Return to Roar, page 13
She dusts snow off her coat and stares at Rose from under her fur hat. Her eyes are pale blue, like ice, and her hair is thick, dirty, and matted. She’s wearing fur-lined boots and has a belt buckled tight around her coat. She raises her sunburnt face and I see scratches running down her neck.
“Rose, who is she?” I say.
“I don’t know!”
The girl whistles and instantly the circling wolves fall still. “I’m Hati Skoll,” she says. Her voice is loud and hard; it rises over the wolves’ growls. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the Land of Roar,” says Win. “It belongs to Rose and Arthur Trout, and your wolves are getting right in their faces!”
Hati shrugs. “I don’t care who it belongs to. I’m here to hunt.”
Her last words hang in the air. Snow falls quietly around us.
“And what are you hunting?” says Crowky.
Hati looks at us, then she lifts a finger and points it at Rose. “Her.”
The wolves creep toward Rose, snapping their teeth. Hati moves closer too. “Rose Trout, you have a choice,” she says. “You can come with me and join my pack, or you can try to escape. If you choose to run, we will hunt you down, but if you join us, you will have nothing to fear.”
“Oh yes she will,” Crowky says. “She will have me to fear, and so will you!” Wings stretched wide, he lurches toward Hati.
She whistles and three wolves slam Crowky down in the snow, where he struggles briefly, feathers flying in the air. Then he falls still. On the edge of the clearing the scarecrow army curl their hands into fists. They’re waiting for Crowky’s signal to attack, but something stops him. His eyes dart to the Box. That’s all he cares about. He wants my fear more than anything.
The side of the Box is still smooth and blank. There are no gleaming letters, but as long as the Box is close to me and Rose there’s a chance they will appear.
Hati calls her wolves off. Crowky shuffles backward, grabbing hold of the Box and holding it close.
The wolves start circling us again. “Well?” says Hati. “What are you going to do, Rose Trout? Join us, or be hunted down?”
I grab Rose’s arm. “Don’t listen to her, Rose. She’s your fear, remember? We have to run.”
“And you won’t be on your own,” adds Win. “You’ll have me and Arthur with you!”
This almost makes Rose smile. “Win, how can you protect me from a pack of wolves?”
“I’ll use my ninja skills,” he says.
Now Rose does smile. It’s a small smile, but it feels like a victory against Hati Skoll. And maybe she senses this too because she stamps her foot and says, “What’s your decision?”
Rose’s voice is a whisper. “I’m going to run.”
Hati is incredulous. “You really think these boys can help you?”
“Yes,” says Rose.
“Then you’d better start running. I’ll give you one minute each. That’s three minutes to get as far away as possible.”
“What . . . You’re letting us go?” I say.
Hati shrugs. “Unless it’s a fair chase, it’s no fun.” The wolves strain toward us, whining and snapping. “Not yet . . . ,” she says, her hands keeping them back. “Not yet . . .”
Suddenly a bright light catches my eye. It’s the Box. The writing is starting to appear. We have to get out of here before the message is complete. “RUN!” I shout, and the three of us dodge past the wolves and the waiting scarecrows. Win spies his half-snapped wand sticking out of the snow and grabs it.
We head toward the waterfall. We have no choice. If we run toward the sea, we’ll be trapped. Out of the corner of my eye I see Crowky creeping away with the Box.
“Whistle fur!” Win cries, waving his wand over his shoulder and sending a shower of marshmallows toward Hati and the wolves.
“Why did you do that?” I shout.
“Cool parting gesture!” he yells.
Rose groans, and slipping and sliding in the thick snow we run as fast as we can toward the gaping teeth of the Vampire.
We clamber over the slippery rocks at the base of the waterfall. Somewhere behind us the wolves howl, but they’re not chasing us yet.
The frozen teeth look bigger close up, the size of tree trunks. To get inside we’re going to have to squeeze between them. We find the biggest gap and Rose goes first, then Win follows. Suddenly a whistle pierces the air, and the wolves stop howling. Then the barking begins.
