Ottilie Colter and the Withering World Read online

  BOOKS IN THE NARROWAY TRILOGY

  Ottilie Colter and the Narroway Hunt

  Ottilie Colter and the Master of Monsters

  Ottilie Colter and the Withering World

  For family & the furry things.

  CONTENTS

  1 The Oyster Thief

  2 Nightmare

  3 The Devil-Slayers

  4 The Philowood Tree

  5 Dreamwalking

  6 A Sinister Secret

  7 The Colour of Nothing

  8 Lullaby

  9 Varrio Sol

  10 Ramona's Right Eye

  11 Trapped

  12 Captive

  13 A Midnight Meeting

  14 The Well

  15 Horror and Heartstone

  16 A Promise and a Lie

  17 Spilt Milk

  18 Breathing Bones

  19 The Dreamer

  20 Farewell, Fiory

  21 Back Onto the Map

  22 Deep Breath

  23 The Corpse

  24 Dig Deep Down

  25 Wander No Longer

  26 Blood

  27 Light

  28 Glow

  29 Slumber

  30 Parting Gifts

  31 Captain's Orders

  32 The Singing Duck

  33 Sleepless

  34 The Fall

  35 The Crown

  36 Her Bloodline

  37 Pay For What You've Done

  38 Deserters

  39 The Witch in the Wood

  40 The Afterlife

  41 The Final Flight

  42 Wreckage

  43 The Song

  44 To Sleep

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  1

  The Oyster Thief

  Seven years ago …

  Scoot heard the crunch and tap of steel-tipped boots. He scaled the wall and curled into a crevice just as two men appeared below. The Wikric Watch were searching the slum tunnels.

  ‘Come out, little girl. We’re not going to hurt you.’

  Scoot knew who they were looking for. Only minutes ago, he’d seen a mischievous shadow slip through a gap in the tunnel wall.

  ‘Pearls are for princesses, my dear – not mud mites. Just hand them over and you can be on your way.’

  The watchmen would reach the girl’s hiding spot at any moment. They might march right by, but just in case, Scoot grabbed his slingshot and flung a stone in the opposite direction. It tinkled as it bounced. They paused to consider the sound before gripping their swords and hurrying away.

  Grinning, Scoot leapt to the ground. Considering he’d helped the thief, he decided to argue for a pearl or two for himself.

  He was just inching through the gap in the wall when he heard voices from within.

  ‘Not to worry, they’ve moved on.’

  Scoot peered through into an alcove. At first it was too dark to see, but then a veiled, greenish light appeared. A man with a pointed black beard had drawn something from inside his blue coat. It was a tinted glass jar with, Scoot assumed, glow sticks inside. He had seen them before, peddled by merchants from the Brakkerswamp further up the river. In his other hand, the man gripped a cane. From what Scoot could see, he wasn’t putting any real weight on it. Merely decorative then. That said only one thing – money.

  Facing him, shoulders squared, was a girl with dark blonde hair. A small wooden chest sat at her feet and a net bag hung from her shoulder, containing what looked like a fat wheel of cheese. She narrowed her eyes. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To tell you about a job,’ said the man.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, you’re young, and’ – he tapped the wooden chest with his cane – ‘on the run.’

  ‘I am not. It’s just some cheese and oysters. They’ll stop chasing soon.’

  ‘Pearls,’ said the man.

  ‘Oysters – ranky old sea bugs.’ She opened the chest and plucked out a dark shell, sticking out her tongue as she did so.

  The man shifted his glow sticks, splashing light across an ancient painting on the wall. Faded marking caught Scoot’s eye. It was an old painting: a girl with long hair holding something to her lips. Her stance was familiar, like the old piper who played by the river dock at dusk.

  The man was examining the oysters. ‘From the pearl farms in Sunken Sweep, are they not?’

  Scoot had heard about oysters from Sunken Sweep. The merchants said there were mystics in the south that could sense which ones had pearls and which ones didn’t before you opened them.

