The Monster Apprentice

Chapter 1

Chapter One

I awoke from a dead sleep—for once, a sleep without nightmares. My bedroom was pitch black and silent, but my heart was racing. Then the sound came again—a man shouting at the top of his voice. He pounded at my family’s front door.

‘Elder!’ The man’s voice was sharp with terror. ‘Elder, wake up!’

The night air was hot and still. My sheets lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. At the open window my curtains hung in unmoving black lines. No wind slid through to ease the stifling heat. My long black hair felt heavy around my head. I didn’t dare move.

Dad would check on me before he went to answer the yelling. Ever since my twin sister died, he was that type of dad. Whenever he felt worried about something, I was told to go to my room—to sleep, if it was night time. No matter how many nightmares I had. He was forever telling me to be careful, but I was definitely not going to miss out on the fun this time. So I remained curled on my side as if I hadn’t heard a thing. If he didn’t tell me to go back to sleep, sneaking out wasn’t disobeying him. Not exactly.

‘Elder, please!’ The man’s voice broke, and I recognised him. It was Watchman, who spent each night staring out over the sea. Like everyone else on the island, Watchman was named for his job. Like my dad, Elder. Like me: Dance. I’d always thought ‘Watchman’ was the dullest job ever invented, but now I felt my first delicious shiver of real fear.

Still I didn’t move. I stared at my curtains, since they were directly in front of me. The black stripes looked like prison bars. Everyone on the island had jail-bar curtains, since only one ship had brought curtains to Luar in twenty years. Dad could have organised more traders, but he chose instead to keep Luar Island as secret as possible. He wanted everyone to be safe.

Watchman hammered again on our heavy wooden door. I held my breath. Something was happening, and I was going to find out what it was—no matter what.

My bad eye skittered to the side, giving me half a view of the three carved masks hung on hooks on my wall—my most recent school project, worth a king’s ransom on any other island. Luar Island’s odd trees didn’t grow anywhere else—only magic could explain how they grew at all—and as a result Luar’s art was more delicately carved than anywhere else in the world. And more valuable. We only used it for art—never for houses or burning. And on Luar, everyone was an artist.

‘Elder!’ cried Watchman. ‘Elder!’

‘I’m here!’ Dad called back.

The air tasted thick, like porridge. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of my own sweat, and listened to Dad’s measured footsteps. Dad never hurried anywhere. My door shushed inward as he checked on me. I kept my breath steady as he whispered, ‘Sleep well, Dance.’

It was only then that he went to answer Watchman. Yellow light from his candle danced beneath my door, casting monstrous shadows.

After I counted three of his footsteps, I placed my own feet one by one on the cool trader wood of the floor. I slipped my shoes out from under the bed and put them on, lacing them tightly. Biting my lip, I ignored the clumsiness of my shaking hands.

If Dad called me I’d be dressed and ready: a proper daughter to Luar’s Elder. Just like my sister would have been.

If he didn’t call me, there was always the window.

The front door squeaked as it opened. Watchman stopped yelling. Usually he spent the night huddled on the far hilltop, keeping an eye out for the rare ships that knew to bring grain or cloth to trade for our precious carvings. It was his job to light the beacon fire to guide them to shore.

‘Raise the village,’ he gasped. ‘Pirates!’

I caught my laughter just before it escaped and revealed my eavesdropping. Pirates? Here? No one had attacked us for a hundred years. I wondered if this was a new nightmare and pinched myself.

‘It’s true.’ Watchman’s voice broke and he cleared his throat. ‘One of our merchants must have betrayed us. Any pirate would pay well for news of such an easy target.’

‘Are you certain?’ Dad’s voice remained carefully level.

Watchman cleared his throat again—or maybe he was choking back sobs. ‘There are three red lights on the ocean, and they’re coming closer.’

He’s mistaken. He has to be.

‘We have two hours until they’re here—maybe less.’

‘A fleet?’ Dad asked.

‘No,’ said Watchman. ‘Not as far as I can tell. But three red lights. It means—’

‘No quarter,’ said Dad. ‘Yes.’

I shivered, recognising his tone of voice. Dad turned eerily calm when he was angry. On Luar, there was a secret everyone knew and no one said aloud: when Dad yelled at my sister that day, the monsters came up out of the ground. Together, Dad and the monsters caused Armoury’s death. He’d never yelled again.

‘Please sir, what do we do?’ Watchman asked.

Dad asked if he’d seen any details of the ship: the size, the weapons, the crew—anything.

‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s no moon tonight, and I’m grateful they at least gave us warning of what they intend to do to us. But there’s nothing to see out there except the darkness, and those three lights winking on and off against the water.’

‘Very well,’ said Dad. ‘Take two runners and keep watch on the western cliffs as long as you can. I’ll pick two more, so you and I can stay in contact. Choose them—wake them yourself—and I’ll wake the rest of the village. We’ll gather in the town hall.’

‘But what will we do?’

‘Fight,’ said Dad, ‘if we have to.’ His voice was deeper than usual, an Elder’s voice. My wooden masks glowered at me from the curved outer wall of my room. ‘Which runners do you want?’

‘I’ll take Eldership—she’s good and fast—and Dance.’

My eyes widened at the sound of my name.

Dad scoffed. ‘Dance?’

I stiffened in the darkness. Why was Dad laughing at me? I kicked savagely at my heap of dirty clothes, sending underwear and stinky shirts tumbling across the floor.

So what if I was messy? Dad didn’t care. I wasn’t just a dancer. I was the second-fastest runner on the telking island—didn’t he even know that much about me?

‘Someone else, perhaps?’ Watchman said hastily.

‘No,’ said Dad.

Tears pricked at my eyes as I wondered what Dad’s face looked like. Was he frightened for me, like usual? Was that why he dismissed me so quickly?

‘Take Dance,’ he said at last. ‘She’s steadier on the ice than anyone else and has a level head too—when she chooses. I laughed because I’d planned to pick her myself. Take her—with my blessing.’

Dad’s letting me go? But isn’t it dangerous? I clutched handfuls of my scratchy black hair and pressed my fists to my head, trying to understand what was happening.

‘I’ll send her back to you first,’ Watchman promised, ‘as soon as I know anything.’

I crept closer to the glowing crack under my bedroom door.

Dad lifted his voice. ‘Dance! Get up and put on your shoes.’

I walked into the living room with my head held high. ‘I’m ready, Dad.’

Dad grew taller when bad things happened. He towered higher than ever, scaring me. His skin was darker than most and at night it looked as black as Luar wood. Something that might have been a smile softened his face as he looked at me, but only for a moment. ‘That was … quick.’

Idiot! ‘I hurried, Dad.’ I lowered my eyes. ‘Because you called.’

‘Mm. We’ll have a discussion about listening to my conversations tomorrow. For now, we have work to do.’

I placed myself at his side and forced my face into an expression that I hoped made me look more mature than my seventeen years. Hopefully my bad eye wouldn’t slide off to the side and make me seem like I wasn’t paying attention.

Watchman blinked hard, as if he was trying not to cry. His beard was ragged and his dark eyes darted back and forth between Dad and the door.

He wasn’t much older than me—just taller.

‘I’ll go wake Ellie for you,’ I offered, jumping in before Watchman could cry in earnest. ‘Eldership, I mean.’

‘Don’t forget to wake her family.’ Dad barely looked at me, and chose not to mention I’d just given him further proof that I was listening in. At least Mum was still getting dressed. The fewer witnesses the better.

‘Yes Dad,’ I said, wishing he’d told me to be careful.

I left them and ran outside, circling half our house so I could take the fastest way between several joined houses to Ellie’s place. Luar village was such a maze, maybe the pirates would get lost.

The ice of the ground chilled me through my shoes while I sweated from the heat of the air. It was little wonder the few traders who knew about Luar never stayed longer than they absolutely had to.

Luar Island was magic. Everyone could see that much, even before they stepped out onto the pure ice of the shore. No one could figure out why our iceberg island didn’t melt. It wasn’t natural for us to live on solid ice under the blazing sun. By rights, our home shouldn’t exist—and it was so misty it looked like it could agree and vanish at any moment.

Giant monsters swimming underneath you in the ice don’t help people feel at home, either. Even if you live here.

As if in response to my thought, something moved far beneath my feet, making the ground tremble. I shivered despite the heat. It was strange how the Heest monsters were so interested in us. Strange and deadly. They were huge, bigger than houses, and they travelled through the ice like other fish travelled through water. The ice melted and reformed with their passing, which meant our entire ice island was vulnerable to their whims.

I ran through the rest of the village, ducking around the hunched brown houses to reach my best friend’s house as directly as I could despite the village layout. Nothing and no one made a sound.

My foot slipped as the ice shifted again, but I didn’t fall. Stupid Heest. Why won’t they leave us alone?

A sky cow snorted from the shadows where two homes leant against each other, blocking the quickest way through. But I knew a shortcut.

