North! Or Be Eaten

by Andrew Peterson

  “Go on, then,” he said under his breath when she had disappeared into the forest. “I don’t need you.”

  Janner made sure the fire was out, then shouldered the two packs, took a look around, and realized he didn’t know which way was north. The sky was overcast, and as hard as he tried, he could see no clear shadow. He tried to remember which way they had come, but every direction looked the same.

  Something moved in the woods not far away.

  “Maraly?” Janner said timidly.

  He heard the noise again, a snap of twigs.

  “Is that you?” he said.

  A quill diggle hissed and burst from behind a nearby tree. It skittered toward him and turned to sling its quills.

  Janner fumbled for his sword, but the second pack over his shoulder bumped the hilt out of reach. The quills vibrated and the diggle made a clicking sound with its mouth, a sign it was about to strike. Janner forgot his sword and ducked behind the tree just as the quills flew. Hundreds of them stuck into the trunk, and four of them sank into his calf.

  “Ow!”

  The diggle chattered on the other side of the trunk, then dashed around the tree and turned to strike again. Janner ran back to his pack, drew his sword, and spun around.

  But the diggle was already dead.

  Maraly leaned against the tree, still picking her teeth with the bird bone, holding the dead diggle by the leg. Her dagger protruded from its throat.

  “I would’ve killed it,” Janner sputtered.

  “Sure ye would’ve.”

  “Just caught me by surprise is all.”

  “Sure it did.” She pointed at his leg. “Better get those out quick, or you’ll be sick as a dead dog.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly nauseous, Janner staggered backward, tripped, and landed on his rump.

  Maraly removed the quills, which hurt much worse than Janner thought it would, and put a poultice of spit and ashes over the wounds. She pulled him to his feet.

  “So where are ye headed then?”

  “The Ice Prairies.” His cheeks burned.

  “All right.”

  And they were off.

  They traveled north for an hour. Twice Maraly calmly told Janner to get into the nearest tree just as a toothy cow charged past. Janner never heard them coming, and he thought each time how glad he was that Maraly was with him. He would never have made it this far alone.

  When they reached the stream, they dropped to all fours and drank deep from the clear water. After they filled the water skins, Maraly cleaned and inspected Janner’s diggle wounds.

  “You’ll be fine,” she said. “Now listen. The Barrier is just over the next rise. Don’t know the last time I seen a Fang patrol this far east, but keep watch anyhow. There ain’t no breach, but there’s enough trees that we can climb right over. Once we’re past the wall, the goin’ ought to be easy enough. Until we get to the mountains, that is. Do ye have a map or somethin’?”

  Janner showed her the instructions on the letter, and she nodded.

  Just over the next rise, he got his first glimpse of the Barrier.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but he was far from impressed. He was only twelve, and he felt he could’ve done a better job than the Fangs had done. The logs that made up the Barrier were roughly hewn, and some still had branches sticking out at odd angles. They were of uneven lengths, different sizes and kinds of trees. It looked as if the Fangs had built the wall in a day, with blindfolds on.

  And yet, it was a wall. It stood between them and the foothills of the Stony Mountains and indeed made it much more difficult to travel that way, so it accomplished exactly what the Fangs intended.

  If the wall hadn’t been so rickety and tall, it might have been easy to climb up one side and down the other. But as Maraly had said, the Barrier wound through Glipwood Forest, so they took to the trees. They climbed an oak, scooted along a fat limb that hung over the wall, then down another tree. As simple as that, they were on the other side.

  From Pembrick’s Creaturepedia

  There wasn’t a Fang in sight.

  Janner and Maraly sat with their backs against the Barrier and rested.

  “Have you been to this side before?” he asked.

  “Nope. This is new territory for me.”

  “You don’t have to come with me, you know.”

  Maraly nodded. “I know I don’t. But what else am I gonna do?”

  “You can’t go back?”

  “I could.”

  “But you don’t want to.”

  “Nope.”

  They sat in silence.

