‘Faster!’ Flint cried. ‘We need more speed to get this thing off the ground!’
Gripping the side of Woodbird tighter, Eska dug her heels into the snow and ran on.
The vehicle careered forward, bumping over pebbles and juddering across patches of ice, and Flint swallowed as he glimpsed the rocks at the far side of the bay looming through the darkness. They needed to be airborne in the next few seconds.
He pumped his legs harder and Balapan yapped from above, then, just metres before they smashed into the rocks, he yelled, ‘Now!’
Eska leapt into the vehicle’s back seat while Flint jumped into the front then Flint snatched the lever before him and Woodbird was yanked upwards, her wheels grazing the rocks below. Hardly daring to breathe, Flint hugged the lever to him. The engine spluttered and clanked and for a second Woodbird seemed to hang in the sky, then there was a deep rumble from the back of the vehicle.
‘Yes,’ Flint breathed. ‘Come on. Come on.’
The wolf growl grew louder and louder and the spluttering stopped—
‘Hold on to your stomach!’ Flint cried.
—and Woodbird soared up into the sky, leaving the rocks and the bay far behind.
Wide-eyed, Flint clutched the lever and behind him Eska sat, open-mouthed, with the Frost Horn across her lap. They were racing through the night, side by side with a golden eagle, as the bolt of lightning inside the engine propelled them closer and closer to the stars. The glow-worm light flickered from the wheels and the snow-goose feathers spread out in a white arc above them. They were flying! His invention had actually worked! And the speed and the height and the wonder of it all made Flint’s face glow.
Eska reached forward and shook Flint’s shoulders.
He glanced round, remembering how he’d envied Balapan before the Groaning Splinters. ‘Wings,’ he cried above the engine noise, ‘make all the difference . . .’
And they laughed then – despite everything – because they were climbing through the sky and the icebergs were like drops of milk on the silver-black ocean below.
Flint glanced inland, at the peaks of the Never Cliffs and the miles of frozen tundra around them. The night was clear, save for a few stray wisps of cloud, but Woodbird burst through those in a second, on and on towards the flickering stars.
Balapan soared beside them, a rippling silhouette, and when Flint dipped his head at her she shrieked with delight. The sky was her playground and those she loved had found a way into it.
‘Home to the eagles and the Sky Gods,’ Flint whispered to himself. ‘Now this is surely the biggest detour yet.’
He gazed at the crescent moon in the distance – the last one before the midnight sun took over the next day – and moved the lever to the right so that Woodbird veered inland. Towards Winterfang. And Blu and Pebble. The Driftlands below were empty and dark – no lights shone from the Tusk igloos and no shadows moved between them.
‘The Tusk Tribe are gone!’ Flint cried.
Eska shifted behind him. It seemed she knew as well as he did that they wouldn’t be gone for good. They would be waiting somewhere – for both of them . . . And, as they rose higher and higher into the sky and eventually the Ice Queen’s palace came into view, Flint and Eska saw the dark shapes of an army massed at the foot of the bridge. The Tusks had been called to Winterfang. The Ice Queen was readying for a fight.
Flint’s fingers tightened round the lever and Woodbird climbed through the night – up, up, up towards the stars. He lost track of time completely, but he knew they had arrived because of the silence. A quietness that could only exist in a place far removed from people. Here, the stars were no longer small lights above him. They were a sea of dazzling diamonds shimmering every which way he and Eska looked.
‘The Sky Gods,’ Flint breathed. ‘We’re floating among the Gods!’
And he turned off Woodbird’s engine so that they could glide, in silence, between the sparkling lights. Flint twisted round in his seat.
‘Now, Eska. Blow the Frost Horn – before the Ice Queen uses your voice – then, when the Sky Song stops, sing its tune.’ He paused. ‘With the power of the Gods on our side, we might be in with a chance of saving our kingdom.’
Eska held the narwhal tusk to her lips doubtfully.
‘You can do it,’ Flint whispered. ‘I believe in you. Just like you believed in me with Woodbird.’
Eska threw a worried look over at Balapan and Flint could tell that her courage was waning.
‘Think of where we started all this,’ he said. ‘You trapped in a music box and me thinking tribes were fixed things and letting others in was dangerous.’ He glanced around at the stars. ‘Well, look at us now, Eska! Look at where we’ve come! You’ve silenced the tribes; you’ve commanded animals! It’s time to shake the skies!’
And those, Flint realised, were the words Eska needed. She pressed the Frost Horn to her mouth and breathed in, a great heaving breath that seemed to start right down in her toes – and blew.
The sound was quiet at first – and Flint wondered how on earth such a small noise could make a difference – then the sound grew, louder and louder, until it filled the sky around them, wobbling the moon, and, just as Whitefur had said it would, shaking the stars.
It was a strong, clear note, and low, like an owl’s hoot, then it rose slowly to become a rippling melody which made Flint think of the very first droplets of magic falling on to Erkenwald and bringing it to life. The melody became fuller, bolder, as if it was rising with the strength of mountains and ancient forests, then the tune changed again – softer once more, but filled with such longing and heart that Flint felt that if hope was a song it would sound just like this.
Flint listened on. He had heard trees crash down in Deeproots, he had heard the battle cries of warriors and the mighty roar of a grizzly bear, but those sounds were nothing compared to this. The Sky Song was the call of Eska’s tribe, built of wild, unexpected things – Erkenbears, eagles, giants, inventors, little lost girls and the Sky Gods themselves – and it was the fiercest sound of all.
Flint looked at Eska when, eventually, her breath ran out and the sound of the horn died away. She raised a hand to her throat and Flint hoped with everything inside him that the Sky Song had brought her voice back, but, when Eska opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out.