I glance back. The wolves are racing across the snow, heading toward us. “Hurry up!” I shout. “They’re coming!” I push my way between the icicles and stumble after Win.
“This way,” says Rose, and she starts running toward the back of the cave, which becomes a tunnel. Win and I follow.
“I seriously hope this tunnel goes somewhere!” says Win as the barking becomes louder.
Rose comes to an abrupt stop and we almost run into the back of her. The tunnel splits in three directions. The passages leading left and right look wide and flat, but the opening directly in front of us plunges down steeply. It’s more a chute than a tunnel.
Behind us we hear skittering paws. The growls and barks get louder.
“Which way shall we go?” I say.
“It doesn’t matter,” says Rose. “We can’t outrun them. It’s impossible!”
A howl fills the cave. The first wolf has pushed his head inside the cave.
“This way,” says Win, and he aims for the middle tunnel. Immediately his feet slip out from under him and he crashes to the ground. He spins around once, twice, then disappears down the chute with a wild scream.
I look back. The mouth of the Vampire is blocked by fighting furry bodies. The wolves snap and snarl, desperate to get past the teeth and each other, and get to Rose. Win’s scream trails off. I don’t have time to think about whether he’s been whisked to safety or fallen down an icy crevasse because a wolf has gotten through and is running straight toward us. The rest follow, a mass of thick fur and glittering teeth.
Rose and I have a rare moment of total agreement.
As the wolf at the front of the pack jumps forward we dive into the icy chute. We slam down and start to slide, our arms and legs tangled, our screams competing with the snarls of the wolves.
The tunnel becomes steeper. I wrap my arms around Rose’s legs and she grabs hold of my hair, and we don’t let go. It’s painful, and we can’t protect our heads, but at least the wolves haven’t followed us. The chute must be too steep. It drops away beneath us and in total darkness we slide around corners, twisting left, then right, all the time picking up speed. My foot hits a rock, sending a jolt of pain up my ankle, but I barely feel it because just then my head scrapes along a lump of ice.
We tumble over a lip of rock and then we’re flying through the air. We land with a thump. My face is pressed into ice, but most of my fall has been broken by Rose, who is squashed underneath me.
She groans and mutters, “Get off me, you lump!”
I stagger to my feet and despite the pain that’s throbbing through every part of my body, my heart lifts. We’re alive and we’ve lost the wolves! Their howls have faded away to nothing and now we are surrounded by a deep echoing silence.
“Conker bum!”
Ah, not quite silence. A spluttering blue flame pierces the blackness and I see Win’s grinning face and his half-snapped wand. His nose is bleeding and he has a purple bruise on one cheek.
“That,” he says, pointing his wand at the hole we’ve just fallen through, “was the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life!”
He runs his floppy wand over us to check for damage.
“You’re all right,” he says, prodding my cheek. “Rose, you’ve going to have a black eye and you’ve got a cut on your chin, but basically you’re both fine.”
“Well, we’re not really fine,” I say. “Presumably we’re still being chased by wolves and that lunatic Hati Skoll, and we’re lost inside an ice mountain.”
“Presumably!” says Rose, imitating me. “Don’t be so negative, Arthur. For one thing, how do you know we’re lost?”
“Er, because we don’t know where we are. Are we in a cave, or a tunnel? We haven’t got a clue because our only light source is Win’s teeny-weeny flame.”
Win does an outraged gasp and his flame flickers out. “Your negativity has killed my magic!” he says.
“No, it hasn’t,” I say. “Your rubbish magic did that all on its own!”
For a moment none of us speak. We stand in the dark, listening to the drip, drip, drip of melting ice. I’m cold, my whole body hurts, and now I’ve gotten over the happiness of being alive, I’m starting to panic. Not only are we trapped in this mountain, but Crowky has got the Box. Then Rose says, “You’re being a massive idiot, Arthur,” and I realize she’s right. The three of us sticking together is the only thing we’ve got going for us right now.
“I know, sorry,” I say. “It’s just a bit . . . claustrophobic in here.”
