The Prince Who Fell From the Sky (16 page)

“Is he hurt?” Pang asked.

“They didn’t bite him deep,” she said, “but we can’t stay here. She’ll go straight to the Ogeema. We’ve got to get into that city tonight.”

Dumpster had emerged from where he’d been hiding and sprang around in frantic circles. “You can’t roam a city at night! It’s not like the Forest. The smells aren’t
the same, and the terrain’s all different. You’ll never know a hunter is tracking you until his teeth clamp into your neck.”

“What else are we supposed to do?” Casseomae asked.

Pang was staring at the city, the last of the sun’s setting rays illuminating the top of a particularly tall skyscraper. “We just have to reach that den there. And then we’ll know where the Havenlands are. Then we’ll know where to go.”

T
hey raced past the ruins of the Skinless Ones’ buildings lining the highway. Casseomae was uncomfortable with their quick pace. Charging into unfamiliar terrain chafed against her instincts. The cub ran, not with the frightful jitteriness he once had and not with a carefree sense of play either. He had already learned a great deal on their journey. He growled and held his stick at the ready like a fighter, and she was proud of her cub for it.

But it made her no less nervous.

The highway regularly split off in a number of directions. Pang was having trouble finding which route was the best to follow.

“This can’t be right,” Dumpster squeaked as the night darkened around them.

The wide double path of the highway had disappeared, and they were now among ruined buildings on a narrow path cluttered with relics.

Pang sniffed side to side. “We’ve got to reach the river. The city lies on the other bank. From what I remember, the Companion paths that cross over the river are all collapsed.”

“If there aren’t bridges,” Dumpster asked, “how are we supposed to get across? Swim?”

“No,” he said. “Not with what lives in the water.”

“Then what do we do?” Casseomae asked.

“There’s a narrow metal passage,” Pang said, “like one of the lick-trick city towers. It’s fallen over the river. It’s somewhere nearby. We can go over that, I think.”

Dumpster clicked his teeth. “You
think
 …”

A cry cut through the night, a strange trumpeting call. The child crouched, holding his stick out with shaking hands.

“What was that?” Casseomae said.

Pang whined. “I told you strange creatures inhabit this place.”

“What sort of city is this?” Dumpster said. “There’s nothing like that where I’m from.”

Pang trotted ahead, sniffing around the corners of buildings as he led them forward. Soon they could see the dark waters of the river between the ruins. The concrete was covered with silt and mud from the river’s
floods. Weeds and trees grew thicker, and the sound of night birds and tree-dwelling creatures was louder.

Casseomae spied something watching them from a branch overhead. At first she thought it was a large squirrel with a long tail wrapped around its branch. But as they got closer, she realized it looked nothing like a squirrel. In fact it looked somewhat like the cub, like a strange version of a Skinless One except it had a coat of fur.

“What is that?” she growled.

As Pang and Dumpster looked up, the creature sprang with powerful back legs to a higher branch and vanished into rustling leaves in the treetop.

“I couldn’t see it,” Pang said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dumpster said. “Keep going.”

Pang led them past several more buildings until at last he barked, “There!”

Resting atop the roof of a building was one end of a metal tower. It was crumpled and rusted, but from what Casseomae could see the structure did extend across the river. “How do we get up there?” she asked.

“The stairs,” Dumpster said.

“The what?” Pang asked.

“Stairs,” he repeated. “Don’t you know? In these taller Old Devil dens, they have stairs to help you climb to the top. You see short ones all the time outside houses. Just go inside. I’ll show you.”

They found the opening to the building. Lying before the entranceway was the remains of a strange deer. It had an exceptionally long neck and had to have been three times as tall as any deer Casseomae had ever seen before. But strangest of all was its hide. Although it was bloodied and rotting, she could make out spots all over its coat, large brown blots against a field of tawny yellow.

“I have no idea,” Pang said, leaping over the carcass to get into the building.

Once they were all inside, Dumpster said, “Go down that hall … that passage. They should be somewhere around.”

Sniffing at every surface, they walked around until Casseomae felt nauseous at being so enclosed. “I don’t like this,” she growled. “I feel trapped.”

