by Kwame Mbalia
“What is it?” the Amagqirha asked.
“Anansi’s charm,” I said, wincing. “It’s—” My eyes went wide and I inhaled quickly. Before I could explain, however, a booming sound shook the mountain, sending bits of rock clattering down and the two of us stumbling. The pedestal with the Story Box began to sink into the floor, and a low rumble vibrated through the air.
“What’s going on?” I shouted.
The Amagqirha’s face had gone pale, and she gripped my wrist and tugged me to the door. “Something has activated the sentinels,” she said grimly. “We’re being attacked.”
THE RUMBLING CONTINUED AS WE ran back down the slope. I’d been worried the Amagqirha would lag behind, but I had to sprint to keep up as she scampered ahead, lifting her skirts so they wouldn’t drag. We tore around the curves, barely staying upright as tremors shook the mountain.
“What’s going on?” I shouted after a quake sent me staggering into the wall.
The Amagqirha hauled me upright. “Isihlangu is fighting back.”
A lump of fear grew in my throat. What could have the Ridge’s defenses going full throttle? Fetterlings? Even the bosslings wouldn’t stand a chance against the giant floating towers that guarded the foothills. They’d be smashed before they even got close.
So what could have broken through a mountain nicknamed the Shield?
Something in me still hoped it was all just a false alarm. I mean, we’d triggered a warning boom when we snuck inside. Maybe some other group of desperate Midfolk had come for the Story Box.
Yeah, right.
We finally arrived back at the central chamber, which was in chaos. People ran left and right, searching for kieries and forebears while trying to avoid overturned tables and chairs. Guards whizzed by overhead as they raced to their posts. Children grabbed younger siblings and fled to the safety of their homes, where stone doors slammed shut and sealed themselves in bursts of silver light.
“Tristan!”
Ayanna and Thandiwe crouched behind a makeshift barricade of food-splattered tables. Gum Baby stood on top of one, screaming insults at the would-be intruders, while Chestnutt nervously recited iron-monster stats over and over. Nyame’s empty Story Box rested next to them, as dull and dingy as ever. I sprinted over to them and dropped to the ground.
“Where have you been, you—?”
The Amagqirha dropped down next to us, and whatever insult Ayanna was going to fling at me dissolved into a grudging tone. “Just…don’t scare us like that. One minute we were eating together, and the next you were gone and the mountain started shaking.”
“The Amagqirha said it could be some of the rock lasers,” I said.
The old lady looked at Thandiwe, who nodded, then chewed her lip. “She’s right,” said the Ridge warrior. “But it’s not just some of them. All the sentinels activated at once. Whatever’s out there is big. Real big.”
As if her words signaled the next stage in the assault, the giant stone double doors to the chamber shuddered as something crashed against them. People started screaming, and Thandiwe scowled and pulled her kierie and spear free. Ayanna slipped her staff out of its holster—at some point the Ridge guards had returned her weapon/rudder to her.
And me?
Why, I had a fancy bracelet!
The expression on my face must’ve been a doozy, because Thandiwe chuckled and held out her club to me.
“Here,” she said. “Try to be useful.”
I started to take it, then thought of something. “No, I’m good.”
She frowned as I pulled out the gloves John Henry had given me. When I put them on, the hammer symbol above the knuckles flared bright. I smiled at Thandiwe. “Better stick with what I know best.”
She raised an eyebrow, then turned away. I let the smile fade, but the words stuck with me. I was good at boxing. The conviction surprised me, but I honestly believed that whatever came next, I could face it with both fists raised.
BOOM!
The main entrance doors sagged inward. Something huge moved around outside—I caught glimpses of it in the growing cracks. Large, determined, and angry. A giant three-fingered hand made of rotted wood and rusty metal appeared at the edge of the door. It tore away a chunk of stone, like a three-year-old grabbing a piece of cake, and hurled it inside.
I flinched as the boulder bounced near us with a floor-rattling crash. “What is that out there?!”
“I don’t know,” Thandiwe whispered, her face tight. “Let’s hope the guards can—”
A fist slammed through, widening the hole, and the screech of a thousand chains scraping together stabbed our ears, forcing everyone to hunch over and grab their skulls.
