North! Or Be Eaten (7 page)

There in the gully of the gargan rockroach, with toothy cows below and Fangs of Dang approaching, Janner felt safe.

But only for a moment.

Podo screamed. As Peet alighted on the tangle of branches at the edge of the hole, Janner spun around, expecting to see that the toothy cows had bested Podo after all. But the cows were gone.

Or, they were mostly gone.

The upper half of a toothy cow disappeared into the mouth of—
what
? Janner saw his unshakable grandfather shaking, retreating on trembling legs toward the opening where Janner stood.

From the darkness at the rear of the den, the gargan rockroach emerged.

L
ong, spindly legs reached out of a hole in the rear of the den and waved around like a cluster of shiny black broomsticks. They were attached to what looked like a cross between a cricket, a beetle, and a slug.

The rockroach’s back was rounded and hard but plated so it could wriggle and bend, and its sheen gave it the appearance of being moist or sweaty. Beneath the dome of its armored shell was a face with four beady eyes—two large ones above two smaller ones, all attached to the head by stems. The rockroach’s mouth looked just like a human mouth puckered up to kiss, except for the spidery mandibles that surrounded the lips and wriggled, clacking together like the sound of marbles spilled on a wooden floor.

Janner gasped as its mouth stretched open and gobbled up a full-grown toothy cow. The cow mooed helplessly as it was worked deeper and deeper into the rock-roach’s maw by the hundreds of little black mandibles. Janner couldn’t bear to watch. He turned away as the cow’s head disappeared and the moo was cut short.

The horned hound hopped on its three good legs toward Janner, not to attack him but to escape the giant insect. The gargan rockroach gathered itself and heaved its bulk the rest of the way out of the hole, revealing itself to be as long and thick as a house. With its spindly legs, it snatched up the horned hound and swallowed it with a great, hissing slurp.

Peet the Sock Man sprang through the hole in the ceiling and landed in a feline crouch. The rockroach turned its four black eyes on Peet and wiggled toward him. Podo roared and raised his sword. Peet rolled away from the rockroach’s grasping broom-handle legs just as Podo brought his sword down on one of them with all his might. The sword clanged and bounced off the leg, but the rockroach was startled and backed away just long enough for Podo to leap past it, toward Janner.

Peet crouched in the far corner of the den among a pile of animal bones. He lifted a bone the size of a club and whacked at something in the pile. The quill diggle and the family of cave blats wobbled out, clearly in a panic but slowed by the rockroach’s poisonous vapor. The rockroach tossed the quill diggle into its mushy black pucker.

Thinking the rockroach was going after the cave blats next, Peet broke away from the corner. But the rockroach ignored the blats, leapt forward, and barred Peet’s way with its front legs.

“Lad, we’ve got to get out of here!” Podo cried, dragging Janner by his shirt collar. Janner saw his uncle in the shadow of the gargan rockroach, ankle deep in bones, and imagined poor Peet’s bones lying on the floor among them.

“No!” Janner cried, wrenching himself from his grandfather’s grip. He had seen how useless Podo’s sword was against the rockroach’s armor, but maybe if he could get close enough to stab the creature near its head, he could find a weak spot.

Janner forced himself forward on trembling legs until he stood a few feet from the rockroach. It braced its many legs against the wall on either side of the Sock Man, enclosing him in a sort of cage. The creature’s insect face was expressionless, but it seemed to enjoy toying with its prey. The puckered mouth opened and closed as the mandibles that surrounded it clacked only inches from Peet’s face.

Janner moved as close to the rockroach’s head as he dared and drew his sword. Behind the stems that held the creature’s bulbous eyes, he saw a hole large enough to stab, a break in the armor where he could bury the blade into soft skin. He closed his mind to the smacking sounds, the squeals of the cave blats, and Podo’s frantic cries behind him, and thought only of driving his sword into the gargan rockroach’s neck so that his uncle might survive.

Janner struck. The blade slipped down, past the leg joints, behind the eye-stems, and into the dark hollow where Janner hoped soft flesh lay unprotected—but his sword clanged into something hard as stone.

There was no soft spot. His elbow vibrated and his grip on the sword faltered. One of the rockroach’s legs knocked Janner across the den. He landed on his back and felt the wind burst from his lungs. He felt a dull pain in his hip, probably from a rock or bone on the floor of the den.

