind flits to the missing Storm-Opals in Da’s note.

Feather-fear, chirrups my fledgling, hiding her head under my chin.

You stay here then. I nest the hawk in a swirl of bedding. But I ent frighted of the Fangtooths, just cos they wear bones round their necks and file their teeth into daggers. What if they’re out there, hunting us? I can’t stay put a heartbeat longer.

I pile on another walrus skin and some slippers, then grab my bow and quiver from under the bunk.

Outside, cold blackness steals my breath. The Huntress glides through a forest of icebergs, some tall enough to hide their heads in the clouds. There’s a sadness to them, like they hold too many secrets.

Sparrow plays with the whales, mixing up the words of his song to make the bowheads chuckle, whilst a pod of orcas hunthunthuntPUSHhunthunthunt, driving fish up through the thin ice on the surface. Sea-hawks swoop silently over the waves to seize herrings from the sea and plunk them onto the deck. My eyes drink it in as I turn in circles. Grandma was going to let me miss all this?

I feel my way along the frosty deck. Grandma’s in the mended crow’s nest, blowing softly into a bone pipe, in time with Sparrow’s song. A dark shape ripples next to her head – when I squint I can just make out the ancient sea-hawk, Battle-Shrieker, perched on her shoulder.

Sparrow sings at the prow, his hair and furs glowing white under the moon’s light. He spots me and grins. By his side, Vole captures drifts of whale-song in the crystal atop her prentice-staff, making it glow midnight blue.

We break free of the ice forest and drift down a narrow path through the middle of the frozen land. The whales fall silent as they’re forced to dive beneath the ship.

An eerie moan carves the night, spilled from the throat of an animal.

My heart becomes a wild bird, thrashing against my ribs. Grandma hoots into her cupped hands and black-cloaks step out of the shadows, all along the storm-deck and higher up on the fore-castle. Icicles hang from the men’s beards. Stag’s with them, eyes glittering.

I scan the ice but it’s too dark to see. Then Sparrow’s song strikes deep into my bones.

Do you remember

When the sea

Lay, still, in wait for me.

Don’t you remember?

Watch and see, they tread the paths, swim the seas.

They fly wild through the skies,

Fathoms deep and mountains high.

They are three,

Sea, land and sky.

On the sea

One travels wide.

It’s the old song, the one in Da’s message! I pull Da’s carving from my pocket and open the sails. The runes glow. I blink, hard, but the glow burns brighter. The whales sing with Sparrow, stirring the runes to life.

Might he claim this sea,

Claim it for his own?

Witches call to me, atop the Wildersea,

The hearth-stones treasure their memory.

The moan becomes a bones-deep baying for our blood. The runes whizz around the sails, then settle into a pattern of arrows. Da must’ve enchanted the message!

You must remember

What waits there,

You’ll find it at the point high in the air—

The Huntress brushes an iceberg. Sparrow stumbles, the song knocked from his mouth. ‘Hold steady!’ shouts Grandma. ‘Keep your wits about you!’ I stuff the carving into my pocket and tear along the deck towards the prow, opening my throat to make room for my battle-howl.

Grandma’s voice calls, cracked with worry. ‘Sparrow, get away from the side.’ She’s scuttled down from the crow’s nest and stands with her black-cloaks on the fore-castle.

There’s a feathery bump as Thaw-Wielder lands on my shoulder – I must’ve left the porthole open. What’s Grandma seen? I whisper. What’s out there?

The hawk nips my ear painfully. Danger, danger, danger! she shrills.

Before my brother can move, something big and white blurs through the darkness, crashing onto the rail on the port side.

‘Black-cloaks, string your bows!’ Grandma booms. ‘Nock, draw—’

‘Do not draw!’ Stag’s voice cuts through the night like a whip.

Great plumes of whale-breath rise from the sea, encircling the Huntress. The whales are trying to keep us safe with a protective circle of seawater, to stop Fangtooths or their beasts from boarding, but they’re too late.

A huge shaggy creature crouches on the rail, bristling and snapping. It swipes a paw and knocks Vole’s staff from her hands. The crystal smashes, letting the whale-song escape, its midnight-blue glow weaving up into the sails. Vole tries to shield Sparrow, but the creature lashes out again and Vole screams as she falls to the deck.

