North! Or Be Eaten (24 page)

“I’m Landers. Migg Landers. I’ll be your guide to the Ice Prairies.” He was nearly as tall as Podo and at least as strong. Like Oskar, he was mostly bald, but unlike Oskar, he didn’t bother trying to hide it. “Been there many times myself, and I can’t imagine why you’d want to go. But Ronchy here says you can pay. You
can
pay, right?” His voice was smooth and careful; something about it bothered Janner.

“Aye. We can pay,” said Podo.

Landers held out a hand and waited.

For a moment, Podo didn’t move. Then he grunted and said, “Oskar, me pack if you please.”

Oskar handed the pack to Podo, who opened it and removed a pouch without taking his eyes from Migg Landers.

“This should be plenty.”

“Skreean coin or gold?”

“A little of both. More gold than gray.”

The man poured a few of the coins into his hand and inspected them, then nodded and tucked the pouch away. “Fine. That’ll be all, Ronchy.”

“Oskar, you’ll be fine with Migg here,” Ronchy croaked. “He’s one of Gammon’s men. He’ll get you and your friends safe past the Barrier.”

“Thank you, old friend,” said Oskar.

Then Ronchy McHiggins looked straight at Janner. His eyes moved to Tink, then to Leeli, then back to Oskar. “It’s true?” he asked.

“Yes,” Oskar said. “It’s true, Maker help us.”

“Aye.” Ronchy turned to go. “Maker help us.”

He opened the side door to the Roundish Widow and stepped through. The door lock clicked into place behind him.

“Remove your packs and settle in. We’ll be here for a while,” said Migg Landers.

“Why?” asked Podo.

Migg took a threatening step forward so that he and Podo stood nose to nose. “For starters, old fella, don’t question Migg Landers. If I tell you to put on a dress and dance a whirl, you’ll do it, no questions asked. Since you and I are new acquaintances, I’ll not give you a pounding this time.”

Janner was shocked at the unwelcome change that had come over their guide, but
he also felt a little sorry for him. Landers was under the mistaken impression that Podo Helmer was too old to be any trouble.

Podo stood tight as a bowstring, his bushy eyebrows low and angry, but he held his tongue. After a moment, he smiled a whiskery smile. “I understand, young fella. We’ll do as ye say.”

“Good. To answer your question, pappy, we can’t go anywhere till the next bell tolls and the Fangs change their guard. That means you’ve got an hour to bide. So doff your packs, plant yourselves on the cobble, and keep quiet while I check the street.”

Podo nodded. As Landers walked to the alley opening and peeked around a corner, Podo motioned for the boys to drop their packs. “It’s going to be a long trip, lads,” he said. “We need him, and if he has to feel like he’s the king of the heap, then I’ll keep me smelly mouth clapped shut for now. It ain’t a battle worth fightin’. Speakin’ of the king of the heap,” Podo said, removing Claxton’s pone from around his neck, “this belongs to you.” He tossed the medallion to Tink.

Outside the confines of the alley came the steady
clop-clop-clop
of marching, the bark of commands, and the crack of whips in the distance.
Was Dugtown always this way or only when the Florid Sword was up to his mischief?
Janner wondered. It would’ve been better if the caped hero hadn’t chosen this particular night to carouse, yet Janner was glad to have seen him in action. He relished the thought of a common Dugtowner—a cook or a woodsmith, perhaps—donning his disguise in some secret cellar chamber and then creeping into the streets to fight the Fangs of Dang.

“I don’t like the idea of traveling all the way to the Ice Prairies with someone as mean as him,” said Leeli as she settled herself on the ground.

The family and Oskar sat in a circle behind a stack of crates, their backpacks in a pile beside the back door of the tavern.

“Don’t worry, lass,” Podo said. “Once we get past the wall, I plan to teach Migg Landers a lesson on respectin’ his elders.” He craned his neck to see over the crates. “What’s he doin’, anyway?”

Migg Landers stood at the entrance to the alley, peeking around the corner at Riverside Road. Something wasn’t right. Janner tried to ignore the tickle in his stomach, a sense of warning he couldn’t explain. Migg Landers wasn’t an admirable man, but from what Oskar said, Dugtown had a great shortage of admirable men. Ronchy said he could be trusted, so what else could they do?

