Sky Horses: the Royal Foal Read online

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  The Royal Foal

  The second book in the quartet

  Linda Chapman lives in Leicestershire with her family and two Bernese mountain dogs. When she is not writing, she spends her time looking after her two young daughters and baby son, horse riding and talking to people about writing.

  You can find out more about Linda on her websites at lindachapman.co.uk and lindachapman author.co.uk

  Books by Linda Chapman

  BRIGHT LIGHTS

  CENTRE STAGE

  MY SECRET UNICORN series

  NOT QUITE A MERMAID series

  SKY HORSES series

  STARDUST series

  UNICORN SCHOOL series

  Illustrated by Ann Kronheimer

  PUFFIN

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published 2009

  Text copyright © Linda Chapman, 2009

  Illustrations copyright © Ann Kronheimer, 2009

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  ISBN: 978-0-14-195645-9

  To everyone who put up with

  me while I wrote these books

  Day

  One

  The cave was dimly lit. Candles sent shadows flickering up the damp walls and, outside, the sea crashed on the shingle beach. Heavy clouds smothered the stars in the night sky.

  A woman in a silvery-blue dress was marking out a circle on the cave floor with stones. Her face was beautiful, her eyes intent on what she was doing. ‘Between the sea and the sky, where no ordinary human can reach,’ she said softly as she joined up the ends of the circle. Carefully, she placed four objects from a small table around it – a jar of earth, a small glass bottle with a stopper, a metal dish into which she poured some water and a lit candle that she took from one of the rocky ledges, its flame flickering weakly. ‘The magic will begin.’

  The woman pushed back her long dark-blonde hair and walked to the cave opening. ‘Six days for a hidden stone to show itself,’ she murmured, looking out at the sea.

  Taking three more stones out of her pocket, she turned them over in her hands, then went back to the circle and knelt down just outside it. ‘The seeing stone,’ she said, placing a stone with a single hole through its centre to her left. The next stone she placed to her right. It had two holes through it. ‘The warding stone,’ she muttered.

  Now she had just one stone left. She held it up. It was pale brown with a small hole through the centre that was blocked with a chip of stone.

  Her voice hardened to ice. ‘The trapping stone.’

  She placed it inside the circle and clapped her hands. ‘Appear, Prince!’

  A thin stream of mist flooded out of the hole in the stone. It flowed into the centre of the circle where it formed the tiny but perfect shape of a young grey horse, no bigger than the woman’s hand. He looked barely older than a foal: his tail was still not full length, his mane stuck up slightly, his legs were long and gangly. He snorted – his dark eyes wide and astonished – but then, seeing the woman, his ears instantly flattened. He squealed and reared up, his front legs striking out.

  She laughed. ‘You cannot fight me, Prince of the Sky!’

  Swinging round, the tiny horse galloped towards the circle’s edge, but as he reached the wall of stones he collided with it and staggered backwards.

  ‘There is no escape.’ The woman’s blue eyes glinted as she spoke. ‘You will do as I say.’

  The colt squealed in defiance.

  The woman swept up the stone and tightened her fingers round it. The colt immediately crashed to his knees. She watched him coldly as he struggled to his feet. When he tried to plunge forward, the woman snapped out a word. The colt stopped mid-rear, a look of sudden obedience coming over his face. He dropped his front hooves to the ground. ‘Lead the sky herd,’ the woman commanded. ‘Clear the skies.’

  She lifted the hand that was not holding the stone and clicked her fingers again. A group of shadowy horses appeared in the circle, young and old, all shades of grey from the purest white to the darkest steel, manes and tails sweeping to the floor, eyes dark and alert. They massed around the colt as if looking to him for instruction. A beautiful snow-white mare pushed her way through the crowd and nuzzled his neck anxiously. But the colt didn’t seem to see her.

  He walked slowly forward, his eyes empty and vacant. The horses in front of him parted to let him through and then followed him.

  He led them towards the far side of the circle. As he got to the edge, he stopped, but the other horses walked straight on past. Reaching the wall of stones, they each vanished. At last the only one left was the colt. He hung his head, his eyes seeming to see nothing.

  The woman held out the stone, the hole pointing towards the colt. She muttered something under her breath. The colt shivered and dissolved into a stream of mist. The mist flowed back into the hole until the circle was completely empty.

  The woman looked towards the cave opening. The wind had dropped and stars were now shining out, bright pinpricks of light in the velvety-black sky. Every cloud had disappeared across the horizon. A smile curved at her lips.

  ‘And so day one begins,’ she whispered.

  CHAPTER

  One

  ‘Got you!’

  ‘No! Got you!’

  ‘Got you back!’

  Erin and her best friend, Chloe, giggled as they flew through the night sky, playing tag.

  ‘OK, you win.’ Erin gave in. ‘I’m it.’ She knew Chloe would never stop until she had won. She twirled around in the sky, her blue dress glittering in the starlight. I love being a stardust spirit, she thought.

