Crow Boy (8 page)

The crows surged forward in a cawing mass, but Greyfur held out a hand to stop them. “We do not wish to harm you.”

The crows cawed in disagreement.

“We do not wish to harm you,” he repeated, frowning down at the crows. “But we will not allow you to harm the veil.
Sssst!
You must give back the nexus ring!”

Aleena spun around and strode onto the glacier. Then she turned. “Just try and stop me,” she said.

The white-tipped crow rushed at Aleena, squawking, wings flapping, jabbing his beak as he scolded her.

Her lips moving silently, Aleena reached out, floated a chunk of ice off the face of the glacier and flung it at the crow.

He squawked and leapt away, but the ice caught him across the side of the head and he fell to the ground.

The crows dove at Aleena, pecking at her head and yanking her hair. The white-tipped crow cheered them on as he struggled to his feet.

Aleena reached up to the grey clouds huddled around the peak of Storm Mountain and drew them to her. They moved slowly at first, and then faster and faster as if they couldn’t wait to reach her. They boiled overhead, dark as night.

Then hail plummeted from the sky, hard balls of ice smashing into everything – Maddy and me, the otter-people, the crows. We cried out and raised our hands to protect our heads. Leaves were stripped off the trees, filling the air with the scent of crushed plants.

Hail smacked my head and shoulders, hard and icy, leaving welts and bruises. Maddy cried out and touched a hand to the side of her head. When she pulled it away, it was red with blood.

Aleena stood in the centre of the fury, perfectly dry, not touched by a single hail stone. She looked exultant, all her focus on her hands, bringing down destruction.

As the otter-people and the crows closed in around her, I could see her planning her escape. If she left, I wouldn’t be able to follow her. I could water travel, but I wasn’t a tracker. We’d never find her.

I stared at the otter-people, Maddy, and the crows, all furious, battered and determined. Several crows lay unmoving on the ground. Eneirda and Greyfur both had bruises on their foreheads and bloody patches across their shoulders. Maddy held a hand to her head, trying to stop the bleeding. Aleena looked prepared to fight forever.

I stepped into the middle of the crowd, held out my arms and cried, “Stop!” Magic reverberated in my voice.

Everyone turned to me, suddenly silent.

“We have to stop,” I said. “You have to let Maddy and me take care of this. We will get the nexus ring back. We will protect the magic world.”

They stared at me in stunned silence.

Then the white-tipped crow spat out a single, scornful, “Cawww!”

Eneirda muttered, “Humans,” and Greyfur frowned.

“Keeper trusts us,” I said. “Maddy and I will find a way. If we keep fighting, more of us will be hurt.” I nodded to the crows. “Aleena will leave. We will never get the ring back.”

I could see Maddy torn between my logic and her own determination to fight. She stared into my eyes, took a deep breath and nodded. She stepped to my side. “I agree,” she said.

Greyfur and Eneirda hissed. Greyfur opened his mouth to speak, but I stared him down, feeling totally determined and sure. He stopped, gave one slow nod and stepped back. “You must succeed,” he said. “
Tss
, you must get the ring back to Keeper.”

“I will,” I said.

I turned to Aleena. “Come with us, please,” I said. I watched her face as I spoke. Underneath the fury flashing in her eyes I could see a hint of hurt and fear. I reached out a hand to her. She sighed and nodded, and the anger drained from her face.

As we turned to leave, Maddy said, “I’ll just be a moment.” I headed down the scree slope with Aleena as Maddy asked Eneirda, “What will you do now?”

“We will continue looking for a safe home. We will go far away from where you have been, far from where you might be.”

I felt sick, and more determined than ever to stop this.

~

We walked back to where we’d spent the night, near the creek by the base of the cliff face. Clouds from the storm followed us, as if they wanted to be close to Aleena.

Maddy’s head finally stopped bleeding; I helped her wash the blood out of her hair.

The crows settled nearby, checking each other’s injuries and splashing in the creek. The white-tipped crow paced and bossed, while Corvus sat back and groomed his feathers.

Maddy watched them through her silver ring, and then leaned back. She smiled and rocked slightly as she looked across the valley to the far mountains, enjoying seeing magic so clearly. Then she turned to study the rock face behind us. Her body stiffened as she stared through the ring. “Josh,” she said quietly, sounding puzzled.

“Hmmm?” I said.

“Come look at this.” Now her voice sounded more urgent as she waved a hand at me.

I sat beside her, and as she handed me the ring, she gave me a look filled with pity, like she knew that what I was going to see would break my heart. Not understanding, I took the ring and peered through it.

I could see magic, like the radiance that shimmered in everything I saw in the magic world, but it was more substantial through the ring, like it was an actual thing hovering in the air, light and beautiful. The trees each had their own radiance, their own presence, as if you could walk up to a spruce tree and have a conversation.

Corvus and his crows circled us and cawed, but this time I didn’t mind. They were magnificent. When Corvus flew, magic stretched from his wingtips across the sky.

Then I saw the doorway, near the face of the rock wall that rose high above us. It was closed, but the edges pulsed with magic. Surrounding it was the veil, translucent white as if woven of the finest gossamer threads, like spider’s silk. And stretching out from the doorway was a great long gash in the veil.

My heart stopped. Maddy was right! Magic was pouring through the tear like water through a hole in a dam, except this was golden and radiant. I longed to reach out and pull the tear closed, to use my hands to fill the gap, to stop that leak.

