The Boy, the Wolf, and the Stars

by Shivaun Plozza

  * * *

  The next day was the same as the last.

  Bo chased Tam’s heels, his head filled with what-ifs and why-nots. He tried to argue with the Korahku, but Tam waved away his words as though they were bothersome gnats buzzing around her head. Every time they weaved close to the road, they heard hushed voices and squeaky carts and wailing children and the same stories over and over: Shadow Creatures. Attacking villages. Growing stronger. Everyone in danger. They passed safe huts—doors swinging open in the wind, scratches on the walls, no one inside them.

  Bo’s insides twisted with worry.

  As they crested a hill, Tam paused. She sat on the grass and with a wave of her hand motioned for Bo to do the same. Bo peered into the valley below: circling the valley was a forest and in the center was a cluster of wooden huts. A village.

  None of the chimneys smoked; not a single soul stirred.

  “We need more water, so I’d better go,” said Bo. There was no way Tam could wander into an Irin village without finding herself locked in a Fuglebur. Besides, Bo wanted to ask about the Un-King. Perhaps he would meet someone who would agree to take him—a woman with a braid like a golden crown, and she would smile and laugh and ruffle his hair, and she would never want to leave him . . .

  Tam waved again at Bo to sit down. “It is dangerous for you.”

  “They don’t know me in this village. I’ll be fine.” Bo took out his cloak and wrapped it tightly around himself, tugging the hood low. “Nix, you stay with Tam.”

  Nix barked.

  “I mean it. People here aren’t going to know you’re tame. They might try to hurt you.”

  Tam gave Bo a narrow-eyed stare. “I do not like—”

  “I won’t be long,” insisted Bo, and with a deep, steadying breath, he started down the gentle incline.

  The fox followed.

  “This isn’t like at home, Nix,” said Bo as he rounded on his friend. “I’m not playing. You stay.”

  Nix pawed at the ground, whining.

  “Stay.”

  Bo hurried down the hill. He heard Tam chuckle as four little paws padded after him, swishing through the long grass.

  “Fine,” snapped Bo with a glance over his shoulder at his disobedient friend. “But if you end up fox stew, I’m not saving you.”

  Nix trotted happily next to Bo, yipping and barking.

  Bo sighed. “I wasn’t going to leave you. I’d have come back for you. Always.”

  When they reached the village, Bo peered into every window but they were all the same: not a villager to be found. He knocked on doors; no one answered. Even the market square was deserted. Bo peered up at the Fuglebur—not a scrap nor a bone.

  “They are gone,” said Tam. Bo jumped, crashing into the Korahku’s rock-hard body.

  “Does nobody listen to me? I said to stay put.” Bo rubbed his shoulder.

  “I made a blood bind,” said Tam. “Korahku always keep their promises.”

  Bo folded his arms across his chest. “Well, where is everyone? Should be a hundred villagers with this many huts.” Should be braids like golden crowns and smiles and laughter and ruffled hair . . . Bo pressed his lips tightly together.

  “Let us explore, shall we?” said Tam.

  The Korahku crossed the square to the nearest house and sliced open the wooden lock with a silver spike on her forearm. She forced the stiff door inward with a bump of her shoulder, revealing a small single-room hut much like Bo’s forest home.

  It was chaos: bedsheets flung across the room, pots and pans in tumbling piles, furniture broken.

  “And Mads thought I was messy,” said Bo, taking a cautious step inside, followed by Nix. He pulled back his hood.

  Tam stooped as she moved about the room, poking and prodding and peering. “This is not normal for Irin?”

  “For the last time, we’re not pigs!”

  Tam clicked her beak, unconvinced. “Perhaps you are the exception to the rule. After all, you were the only one who dared set me free. And I do not think you would be the kind of person to lock me in such a prison in the first place. So.” Warmth shone in the Korahku’s eyes.

  Bo frowned—he didn’t know what to say.

  He watched as Tam crouched by the entrance, peering at the earthen floor.

  “The Light is almost to the fourth,” Bo said. He toed a broken cup. “We’ll need to find somewhere to stay. I don’t want to be outside when it’s half-Light. In case you forgot, there’s a wolf after me.”

