Battle Born

by Amie Kaufman

  His legs were sticking out behind it, and that was how he knew Ellukka—who so often used her strength to solve problems—had thrown herself at the creature. She wrapped her arms around the arm that held Anders, digging her heels into the ground, trying desperately to drag it to a stop, or at least slow it down.

  Its step caught and it nearly stumbled, and for a moment it seemed as though she might succeed.

  Then it shook itself impatiently, throwing her aside so she crashed into the rock wall.

  “Now, Sam,” she screamed from somewhere behind Anders. “Do it! Do it now!”

  Anders wriggled and twisted again, and he caught a glimpse of Ellukka dragging herself to her feet, still dazed from the impact with the wall. With a few quick, stumbling steps, she ran ahead of the artifact warrior, but before Anders had time to understand or even really wonder what she was doing, something crashed into it from behind.

  Sam had driven the firewood cart into the warrior’s legs with all his strength, and it toppled backward, still holding tight to Anders, firewood scattering everywhere as they came to rest atop the cart.

  Sam, his face grim with determination, kept pushing the cart as hard as he could, and his momentum carried him a little way despite its weight. Ahead, Ellukka had yanked open a door, and with one final shove, Sam pushed the cart, the artifact warrior, and Anders straight through the doorway, making a grab for Anders’s hand as he did.

  Anders locked one hand onto Sam’s and grabbed at the doorframe with the other, trying desperately to free himself from the warrior so the others could slam the door. He could hear its internal gears clanking and grinding as it tried to climb out of the cart and back to its feet.

  It moved its arm, and for one glorious moment, Anders was free of it.

  Then its hand clamped down on his ankle with an iron grip, holding him so tight that Anders wondered for a terrifying moment if it was going to pull his foot off.

  Ellukka was shouting something, ready to slam the door closed, but he couldn’t understand her. He gave one kick, and then another, and finally her words penetrated.

  “Transform,” she was screaming. “Change, Anders!”

  In a flash, on instinct, he did as she said, throwing himself into his wolf form. And as he did, his leg became thinner and slipped free of the artifact warrior’s grasp. He hurled himself out the door, landing on top of Sam, and Ellukka slammed it closed behind him, turning the lock with a loud click.

  Without any need for consultation, all three of them turned to run back toward the entrance hall and the fireplace, Anders not even bothering to slip back into human form until they had stumbled out to the surprised group preparing for dinner.

  Jai and Det lifted the cooking pot away from the flames, and all the others gathered around Anders, Ellukka, and Sam as they gasped out their story, adding details, trying to make sense of what had happened.

  “We didn’t ask Cloudhaven for directions,” Anders said, still panting for breath, his heart refusing to slow down. “We knew the way to the firewood room. We didn’t need them. Maybe that’s why it didn’t know we were there. There wasn’t a path.”

  In the end, it was decided that they couldn’t simply leave the artifact where it was. They banded together as a group, fifteen of them, wolves, dragons, and humans, making their way back inside, leaving some of the others to guard their newest arrivals.

  They armed themselves as best they could with what they found in the rooms along the way, but when they reached the place where they had imprisoned the artifact, the door was still locked.

  Ellukka opened it slowly and lifted her lamp, shining a light inside.

  The room was completely empty, save for the broken red wagon and the scattered firewood. Apart from that it didn’t contain a stick of furniture, not even a rug on the ground. There was no sign at all of where the warrior had gone.

  A few of them stepped inside, shining their lamps around as though it might suddenly emerge from a crack in the walls, and they were about to leave again when Theo suddenly dropped to a crouch, brushing at the dust on the floor.

  “Look here,” he said, “these cracks, they’re a square.”

  “He’s right,” said Mateo. “This is a trapdoor. This piece of rock, it should lift out somehow.”

  But try as they might, they couldn’t work out how to budge it. It didn’t have a ring sunk into it, and the crack around the edge was too narrow for even the smallest of them to get their fingers inside, so it was impossible to imagine the artifact warrior wedging its giant hands in. If this was where the warrior had gone, then it must have had some way to open the trapdoor that they couldn’t understand.

  “I have a question,” said Mikkel as they puzzled over it. “Even if we could open this trapdoor, is that really what we want to do? I mean, if we’re right, the warrior’s down there. Are we sure we could win a fight against it?”

  And the truth was, nobody was sure of that at all.

  In the end, they locked the door again, retreated back to the fire, and made new rules. No one was to go inside Cloudhaven except in a large group. Nobody was to sleep in the bedrooms inside Cloudhaven. They would retrieve the mattresses and drag them out to lay them around the fire, sleeping in the entrance hall, as they had done at the beginning. They would make sure guards were always awake and on duty.

  Nobody complained.

  Soon Ferdie was singing as they set up the new camp, and Sakarias chased some of the smallest children around the fire, eliciting squeals of delight.

  They all made the best of it, and Anders was so proud of them for that. But deep down, he felt they had taken yet another step back. This place had felt a little safer, like a base from which they could try to make everywhere else safer as well. And now it wasn’t safe at all.

  It made him ask himself if anywhere they went, if anything they did, would ever be enough. And he didn’t know the answer to his own question.