Aleena wandered over, asking why we were so quiet. Suddenly, I knew exactly what to do. Without saying a word, I handed her Maddy’s ring and pointed at the doorway. She stared through the ring and gasped. As the colour drained from her face, she closed her eyes, unable to look. Silently, she handed the ring back and walked away. I had no idea what she was thinking, but I knew that we were getting close.

Later, I watched her staring across the valley, the nexus ring in the palm of her hand, her fingers closing over it and opening again as if she couldn’t decide if she should keep it or let it go.

Then Maddy screamed. Aleena and I both spun around. Maddy stood by the creek, her whole body tight as she pointed to the doorway at the base of the rock face.

As we stared, a hand appeared, large and dirty, with thick, stubby fingers. It groped in the air, struggling to grab something.

“Give me your ring,” I whispered to Maddy. I peered through the silver ring and watched, stunned. The hand reached through the tear, grabbed an edge of the veil and pulled the tear wider. Then Gronvald stepped through, without ever opening the doorway itself, full of energy and delighted with his new trick.

He stared at us, sniffing. When he caught the scent of the nexus ring, his left hand reached out, twitching. Slowly, his hand opened and closed, and then opened again – just like Aleena’s, grasping, longing for the ring.

Grinning, his hands reaching, Gronvald moved from the doorway, placing himself between Aleena and the stream.

I glanced up – heavy clouds darkened the sky, blocking out all sunlight. I sagged. Sunlight would stop him, freeze him into a statue until twelve hours of darkness thawed him. But the clouds were too dark.

We could go through the doorway
, I thought. He would follow, but we might have time to get to the stream in the human world before he could reach us. I hated taking the ring through the doorway again, but maybe that was better than letting Gronvald have it.

“To the doorway,” I murmured to Maddy. I turned to Aleena and gestured with my head.

Aleena started to edge closer. As she moved, Gronvald moved with her, carefully keeping himself between Aleena and the stream.

While Gronvald stalked Aleena, Maddy and I quietly slipped over to the rock face towering above us. I flung a rock behind Gronvald, and when he spun around, Aleena dashed over to Maddy and me.

He spun back and growled at us, “Give me my ring. Give me my ring now, or DIE!”

Aleena just started at him, her chin tilted up, refusing.

Gronvald raised his hands to the top of the cliff and began muttering. I couldn’t understand what he was saying – they were not words so much as sounds, rumbly and powerful, as if he was talking to the rocks themselves.

With a quick twist of his hand, a rock plummeted from the top of the rock face between us and the doorway. It smashed to the ground, shards breaking off and flying in all directions. We stepped back, gasping.

Gronvald grinned, and then muttered at the cliff again. More rocks showered down around us. We pressed against the rock wall, using its slope to protect us from the rocks bouncing down from above.

“You’ll kill us!” I said.

His grin widened. “That will make it so much easier to take the ring!” He pulled down another rock.

Aleena said, “After he kills us he’ll be able to dig us out and get the ring – he’s good with rocks.”

Then Corvus called out, a powerful echoing, “CAAWWWW.” He flew directly above us, along the face of the cliff, cawing wildly. What was he doing? Then I saw it. The top edge of the cliff was shifting loose.

Gronvald growled in anger and flung stones at Corvus.

Maddy cried, “Look out, Corvus!”

He cawed and turned, but before he could fly clear, he was hit by a rock and spun around. Then a boulder caught him, smashing him against the cliff wall. He fell past us, crushed.

He killed Corvus
, I thought.
Corvus is dead!
I was stunned, but not too shocked to realized that Gronvald would kill us, too, if he could.

In a cawing mass, the crows attacked, led by the white-tipped crow. With a growl of anger, Gronvald lifted his hands towards the top of the cliff and pulled loose the front layer of rock.

Aleena and I both reached out to surround us with magic, but Maddy grabbed our hands and slammed them into the rock wall. “Water,” she panted. “Water travel, right now.”

I could feel wet on the rock, a thin trickle of water falling down the cliff wall. Holding tight to Maddy’s hand, I drew in magic, desperate to be faster than the rocks plunging down around us.

Maddy held tight to Aleena and me, and we shrank, becoming water. I could hear Gronvald crying, “Noooo!” in a desperate growl. As the top of the cliff face crashed down around us in a thundering roar, we flowed down the rocks and into the ground.

Chapter 9

Tree Spirit

I
am water, I thought, and then I didn’t
think any more
as I flowed through the earth, stretched thin through fissures, and floated through underground lakes. We travelled on and
on and on. I couldn’t imagine how I could stretch so thin
or travel so far being water and ever become Josh again.

But then I was, as we rose through a thin stream of water into a rain forest.

“Corvus is dead!” Maddy burst out as soon as she could speak. “Gronvald killed him!” She sniffed. “He was warning us.”

I hadn’t liked Corvus, but I didn’t want him dead. I closed my eyes for a moment and thanked him for protecting us.

“How did Gronvald find us?” I asked. “Will he be able to follow us here?”

Aleena nodded. “Oh, yes. He can smell the ring. He knew as soon as you took it out of Keeper’s cave, and he will follow until he has it again.”

“How could he smell it from so far away?” I asked.

“Magic,” said Aleena with a shrug.

“Could I smell it?” I asked.

Aleena held out her hand, cradling the nexus ring.