Heckle perched on a branch level with Fox. ‘The biggest mistake grown-ups make, whether they’re people or magical beasts, is thinking that tears must be hidden.’ The parrot bowed her head. ‘Crying over the loss of a friend shows the strength, not the frailty, of love. And love, of all things, fares better when it’s cradled in the open.’
Fox watched as Deepglint returned moments later. He avoided her eye and they ran on in silence for a few more miles until afternoon came, and with it rain. And though the forest felt eerie – wind chimes echoed through the trees and plants grew everything from miniature coffins to rat tails and bat wings – nothing jumped out at them.
Goldpaw had implied Jungledrop was swarming with Morg’s Midnights, so Fox thought it strange that she hadn’t seen a single one since setting foot in the Bonelands… What was Morg’s grand plan in all of this? Where were her monkeys? And how long would it be before the harpy used her growing power to find the Forever Fern?
Sometimes, though, it’s better not to know all the answers. For if Fox had been able to glimpse inside Shadowfall at that very moment, what she would have seen unfolding before Morg’s throne would have chilled her to the bone.
The light had begun to fade when Deepglint stopped before a stretch of dark, densely packed trees. They had wide trunks that bent forward in a mess of scoops and bulges, and their branches rose up in jagged clusters like crops of unruly hair.
‘Eat the rest of the nuts you brought,’ the Lofty Husk said quietly. ‘We will need all our strength for the hunchbacks ahead.’
Fox grimaced. ‘Hunchbacks?’
Deepglint nodded towards the trees in front of them. ‘Like the nightcreaks, these enchanted trees are bidden to do Morg’s command. One false move and they will finish us off.’
Fox’s pulse skittered. The scoops and bulges on the trunks of the hunchbacks were faces. Sunken eyes, gnarled noses and – Fox tensed – wide, gaping mouths.
The parrot hung back in the air. ‘Heckle is wondering whether there is another way on to Shadowfall?’
Deepglint shook his head. ‘Hunchbacks line the Bonelands from east to west. You have to go through them to go on. So keep your wits about you, but save the doubleskin mirror for later, Fox. I have a feeling our need for it will be greater if we make it as far as Shadowfall.’
And, with that, Deepglint set off towards the trees. Fox followed with Heckle flitting nervously above and the sloth wrapped round her neck. But, the minute they stepped beneath the hunchbacks, the trees’ dark magic stirred. A wind picked up, slow at first and moving with a moan in its wake. Fox hurried alongside Deepglint, then he broke into a run and Fox ran, too, faster and faster between the trees until the forest was just a blur around them.
But the hunchbacks knew there were visitors in their midst and the clusters of branches that resembled hair twisted this way and that, like muscles flexing.
And then a terrible howling started. Fox’s face drained of colour and the sloth’s arms stiffened round her neck. The noise seemed to be coming from the gaping mouths of the hunchbacks and, as it grew louder, the wind gathered pace.
‘Keep running!’ Deepglint roared. Then he glanced up at Heckle. ‘And keep flying!’
As Fox pushed on through the trees, she felt glad that Deepglint had taught her how to run in the wild because the wind was so strong she could feel herself being blown towards the mouths of the hunchbacks and it was taking every ounce of her concentration and strength to stay on track. But this was no ordinary wind tearing through the forest. It didn’t blow; it sucked. Because this was the breath of the hunchbacks and it was gusting round Fox, desperately trying to nudge her closer and closer towards the hungry mouths.
Fox skidded over the undergrowth as a fresh gust snatched her right up to the trunk of a hunchback. The sloth clamped his jaw on the bark, stalling the tree’s pull, but the cavernous mouth still loomed before them and little by little the sloth’s hold weakened. Then Deepglint was there, yanking Fox away, his teeth gripping her tunic, and Fox ran again, on and on through the trees, with the sloth clinging to her for all he was worth.
Heckle screeched as a tree sucked so hard it pulled a feather from her tail. But still she flew. And still Fox ran. But when a double-trunked hunchback inhaled, yanking Deepglint from his feet and slamming him against its roots, Fox stopped and rushed to his aid.
‘Go on!’ the Lofty Husk cried as the hunchback sucked and sucked, gradually lifting the panther’s body up towards its gaping mouth.
Fox watched, in horror, as the panther’s legs were swallowed in the hole until just his head and his scrabbling paws remained.
‘I won’t go on without you!’ Fox cried, yanking at the panther’s paws and hauling hard.
Deepglint’s eyes met hers. ‘You must go on, Fox! There is too much at stake!’
Fox blocked out his words, never loosening her grip on the panther’s paws for a second, and even the sloth dug his claws into the Lofty Husk’s fur. But cursed trees have to breathe out eventually. So, the moment Fox felt the hunchback release its breath, she pulled with all her weight at the Lofty Husk until she, the sloth and the panther fell to the ground, a tangle of limbs, fur and claws. Deepglint was up on his feet first and before Fox could follow suit she felt his heavy jaw grip her tunic and haul her up onto his back, then he stooped down for the sloth and yanked him aboard, too.
This,