  A few days ago, a whole new world of magic had opened up for her when she had found out that some people could turn into stardust spirits who could fly and do magic, and she was one of them! She had also discovered that there were horses living in the clouds – and that she was actually a special kind of stardust spirit called a weather weaver, who could work with the sky horses to change the weather. Erin had always believed in magic, so finding out it was real had been brilliant, but also quite scary. She glanced at Chloe. She was very, very glad she had a best friend to share it with.

  Chloe looked back at her and grinned. ‘It’s so weird to think that a week ago we had no idea we were stardust spirits, isn’t it? That we didn’t even know each other, and now we’re best friends!’

  Erin felt a warm glow. She loved the fact that she and Chloe often seemed to be thinking the same thing. ‘I wonder what we would have said if someone had told us about it all.’
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  ‘Cool!’ said Chloe with a grin. ‘That’s what I would have said, I mean. Wouldn’t you?’

  Erin hesitated. Lots of it was cool – doing magic, being best friends with Chloe – but there was other stuff that was less good. The night before they’d had to fight a dark stardust spirit called Marianne and that had been very scary. Marianne had captured the leader of the sky horses, a beautiful stallion called Tor. She had brought him to Earth, and had been trying to use him to control the weather. Erin and Chloe had freed him, but, just as he had been about to fly back home through a giant stone gateway that bridged the cloud world and Earth, his son, a young colt, jumped through it. Marianne had immediately captured the colt, turning him into mist and sucking him into a type of hagstone that Tor had later explained to them was called a trapping stone.

  Erin and Chloe had promised Tor that they would do everything they could to help him free his son, Mistral. In fact, they were now on their way to meet Tor so that they could start planning how they would rescue the colt.

  ‘I wonder where Marianne is right now,’ said Erin uneasily. ‘And what she’s doing with Mistral.’

  Erin had so many questions. The last few days had been taken up with trying to rescue Tor and she had learnt very little about how weather weavers worked their magic and what it really meant to be one. All she knew was that weather weavers used hagstones, stones with holes in that could be found on the beach or by water. There were different types of hagstones, some with one hole, some with more, and they each contained a different type of magic that a weather weaver could free and use. ‘Let’s ask Tor,’ she said.

  They sped on over the cliff top. To their left the sea broke against the beach, the waves raking at the shingle. Behind them the lights in the village of Long Medlow twinkled in the dark. They reached a wood and flew down.

  With a low whinny, a magnificent grey stallion stepped out of the shadows into a clearing below, his mane and tail sweeping to the floor, his ears pricked.

  ‘Tor!’ Erin greeted him in delight.

  Tor could appear either in a cloud form, where he looked as if he was made of mist, or as a real, solid horse. For now, he had chosen his solid form. His hooves sank slightly into the soft ground and there were flecks of mud around his fetlocks.

  Erin landed on the grass in front of him. He whickered softly and touched his nose to her shoulder, his breath whispering across the bare skin of her arms.

  She wanted to put her arms round him, but didn’t quite dare. He nuzzled her and she smiled up at him. He was huge, about seventeen hands high.

  ‘Hi, Tor,’ said Chloe, landing beside Erin.

  Tor reached out and touched her arm too. ‘I am glad you have come, girls. We must act quickly and find the trapping stone so that we can free Mistral. Marianne could use him to bring great storms, tornadoes, hurricanes…’

  ‘How will she do that? I mean how do the sky horses control the weather?’ asked Erin. There was so much she still didn’t understand about weather weaving.

  ‘We do not control the weather, Erin,’ Tor explained gently. ‘We are the weather. The skies change with our many moods and movements. If we are quiet and peaceful, the clouds float gently. If we move swiftly, the clouds race across the sky. If we mass together, the clouds grow darker and heavier with rain. If we cross over the horizon, then the skies clear of all clouds. The leader of the herd decides what will happen, and as the herd follows him the weather changes.’

  ‘What I don’t get is why Marianne needed to capture you and Mistral,’ said Chloe. ‘If she’s a weather weaver, can’t she make the sky horses change the weather anyway?’

  Tor shook his head. ‘No one can make the sky horses change the weather. A weather weaver may talk to the sky horses using hagstones. They can ask the horses to change the weather, but the lead stallion will always make the final decision. A weather weaver only has real control over the weather if they have a sky horse of royal blood in their power here on Earth. Now Marianne has Mistral under her control, she will use a hagstone to send an image of him into the skies. He will appear there in a misty form. She will tell him what to do, the other horses will follow his lead and so the weather will come under her command.’

  ‘But why does she want to do that?’ Erin asked.

  ‘For power,’ Tor replied abruptly. ‘If she has complete control over the weather, she will be able to wreak havoc over the coast and make all people fear her. Many years ago another dark spirit captured my grandfather, who was king of the sky horses then. There were great storms until that spirit was defeated.’ He looked seriously at them both. ‘Now the three of us must defeat Marianne.’

  ‘We will!’ declared Chloe.

  Erin nodded. ‘We’ll find the trapping stone and set Mistral free.’

  ‘Unfortunately, before we manage to do that, Marianne might cause great storms to come,’ said Tor. ‘I will need you to use your weather-weaving magic, Erin, to cast visions of me into the clouds just as Marianne will do with Mistral. I will try to change what she is doing, calming my herd, stopping the storms.’

