The Guardians

by William Joyce

  It turned to dust and blew away in the wind.

  Desperate, Katherine reached for the dust, but it was gone. She sank to the ground. She felt so lost and alone. She began to clutch the compass around her neck. It was the first gift that North had ever given to her—a compass with an arrow that pointed to a single letter N, to North himself. Katherine had once used it to find North and Ombric in the Himalayas, and now—she was absolutely sure—it would show her that North was on his way to rescue her. Together they would put an end to this Nightmare Man.

  But before she could look, Pitch crooked one of his long, black fingers, and the compass flew to him. His eyes still closed, he held the compass for a moment, then lobbed it at her feet.

  “Your North isn’t coming,” he said, an edge of triumph in his voice. “The arrow isn’t moving.”

  North’s compass before Pitch’s taint

  Pitch had learned enough of Ombric’s magic to damage the compass. And now he also knew Katherine’s most precious memories as well as many things about her and the Guardians. And he was quite sure he now knew how best to defeat them all.

  Katherine grabbed the compass back. She stared at it in disbelief. The arrow spun uselessly, pointing nowhere. Why weren’t North and the others on their way?

  “They’ve abandoned you, their precious Katherine. To me.” His voice turned smooth and cunning as he pretended to comfort her. “Your rightful place is at my side. Everyone’s known that from the very moment you reminded me that I once had a daughter. I lost her, just like you lost your parents.”

  Katherine winced. “Don’t,” she cried. “Please, please don’t!” Fighting back tears, she pressed North’s compass to her heart. She closed her eyes and tried to recite Ombric’s first spell: I believe, I believe. But doubts flooded her mind. She’d never recover her memories of her parents. She’d never know if they had loved her with the same fierce love that Pitch harbored for his daughter. An empty feeling filled her soul.

  “You long for that, don’t you?” he asked. “For the love of a parent—a father. I can give that to you. . . .” His voice was low, coaxing. “The locket—you know the one—it has your face in it now. You’ve seen it in your dreams, haven’t you?”

  Katherine shook as doubt and fear coursed through her. She had seen it. She’d had that nightmare—of being Pitch’s daughter.

  “You couldn’t count on your parents,” Pitch continued, his eyes once again glittering. “They left you. When you were just a baby. What kind of parents do THAT? And your friends—your Guardians—why, you can see for yourself that they aren’t coming.” Pitch pointed to the compass again. The arrow still hadn’t budged. “Without me, you’d be alone. Abandoned. Again.”

  Suddenly, Pitch swirled around. The monkeys, whose chant had been drumming quietly in the background, now began to screech.

  With a ghoulish laugh, Pitch flew off, a trail of black smoke, into the night, leaving Katherine alone—more alone that she had ever been in her young life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  In Which the Guardians Fly to punjam Hy Loo

  BACK IN THE LUNAR Lamadary, North was filling Toothiana in on the best ways to battle Pitch. “If we surprise him, we will have an advantage,” he told her.

  Toothiana and her six mini-selves understood. They took to the sky. Nightlight started after her, then stopped, looking over his shoulder at the other Guardians. Toothiana made a trill-like noise and the mini-selves hovered in midflight, too.

  “Go!” Bunnymund urged. “I’ll tunnel the rest of us there.”

  “Pitch will be watching the skies,” Ombric mused. “If we come from both air and underground, we may surprise him.”

  Queen Toothiana nodded sharply and set off toward Punjam Hy Loo, Nightlight on her heels and her six mini-selves flying just ahead.

  The train was ready, filled with Yetis and Lunar Lamas and the villagers. If the Guardians were surprised to see the villagers already on the train, they didn’t take the time to say so. Tall William, Fog, Petter, and all the children were aboard, as were North’s elves. Bunnymund walked toward the front, North dragging the Monkey King after him. He shackled him to a door in the engine car.

  “You might make a useful bargaining chip, Your Royal Monkeyness,” North growled. “Just don’t cause any trouble.”

