“Fine. But if they’re really looking for you, you can’t stay in the quarry long. You know the guard dogs around here don’t understand the concept of ‘taking prisoners’ very well. Let’s go.”
Chapter 73
“So this is the fighting beast we never got to see,” Shiver blurted out with no attempt to hide his astonishment. “The owl holed this thing up at your school?”
“Not a thing,” Mauler snarled. He bared his teeth and advanced. Dreamer jumped between them.
“Alright, stop,” she said sharply to them both. “This is a church.” She took a minute to settle down, hoping the others would do the same.
There was little light other than that from the candles at the altar. The brick walls were lined with wooden shelves adorned with sculptures and symbols of Optera. The pastor, a willowy, brooding egret, stood in the corner, deep in conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Flaxer. The two boys were asleep in the beams of the ceiling, along with about twenty other birds. A few sheep lay on the floor or sat in the plain wooden pews, absorbed in prayer.
“Dad,” Dreamer started again, more calmly this time, “he’s not just for fighting. He’s actually really sweet. He saved me from Durdge and the clone dogs.”
Shiver looked skeptical but said nothing.
Dreamer chose to move on. “This is Ponder. She was being held prisoner by the leader of the Church, up in the mountains. Look at this. Ponder, show him your eyes.”
Ponder did not speak but complied with the request, letting her eyes light up violet.
“See, Dad? Our eyes match. And she can talk, she has psychic powers kind of like mine, and she already knows a lot about the world.”
“I don’t believe this.”
Dreamer paused to put aside her frustration before continuing. “And this is the one who took away my scars. His name is—”
“Yeah, I know exactly who you are. You’re the Trampler’s boy.”
Snapper nodded slowly.
Shiver gave the tiniest nod in return. “I’m sorry to hear about what happened to him. He taught me everything I know about combat. He was a good ram with some bad ideas.” He glanced between the two young sheep. “Thank you for fixing up her face. I know she really appreciates that. But she can’t be getting drawn up in… whatever this is. Trying to mess with the pigs only makes things worse for everyone. Look at what Boxer and the owl brought on themselves. Look at what Trampler brought on himself. Thank you for keeping her safe. Nice meeting you. Please leave.”
“Dad…” Dreamer ventured, “these two are here to do something great. Something really important. It’s not a coincidence that I met them. Especially Ponder. I thought maybe you would want to help us, because Boxer is your friend. You were there for the Canine-Avian War. You’ve seen the power of the pigs up close. Don’t you want a chance to make things better?”
“I don’t care,” Shiver snapped, his anger now rising. “Your safety is all that matters. I can’t have you getting cut up again, or worse.” He rounded on Ponder and Mauler. “You two want to do something great? Go back where you came from and leave everyone alone. Her life was about to get a lot better until you showed up.” He turned away and headed towards the rear exit of the church. “Come on, Dreamer. We’re finished here.”
Timid hooves followed Shiver out the door.
Chapter 74
Shiver got halfway down the street before he turned around to speak. “I’m glad you decided to listen to reason. You… wait, what do you think you’re doing?”
Snapper ducked his head. “Sir, you have a point. My father helped Caper and Boxer hide those two at the school. I felt like I needed to take care of them, so I shared too much with Dreamer. It’s my fault the dogs came to our school. It’s because of me that Boxer and Caper were captured. It’s on me to make it right again. I apologize for dragging Dreamer into this. That was not my intent at all.”
The ram didn’t answer, but his cold blue eyes searched Snapper’s face. The younger sheep took a long breath to calm his nerves before continuing.
“I wouldn’t ask you to come with us or risk your family’s safety. But I do want to be prepared for whatever they might send our way. My father never taught me to fight like a ram. Is there any way you could?”
Shiver scoffed. “There would be no point. For two reasons. First, you have no horns.”
Snapper sighed, touching his forehead. “My dad said I would never grow any.”
