Thornghost

by Tone Almhjell

  Kepler’s whiskers bristled. “It sounds a little like them, but they shouldn’t be out now.”

  “I hear trolls,” Secret said.

  “I’ll look.” Kepler darted up a pear tree that leaned against the orchard walls. Niklas grasped the trunk, put the sole of his boot against the bark, and shimmied after him.

  The secret tunnel had brought them to the very center of the town, where a round, tiled plaza called the Falcon Circle separated the jewel orchard from the tip of the fjord. Beyond a grand marble fountain, two ugly, square barracks barred the water’s edge from view. There were trolls outside the barracks, lots of them.

  Secret wasn’t looking at the trolls. She was staring up through the pear tree at another building that loomed beyond the city on its tall bluff, wreathed in mists.

  The Nighthouse.

  “If that’s the enemy you want to beat,” she said, “you’ll never even get close enough to fire your bow.” In her eyes Niklas thought he saw the same hopeless pity that had convinced him she felt sorry for Rag the first time he met her.

  She was right, though. The only access to the Nighthouse was a road that climbed up the cliff. Guard posts and huge wicker nests poked up everywhere. There must be at least fifty of them between the ruin city and the castle.

  “Maybe not.” Kepler shook Secret’s verdict off like water. “But there are other ways.”

  The hooting filled the air again, deep and nasal. It came from the Nighthouse.

  “It’s a . . .” Secret tilted her head to find the right word. “Foghorn.”

  They all saw it now: A thick woolen wall had come in from the ocean, filling the mouth of the fjord.

  “A foghorn means there’s a ship,” Kepler said. “I’ve never been this close to the docks with a ship coming in. Odar insists that we all leave the garden at the first sight of a mast, since it brings out every Nightmare in Broken. But . . .” He licked his lips. “I’ve heard the trolls talk. The Sparrow King is involved in some sort of trade. He makes something very secret. Something that involves cages.”

  Niklas felt a cold tug in his chest, almost like the one that had pulled him into the Oldmeadow dream. “What kind of cages?”

  “Don’t know. But I sure would like to find out.”

  Niklas frowned at the barracks. “Maybe we should, then. Do you know any other ways to get to the dock? One where we wouldn’t be seen?”

  Kepler turned to him. “You think we should go spy on the ship?”

  “I think any information you can bring home to Odar is interesting.” So was the link between his mother and this world, and the mysterious cages that she kept dragging around in his dreams, but Niklas didn’t mention those. He also didn’t look at Secret, even if he could feel her eyes on him.

  Kepler pointed to the east of the Falcon Square. “Lostbook Hill. It curves out along the harbor, so we can see the docks from there.”

  “And be seen,” Secret said. “This is stupid, cub.”

  “There is a fine line between brave and stupid,” Kepler said. “But this won’t be for the faint of heart.”

  “My heart is fine,” Niklas said.

  “Then mine is, too.” Kepler looked so pleased that it almost dulled the sting of Secret’s silence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  By the time they reached Lostbook, dawn was bleaching the sky, picking out their shapes against the ruins. All the houses here were rubble, as if the Nightmares had taken special care to destroy them. Instead, ivy had grown in, clinging to stalks of tall weed like green ghost walls, excellent for spying.

  “This used to be Bookhill,” Kepler said. “It was the richest part of town, studded with libraries, book shops, and antiquaries. But trolls don’t have much use for that kind of wealth. One of the first things they did was torch the entire neighborhood.”

  They found a gap in the ivy from which they had a view of the docks. The visiting ship lay at anchor already. Next to the plaster drabness of the barracks, it looked like treasure. The dark hull and masts had been reinforced with what appeared to be glass, which Kepler reckoned was magical coating to protect them from the monsters of the Frothsea. The lowered and tucked sails rested upon the beams like black snow.

  “They’re unloading,” Secret said. With the telescope, Niklas could also see the trolls that swarmed all over the dock. The cargo was boxes that required two crews just to get them down the ladder.