“It’s got to be scratchin’ somewhere around,” Dumpster said. “Look!”

Through an opening in a wall, there were the leveled concrete steps she had indeed seen often outside Skinless’s dens. But there were so many in here. As she followed the others up the stairs, she felt a certain dizziness climbing inside a building without the comfort of earth under her claws.

Along the way they saw other passages, but Dumpster said, “Keep climbing.” At last they reached the end of the stairs, where they found a closed door. Dumpster
rose on his hind legs. “You’ll have to break this door, old bear. Push your weight against it.”

Casseomae reared up on her back legs and leaned her forepaws against the door. It groaned but didn’t break. She dropped down and moved back a step before butting her head heavily against the metal. “That hurt,” she growled.

“Just hit it harder,” the rat squeaked.

Before Casseomae did it again, the cub chirped something. Then he reached out to turn several things with his delicate fingers. The door swung open.

“Or we could do that,” Dumpster said.

To Casseomae’s relief they came out into the open air atop the building. It was not nearly as high as the skyscrapers that lay on the far side of the river, but from where they were, she could see where the tower reached the other bank.

“We cross this?” she asked Pang.

“Unless you have another idea,” he said.

Casseomae reached up with her claws to pull herself atop the fallen tower. The metal creaked and a portion snapped, dropping the entire structure down a fraction. She growled uneasily and took a few steps along the top. Dumpster scampered up ahead of her.

Pang leaped but could not get a good hold on the surface with his claws. The child grabbed him around the waist and hoisted the dog up with a grunt. Pang whined
and scrambled with his forepaws until Casseomae took his loose scruff in her teeth and pulled him up.

“Thanks,” he said, finding his footing on the metal.

“Don’t fall,” she said.

“Easy for you to say, bear. Your kind is good at climbing.”

“Not on relics like this,” she grunted.

Once the child scrambled up, the four began easing across the tower. Pang flattened to his belly to crawl ever more slowly. The child was just behind him, also on all fours and breathing heavily through his teeth. Only Dumpster had no trouble and ran forward and back urging the others to hurry.

When they came out over the river, a trumpeting call stilled them. Dumpster shot to Casseomae and stared at her, nose to nose. “It’s below us,” he whispered with twittering whiskers.

Another cry broke, louder and nearer. Heavy steps sloshed through water. Whatever they were, they were huge. Casseomae leaned to one side to peer over the edge.

The wolves had always ruled over the bears not because of their size but because of their numbers and ferocity. Casseomae had always believed the bears to be the biggest creatures in the Forest. What she saw below dwarfed even Chief Alioth.

An immense shadow moved against the moonlit
waters. It flapped huge ears and lifted what appeared to be a snakelike tail, except it was coming from the creature’s face. Protruding from its mouth were two long white fangs. Casseomae knew they could spear her through her gut if the beast was hunting her.

“Rat,” she whispered. “Does your mischief’s Memory have a name for that?”

“Not a spittin’ utterance,” he answered.

The creature blasted a stream of water from the protuberance and curled it around atop its head to give another of the trumpeting calls. Other creatures answered. As Casseomae looked around she saw a whole pack of the monsters filling the shallows of the river’s edge.

“For Murk’s sake, don’t slip,” Dumpster said. “Those things will tear you to pieces.”

Pang whimpered pitifully and scooted against Casseomae’s rear. “Go. Just go. Faster, please. Before one of those things snatches me away with its serpent nose!”

Casseomae went faster, walking steadily with one paw behind the other until they were over the far bank. The base of the tower, where it had broken, lay ahead. Casseomae knew getting off would prove difficult since the tower was wider on this end.

Dumpster went down first, leaping along the metal framework until he got to the bottom. Casseomae found it to be a bit like coming down the branches of a tree, but
the metal was not so easy to hold on to. Halfway down, her claws slipped and she fell to the rough stone.

Grunting with embarrassment, she rose and shook her coat. “Come on down,” she called.

The cub sat atop the tower beside Pang, looking anxiously from the dog to the ground. He reached his arm around Pang’s waist, but Pang gave a snarl and squirmed from his grasp.

