Puddlejumpers (31 page)

Leaving Buck and Cully behind to organize the tribe into fighting units, Ernie and the others eased off the ledge, then jumped to the top of the column on the underside of the bridge. They started across, but Chop's arms weren't long enough to reach from plank to plank. Ernie put the littlest Puddlejumper on his back and led them over the burning river. Halfway across, they stopped to rest on a steel girder. If Ernie looked downriver, he could see the refinery. Upriver, he could see the coal mines and the fiery furnace. Getting his Acorn into the monster's mouth seemed more impossible than ever. Maybe some kind of disturbance would distract the Troggs.
There has to be something…. But what?
Then he saw it.

“Rada,”
he whispered, pointing toward the giant pipe that ran from the monster's arm all the way back to the refinery. “If we can shut off the oil,” he said, speaking fluent Puddlejumper, “who knows what might happen.”

“It might make it worse,” said Root.

“Maybe. But we need a diversion,” insisted Ernie. “C'mon, let's go.” He squatted so Chop could climb onto his back, then they continued across.

Once on the other side, they scuttled down the support column and disappeared into the shadows under the bridge. Ernie pointed to the sewer pipe, the same pipe he'd used to escape the refinery. “That's the way inside,” he said. “But we'll have to split up. You guys find the valve that cuts off the oil to that thing's arm, and I'll try to get to its mouth.”

“One of us should stay with you,” insisted Runnel.

“I will,” Chop volunteered.

Ernie shook his head. He didn't want to separate either, but there wasn't a choice. “I was already in there. Those valves are big. We'll be lucky if all three of you can close it.” He reached behind to pull the cattail plunger from its quiver and check the water level. It was full and ready to go. Acting as if he knew what he was doing, he started up the embankment.

“Wait,” called Runnel. Searching through Ernie's pouches, she found a milkweed pod and squished the milky fluid over his head to protect him from burns. Root squeezed his shoulder and tightened his belt, even though it didn't really need tightening. Chop, smiling nervously, grabbed an acorn cap from one of his pouches. He reminded Ernie how to hold his thumbs in the shape of a V and showed him where to blow.

They all knew that everything that had come before was in preparation for this moment. Ernie, looking each Puddlejumper in the eyes, suddenly realized this was his destiny. He offered a confident nod, but inside he felt only doubt.

CHAPTER FORTY

Hagdemonia

A
LONE
, E
RNIE SCRAMBLED
up the steep embankment. At the top of the rise, he looked back and saw three tiny figures running along the sewer pipe into the refinery. He silently wished them well. Waiting until the bridge sentry turned away, he darted across the road and slipped into a shallow ditch. He crawled on his belly through the muck to a giant slagheap. Slipping and sliding in the loose shale, he scurried to its summit and peeked below.

Crews of shackled Puddlejumpers were pushing boxcars along the maze of guarded routes. All the roads led to the main artery that cut between the monster's feet. There, the road forked in two directions. Boxcars heaped with coal went up the right leg, then across the waist and up the chest to the iron platform above the furnace mouth. The adjacent path running down the other side of the body was the return route for the empty boxcars.

Ernie slid down the slagheap to the road and hid behind a full boxcar. He used the pilfered keys to unlock the shackles of a dozen astonished Jumpers. They pressed close as he whispered his plan.

A frail Puddlejumper with a long white beard approached carrying a ladle and bucket. Since he was old and blind, the Troggs allowed him to roam the dusty roads providing water for thirsty prisoners. But he provided much more than water. Greystone was the one who encouraged the Puddlejumpers never to lose hope. He gently laid his hands on Ernie's face. Despite all the years apart, the Ancient Guide knew exactly who he was.

When the furnace belched another blast of flame, it was Greystone who whispered the monster's name, “Hagdemonia,” the horrific matriarch of the Most Dark. His hand trembled as he felt for the Acorn under Ernie's shirt. Reassured, Greystone took the jailer's keys from Ernie's hand, dropped them into his bucket, and hurried down the road, where he began to secretly unlock the shackles of the next crew.

The Puddlejumpers boosted Ernie into their boxcar. He crouched in the coal as the inspired crew put shoulders to the car, determined to deliver their Rainmaker. Ernie peeked out from his hideaway. Up ahead, he could see patrolling Grunts and full boxcars moving slowly toward his final destination, the furnace mouth spewing flames. As his car threaded between Hagdemonia's feet, his heart sank. At the fork in the road, Holsapple and Cobb were inspecting each car. Cobb's tail snaked underneath, snuffling, while Holsapple jabbed his thorny staff through the loads of coal.

