North! Or Be Eaten (11 page)

The troll took another step forward. With a heavy sigh, Podo raised his sword and strode to meet it.

Tears filled Janner’s eyes, and he thought about protesting, joining Podo in his final stand—but he had no sword. Podo had taken it. He thought about using his bow but knew it would do no damage. All he could do was obey his grandfather’s final command:
“You lead this family to safety.”
Podo would only last moments against the troll, but it was all he could give.

Janner blinked away his tears and turned. He had to honor his grandfather’s sacrifice by getting his family away and keeping them free from harm for as long as he could.

Leeli screamed. Her shrill voice cut through the air like a thousand silver arrows. Janner just had time to leap out of the way as Nugget, no longer carrying Leeli, bounded up the steps.

The giant dog gave a bone-rattling bark when it reached the tower, then sprang through the air, past a bewildered Podo, and slammed into the troll like a boulder into a barn door.

The troll staggered back, trying in vain to shield itself from Nugget’s teeth, which snapped and bit and tore at the troll’s arms and neck and face. The troll lost its balance and teetered, slow and heavy like a felled tree.

It crashed into the bridge with such force that the towers on either side trembled, and Janner saw one of the Fangs lose its footing and fall. The bridge that had stood for a thousand years crumbled into a thousand pieces.

Nugget sprang off the troll as it fell and landed with his upper half on the opposite tower where the Fangs gathered. His back legs scrabbled at the side of the rock but found no purchase, while above him the Fangs battered his face and front paws with their swords and spears. Nugget bit and barked and growled. Fang after Fang screamed and fell from the wall as the dog struggled, but more Fangs appeared, with more weapons and more determination to push the dog from the tower.

Janner felt a sob rise from his gut and tear from his lips, and then came the sound of Leeli somewhere behind him, screaming Nugget’s name. She had crawled up the steps to the tower with a look of pale shock on her face.

Nugget twisted a Fang’s leg in his mouth and pulled the creature from the wall. Wounds covered his face and forelegs. He turned his great, shaggy, bleeding head and looked at Leeli. She crawled past Janner, sobbing, reaching for her dearest friend across the empty space where the bridge had been.

Nugget barked one last time, a big, gentle sound that echoed off the stone and water of Fingap Falls. Janner saw a change in Nugget’s face at the last jab from a Fang spear, a tired but contented look that made him believe the brave dog would fall to the sea happy, knowing he had saved Leeli from harm one last time.

And then Nugget was gone.

J
anner didn’t watch him fall. His eyes closed so that the wet stone beneath his hands, the cold wind, the howls of triumph from the Fangs, his little sister’s wailing were all he knew.

Podo lifted Leeli over his shoulder and carried his granddaughter away, dragging Janner by the shirt collar as he went. Janner’s eyes opened, his vision blurred with tears. He ran down the steps behind Podo, noting with detachment the looks of confusion and surprise on Nia’s, Tink’s, and Oskar’s faces.

They climbed the bank slowly, dragging heavy hearts. No one uttered a word, no one looked back to see if the Fangs had found a way to cross the gap.

After a long, winding climb over gravel and boulder, the Igibys, Podo, and Oskar reached level ground. Soft green grass stretched before them for a short distance before the trees of the forest gathered into a green wall. They stood in a clearing roughly the size of the Glipwood Township, an oasis of open space surrounded by glipwood trees.

The area was littered with large stones, but they weren’t the rounded boulders of the falls. They were squared, stacked in places, and overgrown with weeds. Beneath the grass, the trail they followed up from the river became a cobbled roadway, the stones the ruins of a cluster of buildings.

Leeli fell to the grass and wept.

“I’m afraid to say it,” Podo said hoarsely, “but we might be safe. Look.”