The rockroach released Peet and with a great clicking skittered toward Janner.

Everything seemed to slow down. Janner saw Peet leap from the corner and run toward him. The gargan rockroach’s black eyes flicked sideways at Peet, but it didn’t turn from its path. As Peet passed beneath the hole in the ceiling, an enormous hand—a troll’s hand—reached down, seized Peet by the hair, and lifted him through the hole, his feet churning, his claws scratching uselessly at the troll’s massive fist.

The rockroach hunkered over Janner, widened its awful mandibles, and stretched open its squishy black lips. Janner was surprised he didn’t feel more panic. He lay on his back, watching the terrible beast with a sort of fascination and surprise that
this
would be how he died. He also felt a dull irritation at the rock causing such discomfort to his hip.

Then Janner realized with a grim smile that it wasn’t a rock at all. It was Peet’s flask of water from the First Well.

While the rockroach gloated over him, Janner wondered what would happen if he drank the water, though he had no real physical wounds that needed to be healed. Then he wondered what would happen if the rockroach drank the water, and before he realized what he was doing, Janner removed the flask from his pocket, opened it, and flung it into the rockroach’s mouth.

Wisps of steam rose from the droplets that sprayed across the beast’s face as the flask spun through the air. Then the flask was gone, buried in the depths of the monster’s belly where the toothy cows, a horned hound, and a quill diggle had so recently gone. The beast reeled backward. Its legs and mandibles wheeled at blinding speed, and steam rose from its mouth like smoke from a chimney.

A hand grabbed Janner’s shirt and dragged him backward. All at once, Podo’s cries broke through and rattled Janner’s ears.

“—
NEVER SEEN SUCH THWAP
-
NOGGINED FOOLISHNESS
! J
ANNER
W
INGFEATHER
,
MOVE YER FEET
!”

Janner snatched up his sword and scrambled through the hole, then up the north slope of the gully with Podo close behind.

Janner and Podo crested the top to find Oskar lying on the ground, unconscious. Nia and Tink stood beside Leeli and Nugget, looking not at Janner but at the opposite side of the gully.

Janner turned and saw, gathered at the edge of the slope, too many Fangs to count. Their swords were drawn, arrows nocked, spears raised. Some watched the Igibys with smug looks, and some eyed the hole in the floor of the gully. Among the Fangs were four trolls, so tall that their heads brushed the leaves and branches of glipwood trees. On one troll’s hulking shoulder sat Zouzab Koit and another ridgerunner, both of whom appeared quite pleased with themselves. In another troll’s smelly grip, Peet the Sock Man squirmed and squawked and shook his head in panic.

“That’s them,” said Zouzab.

A Fang at the front of the line nodded.

“One word from me,” it shouted, “and the troll will sssqueeze the life from Artham Wingfeather.”

T
he Fangs and trolls gathered on one side of the gully, the Igibys on the other.

“You know as well as I do that Peet would rather die than let you have these kids,” Podo called across the span. The Fangs of Dang parted so that the troll clutching Peet could move forward.

The troll’s hands were enormous. The three fingers and one thumb on each hand were the length of one of Janner’s arms and twice as thick. With one hand, the troll gripped Peet around the waist, pinning his arms to his sides, and with the other, it covered Peet’s head so none of his face was visible. A tuft of Peet’s white hair peeked out of the top of the beast’s fist. The troll looked like a child holding a doll.

“That may be true,” said the Fang, “and if he’d rather die, who am I to ssstand in his way?”

The Fang motioned to the troll, and with a grunt, the troll tightened its grip. Peet stiffened. His legs strained downward and his toes pointed at the forest floor.

“Stop!” cried Leeli.

Her voice was a bright, beautiful sound. She nudged Nugget forward so that he stood with his great paws at the edge of the gully. Her back was straight, and she seemed to Janner more angry than afraid.

“You let him go right now!” So earnest and commanding was her voice that for a moment the trolls and the Fangs appeared to consider her demand.

“Leeli, stay back,” Nia said.

“You may be the Song Maiden of Anniera, young one, but you have no power here,” said Zouzab. At the ridgerunner’s mention of the Shining Isle, a chorus of snarls erupted from the Fangs.

