Wolf Star Rise: The Claidi Journals Book 2 Read online

  It looked enormous. Like a dirty bloated fallen sun. No, like a copper thunder-cloud—

  And then – I don’t know really what happened. I’ve tried to piece it together, can’t, as if somehow I’ve forgotten those completely crucial moments.

  But it was as if the wood changed again. This time all the trees became men.

  They were in uniform, white, or black, with plates of metal, and guns, and I ridiculously thought The House Guards!

  They must have grabbed hold of me. I was in a sort of metal web, and I couldn’t see where Teil and Dagger and the others were. As I kicked and tried to bite I hoped they’d got away. And I thought, They’ll get help – and then, Anyway, someone will have seen – but the camp had been so busy – getting ready for the wedding. And these woods were uphill. And the trees—

  Then one of the armoured men said to me, ‘Stop struggling, or you’ll wish you had.’

  They weren’t House Guards. But I knew that tone, those words. He meant what he said. (It was useless anyway.) I became quite still.

  Another one said, ‘Is this the one?’

  ‘It’s her,’ said the first one, who must be the one who had hold of me in the web. ‘I saw her almost every day in the City.’

  ‘He’d never forget,’ said the other, ‘would you, Chospa? Not after she made such a blazing great fool of you.’

  ‘Chospa’ growled and shook me angrily, and the chain-web rattled. Who was he? Just one of several enemies from my past—

  Then there were shouts of ‘Haul away!’

  And to my disbelieving horror I was being hauled upwards, up through the slapping branches of the trees, so I had to protect my eyes – up into the air. Up to the disgusting balloon.

  I kept thinking, someone will come in a moment. Argul and the Hulta had rescued me before – once, twice – Argul will rush in gorgeously bellowing, and Mehmed and Ro and Blurn and everyone.

  I kept thinking this even after I was pulled over into the basket under the balloon. Kept thinking it even as the balloon lifted, with a terrifying hiss of hot gas over my head. As the ground fell away. As the trees became like a clump of watercress, as I saw the Hulta camp – like a child’s colourful tiny toy, spread out, peaceful, far away – too far even to see if they’d noticed.

  Then suddenly, as I lay there on the balloon-basket’s floor, I knew it was now too late. And then it was as if some mistake had been made and it was my fault, my mistake. Only what had I done wrong?

  BALLOON RIDE

  ‘Some girls would give their front teeth, to ride in a balloon like this,’ said one of my captors haughtily, about an hour later.

  So I was ungrateful, presumably?

  Chospa, who was in the white uniform, glared at me under his steel helmet crested with a stiff white plume.

  ‘Chospa’s still very angry with you,’ said the one in black.

  I thought I was quite angry with Chospa. Or would be if I weren’t so frightened, so numbed by what had happened.

  ‘Look, she doesn’t remember you, even, Chospa.’

  ‘No. She never looked at me once, until that last time.’

  ‘Tell us again, Chospa. It’s always good for a laugh.’

  Chospa swore.

  He said, ‘She was going to be Wolf’s Paw. I respected her.’

  ‘You trusted her,’ said the one in black.

  ‘We all did. Who didn’t? She was absolutely correct in everything. Couldn’t fault her.’

  The one who’d remarked I might want to give my front teeth for this exciting ride (I found out later his name was Hrald) said, ‘But listen, boys, she’d destroyed everything, even the holy books, and then she prances down with our Chospa here, to the street. Says she wants a walk. Then she says,’ (here Hrald mimicked a female – my – voice, high and stupid and squeaky, how he thinks females sound, I suppose) ‘ “Dooo let me see that delicious darling rifle, dearest Chospa. Ee’ve always admeered it sooo.” And what does the dupp do, but give it to her—’

  ‘I didn’t know she’d destroyed the Law – or that she had savage barbarians waiting by the Tower door,’ snarled Chospa.

  I knew him now, of course.

  He’d been my guard/bodyguard in the City. Meant to protect me and/or keep me prisoner.

  It’s true, I’d never really glanced at him. Most of the people there looked like mechanical dolls, clockwork, without minds or hearts.

  I’d just been glad that night it was all being so simple, getting away.