“We should sneak out the way we came in!” Ayanna shouted. She pointed halfway up the mountain wall, toward the tunnel to the tram. “We’re not going to make a difference in this fight. We can get a head start and be back with Nyame before these beasts even know we left. Thandiwe, you can come with us.”
Thandiwe grimaced. She didn’t look fond of the idea of letting her kinfolk fight without her, but she didn’t argue, either. It made all the sense in the world. We could slip away and be that much closer to saving MidPass. That was the whole goal, right? Right?
And yet…
“No,” I said, glancing at the Amagqirha. “We can’t.”
“What do you mean ‘we can’t’?” asked Ayanna. “Tristan, this is our chance.”
Chestnutt piped up. “She’s right. If we don’t get out now, we might be stuck here.”
I shook my head. “No. We can’t just leave them when they’re in trouble. They helped us, and—”
“Maybe you should go,” Thandiwe cut in. I looked at her in surprise and she gripped her kierie and spear tight. “The Ridge can hold. It will be tough, but my people can fight them off. Your people need you.”
“No!” I shook my head. “We don’t abandon friends.”
Ayanna groaned. “Why do you have to be a hero at the worst possible time?”
More hammering and scraping at the door interrupted the discussion. I swallowed, then turned to the Amagqirha. “You should head somewhere safe. And take Nyame’s empty Story Box—just in case.”
She studied me, then nodded. “I will keep it with…what I showed you. It will be safer there.” She grabbed the ratty crate and trotted toward the ramp to the Atrium. After a few steps she turned. “There is strength in not fighting, Tristan. Remember that.” And then she kept going.
A loud roar blasted outside the hall, and with a final punch, the doors collapsed into piles of rubble. Fetterlings swarmed in.
“Here they come!” I yelled. “Watch out for the big…whatever it is.” But it still hadn’t made it into the chamber.
“One thing at a time,” Thandiwe said.
“Right.” I ducked as a fetterling leaped over me, then I smashed it to smithereens with a right cross. “Just let me know when I need to focus on the thing with a hand the size of a car.”
A group of fetterlings sprinted across the open floor toward Thandiwe and me as we protected our friends and other people crouched behind the overturned table. I balled my fists and dropped into my stance, but before I could swing again, Thandiwe shouted and smacked three clear across the room with her club. Another tried to snake around the edge of the table, but Ayanna’s staff, flaring with golden light, struck out and jabbed it in the collar until it disintegrated into a tinkle of blackened fragments.
A cheer went up as the last fetterling was pinned by a Ridge guard’s spear. I didn’t join in. This wasn’t over—not by a long shot.
“Hey!” Gum Baby shouted. “Is that it? Save some glory for Gum Baby! Y’all being greedy.”
As soon as she spoke, a face—if you could call it that—lowered itself to the doorway, and I shivered at the twisted mouth of splintered wooden planks and knotted chains. It roared, and the smell of fishy water made my stomach heave. The good news was that the creature looked too huge to enter the room. How it had g
otten into the mountain at all was beyond me. The bad news was that another wave of fetterlings swept through underneath it, followed by a bossling. I groaned. “You had to open your little big mouth.”
Gum Baby grinned from ear to drawn-on ear. “You just stay behind Gum Baby and hush. Gum Baby’ll keep you safe.” She flipped in the air to land on the back of a charging fetterling, pulled its snapping manacle-hands behind its head, and used them as reins. “Wahoo! Gum Baby’s on the move!”
“Be careful!” I shouted, and then I had to lurch aside as two fetterlings snapped at my wrists. By the time I had smashed the first one and launched the second into the air with my fists, Gum Baby and her mount were galloping around firing sap balls at anything that moved.
The monstrosity outside the door tried to claw a bigger opening, while inside, the bossling alternated between harassing half a dozen Ridge guards and clearing rubble from the doorway. If the two of them succeeded…
“Princess!” A guard coasted off of a rail to a floating stop a foot or so above the ground, his forebear humming as he balanced on it. “The Shield forces have been summoned. We only need to hold off the enemy for a few more minutes.”