I’ve seen etchings like that beast – it’s a polar dog, one of the savage hounds that pull the Fangtooths’ sleds and guard their homes.

Sparrow’s fright-frozen; the only part of him that moves is the white cloud of his breath.

‘Black-cloaks, loose! Sparrow, move!’ Grandma’s voice has a dangerous edge now. I wait for the arrows to fly.

‘Black-cloaks, ready, but loose on my say!’ Stag barks. What’s he think he’s doing, trying to give commands right under Grandma’s nose?

A murmur of confusion runs along the deck. A few of the black-cloaks lower their bows.

‘What are you doing?’ hisses one. ‘Bows in hand, nock your arrows!’

Another shakes her head. ‘Sparrow is too close to the beast, what if we strike him?’

Grandma’s words are chipped by fury. ‘Stag, what are you—’

He thumps the rail. ‘The moon is behind cloud. If we—’

‘Are you captain? Close your blowhole, now, or—’

Filthy sea-slug child, kill, kill, kill! the polar dog growls, full of hate and hunger, gums foaming, bared fangs gleaming. Thaw’s feathers brush my ear as she flits away into the rigging.

If the full-growns won’t loose their arrows I’ll have to do it myself, even after all the trouble that terrodyl brought me. I unhook my bow and slide an arrow from the quiver at my belt. My mouth feels dry.

Crack small one’s bones, gobble-slurp marrow! keens the polar dog.

I nock the arrow to my bow. The moon appears from behind the clouds, casting me in a pool of light.

‘Mouse, get back! I told you not to leave the cabin!’ Grandma hurls her voice like a spear. ‘Sparrow, run!’

‘It’s saying it’s gonna slurp my brother’s marrow, Grandma!’ I shout.

‘Well for the gods’ sake don’t let it slurp yours as well! Black-cloaks, you good-for-nothing lot of eel-brained—’

I close my ears and creep closer to the rail. ‘Sparrow,’ I call, but he won’t move. The polar dog snaps its amber eyes onto my face. Its growls change as it watches me, distracted from Sparrow. Bigger. Juicy. Kill, kill, kill. Hungrrry.

When it growls kill my bones shudder and I want to run, but I won’t leave Sparrow. I move forward, legs jellyfish-weak.

Frighted girl-child! it rasps gleefully.

As I pass Sparrow I shove him out of harm’s way but I keep my eyes on the creature. I put my heart-strength behind my longbow and draw my bowstring taut. I ent frighted, stupid beast. Stop your chatterings and get ready to die.

It laughs. I clamp my fear behind my teeth and scowl.

Behind me comes a scuffling. Probably Sparrow and Vole making for cover. Distant shouts reach my ears. ‘Black-cloaks, listen to me. As your captain: take aim, draw—’

Too late, Grandma.

When the polar dog’s muscles tense I let my arrow sail, a battle-howl ripping from my throat. Another heartbeat and the creature leaps.

My arrow punctures its chest. Four deadweight-heavy paws land on me. I fall backwards onto the wooden boards, the breath punched from my lungs.

Warm breath rattles in my ear but there’s no beast-chatter. I lie still as the grave. This is it, my bones scream. Got by a wretched polar hound.

Muffled shouts hail down around me. Grandma’s voice comes closest. ‘Hold your arrows else you’ll strike the child! Draw daggers, now!’

Suddenly the hound’s body falls limp. A beat later the dead weight’s lifted and Grandma hauls me to my feet. I’m in her arms as sheets of tears wash down my cheeks. Stupid warm salty tears.

‘What you bawling for, kid?’ She looks straight into me as usual, so there’s naught I can hide. ‘You saved your brother’s life.’ The little crinkles round her eyes dance as she hugs me again. ‘Mouse Arrow-Swift, they’ll be calling you afore break of day.’

Battle-Shrieker peers down at me with bright gold eyes from her perch on Grandma’s shoulder. Arrow-Swift, she chirrups, beak stuffed with fishtails.

Grandma points. The polar dog lies sprawled on the deck, its dirty white fur already nipped with icicles. But the shock and the shaking still won’t let me smile.