Ellie’s nearest neighbour had built a barn for the best of Luar’s sky cows to shelter in each night, growing fat like furry balloons on their comfortable perches. In the maze of streets, it made a wall between my house and Ellie’s, leaning against dozens of equally inconvenient houses on both sides—and I’d always wanted to climb it. Especially after Dad’s very careful talk about never, ever jumping off a roof again.

I followed the smell of musty hay to the barn and quickly found the corner post that I knew hadn’t been properly trimmed. The branch stubs scratched my ankles as I fumbled for footholds in the dark. I hauled myself up and around the splintery rim of the roof and came face to face with a glaring sky cow. Its blast of hot-hay breath nearly threw me backward. I’d forgotten wild cows liked to roost on top of the barn—especially when they had calves.

Her calf was between her legs, blinking at me, while the mother cow lowered her head and took a deep breath ready to butt me into empty space. Unlike her, I couldn’t fly.

I grabbed her by the ear and shoulder and swung myself around her side, away from the roof’s corner. She whipped her head around, but by then I was vaulting the other cows, skidding on their dung as I raced across the surprisingly wide expanse of roof.

At the edge of the roof I hesitated, looking a long way down into Ellie’s front yard. The shingles under my feet creaked as all the cows I’d jumped over and stepped on shambled to their feet, mooing their displeasure. Dad would be really angry if I got myself killed by a cow.

So I jumped, bending my knees and rolling onto the hard ice as I landed.

Perfect! Ellie’s front door was right in front of me.

Too bad I’d twisted my ankle. I tested it gingerly and decided it’d last the night. Being a runner would make it worse, but I’d get a healsmith to magically fix it later. Years of dancing had taught me how far I could push my body before it stopped working.

I charged at Ellie’s door, pounding on the black wood until my hands ached. No one answered. The village was finally waking up, but Dad and Watchman hadn’t reached this corner of the maze yet.

‘Ellie!’ I yelled, and found I was short of breath. ‘Wake up! All of you, wake up!’

Ellie’s dad cracked open the door, rubbing his eyes.

‘Pirates,’ I said. ‘Ellie—red lights—hall.’

‘Pardon?’

I explained as fast as I could and saw his eyes widen as he understood.

‘Eldership!’ he yelled. ‘Get up!’

Ellie came out of her room instantly, looking wide awake. Her hair fell in a black curtain down her back. She flashed a grin at me. ‘I heard everything. Let’s go.’

I nodded, suddenly unable to speak without crying. The wind banged someone’s warped front door against its frame.

Ellie’s dad hugged her tightly and turned away.

He thinks he might not see her again.

She wrinkled her nose at me. ‘You smell of manure. Why do … you took the shortcut! Elder is going to kill y—’ She stopped short. Jokes about death weren’t funny tonight.

My stomach dropped as the fear hit me. These pirates weren’t the fun kind from stories told late at night. These were real.

I swallowed hard. Ellie and I had work to do.

We ran back, dodging cows and houses and people, and found Watchman waiting for us in the open doorway. My ankle throbbed, but it felt good—as if I’d been dancing for twelve hours straight and I’d earned the pain. My shoe was tight, so I knew my foot was swelling up. I didn’t care.

Watchman nodded at us, but didn’t look us in the eye. ‘Elder’s waking the village. Stay by me and you’ll be safe.’

‘Where’s your light?’ I asked.

He blinked. ‘I don’t use one.’

‘We do!’ I said.

His face crumpled. He took a steadying breath before speaking. ‘I know the way better than anyone. Come on.’

Ellie and I exchanged glances. Dad would never have let us go if he’d noticed Watchman hadn’t brought anything to light our way. I looked into my house and saw nothing but empty shelves. Dad had taken all our candles to help everyone else.

My heart fluttered in my chest. The western hill was out of bounds even during the day, because the ice there was so fragile. It was cracked in spidery lines and scattered with hundreds of jagged holes perfect for two girls to fall into and never come out. Only the Heest belonged there.

Something nagged at me. I shook my head, trying to grab the shadowy thought as I hurried after Watchman. All around us the muffled forms of houses opened wide. People spilled out of their doorways, still wearing their night-clothes. A buzz of hushed conversation filled the night air.

‘What’s “no quarter”?’ I asked, hoping the answer would tell me why I felt I’d missed something.

‘Ah.’ Watchman rubbed his hand through the wisps of beard decorating his chin. ‘Erm … nothing.’

‘Tell us!’ said Ellie.

He looked at her and bit his lip, debating whether or not his future Elder would hold a grudge. Ellie planted her hands on her hips and glared.

Finally he sighed. ‘It’s a message. It means they intend to kill us all.’