Janner and Tink stood beside Podo and looked down. From their vantage point they saw all of Fingap Falls arrayed before them. To the right flowed the white water of the Mighty Blapp, snaking into the mist of the upper falls. Below it jutted the shelf that caught the waters in its giant palm. The bridges spanning the five towers looked as thin as ribbons. At the fourth, of course, there was no longer a bridge, and the surface of the tower was clogged with the tiny movements of Fangs in retreat.

Janner could hardly believe he had just crossed such a precarious distance; in fact, he could hardly believe such a place existed at all.

He turned to see Oskar and Nia lift Leeli and walk her to a stone bench. Nia held Leeli’s head to her chest and rocked to and fro while Oskar patted her back. Leeli cried.

Janner remembered the day at the cottage when she thought the Fangs had killed Nugget. She had cried little and soon grown silent. That had been far more worrisome to him than the way Leeli now wept. She seemed older, no longer shocked that such a thing could happen in the world but heartbroken because it had. Her tears struck Janner as the right kind of tears.

Tink sat on the ground with his back to the stone bench and absentmindedly pulled weeds from the cracks between cobbles. Podo knelt in front of Leeli on his good knee.

“Leeli,” he said gently.

Hair stuck to her wet face. Her cheeks were splotchy red, and her chin quivered. She reached for her grandfather and hugged his neck, crying harder than before. Podo lifted her and carried her some distance away, whispering and patting her back with his big, callused hands.

Janner plopped to the ground beside Tink, and the weariness of the day fell on him like a blanket. He leaned his head back on the stone and looked at the sky. White clouds slid across the deep blue dome, peaceful as a sigh. His eyes drooped shut, and wind tickled his face and the hairs on his forearms. The rockroach den, then the trolls, Peet’s capture, the foggy despair of the flat beside the river, the dizzy sight of the Dark Sea, the troll breathing at Janner’s back—and Nugget.

He opened his eyes and looked at the sky again. Where was Peet now? Janner was afraid for him but felt sure Peet was still alive. He had survived terrible things for years, and something about the way Zouzab watched him from the troll’s shoulder made Janner believe Gnag wanted the Sock Man alive for some reason.

For a long time they sat among the ruins. Podo and Leeli finally came back to where the others rested, and though her face still bore the weight of her sorrow, Janner could see that his sister was
present
. Her eyes didn’t stare into nothing. They saw the situation, grieved for it, and faced it.

As Janner drifted to sleep, he was aware of Nugget’s absence; no giggles from Leeli; no big, whiny yawns; no sense of safety knowing that, whatever lay in wait for them in the shadows, at least this huge, happy monster was on their side.

Janner woke with a start. Dusk approached, and the clearing lay in cool shadow. Leeli slept on Nia’s lap. Oskar lay on his back, hissing with pain while Podo worked to remove the old fellow’s bandages. Tink assisted Podo with a sick look on his face. Janner wondered for a moment where Nugget and Peet were, until he remembered with a shiver that the day hadn’t been some awful dream.

“Hold on now,” Podo said. “I’m almost finished. Tink, hand me the knife, eh?”

Tink passed a small knife to his grandfather, who used it to cut away the clotted bandage.

“There,” Podo said, eying Oskar’s wound. “It’s not as bad as I thought. Hardly a scratch, ye big baby! We’ll get you wrapped up again, and in a few days I wager you’ll be good as before.”

“Which wasn’t all that good, if you remember,” said Oskar. “In the words of Izikk the Slapped, ‘I’m round as the moon and just as big—ouch! That hurt!’” Oskar laughed and turned his tired eyes on Janner. “Miller’s Bridge, my boy! Can you believe it? A legend proved true. A lot of that going on these days, it seems. Lost jewels, heroic deeds. I tell you, seeing the way you Igibys—Wingfeathers, rather—manage to survive makes me dare to believe the old stories are true after all. All those epics about mighty victories and brave kings. If I live long enough to sit at a desk again with a quill and parchment, I’ll tell about this day. I’ll put it down so that a thousand years hence some lad will read of the day Janner Wingfeather charged the Fangs of Dang beside his stout grandfather or how young King Kalmar’s skill with the bow drove an army of Fangs to retreat.”