  Could be crates, could be cages.

  “Secret, can you tell what they’ve got there?” Niklas asked in his most humble voice. On the way here, she had showed him in at least nine different cat-ways she wasn’t pleased with him, including tail-swishes and cold stares. But she took the telescope.

  “Cages.” She bared her teeth. “With living creatures inside.”

  “Can you see what kind of creature?”

  “No.”

  Niklas rubbed his forehead. His little plan had seemed so clever in the jewel orchard. Finding out what was in the cages would get him two things at once: both a clue about his nightmares and a way to give Kepler a little bit of what he wanted. Niklas wasn’t stupid. He noticed all the hints about being the Twistrose that Broken needed. He had wanted to play the hero part, just for a little bit. “If only we could get closer.”

  Kepler fetched his medallion out from his vest and twirled it fast. “We could go down to the docks. If we were really crazy.”

  The wide slope between the ivy ruins and the docks was covered with brambles. They might be thick enough to hide them. Or not.

  “Have you done it before?” Niklas asked.

  Kepler shook his head. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t work as long as the skullbeaks aren’t about.”

  “It’s nearly dawn,” Secret said.

  “Yes,” said Kepler. “But it’s very slow today. I think we have enough time.” He put his medallion back under his vest. “I’ve got my Marti for luck, so I’m set.”

  Niklas pushed his chin up. He felt more comfortable in this hero role by the minute. “Kepler knows what he’s doing, Secret. You know what they say. Better to be crazy than a coward.”

  • • •

  They moved very, very carefully down the hill, keeping hands and paws light. But when they got to the edge of the brambles, it turned out to be all for nothing. Even if they crept along the skirts of the shrubs until the very end, the barracks blocked the view of the ship. They couldn’t see the cages.

  “Happy now?” Secret backed deeper into the leaf shade with the weary face of someone who had once again been proven right, but remained too dignified to gloat.

  “Not very,” Niklas admitted. The last piece of land between the brambles and the docks was a strip of yellow, limp grass, a few rotten planks, and the occasional rock. Only a single, brave juniper bush stuck up in the middle.

  Kepler nodded to himself. “Lady fair. Twistrose. You wait here.”

  “What?” Niklas wrenched around to face Kepler. “You can’t go out there alone!”

  “I thought you said it was better to be crazy than a coward. I should be able to see the cages from that juniper.”

  Secret’s tail thumped. “The docks are thick with trolls.”

  “Well, they’re busy unloading, aren’t they? Besides, they won’t be around for much longer.” Kepler glanced up at the sky. Gold licked the mountaintops at the valley’s rim. “When the sun comes up, they’ll have to crawl back into their holes.”

  “Then there will be skullbeaks.” Secret’s voice had turned flat, a sure sign that she was seething inside. “They’ll see you. You know they will.”

  “But they’re not out yet.” Kepler eased off his backpack and handed it to Niklas. “The timing is perfect. Look, you’re the Twistrose. We shouldn’t risk you. And the odds are better if it’s just me.”

  “So stupid.”

  Secret was
probably right about that. Niklas had no idea what the odds were, but they couldn’t be very good. Don’t do it, he should say. It’s not worth the risk. But it had never before been Niklas’s job to talk someone out of a dare. The words stuck to his tongue. Instead he cleared his throat. “You’re sure?”

  “These are my woods, not yours. Meanwhile, why don’t the two of you think up a great explanation for why we’re here in the first place? We’re going to want to share this with Odar when we get back.” Kepler pulled up the hood of his vest. “Make it sound like this was all your idea.”

  “But be careful.” Niklas slapped Kepler on the shoulder, because it seemed like something you should do when you let people go into danger. He slumped back into the dirt and tried to look calm and collected.

  Kepler winked at them, and slipped off.

  From the shadows they saw him worm across the field until he scurried under the lonely juniper, unseen for now.

  “Terrible sneaking,” Secret muttered.

