Sea. Sarah Driver

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