Spirit Animals – Fall of the Beasts 8 – The Dragon’s Eye

Sarwat Chadda's The Dragon's Eye is a Fall of the Beasts adventure for 9 year olds that opens with Meilin, Rollan, Abeke and Conor locked in the hold of a mercenary ship.

What happens

They've been down there fifteen days. Conor has been scratching the days on the wall. There are rats, seawater slopping round the floor and a mad old prisoner nearby who flaps his arms and shouts "Fly, boy, fly!" at Rollan.

The four Greencloaks have been framed for murdering an emperor, and the Oathbound (a band of bounty hunters) have caught them. The enemy now holds three of the ancient relics everyone has been chasing. Only the Dragon's Eye is left.

Rollan's falcon Essix is their one way out. He can see through her eyes when he concentrates, soaring over the waves while his body is stuck in a stinking cell. That feeling of sudden freedom is one of the loveliest bits of the opening.

Then the ship docks below an emperor's summer palace on the cliffs of Zhong. Who has been waiting for them there? And what do they want with four children and four spirit animals?

This is well into the series, and it doesn't stop to explain much. Characters, betrayals and quests from earlier books are mentioned in passing. A reader who already knows Briggan, Uraza, Jhi and Essix will be straight back in. A brand-new reader may feel a bit lost at first.

The friendship is the best thing about it. Conor is itching for a fight after weeks in the dark. Meilin tells him to act docile and wait, and he laughs, because Meilin is the last person anyone would call docile!

Be aware that it's darker than the age on the shelf might suggest. One of the villains, Cordelia, spends the voyage whipping the sailors above deck. The children hear the screams through the boards and she comes down with blood on her boots. None of it is shown directly, but it's there from the very first scene.

For a confident reader who is already a fan, it's a gripping next step. For a younger child meeting the series for the first time, it's better to go back to the beginning.

What to read next

That beginning is Wild Born, where Conor is still a shepherd's son working off his family's debts as a servant to a spoilt young nobleman.