“You can say that again,” says Rose, and I remember that she hates the dark.
“We’ve got to stay calm,” I say. “We’ve got to get out of this mountain and get to safety. I mean, if we can get out of here . . . Maybe we’ve fallen into a pit . . . Maybe there’s no way out!”
“Arthur, that is not staying calm,” says Rose, then she takes a deep breath. “First we need to see. If we can see, then we can work out where we are and what we need to do.” I hear her rummaging around in Mitch’s bag. She whispers a word, there’s a swooshing sound, and a dazzling light appears. It’s coming from a small bottle.
“What’s that?” I say.
“Just a bit of M.O.O.N. magic,” says Rose. “Penguin breath, starlight, and squid ink. Mitch made it for me.” She shakes the bottle and it glows even brighter.
“It’s not as good as conker bum,” mutters Win, “but I suppose it will work.”
It will definitely work. I can see where we are now; we’re in a round icy chamber, the opening of the chute is above us and another tunnel twists away into the darkness. It must lead somewhere!
Relief sweeps through me, and the others obviously feel it too because our aches and pains are forgotten as we start to run down the tunnel.
It’s long and dark. Soon we find smaller tunnels leading off in all directions, but we stick to the main one and Rose’s bottle shows us which way to go. As we jog along, listening carefully for padding paws and distant growls, I think about the fears that first came out of the Box.
“You know Candyfloss and Bendy Joan,” I say. “Are you sure we didn’t do something to make them go away?” Already I’m feeling tired and I’m wondering how long we’re going to be able to keep running.
“It was so long ago,” Rose says. “I can’t remember.”
“I can remember what happened before Candyfloss went,” says Win. “Arthur squeezed his nose!”
We stop for a rest. Rose holds up her bottle light and I see her smile. “Yes, you did, Arthur. It honked really loudly and Candyfloss was not expecting it. We never saw him again after that.”
I can just about picture this happening: Candyfloss’s shocked expression, and how he walked off in a huff.
“And Rose, Bendy Joan went after you jumped out on her,” says Win. “You sat in a tree waiting for the perfect moment, then—bang!—you pounced like a ninja.”
And then, even though we’re exhausted and almost certainly being chased by wolves, Rose starts laughing. “I got her real good!”
“You did,” says Win, slapping her on the shoulder. “You took her to stealth school.”
Rose’s laughing stops abruptly and she looks down the long dark tunnel. “I don’t think honking noses or jumping out of trees will work this time,” she says. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”
We start to run again, the light bobbing along the walls of the tunnel. “I really hope this tunnel leads somewhere,” I say.
“It might take us back to the Vampire,” says Win. “Maybe Mitch will be waiting for us, and she’ll have overpowered Crowky and got the Box back!”
Maybe, I think, but this tunnel really doesn’t feel like it’s leading us back to the Vampire. It feels like it’s taking us deeper and deeper into the mountain.
Just when we’re thinking we can’t run any farther we see a blue light up ahead. Rose puts her bottle in her bag—we don’t need it now—and we run toward it.
“We’re coming out of the mountain!” shouts Win.
But when we burst out of the tunnel we realize we’re still inside the mountain, in a vast chamber of ice. Passageways lead off in all directions and long, thick icicles hang over our heads. All around, ice glitters. It’s beautiful and quite bizarre. Columns of sunlight beam down on us from holes high in the ceiling.
“It feels warm,” says Rose, turning in her own spotlight of sunshine.
“We’ll be out of here soon,” I say, mainly to reassure myself. The mountain that saved us from the wolves has started to feel like a prison, but feeling the light on my skin has given me a rush of hope. “Rose, have you still got that compass?”
We discover we’ve been running north so we decide to keep going in that direction. North might be taking us farther away from Mitch and the ship, but it’s also taking us away from Hati and the wolves. The last thing we want to do is bump into them.
“This way,” says Win, pointing at a low tunnel at the opposite end of the chamber.
“Let’s go,” I say, but Rose doesn’t move.
She’s still standing under her beam of light, only now she’s frowning. “Can you hear that?”