Thandiwe nodded, and the guard flew off to join a squadron that was buzzing around the bossling’s head, hammering blows that didn’t seem to faze the monster.
“Princess?” I asked.
“Drop it,” she said. She pulled her forebear off her wrist and switched it from a shield to its normal hover mode. She stepped on, then beckoned me to join her.
“Come,” Thandiwe said.
I took a look at the board. “Nah.”
“Now, Tristan. We have to hold until the Shield forces get here. If that…creature keeps digging, we don’t stand a chance.”
Gum Baby galloped past, still riding her fetterling and whooping and hollering.
I growled, then grabbed Thandiwe’s outstretched hand and climbed aboard. “All right, but you’d better take it”—the board shot forward onto the nearest rail, and I barely had time to catch my balance—“sloooooooooow!”
We climbed high into the air, weaving in and out of stalactites hanging from the rocky ceiling, and I mumbled prayers in seven different languages as we circled the inside of Isihlangu on its glittering spiral rails. The great hall of the fortress swirled with action, and from our vantage point we could see it all. Ridgefolk fled up the circular paths that spiraled around the walls, trying to get inside their homes before fetterlings caught them. Guards rode forebears like professional skateboarders, shifting the Alkean hoverboards from rail to rail so fast Tony Hawk would’ve been jealous. The bossling clambered atop the stone stage in the middle of the room and screeched.
We had to do something, or we’d be overrun. I pointed at the link of chain just below the bossling’s manacle-head.
“There!” I shouted. “We have to hit it there—it’s a weak spot!”
Thandiwe whistled, and the Ridge guards peeled away from the iron monster and fell into formation behind her, everyone lining up on the same rail. She pointed to me. “Follow his lead. Where he strikes, we strike. Understood?”
“Yes, Princess,” they all shouted, and I raised an eyebrow.
“Focus,” she growled, handing me her club, “and get ready. We attack…now!”
The forebear dove, and I shouted a war cry. It sounded heroic, but honestly, it was a shriek of terror. Everyone was counting on me, though, so I gripped the kierie in one hand, held on to Thandiwe with the other, and when the bossling reared in front of us, I swung with all my might.
CLANG!
My arms shook with the impact. We whizzed by, arcing back up into the air, and the guards followed my attack with their own.
“Again!” I shouted over the whooshing air. “It’s still standing.”
We dove again and again, preventing the bossling from focusing on the doorway. It screeched and swiped at us. One of its chains clipped a guard, and he fell screaming to the floor. Another swipe sent two more spiraling down, and all of a sudden it was just Thandiwe and me.
But the bossling had suffered, too. It ignored the door completely and wobbled on its coiled chains. Down on the floor, Ayanna and a stunt-riding Gum Baby were holding off a swarm of fetterlings, but more were entering. They surrounded the defenses and hemmed my friends in.
“We need to hurry,” Thandiwe shouted. “Ayanna is in trouble!”
“One more attack should do it,” I said, determined to end this. “It’s reeling. If we can—”
But I never got to finish the sentence.
The doors buckled inward, and the wooden beams of the frame groaned like they were holding too much weight. In an explosion of dust and rock, the largest iron monster I’d ever seen bulled its way through the collapsed doorway, trampling the injured bossling in the process.
SOME THINGS JUST SHOULDN’T EXIST.
You get me?
This creature, man…this creature was a collection of rot on four legs. Yes, four legs. Plus two huge arms that scraped the stone floor as it moved into the hall. Its extremities were soggy wooden beams intertwined with metal shackles, the iron restraints lining its limbs like veins. A piece of a thick mast served as a head, with crooked eyes made of rusted iron spars. The torso, a huge warped frame of an old ship, shook and sloshed as it walked and dribbled a wet green trail of algae behind it. It was the size of an elephant and just as intimidating.
And the smell. Holy moly.
Swamps, dead fish, sweat, dirty toilets, and straight-up-and-down funk. It washed over us and I heard more than a few people dry-heaving and vomiting, including some guards on their forebears.
“What is that thing?” Thandiwe gasped, holding her nose.
