North! Or Be Eaten (36 page)

Beneath Podo’s signature was a line written in a careful, flowing script:

Janner tossed the packs over his shoulder and hugged Nurgabog (careful not to breathe through his nose while he did so). She pinched his cheek and told him where to find the lever to open the cages, then Janner clambered up the ladder to rescue the High King of Anniera.

A
s soon as Janner left the house, he spotted Fangs.

A company of them marched west, down the hill to Dugtown, and in the distance more approached from the eastern reaches of the Strand. Janner slipped back into the house and peeked out the window. The wind shifted, and Janner caught the smell of fire mingled with the reek of the river and the Fangs. Then he saw that houses all along the Blapp were burning. That probably meant they would soon torch the house where he was hiding.

His first thought was for Nurgabog. But even if the house burned to the ground, the burrow would remain hidden beneath the ashes. He didn’t doubt she could find a way out through one of the hidden passageways. But how would he get all the way to the East Bend of the Strand in broad daylight? It would have been difficult even without the Fangs seeking, of all the souls in Aerwiar, Janner himself.

He took a deep breath. There was nothing to do but run and avoid the road.

Janner jumped the fence behind the house, squelched through the mud of what used to be a pigpen, and sprinted across the clumpy back field to a stand of trees that had overgrown a fence line. As he ran, the two backpacks bounced and rattled and reminded him of Tink with every bump. At the trees, Janner caught his breath and looked for his next point of cover. He spied a tangle of brush and thorn on the opposite side of another pasture, and ran.

In this way Janner pushed eastward, bursting from sagging barns, across fields, to shallow, weedy streams, up gradual hills, and so on, until he was covered with burrs and cut by thorns.

He didn’t allow himself to think of Sara Cobbler, or Nurgabog, or even himself. He thought of nothing but the vision of Tink in the cage. In the vision he was frightened, cold, alone, and helpless. Janner still wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, but there would be time for that after he was safe.

It wasn’t long before Janner spotted signs of a Strander clan. Smoke rose from a
small fire at the opposite end of the field. Figures moved about. Laughter drifted across to where Janner squatted in the brush. After several minutes he crawled through the tall grass until he was sure he was far enough away to stand unnoticed; then he moved on, hoping the rest of the clans would be as easy to avoid.

A few hours after the sun began its descent into the west, Janner stopped to rest. The water skin was empty. Leaning against the ivy-covered stones of an old dry well, he ate the last seven salted nuts in his pouch. After rummaging through both packs, he was finally convinced he had eaten all the food and drunk all the water. He looked into the well, as if clean water might seep up from the mud as he watched.

Janner hadn’t had a proper meal since the bowls of broth five days earlier, if the broth could be considered a proper meal. Then he remembered the apple in the coffin. It had perhaps been the finest apple he had ever eaten. In spite of the heat and the worry and the hunger that plagued him, Janner smiled at the thought of the Overseer and Mobrik, mad as fire that perhaps for the first time a boy had escaped the Fork Factory. But his smile vanished when he remembered Sara Cobbler’s pretty eyes shining through the soot on her face.

Janner stood and sighed. There was no time to sit around thinking about food and friends he had left behind. Not when Tink was in danger.

When Podo had led them from the Strander camp of the East Bend to Dugtown, the journey had taken a full day. But they had moved at a slug’s pace compared to Janner now. Even though he had to sneak past five more Strander camps, he was still making good time. He didn’t think it would be long before he reached the East Bend—though he had no idea what he would do when he got there. That he had managed to slip past the Stranders so easily gave him hope. There were advantages to being small and alone.

But there were disadvantages too.

When the north wind rushed over him, carrying with it the blood-chilling howl of a horned hound, for example, Janner ached for the strong, sure hand of his grandfather. When his stomach complained of its hunger, Janner longed for the comfort of the Igiby cottage thick with the aroma of his mother’s stew. When a gulpswallow fluttered overhead and perched on a birch limb to sing its song, Janner thought of Leeli and the music that hovered around her like spring pollen in a sunbeam.

He didn’t want to be small and alone for one second longer than he had to be.

When the sun set and the colors of the world deepened, Janner came to a rise in the land that overlooked the great river. He sat on a mossy boulder with his knees
tucked under his chin and felt the day breathe its last. The river narrowed here, its glassy surface carved with eddies and a quiet unrest from the hidden and quickening currents that played beneath. Beyond the Blapp, the tree-spiked land sloped away to the south. Somewhere in that direction lay the road that led east to Glipwood and west to Torr-boro. Along the nearer bank, Janner could see the muddy road he and his family had traveled when they first left the East Bend. To the east, Glipwood Forest gathered, wild and ancient, a thirsty shadow that opened its mouth to swallow the Mighty Blapp.

He was close. The Strander camp lay where the river and the road and the forest converged. Janner looked again at the sky in the west. The gold was gone. The dark blue sky reached from the east to snuff it out so that the stars might waken.

Somewhere nearby, if Nurgabog was right, Tink sat in a cage. Somewhere to the north, the Black Carriage came nearer and nearer, and cruel crows whirled above it. Janner imagined it as a deeper darkness creeping south along the edge of the forest.

He had to get Tink free before the Carriage arrived. By the time he reached the fringes of the settlement, the night would be complete. In the cover of darkness he would once again be glad to be small and alone.

It was time to go.

Janner crawled so quietly, with such careful placement of each hand and each knee on stone and grass, with such slow and deliberate breathing, that when he came face to face with the rabbit in the brush, it didn’t flee. It considered him for a moment, whiskers twitching, then loped away as if the boy were one of its litter.

