The Wyrm King

by Tony DiTerlizzi

  For a moment everything was silent.

  “Is everyone okay?” Mallory shouted, frantic.

  “La-lo-le,” sang Ibi, “the air is strange.”

  Nick tried to push open the door, first with his hands and then by kicking it. “We’re stuck,” he said.

  “My car!” Jules said. “My poor car.”

  Mallory hit the button for the windows, but nothing happened.

  “Forget about the car. We have to get out,” said Nick. The air was strange. He gasped but couldn’t seem to fill his lungs. Nick saw flames start to lick up along the hood.

  “Uh,” Simon called. “The methane!”

  Mallory reacted faster than the rest of them. Sucking in her breath, she crawled back past the nixies to kick the back window of the station wagon, again and again, until the glass cracked and began to splinter. Until she busted it open.

  Mallory climbed through and then reached down for them. “Quick,” she said.

  Through the windshield Nick saw the dragons. A single seething tangle, they were no longer particularly small. A moving carpet. He felt light-headed.

  “Go!”

  “Quick, Jared! Simon! Come on!” Mallory said again.

  They clambered out, Jules pushing their feet so that Mallory could pull them through. Ooki. Taloa. Ibi. Sandspur. Simon. Laurie. Jared.

  Nick wriggled up so that Mallory had to half-haul him through the back window. Behind him, the fire leaped.

  “Go!” she said. “I’ll get your brother.”

  As Mallory leaned down for Jules, Nick looked up and saw a giant looming over them. Its face looked as hard as a cliff, its eyes as black as blobs of ink. Its hand reached out for him.

  Nick screamed as he was swept up into the air.

  He looked back to see Mallory and Jules staring openmouthed after him. Then he was in front of a massive mouth filled with sand, shells, and muddy, cracked teeth.

  The grip the creature had on him slackened for a second as it prepared to drop Nick into its gaping maw. Yelling, Nick jumped for the giant’s head. His fingers scrabbled at the rock- hard skin, and he slid until he managed to grab hold of an ear.

  The giant reached back for him. Nick screamed in terror, right into the giant’s ear.

  The giant bellowed in pain.

  Nick wedged his foot into the giant’s ear as it dipped forward and shook its head like a dog trying to shake off water. He had never been so terrified.

  Then, catching sight of something on the ground, the giant stilled. Mallory stood in the middle of the road, holding up her sword. It looked as tiny as a toothpick.

  The giant ran toward her as Nick held on tight, tighter than he’d held the surfboard. Tighter than he’d held on to anything in his life.

  Nick s creamed as he was swept up.

  The giant reached out toward Mallory and she lunged. Her sword went through its palm. The giant made a low sound and pulled up its hand. The sword gleamed in the light, buried nearly to the hilt on one side of the giant’s hand, the tip sticking out the other side.

  Mallory looked up at Nick. She was totally unarmed.

  The giant’s other hand swung at Mallory. This time it wasn’t grabbing, though. This time it was a fist coming to squash her into the asphalt.

  A dark-skinned man pushed her out of the way. His long coat swirled around his ankles as he swung an enormous sword at the giant. It cut the giant at the wrist, causing it to stumble back.

  Nick looked around frantically. The street was deserted. Where had the man come from?

  “Hold on!” the man yelled up to Nick. Out of his coat he pulled a folded grappling hook attached to a long rope. He swung it around three times, the hook arcing over the man’s head before he hurled it toward the giant. One of the prongs sank into the creature’s skin. Even as the giant roared and swatted at him, the man started to climb.

  Mallory got up from where she’d been tossed and grabbed hold of the rope. She inched her way up it, even as the giant flailed.

  Nick climbed out of the curves of the giant’s ear, lowering himself toward the puckered flesh and the hook.

  “Stay where you are!” the man yelled.

  “Get off the rope,” Nick shouted back. “I’m coming down.”

  The giant’s hand scraped over its chest, where the grappling hook was lodged. It didn’t come loose, but Mallory and the man swung wildly. Mallory shrieked and let go, falling backward into the dirt below.