“I…I don’t know, but we need to regroup,” I said.
“Yes…yes, I think you’re right.”
We quickly descended, and before the forebear reached the floor, I hopped off and skidded to a stop next to Ayanna.
The monster lumbered to the middle of the room, flinging guards aside left and right. It kept one hand on its bloated chest, but the other smashed people, pillars, and furniture alike. It slammed the ground twice with one fist, then let out a roar that nearly blew us across the hall.
Gum Baby rode her fetterling up to us, flipped off of it, then pummeled the iron monster with sap. She pointed at the giant creature and said, “Y’all gonna handle that, or do Gum Baby gotta do everything?”
Ayanna ignored her and turned to me. “We still have time. We can slip out of the tram tunnel—the raft is up there.”
I hesitated, then shook my head. “No, we can’t leave until reinforcements come. The monsters will rip this place apart.”
“No, see, I’ve been thinking. What if they’re following us?”
I ripped my eyes away from the monster, which was batting at the Ridge warriors near its head like they were gnats, and looked at Ayanna. “What?”
“The fetterlings, the bosslings, now this thing—what if they’re following us?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and grabbed my arm. “We’d be helping by leaving! Right?”
“But why would they—?”
“Because we’re trying to stop them, because you’re an Anansesem, because they hate us, I don’t know! But it makes sense.”
Thandiwe started to back up. “I think…I think we should—”
“Got it!” Chestnutt broke in. She hopped over on her hind legs and held up a single sheet of paper. “I found a list of monsters in Anansi’s notes. I think I know what this is.”
We all huddled behind a chipped stone table, most of its jewels shattered or missing, and listened as our bunny spy gave us the lowdown.
“Made of rotted wood and abandoned shackles,” she read aloud. “Bound by rotten malevolence—”
“Eleven what?” Gum Baby asked.
“MALEVOLENCE! Evil! Bound by rotten malevolence, and carriers of disease via their…Oh no.” Chestnutt looked up and gulped. “Carriers of disease via the brand fli
es infesting their bodies. Hullbeasts.”
Ayanna panicked. “Brand flies? Did you say brand flies? Tristan, we need to get out of here. We need to go right now!”
I licked my lips. “Okay. Okay, let’s—”
A deafening croak filled the hall. The monster—the hullbeast—cupped its free three-fingered hand around its wide mouth and croaked again. Something flew out into the air and hovered above everyone. A buzzing sound filled the room.
Chestnutt hopped into Ayanna’s arms and shouted, “Watch out! It’s a scout fly! Once it locks on to you, the whole brood—”
The scout fly shot up, then dove like a falcon straight at us. It hovered a few feet away. Two metal antennae waggled at us—no, it waggled at me—and started to whine.
And when I say whine, I don’t mean like your little cousin when she’s complaining you won’t let her give you a makeover. I mean like a mosquito buzzing past your ear. But think of a mosquito the size of an eagle. And made of rusty metal.
Getting the picture?
I finally understood why the gods hadn’t been able to get near the burning tear. With swarms of these things filling the sky, they’d not only have to worry about getting scorched by the fire, they’d also have to watch their backs for prehistorically large poison bugs.
Wonderful.
The whining sound filled the hall, and Ayanna tugged at my arm. “Now, Tristan! We need to leave now!”
We all took off running for the ramp, but then I felt a tingling in my hands, and I stopped to look behind us.
The giant iron monster opened its mouth wide—wider than a mouth should ever, ever open—and it bellowed, allowing a maelstrom of brand flies dripping with green venom to erupt from its mouth.
Not toward me, though. Toward Ayanna.
“No!” I shouted.
Horrendous screams filled the mountain. The metal bugs swarmed like bees at a picnic. Everywhere a brand fly landed, skin sizzled and welted. Victims tried to peel the flies off, but whatever type of poison those flying iron monsters carried, it was potent. After a few feeble attempts to free themselves, the Ridgefolk crumpled to the floor, paralyzed. Fetterlings snapped cuffs around their wrists and ankles and tugged them out the door. The hullbeast scooped up more by the fistful and dropped them into its swollen torso.