North! Or Be Eaten (28 page)

“Thank you, sir. Thank you,” the man blubbered.

Mobrik reappeared and pulled the door shut behind him. At a snap of the reins, the sad brown horse tugged the carriage away. The last Janner saw of Mykel Bolpin, he sat in the street staring at the heavens, looking less like a beggar and more like a father with every moment.

The ridgerunner squatted in the shadows in the far corner of the carriage, paying Janner no attention. Given his history with ridgerunners, Janner didn’t particularly want to talk to the sneaky little creature anyway. After straining again at the ropes and finding them as tight as ever, he leaned against the wall and gazed out the window at Dugtown as it passed by. He saw Crempshaw Way approaching, the hill descending to the river on the left.

When the carriage turned right and the horse strained uphill, away from the river and deeper into Dugtown, Janner spotted the street sign on the corner. What he saw made his cheeks burn and a black rage sizzle in his chest.

The sign said Tilling
Court
. Not Tilling Street.

Moments later, another street sign appeared that said Tilling
Street
, a road that, compared to where he had just been, seemed as safe and pleasant as the lane to the
Igiby cottage. It stretched away east, just as Ronchy McHiggins had said, and in the distance Janner saw where it intersected with Riverside Road.

He had taken a wrong turn. It was as simple as that.

That was why he never saw Tink. Tink was smart enough to read the street signs.
Fool!
he thought.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked the ridgerunner.

The ridgerunner looked at him with surprise. “Why,” he said, “to the Fork Factory.”

D
ugtown was a much bigger city than Janner realized. The clop of hooves and the creak of the carriage settled into an eternal drone, broken only by the occasional crack of the Overseer’s whip. Janner leaned his forehead listlessly against the bars of the window and looked out at the torch-lit streets of the city.

The way the Dugtowners hurried by told him curfew fast approached. The Overseer didn’t seem to care, even when clusters of Fangs prowled past. They paid little attention to the carriage. The horse plodded on at the same slow pace, even when the bells struck curfew. At once the busy city went to sleep. Now and then a Fang passed the carriage with a grunt of greeting, and the Overseer could be heard saying, “My lord,” in answer.

Finally, the carriage squeaked to a stop. The sad brown horse snorted. Janner blinked out of his daze and strained to see ahead through the side window. The ridgerunner stepped past Janner and over the unconscious boy on the carriage floor, opened the door, and leapt to the ground. Janner started to follow him out, but the ridgerunner slammed the door in his face. “You stay,” he said.

Mobrik approached a rusty portcullis in the center of an immense brick building. With a great racket, the iron gate slowly rose. The vertical bars of the gate ended in points, which made the building look like a monster opening its mouth to swallow the horse and carriage whole. Above the gate, a big metal sign bore the inscription, in bold, rusty letters,
FORK
!
FACTORY
!

Janner was as unsettled by the overuse of exclamation points as he was by the dreary countenance of the place. With another snap of the whip, the carriage lurched forward into the mouth of the brick monster. Tucked in the shadows just inside the gate stood two children. Their clothes were tattered, their faces blank. They stared at Janner as he passed, then turned away and, taking hold of a fat chain, lowered the portcullis under the watchful eye of Mobrik the ridgerunner.

The carriage rolled through a narrow passageway, then into a large, airy chamber. Mobrik swung open the door and yanked Janner out so hard that he tumbled to the
ground. Far above, rafters and planks crisscrossed the ceiling. Chains and ropes dangled down into the light of lanterns on the lower walls. Except for the carriage, the floor of the vast room was bare.

The Overseer, still wearing his top hat, appeared above Janner. He grinned wickedly and pinched Janner’s cheek between his thumb and forefinger.

“Welcome, boy!” he said. “A healthy face you have. Mobrik, untie him. I want to see his arms and hands. I believe we have someone to replace that sluggish Knubis girl at the paring station.” Mobrik untied Janner. “Yes. Good arms. Good hands. Allow me to greet you properly, child.” He dropped to one knee and removed his hat, then ran his fingers through his greasy hair. “I’m the Overseer. You’re a tool in my factory, no different from a hammer or a rake. The difference is, unlike a hammer, I have to feed your greedy face to keep you alive. Did you enjoy the ride here?”