  North and Ombric stood at the controls in the front car as Bunnymund readied himself near the tip of the digging device. “Let’s get going, Bunnymund!” North urged. “We’ve got to move!”

  Bunnymund turned to his friends. He held a particularly large chocolate egg in one paw. “It’s time again to unleash the inner Pooka,” he said with a flourish. Then he swallowed the chocolate whole.

  North grimaced. “Oh, boy. I’m never sure what’s going to happen when he goes nutty with the chocolate.”

  “He told me that once he grew an extra head,” Ombric offered cheerfully.

  And indeed, Bunnymund began to twist and grow and change with alarming suddenness, and before they could tell if he’d grown anything extra, he became a giant blur of digging. Even for a Pooka, he was moving astonishingly fast. All they could see in front of them was a blizzard of dirt and rocks.

  At the same time, Ombric’s beard and eyebrows began to twirl. He was finally sensing bits of thoughts from Katherine, and he was most concerned. The thoughts that made it through to him were full of despair. North sensed this too, but he had more immediate concerns.

  “We’ve never had a crazier plan,” he confided to Ombric.

  “Nicholas, we have what we need. Brave hearts. And sharp minds,” Ombric reminded him. “And as you might recall, we always abandon our plans and end up doing things we never imagined.”

  North smiled. The old man still had a thing or two to teach him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Anger, Despair, and a Wisp of Hope

  KATHERINE HUGGED HER KNEES to her chest and tried to quell the feeling of hopelessness that was starting to overwhelm her. Sweat formed on her temples and on her upper lip. She felt as if disaster was closing in, and indeed it was. The monkeys dropped down from the ruined walls and formed a circle around her.

  She tried to block out their howling, but it grew louder and more insistent as the animals came closer. Her heart seemed to be beating to the rhythm of their chant.

  Where are my friends? They have to know where I am by now! She gazed at the compass and its motionless arrow: North was not on his way to rescue her. And her tooth—its memories were lost forever.

  She’d never felt such rage.

  Katherine got to her feet and glared at the monkeys. They were spinning faster and faster in a circle around her, chanting louder and louder. She covered her ears and screamed, “Stop it! Stop it!”

  But the monkeys’ grins only widened. And then they resumed their shrieking chant.

  Katherine sank to her knees, gripping the compass in her hands. She didn’t know what to do. Where is North? Where is Nightlight? How can they not have come to get me? And the despair overtook the anger, overtook the outrage, overtook reason. Why did my parents die when I was too young to remember them?!

  Maybe it would be easier to give up, she thought. To go along with Pitch and become his Darkling Daughter. At least this terrible pain would go away. She looked up at the sky and tried to make out the Man in the Moon’s face. But swirling clouds blocked him out. It was as if even the Man in the Moon had turned his back on her.

  Ignoring the monkeys, Katherine began to scratch at the ground with her fingers; the dirt was soft, and soon she’d made a small hole. She paused for a moment, then dropped the compass in. She pressed dirt over it. Then she curled up and lay upon the small mound.

  I’m tired of fighting, she thought. I don’t want to grow up.

  A breeze stirred the air, and Katherine was glad for at least that, at least a moment of coolness. And that’s when she saw, in the distance, what appeared to be a hummingbird making its way toward her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY
-FIVE

  A Brief Exchange as the Watchful Are Watched

  AS NIGHTLIGHT AND TOOTHIANA flew toward Punjam Hy Loo, the wind and clouds seemed to be moving with them. For the second time in as many days, Nightlight had the feeling he was being watched. Toothiana, he noticed, was glancing about from side to side, as if she felt the same. Nightlight tried to see if Toothiana could hear his thoughts. Are you having this “watching” feeling? he asked her in thought.

  For a moment she did not respond, but just when he’d decided she didn’t share the same gift he and the Guardians did, she turned her head in her sudden, birdlike way and looked him in the eye, her glorious wings never missing a beat. “I do, Quiet Boy,” she said above the wind. “I’ve felt ‘the watching’ many times. She is a mystery. But she is always there. In the wind. The rain. The snow. The thunder and the lightning. I do not know if she is bad or good. But what interest she has in the battle to come? I cannot say.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The Reckoning

  THERE WAS A STRANGE moment as they approached Punjam Hy Loo. Every Guardian felt it, including Toothiana. They no longer wanted to merely defeat Pitch or imprison him or send him into exile. They wanted him to die.

