North! Or Be Eaten (37 page)

They traveled north for hours. Neither child spoke.

At last, when the air changed at the first hint of dawn, Maraly stopped. She sprang into the branches of a glipwood tree and shimmied to its swaying heights. Janner craned his neck to see her silhouette against the silver stars. He wasn’t sure if he should follow, but she said, “Come on.” So he climbed.

She settled into the crook of two limbs and closed her eyes.

“Maraly?” he said.

She didn’t answer.

Janner made himself comfortable and lay back with his pack hugged to his chest. The sway of the tree brought to mind fine memories of Peet’s tree house, and he slept. His dreams were of his brother.

In them, Tink was screaming.

P
eet the Sock Man woke feeling sick.

His arms were chained to his sides, as they had been since his capture after the rockroach gully. For days, his mind had turned from madness to grief, and finally to a grim understanding of exactly who and where he was. He was aware of a creaking, a salty smell, and the sound of weeping.

He blinked and looked around. He sat in the dank hold of a ship, and filthy water sloshed about his feet. All around him were people in chains. They weren’t wrapped from head to foot like Peet, but their wrists and ankles were shackled to the walls of the hold. Most of the prisoners were children. Light slipped through the slats in the ceiling and fell on them like prison bars. Peet strained against his chains for the thousandth time, but the Fangs had done their work well. He couldn’t move an inch.

In these moments when his mind was clear, he knew who he was. He knew he was the Throne Warden of Anniera. He knew he had been separated from his charges, his nephews and niece, the hope of the Shining Isle. His mind thrummed with words and stories and thoughts he ached to chase to their end with a pen and parchment. It had been a long time since he had held a quill. The talons where his hands used to be were good for nothing but battle.

He looked among the children for Janner, Tink, and Leeli and was relieved not to find them. But what he saw made him angry: so many children torn from their families, forced into the Black Carriage, then chained and thrown into the belly of a Fang ship.

His heart sank. He knew this wasn’t even the worst of it. The ship would be rocked by storms in the weeks it took to cross the Dark Sea of Darkness. The children who survived the journey would be dragged out of the ship’s hold and into the harsh desert light of the Woes of Shreve. For days they would travel in the deadly heat of the Woes to the foot of the Killridge Mountains. And even that, Peet thought sadly, would not be the worst of it. The worst would come after they had been hauled to the icy
steeps of Throg, Gnag’s fortress. There, Gnag the Nameless would send them deep into the dungeons where he would do his evil work on them.

Peet’s mind grew cloudy, and that familiar madness slowed his thoughts. He knew the Deeps of Throg. He had been there and would not—
could
not—go back. It was too terrible a thought. But the ship was taking him there, and he could not stop it. The chains held fast, and the wind blew steady. There was nothing he could do.

At that thought, Peet’s breath began to come in short gasps. He heard himself sob, and many of the children looked at him with big, empty eyes. The madness crept in further, and this time he knew it wouldn’t abate. He would lose himself, and a part of him was glad. He didn’t want to remember who he was. He didn’t want to remember that he had failed his family again or that he was bound for the blackest place in all the world for a second time.

Then the bow of the ship thudded into something.

He heard shouts from above, then many footsteps on deck. For a long time the prisoners stared at the ceiling. Peet knew they hadn’t arrived at Dang. They had left Fort Lamendron but a day ago, and he didn’t know why they would be stopping already, except perhaps to gather supplies. But wouldn’t they have done that in Lamendron?

Then the door in the ceiling swung open, and a wolf leapt into the hold.

Peet shrieked, not out of fear for himself but for the children in chains. He had encountered many wolves over the years and knew what they could do. His every instinct demanded he protect the children from this beast. He prepared himself for the screams, and screams he heard—but not screams of pain. Peet forced his eyes open and saw a terrible thing.

The wolf stood on two legs.

The wolf wore armor and held a ring of keys in one claw.

The wolf stared at him with red, evil eyes and smiled a vicious smile.

It waded through the water to Peet and put its snout in his face. It sniffed him, growled, and narrowed its eyes. Then it spoke.