I listen. To begin with, all I can hear is the dripping of the icicles that surround us, but then I hear a scrabbling sound, and something else . . . panting. It seems to be coming from one of the tunnels.
I shake my head. These ice caves can do funny things to your mind, make you see and hear things that aren’t really here. But then a long, sinister howl echoes around us.
“RUN!” shouts Rose, and we follow Win into the tunnel. We’re plunged into darkness. Rose wrestles with her bag, then we hear the bottle clatter to the ground. We drop to our knees, feeling around on the cold floor. A volley of growls rings out behind us. The wolves must be in the chamber. It will only take them a few moments to discover which tunnel we’re in.
“Got it!” says Win, and he thrusts it at Rose.
Moments later light fills the tunnel and we are off.
Rose gasps. “We can’t outrun them!”
“We have to try,” I say, forcing my legs to move faster, ignoring the pain in my chest and focusing on the padding footsteps that seem to be getting louder.
Then Win shouts, “Up ahead . . . I can hear water!”
So can I. It’s moving fast, rushing and tumbling.
The tunnel turns and opens out on a ledge of ice. We slide to a stop just in time. Our path is blocked by an underground river. It races past us, deep and wide and impossible to cross.
“What do we do?” says Rose. “We’re trapped!”
Her words are followed by howls and we turn to see the wolves pouring out of the tunnel. They creep toward us like one creature, heads low, teeth bared, their claws skittering on the ice. They surround us, pushing us closer and closer to the river. When we’re teetering on the edge of the ice, our heels hanging over the water, they come to a stop. They wait, mouths hanging open, saliva dripping. One leaps at Rose, but a sharp whistle makes it slink back.
Hati is coming.
The wolves’ eyes dart to the tunnel and then back to Rose. Their tails curl under. They look like us, I think. They look scared.
Hati Skoll strolls into the cave. She walks up to her wolves and rests her gloved hands on two huge heads. The brown leather disappears into their fur.
She sees Rose hiding between me and Win and grins. “Caught you!” She sounds gleeful, like she’s playing a game. “Now you’ve got to join my pack.”
Rose shakes her head, but she doesn’t answer back or shout. Normally my sister is the fierce one out of the two of us, but something about Hati makes her fall silent. I decide to speak for her. “You’ll have to take all three of us. Rose isn’t going anywhere without me and Win.”
Hati scowls. “No. I only want her.” She strokes the snout of an almost black wolf, the smallest in the pack. “Flea is not a pup anymore. I need a new runt.”
My sister, a runt? It seems ridiculous but next to me Rose is shrinking back, trying to make herself invisible.
And that’s when I see something. A large chunk of ice is floating down the river. It spins for a moment before bouncing off a rock and drifting toward us.
Win’s seen it too, but Hati is too busy staring at Rose to notice it.
I reach behind Rose and tug on Win’s cloak. It’s not much of a signal, but I’m hoping he’ll understand that the piece of ice could rescue us.
“Rose!” shouts Hati. Instantly Rose looks up. “Come here. Now.”
And I actually feel Rose move to step forward. It’s like she’s hypnotized by Hati’s cold eyes and voice. I hold on tight to her sleeve. The flat piece of ice is drifting past us.
“Go!” I shout to Win, and he turns and leaps. He smacks down on the ice, his fingertips gripping the sides, his feet trailing in the dark water. His weight makes the ice spin a little closer to me and Rose.
“Rose, jump!” I shout, but she just stands there as if she’s frozen to the ground, so I shove her and I see the look of shock on her face as she tumbles backward, arms scrabbling at the air. She lands half in the water, but Win’s already grabbed hold of her and is pulling her up next to him.
Now it’s my turn. I start to run.
“Come on, Arthur!” Win shouts. The chunk of ice must have caught in a current because it’s picking up speed. I run alongside them on the slippery ledge. I have to jump now before they disappear into the tunnel . . . but the gap has gotten wider. I can’t make it!
I hear Hati’s whistle and see a flash of black fur as Flea leaps after me.