  Argul had taken the rifle from me and shut Chospa in the Tower, and I hadn’t really thought about it again. Not even when I wrote down what happened.

  Chospa now said, ‘I couldn’t open the Tower door. You can’t from inside, unless it recognizes your rank – like it did hers. I had to sit there. Later I was called in to the Old Lady. I was in there, explaining, two hours.’

  No one laughed at this.

  Two hours with Ironel Novendot. Ironel either furiously angry or else making believe she was. Her black eyes, snapping real-pearl teeth and poison tongue, her dry white claws. I didn’t envy him. His face now, just remembering, was pale and sick-looking. (The way mine felt.)

  ‘Lost his house in the City,’ said Hrald. The one in black – his name is Yazkool (I haven’t forgotten their names, once heard. Never will, I expect) – said, ‘Just about kept his place in the City Guards. Allowed to come with us on our joyous quest, weren’t you, Chospa, to identify Miss, here. Ironel’s orders.’

  (I hadn’t realized he couldn’t open the door. Thought they’d just sat there and not come after us because they were insane.) (The Tower door could recognize me? That was new. But so what—)

  Drearily I huddled on the floor of the balloon-basket. Were they going to throw me out when we got high enough? We were high up now. No, they were going to take me back to the City, to the Tower. To her. And then – well.

  Would Argul realize? Of course. He’d come after me, like before. Rescue me, somehow.

  A spark of hope lit up bright inside me. I was careful not to let the three Guards see.

  But I did sit up a bit. The web-chain had fallen off. I tried to glimpse over the basket’s high rim. Couldn’t see much.

  Rolls of landscape, soft with distance, but down – and down – below. And the vast moving sky, with clouds like cauliflower blowing up over there, where the plain looked oddly flat and shiny—

  It was choppy, riding in the balloon. I hadn’t noticed that either, except as part of the general awfulness.

  Above roared the fire-gas thing that powered the balloon. There was one more man in the basket, shifting some contraption about (like a boat-driver) to guide the balloon, probably. I didn’t understand it.

  Even though I’d brightened a bit, I was hardly light-hearted or very observant. But I now noted one of the other mushroom balloons, which looked miles away. We must be going quite fast?

  I felt rather queasy, but it wasn’t air-sickness, more shock.

  ‘I must say,’ Hrald must-said, ‘I was surprised you took all that, Chospa. I mean, the way the old bag ranted on at you.’

  Even I was astonished. Chospa gaped. Old bag – Ironel!!!

  ‘She’s the Keeper of the Law,’ gaped Chospa.

  ‘Yeah, well. But she went too far. Disgraced you. What happened was her fault, too.’

  ‘Definitely not fair,’ agreed the other one, Yazkool.

  Chospa shrugged, turned away. He now looked blank and mechanical again.

  I saw Hrald and Yazkool exchange a glance. Hrald shook his head, seeming to say, Don’t let’s upset him any more.

  The balloon-driver – ballooneer I think they call them – had looked round too. He was a short bearded man, and he gave an ugly grin. That was all.

  I didn’t think much about this, or anything. I was glad as I stopped feeling sick. Also concentrated on seeming resigned and meek, in case there’d be any unlikely chance later to get away.

  Sometimes it felt hot in the balloon, and then chill
y. We were in a chilly phase when Chospa suddenly barked out, ‘Tell that fool to watch what he’s doing!’

  ‘Oh, he’s all right.’

  ‘Are you blind? We’re going over too far east—’ and Chospa shouted at the ballooneer, ‘Pull her round, you moron. The City’s that way!’

  ‘Calm down, Chos,’ said Hrald, in a matey voice. ‘Trust me, it’s fine.’

  ‘What is this?’ shouted Chospa.

  ‘Oh, we’re just,’ said Hrald, idling across the bumpy balloon-basket, ‘going to do something, er, first—’ and then he reached Chospa and punched him whack on the jaw. Chospa tumbled over and the basket plunged and the ballooneer cursed us all.

  As we bucketed about the sky, the land dipping, clouds dipping, sun turning over, I saw we were also much lower, and that shining flat plain was gleaming everywhere to one side. It must be the sea?