  With spidery fingers and a sharp silver knife, the man pried the shells apart and scraped at the flesh. The girl uttered a squeak of surprise. It was hard for Scoot to see, but he imagined a tiny full moon resting in a slug-like nest.

  ‘Not to worry. There’s a job. You’ll have to go far away, but room and board are provided. It’s hard work, Isla, but better, I can assure you, than what awaits you if you’re caught.’

  The girl stepped closer and demanded, ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘It’s your decision, of course, but I urge you to consider it. The recruiters will be in the Malefic Markets until sundown – just look for the man with the duck-feather cap.’

  ‘Skip,’ said the girl. ‘My name is Skip, actually.’

  This name, the man clearly had not known. ‘Skip?’

  ‘From Skipper. My family name.’

  ‘Indeed?’ With a small smile, he swivelled to depart.

  Scoot had to move. He slid out of the gap and up the wall, scrambling back into the crevice. Waiting, he wondered at what he had heard. A job? A job someone his age could do? Should he go too? A bed was tempting. Food, even more so. But Scoot had learned early on never to trust anyone who offered to take you away.

  By the time he risked returning, there was no sign of the girl or the wheel of cheese. There was, however, the chest of oysters. She had clearly decided she did not need them.

  Scoot whipped out a snail fork. Suspecting it would be an excellent tool for picking locks, he had snatched it from a lady’s picnic basket. He considered it a favour – now she would have an excuse not to eat snails.

  Scoot pried open each oyster and filled his pockets with pearls. There were enough to keep him fed for a long, long time. He could even barter himself a nice place to sleep.

  He had already forgotten her name, but Scoot silently thanked the thief and the man with the cane. This was going to be a very good year.

  2

  Nightmare

  Something heavy dropped onto Ottilie’s bed.

  Pictures whirled. Shoulder blades pressing up, making white fur roll. Black fangs dripping. Two knives spinning in her own small hands.

  The room barely had time to form before she rolled onto the floor, scrambling for the blade she kept beneath the bed.

  A familiar laugh cracked in the dark.

  Blinking, Ottilie dropped the knife, crawled back onto the bed and shoved Gully off the other side. ‘You are the worst!’

  Her brother was still laughing.

  She squinted at the shuttered windows – there was no light shining through the cracks.

  ‘What are you doing here in the middle of the night?’ Shock subsiding, Ottilie realised just how tired she was, and sore, too – she was stiff from a nasty fall in yesterday’s hunt and the hard floor had done nothing to help it. But she was used to it. It was one of the more minor hazards of monster hunting. Ottilie and her friends were Narroway huntsmen. Dredretches, the brutal beasts they battled, threatened far worse than bruising and tight muscles.

  ‘Stop laughing!’ But she didn’t really want him to. She couldn’t remem
ber the last time she had heard Gully laugh like that. Sinking some glow sticks into the jar of water by her bed, she watched him clutching his ribs with his thumbless left hand.

  ‘It’s nearly dawn.’ He climbed onto the bed. ‘I’ve got a hunt, but I wanted to say happy birthday first.’

  He was right. It was the twenty-second day of summer. Back in the Brakkerswamp, Old Moss and Mr Parch, the elderly squatters who slept in the tunnel outside her hollow, had always celebrated her birthday on exactly this day.

  But she had forgotten, and it was no wonder. There were too many miserable things soaking up her thoughts. What did turning fourteen really matter when her friends were in danger – even more danger than usual? Scoot was frozen in stone and Bill was missing, held captive by the witch, Whistler. She was lurking in some shadowy corner of the Narroway, no doubt readying for another attack. A birthday was such an ordinary thing, out of place at a dreadful time like this.

  Gully pinned her with a hug. ‘You never remember!’

  ‘Lucky you always do,’ she wheezed, peeling him off so she could breathe. ‘Who are you hunting with?’ She tried to keep her voice casual. It had become a habitual question. She liked to know – to be sure he was with people who would look out for him.

  When Ottilie first arrived from the Usklers, she had thought the Narroway was dangerous. She could never have imagined it would get so much worse. The Narroway was like an arm connecting the Usklers to the ruined, dredretch-infested Laklands – and it, too, was plagued with monsters. The Hunt once believed the dredretches spilled over from the Laklands, but Whistler had revealed that wasn’t the case.