  Niklas didn’t reply. He hadn’t felt so awful about watching someone disappear since the Rosenquists drove their battered red car down the road from Summerhill. He promised himself: The next time he and Lin raided Mr. Molyk’s orchard, he wasn’t going to ask her to wait by the fence and keep lookout. If there ever was a next time.

  Somehow Secret sensed the sinking pit in his belly. “You’re not used to being left behind.”

  “I’m very used to being left behind,” Niklas said. “Just not for this kind of thing.”

  They waited.

  Niklas had no idea how much time had passed. It felt like hours, but the sun had yet to clear the mountains completely. It couldn’t be long, though. Above the barracks, the tip of the ship’s glass-covered mast now blazed with the first rays, but still Kepler made no sign of coming back. Niklas’s eyes hurt from trying to spot him inside the juniper. “What is he doing?”

  Secret cocked her good ear. “Not spying on the cages, because they’re done with those. They’re rolling something up the planks now. Barrels, I think.”

  Niklas’s sinking pit hit the bottom of his belly.

  “Maybe he got stuck or something. We have to go get him.”

  Secret tensed beside him. “Too late. The nests.”

  Niklas peered out through the branches to the cliff on the far side of the valley. Along the Nighthouse road skullbeaks had emerged. They sat perched atop their wicker nests, hundreds of them, turning their heads like searchlights.

  They had begun their watch early.

  Niklas used the foulest words he knew, ones he had heard Uncle Anders say when something went wrong in the barn.

  “Swear all you like,” Secret hissed. “But stay still. If their eyesight is as good as Kepler claims, we’re not safe here.”

  Niklas ducked his head. “When Kepler comes back, I’m going to tell him a thing or two about perfect timing. It’s no good if you’re too slow.”

  “If he comes back,” Secret said.

  “Maybe if he just sits tight,” Niklas whispered.

  In answer, a high-pitched keening grew in the distance. It started as one voice and became a wailing choir as the skullbeaks all took flight and came gliding across the valley on their ghostly wings. They headed straight for the yellow grass, sounding like an air-raid alarm.

  Hooooowoooooo.

  “How did they see him? The sun isn’t up yet. I can’t even see him.”

  The dark green leaves of the lonely bush began jerking hard, and Niklas bit his knuckles. “Come on,” he whispered. “Get out of there!”

  But Kepler didn’t get out of there. The flock of skullbeaks was already upon him. They circled above the bush, churning the air with their bones and beaks. One of the birds dipped into the shrub and came out again with a spitting ferret clutched in its claws.

  For a moment Kepler hung suspended in the air, stretched and struggling. Something tethered him to the bush; a length of dark rope coiled around his ankle. Another skullbeak dove in and cut the rope with its beak. The first bone bird rose quickly with its prey.

  It didn’t go far. Instead of flying toward the Nighthouse, it dumped Kepler outside the barracks. The skullbeak flock went back to circling, howling in triumph.

  Kepler hit the ground hard and tumbled to a stop in front of the barrack door. He got up slowly, coughing from the dust, trying and failing to put his weight on his leg.

  “Run,” Niklas whispered, but even without the leg injury, Kepler would not have been able to run. The door opened and trolls poured out, surrounding their prisoner in seconds.

  Kepler lifted his chin to face his captors.

  Under the brambles, Niklas felt like he had been punched.

  Even Secret gave a tiny whimper.

  In the barrack doorway stood a great, bald troll. She was covered in tattoos and scars.

  She sneered as she beckoned for the troll guards to bring the prisoner inside. The doors thundered shut after them.

  Kepler had been taken by Rafsa.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Rafsa was here.

  Somehow the troll witch had escaped the poisoned stew and wriggled through to this world.

  Niklas got up on his knees.

  “Get down.” Secret hissed into his ear, but Niklas wasn’t listening. He only heard the skullbeaks hooting and hooting, like a storm in his head. What was it Rafsa had told him when she marked his arm? You know I like my little games. And now she had Kepler for a plaything behind those barrack doors.

  He clenched his fists.