  Nick held on to the giant’s shoulder and then, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, let himself slip toward the rope. He fell faster and faster, and no amount of grabbing on to the rocky skin was slowing his descent. Grasping for the hook, he felt the hot metal and then the sudden snap of his weight, pulling him away from it. One hand slipped free, and his other hand was sliding off the hook.

  Then he felt an arm close around his waist.

  “I’ve got you,” the man said. This close, he looked familiar.

  The giant swept its arm up, like it was going to try to knock away the hook, but just then an explosion rocked the ground. The giant turned. A ball of flame rose from the sinkhole, followed by the black smoke of Jules’s still-burning car.

  His other hand was sliding off the hook.

  Nick let go of the hook and closed his eyes, praying the man wouldn’t let him fall. Nick scrambled to swing his leg around the rope and hold on to it.

  “Lock your arm,” the man said, and Nick tried to, closing his arm around the rope and holding his elbow with his other hand. He gritted his teeth.

  “We’re going down and we have to be fast,” yelled the man.

  The giant pawed at his chest.

  Nick climbed downward as fast as he could, the swinging rope burning his hand. When he got close enough, he jumped and rolled. Then Jules and Laurie and Mallory were there, pulling him to his feet. Jared and Simon raced over with the nixies and Sandspur.

  Fire engines wailed as they all ran toward a nearby food stand, its windows boarded up but a radio still on. It seemed like someone had left in a hurry.

  “You’re Jack’s son,” Nick said, suddenly placing the man who’d saved him. Jack’s son looked very different without his fancy suit. He looked different holding a sword.

  The man nodded. “Jack Junior at your service. I couldn’t let you handle this on your own. Besides,” he said with a grin, “I’ve been training for this my whole life.”

  “Hey.” Nick tried to catch his breath. “You said giants didn’t exist!”

  Jack Jr. leaned on his sword. “Okay, would you believe I thought maybe you’d need a lawyer?”

  It was he who had forgotten.

  Chapter Seven

  IN WHICH Nick Fulfills His Promises

  Under the eaves of the little grocery, with the radio playing, they considered what supplies they had left. The car map Jules had stuck in his pocket. Jack Jr.’s sword and a machete he had strapped to his hip under the coat. A cell phone. One woven sea grass cap from the merfolk. Not much. Jack Jr. and Mallory were comparing notes on what they could possibly scavenge from a hardware store to stand in for an extra broadsword when Taloa hopped up to Nick. She smelled like sea grass and mud as she wound her hands around his neck.

  “La-le-lo it is time to take us to our stream. The stream you promised la-lee.”

  “We can’t go now,” Laurie said, pointing toward the sinkhole and the giants.

  “He promised his life la-lo-lee,” Taloa sang.

  “But you didn’t mean . . .” Laurie didn’t finish the sentence. Sandspur clawed at her leg and she lifted him up.

  Just then Jules’s phone rang and he touched his pocket. “That’s got to be Dad.”

  “Don’t answer it,” Nick said.

  “Give me the phone,” said Laurie, dropping Sandspur again. He squealed in protest.

  “Hello?” she said. “Yes, it’s me, Laurie. No, we’re fine, but all the roads are blocked off. We’ve been in traffic for forever. No, we had the radio on. We didn’
t hear the phone ringing.”

  Nick grinned at her and she grinned back, as though she’d forgotten to be angry.

  “Yes,” she said into the phone, “I’ll tell them. I’m really glad they’re here with me. I was so scared.”

  Nick rolled his eyes and Laurie grinned wider.

  “I’ll see you and Mom when we get there,” she said, and hung up.

  “Wow,” said Jared, shaking his head in admiration. “You’re good.”

  Jules looked up at the storm-bright sky. “I’m starving. It’s got to be dinnertime, even if you can barely tell in this weather.”

  “Yeah,” said Jared. “I could even eat one of those dragons if someone put enough mustard on it.”

  “La-lo-le Nicholas,” sang Taloa, winding her arms more tightly around Nick, making his skin crawl. He wished he could push her away, but her arms felt as solid as wood.