  “Tracks,” muttered Tam, and ducked out of the hut, beak to the ground.

  Bo hurried after her, Nix snuffling along behind, whining and growling.

  “But I want to know what she’s found,” he said. He followed Tam into the forest. As he zigzagged around the trees, he noticed many of them were drooping—the leaves turning black and shedding. He swallowed down his unease.

  The Korahku came to a sudden halt on the edge of a small clearing. “What do you mean ‘tracks’?” Bo asked.

  And then he gasped. For the Korahku had led them to a macabre discovery.

  There, in the clearing, was a mound of bones, twice as high as Bo and glistening like the fangs of ghost-children.

  “Is that . . . ?”

  “Now we know,” said Tam, turning away from the ghastly sight.

  But Bo was frozen.

  It wasn’t just bones he saw. On the very edge of the mound was a straw doll. A child’s toy, blond and wearing a dress that might once have been blue but was now stained red.

  “Now we know what?” croaked Bo.

  There was a tremble in Tam’s voice as she spoke. “Now we know what happened to the villagers.”

  Chapter Ten

  They ran from the clearing, Bo shooting a desperate glance over his shoulder at the glimmering bones. He couldn’t help picturing the child who had held that little doll in their hands; his stomach lurched.

  “Who . . . what did that?” The blackened leaves crunched underfoot as they dashed through the forest. Bo hurried behind Tam, panting and sweating from effort, Nix rushing out ahead. “They should have been safe in their huts. They had candles. And fires. It can’t have been Shadow Creatures. It can’t.”

  But his protests sat uneasy. He had heard the villagers on the road. And now he had seen the proof. The ugly, terrifying truth.

  The Shadow Creatures were on the rise, their power growing, their hunger insatiable.

  When they reached a safe hut, relief surged through him. But as he sat panting on the floor, he felt sick. Were they really safe here?

  A whole village.

  All those people.

  And Bo knew how to stop it.

  He set his jaw, pushing down all the doubt, all the voices he carried with him, the sneering, jeering, snide voices of the people back home who had called him names and made him feel small. It didn’t matter whether he could do it; he had to do it.

  “Are we close to the Un-Royal City?” he asked.

  Nix pressed close to him, his scar beginning to weep.

  Tam lit candles around the hut. Bo stared into their flames, small and flickering; would they be enough to keep the Shadow Creatures out?

  “The city is a hen’s peck from here,” said Tam. She blew out the match; smoke wafted, the sharp, bitter smell tickling Bo’s nostrils. “To the east, just over that hill. Why?” Tossing the match, she began to explore the hut, sitting back on her haunches as she pulled out water, dried meat, and stale bread from a box hidden under one of the cots.

  Bo clenched his jaw, twisting his fingers in Nix’s fur. “Because I’m going to find the Stars and I think the first key is there.” He fixed Tam with a determined look. “You should come with me.”

  “Ah yes, the Stars,” she muttered. She slammed the lid of the box and hung her head. “Just come with me to the Sisters and you will be safe. What more could you want?”

  More? The word rumbled through him. There was so much emptiness inside him that it bounced off the walls and echo
ed. He wanted so much more. He wanted what the ghost had shown him in the Myling Mist—his mother and a future where he was loved and taken care of and wasn’t treated like a curse. He wanted Tam to help him, not to throw him away the second she could. He wanted the village children to play with him. He never wanted to see anything like that straw doll again.

  Tam sighed and stood. “We sleep and then tomorrow we walk to the Temple of the Silent Sisters. There you will be safe. That is all that matters.”

  Bo climbed under the thin blanket, tightened his cloak around him, and closed his eyes. But all he saw was the straw doll. He shook his head but the image stayed there. It stayed there while he listened to Tam shuffle about, the creak of the cot as she finally settled for the night. It stayed there as it grew Dark outside and Shadow Creatures stirred and an all-consuming fear turned Bo’s insides to ice.

  And as he lay awake all night, turning Tam’s blood bind over and over in his hands, Bo realized what he had to do.

  * * *

  In the end, it was easy to slip away at first Light while Tam, perched on the edge of the bed even in sleep, slumbered on. Bo did not want to leave the Korahku behind but what choice did he have?