Ernie burrowed into the coal just before the Troggs stopped his car. He could hear Cobb's gravelly voice demanding to know his whereabouts. The Puddlejumpers were silent. The coal crunched as Holsapple thrust his staff from top to bottom, nearly impaling him. Ernie held his breath as the staff powered past his face. The next thrust cut the skin on his shoulder and he smothered a scream. The one after that would have killed him, but instead only dented the pocket watch strapped to his chest, knocking the wind out of him.

Holsapple was about to thrust again when Hagdemonia's piercing yowl rocked the Most Dark. Even though Ernie could barely breathe and the wound on his shoulder was throbbing, he silently cheered.
They must have shut the valve.

Aborting their search, the anxious Troggs hurried down the slope to the mammoth pipe feeding oil into her arm. They checked the gauge. The flow had stopped. Hagdemonia wailed again. Alarmed, Holsapple bolted toward the refinery.

Finding themselves unguarded, the Puddlejumpers advanced Ernie's boxcar onto the Hag's ankle. But midway along her rocky shin, the front wheels caught in a rut. The crew frantically pushed and pulled to free the car.

Buried in the coal, Ernie was jostled back and forth until a shrill bark brought everything to a stop. He smelled the stench of an approaching Trogg, then heard Cobb's raspy voice. In the next second he felt a violent jolt as the car was yanked out of the rut. Coal dust shot up his nose. Feeling a terrible itch in both nostrils, he gripped his nose and squeezed tight.

Cobb was walking away when he heard the tiny sneeze. He charged back and toppled the boxcar, spilling the Puddlejumper boy onto the path. Howling, the Trogg swiped his tail, but Ernie jumped it like a rope, then tumbled away. He reached into his belt for the acorn cap and whistled the alarm.

High on the cliff, the prison doors flew open and Puddlejumpers, with Buck and Cully at the lead, flooded across the bridge armed with their tiny sledgehammers, picks, and shovels. Cobb gaped in shocked surprise as hundreds of freed prisoners charged toward him. Dozens more poured from the mines, and unshackled crews rallied up and down the maze of roads.

Ignoring the Puddlejumper attack, Cobb stalked its leader with pounding strides. Ernie crabbed backward just ahead of the Trogg until he could scratch and claw his way up a crevice to the top of the Hag's right foot. Deprived of her oil and coal, Hagdemonia began to shriek and writhe, triggering fiery geysers and violent tremors that rippled along the bedrock. Ernie clung to her toe to keep from falling. Cobb was climbing straight for him.

Ernie thought he was trapped until Root and Runnel led a charge of refinery workers up Cobb's backside. The Jumpers pounded the Trogg with hammers and wrenches. Unprepared for the onslaught, Cobb toppled backward, hitting the ground hard. Seizing the moment, Ernie skidded down the steep incline, bounced off the Trogg's stomach, and darted up the path.

Quicker than a hornet, the Jumper zigged and zagged through a plague of Red Grunts. At the crest of the Hag's knee, the twin Troggs cut him off in a pincer attack from opposite sides. He hit the dirt, avoiding Axel's tail swipe, but Angus pinned him with his heavy claw. Flat on his back, Ernie looked up at the two Troggs sweating and drooling in a swirling cloud of dust. Sure that it was over, he closed his eyes as Axel raised his foot, preparing to bury him with a single stomp, when Buck and Cully shot like two cannonballs into the Trogg's stomach, knocking him off balance. Axel's foot crashed to the ground, just missing Ernie's head. Before either twin could stomp again, the prison brigade swarmed. The Jumpers pelted and picked and smacked and hammered until Ernie could break free.

Hagdemonia wailed and another tremor sent Ernie sprawling. He picked himself up and ran along the crest of her thighbone, never taking his eyes off the goal. He knew if he didn't make it to the furnace mouth, the fight would be lost.
No Russ. No rain. No nothing.

The Puddlejumpers fought bravely up and down the Hag's body, overwhelming the slow-footed Grunts with a tenacious attack. But the Troggs were too powerful. Swatting Jumpers away like gnats, Cobb and the twins pursued Ernie across the Hag's blistered belly. They were about to catch him from behind when Chop's crew, positioned atop her chest, launched boxcars down her rib cage. Ernie juked left and right as the cars sped past and crashed into the Troggs. One car tripped Axel and the next car smashed his face. Angus toppled into a bin that plowed down the slope into an oil pipe, rupturing it. But Cobb kept charging.