“You’d have some nubs by now if you were going to. But it doesn’t matter. Second reason is there’s no fighting to be done anymore. I know for a fact Trampler told you that, because he told it to me a long time ago.”
Snapper looked away.
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told your dad right before he died,” Shiver went on. “Keep away from my daughter. You’re trouble. Being around you won’t end well for her.”
“Alright,” Snapper said. “We’ll leave.” Dejected, he turned around and headed back inside the church. The others were still huddled in a tight group, speaking quietly. When he got close, Dreamer faced him.
“Good luck getting my dad to change his mind,” she said. “Listen, I think we figured out where we need to go. Ponder says—”
“He won’t change his mind,” Snapper cut in, “and he’s right.”
Dreamer’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“You were lucky to get away from this place once. I already put you back in danger. Your dad thinks you’d be safer here with him. It’s not my place to argue.” Snapper gritted his teeth. “I’ve made too many bad decisions lately. If you got hurt again because I got you involved with this mess, I would blame myself.”
Her beautiful eyes flared with sudden anger. “We all have to take a risk if we’re going to see this thing through. I worked hard to leave the quarry. I’m not staying.”
Snapper was not fazed. “We don’t even know what this ‘thing’ is. We came here to get help from your dad, but he won’t… or can’t. Where do we go next? If we keep just blundering around looking for an answer, we’re going to get caught. Then Ponder and Mauler will be back in the hands of the Chugg corporate machine and we will get bled out for some god.”
“If you’d listen to me for one second, you’d already know we have an answer. We have to head to—”
“Dreamer!” the voice of her father echoed across the church like a thunderclap. The ram bolted through the back door, swerving around a pew to reach them. “It’s too late! The guards went inside the house while we were here. They smell you. They’re coming!”
Chapter 75
The church burst into commotion. Awakened birds flew around the ceiling in a panic while the Flaxers snatched Ponder from the floor. Dreamer stayed in place. Mauler and Snapper headed for the back door.
“Not in the house of the Goddess!” the pastor sputtered.
Shiver grabbed Snapper by the shoulder. “Look, kid, we’re only going to get one chance. Don’t be stupid, don’t be a hero. Take Dreamer and go out through the front. Get over the wall and head south. I’ll stall them here. Whatever happens to me, don’t let her turn back. Hide in the woods.” The ram slipped back outside without waiting for an answer.
“You heard him,” Snapper said. “Let’s go. We’re getting out of here.”
“We can’t leave my dad!” Dreamer cried, starting to follow Shiver out the back. Mauler picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. Snapper pushed the front door open with his head and ran out into the street, Mauler and Ponder close behind. His hooves kicked up red dust clouds as he ran across the road. From around the back of the church, he could still hear Shiver trying to talk the dogs down.
“She’s not with them. She has nothing to do with—” Shiver was cut off by an uproar of snarling and snapping.
Dreamer began to scream and kick, pounding Mauler’s chest and neck with her hooves. “They’re attacking him! We have to go back!”
But they did not turn back. Snapper kept his eyes turned toward the staircase
just ahead that would take them over the wall. He was running too fast and too hard to avoid the creature stepping right into his path. Snapper ran headlong into a leg as thick as a tree trunk. Mauler skidded to a halt behind him. The Flaxers braked with their wings to slow down and hover, causing Ponder to swing forward and jolt them.
Snapper shook his head and looked up with mounting dread at the figure blocking his way.
Chapter 76
I’ve seen those green eyes before and so has Dreamer. It’s him. Scurvert. The pig that cut Dreamer… who killed Dad. He’s not nearly as big as I remember. Maybe all the nightmares have distorted my memory.
The smiling, bipedal pig dwarfed Snapper. “Don’t be in such a hurry to leave,” the pig said with a low, gravelly rasp. “In fact, you’re all invited back to my place.”
Snapper was paralyzed with fear. The Flaxers hung back with Ponder, unsure of what to do. Mauler’s eyes were on the guards running down single-file from the top of the stairs.
