The Huntress Trilogy

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.