by Matthew Cody
“So it’s settled,” said Lukas through gritted teeth. “We’ll set out in the morning. Leetha, you can come with us, or you can turn south to your own people. The choice is yours.” The elf girl nodded but said nothing, her face expressionless. “Now, we should all us of get some sleep.”
No one argued that point, and Carter knew that Lukas wasn’t about to change his mind. The five companions made themselves as comfortable as they could in the kobolds’ cramped little home, and thanked them again for their kindness and hospitality. Carter slipped off his leg brace and massaged his twisted foot. It throbbed, the pain a constant protest against all the punishment he was putting his body through. But it was less than before, so he felt he might be getting used to being an adventurer. An adventurer whose adventure was coming to an abrupt end.
While the rest curled up on the warm floor, Carter spied one of the smaller kobold children, who was eyeing his leg brace curiously. When the kobold saw Carter watching him, the little creature turned shy and began scurrying back to her room.
“It’s okay,” said Carter quietly. “Here, you can look.” He held out the brace for the kobold to better see.
She took a few steps closer and peered at the plastic-and-metal brace. “Armor!” she whispered, impressed.
Carter smiled. “No, it’s not armor. It’s just that my foot turns the wrong way. This brace helps me walk—that’s all.”
The young kobold reached out and touched the teeth marks up and down the side. Teeth marks left there by a rat’s bite. She looked up at Carter questioningly.
“Well,” said Carter, “I guess it did protect me that one time. But I was just lucky.”
The kobold sniffed the brace and looked back at Carter. “Your armor,” she said definitively, and then turned and disappeared into the tunnel-like hallway.
Carter held his brace up and examined the bite marks and the many scratches it had earned both back home and on this journey. In a way, his history was etched into that leg brace. In every nick and in every notch.
Your armor. That’s what Emilie had called it once, too.
As Carter settled down to sleep, he tried not to think too hard about the witch and the chance they were passing up. But his mind kept drifting back to Max, and to their father. The last time Carter had seen his dad was back in Hamelin, before the Piper had come for them. But more recently Carter had seen something else, a shade, perhaps his father’s dreaming self, in a village called Shades Harbor. Dreamers sometimes wandered there in their sleep, but so did spirits. Even now, Carter didn’t know if the person he’d spoken to there had been his dad dreaming or…his father’s ghost. He tried to banish that frightening thought from his brain and instead imagined his sister on a plane next to their dad, alive and well, flying back to New York. He imagined his mother waiting for them at the airport. He imagined it, and hoped with all his heart that it was true. Then, without meaning to, he imagined the look on his mother’s face when they got off the plane and Carter wasn’t with them. Would he ever see any of them again? Was there still a way?
His eyes popped open. He knew what he had to do. He needed to stay awake until he was sure the others were asleep. Then he would quietly gather his things and…No, it was best not to think too deeply about it, or he might lose his nerve. It would be better just to act.
Their quest wasn’t over. The others might be dispirited, and Lukas might even have lost all hope, but not Carter. His armor was dented, but it wasn’t broken.
It had started with glimpses of movement outside the hotel room window at night, or the sound of heavy footsteps echoing their own as they walked down an empty street. Other times it was the distant silhouette of someone standing too still in the shadows.
Up until this moment, Max had only suspected that they were being followed, but now she was positive.
Despite the cobbler’s warning and Mrs. Amsel’s misgivings, they were bound for the coast of the North Sea to find Vodnik the magician. Though the stories about the magician frightened her, Max had been looking forward to the peaceful train ride without any poltergeists or spirits or elflings (except for Mrs. Amsel, of course). However, that was before she’d decided to take a stroll outside the Eurail station, and before she’d caught the stranger watching her from across the street.
He was hiding in the shade of a building, which prevented Max from getting a very good look at him. But she saw enough to recognize the long, frayed coat and the filthy boots. She’d seen those boots back in Hamelin—they belonged to the same mysterious man who had spied on her and her brother before the Piper stole them away. For a panicked moment, Max had thought that it was the Piper himself, and that he’d followed her back to this world. But though the Piper was centuries old, by appearances he looked no more than fifteen or sixteen, and was slight of build. This person was enormous, easily the largest man Max had ever seen. Back in Hamelin, Mrs. Amsel had dismissed him as just another vagrant wandering the streets, but there was no dismissing him now. A simple vagrant wouldn’t have followed them halfway across Europe.
Max was about to go inside the station to find Mrs. Amsel when the stranger did something he’d never done before—he stepped into the light. Despite the summer heat, he had a hood drawn up over his head, hiding his face, and his hands were shoved deep into his pockets. He had to be close to seven feet tall. He was a literal giant, a giant who shunned the sunlight.
For a moment, Max felt his eyes upon her, even though she couldn’t make out the face beneath the hood. Something small but important passed between them, like a whispered secret, and Max knew beyond any doubt that he was here for her. The stranger started forward, hesitantly at first as he kept his face hidden from sun overhead, but with growing confidence as he began dodging cars along the busy street. He was coming her way.
