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Back Timberdark Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. Title Page
  2. Contents
  3. Dedication
  4. Praise for Wranglestone
  5. Epigraph
  6. Map
  7. Part I
  8. Prologue
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. Part II
  18. 9
  19. 10
  20. 11
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. 26
  36. Part III
  37. 27
  38. 28
  39. 29
  40. 30
  41. 31
  42. 5 Years Later
  43. Acknowledgements
  44. About the Author

Peter felt a sudden rush of blood. To his head. To his toes. To the tips of his fingers until they hummed like every part of him was raging to get out of there. He stumbled up to the island, furiously patting the black rock to find the entrance to the ravine. Except, here, in the dark, there was no sign of it. At a glance, the two islands seemed to continue unbroken. But Peter knew this wasn’t the case. Directly above him at the top of the cliffs, the pine trees bowed in opposite directions like hair parting across a fractured skull. He stumbled along the length of the cliff, looking again for the slightest fissure. But before his eyes could separate the black rock from the inky night, the islands called out to him.

His dad used to tell tales of how the pine trees cowering over the cliff edge bowed inland away from the ravine so they didn’t have to face the monsters waiting in the shadows below. The truth was that winter winds whisked right through the ravine, twisting the trees back that way, giving the islands their name.

The island whistled like a restless wind at the door. Peter glanced down and the silver fur of his wolfskin coat bristled backwards. The mouth of the ravine was right there in front of him. He approached, bracing both hands against the tight entrance walls. At his feet, an ice path dusted with snow shot straight through the rock like a sliver of lightning into darkness. Halfway in, a giant rock had broken away at one side of the ravine crushing into the other to block the path. But just when Peter thought he’d backed himself into a dead-end, he crouched down feeling the frozen surface of the lake where the winds were most keen and there, beneath the hanging rock where the snow came scurrying through, was height enough to scramble under. If he could make it, no one would even know he was hiding in there.

Snow came skittering out of the darkness.

The islands whistled.

Peter stood, angling the tip of the staff forward and quietly made his way in.

8

The ravine gripped. Peter hunched a shoulder to the rock and thrust himself forward. A push. A scrape. Something gave, releasing his shoulder, and he slipped inside. High above him, a raggedy strip of stars between the islands mirrored the path of ice below. But the darkness inside the ravine was so complete, you could almost bump into it. Peter inched one foot in front of the other and quickly made his way through.