  “On your life you promised.”

  “Look,” said Nick. “Where’s the nearest body of freshwater we can think of?”

  “Well, it’s not much, but there’s a stream that runs behind Cindy’s house,” Jules said. “It opens into a bigger stream. They’d just have to follow it.”

  Taloa sighed, air whistling through her nose.

  “We’ll take you and your sisters,” said Nick. “See? I promised, and I’m going to do it.”

  Taloa’s golden eyes were so close to his own that looking into them made him dizzy. “You promised any body of water we chose la-lo.”

  Dread gnawed at Nick’s stomach. “But it’s a good stream,” he said desperately.

  “On your life you promised lo-le,” sang Taloa.

  Laurie put her hand on the nixie’s shoulder. “Please, Taloa. I know you’re mad that Ibi got hurt, but we all got hurt.”

  Taloa stepped closer to her sisters. “La-le so long as it is a very good stream.”

  “We can walk to Cindy’s from here,” said Jules.

  “We need to arm ourselves,” said Jack Jr. “We need to go back and put an end to the giants as soon as possible.”

  Nick looked over at Jules.

  “Uh,” said Jules.

  “We’re not trying to defeat giants,” said Nick.

  Jack Jr. looked dazed. “I don’t understand.”

  “We need the giants to eat hydras.” Nick felt awkward telling him, since they all had thought the giants were the big threat, the only threat. It was humbling how much there was still to know about a fantastical world with the power to destroy theirs. “If the giants don’t eat the dragons, the dragons could grow until they’re unstoppable. Dragons will breed out of control, form into hydras, and breathe methane to knock out their prey, and that will be that.”

  “We can’t leave giants roaming around town,” said Jack Jr. “Even if they do some good, they’re going to do more harm. They’re going to step on buildings and knock over cars. People are going to die.”

  A gust of wind made the rain hit Nick’s face like a slap.

  “La-lo-la, you said we would go,” sang Taloa. Ibi and Ooki huddled close to her.

  “Do not break your promise,” sang Ibi.

  “Do not break your promise,” sang Ooki.

  “It’s our job to not let people die,” Jack Jr. said.

  Their job? Nick thought of a million ways that wasn’t true, a million excuses, but all he said was, “I know.”

  Simon cleared his throat. “What if those sink- holes aren’t really separate? I’ve been thinking about the pattern that we saw on television and also about the high concentration of giants in this particular area and—”

  “You’re saying you think that all the sink- holes are connected,” said Nick. “One massive sinkhole opening up underneath us? But that would mean that there’s a ton of displaced soil. Too much, I think.”

  “Wow,” said Mallory. “You two realize that no one else understands what you’re saying, right? But it’s great you’ve found each other.”

  “The soil underneath is being eroded, probably by pockets of eggs hatching, creating gaps,” Simon said. “Maybe the sinkholes don’t actually connect aboveground, but I bet they’re connected belowground.”

  Jared shook his head. “Eggs? Wait a minute, if there are eggs, then I’m not sure I want to see what’s laying them.”

  Nick nodded. “After reading the pages, we thought something was waking up, but you’re right—these things look like they’re just being born. Jules, give me the map.” He looked at Taloa. “This will help us get to the stream, too, I swear.”

  “Many promises la-lo,” she sang.

  Nick unfolded the map on the damp cement under the flickering grocery light. Simon leaned over his shoulder. Nick tried to remember the television screen and the positions of the sinkholes.

  “Does anyone have pins?”

  No one did, but Nick found some change and dropped a penny on each part of the map where he knew there was a sinkhole.

  “Where are the rest of them?” he asked the huddled group.

  “We could change the channel on the radio,” Jules said, pointing up at the speaker.

  “I think I could pry off one of these boards,” Mallory said.

  A few minutes later they’d flipped the channel to a weather report.

  “Winds are high, blowing down trees. Small localized twisters reported. Advisory notice to stay inside.”

  “Think people will stay inside?” Nick asked.