“You’re the one they’re all so afraid of, then.” Its voice was deep, its manner measured and calm—not like the Fangs, who crackled and cackled and carried on like unruly children. Peet looked into its eyes and saw something that worried him: intelligence. “You won’t be so fearsome after we’re finished with you, birdman. Welcome to the Phoob Islands.”

The wolf turned away and set to work loosing the children and herding them up the ladder to the deck.

The Phoob Islands?
Peet thought. Then he remembered.
“It’s the Phoob Islands for you,”
Khrak had said in Fort Lamendron. The Phoobs were in the north, between Fin-gap Falls and the Ice Prairies, a scattering of small islands, some of which boasted port cities crawling with pirates and sailors and traders—or so he had heard. He had never been there, but he had seen the islands from the cliffs. They were brown stony bumps on the back of the sea, like a flock of giant turtles resting off the coast.

Peet couldn’t understand why they were here and not on the way to Dang, but he understood all too well where the walking wolf had come from, and it filled him with dread.

The wolf dragged Peet out of the hold and with one hand threw him overboard. He sank fast in the frigid water. He didn’t think they’d let him drown, but even so he was thrashing with panic when the wolf finally drew him out by the chain like a fisherman hauling in his catch. Peet lay shivering on a rock and stared at a cold blue sky. Above and to his left, sad-eyed children in shackles walked the gangplank from ship to pier under the watchful eye of the walking wolf.

The creature stood with one foot propped on a crate and stared at Peet as he waved the children on. When the last child crossed over, the wolf lifted Peet to the pier and stood him where he could look out at the Dark Sea.

“Gnag no longer needs to send them to Dang, you see. He has moved his operation here and has made many…improvements.” The wolf took a deep breath and smiled. “Ah, the cold air. Do you feel it? It’s good for a Grey Fang.”

The wolf spun Peet around. High above towered the cliffs at the edge of Skree. At the verge of the cliffs, he saw instead of trees the shine of snow and ice. At the foot of the cliffs a narrow road led to a ferry crossing. The ferry itself was moving across the channel to the island. Peet couldn’t make out what was on the ferry, but he saw movement and perhaps a few horses. At the end of the pier where he stood began a path that led to a fortress carved into the brown stone of the island. The walls were thick and covered with lichen, worn from a thousand years of weather and battle. Along the top of every wall, on every turret and along every road were more of the walking wolves—Grey Fangs.

Thousands of them.

“In fact,” said the Grey Fang, “we love the cold air so much that we’re planning a visit to the Ice Prairies. Perhaps you’ve been there? They say it’s beautiful and that many Skreeans over the years have made the journey. Don’t you have some family in the Ice Prairies, Wingfeather? We’ll be sure to greet them for you when we arrive.”

Peet could scarcely believe it, but it sounded like Podo had led the children and Nia to the Ice Prairies. They’d survived.

But they weren’t safe. They had no idea the Grey Fangs existed. Peet struggled and tried to speak through the chain stretched across his mouth.

The Grey Fang didn’t laugh or taunt the Sock Man. It just watched him with those intelligent, evil eyes and smiled.

W
hen Janner woke the next morning, the first thing he saw was a fazzle dove. It perched on a branch just beyond his feet, eying him with great irritation. Maraly was nowhere to be seen, but Janner wasn’t surprised. She was a Strander, which meant she couldn’t be trusted or relied upon. As he had drifted off the night before, he decided that if he was alone when he woke up, he would push on to the Barrier and not give her a second thought. He had survived the Fork Factory, Miller’s Bridge, and countless Fangs. He knew the journey to the Ice Prairies would be difficult, but he believed he was capable of making it alone.

The fazzle dove
hoodle-oodle-oodled
and flapped away. Janner stretched and sat up. The air was chilly enough that he could see his breath lifting through the yellow leaves of the glipwood tree. Then a fine smell drifted into his nose. He looked down through the branches and saw Maraly poking at a small fire near the trunk of the tree.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she answered.

He climbed down. She sat on her haunches, picking her teeth with a small bone. All around the fire lay gray and white fazzle dove feathers. Maraly pointed at a flat stone beside the fire where the remainder of the bird lay.