“He can’t carry you down,” Casseomae said.

“I know,” Pang said, licking an apology to the cub’s cheek. “He was just trying to help.”

“Come,” Casseomae snorted to the child.

The cub climbed down swiftly with his limber arms and legs. At the bottom, he chirped at Pang and waved his hands.

“You’re going to have to jump,” Dumpster said.

“I’ll break my legs!”

“How else are you going to get down?” Casseomae said.

“I don’t know.” Pang paced around, looking for some escape.

“Can you go back and find another way across?” she asked.

“I told you, all the bridges are broken.”

“You could swim,” Dumpster said.

Pang yipped, “And get eaten by one of those creatures!”

“The creatures are on the far bank,” Casseomae
called to Pang. “If you jump into the river near this bank, they may not come after you.”

“You don’t know that!” He tucked his tail miserably between his legs.

Casseomae grunted. “Well, you could wait there for us and hope—”

A wolf howl, long and piercing, cut through the night.

“They’re coming!” Casseomae said.

Pang turned and scampered back along the tower until he was over the river. With a tiny yip, he leaped, disappearing into the dark with only a faint splash echoing a moment later.

T
he calls of the wolves grew louder. “We’ve got to go,” Dumpster squeaked.

“We can’t leave the dog,” Casseomae said.

“Actually, we can,” Dumpster said.

Casseomae grunted at the cub to follow her. They climbed down through the debris and vines to the river’s edge. She smelled the leafy water and felt mud beneath her paws.

“Pang,” she huffed. “Where are you?”

She saw a ripple of moonlight on the water and then the dog, paddling furiously toward the shore. When he climbed up, he didn’t even take the time to shake the water from his fur but bolted through the weeds past them. When they found him, he was shaking with fright under an overturned car.

“They almost had me,” he whimpered. “Almost jabbed me with those giant teeth.”

“No, they didn’t,” Casseomae said. “They were all the way on the other side. I don’t think they even smelled you.”

Howls reverberated off the buildings lining the river. “At least the wolves don’t have a Companion to boost them up onto the tower,” Pang said. “They won’t be able to cross.”

“They’ll figure out another way,” Dumpster said. “That many wolves won’t fear swimming, even with those monsters about. We’ve got to find shelter before they pick up our scent.”

“Where do we go?” Casseomae said.

“Scratch me bald if I know,” Dumpster replied.

Pang eased out from under the car and shook the water from his fur. Still trembling, he sniffed around. The city was a dense place. It felt to Casseomae as if she were a tiny cub in the most enormous thicket. Debris and relics were everywhere. Trees broke through the cracks of concrete, but they were dwarfed by the buildings, which nearly blocked out the ruddy glow of dawn in the sky above. Noises groaned all around. Not the noises of animals, but sounds Casseomae could only attribute to restless metal and concrete.

Up close, the skyscrapers were more encased in ivy and vegetation than what she had seen from a distance.
They were pocked with holes. Shrubs and trees grew from them, even up high. A flock of birds took flight from a shattered window, circling the building in a cloud before roosting again on a neighboring skyscraper.

“I don’t know if I can lead you well in here,” Pang said.

Casseomae felt it was more than unfamiliar terrain that was hindering the dog. The leap into the river and the fear of the pursuing pack compounded by the dread of what monstrous voras might stalk this city had nearly paralyzed the poor dog with fright. The child knelt, stroking his wet fur and trying to comfort him.

“You know these cities,” Casseomae said to Dumpster. “This might not be yours, but you have to show us where to go.”

The rat flicked his tail and rose up on his hind legs. “Oh, all right,” he said. He scampered ahead, dancing over the broken glass and around the drifts of leaves and sticks. “We have to find a skyscraper tall enough to see the Wide Waters.”

Casseomae lumbered after him with Pang on one side and the cub on the other. Many of the paths were blocked by enormous sections of tumbled skyscrapers. Dumpster had to backtrack several times, and they had hardly gotten far before they heard trumpeting cries from the river and the snarls of wolves.

“We need to move faster,” Casseomae growled. “They’re crossing the river.”