Chasing the Valley (25 page)

Maisy shakes her head. ‘A cannon would set off the Curiefer as soon as you fired it. You'd need a way to launch it that saves its impact until the end. Something that builds up speed slowly until –'

Teddy slams a fist into his opposite palm. ‘Ka-boom!'

We all fall silent.

‘That building in the wastelands,' says Teddy. ‘I reckon it's some kind of secret military base. Good spot to hide it, really – out in the wastelands, where no one ever goes. It's gotta be where they're stashing the Curiefer. And that fork in the train line's there to deliver it . . .'

‘So what?' says Clementine.

Teddy sits up. His eyes are hard now, glinting beneath the snowy roof of our hideout. ‘So I reckon that's their weakness. If someone took out that place – blew it up, or burned it down, or something – that'd be a pretty massive blow to the king.'

A prickle runs across my skin. I know what he's angling at now. I know who he means by ‘someone'. But it's ridiculous. We're just a bunch of teen­agers. We've only survived this long because of luck, and not all of us have made it. A memory flashes hot across my mind: screaming, blood in the water, Radnor's body slipping from my grasp . . . 

‘Stop it, Teddy,' says Clementine. ‘Don't even think about it. We've come so far already to reach the Valley. We just have to turn east through the Knife and –'

‘If we don't do something, soon there won't
be
a Valley!'

‘But it's not up to us to –'

There is a shout outside. Clementine falls silent. We all stare at each other, suddenly afraid.

‘This way!' calls a distant voice. It's distorted by the wind, and muffled through our roof of snowy branches, but there's no mistaking the tone. ‘Hurry up. I want to find those brats before the night is over.'

I swallow. The others look nauseated. We all recognise that voice, and what its presence here means. Sharr Morrigan is on the mountainside.

 

 

 

 

We keep silent for several minutes, straining
our ears for any hint of movement outside. It's hard to separate natural noises – whipping wind, or snow clumps falling from overladen branches – from what might be a human footstep. But there is something strange in the wind: a howl that doesn't seem entirely natural.

Teddy suddenly pales.

I bend close and breathe in his ear: ‘What is it?'

He looks at me. ‘Borrash.'

It takes me a second to recognise the name. Borrash was our last surviving foxary, the one that Lukas sold to a farmer outside of Gunning. How could he be here, in the snow and ice of the mountains? Then I realise. The hunters have brought him here. Sharr Morrigan must have bought him from the farmer – or taken him forcibly, more likely – and she is using the beast to track us down.

Teddy closes his eyes and concentrates. I know he has a connection to the creature, but can they truly sense one another at such a distance? This isn't the time to ask. I keep quiet and try not to distract Teddy from his work. He grinds his teeth together and clenches his eyes so tightly that it looks painful.

I glance at the twins. They look just as lost as I am. We're out of our depth, with no real knowledge of the power Teddy wields through his Beast
proclivity. Teddy lets out a low growl. I'm not sure whether the noise is his own, or whether he's somehow channelling the emotions of the foxary itself. I remember how Lukas screeched like a hawk when he borrowed the bird's eyes – perhaps Teddy has made a connection with Borrash. It doesn't sound like a happy reunion.

Teddy's eyes fly open. He looks shaken. ‘Sharr's got a whole crew of foxaries.'

‘What?'

‘She's got four of them, Danika. They're on our scent trail right now – they're going to find us! We've got to move!'

We pack up the sleeping sacks as quickly and quietly as possible. Then we clamber out of the ditch and dash through the foliage into the twilight. My neck itches so intensely now that I have to keep reaching back to scratch it, even in the midst of this terror. My proclivity is clearly on the way, but at this rate I won't live long enough to use it.

‘This way,' gasps Clementine.

We head back into the trees, struggling not to trip in ankle-deep snow and foliage. We need a way to disguise our scent, and that means water. A river, a creek, a muddy ditch . . . But everything is frozen solid. We've been melting snow to provide fresh water, never bothering to search for streams. Even if there is a water supply nearby, I have no idea where it is.

The downhill slope is marked by even thicker undergrowth. It knots around our ankles; each of us trips at least once, and my cheeks are soon raw from scratches and cold.

The sounds of pursuit draw closer. We must be leaving a perfect scent trail for the foxaries. The air is crisp; the only competing scents are damp wood and snow. There is no time to search for a pond, I realise. Any second, the foxaries and their riders will burst onto the top of this slope and spot us.

