Chasing the Valley Read online

  About the Book

  Danika is used to struggling for survival. But when the tyrannous king launches an attack to punish her city – echoing the alchemy bombs that killed Danika’s family – she risks her life in a daring escape over the city’s walls.

  Danika joins a crew of desperate refugees who seek the Magnetic Valley, a legendary safe haven. But when she accidentally destroys a palace biplane, Danika Glynn becomes the most wanted fugitive in Taladia.

  Pursued by the king’s vicious hunters and betrayed by false allies, Danika also grapples with her burgeoning magical abilities. And when she meets the mysterious Lukas, she must balance her feelings against her crew’s safety.

  Chasing the Valley is the first book in an epic trilogy of magic, treachery and survival.

  ‘Brilliant! . . . It has such a gripping storyline and I couldn’t put it down!’ BENJAMIN, AGE 11

  ‘A cross between Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games. The characters are top class, the story is incredible.’ CHARLIE, AGE 12

  ‘Words can’t truly describe my love for this book . . . Chasing the Valley has definitely made it into my top 5 favourite series.’ MEA, AGE 14

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title

  Dedication

  Chapter one: The Bombs

  Chapter two: Down in the Dark

  Chapter three: The City Wall

  Chapter four: Diversion

  Chapter five: Undergrowth

  Chapter six: Peril in the Forest

  Chapter seven: The Crew

  Chapter eight: Tree-lands

  Chapter nine: Illusions

  Chapter ten: The Kite

  Chapter eleven: Stream’s Hands

  Chapter twelve: Unanswered Questions

  Chapter thirteen: Hunted

  Chapter fourteen: The Pursuer

  Chapter fifteen: Ambush

  Chapter sixteen: Lost

  Chapter seventeen: Gunning

  Chapter eighteen: Captured

  Chapter nineteen: Aflame

  Chapter twenty: Bird of the North

  Chapter twenty-one: Flight

  Chapter twenty-two: Frozen Night

  Chapter twenty-three: Fire in the Snow

  Chapter twenty-four: The Choice

  Chapter twenty-five: Glasses of Hours

  Chapter twenty-six: Waste

  Chapter twenty-seven: How the Star-shine Must Go

  Chapter twenty-eight: Follow My Knife

  Chapter twenty-nine: Volatility

  Chapter thirty: And Beyond

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Buy the rest of the Chasing the Valley series now

  Chasing the Valley 2: Borderlands

  The Hush

  Copyright Notice

  Loved the book?

  For Shirley Elizabeth Melki

  My grandma, my inspiration, my friend

  It’s a quiet night when the bombs fall.

  Just before they start, I’m scrubbing dishes in some grungy bar. The Alehouse, it’s called. Stupid way to mark the night your life changes, isn’t it? When you think of important occasions – dangers to your life, near-death experiences – you don’t think of soap and dishrags. I’m sixteen, too young to be working the bar circuit, but no one cares about laws down here. In the grime of downtown Rourton, I’m hardly the first kid to ramp up my age and make a few coins under the table.

  ‘You ever dream of running, kid?’ Walter says.

  I freeze, elbow-deep in soap and potato grease. It’s just the two of us in the kitchen now. Anyone with a brain has nicked off home to beat curfew. For Walter – a grey-bearded old drunk who takes bar jobs to steal the grog – it’s worth the risk to take closing shifts. And for a scruffer like me, this is as close to a home as it gets.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say carefully.

  Walter stares out towards the empty bar. Moonlight sneaks in the window, dappling the table with shadows. The markings on Walter’s neck reveal his magical proclivity is Darkness, and I bet he could manipulate the shadows into moving if he wanted. But he just stands there with a weary look on his face, swaying a bit, as if his legs are considering a new career as exotic dancers.

  ‘You know what I mean. Sometimes I reckon that staying here’s not . . .’ He stops to take a swig of whiskey. ‘I could join a crew, take the refugee route out of here. One day, kid, one day I’m gonna find that Valley. I’m gonna . . .’