Max wasn’t about to wait for him to reach her. She bolted for the station door, shouldering her way past commuters and ignoring their protests as she pushed by. The Eurail station here was small, with a few ticket counters and some benches arranged like church pews in the center. A woman’s bored voice made announcements in French over a crackly speaker system. Max found Mrs. Amsel next to a ticket window, counting her change.
“Ah, there you are,” she said. “I bought two one-way tickets to Wilhemshaven. I’m sorry, but I could only afford coach seats. I am only a housekeeper, after all.”
“I don’t care about the seats,” said Max. “We have to get on the train, now!”
Mrs. Amsel took a step back as a look of concern washed over her face. “Ah, meine Liebe, what is the rush? The train does not leave for another five minutes.”
“I saw someone watching me,” said Max. “He was outside and he looked dangerous.”
As if summoned by the thought of him, the stranger came striding into the station. Several people hurried out of his way, casting fearful looks at the seven-foot-tall hooded man wearing an overcoat in the middle of summer.
Mrs. Amsel noticed him immediately. “Oh my, that one? He does look like trouble.”
Max slowly nodded as the stranger’s hooded face turned this way and that, searching the station for her. “He’s been following us since Hamelin.”
“What? All this way? How do you know?”
“Remember the man in the shadows that Carter and I told you about? Well, that’s the same man, I’m positive. And I’ve seen him since. Just glimpses, but I think he’s been trailing us this whole time.”
“That man has been following us and you didn’t say anything!” said Mrs. Amsel, her face aghast. “He could have snatched you up while my back was turned and I wouldn’t have known anything. Ah, this is getting far too dangerous for one so young and reckless—”
Max interrupted her. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d just do what you are doing now—lecture me!” She tugged on the housekeeper’s arm. “Come on! We need to get on board the train. Now!”
Together Max and Mrs. Amsel started to weave their way through the crowd of people
filing out of the station and onto the train platform. Mrs. Amsel offered apologies in German as they cut in line and stepped on people’s feet, but Max kept her eyes on the tall stranger. He was moving along with them now, keeping pace even though he was still on the other side of the station waiting room. The crowd of passengers cleared out of the giant’s path like water against a ship’s prow. Still, Max and Mrs. Amsel had managed to cut their way to the front of the line, and suddenly they were out the door and onto the train platform.
Stepping from the air-conditioned station into the summer heat was like opening an oven door. They made it outside just as the train was coming to a stop, with a squeal of metal grinding on metal and the ozone smell of electricity and oil. Mrs. Amsel was surprisingly spry for her age, and she managed to keep up with Max as the girl bounded across the platform toward the nearest train door. They brandished their tickets at the conductor, but he held them back with an outstretched hand. The passengers were going to be allowed to disembark before Max and Mrs. Amsel could board.
Max watched impatiently as a line of businesspeople and a few families lumbered off the train, in no particular hurry. She heard Mrs. Amsel let out a little gasp, and she looked over her shoulder to see the giant, who’d emerged from the station and was striding right for them.
Surely he won’t do anything to us with all these people around, thought Max. Then a thick-necked man with tattoos all up and down his muscled arms, who wasn’t watching where he was going, collided with the giant on the platform. The tattooed man might as well have walked into a solid brick wall. He fell backward, dazed and holding his nose as the giant merely stepped by him. He didn’t even slow down.
By now the hooded giant had gotten the conductor’s attention as well, and the conductor glanced worriedly at him as he drew near. Max wasn’t going to wait any longer. She shoved their tickets into the conductor’s face and pulled Mrs. Amsel onto the train.
The giant was right behind them, but luckily the conductor took his job seriously. He stepped in front of the giant and, in French, politely asked him for his ticket.
This time the giant paused to glance down at the conductor. Max and Mrs. Amsel took the opportunity to grab a pair of seats in the second car, where they hunkered down by the window and watched and waited. The giant was looking from the conductor to the train and back again.
“I don’t think he has a ticket!” whispered Mrs. Amsel, but Max worried that the giant wouldn’t care about tickets. He could just shove the conductor aside and board the train. Then where would they run to?
Go, go, go, Max thought, willing the train to leave the station.
The train’s intercom came on and a bell dinged. The conductor hopped aboard just in time as the doors slid shut behind him. The giant stranger was left on the platform while the train started to roll away from the station. Max didn’t think he could see her through the glass, but for the second time she felt those eyes. As he lifted his face to look for her, Max caught a glimpse of pale flesh under his hood.
Mrs. Amsel collapsed back into her seat, her hand pressed against her heart. “Oh, I am not made for such excitement!”
“Did you see the size of him?” said Max. “And the way he hid from the sunlight? I’ll bet you he isn’t even human.”
“Well, he is not an elfling, that’s for sure. We do not grow so big!”
“But why’s he after us?”
Mrs. Amsel patted Max on the arm. “You say he only watched you and your brother back in Hamelin?”
“Yeah. I mean, we never got close enough to let him do much else.”
“And he has been following us this whole way, always watching but never doing anything. So what is different about today?”
Max thought for a minute. What had changed?