Shiver had been overwhelmed and was being dragged in the rust-colored dirt by six dogs. They pulled him through the cellar door at the side of Scurvert’s house. Dreamer broke free of the distracted Mauler’s grip and ran out in front of Snapper.
“Let my dad go!” she shouted at Scurvert. “He’s not involved with this!”
Scurvert’s eyes fell on Dreamer. His smile widened, showing a pair of tightly curled tusks. “Look who we have here,” he said. “Little Miss Dreamer, who’s been to my playroom before. You can tell them all how cozy it is.” He reached for her, producing his knife from his back pocket with his other hand.
In a sudden blind rage, Snapper lunged around Dreamer and buried his teeth in the giant hand. Scurvert roared with laughter.
Behind Snapper, Mauler bellowed and charged forward. The dogs coming down from the wall parted around Scurvert, ignoring the two sheep completely, and hit Mauler head-on. A second later he was rolling around with four dogs, a snarling ball of fur, teeth, and claws.
Dreamer turned and ran back toward the street, calling out for Ponder.
Scurvert effortlessly lifted Snapper up to his eye level, his face puckered with amused contempt as he regarded the sheep hanging by his jaws from his hand. “What, you think you’re a dog now? I’ve got enough of those running around this place. Get off me.” Scurvert shook his arm and Snapper hit the dirt.
The young sheep got his feet and looked at the giant pig, his eyes wild.
Scurvert snickered. “You got a lot of courage for a sheep.”
“You killed my father!” Snapper shouted.
A look of utter confusion crossed Scurvert’s face. “Your father?” Then his eyes went wide. “Oh yeah, him. The Old-Timer. He was nothing. In fact, you’re putting up more of a fight than he did.”
Mauler let out a furious roar and threw the dogs off, standing up to his full height. “This pig killed the Old-Timer!” he shrieked, eyes bulging. “The ram will be avenged!”
The six dogs that had arrested Shiver tackled Mauler. He was pulled down long enough for the other four dogs to get back on their feet. Suddenly it was ten on one.
“Not much fun, is it?” Scurvert cackled. “My men are real fighters. Not like those deformed red test-tube freaks Durdge likes to use.”
Snapper struck with everything he had, but Scurvert laughed off his head-butt and retaliated with his knife.
Staggering, bleeding from his cheek and ear, Snapper looked around him. Mauler was on the ground with ten dogs tearing into him. Shiver was imprisoned.
We’re not making it over that wall.
Chapter 77
“We have to go back and get my dad out!” Dreamer cried some twenty feet from the brawl, trying to contain her panic.
“He gave himself up so we would have a chance to escape,” Ponder fired back. “We should honor that. More dogs are approaching. I estimate we have thirty seconds before we are completely overrun.”
Dreamer shut her eyes and tried to focus. “I can’t do this. The thought of leaving him…”
“He fought in the war, yes? Then he has survived worse.”
“OK… OK. We need a distraction of some kind… a smoke screen.”
“I could use my ability to make our attackers panic, as I did before. But these dogs will need something extreme. I need a memory of shock or terror.”
“Well, I used to pick up memories of the War from my dad while he was sleeping…”
“That will do. Give me something. Anything.”
Dreamer brought her forehead to Ponder’s and called up the most vivid recollection of the Great War she could think of—a pig rocket exploding right next to her father’s position.
Ponder’s eyes began to glow. “Perfect. Prepare yourself, Dreamer.”
The overwhelming sensations from that memory, magnified in intensity by Ponder’s power, forced themselves back into Dreamer’s head. Her eyes stung, her ears pounded as if struck with hammers, and her body recoiled as she felt a flash of intense heat. Even though she had known it was coming, she had to grit her teeth and steel herself to keep moving.
With a unified yelp, the dogs pinned their ears back, ducked their heads, and abandoned their assault on Mauler. Scurvert also covered his long, pointed ears with his hands.
