Driver - Storm

To my readers, for a dazzle-bright debut year.

Heart-thanks for crewing up with me and Mouse!

May the sea-gods always swim close to you.

First published in Great Britain 2018

by Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright Sarah Driver 2018

Illustrations copyright Ray Tierney 2018

Map illustration copyright Joe McLaren 2018

Additional illustrations first published in 2017 in the titles The Huntress: Sea and

The Huntress: Sky written by Sarah Driver and published by

Egmont UK Limited, The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London, W11 4AN.

Additional illustrations copyright Joe McLaren 2017

Additional interior illustrations by Janene Spencer.

All rights reserved.

The moral rights of Sarah Driver, Ray Tierney and Joe McLaren have been asserted.

First e-book edition 2018

ISBN 978140584691

Ebook ISBN 9781780317656

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

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Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Dating back three thousand years, this ancient manuscript now resides in the Skybrary high in the Iceberg Forest of the Wildersea, under the care of the Skybrarian and his apprentice, a young Wilderwitch boy named Yapok.

We, the gathered Sea-Tribe captains, scratch these runes into skin with ink, tears and blood-truth.

In troubled times, dark forces rise. This is known. Long ago, the land of Trianukka was ravaged by unending war. In this dark time of blood and iron, a great evil rooted into our world. The evil grew, then spread. It bled into the minds of many, becoming a movement known as the

We must never forget the darkness wielded by this movement. We must make sure it never befalls our world again.

This dawn, at a ceremony on the highest peak, the Kings of Sea, Sky and Land have set three Storm-Opals in a golden crown, weaving the Tribes together in peace. Each sacred stone has been instilled with a sliver of the elements: a foam of sea, a fragment of sky and a fracture of earth. The jewels are to be guarded by a king of the giants. It is foretold that if the Opals are ever separated, evil will rise once more, and the land will be torn apart.

Hackles. Ancient stronghold of the Sky-Tribe of the draggle-riders. One full moons turn after a Fangtooth hunted me through the snow.

Stark eyes glint all around me, peering from the depths of fur hoods. I sniff the air. Fear-stink. Everywhere. The long-hall is packed with scarred and bandaged folk. Outsiders seeking refuge in this Sky realm of thick grey walls. Their murmurs clot together and rise into the air, crowding it with questions. Some are Sea-Tribe, and looking at them makes me wonder about my ship, and the rest of my own crew.

Im huddled on a bench, ice-bitten and swamped in a heavy cloak of goatskin, listening to storms pummel the mountain fortress with daggers of ice.

I try to stop the fright in the air from seeping through my skin. But the walls are smeared with silver streaks that tighten my belly into knots. Moonsprites are dying, cos no moonlight can pierce the frozen clouds.

You alright, Little-Bones? Da whispers. Hes sitting next to me, grey-skinned and pretending hes got no pain. He still ent recovered proper from being kept a prisoner of the mystiks. With food grown scarce, the flesh is slow to gather on his bones, and his jaws grip his teeth too tight. You dont have to be here for this, you know.

I ent no little un, I hiss, rolling my eyes at my crewmate Crow, whos sat on the other side of me. The former ship-wrecker boy gifts me a grin.

A door bangs and we turn to stare as Leopard seven hundred and seventy-seventh in a great line of Protectors of the Mountain leads five Sky Elders through the crowd. Leo looks worn to rags by exhaustion, but shes wearing her goat headdress and a cloak of gold-dipped feathers, and shes standing arrow-straight.

I straighten my own spine at the sight of her, and in the corner of my eye catch Lunda scowling at me. The pale-haired Spearsister one of the Protectors best trained warriors still dont like outsiders. She throws the spear of her fright even surer than her spear of iron.

The Elders are a mix of draggle-riders and Wilderwitches enemies until one full moons turn ago, when I freed Leo from the possession that Stag and the mystiks were wielding to control her and her territory. The Wilder-King remains our enemy, swearing fealty to Stag even though storms have been trying to throw his iceberg forest flat and Hackles would be safer for his people. But some Wilderwitches fled to Hackles and Leo welcomed them heartily.

I watch as the Elders tread behind Leo. Theyre draped in flowing sky-blue robes spun from ice worm silk and sewn with berg owl feathers. Orca teeth hang from their hems.

They carry offerings to the Sky gods in their cupped palms sit crystal jars filled with tiny forests, dragonflies and spark-spluttering miniature storm clouds. They reach the dais and turn to face the benches.

Silence drops. The might of Hackles presses down on us seems like even the ancient stronghold is straining to listen. Everyone says the Elders only utter a squeak when their pipes have seriousness to spill. And folks are proper desperate for them to gift words of certainty while chaos is sweeping through the world.

Chaos like how the trees cant summon their life-blood from the sealed earth, and winter wont thaw. Like how the land has erupted into riots, since the fires lit by Stag destroyed the Icy Marshes. Famine has seen more tribes joining Stags side, or taking to crimes that have long been outlawed raiding and slave-trading. Others are divided, like the Wilderwitches, and fighting amongst themselves.

Leo addresses the hall. Unity is our aim. Let us remember our mountain was born from the sea, and the wind carved the rocks. Here is the birth of a mountain!

And here is the birth of an iceberg! drone the Wilderwitches.

May swift feathers bear your Sky-Tribe glad tidings, I mutter along with the rest of them.

Let us hear the latest reports from the Sneakings, says Leo grimly.