  “That will only help some,” said Jack Jr. “It’s safer there, but not by much.”

  “Three more sinkholes opened. Avoid Route 10 at the intersection of—”

  Nick dropped pennies onto the map as each address was called out. The copper pieces gleamed in the reflection of the grocery store’s lights.

  “What are you doing that for?” Mallory asked, leaning over him.

  “Look,” Nick said. He set a quarter down in the center of the sinkholes they’d pinpointed. “All we’ve seen in the sinkholes are baby dragons. I bet whatever is hatching these things is right there.”

  “Look.”

  Jules squinted. “That’s behind the old mall.”

  Simon and Jared exchanged a glance. “One dragon is enough—if it’s a full-size hydra made of dragons, we’re in real trouble.”

  “Okay,” Jack Jr. said. “If you’re going to take the nixies, you better get going.” He touched the map. “We’ll check out the nearest sinkhole. I’m ready to chop up some hydras if need be.”

  Jules nodded. “Laurie and I should go with Nick. Then we’ll find you.”

  “Keep your phone on,” Mallory said.

  With a look back at Jack Jr. and the three Grace kids, Nick set off with his brother and stepsister to try to lead the three nixies to the nearest, safest stream he knew of. The nixies sang together softly, a little song that made Nick smile.

  “Are you scared?” Laurie asked, shifting Sandspur’s weight to her other hip.

  Nick nodded. “You?”

  “I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing anymore. It all seems so complicated.”

  “Wet,” said Sandspur. “I hate the wet. Cold and wet.” He shook his head like he could shake himself dry in the downpour. “And hungry.”

  Nick laughed—seeing something more miserable than he was cheered him, even though he knew the feeling was uncharitable. “I’m glad I get a chance to tell you that I’m sorry about what happened with your mom and my dad.”

  Laurie clutched Sandspur closer and looked down. “I know it’s not your fault. I know that, even if I don’t act like it.”

  “I could have seemed happier about stuff.”

  “Do you want us not to live together?”

  Nick shrugged.

  “You don’t, do you?”

  “I didn’t,” said Nick. “It’s not like I didn’t like you. Or Charlene. It’s just that it all happened so fast. All of a sudden you were—I don’t know— invading my territory.”

  “Well, now we’re out of your way.”

 
; “Oh, come on, our house is gone. I was dumb. I’m glad you’re my sister.”

  Laurie smiled at him. “Stepsister,” she said.

  They walked through the wet brush, down empty streets, and cut through the backyards of houses. It didn’t seem so far to walk now thatLaurie wasn’t mad at him.

  “Hey,” called Jules.

  “We found it.”

  The nixies were already sliding into the stream when Nick and Laurie walked up. Taloa raised a webbed hand.

  “La-lo-le we will not meet again.”

  “But—,” Laurie started.

  “Good-bye,” Nick said.

  “We’ll miss you,” Laurie put in.

  The nixies sank under the dark surface, raindrops making the ripples hard to see. Nick wasn’t sure if he could pick out their shapes as they moved under the water.

  Laurie stared at the water with a kind of fierce longing.

  “Come on,” Nick said, putting a hand on her shoulder, gently turning her around so they could begin stumbling back toward the sinkholes.

  They followed Jules through several backyards. Nick said, “Aren’t we supposed to be going that way?” He pointed in a direction slightly to the left of where they were headed.

  Jules shrugged uncomfortably. “I thought we could cut through Cindy’s lawn.”

  “Is that really a shortcut?” Nick asked, looking around. It seemed to him that Cindy’s house was in the wrong direction. “Plus her dad wouldn’t be thrilled to see us.”

  “It’s close by,” Jules said. “I just want to know she’s all right.”

  “We have to be quick,” Laurie said.

  “I know,” Jules said, and then, seeing the expression on Nick’s face, looked away. “We’ll be quick,” he said.

  They shuffled through bushes, pushing aside honeysuckle vines, and stepped into Cindy’s backyard. They could see clearly a split in the earth near one of the trees, as though a sinkhole was forming.

  They stopped.