  Secret rose up on her hind legs to pin him back to the ground. “Niklas!”

  He knew what she was going to say, so he pressed his lips together and turned away to show he wasn’t listening. She said it anyway. “We can’t go after him.”

  “You said Rafsa ate the stew!” Even he heard how unfair that was. Secret had done everything she could to stop Kepler. It wasn’t her fault.

  They stared at each other. The skullbeaks left in a cloud of screeches, returning to their guard posts. Secret’s voice was very quiet as she eased off him. “She did. I saw her.”

  Niklas leaned against a bramble stem. “Then how can she be here?”

  “I don’t know. But troll witch or no troll witch, Kepler would still be a prisoner. We can’t go get him.”

  “We have to.” Niklas crossed his arms. “Rafsa will kill him.”

  “If they catch us, they will kill us. And Summerhill and everyone there will be lost because there’s no one left to stop the taint.”

  “Then we won’t let them catch us! Don’t you see? This is why the Brokeners hate my mother. Rafsa is her creature, her invention. She uses her runes to do evil things. I can’t just leave Kepler to be whatever it is Rafsa does to her victims. And I should have . . .” He swallowed.

  Secret watched him a long moment. It felt like she was looking straight into his head. I should have stopped him, Niklas thought. “I know it’s crazy, but let’s do it anyway. Just this once.”

  Secret closed her eyes. Her stance softened. “All right. Just this once.”

  “We fooled them in the troll caves. We can do it again.” Niklas rolled over and stared hard across the field. “But we’ll need a good plan.”

  The barracks looked like a prison to him now. The slits in the walls were all fortified with thick bars and fine-masked net. That left only the door, but Rafsa had posted two guards outside. They stood at either side of the entrance, leaning on spiky clubs.

  Niklas grabbed a handful of loose stones and shoved them in his pocket. “Come on. Let’s get closer to the barracks.”

  • • •

  They were making their way along the edge of the brambles, when Niklas tripped over a stone and shoved it out of position. Beneath it there was a nest of black vines.

  “I think this is the stuff that wa
s wrapped around Kepler’s leg,” Niklas said. “He must have gotten himself tangled. But Kepler doesn’t exactly strike me as the clumsy kind.”

  “He’s not.” Secret lifted her lip to taste the air around the nest. “Don’t you recognize it? There are no thorns on this one, but it’s the same smell from the tunnel. Sweet, but foul. Treacherous.”

  Niklas pushed another stone gently to the side. Under it more dark vine covered the ground. A tendril lifted for a moment, searching for something to ensnare. Thorns slid out like claws. When it didn’t find a victim, it pulled its thorns in and settled back into the weave.

  “What if the whole hill is crawling with the stuff?” Niklas shuddered as he put the stone back. If they hadn’t moved so carefully down the slope, the vines might have caught them, too. “Wait. Do you think this is what happened to those other Brokeners? The ones that disappeared?”

  “Maybe,” Secret said. “Because I don’t think the skullbeaks saw him. I think the dark vine called them.”

  Niklas winced. “We should have gone after him sooner. We could have gotten him out.”

  Secret didn’t argue. Instead she said, “What’s the plan?”

  They were as close to the barrack doors as they could get without leaving the brambles. The shrubs curved outward here like a widow’s peak, and a glance upward confirmed Niklas’s suspicion: As long as the skullbeaks didn’t leave their nests, the barracks were tall enough to shield them from their eyes. The troll guards still waited outside the door, however. There was no getting around that. “We’re going to make a muck boot,” Niklas said. “Or rather, get rid of Mr. Molyk so I can get at his boots.”

  “Muck boots.” Secret wrinkled her nose.

  Niklas scooped the rocks out of his pocket. “See, what I’ve learned is that if you don’t want people to see what you’re doing, make them look somewhere else.” He weighed the stones in his hand. “Let’s just hope it works on trolls as well.”

  He stood up, trying not to think of how visible he must be against the dark green leaves, and tossed the stones as hard as he could before he crouched back down.