  “Sorry about Kalmar,” Maraly said.

  Janner said nothing. He had been trying not to think about his brother. He was angry at himself for failing him. He had failed everyone. If he and Maraly made it safely to the Ice Prairies, how would he face his mother? Podo? Leeli? How would he explain to them that he had lost Tink to the Carriage?

  Then his anger turned toward Tink—Tink, who had run straight past the Strander burrow and to the scoundrels of the East Bend. Straight to Claxton Weaver!

  “Let’s go,” Janner growled, and he stormed away from Maraly.

  They walked in silence all morning and into the afternoon. The hills steepened and trees grew sparser. A north wind snaked over the land and howled at the children, as if warning them they were unwelcome. The air grew colder with every step, and Janner began to worry about keeping warm. The gray sky hinted at the coming winter, not to mention the cold north. They would have to find skins or thicker clothing if they were to survive. Maraly didn’t seem concerned, however, which gave Janner hope that perhaps she knew something he didn’t about finding warm clothing. She seemed to know a lot of things Janner didn’t.

  Her dagger provided their food. Whenever a flabbit or thwap or diggle ran across their path, she flung her blade faster than Janner could blink. Each time, they stopped so she could clean the meat and store it in a satchel until they stopped for the night.

  Once, she grabbed Janner by the elbow to stop him. She held a finger to her lips and pointed at a slight depression in the ground, no bigger than a wagon wheel. She crept to the edge of the circle, slid her fingers beneath a sort of lid, and flung it open. With a great croaking and belching, an enormous bumpy digtoad leapt from its nest and slopped away into the woods. Maraly fell onto her back, howling with laughter at the look of surprise on Janner’s face.

  Toward the end of the day, Janner and Maraly climbed a slope that seemed to go on forever. The hill was barren but for one leafless elm at the top. Maraly pointed at the tree.

  “It’s a snickbuzzard,” she said.

  Janner wasn’t sure he believed her at first. Nothing in the tree moved. Then a black shape at the top spread its wings and adjusted its position.

  “Is it dangerous?” Janner said.

  “Yeah,” she said, “but there’s just one.” And she charged it.

  Janner watched helplessly as the snickbuzzard swooped down at the girl. She screamed as she ran. When the bird dove, she dropped into a roll and the snickbuzzard’s talons just missed her. Maraly spun around and flung her dagger. The bird squawked, tumbled to the earth, and lay still.

  Maraly brushed herself off, dragged the snickbuzzard to the tree, and gathered branches for a fire. Janner shook his head and climbed the hill, wondering what other surprises Maraly Weaver had for him.

  When Janner topped the rise, he froze.

  Before him stretched the magnificent crags of the Stony Mountains. The snowy peaks jutted into the sky like shards of glass. Clouds gathered and poured through the passes like a slow-moving waterfall.

  Janner had never seen anything so big. He felt small and weak and a little dizzy.

  To the west, the mountains were smaller, and soft hills rolled at their roots. In the east, where Podo’s note had told him to go, the way looked impassable. He saw nothing between him and those peaks but cracks and fissures and jagged cliffs. At the center of the eastern range rose the Witc
h’s Nose, Mog-Balgrik. It towered above the other peaks, and truly looked like the hooked nose of a witch from a children’s scarytale.

  “Once you’re past Mog-Balgrik, the land slopes away into the Ice Prairies. After that, your guess is as good as mine,” read Podo’s note.

  Janner squinted at the pass to the left of the Witch’s Nose. “Maker help us,” he said. “That’s where we’re going.”

  “What?” said Maraly from behind him. She had removed the head of the snick-buzzard and was busy plucking its feathers beside a crackling fire.

  “Look,” Janner said.

  She stood and looked north for the first time. “Oh,” she whispered.

  A gust of icy wind blasted the hilltop where they stood.