“Thanks,” Janner said, and he meant it. The meat was hot and juicy, but there was too little of it. “Is there any more?” he asked when he had picked the little bones clean.

“You can catch one of your own if ye like. Might take ye awhile, though.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t eaten that well in days, and it only made him hungrier. “Is there any water?”

Maraly stood and wiped her greasy fingers on the front of her shirt. “Aye. There’s a creek about an hour north. Up near the Barrier. I see that’s where you’re headed,” she added when Janner’s face lit up.

“Yeah. Do you know a way through?”

Maraly snorted. “Gettin’ through’s easy enough. Especially now that the Fangs are scarce. It’s
after
the Barrier that’s the hard part. Where do ye aim to go, anyway?”

Janner hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell the daughter of Claxton Weaver about his plans, even if she
had
tried to save Tink. But what difference would it make? He didn’t think she would be going back to her Strander camp anytime soon, not after the way Claxton growled and cursed at her during the pursuit.

“I can’t say,” he told her.

She raised an eyebrow. “Ye can’t say.”

“Well—I don’t know if I can trust you.”

She snorted again. “Don’t tell me, then. I reckon this is where we part ways.” She kicked dirt over the fire and strode into the woods before Janner had time to stop her.

“Go on, then,” he said under his breath when she had disappeared into the forest. “I don’t need you.”

Janner made sure the fire was out, then shouldered the two packs, took a look around, and realized he didn’t know which way was north. The sky was overcast, and as hard as he tried, he could see no clear shadow. He tried to remember which way they had come, but every direction looked the same.

Something moved in the woods not far away.

“Maraly?” Janner said timidly.

He heard the noise again, a snap of twigs.

“Is that you?” he said.

A quill diggle hissed and burst from behind a nearby tree. It skittered toward him and turned to sling its quills.

Janner fumbled for his sword, but the second pack over his shoulder bumped the hilt out of reach. The quills vibrated and the diggle made a clicking sound with its mouth, a sign it was about to strike. Janner forgot his sword and ducked behind the tree just as the quills flew. Hundreds of them stuck into the trunk, and four of them sank into his calf.

“Ow!”

The diggle chattered on the other side of the trunk, then dashed around the tree and turned to strike again. Janner ran back to his pack, drew his sword, and spun around.

But the diggle was already dead.

Maraly leaned against the tree, still picking her teeth with the bird bone, holding the dead diggle by the leg. Her dagger protruded from its throat.

“I would’ve killed it,” Janner sputtered.

“Sure ye would’ve.”

“Just caught me by surprise is all.”

“Sure it did.” She pointed at his leg. “Better get those out quick, or you’ll be sick as a dead dog.”

“Oh.” Suddenly nauseous, Janner staggered backward, tripped, and landed on his rump.

Maraly removed the quills, which hurt much worse than Janner thought it would, and put a poultice of spit and ashes over the wounds. She pulled him to his feet.

“So where are ye headed then?”

“The Ice Prairies.” His cheeks burned.

“All right.”

And they were off.

They traveled north for an hour. Twice Maraly calmly told Janner to get into the nearest tree just as a toothy cow charged past. Janner never heard them coming, and he thought each time how glad he was that Maraly was with him. He would never have made it this far alone.

When they reached the stream, they dropped to all fours and drank deep from the clear water. After they filled the water skins, Maraly cleaned and inspected Janner’s diggle wounds.

“You’ll be fine,” she said. “Now listen. The Barrier is just over the next rise. Don’t know the last time I seen a Fang patrol this far east, but keep watch anyhow. There ain’t no breach, but there’s enough trees that we can climb right over. Once we’re past the wall, the goin’ ought to be easy enough. Until we get to the mountains, that is. Do ye have a map or somethin’?”

Janner showed her the instructions on the letter, and she nodded.

Just over the next rise, he got his first glimpse of the Barrier.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but he was far from impressed. He was only twelve, and he felt he could’ve done a better job than the Fangs had done. The logs that made up the Barrier were roughly hewn, and some still had branches sticking out at odd angles. They were of uneven lengths, different sizes and kinds of trees. It looked as if the Fangs had built the wall in a day, with blindfolds on.