North! Or Be Eaten (50 page)

Nia and Leeli tended to the brothers.

When Janner woke, he ached from head to toe. He knew his wounds were severe because of the look on his mother’s face when she changed his bandages. He lay in bed for days and listened to the creak of the ship and the thump of footsteps overhead. All his life he had dreamed of sailing, and now that he was finally on the open sea, he was confined to a bed. But he had plenty of time to reflect on his journey from Glipwood to Dugtown to the Ice Prairies to the bed where he now lay, and in the end he was grateful.

He also had plenty of time to talk to Tink.

The wolf lay on the bed next to Janner, strapped down with leather cords. He refused to eat soup or even cooked fish but devoured hunks of raw meat that Nia and Leeli tossed into his mouth. He snapped at anyone who came near, and whenever they tried to talk to him, he howled and snarled.

At first Nia tended to him with grief plain on her face. But soon a change came over her, and she kept her back straight and her chin high. She spoke to him firmly and told him, “I love you, Kalmar,” whether or not he growled at her. And every day when she arrived and before she left, she looked him in the eye and asked him his name.

His answer was always violent: “I don’t know,” he would say, or “I have no name.” His howls rattled the windows.

But at night, when moonlight passed through the small, round window and slid across the floor, Janner whispered stories to Kalmar, and Kalmar listened.

“You were fast,” Janner said. “You could outrun me backward if you wanted to. In the summer when the days were long, we would run up the hill to the Blaggus boys’ house and play zibzy until it got too dark to see.”

“What’s zibzy?” Tink whispered, and Janner told him.

“Once, you hid a thwap in Grandpa’s underwear drawer,” Janner said with a hiss of pain because it hurt to laugh.

“Then what happened?” asked the wolf.

“Grandpa jumped so high his head put a hole in the ceiling. You weren’t allowed to play zibzy for a week, but we could tell Grandpa thought it was funny.”

In the morning when Nia and Leeli arrived with breakfast, Nia would ask the Grey Fang his name, and Tink would be all teeth and howls again. His eyes stayed that awful, empty yellow. Janner began to ache for the nighttime so he wouldn’t have to see those wolf eyes watching him. At night he could stare at the moon and tell his brother stories and pretend for a little while that the animal was gone.

More than once, Artham strode into the cabin and spoke to Tink, but whenever he appeared, the wolf was ferocious.

“Your name is Kalmar,” Artham would say with impatience, and Kalmar would howl with pain. Soon, Artham stopped coming at all.

Then one night, something changed.

Janner told his brother of the Fork Factory and his escape through the streets of Dugtown. He told of his decision to rescue Tink from Claxton Weaver’s cage and of the despair he felt when he was too late. There was no moon that night, so all Janner could see of his brother was an outline by the little window.

The wolf spoke, stopping Janner in midsentence.

“I remember,” Tink whispered.

Janner didn’t know what to say, so he lay in the dark for a long time, hardly daring to breathe. The seas were calm, so the waves made little sound against the hull. Then Janner heard, so soft that he thought it might be his imagination, the Grey Fang crying in the dark.

Janner fell asleep with hope in his heart.

In the morning, when Nia and Leeli entered the room, Janner lay still, afraid to open his eyes and find that Tink’s tears had been but a dream, the little Grey Fang as wild and vicious as ever. Janner begged the Maker to answer his prayers.

And the Maker did.

“Good morning, Janner,” Nia said. She sat on his bed and kissed his forehead. “Your grandfather spotted land this morning. He said we’re only two days from the Green Hollows. And good morning to you,” she said to Kalmar. The furry creature stirred. “What’s your name?”

“My name,” the creature said with its eyes still shut, “is Kalmar. My father was Esben Wingfeather, and I am his son, the High King of Anniera.”

If an artist were asked to paint a picture of perfect joy and wonder, it would look exactly like Nia’s face in that moment. She wept. Leeli covered her mouth with both hands and squealed. Janner leapt out of bed and ran to his brother’s side in spite of the pain that shot through his body.

“Tink?” he said.

Kalmar opened his eyes, and they were clear and blue.