We throw ourselves into a grove of scraggly trees. Snow and branches hide us from sight, but it's no use – the foxaries will charge down here like rabid dogs when they catch our scent. I wipe a clump of sweaty hair from my eyes, and light glints off my mother's silver bracelet . . . ‘The alchemy charm!'

‘What?'

I grab the silver rose charm from my bracelet. ‘Lukas used this to hide his scent from our foxaries.'

The others' eyes widen. The twins are surely rich enough to have used a charm like this before, and Teddy has probably stolen a few in his time . . . would he have learned to invoke their spells before he sold them?

There is barely enough room on the rose's tiny petals to fit our fingertips. I find a speck of cold silver, just enough space for my pinkie. The last thing I see is a trio of frightened faces with closed eyes. Then I shut my own eyelids and focus.
I'm hidden . . . We are hidden . . . The foxaries cannot sense us . . . 

The air twangs. The rose heats up, painfully hot beneath my fingertip, but I refuse to let go. It feels as though my skin is burning. I can only hope the spell will hold – not just for me, but for all of us. The silence seems to stretch forever. There is no approaching sound, no crunch of paws in the downhill snow.

When I cannot hold my breath any longer I release it in a slow huff. I flutter my eyelids open for half a second to steal a glance at the slope. Nothing. No foxaries in sight. Just silent snow.

The others open their eyes.

‘I reckon we should double back,' says Teddy. ‘Walk in the places we already left a scent trail. If the foxaries come after us, Sharr might think they're just picking up an older trail that she's already searched . . .'

We hurry back up the slope and through the trees. Occasionally I hear a growl in the distance, but we just hurl ourselves into the undergrowth and engage the charm's alchemy spell until the danger has passed.

It's in one of these hiding places – when I'm crammed between a boulder and Clementine's kneecaps – that my gaze falls directly on Midnight Crest. I stare up at the crumpled fortress and fight a terrible, bizarre urge to laugh. Here we are, fugit­ives in the snow. And here are the king's hunters, ready to tear us to pieces. A different king, perhaps, but still a Morrigan. Still a tyrant. Has anything changed in Taladia, in the hundreds of years since that fortress burned?

Finally, we find ourselves back up at the lookout point. There has been no sign of the foxaries for a while now. I'm starting to hope they've found our old trail, back down among the burnt regions of the forest. Perhaps they're sniffing around our old cave. We stayed there an entire day, so our scent must be strong.

There is a sudden rattle in the sky.

‘Hide!'

We scramble back into the trees as a dozen biplanes roar overhead. They descend, spiralling towards the wastelands beyond the mountains. I venture back onto the rocky edge of our lookout, just in time to see the biplanes disappear below. The dusk is too deep now to make out any details, but I know where the biplanes have landed: inside the walls of that mysterious fortress. Out in the wastelands . . .

Behind me, Maisy gasps.

‘What is it?' I say.

‘That fortress must be the airbase. I knew the palace had their airbase somewhere near the Central Mountains, but I never thought . . .'

‘That's
where they store their biplanes? The ones that bomb our cities?'

She nods. ‘I can't believe it's here. I can't believe they're storing the Curiefer in the same place as their biplanes.' She raises a hand to her lips, stunned. ‘Oh no. That's how they're going to do it.'

‘Do what?'

Maisy turns on me, her expression desperate. ‘They need a huge impact to explode the Curiefer. It's not enough just to burn it; they need it to actually
explode.
So they'll load the Curiefer onto biplanes, and then drop it over the Val–'

‘Hang on,' Teddy says. ‘You can't fly biplanes over the Valley. The magnets would mess with the engines' alchemy before they even had a chance to drop the Curiefer.'

Maisy hesitates.

‘They don't need to drop
it,' I say. ‘As soon as those planes fly over, the magnets'll bring them down. I'd say a plane crash is a pretty huge impact.'

‘But the pilots will die!' Clementine says.

‘That wouldn't stop King Morrigan,' I say. ‘He could force the pilots to do it. He could hold their families hostage – their spouses, their children. He'd only need to sacrifice a few pilots, a few planes. And then . . .'

I trail off. Images flash like bombs behind my eyes. Magnetic rocks deactivating, in a blaze of biplane wreckage. The rest of the king's air force flying overhead, ready to launch an assault on the land beyond. People screaming, burning, dying. Biplanes clearing the way for troops on the ground, armed with alchemy rifles and cannons . . .