  At least he had Nix.

  The fox trotted beside Bo as they followed Tam’s directions to the Un-Royal City. It was a long walk, weaving through the growing number of Irin villagers with their overflowing carts and bundles and scowls. He kept his head down, thumbs hooked under the straps of his rucksack, hood low.

  He nudged Nix with his toe. “Do you think the Un-King will be nice?” he asked. “Perhaps I’ll only have to ask for the key and he’ll—”

  Bo crashed into someone’s back. All the air in his lungs whooshed out in one go as he stumbled backwards.

  A woman with her arms folded turned to give him a filthy look. “Mind where you’re going, child.”

  His chest smarted. He rubbed it and peered around the woman: a thick crowd had gathered on the road; people and their carts and their wailing children were stuck and unable to move forward. Bo climbed onto the wheel of a nearby cart for a better view.

  “Get down off my cart, you guttersnipe!”

  The villagers were fighting their way toward the grand arched entrance in a city wall. But while everyone on Bo’s side tried to squeeze in, on the other side more were trying to squeeze out.

  Beyond the arch was a hill teeming with huts, tall and imposing and leaning precariously. “Must be the Un-Royal City,” he called down to Nix.

  “Of course it’s the Un-Royal City,” cried the owner of the cart. “Now hop off before you squash my husband!” Bo looked down at the cart, and a frail-looking man lying on a bed of potatoes scowled up at him.

  Bo hopped down and pushed through the crowd: sniveling kids and overflowing carts and red-faced adults shouting and shoving and surging.

  “Come on, Nix,” he said. “We need to get inside.”

  Bo got as far as the gate, where two burly men were facing off.

  “And I said there’s no point!” shouted a heavy-browed redhead with a scar that ran from the corner of his eye to the tip of his chin. “Shadow Creatures have been tormenting the city for days, so we’re leaving! Get out of my way!”

  “And I said we don’t have anywhere else to go,” spat a stout man with scruffy black hair. He looked strangely familiar. “What’s the Un-King going to do about it? We’re his citizens! He’s supposed to protect us!”

  The redhead hooted. “Oh, that’s precious! You must be from the south. How else could you be so ignorant?”

  “Why, you—” The stout man swung a fist wildly. It slammed into the other man’s jaw with a crack.

  In the ensuing silence, the redhead slowly wrapped a hand around his jaw and moved it from side to side, checking for a break. Blood trickled down the side of his mouth; he wiped it with the back of his hand and looked at the smear. He fixed the stout man with a hard look. “You’ll pay for that.”

  The two crowds suddenly surged at each other, faces wild with unbridled rage as they swung their fists and spat curses. An errant elbow knocked the wind out of Bo and he fell forward, landing on his hands and knees beside the two brawling men. Nix bit Bo’s trouser leg and tried to drag him out of danger just as a blinding Light shot through the air, and every person stopped in their tracks.

  When Bo looked up he saw the stout man on his knees, gawking at his still-sparking hands. Bo remembered Mads in the forest and the Light that had hurled Ranik through the air—magic. This man had just used magic. Bo’s skin tingled, his body thrumming with energy. He knew magic was returning—Mads had said so—but to see the sparks of it right before his eyes was . . . awe-inspiring, terrifying, overwhelming. How many more people were capable of wielding it?

  “Witch!” someone shouted. A chorus of voices agreed: “Witch! Witch! Witch!”

  The stout man shook his head. “No! It wasn’t me! It was . . .” His wild eyes met Bo’s, suddenly turning cold and hard.

  Now Bo recognized him: it was the baker’s cousin from Squall’s End. He used to pitch the stale loaves at Bo’s head whenever Bo passed the baker’s stall.

  He jabbed a finger at Bo. “It was him! He’s from my village. He lives in the Forest of Long Shadows, where they say Shadow Creatures are born! Everyone knows he’s in league with them! It wasn’t me—it was him!”

  A hundred eyes fell on Bo.

  He shrank in on himself, crawling backwards. “It wasn’t . . .”

  Soldiers elbowed their way through the crowd, waving their swords. “What’s going on here? Who’s causing trouble?”