“Yes sir,” Janner said. Mobrik chuckled.

“What did you say?” asked the Overseer.

“I said. ‘Yes sir.’”

The Overseer punched Janner in the stomach. Stars filled his vision, and tears welled up as he struggled for air.

“Tell him,” the Overseer said to Mobrik as he stood and donned his hat with great care.

Mobrik stooped over Janner and smiled. “Tools don’t speak. They nod, like this.” Mobrik nodded his tiny head up and down. “Or they shake, like this.” He shook his head from side to side.

The Overseer narrowed his eyes at Janner. “So, child. Did you enjoy your ride?”

Janner considered answering aloud again, just to see the look on the Overseer’s face. But he didn’t particularly want to be punched again, and with the portcullis shut, he was certain there was nowhere to run, however big this building might be. He sighed and nodded his head.

“Good. A fast learner. The finest tools are fast learners.” The Overseer smiled, revealing every one of his yellow and brown teeth. “I’m glad you enjoyed the ride. It was the last look at the city you’re ever likely to have. This is your new home. Unless, of course, your parents manage to capture two other children to replace you. I’m a very giving man. I have a quota to meet, and I don’t care how I meet it, whether it’s you or some other fool at the paring station. Do you understand?”

Janner didn’t, but he nodded dumbly. They could call him a tool all day long, but that didn’t make it so.
There’s always a way out
, Janner thought. And as soon as he found it, he would slip away to the burrow where his family waited. If he could
escape by morning, they would only have lost a day. Then they could find another way past the Barrier, and a short walk over the Stony Mountains would bring them to the safety of the Ice Prairies. The thought of a world with no Fangs made Janner smile.

“Why are you smiling?” the Overseer said suspiciously.

Janner started to answer but stopped short. He said nothing but only looked at the Overseer with the same smile playing at his lips. It was fun to see the ridiculous man unsettled. He could punch him in the gut again if he liked. He could call him a tool and send him off to make forks, assuming that was what the Fork Factory produced. But Janner knew he was a Throne Warden, and that gave him a kind of freedom, even though he was, for the moment, captive.

The Overseer laughed.

“Mobrik! Take him to his station. Be sure he has no rest until morning. We’ll see if he’s smiling then. When you return, we’ll see to the other boy.”

Janner followed Mobrik, wondering, among many other things, when he would be allowed to eat something. The last time he had eaten was that morning at the Roundish Widow. The faces of the children at the portcullis haunted him. They looked healthy enough, or at least they didn’t appear physically wounded in any way, but their hollow, hopeless eyes made him uneasy. They seemed resigned to their fate, as if they had tried and failed so many times to find freedom that they no longer bothered to hope anymore. But surely there was
some
way out, even if it meant fighting. The Overseer wasn’t a Fang, after all. He didn’t have venomous teeth or unnatural strength or even a weapon as far as Janner could see, other than the whip he applied to the sad brown horse.

The Overseer disappeared through a door in the far wall of the chamber and left the horse harnessed to the carriage. Mobrik led Janner to a set of double doors at the rear of the room.

“Am I allowed to speak to you, or do I still have to wiggle my head?” Janner asked carefully.

Mobrik glanced at him. “Speak if you like. But don’t expect an answer—unless you carry a sack of apples I can’t see. The Overseer enjoys having me around to boss, but he and I both know the only reason I’m here is for the sweet yellow apples he gets from upriver.”

“No apples. Sorry.”

“Then no answers.”

Mobrik pushed through the double doors and led Janner down a long, dark hallway. At the far end was another set of doors with two square windows that glowed yellow. As they approached, Janner heard an awful racket, and the temperature rose.

Mobrik pushed Janner through the doors and into a world of nightmares.

F
ire raged.

Flames sputtered from pipes and smokestacks, roared in black ovens, and curled from vats of molten iron. Janner’s nose stung with the stench of sweat and smoke. In the center of the enormous room squatted an enormous black furnace. Red-hot pipes rose from it and snaked through the room in a senseless knot. Some of the pipes spewed smoke from ruptured joints, and others dripped black, steamy liquid. Smoke gathered at the ceiling like a storm cloud.

