The Last Wild by Piers Torday

Author:Piers Torday
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Childrens
ISBN: 9781780878294
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2013-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

I strain my eyes, scanning upstream, until I can just make out a tiny tip of white coasting along the water, on top of a black bob. We are moments ahead of them – but only moments.

‘Kester, help me!’ Polly calls out across the water. I wish I could shout out to her to hold on. I wish. She just has to believe that I am saying it deep down inside, because I am.

I wade out into the fish-road, the stag and wolf-cub splashing in behind me, until the water comes up to my waist. But I can feel the bottom beginning to fall away sharply beneath us.

Polly calls out as they start to spin faster and faster towards the edge. ‘Help me. You have to help us!’

I rest one hand on the stag’s broad chest, and feel the steady thump of his heart as the wind blows right through us.

*Ask the fish-road!* he yells over the roar of the whiterforce. *Ask the fish-road to help you.*

*I don’t understand!* I shout back.

*Do not give up, Kester. You have a voice. Call to the fish-road for help.*

The wolf-cub takes my hand between his jaws and yanks it under the water.

*What are you doing?!*

He glowers at me. *Ask them! You must ask them! We cannot ask for help to save a human. But you can. You have the voice, the voice that can command all creatures. You have to believe in it.*

The voice that can command all creatures. A gift. If there were any left to call – if I knew how to call –

*Help!* I cry out. I can’t do anything more to stop this on my own. *Please! If there is anyone there who can save a girl and a cat from the whiterforce – show yourself now!*

The water drags Polly right to the edge, spinning her round and round as if she was only a piece of rubbish. She lunges out, grabbing one of the branches wedged between the rocks, trying to stop her and the cat going over the edge –

I close my eyes.

And I hear something – not water roaring, not the wind – but a rushing, slithering sound, speeding through the water. A rushing sound followed by a voice, and then voices. Not voices like the animals with me on land, or the birds in the sky. This is more like chanting, an underwater chant.

*Ommmmmm!*

The wolf-cub tugs my hand. *Look!* he says.

Something is tunnelling through the water, towards the whiterforce and Polly, clinging for her life to the stuck branch. The chanting grows louder in my head –

*Ommmmmm! Ommmmmm!*

The ripples, wave-like ropes of water dragging across the surface of the fish-road, bear down on Polly as the branch she is holding on to begins to loosen and wobble, slowly slipping over the edge.

*Quick! Quick! You have to go faster! Faster!* I yell at them, whatever they are. And then I see them, coiling through the water, just visible near the surface now, in the night light – long, dark, twisting lines.

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