Grandma’s smiling enough for the both of us, though. ‘That’ll make you a fine cloak, dearheart.’ She presses her forehead and nose to mine in a Tribe-kiss.

I pull away from Grandma, to look into her eyes. ‘So I’m not in trouble this time?’

‘Trouble?’ Grandma’s good eye glints. ‘Not half so much as my rotten crew are. But you, Little-Bones? You took action when all the full-growns were dithering like guppies. You kept the promise you made to your ma, to keep your brother safe.’

A deep voice severs Grandma’s warmth. ‘That’s as may be, Wren. But what will keep the rest of us safe from the Fangtooths, now that she’s shot one of their prized polar dogs?’ Stag asks. I turn to face him and his unblinking eyes pin me to the spot. ‘We still have half the Wildersea to cross.’

‘You can call me Captain.’ Grandma glares at Stag, full of fury. ‘My grandson still draws breath, no heart-thanks to you. If you’re fearful of a few land-lurkers, then perhaps I’ve been too quick to judge you True-Tribe. Get yourself below decks. Mouse is more than ready to take your place.’

Stag’s face darkens. He turns and stalks into the gloom, then a door crashes in the distance.

Grandma gifts me a wink with the eye that works. ‘I ent nearly finished with him,’ she growls. ‘Now rest your bones – you’ll be skinning that beast the best part of the morrow. I won’t keep you from my side at times of danger again – you’ve proven your thirteen moons this night.’

Heart-pride fills me as she strides away, giving orders. ‘Secure the nets! Send for Bear and his oarsmen!’ Her voice dwindles as she moves further away from me. ‘There may be others – so help me, if the Fangtooth scum sent that creature—’

Sparrow slams through the shadows and almost knocks me off my feet, burying his face in my cloak. I press my forehead to his. Thunderbolt zips from his pocket and streaks up my neck, across my cheek and onto Sparrow’s shoulder, leaving a sparkle-cold feeling on my skin and covering us in a trail of silver footprints.

Thunderbolt thanks her for saving sweet Tangle-Hair’s life! she chitters.

He’s my brother, stupid. I swallow the lump in my throat. Course I flaming saved him.

Thunderbolt blows a moon-dusted raspberry. So much for her thanks.

‘What’s she saying?’ Sparrow asks, stroking the moonsprite gently.

‘Just the usual bilge-warblings.’ Then a thought drifts into my head. ‘That song you were singing. Did Da tell you what the words mean?’

Sparrow shrugs and wipes his nose on his wrist. ‘Dunno,’ he says through a yawn. ‘Lessgo inside now – I’m freezing!’

Vole limps along the deck towards us. Gods. Not even a swipe from a polar dog can get her off my back. ‘I know you two are tired,’ she says, running a hand through her hair. ‘But we need Sparrow to sing for the whales more than ever now. And Mouse, could you fetch me a poultice and some goldenseal from the medsin-lab? I’ve a few cuts need tending. Sparrow, come with me.’ She takes my brother’s hand and leads him off.

I pull my most gruesome faces after her. Thaw-Wielder thuds onto my shoulder. Just cos Vole’s chief prentice, don’t mean she’s the boss of me, I tell her, stooping to grab the polar dog carcass. It drags heavily along the icy deck, a trail of blood slugging from the arrow-wound. Above me, crew scuttle like spiders in the rigging, unfurling a huge net to keep enemies from boarding.

My hawk rubs her feathers under my chin. Leave chores, play! Fly!

I chuckle and stroke her black wing tips. But if I don’t do Vole’s bleeding bidding she’ll spill, and I like being in Grandma’s good books too much to mess up now.

Thaw-Wielder jostles her wings in disappointment. Sorry, Thaw-beast. I put her to nest in the Hoodwink, before scuffing off to fetch the medsins.

Before I get below decks Sparrow’s voice rings out. The whales answer him, and Vole starts singing with them, to wind the protection tighter around us.

I wish I’d thought to ask Da what the old song means. I’ve got to work it out – cos the ice, the terrodyls, Stag, the polar dog attack – they’ve all got me feeling like things ent right, like there’s a stain spreading over Trianukka. And maybe, if I can find them Opals, they’ll lead me to Da.

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