  Chospa rolled against me and I stared in alarm at his poor unconscious face, with the bruise already coming up like a ripe plum.

  Yazkool laughed, seeing me worrying.

  Hrald only said, ‘Bring us down over there, that stand of pines.’

  ‘They always want miracles,’ muttered the ballooneer.

  And then the air-gas-fire was making ghastly dragon-belches and we seemed to be dropping like a stone.

  All around the sky was empty of anything – but sky. The other two balloons were completely out of sight.

  The ground came rushing up and I thought we’d all just be killed, and was too frightened even to be sick after all, and then we landed with a bump that rattled everything, including my bones and poor old Chospa.

  Well, we were fairly near the pines …

  Next thing I knew, they were dragging me out of the basket. Yazkool unfortunately was securely tying my wrists together.

  ‘There’s the sea,’ pointed out Hrald, still apparently determined for me not to miss any of the travel or sightseeing opportunities.

  Beyond the hill slope we’d crash-landed on, and between the black poles of the ragged pines, a silver mass gushed and crawled. Chunks of it constantly hit together and burst in white fringes.

  Argul would have shown me that. Helped me make sense of it.

  It was now cold, or I felt cold. The clouds were swarming in the sky, bigger and darker and bigger.

  The mushroom-pod of the balloon seemed to be deflating. No one did anything about Chospa, just let him lie there on his back.

  ‘Then where are they?’ demanded the ballooneer.

  ‘Don’t bother your pretty little head about it,’ said Hrald. ‘We’ve made good time.’

  The ballooneer scowled but said nothing else. Yazkool produced a pair of nail-scissors and began neatly to trim his nails.

  The wind blew, hard and spiky from the sea. I wanted to get out of the wind, so sat down, with hand-tied awkwardness, against one of the pines.

  I didn’t realize even then that harsh, silver-salt wind was going to be my constant companion for quite some time to come.

  About half an hour later, some wild men came trudging up the hill.

  They’d called the Hulta ‘barbarians’, as I’d have expected City people would. These really did look barbaric. Their clothes were all colours, all patched, mis-matched, too bright or faded, and all filthy. They had rings through their ears, their noses, their eyebrows, lips, teeth, and beads plaited in hair, moustaches and beards. Several had one shoe or boot different to the other. There were a lot of knives, clubs and nasty-looking catapult things.

  They spoke another language, too, which only Hrald seemed to have any idea of. One of them, who was dark but with very yellow hair, spoke a bit of the language the City speaks, that language I suppose is also mine.

  No one mentioned me.

  I had the strangest feeling that I had nothing to do with any of this. I tried to merge into the tree, but of course that was silly. Yazkool presently came and pulled me up, and I was marched down with the others towards the silver waves.

  They’re going to drown me, I decided. It’s some new quaint ritual.

  I’m sacrifice-material, obviously. I mean, the Sheepers saw that at once, and gave me to the Feather Tribe, who meant to sling me off a cliff. As for Jizania and Nemian, I was the best sacrifice of all to them. My life was barter for their royal lives, in the House and the City.

  But we skirted the sea – which was very wet, very icy, with colours like tea and lime-juice in it now, seen so near. We went along a strip of sand and over slippery pebbles and black stones. Around a curve of headland, I saw a ship on the water. Ah, we were going to the ship.

  I didn’t cry. It was as if I’d known somehow this would happen.

  It had to be too simple just to kidnap me and carry me off to be killed in the City, where just possibly I might escape or Argul rescue me.

  No, no, I had to be re-kidnapped again, and put on this rotten ship with its mucky old stained sail, taken off somewhere with this ship’s crew who all looked completely dangerously mad.

  We rowed out in a leaky boat.

  They pushed me up a ladder – not easy to climb, hands tied, shaking, the sea going glump-whump, everything rocking.

  (‘Enormous seas, Claidi,’ said Argul, in my mind. ‘Miles of water and sky.’)

  Something, some bird, flew over, shrieking. A gull. I didn’t know it was. I didn’t ask, or care. They bundled me into a dark cabin and slammed the door, and there I was.

  YET MORE TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES

  When I think about it now, I think I should just have jumped into the sea. That’s what a proper heroine in one of the House books would have done. (Although naturally a handy passing boat or giant fish would then have rescued her immediately.) I’m not a heroine, anyway. I’m just Claidi.