  Chapter Seven

  THE NEXT DAY, ANDERS WAS ONE OF THE MEMBERS of an expedition to the camp outside Holbard.

  He was looking forward to it, in part because it would be a chance to see Hayn in person rather than just speaking to him through the communicator mirror.

  But he had another idea as well. Before he left, he traded some of his clothes, swapping with the others until he was dressed in the fanciest-looking outfit he could manage. Rayna looked him up and down admiringly, then snickered. “You look like someone rich,” she teased him. “Just goes to show, looks can be deceiving.”

  Lisabet was watching him, though, frowning faintly. “You know what else he looks like,” she said. “He looks a little like a boy who was on a wanted poster just recently. We’ve been keeping a low profile around the camp until now, but dressed like that, you’ll draw more attention. If you’re going to do that, you should take precautions.” She went up on her toes and pulled Ferdie’s knitted hat from his head, walking over to pull it on over Anders’s curls. “That’s a little better,” she said. “The posters weren’t up for long. You don’t have to look that different.”

  Anders hoped she was right, and gave the hat an extra tug to pull it down a little farther as they prepared to take off.

  Hayn had hiked out to the meadow to meet them where they usually landed—or, more likely, he had transformed into a wolf and enjoyed the run instead—and they all had a chance to talk to him as they made their way back in toward the camp. He slung an arm around Anders’s shoulders and found something to say to each member of the group.

  He reported that he was still coming and going, watching the wolves’ camp from the outskirts without letting them see him, and spending some time at the human camp as well. Just as he concealed himself from the wolves, though, he also concealed himself from the humans—it was just that in their case, all he had to do was stay in his human form and make sure he wore nothing that looked like an Ulfar uniform.

  When they reached the camp, Jerro, Theo, and a girl they’d rescued last trip, called Zil, peel
ed away to search the darker, muddier areas of the camp and see if there were any children who needed help.

  Ferdie, who was visiting on medical duty, headed off with Sam, who had come to act as his assistant. Now that the camp facilities were slowly becoming more organized, Ferdie had to pretend that he was a doctor’s assistant himself, because nobody would take someone his age seriously. But he was still able to do quite a lot, and particularly for the people in the camp who weren’t willing to visit the medical tents, or weren’t well enough to go.

  “That just leaves us,” Hayn said to Anders. “You look like you have a plan in mind. What do you want to do?”

  Anders grinned—Hayn was learning to read his expression far more quickly than he’d have expected. But then again, their faces were so similar, perhaps it was simply like reading his own.

  “I want to get a closer look at the mayor,” he said. “If any of this is going to be fixed, if anything’s going to change, then the mayor as the head of the humans, Professor Ennar as the head of the wolves, and Leif and the Dragonmeet will all have to be willing to talk to each other. And the mayor’s the one I know least about. I have to figure out what he’s like if I’m going to make it happen.”

  “We can certainly try,” Hayn agreed. “The mayor isn’t likely to be interested in talking to you without a reason—you’re a child, and he’s a very busy man. I’m guessing that’s where I come in.”

  “I’ll have a better chance with you,” Anders agreed.

  “Well,” said his uncle, “you’re the one with a lifetime of clever plans behind you. Tell me what you have in mind.”

  Anders liked that that was the way Hayn thought of it—a lifetime of clever plans—when he could have so easily looked down on Anders. So many people had no time at all for the children of Holbard’s streets, saw them only as pests to be chased away. But Hayn seemed to find something to admire in his and Rayna’s survival.

  Anders and his uncle took up a position near the front of the mayor’s tent. It was easily the largest in the camp, the canvas walls sturdy, the guy ropes taut. Anders was fairly sure that it was the only place that remained dry when the rain swept through.

  Just like the first day they visited, there were long lines of people snaking up to the tables that were set outside the tent, waiting their turn to make a request or lodge a complaint. The mayor had clearly given up on hearing them personally, and now the tables were manned by aides instead.

  “There’s always more people waiting to speak to someone,” Anders said quietly. “Have any of their requests been answered yet?”

  “I don’t think so,” Hayn replied. “But the line is so long, nobody’s made it to the front twice. So they can’t exactly come back to complain about it, can they?”

  Anders watched the harried clerk, who did at least seem to be listening to the woman at the front of the line and jotting down notes. The stack of papers beside him was growing perilously tall, and when a breeze blew through the camp, it swayed—he had to grab at it to stop it from toppling over into the mud.

  It looked like Anders’s idea was going to work. He pulled Hayn down so he could whisper in his uncle’s ear, and after a short conference, Hayn strode confidently up to the clerk’s desk.

  “They sent me out to bring these inside,” he said, reaching for the pile of papers. “Looks like I’m just in time.”

  The clerk turned his head to look up at Hayn, frowning for a moment, because, of course, he didn’t recognize him. But Hayn simply shuffled the giant stack of papers into place and hefted it into his arms. Anders had told him, Nine-tenths of it is acting like you’re meant to be there, and Hayn had clearly taken his advice to heart. After a long moment, the clerk simply nodded and added his current piece of paper to the stack.

  “Please send someone out here to relieve me,” he said plaintively. “Tell them I haven’t had a break in hours.”