  51

  The Song of the Ancient Stones

  The Grey Fangs that lined the corridor watched Peet in silence. Some held torches, and all held weapons. Blades and eyes shone in the dim light. A Grey Fang carried him down several flights of stairs and turned left and right so many times that Peet lost all sense of direction. He only knew he was deep in the earth, where water seeped through stone. The place looked and felt so much like the Deeps of Throg that he wondered if he had dreamed his way across the Dark Sea after all. But the Grey Fangs were no dream. Neither were the children.

  On either side of the passageway stood many iron doors, beyond which children wept in the darkness. Peet’s heart broke for them even as he marveled that there were so many. For years, the Black Carriage had done its slow work, stealing a few children every night.

  Gnag had been busy.

  At the end of the corridor stood a thick door. When they approached, the door swung open to reveal an enormous room. Fires blazed in the corners, and torches lined the walls.

  On the far side of the room was the mouth of a tunnel much taller and wider than the corridor through which Peet had come. As he watched, an orange glow flickered from its depths. The Grey Fangs saw it too and waited in silence as the glow intensified. Something was coming. In moments, four black steeds emerged, harnessed to the Black Carriage. A figure in a flowing black robe sat atop the carriage with a torch in one hand. Crows followed the carriage even here; they cawed and flapped around the driver, and one perched on its shoulder.

  “You’ll want to watch this,” said the Fang as it lowered Peet to the ground.

  The driver halted the carriage and released the children in the six casketlike cages. They crawled out and huddled together. Even from this distance Peet could see they were trembling.

  Two Grey Fangs chained the children hand and foot and led them to a dais in the center of the chamber. On the dais was an iron structure about the size of a house. A door swung open, and out walked a tall, robed figure. The figure held out a hand and spoke a few words to a little girl. The girl answered, and a Grey Fang beside the dais scribbled something in a book. She nodded and took the figure’s hand, and they stepped together through the door.

  “It’s good to do it as soon as they arrive,” said the Grey Fang to Artham. “The fear and fatigue makes it easier to reason with them. The ones who have been here awhile, they get ideas in their heads that cause us all manner of trouble. We break them eventually. Of course, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  Artham tried to ignore the beast.

  Another Grey Fang appeared at the opposite side of the chamber with a wolf on a leash. The Fang talked to it and stroked its fur. The wolf walked beside the Fang like a pup with its owner all the way to the dais.

  Artham felt the madness lurking at the corners of his mind. He remembered a similar chamber and a similar iron box. He remembered wet stone and screams and blazing fires, and a horrid music that had driven him mad. He shook his head and shut his eyes, willing himself to remain present and aware. But when the Grey Fang opened the iron door to the box and led the wolf inside with the girl, Artham felt himself slipping away.

  The iron door closed. Artham heard a guttural melody from within, a sound that filled his mind with wormy terror. He shook with such violence that the chains rattled. A moment later a red light filled the iron box and shot through the seams in the door.

  Then the light went out.

  One of the Grey Fangs opened the door of the iron box and stood back from the dais. Fog poured forth and spread across the floor of the big room, collecting around the ankles of the other children as they watched. Soon the robed figure emerged, leading the little girl who was no longer just a little girl. She had a snout, long teeth, and gray fur.

  “Behold,” said the robed figure in a thin voice, “a new creature! Her name is Scavra!”

  The little Fang flexed her claws, arched her back, and howled.

  “Sing the song of the ancient stones,” said the Grey Fang into Artham’s ear, “and the blood of the beast imbues your bones.”

  Artham closed his eyes again.

  “Of course, you’ve heard that many times before, haven’t you? They tell me you started to sing the tune but never finished. What was it, a hawk? An eagle? Think, you might have been soaring around the peaks of the mountains. Instead you’re little more than a rat with socks on his arms. Pitiful.”

  The newborn Grey Fang was helped on wobbly legs down from the dais and carried away. Then a boy was forced up the steps to the iron box as another Grey Fang appeared with another wolf. The boy fought and screamed, but the figure in the robe again spoke a few words, and he stopped struggling and responded. The Fang beside the dais wrote something in the book. The boy nodded, took the figure’s hand, entered the box, and the door closed.