“Vodnik,” she said. “You think he doesn’t want us to find Vodnik?”
“Could be. Why else would he come after us like that in the open daylight and in a train station full of people?” Mrs. Amsel rested her head wearily against the window. “Whatever the reason, I hope we can put many kilometers between us and him. Meanwhile, I need to take a little nap.”
The little woman shut her eyes and was soon snoring away, lulled to sleep by the hum of the train. Max watched the lush countryside fly by their window in a verdant blur as the train barreled north. She couldn’t imagine falling asleep herself, but she was actually glad Mrs. Amsel was getting some extra rest. She worried about someone her age (and she claimed to be well over a hundred) running around like this. She worried about her, but she also knew that it was pointless to ask her to remain behind. The woman insisted on staying with her, and secretly Max was glad of it. As infuriating as she could be with all her fussing and lecturing, Max had grown quite fond of Mrs. Amsel over the past few weeks. With Max’s parents missing and Carter trapped on the Summer Isle, the little elfling housekeeper was the closest thing to family that the girl had.
Max was glad of the company, because she felt certain that they would see their mysterious hooded giant again. The question that worried her was, could they reach Vodnik first?
Poor Bandybulb looked miserable being out in the Chillwood when everyone else was sleeping, warm and cozy, by the kobolds’ fire. The sky overhead might have been bright blue or purple twilight, but it didn’t matter much in this mist-shrouded forest of pine trees. It was always gloomy in the Chillwood.
Carter had worried that Bandybulb would wake everyone with his complaining as they snuck out of the kobolds’ home, but Carter needed some kind of guide if he was going to set off into the Chillwood, and the kobold seemed the most knowledgeable about the witch they called Roga of the Wood.
Finding her would be easy, claimed Bandybulb. Being a witch’s wood, the Chillwood was a cursed place, and every path led to Roga if you followed it long enough. You never knew if her cave was just around the next bend, or if it was directly behind you. The witch was an ancient creature who had made her home here when the Summer Isle was young, and the Chillwood had grown up around her. The mist that clung to the trees was Roga’s breath, the kobolds said, and the dripping ice was the blood of her veins, for she was the coldest of all witches, untouched by joy or laughter. Where Yaga might delight in a story or song, or in the hunt or the suffering of others, her sister found joy in nothing. Yaga plotted and planned. Roga simply was.
How Carter was going to bargain with such a creature was the part of his plan he hadn’t figured out yet, but he hoped to think of something along the way. Odds were that the Piper would come calling on Roga sooner or later, looking for his lost pipe. And Carter felt sure that their only hope of defeating the Piper, and of getting home, was to find the pipe before he did.
In the dark, the forest looked more menacing than ever, and what little nighttime light made its way through the trees was caught and strangled by the foul mist. A heavy ground fog had settled in, and Carter could barely see where to place his own feet. He walked in fear of stepping in a ditch or sinkhole. His woolen cloak was already soaked again from the constant drizzle.
Bandybulb marched steadfastly behind Carter, but the gloom of the forest had even gotten to the normally loquacious kobold. Neither spoke, and there wasn’t so much as a birdcall to keep them company—just sounds of crunching twigs beneath their feet. Carter started to worry about other dangers besides the witch—what if wolves hunted this forest? But these were fears he should have considered before sneaking away from the others, and it was too late now to change what he’d done. He was out here in the wood, and his protectors didn’t even know it. So he gripped his little knife in his hand and kept on walking.
He was on the verge of telling Bandybulb that they should turn back when they happened upon a dank and dreary clearing. Carter thought forest glades were supposed to be bright and cheery, open patches where you could see the sky past the thick trees. But the clearing here only made the frigid drizzle heavier, and slushy puddles of mud and ice covered the ground, drowning the undergrowth. An enormous mound of r
ock and earth sat in the center of the frozen glade.
“What is that?” whispered Carter.
“Roga’s barrow,” answered Bandybulb.
“Her what?”
“It was once the tomb of an ancient king of legend, a king who was to return when his kingdom needed him the most.”
“Is that true?”
Bandybulb shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Roga broke in ages ago and gobbled him up. She calls the barrow home now, surrounded by all his treasures.”
“What a horrible place to live,” said Carter.
“She cannot escape it,” said the kobold.
“Is she under some kind of curse?”
“No,” answered the kobold. “Over the years Roga has devoured many creatures; because of that she has grown very fat. Now she cannot fit through the door anymore. She is like a field mouse who crawled inside a bottle and can’t get out again.”
“If she’s stuck in there, how does she still eat?”
“Her food comes to her,” said Bandybulb, staring pointedly at Carter.
Carter shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the weather. Grannie Yaga was a hunter. She’d used her enchanted hut to chase down her prey, but Roga was more like a fat spider in a web, waiting for flies. Carter couldn’t decide which was more frightening. “Maybe we should take a closer look. If she can’t get out, then I guess we’ll be safe enough if we don’t go inside.”
Bandybulb nodded enthusiastically. “And when you are devoured, I will make sure King Tussleroot hears of your bravery.”
“And where will you be?” asked Carter.