  Because of rage or sorrow or hate or revenge or even cold, calculated logic, they wanted to kill him. It was a dark reckoning. Each of them looked for the Moon, hoping that their friend and leader would tell them what to do. But a storm had blackened the skies.

  And they were on their own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Can a Pooka Grow Six Arms?

  THE JOURNEY WAS EXTREMELY swift; the first car of the egg-shaped train popped quietly above the earth near the peak of Punjam Hy Loo. North unshackled the Monkey King, grasped him by the neck, and dragged him out. The Cossack’s sword was aglow. Ombric climbed out right behind him.

  Bunnymund motioned for them to be quiet. And quiet they were. Dumbfounded, actually. For Bunnymund was a hulking mess, covered with layers of mud and pulverized rock dust that made him look more like a statue than a giant rabbit. His cloak was gone, torn to nothingness. But what was most surprising—the chocolate he’d eaten had turned him into a massive, muscular warrior version of himself, and as an extra little surprise, he now had six arms, three on each side.

  North frowned. “This is too odd, even for me.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” replied Bunnymund cheerfully. “I’ll go back to being bi-armed when we’re done.” Then he shushed North with all three right hands. North thought the gesture pointless—how could they be heard above the strange chanting that echoed through the dense jungle?

  They looked around. The darkness was nearly total. Not a star shined through what seemed to him ominous-looking clouds, and the wind seemed to be blowing in gusts from every direction. Toothiana and Nightlight flew down from the topmost branches of a huge banyan tree to join them.

  Bunnymund ate the six-armed chocolate again!

  “Just ahead. In a clearing,” Toothiana said quietly. “Katherine.”

  “Any Fearlings?” asked North.

  Toothiana shook her head. “Monkeys. An army of monkeys.”

  “Our relics won’t have the same effect on creatures of flesh and blood,” said Ombric, worried.

  “Pitch is most cunning,” said Toothiana.

  “Indeed,” replied North. “But we can handle them.”

  “The monkeys are a dangerous mix,” she cautioned. “Part man. Part animal. The worst parts of each. And they obey no law, not even the jungle’s. They are an army to be feared.”

  “My army!” the Monkey King screeched.

  “Silence!” North hissed. He threw him to his elves. “Guard him,” he ordered. Then, tossing aside his overcoat and using the glowing orb on his sword to light the way, he stormed through the thick, steamy jungle toward the chanting primates.

  The wind picked up and swirled around them. Toothiana knew the way so she sped ahead of North to lead them through the vines. They pushed past immense tropical plants and webs of vines for what seemed an eternity, until the chanting suddenly stopped.

  The Guardians could tell they were edging into the clearing now; the jungle seemed less dense, and they could just make out the shapes of structures and buildings ahead. North’s saber grew brighter, as did the egg at the tip of Bunnymund’s staff. But Nightlight kept dim. To do what he had planned, he needed to be stealthy.

  The relics provided enough light for them to see the monkey army that had gathered along every stone, pile, and tower that filled the city of Punjam Hy Loo. Toothiana flared her wings and hissed at them. “We are just outside the Temple of the Flying Elephant,” she whispered.

  The Guardians pressed forward until they came to a wall of monkeys. The Guardians drew their weapons, expecting to be set upon, but to their surprise, the creatures shuffled aside to let them pass. They were armed with all sorts of weapons: daggers, swords, spears, and each was crudely armored.

  Bunnymund’s whiskers twitched. “Pitch is quite resourceful in his choice of henchmen. Or should I say henchmonkeys?”

  North was unimpressed. His sword would make quick work of these monkey boys.