  After a longer wait this time, the melody was sung. Then came the red light, the door opened, and the robed figure emerged with a young Grey Fang, prone in her arms.

  “His name is Ghrool,” said the robed figure.

  Peet shrieked his birdlike shriek, then fainted.

  When Peet awoke, he found himself swaying again, wondering what his own name might be. He sat up and was surprised to find that his arms and legs were free; the chains that had bound him for so long were gone. Then, like a bubble floating to the surface of a pond, his memory returned.

  Artham was not in another ship but in a cage. It dangled from the ceiling of the cavern, swaying to and fro. The bars were as thick as Artham’s wrists, the lock even thicker. He tried in vain to squeeze between the bars, but he was neither skinny enough nor strong enough to escape. He sat down in a huff and surveyed the room below.

  The Black Carriage was gone. A long line of men, women, and a few children descended the steps from the corridor and waited their turn to climb the dais and enter the iron chamber, where they gave themselves over to the wolf.

  Artham was forced to watch with horror as one after another of the prisoners nodded at the Grey Fangs, took the robed figure’s hand, and entered without a struggle. Some of the prisoners actually smiled. Artham narrowed his eyes and saw eager expressions and idle chatter among those in the line, especially when a prisoner emerged with gray fur and pointed ears. The people gestured and shook their heads with wonder.

  It was always the same: a wolf and a prisoner entered the box, red light flashed while the ugly music played, and a new Grey Fang either stumbled out or was carried. Each time, the robed figure announced the creature’s new name to the onlookers. Try as he might, Artham was unable to see more of the figure than the black robe. Its movement was lithe and even ghostly. Whatever the figure was—some creation of Gnag the Nameless or a human—it had great power.

  As Artham watched, one of the female volunteers changed her mind and fled down the steps, but one of the Grey Fangs—and even a few of the other prisoners in line—seized her. The poor woman shook her head and thrashed, but when the robed figure extended its hand and spoke in a voice too quiet for Artham to hear, the woman calmed at once. She nodded, smoothed her tattered dress, and took the box keeper’s hand. Minutes later, she was half animal.

  Artham wondered where they found all the wolves. He wondered where the new Grey Fan
gs were taken and how Gnag had convinced this many Skreeans to volunteer for this awful transformation.

  He looked down at his talons. He missed his hands. He missed the feel of a sword hilt, the feel of another’s skin beneath his fingers. All he had left were these claws—black, shiny, inhuman things at the ends of his arms to remind him of his weakness. To remind him that they had broken him and that he had fled. He wondered if it would have been better if he had just sung the song of the ancient stones so long ago. Instead he had endured year after year of torture and loneliness, year after year of listening to that foul melody accompanied by screams in the Deeps of Throg.

  “Birdman,” said a voice.

  Artham turned to find a small window in the nearest wall. A Grey Fang leaned out, licking one of his paws with a long black tongue.

  “Do you like your quarters? You make a fine pet. She said she likes to see you up here.”

  She? Artham wondered.

  “She asked me to give you a message.”

  “Shoo’s he? I mean—who’s she?” Artham asked.

  “The Stone Keeper. Down there.”

  The figure in the black robe was watching him. He shuddered.

  “She says if you’ll let her finish what Gnag started—let her turn you into a snick-buzzard or a falcon, wherever you got those talons—she’ll set these children free. Said that if someone as strong as you was a part of Gnag’s army, he wouldn’t need any more soldiers. I think she’s a fool, but what do I know? I’m just a Fang. She’s been here since the beginning.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Don’t know. She’s the Stone Keeper. That’s all.”

  “And she’ll let these children free if I sing the song?”

  “Aye. That’s what she says. Though I don’t know why she’d want to. She’s doing the children a great favor. Making them more than what they are. Giving them power and purpose. That’s why they line up like they do—so sick of their lives they’ll do anything for a chance to cause fear instead of feel it. None of ‘em have to sing, you know.”