Janner and Tink blushed.

“Don’t forget Nugget,” said Leeli. She was awake now, leaning against Nia.

“Of course, my dear,” said Oskar. “I’ll write of brave Nugget, whose bark shook the trees, Nugget, whose love for Leeli Wingfeather sent him flying to meet a troll twice his size, whose might shattered Miller’s Bridge and saved the Wingfeathers from a Fang horde.”

Janner braced himself for more of Leeli’s tears, but she didn’t cry. She worked her way to her feet and rummaged around in her pack for her ancient whistleharp. “Mama, will you get my crutch? I want to see the ocean.”

Leeli limped to the precipice above the bank and sat. She took a deep breath and looked out over the Dark Sea of Darkness with a smile. The sky in the east blushed at the coming darkness. Leeli brought the whistleharp to her lips and played.

Janner and Tink joined her and stared out at the sea, her song conjuring images of Anniera, feelings of home, of fire in the hearth. Then the song changed. It took on
a sad tone, the notes bending upward like the croon of a lonely bird, and Janner knew Leeli was playing for Nugget. She poured her heart into the song and filled it with everything she felt.

Suddenly, like a dream hovering at the front of his mind, Janner could
see
Nugget. The image swirled like a reflection in a pot of stirred water, gathering itself into clear, moving pictures of little Nugget running through the pasture, fetching a ball, wagging his tail as Leeli stooped to hand him a hogpig bone. The images hovered like smoke from a pipe, scene after beautiful scene of Nugget in all the stages of his life.

Janner shook his head and looked at his brother. Tink saw it too. He smiled with wonder, staring at the empty air before him, waving his hand before his eyes to see if the picture would scatter.

Janner closed his eyes and still saw the images sifting in the blackness, in and out of focus, but always there, changing with the melody Leeli played. Janner opened his eyes again and focused on the falls beyond the image. He could see through it if he wanted, but as soon as he paid attention to the song again, the image thickened.

Then something changed.

A
deep sound shook the air, a sound Janner had heard before but couldn’t place. He looked left and right, expecting something to emerge from the trees, wondering for a moment whether he was hearing things that weren’t really there. But it wasn’t his imagination.

Oskar sat up and said, “Ah!” Nia smiled, hurried to the cliff, and looked down at the ocean. Podo, however, groaned and shook his head, then crossed to the far side of the clearing and into the forest. Janner had no time to wonder at this because by then he’d seen them.

The sea dragons.

Far below, the dragons danced on the surface of the ocean, tiny, glimmering worms on a gray floor. Their voices rang through the air, across the great distance and over the roar of Fingap Falls. The dragon song mingled with Leeli’s, and the music pulsed with joy and then sadness.

Janner blinked with wonder when he focused again on the images swirling before him. He no longer saw Nugget but a spray of giant waves, then something red and gold—the dragons. He had only ever seen the creatures from the heights of the cliff, but now he could see them as if he floated just above the surface of the sea, a stone’s throw away.

They were as beautiful as they were fearsome. Their bodies shimmered with metallic scales that swirled with color. The dragon closest to him glittered orange and gold, like the strikes of a thousand matchsticks, but its winglike fins cycled between shades of blue. Its head was sleek and graceful, perfect for slicing through the water, and its eyes—big and deep and serene—sent a chill down to Janner’s toes, because it was suddenly clear the dragon
knew
it was being watched. The eyes rolled back, and translucent lids slid over them as the dragon opened its mouth and sang. Teeth lined its mouth, but not in the crooked, yellow way of the Fangs or the toothy cows; these were straight and bright and sharp as needles.

Janner pushed his mind through the image and looked again at his brother and
sister. Leeli’s eyes were closed, and though she smiled, tears wet her cheeks while she played. Wind stirred Tink’s hair, and he stared at the empty air before him; his eyes flicked back and forth as if studying a drawing that hung a few feet before his face.