Chasing the Valley (30 page)

 

 

The silo door opens with a quiet creak. I poke my
head out into the night, but the hordes of troops have clearly re-entered the tower. A pair of guards stands ready at the main gate but there are no other humans outside.

‘All right,' I whisper. ‘We're clear.'

Lukas prepares to pull away from the group. On a sudden impulse, I grab his sleeve.

‘What?' he says.

‘I . . . Nothing.' I tighten my grip for a moment, then release him. ‘Just don't get shot out of a plane again, all right?'

He smiles. ‘I'll see you soon.'

Then he is gone: a shadow flitting between the biplanes. The rest of us wait for a moment, giving him a chance to select his plane, before we set off towards the foxaries. We duck beneath the metal wings, avoiding the guards' line of sight.

Teddy closes his eyes every few strides, and a low growl escapes his lips. He must be connecting with the foxaries, because the beasts remain silent as we approach. They stare at us, fur bristling a little, but still do not make a sound.

An engine rattles into life behind us.
Lukas
.

The guards shout and rush back into the yard, but it's too late. Lukas steers a pathway between the other biplanes. He is fast, unnaturally fast, propelled by clouds of smoke and silver. For a terrifying moment he seems about to crash into the wall at the end of the runway . . . but then the biplane's alchemy kicks into force. With a scream of raw power, faster and faster, his biplane blasts into the dark.

We run forward to grab the foxaries. Clementine unchains them from their post and we clamber aboard. There is no need to double-up; each of us chooses a separate animal. I can see Teddy's face straining. Most of these beasts are strangers to him, and he is clearly fighting to earn their trust.

People are screaming now, shouting and pour­ing from the tower like termites. Hunters flicker into place upon the wind, or rise up through the cobblestones, but they are too late. Lukas is soaring above the fortress, beyond the reach of their guns. The guards fling the gates open and charge into the wastelands, firing wildly at the sky.

‘Go!' shouts Teddy.

The foxary bucks beneath me. Momentum slams me forward into his neck, and my face fills with that familiar stink of alley-cat musk. I choke, spitting fur and dirt from my lips, and barely lift my eyes in time to see the gate. It's still wide open, so we charge through in a torrent of shouts and screams.

Teddy urges his foxary ahead. ‘Faster!'

My own animal bucks again and I almost slip forward across its head. I have a sudden wild recollection of the crew's escape from Rourton, as I watched from the guard turret. My friends are riding out again, in a frenzy of fur and foxary snarls. But this time, I am one of them.

Sharr Morrigan's voice rises above the others, screeching for the hunters to stop us. I find myself laughing, almost hysterical, as I recognise her fury. Sharr is powerless here. She can't use her Flame proclivity so close to the Curiefer, that terribly flammable material.

Our foxaries charge across the plains. Perhaps it's animal instinct that guides them to avoid the sand – or else it's just Teddy, tangled into their minds. Either way, they leap across the rocky plateaus and keep their claws free from the mire. All I know is that my face is full of fur, and muscles are bunching and releasing beneath my legs, and if I dare loosen my grip I will die. So I dig in deeper, burying myself in the creature's fur, and refuse to let go.

Shots blast towards us, but they can never catch the foxaries. Not out here, on the emptiness of the rocks. I have never felt such speed before; there are no trees, no Marbles, no river . . . nothing to slow the beasts' charge into the night. Hunters scream behind us, yelling and shooting wildly as they charge from the fortress into wasteland. My foxary leaps up onto the edge of another plateau, claws scrambling on rock, and I almost slip backwards. But then we're up, charging forward across the endless stretch of stone . . .

The world explodes.

Pain. Smashes, crashes, blood – one limb aches after another. Everything speeds into chaos, and then it slows. I lie in silence, staring at the stars. It takes me a minute to realise I have been thrown from my foxary. My body lies upon the plateau's hard rocks. Am I dead? I don't think so . . . Surely if I were dead, my limbs would not ache in such a blinding way.

I force myself up into a crouch. My legs shake, threatening to collapse, but I twist my neck to view the fortress behind us. It's gone. There are flames, smoke, screams. In the light of the fire I see the hunters who pursued us, lying stunned or unconscious or dead upon the wastelands. Flowers burst from the ruins: flowers and birds and lights that dance like ribbons across the sky. The alchemy bombs, I realise, dazed. The alchemy bombs from all those biplanes . . .