Woodbird floated on through the night beside Balapan. ‘The Sky Gods,’ Flint whispered. ‘They must have heard the song – maybe they’ll come to our aid?’
And at that moment, after almost a year without even the faintest flicker of the northern lights, the sky filled with colour. Green spirals rippled through the night, bulging and swelling, before fading away to let ribbons of lilac twirl through. Red arcs curved above them, then beams of blue flooded down. Flint and Eska smiled and Balapan rolled a somersault in joy.
‘The Sky Gods are dancing again!’ Flint whispered. ‘They’re acknowledging that you are the rightful owner of the Sky Song! Maybe that means—’
The lights dimmed suddenly, out of nowhere the Ice Queen’s anthem crawled into the night and then – without warning – Woodbird fell from the sky. Down through the glitter of stars, down through the night, as if the Sky Gods themselves had spat the children out of their secret world. Flint screamed, Eska flung her arms round his waist and Balapan plummeted with them, her wings tucked in tight.
Eyes streaming, Flint grappled for the lever and switched the engine back on. They were going too fast to heave Woodbird up now, but he could still steer – he could land this, if he needed to. He gathered the vehicle back into his control, then he and Eska gasped. Winterfang was directly below them, a sprawl of ice towers and domes.
Flint winced. He could hear the Ice Queen’s anthem more clearly now – a dim drone compared to the blast of the Frost Horn – but it was there all the same and it filled him with terror. Because, any moment now, the Ice Queen would sing with Eska’s voice.
Flint swerved to miss the ice towers and circled round to the front of the palace. But the rumble of Woodbird’s engine was enough to rouse those in the fortress. The anthem cut to silence – there was a dreadful hush – then Flint’s heart lurched as he looked down. Standing in an ice arch fronting the hall he’d trespassed into only two weeks before was the Ice Queen, a wolverine on one side and – on the other – his little sister clutching Pebble.
‘See?’ the Ice Queen screeched, winding a hand round Blu’s neck. ‘I get everything I want in the end! Everyone will bow down to me.’ She drew the black orb out from her gown and caressed it. ‘The northern lights you saw just moments ago were the Sky Gods recognising my claim on Eska’s voice!’
Flint shook his head in disbelief. Eska had stirred the Sky Gods with the Frost Horn. She had journeyed to the Groaning Splinters and then on into the stars. Not the Ice Queen. And yet, as Flint looked at the queen now, and the men, women and children from the Tusk Tribe cheering before the palace, he wondered whether he and Eska had, in fact, been too late. Had the power of the Sky Song belonged to the Ice Queen from the moment Eska’s voice vanished?
‘My brother!’ Blu cried from the arch. ‘My brother!’
Flint could barely see through the rage and the pain of what was unfolding below. He and Eska weren’t enough, he realised now, not in the face of an Ice Queen and a Tusk Tribe baying for their lives. He circled helplessly above the jeering army, then Balapan cried out beside them and Eska stood up. Red hair streaming in the wind, she raised the Frost Horn to her lips again, and blew. The sound was different from before – instead of the Sky Song, there came a summoning blast, full of spirit and fight – and, at the sound, Balapan’s circles widened and the eagle sent her call out into the wild.
The Ice Queen threw back her head and laughed and her army did the same. But, out of the corner of his eye, Flint could see other things happening: children dressed in wolf furs and feathered shoulder plates marching along the cliff tops towards the palace, their arms taut against their bows.
‘The Feather Tribe!’ Flint gasped, wheeling Woodbird above them. ‘They – they came at your call, Eska!’
Eska blinked. Jay and his tribe had kept their promise.
The Tusk Tribe shifted and one or two reached for their spears, but the Ice Queen only cackled.
‘And here come the Feather Tribe at last!’ she called. ‘Sensing the power I now hold with Eska’s voice, they have surrendered just hours before the midnight sun rises!’
Flint frowned. Had the Ice Queen drawn Jay’s tribe here? Had they come to surrender rather than fight? Then he noticed the Erkenbears flanking the children on either side and the direction the tribe’s arrows were pointing – straight at the Ice Queen’s heart. He breathed again. This was not a tribe coming in to surrender . . .
Then Flint saw something else. Hurtling across the snow from the south came dozens of sleds pulled by huskies. Flint blinked once, twice and then a third time. The Fur Tribe – his tribe – had come, despite the detours and the inventions. Despite everything.
Eska pointed to the stone giant charging forward in the midst of the Fur Tribe and Flint’s jaw dropped.
‘The Grey Man . . .’ Flint murmured. ‘When he left us, he said he had someone he wanted to talk to. He must’ve raced to Deeproots to summon the Fur Tribe while we went on to the Groaning Splinters!’
But there was another person Flint was even gladder to see, and as he took in the warrior boy steering the front sled, leading his tribe on towards the palace, his heart burst with pride.
‘Tomkin!’ he roared.
The Ice Queen shot Woodbird and its passengers a furious look because she realised now who the tribes had come for and that, although she held Eska’s voice inside her orb, it was not hers for the keeping quite yet.
‘I will tear you down, Eska!’ the Ice Queen screamed. ‘And your pathetic little friend up there with you! I own your voice now!’
The Fur Tribe drew closer and Tomkin leapt off his sled and shouted up to the arch where the Ice Queen stood. ‘Oi!’ he yelled. ‘That’s my brother – and no one talks to him like that!’
Flint’s heart soared at Tomkin’s words, then he steered Woodbird between the ice towers and down towards the bridge, where it was flat enough to land.
Flint turned to Eska. ‘You own the Sky Song, Eska, and here is your tribe.’ He pointed to the outlawed children, the giant and the Erkenbears below. ‘Everyone here has come because of you.’
And, at his words, Jay’s army released their arrows, a flurry of wood and feathers, into the middle of the Tusk Tribe.