Dreamer ran into the fray and grabbed a tuft of Snapper’s wool. “Come on! They won’t be stunned for very long!”
Snapper took the lead. Dreamer followed him to the wall and up the stairs. Mauler was just a step behind them. Above, the Flaxers had already flown halfway up the height of the wall with Ponder in tow. More dogs were coming at them, but they were forced to approach in single file because of the narrow footpath at the top of the wall.
When the first dog reached the staircase, Mauler bounded over Snapper and Dreamer to defend them. He lowered his shoulder and sent the dog flying off the stairs. He did the same to a second and a third. Forced to face him one at a time, they had no way of stopping him. He easily cleared the path for the two sheep to run down the other side.
Their hooves hit the grass of the plains and they took off running, straight into dog territory.
Chapter 78
Snapper could hear the slavering breath and pounding feet of the dogs pursuing them. He and Dreamer reached the trees with the pack of dogs mere seconds behind them. Their pace was terrifyingly slowed as they found themselves trying to crash through underbrush and weave around tree trunks at the same time.
“They’re going to catch us,” Dreamer said with panic in her voice. “Even if we get ahead in here, they’ll never lose our scent.”
Mauler lengthened his stride and got between the two sheep. He picked them up, one in each hand, and swung them onto his back.
“Hold on,” he advised.
With incredible agility, he launched himself up the nearest tree, his entire body flexing as he grappled the trunk with his curved claws. He ascended to about thirty feet off the ground and began leaping from limb to limb. The two sheep feared they were going to be thrown off. They could feel Mauler’s powerful muscles working beneath his fur like hydraulic pistons.
Below them, the dogs fanned out to try to counter Mauler’s rapid changes in direction. Every now and then, one of them tried to jump up a tree after him and inevitably fell behind the pack. Little by little, the dogs were losing ground.
When Mauler was sure he had gained enough distance, he landed on a wide branch and came to a dead stop. He flattened himself against the trunk, pinning both sheep against the tree.
“Don’t move,” he whispered. “Don’t speak. No sound.”
Snapper could not have done either of those even if he had wanted to. With Mauler’s shoulder crushing his ribcage against the rough bark, he couldn’t take a breath.
The pursuers, what was left of them, noticed the sudden silence. They slowed down, sniffing the air and trying to quiet their heavy panting. For a few minutes there was no sound but the patter of the dogs’ paws against the sticks and leaves on the ground.
“Agreed. Go tell the General that the Mauler is on the loose in this area.”
“Yes, sir.”
The footsteps faded into the distance, but Snapper did not dare try to move.
Chapter 79
“I think they’re gone,” Snapper said after what must have been forty-five minutes of motionless waiting. “But everyone be quiet and keep their ears open, just in case.”
“I hope Ponder is alright,” Mauler whispered, sniffing the air. “I can’t see the sky.”
“The last I saw, the Flaxers carried her high above the tops of the trees,” Dreamer replied. “There’s no way those dogs could have caught them.”
Mauler’s wide eyes fixed on her. “I am still worried.”
“You need to catch your breath, big guy,” Snapper said. “Let us do the worrying. We’re going to plan our next move.”
Mauler gritted his teeth and sat down against the tree trunk. He folded his hands across his belly and scanned their surroundings.
Snapper took a minute to close up the cuts inflicted by Scurvert’s knife, then he climbed onto a slightly higher branch where he had room to lie down. Dreamer followed and settled down next to him, her body pressed close to his.
“I’m so worried about my dad,” Dreamer whispered. “Who knows what Scurvert is doing to him? He could be torturing him right now.”
Snapper sighed. “I know. Everywhere we go, someone gets arrested. Your dad was right, I’m trouble.”
“Well… I wouldn’t say you’re the one who attracts trouble,” Dreamer answered with a pointed look at Mauler.
“You don’t blame me for any of this?” Snapper asked. “I feel like I brought all this misery on everybody. If I’d just kept my mouth shut and left you out of it, we’d still be at school.”
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