Tink fidgeted with the pone, chewing happily on a strip of diggle meat. The adults spoke in whispers, and Janner gathered they were discussing their food supply,
guessing at how long their journey might take—things he would have found interesting if not for this nagging worry at the front of his mind.

Then he realized something had changed. The streets were silent. The drone of marching Fangs, the pop of the whips—all gone.

“Grandpa!” Janner whispered. “Something’s wrong!”

Podo glanced at the alley entrance and froze. The look on the old pirate’s face was enough to tell Janner that his feelings about Migg Landers were correct.

“
LANDERS
,
YOU TRAITOR
!” Podo bellowed. This image of Podo would stay with Janner for a long time—this stout old mast of a warrior, eyes ablaze, the muscles in his shoulders and neck tight as sails in a storm.

Leeli screamed so long and loud that every Fang and Dugtowner within an arrow-shot of the alley must have heard.

“Ronchy, no!” Oskar groaned. “How could you?”

Janner turned, dreading what he would find at the entrance to the alleyway, though from the bitter stench in his nostrils he already knew.

“I thank you kindly for the coins, old man,” Migg Landers said with a grin.

Behind him hissed a wall of Fangs, swords bared, teeth dripping, scales glinting yellow in the torchlight.

Then, to Janner’s horror, a Fang leapt forward and sank its teeth into Migg Landers’s shoulder. The big man screamed, shuddered, and crumpled to the ground in a heap.

“Nowhere to run, Igibysss,” said the Fang.

T
he Fangs had learned by now not to give Podo Helmer time to think. They rushed forward, their swords trained on Podo and only Podo. Janner heaved the pile of crates into their path. The Fangs batted and hacked the crates away and pushed forward.

Janner was certain Podo would leap into the fray and fight to his death rather than allow the Fangs to capture his grandchildren—and leap he did, but not at the Fangs.

Podo slammed his shoulder into the thick side door of the Roundish Widow. The door broke into pieces, and the sound of splintering wood mingled with the sound of splintering bone as Podo’s shoulder and ribs cracked. He tumbled to the floor with a cry of pain, but in one motion he rolled over, grabbed the nearest backpack—which happened to be his own—and disappeared into the tavern, cursing Migg Landers all the while. Nia swept Leeli into her arms and rushed through the door after him.

“Go!” Janner screamed at Oskar. He jiggled through the doorway sweeping up the boys’ backpacks as he went. Janner grabbed Tink by the arm and rushed through the door, skidding on bits of broken wood.

Claws scraped at his back and legs. He heard the clacking of Fang teeth and the squeak of Fang armor, and felt the heat of Fang breath on his neck. Janner knew Gnag still wanted the children alive, because it would have been an easy thing in that moment for the Fangs to run him and his brother through. But in their scramble to seize the boys, the beasts slammed into the doorway as one and jammed.

Janner crashed into a table and nearly fell. As he ran, he strained to see where the rest of his family had gone, but the tavern was pitch black. All he knew was that he still had Tink’s elbow in his grip.

It took the Fangs little time to regroup and enter the tavern in single file, but by then Janner had felt his way through a swinging door and into the common room of the tavern. Two large windows that looked out on Riverside Road faintly illuminated
the tables and chairs spaced throughout the room. Janner heard his family somewhere ahead and the Fangs behind.

“Mama!” he cried. “Grandpa!”

“Here!” Nia answered, just as Podo kicked open the front door and the others darted out to the street.

“Come on!” Janner said to Tink.

But the brothers never made it to the door.

From the street came the sound of battle. Podo appeared beyond the doorway, a white-haired terror swinging his sword even as he hugged his wounded side with his other arm. The shadows of the battle stretched long across the room. Janner saw with black dread that Fangs surrounded his grandfather.

He and Tink were stuck. If they ran outside, they’d find themselves in the thick of the fight, and they had no weapons—Oskar had their packs. Behind them, more Fangs poured into the house.