  There’s a pause, as he tries to find his words.

  I nod, letting Walter know it’s time to shut up. I know what he means, but it’s risky to let him ramble on about it now. He’s too woozy to be careful and watch his words, and downtown Rourton is notor­ious for its rats. Informers. Scum who hide in the shadows and sell people’s secrets to the guards. They get three silver coins for dobbing in a traitor. That’s enough for a week’s worth of meals, if you’re smart about haggling and don’t mind stale bread.

  ‘I just reckon . . .’ says Walter. He stops to belch, then kneads a hand into his forehead. ‘I reckon I could do it. I could join a refugee crew, make a run for it. Maybe make it all the way to the Vall–’

  ‘Stop it,’ I say. ‘This isn’t the place.’

  ‘There’s gonna be a meeting tonight in the sewers,’ Walter slurs. ‘For a crew, you know. A few scruffer kids are putting a crew together to get out of here. I wanted to join, but they reckon I’m too old. They only want teenagers, not –’

  The bombs hit.

  There’s half a second’s warning: the mechanical rattle of royal biplanes and the shrill hiss of a whistle, like a mis-launched firecracker. Then light and heat and death come for us, tumbling like a star from the sky. It blasts a crater into the cobblestones outside. The window shatters and glass cascades across the bar; its tinkling meshes with the crashes and booms and screams that shoot across the city.

  ‘Get down!’ I drag Walter to his knees behind the bar.

  There’s less chance of being hit by shrapnel here, but the bottles are vibrating and shaking around us: booby traps of glass and flammable alcohol. And we aren’t just facing ordinary bombs – the kind that blow up with a blast of fire and smoke. These are alchemy bombs. They do the fire and smoke thing too, of course, but they’re loaded with spellwork and magic tokens that burst like confetti through the streets.

  ‘We’ve got to move,’ I hiss, grabbing Walter’s shoulder. He sways a little but doesn’t argue as I yank him towards the back room. There hasn’t been an air raid for years, but I still remember the survival tips. Find the smallest room, or get into a cupboard or under a solid desk . . .

  We roll forward, away from the bar. There’s a back room for storing the more expensive spirits and wines, but neither of us has a key. No barman in his right mind would let a couple of scruffers into his storage cellar.

  I whip my head around, searching for the safest exit, and old Walter takes his chance to wriggle free. He stuffs himself into a cranny beneath the sink, moaning and singing a folk song as if it might drown out the crashing of bombs across our city. I’m about to argue, to pull him away, when I realise he’s picked the safest place in the building. The sink is hard and heavy, shielding him from any shrapnel that might blast through the windows. It won’t help much if the bar scores a direct hit – but then again, neither would the storeroom.

  There’s a jolt, a crash, and screams erupt from down the street. Walter swears, scrunches his eyes like a child in a storm, and raises his voice:

  Oh migh
ty yo,

  How the star-shine must go

  Chasing those distant deserts of green . . .

  As Walter sings, the shadows wash back and forth like the tide. I pull backwards, wary of touching anything controlled by an adult’s proclivity magic. I’m not old enough to know my own proclivity yet, and I’ve got no way to defend against a drunken adult’s power. Who knows what Walter’s capable of in this state?

  I force myself onto my feet and sprint for the door. There’s nothing else I can do for Walter, and there’s only room for one body under the sink. But I’m a scruffer – a homeless kid from the dodgiest streets of Rourton – and I know where to hide when the bombs crash down. The sewers.

  I survived my first bombing when I was four. It didn’t mean much to me at the time: it just seemed like an overexcited thunderstorm. My mother held me tight, clutched me beneath the bed in our ramshackle apartment and whispered stories about the Magnetic Valley. Her arms were squishy and damp. My older brother was there too, pretending to be brave as he refused our mother’s arms. I remember his breath hitching whenever a bomb fell too close.