Beside the furnace stood a contraption that shuddered and clanked like nothing Janner had ever known. Glipwood had seen its share of oddities but nothing like this—this was a
machine
, something Janner had only ever read about. It wasn’t clear what the machine did besides make an awful racket, but the turn of its gears and the steadiness of its chugging made it clear it was doing something.

In front of the mouth of the furnace were three piles of coal. After Janner’s eyes adjusted, he saw figures with shovels trudging the distance between the coal and the furnace. At first he thought they were more ridgerunners. Then he realized they were children.

On the left of the great room were seven aisles divided by long narrow tables. Trenches cut in the center of the tables caught the glowing liquid that poured from spouts hanging from the ceiling. Children tended to the molten steel with pikes and tongs. Janner saw even more children, hundreds of them, gathered around tables and anvils and large stone bowls, hammering, carrying buckets of water to and fro, and stirring the burning liquid with iron poles. Everywhere he looked there was movement.

He considered running back down the long hallway. Maybe if he surprised them with a sudden escape, he could find a way out near the portcullis—for that matter, maybe he could get the two children to open it again. He might even take them with him—but then what? He wouldn’t make it far through the streets of Dugtown with
two tired children in tow, especially at night when only the Fangs and trolls were about.

“I wouldn’t if I were you.”

Janner blinked. Mobrik had removed his little top hat and looked at him cockeyed, a hint of a smile on his lips.

“Kids try it all the time when they first arrive. Truth is, the Overseer
hopes
you’ll try to escape. It gives him a chance for some target practice with his whip. Trust me. You’re better off at the paring station, boy.”

“W-what’s the paring station?”

Mobrik the ridgerunner replaced his hat and descended the steps. He stood at the bottom and waited.

“Run if you like. You’ll end up here either way. But if you come now, you’ll not be bleeding and sore from the boss’s whip.”

Janner took one last look at the door. With a sigh, he walked down the steps and followed the ridgerunner. As he approached the machinery, the temperature increased. Janner’s eyes watered, and he found himself unable to keep from blinking constantly. Mobrik seemed to have no trouble with the heat.

They passed black iron barrels as tall as a house. All around them, flames spurted from pipes and chimneys, and iron wheels clanked. Everywhere Janner looked, he saw children. Some were old enough to pass for young adults, but most were older than Janner. A few glanced at him as he passed, the whites of their eyes the only clean spots in the factory, but most kept their heads down, either shoveling coal, hammering a hot sheet of metal, scraping fragments of debris into a wheeled barrel, or pushing carts piled heavy with lengths of steel—

Swords
, Janner thought. He recognized the graceless curve of a Fang blade, though the hilt hadn’t yet been attached. He had never wondered where the Fangs got their weapons. Someone had to make them, after all. But children? That explained why the Overseer was allowed to move through the city after curfew and why there were so few children in Dugtown. Whatever children weren’t stolen probably lived out their days indoors, under the watchful eyes of their parents. Then Janner remembered the picture on Ronchy McHiggins’s wall. They had stolen his child too.

As Janner took the next turn through the maze of the factory, he glanced to his right and saw a set of bright eyes looking straight at him. They were beautiful, round windows of blue sky. Though he could see little of the child’s face, covered in soot as it was, a memory tingled in the back of his mind.

“Come on!” Mobrik kicked Janner in the shin. Janner resisted the urge to wrestle the little ridgerunner to the ground and thump him. When Janner looked again, the child with the blue eyes was gone.

Mobrik led him through several more turns before he stopped at a long table. A girl stood in front of the table, holding a pair of giant rusty scissors. On the table before her lay what looked like a Fang sword, but it was shaped wrong.

“She’s paring the sword, see?” Mobrik said. “Cutting away the bit of metal that isn’t supposed to be there. The machine gets it right most of the time, but now and then there’s a bad cut. So it takes tools like this one to fix what isn’t right.”

Mobrik pointed a thumb at the girl. Her face was covered with streaks of dirt. She wore an apron and had her hair tied in a bun on top of her head. She cut another inch of the metal with every grunt. Her teeth were bared, and though she looked as tired as anyone Janner had ever seen, she was making progress. When they approached, she stopped and straightened without a word. Janner smiled at her. She stared back, expressionless.