  “Witch!” shouted the crowd.

  “It wasn’t me!” cried the baker’s cousin. He hid his hands behind his back. “The boy! It was the boy!”

  “Both of you can come with us,” said the captain, and several soldiers stepped forward to grab the baker’s cousin and Bo. Nix snapped at their boots, earning a kick to his gut.

  “Leave him alone!” shouted Bo, struggling in a soldier’s grip. He tried to kick her but couldn’t reach.

  She dug her nails into his arm and sneered close to his ear. “Call off your dog or he’ll get worse than my boot.”

  Bo told Nix to calm down as he was led through the parting crowd and the gate.

  The baker’s cousin howled with indignation as they were dragged against the flow of traffic while more and more people from the city hurried down the main road with their overflowing carts, joining the bottleneck at the gate. Bo didn’t have to wonder why; he saw the deep claw marks in the walls of the rickety double-story huts that slanted toward the road as if peering down curiously at the people. Doors and shutters hung off their hinges; window cracks looked like creepy, toothless smiles. The Shadow Creatures had been here.

  He was gasping by the time they reached a plateau at the top of the hill, where a large garden wall hid everything from view, everything other than the gnarled branches of a monstrous tree that stretched high above the top of the wall. Bo was pushed through a wooden gate, bashing his shoulder against the frame. He cursed and turned to give the sneering soldier his best glare.

  The soldier laughed, pale green eyes glistening. “None of that, boy. You’re about to plead for your life in front of the Un-King. Tears will work better than scowls.”

  He was shoved forward and fell to his hands and knees, Nix rushing to his side. Bo gently nudged the fox away and looked up to find the shadow of an imposing structure looming ahead of him. He looked up and up and up and . . .

  The Un-Royal Palace.

  It was a hodgepodge of interconnected buildings, as though a giant had scooped up an entire village and dumped the huts here, one on top of the other. The tree Bo had glimpsed from the other side of the wall appeared to be growing inside the palace; all Bo could see were its bare, curled branches breaking through the rooftop, as though the palace were a giant mouth swallowing the tree whole.

  The soldier gripped Bo’s cloak collar, hauled him to his feet, and dragged him in
to the palace—dirt floor, crooked walls, a maze of corridors, soldiers pushing past with red-faced fear and calls of Hurry! Pack your things!

  “Cowards,” sneered the green-eyed soldier.

  “What’s happening?” said the baker’s cousin somewhere behind them. His voice wobbled with fear. “Where are they all going?”

  No one answered him.

  Nix snuck in behind the soldiers as they led Bo and the baker’s cousin into a large room. In the center was the tree—thick trunk, jagged bark, knots that looked like giant warts. It grew out of the floor and spread high up through the space where the roof should have been but wasn’t—there was no ceiling in this room at all!

  The four walls were painted with colorful scenes: farmers and their pigs, bakers in the kitchen, woodcutters chopping trees, markets overflowing with people. Hundreds and hundreds of candles burned brightly in every nook and cranny. The only furniture was a threadbare floral armchair nestled against the base of the tree. Above it, a wind chime dangled from a branch, tinkling in the mild breeze.

  The room’s only occupant was a . . .

  Bo tried to scramble back. “What on Ulv is that?” he gasped, pointing at the . . . the . . . the thing. It was a wormlike creature the size of Nix. Its thick, slimy body was translucent white with a long strip of orange down its spine, a horn jutting from its head, and a trumpet snout that fish-mouthed steadily, making little pop, pop, pops. It crawled slowly along the floor toward Bo, leaving a trail of luminous, steaming sludge in its wake.

  “There you are, Patrice!”

  A man stepped into view and scooped the creature into his arms. Over ratty clothes the man wore a leather apron, chunky boots, and bright yellow gloves that reached all the way to his elbows. His glasses were thick like the bottoms of the jars Mads stored his pickled lindberries in, and his beige skin was weather-worn and wrinkled. “You must not run off, Patrice,” he said, stroking the creature’s spine. “No telling what those blasted owls will do.”

  “Prisoners for you, Your Un-Highness,” said the other soldier. He shoved the whimpering baker’s cousin to the ground.