The Sword of the Wormling (17 page)

Owen pulled a huge cloak one of the prisoners provided over his tunic, and with Watcher and Starbuck also hiding beneath it, he carried a box of rocks down the tunnel. They were stopped only once—by a guard who would awaken an hour later with a terrific headache. He would tell his friends that the youngster under the cloak was much stronger than he looked, that the way he drove the smooth rock into his temple, just under his helmet, was military in its precision. The others would laugh, saying a child had gotten the better of him.

The three climbed down where they saw light flickering and water dripping from the sides of the cave—an oasis in the midst of a desert. They drank until they heard the screams of children.

“That's Dalan!” Starbuck said. “My friend!”

“Easy,” Owen said, grabbing his shoulders. “We have to keep our wits.”

The air was thick, filled with black dust.

“Get up there into the hole!” a guard bellowed, lashing Dalan with a leather whip.

The other guard laughed.

“I saw a snake!” Dalan said, chest heaving. “Its head was as big as mine.”

“Then make your choice—the snake or my lash!”

Before Dalan made that choice, Owen slipped up behind the second guard and hit him in the back of the head with the smooth rock. The beast slumped as the other guard turned. He raised his whip, but he had no idea that the boy before him had spent the past few weeks knocking coconuts from their branches with only small rocks. Owen had become so good that he could throw with just enough force to knock the coconut down, creating a small hole through which milk gurgled. Mordecai had trained him to catch the coconut before it hit the ground.

Owen let the second guard slump with a thud while the children screamed with glee at the sight of Starbuck. They swarmed him, and Starbuck laughed and hugged them back. Watcher looked at Owen as if all the trouble they had experienced had been worth it, if only to experience this moment.

Owen reached inside his tunic and pulled out something small from an inner pocket. He whispered into his palm as he moved toward the rough wall of black rock, and the children could not have understood the significance of the chomping sound.

The children stilled as Mucker began eating away at the rock. His teeth had become dull and broken on his trip from the Highlands to the Lowlands, and the last time he had used them was in the fight against Dreadwart. Since then, sleeping and becoming restored, Mucker had grown stronger and his teeth now seemed even more powerful than before. Mucker began to grow as he took bigger and bigger bites from the wall.

“Stay close to me, children,” Owen said. “The rock will fall in on itself behind us.”

The group huddled close to Owen as Mucker wrapped his tail around them, pulling them with him as Owen recited words from
The Book of the King
that brought life to his soul and propelled Mucker.

“Whatever you choose to do, employ your whole heart in the task. You are not working for yourself or for others, but you are working for the very King himself and his purposes. You serve at the pleasure of the King, and if you please him, he will prosper the work of your hands.”

* * *

Commotion grew in the mines when the injured guards were discovered. They spoke of a strong-armed giant who overpowered them. The children were missing, and the pile of rubble sent rumors flying. People came running to the elevator, pushing past the guards to rescue the children.

In the separation room, the Queen fielded questions from the workers at the table.

“Do you think he was really the
one
?”

“Could this be the beginning of the war?”

“Are the children safe?”

The Queen sat stone-faced. “I do not know what the future holds, but I do know who holds the future. And if I am right, there is more at work here than simply an intruder into the Badlands. We must be vigilant now. Do not lose heart, for when the time comes, we will be asked to join the fight.”

As Owen and the children followed Mucker out, rocks falling and dust settling, the children stepped into the fresh air. The mountain cast a long shadow, since the sun was on the other side. The group sat and sipped water from flasks Owen, Watcher, and Starbuck carried. The children wanted to know how Starbuck had been chosen and how they had crossed the desert. Owen let Starbuck spin his tale while he met with Watcher.

Watcher believed the children should head across the desert by themselves with Starbuck. “We need to get to the Castle of the Pines as quickly as we can and not traipse back across the desert.”

“Traipse?”
Owen said. “Where did you learn that word?”

“From you.”

“Watcher, we can't let them cross the desert themselves. If the lizards or the snakes don't get them, the demon flyers will.”

“Then I'll go with them. I can alert them of the flyers. You can see us through the lizards and then turn around.”