  She had fooled them. Whistler had summoned the Narroway dredretches herself, covertly raising an army and waiting for her moment to strike.

  The Laklands were the perfect cover. No-one had searched for a culprit, a cause for the infestation in the Narroway, and Whistler had been able to pose as the Hunt’s head bone singer without a lick of suspicion. It was all part of her vengeful scheme to punish their king, Varrio Sol, for some unknown crime.

  Over a month ago, Whistler had made her first move. She unleashed her army upon the Hunt’s westmost station – Fort Richter. She’d been in hiding since that defeat, but they knew she wasn’t gone. It was only a matter of time before she made her next move, and whenever Gully had a shift beyond the boundary walls Ottilie felt more anxious than ever that he would not return.

  Gully screwed up his face, trying to remember who he was rostered with. ‘Fawn and Horst – I think.’

  ‘That’s all?’ Ottilie frowned. She’d have preferred a larger group.

  ‘And Ned.’

  Her shoulders settled. Of course Ned would be there. They weren’t fledglings anymore. They were second-tier huntsmen now, with no need for guardians to guide the way. Even so, the former guardian and fledge were almost always grouped together for hunts and patrols. Ottilie had a feeling that it was Ned’s doing. Being a fourth-tier elite, he could make requests like that.

  The bells tolled and Gully jumped. ‘I have to go get ready!’ He lunged across the bed and pressed his forehead to hers. ‘Happy birthday,’ he whispered, before hurrying out the door.

  Ottilie fished the glow sticks from the jar and flopped back onto her pillow. A pale rectangle now framed the darkened shutters. She would be hunting later and wondered what the weather had in store for her. If it rained she might get a rest. Dredretches sought shelter in the rain. It was too pure, too clean for them.

  She considered having a look outside, but couldn’t face propping up her bones. She was just about to slip beneath the covers and enjoy what time she had left in her safe little haven when someone knocked on the door. It was probably her friend Preddy. Leo, her former guardian, never bothered to knock. Neither did Scoot. She scrunched her eyes shut. Thoughts like that always shook her – it was like forgetting to duck beneath a familiar branch.

  Ottilie rolled out of bed, wincing as she put weight on her stiff leg. ‘It’s unlocked,’ she croaked, crossing the room.

  The door opened. Surprise heated her face and she managed what she hoped was not a nervous smile at the sight of Ned in her doorway.

  ‘Gully’s gone to get dressed.’ She kept her voice low so as not to wake any sleeping second-tiers in the rooms nearby. Her eyes flicked to Scoot’s empty bedchamber, just beside hers. There had been talk of Preddy moving in, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. Scoot would have joked that it was because Preddy didn’t want to give up his fancy room on the elites’ floor, but Ottilie knew that wasn’t the case. Preddy wanted to keep it for Scoot.

  She twisted out of her thoughts. Ned was looking confused.

  ‘You’re not looking for Gully?’ she said. ‘I thought that’s why you …’

  He smiled. ‘I came to see you.’

  She didn’t know what to make of it. Ned was pale and heavy-eyed, but that was a common look nowadays. They were all trapped in this calm before the inevitable storm. It was a nightmare with no sign of dawn to burn it back, and it marked them all with curved shoulders, weary faces and injuries. Their wounds, bruises and blood, once badges of honour that told tales of high scores, were now evidence of escapes – and promises of worse to come.

  ‘I ran into Gully. That’s how I knew you were awake,’ said Ned. ‘I just wanted to say happy birthday.’

  Ottilie felt a strange bobbing and tipping, as if her heart were floating on water. She thought she should say something. Thank you seemed the obvious choice, but the words got lost somewhere as Ned stepped towards her and pressed a swift kiss to her cheek.

  Her eyes slipped closed and then opened again as he stepped back. She didn’t know what to do or say.