  Anyway I didn’t, did I.

  How long did it last, that thing they called a voyage? Months, years.

  Oh, about twenty-five or six days, maybe. I kept count the way the (in-a-book) captive is meant to, by scratching on the cabin wall by the wooden chest. I did it promptly every morning, without fail. And then, obviously, being me, being Claidi, I forgot the number the moment we got off the ship.

  But, about twenty-five, thirty days. Perhaps.

  Oddly, I sometimes thought about Chospa. It seemed so unfair, because, through no fault of his own, he’d be in trouble all over again. I could cheerfully have punched him on the nose myself, but at least he’d been honourably doing what he thought he should.

  Instead of Chospa, there were Yazkool and Hrald. (The ballooneer hadn’t joined the ship. I don’t know what his plans were but I hope so much they went wrong.)

  I hated them, Y and H. Was allergic to them. Not just because they’d made my escape-chances totally hopeless, either. They were so smug and – royal – always cleaning their nails, their teeth, brushing their hair, complaining about the way they had to ‘make do’ on the ship. And at the same time so smilingly-mysterious about what they were up to. That is, what they meant to do with me. Of course, I had asked.

  The moment they opened the cabin and said I could come out now, since there was nowhere to go (obviously having never read any of those jump-overboard books I had) I asked them.

  ‘Where are you taking me, and why?’

  ‘Why not let it be a wonderful surprise?’ suggested leering Yazkool.

  ‘Tell me now!’ I cried. I meant to sound like the Wolf’s Paw, or apprentice Wolf’s Paw, I’d been. I didn’t manage it. The ship was also pitching about, and although I found I was (thank heavens) a good sailor (that is I didn’t want to throw up) I could hardly keep on my feet – even now they’d untied my hands.

  Hrald looked bored. ‘I’m off below,’ he said.

  Yazkool beamingly said, ‘Lady Claidissa, why not think of this as being an adventure for you?’

  Hrald, who hadn’t yet gone, added, ‘And much nicer than being imprisoned for life in the City cellars, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘How did you know where I was? How did you find me?’ I gabbled.
They were already staggering, sea-legs almost as hopeless as mine, down the deck.

  One of the wild sailor-people undid a hatch, and they stepped-fell through and were gone.

  I made the mistake of looking round then. I didn’t throw up, but I nearly screamed.

  Everything was galloping and tilting this way, that way. The vast mast, with its dirty sail, seemed to keep going to crash right over on us all. Waves a hundred feet high (they can’t have been, but looked it) kept exploding up in the sky and hurling spray into the ship and all over us.

  No one seemed upset. Cheery sailors strode bow-leggedly up and down, or scrambled across rope-arrangements on the mast, calling merry, other-language insults, and singing.

  Water sloshed down the deck, ran into the cabin, then, as we nose-dived the other way, ran out again.

  In fact, it wasn’t quite as bad as it looked that first time. But it took me hours to get used to it, and by then the wind had settled down a little (temporarily), and the sea was flatter. This too then happened to me. My brief anger went out. I felt flat and utterly lost.

  Obviously, the ‘voyage’ was disgusting. It would have been, even if I’d wanted to do it.

  I’ve read or heard these stories of glorious days on board ships. Blue waters, amazingly-shaped clouds, dolphins (?) and other fish – or sea-animal-things, leaping, the comradeship of sailors. This wasn’t my experience.

  The sailors fought a lot.

  I think it was boredom. They never seemed to do anything useful, but they were always either rushing acrobatically about, or sitting playing dice or card games, or even peculiar guessing games (I’d picked up some of their language by then).

  Yazkool told me (he and Hrald kept coming and talking patronizingly to me, as if I should be flattered by their attention) that the sailors have nine hundred and seven words for Sea. Perhaps it was a lie. They certainly had about a thousand filthy words for Go Away, or Idiot! (Dagger would have loved it, memorizing them for future use.) (I mustn’t think too much about Dagger. Or Siree. Or anyone. Not now. I refuse – I REFUSE – to think I won’t see them again. But … it won’t be for a long while.)