Owen shook his head. “I know you're trying to help, but—”

“These children are not your mission,” Watcher whispered urgently. “You are to find the King's Son. Anything that sidetracks you only prolongs the agony of the people. Now you must go.”

Owen knew she was right, but when he looked at the children of Erol, he glanced back at her through teary eyes. “My mission is to follow the one who sent me. To listen to his voice. Mine is not simply a task to be accomplished. It involves friends. Like you. Like them. I am to find the Son
for them.
For us. For the kingdom. What good is it if both worlds are united, but we lose our friends?”

“You should not detour.”

Owen turned Watcher around and nodded toward the children, who sang and giggled and played in the sand. “How could
they
be a detour? Don't get so caught up in the goal that you miss the good right here in front of you. The King loves even the smallest, even the most insignificant. And he will see that all who are broken are made whole, no matter their station.”

Her whiskers trembled as she looked at him. “Where did you learn this?”

“It comes from the book and seeps into the bones,” he said. “I still have much to learn and much to accomplish, but I must see these children back to their families before we go to the castle.”

“You and I both?”

“Watcher, I could no more leave you to those ravenous lizards than I could lay down the Sword of the Wormling.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Right,” Owen said. He raised his voice, as Mordecai taught him, and gave a mighty yell. “Sword!” The laughing and singing stopped as Owen held out a hand. A sharp whistling pierced the air, and a gleaming object hurtled toward them. The children covered their heads and hunkered down, but Owen stood tall and grabbed the sword.

Just as quickly he dropped it, shaking his hand and hopping. The children laughed as Owen blew on his hand. The sun had baked the sword, but water from his flask cooled the metal and one touch from it healed his blistered palm.

They set out at dusk, and Owen took them as far north as he dared. He stopped short of the bogs of Milosa before heading through the desert. He told them to keep quiet and listen for the yips and chattering of the lizards Starbuck had warned them of.

Traveling with the children was hard, because they were thirsty and quickly drained the water supply. Their stomachs ached because they hadn't been fed properly. Desperate for food in a barren place that offered none, Owen led the little band to the cave he had found on the first morning of his journey, and the children slept. He walked through the heat to find any plant with moisture. When a jargid popped its head out of a hole and rooted for food, Owen used the sword and took the animal back to roast.

The children awoke to the cooking meat and seemed to happily eat their meager portions. Soon they set out again, and the moon was still high as they came within sight of the rock walls and caves of their village. The children began to run, and who could blame them, having gone through the most horrific time of their lives?

Watcher's ears pricked, and she stopped beside Owen. “In the sky. Not far. Coming closer.”

Owen yelled, trying to stop the children, but it was too late. They had seen home and couldn't wait to get there.

More than two dozen scythe flyers descended and quickly targeted the children.

Owen let out a war cry, holding the Sword of the Wormling as high as he could.

The children heard him and stopped, unaware of the danger.

He motioned for them to get down, and just as the first wave of flyers reached out to grab them with their sharpened nails, the children buried their faces in the dirt. Watcher and Starbuck also dropped to the ground, but when the first flyer looked back to see why it flew empty-taloned, Owen rushed him, sword back and ready. He lopped off both feet of the lead flyer and they plopped near one of the children, making her scream. But her cries were drowned by the shriek of the scythe flyer, which lost its balance, darted wildly, and spun out of control, hitting a large rock with a bloody splat.

But here came the second wave's leader bearing down on the children. Owen sidestepped, and the flyer flew straight toward him. Owen struck the wing of the beast, sending it spiraling. The third wave's leader got the sword in the heart—thrown expertly—and fell like a stone, dust and rocks kicking up.

Owen called, and the sword slid from the bone and gristle of the flyer and shot into Owen's hand just as another flyer swung its massive tail at his head. The tail fell harmlessly in the dirt as another flyer was downed.

Owen killed six of the creatures before the rest retreated. The children gathered around him and followed closely as they were met by Erol and his clan at the border. Mothers and fathers gathered their children with long hugs and kisses, then passed them around, everyone taking turns in the celebration.