  Hayn promised he would and turned away, pausing to let Anders take some of the stack so they could each carry a pile of papers into the tent.

  Beyond the flap there was a table surrounded by a mismatched collection of chairs, with a series of rugs on the ground to keep away the worst of the mud, and along one wall sat stack after stack of paperwork. It was clear that once the requests and complaints came inside this tent, nobody touched them.

  Anders felt terrible for the people who had spent days lining up to lodge them, but as someone who had spent most of his life trying to get his hands on things he needed, he was also privately impressed that the mayor’s aides had managed to find this much paper.

  The mayor, who was a tall, skinny man with light-brown skin and thinning black hair, was running one hand over his bald spot, as if intent on removing the last of his hair.

  His assistants were all keeping out of the way while he talked to a short, muscular woman with gray hair clipped close to her head. She had her back to them, and Hayn and Anders took up a position by the door, so as not to interrupt, or worse, be spotted and told to leave.

  “I hope you’re not expecting me to listen to you while you’re using that tone of voice,” the mayor was saying to the woman, running his hand agitatedly across his hair again.

  Anders had watched the mayor stand silently next to Sigrid at the monthly Trial of the Staff for years—the man wasn’t used to standing up for himself. The attention had always been on the Fyrstulf. She had been the one who gave the speeches. She had been the one who commanded the ceremony. The wolves had run things in Holbard all Anders’s life. But it sounded like the mayor was finally using some of his authority.

  “Your people threw rocks!” the woman snapped, and both Anders and his uncle froze in place at the sound of her voice.

  That wasn’t just any woman. That was Professor Ennar. She wasn’t wearing her Ulfar uniform, but there was no mistaking her. She was Hayn’s friend, and had been Anders’s combat teacher. She was a famous wolf warrior—during the last great battle, she and her wife had defended a whole section of the city wall by themselves for a full hour. The wolves still told the story ten years later. She’d led Anders’s class on a rescue mission to Drekhelm when she’d thought he and Lisabet were in danger. She was fierce and big-hearted, but she was still a wolf, which meant she’d still see both of them as traitors.

  Anders spun around and pretended to busy himself tidying the stacks of paper along the back wall of the tent, head down, and after a second Hayn caught on and joined him.

  “I can’t be responsible for what every one of my people does,” the mayor replied firmly. “You’ve just been telling me you can’t be held responsible for the wolves who started the battle, so I’m sure you understand my point of view.”

  “I understand that what’s happening is unacceptable,” Ennar replied, with a growl in her voice. “I have students with me at our camp, they’re just children. And they have human families, you know.”

  “Unacceptable? Who are you to decide that? Where’s your leader?” the mayor demanded. “Where’s Sigrid?”

  “That’s wolf business,” Ennar snapped. Anders glanced sideways at Hayn, who grimaced. Anders was sure that Ennar was avoiding answering because she didn’t know where Sigrid was.

  “If you want us to trust you, then—”

  “Trust us?” Ennar growled. “You should thank us!”

  “For destroying the city?”

  “For saving as many people as we did!”

  “Listen,” said the mayor, managing a hint of a growl himself. “The dragons weren’t attacking us. They were attacking you. When we rebuild Holbard, it’ll be a city for humans. If there aren’t any wolves within our walls, the dragons will leave us alone.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Ennar breathed. “You’ve lost your minds if you think you can protect yourselves. And where do you suggest we go? Holbard is our home!”

  “Holbard was your home,” the mayor corrected her. “It’s not there anymore, because you and the dragons destroyed it.”

  Ennar didn’t re
ply, but a moment later Anders heard her footsteps as she stalked past him, and then the tent flaps fell back into place behind her.

  Slowly, carefully, Anders and Hayn turned to face the mayor. He was still studying the way Ennar had gone, but then his gaze shifted across to Hayn, and he blinked.

  “I didn’t see you come in,” he said, making a visible effort to pull himself together, standing up a little straighter. He sighed softly and sank down into his chair. “You can’t be serious. You haven’t brought more requests?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir,” said Hayn. “The line outside is still very long. And your clerk is asking for someone else to come take a turn hearing the complaints.”

  “Don’t they know we don’t have any power to help them?” the mayor demanded. “There’s not a secret stockpile of food in here. What could we possibly give them?” There was a kind of desperation to his tone, and he looked at Hayn as if he really might answer him.

  Anders looked around at the unpatched walls of the tent, at the rugs on the floor, at the furniture, at the remains of the meal he could see on the table. If the mayor thought this was hardship, what would he think of the worst parts of the camp? Did he even know what was happening out there?

  “Herro Mayor,” Anders began, before he even knew that he meant to speak to the man. He’d only intended to learn more about him, but now he found that wasn’t enough.

  The mayor blinked and leaned sideways to see better around Hayn, studying Anders as though he had only just realized he was there. “Who is this child?” he asked, in the same voice that some people would say, What is this insect?

  “My assistant,” said Hayn.

  Anders had a lot of experience sensing when he was about to be thrown out of somewhere, and he could hear it in the mayor’s voice now. He knew exactly what Rayna would do, and quickly, he tried it.