There is another explosion. The earth shakes. Through blurry eyes I see huge trees burst from the wreckage; their branches twist into vines and then shatter as chunks of stone fly up from the ruins. Fireworks erupt to paint the smoke with coloured light. Broken stones twist and churn on the wind, cracking open into shooting stars – then, with a scream, the site of the fortress comes alive with lightning. Water gushes up into unnatural fountains, higher than buildings, before everything is consumed by flame.

Someone grabs me. ‘Get on!'

I obey, clambering upon the back of a foxary. It's one of the twins – Clementine, I think, but I'm too dazed to interpret much beyond the cascade of blonde in my face. Then we are running again, barrelling across the plateau. And above us, a biplane shoots towards the mountains like a flare.

 

All night, we keep running. The only pause is to
collect our packs from the edge of the plateau and knot some rags around our various wounds, before we charge onward to meet the dawn.

We ride up into the Central Mountains: a sweep of rocks and snow. The foxaries slow a little as we move into the forest, but there is no sign of pursuit. That will come, I know. It's only a matter of time. But for now, the surviving hunters are probably fleeing for their own lives, charging into the wilderness before the king hears of this disaster . . . 

Before he hears that we have ruined his war.

The day is cold but crisp. We wind ever upwards through the trees, through snow that often reaches the foxaries' thighs. My crewmates are battered; their faces are bruised, and one of Clementine's eyes is swollen shut. Blood trickles down Maisy's cheek, and Teddy's hair is matted with crimson clumps.

I probably look the same. My body throbs, and every upward leap of the foxary threatens to spill me backwards into the snow. But I'm alive. And with that realisation, every detail I notice takes my breath away. The snap of the wind. The rustle of leaves. The throbbing of my head, the taste of blood and mucus in my throat . . .

‘Look!' says Maisy.

At first I think she's pointing at Midnight Crest, silhouetted against the sky. I glance at the ruined fortress for a moment, then gaze back down towards the airbase. Its ruins are still smouldering, a distant smear upon the wastelands.

Two burnt buildings. Two kings' ruined schemes. It seems like justice, in a way, and I nod to show my understanding.

Then I realise Maisy's pointing at the crest of the slope, where a figure waits upon the rocks. And there he is. My stomach tightens.

Lukas smiles. ‘Took you long enough.'

And I know we are going to make it.

 

When night falls, we stumble across an over
grown ditch. It isn't the same one that we fled from when the hunters pursued us, but it looks similar. Foliage and snow arch across the ditch to form a natural roof. The foxaries slow to a halt, pawing at half-submerged roots in the snow. I stare at the ditch and can't help longing for the safe little burrow inside.

‘You know,' says Teddy, ‘I reckon we deserve a rest, don't you?'

He settles the foxaries into a nearby thicket, before we wriggle our bodies into the ditch. We tend each other's wounds with ice from the foliage, then bandage them with strips of a gaudy purple blouse.

‘Our mother never liked this one much, anyway,' says Clementine, as I wrap a strip of satin across her eye. ‘She'd be happy to see it going to good use.'

We feast on whatever is left in the packs: raw oats mixed with spices, skerricks of dried fruit, and a few stray nuts that Maisy finds in a side pocket. We tell each other stories, explain what we went through while separated. And then we nestle under our sleeping sacks, full and warm.

The twins are the first to fall asleep. It isn't dramatic; they simply drop out of the conversation, lulled into heavy breaths by the warmth of our hideaway. Teddy follows soon after them. His words turn into quiet breaths, and finally to snores.

I turn to Lukas. He turns to me. For a while, we stare at each other. Then Lukas fishes the chain from beneath his shirt, rifles through the charms, and selects the tiny silver star. ‘Remember this, Danika? This is my favourite charm.'

‘I thought your grandmother gave you that one,' I say. ‘You said it doesn't have any alchemy spells attached.'

‘No. Just memories.' Lukas presses the star between his fingers. ‘My grandmother's proclivity was Night, you know. She was the only half-decent person in my family. Do you know what she told me, when I asked about her proclivity?'

I shake my head, my mouth dry.

‘She told me you can't have light without the dark. And you can't have stars without the night.'

I fish my own hand out from the sleeping sack. Our fingers lock. Then we smile, close our eyes, and drift into sleep.

 

We wake up late, only a few hours before
noon. We panic a little when we count the wasted hours, but there is still no sign of pursuit. Perhaps the explosion caused even more trouble than we thought. I imagine Sharr Morrigan, if she is even alive, must be fleeing for cover in the remotest depths of the wastelands.