Owen stood back with his arm around Watcher, laughing.

Finally Erol made his way to Owen and took Owen's hands in his. “How can we thank you?”

“No need,” Owen said.

Erol choked up. “And to think I believed the creature the Dragon sent. I almost killed you.”

“Never believe the Dragon or his agents,” Owen said. “Trust in the King.”

Owen cut the hearts from the six dead flyers and instructed Erol to place them on the rock where RHM had said his should be placed.

You must remember that Owen Reeder was still a teenager, with teenage concerns, though admittedly not of the usual sort.

Owen's main concern was whether he could measure up to the task ahead. Did he have what it took to find and rescue the Son? He'd been through rigorous training, sure, and he felt the muscle and brawn in his arms and chest every time he wielded the sword, but had he really become extraordinary?

As he and Watcher moved along a trail that skirted an enormous lake, Owen reminded himself that he was the doofus who had lost
The Book of the King
. He had been given the responsibility of guarding it and protecting it and preserving it, and he had failed. Some hero.

“What's wrong?” Watcher said.

“Wrong?” he said.

She pointed behind him to a long line in the sand. “Your sword is dragging.”

Owen cleared his throat. “Just tired, I guess.”

“We will grow much wearier long before we reach the castle. Keep walking.”

By evening they had walked as far as a feeder stream, and clouds rolled in. They camped under a covering of trees, and when it began to rain, Owen fashioned a tarp of jargid skins over the branches to shelter them.

Lightning made Watcher shiver, and rivulets of water formed a new stream around them. Owen recalled how much he had loved watching a storm from his room above the bookstore back home. He would look past the alley to the mountain beyond town, wondering if there was a place for him in the world. He would wonder where he might wind up, what job he might land, and imagine himself in any of a hundred professions.

Actually sitting out in the storm, however, Owen didn't care as much for the lightning and thunder. And somehow he could no longer imagine himself in some mundane job in the other world. He did, though, conjure an image of his friend who worked at the diner. He couldn't shake the feeling that he and Clara had connected and might have had some sort of future . . . not that he would trade it for this adventure.

* * *

Owen awoke the next morning wet and cold. Watcher had just returned with two fish she had caught at the water's edge. Owen tried to make a fire, but the wood was too wet. Watcher simply ate her fish without cooking it, devouring scales and all. Owen gave her his and found berries to calm his grumbling stomach.

Low, dark clouds still hung over the lake, making Owen long for just a moment of sunshine. But not even a sliver of blue appeared in the sky during the next two full days of hard walking. He trudged along, head down, heels scuffing, sword dragging, until he ran into Watcher, who had stopped. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

When she didn't move, he looked up. She seemed to be watching him for a reaction. Owen glanced past her to the horizon, where a huge dark tower rose against the sky. Speechless, he passed Watcher and moved toward it, more and more of the massive structure coming into view. It appeared to have been built on a section of land someone had dug around in order to make an island.

When Owen spotted guards positioned on the parapets, he pulled Watcher into the trees and peered through the viewing circle Erol had given him. Hideous, heavy-skinned creatures in military garb paced with huge weapons over their shoulders. “They're defending the place like it's Fort Knox.”

“Fort Knox?” Watcher said.

“A place with lots of gold and money.”

“Money?”

Owen focused on the castle. “If the King's Son is there, he's probably being held belowground; don't you think?”

Watcher shook her head. “I'd sooner think one of the towers. It would be much harder to get there than some cellar dungeon.”

“Good thinking,” Owen said, still staring through the glass.

Watcher nudged him. “If the Son is such a threat to the Dragon—truly the only one keeping the Dragon from ruling the kingdoms—why doesn't the Dragon just kill him?”

“I don't know,” Owen said. Cryptic statements in
The Book of the King
told of someone
giving his last full measure of life for his friends,
and Owen wondered if that meant the Son would somehow unite the worlds through his death. But if so, how could he free the captives in the mines, Mordecai, the Erol clan, and those in Bardig's village? And what of Connor and his desire to join the fight, though the fight seemed more against Owen than anyone?