Then Deepglint was bounding on through the trees again, even though the wind roared and the branches shook. Fox hung on to the scruff of the panther’s neck while the sloth buried himself in her lap and Heckle hurtled down to join him. When Fox had ridden the panther before, she had jiggled about on his back but now she knew the Lofty Husk a little better. She’d watched how he moved, her eyes glued to his every step, and she felt her way into his stride.
They burst out of the wood, leaving the hunchbacks thrashing with fury behind them, and Fox saw that the forest had come to an end for a reason. Before them stood a river, cutting through the trees, with long, wispy reeds lining its banks.
Fox eyed it nervously in the gathering dusk. The water that flowed sluggishly between its banks was black.
‘We’re close, aren’t we?’ she panted. ‘The water’s black because Shadowfall’s near?’
Deepglint nodded, but he said nothing for a while as he caught his breath. And then, quietly, he spoke. ‘If you and Fibber had not stayed and helped me earlier, I would have been swallowed by the hunchback.’ He padded along next to the river, his footfall silent among the reeds. ‘Thank you.’
‘Anyone else would have done the same,’ Fox said.
Deepglint paused for a moment. ‘You underestimate what you and your brother are made of, girl.’
Fox felt the sloth in her lap puff out his little chest with pride and she smiled. Then Deepglint walked on, hugging the river close, even though its waters glimmered like oil.
The parrot hopped from Fox’s lap to her shoulder. ‘Heckle is wondering what horrors are still to come. An ambush from a river full of crocodiles perhaps? A last-minute hello from Morg’s Midnights?’
Fox shuddered but Deepglint kept walking. On the far side of the river there was an avenue of trees. But they weren’t nightcreaks or hunchbacks this time. These trees were white because they were made entirely of bones.
Deepglint stopped. ‘That,’ he said quietly, nodding at what the avenue of trees led to. ‘That is what’s next.’
Fox felt her skin bristle. In the fading light at the far end of the avenue, she saw a tall black gate set between towering walls made of shards of bone. The walls ran in a wide circle so that it was impossible to see the temple inside. But, even so, Fox could tell from the black waterfall careering down the mountain behind the bone walls that this, at last, was Shadowfall.
Her eyes returned to the avenue of trees. There was something moving among the branches: dark, furred shapes with long, swooping tails. And suddenly it made sense why they hadn’t seen any of Morg’s Midnights in the Bonelands so far…
They were all here. Hundreds of them, swarming the trees around the gate, clearly placed there by Morg to guard the temple against intruders.
‘Whatever the harpy is up to,’ Deepglint whispered, ‘it is clear she does not want anyone interrupting.’
‘Do – do you think she’s found the Forever Fern and it’s inside the temple?’ Fox asked. ‘And that’s why she’s got all her Midnights guarding Shadowfall?’
Deepglint shook his head. ‘If Morg had found the fern, we would know about it. No, I believe it is still here somewhere, just beyond her reach.’ He paused. ‘And she has not got all of her followers out on guard tonight. There is no sign of the ape called Screech, the one who wears a key around his neck and is in charge of keeping Morg’s prisoners locked up.’
Fox looked again at the monkeys squatting in the trees. ‘But still,’ she murmured, ‘there are so many Midnights here. How will we find a way through the gate?’
Deepglint narrowed his eyes, then slunk low into the reeds so that they were all hidden from sight.
Fox scooped the sloth from her lap and placed him on her back, then slid off the panther and turned to face him. ‘We can’t beat an army of those monkeys. Even Goldpaw said she hadn’t found a way to kill them.’
The parrot cowered in the reeds beside Fox. ‘We have to. Somehow. Because Heckle knows that Iggy is inside. And with night approaching there are only a few hours left to stop Morg before she seizes all of Jungledrop’s magic.’
Deepglint said nothing at first, then his ears pricked forward and he frowned. ‘Listen,’ he whispered. ‘Listen hard.’
At first Fox could only hear the river moving darkly through the reeds, but then her ears caught what Deepglint had heard. A strange but distinct ticking sound. Like that of dozens of clocks ticking away in the dusk.
And that’s when the beginnings of a plan started to take shape inside Fox’s head.
Back in Doodler’s Haven, Goldpaw had said the monkeys went back to the Bonelands after every raid, then when they returned they were just as strong as they had been before they were injured. The panther had said it was because there was something unnatural about them.
The plan in Fox’s mind grew and, sensing that his sister was formulating an idea, the sloth snuggled into her neck as if to urge her on.
‘I may be wrong about this,’ Fox said after a while, ‘but I think I may know a way we can get past the Midnights and into Shadowfall.’ Her eyes shone at the possibility. ‘But we’d all need to play a part. And it would be dangerous…’
The parrot gulped. ‘Heckle is rather nervous about where Fox’s thoughts are heading…’
But Deepglint leant in. ‘I am listening. Because nothing, and I mean nothing, is more powerful than a child in possession of a plan.’
And those words gave Fox the courage to tell the Lofty Husk hers.
They crossed the river over a bridge made of bones and Fox held her breath the whole way, partly because she was terrified one of the bones was going to fall away