  ‘But won’t Marianne try to stop you?’ Chloe burst out.

  Tor nodded. ‘Yes, it will be dangerous – for all of us.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ interrupted Erin, doing her best to sound brave although her heart was pounding. ‘I’ll do whatever you say. We can’t let Marianne start massive storms and put everyone in danger here.’

  Tor nuzzled her gratefully. ‘You are very courageous.’

  ‘We’d better find the trapping stone as quickly as we can so we can free Mistral,’ said Chloe. ‘I wonder where Marianne is keeping it?’

  ‘I believe she will be hiding it outdoors in a place where she can work her magic,’ said Tor. ‘But there is no need for you to follow her. Erin can use her weather-weaving powers to discover the stone’s hiding place.’

  ‘How?’ asked Erin.

  ‘Bring a seeing stone and also a warding stone, a hagstone with two holes, tomorrow night, and then I will teach you how to use them both to do this safely.’ Tor’s voice took on a warning note. ‘But do not attempt to see Marianne on your own. It could be very risky.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Erin promised.

  ‘Good,’ Tor answered. ‘And in the meantime be on the lookout for danger. There is always the possibility that Marianne may come looking for you. Take a hair from my mane. If you need to reach me for whatever reason, hold the hair and call to me. Wherever you are, the cloud magic that runs through me means I will hear and reply.’

  Erin looked at his long mane and hesitated. She felt shy about breaking even a strand. ‘Do I really need to?’ she asked. ‘Can’t I use a hagstone? You’ve talked to me that way before, Tor.’ She had first heard Tor’s voice speaking to her when she had been holding a hagstone in her bedroom.

  ‘I can talk to you when you are holding a hagstone and one day you too will learn to be able to contact me in the same way, but at the moment you do not have the knowledge and control to accurately use a hagstone to contact me,’ the stallion replied. ‘If you have a hair of my mane, you will be able to speak to me easily at any time if you need to. It will be safer this way. The magic is stronger and simpler.’ He nudged her with his muzzle. ‘Go on.’

  Erin cautiously broke off a single hair.

  Tor’s dark eyes met hers. ‘Use it whenever you need to.’

  Holding the hair tight, Erin rose into the air. Chloe followed her. As they reached the treetops, Erin glanced down. Tor had melted away into the woods and the glade was empty.

  Chloe looked at her almost enviously. ‘I wish I was a weather weaver and could do magic like you.’

  Erin felt a bit daunted. ‘I hope I can do the magic Tor needs me to.’

  ‘Of course you can!’ Chloe squeezed her hand.

  Erin felt lifted by Chloe’s confidence. Chloe’s right, she thought. I’m going to help Tor. We’re going to find the trapping stone and set Mistral free!

  CHAPTER

&
nbsp; Two

  As they left the woods, they flew over three ponies in a cliff-top field. ‘Let’s go and see them!’ Chloe called to Erin.

  They swooped down and landed on the grass. One of the ponies was lying down; the other two were dozing standing up, hind legs resting. They lifted their heads, pricking their ears as they saw Erin and Chloe. Animals were never scared of stardust spirits. One of the ponies, a chestnut, whickered at them.

  Erin and Chloe went over. While Chloe cuddled the two who were standing up, Erin crouched down beside the piebald pony on the ground. He nuzzled her hands.

  ‘Hey, boy,’ she said, stroking his nose.

  ‘I wonder who we’ll get to ride tomorrow at the stables,’ said Chloe. She and Erin went to the same riding stables. They helped there at the weekends and in the holidays in exchange for rides and free lessons. She grinned at Erin. ‘Let me guess: I bet you’ll be wanting Kestrel.’

  Kestrel was a new pony at the stables. He had just arrived the day before. He was a young dapple-grey, part Arab pony, and Erin thought he was gorgeous.

  ‘I hope I get him,’ said Erin eagerly. ‘But then everyone wants to ride him.’

  ‘Well, I don’t really mind if I do or not,’ said Chloe generously. ‘If I get given him for the lesson, we can ask Jackie if we can swap.’

  Erin smiled at her. ‘Thanks!’ She sighed longingly. ‘I really wish I had a pony of my own.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Chloe. ‘Still, at least we’ve got the ponies at the stables to look after.’ She gave the chestnut a last pat. ‘Why don’t we practise using our stardust powers now? I want to do some summer magic!’

  Erin nodded. ‘OK. But we’d better go somewhere more hidden than this.’

  They left the ponies and found a quiet, secluded place on the cliff top. There were four different types of stardust spirit – summer, autumn, winter and spring – and they could each do a different kind of magic. Chloe was a summer spirit, which meant she could start fires. Like all weather weavers, Erin was a winter spirit, which meant she could make it rain, snow or hail. She hadn’t been very good at doing her winter magic at first. Her rainclouds kept soaking her, and when she tried to get hail she got snow, and when she tried to get snow she got rain, but the night before when they had been fighting Marianne she had managed to conjure up a raincloud just when she needed it.