  I survived my second bombing when I was nine. The king must have decided that Rourton’s people were getting restless, because it’s unusual to bomb the same city twice within so few years. Perhaps we’ve got more dissidents than the other cities in Taladia. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never been outside Rourton’s walls.

  Anyway, the night of my second bombing, I was walking home with my mother from the market. It was still evening, not time for curfew yet. My mother had bought me a honey biscuit for my birthday. I carried it home in a possessive fist, so tight that the corners crumbled in my palm. It came from Mr Corring’s bakery stall, which was the centrepiece of the market with its shining lanterns and aroma of cakes, cookies and sugar buns.

  ‘Just this once, Danika,’ my mother said, as she handed Mr Corring his coins. ‘You know we can’t afford treats. Try to make it last.’

  I nodded solemnly, already planning how to do just that. I had a secret box beneath a floorboard at home – a cardboard soap pack I’d nicked from someone’s rubbish – and I knew I could stash my biscuit in there. If I rationed myself a few crumbs each day, I could make that honey sweetness last for weeks.

  When we were almost home, I tightened my grip around the biscuit. My brother would try to steal it, I knew. He would be waiting in the apartment doorway, waiting to see what I’d picked for my birthday treat from the market. My father would be in the bedroom, reading a book by lantern light. But my mother could distract my brother, perhaps, and I could slip past with my biscuit.

  ‘Could you . . .?’ I whispered.

  My mother looked between me and the building, then nodded. She understood. She always understood. ‘Wait here, Danika. I’ll take care of it.’

  So I stood in the streetlight outside our building, while she went ahead to distract my brother. I remem­ber standing alone in that street, clutching that precious biscuit in sweaty fingers.

  That’s when the bomb hit. That’s when my family burned. And I just stood there, terrified and useless, as that damn biscuit crumbled in my fist.

  This is my first bombing since that night, the first in seven years. I’m a scruffer now: no paperwork, no identity documents, and no money to bribe new copies from the authorities. I’m no one. I’ve lived on the streets, begged for food, scrimped and saved and worked my way through the dodgiest jobs in downtown Rourton. I’ve been cold. I’ve been alone. But I’ve survived it all, and I’m not prepared to die tonight.

  The king’s bombs took my family. I won’t let them take me too.

  I slip into a deserted alley. there should be rats here, or a stray tomcat at least, but the animals of Rourton aren’t stupid. They hear the bombs coming and they get out of the way. I’m not as fast as a rat, perhaps, but I can hide like one.

  There’s a sewer manhole near the end of the alley. I sprint towards it, inhaling smoke and light from distant fires. My city is burning for the first time in years and I don’t want to imagine what else might be pouring into Rourton’s skies. Alchemy bombs, with their cocktail of magical shrapnel, are not the sort of weapons you can predict. Their effects can be hideous or beautiful, plain or elaborate. Creating them is an art form practised only by the king’s most cherished supporters.

  It’s strange to think how innocently they started: a long-ago failure to transmute lead into gold and silver. But alchemy isn’t a natural power like pro­clivities. It’s a created art, shaped and expanded by human hands. Now alchemy is used to taint metals with magic – and sometimes, to hurl down that magic from the sky.

  Alchemy bombs have been known to blast a house to shreds and then bloom a jungle of flowers from the rubble within hours of the attack. They’ve melted entire apartment buildings into quicksand, sucking down anyone who attempted a rescue mission. And when my family died, the bomb painted our street with shining stars.

  But why now, why tonight? Why is the king bombing us when winter has already beaten us into quiet subservience? His wars still rage on several of our borders, and people in Rourton are too afraid to resist. Many pray for the royals to protect us from Taladia’s enemies. There is no reason for this bombing – no reason except to beat us down, to remind us to accept our place.

  Or perhaps, to remind us to accept our losses.