  With a nod from Toothiana, Nightlight darted past the others and disappeared into the dark. As the others moved past the last layer of monkeys, they could see a single torch shining in the dark just ahead, its flame being battered by the winds. Then they spied Katherine, bound by thick vines and lashed to a post in front of the giant doors of the flying elephant’s temple. Behind her stood Pitch. Around his neck hung Toothiana’s ruby box.

  “One step more,” warned Pitch, bringing one of his long, black fingers to within a hairbreadth of Katherine’s cheek, “and I make her mine.”

  They stopped. The wind picked up. A spider’s web of lightning lit the sky.

  Pitch smiled a sly smile and then roared a command.

  The monkey army launched its attack.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  A Monkey Battle Royale

  THE MONKEYS ATTACKED WITH a fury that surprised even North. The hilt of his sword wrapped itself tightly around his hand, and he slashed at the screaming creatures they descended upon them.

  “Do your magic, old man!” North shouted to Ombric, hoping the wizard had a spell or two that would help combat this onslaught. North swung left and right, but he missed his mark more often than he wished. With humans, he thought, you can anticipate what they’ll do, but these monkeys are insane.

  Ready to attack!

  Toothiana flew above the fray, expertly wielding her swords, bucking and spinning whenever a monkey landed on her back, trying to rip at her wings.

  Bunnymund was able to do considerable damage to any simian within reach of his six massive arms.

  All the while, Nightlight was creeping quietly along the top of the temple, staying in the shadows. And with him? Toothiana’s six tiny selves. They were waiting for their moment.

  The timbre of the monkeys’ screeches was deafening. And for every monkey the Guardians felled, three more seemed to arrive to take its place. They swooped down from the treetops like giant locusts. Their swarms made it nearly impossible to get closer to Katherine. And the heat, the dastardly heat! Sweat poured from his brow; North could hardly see.

  And so he was unaware of the villagers and the Yetis and his elf men, dragging the pitiful Monkey King with them, joining in the fight. Even the boys—Petter, Fog, and Tall William—grabbed on to thick vines and swung into the middle of the action, sporting Yeti-crafted daggers. “Free me!” the bedraggled king cried out, but his army paid him no mind; they followed Pitch now.

  Ombric, for his part, was doing his best to calm the unnerving wind. At one moment it seemed to favor Pitch and the monkeys, pushing North back as he neared Katherine, but in the next, a blast of air sent a monkey’s arrow into the trunk of a banyan tree instead of into North’s forehead. Even the huge Yetis fought to make headway against the hurricane-force gales. But despite trying all his meteorological
enchantments, Ombric failed to still the eerie gusts that coiled and twisted about the combatants.

  And even with all their manpower, even with all of their weapons, and even with all of Ombric’s wizarding capabilities, the Guardians could not keep up with the monkey horde. It was as if Pitch had called every monkey in the world into his service.

  Pitch stood back and surveyed the scene with satisfaction. He taunted Guardians and monkeys alike, enjoying the chaos he caused.

  “Bravo!” he cheered as a monkey catapulted itself toward Toothiana’s back. Then he laughed out loud when Toothiana dodged the flying creature and it plummeted to the ground in a broken heap.

  He smiled with gruesome delight as a trio of monkeys waged a game of catch with Gregor of the Mighty Smile and Sergei the Giggler. They tossed the pair about like toys while the other elves tried to rescue their hapless friends.

  The Guardians themselves were beginning to stagger with exhaustion. North found he was missing more than he was hitting—never had he found himself in such a situation. Even Bunnymund could barely lift any of his six arms to fight off the endless, screeching horde. At last Ombric raised up his staff and called out frantically, “Enough! Enough! We are beaten, Pitch!”

  “Never!” North immediately contested. But he, too, was incapable of continuing—if his relic sword had not been attached to his hand, he would surely have dropped it.

  The monkeys encircled them and readied for the kill.

  Pitch was delighted. This was exactly what he wanted: for the Guardians and all who followed them to feel defeated.

  He raised his dark hand, and the monkeys froze. They did, however, keep their weapons poised.

  The Guardians and Toothiana stumbled forward, panting. Bunnymund had to hold up North with one set of arms and Ombric with the other.