The leader of the Fangs glanced at one of the archers, who nodded. In the silence of the wood Janner heard a faint sound, like trees creaking in the wind—the tightening of bowstrings.

Peet began to struggle, his cries muffled by the troll’s hand over his head. The Fang archer eased his scaly head sideways along the sightline of the arrow and squinted one eye shut.

The arrow was trained on Podo.

Janner’s mind spun. He knew that at a word from the Fang commander, the archers across the gully could send a hundred arrows flying at them. But if the Fangs wanted them dead, he realized, they’d be dead already. Gnag wanted the Jewels of Anniera, and he wanted them alive, though Janner had no idea why.

“Grandpa, get down,” Janner said in as firm a voice as he could muster.

Whether because Podo sensed the same thing as Janner or because he submitted to some new authority in his grandson’s voice, he dropped to the ground behind Janner. A chorus of angry hisses slithered across the distance between the Fangs and the Igibys, and Janner saw there had been more than one arrow aimed at his grandfather.

“Mama, get behind me,” he said.

“Don’t be silly,” Nia whispered. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I think they’re afraid to kill us,” Janner whispered. “Gnag wants us alive, but I don’t think the same goes for you and Grandpa and Oskar. Please, just get behind me.”

Nia shot a fiery look at the Fangs across the way and ducked behind Janner. Tink sidled backward and hid behind Nia.

“No, Tink!” Janner said through gritted teeth. “Stay up front. They don’t want to shoot us, just the grownups.”

Tink let out a nervous laugh and hopped up again. “I knew that. I did.”

Janner nearly snorted with laughter in spite of the danger, but then he remembered the way Tink had hesitated in the rockroach den, and his laughter fizzled away.

Nugget and the Igiby children stood like a rampart in front of the three adults.

The Fang commander watched them with interest for a moment, then burst into laughter. The other Fangs joined in, and even the trolls boomed what must have been chuckles of their own. Janner’s cheeks burned with humiliation.

“Where do you think you’ll go, fools?” the Fang asked. When he spoke, the laughter died away. “Do you think you can ssstand there forever, while your elders cower behind you like kittens?” At this, Podo’s chest rumbled. “And what will you do when this silly ssstandoff is over? In a matter of minutes we’ll be across this gully and you’ll be bound and beaten. Where will you go? To the river? Will you swim across the Mighty Blapp and not be stabbed by the daggerfish or drowned in the rapids?”

Janner’s skin crawled with embarrassment. The Fang spoke the truth. For these
few moments, Podo, Nia, and Oskar were safe behind the children, but what would they do when the Fangs advanced? Janner could hear the faint rumble of the river’s rapids in the distance, but what would they do when they reached it? The Fang was right. They were caught, and nothing could be done.

“Ah!” the Fang continued. “And what about this skinny fellow? Will you let Mooph here squeeze him like a fruit? No, I think you’re finished, Wingfeathers. Gnag the Nameless has thingsss for you to do.”

“Janner,” Tink whispered. “Janner, the rockroach. Look.”

From the hole in the floor of the gully, a tendril of steam rose, and in the shadows, a deeper darkness writhed. A tremor shook the ground and sent pebbles and twigs rattling down into the rockroach den.

If a little water from the First Well made Nugget as big as a horse, what did a whole bottle of it do to the rockroach?
Janner wondered.

He looked across the gully at his uncle in the troll’s fist. What would Peet do? Peet was the true Throne Warden of Anniera. Would he suggest that Janner, Tink, and Leeli give themselves up after all that had been done to keep them alive and safe from Gnag the Nameless?

Janner didn’t think so.

Then he made a choice.

“Back up,” Janner whispered. He grabbed Tink’s elbow and Nugget’s collar and edged them backward.

“Janner, what are you doin’?” Podo asked. “We’re out of options here, lad. Oskar’s at the end of his rope, and the Blapp’s the only thing we’re running to.”

Oskar yawned and sat up. “To the contrary,” he said. “I’ve had quite the refreshing nap. And as I said earlier, I recall…” He adjusted his spectacles and looked north. “Podo, old boy, have you heard of Miller’s Bridge?”