Ernie sprinted toward the Ancient Guide commanding the last Puddlejumper defense. Shouting encouragement,
“Tookla, tookla!”
Greystone climbed into the interlocked hands of two scouts. With others propelling from behind, they launched him into the Trogg's face. Gripping his snout, the old Jumper poked him in both eyes. Howling blindly, Cobb tried to snag him with his tail, but Greystone jammed a hunk of coal into its nostril. The tail ratcheted back and forth, trying to dislodge the embedded coal. Crazed, the Trogg swiped at the Jumper, but Greystone somersaulted to his shoulder, and Cobb clawed his own face. Every time the Trogg tried to squash him, the crafty old Jumper vanished with sleight-of-body to a new hiding place. Cobb swatted himself again and again, spinning madly. Other Jumpers spilled buckets of oil at the Trogg's feet. Cobb slipped and slid in the toxic sludge, finally tumbling into the deep gorge of the Hag's armpit.

For the first time, Ernie could see a clear path to the furnace.
I'm going to make it. I'm almost there!

The battle-weary Puddlejumpers cheered as he sprinted the last few yards onto the platform above her mouth. Flinching from the intense heat, Ernie ripped the Acorn off his neck and raised his arm to jam the Crystal down the Hag's fiery maw.

But Holsapple, waiting in the shadows behind her ear, was ready, too. He vaulted onto the platform, snatched the Acorn from Ernie's hand, and throttled him like a rag doll. Yawping victoriously, the Trogg held the Crystal in one hand and the Rainmaker in the other.

The Puddlejumpers collectively gasped as Holsapple dangled Ernie over the Hag's snapping jaws. But Ernie's mind was crystal clear, as if he could see all of his thirteen years in the same instant, and something Russ said that first day on the farm came rushing back.
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
Reaching back, Ernie yanked the cattail plunger from its quiver and braced it against his shoulder. Knowing he only had one shot, he took aim and pulled the barrel toward him. A burst of water nailed Holsapple right between the eyes.

The Trogg reeled backward to the edge of the furnace, losing his grip on the Crystal Acorn. Ernie watched the Acorn roll across the Hag's cheekbone and down her neck. Tossing the plunger, Ernie yanked the pocket watch off his chest and, swinging it by its chain, smacked the Trogg as hard as he could right on his temple. In that instant, Harvey Holsapple knew he was doomed, but he also knew he was going to take the Puddlejumper boy down with him. Laughing perversely, he toppled into Hagdemonia's mouth with Ernie still in his hand.

The Jumpers fell to their knees as their Rainmaker disappeared into the furnace, not seeing that his belt had caught on one of the Hag's jagged teeth. Ernie dangled, nearly roasting alive. Unbuckling his belt, he scrabbled out of her mouth, burning his hands on a white-hot tooth.

Choking on the swallowed Trogg, Hagdemonia erupted from her rocky bed in a fit of rage, catapulting Ernie, Jumpers, Troggs, and Grunts in every direction. She lurched to her feet, wailing like a banshee and ripping cables from her body. Oil spurted from the broken pipelines, igniting fires throughout the Most Dark.

Caught in the whirlwind, Ernie was thrown all the way to the edge of the lava river. Rising groggily to his knees, he caught a glimpse of something glittering near an overturned boxcar.
My Crystal Acorn
. Shielding his face from the smoke and fire, he slogged up the rise through rubble and ash to recover it.

Armed once again, Ernie turned to confront the monster, but for the first time in the great battle he stood paralyzed, the Acorn forgotten in his hand. Standing before him was a four-story towering inferno. Belching fire, Hagdemonia lurched straight for him, the entire cavern quaking with her every step. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't make himself run. He couldn't do anything.

At that moment a single
Hooty-hoo
cut through the darkness like a peal of thunder. It was Runnel. She hooted again, this time even louder. Root echoed her call, then Greystone, Cully, Buck, and Chop. Soon every Jumper was shouting
Hooty-hoo
until the Most Dark resounded with the deafening tribal cry.
“HOOOOOTY-HOOOOOOO!”

The Troggs and Grunts covered their ears. It was the first time the Puddlejumper call had ever been heard in the Most Dark, and the sound was so foreign, so completely unexpected, that it froze even the furious Hagdemonia.