  Thousands of our soldiers are away in foreign lands, fighting and dying to expand King Morrigan’s realm. As soon as I turn eighteen, I will be conscripted into his army. Five years of compulsory service – if you’re lucky enough to survive – before they dump you back in your city of birth. And here in Rourton, some are starting to question the reasons for these wars. People are muttering. Whispering. Questioning. Why does the king need to conquer more lands? Why must their loved ones be taken?

  They speak quietly, of course, but there are always rats in Rourton. And I guess that’s why the bombs are falling.

  I wrench up the manhole cover, breaking my stubby nails on the metal. As I climb down the shaft, the rungs flake with rust and one even snaps beneath my weight. My foot slides down with a rush of panic and I bang a shinbone against the lower rungs. More pain, but I can handle it. I clench my eyes shut for a second, blow the air from my lungs, then continue downward.

  The air stinks of grime and faeces. It’s thick and woolly, like I’m breathing dirty blankets. I shake my head and splash down into ankle-deep liquid. The sewer is dark, of course, but faint light trickles down when I pass beneath a drain. Echoes of streetlight and fire from above.

  I’d never admit it aloud, but lately I’ve been tempted to run. It’s suicide, of course – there are always announcements about refugee crews getting caught – but life in Rourton is a constant ache. The older I grow, the more I realise how a scruffer’s life can scar you. No home, no future. Just the streets, the cold, and the ache in my belly. And I’m sixteen years old, only two years from adulthood. Only two years from removing my neck-scarf, revealing my proclivity and being conscripted into the king’s army. Once I start looking old enough, it will become risky to go out in public. If any guards spot me, they’ll drag me back to their station to be tested with a bloodline charm. Name, parentage, date of birth . . . all spelled out in blood and silver.

  I don’t want to join the army. I don’t have a problem with fighting – it’s part of life here – but I do it on my own behalf. Not on behalf of kings and councils who take our lives to conquer distant lands.

  As I squelch along, I turn over Walter’s words in my mind. ‘There’s gonna be a meeting tonight, in the sewers . . . Some of the scruffer kids are putting a crew together . . .’

  ‘A crew of teenagers,’ I say aloud. The very idea sends a rush through my veins.

  But it doesn’t make sense. You can’t build a refugee crew from kids. They’d be dead within hours of fleeing the city, if they got out at all.

  There are s
tories of successful crews. They’re rare – once or twice a decade, perhaps – and no one knows if they’re true. Fairy tales, most people call them. Fairy tales and nonsense. But the stories spread, like litter in the gutter, and even the king can’t quite stamp them out. When a rumour bursts free, the city comes alive with gossip and whispers. How did they do it? What was the trick that kept them alive? And if you add all the stories together, this is what you get:

  Five adults.

  If you take more than five, it gets risky – too many bellies to fill, too many people to hide from the king’s hunters. Larger crews never make it through the forest, let alone the wilderness beyond.

  Each of the five should have a different magical proclivity: five pieces of a jigsaw, slotted together to form a crew. And people’s proclivities don’t develop until the end of puberty – which is why a teenage crew would never work. Even if some of these scruffer kids know their proclivity already, it’s taboo to reveal them to anyone else. That’s why we wear neck-scarves until we’re eighteen.

  To reveal your proclivity early would be . . . wrong. Humiliating. Dirty. It would be like expos­ing your naked body to the world. So how are they hoping to design a balanced crew?

  My father explained it to me when I was younger and I asked why teenagers all wore neck-scarves.

  ‘Your proclivity is part of who you are, the part of nature that links to your magic,’ my father said. ‘Younger teenagers haven’t earned the right or gained the maturity to declare their proclivities to the world. They haven’t learned to use their powers safely. To show their markings early would be . . .’ He shook his head. ‘It’d be unforgiveable.’

  ‘But what is a proclivity marking?’ I said, leaning closer upon his knee.

  He showed me the markings down the back of his neck: a twisting line of black that reminded me of claws. ‘My proclivity is Beast.’

  I traced my father’s markings with my fingertips, thinking of how the stray cats followed him through the streets. ‘What other proclivities do people have?’