  Reaching for something, anything, to break the silence, her gaze caught the lowest of the three burns along his forearm. The wound was swollen and bruised around the edges. It surely should have been healed by now. Without thinking, Ottilie took his hand and held his arm to the lantern light, all awkwardness forgotten.

  ‘Ned …’

  His hand twitched in her grip, but he didn’t pull away. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ve had it checked in the infirmary. The patchies say the branding iron might have been laced with something. They’re keeping an eye on it.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  His eyes darted to the side. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘You don’t look very well.’

  ‘Trouble sleeping.’

  Ottilie imagined most people were having difficulty sleeping since the battle at Richter. Whistler’s silence was making it worse. She couldn’t help but worry that the witch was staying away because she was planning something even more devastating than her attack on their western fort.

  There was nothing anyone could do about it. They had been seeking her; the witching shifts that had been introduced to hunt down Gracie Moravec all those months ago were now refocused on the hunt for Whistler. But she had vanished. It felt hopeless. Ottilie was sure they would not find Whistler until she wanted to be found.

  ‘I’m having a lot of dreams,’ Ned added.

  Something in his face made her ask, ‘What kind of dreams?’

  He pulled his arm free. ‘Doesn’t matter.’ There was an edge to his voice. Face softening, he said, ‘Happy birthday,’ offered a tired smile, and headed down the corridor.

  The burns were Whistler’s doing. That’s what Ned had told them. On the day Whistler revealed herself, Gracie and her wylers had attacked Ned, Gully and Scoot. Gracie dragged Ned to the canyon caves and Whistler had been there, waiting. Bill had been led in and out. Ned couldn’t remember a whole lot after that, or perhaps he just didn’t care to talk about it. Ottilie and Leo had rescued him before they joined the battle at Richter. She could still see him slumped against the ruined well, barely able to stand.

  The thought of it made Ottilie’s blood boil, and the fact that Bill was still Whistler’s captive turned her stomach. She’d wanted to go back for him – she’d planned to search th
e canyon caves, but her friend Maeve had insisted on scouting first. Maeve was a fiorn – she could take on the form of an owl, which made her a far stealthier scout than Ottilie. The caves were abandoned, she said. Whistler and Gracie were nowhere to be found.

  What did Whistler want with Bill? He was a goedl, a rare and ancient creature with a world of knowledge swimming in his skull; what would Whistler use him for? What was she planning for them all?

  3

  The Devil-Slayers

  Navigating the morning mist was like passing through a world of memory. Time seemed to fold back like scrunched fabric, moments overlapping. Ottilie could see a shape at the cliff’s edge – the rock where Leo had first told her about wingerslinks, the great winged felines that occupied the lower grounds.

  The drop wasn’t visible, the cliff stairs drowned in sunlit silver, but she could see them all the same. She remembered leaping down the stairs and sprinting for the wingerslink sanctuary after Whistler had snatched Bill.

  Gracie had been out there that day. Ottilie could see her draw those familiar knives. She could still hear her quiet command: ‘Take her brother.’ She saw the wylers leap and the blood trickle down Gully’s fingers. In her mind the drips hit the dirt like a drum beat.

  She sensed movement and turned to see Skip marching across the clover field, wearing her hunting uniform like a second skin. It had only been one month since Skip was presented with it. Just a month, and already Ottilie could barely summon the image of the sculkie she had met in the springs.

  When Ottilie first arrived with the fledgling recruits, the only girls in the Narroway were custodians – servants. Sculkies, like Skip, worked inside, waiting on the huntsmen. When the dredretch threat became too great to leave the girls unable to protect themselves, Ottilie and Ramona Ritgrivvian, the only female wrangler, had begun training them in secret. That secret had finally come out when the sculkie squad joined the huntsmen in the battle at Richter.

  Despite the battle, the victory, the lull and the looming war, time insisted on passing as it always had. The new fledglings, freshly picked and trialled, had arrived from Fort Arko. By the time the directorate changed the rules about allowing girls to join the Hunt, it had been too late to involve them in the trials. Instead, those who had fought at Richter automatically joined the fledgling ranks with special honours. There was no denying they had earned their place – and now numbers were more important than anything.