Janner could see the outline of his little brother’s face, the glint of his wide, frightened eyes looking to Janner for help. But he didn’t know how to help. He was only twelve! How was he supposed to know what a Throne Warden would do? He wanted to ask Podo, or Peet, or Nia—or Esben.

Then came Podo’s voice from outside, sputtered between parries and thrusts of his sword: “
GET BACK TO THE BURROW
!
BOYS
!
MEET AT THE BURR
—”

Podo’s voice cut short. But another, familiar voice joined it.

“Aha! Thou smelly snakish brutes! Beware the steely shine of the Florid Sword’s, er, sword!”

Outside the window, the caped figure leapt into the fight. With one hand, he swung his sword with frightening speed, while the other rested casually on his hip. The cluster of Fangs attacking Podo turned as one and rushed the man in black.

The swinging door behind the boys crashed open and Fangs poured into the shadowy common room. The only thing Janner could think to do was duck. He and Tink scrambled under a table and crawled to the farthest corner of the room. The Fangs sped toward the open front door, crashing through tables and chairs as they ran. Janner and Tink, on hands and knees, held their breath and watched the scaly legs of at least thirty Fangs rush past.

“And now I must needs flee,” said the Florid Sword, “for thy numbers art full of bigness! Aha!”

The clash of swords ceased. Janner listened for Podo’s voice, for Leeli’s scream, for
any sign of his family, but he heard nothing except the mutter and moan of tired and wounded Fangs.

“Gone?” said one of the Fangs.

“Yes sir. It was the Florid—”

“Don’t even ssay his name.”

“Aye sssir. Well,
he
came and we got distracted from the old man—he’s a good fighter, ‘e is, for a one-legged fella. Took down seven of me Fangs and wounded five others besides. And the fat one, ‘e just grabbed a sword and spun in circles so fast we thought ‘e might up and float away. Tried to get past ‘em to grab the girl but before we could—as I said, sir, we had ‘em till the Florid—er, till
he
showed up.”

“Lost ‘em again, then,” said the leader as they moved away. “Khrak won’t be happy.”

“Khrak’s never happy, sir.”

Janner and Tink looked at each other in the darkness.

“They got away,” Tink whispered.

“I hope so,” Janner said.

“But what about us?”

“I don’t know.”

“What will we do?”

“I don’t know.”

Long after the last Fang disappeared, the brothers hid under the table and held tight to each other, more alone than they had ever been.

Ronchy McHiggins wasn’t a bad man, though he enjoyed his life among the vigilantes and thieves of Dugtown. He enjoyed the stories, the excitement, the way one never knew who might walk through the front door of the tavern with a tale to tell and stolen coins to spend on a plate of sailor’s pie.

Ronchy didn’t talk much, unlike the other tavern owners who prattled on about problems and rumors and the way this customer jilted him four years ago or that Fang shattered a window just for the laugh of it. Ronchy McHiggins
listened
. He paid attention. That was why Gammon liked him. Gammon knew Ronchy could tell him what was happening in Dugtown, from the construction of more torch towers to the discovery of another Strander tunnel to the movements of the Fangs from one district to another.

So when Ronchy heard word from Glipwood—from a pair of ridgerunners—that some Annieran heirs, children from the sound of it, were on the run in Glipwood Forest, he resolved to tell Gammon about it when next he saw him.

Gammon came to Dugtown every few months to check in with Ronchy and who knew how many other members of his secret force scattered throughout Torrboro and Dugtown. He looked different every time he came. A master of camouflage, he was, and a master of deceit. How else could he have survived these many years, gathering weapons, mustering fellow rebels, and amassing an army in the Ice Prairies that might someday overthrow the Fangs and banish them from Skree forever? Gammon was a clever one, all right, or he’d have been found out like all the other fools who dared to defy Gnag the Nameless and his Fangs of Dang.

Only days before, Gammon had appeared in the Roundish Widow, hobbling like an old man and filthy as a cave blat. It was such a convincing disguise that Ronchy had twice batted him with a broom in an attempt to shoo him from the tavern before he realized who he was whacking.