‘No wonder they built their airbase in the wastelands,' says Teddy. ‘You'd need a damn good hideout for a place like that. Somewhere to stash their Curiefer
and
their biplanes? I don't reckon they'd want a bunch of refugees to find it.' He pauses. ‘Or to do anything about it.'

‘What?' Clementine pales. ‘You can't still be suggesting . . .'

‘I reckon we could do it,' says Teddy. He has a strangely intense look in his eyes. ‘It's been done before.'

He points towards Midnight Crest, nestled high among the mountaintops. Its ruins are barely visible in the fading light, but a faint silhouette remains printed on the sky.

‘Those people stood up against their king,' Teddy says. ‘They burned his prison to the ground.'

A peculiar tingle runs down my spine.

Teddy turns back to Maisy. ‘You said that Curiefer stuff is flammable, right? It's hard to make it explode, but it's easy to burn?'

‘Yes,' says Maisy quietly. ‘That's right.'

Clementine shakes her head. ‘Teddy, stop it!
We're not warriors – we're just a bunch of kids. Radnor died to keep this crew safe – he wouldn't want us to throw our lives away.'

Teddy scoffs. ‘Hate to break it to you, but Radnor's parents were revolutionaries –
real
revolution­aries. They tried to set up secret meetings, plotting against the monarchy and all that. But someone ratted them out, so the guards in Rourton killed them. Would've killed Radnor too, except I was burgling the place next door and I smuggled him out across the rooftops.'

‘What?'

‘That's why Radnor let me join this crew,' says Teddy. ‘Because he owed me his life. But those guards still shot his parents, and his little sisters . . . If anyone would've wanted us to attack that place, I reckon it'd be Radnor.'

There is silence.

I run a hand through my hair. We now have two routes, and not much time to choose one. To our east lies the Knife: our passage to freedom. We can run away and try to save ourselves. We can leave the king's schemes for someone else to deal with.

To our south lie the wastelands, including the airbase. There lies the palace's fleet of biplanes and – we suspect – a massive stash of Curiefer. If we destroy that stash, we might stop a war. And if we destroy those biplanes, we might stop alchemy bombs from falling on Taladia's own cities . . . including Rourton.

We might be the only ones who know about this base. The only ones in a position to stop this war. How can we turn away?

‘I shan't waste my good life,'
recites Clementine, watching my expression. ‘Remember the second verse, Danika? That song is warning us to avoid the wastelands – that's what it means by “waste”, I'm sure!'

I shake my head. ‘But if we burn that airbase, we could save thousands of lives. Millions, even. How could that be a waste?'

Clementine doesn't answer. She just stares at Maisy, then back at me, as though I'm missing the point. Then I realise what she's really trying to say. She doesn't want to run away to protect
herself.
She's trying to keep her promise to Maisy – to keep her safe. Clementine has sacrificed everything to find her sister a better life. How can we ask her to throw all that away?

Maisy steps forward. ‘I think we should try to destroy the airbase.'

Clementine chokes. ‘What?'

‘I think they're right,' Maisy says. ‘We can't just run away. And besides, where would we run? If the king destroys the Magnetic Valley, our hopes are ruined anyway.'

There is silence. We all stare at Maisy. This is not what I expected. Timid, shy Maisy Pembroke is in favour of attacking the airbase?

‘The palace biplanes are down there,' Maisy says. ‘Those planes killed our mother. Those hunters killed Radnor. And those palace forces, that government . . . those are the people that our father's friends work for. It all comes back to King Morrigan. He's caused everything we've been through. We've got a chance to fight back. I've never had that chance before, Clem. Not really.'

As Maisy speaks, she stares down at the wastelands. She clenches her fists. ‘And I'm not afraid any more.'

Against all odds, I believe her. This is not the meek little girl that I met in Rourton's sewer pipes. This is a young woman whose proclivity is Flame
.

‘All right,' says Clementine. She blinks hard, then nods. ‘All right.'

I throw one last glance back at the route to our east. The Knife stretches away through the mountains, luring us to the Valley. But the last streaks of twilight are fading, a dusty crimson, and the colour reminds me of fire. Of my family burning, and Radnor's blood in the water. Of those who will die in King Morrigan's war.

I swallow my fears and turn to face the wastelands.

‘I'm in,' I say. ‘Let's go.'