A stone’s throw to his right blazed the fire where the Stranders gathered. They laughed and spat and bickered over slabs of toothy cow meat pulled sizzling from the spit. Janner’s empty belly clamored for attention, but he ignored it, focusing instead on the cages that held Tink.

The ramshackle buildings and piles of firewood provided good cover from the light of the fire. Once he had descended the hill and sneaked through clusters of brush and thorn, he caught sight of the campfire’s glow and heard the noisy brutes around it. He dropped the backpacks and pushed them deep into the weeds. He’d be quieter without them, and he and Tink could pick them up on the way back out.

He had inched his way into the shadows behind a shack, which was when he saw
the cages. They sat on a platform beyond a stand of tall grass cut through with footpaths. It wasn’t much cover, but it was enough for someone small and alone.

That was where Janner encountered the rabbit.

He paused and listened for any sign of a clan member not at the fire for some reason. But Janner was alone—other than Tink and whatever other children Claxton had in the cages. Janner slipped across a footpath and froze in the grass, then crossed another footpath and froze again. The cages—four of them—were only a few steps away.

Janner crawled to the foot of the platform. He felt in the dark along the leg of the platform and found the release lever, just where Nurgabog said it would be. He eased the lever downward until he heard a
click
. Janner held his breath, praying to the Maker the Stranders didn’t hear it.

Finally, Janner stood and peered inside, already pressing a finger to his lips to silence whomever he might see.

The first cage was empty. Doubt flashed in Janner’s mind. Nurgabog had sent him on this fool’s rescue mission so he would be caught like a thwap in a snare. Janner looked in the next cage and found it empty as well. Cheeks burning with embarrassment and anger, he looked in the third cage and saw two eyes staring back at him.

“Tink!” he whispered, louder than he intended.

The figure in the shadows leaned closer.

“Tink?” Janner repeated softly.

“I ain’t Tink,” said a girl’s voice. “I’m Maraly. Don’t know no Tink.”

“Kalmar, I mean,” Janner said. “Is he here?”

“Kalmar Wingfeather? Ah, I remember you. You’re his brother, ain’t ye?”

Janner nodded. “Where is he? Where is Kalmar? I have to get him out before the Black Carriage comes.”

Maraly shook her head and settled back in the rear of the cage. “He ain’t here.”

“What? Where is he?” Janner said, pressing his face against the bars.

“You’re too late. The Black Carriage came early this time. Showed up last night a few hours before dawn. Whole bunch of Fangs come with it, lookin’ for a boy on the run from Dugtown. I figure that would be you, eh?”

Janner felt the blood drain from his face.

“Claxton gave ‘em Kalmar and the other kids he’d collected. The Fangs threw ‘em in the Carriage and carried ‘em away screaming, just like always.”

“But—but—what about you? Why didn’t you get carried off too?”

Maraly snorted. “I ain’t in here for the Carriage. Even Claxton ain’t so wicked he’d send off his own daughter. I’m in here for punishment.”

Janner was too stunned to speak.

“Punishment,” said Maraly, “for trying to help Kalmar get away. Didn’t do much good, I’m afraid. Sorry. He’s on his way to Dang by now.”

Tink was gone.

Janner couldn’t think. He stood at the cage staring at nothing, seeing in his mind’s eye the image of poor Tink sitting in the cage, but now it wasn’t a cage. He was in the dank belly of the Black Carriage, where death was a good dream.

“What do I do?” Janner heard himself say aloud.

“The first thing I’d do if I was you,” said Maraly with a chuckle, “is run. They’ve seen you.”

Janner snapped out of his grief to see Claxton Weaver at the fire, staring directly at him, a dagger bright in his fist.

“Come on!”

Janner flung open the cage door and yanked Maraly out. Her eyes were wide and fierce, and Janner thought for a moment she was going to pounce on him. Instead, she looked at Claxton, then at Janner, then at Claxton again.

“Maraly!” Claxton called with an edge of warning in his voice.

Then she spat in his direction, shrugged, and said to Janner, “Follow me.”

She disappeared so completely into the brush beyond the cages that Janner wasn’t sure at first which direction she had gone. Then he heard her voice not far away: “Hurry up!”

Janner dashed into the darkness, trying to ignore the howls of rage in the Strander camp. The whole clan, with Claxton at the fore, poured after the two children like a swarm of wasps. Maraly ran north, cutting left and right around bushes and small trees without a single look behind her. Janner huffed and puffed after her, barely able to keep up.

“Maraly, wait!” he gasped, “The packs! I have to get the packs!”

She didn’t seem to hear him at first, but then she zipped away to the left and dove into a thorn bush. Janner clamped his eyes shut and followed, heedless of the sting where the briars cut his face and arms.

“Be still,” she whispered, and Janner was still.

Claxton roared past, cursing his daughter Maraly with words Janner had never heard even from Podo. The rest of the clan followed, a parade of daggers and mud and anger, blind to the two children bleeding in the dark.

When the Stranders were gone, Maraly said, “So where are these packs, then?”

They winced their way out of the thorn bush and hurried past the empty camp to the place where Janner had stashed the two packs. He gave her Tink’s, shouldered his own, and they were off.

Maraly knew every nook and hollow in the East Bend, and more than once Janner wondered how he would’ve found his way without her. She led him clear of the many Stranders traipsing through the night, growling Maraly’s name and describing the terrible things they would do to her when she was caught. She showed no concern, however. She slipped from tree to tree without a word, checking now and then to be sure Janner was close behind.

As the trees thickened, the sounds of the Stranders faded into the distance, and Janner began to worry more about the toothy cows they might encounter. But he reminded himself that Maraly had lived there for many years; if there were toothy cows, she would know.