Fox threw a look over her shoulder to see Morg churning up the reeds with her talons and tearing round the swamp after her. She was gaining on Fox, no matter how fast she ran, and though the weight of the sloth and the satchel were slowing Fox down she refused to part with either.
So frightened was Fox by the harpy on her tail that she didn’t see the vulture that was dive-bombing towards her. The first she knew of the attack was a punch to her shoulder as the bird rammed its weight into her. Fox stumbled backwards, then tripped over a log, but forced herself up and carried on running. Another vulture was making a beeline for her now and, though Heckle tried her best to ward it off, the bigger bird batted the parrot aside, charged on towards Fox and pinned the girl to the ground.
The harpy laughed. ‘You see? There is no escaping my dark magic in the end!’
Fox pushed and shoved, Heckle pulled and tore, but the vulture’s hold was firm and Morg was drawing closer and closer. Then the sloth, still clinging to Fox’s neck, bit the vulture, attacking the joint that held its wing to its body. The bird’s hold slackened for a second and Fox seized her chance to wriggle free. She sprang up, blundering on, ducking and sidestepping when the next vulture hurtled down towards her.
The swamp seemed to go on forever and Fox could feel tears burning behind her eyes. She was tired now. She couldn’t outrun the harpy and she knew it. Morg had dark magic on her side and sooner or later she’d close in.
Heckle flapped on, puffing hard. ‘Heckle wants the girl to know she won’t leave her. And nor will Fibber.’
The sloth leant against Fox’s cheek, then squeezed her hard, and Fox tried not to let her tears fall. She made one last attempt to focus on escaping, despite knowing that this was where her quest ended. Where everything ended. With no one to stop her, Morg would find the Forever Fern, and then the Unmapped Kingdoms and the Faraway would crumble. And yet still Fox kept running because sometimes the very last thing to leave you is hope.
Then Fox felt a cold and leathery hand thump down on her neck and she felt even that tiny kernel of hope shrivel.
‘Silly girl.’ The harpy’s breath was a rasp. ‘You really thought that someone as pitiful as you could find the Forever Fern and save the world? You actually believed that you could make a difference?’
Morg stood upright now, towering over Fox like a giant bat, while Heckle twisted away from the vultures massing round her in the sky.
Fox stopped struggling and sobbed in fear.
‘Look at you,’ Morg spat. ‘Worlds are built by people of power, not by insignificant little girls.’
The words may have been spoken by a harpy, but they made Fox think of her parents and the things she had been told her whole life: that stamping on others and being more powerful than everyone else was the only way to get to the top. And, now that all seemed lost, Fox wondered whether they’d been right. Perhaps being kind and helping others only ever led to being trampled on. Maybe hearts were safest if shut behind very high walls.
Then the sloth on her back nuzzled his head against Fox. And the warmth of that gesture, the affection bound up in it, made her realise that, despite how everything had panned out, her parents and Morg were wrong. Fox would have traded all the money in the world, and all the power that came with it, to have even the smallest of chances to save the Unmapped Kingdoms and the Faraway – and to love and be loved by her brother.
The harpy kept her hold on Fox, opening her wings wide to perform a curse that would snuff the light out of the Faraway child in an instant. Fox quivered as Morg threw back her head and laughed. Then black smoke hissed out from her wings.
But, at the very moment the smoke was about to seep inside Fox’s mouth and snatch her life clean away, something large and strong barrelled into the harpy and knocked her to the ground.
For a second, Fox wondered whether Total Shambles had come back. But what she saw on twisting round was not a swiftwing.
It was a panther, with a roar that rattled the leaves on the trees and fur that was unmistakably gold.
Fox’s first thought was that Goldpaw had come to their rescue, but this panther was bigger and the fur on one of its legs had been ripped away. Was this Brightfur then, sent by Goldpaw to help?
The panther moved fast, kneeling in front of Fox and nudging the girl and the sloth onto its back, before the harpy had even had time to stagger to her feet.
‘You?’ Morg spat. ‘But you were bitten by Screech and stripped of your—’
Fox didn’t hear any more. She grabbed a fistful of fur at the panther’s neck as Heckle shot down into her lap beside the sloth. And then they were off, bounding round the swamp at breakneck speed, as the panther tore away from Morg.
‘After them!’ the harpy shrieked. ‘After them!’
The vultures clattered ahead and the crocodiles patrolled the water should the golden panther make the slightest mistake and slip. But the creature’s footing was perfect, each stride landing with precision and power as it pounded on. And though Fox was like a jumble of sticks on its back, not yet attuned to its rhythms and its ways, she held on for all she was worth.
Morg was hot on their heels, scrabbling over the bank of the swamp as fast as her talons would go. But the panther was stronger and seemed to know the lie of the land in a way
